thunderstruck wrote:
It is nothing ‘special’ but the only secret I found so far.
“Nothing special”? This is the first public revealing of a hidden character in a prototype game that has existed yet largely been unavailable for the last 18 years! Sounds pretty special to me.
thunderstruck wrote:
Well, maybe one more thing. As I said before I can change the wall type. I can change the type to something undefined resulting in a invisible wall. The collision detection will still work so that there is an invisible barrier. Not really a secret but may be a cool game element.
Is this a hint that we should expect to run into some invisible walls in your hacked version? I think that would be neat if it was setup right.
Wait… so cart labels were made for the game, but reproduction carts are not allowed to be made on a per-order basis?… Or will this cart label be used in a planned limited production run in the future?
Nice. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was intentional because I’ve see a lot of people online seemingly intentionally spell it the way you originally had it.
morintari wrote:
Instead of trying to aquire theese impossible games why don’t we just pay one of our own to code them for us. Use the account that Segagamer talked about but put a limit on how much the account will go to then have a tallented programmer like DanB or M.K. or Thunderstruck or all 3 Create the game for us. Thats how I see it
I would definitely be up for contributing to a project like that! Seriously… I would contribute a large amount to go towards the work on a game similar to Zero Racers.
The thing is, Faceball and Zero Racers can more easily be replicated because their game concepts are much more simple than with Dragon Hopper. Dragon Hopper, as far as I know, has all sorts of plot and different characters and items and who knows what all else, which have never been publicly made known in any form, so to begin to try to replicate it would be near impossible, unlike with Zero Racers where screenshots from magazine scans could be used to replicate very similar racers and also replicate tracks that have already been revealed, while just adding new tracks would be necessary, and also unlike with Faceball where, thankfully, we now have access to the actual enemies, special-ups, and 14 maze layouts from the original game, all of which can now be expanded upon. But Dragon Hopper… I can’t imagine that anything anyone would try to make from the little info about it that we know could come anywhere close to the true game.
One of the difficulties that must be faced in obtaining an unreleased prototype is having to deal with the personality who has a cart or ROM of the game. I have heard rumors that Dragon Hopper has been in private hands for years, and I personally strongly believe that the rumors are true, even though I have never seen any actual proof of this. If it is, in fact, true, then the personality or personalities who own the game obviously do not want to come forward publicly and obviously are not publicly seeking any money for the game, or surely he or she or they would have tried to go about such things already in that fashion. I use the word “publicly” as a qualifier, because there is definitely the strong possibility that such things happen privately. In fact, there could be people who own the Dragon Hopper ROM right now, who have visited these forums and smile to themselves as they read all of the comments from people who would love to play the game, but they are likely proud of the fact that they are one of the “chosen few” who ever get to play it, and they probably don’t want to ever give up the joy of that. Unfortunately, there is a strong “collector’s mentality” in existence, where one with the collector’s mentality wants to own something that almost nobody else owns, which can be connected to nothing other than pride the way I see it, and if that is ever taken away from him, then his joy and pride is taken away, and he is basically defeated, and he does not want to be defeated. It is as if he is sitting on his high throne of collector’s glory, far above all others who can never have access to that which gives him his pride and joy, and if others would get to access to his pride and joy, then he would be knocked down from his high place and be brought to the level of all others, and what would he have to boast to himself about then?… Nothing… It’s as if having the game that nobody else has is so important to him that life loses all meaning if others can play it. So, the one with the collector’s mentality doesn’t care about money or any other offers for the game to be given to everyone. No amount of money or offers could make him give up that which places him on his throne of glory.
If Dragon Hopper or Zero Racers is out there and in the hands of a person or persons with such mentalities, no public movement to acquire the game will ever work, in my opinion. It would most likely have to be done privately, almost like an infiltration initiative would have to be set up in some way.
But then again… one of those games could also just be sitting in some ex-Nintendo employee’s closet somewhere, and he doesn’t even know about the interest in it or the demand for it because he doesn’t follow the Virtual Boy at all. If that’s the case, and such a person is ever found, then he may just be like “Oh… sorry… I didn’t know this was so important. Here, have it.”
I heard that you can turn off the lights in the Faceball proto. Can you do this in Ballface?
Also, despite it being unfinished, it is a lot smoother and faster than the Gameboy and SNES versions. We’ll see when we get to play it.
Well, it’s more like you can adjust the brightness from the default brightness to a darker brightness. Thus, changing the brightness doesn’t have any effect on the rest of the gameplay, other than the fact that it makes it harder for the player to see things. I personally would never use the darker brightness setting.
