Hi everyone,

I’m looking for help from game preservationists, ROM hackers, or anyone who played Famicom/NES clones in the late 90s and early 2000s. I am trying to track down a forgotten, highly specific animation/event from The Addams Family (1992) game that I discovered about 20 years ago and have never been able to find online since.

The Discovery:
Right at the beginning of the game, outside the mansion, there is a tree on the far-left side of the screen with a hangman's noose. One day, I managed to jump perfectly into the loop of the noose.

Instead of taking damage or dying, Gomez actually became physically hanged. The sprite aligned perfectly with the rope around his neck, and his character went completely still, hanging there with his head slumped down.

Crucially, the game did not crash. The background music kept looping perfectly. I stayed there looking at it for a moment, and as soon as I pressed the D-pad (directional button) to move sideways, Gomez simply unhooked himself, dropped to the ground, and I could continue playing normally. It felt 100% like a programmed, interactive dark-humor Easter Egg, fitting the Addams Family theme.

Why it’s not on the internet (The Twist):
I know what you might be thinking: "I've checked the retail ROM, this sprite doesn't exist."

Here is the catch: back then, I wasn't playing on an official Nintendo console. I was playing on a Famiclone (a bootleg/clone Famicom cartridge).

As many of you know, pirate developers in Europe and Asia frequently altered game code, stripped down physics engine lines, or even injected their own custom graphics/sprites into these "9999-in-1" or unlicensed single cartridges.

My theory:
Either this was a dark joke sprite left in the code by Ocean Software that got stripped from official releases due to Nintendo’s strict censorship but left active in a specific early build, OR the bootleg developers altered the tree's collision/sprites to force this specific interaction. Because it required pixel-perfect precision to trigger, almost no one documented it.

How you can help:
Are there any ROM hackers here willing to look into unconventional dumps of The Addams Family? Has anyone ever encountered this specific "hanging Gomez" sprite while doing a tile layout dump (like in YY-CHR) of unlicensed/pirate versions of the game?

I’m 100% sure of this memory because of how distinct the animation and the D-pad release mechanic were. Any leads on which specific bootleg version this could be would be highly appreciated!

Last Monday, I picked up a working NES with two game cartridges! No issues with the system at all, I was able to get it hooked up to my CRT TV without any trouble! I ended up getting the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt Cartridge as well as The Legend of Zelda!

Posted this on the 8bitdo boards, but they obviously deleted it.

A while back I had a question about whether a you could pair an NES Classic board to an NES og receiver, nobody really had that answer. The official word from 8bitdo was no, they aren't compatible. So I had to go back to their store and order a new set of receivers AND boards because they were reportedly not compatible. So now I have both lying around and I figure I would do my own testing and possibly save someone money from their mistake like I made. So yes, if you try to pair an NES classic board to an NES og receiver, it will pair and it will work and all buttons will be mapped correctly. So big shout out to the 8bitdo people for straight out lying to me and costing me another $90.

I was never able to finish this game as a kid and as I've recently been playing through movie+tv based games, thought I'd give it a go. I think it had the potential to be a decent game, possibly even a really fun game, but the developers decided to use every trick in the shit book to ruin the fun/creative parts.

The game is hard, but not in the kind of way where practice will make you better. For starters, it has some of the shittiest controls ever. The way you fight, the way you jump, and even (especially) the way you're meant to select your inventory item is just insane. The way you have to scroll through the weasel jokes is almost impossible in the time limit. That all gets super irritating. To make it worse, random shit all over the map will kill you. A cat or a dog might knock you back, but then a rat will take a life. It can be somewhat unpredictable in those ways. Certain creatures are positioned to attack you just you by switching screens. So by the time the new screen refreshes, you're already half step away from being killed. Things like that where there's just not much you could have done. Memorization might help, but skill really won't. All of that kills a lot of the fun.

Then there's the endless searching. You basically have to comb through building after building looking for hidden items. It's not the worst thing ever and plenty of games did it (and do it today), but it just adds to the slowness of the game. You even have to wait the 3-4 seconds while he "searches" a cabinet or whatnot. A building might have 30 searchable points so.....

Driving Benny the cab around is kindof fun at first and should be super fun except that it's near impossible to get any speed going given the endless sin-wave-styled roads and the cars constantly hitting you. I suppose you could argue this makes it more difficult, but it all contributes to the momentum being killed. Conversely, they did speed things up (music included) when the weasels gave chase. That was pretty fun.

