And Kirby’s Epic Yarn is not easy if you try to 100% it.

That’s right. It is the same way with LocoRoco. I guess that’s why I don’t like them. They are more “try to collect everything games” then a standard platformer.

I finished both of them, but I was really happy to go on with another game after that.

Only to add some newer games to the list:

– Kirby’s Epic Yarn
– LocoRoco

Both are pretty pointless because they are way to easy. The sad thing is that both had a high potential.

Ok, here it is: A completely polished version of GameHero.
My original plan was to go on with an other project after the first version. However, I got pretty good and friendly feedback from most of you guys so I decided to invest some more time. Additionally to the previously posted changes the following things have been done:

– buttons are now highlighted when pressed (makes game easier)
– button detection is more forgiving
– reconverted old music (Kirby dance and SMB2 Theme had to be removed)
– added vbh file (new VBDE fromat)
– song menu displays overall score (easy and hard)
– sorted songs alphabetically (also turned out there have only been 21 songs, not 24)
– added 5 new game themes (now it actually contains 24 songs)
– added 8 unlockable songs (pretty cool stuff)
– music tested on hardware (results are ok for most of the songs)
– tested unlock of additinal songs during regular playthrough

There are some known issues I may fix in the future:
– Resullt screen sometimes displays no result (saw this two times)
– Garbage glimpse between screens (switching off the displays does not seem to fix it)
– Game does not detect old saveram content (Hit left end right trigger during start screen to clear saveram)
– a couple of songs are a tick to slow on hardware

I hope I removed all of my debug stuff from the ROM. I played though the whole game (easy and hard) and finished every song. So the game can be beaten. I did not manage to get 100% in every song though.

If you find a BUG or see something that can be improved, please let me know.

Cheers
thunder

Attachments:

1. gamehero_1.1-1.zip

Hey,

VirtualBoy programming can be a little bit tricky in the beginning but as soon as you understood the basic system it is relativity simple. This is mainly caused by the fact, that the guys around here all already figured out the complicate stuff.

You can find demos and homebrews including the sources on this site, which I felt was a good starting point. There are also some helpful tutorials. The developer forum is also full of useful information.

Usually the projects are based on the libgccvb, which is an c library that allows relativity simple access to all of the VB functions. Unfortunately, there different versions of this lib featuring different improvements. You will find a version you can start with in one of the demos.

If you want to try out your stuff on Hardware, you will need a FashBoy Plus. There is a thread in this forum that explains how to get one. Otherwise you can use an emulator like Mednafen or RealityBoy.

If you have any questions about the coding itself just ask in the developer forum. Also feel free to contact me directly. I may not be an expert, but a least I produced something that people keep calling a VirtualBoy game.

AS a side node: I am pretty close to publishing the next and hopefully final iteration of GameHero. As soon as I am happy with the results I am going to publish the code as well. I will have to write comments into the code, though.

Cheers
thunder

I’m playing Red Steel 2 for Wii. Great game seems that few gave it a chance because 1’s play control was so weak.

Played both of them. I always liked the first one, even though the controls are not perfect. The second is allot of fun. I always wondered why they didn’t made it an own IP as it has no relation to the first one.

I just finished Ghost Trick. Pretty good game and the red and black always reminds me of the VirtualBoy. Also started playing inFamous (the first one, as I have to play through a massive backlog). Pretty good game, guess I have to also buy the second one.

The comment from Protoman85 made me think. Even though his comment is a little bit rude, he is right with highlighting of the buttons. I don’t see what wrong with the quality of the music, though. In the end all of them are NES soundtracks and in my opinion they sound pretty much like the original.

What do you guys think of the music?

Also, do you guys think there is a game element that should be changed/improved?

I am just asking because I never got allot of feedback about the game itself.

RunnerPack schrieb:

thunderstruck wrote:
But I can have a look for the theme music as well.

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/index-gr.html#Kid_Icarus

That’s where I found all of the other Midis 🙂

I tried the game today on a flashboy. It worked fine.

🙂

I thought it was good, but not great.

🙁

Two things bothered me, first the quality of the music.

Whats wrong with the quality of the music? I though that most of the results are pretty awsome. Espescelly for the Mario, Zelda and Metroid tracks. It’s not like the VirtualBoy is a mp3-player or like I know how to compose music. With more time and effort I could have supported multiple tracks and instruments, however most of the HomeBrews I played didn’t even have music in the background so this should be a big step forward.

