Creating this page, at the very start of 2024 makes me realise just how much wonderful things we’ve got done over the last few years.
For most years I’ve had some idea of what might happen over the course of the year, but for 2024 I really do not know what to expect. Most remaining tasks are incredibly difficult, but as always, this page will serve as a place to dump emulation screenshots and a some notes about progress that does happen.
One of the first improvements of the year saw further work on one of the later additions from the end of 2023. Taito’s Poker Spirit might not be an all time classic, but it’s important to document these things nonetheless so proper palettes and improved sprite handling were more than welcome.
While you’d be forgiven for thinking the screenshots of Takara Tomy’s Hi-Kara make it look a lot like Takara’s earlier e-kara plug and play system, and indeed, both run on XaviX based hardware, the physical products were quite different an incompatible with each other. Hi-kara appears to run on a newer XaviX type, with faster clock speed, but most significant from a buyer point of view is that it was a fully portable system, with a built in screen (that could also be connected to a TV)
2024 saw MAME add support for this evolution of the product line, albeit without microphone input, so it’s still marked as ‘Not Working’ just like e-kara, even if you can listen to all the songs.
Of course support for some additional e-kara cartridges was also added, some with unique presentation of their own, such as the Misora Hibari PR-06 cart, which was a pack-in for certain e-kara units.
Along similar lines, the eM14 cartridge for the Tomy Evio was dumped, and support added. This is the Disney Special cartridge, and has some custom theming when compared to all the other releases for the system. It isn’t yet playable without the violin controller emulated.
XaviX hardware was also used for Epoch’s Tokyo Friend Park 2, a mat-type plug and play based on the Japanese TV game show
There’s very little information online about Sudoku: Do You Sudkou? a 2005 Plug and Play released by SDW Games. It’s one of many Sudoku TV games from the period, with many of the more common ones being emulated in years prior. This runs on SunPlus hardware and has barebones presentation, booting straight to the game screen.
Taito’s KiKi KaiKai was one of a handful of Taito games still using simulated protection. 2024 saw a change to that, with the original protection MCU finally being dumped, allowing the game to run the proper protection code. It’s been a long journey for this one, with the oldest emulation using the MCU from a bootleg, before that was replaced with simulation code, and now finally correct emulation! The protection on this one controls a lot of bits of game logic, such as the collisions, which have never been quite right until now.
Gambling games from otherwise little known manufacturers seem to be found every single year, and 2024 started off showing it was unlikely to be an exception. Open 5 Cards saw support added early in the year.
Laserdisc technology resulted in some of the worst arcade games released, but there are some of them you can’t describe an 80s arcade without mentioning. While easily one of the worst of the bunch from a gameplay perspective, Dragon’s Lair is a game many remember seeing when it first hit the arcades. The idea of being able to play something that looked like a cartoon meant the game got a free pass, even if it relies on nothing but learning by trial and error. MAME gained support for it in 2024, relying on techniques developed for the Domesday project. There are still some very ugly interlace problems however.
A much rarer arcade game that saw support added in 2024 is Vampire from Entertainment Enterprises, Ltd. This 1983 game, developed by Brass International of Japan is so uncommon it isn’t clear if it saw a wide release at all, or simply failed location testing. The game also has an unfinished feel to it, which only leads to further speculation that it was never fully completed.
