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Aquaplus P/ECE: Game Reviews Vol. 2

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve not yet read my review of the P/ECE hardware comparing it to Playdate, now is the time to catch up! It includes my 6 favourite games on the system.

Below I cover more of the interesting and unique games that I enjoy on the system.

Delta Star, by BLACK FTZ

A new game for P/ECE in 2021! Well, technically it’s a re-release but I’ll take what I can get after all these years. Especially for only 500¥ at BOOTH (pixiv account required).

At first glance you might think this is a simple Asteroids clone, but you’d be wrong. Whilst it does share much with that concept it adds in enough of its own ideas to make it unique.

First, the big differences: you can pass through enemies if you’re careful, and you can shoot down enemy bullets. That’s right, these aren’t lifeless hunks of rock floating around in space! There are multiple types of enemies some of which will fire either normal bullets or homing missiles. Your ship has forwards and reverse thrust, forward dash (a predictable and much more enjoyable equivalent of Asteroid’s teleport), sideways strafing (which I should use more often), and emergency braking. You can fire multiple shots at once, as expected, but they’re limited in number and have a short range of roughly a quarter of the width of the screen.

There are 52 levels, with 4 boss encounters, and continue points. Gameplay is against the clock with remaining time being converted into points. Extra lives are awarded at key point milestones and greeted with one of many great sound effects. The initial levels are easy and can be completed quickly, almost like a tutorial, and after that difficulty ramps up quite nicely. As an example, enemy bullets aren’t seen until level 9. And I adore for the motivational messages at the end of each level that let you know how you did “don’t mind, nobody is perfect”.

The game features smooth 60fps vector graphics with sub-pixel accuracy, plus some nice effects using multiple lines of different shades of grey. And amazing chip tunes. Listen to the high score entry tune at the end of the above video!

I’ve been playing the free “Gratuitous Version” which has only one boss type and lacks music, so I’m excited to spend more time with this fleshed out version now that it’s available once again. Awesome work by BLACK FTZ team, what a lovely surprise for 2021.

Speed Barricade, by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

This was previously shown in my blog post comparing the P/ECE with Playdate, but I neglected to mention one cool thing…

Speed Barricade LIVE, by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

If you play with your P/ECE connected using USB cable to your Windows PC you can use a special client app, Speed Barricade LIVE, to show real-time 3D footage of your game in full colour at high resolution! A true spectator sport.

Majang Project, by Hiroshi Makabe

This game came out of the first of two P/ECE Hand Books written by Hiroshi Makabe. The development of the game was outlined in the book and on an accompanying website. It has impressive greyscale graphics, nice animation, wonderful chip tune music, sampled voice clips, win/lose scenes, and hosts a nice VS CPU game of Mahjong. And that’s Riichi/Japanese Mahjong, not the Solitaire type you might associate with the name. I’d say this game is definitely of retail-release quality and was a good showcase for what is possible on the platform.

ALERT (アラート), by Jumpei Isshiki (HELLO WORLD PROJECT)

A nice little barrage shmup with procedurally generated boss fights! Prize winner in the Megastore Cup official contest. There’s a lot going on here, not just the bullets but also the gameplay logic and music. Remaining enemy bullets turn to points which offers an engaging risk/reward mechanic. Three game modes, Easy, Hard, and ENDLESS. Let’s go for the high score!

I read that there was once a port of this game to Dingux-based devices, and found it on a download site (I guessed “alert” was the password, how lucky!).

Delivery Bird, by Hafupon

This is a Sokoban that shifts the view to side-on rather than top-down, which allows for height and gravity to enter into the puzzles. As with many of the best games on P/ECE, it was entered into one of the official game development contests run by Aquaplus. This game won a runner-up prize.

There’s also a Windows version that expands on the concept.

Norito, by Gorujii

Another runner-up in the Megastore Cup official contest. A great looking game featuring fluid wire-frame 3D with dithering for distant objects. It’s a strange sort of shmup that makes me think of both Jumping Flash and Battlezone. Controls take some getting used to but after that score attack is quite a challenge. The game system and stages are intertwined with a story, and things like the “one-shot” fortune-telling add extra flair.

