Skippy B. Coyote

You are correct, the WayForward team that made Shantae also made a couple other good games using the Shantae engine and Wendy: Every Witch Way was one of them. The other one that I was referring to is Sabrina the Animated Series: Zapped! Both of those games feature the same graphics / sound engine and solid platforming gameplay as Shantae, but they sell for around $16 and $4 respectively. I'd really love to know what happened between January and February of 2009 to make Shantae jump from a fairly reasonable $30 on the secondary market to an astronomical $300'ish, but so far my research hasn't turned up anything. Anyway, here's hoping that one day the YouTube hype wears off and some of the inexplicably expensive "highly collectible" games out there fall back down to the more reasonable prices that they used to go for.

For me what really boggles my mind is the price that Shantae for the Game Boy Color has been going for on eBay for the last few years. Loose carts have been going for around $300 and I'm absolutely befuddled as to why. I know that several popular YouTube game critics have proclaimed it the rarest and best game for the Game Boy Color, but I can think of several games that are harder to find copies of plus another game from the exact same design and development team that made Shantae (using the same graphics engine and similar gameplay mechanics) that goes for all of $4. The more I think about it the more it seems likely that the only reason this one particular game is selling for such insane prices is because some popular YouTube personalities said that it was rare and valuable, and people blew their commentary way out of proportion. I can't seem to find a specific video to link to the insane jump in price, but whatever happened to make the collectors market lose their minds over this one game happened between January and February of 2009; since that's when the selling prices for loose Shantae carts went from $30 to hundreds of dollars in the span of a month. For the previous 7 years that Shantae had been on the market it always sold for $30 or less, but some mysterious event in early 2009 somehow made it's value increase tenfold nearly overnight. What the heck!?

It's a neat idea, but probably kind of pointless since you can get high quality real Nintendo hardware to play your Game Boy / Color / Advance games on for $20 to $40 depending on what model of Game Boy you go for. With the real hardware being so affordable there really isn't any reason to buy a Hyperkin Smart Boy, unless you just like collecting odd gadgets and accessories for your phone.

For me it was just a case of noticing that other people had been playing Paperboy and feeling curious to see how it ran on my favorite handheld. That quickly led to wanting to play a bunch of different versions of the game to see which I liked best. Paperboy is always a great game though, regardless of what platform you play it on.

