Caltron 6-in-1

Caltron 6-in-1
Publisher	Caltron (USA), Myriad Games (USA), HES Interactive (Australia), Dynacom (Brazil)
Developer	NTDEC
Console	Famicom/NES
Date	1992
Engine	Various
Sound engine	Mega Soft
Alternate names/hacks	Myriad 6-in-1, Real Players Pack 6-Pak (Australia)

Caltron 6-in-1 (later re-released as Myriad 6-in-1) is an unlicensed multicart created by Caltron in 1992, featuring 6 games previously made by NTDEC.

Overview

In a similar way to Action 52, this multicart features six different games made by Mega Soft, although most of these are rip-offs of other games. Many have criticised this multicart for its games being of poor quality, although it is often cited as being better than Action 52. Both versions of this are known for being extremely rare.

Games

1. Cosmos Cop (Space Harrier clone)
2. Magic Carpet 1001 (Cloud Master clone)
3. Balloon Monster (Buster Bros. clone)
4. Adam And Eve (Balloon Fight clone)
5. Porter (Sokoban clone)
6. Bookyman (hack of Brush Roller by Hwang Shinwei, which was based on Make Trax/Crush Roller)

Myriad 6-in-1

When Caltron Industries, Inc. was going out of business, a company based in Kingwood, Texas called Myriad Games, Inc. bought all of their existing cartridge inventory. Myriad then added a very generic, graphic-less label on each cart, then packaged the carts in custom boxes with a folded manual. Each Myriad cart and box were numbered individually with a matching serial number; the lowest known serial number is 000032 and the highest is 000888.

Myriad's only change to Caltron's product was to place their own label over the original. In fact, the Caltron label is visible at the edges, due to the Myriad label being slightly too small to completely cover it. No programming changes were done and "Caltron" was not removed from the menu, thus the games are exactly the same. The six games on the cart are identical to Caltron's release.

Shortly after the release of 6-in-1, Myriad went out of business for unknown reasons. The game has become one of the rarest unlicensed games on the NES and Famicom; collectors speculate that fewer than 100 copies exist, and even fewer are complete. The most valuable copies are those with the box, instructions, and cartridge with matching serial numbers. Only two sealed versions are known to exist.

Trivia

• All six games would later be released on the Asder 20-in-1, some of which were revised.
• The title screen of Adam & Eve shown on the back of the box is completely different to the released version.
• Bookyman in NES PAL works (except for the title screen) faster with glitches. On a Dendy, the title screen is glitchy and the game sometimes crashes on the second level.
• Oddly, the menu features two different songs that can be switched with the select button.
• There is a hidden credit at $7FCA in the game's ROM. It reads:

  Main_Program & Hardware design by Shao_Hwa Chiou