CREEPINGNET'S WORLD
Brush Roller
1990, Hwang Shinwei/CCE, Famicom/Famiclones
Brush Roller is a clone of Make Trax (an arcade game by Kural Samno in 1981. Also known as Crush Roller. Which the name came from.) made by Hwang Shinwei in 1990. This game can often be found on multicarts and was sold in Brazil as a stand-alone cart by CCE.

The player starts with 9 lives in this version, as opposed to the 3 that there were in Make Trax. The scoring system in this game works differently, in that no points are awarded for painting over the road and that running over a fish awards one point more than the points the player currently has on the current level. (e.g. if the player has 7 points when they run over a fish they will get 8 points for doing so) There is a 200 second timer in this version which the original game did not have. The graphics are mostly the same, although the title screen is completely different and the enemies that leave footprints look different in this game. The music is reused from Magic Jewelry.

This game was later hacked by NTDEC to make Bookyman, which was released on the Caltron 6-in-1 and the Asder 20-in-1. It replaces the title screen, some of the graphics and the sound. Strangely, while the Caltron version replaces the music and most of the sound effects, the Asder version does not despite having been released a year later. Likely for Space in the Cartridge. It was also reused in a 50-in-1 by Manley Toys Ltd. in 2000.


What the F*** Is This!?!? - My Experiences
My first encounter with this was in the first 400-in-1 Video on my YouTube page, I thought it might be a clone of "Master Builder" for the Atari 2600 by Nice Code or Hummer Team (C'mon, I know I mention them a lot here, blame Lady Decade or the YouTube Algorthim but honestly I should thank her videos for making me aware of what those two companies ARE). This though....uhhhhhh....

So, I started playing it and well....have you ever just plugged in a random video game you've never seen before - an experience familiar to people my age and older who grew up with Atari 2600 and the huge "shoebox" of cartridges shrouded in mystery. We'd just dive into these games cold-turkey, not knowing what we are doing, what the premise, or story is....this is one of those cases...

So here I am, game 41, Brush Roller, and I've got the Angry Monkey from Family Guy looking purple with intrigue with a 50's Pomporadour haircut looking at me very uncomfortably! Okay, what is this going to be? Then I'm greeted to a screen that looked like Something I'd see on an early 1980's CGA PC game! Seriously, this looks like one of those old Reader Rabbit or Sharedata floppies from the 80's puked up on screen. The music is better though, that same repetitive theme again and again and again......meanwhile I'm running around what looks like a Matchbox car mat, I assume painting the street, which has some jerk wandering through my fresh paintjob and what looks like a bulldog undoing it and looking to kill me. Meanwhile, the playfield is surrounded by a car, a cat, and what looks like the World Tree from Dragon Warrior II? Okay, what in same heck is going on here?

Honestly, I'm not a fan, nor have I figured it out yet. I'm okay at this one, but honestly, that music, and the repetitive gameplay with non-changing scenery is a recipie for self-induced psychosis!
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