Then that there’s almost no “feedback” to when you push the right buttons. I guess there is the score going up, but I would greatly have preferred the symbols lighting up as you press them or something.

Good point, I wanted to do that in the beginning but had to cut the feature because I had no more time. Maybe I will add a sound feedback (like in GuitarHero) if the wrong buttons are pressed.

The game already include the music from Level 2 of Kid Icarus (Kick-Ass game btw.). But I can have a look for the theme music as well.

As the weather is so nice outside and I wasn’t in the mood for work I did what everybody did. I went outside and programmed a little bit for the VirtualBoy. I just couldn’t resist to polish GameHero a little bit more. Right now I am pretty happy with the results. Here is a little changelog:

– code is now a pretty girl
– changed button order in game menu to make game a little bit easier
– player can choose easy difficulty (for little girls)
– saving scores is no longer glitchy
– added credits (shown if all normal songs finished)
– chick changes if all normal songs are completed
– full 3D in emulator (does look strange now in Reality Boy 2D Mode but in the end it is a 3D game)
– depth effect during game is now stronger
– songs are unlocked as soon as all normal songs completed
– music plays with same speed on emulator and on hardware
– saved allot of RAM by reducing the size of files produced by VIDE
– removed multi channel support from midi player to save RAM
– polished graphics a little bit
– add ROM information into vb file

The only thing left is to add some more songs. I also have to reconvert all of the existing songs, as the game now runs with 60 fps. As soon as this is done I am going to publish the new version. I will also publish the sources, even though I don’t think they hide any magic.

So, if you guys have a favorite video-game-theme-song that you always wanted to hear played by your VirtualBoy, this is your chance. Let me know and I may try to include it.

Cheers
thunder

Actually, I am using VBid right now to add the ROM information. However, I do it in a pretty static way out of a batch file.

If I understand Krisses changes to my batch files correctly, he also uses VBid inside of the VBDE. He added the .vbh header file to the project, which then is read after the build. The information of the header file are then used to configure VBid. VBid then writes the information to the ROM.

This is really a sweet package. If I find some time I will try to compile GameHero with it. In the end it is basically the same development environment I used, so it should work fine.

The vbh file is also something I always wanted to include in my project.

I think including some more examples and some basic tutorials would be a good idea.

This is the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

OK, this seems to work for me:

void saveToRam(u8 value, u8 pos)
{
	SAVERAM[(pos*2)+1] = value;
}

u8 getFromRam(u8 pos)
{
	u8 value = SAVERAM[(pos*2)+1];
	
	return (u8)value;
}

void clearRam(u8 offset, u8 range)
{
	u8 i = 0;
	
	for(i=offset; i
Cheers,
thunder
        
    

colesonwilson wrote:
No, everything that is published on Wikipedia is *not* public domain. The original authors of the articles hold the copyright and license Wikipedia to display them. There are several licenses typically used, the most common being called “Creative Commons.” Creative Commons, for instance, allows you to use the stuff so long as you attribute the original authors. Public Domain means it is free for all to use without restriction… stuff from Wikipedia has restrictions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Can_I_reuse_Wikipedia.27s_content_somewhere_else.3F

You are right, it is not public domain, it is Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). However, IT allows you to copy everything as long as you name the authors and allow others to copy your stuff:

This requires that, among other things, you attribute the authors and allow others to freely copy your work. (See Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0Unported License and Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License for full details.)

I once contacted Wikipedia and they told me those books are legal.

That’s indeed strange. I never used the VBDE, though. However, I don’t think Kri55e modified the sources. Do other games have sound if you start them in RealityBoy?

L___E___T schrieb:
Why did they even bother adding the external links?
This is ridiculous.
They won’t last long when Wikipedia find out.

Actually, they are doing this for thousands of “books” and it is completely legal, as everything that is published on wikipedia is public domain. They also reference all “authors”, external sources and so on. Obviously, this is an automated process and one big scam. All of their covers look similar, so it is not to difficult to identify their books.

It sound like you compiled the GH-Midi Player. If you press A, B, Left Trigger or Right Trigger it plays different Video-Game themes. The displayed number is the note count. As the number changes the music should be played. Obviously you have to turn up your sound to hear the music.

Did you try to start the demo in RealityBoy or on Hardware?

I guess no one got this working so far.

Cool, I totally want one. However, $32 shipping for a $10 shirt is a kind of a bad deal. If you figure out a way to reduce shipping costs to Germany please let me know.