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PostPosted: October 18th, 2016, 4:50 pm 
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For anyone who may be interested in Japanese Mac stuff, I recently pulled in a nice haul of Japanese cover discs / demo discs. I've been following Japanese Mac stuff for a while now and discs like these are really rare to come by. So I'll be posting links in this thread.

A few months ago on Macintosh Garden, I posted a demo disc which I randomly found, some of the more interesting game contents are:

Uncle Waldo's Will 1 & 2 - these are educational hypercard adventures for japanese users to learn english (I have the original floppies for part 2, but no way to move the dumps from my old laptop, I will have to buy a zip drive or something.)

Silka Tower (シルカの塔) - looks like some kind of floppy disk RPG, this seems to have been self published, the chance of finding the full version is unlikely.

Samurai Mech - Mac exclusive JRPG, this requires setting colors to black & white, so it won't work on later systems. In fact I haven't actually gotten this to run on emulators, only on my old laptop.

Mac Pon - a round-table mahjong game with some interesting characters.

Zaibatsu Ginkou (財閥銀行) - bank simulation game, ported from PC-98

Cutie 10 (キューティ10) - just some random cute looking animations.

Gadget / Alice / L-Zone - these all had English releases.

By the way, here is a disk image which has a fresh install of KanjiTalk for the Sheepshaver emulator that you can use for testing (note, I usually don't use emulators, so if something doesn't work on it don't blame me!!!)
ttp://www.mediafire.com/download/h4kbuf ... Talk76.zip

You may also want to install HyperCard Player
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/hypercard-player


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PostPosted: October 18th, 2016, 5:12 pm 
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Some time ago I uploaded the game Small House, apparently this game originated on Mac User coverdiscs, however this game was released in the year 2000, and the coverdiscs I have are from around '94 to '96, so I doubt they will contain the Small House stuff on them.

If you want to get into Japanese Mac stuff, here are some more links to Macintosh Garden:


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PostPosted: October 18th, 2016, 11:24 pm 
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Here is the japanese version of Voyager Presents which is dated February 1995. You may know Voyager for their Criterion Collection movie releases which are still being sold today.

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There are various previews and text descriptions of Voyager's multimedia titles. Someone has already uploaded all the previews on this Youtube channel, so there's no need for me to list them here.
The titles are mostly the same as the english version, most of these are up on Macintosh Garden. However there are a few japan exclusive titles in particular パソコン創世記 which is a book detailing the history of japanese computers from the NEC TK-80 up to Windows 3.1, of course the CD-ROM version has extras like pictures/movies.


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PostPosted: October 19th, 2016, 8:13 pm 
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A disc of Synergy demos from 1995. Since it's a hybrid Mac / Windows 3.1 disc, I've uploaded it as CCD. I can also confirm that it works (somewhat poorly) in DOSbox.

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This disc contains previews for Alice, Gadget, L-Zone, Yellow Brick Road 1 & 2, and 100 Japanese Photographers 1993. The Mac partition has an additional preview for the Refixion trilogy.
Note that the demo disc in the first post has some of these previews, but the preview for Gadget is completely different.


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PostPosted: October 20th, 2016, 2:45 am 
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Nifty 1000 is a collection of programs downloaded from various forums and user groups, both English and Japanese.
There doesn't seem to be any significant new game demos but there are a ton of neat little HyperCard diversions.


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PostPosted: October 22nd, 2016, 5:11 pm 
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Macintosh Demo Zenshuu - Spring '94

Here is a very comprehensive collection courtesy of Japanese mega-corporation Recruit (which currently owns many extremely popular Japanese websites.) Aside from the familiar previews of Samurai Mech, Uncle Waldo's Will, Zaibatsu Ginkou, Cutie 10, and Hikaru Hana, there are many rare unseen demos. Some of this software can truly be considered "lost media".

Some highlights of Disc 3, which contains the game demos:

Chuckle Time - A point and click adventure with simple drawn graphics and minigames, you explore a colorful mansion and try to solve its mysteries. This seems to have been released as there is a brief review of it online, but I have never seen a copy.

Necrobius - We now know that a Japan release was planned.

MazeQ - A quiz-themed game, you must finish a maze while answering trivia questions to get past the guards.

Maze Brew, Pyramid Interactive - Interesting point and click adventures by "MazeBox", who knows if these were ever released. You can actually flip through the different screens in Maze Brew using the arrow keys (which is kind of cheating...)

Through The Window - A neat looking HyperCard adventure, again, no indication it was ever released

Wriggle - Seems like educational software for young children, however the 3D rendered graphics are really neat.

Cellophania - This is a pretty looking interactive "ehon" (art book) released by Tonkin House, I actually bought this recently, will upload it later.

Gran Marmalade - Another interactive ehon, this one doesn't seem as interesting as Cellophania, but it may not have been released either. The author has some sample artwork on her homepage.


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PostPosted: October 24th, 2016, 11:02 am 
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Mac JAM 1.0

Here we have a more entertainment / creative oriented disc, no business software or anything like that.

OZ - the preview is rather cryptic, not clear whether this is a real game or just another interactive multimedia gimmick title, but I see a few Windows copies floating around, so I'll grab one and check it out. Apparently a Philips CD-i version (!) was also released.

Heaven's Boulevard 1 - old point and click with an erotic focus, the 3D rendered graphics look similar to the old point and clicks of the time (Lunicus, Spaceship Warlock, etc)

Quire - shooting game which runs too fast and also crashes my G3 laptop

Shiritsu Tantei Maron - more lost media, this one is a cute looking HyperCard adventure on 5 floppy disks, looks and plays like an old PC-88 adventure game... do want!

