Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game

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Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Masaya (Japan), DreamWorks (US)
Developer: NCS
Licensor: Thinking Rabbit
Original system(s): JP Home Computers
Developer(s) of original games: Thinking Rabbit
Genre: Puzzle
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1990-01-30 ¥5,200 (5,356)5,200e T-25023 US 1990-05 T-25036

Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game, called Shijou Saidai no Soukoban (史上最大の倉庫番) in Japan, is a version of Sokoban for the Sega Mega Drive by NCS.

Story

Japanese version

Romu, a warehouse keeper, fells in love with a blonde woman, but she enters in a sports car instead of Romu's beetle car.

Now, he must work hard in order to get enough money to buy a sports car to get her.

American version

Stevedore, a warehouse keeper, is shoving boxes to earn him money to make his dreams come true: a lovely girlfriend and a fiery red sports car.

Gameplay

Shove It! Stage 1, Room 4.

The game consists of 16 (US) or 25 (JP) stages with 10 rooms each. At a certain stage, any of the 10 rooms can be selected while playing but a new stage will only be opened up when all rounds have been successfully completed. To complete a round, Stevedore needs to push all boxes on the designated spots. This will turn them into a different color. This is no easy task as the level design will obstruct many moves and cornered boxes can no longer be moved. While playing it is possible to restart the round, undo the last step and the game keeps track of the number of steps taken.

Players can back up their previous move with in play, and use the D-pad to move Stevedore. opens a menu with a few options: Return sends you back to the game, Once Again resets the board, Trace Mode resets the board and allows players to push to replay their moves up to the last move before opening the menu, and Go allows the player to choose from level x+1 to x+10.

Editor

Shove It! features an Edit Mode, which allows players to make their own puzzles to stump family or friends. While the option is definitely useful, it is limited by a number of factors (no battery backup or password to save level designs, no error-checking for impossible puzzles).

Shove It!'s Edit Mode.

In the Edit Mode menu, the player must select EDIT to begin editing their puzzle. The player will begin with a "clean slate" of red brick background, and is limited to the "basic" graphics in this set (turquoise brick walls, brown boxes that turn light blue on a dot), only being able to use the "small" graphics, giving them a playfield 20 units wide by 14 units high. The editing cursor is the white square that starts off in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. The player can move the cursor with the D-Pad, and scrolling the cursor off one edge of the screen will make it appear on the opposite side (e.g., scroll the cursor off the left edge of the screen, it will appear on the right.)

The player can select different "pieces" to build with by pressing . The chosen piece will be displayed in the center of the cursor. The pieces appear in the following order: background, dot, wall, box, box on dot. Pressing will place that piece on the board; holding down and moving the D-Pad will continuously place copies of that piece on the board as the cursor moves. The player must place a box on dot by using the box on dot option; they cannot first place a dot, then place a box on that dot, because it will just turn into a regular box. Pressing will automatically return the cursor to background and erase whatever is underneath the cursor; holding down and moving the D-Pad will continuously erase whatever is underneath the cursor as it moves.

When the player has finished creating their puzzle, pressing  START  will return to the Edit Mode menu, allowing them to select PLAY to play their puzzle. The player will first have to select Stevedore's starting point by moving him and pressing ; note that Stevedore can be placed inside a solid unit, such as a wall or box, at the start of a game. (His first move, however, must be either to an open space, or moving a box adjacent to his starting location.) From here the game will function much like a regular game of Shove It!, only without the Step, Stage and Room details at the bottom of the screen. The only other difference is that pressing  START  will exit from the puzzle at any point and return the player back to the Edit Mode menu. Whenever the puzzle is solved, the game will automatically exit back to the Edit Mode menu.

When designing puzzles, it's important to keep in mind the components the player has already learned in the game: circuits, order of placement of boxes on dots and so on. Note that the game does not automatically error-check, so it is entirely possible to create an impossible board and not know it. If the player places more dots than boxes on the board, the puzzle will be considered solved when each box is on a dot; if the player places more boxes than dots on a board, the puzzle will never be considered solved, even when each dot has a box on it. Also note that Stevedore cannot scroll off the edge of the screen, so the 20-by-14 boundary of the playfield acts as a wall of its own.

Versions

Localised names

Also known as

Language	Localised Name	English Translation
English (US)	Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game	Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game
Japanese	史上最大の倉庫番	Shijou Saidai no Soukoban

Magazine articles

Main article: Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in GamePro (US) #11: "June 1990" (1990-xx-xx)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1989-11: "November 1989" (1989-XX-XX)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1990-02: "February 1990" (1990-01-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1990-03: "March 1990" (1990-02-08)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 50 Aktueller Software Markt (DE) 80 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 63 Complete Guide to Consoles (UK) 78 The Complete Guide to Sega (UK) 78 Console XS (UK) NTSC-J 59 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 33 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1 (RU) 50 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 58 Mega Drive Fan (JP) NTSC-J 57 MegaTech (UK) NTSC-J 78 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 78 Power Play (DE) 85 Sega Power (UK) NTSC-U 75 Sega Pro (UK) 75 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-U 30 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-J 59 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 41 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 54

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Based on 19 reviews

Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

Main article: Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game/Technical information.

References

Soukoban games for Sega systems
	Soukoban (1985)
	Soukoban (19xx)
	Shove It! ...The Warehouse Game (1990)
	Soukoban (1990)