Since it appears that a lot of questions and emotions have arisen on account of the news headline informing everyone that complete-in-box copies of Hyper Fighting have been making it into the homes of various Virtual Boy enthusiasts, I figured that the time has come for me to explain my role in this whole thing, and hopefully doing so will give people a better understanding of what all has happened in this regard, and maybe it will also cause certain emotions to settle.

How the Virtual Boy game that is now known as “Hyper Fighting” began to come into being is quite remarkable, to say the least. It actually began in the middle of June in the year 2012 with a forum thread that was started here on this site by PVB User: bigmak on the subject of a game titled “Skullgirls.” In this thread, he posted a link to a site containing pictures that allegedly showed Skullgirls being worked on for the Virtual Boy. Basically, one of the pictures just showed the PC version of Skullgirls being displayed on a laptop which was sitting next to a Virtual Boy, but the colors of the game had been changed to all red and black in order to create a mockup of what the alleged Virtual Boy version might look like. There were also photos of written notes lying on the laptop’s keyboard regarding the plans for how the game would be converted over to the Virtual Boy. It is very likely that the originator of these photos never had any intention to make a version of Skullgirls for the Virtual Boy and that the photos were simply posted as a joke. Nevertheless, I responded to the thread on Planet Virtual Boy with the following comment:

“It’s hard to tell if they’re being serious or not about actually making a Virtual Boy version of this game. If they’re looking for monetary support for the main version of the game, though, they would certainly get a lot from me if they truly intend to make this into a Virtual Boy game as well.”

It’s a very obscure little forum thread here on Planet Virtual Boy, and as of the time that I’m writing this, it has only ever received one other comment besides bigmak’s and mine. I never would have imagined that just this little thread would be the start of something truly great! Since I have had my e-mail address displayed here on my Planet Virtual Boy Profile ever since I joined the site about 4 years ago, even people who do not have actual Planet Virtual Boy User accounts have the ability to contact me if they so desire. Well, only a couple days after I posted that comment, an individual who had read it, who prefers to remain known as “Mr. Anon,” contacted me about it. He explained to me that he had run into some financial difficulties and asked me if I would be willing and able to pay him to work full time for a few months on any kind of Virtual Boy game that I desired, alleging that he would be able to produce a game for me like none other I had ever seen on the Virtual Boy. Obviously, I was very intrigued by this offer, but on the one hand, I wondered just how capable this one was of doing such all by himself, and on the other hand, I thought that such an undertaking would certainly require so much time on his part that there was probably no way that I would be able to offer a monetary amount by myself that would be satisfactory for such an endeavor. Well, since the biggest thing that I myself had to worry about was whether or not I would be able to pay him a satisfactory amount for his work, I discussed with him the upper end of about what I would be able to afford, and to my surprise, we were able to agree on a total price for all of his work that he would do for me. It was then time for me to choose the game that he would make for me!

The subject of Skullgirls did get me thinking that my Virtual Boy collection at the time truly was lacking something in the one-on-one fighting genre, so I really did want a one-on-one fighting game of some kind to be made for me. The thing is, there are not too many one-on-one fighting games that I have really enjoyed over the years, though I have played my fair share of them, but out of all of the ones that I have ever played, “Street Fighter II Turbo” for the SNES was by far my favorite one. I had owned it since about the fifth grade and had easily put over a thousand hours into that particular version. I’ve also played other versions of Street Fighter II, such as on the Game Boy and the 3DO, and I very much enjoyed the subtle differences between the versions. A person who doesn’t put much time into each version might not notice too many differences between them all, but one like me who has put hundreds of hours into each one can pick up on many subtle differences between the versions, primarily with regard to the computer player’s artificial intelligence on any particular difficulty level and the human player’s ability to execute various moves and combos with each character in any given situation. Thus, I feel that each version of the game released on a different platform has to be viewed as its own unique game, since certain strategies that might work with some characters in certain situations in one version of the game will not work in similar situations in another version. But in any case, all versions of the game, in my opinion, are so great and fun to play as well as fun to master! Well, all of this got me thinking: What better choice would there be than for me to have Mr. Anon make me a version of Street Fighter II for the Virtual Boy? I figured that the end result would no doubt be a game that would be different enough from the other versions, primarily with regard to computer AI and performing certain moves and combos in different situations, but at the same time, it would also be similar enough that I would know for sure that I would enjoy it and would love mastering it, like with the other versions I had played. The best thing about this choice, I thought, is that I would not have to give Mr. Anon any guidance at all as to what characters and moves I would want in the one-on-one fighting game that he would make for me. I could just tell him, “Please make me a version of Street Fighter II that is as close as possible to the SNES version of Street Fighter II Turbo,” and then he could use that as the basis to make the whole game that I wanted, without my constantly having to come up with original characters and moves for an all new one-on-one fighting game or constantly having to test out demos of the game that he would have to make and send to me, in order for me to ensure that the game was being made to my satisfaction. I figured that if I am going to pay Mr. Anon a good bit of money to make me a one-on-one fighting game for the Virtual Boy, I want to make sure that the end result is going to be something that I will definitely enjoy and that it won’t require much conversation between me and him during the whole development process or a lot of testing of the game on my part to ensure that I would enjoy the end result, which would take up a lot of time for the both of us. This is the biggest reason why I decided to have an already known game, which I already loved, be made for the Virtual Boy for me.

