Recently, I wrote about putting together my first actual hardware PC-98 computer. Having this has opened up new possibilities for FilesFound!, such as looking at 5.25" floppy disks (something I couldn't previously do).

As luck would have it, I found a very interesting floppy disk pretty soon after putting together the PC-98!

Quiz Barbie (クイズ Barbie) is a "panel competition quiz game" by Iyabo~n Soft (いやぼ～ん SOFT) for PC-98 and PC-98 Note. It's a doujin game made by a team of seven people for the 1992 Pasoket event.

Some information seems to exist about other games by Iyabo~n Soft online, but I couldn't find anything about Quiz Barbie! (By the way, adult content warning if you're going to look up their other content. Quiz Barbie is for all ages though, even if Barbie seems to be lacking some clothing on the front of the manual).

When I first saw Quiz Barbie, I was charmed by the idea of a Barbie fangame. I didn't know such things existed! I had to know what it was all about...

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Playing the Game

It's still so fun to see the PC-98 boot a game successfully... And Quiz Barbie was already impressing me more than I thought it would!

Look how pretty the art is! And the music is so cute! I was expecting to be put right into a simple quiz game, but the starting menu had more content than I would have initially guessed.

Another cute detail I noticed was this error message and art you'd get when the disk wasn't reading from the correct drive:


Something also worth explaining before continuing is the name of the team, Iyabo~n Soft:


At first, my friend that was helping me with translation wasn't sure how you were meant to say it. Earbone? Explosion?

But it's actually Iyabo~n, which is a reference to a trope in anime and manga:


Iyabo~n
A trope in battle manga. When the main character, a boy or a girl, is in a pinch, they shout "Iyaaaaaa---" at a critical moment and then suddenly explodes with some until now hidden power, blowing away the enemies with a "BOOOOON".

Fun to learn!

But let's look at that title screen for Quiz Barbie some more! What are those options...


- Elimination Tournament
- Free Battle Mode
- Profile
- Production Diary
- End

When I first got Quiz Barbie, I knew it was doujin (fan-made, independent) software, but I was expecting not to be able to learn much about who made it. But then there's a whole Production Diary in the opening screen! Let's take a look through it.


Name: Barbie
Today, my game was finished! <- Blushing
Everyone play it~!
Next is the staff members' introduction.

Wow, Barbie herself is here to introduce the team! Hi, Barbie!! ✌️


Name: Yoshida Kenji
I created the program and one girl. This time it was difficult because I had a tight schedule.
The game's grade is a gold star, so play it.
[The red image is a hanamaru, a stamp you get on your school work for a perfect grade]
[Green text] Look forward to our next, next work as well.
[Red text] Please buy our next work as well.

This is already so cute...! The handwritten text, the little doodles... I also didn't know about hanamaru stamps until now. I'm learning so much from Quiz Barbie!


Name: AK
[Bunny drawing] Where's happiness? [a reference to しあわせうさぎ/Happy Rabbit]
Oh my~ I'm sleepy~ [Misspelled]
Sorry for being so bad at this~.
Today is Da-Garn and Sailor Moon day, yay! [Referencing the Da-Garn and Sailor Moon anime]
[Cat drawing] <- Recently, it's pretty much just this.
By the way, Ganbaruger is wicked good, too. [Referencing the Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger anime]
Also, Giant Robo seems pretty cool. [Referencing the Giant Robo anime]
That's about it.
The End [misspelled]

AK seems to like a lot of anime...! Their writing style is kind of crazy too, but in a cute way. It's fun to see them talking about anime they enjoyed at the time...


Name: Katsuta
Once born, there's no taking it back.

Katsuta, are you okay??

But also, at the same time, I understand. The vibe I get from these entries is that Quiz Barbie was worked on in a game jam type setting, where the team limited themselves to a short time frame where they'd work until the game was finished. A lot of the entries talk about being sleepy... I think marking the walls with blood stained handprints is kind of normal for game dev crunch.


Name: Gedo
30 rounds of quiz was really tough. It might be a little confusing since I asked a lot of questions that were deliberately twisted. Ah, but I don't have to answer them, so I guess it's fine...

When I tried to play Quiz Barbie myself, the questions came up way too quickly and were timed, so I haven't actually read many of them. But from what Gedo says, it seems like that's fine.


Name: Kawai..
Three days before Pasoket, I joined as support. For the CG, Manaita-san did the original drawings, and I did the revisions and colouring. If you have any complaints about the colouring, please contact me (^^;

This entry is what makes me think that Quiz Barbie was made for and sold at Pasoket, which seems to have been a "Personal Computer" (paso) themed fan convention similar to Comiket (a large and popular comics convention that continues to this day). I want to go to Pasoket...!


Name: Gu
I'm Gu 🎵 I was in charge of the music. Come to think of it, I don't actually play games 😅 I hope the songs are to your liking. (the button sound is ✌️ right?)

