I had so much fun with the last batch of comics that I decided to visit the same comic shop and raid their dollar comic rack again, especially since I now know what the look for. In particular, I was interested in comics from the 1990s, when video games really took off, and advertising thereof ramped up commensurately. This score wasn’t as dramatic with only 8 comics:

Another pile of comics (click for larger image)

I was finding a lot of good stuff but noticed it was already in the database. These were the only issues I found with new material,

As of this writing, I have entered all of the scans into the database, all except 3. I have been putting these off since they are all double-page scans that require extra effort:

Double-page video game ads (click for larger image)

Two of them are from stapled comics so those should be rather simple to disassemble, scan piecemeal, and stitch together. The other has a glued spine, so I get to do that trick I’ve read about of heating up the spine with a hair dryer.

Note that one of the above ads (for Wild Arms) is actually a fold-in (apparently popularized by Mad Magazine). I’m thinking I may need to stitch together an example of the folded product and submit that separately.

I seem to have hit a point of diminishing returns pretty quickly on this front, at least with this particular comic shop. I may have to raid other comic shops in the area to see if any have similar deals on old comics.

As I mentioned in my 2018 year end review, I managed to make it through the entire year without acquiring any new games (classic, physical games; not counting Steam games here). Not for lack of trying, mind you. It’s just that a lot of my usual sources have dried up. I had a favorite local thrift store that I discovered in 2008, when I was still playing a lot of old games for this blog. I probably procured at least 150 games from that shop, if I were to estimate off the top of my head. In the last few years, they seemed to have fewer and fewer games, moving them around the large shop occasionally so I would have to go hunting. Then it closed entirely. So, R.I.P. to that thrift shop.

Further, I found an eBay shop that still somehow had loads of games that weren’t in MobyGames (entry 1, entry 2, and entry 3 describing the numerous interesting finds from these stores). I decided to check up on the store again late last year, and of course it was no more.

I finally have an acquisition breakthrough, though! A few weeks ago, I had a little time to kill at a comic shop. I hadn’t visited such a shop in a rather long time. As I was about to leave, I found a rack stuffed with classic comics, each costing a single US dollar. I picked up a stack of 24 comics. A sampling:

A pile of old comics (click for larger image)

Nifty stuff, eh? One of them (Warlock and the Infinity Watch) presents the aftermath of the Infinity Gauntlet. That seems like it would be more valuable than a dollar, especially with the recent success of the MCU Infinity War movie. But I’m no collector. (The shop also had a comic featuring Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet— it was hanging on the wall, carefully protected and professionally graded, asking US$200.)

Wait, what does this have to do with video game history? As of last October, MobyGames now accepts magazine advertisements. It wasn’t the front covers of the comics on this rack that caught my eye– it was the video game advertisements on the back covers.

Video game advertisements on the back covers of various comics (click for larger image)

This is some good stuff. Did you know there was an interactive fiction (think Zork) game for The Incredible Hulk? There’s the ad for it. Some of these issues are real gold mines for old video games ads. In particular, I am finding a sweet spot in early 1990s comic book ads. Some of these comics will have 5-7 video game ads.

I definitely anticipate returning to the shop to scavenge more comics with unsubmitted advertising, especially now that I know what to look for.

See also:

• The collection of promo art images I have contributed to MobyGames

I first learned of VTech’s V.Flash console in late 2006. Shortly thereafter, I purchased a game to be played on the system so that I could study the optical format and understand the data formats therein (it’s a weird hobby of mine).

Eventually, I found a new in box V.Flash console for relatively cheap and snatched it up. It arrived but I never got around to opening it at the time. I have accumulated several more games for the system in the meantime. I got it down from a shelf today:

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I thought it had only been 6 or 7 years since I bought the system. Turns out that it was almost 9 years ago that I picked it up:

I checked my Amazon order records for more details– turns out that I only paid about US$26 for it. I guess I snagged it during what is called “the trough of no/low value” because when I look it up now, asking prices for an NIB unit are substantially higher.

Surprisingly, there are no YouTube unboxing videos for this thing. So I guess it falls to me. Unboxing videos aren’t really my thing. Instead, please accept this series of photos documenting various aspects of the unit and its packaging. There is a lot to cover.

Just when I think I might be hitting a point of diminishing returns, I find 16 more items on my new favorite eBay store that don’t show up in the MobyGames database.

This lot contains 2 items that are in obscure franchises first seen in my last acquisition log entry (Dropout Trivia and Brain Bytes):

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• Earth Scout: Another in the “Brain Bytes Bite-Size Learning Fun” series. 1999 title that purports to teach geography skills. From Edmark, by now an IBM company.
• Search & Rescue 3: From Global Star Software, copyright date unknown. MobyGames has a number of the games in this series, but not this one yet.
• Dropout Entertainment Trivia Game: Presumably the entertainment counterpart to the sports variant I found for the last entry. 1996 game from Elsinore, published by WizardWorks.
• Jubilee’s Journey: “A Jane Goodall environmental journey”. 1996 educational game from Mind Magic.

