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Supervision: handheld of the less fortunate


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Today I've added blister pack insert scans for 2-in-1 Hash Block / Eagle Plan, Alien, and Dream World. The game instructions archive has also been added to: Especially take note of the Italian version of the Honey Bee instructions, which feature hand-written corrections that were simply xeroxed into the finished product! Amazing!! Finally, the ridiculous “Supervision ninja” makes his second appearance, courtesy Watary Italia's fabulous stickers.

 

www.diskman.com/presents/supervision


svninja.jpg

 

^ - You just can't make this stuff up. :o

Edited by DeathAdderSF
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some of the games still to me give off that vibe of being just so bad it could be good situation

 

Hm... well, maybe. There are a handful of Supervision games that are passably okay, namely...

 

Block Buster

Crystball

Hero Hawk

John Adventure

Kung-Fu Street

Police Bust

Sssnake

 

...but passably okay does not a justifiable purchase make. Besides, they're all poor man's rip-offs of better games. Just get an original b&w Game Boy and have instant access to hundreds of great games. Remember, folks: I'm a Supervision collector out of sheer curiosity and in the best interest of preservation. I get "done" w/all this, everything's going up for sale. :waving:

 

BTW: Some folks'll tell you that the game Chimera is a good purchase. Well, if you like games that can't be beaten due to being unfinished then yes, it's actually a decent enough conversion. But for whatever reason, either the programming was never finished, or an unfinished version was accidentally slapped on the cartridges.

Edited by DeathAdderSF
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Oh I know there are interestingly alright stuff due to being knockoffs. It's just more the passing value of something so bad it's good that's all. I've had a Gameboy in some form or another since 1989 and have plenty of them right now (every make including Light) with almost 70 carts between the GB and GBC plus an everdrive so I'm good. :P

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How did I forget Super Kong? Super Kong is OK too.

 

I've had a Gameboy in some form or another since 1989 (including Light)

 

The GB Light is pretty cool, isn't it? I picked one up at the Classic Gaming Expo, like, 500 years ago, for $10. Really tragic that was never marketed here in the States. The Game Boy absolutely killed my eyes, when I was a teenager. The Supervision, on the other hand, that just kills my fun. :P

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Well you got me beat on price, still I got lucky earlier this year finally getting one. Earlier this year, stupid luck of timing and price I was able to buy one off an American on facebook for like $80 and other than a few very tiny spots, not so much even scratches on the back battery plate it's a spotless silver one. I usually keep it in this black leather Nintendo embroydered pouch case I have, though I actually do like to use it. The screen on it was surprisingly clear and nice like the Pocket, but the nice soft green glow in the dark option it has works very well in low and no light situations. I understand why it never came out here, it wasn't being poor or too expensive, but the regional delay off Japan would have had it within months of the GBC which would have killed it. It's fantastic. I treat it with kid gloves, but it would be criminal not using it letting it rot.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Today's tantalizing website update...

I finally picked up a sort-of-like-new, boxed Magnum Supervision. I've been wanting one of those for a while, don'cha know. I've added scans of the box and instructions now, just for you. I also managed to get the kinda elusive Sonny X'Press complete in blister pack. So in case any of you were “going ape” over the insert & instructions not being available on the website, they're here now.

What else, what else... OH! There's a scan of a Sonny sticker! Yep. It was adhered to the Sonny X'Press blister package, but I carefully removed it. No more monkey business with this last update: a rather uninteresting Hartung Supervision sticker. That's it for today.

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  • 1 month later...

Holy schnikes! I was finally able to make high-quality scans of all the Supervision cartridge label variations that I own. Are you ready for a heaping helping of bad artwork? Then you've come to the right place.

Special thanks to Frank Cifaldi for suggesting an effective way to scan the uniquely shaped (inconveniently humped!) cartridges: by laying them over the edge of an 0.93 inch sheet of acrylic. I had to use a Canon 5600F scanner to get sharp, clear images, as my Epson Perfection V39 has a severe case of nearsightedness.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I played Supervision for the first time yesterday, and ended up beating the tennis game (Tennis Pro '92) on all difficulties. It's actually a halfway-decent tennis engine, except that they didn't bother to code in the long-standing tennis rule that you have to let your opponent's serve bounce before you can hit it back. Oh, well, that just made it easier to cheese with volleys at the net. :)

 

Meanwhile Cave Wonders is a little roguelike that appears to be a clone of, or at least a cousin to, Konami's Cave Noire for Game Boy. Interesting.

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Tennis Pro 92 was coded by B.I.T.S in the UK, which developer later "Beneath a Steel Sky".

Their other game on the Supervision is Olympic Trials (developed under the "Divide by Zero" name).

Usually decent games on the Supervision come from Sachen (AKA Thin Chen and Joy Van).

The worst come from Bon treasure, with only a few ones that are playable. You can recognize the Bon Treasure games by their absolute lack of scrolling implementation, slow games, and lack of transparency around any sprite.

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Yes, they are... or course, because you have less everything (color, pixels, etc :D ).

Yeah, they are playable and show that Sachen programmers were decent programmers.

 

I suppose that when they jumped in the NES/Famicom bandwagon the extra capabilities and need to learn a new programming language (moving from Z80 CPU to a 65C02) were a huge obstable. Most likely too, they were in financial difficulty and couldn't afford to spend too much time to develop proper NES games.

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  • 1 month later...

Bought a blister pack version of the QuickShot Supervision online, kindly asked the seller to please protect the cardstock insert against potential shipping damage. So of course, the guy crams the thing into a box an inch too short, and the insert gets bent. Well, whatever. I could still get a scan. And now, that scan is online. I also updated the grey box scans to include the Block Buster & Cross High 2-in-1. Enjoy!

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Depends of who is involved.

Obscure systems like those are kind of the last Graal of video gaming.

It's like trying to find the Nintendo World's Championship cart, but without the extra pressure of having a million of other people on it.

Whe nyou find a game, it's just there, waiting for you, forgotten, in an ad with typos and with a blurry pic...

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It's hard to tell. It depends on your market. Here, I can find a loose or even boxed Supervision with 3 to 5 games for 25 to 40€. The difficult part is more to find loose games, and then, specific games. It's one of those systems where you almsot consistently have to buy a lot of games to get only one.

 

https://www.leboncoin.fr/consoles_jeux_video/1613950597.htm/

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Sounds pretty accurate from what I've seen. That's kind of how the Tiger R-Zone/XPG handheld works in the US. The games can be found easily enough, prices can be simple cheap to idiotic if you feed a troll, but if you want that specific game for interests or to complete a set, you'll get pounded or buy a lot and have to deal with parting that back out then in turn. You'll want to be more into it and committed or just nuts.

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  • 3 months later...

All righty then! The page for the single-game cartridge version of Cross High actually has some content on it now, but don't get excited 'cuz it's just some screenshots and a note about the (non-)ending.

 

While preparing this stuff, I've been listening to the soundtrack of the far superior Motocross Maniacs for the Game Boy: the game Cross High poorly ripped off. Irony? Or just common sense? Maybe a little bit of both.

 

www.diskman.com/presents/supervision

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10 hours ago, famicommander said:

I have a Supervision with a boxed TV link and a bunch of games. I never, ever play any of it. I'd like to get rid of all of it but I don't really know what it's worth.

 

I sent you a PM about that. In the least, I can give you some pointers about what you have.

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