[Sporkmaster]

With respect, this is Zelda-ESQUE, not a straight up IP violation. It would be just as valid to say this is ‘Star Tropics’-esque, or ‘Crusader of Centy’-esque. I don’t think that just because another home-brew has modeled itself after Zelda, that should mean that my game can’t do the same. It would be a rather dull market for video games if every genre were only allowed a single example.

This game is called L.I.N.K. as a tongue-in-cheek working title. However, the concepts, however inspired by Zelda they may be, are entirely out of my own head, thank you.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by Sporkmaster.

Oh, I’m a long way off of play testing. I’m programming between work and school, so it’s slow going. I’m using placeholder assets, but I have just completed a basic combat and elevation test; one of the key concepts I want to employ in gameplay is the idea of changing levels mid-play: jumping or falling into pits to ascend or descend when there is a pit or opening to allow for it. Obviously inspired by Dragon Hopper, but I have a very rough example of this working at the moment. I’m also going to slow down and put together a design document to define the scope of the project, because all I truly have right now is the elevation mechanic and a dream of playing a Zelda-type game on the one Nintendo Console that never got one.

Pre-ordered…even though I just bought the 32mbit one in April.

Eugh.

Is Tusk still around? I remember him from the NintendoAge days.

I’m playing on a consolized VB through a Virtual Tap; I’m sorry, but I can’t answer your questions. I experienced no graphical glitches, but I happen to be pulling from the Right side video output. If your system is cobbled together, as you say it is, there may be too many potential variables to immediately point a finger at what might be going on.

So I played Dragon Hopper. Not in NSO, but on my Mr Cart flash cart, on a real VB.

I have to say – I am genuinely liking the game. It’s a solid platformer with pretty solid mechanics. The game is designed to encourage you to constantly leap to find platforms above your head, and there’s good incentive and low risk to taking a leap of faith outside your viewing area. The worst you’ll do generally is fall to the bottom floor.

Combat is basic, but it’s also not the point of the game. Learning the angles of attack for the different enemies is key, but I’ll admit that it’s harder than it should be. This is primarily down to the difficulty in differentiating enemies from the well-drawn but visually complicated background. This is an area where gameplay is directly affected by the Virtual Boy’s extremely limited color palette. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s also highly appropriate that you’re playing as a dragon, because you’ll find that your vision becomes based on movement *cough* Jurassic Park reference *cough*.

Musically…well, the music is fine, compositionally speaking. Simplistic at times, but considering the technology, it does a lot with very little. However, some sound effects and music cues appear to have their relative volumes set to full – I’ve just beaten the first boss of the game, and I’ve encountered two situations where a musical sting suddenly blasted my ears much more loudly than literally everything around it. Unpleasant, but my suspicion is that the build is a near-final release candidate, and had this gone gold, it would have recieved a fix for this prior to master.

Objectively speaking, I would rate this as being one of the best VB games made. Not the absolute best – that goes to Wario Land, of course – but I feel that it ties for second or third with Jack Bros, depending on how you rate Bound High. On that note, it seems to fit quite neatly in between those two as far as presentation and actual gameplay are concerned.

My personal view is that Dragon Hopper would not have saved the VB…but it might have pushed its inevitable failure back a few months, long enough to get a few more games out the door, maybe.

30 years of wanting this have paid off beautifully.

Link to the pins is gone. It’d help if you provided Mouser/Digikey options.

…considering it was literally announced, that’s not so much a predictive guess.

[Sporkmaster]

So. We are coming up on the 30th anniversary of the original intended release date of Dragon Hopper. What is our collective opinion on the idea that Aug. 26 is when Nintendo drops the D-Hopper on NSO?

Personally, I would *enjoy* the symmetry of such a thing, but the practical part of me doubts that Nintendo would adhere to such a particular parallelism over what is, realistically, a very minor game in the grand scheme of things.

…on the other hand, the fact that they created infrastructure and added the Virtual Boy – arguably their biggest failure – to their marketplace at all might serve as evidence towards the contrary. Furthermore, they’re *actually releasing the game*. That’s not nothing! Thoughts?

• This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by Sporkmaster.

The funny thing is, when I saw Nintendo announce the VB accessory for the Switch(es), I legit turned to my buddy and said, “The fuck are they thinking? They’re gonna release a physical accessory for 20 games? What, are they gonna drop Dragon Hopper at the same time?”

Should have bought a lottery ticket, because I nailed that one so hard, it renamed itself Jesus.

Just learned about the Dragon Hopper release for the Virtual Boy stuff online. Wish I’d Airtagged my shit, because I lost all of it in that moment. As long as someone is clever enough to dump the data so we can put it on a flash cart, I’m prepared to overlook all the upheaval of the last year solely due to Dragon Hopper.