Playmark Srl was an Italian manufacturer of arcade games, first established on February 20, 1989.
Playmark produced bootleg copies of various arcade games until they released their first original arcade title, Dr. Tomy, a Dr. Mario clone, in 1993. Playmark produced original arcade games for three further years, after which they switched to redemption/gambling machine market, which operated until 2016. Many of Playmark's original titles tend to contain nudity on them.
Games[]
Note: This list does not include their gambling-only titles, with exception those produced before 1996.
Bootlegs[]
- Bad Lands (originally by Atari)
- Klax (originally by Atari)
- Final Crash (renamed bootleg of Final Fight by Capcom)
- JuJu Densetsu (originally by TAD Corporation)
As the JuJu Densetsu title is used instead of Toki, Playmark's bootleg was based on the Japanese version of the game. - F-1 Grand Prix (originally by Video System)
Also known to be distributed under the title "Super Formula II", Super Formula being the alternate title for Video System's FIA-unlicensed Formula One game Tail to Nose. MAME formerly listed Playmark's bootleg of F-1 Grand Prix under that title based on a label on the PCB where it was dumped. - The King of Dragons (originally by Capcom)
- Power Spikes (originally by Video System)
- Best League (a hacked version of Jaleco's Big Striker with Serie A clubs replacing national teams)
- Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (originally by Capcom)
- Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (originally by Capcom)
Three ROM sets documented in MAME. Compared to most Champion Edition bootlegs, it featured nothing special feature-wise, apart from higher pitched music. - Super World Court (originally by Namco)
Original Titles[]
- Dr. Tomy (1993)
A rather raunchy Dr. Mario clone. Uses some code from Gaelco's Big Karnak; the hardware is also related to that. - Super Slam (1993)
A tennis game; Playmark's first game on in-house developed hardware, although the end result is a bootleg of Super World Court on a technically inferior hardware. - Hard Times (1994)
A "total conversion" of TAD Corporation's Blood Bros. with a Prohibition era theme and some levels shuffled. Two ROM sets are known/dumped in MAME. Most of the boards originally used for the game were reportedly converted to run Hot Mind instead. Emulation in MAME was lacking sound until version 0.247 in 2022, due to the sound ROMs (PIC16C57) not being dumped. - Power Balls (1995)
A street gang-themed ping-pong game. - Big Twin (1995)
A Columns-type puzzle game. Two sets are known in MAME, one with nudity, one without; another ROM board with anime-styled pictures reportedly also existed. - Hot Mind (1995)
A redemption/gambling puzzle game. Three sets are known, two running on the Hard Times hardware (one of them with adjustable prizes), and another running on Fit of Fighting (a bootleg of Art of Fighting by NIX) hardware. - Lucky Boom (1996)
A redemption-oriented Pang/Buster Bros. clone. Two hardware revisions are known, one running on their gambling-oriented hardware, the other on their general coin-op hardware. - World Beach Volley (1996)
A volleyball game. Three ROM sets (one with two different audio hardware configurations) are known and dumped in MAME. - Excelsior (1996)
Playmark's last coin-op game; an adult puzzle game, named after (and under license) of the Italian magazine of the same name. Two sets are known and dumped in MAME.
In addition to these, Playmark also released an officially licensed Italian translation of Gaelco's Master Boy, a quiz game that was originally released in Spanish. A question pack update called Master Boy Version II was released in 1992, again an authorized product by Gaelco, but the updated MCUs have yet to be dumped and is not yet emulatable on MAME.
Gallery[]
.png "Playmark logo (Big Twin).png (4 KB)"){kind=logo}
.png "Playmark logo (Lucky Boom).png (5 KB)"){kind=logo}
External links[]
- Playmark on Italian Coin-Op Videogames Zone
- List of supported Playmark titles on MAME (may contain NSFW screenshots in certain titles)