Widge (the real one)

  Borf is a free launcher for Hypseus on Windows, built to make working with Daphne and Singe LaserDisc-style FMV games easier and more enjoyable. Hypseus is a powerful platform, and it gives you a huge amount of flexibility. But as soon as you start building a library of games, all running from batch scripts, the practical side of managing them can start to feel more complicated than it needs to be. I made Borf to bring everything together into a single, clean interface that makes organising and launching games feel straightforward again. With Borf, you can manage your games in one place, add preview images and video snaps, organise titles with categories, and quickly filter larger collections as they grow. It’s designed to feel comfortable whether you’re just getting started with Hypseus, or you already have an established setup and want something more convenient to work with. Borf focuses on the everyday experience of using Hypseus, helping you spend less time managing files and...

When people talk about FMV light-gun games, the conversation almost always begins with the same familiar names. Titles from companies like American Laser Games defined the genre in the early nineties, and for many players, they still represent its high-water mark. But running quietly alongside those well-known releases were a handful of projects that never quite found their audience. Games that existed on the fringes of arcades, or never properly escaped development at all. One of those games is Platoon, developed by Nova Productions. Nova's Doomed FMV Arcade Shooter Platoon was conceived as a full-motion video light-gun game in the same mould as its contemporaries: on-rails action, live-action footage, and enemy encounters driven entirely by pre-recorded scenes. The setting clearly evokes a Vietnam-era conflict with dense jungle terrain, ambushes from foliage, and enemy soldiers throughout. Although the game itself never explicitly names a location. And despite sharing its title w...

In the early 1990s, American Laser Games carved out a distinctive niche in arcades with their live-action laserdisc shooters. Unlike traditional sprite-based games, these titles dropped players straight into a western film, complete with real actors, branching scenes, and the thrill of a quick draw. Among their most ambitious productions was Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold , released in 1992 as a sequel to the original Mad Dog McCree . The game sends you across deserts, towns, and trains in pursuit of Mad Dog’s hidden Spanish treasure , all while his gang does its best to stop you. Gunsmoke and Treasure Maps Like its predecessor, Mad Dog II uses full-motion video and light-gun controls. Every decision is made by your trigger finger: hit the right target and the story continues; hesitate and you’re history. Early on you “Choose your guide” from a set of eccentric companions, each leading you on a slightly different route to the treasure. But no matter which path you take, Mad Dog himse...

When working on a Sinden Lightgun, whether you’re fitting a trigger mod or doing other maintenance, you’ll usually hear the same warning: be careful around the big capacitor in the handle . That capacitor powers the recoil solenoid, and when fully charged it holds around 20 volts . If you accidentally short its terminals with your hand or a tool, you could get a sharp (and very unpleasant) shock. But that raises a sensible question: how long does it take for the capacitor to discharge after you unplug the gun? It’s easy to say “wait before you open it up,” but what does “safe” actually mean in practice? I decided to put it to the test. Setting Up the Test To measure the discharge rate, I connected my multimeter directly to the capacitor’s terminals and watched the voltage over time. Since the capacitor was already flat, I first needed to charge it. Plugging the Sinden into my PC and enabling recoil in the Sinden software sent the voltage climbing almost instantly. Within just a ...

If you're a regular viewer of my YouTube channel then you must already know about Picmatic and their seminal full-motion-video arcade lightgun opus, Marbella Vice . If not, then maybe you should subscribe so you don't miss out in future! 😉 Marbella Vice was Picmatic ’s stylish crime drama that looked like it wandered out of a telenovela and into a shooting gallery. It was one of three such LaserDisc -based arcade games that the Spanish company developed, inspired no doubt, by the work of American Laser Games with their better known lightgun classics such as Mad Dog McCree , Crime Patrol , and Who Shot Johnny Rock . Tierras Salvajes , is of the same breed. It's Picmatic 's third and final foray into this world of live-action LaserDisc based shooters. This time set in the fan-favourite mythic American West, complete with saloons, shootouts, and sweeping plains where lawmen and outlaws settled things with bullets and bluster. The year is sometime after the American Civil...

Hey, everyone, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining me. Oh, wait. Sorry.  Obviously I can't actually see you. And you're not physically here with me. Those are just expressions, right? We use them all the time, even though they don't literally mean what they say.  That kind of thing can be confusing sometimes. And that's exactly what I want to talk about today, a common mix-up in the gaming world, specifically the way we use the word retro to describe our favourite old games like  Sonic the Hedgehog  and  Super Mario Brothers . And here's the thing...  those games aren't really retro at all .  Let me explain why. Super Mario Bros. When people talk about games like Sonic and Mario, they often call them  retro  because they're from the past and bring back memories. But just because something is old doesn't make it retro. That's a common misunderstanding.  And it all comes down to what retro really means By definition, retro means " imitati...

If you’ve had your 8BitDo SN30 or SF30 Pro controller for a few years, you might have noticed that the battery just doesn’t last like it used to. I ran into exactly that issue with several of my own controllers, so in late 2022, I made a YouTube video documenting the process of replacing them. This blog post is meant as an accompaniment or alternative to that video with advice to help you identify and source a compatible replacement battery. Even if you can’t find the original model anymore. The Original Battery The stock battery inside many 8BitDo SN30/SF30 Pro controllers is a GJ451860 lithium polymer (LiPo) cell, rated at 3.7V and 480mAh . That model number is important, and not just for identifying the battery. It’s actually the key to finding a compatible replacement. At the time I made my video, it was impossible to find a battery with that serial number. You may have more luck today, but if you struggle I can help. Just read on. Understanding Battery Model Numbers Here's the...

Right at the start of the 21st century, in the early twenty-nothings, before smartphones dominated casual gaming and before emulators became household tools, there was a simpler gaming frontier: the plug-and-play console. A self-contained controller, processor, and game library in one. Plug it into your TV and play instantly. I distinctly remember this time as being a period where lots of simple plug-and-play TV games saturated store shelves.  And Amongst these quirky relics lies a remarkable and somewhat overlooked title: This is Mission: Paintball , released in 2004 by Tiger Electronics ( or Tiger TV Games as declared on the game's title card ) , a Hasbro subsidiary. Unlike many of the plug-and-play units which offered arcade ports or retro rehashes, Mission: Paintball  was an original first-person shooter designed exclusively for television play. It was a full-fledged lightgun experience, simulating the thrill of competitive paintball with surprising ambition.  But it...

Who Shot Johnny Rock?  is an FMV light gun game originally released by American Laser Games in 1991. Like many of their titles, it ran on laserdisc hardware in arcades, using full-motion video to deliver a movie-like experience with live actors and pre-recorded scenes. You didn’t control a character in the traditional sense, your job was to watch the story unfold and shoot when the time was right. It was part of that early wave of "interactive movie" games, where gameplay was built around reacting quickly to on-screen events. The game is set in a stylized version of 1930s Chicago, and you play a private detective hired to solve the murder of a nightclub singer named Johnny Rock. Your client is Red, a classic femme fatale who brings you the case and sends you off into the city’s underbelly to track down suspects. There are four main ones, all with disease-themed nicknames: Measles, Mumps, Smallpox, and Lockjaw Lil, and each with a motive. The twist is that the killer is rando...