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• Enemies From Space: A SoftKey release of “the next generation of an arcade classic”. 1997 title by TLC Properties, a subsidiary of The Learning Tree. The screenshots look a bit Galaga-like. The cover art also promises 10 free hours of Compuserve.
• The Fox & The Pussy Cat: This is a Mumbo Jumbo title and I usually expect better from them. However, the screenshots on cover art of this 2004 game are fairly uninspired, appearing about 10 years out of date.
• Slot Car Racing: It’s possible that this is supposed to have “3-D” as a prefix; I’m not quite sure. The cover art does state that a 3D video card is required. 1998 game by Toys by Phil and published by ValuSoft.
• Race Driver: Another rather generically-named game. This one is from Codemasters. It comes with 3 discs. There are 2 copies of disc 1, one in English and one in French, while disc 2 is marked as data. The database already contains several racing games from Codemasters, but I can’t match this one to any of the ones on record.

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• World of Shooting 2005: The title of this game from WS Enterprise is rather to the point. The title also implies that there are other versions for different years. MobyGames has no record of these.
• Clue: A DVD game of the venerable classic board game. Copyright 2006 by Hasbro.
• Ann’s Learning Games: 1994 game from Putnam New Media. The title implies multiple educational games.
• Jammin’ In Jamaica: A 2003 title from Mattel. Since it’s from Mattel, I figured it might possibly be a game. However, it bears no ESRB badge. It also says “Approximately 44 minutes, color, not rated”, so perhaps it’s just a multimedia disc exhibiting a video.

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• Canada Hunt: I suspect this is another in the venerable genre of hunting games, only set in Canada. 2009 title, and the companies mentioned include “Maximum Family Games” and “PSR Outdoors: The Most Realistic Hunting Games”.
• Deep Sea Explorer: Another MatchBox title, “with real U.S. Coast Guard video!” 1999 title.
• Casual Combo Collection: Shovelware collection which seems to consist of 4 color-matching games: Woodville Chronicles, Wizard Land, Age of Emeralds, and Lost in Reefs. Published by ValuSoft-Cosmi.
• Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness! Another hidden objects game. 2012 game from Fugazo. It has a ratings system I haven’t heard of before: Family Friendly Ratings Council, or FFRC. I recommend that you not visit the site directly as it’s home to a pr0n squatter. If you must visit, check out the last Web Archive version before the squatter took over.

I have been raiding my new favorite eBay store for stuff that isn’t yet present in the database. This store happens to have lots of cheap games and a surprisingly large collection missing from MobyGames. I load up my eBay shopping cart until such cart gets too heavy to push (this might sound like a joke but it’s true– after a certain point, it took way too long to add a new item to the shopping cart; after 29 discs, I had to call it quits).

This batch was heavy on trivia, i.e., there were at least 2 items revolving around trivia:

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• Sci-Fi Channel Trivia Game: 1996 game by Byron Preiss Multimedia
• Dropout Sports Trivia Game: It’s a sports trivia game. It seems to be crossed with some kind of grid puzzle game. Curiously, you can play this against an AI opponent, which strikes me as a tad unfair. Copyright 1996 Elsinore Multimedia, distributed by good old WizardWorks. I have also learned that there were other trivia games under the Dropout umbrella.
• Neopets Codestone Quest: I don’t know much about NeoPets. I was concerned it was the sort of thing that might need extra physical components, like Skylanders. This is by Mumbo Jumbo, though, and I’ve enjoyed all of their games so far.
• The Scavenger Hunt Series: Africa: Possibly a hidden object game, long before that was an established genre category. Copyright 1993-1994 from oddly-stylized SWeDE Corporation.

Here are the educational acquisitions from this raid:

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• Reading Roller Coaster: 1998 educational title from Edmark, an IBM company. “Brain Bytes: Byte Size Learning Fun!” might be a series of educational titles.
• Trailblazer: This is a 1994 CD adventure by the legendary MECC (of Oregon Trail fame) and it surprises me that it’s not in the database yet. Therefore, possibly not a game.
• Richard Scarry’s Busytown: Best Activity Center Ever: Designed for 3 to 7 year olds. 1998 educational game from Simon & Schuster.
• Animal Genius: A 2008 game from Artech Studios. The cover art promises 5 addictive games, likely pertaining to animals. The cover art is sharp but the screenshots look shockingly primitive for a 2008 title. I’m wagering this was a set of Flash games for the web that was later packaged and sold on a disc.

And here are the girl-oriented titles from the lot I procured:

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• Rider’s World: I Want to Ride: I have covered 2 horse-riding series on this blog so far (Let’s Ride and Time to Ride). Based on the colonized title “I Want To Ride”, I’m guessing there are other titles in this series. Copyright 2006 and the companies mentioned are Aipirinha Games, Calibre, and CDV.
• Girl Talk: The CD-ROM Game of Truth or Dare: Rated E for everyone, which doesn’t really square with what I’ve always heard about Truth or Dare sessions. 1998 game by Humancode and published by Hasbro. Perhaps positioned as competition for Mattel’s contemporary Barbie games.
• Atomic Betty: Intergalactic Conspiracy: This feels like it might be based on an existing cartoon property. Sure enough. From Brighter Minds in 2006 (I’ve played some of their stuff).

