And the winner of The Gay Gamer Giveaway™: Penguin Land Edition is ...

... Kaze. Congratulations!

Once again, sorry to all of you who offered up a hearty "yo!" but didn't walk away with the GameBoy cartridge. Don't worry, though, as I'm planning to hold two more such "Gay Gamer Giveaways" (at least) in the coming weeks--with the next one likely being announced this coming Monday.

This is how I wrapped finchiekins' Painter Momopie 

cart before sending it earlier this week.

In the meantime, Kaze, please send me your address so I can mail this copy of Penguin Land to you ASAP. We follow each other on Twitter, so maybe you could send that info via a direct message? If that's not possible, let me know and I can just share my e-mail address with you in the comments section below.

Congrats again, and thanks to everyone who participated!

The Gay Gamer Giveaway™: Penguin Land (GameBoy) Edition

I don't know about you, but I think it's about time we kick off another Gay Gamer Giveaway™, don't you?

The giveaway this time around will be a loose (as in just the cart--no box, case or manual) copy of Pony Canyon's GameBoy port of Sega's Doki Doki Penguin Land, which drops the Doki Doki in favor of simply being known as Penguin Land.

I've written about this game a few times before now, by the way. I first mentioned--and showcased a video of--it in this post, and then I spent some time chatting about its packaging in this post and its instruction manual in this post.

So, you may want to check out one or all of those previously published posts before you decide whether or not you want this cart.

Should you decide that you do want it, just leave some sort of a comment below between today and the morning of Monday, June 23. Even a simple "yo!" is OK if your username is unique enough that I should be able to tell you apart from all of the other people clamoring for their very own copy of Penguin Land.

See also: previous Gay Gamer Giveaway™ posts

Manual Stimulation: Penguin Land (GameBoy)

Something you may have already noticed about the Japanese GameBoy instruction manuals I've been sharing here as of late is that a good number of them aren't all that appealing.

I'm publishing "Manual Stimulation" posts about them anyway, though, because most of these games are fairly (if not completely) unknown outside of Japan and I'd like to do my part in helping educate Westerners about them, if at all possible.

Plus, very few (if any) photos or scans of the manuals, packaging or cartridges of these games find their way onto the Internet these days, and I hate the idea of them eventually becoming lost to time.

With all of that said, let's take a gander at the instruction manual that was produced for Pony Canyon's GameBoy port of Sega's classic Doki Doki Penguin Land, shall we?



Things certainly get off to a good start, if you ask me. That splash of blue in the logo is a nice addition, for instance, although it pales in comparison to the adorable illustration that graces the manual's back cover.



The illustrations that top the manual's "story" page (above) are pretty adorable, too.



How can you add a bit of "oomph" to an otherwise humdrum instruction manual? Have a cute comic strip run along the bottom of each page, as is the case here.



In fact, said comic is about all that's worth looking at when it comes to the latter stages of the Penguin Land manual--although I guess some folks (who can understand Japanese, of course) may also like the parts that explain how to play this unique puzzler-platformer.



Thankfully, this game is extremely easy to pick up and play, so don't avoid picking up a copy (or, um, downloading a ROM) of it if you don't understand a lick of Japanese. A couple of seconds of trial and error are all you're likely to need to come to grips with how it controls and what the point of it is.



And here (above) the comic strip ends--seemingly on a positive note for the game's protagonist?



Penguin Land features an extensive cast of characters, as you can see in the pair of pages above.



I don't suppose any of you can make out what's discussed on this last page of the game's instruction manual? Are we looking at gameplay hints or tips here, or is it just random details that didn't fit anywhere else?

See also: previous 'Manual Stimulation' posts

Penguin Land for GameBoy: black (or in this case blue) and white and cute all over

Now that I've worked Madou Monogatari out of my system (I think), it's time to get back to the "Year of the GameBoy," don't you think? I sure do.

Could I have chosen a more exciting GameBoy title to help us get back into the swing of things? I guess so, but I went with this one anyway because it's a Japan-only game that rarely seems to be discussed outside of its country of origin (and probably isn't discussed there all that often either) and because it features a pretty sweet cover illustration.

This game is a portable conversion of Sega's Doki Doki Penguin Land, by the way--and if you've never heard of that one, well, the gist is that players are placed in the shoes (feet?) of the titular penguin and then tasked with guiding a rather large egg from the top of each vertically scrolling stage to the bottom by destroying or moving any ice blocks that are in the way. 

It's a pretty simple puzzler-platformer, really, but for me that's its main draw. Well, that and its adorable protagonist.

