GameKing
Encyclopedia
GameKing is a brand of handheld game consoles, designed and developed by TimeTop in 2003, for the Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 consumer market. The brand has three consoles, the GameKing I, the GameKing II and the GameKing III. A fourth console, the Handy Game, was produced by Timetop and shares some branding, but otherwise has little to do with the Gameking franchise.

GameKing I (GM-218)

The original GameKing console is a 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...

 handheld game console
Handheld game console
A handheld game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are run on machines of small size allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place...

. It is based around a 65C02
WDC 65C02
The Western Design Center WDC 65C02 microprocessor is an upgraded CMOS version of the popular NMOS-based MOS Technology 6502 8-bit CPU — the CMOS redesign being made by Bill Mensch of the Western Design Center...

 CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 running at 6.0 MHz.
It is fashioned to look like Nintendo's Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

 and comes in a wide array of vivid pastel colours, either opaque
Opacity (optics)
Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc...

 or transparent, and uses 2 AAA
AAA battery
A triple A or AAA battery is a standard size of dry cell battery commonly used in portable electronic devices. A carbon-zinc battery in this size is designated by IEC as "R03", by ANSI C18.1 as "24", by old JIS standard as "UM 4", and by other manufacturer and national standard designations that...

 size batteries. The original GameKing lacks a backlit screen, a feature which has been added in its "successor", the GameKing II.

The consoles have above-average sound circuitry capable of multi-channel music and digital sound playback, but a comparably low quality greyscale LCD screen, only supporting four shades of grey and having a very low (48 by 32 pixels) resolution, combined with a slow refresh rate, poor readability and adjustments, compared to the original Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

.

Games can be compared to some of the earlier built-in cell phone games (pre Java games), while their playing speed (scrolling etc.) and audio is far superior (multi-channel music and digitized samples and voices are quite common in GameKing games).

Audio hardware

Most of its games have digital sound effects, but it's unclear whether the machine has a traditional sound chip
Sound chip
A sound chip is an integrated circuit designed to produce sound . It might be doing this through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics...

 or relies only on digital samples for music and sound effects. Many of the "soundtracks" of its games are in fact very short looping tunes appearing to be sampled around 8 kHz, which would mean the cartridge space is used very inefficiently in this sense, like what happens with graphics. In other words, the machine just plays back digital samples with no other manipulation and appears unable to do traditional music synthesis. The overall result is however functional.

Video hardware

According to Brian Provinciano's reverse engineering of the GameKing, most GameKing games heavily rely on bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...

 rather than tile-based rendering
Tiled rendering
Tiled rendering is the process of subdividing a computer graphics image by a regular grid in image space to exploit local spatial coherence in the scene and/or to facilitate the use of limited hardware rendering resources later in the graphics pipeline...

 of the screen, e.g. most levels in its platform
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...

 and shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...

 games are in reality large 4-colour bitmaps, instead of using the most common method of graphic tiles and tile maps, like in most other game consoles and arcade games. This was probably done for economic reasons (the CPU alone can handle all graphics easily, at that resolution) and easy development of the games, apart from the objectively low resolution of the screen. While such a scheme seems to work, it has the disadvantage of using cartridge space inefficiently, so that e.g. most platform games are limited to 3 levels. At this point, it is unknown if the GameKing uses some form of sprite rendering, although this is probably unlikely and unnecessary.

GameKing II (GM-219)

The GameKing II, on the other hand, is fashioned to look like Sony's PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

, comes in more sober colors (either black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...

, grey
Grey
Grey or gray is an achromatic or neutral color.Complementary colors are defined to mix to grey, either additively or subtractively, and many color models place complements opposite each other in a color wheel. To produce grey in RGB displays, the R, G, and B primary light sources are combined in...

 , white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...

 or aqua
Aqua
- Music :* Aqua , a Danish pop band* Aqua , American record producer and composer of film and television scores* Aqua, album by Edgar Froese* Aqua , 1992* "Aqua", a piano piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto...

