Actually good April Fools gaming shenanigans?

exodus

ah, the ole mario jump diagram!

fortninety

Eh, I stopped caring about April Fools gags by game companies once Irem stopped doing them.

James-

I’m not the only one that booted up Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams to play as Reala today, right?

exodus

ahhhhh, I forgot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hellomrkearns

Irem always had good ones. From 2002:
Disaster Report limited edition crowbars
https://web.archive.org/web/20040219075014/http://www.irem.co.jp/contents/gallery/aprilfool_02/index.html

More years here https://web.archive.org/web/20110515045430/http://www.irem.co.jp/contents/gallery/index.html

hellojed

Really the one that sticks out to me is LOTR Kart racing as the first announced PSP game, just absolutely weird in the best way, the best mocked up screenshot

exodus

yeah that’s hot stuff. we used to participate in april fools things, and we faked that KOF 98 was coming to the GP32, which is like… who could possibly care. good times

hellomrkearns

Irem 2005 EXIDNA
https://web.archive.org/web/20110612211040/http://www.irem.co.jp/contents/gallery/aprilfool_05/menu/index.html

exodus

I really wanted an exidna…

James-

That exida looks so slick.
I always wanted to get a gp32, but they were quite dead as a thing by the time I learned about them. I supposed I could track one down, but at this point I’m saving up for a PC-98 and an Amiga, so that’s a ways down the list…

exodus

I’ve got a spare GP32 and four games! But both of my GP32s need a slight amount of fixing so… I don’t know when or if that’ll ever happen to where I feel okay selling one.

James-

exodus do they need recapping (as seems to be so popular with classic consoles), or is something else up? Just curious - I don’t actually know a lot about the hardware in those, but I have a real thing for handhelds, so it’s always fun to learn more.

Geoff

The GP32 is a great little system. They were such good portable emulation machines for the time and their native games sometimes had sprite work that looked like Neo Geo games. I’d often play Beats of Rage on it, which literally had Neo Geo sprites. A downside is they are hard to see if you don’t have a lit model. I had a GP32 for a while then eventually traded it to Anna Anthropy for some Saturn games I wanted.

exodus

I don’t know if the caps go in these, and I haven’t opened them up yet. One’s screen doesn’t turn on, which feels like a recap, since no music comes on either. The other works but has mushy buttons, so probably needs some impossible parts replaced, heh. It’s a dangerous mystery!

James-

exodus yeah, the screen/sound sounds like a recap waiting to happen. The mushy buttons is rough - I can’t even imagine where you’d find the parts to make that happen (shy of salvaging a different broken one).

Geoff

The mushy buttons were a real problem with the GP32. Most units seemed to get those. I think I remember people talking about a fix involving putting paper under them or some bizarre thing. I doubt the GP32 forums still exist to find the details though.

exodus

yeah… I have so much broken stuff, I really need to find a good local fixer upper, but nobody in california is doing this stuff that I can find!