That said, I might've preferred if publisher Pony Canyon had held off on releasing this one until the GameBoy Color hit the streets, as I definitely think it could have benefited from a bit of visual pizazz.

Still, it's a fun little time-waster, and as we saw earlier, its packaging (as well as its instruction manual, a sample of which can be seen in the photo above) is easy on the eyes, so the lack of color isn't as off-putting as it might be otherwise.

Sadly, the back of the Penguin Land box is pretty par for the course when it comes to Japanese GameBoy games. I guess publishers at that time believed most folks would buy their wares based solely on the product's cover art?

One additional photo (of a cute illustration that graces the backside of this game's manual) can be found on my Flickr photostream, by the way, in case any of you are interested.

See also: previous 'Year of the GameBoy' posts

Forget the Year of Luigi; for me, 2014 is the Year of the GameBoy

Given the number of posts I've published about them in recent weeks and months, you could be forgiven for assuming I'd already declared (or at least privately decided) this to be the "Year of the DS" or the "Year of the 3DS."

In a way, of course, 2014 is and will be both of those things for me--unofficially, at least. Officially, though, it's already become clear to me that the focus of my thoughts and desires this year is going to be the handheld that started it all, the GameBoy.

The fact is, I've been a smidge obsessed with the system--its extensive catalog of obscure Japanese games, in particular--since I wrote about Irem's Noobow early last year.

Clockwise from upper-left: Snow Bros. Jr., Painter Momopie,
Penguin Land and Osawagase! Penguin Boy

Things only got worse after I discovered Peetan a few months later, and then Painter Momopie and Osawagase! Penguin Boy a couple of months after that.

Sadly, I've yet to come across complete copies of Noobow or Peetan during my all-too-frequent eBay forays, but I have come across--and purchased--copies of Painter Momopie and Osawagase! Penguin Boy and a number of other intriguing, import-only GameBoy titles in the last half-year or so.

So, expect to see posts--featuring photos as well as impressions, if not actual reviews--about all of them sooner rather than later. At the moment, I'm not planning to "brand" these write-ups in any particular way, but who knows? Regardless, I hope you'll enjoy them.

You really need to try these three GameBoy titles, if you haven't already

Warning: despite the fact that I'm enjoying the hell out of my 3DSes right now--thanks in part to games like Pokemon X, Sayonara Umihara Kawase, Touch Detective: Funghi's Big Breed and, yes, Animal Crossing: New Leaf--that system actually pales in comparison to the original GameBoy and its catalog when it comes to taking up space in my brain at the moment.

Yes, I'm currently a bit obsessed Nintendo's first handheld. Actually, I've been obsessed with it for a few months now--ever since I became aware of and wrote about import-only curiosities like Noobow and Peetan.



Reading about and eventually playing those titles prompted me to do some digging to find a few similarly overlooked (by myself, if not by others) "gems," three of which can be seen in the photo above.

Although the GameBoy port of Snow Bros. Jr. (above, upper left) is well worth checking out, especially if you're into single screen platformers like Bubble Bobble, the games I want to focus on in this particular post are Painter Momopie (upper right), Penguin Land (lower right) and Osawagase! Penguin Boy (lower left).



Painter Momopie's probably my favorite of the bunch right now. Why? Because it stars an adorable little witch, for starters. Also, it's a surprisingly appealing Pac-Man clone--which tasks the aforementioned witch with racing through a home (hers? I'm not sure...) and painting (I think) its floors while avoiding various baddies. Sure, it gets a little repetitive after a while, but the same can be said for the iconic Pac-Man, so I'm not going to be too harsh on that aspect of it. My only real qualm: that its developers never released an updated version for the GameBoy Color.



As for Penguin Land: well, it's actually a port of Sega's Doki Doki Penguin Land, an odd little game that brings together the platformer and puzzler genres in a really unique (and fun) way. (Play revolves around guiding an egg to the bottom of each level by moving or destroying blocks that are in the way.) The Master System and Mega Drive versions of this title look better than this Pony Canyon-made one, of course, but I still wouldn't say the latter is at all unattractive. Plus, as is often the case with old games like this, there's far more to Penguin Land than its outward appearance.



Finally, there's Osawagase! Penguin Boy, released in North America as Amazing Penguin. I'm not exactly sure how this one escaped my attention for so long, although I think its rather terrible box art may have played a role. Thankfully, I first discovered Penguin Boy via a review of its gameplay, so the crappy cover didn't keep me from giving it a try once I became aware of it (the game, not the cover art). As for its gameplay: it's basically a mash-up of Pac-Man, Pengo and Qix, if that makes any sense. If not ... uh, watch the video above, which explains things pretty well.

See also: 'From the back of my boyhood closet, part seven'