In the next volume of reviews I’ll cover the official bundled games in addition to some homebrew ports of popular games from other systems.

Aquaplus P/ECE (vs Panic Playdate)

by Matt Sephton — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The P/ECE was a Japan-only handheld/mobile gaming console released in late-2001. It was created by Aquaplus, a company better known for visual novels, so it carries with it a certain oddball charm. After 20 years I find it heart-warming to see that the official website is still online!

What is it?

An early preview of the P/ECE referred to the P/ECE as a portable game console though the water was somewhat muddied by the fact that one of the built in apps, Picket, was a PIM (Personal Information Manager). This means it was often referred to as a PDA. It has a d-pad, start and select buttons, and you can play games on it—that makes it a console in my eyes. But a console where each unit could be used as a development device by connecting it to a desktop computer.

Looking back at the P/ECE it was ahead of its time in many ways. To get a feel for what was going on when it came out:

the most popular phone manufacturers were Nokia and Sony Ericsson
the battle between the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast was ongoing
ICO was the latest PlayStation 2 game
Rez was the latest Dreamcast game
the iPod and Game Boy Advance had both just launched
YouTube and Facebook had yet to be created

…it really was a different era!

Discovery

I learned of the P/ECE several years ago when looking at the output of one of my favourite video game developers, Kuniake “kuni” Watanabe. He’s probably best known for Panekit, and open-world sandbox game on PlayStation. Though my favourite of his games is MaBoShi on Wii (and DS via download play) which is a razor sharp focussed set of three games that interact with each other in an innovative (and patented) way. I’d go so far as to say that Circle mode in MaBoShi is my favourite game concept of all time.

The same preview article I mentioned above also says “in terms of specs, (P/ECE) comes above the PocketStation and below the Game Boy” though I think that’s selling the P/ECE a little short. The CPU was quite fast and efficient for its time, and the fact that it had no specific graphics hardware meant that people had to get creative and optimise. Some of the results, seen below, would have been very tricky or impossible to achieve on the original Game Boy.

Over its short term of popularity the P/ECE platform had a vibrant homebrew scene and received ports or demakes of everything from Mitchell Corp’s masterpiece Polarium, through arcade gems like Flipull (aka Plotting), to console classics Panel de Pon (aka Tetris Attack) and more besides. It was home to proper Japanese RPGs and small arcade games and the number of games stretch into triple figures.

Selected Games by Kuniake Watanabe

Anyway! During his indie days, Kuni developed for a range of platforms and in a variety of languages and wrote several games for the P/ECE. Here are my favourites:

spout

A lunar lander style game where your thrust can destroy the scenery. Your task is to get as high as possible, though that is much easier said than done as the scenery becomes gradually more complex and time is always ticking away.

This is perhaps the most famous P/ECE game as it was released with source code for an SDL version and received ports to GP32 and related platforms. There’s a modern remake for iOS and Android by a different developer, though it keeps the same title.

edit: kuni’s game design notes

fencer

A snake type game where your head has momentum and your tail length depends on your speed, allowing fine and fluid movement. The goal is to avoid bombs and use your tail as a barrier that will destroy them. Chaining together multiple explosions is the key to high scores.

There was an official updated version for iOS, titled fencell, but it’s not longer on the App Store due to Apple removing all 32-bit games back in 2017. Yet the 20-year-old P/ECE version is still available for download. There’s a lesson for us all.

edit: kuni’s game design notes

interground

In this game you must use a rotating stick to push sand around in an attempt to bury the little people running on top of it. If the stick touches a moving enemy or you run out of time that means game over.

edit: kuni’s game design notes

Selected Games by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

Whilst digging into P/ECE forgotten history, I also found several old games by Kenta Cho (then: Saba, now: ABA Games) who even today continues to crank out brilliant little games at an inspiring rate.

