#gyruss

[crtpixels]

Gyruss (1988, Konami) - NES

Sharp Pixels vs. AV Famicom Composite via Sony KV-27S42

This one isn’t meant to be zoomed in on unless you want face full of warped corner convergence, but the Discord really liked this so I thought I’d share.

[arcadefan]

On this day in 1988, the home port of Konami's arcade game Gyruss was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System. Tomo Yamamoto's cover art better captured the gameplay than the art from the earlier Parker Brothers ports and was later also used for the NES port.

[ecoamerica]

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[70sscifiart]

Cover art by Tomo Yamamoto, 1989

[trioxina245]

Gyruss, Cover art by Tomo Yamamoto, 1988

[timwrightt]

[melonadem-personal]

GYRUSS - STAGE 2 (MSX SCC COVER) i really like how this one turned out honestly.

[head-vampire]

Gyruss (1983)

Centuri

Source

[everygame]

Gyruss (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Konami Released: 3/1983 Completed: 07/05/2022 Completion: Reached Jupiter. 122,750. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

As I was wallowing in my failure with Doomdark’s Revenge, I thought I’d revisit a couple of Konami arcade games which were langushing on my “unfinished” pile–this, Gyruss, and Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which I’ll talk about later in the week.

These have actually been on that pile since their re-release as XBLA titles back in god knows when. You might remember that era, or just remember that I mentioned it in my write up of Scramble–a lot of Konami games were released by Digital Eclipse on XBLA in (frankly) terrible versions, and I managed to polish off the otherwise excellent Time Pilot and Track & Field back in the day. I even spent a lot of time playing their ports of Robotron 2084 and the like, but I’m not revisiting any of those unless I pick up another collection that features them because (again) these ports sucked.

It’s quite striking to go back to them, to be honest. Not only do they have absolutely awful “updated” graphics as an option, there are really no other options at all, and the games punish you for having the temerity to consider increasing the number of lives or changing the difficulty by denying you the ability to unlock the achievements if you do so (come on!)

Horrible ports or not, they’re the easiest access to the games I have, so I thought I’d have another crack at seeing them through, and… no to either of them, largely because I discovered they’re both loopers (i.e. they just immediately loop when you’ve seen all the content) so it’s not like there’s any sense of completion. Phew.

Oh, you want me to talk about Gyruss? Well. Gyruss is pretty unusual, to be honest, with a bit of interesting history behind it. Coming out in 1983, it essentially split the difference between Galaga and Tempest, which had both come out in 1981, offering colorful pixel graphics in a “tube shooter” (if that’s the term) that more actively aped the attacking formations of Galaga than it did the more abstract play of Tempest.

It’s honestly quite fun and playable, with the change of perspective somehow making it way more fun than Galaga (which as noted, I don’t have much fondness for) even if it is basically just Galaga if you rolled it up. 

Interestingly, it seemed to use a joystick rather than the far more logical spinner even in the arcade, which means the controls are a bit of a pain as you basically have to get used to twisting it around to stay in control as they relate to on-screen position not the movement of a ship. It’s a bit baffling.

The most annoying thing with Gyruss, to be honest, seems to be that most of the challenge relies on enemies shooting at you when they’re basically at point blank range. In fact, I’d say it’s the only way I lose lives in it, and I have literally no idea how to avoid it. I suppose you could say there’s a nice risk reward there (you hit them better when they’re close, but they might kill you) but it feels massively arbitrary and it’s necessary to shoot attacking enemies lest each level become an unbelievable slog. Though apparently some guy has played this for 62 hours in one go so maybe it’s me.

Will I ever play it again? I’m disappointed this wasn’t included on the Konami Arcade Anniversary Collection, but to be honest, it’s not really as interesting as it looks. I am however very interested in the Famicom/NES version, which bulks out the game somewhat. I’d play that.

Final Thought: Oh, I didn’t mention what the interesting history behind Gyruss was. Simply that this was the last game Yoshiki Okamoto designed for Konami before moving to Capcom over a pay dispute where he’d go on to make Street Fighter II. The rest is history, as they say.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[raspberryspace]

8/27/23 - Denver

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 213 Trivia (Part 1)

I guess things were going too well for too long..?

