Well, this is odd...a clone of a Gameking?

As you may have seen, here at Obsolete Worlds we are big fans of the Timetop Gameking. The little low-res handheld that somehow managed to exist in a time when most people were enjoying the graphical delights of the PSP!

So when we saw this appear on ebay, we had to investigate. It arrived on Obsolete Island via Spain this week, sadly a little worse for wear and with broken parts rattling around inside it. After some tinkering we finally got it working again and now have to ask one question.

What on earth is this?

Firstly let's address what it isn't. It isn't a Gameking. In fact it seems to be something similar to the 45-in-1 Game Player (YD-G202) that we reviewed in the The Off Licence.  It doesn't play Gameking games and doesn't appear to be manufactured by Timetop. Yet the case font and overall layout are clearly trying to invoke the Gameking II as seen by this side by side below. Note also the similarities in button layout the curve of the external speaker.

Like the Gameking II it also comes with one of those idiotic colour backgrounds (annoyingly glued in place here, unlike the GKII's removable lense). Although the screen is much bigger allowing for much larger and more detailed sprites.  It also retains the backlight function of the GKII with a switch allowing you to power on the system with or without the backlight. It also takes the same number of batteries as a GKII (3 AAA's).
Unlike the Gameking II, cartridges are inserted into a slot in the left, although there appears to be some doubt over whether or not they actually contain any data or are simply triggering something built into the system's internal memory, as with many of the gimmicky methods used in YD Company's similar handhelds.
Anyway, let's have a look at what we found inside, shall we?

Here you can see how the 'cartridge', when inserted, touches some contacts and prompts the system to load the game 'Bomber'. Annoyingly, despite the system having '4-in-1' on it, in an inaccurate attempt to copy the Gameking's '3-in-1' tagline, there appears to be no way of accessing these games (of which there actually appear to be five) without the relevant cartridge being inserted. More on that in a moment.

After removing more screws, here's what we found under the hood (including the full code name of the product), if anyone can translate those Chinese characters to reveal the manufacturer name then that would be of particular interest.
​Now let's look at what the system actually does.

Booting it up with no game inserted brings up the legend 'Multigame © JDRIGHT, which is interesting since it suggests a western designer. You then get this image of a completely different device, suggesting that the software running on this may not be exclusive to this machine.
Further evidence that the games in question are probably built into the unit rather than the 'cartridges' comes in the appearance of five little icons at the top of the screen: A jet plane, some blocks, a man with a gun, a race-car and finally the same 'Bomber' found on our cartridge.
Oddly there are slots for both 1 and 2 players as well as some screen rot that we might be able to remove with the old soldering iron trick. The 2 player mode might explain this port being on the back of the console:​

We're not sure what this port is for. Could it be an external power adapter or a 2 player link up cable?
Anyway, from the menu screen you can adjust contrast and volume with the relevant buttons on the face of the device. 
Next step: playing a game on it!

Perhaps it was due to the piece of loose plastic we found rattling about inside it, but inserting the cartridge was a precarious job. Pushing it too far in meant it got stuck inside the unit so we had to gauge carefully where it should be resting. On doing so, the game loaded up 'Bomber' and, in fact, we discovered that the cart can be plugged in while the system is turned on, further suggesting that the games are merely being booted by the cart triggering some contacts. Presumably the system retailed with five such carts and the seller simply lost the others. This is annoying as it means that the other four built in games are permanently locked off, despite them almost certainly being present in the system memory.

And Bomber? Well, it's a Bomberman clone isn't it. Quite a primitive one, very similar in style to the Gameking games 'Popper' and 'Miner'. The sound effects and some of the graphics definitely feel familiar to seasoned Gameking veterans.

One of the most fascinating thing about the GameKing to us is the number of questions it asks.
Why manufacture such a technologically inferior system in the era of the PSP? Who made and coded the near 80 titles available for it? Why did Timetop keep releasing so many iterations of it? Who was buying them all?

Now, with the discovery of this odd clone, we have a new riddle to solve. Why was anyone attempting to clone one?

If anyone can help us solve this mystery then we'd love to read your thoughts.