In October of 1995, on Friday the 13th, I’Max released Mansion of Insmouse to the public in Japan, bringing the horror genre to our beloved Virtual Boy. Now, 22 years later, once again in October on Friday the 13th, I am pleased to release to the whole world a new version of this red and black game of terror, Mansion of Insmouse: All Hallows’ Eve. Thanks to the help of InsmEdit version 1.2 created by PVB User: HorvatM, I’ve created 45 brand new levels, each one having the appearance of something that one might expect to see on Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve) and having a relevant 4-letter name as its password. With the latest version of InsmEdit, I had the full freedom to place as many monsters as I saw fit in each level wherever I desired, each with as much strength as I desired, in addition to making each level’s layout look however I wanted and with as much time to complete it as I deemed reasonable. I’d also like to thank thunderstruck for making the special English title on the title screen, which is appropriate for this latest ROM-hack. This night of fright, enter the Mansion of Innsmouth (officially translated into English as “Insmouse” for some reason we’ll probably never know) once again and experience the new horrors that await you! Will you be able to make it out alive?

Attachments:

1. mansion-of-insmouse-all-hallows-eve.zip

Oh man, great timing! Definitely gonna give this a play!

Wow. Great work guys.

Oh man this is awesome!!!

Hope it sees a physical release one day!

awesome, something new to play. Thanks ben! i’ll make sure i flash it to FB #13.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us Ben! I can’t wait to load this into the FlashBoy <3

Awesome, thank you so much. Would love it if someone could upload some gameplay video. Thanks!

Wow, thanks Ben!

Thanks Ben. Looks like I’ll be firing up the VB this weekend.

Wow! Nice! Thank you!

Levine91 wrote:
Oh man this is awesome!!!

Hope it sees a physical release one day!

Well, since just about anybody can make their own new version of the game with InsmEdit 1.2, it would probably be a waste of resources for any new version to get a physical release.

I would be curious, though, to see any other new versions that might be made by others.

Thanks for the nice feedback, everyone! If you find it difficult, know that having the levels memorized does make approaching the game much easier. I am intentionally holding off on releasing the level maps at this time, so that everyone can have a time to approach it from scratch. The more mystery, the scarier, I think.

I actually forgot that I did this. Cool stuff.

What might be cool with a bigger cart, is a 10in1 cart with the various games with a menu. Of course 10 is just a arbitrary number.

Awesome! I’ve just played through it for the first time (after not playing any VB games in months) and got ending B. It’s much harder than the original. I died at least once per level. Also, nice use of doors. 😉

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
…Innsmouth (officially translated into English as “Insmouse” for some reason we’ll probably never know)…

Technically, it was transliterated into インスマウス (INSUMAUSU) for the Japanese title, then incorrectly transliterated back into “Insmouse” by Nintendo fans with a smattering of Japanese but, understandably, no familiarity with the works of Lovecraft.

I’m not sure where you got the “officially” part of your above statement, since anything official would have been in Japanese, and whatever wasn’t likely used the actual English spelling “Innsmouth”. (Correct me if I’m wrong, though).

I just noticed most of the content on this site about the game uses “Insmouse”, though, so that should probably be changed at some point.

I didn’t like the original, so I probably won’t play this version, but I love it when people change console games into almost completely new games through sheer grit and determination. Bravo!

RunnerPack wrote:
I’m not sure where you got the “officially” part of your above statement, since anything official would have been in Japanese, and whatever wasn’t likely used the actual English spelling “Innsmouth”. (Correct me if I’m wrong, though).

Look at the box. It says “INSMOUSE”. Whoever then first transliterated the game’s full title back to the Latin alphabet was probably not familiar with H. P. Lovecraft’s works and didn’t recognize that it’s a misspelling of Innsmouth. I actually prefer Insmouse, it gives it a unique character. 😉

HorvatM wrote:
Awesome! I’ve just played through it for the first time (after not playing any VB games in months) and got ending B. It’s much harder than the original. I died at least once per level. Also, nice use of doors. 😉

Out of curiosity, did you look at the game code and save your own level maps to look at / have available while playing the game for the first time? I have, in fact, made my own level maps, which even include the starting positions and strengths of each of the monsters, and if one uses those when playing the game, it makes it much easier. I plan to wait to release the level maps until maybe November 1st, though, so that’ll give time for people to see if they can make it through “blind” for some time.

And yes, since “Insmouse” does appear in English on the original, commercially released, Japanese game box and instruction booklet, it does count as the “official” English translation for the game’s title, so the screw up was on the part of the original Japanese publisher and not on the part of later Nintendo fans. Of course, back in those days of gaming, it was the case that Japanese developers often didn’t try to get someone who was a master of the English language to review their English translations of their game material before publishing their games, manuals, and boxes, so the screw up was likely just a result of the publisher making an educated guess as to how to get “Innsmouth” back into English, without trying to spend too much time or effort to verify the accuracy.

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Out of curiosity, did you look at the game code and save your own level maps to look at / have available while playing the game for the first time?

No, I just approached it as a normal player. I’ll have to play it a few more times to see all the levels.

For any who might be having a hard time getting the best ending in the new “Mansion of Insmouse: All Hallows’ Eve,” or for any who might be having difficulty beating it at all, here now are the level maps for the game, which can be used to help you formulate a plan of attack for each level as you are entering it. The numbers shown for each “Layout Index” and “Password Index” are the index numbers that had to be used to create each map in its proper location with InsmEdit 1.2. These would be very helpful references for any who might decide to make their own new level maps for a whole new version of the game. Also included are the total time in seconds to complete each level and the “Intense Time” for each level, where in order to make it to the next higher level on the spear-shaped level chart, you must have more time left on the clock than the Intense Time when you exit a certain level. The green square with the arrow shows your starting position and the direction you’re facing when you begin the level; the red squares show the corridors that you can walk through; the brown squares indicate doors; the light red squares represent breakable walls that monsters can plow through if you are near them and on the other side of the wall; and the yellow square with the “x” represents the level exit. I’ve even included the starting positions for every monster in each level, which is most helpful for creating your starting approach for each level, especially the harder ones. “S” stands for “short,” “B” stands for “bright,” “T” stands for “tall,” and “D” stands for “dark,” with regard to the monsters’ attributes. The numbers next to each monster represented by an S or T and a B or D are the specific x and y coordinates that I used to place each monster using InsmEdit 1.2.

Attachments:

1. mansion-of-insmouse-all-hallows-eve-level-maps.pdf

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
In October of 1995, on Friday the 13th, I’Max released Mansion of Insmouse to the public in Japan, bringing the horror genre to our beloved Virtual Boy. Now, 22 years later, once again in October on Friday the 13th, I am pleased to release to the whole world a new version of this red and black game of terror, Mansion of Insmouse: All Hallows’ Eve. Thanks to the help of InsmEdit version 1.2 created by PVB User: HorvatM, I’ve created 45 brand new levels, each one having the appearance of something that one might expect to see on Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve) and having a relevant 4-letter name as its password. With the latest version of InsmEdit, I had the full freedom to place as many monsters as I saw fit in each level wherever I desired, each with as much strength as I desired, in addition to making each level’s layout look however I wanted and with as much time to complete it as I deemed reasonable. I’d also like to thank thunderstruck for making the special English title on the title screen, which is appropriate for this latest ROM-hack. This night of fright, enter the Mansion of Innsmouth (officially translated into English as “Insmouse” for some reason we’ll probably never know) once again and experience the new horrors that await you! Will you be able to make it out alive?

Testing it right now on my Wii Mednafen emulator! Thanks for the release Benjamín and sorry for the very late reply 😀