Clearly the HUD and font is very different from the rest of the game? Is it an earlier/later version?
That is the one screenshot that can be found online that causes me questions as well. That screenshot does indeed depict something that does not appear at all in the version of Faceball that Eric got. I cannot figure out if it is showing an earlier or later version of Faceball. That screenshot came from a Japanese magazine that showed one screenshot of each VB game in its list:
That magazine also shows one screenshot of many Virtual Boy games that never saw the light of day in any form, and it is unknown if any partially-working ROMs are available at all for many of those games or if they ever found their way into private hands. The best that I can conclude is that the aforementioned screenshot shows a version of VB Faceball that most likely never found its way into private hands, but I can’t say for sure if it is an earlier or later version.
Wow… looks like your right. I figured that all of those CIBs would sell very quickly. I guess this means that he has filled up his back order list. If I’m not mistaken, a total of 100 CIBs should have been made by this limited production run.
I might have a go at hacking Faceball when it’s released, but wouldn’t that piss off everyone who bought a cartridge? Then there’s also the issue of DanB’s Ballface. His effort shouldn’t be dismissed.
I sure hope that people who buy a cartridge of Faceball won’t get upset if later alterations are made to the game. I would LOVE later alterations to be made to the game!
Hopefully, everyone who buys a cartridge of Faceball from Eric will understand that they are getting a copy of the original ROM before everyone else, they are getting a very nice and attractive collectible product to go along with their ROM, and they are showing their support to those of the VB community who make large sacrifices to get the unreleased games released, which will hopefully encourage those people to continue to make sacrifices to get even more unreleased games released in the future.
But yeah… I hope you have a go at hacking Faceball when it’s released. I also hope DanB turns Ballface into a full sequel to VB Faceball or something.
I have to throw my support in for DanB’s project as well. Just based on the few screenshots that you posted, it looks like you’ve already made a rather fantastically working game. But since you do know that the original Faceball is going to be released in such a way that will help Eric recover his large costs that were necessary to acquire the game, I’m hoping that you can simply modify your plans for your version of Faceball, like by making all new levels and even new enemy types or something. It would be very cool to have a homebrew “sequel” to VB Faceball, and I know you are well capable of making that! 🙂
But as others suggested, I would hope that you decide not to release your game until after Eric’s plan has been followed through to completion. You’ll probably need more time to finish your game than Eric will need to release the original and recover a large part of his costs, so there should be no problem with that, I think.
Please keep up the good work. I have been looking forward to a full game being made by you for a while. Your other demos that you released in the past are absolutely fantastic.
Greg Stevens wrote:
Here is the Arwing able to be rotated around all 3 axis.
This is looking really good. I hope that the next demo lets us push a button to shoot lasers and that the next demo after that one lets us shoot an enemy that is in the distance and that the next demo after that one lets us earn points by shooting multiple enemies that attack you and that the next demo after that one lets you play a whole level and that… well, you can see where I’m going with this. 😉
Protoman85 wrote:
So who shot this footage? The original prototype-holder, or bigmak? Whoever doesn’t have as a good a camera as me apparently… And I don’t even have a good camera.
If you actually read the details of this thread, you will see that Mr. G made it clear that all of the videos and photos were coming from him.
segagamer99 wrote:
Is 14 stages enough for a whole game? I do understand that they get harder, so there actually are 56 stages, but even the SNES version had 75 unique stages, as well as Arena mode. Any idea on game length and difficulty?
Well yeah, I agree that the 14 unique maze layouts is a pretty small number for the game. The fact that the Game Boy version and the SNES version had so many more does also cause me to conclude that Bullet-Proof Software was planning to make many more unique maze layouts for the Virtual Boy version but never got around to it since the game got canceled due to the Virtual Boy’s commercial failure. Nevertheless, as has already been mentioned on this thread, there is a Debug Menu that appears in this version, and this Debug Menu most likely would not have appeared in the final version of the game, since it doesn’t appear in the SNES or Game Boy versions, at least I’m not aware of it appearing in them. Thus, it was probably simply used for testing purposes and would have been removed or hidden for the final version of the game. This Debug Menu lets you change the player’s hit points from 1 to 49 and the opponents’ hit points from 1 to 49 for each of the 14 different mazes. So even though you can only battle opponents in 14 different maze layouts, you can give yourself countless numbers of challenges by altering the player’s and the opponents’ hit points, even up to the point of making some of the mazes literally impossible to beat within the 99-second time limit, which gives this version of the game a nice replay value in my opinion, since you can continually try to discover the most difficult challenge that you can conquer for each maze and keep trying to improve upon it.