You are very right when you say that the Virtual Boy version is a lot smoother and faster than the Game Boy and SNES versions. I think everyone will be blown away at seeing such graphics and movement on a Virtual Boy. It seems to me that Bullet-Proof Software was really pushing the Virtual Boy to its limits with this one. Thankfully, both DanB and thunderstuck will be giving us a great feel of what Bullet-Proof Software’s completed version of Faceball could have been like.
Techni wrote:
I wish the roms were still up, and shame on the people insulting the guy who did us all a huge favor that so many jerks were unwilling to do
All of the ROMs are still up for me, when I log into Planet Virtual Boy.
bitxero wrote:
Hello PVB, I have been working on a texture pack for Minecraft, and I thought Id show it now. It is not completely done, as the sky and some blocks need changes. Here are a few screenshots:
That is looking awesome. I don’t like playing Minecraft much myself, but I would definitely like playing it more if it was in the infamous red and black! My friends will actually be making me play it again with them soon, once we finish off Terraria. If you have your texture pack done while we’re playing through it, maybe I can make them use it when we play.
I do wonder why you have rated so many games 10s. I can completely understand Galactic Pinball or Wario Land, which both have insane replay value, and timeless gameplay, but why the others? Is this merely because the system had so few games?
It’s possible that I am biased because I am a larger Virtual Boy fan than just about everyone else on the planet. If someone wants to call me a Virtual Boy fanboy, then I say “guilty as charged.” 🙂
But either way, it all falls in the area of opinion and personal preference. In the same way that you wonder why I give those other games 10 out of 10, I wonder why you wouldn’t. What about those games isn’t totally awesome?
thunderstruck wrote:
what are your favorite homebrews?
Well, here are all of the homebrew titles that received 10 out of 10 from me:
Fishbone
Mario Kart: Virtual Cup
Mario VB
Soviet Union 2011
Tron
VB Racing
Yeti3D
Basically, if I play a homebrew game that has endless replay value and/or that makes me say to myself “Holy crap! This was made by just 1 person!” it achieves 10 out of 10 status.
Three of the unfinished games on the list – so Mario Kart: Virtual Cup, Mario VB, and Yeti3D – don’t currently have endless replay value since they are largely unfinished, but they each make me completely amazed at the programming power of the one person behind the game, and they leave me longing very much for finished games from those programmers. The 4th unfinished game on the list, so VB Racing, both amazes me at the programming power behind it and has a very high replay value even it its current unfinished form. It doesn’t seem like much needs to be added to it, but boy would I love to see it finished, too.
If anything, DanB might have an easier time making an Arena mode for Ballface, since he is making his whole game from scratch instead of hacking an existing game whose original source code is not available, so there’s always the possibility of getting an Arena mode in Ballface if DanB so desires to make one.
VirtualChris wrote:
Hello, new year, new update. The game is in working condition, there are however a few problems:
On real hardware, the music slows down when punching or jumping, then speeds up again when you’re done.
On both real hardware and Mednafen, when punching, there are three white squares in the ant’s butt. I don’t know what’s causing this.
Thanks for the new update. Just tried out the new demo and it looks like it’s coming along well. I like the music so far, and the controls seem very responsive. Those white squares on the ant’s butt aren’t too noticeable. 😉
Heh… even if that commenter who said he forwarded all the relevant info to Nintendo’s antipiracy folks was telling the truth, which I highly doubt, there is no way that there is anyone at Nintendo who would care enough to do anything about it, as Nintendo has virtually disowned the Virtual Boy.
DanB wrote:
Thank you everyone for your support (and especially Eric for being such a cool guy about this). With his consent (and actual request of it) I’m now putting my rom back up for download.
I’m now thinking of going the Donkey Kong ’94 (awesome GB game) route with this, that is starting with the original levels, and then when the game “ends” a new game breaks out with lots of added levels and new features to the gameplay.
This will take lots of time, and I may or may not post updated roms as I go along. I’ll probably document my progress here though. In the meantime, enjoy Ballface in it’s current form. 🙂
I am also one who has a copy of the original prototype ROM, since it was necessary for me to have it in order to be able to make the full instruction booklet that will be used in Eric’s release, and when I compare it to your version, I am completely blown away at the similarities! As I was running through your version, I just kept thinking to myself, “I can’t believe this is the work of just 1 person!”
I also love how they did it with Donkey Kong ’94, so taking that route sounds totally awesome to me. I also like your title “Ballface,” since it makes me laugh. It sounds a bit silly, but so does the title “Faceball” when one thinks about it, so it’s very appropriate.