It was a smaller week than usual for gaming around here, but still a good week with lots of variety. Ineligible Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero (Nintendo Wii) - 179 minutes Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (Nintendo Wii) - 95 minutes Game Boy Battle City (Japanese Import) - 26 minutes Golf - 4 minutes Jack Nicklaus Golf - 24 minutes Mini-Putt (Japanese Import) - 12 minutes Paperboy - 58 minutes PGA Tour 96 - 19 minutes Primal Rage - 12 minutes Speedy Gonzales - 23 minutes Sports Illustrated: Golf Classic - 3 minutes The Sword of Hope - 43 minutes Turrican - 20 minutes Ultra Golf - 10 minutes Xenon 2: Megablast - 12 minutes Game Boy Color Dance Dance Revolution GB: Disney Mix (Japanese Import) - 10 minutes Oha Star Dance Dance Revolution GB (Japanese Import) - 11 minutes Paperboy - 3 minutes Woody Woodpecker Racing - 118 minutes NES Paperboy - 20 minutes PlayStation Dino Crisis - 167 minutes Sega Genesis Paperboy - 7 minutes Sega Master System Paperboy - 3 minutes Total Play Time This Week 879 minutes (14 hours 39 minutes) [605 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Wii: 274 minutes Game Boy: 266 minutes PlayStation: 167 minutes Game Boy Color: 142 minutes NES: 20 minutes Sega Genesis: 7 minutes Sega Master System: 3 minutes This past week my household only logged about half the gaming time of the previous few weeks, but that was largely due to me spending the majority of the week focusing on finishing up a huge project that I had been working on for the last 2 years or so. The project was to put together a comprehensive list of the good games in every genre for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, all of which either received high critical acclaim at the time of their release or were later discovered as hidden gems that received positive reviews by the majority of people who played them. It was an enormous undertaking, looking up and finding critical reviews for every single Game Boy / Color game ever published in North America (as well as Japanese games that featured all English text and European exclusives) but when all was said and done I managed to whittle the 1,600+ games that were published for the Game Boy / Color down to 300+ Game Boy & Game Boy Color Games Worth Playing. Ultimately there ended up being 349 games on the list that I shared publicly, though my personal list does contain an extra 3 games that I know are awful but I personally enjoy them. Titus the Fox, Mortal Kombat, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes to be specific. Most of my gaming time this week was focused doing the last bits of research I needed to do for the aforementioned project, emulating titles I don't own via the Wii and Classic Controller. Some of it was figuring out what the best golf game for the original Game Boy was, since there wasn't a whole lot of information on the subject available online (it ended up being Jack Nicklaus Golf by no small margin, if you're curious), but I also spent some time just figuring out whether or not a few Japanese import games were 100% readable and playable for English speakers. My other side project for the week was trying out all the home console ports of Paperboy that I could to figure out which I liked best, and the winners of that one (based mostly on how well the game controlled) were the NES port followed closely by the Game Boy port; which is essentially just a shrunken down version of the NES game. Of all the games I played over the past week there was one standout favorite though, and I just have to take a moment to recommend this wonderful game to absolutely everyone who enjoys Mario Kart or any other kart racing games! The game in question is, believe it or not, Woody Woodpecker Racing for the Game Boy Color! In spite of it's high critical acclaim I really wasn't expecting much going into this licensed game, but holy cow is it ever amazing! The critics were absolutely spot on about Woody Woodpecker Racing being a phenomenal kart racing title, and it has definitely become my new favorite racing game for the Game Boy / Color. Be sure to check this one out if you're a racing fan with a GBC! As far as my wife's gaming time this week went, it was pretty much all horror all the time. After finishing off Resident Evil Zero on the Wii she started in on Dino Crisis for the PlayStation and has been really enjoying it thus far. She did take a little time to indulge me in a couple games of Woody Woodpecker Racing, mostly to confirm that I wasn't crazy and that it actually was a really good game, and played a little Paperboy on the NES as well. But, for the most part, it was all about the zombies and dinosaurs for her this week. Well, I think that about wraps it up! I've got no idea what next week has in store for my gaming time, but I think it's pretty safe to expect that the misses will be continuing her journey through Dino Crisis. Open the door, find the key on the floor, everybody shoot the dinosaur!

Very nice! I just went with a regular old gray brick DMG, and a olive green biverted backlight to match the color of the original pea soup green Game Boy screen as closely as possible. What can I say? I dig the green on black! I don't blame you for preferring the AGS-001 model SP either. It is a lot easier to see if you're playing out in the sunlight, and a lot of my Game Boy play time happens when I'm outside on smoke breaks so that's why I usually use my Game Boy Color. The lack of a backlight does make it harder to play indoors, but much easier when outside in the sun. At this point my only SP is a 101 model that used to be a pearl pink one, before I went through a ton of work refurbishing it with a purple housing, new screen protector, new L & R trigger contacts, and upgrading the speaker with an aftermarket one that is so loud that the little handheld literally vibrates like a rumble pak whenever the bass kicks. You can see my SP and other Game Boys in my collection thread here. I can't say I've ever owned or used a Game Boy Light, but they do look pretty neat. I just figured that for the price they go for I'd rather have a backlit DMG with an olive green backlight than try to find a nice condition Game Boy Light, but I could definitely see myself picking one up eventually if I ever got lucky enough to stumble on one in like new condition for a cheap price. And oh, you might be pleased to know that I did go ahead and add TMNT II & III to the list above under the Action/Adventure category, and moved the original TMNT to that category as well. While I was at it I also added in a few RPGs that I somehow seem to have accidentally missed when I typed up the list this morning.