Barrage Reactor

A twin-stick shmup played with a d-pad and two buttons! The d-pad moves your ship around and the buttons rotate your aim as you fire automatically. Waves of enemies appear and a surprisingly tactical game ensues.

Speed Barricade

A 3D “Tron” light cycles game where the aim is to stay alive for as long as possible whilst outwitting an increasing number of computer controlled players. Quick reflexes are definitely needed for this one!

Re: W32/Badtrance

A 3D demake of Rez where the Microsoft Outlook(!) icon produces waves of enemies that need to be shot down as efficiently as possible by locking on to multiple enemies before firing your missiles. With the strap line “Gentlemen, open your Outlook. Go to Cyberterrorism.” maybe Kenta Cho was sick of email back in 2001?

If there’s enough interest I’ll feature more P/ECE games in a future blog post. Let me know on the comments link at the bottom of the page.

20 years later

Here we are in 2021 and Panic’s Playdate will soon be shipping. By now I’m sure you’ve spotted several similarities between the P/ECE and Playdate. The main one being that both devices offer immediate, unfettered access to developers wishing to make their own games, and those games can be side-loaded.

Of course, 20 years is a long time in technology so the Playdate has many improvements compared to what the P/ECE achieved in 2001. More storage, faster CPU, better connectivity, plus a bigger and better screen. Playdate offers cross-platform development using either C or Lua and, and you won’t need a device to develop for the platform. In contrast, P/ECE offered development only for Windows and only in C, plus you needed a device to test your code. A homebrew emulator was eventually released, which is what I’ve used for the screen recordings shown earlier.

Oh, and both devices have names that make web searches a bit tricky. 😅

Specifications Comparison

	Playdate	P/ECE
Manufacturer	Panic	Aquaplus
Release date	2021	2001
Battery (active)	8h	2h
Battery (standby)	2w	1w
Battery (type)	Rechargeable internal battery	1×AA
CPU (type)	STMicroelectronics STM32F746 (ARM Cortex-M7F)	EPSON S1C33209 (32-bit RISC)
CPU (speed)	180 MHz	24 Mhz
Storage (RAM)	16MB	256KB
Storage (Flash)	4GB (3.9GB usable)	512KB (348KB usable)
Device (colour)	Yellow	Silver
Device (dimensions)	76×74×9mm	101×65×17mm
Device (inputs)	D-pad, A, B, Menu, Sleep, Accelerometer, Crank	D-pad, A, B, Start, Select
Device (weight)	85g	92g
Data connection (wired)	USB-C to A	USB-B to A
Data connection (wireless)	Wi-Fi & Bluetooth	Infrared (IR)
Sound (type)	Software synthesis, Digital audio	Software synthesis
Sound (speaker)	Mono	Mono
Sound (headphone)	Stereo	Mono
Display (technology)	Sharp Memory LCD	FSTN LCD
Display (size)	59×35mm (2.7” diagonal)	45×31mm (2.15” diagonal)
Display (resolution)	400×240	128×88
Display (colours)	2 (1-bit)	4 (2-bit greyscale)
Display (rendering)	Software	Software
Software (bundled)	24	6
Software (SDK)	C & Lua	C
Launch price	$179 (¥19000)	¥11000 ($100)

Aquaplus P/ECE: Game Reviews Vol. 2

Get Info: #piece

Aquaplus P/ECE: Game Reviews Vol. 2

Delta Star, by BLACK FTZ

Speed Barricade, by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

Speed Barricade LIVE, by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

Majang Project, by Hiroshi Makabe

ALERT (アラート), by Jumpei Isshiki (HELLO WORLD PROJECT)

Delivery Bird, by Hafupon

Norito, by Gorujii

Aquaplus P/ECE (vs Panic Playdate)

What is it?

Discovery

Selected Games by Kuniake Watanabe

spout

fencer

interground

Selected Games by Kenta Cho (ABA Games)

Barrage Reactor

Speed Barricade

Re: W32/Badtrance

20 years later

Specifications Comparison

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