MAME Progress on the Jungle Soft "Classic Max Pocket" Mx-10 / Mx-11 handhelds (VT168 hardware)

[@zebubble2084]

Finally.

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

zodiac dreamers has a great vibe

[@Clippit97]

It always amuses me whenever these developers specifically aim to clone games that are less obvious choices, e.g. the PCMX10 featuring clones of Intrepid, Triple Punch, and Zzyzzyxx/Brix, three arcade games that were relatively obscure even at the time, or Nice Code's clones of late 90's PC shareware games. I do wonder if these clones were specifically commissioned from certain manufacturers, or if their thought process really did just consist of scrolling through MAME and seeing what games jumped out at them.

[@mamehaze]

Given they were developed in the 2000s I think MAME would have played a significant role in them even being aware of the games in question. The impression I get of China/Taiwan's arcade scene is that really nobody cared about arcades much until Capcom's 90s output so it's unlikely these were childhood favourites of the developers. I suppose that is one of the things that makes them interesting to emulate; they're things that quite probably would not have existed had MAME not existed. It's like the whole story of Zuma; one of the developers of that allegedly claims to have played Puzzloop in MAME, and thought it so obscure nobody would care if they copied it. Given the release date of Zuma, and when I first emulated the Super Nova system in MAME I have a feeling they actually played the PS1 version instead, but I suppose it's still possible they knocked it up in a few months. That game then ended up being cloned in many of these units too, often as Zuma and the majority of the clones supported in MAME are ones I've emulated over the years too. One of those 'butterfly effect' things, where it's fascinating to study the wider result of bits of work that felt nearly insignificant at the time.