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Welcome to Gameparknewbie! GPn is a site dedicated to helping you fully understand and appreciate the underground handheld consoles of Gamepark and Gameparkholdings. I know, I know. It all sounds so confusing right now, but don't worry! Just spend some time on Gameparknewbie, and all will become clear. Navigation is straightforward. Main navigation is on the top, and more precise subnavigation will appear to your left on each section.
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Could it be that the new spiritual Gamepark successor... is a Gizmondo?
Gizmondo, the console that was and then wasn't just as quickly, is apparently returning this year (See this teaser page). But this time seems like it will have a different focus -- an open-source environment where you can make your own games. Sound familiar?
While I'm a little confused and honestly worried about "psychic worlds," if Gizmondo were to be revived with the same financial backing as the first had, this could be spur a revolution in the underground, homebrew handheld world.
Of course, this could just be a homage from one of the four remaining Gizmondo fans... 
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GP32 Revival Coding Competition
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For all you GP32 owners who have been hankering for some new stuff to try, there's good news. diabol has announced the GP32 Revival Coding Competition.
This is really great because the GP32 may have been tapped as far as emulation goes, but it was never even close to utilized when it comes to homebrew and other various applications, so I'm very interested to see what comes out of this. The competition end date is not set, but I'll be sure to write about it here when the entries are finally released.
And good luck to all the devs who will be entering, and thanks to diabol and the other players for putting this together. 
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GPn back to working order, forum consolidated, better
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Well, it's sort of a hack job, but you guys shouldn't really be able to notice a difference. The news feed is now live again as are all the niceties on the main page. Hooray! 
I also did some maintenance to the forum. It's updated, I've consolidated the boards to make it slimmer and easier to navigate. ALSO there is now a dedicated Pandora forum, so join the discussion about our new platform now!
There was a slight update to the Link sections of GP32 and GP2X while the news feed was down. I added likes to PDRoms' GP32/GP2X coverage.
Keep watching for more updates and the eventual new layout and content.
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GPn in 2008 and a new console revealed!
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I know I've been sort of MIA recently, and my excuse is pretty much the same as always -- life gets in the way, guys. But I've been lurking the forum and answering e-mails as I find time to do so. I'm really encouraged that, despite my absence, you guys keep logging on to Gamepark newbie. And your patience will not be wasted.
To be honest, my passion for the GP2X has dwindled somewhat. That's not to say it isn't an outstanding platform because it most certainly is (Picodrive alone proves that), but I'm concerned that the current platform's potential is probably mostly tapped. Making matters worse, Gamepark Holdings has yet to reveal a followup to its GP2X outside of the little upgrade to the F-200. Here's hoping they make some announcement in the coming year!
But now for the new console I mentioned. Introducing the Pandora...
You might be wondering what's going on. I just said I hoped GPH would announce something in the coming year. Well, this is not a GPH platform. This is an open source, community-based platform created by the community. Headed up by Craig from GP2X.co.uk, the Pandora is quite the powerhouse -- dual analog, QWERTY keyboard, 800x480 display, Wi-Fi, and powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 and PowerVR SGX (that's good ).
Personally, it's not really much of a looker, but those specs are certainly intriguing. The release date is Spring 2008 with an estimated price tag of 199 GBP, $320 and €286.
I'll keep you posted. And keep watching newbie for other updates. The site has become outdated thanks to the demise of our beloved (or maybe just mine  ) Gamepark, so hopefully we can see a new layout in the coming months.
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Sorry guys; I've been lacking an internet connection for about a week now, so I missed the major (perhaps?) announcement of the GP2X F-200. It's not the massive upgrade that everybody knows is on the way, but it's something... It's basically a (somewhat awkward-looking but maybe comfortable) d-pad, white case and a touch screen.
Other than that so far it appears to be the same GP2X that we've been playing since the beginning. I really don't have any much else to share right now, but, once I finally get connected to the net again (in the middle of this coming week), I'll try to compile as much about this new device as I can and get it to you in an update to Gamepark newbie.
Also, there is a more powerful, as of yet, unnamed console coming... I'll let you know what I can about that, too. Let's hope the new one has a longer lifespan than the GP2X...
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Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles NOW AVAILABLE!!
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Yuan Works has let me know that Wind & Water: Puzzle Battles is released! The final sales price is US$16, which is ~€12 and ~£8 OR pay US$24, which is ~€18 and ~£12, and receive W&W along with a customized sprite of yourself for use in the game.
Support this wonderful indie developer, and purchase the game now!
I've also heard about an upcoming Dreamcast version... Hmm.
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Just released from Ruckage is 'Sleuth Slots', a Fruit Machine Sim using characters and themes from his upcoming game, Cluedo. Very pretty graphics on both games Thanks Ruckage.
Download:Here
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Cave Story ~ Doukutsu Monogatari
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I've actually never heard of this before until now. It's a great sidescrolling RPG created by Studio Pixel. Thanks alot to Simon Parzer for porting!