Sorry about that! I did strongly considering adding TMNT 2 & 3 to the list but they both received mixed critical reception so I ended up erring on the side of caution. Personally I really like Titus the Fox but I know most people think it's an awful game, so that one ended up getting the axe too sadly. All in all it's not meant to be an 100% complete list of every game that someone might enjoy playing on the GB/GBC, since personal taste is definitely a factor for some games, but I think it's a pretty good starting point since every game on it is widely considered to be "good". Or at least the best representation of their genre available on the GB/GBC, such as in the case of oddball games like Black Bass: Lure Fishing. Not necessarily a "good" game, but still the best option for fishing fanatics with a Game Boy. Also, that's awesome to hear that you got a biverted DMG from Shaun over at GameBoyMods UK! I'm actually going to be ordering an olive green backlit and biverted original DMG from him on Friday, since I've heard his work is fantastic and I've been wanting (and saving up for) a backlit Game Boy for a long time now. Throughout the course of making that list I did all my gaming on either a regular un-modded DMG, a Game Boy Color, or a AGS-101 GBA SP. The Game Boy Color is my favorite handheld thus far (and I'd really like to get a front lit one at some point) but I have a feeling that I'm going to really enjoy my new backlit DMG from Shaun when it arrives.

First off, a huge thank you to Metal Jesus for making such an awesome buying guide video! The Game Boy and Game Boy Color are by far my favorite systems to collect for and I really hope that videos like yours get more people interested in collecting for these wonderful little systems. There's an absolutely enormous amount of fun and high quality games that can be found for them on the cheap, and both the GB and GBC do a great job of capturing that 8-bit NES charm in a portable form factor. Given how much I love the Game Boy / Color, I'd like to do my part to help out those who might be interested in getting into collecting for the Game Boy / Color but might not be sure what the good games to keep an eye out for are. With that in mind, it's taken me a few years of research but I think I've finally managed to put together a pretty comprehensive list of the best games in every genre for the Game Boy / Color. The spoiler tagged list below contains over 350 games, all of which either received high critical acclaim at the time of their release or were later discovered as hidden gems that received positive reviews by the majority of people who played them. Over the course of this long multi-year project I also took the time to play (or maybe "slog through" would be the better term) the myriad of licensed games and sports titles available for these systems to separate the wheat from the chaff and pick out the best licensed games as well as the sports games that offered the most enjoyable representations of their respective sports for both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Also, if a game was released on both the original Game Boy and a backwards compatible Game Boy Color cartridge then I chose the best version of the two. This list is geared towards those living in North America, but I was sure to also include all the critically acclaimed Japanese and European import games I could find that were 100% readable and playable by those who only understand English. Lastly, I have taken the time to include the current average price of each game based on eBay sold listings for loose cartridges with good condition labels in the hopes that it will help make this list a handy quick reference guide for those who might stumble on a game they're interested in out in the wild but aren't sure whether or not the price is good. While the list below may not be a 100% all inclusive list of every last game on the Game Boy / Color that any given person might enjoy playing, I do hope that those interested in the Game Boy / Color find it to be a useful reference guide for the games that are generally considered to be good. Whether you are new to collecting for the Game Boy / Color, a seasoned veteran hunting for some new games to pick up, or just someone looking to fill out their EverDrive GB with quality titles, there should be something for everyone here. Enjoy! 350+ Game Boy & Game Boy Color Games Worth Playing

Hmmm, I might have to go check this place out! It's a pretty short trip from where I live in Saint Paul so I'll probably pop up there at some point next week.

You know, that makes perfect sense. With the handheld market on the decline in the West due to the rise of smartphone and tablet gaming I can definitely see developers trying to save money and reduce risk by localizing lots of popular Japanese games rather than developing larger budget games just for the Western market. Personally I don't mind anime/manga style characters in games (though I do get a bit tired of the sexualization of pre-teen girls that seems to show up in a lot of them), it just seemed odd to me that so much of the current Western handheld gaming market is flooded with games done in this style. Variety is the spice of life after all and there has been a distinct lack of variety in the offerings for Nintendo's portable this generation. Ah well, at least there is a good Resident Evil game so I suppose I can't complain too much.

A lot of people have asked, but they haven't done it yet. It seems like kind of a no-brainer porting Virtual Boy games to the 3DS since both systems use stereoscopic 3D, and personally I'd love to have a compilation of Virtual Boy games that I could play on the 3DS. That'd definitely be a day one purchase for me! But alas, Nintendo still hasn't released any Virtual Boy games for the 3DS so for now I'm just going to enjoy playing Game Boy games in Virtual Boy style with my custom Game Boy Pocket. Not quite the same as getting new Virtual Boy games, but I love the Game Boy and it's game library so I'm still really excited to have a new way to play those games that does homage to one of Nintendo's neatest ill fated systems.