 - and although not shown on the packaging, yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...

 ones do also exist), and uses 3 AAA
AAA battery
A triple A or AAA battery is a standard size of dry cell battery commonly used in portable electronic devices. A carbon-zinc battery in this size is designated by IEC as "R03", by ANSI C18.1 as "24", by old JIS standard as "UM 4", and by other manufacturer and national standard designations that...

 size batteries, of which only 2 are used to actually power up the GameKing's hardware, while the third one serves to power up both its built-in audio amplifier (a bit more powerful than the one on the original GameKing) and its backlit LCD screen (which can be turned on and off at will, depending on external lighting conditions, thus saving power). The unit can still work with 2 batteries, only with no sound and no backlighting available.

Also, the GameKing II has a fixed color background picture for its LCD screen, only visible when the backlighting is switched on. This is probably to give the false impression of having a colour LCD screen, as implied on its box.

The picture may vary between various GameKing models, however it has a mostly negative effect on screen readability when the backlighting is turned on.

This background picture can also be removed or replaced simply by opening the machine and removing the small plastic transparency behind the LCD. Removing it makes using the backlighting much more effective.

This model would also be the last in the Gameking line to have the text "3in1" stamped above the screen.

Notes: Likewise with the GK, no page exists for the GKII, but the Chinese site still lists the machine as product code GM-219.

GK "I" vs. GK II

However, the two models are fully hardware compatible, can use the same games/cartridges, both have volume and contrast controls and use the same LCD screen. Also, they both have an external DC power supply 3.5 mm minijack plug; however, the plug is not labeled as such, and its function is only slightly hinted at in the units' manuals. The GameKing requires 3V DC, while the GameKing2 requires 4.5V DC with the peculiarity of needing to keep at least one battery in the unit in order to have sound and backlighting.

GameKing III (GM-220)

TimeTop quietly released a third GameKing machine, called the 'GameKing III' or GM-220 sometime in 2005. While early advertisements showed the GameKing III with the same "false color" background picture as the GameKing I and II, which would indicate that the system is actually black and white like the previous GameKing models,the GM-220 is in fact full colour. Another distinction of the GM-220 is that unlike its predecessors, the Gameking I and II, which were promoted and marketed worldwide, the Gameking III was not actively distributed outside of Asia, making it much less common than the earlier models. In 2005, many websites initially reported the device as "coming soon", and it is not known why Timetop eventually decided to offer only a limited release.

Although accurate technical information is hard to obtain, it seems to be a handheld console using a 64-colour (or grey shades) LCD or TFT
TFT LCD
Thin film transistor liquid crystal display is a variant of liquid crystal display which uses thin-film transistor technology to improve image quality . TFT LCD is one type of Active matrix LCD, though all LCD-screens are based on TFT active matrix addressing...

 screen, although little else is known about it. It was available in black, silver, dark violet, and blue.

The resolution doesn't seem enhanced compared to an original GameKing, and "classic" GameKing cartridges are automatically colorized, while games especially developed for it allegedly make use of the full color palette, which for the moment remains unknown. The site claimed a total of 12 carts for this system. If the built-in game is included, 8 titles are known as of 2010.

A new design for the GKIII was placed in April 2006 at the Timetop site, and later removed (see GM-221, below).

GM-221

A second design for the Gameking III also exists which combines elements from the GM-219 with the GM-220. The Button design and layout is from the GM-220 design, with the "A" button being distinctly larger than the "B" button, but the overall form is obviously inspired from Sony's PSP design (although no longer a blatant rip-off as with the GM-219). Several colors are shown on the back of the box, green and orange for example, however only two colors, a black edition and a white edition are confirmed to exist.

GM-222

The GM-222 sports an original design, which does not borrow much from previous models. Even though it is sequenced later than the other consoles in the Gameking line, and therefore one would expect more advanced hardware, it is in fact a redesigned Gameking II. Moreover, besides returning to the lo-res black and white screen, the back-light has also been removed (notice however that the box for the GM-221 and GM-222 both show exactly the same false color screen shot, despite the two machines vastly different capabilities). It is not known why Timetop choice to release the GM-222 in this fashion, although renderings exist that show this design was intended at some point to be a full color model. It was available in charcoal, blue, and green.

