Holy crap, I went to that yeeears ago when we went to Universal Studios in California. I remember it being pretty entertaining, lots of action going on.

It’s crazy how early this build is, my 12 year old self doesn’t know how to deal, haha.

Just got my Virtual Bowling in the mail, thanks to a restock! As usual, excellent quality, feels just like a legit release!

Props to Uncle Tusk and VirtuousRage, you guys did an excellent job on this!

That’s great news! I’ll definitely add myself to the list of patreons, I wish I could do a decent amount but I can’t at this time, but I hope to at least help a little.

Cpt. F. wrote:
I was able to capture from ON to Stage 1. It appears identical to the full YouTube playthrough previously referenced.

The only thing I noticed was the lack of the sound effect that happens as soon as you flick the power switch. Unless you hit record just after that sound. Here’s the sound for reference:(https://youtu.be/nwiZ8O0-qvw?t=1m10s)

Otherwise yeah, looks close to final (although you blew past everything pretty fast =P)

Still a dump would be awesome to really compare. It’s also really cool to see another VB proto show up, it always gives us hope for the next one and to possibly uncover a game that hasn’t been found yet =D

Yeah it’s hard to take video on the VB. I find a good quality cell phone usually does a great job, or if you have a DLSR you can normally change the video shutter speed to 50 which helps.

Otherwise, I’d say the most interesting part for me would be from turning on the power switch until the start of the first level. I could tell you pretty quick if there’s any differences.

Cpt. F. wrote:
Hello all, I was sent here from Seattle Retro Gamers on Facebook. Where there was some previous discusion.

I have in my possession an authentic, functional, 1995 prototype cartridge of Bound High for the Virtual Boy.

It is as of yet unclear to me what version of the game I have? If it is the same or different than the buggy->patched ROM used to make the repros? What is the easiest way for me to determine the version?

I have included pics of the cartridge and PCB. (I apologise my phone camera sucks.)

Any further information, or insight would be appreciated.

Very cool! The most interesting part to me is the presence of the battery, since that game doesn’t support saving games.

As everyone said, it’s best to either dump it, or play through it and compare it with the rom that’s out there. There’s tons of people on here who can help, depending on your location.

It does just look a little too messy in the proto, whereas the final the hair is the perfect amount of on purpose 90’s messy.

Glad to hear you’re back at it! A round of Galactic PInball will bring you right back to 100% =P

Aww man, that doesn’t sound fun.

Hope they can get it sorted without surgery! If they need to do that I do hope that goes as smooth as possible.

Get well soon!

Sounds like quite the improvement, can’t wait to see/try it!

It would definitely be technically possible. In fact the yeti3D homebrew is a pretty close approximation.

It would be pretty rad to play Doom on the VB though…red and black Doom would be bad ass!

I…actually don’t mind v lab at all. Yeah it’s painfully clear that it was rushed, but it’s a game I can sink some time in. Just gotta get past those laggy controls, which can definitely be frustrating. Plus that dancing girl on the side just makes me lol.

Yeah that Virtual Baseball Proto has been up for sale for well over a year. Not surprising, that’s a lot of money for what it is. If anything it would be cool to have just for the dev cart, but again, way too much. The seller talked to me about it actually when he put it up for sale, asking me about it. I told him the asking price was too much, but he didn’t seem to care. Either he paid a good chunk of money for it, or he knows that VB dev stuff is hard to come by.

[speedyink]

Wow, this thread is like a broken record.

You guys can believe what you want, Hyper Fighting is just another game in my collection. I’ve stated multiple times what my issue is, and if you can’t parse the information from the text then not my problem.

Hopefully MK still feels like programming that Star Fox like game you guys were looking forward to. I mean, why wouldn’t he knowing that someone else will just rip it and resell and you guys won’t give a crap, saying it’s his own fault.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by speedyink.

[speedyink]

Levine91 wrote:
So if that’s how it’s felt, what is there to worry about Capcom attacking with copyright infringement for the full ROM coming out? You can say inspired all you want it’s still character designs, character names, box art, stages, etc that Capcom designed themselves. Whether or not someone else figured out how to design the sprites or code themselves, it’s all still content/art that Capcom owns.

I really don’t care if someone went through and did this with 100 different games that already exist or even someone else selling them as repro carts. I just think it’s ridiculous that there seems to be a double standard going on when talking about stealing content.

Why do you think it was never publicly available for sale? Hyper Fighting was a project of love, it never was nor was it intended to be sold publicly or for profit. Would you expect Nintendo for coming after you for making yourself a fan drawing of Nintendo characters for you and your friends? No, not until you pump them out and put them up for sale is there a problem. These repros of the original Hyper Fighting are the first time they’ve been produced for public sale. Anything before that was part of a very small run made for the community, and even when personal copies went up for sale people had a problem with it, as that was not the intention for them.

