WTB: NTSC Jelly Monsters (VIC-1905)

Gabriel Angelos · Post by **Gabriel Angelos** » Thu Nov 19, 2009 10:12 pm

The title pretty much says it all; I'm looking for a Jelly Monsters cart, specifically for NTSC. I'd like to get one in decent shape. Box and documents are not required but would be a bonus.

I'd prefer to use Paypal for the transaction as it provides security for both seller and buyer. I also prefer to buy within the US and Canada if possible, but I'm willing to buy internationally.

If you have one for sale, please let me know.
Thank you!

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:36 am

Are there even separate versions of Jelly Monsters? I know about a few label variations and at least two different dumps but both seem to default to NTSC positioning and flicker a lot no matter the video mode.

Good luck, they're not quite as uncommon on the market as Ward Shrake once upon a time suggested them to be. I think several of us have one or two loose cartridges of this game which could be up for sale.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:21 am

Yeah, the lore about Jelly Monsters and Star Battle being very hard to find is about the only real erroneous statement from Ward's guide. They are far more common than that; I think I run both at about 4 or 5 rarity in the DP guide listing today. You usually see one on eBay every week or two, so just keep looking. I had a spare but it got sold...

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:05 am

I've seen copies of Jelly Monsters pop up on eBay (UK website) from time to time. I have a Mega-Cart so I wasn't particularly interested.

Jelly Monsters is a good game, though. There was even a time, not so long ago, when I favoured it to Quikman.

Gabriel Angelos · Post by **Gabriel Angelos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 12:04 pm

carlsson wrote:Are there even separate versions of Jelly Monsters? I know about a few label variations and at least two different dumps but both seem to default to NTSC positioning and flicker a lot no matter the video mode.

Good luck, they're not quite as uncommon on the market as Ward Shrake once upon a time suggested them to be. I think several of us have one or two loose cartridges of this game which could be up for sale.

My impression was that there was only NTSC, but I wanted to be specific in my request as I'm not completely sure and I don't have a PAL machine.

Gabriel Angelos · Post by **Gabriel Angelos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 12:09 pm

Mayhem wrote:Yeah, the lore about Jelly Monsters and Star Battle being very hard to find is about the only real erroneous statement from Ward's guide. They are far more common than that; I think I run both at about 4 or 5 rarity in the DP guide listing today. You usually see one on eBay every week or two, so just keep looking. I had a spare but it got sold...

About DP, did you mean digital press? I've been there before but I didn't think they covered home computers, just consoles. I'd be happy to pick one up if they have VIC-20 and C64 info available though it appears to be sold out currently. Could you post a link to the guide you meant?

Also, if you don't mind, could you give me a ballpark for an average current Jelly Monster cart? I realize the price will vary by seller, but a general idea of the current valuation would be good.

Gabriel Angelos · Post by **Gabriel Angelos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 12:15 pm

English Invader wrote:I've seen copies of Jelly Monsters pop up on eBay (UK website) from time to time. I have a Mega-Cart so I wasn't particularly interested.

I haven't had much luck with eBay so far in finding this cart. I've checked for it periodically, but so far nothing's come up. I'll keep an eye out though.

The Mega-Cart seems pretty nice and I may eventually pick one up, but I'm mostly interested in collecting the original carts right now.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:52 pm

The online Digital Press guide is always available here and more up to date:

http://www.digitpress.com/DP/cmf/search.cmf

Some computers were introduced with the sixth edition, although the sections only cover cartridges. I began with the C64 section and took over the Vic20 section when Ward retired.

I have Jelly Monsters listed (loose) at $10 value. I think that's a bit optimistic today, perhaps it can come down a dollar or two.

Gabriel Angelos · Post by **Gabriel Angelos** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:31 pm

Mayhem wrote:The online Digital Press guide is always available here and more up to date:

http://www.digitpress.com/DP/cmf/search.cmf

Some computers were introduced with the sixth edition, although the sections only cover cartridges. I began with the C64 section and took over the Vic20 section when Ward retired.

I have Jelly Monsters listed (loose) at $10 value. I think that's a bit optimistic today, perhaps it can come down a dollar or two.

Thanks for the link, that's very helpful!

Do you know if there is both a PAL and NTSC version of the game? I spoke to someone on Lemon who offered a PAL version. Is there only one version of the game that runs on both?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:56 am

As I live in the UK myself... I've only come across NTSC versions. None of those cartridges I've put into my Vic have been aligned, always need to use the cursor keys/joystick...

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:01 am

So, the game was probably coded in Europe but it was only released in NTSC? Was that a common occurrence in the 8 bit days?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:39 pm

There continues to be an interesting counter argument on that. The evidence points to HAL Labs in Japan coding it, but there's also circumstantial facts regarding Handic. Certainly for odd reasons the game appears more in the UK than anywhere else, and that's where Atari filed the infringement charges and court proceedings to get the game removed.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:58 pm

Maybe deep discounts on the final days of a losing court case.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:46 pm

Yes, a number of VIC cartridges were available in Handic Software releases. For many years I thought it was an indication that Datatronic (Handic's parent company who did the software development) would have been involved, but it seems mostly like licensed redistribution. Apparently they had factories and resources to produce boards and EPROMs so they could offlift some of the demand from Commodore by producing cartridges from ROM files.

Compare with A World at War and the recently dumped Bridge game, which both clearly were developed by Datatronic. These two seem to have been written in Forth and then compiled, which makes sense since Forth was Datatronic's main choice of weapon. If Jelly Monsters and other game cartridges would've been made at the same development team, I would expect the generated machine code to look just as awful as those games are. Anyone who tried to disassemble those games know what I mean, it is almost impossible to follow what is going on even if you are good at 6502 machine code.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:33 pm

Ironically, I do have the Handic version of Jelly Monsters somewhere around here...