Handy Game (GM-228)

A distinct Timetop console exists which uses NES compatible hardware rather than the proprietary hardware of the other Gameking consoles, and also has an integrated TV output. While early mockups indicated this handheld was considered part of the Gameking line, Timetop eventually removed the gameking branding from this edition prior to its release, replacing it with "Timetop LTPS Handy Game" ( ironically, "handy-game" was the working title EPYX coined in 1987 for what would become the Atari Lynx). The console comes with 25 built-in games and is also able to accept cartridges, however their size and connectors are different than (and incompatible with) previous Gameking consoles. . The game selection includes games typically found on NES clones, like 1942, Pooyan
Pooyan
is a classic arcade game manufactured by Stern Electronics under license from Konami in 1982. In it, the player controls "Mama", a pig whose babies have been kidnapped by a group of wolves.- Gameplay :...

or Dig Dug
Dig Dug
is an arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan in 1982 for Namco Galaga hardware. It was later published outside of Japan by Atari. A popular game based on a simple concept, it was also released as a video game on many consoles.-Objective:...

, as well as graphic ROM
Read-only memory
Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...

 hacks of famous NES games (for example, using Blue's Journey
Blue's Journey
Blue's Journey, known in Japan as , is a side scrolling, platform arcade game originally released by Alpha Denshi in 1991. It was later ported to the Neo Geo CD and was released on the Wii's Virtual Console in Europe on November 9, 2007, followed by North America on November 12, 2007.In the game...

 graphics with Adventure Island
Adventure Island
Adventure Island may refer to:* Adventure Island , or its sequels:** Adventure Island II** Adventure Island III** Adventure Island IV ** New Adventure Island** Super Adventure Island...

.

The GM-228 was available in a large variety of colors with some faceplaces containing very elaborate designs. Colors included silver, black, green, yellow, and pink.

GameKing/GameKing II games

The console has a small selection of known games (38), being 3 built in and 35 in carts, although 37 games were said to be available by TimeTop. Most games are clones
Clone (computer science)
In computing, a clone is a hardware or software system that is designed to mimic another system. Compatibility with the original system is usually the explicit purpose of cloning hardware or low-level software such as operating systems...

 of famous NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

, C64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 or Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...

 titles, with heavily dropped graphics. The games come in cartridges resembling the original Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

 ones, with a typical size of 128KB, although 4-in-1 cartridges are available, containing 4 normal GameKing games plus a selection menu, and have a maximum size of 512KB.

Both the GameKing and GameKing II come with three built in games.
  • Drifter, a Wonder Boy
    Wonder Boy
    is a series of video games published by SEGA and developed by Westone Bit Entertainment .The series itself consists of the main Wonder Boy series, and the Monster World sub-series. Games may be part of one, the other, or both. This has resulted in a sometimes confusing naming structure resulting in...

    /Adventure Island
    Adventure Island
    Adventure Island may refer to:* Adventure Island , or its sequels:** Adventure Island II** Adventure Island III** Adventure Island IV ** New Adventure Island** Super Adventure Island...

    clone (Which seems to use music from Castlevania III)
  • 2003, a 1942 clone.
  • Miner or Mine Battle, a Bomberman
    Bomberman
    Bomberman is a strategic, maze-based computer and video game franchise originally developed by Hudson Soft. The original game was published in 1983 and new games in the series are still being published to this day. Today, the commercially successful Bomberman is featured in over 70 different games...

    clone (Which seems to use music taken from the now-defunct Flash game, Spybot: The Nightfall Incident
    Spybotics
    Spybotics is a robotics package by Lego. It consists of four colour-coded robots called Spybots, a programming language with which to control the Spybots and ten simulated missions for users to attempt.- Missions :...

