The Game Boy ripoffs thread

Aka "Mum, this is not the console I wanted!"

If you've had the patience to follow my threads on ancient computers and consoles, you'll have noticed I didn't pay any attention to handheld devices. There are a number of reasons for that.

1) I owned an original Game Boy and I never wanted any other handheld. And who needs a guide to know about the Game Boy anyway?

2) I did try the Game Gear (too bulky, too few games, mediocre display) and the Atari Lynx (cool tiny Mega Drive-like system, but not too many games to choose from), but they didn't change my opinion.

3) Game & Watch? Never liked them much. Couldn't figure out how to play most games, and they were very limited anyway.

But I did write elsewhere about the few consoles that tried to ride on the coattails of the Game Boy. They're relatively unknown and it's fun to pick on them, so...

Let's start with the Hartung Master (1990).




From what I can see, in most cases, second-tier manufacturers rushed to release their Game Boy clones before the GB arrived in many countries. And unfortunately, cases like the Mega Duck / Cougar Boy , which came out later and even improved upon the Game Boy in some ways, are just the exception.

The Game Master was released in 1990, just like the Game Boy, and Hartung was quick to market it in countries where the Game Boy hadn't yet arrived, resorting to other names and distributors when necessary. It's only known by its original name, Hartung Game Master , in Germany.

In the UK, for example, it was called Systema 2000 , and in France, it had as many as four names: Videojet Game Master , Hartung Game Tronic , Hartung Mega Tronic , and Hartung Super Game . It's even possible that it was seen in Spain under the name Prodis PFJ-10 .

The Game Master wasn't a success. It suffered from competition from the Game Boy, obviously, but also from the Gamate . With only 19 games available, it was languished in the market until 1992, when it was replaced by the Watara SuperVision . As we've seen, Watara was also involved with this other console, and the SuperVision borrows some elements from it, such as the cartridge design.

Cartridges that, by the way, sometimes display different titles than the actual game and, instead of boxes, were sold in a sad little plastic blister pack. They didn't put much effort into these, did they?

Technical specifications.

CPU: NEC upd7810

Graphics: LCD monochrome screen with a 64x64 resolution

Sound: 1-bit DAC de 1 bit

The CPU os extremely basic basics. apart from this console, it seems it was only used for Amstrad printers (!) Details here.

The graphics are also pretty poor, with only a 64x64 resolution instead of the 160x144 in the Game Boy.

Even sound is subpar, with only one channels against the four from the Game Boy.

Emulation.

The only emulator I know for this system is MAME/MESS . The BIOS file is essential and is called gmaster.zip .

Usage is very simple: first, we choose the system from the list...



And then the game from thesoftware list, or directly from our collection, using the file manager:



And boy, does it suck ass...



Kung-Fu



Tennis

When it comes to retrogaming, I'm often too lenient with older systems, but this one has to be the worst I've ever emulated. Next to it, the flicker and the games in the Gamate (coming soon) are a wet dream with a supermodel. It's no wonder it failed miserably. Hell, its creators should have stood trial at The Hague.

 

As you can see, whereas the bigger companies tried to beat out the Game Boy by making more sophisticated handheld consoles (think of the Sega Game Gear or the Atari Lynx), smaller developers where the only ones who tried to beat the Game Boy at its own game, releasing devices even more simple but also cheaper.

Enter the Watara SuperVision.



The console was manufactured by a Taiwanese company, and most game developers were also Asian. It gathered some interest when it launched in 1992, but reality gradually set in: there were very few games, those were simplistic, and the screen's responsiveness was far worse than the Game Boy's. It would have helped if the games, good or bad, had been more appealing, but the console attracted very few third party developers. It stayed on the market until 1996, most likely due to its low price ($49.95 compared against the Game Boy's $89.99) and the numerous clones produced by different manufacturers. In Europe and the US, for example, the SuperVision appeared under the QuickShot brand.

Technical specs:

CPU: 8-bit 65SC02 at 4 MHz. It's an upgraded version of the MOS 6502 CPU, the cheapest available in 8-bit computers and consoles at the time.
Graphics: 160×160 pixel resolution, with 4 shades of gray.
Sound: Mono speaker.

The console usually appears in three different models. The first is the 9109 model, which you can see above and is very similar to the Game Boy but slightly larger.

Next picture is of the 9205 model, which allows for the screen to be tilted:



There's also a 9600 model, similar to the first one but with rounded edges and a wavy bottom surface.

