Hwang Shinwei

Hwang Shinwei
Origin	Taiwan
Years	1988-1991
Consoles	Famicom
First game	Mi Hun Che
Last game	Magic Giral (?)
Sounds used	Proprietary
Games published by	RCM Group, Jujing Electronics, Chi Chi Toys

Hwang Shinwei (黃信維) is a Taiwanese unlicensed game programmer active from the late 1980's to early 1990's.

Overview

Hwang is the only person credited in most of his games, but it is unknown if he actually worked alone or simply only credited himself. Many of his games also credit RCM Group, who were likely the publishers, but might also have been a development team. Some of his games are also erroneously credited to "Taiwan ROC", based on that text appearing on the title screen, but this actually stands for "Taiwan, Republic of China" rather than being a company name.

Most games made by Hwang appear on multicarts, and some might not have been released stand-alone. Most of his games are also based on existing NES/Famicom games. Some games were released on NES cartridges, such as Block Force and Magic Jewelry II. Their games also seem to have been produced quickly, with 3D Block and Magic Jewelry being released on the same year as the games they were 'porting'. Unlike many pirate companies whose games were often larger than the average NES/Famicom game, (>256kb in size) none of Shinwei's games exceeded 64kb, and were usually even smaller than that. (Magic Jewelry is 16kb, a size matched only by Galaxian and Xiao Ma Li) The small size of the games is why they sometimes appear on multicarts.

Games Developed by Hwang Shinwei

Full games (Single cartridge releases)

• 3D Block (1989/1990) - Port of Blockout.
  1989 version credits Shinwei, 1990 version credits RCM Group.
• Mi Hun Che / BB Car (1988/1991) - Based off Rally-X.
  The 1988 release, Mi Hun Che, was published by Chi Chi Toy Company, a prolific manufacturer of pirate famicom carts in Taiwan (its logo is often mistaken for "Chui"). The 1991 version was renamed "BB Car" and may have been published or re-released by J.Y. Company.
• Block Force (1990) - Based off Quarth. Hwang Shinwei is only credited for "layout and music" in this game, "program and character" are by Hwang Jiun-Ming.
• Brush Roller (1990) - Based off Make Trax.
• Magic Jewelry (1990) - Based off Columns.
• Magic Jewelry II (1991) - Hack of the previous game which adds extra options and a 2-player mode.
• Magic Giral (1991 - Named Wildball on multicarts). Port of unlicensed Famicom Disk System strip rock-paper-scissors game Emi-Chan no Moero Yakyuuken, using graphics ripped from that game but apparently coded from scratch. The background music also seems to be an approximate recreation.

Multicart-only games

These games are usually much simpler than those that received single cartridge releases, and some seem unfinished. Most of these appear on the 260 in 1 Multicart, but some are also included in the Tetris Family series (6-in-1, 9-in-1 and 12-in-1) by RCM. Some may still have been released on a single cartridge, but none have yet been discovered.

• 2 Turn Pair (1991) - Mahjong solitaire type game.
• Black Jack (1990)
• China Chess - Banqi (Taiwanese variant).
• F18 Race (1990) - A simple overhead racing game similar to Road Fighter.
• Face Tetris - A simplified port of Faces: ...tris 3, with only two portrait graphics available.
• Frog River (1990) - Based off Frogger, a graphics variant exists as Jewelry.
• Guess Numbers (1990) - Generates a random numbers and help the player find it with indications.
• Magic Sound - Very basic NES synthesizer. Possibly part of the tools the developer used to compose his tunes.
• Memory Pair
• Piano
• Picture collect (1990) - Puzzle game using Adventure Island sprites.
• Punch Sprite (1990) - A whack-a-mole type game using graphics from Super Mario Bros. 2 (FDS).
• Sky Shot (1990) - A space shoot'em up in which you fire at bricks coming at you.
• Soha Poker (1990)

Trivia

• In June 1991, it was reported that one person named Tina Huang working for Rainco Man International had been sued by Nintendo. This seems to match with RCM and Hwang Shinwei end of activities on the Famicom.
• Brush Roller was later hacked by NTDEC to make Bookyman, which appeared as a game on the Caltron 6-in-1. It is unknown if this version was produced or authorized by Hwang himself.
• The cartridge art for 3D Block is taken from Blockout.

Reference

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