Benjamin Stevens « Users « Planet Virtual Boy

Jan 23, 2013 • 18:10

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: OFFICIAL Bound High Complete with Cartridge, box, and manual RELEASE INFO!

vb-fan wrote:
Ferry Grodjnik (I’m sure I’m mispelling his last name) had some detailed stuff; can’t find his site anymore.

I can’t get the main page of virtual-boy.org to load up, but the sub-pages of his site can still be found and loaded up by using Google search. Not sure what has happened to the main page of his site.

Jan 23, 2013 • 17:33

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: OFFICIAL Bound High Complete with Cartridge, box, and manual RELEASE INFO!

vb-fan wrote:
Some of the “home-brews” sound good — anyone have favorites there?

BTW, what was the “Bound High” fiasco? I was a member of Ferry’s webpage for a long time, but got distracted for awhile; missed that story…

Some very good and completed homebrew titles that you should try are:
BLOX
BLOX 2
Fishbone
Soviet Union 2011
Tron (I think it is very fun)
VB Racing (technically not finished but very playable)
VUE Snake

Not sure what the “fiasco” is about Bound High! Whether it deals with all of the drama that occurred before and immediately after its online release or whether it deals with the current selling of the game here: http://www.uncletusk.com/catalog/17

Jan 23, 2013 • 17:13

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: OFFICIAL Bound High Complete with Cartridge, box, and manual RELEASE INFO!

jrronimo wrote:
I realize this is a bit off topic, but has anyone ever made and/or tested a link cable? It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to make a simple Pong clone where you see your paddle from behind and you see the other player’s paddle off in the distance to test it…

Oh yes… DogP made some link cables a while ago and even released some VB homebrew games that support them.

Check out this page:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/games/?hg

and his homebrew titles: 3D BattleSnake and Tic Tac Toe

Jan 23, 2013 • 13:17

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: OFFICIAL Bound High Complete with Cartridge, box, and manual RELEASE INFO!

vb-fan wrote:

Will others be released, like Zero Racers or Dragonhopper?

Think I need to get a “flashboy”, and Faceball; I’m told it’s the only game to exploit the interconnect cable. Hope I can figure out where it is on this site (hint — helps appreciated!)

If someone who is willing to share the ROMs with everyone ever gets their hands on them, then Zero Racers and/or Dragon Hopper could be released someday, but right now, these are the lost “Holy Grails” of Virtual Boy games that people are still hoping and/or searching for.

“Faceball,” which was made by Bullet-Proof Software and released online recently (check out the top story on the front page) does not have a two-player option. However, DanB is currently working on a homebrew title similar to Faceball called “Ballface,” and he said that he hopes to add 2-player support to the game, so we will have to wait and see if that happens. You can download a working demo of this still unfinished game and find out more information about it here:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=21418#forumpost21418

Jan 23, 2013 • 05:32

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Collection Pics

Benjamin Stevens wrote:

Robert Molander wrote:
Here is the scan of the flyer.
I learned some thing new about this baseboll game. There was a support fore a link cabel in some time in the beta versions 🙂

That is a very nice scan! Thank you very much for that.

Since this flyer was made some time before the release of the game, I am guessing that the details about the game contained in it were educated guesses as to what the released game would have. Thus, they were probably strongly thinking that this game would have link cable support at the time they made the flyer, so they went ahead and put those details in the flyer, but I don’t know if I can conclude from this that there was a 2-player mode in an early version of the game that was later removed. I’m guessing that, more likely, the plans to add it had to be changed when the company learned that there wasn’t going to be a link cable made in time for the release of the game, so they never bothered to try to make the 2-player mode for this game in the first place.

I did find something strange written in the pages of the TOTAL! 05/96 magazine on this site. For Mario’s Tennis, the author wrote: “it’s very playable and benefits from a two-player link up option.” For Virtual League Baseball, the author wrote: “Great fun this one, especially in two player mode.”

I wonder what the heck was going on here. The article was written well after these games were already released, so either the author lies about playing the games at all, since neither game has a two-player option, or the author somehow managed to unlock hidden two player modes in the games and play them with a link cable, or the author was given different versions of the games than those that were commercially released, and these versions did have functioning 2-player modes, etc.

I’d be curious to know what others think or have thought about this peculiar information.

Jan 23, 2013 • 04:42

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Collection Pics

Robert Molander wrote:
Here is the scan of the flyer.
I learned some thing new about this baseboll game. There was a support fore a link cabel in some time in the beta versions 🙂

That is a very nice scan! Thank you very much for that.

Since this flyer was made some time before the release of the game, I am guessing that the details about the game contained in it were educated guesses as to what the released game would have. Thus, they were probably strongly thinking that this game would have link cable support at the time they made the flyer, so they went ahead and put those details in the flyer, but I don’t know if I can conclude from this that there was a 2-player mode in an early version of the game that was later removed. I’m guessing that, more likely, the plans to add it had to be changed when the company learned that there wasn’t going to be a link cable made in time for the release of the game, so they never bothered to try to make the 2-player mode for this game in the first place.