There is a mag scan here on PVB about Faceball which says that there is an arena mode in the tested version:
Yeah, but the author of that article describes the Arena mode by writing that it “simply allows you to take one of the other characters through the levels.” It sure sounds like the version the author had is the same version that Eric got (at least as far as the completion of the Arena mode is concerned) and that the author of the article simply misinterpreted what was going on. At the beginning of the Arena mode, you see a screen where you can select different enemies. You are supposed to be selecting the enemy that you will be fighting in the arena mode. However, no matter what enemy you select, once you press start, you then “simply take your own character through the levels” (because the Arena mode was never actually made by Bullet-Proof Software, just the menu of it, which then links to the Normal mode). Perhaps the author of the article had the same version and thought that he was selecting his character that he was taking through the levels, even though you never actually see your own character in the game save for the little icon that lets you know your health status. Nevertheless, the statement by that author does cause one to wonder if perhaps he had a different version, but there’s not enough there to let me conclude that he definitely did have a different version.
segagamer99 wrote:
Again still confused. Are there different versions of the prototype that have more stages?
I’ve never even heard of rumors of a more finished version of Faceball existing. If there is a version out there with more stages, then those who know about it, if they even exist, keep it top secret for whatever reason.
So, what will the box and manual be like? Other version’s manuals?
Well, I’m the one who made the instruction booklet that’s going to be used in this release, so I guess I’ll tell you a little bit about it. Basically, the first 6 pages of it follow the general format to which just about every Virtual Boy game (on the North American side) conformed, and then the remaining pages largely follow the format and pattern set forth in the Faceball 2000 Instruction Booklet for the SNES (which is about the same as that of the Game Boy version’s instruction booklet). Thus, the instruction booklet is very simple in its layout and design, much like how the instruction booklets for both the SNES and Game Boy versions of Faceball are simple in their layouts and designs. Basically, when I made the instruction booklet, I approached it from the standpoint of “if Bullet-Proof Software of the USA would have released this game for the Virtual Boy, what would they have made the instruction booklet look like?” It is logical to conclude that they would have followed the general format of their other instruction booklets for the other versions, so I tried to do just that. Basically, when one looks at this instruction booklet, one can pretend that it was truly released by Bullet-Proof Software during the Virtual Boy’s original market life.
As for the box, I myself have no idea what it is going to look like. 🙂
Only played through one and a half levels so far, but I think I’ve figured out how it works (times like this I could read Japanese).
I’m not quite sure what you meant by this comment, but if you are referring to the fact that you wish you could read the Japanese Instruction Booklet for this game, check out the translated manual that I made for it, and that should help:
segagamer99 wrote:
Wait a minute though. What part of Arena mode doesn’t work? Can somebody explain?
Well, Arena mode essentially does not exist in the Virtual Boy version. Are you familiar with the Arena mode in the SNES version of Faceball? If not, read the description of it here:
The Arena mode in the Virtual Boy version would have been very similar to the Arena mode in the SNES version, but if you attempt to play the Arena mode in the Virtual Boy version, all that happens is that you play the Normal mode with the slowest opponent speeds.
Well, I know that the Arena mode of Faceball was never completed, as it was supposed to support the 2-player link capability, which was never realized. I do also know that there is, in fact, an ending when one beats the Normal mode, but since Eric is the one who owns the game, I’ll let him decide what more details about it get revealed prior to release. The information already on the NikoChan Battle – Faceball thread does pretty much reveal the large majority of the game, though.
As for the prices for reproduction carts, $70.00 is the price for many CIB NES games, and $100.00 is the price of many CIB SNES games (http://www.timewalkgames.com), so the Virtual Boy reproduction carts that are being made are pretty much on par with those ones. I do know some details about the breakdown of costs for these VB games that are being made, and I am amazed that we are getting these games for these prices. The cost of parts for making the VB cartridges is rather high, as is the cost of materials for printing. I’m guessing that for systems where the reproduction carts are sold for much lower, the parts for those games must be easily able to be acquired or made at low costs. This is definitely not the case with the Virtual Boy. The team that is working on these games is truly doing this at an amazing price, and they are virtually getting no money for all their time and effort that they are putting into the making of these.
With Faceball, though, as Eric has said, he spent a lot of money just to acquire the game, so part of the price of the game is to help recover his money spent. Amazingly, he simply hopes to get a large part of it back, and with this release occurring in such a way, I definitely see him still incurring a rather large loss over Faceball.
Well, Mr. G talked about a guy who owned the cart, who didn’t want to accept any offers for the game but who would maybe change his mind about it someday. Basically, Eric was able to make a deal for the game by contacting Mr. G., and the deal was evidently accepted.
HorvatM wrote:
So, Ben, if you want to add monsters to your levels, you can send me a list of monsters for each level, and I can make an IPS patch for you, until I figure out a simple way to add monster editing to InsmEdit.
Well, one of the main things that I wanted to do with Mario Madness Edition was to see if I could make a whole game using simply version 1 of your editor, and I think I managed to accomplish that. However, if you figure out how to make an editor where the monster starting positions can be freely changed, I think I would like to make a completely new version again. This time, I’d like to be very creative with my levels and probably won’t simply limit myself to making layouts that look like known objects or beings, etc.