    )


Here follows an incomplete list of known games.
Please note that many GameKing games use the same program altering only graphics to create "new" games e.g. 2003 and 2004 are essentially the same game with minor differences. Also, many games have major inconsistencies between the box, manual and in-game title. E.g., Lanneret becomes Hawk in the game title, Feichuan becomes "Shenzhou Liuhao" in the game,
or Carlo Adventure Legend becomes Caro in-game.
  • Carlo Adventure Legend, a Super Mario Bros.
    Super Mario Bros.
    is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...

    clone.
  • Soldier, a Contra
    Contra (arcade game)
    , known as Gryzor in Europe and Oceania, is a run and gun action game developed and published by Konami originally released as a coin-operated arcade game on February 20, 1987. A home version was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in , along with ports for various computer formats,...

    / Gryzor clone.
  • Happy Killer and Happy Ball, both Lode Runner
    Lode Runner
    Lode Runner is a 1983 platform game, first published by Brøderbund. It is one of the first games to include a level editor, a feature that allows players to create their own levels for the game. This feature bolstered the game's popularity, as magazines such as Computer Gaming World held contests...

     clones.
  • F1 2004, a Formula One
    Formula One
    Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

     racing game resembling
    Pole Position
    Pole Position
    Pole Position is a racing video game released in 1982 by Namco. It was published by Namco in Japan and by Atari, Inc. in the United States...

    .
  • Super Motor, essentially like F1 2004 with motorcycles instead of cars.

Notes: The two previous titles are the only motor or sports games available on the GameKing.
  • 2004, essentially the same game as the built in 2003.
  • Popper, essentially the same game as the built in Miner.
  • Hawk or Lanneret, a Choplifter
    Choplifter
    Choplifter is a 1982 Apple II game developed by Dan Gorlin and published by Brøderbund. It was ported to other home computers and, in 1985, Sega released a coin-operated arcade game remake, which in turn received several home ports of its own...

    clone.
  • Dino Adventure, essentially Carlo Adventure Legend with different graphics.
  • Duckman, a Darkwing Duck clone.
  • Ares, Feichuan are all classic arcade shooters, probably using the same engine as 2003 and 2004 with different graphics.
  • Penguin, a Antarctic Adventure
    Antarctic Adventure
    Antarctic Adventure, known in Japan as Kekkyoku Nankyoku Daibōken is a video game developed by Konami in 1983 for MSX, and later for video game consoles, such as NES...

    /Tux Racer
    Tux Racer
    Tux Racer is a Free Software 3D computer game starring the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin. In the game, the player controls Tux as he slides down a course of snow and ice collecting herring. Sliding on ice makes Tux go faster, while sliding on snow allows for more maneuverability and sliding on...

     clone.
  • Street Hero, a Double Dragon
    Double Dragon
    is a classic beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technos Japan Corporation, who also developed the Kunio-kun series ....

    clone.
  • Trojan Legend, a Mega Man
    Mega Man Classic
    The original Mega Man series is the first series of Mega Man platform games from Capcom, which debuted in Japan on December 17, 1987 on the NES with the release of Mega Man.- Overview :...

     clone.
  • Seatercel, a Tiger Heli
    Tiger Heli
    was one of the first games developed by Toaplan and published by Taito Corporation in 1985. It is a predecessor to Twin Cobra...

     clone.
  • Star Wars, a Macross
    Macross
    is a series of science fiction mecha anime, directed by Shōji Kawamori of Studio Nue in 1982. The franchise features a fictional history of Earth/Humanity after the year 1999. It consists of three TV series, four movies, six OVAs, one light novel and five manga series, all sponsored by Big West...

    -based clone, allowing the player to choose all three shapeshifting Fighter-Gerwalk-Battroid configurations.
  • Nagual, a Kung Fu Master
    Kung Fu Master
    Kung-Fu Master, known in Japan as , is a beat 'em up arcade game developed and published in Japan by Irem. It was later published in North America by Data East. The Japanese version was based on the Jackie Chan movie Wheels on Meals, known as Spartan X in Japan, and credited "Paragon Films Ltd.,...

    clone.
  • Blaster, a Blaster Master
    Blaster Master
    Blaster Master is a platforming and run and gun video game released by Sunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a localized version of a Japanese Famicom game titled , which was released on . The game was released in North America in November 1988 and in Europe on...