Jan 23, 2013 • 04:21

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: My idea for finding lost prototypes

segagamer99 wrote:

Here is the official japanese name for Zero Racers if anybody is interested. Faceball was owned by Mr. G, so maybe Japan will help us again. 😉

G-ZERO

If you read the main page for Zero Racers found here:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/games/?u031g

you will see that “G-Zero” was the working title for Zero Racers until June of 1996. Thus, the official name for Zero Racers is, indeed, “Zero Racers.”

Jan 22, 2013 • 17:08

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Collection Pics

Sounds great! I’ll be sure to save a copy to my computer once you post it here for us. Thanks.

Jan 22, 2013 • 17:06

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Faceball ROM Release and Fundraiser

I don’t know how Eric is going to determine who receives a free cart, but I would hope that preference is given to long-standing Virtual Boy community members, who have shown by their revealed character that they truly appreciate the Virtual Boy a lot, truly appreciate this game, and intend to keep it and cherish it for a long time, especially since they will be getting it for free.

Seriously, if anybody manages to get a free Faceball cart, for the sole purpose of trying to sell it for a large profit soon, you are going to upset a lot of people who will likely be on your case in a heartbeat. It would be an extremely strong slap in the face to Eric, and if there is ever a Virtual Boy Hall of Shame posted online, you deserve to be there.

I’m not charging any specific person with plans to do this, but I know for sure that there must already be people out there who have this intention, and they could very well be posing as “sincere Virtual Boy fans” right now, with the intent to get their greedy hands on one of these.

Jan 22, 2013 • 15:42

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Happy Three Kings day..oh and btw..Faceball: Remastered

Ahhh… What I meant by saying that you “found the ‘DEMO’ level of the game in the ROM” was that you determined its location within the ROM, and it can now be edited using your level editor. I can see how it could be interpreted as you originally discovered it, but that’s not what I meant. I was reading old forum posts and was under the impression that DogP was the original person who discovered the level, after doing some work with the dumped ROM of the game, but I’m not sure about that.

Jan 22, 2013 • 15:17

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Happy Three Kings day..oh and btw..Faceball: Remastered

shenmueso wrote:
do we have proof this was actually a legit VB game that was being worked on at the time? i mean how do we know the guy who had it didn’t just create the game himself? is there like list of titles that were being worked on? cos i dont remember ever hearing this one before..

There was an official flyer made for the game and released by Bullet-Proof Software at the time. You can see a high resolution scan of this flyer here:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/games/?u005if222

You’ll notice that the images on this flyer contain portions of the exact same game that has now been made available online.

Also, DanB has been working with the ROM of the game to make his new Ballface game, and he informed us that located within the Faceball ROM is evidence of the fact that the source code for V-Tetris (the other game made by Bullet Proof Software) had been copied and modified for use in this game, likely with the purpose of saving some time in the making of this game. That source code, as far as anyone knows, isn’t available to any private coder, so chances are that only Bullet-Proof Software could have had the original source code for V-Tetris to use in Faceball.

Here’s his post about this, and I’m assuming I interpreted it correctly:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=21750#forumpost21750

All of this is very good evidence that what we have came from the developers at Bullet-Proof Software.

Jan 22, 2013 • 15:08

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Collection Pics

Robert Molander wrote:
Thanks 🙂

Yes i belive them ar from CES.

I have looking fore those papper goggels a long time so feels good to have them 😀

I managed to find another image of that Virtual League Baseball flyer under a completed listing on Ebay. I don’t think a clear image of this flyer appears anywhere on this site. If it does, I can’t locate it.

Robert, would you be able to provide us with a clear image of your newly acquired Virtual League Baseball flyer?

Attachments:

virtual-league-baseball-flyer.bmp

Jan 22, 2013 • 13:38

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Happy Three Kings day..oh and btw..Faceball: Remastered

Lester Knight wrote:

i do recall that you mentioned 1 unused level was hiding in the rom? any chance you will include that level in your hack?

I believe you are recalling a similar statement from HorvatM for Mansion of Insmouse. He found the “DEMO” level of the game in the ROM, which is only used in the game for the opening sequence but isn’t actually playable, and you can edit the level and sort of play it using InsmEdit, but I think the level is still unbeatable and doesn’t connect to any of the other levels in the game.

Jan 22, 2013 • 03:46

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: [ENTRY] Soviet Union 2010

I just played this version and found it to be very enjoyable. I notice that the game shows your score when you die and gives you enough time to grab your digital camera and take a picture of the score you got. This sure makes it a nice game for VB community high score competitions… hint, hint to Krisse… 😉

Jan 22, 2013 • 00:37

Benjamin Stevens • Topic: Post pics of your VB Collection

Heh… they even made Virtual Boy Pogs…