• • The Pul Star • •

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

Hardware: Mechanical game

Dump Status: Undumped

Mograpper (モグラッパー) is a mechanical arcade rhythm game from Sega that's inspired by whack-a-mole!

The game uses 7 buttons, and the goal of the game is to copy the teacher's phrase (shown as a sequence of red lights on the buttons) when it's your turn.

Similarly to Parappa the Rapper, you play as a rapping mole named Mog who almost always copies the exact phrase the teacher said, and similarly to Space Channel 5, the gameplay is entirely memory-oriented.

There are 5 stages, 4 of them being selectable at the start of a game while the 5th can be accessed as a bonus stage. Each stage has a different genre:

- POP (Easy) "LET'S DIGGIN MOG&MOLE"

- REGGAE (Normal) "PEACEFUL DRUNKEN DIGGY"

- HOUSE (Hard) "DANCE QUEEN CREOPATRA"

- FUNK (Expert) "WITH MY PARTY CREW!!"

Each song has their own teacher, yet the only character design is just the top half of Mog shown in the game's art, due to the game's nature as a mechanical game instead of a video arcade game. This leaves all characters besides the player as a disembodied voice.

Each song has 2 parts to it, and the way you get to the second part is by having a NICE or GREAT rank when the first part ends*. If you have a GOOD rank or below, the game will end, with the announcer saying "thank you see you again!"

Unfortunately, this game appears to be extremely rare, as there are very few videos online of this game being played. Some of the few videos that show it even appear to be at the same location! Not only is it rare, but a few buttons on many machines are broken, meaning they can't play the second part of any song, the bonus song, and one of them even has the button for selecting the HOUSE stage broken!

This game also had a soundtrack CD released. It revealed the names for all 5 songs, including the bonus stage: "DANGEROUS CRUSHER WORLD!" The CD also contained arrangements of each song in the game. Strangely, the arrange "LET'S DIGGIN MOG&MOLE - GROW SOUND MIX" uses the vocals from Dangerous Crusher World.

The CD booklet contains lyrics for each of the 5 songs, however it also has a small disclaimer that each song was transcribed by ear. This explains how so much broken english such as "Can you fun? Up to wow you won?" ended up in the booklet.

*This is purely based on inferences and can't be directly confirmed currently due to the game's undumped status.

I've set up comms on Ko-Fi, which you can find right here: ko-fi.com/pulstar/commissions

They're all set up as starting options, and you can add different elements on to them to make it what you want!!

Part 2: @fluffncandys @lappy--486 @pulstar-tb treenon_ on Artfight @pupperoniiii @fl0werfieldz @marvazoid @emotionthread @igasom @bell-hell @purpoishy @aleckzandur AverageAsianArtist on deviantART Keys_of_mystery on Artfight @missnessabless @rawcalamity cocooreku on Tiktok And the last two paintings are of adoptable animal's from an animal shelter Beanie Weenie from OakTreeCrewInc

And Liv from BARKS_Dog_Rescue

Developer: VEB Polytechnik

Publisher: VEB Polytechnik

Hardware: U880

Dump Status: Dumped

Poly-Play is a multigame arcade machine developed in East Germany. It is the only arcade cab to be produced in the GDR. Only around 2,000 machines were actually produced.

The machine's coin slot, while designed for a 50 Pfennig coin, was able to be tricked easily by pressing a coin on the top of the slot. However, this exploit was tolerated as the machine wasn't entirely meant to make money, as it was a state-owned machine found in hostels and non-profit clubs.

The machine contained 8 games, many are clones of pre-existing games.

1. Hirschjagd (Deer Hunt) - Plays similarly to Robotron: 2084. You have 10 shots, and must shoot the deer that moves and loops around the screen. All shots that hit the deer won't lose ammo, and you have 15 seconds to shoot the deer or you'll lose another shot.

2. Hase und Wolf (Hare and Wolf) - Pac-Man clone that's based on the Soviet cartoon Nu, pogodi!, which was popular in the GDR.

3. Abfahrtslauf (Downhill) - Skiing game where you have to ski between flags. The space between the flags often varies.

4. Schmetterlinge (Butterflies) - Game where you have to catch butterflies with a net while scattered flowers block your way.

5. Schießbude (Shooting Gallery) - Carnival clone. Each of the 3 rows have a multiplier that can be increased if the multiplier fields at the top are shot at. If you're not careful, the duck enemies can steal your ammo!

6. Autorennen (Motor Race) - Simple racing game where your red car must win 2 of 4 rounds.

7. Merkspiel (Memory Game) - Game where several icons are shown to you, then are turned into ?'s. You have to select the icons that were shown from left to right.

8. Wasserrohrbruch (Water Pipe Burst) - Game where you prevent a room from flooding by catching waterdrops in a bucket. The bucket can be emptied out in windows.

Some specific machines (MAME romset polyplay2) have 10 games total, including exclusive games such as:

- UFO - Another shooting game where you shoot at several UFOs.

- Der Taucher (The Diver) - Game where you dodge fish.

- Der Gärtner (The Gardener) - Game where you have to keep watering flowers while spiders try to destroy them.

- Im Irrgarten (In the Maze) - Maze game with fullscreen 1st person psuedo-3D visuals.

- AFU - You control a spaceship flying through an asteroid belt. You survive by shooting the asteroids, but you only have so much energy to move vertically.

- Der Lindwurm (The Lindworm) - You play as a worm that has to sneak up on oncoming birds from behind to knock them down. Getting hit anywhere else will end up with the bird eating the worm.