Gen's drawing of Senku here was probably inspired by very early chapter cover images. I don't know why else he'd be holding an exploding container.

We've now got three interpretations of Whyman: the generic one, Luna's, and now Gen's.

I like how Gen's has arms and legs coming out of the skull!

Finally! The Kingdom of Science can watch Dr. Stone together!

As long as someone animates it…

Kenjiro Takayanagi of Shizuoka University is considered one of the main pioneers of television, succeeding in displaying the character イ (i) on his Braun tube display in Dec 1926. Over the next few years, he improved the image allowing more detailed images such as human faces.

By 1939, Japan's first television station began broadcasting from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). After the war, Takayanagi Sensei's work was used as a foundation for other televisions and related industries around the world.

If everyone thought working on a second cell phone after they'd spent months making one was bad, they're not ready to hear about what they'll need to make for television broadcasts. (Senku also never changes...)

I didn't realize how big their other boat was. I guess things made in the USA really are bigger?

The Perseus not being the biggest ship anymore makes me a little sad :(

SAL 9000 is a reference to HAL 9000, the AI antagonist from Space Odyssey. It stands for "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer", so in this case it might be "Senku programmed" or even "Sai programmed"!

The "NES" (actually the Famicom again, both in the drawing and Sai's comment in the Japanese version) and SAL 9000 don't have the exact same specifications:

SAL 9000 is specialized for math operations and thus has a longer word length (16 bits vs 8) which allows more significant figures in the numbers. They've also got more RAM (SAL has 16 kB while the NES has 2).

The downside is that because they used parametrons, their clock speed (how fast they can do calculations) is slower than if they'd used transistors.

The large amount of ROM they've also got could imply that they have several built-in programs. Xeno's work, perhaps?

CRT screens only reach a maximum diagonal length of around 40 inches (~101 cm), as a larger screen needs a larger tube, and the thickness of the glass increases with size to handle the vacuum without shattering making it very unwieldy with the added weight and thus not worth manufacturing for sale.

Senku's here is obviously much, much bigger. Possibly even world record; the biggest CRT screens made were 61 inches (~152 cm) on the diagonal.

SAL 9000 has both air and water cooling, probably used depending on what's better for individual parts. Normally you only need one or the other.

It'd be good if they could get the carbonated water maker in there and ferment some alcohol faster too using the computer's heat…

SAL 9000 also has 3 phase power like modern power transmission. They're AC power sources, phase shifted by 120° so that at any point in time, their sum is 0. The advantage to this is that you don't need return lines for the current, so you can use half as many cables.

The games shown are inspired by Tetris (featuring Ishigami Village and Roppongi!), Pacman, a combination game of Gyruss and Tempest, then another combination game of Galaga and Asteroids.

The transmission towers can only be headed towards the dam, so we have an approximate direction for where that is! There's a few rivers nearby in modern Tokyo, but over 3,700 years they've probably changed a lot.

(Next part)

[dimalink]

Fly in space

Pixel art for today. Based on videogame Gyruss for system Nes. This is someway 8 bit shooter.

And this is my drawing. Flying fly. Lots of them. They are flying in space. Flies are making space travels. And this is simple space shooter. Level of Atari 2600 or better – Nes level. One way is clear, it is early and 8 bit in style.

You are here, you are a fly. And other flies, your enemies. And also, there are ruins – white particles. It is a mass of space metal and trash. It is what is remained after some space structures. Somebody made them in the past. It is obstacles, you need to fly them from a side. And also exists dark yellow things – it is space obstacles. Just like crests for tank. But in space. It is also obstacles. Other space flies are flying at you. You are shooting at them. You have two sides shooting, here. But shooting for a big distance is not at once. This is feature. Length of shooting you will rise. And loose. You have 10 lives and game is about scores

And, of course, it is a big space question. All of these space ruins and flies, that can fly in space. Lots of mysterious things are ahead!

