#techno drive

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Hardware: Namco ND-1

Dump Status: Partial (Only revision 1.04 is dumped)

Gynotai is the first in the Almighty Human Project series, a series of games centered around preparing the player for an apocalyptic event. It’s played with three balls, each on their own rail. The game has 3 categories for its minigames, which include SKILL, BRAIN, and BODY.

SKILL minigames consist of hitting targets at a very precise time, BRAIN minigames involve number puzzles, such as quickly adding 2 numbers of 3 up to 7, while BODY minigames mostly consist of hitting things as much as you can. At the end of each minigame, you’re given a rank from E- to A+, and each minigame’s rank is averaged out at the end. After a playthrough, you’re given a receipt which lists off your results, and has different things appear depending on your averaged rank.

The game is marked as non-working in MAME, but all you need to do to bypass the error that comes up is to turn off the printer in the service menu, though the graphics emulation is still largely broken and unfinished.

Cabinet design concepts for Techno Drive and Gynotai from Namco's "Almighty Human Project" series of hybrid-electromechanical arcade games, by Minoru Sashida. Computer Space's retro-future style cabinet was cited as direct inspiration.

CABINET ICONS - TECHNO DRIVE (1998) Art Director: Minoru Sashida Developer: Namco Platform: Arcade