Pia Carrot e Youkoso!! 3 (Ｐｉａキャロットへようこそ!! ３) and the Dreamcast development kit from NEC Interchannel
The Pia Carrot franchise is a Japanese series of dating simulation games, a genre that is not well known in Europe and the United States. This style of game is very common in Japan and is a hit with young men. Each game in the licence takes place in one of the various restaurants of the fictional "Pia Carrot" chain. Welcome to Pia Carrot was also given a Hentai OVA based on 3 episodes. The series first saw the light of day in 1994.
Welcome to Pia Carrot! 3 is the second sequel to "Pia Carrot", which takes place one year later than "Pia Carrot 2". The game was published on PC by F&C FC02 in 2001. The Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 versions were released by NEC Interchannel in 2003.
Welcome to Pia Carrot 3 is set in a new Pia restaurant by the sea, where your help is needed. The waitresses from the other three Pia restaurants volunteer to offer their services to the new establishment. This is where the player comes in to help them and charm the girls. It's a busy summer holiday with a part-time job alongside some of the most charming young ladies.
Video of the prototype
The goal of the game is to try to establish a romantic relationship with one of the women working in the restaurant. In order to win the heart of one of the girls, you have to go through a series of events and make the right decisions at the right time. As there are several girls around the hero of the game, it is possible to choose the one who will be the lucky one, which gives a high replayability to the title.
Bienvenue à Pia Carrot ! 3 (25 févr. 2003, Prototype Dreamcast)
This prototype is dated 25 February 2003, surprisingly 12 days after the final versions. Was NEC Interchannel thinking of releasing a revision of the Dreamcast copy?
This prototype, a nice find, was found in a Dreamcast Katana Development Kit (hard drive image download here) recently acquired by ＳＵＤＤＥＮ・ＤＥＳＵ. It also included a finalised version of Interlude.
The game starts with system information at the top left of the screen and right. A pink progress bar appears at the bottom of the window during the characters' sound dialogue lines, perhaps a kind of sound check.
It is interesting to note that the configuration screen has a nice blue gradient in the prototype version, whereas the final version is black. There are also more options for voice volume. This may be due to the fact that some options are unlocked by default.
prototype
final
Debug Menu
This build of Pia Carrot e Youkoso! 3 Dreamcast contains a Debug Menu. To activate it, you have to plug a controller in the D port of the console and press the B button. It will appear everywhere. The Debug Menu will also appear when taking advantage of a keyboard connected to port B of the DC. In addition to the keyboard, a mouse can be used in an unknown pad port (not tested, port D?).
If we already knew the Nindows Debug Menu version 1 used in games like Space Channel 5, this is the first time we see version 2 of this program with a grey display instead of the blue colour.
Buttons to use with a joystick:
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Activate the Debug Menu: The "B" key
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Deactivate the Debug Menu: The "Y" key
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Fast cursor movement: The analog stick
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Slow cursor movement: D-Pad
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Option activation key: The "A" key
Buttons to use with a joystick:
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Opening the System Info submenu: The "F1" key
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Opening the Texture Viewer submenu: The "F2" key
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Opening of the Performance Meter submenu: The "F3" key
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Open the Console submenu: "F4" key
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Open the Peripheral Info submenu: "F5" key
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Opening the Fiber Info submenu: The "F6" key
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Cursor movement and activation key: The mouse or a joystick connected to Port D
Once the "Console" sub-menu is open, pressing B again in the option box, the Debug Menu allows further specific manipulation. "Clear Console" clears the information in the submenu by resetting it, while "Help Command" displays the instructions to be written with the keyboard in order to access new data.
The whole Nindows 2 environment has finally been removed from the commercial version of Pia 3. The debug font is stored as VQ PVR, which is the nco pressed and packed into the game archive. Nindows 2 perhaps offered superior customisation of its own files, which could be packaged outside the 1ST_READ.BIN.
You can download the Welcome to Pia Carrot 3 Dreamcast build below
If you wish to analyse and download the Dreamcast Katana development kit in which Pia Carrot 3 was discovered, among 8 others, you will find it on the page: Dev Kit Katana Dreamcast release
Special thanks to:
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ＳＵＤＤＥＮ・ＤＥＳＵ for sharing his Dreamcast Dev Kit, feel free to visit his website: https://sudden-desu.net/
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à VincentNL for his expertise on the Nindows Debug Menu.
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à Ian Micheal for the analysis of the Katana and the creation of the GDI.
Prototypes with Debug Menu: Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast - Time Stalkers Dreamcast - Sega Marine Fishing Dreamcast - Sonic Shuffle Dreamcast - Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare Dreamcast - Headhunter PS2 - Shadow Man Dreamcast - Shenmue 2 Dreamcast (Game Jam) - Shenmue 2 Us Dreamcast - Geist Force Dreamcast - Jet Set Radio Dreamcast (E3) - Disney's Dinausor Dreamcast - MDK 2 Dreamcast - Test Drive: V-Rally 2 Dreamcast - Stunt GP Dreamcast - Slave Zero Dreamcast - Evil Twin Dreamcast
More than 200 prototypes, documents, presskits have been dumped or scanned, you will find them in free download in the "Releases de prototypes et documents"