And finally a few new novelty apps from MazeBox along with some very slightly updated demos. I've also confirmed that Maze Brew was in fact released, a very rare adventure title indeed.


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PostPosted: October 25th, 2016, 8:56 am 
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I found the company behind Shiritsu Tantei Maron. http://www.roman-tech.net/old.html

I emailed them asking about it and they said they don't have it anymore. No harm in trying though.... :?

---

Chottomi 50

You can't tell from the disc label but apparently this is actually Volume 3.

This one has movie previews you run from an app. Included among the previews are Kooky no Quiz Carnival (linked above) and Samurai Mech II. Some of the previews narrated by Norio Wakamoto (or someone who sounds exactly like him :wink: )

There are two playable demos, the first is Samurai Mech II, the other is 20 stages of Staccato (a simple puzzle game, apparently the full 100-stage CD version has some nudie pics as rewards.) Staccato glitched out when I tried running it from the CD, it probably should be copied to the hard drive.


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PostPosted: October 27th, 2016, 10:09 pm 
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I forgot about this one... I'm not the one who uploaded it, but it's pretty cool.
http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/tri-3d-trial
Note that, redbook audio tracks don't play on emulators, afaik.

Online Software 1000 Utilities & Game

This is the most recent disc I have, from 1997. There aren't any notable commercial game demos on this disc but there are a bunch of cute little amateur japanese shareware games.


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PostPosted: October 28th, 2016, 11:48 pm 
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Here is the last demo disc. After this I'll start uploading the magazine coverdiscs. I've been lucky that all of these copied fine so far, because they're pretty beat up and scratched.

Found 3 cool things on this one:

Critical Command Series Vol 1: China Crisis - seems to be some type of simulation game which was also released on Windows. This has been sitting on yahoo auctions for a while but I always assumed it was some sort of localization, after looking into it though, it does seem to be exclusive to Japan. The preview is very vague about the exact kind of gameplay featured so I will have to wait until my copy arrives to know how it plays (I will dump it when it arrives.) If you want a copy, the Windows version for sale here: http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/a ... w130591429

Uru Uru - Seems to be some interactive ehon title from the makers of Chuckle Time.

Peace Land - another kids ehon title with very amateur looking artwork, but very nice music.

In other news, Junko Suzuki confirmed to me that Gran Marmalade was released and she is now looking for any spare copies to send me... crossing my fingers


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PostPosted: October 31st, 2016, 8:43 pm 
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I was planning to sit on this until I could find a copy of the first game, but I guess I'll just upload it now.

Samurai Mech 2

I will also be receiving an "old beat-up copy" of Gran Marmalade shortly :D


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PostPosted: October 31st, 2016, 9:08 pm 
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Location: Russia
Thank you so much. I hope good luck in finding the first part you will accompany.


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PostPosted: November 1st, 2016, 11:03 am 
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MacLife Vol 4

Games include:

Star Wars Dark Forces - A Japanese version WAS released by Micromouse, however this is just the English demo. Not good to play on Mac anyway since it isn't MIDI compatible.

Train Simulator - A demo of the very first Train Simulator game. It was a best selling series and originally Mac exclusive, the Windows ports came out a year later. These are one of those games I never bothered to get because there are so many of them but it seems fun.

Blue Chicago Blues - Interesting preview because it shows a bunch of production photos from the game.

Ukkari Majo Baasan - Another rare interactive ehon. Here is the author's website http://hoei-takako.com/
Already sent them an email of course.

And finally there are some movies from some sort of multimedia artist contest. Drop the book icon over the Book Browser, from there you can launch apps/demos, and watch the movies. You can watch in 16bit color. One of the movies is of a game called 命の樹NSIVA. It looks like it was made just for the contest, but it looks very interesting though.


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PostPosted: November 6th, 2016, 1:11 am 
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MacLife No 7

I uploaded this a few days ago but I just started testing it today.

Included:

Aquazone - boring virtual aquarium.

Oxyd - This is an old favorite of mine, I never knew a Japanese version existed. Unfortunately, the protection codes from the English manual don't work.

Daisenryaku for Macintosh - This is different than the Daisenryaku V linked above. Seems the same as "Daisenryaku for Windows".

Sangokushi Eiketsuden - Koei tactics RPG which also released on PC98, Windows, and consoles.

Kikeitou Satsujin Jiken - a choose your own adventure novel/e-book.

Le Louvre - virtual museum edutainment tour.

Kaeruman - Now this is what I'm talking about! One of those completely unknown adventure games released by NEC! This game not only stars but was designed by Chiba Reiko, the idol. Unfortunately there is no sample gameplay but the trailer looks really bizarre and funny with great environments!
Here is a dead listing on Amazon. I will keep my eyes peeled for this game!


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PostPosted: November 7th, 2016, 7:57 am 
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MacLife CD-ROM Buyer's Guide '95

The main database requires ProVUE Development's database software, Panorama II (the red folder in the demos.)
Open the program, cancel the Open dialog box, go to apple menu, pick the third option down (memory) while holding Shift, and change the memory value to 999. If you don't do this you'll get error messages and the browser program will fail.

The product database is quite large, however apart from various adult games and a couple of interesting novelty items (namely Kiri Matsuura Works 1983-1994, and the puzzle game Lemon Chan), I didn't find any major new game discoveries. I didn't browse the adult software category too carefully so I will have to come back to this disc at a later date and see if there's anything worth looking for, there seemed to be a few interesting things in there.

The only cool new demo I found was Niningashi, an educational math software for kids to learn their times tables, with a catchy theme song. The publisher is Teichiku, who made a few Japanese adventure games.


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