This is version 1.0
"Known Issues:
-------------
- Normal version needs overclocking (should run ok at 233+)
- HW accelerated version has occasional graphical glitches (caused by the MMSP2 HW blitter). Example: "white lines" in Grasstown
Changes from BETA1:
-------------------
- Better performance (the non-accelerated version runs nearly fullspeed at 200 MHz)
- More accurate music playback
- Buttons are customizable (gp2x_buttons.txt)
- Fixed text alignment
- Fixed a crash in the "undead core" level
- Fixed a crash just before the credits
- Fixed credits (script wasn't loading)
- Tested the entire game, including secrets, on the GP2X
Controls:
---------
See included gp2x_buttons.txt
Start+Select gets you into the pause menu:
- Start+Select = Exit
- B = Continue
- R = Reset
Final word:
-----------
All in all it should be fully playable.
I strongly recommend playing the original (PC/Windows) game first. It's not quite possible to bring this degree of highly polished gameplay to the GP2X in its full glory.
Thanks to Pixel for his permission and to Pete for his great support. Also big thanks to paeryn for his HW accelerated SDL lib.
Links:
------
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA022293/
-- Homepage of Pixel, unmodified (Japanese) version of the game
http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=cavestory
-- Homepage of Aeon Genesis, original English translation
http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
-- Cave Story fansite, Deluxe version (highly recommended),
walkthroughs, hacking guides, etc.
http://doukutsu.livejournal.com
-- Cave Story community"
Download: Here
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A new update to the excellent Battlejewels by skeezix. Great job and congratulations on winning the GBAX competition.
"Theres not a huge number of evident changes since the GBAX build, but some goodies you'll hopefully like; theres a pile of behind the scenes changes and some bugfixes (the Skelly nolonger cheats, eep!), and planning ahead for the levelling and experience system, new gear, more classes etc.
Some of the more obvious changes..
o Load and Save slots -- you can have 4 saves now, so you can try more classes out for instance
o New Friar class -- mostly pure defence with a heal-over-time, damage reflection shield and cure-poison spells
o Some interesting new mechanics; damage over time, poison over time, heal over time, and some other buffs/debuffs, including some simple (not-finalized) icons
o The Knave can fire a poison dart; not sure if he is now overpowered, or if all the classes balance when played their respective way; when I add more opponents, and start gearing them up as you gear up it shouldprove interesting...
I've got some more music tracks to drop in, and lots of things on the go, but haven't had time to wrap it all up for ya.. but thought you might like to fiddle with the changes so far
Hope you dig it!
jeff"
Download: Here
Website: Here
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BUHOnero and Coelophysis have made a great looking remake of Camelot Warriors for the Computer Emuzone competition.
Download: Here
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Notaz and GnoStiC have updated the Uae4all Amiga emulator! It seems some games have better fps and other changes.
"As some of you may have noticed I was working on improving Cyclone compatibility lately. So I thought that a good way to test the accuracy is to integrate it into some amiga emulator, and uae4all was perfect for that. After a lot of tweaking/bugfixing it is finally there.
Also, I saw GnoStiC's recent improvements and asked him to submit them too.
So here is what have been changed:
Cyclone integrated.
GnoStiC's blitter optimizations added.
Added switching between SDL_HWSURFACE and SDL_SWSURFACE for better performance and to avoid menu crashes.
SDL_Mixer removed to reduce binary size and for minor performance improvement.
FPS counter added (enable status line to see).
Unfortunately virtual keyboard began flickering because of SDL_HWSURFACE change, but that hopefully won't hurt too much.
The fps count increased around 70% in auto frameskip mode for me. Cyclone gave similar improvement as switching to SDL_HWSURFACE, GnoStiC's improvements did a bit less but they are still noticeable. I'm able to run Turrican at 50fps (or very near it, with RAM hacks and overclocking). I'm not sure what impact this will cause on compatibility, but several games I tested work without problems."
Download: Here
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No, this isn't a new format. I've just gotten a little bit behind on updates and most of them are emulator updates, so I thought I'd condense them this time.
MAME GP2X
Franxis and contributors have released a new version (v4.3) of MAME for GP2X. He had just released 4.2, which included Notaz-inspired improvements including compatibility and optimization improvements and VSync, among other things. 4.3 is a bugfix release, but it's worth it. Full details on the website listed.
Download: Here
Website: Here
Gngeo2X
pepone has updated Gngeo2x, Neo Geo emulator, to v0.7 Beta 11, which fixes (or hopefully fixes, according to pepone) the dualcpu bug.
Download: Here
Website: Here
Race!
Race! is a NGP/C emulator for GP2X from Hooka. This release (simply versioned 7-14-07) adds fullscreen scaling, which is really a love/hate sort of feature. I however love scaling. Thanks, Hooka! R trigger toggles fullscreen mode, by the way.
Download: Here
Website: Here
And that's it. Keep watching newbie. Significant new feature to the site is now in the planning stages. Here's hoping it works out as planned...
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