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Much like the Watara Supervision, the Gamate never had the quality or quantity of games necessary to compete with the Game Boy. Third party support was pretty much non-existent - all the games are credited to either Bit or UMC, depending on when they were released (although evidently in some/most/all cases they were developed by external companies, including Gamtec and Hengmao, and possibly more). A few Sachen games have appeared on various game lists, but these probably don't actually exist as Gamate games; which is a hell of a thing, because Sachen even supported the bloody Mega Duck. Also like the Supervision, many of the games are clones of popular titles for the Game Boy and other consoles - Lode Runner, Pitfall and Tetris to name a few - and most of them aren't very good, no doubt because they were rushed to market by a small developer to try and get a decent-sized lineup on the shelves.
Still, though, over fifty games are known to have been released for the Gamate, and very few people know much about any of them. This here page is a list of games confirmed and rumoured to exist, compiled from various sources, including websites, auctions and the stuff I actually own. Some of the game titles (highlighted rows) link to pages with pics and/or a description, others don't, but information is still very much thin on the ground.
As far as I'm aware there are three variations of Gamate game packaging - the international versions (in English, sometimes with French/German stickers), Italian versions (in Italian, Gig logo - usually just direct translations of the English version, but sometimes feature slightly different art) and Taiwanese versions (in Chinese). The card labels, though, seem to be identical across all regions.
* note - About Gamate Screenshots:
The Gamate has no adapter to display its games on a TV, and my camera is shit, so I'm just directly scanning the screen. This means the screenshots... don't look very good, and they were all taken with the game paused. But at least you can see what's going on. And yes the inside of my scanner is dusty as hell.
| ID No | Game Name | Notes |
| C1001 | Cube-Up | Tetris clone. |
| C1002 | Witty Apee | Lode Runner clone. |
| C1003 | Box Forum | some kind of...circus game, i suppose. circus charlie knockoff? or a sokoban clone featuring a monkey moving giant balls (ha) around?
intro from manual via ebay, certainly makes the case for the latter: "The marvelous Royal Circus is in town. Among many attractions in and around the Big Top is a show by Clever Pongo, a chimpanzee trained to position a number of balls into its designated positions. You are the trainer of this primate, you have to guide him through scores of complicated maze. Show business is rough, you have to success or there will be shoes, beer cans and rotten fruits all over the place."
pics: italian box / italian contents / international box+manual+card (from ebay) |
| C1004 | Mighty Tank | Battle City clone. |
| C1005 | Enchanted Bricks | another Breakout clone, uses same art as Brick Blaster (reversed).
pics: box front/box back/card (from ebay) |
| C1006 | Mini Golf | self-explanatory, surely |
| C1007 | Galaxy Invaders | Galaxian clone. |
| C1008 | Legend of Dragon Knight | Sounds like an RPG, but isn't really |
| C1009 | Tornado | Shooter, vertically-scrolling. |
| C1010 | Bump'n Run | might be a bit like Bump'n Jump. alternately it might be something like Rally-X (one of these games will be, mark my words) |
| C1011 | Money Maze | Pac-Man clone clone. |
| C1012 | Pharaoh Revenger | Platform game |
| C1013 | Dino Bibo | pics: card (from ruten) |
| C1014 | Time Warrior | Platform game, bit like Hi no Tori |
| C1015 | Kill Shot | sequel to the less popular game, "minor injury shot". this may be a lie. Actually its a clone of Quarth.
pics: card / italian box front / italian box back / italian contents (from ebay) |
| C1016 | Volcano Panic | intro via ebay: "In the early years of human history, there was an ancient tribe called the Igmi tribe. They live in the fertile land at the shadow of the magnificent Clints volcano. The land gives them abundant crops and the tribe leads happy and prosperous life. But one day the great volcano that had been inactived for years started chuckling and vomiting lava from its numerous tiny craters. This has been happened many times before and according to the tradition a young man has to be selected to penetrate the thick jungle of the mountin, reached the peak of the volcanoand stuck those craters with stones. Baba, a brave young man was selected for this dangeous mission. Let's help him accomplish his task."
pics: box/manual/card (from some auction, via portabledev) |
| C1017 | Devil Castle | somewhat Castlevania-esque |
| C1018 | Kung-Fu Fighter | fighting game with brilliantly named characters |
| C1019 | Dino Ball | Pinball game. Lacks dinosaurs. |
| C1020 | Bad Bud Chou Chu's Adventure | Excellent name. |
| C1021 | Myth of Asamia | Bastard platform game. |
| C1022 | Pipemania | Shares the name of a 1989 Amiga game. looks like a clone, probably isn't a licensed port.
pics: italian box front / italian box back / italian contents (from ebay) |
| C1023 | Tennis | Tennis game (no, really). |
| C1024 | Marauder | pics: card (from ruten) |
| C1025 | Jackpot | Bit Corp's NES "classic" makes it to the Gamate, it seems |
| C1026 | Flipuzzle | Flipull clone, I bet. It has to be.
pics: italian box front / back (from ebay) |
| C1027 | Monster Pitfall | Pitfall clone. |
| C1028 | Vindicators | same art as Mighty Tank, same name as an arcade game. not exactly a triumph of originality, this one.
pics: italian box/italian contents (from ebay) |
| C1029 | Brick Blaster | Breakout clone, common pack-in. |
| C1030 | Beach Volleyball | |
| C1031 | Bomb Blaster | Bomberman clone. Shite. |
| C1032 | Cosmic Fighter | Shooter, non-scrolling. |
| C1033 | Fist of Thunder | |
| C1034 | Superboy | |
| C1035 | Treasure Hunter | Another Lode Runner clone. |
| C1036 | Jewelriss | Columns, probably.