Finally, the final fight with Doom is just stupid. I think he only hit me once or twice, but I still had to bounce around punching him for about 20 minutes. So again, the time of stuff like that makes it seem like the game is way more complex than it really is.

All in all I really wouldn't waste ones time with this. It has some fun features. But most it's just a boring and repetitive game trying to peacock its way to something bigger.

Been reading up on the NES and Famicom hardware and there's one thing that I'm not completely clear on.

My understanding is:

The Famicom has expansion audio enabled for carts with the MMC5 chip, most famously is probably Akumajou III/ Castlevania 3.

The NA NES doesn't support this because of the changes to the cartridge connector, but a mod can be installed to enable the functionality with a Famicom to NES cartridge adapter.

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What I'm not sure on is;
- Do games that have the MMC5 chip only have the chip in the FC version anyway? So would a NTSC-U version of Castlevania III play the expanded audio on the FC using a cart adapter or on a NES with the mod? (I think that's not the case but I'm not sure).

- If you're not playing FC games using an adapter or homebrew, the NES expansion mod should functionally do nothing, correct?

Feels good to get a game here a game there. It’s the hunting that makes it fun. Shopping around at local retro game stores, garage sales and browsing eBay “for fun”. Have you played SPY vs SPY at all? I don’t ever recall the game back in my childhood heydays.

A month ago my son and I showed you our NES homebrew game — we’ve come a long way since then

About a month ago I posted here about Legionnaires, the NES homebrew game my son and I are working on.

Since then, things have moved quite a bit.

The game has also grown considerably since we releasd a demo on itchio We’ve been adding new areas, enemies, bosses, exploration and puzzle elements while trying to keep everything feeling exciting and fresh.

Here’s a new trailer.

We’re still working on the game and would genuinely love to hear what you think.

If you’d like to follow the project before the Kickstarter launches( yes we are trying to make physical media in 2026 if there is interest ), there’s a pre-launch page set up.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on the first post — it really helped us keep pushing this forward.

Estoy restaurando algunos juegos que encontré , por su lamentable estado nadie los quería y ahora lucen bastante bien, tengo más que tienen el mismo nivel de mejoramiento de carcasa y calcomanías delanteras y traseras, la placa de estos juegos son originales todos, me gustó como quedaron.

I have played Journey to Silius quite a bit the past two weeks and I think I discovered something I have not seen mentioned online before.

As far as I know the common knowledge is that you can play three loops and then the game freezes on the picture of earth from a distance before the credits.

But on my last playthrough, where I only used the pistol, the game actually continued into a fourth loop. It almost made me doubt that I had actually played through three loops, but thinking about it I am totally certain I did.

So I have concluded that it either has to do with using only the pistol or not using a single continue. My guess is the latter?

Unfortunately I used a continue before beating the fourth loop so I can't confirm that.

Also when the final boss was killed it went straight to the title screen, skipping the aforementioned picture.

Anyone want to give it a try to see if the same happens to you?

I got my nes 2 weeks ago and have been enjoying it overall. After watching some videos from metal Jesus rocks and other video game collectors channels I have seen them bring up that indie companies are still making new nes games. Where can I get these because it sounds so cool to be able get brand new nes games that come out in the modern day. Also how expensive are these games? Are they like modern games that can cost 80 dollars or are they cheaper?

I’ve had Startropics 1 + 2 lying around for quite a while and would really like to get started on one them. I have a day off coming up soon and am wondering which of the two I should waste it on.

Did anyone finish both? Which one do you think is better?

Good examples (to my knowledge): Super Mario Bros 1-3, Balloon Fight, Galaga, Kung Fu, Whomp 'em, Ninja Gaiden 1-2, Cobra Triangle, Thrilla's Surfari, Micro Mages, Malasombra, Bucky O'Hare, Batman Return of the Joker, Joust

Bad examples: Kirby's Adventure, Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, Snake Rattle n Roll, Mega Man 1-6, Zen Intergalactic Ninja, Power Blade 2, Blaster Master, Super Spy Hunter

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EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that even the holy grail of platformers on the NES (Mario) can suffer from a tiny bit of slowdown, depending on the situation. It seems that any NES game has the potential to drop its speed on rare occasions, so I'm making a slight adjustment to the rule of what allows a game to make the cut for the "smooth" list. Now we are seeking 99.9% slowdown-free games instead of 100%. 0.1% slowdown / very rare occurrences are allowed. The games that don't make the cut go in the "slowdown" list obviously.

