Hong Kong '97

[Nightstar699]

So a while ago, I was looking at this video of gameplay from an unlicensed SNES game titled "Hong Kong '97"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oka1XfJuSc8

Something about this game captivates me. It might be the 10 second loop of "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" in the background, or perhaps it's just that I tend to fancy unlicensed games. My question is.... has a copy of this game ever been discovered? I've been looking regularly for it for a while now, and have been doing research just to find one single picture of an actual cartridge of it.

The only thing I could find was one single box image, courtesy of the bootleg games wiki:



Not sure where that picture came from, or if whoever took it has a picture of the cartridge, too. Either way, I do wonder if anyone knows more about this game than what's widely available... I'd love to get a copy of it for myself someday.

[nintendodork]

Just by looking at the box, I'm going to guess a cartridge doesn't exist because it says it's for "SuperNES + DiskDrive."  Coupled with the fact that the "box" looks like just a sleeve, this may have been a game only released for an unlicensed disk drive that was for use on the Super Nintendo.  That's just my guess though.

[Nightstar699]

Yeah I thought that at first too, but on a page with information on it, I read this: "in 1995 for the Super Famicom in disk drive and cartridge format"

And how the box says SuperNES + Disk Drive suggests that it was indeed released for both... how very mysterious.

Edit: I also find it interesting simply  how the box even says SuperNES, as the company that released it was located in Japan.

[2A03]

I bet you it's supposed to be used with one those game copiers that use 3.5" floppies. It'd be pretty funny if you were Bruce Lee fighting Deng Xiaoping in the game but knowing pirated games I guess I shouldn't hold out any hope.

[Nightstar699]

Close... you play as Bruce Lee's relative, Chin (who looks like Jackie Chan) and you fight Deng Xiaoping's floating head in one part!

[Nightstar699]

The mystery regarding this supposed game company still drives me nuts to this day. At this point I don't think a physical copy of this game ever existed, I think somebody just made HK97 for shits and giggles, then made up a fake backstory behind its supposed creation. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong someday.
Post Merge: March 18, 2013, 12:45:53 am
Well, mystery solved (kinda). I was able to get in contact with someone who worked on this game, and he confirmed to me that a cartridge of this game never physically existed, unless it was a pirated copy (which, as far as I know has never been found).

[L___E___T]

I'd be interested in more of that story, via PM if it's sensitive? China to HK politics interest me, along with the history.

[tanon]

I believe I may have a physical copy of this game, although it be a strang one. I own a CD that my uncle sent to me from Hong Kong in 1996/97 containing a mass of super famicom games compiled in a weird format. A bit of digging seemed to suggest it was "used to dump roms onto a famicon test cart. It will do any rom in 256kb banks", although I don't know how true that is.

The CD seems to have the general purpose of containing lots of games, then you look at a program called CFSlist.exe to find the game you want, then you copy that data onto a floppy disk which you then play on your Super Famicom using a floppy disk reader extension (It came with a game doctor SF 7). Here are some pics of the CD, its contents and the Hong Kong 1997 game running in zsnes.

A bit weird I know, but it's a physical copy from ~19 years ago at least and since it is a registered entry on this list alongside legitimate SF games then it must have been official-ish at some point, not just a joke game put out by a student!

Pics on attachments and a few more here: http://imgur.com/a/HljtG

[L___E___T]

 

It is indeed a 'joke' or at least satire game and not an official product made byt a company intended for genuine circulation.  

It is confirmed by the creator that no physical (i.e. on a cart) version existed, so what you have here is a ROM on storage media.

I imagine this was because it made it into circulated libraries at the time.  Similar to how you'll find many hacks on current all game packages floating around on the web.

Interesting story though - do you know what the Traditional Chinese Hanji says?  I can't read it so I'm assuming it's not written in simplified.

[P]

Interesting story though - do you know what the Traditional Chinese Hanji says?  I can't read it so I'm assuming it's not written in simplified.

I'd also like to know. I'm not even sure which side is up and which is down.

[L___E___T]

 
It looks like Japanese Kanji for 'Altar'... it's not Chinese Hanji HK writing, it's missing the bottom line so is likely adapted Kanji, but I'm no expert.

https://translate.google.com/#en/zh-TW/altar

Could just be the company name of the CDR manufacturer 

[P]

Except it's missing the 土-part to the left (and instead have some seemingly random strokes that doesn't look like anything to me), has some kind of dot in the middle and is upside down. Looks like it's written in some weird font, kind of like seal script or longhand script but weirder. I'd guess it's some kind of company logo too.