pics: partially obscured box/blurry card (from ruten) |
| C1037 | Nightmare of Santa Claus | something original? |
| C1038 | Mars Voyage | Looks a hell of a lot like Gradius, right down to the moai on the back of the box. the description I have of Flying Goblin seems to match this game for some reason.
pics: box front / box back (note UMC stickers presumably covering Bit copyrights) |
| C1039 | Fortress of Fierceness | Also an excellent name. |
| C1040 | Incantational Couple | |
| C1041 | Mighty Boxer | |
| C1042 | Flying Goblin | description from somewhere(??) seems to correspond to Mars Voyage but you never know: "Viking III is a manned spacecraft mission to planet Mars in the mid of 21th century. Unexpectedly, on the supposedly barren surface of the reddish planet they found an entire armada of aliens invasion force. Only Viking III can stop them there."
pics: box/manual/card (from ebay auction). |
| C1043 | Boom! | super pang clone. |
| C1044 | Snowman Legend | I was willing to bet actual money that this was a Snow Bros clone. but it isn't! |
| C1045 | World Cup Soccer | |
| C1046 | Kiki Island | |
| C1047 | Fortune 'n Luck | sounds like cockney rhyming slang to me. back of the box says this: To travel around the world is not a dream anymore and to become the richest person in the world is not an impossible thing. If you join the Game, you are under free charge to travel all over the world. We guarantee that you can play and make money as much as you can. To get start now and go!
pics: box/manual/card (from ebay auction). |
| C1048 | Baseball | AKA "Super Baseball"
intro via ebay: "Role up for American Professional Baseball! The diamond is packed with the hottest star players, the bleachers are packed with the wildest fans! As coach, you must choose your team, their batting order, and their defensive line-up; paying particular attention to each players speed and defensive ability. You can even change pichers in mid-game if you need. Be calm and plan your strategy well, and you might claim the World Series Championship"
pics: box (from retrotrader) / manual + card (from ebay) / card (from ruten) |
| C1049 | Punk Boy | punk's not dead, it just moved to Taiwan |
| C1050 | (unknown) | (7) Famous was previously listed under this ID number, but it looks like it isn't |
| C1051 | | |
| C1052 | Famous 7 | aka Famous, 7 Famous, something in Chinese. |
| C1053 | Metamorphosiser | pics: box (from retrotrader) / card (from ruten) |
| C1054 | Magic Jigsaw | a magical jigsaw-ish picture-assembling game |
| C1055 | | |
| C1056 | GP Race | AKA "Grand Prix", "Formula One"
pics: card (from retrogames old stock pages) / box front / box back |
| C1057 | | |
| C1058 | (unknown) | title in chinese. yep.
pics: card (from a taiwanese auction) |
| C10xx | 10 games later... |
| C1068 | (unknown) | chinese title, looks like a card game. highest numbered C1xxx game thus far discovered, by a clear 10
pics: card (from difuno's photobucket) |
| C1401 | 4 in 1 | Mini Golf, Cube-Up, Brick Blaster, Vindicators.
pics: card / blurry alternate card (from taiwan auctions) |
| K1001 | (unknown) | mysterious game! switching from C to K for some reason. Apparently chinese titled. |
| ????? | Dinosaur Park
戎貓極界 (Rong Mao Ji Jie) | First discovered as a copyright registration in China by Xi'an Hengmao Electronics Co Ltd (see this page), but it appears to have been released in Taiwan as well. evidently contains Chinese text at least, which did not feature in earlier games - perhaps indicating a change of developer, or at least a change of focus to the chinese-speaking market?
pics: top half of box / blurry card / screenshot (sort of) (from ruten) |
| ????? | (unknown) | no title on the card, can't make out the ID. mysterious!
pics: blurry card / weird angle card (from ruten) |
| ????? | Fantasy Travel | mentioned in passing in an ebay auction, possibly corresponds to one of the unknown/chinese titled above? |
| ????? | 緑野迷蹤 (Lu Ye Mi Zhong) | A "chinese-language question and answer RPG" according to an approximate translation of this Chinese blog post. If I haven't misinterpreted the translation it also contains a hidden platform mini-game called "riddle of the ancient tomb" or similar.
pics: tiny cart image (from aforementioned blog post) |
| ????? | (unknown) | Basketball game |
| Rumoured/Unknown/Nonexistent Games: |
| | 2nd Space | All Sachen games. I think I've traced the rumours of their existence to a forum post in which someone says they might maybe remember them being in a cupboard somewhere - most likely they were thinking of the Mega Duck versions though, the Mega Duck being another obscure handheld they definitely were released for. |
| | Captain Knick Knack |
| | Puppet Knight |
| | Ball Storm(?) | partially obscured pic from back of Gamate box. same art as Mini Golf (reversed), could be a working title for that |
| | Super Marlo Bros. | This almost certainly doesn't exist - it was probably included as a joke entry on a game list somewhere, then others copied it. |
| | Balloon Voyage | Appeared in place of Mars Voyage. had me hoping for a Balloon Fight clone, but it probably doesn't exist. |
| | Alice in Wonderland | Mentioned in a Chinese forum post which I've since lost. "Another is the Chinese adventure game, I think it was Alice in Wonderland (fuzzy impression, not sure)" |
| | finally, THERE IS NO SUCH GAME AS "JUSTTY APEE". Jesus. |
Credits
Thanks to all the following for info and pics used in this section:
Rene's Retro Computers & Games Site
PortableDev
Retro-Trader
Retrogames
various sellers on eBay, Yahoo! Taiwan Auctions and Ruten
all images taken from other sources are credited where used - i haven't listed individual ebay sellers because for the most part i didn't make a note of that. sorry! if one of the images is yours and you want credit or you want it removed, please let me know!
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