This week I got bit pretty hard by the "I want a new console" bug, but what I decided I wanted isn't something that exists... yet. It occurred to me that it would be really (really) cool if there was a handheld Virtual Boy, maybe about the same size as the Game Boy Pocket, that kept the Virtual Boy external aesthetics but played original Game Boy games in that same "red pixels on a black background" color scheme that the Virtual Boy is so well known for. In 2D of course, I'm not that greedy. After contemplating the matter a bit further I realized that it would indeed be possible to make something just like what I had in mind, using a Game Boy Pocket with a black colored front shell half, red colored rear shell half, custom buttons and D-Pad colored to match the Virtual Boy button and D-Pad colors, and an inverted red backlight. I've already contacted 8bitAesthetics about having them build it and I will be placing my order for the Virtual Boy Pocket next Friday.

Based on what Dave said in the video in the original post its not at all surprising that Resident Evil 7 VR is giving the majority of people who try it VR sickness, since it is a "people simulator" and with the current technology that PSVR (and all the other consumer VR devices for that matter) is using I think it's safe to expect that any game that tries to simulate being a person walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs, or otherwise moving around is going to make most people sick in short order. Pretty much the only type of games the current VR technology can be used for without making the player rapidly start feeling ill are vehicle simulators where you're stationary in a seat/cockpit/etc. But, Sony seems to be really keen on pushing people simulators for the PSVR so I think it's pretty clear how the whole thing is going to turn out. The PSVR will almost undoubtedly be the Virtual Boy all over again, except this time instead of just giving it's users headaches it'll be dishing out substantial quantities of nausea and vomiting.

I've been a long time fan and collector of Nintendo's handhelds, all the way back to the original gray brick Game Boy that was my very first game system. I've always enjoyed the diversity of games and visual styles on the big N's portables, from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color to the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, but this latest generation of 3DS games seems to have a rather odd uniformity in graphical styling. While I haven't ran the numbers to determine the exact percentages, it seems like a bizarrely large amount of 3DS games (especially in the RPG category) feature anime style characters. The more that I think about it, I actually don't think that there is a single RPG available on a physical cartridge for the 3DS that doesn't have anime characters in it; and they seem to have invaded a wide variety of other game genres on the 3DS as well. I never noticed this at all on the original DS and DSi last generation, but it sure seems like whenever I walk into a game store or look at the new 3DS games coming out on gaming news sites about half of them have anime style characters and graphics. What's up with that?

I would say you've been really lucky, but with the number of systems you've encountered it seems like there must be something more than simple luck at play here. Do you live somewhere with very low humidity levels all year? In my experience most of the regular maintenance that NES systems require is due to tarnishing and oxidization of the 72 pin connector and cartridge contacts, but I imagine that if you lived somewhere like Arizona that had consistently low humidity levels year round you might not encounter this issue.

Looking back at what made the Wii successful, it's pretty clear that what mattered the most and allowed it to beat out the competition by no small margin was a low price point and an innovative control system. Those are the big factors that made people run out in droves to buy a Wii, and when third party developers took notice they were quick to either make graphically downgraded ports of their AAA Xbox 360 and PS3 games to suit the Wii's hardware or create entirely new games based on their AAA franchises just for the Wii. This really goes to show that graphical power does not matter nearly as much as many people like to think it does, because if a lower powered system becomes popular then developers will find a way to make their popular games run on it. Taking this into account, it's easy to see why the Wii U failed to get third party support. The price point was too high and the innovation factor was too low (since most people already had tablet computers or touchscreen phones by the time the Wii U came out) so not many consumers bought the system, and because not many consumers bought the system not many developers wanted to put the time and effort into porting their AAA titles to it. To make the NX a success with third party developers Nintendo could just give it a power level similar to that of the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One upgraded systems, but I think we all know that's just not Nintendo's style. Giving the system that kind of horsepower would push the price point higher than they or their customers would like, so I think it's safe to expect that rather than focus on system power Nintendo will bring some new innovation to the table that will (with any luck) capture the imaginations and wallets of the people; and where the people go the developers will follow. That may seem like the hard way to do it, trying to come up with some brand new and exciting innovation rather than just making a "normal" high priced and high powered console, but frankly doing it the hard way is what Nintendo does best.

