Palm OS [OT] where handheld gaming is serious business

Though it’s horrible, I feel like posting this baffling port of Serious Sam native to the platform as it’s an awesome and hilarious curiosity for a big fan of the series like me

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Wow, that was a much more in-depth review than I expected and it didn’t hold back anything as it ripped into the game. I kinda felt bad for that poor Palm by the end. :cry:

The piezo beeper on early Palm devices is rather unfortunate.

Most Clié models, and some later Palm models, had much better sound output: an actual speaker in most cases, and some even had headphone out. I’ve not played Serious Sam, but I’ll try to find a demo to try it on my Clié to see if it sounds better.

It’s interesting that at the time, in 2001/2002, Serious Sam for Palm received an 8/10 review from Softonic. Serious Sam Advance was released in 2004 and I think it’s not much better than the Palm OS version, if at all, receiving 5/10 reviews at best.

Wimbledon PDAce (free)

Official Wimbledon tennis game in conjunction with IBM

Released: June 2001
Press: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2001/jun/20/2
Download: https://web.archive.org/web/20070301124827/http://www.ardiri.com/index.php?redir=palm&cat=pdace&subcat=download

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Playing somewhat like a Nintendo DS game, but released a few years earlier, this is a simple but elegant tennis game versus either the computer or another player (over infrared). Controls by stylus/touch, device button or gamepad attachment. You can even beam the game (send over infrared) to another device, which will be familiar to anybody who did that with DS Download Play some years later.

Currently playing Hanafuda on a Sony Clié

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I’ve never seen one of those controllers before… Cool!

The original joycon d-pad.

(Well… other than the C-buttons on N64)

They’re all one bit of plastic so they all move when you press one, but it’s actually not bad at all. Good enough to play Columns, Mean Bean, Mazera, etc.

More mini-reviews coming soon.

Very interesting topic, had no idea there was a fairly robust emulation scene on the old Palm devices.

Columns for CLIÉ

This is a unique port of the game as the title suggests.

Reprogrammed by SEGA’s Smilebit division (of Jet Set Radio fame) and bundled with a Sony game controller accessory for a Sony handheld computer and not available to purchase separately. What a crazy little thing.

There’s also Super Columns (all the SEGA Classics games are Game Gear emulations) but they only run on specific Palm devices (Zire?) which I don’t have.

Anyway, Columns for CLIÉ plays well enough with the controller accessory. No configuration needed within the game. I’m not a huge fan of Columns so it’s a bit wasted on me. It can also be played using hardware buttons, how well that works depends on whether your device has a sensible layout. It can’t be played with the stylus/touch.

It looks lovely though, running at CLIÉ “high resolution” of 320x320 in 8-bit colour (some games support 16-bit colour). The image in the OP doesn’t lie, on all three of my CLIÉ devices (SJ22, TJ35, TH55) it looks gorgeous.

The only odd thing is I can’t get any sound out of it, despite it having sound volume settings. Weird.

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Using smilebit to make emulations or ports of classic games is like using a sledge hammer to open a paper door.

I wish they were still around. Amusement Vision too. Those were some top quality studios that showed how good Sega was before last gen even after the DC was discontinued.

I assume it must have been the Smilebit guys flailing around looking for “what’s next” after Dreamcast as SEGA were abandoning console at this point. Seems to fit, time wise.

Makes sense.

Two trial/prototype/concept games released by SEGA Smilebit division at the PalmSource Japan Forum 2002, and simultaneously on their website: https://web.archive.org/web/20020408142525/http://pda.sega.co.jp/

As far as I know these were completely forgotten about until now! Feels great to unearth some forgotten gems for the world to enjoy once more.

Borkov

Use the hardware buttons, or stylus, to make an overweight red-haired man eat chunks of chocolate to match the goal shape.

It’s reminiscent of COMPILE’s magnificent GBA game “Guru Logi Champ”, in that you rotate the play field and “suck” blocks from the middle. Pretty cool.

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Triangle Magic

Use the stylus to position triangles on a grid, the aim is to deflect a ball to the goal and collect coins on the way. Seems quite familiar in a way.

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If you have a hi-res capable Palm OS 5 device you can play a great Worms clone called… Snails.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7023/snails-game-review/

Free download: https://palmdb.net/2055/snails/

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@matt did I see Frank Cifaldi pick up on your preservation efforts? Nice! :slight_smile:

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Yes indeed! Very gracious of him.

I’ve been sitting on a few things due a while due to a new baby. But I’m now feeling like I have a bit more time so I thought I’d set up a Patreon to formalise my efforts. A good first day!

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I recently purchased a Palm TX and Handspring Visor. The Palm TX I am still “figuring out” how to have games on it. The Handspring Visor I have two game paks for it the Entertainment Pack with Tetris on it and a copy of Tiger Woods.

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Nice! I still need to buy a Handspring Visor.