A grab bag of gaming oddities:

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• The Game of Komando City: This 1997 title promises to be a game of some sort (the word is right there in the title). A little more googling indicates that this is some kind of computer training. Companies mentioned include Komando Corporation, Peak Interactive, and AT&T WorldNet Service (the latter is probably an ISP offer).
• Camp Make-A-Wacky: 1996 kids game (possibly edutainment) from Turner New Media.
• Tearstone: “A mind-bending hidden object adventure!” This is a hidden object game. I still have yet to actually play a hidden object game. I have a feeling that it’s easy points for MobyGames. Copyright date is confusingly listed as 2002-2013. Companies mentioned are Tag Publishing as well as ValuSoft-Cosmi, which is the first time I realized that those 2 purveyors of budgetware had merged.

And now we come to the section of “stuff that almost certainly contains no gaming elements but is still interesting”:

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• Internet The City (2 CD-ROMs): A Guided Tour Through The Internet. No copyright date on either of the disc. From Simply Interactive. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that their URL simply.com doesn’t host their original site anymore.
• How To Computers: 1994 learning title from CRT Multimedia. I feel like they were decades ahead of the trend, grammar-wise (“How to ‘noun’” seems to be a recent fad). This promised to teach word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and desktop publishing.
• Art Explosion: Seasons, Events, & Holidays: 1998 title from Nova Development Corporation. 15,000 sensational images for year-round celebrations.
• Virgin’s One Tribe: I didn’t get a close-up picture of this title on eBay. I just saw it was a Virgin Interactive title, and that it didn’t show up on MobyGames. I was hoping it was a missing game. Not quite: “An interactive encyclopedia of people and cultures.”

And a final grab bag of general oddities:

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• 3D Action & Adventure: A 1994 Shovelware disc
• Dennis Miller: That’s Geek To Me: 1995 title by Sanctuary Woods.
• TesselMania!: The art and design tool, also by MECC. Create tesselated images.

As the years wear on, it’s getting harder and harder to find games that A) are not in my collection and B) are not yet in the MobyGames database. Yet it’s not completely impossible.

I recently learned that MobyGames added support some time ago for VTech V.Flash games, yet has no entries as of this writing. This educational console’s entire library is 9 games large. I procured a brand new V.Flash console many years ago and it remains in the box. This game is the 4th V.Flash game I have thus far acquired– Bratz Fashion Pixiez: The Secret Necklace:

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I have 5 more games in the entire library to collect. I have resolved to get them all into the database someday.

I used to go scavenging on eBay for video game lots. You don’t have to acquire very many lots before you hit a point of diminishing returns, when you already own a significant number of items in the lot. Instead, I have recently found a few eBay stores that have lots of less expensive old CD-ROM games and which offer reasonable shipping rates when grouping multiple items. This is almost as good as those old lots I used to snatch up.

Here are some recent acquisitions that aren’t in the database yet:

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It wasn’t until I started composing this post that I realized how well 2 of these covers (Final Conflict and The Unexplained) fit when placed next to each other.

• Cluefinders: Secret of the Living Volcano: Many items from this educational franchise are already in the database but this one has slipped through.
• Air Commanders: A 1995 title published by Softkey. Aerospace Publishing Ltd. is also mentioned, as is QSound (sound tech company).
• Riddle of the Runes: The Worlds of TSR: Copyright 1995, mentions Front Street Publishing and U.S. Gold. The acronym ‘TSR’ has a (TM) symbol, so I’m guessing it has something to do with the company that created Dungeons & Dragons.
• Final Conflict: There are numerous games in the database that already include the words “Final Conflict” in their titles. But this 1997 game from Rhode Island (R.I.) Soft Systems (tagline: “Software Engineered to be the Best”) and Sound Source Interactive has somehow slipped through the cracks. I can’t quite tell what kind of game it is, but I think it’s either RTS or 4X.
• The Unexplained: Not a game, but rather an “Interactive Documentary” about, well, the unexplained. 1996 CD-ROM from FlagTower.
• Warren Miller’s Ski World: Also not a game, but rather The Complete Multimedia Guide to Skiing. Windows and Mac CD-ROM published by MultiCom Publishing.

And finally, a few acquisitions that are already represented in the database:

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• Rebel Runner – Operation: Digital Code: 1994 action game, hearkening back to a time when ‘cyber’ was a trendy new word.
• This Means War!: 1995 game published by MicroProse.
• Fighter Wing: 1995 Flight Combat simulator.
• Force 21: 1999 RTS game from Red Storm. MSN Internet is also mentioned on the disc art, so I guess AOL didn’t have a monopoly on that yet.
• Ski Resort Extreme: Build your own ski resort. I have an impressive collection of these managerial games that I never get around to playing.
• Everest: A 1999 Mt. Everest climbing simulation published by GT Interactive.