ES-DE Frontend

Wow lots of correct guesses for yesterdays guess the console. SNES indeed. Lets see how many can guess what this pcb snip belongs too?

Guess the console: How many people can work out the console without using image search?

Z-Machine can be used on: Windows macOS Linux DOS OS/2 BeOS RISC AppleII Commodore Amstrad ZX Spectrum Atari MSX BBC Micro Amiga Oric Game Boy/Color/Advance NES SNES N64 NDS SMS/MD/Sega CD/Saturn PS1/2 Xbox GameCube Dreamcast Virtual Boy MAME iOS Android Palm OS Java and more...

Did you know? If you "escape" from the main menu in Call of Duty: Block Ops you can access a terminal and play some games including Zork from the Z-Machine.

Speaking of Z machine did you know the term "ZIP" was used to refer to the Zork Implementation Program, the third version of the interpreter. The term actually predated the compression format we know as zip by a decade.

Today we talk about Virtual Machines for many things but did you know that one early version was developed to save time translating games to multiple home computers? The Z Machine (Z for Zork) This used small interpreters on each platform and was used across IBM, Apple and C64.

Is it just me or is it becoming impossible to keep track of all these decomp/recomp/ports that are firing out just now? How much of this is going to be unsupported AI releases? How can we keep up with the genuine projects that will be supported? Is this good or bad?

🚨🚨New Theme Alert🚨🚨 PSOne-ish by ShaolinSnake96 Available now on the theme downloader.

Now that things are settled after the last release its time to get back to work and get coding again, but where to start?

🚨🚨New Theme Alert🚨🚨 Unreleased by Weestuarty

Finally today Samsung Store approved the update, it has taken nearly two weeks for them to do it this time. We would like to thank everyone for thier patience and hope everyone now can enjoy the latest update. P.S. New themes incoming later in the week.

We just want to say thank you to all our users for a nice smooth update. We would also like to thank everyone who helped us get this release ready, testers, theme developers, translators and even people who just turn up on our discord with ideas. Thank you from all of us.

Game of the Weekend: Whatever you are playing, so busy havent had time to decide. Let us know what you are playing or what you think others should try - the more obscure the better!

So much testing... Over 50 new emulator entries across all platforms... Updated dependancy libraries (~20 per platform)... Plugging memory leaks, new rom formats and checking translations for all languages for new system messages. Its been a while but its nearly ready.

Sneak Theme Peek: Shh i stole these from discord

After hours down the rabbit hole i can confirm that i have found 1 game that was exclusive to the Amiga32 CD. It was included on a double game pack with Overkill Lunar C (1993) If anyone knows any more games that werent available anywhere else please let me know.

System Spotlight: Amiga32 (1993) Developed by Commodore, its final hardware, and marketed as "1st" 32-bit games console but was really a keyboard-less Amiga 1200 with a CD-ROM drive instead of floppy drive. Unlike the CDTV released 2yrs prior, this was specifically for games.

Game of the Weekend: Lets go a little different with a fighing game on aa rarely mentioned system. Samurai Shodown 2 (1999)[Neo-Geo Pocket Color]

Going back to lesser known games: One that id love to replay for the first time. Syndicate (1995)[SNES] (multiple systems but i had the snes)

Any love for any of these potential themes? (all pics stolen from test shots on our discord themes channel)

This week I want everyone to share a lesser known game from the past that many people dont know about. Today lets share a game that is awful... Tails Skypatrol (1995) [Gamegear]

Game of the Weekend: Originally made for PC-8801 and MSX2 in 1988 it was the remake in the MegaCD that brought it to the mainstream and offered the first version that wasnt in Japanese. Oh and written and designed by Hideo Kojima. Snatcher (1994) [MegaCD]

Lots of translations for the next update. Every new menu option or information screen needs translated into many languages and depends on so many people who we couldnt do this without. If your language is missing, join us on discord to find out how you can help have it added.

Today I learned: There is a Mega Drive 4 with a guitar for "Guitar Idol" officially released by TecToy who continue to make Sega consoles in Brazil.

There's been a rise in users asking why newly added roms dont show. #1 cause: "ONLY SHOW GAMES FROM GAMELIST.XML FILES" is enabled. Most enable this to speed up boot times which disabling automatic scanning of rom folders. Manual rom scanning can be found in utilities menu.

Game of the Weekend: Build housers - choose tenants hire gangsters or protesters to stop the competition. Constructor (1997) [Dos, PS1, macOS]

Unpopular opinion: Recompilation projects dont belong in the games original system they belong in the system they are recompiled for.

What gaming platform first hooked you on gaming? For me it was the ZX Spectrum +2a, I loved the Cheetah Joystick we got with it.

🚨🚨NEW THEME ALERT🚨🚨 X20s by ShaolinSnake96

For those crazy enough to actually play games: What are you currently playing and what are you playing it on? This is mine:

Experimentally added ability on Android to query RetroArch if a core is installed at game launch. This prevents the black screen when a core is not installed. We query RA via the Broadcast Receiver giving 600ms to reply before continuing. If RA is not running, it wont work.

The new retroarch on Play store requires SAF meaning launching no longer works in ES-DE. Also now every game system directory needs to be added manually to RetroArch which is very tedious. We will add a new option to enable this support for retroarch but dont recommend it.

Important safety tip: Users of retroarch android play store versions are reporting updates are causing loss of saves and settings, i would advise to avoid fo r the time being. As always we recommend using the latest version from thier website and avoiding any other storefront.

Game of the Weekend: Lets go a bit more light hearted and put a game on thats just fun and simple. Scooby Doo Unmasked (2005)

Did you know? In Portal (2007) there is unused textures for a floor sign referencing the iconic scene in the movie "300".

Regional Cover Art: Sometimes games benefit from regional covers making game releases unique but sometimes one region just hits the tone and the other misses. Look at Driver (1999) one is iconic and one looks like a bargain bin knock off.

🚨🚨NEW THEME ALERT🚨🚨 X-Grid by Ugur Kinik Available now via theme downloader.

Game of the Weekend: The 90s def had some of the strangest character franchises ever. How many remember this one? The Incredible Crash Test Dummies (1993)

Im starting to think we are running out of things to run doom on: www.reddit.com/r/playdoom/?...

With everyone talking about todays eclipse - thought this was appropriate

Did you know? Epoch released two versions of the Super Casette Vision? One was a general release in 1981 and then in 1985 they tried to target the female demographic with a subtle variation.

3rd party tool and app highlight: HandheldExp (Android only) Adds an ingame menu similar to the ES-DE user interface to display game information, view its manual, quick save and quick load for supported emulators, and more. github.com/Teppichseite...

Game of the weekend: A hidden gem of a point and click adventure with a great visual style. It was one of the best game on the DS to use the "Book Grip" playstyle. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (NDS)

Another thing that just takes time is updating all the dependancy libraries we use on the multiple platforms. Checking and testing these to make sure they dont brng in any changes that break things is perhaps one of Leons least favourite things.

We have also been keeping upto date with every emulator released. Adding support for everything from ARMSX2 new packages to Super ZSNES. We've included recently announced backwards compatible console games on pc to be launched from within the original system. Busy Busy

Next up we have added support for video scraping from thegamesDB. This is a new feature for thegamesDB and im sure they would appreciate the help to populate as many as possible. Simply go to: thegamesdb.net Find the game Click edit and upload the video (at bottom)