Gaming Flashback: Yo! Noid

Yo! Noid was a commercial opportunity for Domino’s Pizza developed by Capcom. This retro style game revolved around Domino’s Pizza claymation style mascot, the Noid, as he adventures through fourteen stages of side scrolling action.

The game sound was much like any other 8-bit action platformer. It reminded me of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, not the cool arcade one. Minus the turtles, Yo! Noid is a battle against Mr. Green, the Noids evil duplicate, a concept used in so many games; remember Shadow Link?

Unlike Link, Noid lost a life when he hit an enemy similar to the Super Mario Bros. style platformer but with a Yo Yo weapon. You could also gather smart-bomb type scrolls to clear the screen of all enemies, another classic side scroller arcade recipe. Yo! Noid brought nothing to the table in terms of uniqueness and relied on the standard recipe of side scrolling conflict.

This retro game may be one of the first true “total conversion mods.” Later we’d see Counter Strike born out of the Half-Life engine and way before that, Noah’s Ark 3D built out of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. Yo! Noid was a re-creation of the game Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru. Oddly enough, Yo! Noid was probably more well known than its forefather game because Capcom didn’t release Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru in the United States. Instead, we got Yo! Noid and a $1.00 off coupon on the back of the manual so we can get ourselives some Domino’s Pizza.

Although a few of us may recall Yo! Noid from our childhood, the title really didn’t create any huge waves in the game industry. Yo! Noid did show developers that a brand named product could be used as a marketing and brand awareness strategy, something we’d later see Burger King try on the Xbox 360 and find some success.

Can you tell the difference between Yo! Noid and Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru?

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They have decided to include an optional feature to enable old school bugs on purpose. The limitations of early hardware like the NES caused situations where you would only see a limited number of creatures on the screen at any one time else things slowed down, flickered and got undesirable fast. What used to be undesired is now nostalgic!

“Yeah, there were some things, like you couldn’t have more than three enemies on the screen at once, so we had to make sure that that’s how it stayed in our game. In the part with the dragon with the flame, [there should be] flickering, and whatnot,” noted the game’s producer. “In the options of this game, you can adjust that, unlike the old games. We purposely put some of those old-school bugs into this game, so it does recreate that feel.” (joystiq)

Luckily these options are disabled and can be enabled to get a bit of old world feel if your little heart desires. For most of us, we should have moved on from the old times and are ready to play old school games on new school hardware to show off a bit more fluid 8-bit logic. Not so for everyone, which is why the feature was added as an optional one.

Staying true to old school computing in an emulator is extremely important when playing old ROM games because the game was coded with a certain speed and understanding of the hardware. Change the hardware without updating the game can lead to an unusable product. Mega Man 9, however, is a new game so it doesn’t have to adhere to old standards. But, it’s funny to see it try.

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In the world of game development, everyone wants to make it to the top or at least sell their game and feel a mild bit of success. Developers jump into this industry to express their passion for games and not always to make a million dollars. However, one developer is on the road to a million bucks.

ishootEthan Nicholas, developer of a tank artillery game called iShoot, told Wired.com he quit his job the day his app rose to No. 1 in the App Store, earning him $37,000 in a single day. (wired.com)

Now here is a career choice made for you! He goes on to say that he’d be a millionaire right now if it wasn’t for taxes. We’d also remind him to check out Apple’s cut of the profits too, that might be slowing him down. However, if it wasn’t foir the little iPhone he’d still be working his day job. He’s expecting to hit a million by the end of the year, not too shabby for an iphone shooter game, eh?

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Congrats, hope you make it to a million and beyond!