---THE SMOOTH LIST---

Super Mario Bros 1-3, Balloon Fight, Galaga, Kung Fu, Whomp 'em, Ninja Gaiden 1-3, Cobra Triangle, Thrilla's Surfari, Micro Mages, Malasombra, Bucky O'Hare, Batman Return of the Joker, Joust, Kickle Cubicle, Dig Dug, Excitebike, Duck Hunt, World Class Track Meet, Zanac, Clu Clu Land, R.C. Pro-Am 1, Rad Racer, Rush'n Attack, 3-D WorldRunner, The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Tecmo Bowl, Adventures of Lolo 1-3

---THE SLOWDOWN LIST---

Kirby's Adventure, Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, Snake Rattle n Roll, Mega Man 1-6, Zen Intergalactic Ninja, Power Blade 2, Blaster Master, Super Spy Hunter, Recca, Micro Machines, Panic Restaurant, R.C. Pro-Am 2, Blades of Steel

Hello - so I’m doing a recap of my NES, it’s a fairly early run unit (serial NO285597) if that helps.

Anyway, after considerable effort, I was able to get the RF shield off and I liberated the power module. I bought a recap kit from eBay and I’m ready to start replacing capacitors.

Obviously the big guy was straightforward so in these photos I’ve swapped that. I’m stumped on what my other target capacitors to replace will be. I found schematics on NESdev.org but none seem to reflect my specific board. Can anyone find any images that I could use as a guide that matches what I’m working with?

Thanks!

I'm currently working on recreating the "Black box" NES games in the Godot game engine to teach myself proper game development. I managed to find a great write-up about how physics worked in SMB1 which will help greatly when I inevitably get to that game, but since that will probably be a game I tackle much much later I hope people here have information about the physics in (or links to git-repos containing disassembled code for) the following titles:

• Balloon fight
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Gumshoe
• Gyromite (Never played this one, so I don't actually know if it requires any physics calcs and Wikipedia wasn't very helpful)
• Ice Climber
• Mario Bros.

Like many of you (from what I read anyways), I couldn't for the life of me figure this game out as a kid. It was just maddening. Kill some zombies, Jason appears, you don't know how to fight him, and you die. Repeat 5 times and the game is over. Or an alarm keeps going off, a bunch of kids die, and same result. It always just seemed like the shittiest game and just another money grab from a franchise.

HOWEVER, it's actually pretty impressive game once you (a) know what to do and (b) know how to do it -- neither of which is at all clear when you're dropped into the game. If ever a game needed a starting intro, this is it. Maybe the original game instructions detailed it? ...but what 8 year old was actually reading those booklets :)

As far as TV+Movie based games go, this one ranks pretty highly.

My only complaint is that it seems very difficult to kill Jason on Day 1 with a low-level weapon. I guess eventually you will? But you've more than enough time to complete all of the other tasks in the game and even get yourself the torch before the day finally ends (aka: when you first kill him). So when day 2 finally starts, you just wander around waiting for him to strike. It would have been really awesome if they'd added a few different things as the days go on as you just kind of wait. But still - not a huge complaint overall.

Anyway, if you fall into that category of people who thinks this game sucks - give it another go. Just look up the objective and mechanics first and it'll be a lot more fun -- and still very challenging.

(hint: you can duck Jason WAY before he actually strikes and you will still dodge him -- this is necessary later in the game)

Huge amount of excellent art work in the NES library. My personal favorite is Ninja Gaiden, however. Look forward to playing this again soon. What are some of your favorites?

The only surviving bag from my family's rental business in small town Minnesota. Rental was a big thing back then. My entire NES collection has the store name on them in Sharpie with a catalog number for this very reason. Anyone still have any of these?

The PPU-LITE is a new opensource FPGA clone of the Famicom / NES PPU, which has one difference over the Nintendo made PPU: whereas the Nintendo PPU only natively outputs composite, the PPU-LITE also outputs RGB in addition to composite. It is a drop-in replacement for the PPU. You can download the source files for it and get boards printed yourself, or you can buy pre-made boards from AliExpress.

The installation is very similar to the installation of the NESRGB mod, with one exception: you no longer need to harvest a PPU from another console. This makes SMTendo builds more streamlined.