I'm glad the musician is credited! I was wondering if the tracks in the game were original, and now we know they are. Don't worry about not playing games, Gu - it's probably for the best.


Name: Manaita S
SLEEP
I said, I'm sleepy...

Manaita was mentioned in the previous entry as being the main artist, so, again, I can understand this feeling. There's a lot of art in Quiz Barbie!

Another entry on the main menu was "Profile". This actually leads to character profile entries, which was another thing I wasn't expecting!


Asuka Hoshimiya
It is said that there is no blue sky on Mars. If you think about it that way, Earth is a happy planet. After all, this is the age where ecology and human technology will save the world.

Straight away, I was suprised by this being an entry for a character in Quiz Barbie. She seems like a character that would be striding across a desert in a fantasy Sc-Fi game...

Katarzyna
I came from Poland to study Japanese history. I also worked hard to learn Japanese and now I can read even the most difficult kanji.

More character whiplash! It seems that multiple people on the team made their own characters, and, like a real quiz show, all kinds of different people have showed up to take part.

All Nippon Airways Ochiko [her name is a pun on the word falling]
Freefall is already old news! [Freefall was a popular kind of ride in amusement parks in the late 90s]. The machine that will make you scream is All NOppon Airways [the airline name is partially censored]! The plane will go into freefall as it does a Dutch roll and you can listen to Kyu Sakamoto's live performance until it falls.

This was an interesting character profile for my friend to try and translate... She seems to be a character solely to make fun of a Japanese airline. Maybe her creator had just had a bad experience with their flight to attend Pasoket...?


Shinra Kokona
Um, please call me Kona, and I love stuff like anime and I often cosplay at places like Comiket. Ehe :) If you took a photo, please send it to me next time.

It makes sense that one of the characters would be someone who goes to conventions! She's also a character that makes me think that everyone has differently weighted AI, because she instantly would get any anime themed questions correct during the quiz gameplay itself.

Miki Ichikawa
I'm like, obsessed with Disney right now. Unfortunately, since I'm still in high school, I can't go to the real Disneyland. I don't have good motor reflexes, but I'll try my best!

Cute!! Ganbaru, Miki-chan...

Himiko Yayoi
Japan is currently called the electronic kingdom and is dominating the world. I'm thinking that I also want to study computers and be of use to my country.

Suddenly, a rabbit man! The cast of Quiz Barbie is wide ranging...


Saeko Suzuki
I'm a quiet person, so pressing the button fast is a little... Huh? What are my hobbies? Maybe reading... It's such a shame that "Yapoo The Human Cattle" is over...

An intimidating nurse... At least, is how I feel about her after looking up Yapoo The Human Cattle.

Yoko Kuki
Ah, nice to meet you, my name is Yoko. I'm not particularly good at anything, but cooking is my hobby. Thank you very much.

Another character that makes me believe the AI has different question answering capabilities - Yoko never seemed to do well... Being good at cooking is important, though! Although, I suppose she didn't say she was actually good at it...

Manami Nakano
In the midst of this boom of martial arts, are you all working hard to train your body? I am also working hard to become the professional wrestling superstar of tomorrow.

Yeah! 90s wrestling!! Its fun when stuff I look at dates itself with its content. This guy dominated in the first quiz I tried.

Actually playing the game has you either select characters to compete against or sees them picked automatically:


As for the quiz itself... It's not really possible unless you can read Japanese very quickly!


Questions are read out a character at a time, and anyone can buzz in and attempt to answer before the whole question is displayed.

Here are a few I translated after watching a video recording back as examples:

Vongole in the pasta dish Vongole Bianco means clams in Italian, but what does bianco mean?
- Yellow
- Red
- White
- Black

In the anime "Spaceship Yamato", which item is not equipped by Yamato?
- Chimney missile
- Wave depth charge
- Wave motion gun
- Wave cannon
- Wave cartridge

What is Red Ron's favourite machine in the anime "Da-Garn"?
- Heineken
- Ebenbrau
- Budweiser

There were multiple questions about Da-Garn...! I don't know anything about that anime!!

Overall though, Quiz Barbie was such a fun find! I'm so glad it included the Production Diary pages, that was my favourite part for sure... And, even though a lot of the team seemed to have been tired out, it feels like they had fun working together!

Barbie might not have shown up very much, and it didn't really have anything to do with her, but that makes it funnier to me LOL

I recorded a video of all of the different menu screens and gameplay and uploaded it to YouTube for anyone who wants to watch it be played:


I also learnt how to make a virtual hard drive image (.hdi format) that includes DOS pre-installed, the Quiz Barbie game files and an autoexec.bat file that makes it so the game launches automatically. All you have to do is load the .hdi file with a PC-98 emulator and you'll be able to play Quiz Barbie yourself!

You can download the hard drive image of Quiz Barbie on archive.org here, and you can read the included booklet here.

For more information on PC-98 emulation and how to get it up and running, this guide is very useful! Thanks for reading!