The last two variants have some improvements to the D-pad and buttons that make them preferable to the 9109 model.

Among the few accessories for the console, there's an interesting one: the TV Link. It was a cable that connected to the cartridge slot and allowed the player to view games on a four-color TV. I don't recall the Game Boy having anything similar until the Super Game Boy came out, and that required a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).

Emulation:

MAME / MESS does emulate this console, and for once you won't even need a BIOS file.



There's also a pretty good dedicated emulator, it's called Wataroo. On its website the author claims he only programmed after losing a bet, among other criticisms of the system.

As expected, it is pretty easy to use, you just need to load an uncompressed game ROM. This one is Crystball, which shipped with the console.



Naturally, we are not excused from trying a Tetris clone. This one is called Super Block and I imagine there are others in the game library.



And this is Alien. Nothing to do with the film series, it's just your standard horizontal shoot 'em up:



By this time the limitation of the console are starting to become annoying. The scroll is slooooooow, the image blurry and pixels seem to struggle to move.

In total, you have around 60 games to discover or suffer, depending on your mood.

 

I don't think any list of Game Boy ripoffs would be complete without mentioning the Game Child.



If there ever was a console that tried to trick parents into believeing they had bought a Nintendo Game Boy, this is the one. Urban legends go that upset kids actually murdered their parents after being promised a real Game Boy and being delivered this.

I actually resist calling it a "console", because it only plays its built-in game. Game, in singular. So to me, this is more like a toy. There were several versions sold, each one with a different game, stuff like Soccer, Volleyball or Giant Dinosaur.

Here you can read about more about the console and its variants.

The, ahem, console, was built by some Synco Tech Company Ltd. (aka Queentex Company Limited) and sold in the UK and other European countries from the early to middle 1990s.

When the subject of the Game Child was mentioned in another board, one of the readers was kind enough to post a picture of its motherboard, from their own unit:



I think the electronic key to my parking space, or my kitchen clock have more chips that this machine.

But enough banter, it's better if you see it in action:

And no, I'm... afraid? this device isn't emulated yet. If someone would be so kind to send a unit to the MAME team...

 

Compared to the Game Child, the Bit Corporation Gamate looks fairly decent.



I was released in Asia just one year after the Game Boy appeared. Bit Corporation was a Taiwanese manufacturer who sold the system until its bankrupcy in 1992. Then Funtech kept selling it until 1994.

As with other Game Boy ripoffs, the console also appeared in other countries through other distributors. It seems that it was also sold in Australia or Argentina, and inside Europe in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. I haven't seen evidence that it was sold in my country, Spain, although it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

Technical specs:

CPU: UMC UA6588F (first models only); NCR 81489 (later models), both 8-bit CPUs derived from the MOS 6502.
RAM: 16 Kb.
Display: 160x152 pixels in 4 shades of grey.
Sound: General Instrument AY-3-8910, through either internal speaker or headphones. 4 sound channels, 3 playing square waves and 1 playing noise.

The build quality of the console was pretty good, almost reaching the level set by the Nintendo Game Boy. Unfortunately, the screen quality was worse in comparison, with flicker and ghosting issues. This made objects in movement faint and blurry, marring the user experience.

The games were distributed in memory cards similar to those seen in the PC Engine , Sega SG-1000 and Sega Master System systems, with a 19×2 pin connector. Around 70 games are known to exist for the system, mostly developed by Bit Corp themselves, and clearly "inspired" by early Game Boy hits.



Here you can see them in action:

Emulation:

So far the only emulator for this system seems to be MAME / MESS. The BIOS needed is the gamate.zip file.

The usage is the same we've already seen for other systems, pick the system from the gamelist..



...then pick game from its software list (or your own collection)...




BombBlast



Enchanted Bricks

Tbe honest, I expected this one to be more fun than it is. The games look fine in the captures, and there should be Bomberman and Tetris clones among them. However, the graphics are slow and prone to flicker. And the games themselves are... OK. But not exactly memorable.

When I complained of the flicker in other boards, they told me MAME has some additional controls that might be helpful. They show under the Slider controls menu:



But to be honest I haven't tried them yet.

 

Today's machine is the Mega Duck / Cougar Boy, released in 1993.



