It seems that Tetsuya Mizuguchi is someone that never fails to give credit to his senpai. Q Entertainment's new spin on the game Gunpey, previously released for the WonderSwan handheld, is actually dedicated to its creator, Gunpei Yokoi, who also made the D-pad and the Game Boy.

When asked whether he would want to have a game named after himself he replies, "I don’t care if it’s after my death! But I don’t want to play a game named Mizuguchi while I’m still alive though." In fact, this guy doesn't even want every Q Entertainment game labelled as "Mizuguchi's new game." Talk about humility.

Right now, he's a sort of Q Entertainment overseer, as he says he "wants to concentrate on his creations." Moreover, he says that the company is looking into networking, and online as well as mobile games might be expected from Q Entertainment.

So was it hard to start from scratch and build a new company? Mizuguchi admits that it was rather difficult. They only had few people, and had no money for office rent, so they would regularly meet at a karaoke box! Mizuguchi focused on the creative side, while his partner, Shuji, attended to the management side of it all. He admitted that they had a slow start, but it seems that the future is looking bright for Q.

Regarding games, it all boils down to simplicity for this guy. Being universal is something that he always take into account whenever he'd make a game, as he wants to "want to break the barrier between countries and markets."

Coming to the PSP and DS, Q Entertainment's take on the original Gunpey, released for the WonderSwan handheld by Bandai, is a homage of sorts to its creator Gunpei Yokoi. Gunpey, is derived by cleverly changing the I in Gunpei by the Y in Yokoi The same seamless connection, done with Yokoi's name, is the very essence behind Gunpey. You'd have to make a complete line from left to right, with the variety of angular shapes and bars ascending over five columns. As time passes, the tempo increases and it is up to you manage the five columns. No matter what happens, you don't want those lines to reach the top or it's game over for you.

Anoyo Records' talented techno artists provide the magnificent selection of music for the game. As with the music, expect nothing less from the game graphically. It offers more than 40 exciting skins, ad hoc wireless play and a monstrous Super Gunpey mode. Although, some might speculate that PSP owners might be getting the better deal on the two releases, the DS has an ace up its sleeve. Included within the tiny cartridge, is an awesome sound sequencer. It allows you to customize the levels much like in a professional 16-track mixer. A great idea is to hook up two DS' and create a live versus mix. Gunpey also features a versus CPU mode in addition to the standard Challenge mode.

LiraNuna has just released v1.2.1 of his WonderSwan emulator dualSwan. According to him this will be the final release of this emulator.

This version of dualSwan comes with added support for M3SD and SCSD. Although these features are untested LiraNuna says, "it should work, as chishm’s FAT library does." Try it out for yourself. There are some good games released for the WonderSwan and the WonderSwan Color, including the first installment of Front Mission, a series of Super Robot Taisen games, and Guilty Gear Petit.

The change log is as follows:

• Fixed window mode 0×20
• Added support for M3SD and SCSD
• Source: Moved menu handlers to menu.c/h

LiraNuna has also announced on his DS Development website that he's quitting DS development and will be working on PSP homebrews next. PSP fans will have a lot to look forward to.

Download: [dualSwan v1.2.1 Final - Binary]
Download: [dualSwan v1.2.1 Final - Source]

Q Entertainment and NAMCO Bandai announced that Gunpey-R for the PSP and DS (take note that its title for the DS is Oto wo Tsunagou!) is heading to retail shops in holiday 2006. The game features exciting and innovative challenging puzzles that can only be expected from the legendary Gameboy creator Gunpei Yokoi. It will test your reflexes and dazzle your senses with the combination of dynamic music and colorful graphics.

Based on the 1999 Wonderswan puzzle, the creative minds at Q Entertainment combine groundbreaking music integration that will purportedly excite both the hardcore and casual gamers.

In Gunpey-R, as lines of various angles climb up the screen, you have to flip the lines located in squares to connect them over five columns. If an incomplete line reaches the top of the screen, the game is over. The game features 40 varied backgrounds and stylized music - a known trademark of the game's executive producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. It supports two-player multiplayer over wireless ad-hoc connectivity.