The names of other games have been found in the source code:

- Im Gewächshaus (In the Greenhouse)

- Hagelnde Wolken (Hailing Clouds)

Multiple copies of the game can be found in various museums and other locations, such as the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, RetroGames e.V. in Germany, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and the Science Museum in London.

Developer: Mizi Production

Publisher: EM-Teck

Hardware: Unknown PC-based hardware

Dump Status: Dumped

Bug Busters is a lightgun railshooter themed around bug extermination. The main gimmick to this game is that, instead of a gun, you now use an optical aerosol can controller! It actually shoots air, and you even have to shake the can in order to reload!

The game's plot is relatively simple: there's an evil scientist named Zizerbung who wants to contaminate the world completely with bugs, while Dajaba and Gadoori have to stop him.

Each stage has the simple format of shoot several waves of enemies, and fight a boss at the end. All of the visuals for each stage are done with sprites overlayed on top of FMVs.

This game is also unusually long for a non-endless arcade game, as most playthroughs end up being around an hour or more!

Many audio assets are stolen from other game series, such as Vampire Killer from Castlevania being used for the game's intro animation.

Interestingly, the game was later reworked in 2004 under Andamiro as Spray Gun. This version of the game has a very different cabinet design with a lower screen, most likely intended for children. The FMVs were also completely re-rendered with different character designs. This version of the game also turned it into a ticket redemption game.

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Hardware: Konami System 573 Digital

Dump Status: Dumped

MAMBO A GO GO is a one-off arcade rhythm game by Konami, as part of their BEMANI rhythm game franchise. This game is pretty notable for its visual style, as well as TOMOSUKE (of Orange Lounge fame) being the sound director.

Similarly to many BEMANI series being played with some sort of instrument, MAMBO A GO GO utilizes 3 conga drums. Each has a large main area, as well as two smaller areas that can be hit. The main part is used as a button across all difficulties, while as you go up difficulties, the smaller sections will be used as well.

When the game starts, you're given a menu to select a difficulty. This changes the amount of note lanes that will be in play (Easy only uses the main 'button' for each drum, Normal uses all 3 but only for the left drum, and Hard uses all 3 for each drum, making for 9 'buttons'.)

After this, the game proceeds as any typical arcade rhythm game, where you have a song select, you play a song, and you move on to the next one out of 3. However, something interesting this game does is that it has a system to access a hidden song.

To get to the hidden song, you have to collect 5 Lucky Coins. The game always displays the amount of Lucky Coins collected, even during the attract mode when no one is playing. If you finish a song with enough HOT or DELICIOUS judgements, a song on the next song select will have a Lucky Coin icon on its jacket. Play it, and a specific note will give you a Lucky Coin when hit. The amount of Lucky Coins collected isn't reset between sessions, and it's impossible to collect enough on a single play, as you can only play 3 songs per play. Once 5 Lucky Coins have been collected, you'll be able to play the Extra Stage after the main 3 songs finish. This song only has 1 difficulty (utilizing all 9 'buttons', though you can't fail out mid-song), and it replaces the song select with a character select. Depending on the character you select, a different background animation will play out.

This extra song, "One Minutes Kitchen Battle!" is the game's main theme, which can also be heard on the attract mode's title FMV. This song was later extended and arranged into "100sec. Kitchen Battle!!", which was used in many of Konami's more popular BEMANI series. Another Orange Lounge song, "La brise d'été" originates from this game as well.

This game, similarly to other BEMANI games at the time, also has several things accessed by hitting the drums to form a certain code.

On the difficulty select, you can hover over the Hard difficulty and mash the right drum a bit to switch it into Very Hard, which contains an exclusive song named "Krank heit" that's only found in this mode, and has never been seen in any other BEMANI game.

A bunch of other codes can be entered on the song select to activate different modifiers, such as Left-Center-Right-Left-Center-Right activating random notes.

The game was planned to be localized outside of Japan with the name of Mambo King, but this never came to fruition.

Gosh time to post some artfight guys!

Credits under the cut!

Developer: Minato Giken

Publisher: Sega

Hardware: Sega System C2

Dump Status: Dumped

Zunzunkyou no Yabou (ずんずん教の野望) is a shoot em' up where you play as a Jizo statue trying to stop a secret society known as Zunzunkyou, who is trying to take over the world through dancing. This is shown ingame as nearly every enemy you encounter is doing some sort of dance, and even the shadow figures on the title screen are dancing!

The game was made in response to the then-recent sarin attacks from the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Minato Giken was only able to release the game if they made it clear that Sega didn't make the game, and this was only after a lot of controversy over if the game should even be released! They also had to add a disclaimer in the game's attract mode that the game isn't related to any religion.

The game involves going to several parts of the world to stop Zunzunkyou. It starts with a menu to select from 4 branches: Japan, Asia, Europe, and America. Each branch has 3 stages and a boss stage. Every stage has their own set of enemies, and you're locked in an arena to shoot them all down.

Enemies for each stage are very bizarre, as they can be something as mundane as a bunch of businessmen, to things like clowns and pandas, while all of them are dancing! The bosses are as equally bizarre, as the boss of the Asia branch is a chef in a ramen bowl, and the America branch boss is a Captain America lookalike who can shoot letter projectiles that spell out JUSTICE.

After the main 4 branches have been cleared, you move on to the final branch. This last area includes pink doll-like enemies and enemies that look like the Jizo statue you play as, followed up with the final boss, which is Earth with an eye, arms, and legs. Beating this boss won't show the ending, however, as the game will go through another loop where you have to play through all 5 branches again with a much higher difficulty before you can actually see the ending.