A brief recapitulation: the success of the Nintendo Game Boy prompted many small Asian manufacturers to produce their own handheld consoles, following the same philosophy: cheap hardware, portability at a low price and monochrome graphics. However, Nintendo could overcome the hardware limitations of the Game Boy with an excellent offer of games and an important user base around the world. These other devices could only compete with the Game Boy in cost, but had even lower hardware specifications and much less games to offer.

The Mega Duck / Cougar Boy was released by Hong Kong manufacturer Timlex International, and had a library of 37 games, all of them developed by Thin Chen Enterprise under their seals Commin and Sachen.

You may have heard the name Sachen before. They developed plenty of unlicensed games for the Famicom / NES and other platforms, including two Super Pang games that have their advocates.

Wikipedia has a complete list of their releases.

Sachen also developed games for the Watara SuperVision, and perhaps that's where they got the idea to develop for the Mega Duck. And since nothing goes to waste, their Mega Duck games also ended up on the Game Boy as 4-in-1 and 8-in-1 cartridges. Without a Nintendo license, of course. Do I smell piracy? In Hong Kong? Unbelievable!

Ah, yes, the Cougar Boy. Let's get to that. The Chinese version of the console, manufactured by Creatronic, eventually appeared in South America -especially Brazil-distributed by Cougar USA, and it's known by that name there. It also appeared in the Netherlands and some other European countries, although I don't recall it ever reaching Spain, my country of origin. Tough luck.

There was also an "educational" variant of the system, known as Mega Duck Super Junior Computer in Germany and Super QuiQue in Brazil and Spain.



Technical specs:

CPU: Sharp LR35902 @ 4.194304 MHz.
RAM: 16 Kb.
Display: Dot matrix with a 160×144 resolution, using four levels of blue over a green background.
Sonido: Internal speaker, optional stereo headphones.
Ports: Link cable for two player games, external joystick.
Media: 36 pin cartridges up to 128 Kb. din capacity.

There a few surprises here. For starters, the CPU is the same as in the Game Boy, but operating at twice the speed.

The second one is the LCD display. Many of these Game Boy-inspired consoles have poor displays, prone to contrast, flicker or ghosting issues. This one is even better than the Game Boy (after all, it came up years later), but a bit smaller.

Emulation:

Looks like once again, we've been left alone with MAME / MESS. At least this time we won't be needing any external BIOS files. MAME / MESS can emulate the Mega Duck without any need of external files. Yay!



The games themselves are not bad. A bit bland, but they look good and they play reasonably. Since I've been exploring these Game Boy knock-offs, this is the first time I feel like I'm not wasting my time and that the console is capable of more.



Store Tris 1, included in the Commin 5-in-1 cartridge



Second Space

Even better, they respond to control quite well, and I can't see any of the ghosting issues present in the CreatiVision or the Gamate.

Unfortunately, there aren't many games to choose from (37) and all are from the same developer.

 

My final stop on this guide are going to be the so called "brick games", handheld devices that usually contained a single game. This was usually a variant of Tetris , Snake or Space Invaders , but they also include stuff like the Tamagotchi virtual pets.

These kind of handheld devices were often made in China and Russia and became popular worldwide on the early 1990s. They are often considered a "poor man's alternative" to the Game Boy and more sophisticated handheld devices. Watches with a built-in Zelda , Mario or Tetris variant would also fall within this category.



More modern models, such as the one pictured above, include multiple variants of these games. Or so they claim, because IMHO cartridges or devices advertising such a high number of games are often dubious. What hasn't changed is the poor quality of the LCD screen, much lesser than the one in "proper" handheld consoles.

Because of their low cost, I believe these kind of devices are still popular, and can be easily found in dollar stores around the world. Ultimately, if they disappear it will be because of smartphones, which provide wider and more sophisticated entertainment options.

And most surprisingly, these devices seem to be emulated . Not all of them, of course, because we would be talking about thousands of variants. I guess the most popular machines will eventually make it to MAME / MESS , if they aren't already there.

Meanwhile, you can try out BrickEmuPy :



It's not the easiest program to set up. You'll need to install Python , then manually install some extra libraries, which you do with the command python -m pip install pyqt6 from either the command prompt or Windows PowerShell. Then you can run the emu by double clicking on main.py . Games are loaded with the option File --> Open Brick Game and can be found on the assets folder.

And annoyingly, many games need extra ROMs which so far I haven't been able to locate ( if you do, please PM me! ). But even without said ROMs, we can get a taste of what it is to play these kind of devices.