[tvpromopod]

Phosphor Dot Fossils: Gyruss (arcade, 1983)

They're zooming past Neptune, warping right through Uranus, and threatening all the planets from there to Earth. Phosphor Dot Fossils remembers the original arcade classic, Gyruss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wC2i50gif8 Read the full article

[sam-dugesian]

"Pomni", "Xddcc" and cheating

now we know swearing is not allowed in The Amazing Digital Circus

this probably also applies to name input

since "penis" would alert the censor program they were probably attempting to write "pnis" to get around the game's censorship software

hamfisting the letters P and N on the keyboard they accidentally typed 'po' and 'mn' in their haste resulting in "pomnis" but since there are only 5 character spaces we see the name as "Pomni"

i mean hamfisting the keys also kinda makes sense if you take the previous name as well "xddcc" i mean judging by the key placement of those letters it's possible they lost the place of the WSAD keys and were attempting to go left, up, up, down, down

this might seem like a random direction input but it actually might have been an attempt to type the Konami cheat code Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start a famous set of inputs in games first used by Konami to unlock cheats in many of their games in the 90's and subsequently adopted by other game developers as a sort of nod to the famous code

now maybe they typed the code wrong or maybe they typed it correctly for the form of it that exists in this game or more widely the universe the game exists as a game in or they entered it in correctly after first pressing left beforehand

at any rate using keys so low on the keyboard is probably to compensate for the fact that the user can't see the keyboard once they are wearing the headset

and also if you take a look at said keyboard you might see there next to those keys the windows icon key that pops up the start menu so maybe the key binding was set this low so they could easily press that "start button"

but what if the code isn't as wrong as we thought since we know of one game where "right, left, down, down, up, up" forms part of the cheat code in game and that game is Gyruss

in a particular version of Gyruss this code increases the graphical detail which is something we see when the amazing digital circus actually starts

now in Gyruss certain objects fly in a circle which is what we see during ADC's intro and though that's only a minor nod to it one thing that must be pointed out is that this code only works on a certain version this version being one that utilises the Famicon Disk System

now this is actually a very important detail since floppy disks for the FDS can run on a personal computer if you use the right software and even better than that Gyruss also had VR headset support

and just in case that wasn't enough to convince you

these horizontal grey units next to Pomni's desk is the exact tech you would use to convert the drives so you can emulate the game on a personal computer

also the black thing in shadow is a Hyperkin Retron 1 HD Gaming Console as you can just about make out those iconic 2 vertical ports

and of course sat in front of it is a modified Game Boy Advance and a flash drive data strip

so as far as i can tell "Pomni" is someone who works for a company that takes outdated nintendo properties emulates them onto new hardware and then alters the graphical content to produce cheat bottleg products

just like the kinds of things that would be sold in bulk online for unsuspecting parents to buy

and this along with the fact that the company name is synonymous with "Cain and Abel" from the bible where one person destroyed the other all in an attempt to steal their success says quite a lot

now Gyruss did have a bootleg called Venus that due to certain distribution laws ended up being massively successful in Austria and Germany where as the original did not

and lest we forget the situation Germany around the time of said events the 1998 German federal election in which employment was low and those with the tech needed were situated in the far-right swinging regions of the nation at the time

in fact there is quite a lot to suggest that this may be some sort of creepy pasta in which the remnants of the right in Germany are in some way cracking down or experimenting on and analysing people who don't meet their exact standards and moreso i suspect that the player is a man and chose a female character which could be problematic in this case

in fact with this knowledge i think ADC might be taking some inspiration (if only in concept) from a game called Circus from 1994

a game created using elements from Circus Charlie which is a Konami property from 1984

especially since "charlie" in this case was deliberately designed to be a gender ambiguous character which when you think about it SO IS POMNI

[furbearingbrick]

I didn't think the version of Gyruss' Level 1 theme from the Famicom Disk System port could possibly kick any more ass, but as usual chiptune composers on Youtube keep on surprising me.

For comparison, you can hear the official version here:

[dweeeeeb]

Gyruss is a shoot'em up arcade video game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, released by Konomi in 1983. Released in 1988 on the Nintendo Entertainment System by Ultra Games.