After being distracted by several other systems over the last month or so, all it took was picking up a new Game Boy game last week to rekindle my enthusiasm for my favorite system to play and collect for; and it definitely shows in my household's statistics for the week! Ineligible The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo Wii) - 230 minutes Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero (Nintendo Wii) - 211 minutes Arcade Centipede - 15 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 6 minutes Game Boy All-Star Baseball 99 - 126 minutes Bases Loaded - 16 minutes Boggle Plus - 25 minutes Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition - 46 minutes Bust-A-Move 3 DX - 4 minutes Bram Stoker's Dracula - 49 minutes Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball - 79 minutes Metroid II: Return of Samus - 452 minutes Mortal Kombat II - 50 minutes Yoshi - 44 minutes Game Boy Color All-Star Baseball 2001- 9 minutes Bust-A-Move 4 - 13 minutes Bust-A-Move Millennium - 10 minutes Dance Dance Revolution GB - 12 minutes Monopoly - 252 minutes NES Baseball Stars - 55 minutes Total Play Time This Week 1,704 minutes (28 hours 24 minutes) [1,263 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Game Boy: 891 minutes Nintendo Wii: 441 minutes Game Boy Color: 296 minutes NES: 55 minutes Arcade: 21 minutes The time I spent playing Bram Stoker's Dracula for last week's tracker post really got me interested in playing and collecting for the Game Boy again, so most of my gaming time this week (aside from my ongoing and seemingly endless quest to finish the enormously long The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii) was spent trying out new Game Boy games that I've been considering buying via emulation on the Wii and playing a couple old favorites on my Game Boy Color. For the new games this week I decided that my Game Boy collection and wants list were woefully lacking in sports titles, so even though I've never been a huge fan of sports games I decided to do some research to learn what all the best sports games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color were. Being the height of summer right now, baseball seemed like the best place to start! I ended up spending a bit of time playing all the Game Boy baseball games that I could find positive reviews of and one that just looked like it had the potential to be good, and (strangely enough) the one that I ultimately enjoyed the most and thought was hands down the best baseball game for the original Game Boy was the one that I couldn't find a single review of but thought it looked good: All-Star Baseball 99. The graphics blew the rest of the competition out of the water, the controls worked great, and the gameplay was fun and satisfying. I just played a couple simple exhibition games because I honestly don't know baseball well enough to understand all the customization options and statistics in the game, but it did seem like it had a lot of interesting stuff for those that do have a more thorough understanding of baseball. I also had a lot of fun with Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, but the batting mechanics in that one never quite gave me enough time to determine where the ball was going before deciding to swing or not and fielding was nearly impossible to control well without turning on "auto fielding" in the options and letting the computer do most of the work. It was still a really fun game though, and definitely one I'd pick up if I stumbled across a copy in the wild; since it did have great visuals and the gameplay (the pitching especially) was more fast paced and arcade style than that of All-Star Baseball 99. Ken Griffey was a great game for playing in short bursts when I just wanted a quick gaming fix, whereas All-Star Baseball was more of a "sit down and play for an hour" sort of affair. On average I think it took about half the time to play a full game of Ken Griffey MLB that it took me to play a game of All-Star Baseball, largely due to the faster, simpler, and more personally enjoyable pitching mechanics in Ken Griffey. Overall I still think that All-Star Baseball 99 is the best playing and best looking baseball game on the original Game Boy, but Ken Griffey Presents Major League Baseball is a pretty close second! When I wasn't playing various baseball games this week I spent the rest of my time revisiting and playing through some old favorites like Metroid II: Return of Samus and Mortal Kombat II, then spent a bit of time trying out all the different Bust-A-Move games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color via emulation to figure out which ones I liked the best. Of the four options out there for GB/GBC I think Bust-A-Move Millennium for the GBC was definitely the best and had the most variety to offer, though Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition for the original Game Boy is still a very worthwhile pickup for any fan of the old gray brick. As far as my wife's gaming time this week goes, she got in on the baseball craze this week a little too by joining me in a game of Baseball Stars on the NES; but the majority of her time for the week was spent once again wandering the hallowed halls of Resident Evil Zero. She did play a little Bust-A-Move 2 when she noticed me trying it out, since she's always had a soft spot for the Bust-A-Move series being that the original was the first arcade game she ever played, but for the most part she just stuck to RE: 0 and I get the impression that she's actually pretty close to beating it at this point. That's all the gaming news that's fit to print from around here for this week!