    clone, a platform game with a shooting vehicle.
  • Chaser, a marine defense game (clone unknown).
  • Star Ghazi or Star Chazi, a Star Force
    Star Force
    is a vertical shoot 'em up arcade video game made in 1984 by Tehkan . In Japan, it is considered to be a monumental work among shooting games...

    clone
  • HERO: a Batman
    Batman
    Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

    or H.E.R.O.
    H.E.R.O.
    H.E.R.O. is a single-player video game published by Activision. First developed for the Atari 2600 and released in March 1984, the game was ported to many of the home computers and gaming consoles of that era...

    clone.
  • Dracula Zone or Surf Eidolon: A Silver Surfer
    Silver Surfer
    The Silver Surfer is a Marvel Comics superhero created by Jack Kirby. The character first appears in Fantastic Four #48 , the first of a three-issue arc that fans call "The Galactus Trilogy"....

    clone(?).
  • Pocket Tank, a Rambo/Front Line
    Front Line (arcade game)
    Front Line is a military combat-themed arcade game released in 1982 by Taito Corporation.The original arcade version consists of a joystick, a single button , and a rotary dial that can be pushed in like a button, which fires the weapon...

    clone with a tank.
  • Warrior, a Front Line
    Front Line (arcade game)
    Front Line is a military combat-themed arcade game released in 1982 by Taito Corporation.The original arcade version consists of a joystick, a single button , and a rotary dial that can be pushed in like a button, which fires the weapon...

    clone without the tank.
  • Clever Hawk, a Star Force
    Star Force
    is a vertical shoot 'em up arcade video game made in 1984 by Tehkan . In Japan, it is considered to be a monumental work among shooting games...

    -like game, but not the same game as Star Ghazi.
  • Valliant, a robot space fighting game (clone unknown). The sprites are pretty large.
  • Metal Deform, a platform game with shooting elements and a jetpack(?). (clone unknown)
  • Three Battles, an Ikari Warriors
    Ikari Warriors
    Ikari Warriors is a 1986 arcade game by SNK, published in the United States and Europe by Tradewest. Known simply as in Japan, this was SNK's first major breakthrough US release and became something of a classic. The game was released at the time when there were many Commando clones on the market...

    -like game.
  • Lightsword, a shooter that puts you on foot and then into a flying-robot shooter form (clone unknown).
  • Risker, a game similar to Spy Hunter
    Spy Hunter
    Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade game developed and released by Bally Midway. It has also been ported to various home computers and video game systems....

    in mechanics.
  • Catman, another platform game with weapons, but with large sprites.
  • Armada, an arcade shooter (clone unknown).
  • Brains, a puzzle-action game, clone unknown.


Games are generally sold in separate cartridges, but there are 4-in-1 cartridges holding 4 distinct games. Later games seem to be only available in this manner. Also, each 4-in-1 pack comes numbered and higher numbers seem to provide games that are more refined in presentation.

Some of these games found in 4-in-1 cartridges are:
  • Cyclon Action
  • Might
  • CarMan
  • Spectask
  • Captain (Which seems to use music from Mega Man X
    Mega Man X
    The Mega Man X series is the second Mega Man franchise released by Capcom. It debuted December 17, 1993 in Japan on the Super NES/Super Famicom and spawned sequels on several systems, with the PC platform notably having the most releases within the series...

    )
  • Seaguard
  • Whirlybird
  • Happy Garden
  • Airhero
  • Magician
  • Explorer
  • Farer
  • Seabedwar
  • Sortie
  • Phantom Fighter

GameKing III games

GameKing III machines have a built-in game:
  • Galaxy Crisis

At the moment the only known game carts for the GameKing III come from a picture:
  • Adventure
  • Urgent Action
  • Diamond
  • Panzer
  • Fly Car
  • Blaze Plane
  • 2030
  • Hermic Battle
  • Vagrant

HandyGame (GM-228) games

The NES-clone version of the GameKing III has its own selection of games, most of them being pirated or unlicensed NES games or variations. These come multi-carts with combinations such as 26in1, 49in1,and 72in1, etc. No HandyGame carts are not compatible with any previous model.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK