GameKing is a brand of handheld game consoles, designed and developed by Timetop and manufactured by Guangzhou Panyu Gaoming Electronics Co., Ltd., (also known as GZ Daidaixing Electronics Tech Co., Ltd.) It is based on a 65C02 CPU running at 6.0 MHz.
It is fashioned to look like Nintendo's Game Boy Advance and comes in a wide array of vivid pastel colors, most GameKing games heavily rely on bitmap rather than tile-based rendering of the screen, e.g. most levels in its platform and shoot 'em up games are in reality large 4-color bitmaps, instead of using the most common method of graphic tiles and tile maps, like in most other game consoles and arcade games. This was probably done for economic reasons (the CPU alone can handle all graphics easily, at that resolution) and easy development of the games, apart from the objectively low resolution of the screen. While such a scheme seems to work, it has the disadvantage of using cartridge space inefficiently, so that e.g. most platform games are limited to three levels.
GameKing II (GM-219)
250px|thumb|A GameKing II (GM-219) with its selection menuThe GameKing II (GM-219) released in October 2004,
- Cyclon Action
- Might
- CarMan
- Spectask
- Captain (Which seems to use music from Mega Man X)
- Seaguard
- Whirlybird
- Happy Garden
- Airhero
- Magician
- Explorer
- Farer
- Seabedwar
- Sortie
- Phantom Fighter
GameKing III (GM-220)
TimeTop quietly released a third GameKing machine, called the 'GameKing III' or GM-220 sometime in 2005. While early advertisements showed the GameKing III with the same "false color" background picture as the GameKing I and II, which indicated that the system was black and white like the previous GameKing models, the GM-220 is full colour. Another distinction of the GM-220 is that unlike its predecessors, the Gameking I and II, which were promoted and marketed worldwide, the Gameking III was not distributed outside of Asia, making it much less common than the earlier models. In 2005, many websites initially reported the device as "coming soon", and it is not known why Timetop eventually decided to offer only a limited release.
The resolution doesn't seem enhanced compared to an original GameKing, and "classic" GameKing cartridges are automatically colorized, while games especially developed for it allegedly make use of the full color palette, which for the moment remains unknown. The site claimed a total of 12 carts for this system. If the built-in game is included, 8 titles are known as of 2010.
A new design for the GKIII was placed in April 2006 at the Timetop site, and later removed (see GM-221, below).
GM-221
GameKing III GM-221|thumb|right|200px
thumb|GameKing III handheld video game console with games, demonstrating its notable hexagonal screen|right|300px
A second design for the Gameking III also exists which combines elements from the GM-219 with the GM-220. The Button design and layout is from the GM-220 design, with the "A" button being distinctly larger than the "B" button, but the overall form is obviously inspired from Sony's PSP design. Several colors are shown on the back of the box, green and orange for example, however only two colors, a black edition and a white edition are confirmed to exist.
GameKing III games
GameKing III machines have a built-in game:
- Galaxy Crisis
At the moment the only known game carts for the GameKing III are: The console comes with 25 built-in games and is also able to accept cartridges, however their size and connectors are different from (and incompatible with) previous Gameking consoles. The game selection includes games typically found on NES clones, like 1942, Pooyan or Dig Dug, as well as graphic ROM hacks of famous NES games (for example, using Blue's Journey graphics with Adventure Island).
The GM-228 was available in a large variety of colors with some faceplaces containing very elaborate designs. Colors included silver, black, green, yellow, and pink.
HandyGame (GM-228) games
The famiclone version of the GameKing III has its own selection of games, most of them being pirated or unlicensed Famicom/NES games or variations. These come multi-carts with combinations such as 26in1, 49in1, and 72in1, etc. No HandyGame carts are compatible with any previous model.