Back to the fan drawing analogy, imagine if someone copied your drawing you never publicly sold and then..put it up for sale. Now it’s not only lame that someone took it, but now they’re also drawing more attention to it which isn’t good for all the reasons you just said. It makes you look bad, even though you never planned to do that in the first place.

Trust me, there’s a whole lot about this game you clearly don’t know, and it’s why people are so touchy about it.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by speedyink.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by speedyink.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by speedyink.

Levine91 wrote:
Ok I wasn’t going to ask this but since you keep bringing it up, I’m going to. Just keep in mind, I’m trying to make sense of this and not attacking anyone.

How is it any worse for Mellott to make a repro cart of the game when MK is “taking someone else’s work” (Capcom’s) and “copying it” (Street Fighter). “Without the original creators consent.” (Again, Capcom’s).

If you are going to be upset at Mellott shouldn’t you be upset at MK also? (arguably more so)

No worries, you gotta know somehow.

MK didn’t rip SF2 from a cart, burn it to another cart and then resell it. All the code, all the assets, everything was created from scratch, by MK. Even though it looks just like SF2, it was entirely built from the ground up with SF2 as the inspiration.

Had Kevin coded another Hyper Fighting from the ground up, using MK’s work as inspiration, and sold that, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Then instead of selling someone elses work on a cart, he’s now selling his own code on a cart.

I don’t think Kevin is a bad guy, he clearly has done some awesome stuff for the community. No matter who it is though, taking someone elses work and reselling it without permission just doesn’t sit well to me. Maybe I’m being over protective, but the VB community is something special, and means a lot to me. I don’t want anyone feeling like they’ve been taken advantage of.

Quaze wrote:
Ok so there are two things going on: This maker of repro games does a lot for the VB community, and at the same time charges an exorbitant amount for a particular repro VB game, near certainly with the intention of fooling people into thinking they’re getting a copy from the original highly-sought after batch to justify the goliath price tag.

Can we all just agree on that? It seems like all the parties debating this are not acknowledging one of these facts or the other. We should all be saying “Thanks for all your hard work for the community Kevin, by the way that’s a shady thing you’re doing with Hyper Fighting.” It’s ok, that really seems like the fact here. Even if the creator of Hyper Fighting steps out of the shadows and settles any issues today, this should have been done before the very first sale if ethics were a concern.

Thank you for actually reading.

It’s all about taking someone elses work, copying it, and selling it without the original creators consent. Hyper Fighting just happens to be the one that has market value/exposure. I already said it before, but I’ll say it again. I have no problems with repros being made, as long as the creator of the rom and the person selling have actually talked and made an agreement.

Remember the Rose Colored Gaming thing where they were selling games that were made by people who didn’t give them consent to sell their games at all, and everyone was pissed off? Same idea.

mellott124 wrote:
Yes that’s me. It helps pay for my projects and free gear I give most devs who ask. Most of my projects these days are VB related. Don’t get confused and think anyone lives on VB reproductions. It’s not happening. As for eBay… its eBay. It’s not the PlanetVB community. I’m also not forcing anyone to buy anything.

I’m in contact with some developers and not with others. If you feel I’ve stepped on your toes, send me a message and we can discuss it. You can send me a PM. A lot of devs also already have my personal email.

I don’t really need to say this but I will just to clarify this once. I’ve given a lot of free gear to VB devs. Wired link cables, USB link cables, free carts for development, stickers, PCBs. I’ve even sent free Virtual Boys to people. The next one will be several free programmers. I give back as much as I can while still being able to move forward with new stuff. I do this for fun. When it stops becoming fun then I won’t do it anymore.

Look, we definitely appreciate anyone who’s willing to give back to the VB community. What’s not appreciated is the sense of self entitlement to rip off others’ work.

How difficult is it to ask someone if it’s ok if you use their hard work for your own projects? I’m sure you’ve gotten a sense of how this community is, anyone would have gladly given you permission. In the case of Hyper Fighting, I’m sure even if you offered MK or Ben a cut they would probably decline, especially if you explain where the profits go. But you know what? Everyone would be totally cool with it then, because you at least asked and got the ok to do so.

How about the labels you ripped off? Innsmouth Mansion? Virtual Fishing english logo? Again, I know damn well the person who designed them would have given you the blessing to use them. But again, you didn’t even ask.

Think about it. You work really hard on something and post it online to share. Would you rather:
A: Some guy copies it verbatim and sells it as his own, without asking and with zero credit to you, or
B: Some guy asks you if it’s ok to use your work in their project, as long as you are credited. You give them the ok, and everyone involved is on the same page. No one has to find their work on some dudes cart he randomly bought off ebay.

Oooooh, is that a challenge??

I got some brain storming to do =P