I think I went through a very similar situation over the last year, which was pretty well documented start to finish in my How To Narrow Down The Number Of Systems You Collect For? thread. I know you're not looking to reduce the number of systems you collect for, but sometimes changing how exactly you collect games for the systems that interest you can make all the difference when it comes to staying focused and enjoying the hobby within your budget. What I mean by that long convoluted sentence is that for me (and a good number of other people it seems) the solution to the problem of how to get continual enjoyment out of collecting and not get burnt out on it or lose interest in the systems you collect for is to take the systems that interest you and divide them into two categories. Category 1 will contain just the systems that have a deep personal significance to you, such as the systems you grew up with or systems that you have really fond memories of playing during particularly happy times in your life. These are the systems that you love and appreciate for more than just the games you can play on them, because they're special to you for personal reasons that go beyond their game selection, aesthetics, rarity, or any other reason that anybody else who isn't you and hasn't lived your own unique life might find appealing about them. Try to keep the number of systems in this category to 4 or less if you can. Now for Category 2. This is the category for all the systems that you like to play and find enjoyable to collect for that don't have a deep personal significance to you, and goodness knows most of us have quite a few systems that fall into this category. Once you've got all the systems you own or want to own divided up, then comes the tricky part. For the systems that found their way into Category 1, just doing what you have been doing. Collect, play, and enjoy as usual. No changes required. For Category 2 though there are some changes in store, and my suggestion for what to do with all the systems in this category is to shift your focus from collecting physical discs or cartridges to collecting all the games you want for these systems in digital form to play using either a flash cart, backup discs, or with an emulator. I know that can be a tough pill to swallow, but it doesn't mean that you have to stop collecting for those Category 2 systems; it's just finding a new way to collect for those systems that you might really enjoy playing but don't have the kind of personal significance that would make you happy spending a small fortune building up a large library of physical games for them. Spend a lot (and I mean a lot) of time reading up online to find out what all the good games for your Category 2 systems are, make long lists of everything you might want to play on those systems, then find reputable sources to download all the games on your lists from. From there you can rename the files to clean them up in a way that will suit your personal organization system, curate the files into neatly organized folders, and work on getting your digital collections just the way you want them. It's still collecting, just a different (and much more affordable) way to go about doing it for the systems that don't have the same level of deep personal importance to you as your Category 1 systems. While this method may not be for everyone it certainly has worked for me, and vastly increased my enjoyment of both playing and collecting games. In fact, it worked so well that after trying it out for a few months I ended up selling off all but a handful of games for all my Category 2 systems and putting the money from all those sales into my Category 1 libraries; and I couldn't be happier about it. I went from feeling like I could never really decide what systems to collect for any given month and never feeling truly satisfied with my collection to genuinely loving and appreciating every game in my collection of physical games and no longer feeling torn about what systems to collect for, because I now have every game I could ever want to play for all of those Category 2 systems. And in the process I also ended up discovering and finding a great deal of enjoyment in several new Category 2 systems, which I probably would have never even considered trying due to their cost if I was only collecting physical games. It was a big change in the way I think about playing and collecting games, and it didn't happen overnight (it actually took about 8 months to sort it all out), but it definitely made an enormous difference in my enjoyment of both collecting and playing games. It might not be the right solution for everyone, but it's certainly an option to consider if you're not happy with how your current collecting efforts are going. P.S.: If you'd like to try this method out without committing large sums of money to flash carts or emulating games on a computer then a Nintendo Wii soft modded with the Homebrew Channel coupled with a Classic Controller makes an excellent budget friendly way to try out collecting and playing digital libraries for nearly every 8 and 16-bit system.