An old Squaresoft title, long thought to have been canceled, has been found and preserved online for anyone who wants to play it. The game in question is 3156 Coro Coro, which was developed by Hiromichi Tanaka, who would go on to produce Square titles like Secret of Mana and Xenogears, for the PC-8800 series, a line of home computers released in Japan by Nacon in 1981.

Chris Kohler, writing for video game preservation website Gaming Alexandria, relays the story of how the game was found. The game's existence had been known for a long time, but it was usually listed as a canceled PC-88 game, until Kohler stumbled across a Japanese website that said it had been created for the October 1985 Program Olympics in LOGiN Magazine, a Japanese magazine that ran for a few years in the '80s before spinning off Famitsu.

It turned out, as part of its preservation work, Gaming Alexandria was uploading hi-res scans of LOGiN Magazine, and had archived that issue only a few weeks before. 3156 Coro Coro had, in fact, been released in this issue as a type-in program, meaning its entire source code was printed in the back of the magazine, and users would have to enter it all themselves and save it to a cassette tape if they wanted to play the game. 3156 Coro Coro was a particularly large game for the time at 40K of machine code. (Here is an example of one of the sixteen pages of hexadecimal code users were expected to input.)

All that effort isn't necessary in 2022, however. Gaming Alexandria founder Dustin Hubbard was able to cleanly extract the text from the scan, and even built a tape file format that's compatible with PC-88 emulators.

As for what 3156 Coro Coro actually is, it's a puzzle dice game, though it seems to have a larger emphasis on strategy over luck than most dice games. Players need to guide a die to a certain point on a grid in a certain number of moves. However, each space on the grid has several numbers on it, and the number on the bottom of the die cannot match the number on that square of the grid. So, if the square to your right has a 1, 3, and 5 on it, then you can only move to the right if that will make a 2, 4, or 6 face down. There are only three levels but Kohler says they are "pretty difficult" and he hasn't managed to beat the last one yet.

For a link to the tape image, instructions on how to get it running, and a recommendation for a PC-8800 emulator, you can check out the Gaming Alexandria article here.

 

[Deleted member 559230]

Would you rather all this shit be lost to time?

It's not lost if a few people own it. It just means you can't play it for free. Nothing is lost. It's being preserved by the people who own it. People are just using preservation just as an excuse to pirate video games, including old and new, which is a crime.

 

[duwen]

It's not lost if a few people own it. It just means you can't play it for free. Nothing is lost. It's being preserved by the people who own it. People are just using preservation just as an excuse to pirate video games, including old and new, which is a crime.

No. It's being preserved by the people that dump it before the eeproms go bad. "Owning it" isn't preserving shit.
I could own a really rare vinyl acetate of a one of a kind recording, but if I just leave it exposed to the elements for a few decades the recording on it would be as good as lost... but I'd still own it.
...although, in this case it was preserved by the team scanning obscure foreign language magazines from almost 40 years ago.

 

[Deleted member 559230]

No. It's being preserved by the people that dump it before the eeproms go bad. "Owning it" isn't preserving shit.
I could own a really rare vinyl acetate of a one of a kind recording, but if I just leave it exposed to the elements for a few decades the recording on it would be as good as lost... but I'd still own it.
...although, in this case it was preserved by the team scanning obscure foreign language magazines from almost 40 years ago.

("it was preserved") == ("it was pirated")

 

[aaronz77]

I have fond memories of typing pages of shit into my PC only to find a random typo 14 hours later.

 

[duwen]

("it was preserved") == ("it was pirated")

Just because a "side effect" of preservation can make piracy possible doesn't make preservation itself equate to piracy.
There are plenty of instances where rare one-of-a-kind carts have been found and remain in the hands of collectors, but the collector was sensible enough to dump the ROM to PRESERVE it but has not released it to the public.

 

[Cris1997XX]

("it was preserved") == ("it was pirated")

Okay bro. Believe whatever the heck you want, but I'd rather "pirate" old games than let physical media die and make them lost to time

 

[futures]

("it was preserved") == ("it was pirated")

JonhathonBaxter, curious is your avatar original artwork or are you "preserving it".

 

[Deleted member 559230]

JonhathonBaxter, curious is your avatar original artwork or are you "preserving it".

No, I used with without permission citing fair use. I'm not pretending I'm preserving stuff when my goal is really to pirate thus not having to pay for games that I want to play.

 

[futures]

No, I used with without permission citing fair use. I'm not pretending I'm preserving stuff when my goal is really to pirate thus not having to pay for games that I want to play.

JonhathonBaxster, at least you admit to using artwork without permission. Your claim of fair use is questionable as there is no citation or commentary. Basically you decided to use art and effort from someone else without permission or citation for your own personal benefit. Artwork likely from a show that generates revenue for the IP owner.

Yet, you disparage the effort of those in the OP article who found and digitized a long out of print magazine containing source code. Where neither the publisher / IP owner of the magazine or source code has any continued monetary interest in the content.

That said, I do agree in principle that content creators have rights. There are a number of avenues including legal to pursue such rights if they chose to do so. All the best!

 

[vincentx77]

JonhathonBaxster, at least you admit to using artwork without permission. Your claim of fair use is questionable as there is no citation or commentary. Basically you decided to use art and effort from someone else without permission or citation for your own personal benefit. Artwork likely from a show that generates revenue for the IP owner.

Yet, you disparage the effort of those in the OP article who found and digitized a long out of print magazine containing source code. Where neither the publisher / IP owner of the magazine or source code has any continued monetary interest the content.

That said, I do agree in principle that content creators have rights. There are legal avenues to pursue such rights if they chose to do so. All the best!

Dude... Stop arguing with him. He's one of the biggest trolls on this site. He lives for this shit. He doesn't care what your points are. He's just arguing because he can. You cannot win because he has no investment in what is being said.

But as far as piracy and preservation of games like this are concerned, nearly all of the games that were released this way in Europe and the United States were put in the public domain ages ago. If this game isn't, I'd be stunned.

 

[futures]

Dude... Stop arguing with him. He's one of the biggest trolls on this site. He lives for this shit. He doesn't care what your points are. He's just arguing because he can. You will cannot win because he has no investment in what is being said.

But as far as piracy and preservation of games like this are concerned, nearly all of the games that were released this way in Europe and the United States were put in the public domain ages ago. If this game isn't, I'd be stunned.

Agreed. I seldom post. However the efforts of those who found and recovered art thought to be lost was worth a few words of support. Adding to a thread that overwhelming supports the effort.

Any heading with the combination of words - Lost, Discovered, Preserved.. has my attention!

 

[vincentx77]

Agreed. I seldom post. However the efforts of those who found and recovered art thought to be lost was worth a few words of support. Adding to a thread that overwhelming supports the effort.

Any heading with the combination of words - Lost, Discovered, Preserved.. has my attention!

LOL. I understand completely. A lot of these types of games are the definition of mediocrity, but they were a huge part of my childhood. I would hate to see them lost to time. Everything that can be preserved should. ‘Most’ reasonable people agree with that.