  

  

Q Entertainment, the studio behind monster hits Meteos and Lumines, is back with innovative music puzzle games that'll be sure to eat up most of your spare time. Based on the 1999 Wonderswan Puzzle, the basic Gunpey gameplay involves moving the square pieces up and down to form a line from left to right. The game ends once the pieces reach the top of the play field. In Gunpey-R (Gunpey-Reverse) for the PSP, Q Entertainment has placed more emphasis on music and video. As with Lumines, the "skin" concept finds its way back into the new game, allowing players to collect themes loaded with animation and music. With over 40 skin types, you're in for some eye-catching treats.

Executive producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi also announced Oto wo Tsunagou! for the DS. Also based on the Wonderswan Puzzle, the DS version plays on the strength of the handheld, focusing on direct controls via the stylus. Each time you clear a panel, the game releases a sound. The fun part is lining up these sounds with the background music to create your own music.

Both PSP and DS titles are set for a Fall release in Japan. Namco Bandai has yet to announce dates for the North American release.

LiraNuna, one of the DS's greatest developers, has released a new version of his WonderSwan emulator. Wonderswan was once a competitor of the original Gameboy in Japan, and showcased graphics of equal quality. The WonderSwan came originally without color, but a color version was introduced a year after the WonderSwan release.  LiraNuna has released this great handheld onto another great handheld, the Nintendo DS.

The most recent version to this date of the emulator does not feature sound, and can not play games larger than 4mb. Although, from the previous release, LiraNuna is proud to say that some games are running full speed! LiraNuna is still hard at work to improve the emulation, and has already placed a lot of time into the development process of this! Here's the official change log for this version (v1.2) -

• Added support for WS mono games
• Added Windows (Particially working)
• Added ROM menu to boot ROMs from CF/SD
• Fixed a bug in sprites emulation

Download: [DualSwan v1.2]

LiraNuna has released his second emulator for the Nintendo DS, this time in the form of WonderSwan. The WonderSwan is a Japanese handheld game console released by Bandai in 1999. It was developed by the late Gunpei Yokoi's company Koto and Bandai. The WonderSwan was made to compete with the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the market leader Nintendo's Game Boy Color. It was later replaced by the WonderSwan Color. Changes in this release include:

- Added GBFS ROM Loading
– Minor speed boost

You can get it in our Nintendo DS Download section [here].

It's a good thing developers never tire of coming up with good stuff. LiraNuna, developer of the game Tales of Dagur, has posted the progress of the latest development of his WonderSwan emulator called the dualSwan.

The WonderSwan is a Japanese handheld game console released in 1999 by Bandai. With the dualSwan, you'll be able to play WonderSwan games in your Nintendo DS. How cool is that?

Here are some screenshots to show the progress of this emulator. You can see that the FPS on the screenshots are close to that of the original results on the HW. Dualis refuses to emulate full speed so another ~6FPS had to be added to get the original results on the real HW.

According to the developer, low FPS on games occur because of the poor core implementation of NEC CPU. But he says not to worry as this will be fixed soon.

LiraNuna, maker of WonDerS v1.1 which allows you to play WonderSwan games in your Nintendo DS, has said before that he's in the process of rewriting WonDerS and gave us some screenshots to tease us on its upcoming release.

As of late, he has posted yet another teaser for us on his site. He is going to release two new special builds - one without any speed limits and the other with a 60FPS limit - that emulates the Japanese handheld that was quite popular back in 1999.


DOWNLOAD: [WonDerS 1.2t]

To compete with then market leader in Japan's gaming market, Nintendo's Game Boy Color, Bandai released the handheld game console WonderSwan in 1999. Developed by original Nintendo Game Boy developer Gunpei Yokoi, the WonderSwan later on evolved to WonderSwan Color.

This console has already been ported by LiraNuna into the Nintendo DS with WonDerS v1.1. LiraNuna has currently been rewriting his WonderSwan emulator, using the DS' HW instead of "some crappy framebuffer renderer". Currently, there are 4bit tiles implemented in the emulator and resulted to more than 120% speed boost.

LiraNuna is still in the process of the rewrite and will be releasing the new WonDerS version soon. In the meantime, he leaves us with these screenshots to "tease" us.