With the full price for all of his work being set and with the game to be made being determined, it was now time to decide how the project would be carried out by both parties. Since Mr. Anon convinced me by his various messages that he sent to me that he was fully competent to carry out his end of the deal and was fully serious about doing so, I wanted to take steps to show that I was fully serious about carrying out my end of the deal. Thus, we agreed that I would pay him on a weekly basis for the work that he was doing for me and that he would keep me updated on his work by sending me demos of the work-in-progress. I was willing to send him partial payments for the first couple of weeks that he worked on the game for me, even before I received the first demo of his work. I figured that even if he ended up not fulfilling his end of the deal, sending him just a couple of payments wouldn’t be too much of a loss for me, and I would at least feel good about having helped out one who had run into financial difficulties. Nevertheless, if I wouldn’t have received a demo after a few weeks of sending payments, I would have stopped sending more payments until the first demo arrived. Well, it turned out that I didn’t have to worry about such. After just a couple of weeks, Mr. Anon sent me his first demo, which contained a menu that allowed me to choose to listen to many of the different sounds and music that would be in the finalized game. To say the least, I was completely blown away! I myself do not know much about programming for the Virtual Boy, but I was well aware that a lot of homebrewers here on Planet Virtual Boy have had difficulty incorporating sound into their Virtual Boy games, and the sounds and music I was listening to on my Virtual Boy sounded so great that if someone had sent me that demo, saying that it was a sound demo that Capcom itself had made back in 1995, when rumors were going around in Japan that Capcom was working on a version of Street Fighter II for the Virtual Boy, I would have believed the person. But this wasn’t a demo made by an entire video game company but rather, as far as I knew, by a single individual! After receiving that sound demo, I was very reassured that I had gotten myself into a great deal, and it would only be a few weeks after that when I would receive my first demo of actual gameplay. It was then that I would truly feel like a giddy little schoolboy! I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh! I am actually fighting with Ryu against Sagat on my Virtual Boy! I am playing a demo of my favorite one-on-one fighting game of all time on my favorite video game system of all time! What more could I ask for?” Well, I could have asked for the finished game, of course, but after receiving that demo of the gameplay, I felt full assurance that Mr. Anon would fulfill his end of the deal. Thus, I kept sending him the weekly payments until the full, agreed upon price was reached, and he kept sending me updates on his progress.

The biggest thing that amazes me about Mr. Anon’s capabilities is that not only does he prove himself to be a master at programming and coding, but he is also an exceptional artist. To me, it is very amazing for an individual to excel in both of these areas. Through the various e-mails that I exchanged with him, I learned that he was designing all of the graphics in the game completely from scratch, rather than simply taking existing sprites and graphics from another version of the game. Not only that, but he told me that he himself had the ability to design and make his own cart for the game, which would be necessary since he learned during development that the finalized game would require twice the storage capacity of what the FlashBoy Plus has, which is the flash cart that is currently available for purchase from Richard Hutchinson and which is necessary for playing homebrew games on an actual Virtual Boy system. He also said that the finalized game would be able to support the 2-player link cable. Now, since there is currently only one official link cable that has ever surfaced and fallen into one PVB User’s hands, I assumed from this that he had the ability to make his own link cables, though he never actually mentioned that he would make and send me one, which didn’t matter all that much to me anyway since I don’t have anybody close to me who would ever want to meet up with me to fight against me in the game. He even told me that he would design and produce his own instruction booklet and box, both containing lots of artwork, which he would send to me as part of the final product. I couldn’t believe it. Mr. Anon seemed to have the ability to do everything by himself! Now, I have no idea of what all programming and coding was involved in the process, but one thing he did tell me about this was that he was using a fighting engine that was made by PVB User: M.K. I don’t know how exactly he got access to this fighting engine, but I assumed that he must at least be an online acquaintance of M.K., since I don’t believe M.K.’s fighting engine has been made publicly available to this day.

Well, the project did end up taking Mr. Anon longer than he originally anticipated. I had actually sent him all payments months before he ended up finishing the project. Nevertheless, he kept in communication with me, and I was certain that he would finish the game eventually. Then, one day, to my great surprise, a very plain-looking prototype cart of the practically finalized game arrived at my house in the mail. As a slight reference to Napoleon Dynamite, Mr. Anon had made my wildest dreams come true! The version he sent me was so complete and well-made that I considered his part of the deal fulfilled, even if I didn’t get the other things that he had told me he would eventually have made and sent to me. Nevertheless, he continued to work on the game for a little while after that, and then one day, another package arrived at my house, and boy was I excited to see that now, not only did I have an interesting, though rather plain-looking, prototype cart of the game in my possession, but now I had a very official-looking cart, box, and instruction booklet of the game, which looked like it had been made by Capcom itself! The truly finalized version of the ROM on this new cart was even more finished, professional-looking, and polished than the ROM on the prototype cart that had been sent to me before.

Well, it was a short time after this that I learned from my daily visits to Planet Virtual Boy that other people were getting copies of this cart, box, and instruction booklet sent to them. I don’t know any of the specifics relating to how all of this went down, but this had nothing at all to do with the original agreement that was made between me and Mr. Anon, and I myself certainly have no part in this. The original agreement was that I would pay Mr. Anon to make me and only me a one-on-one fighting game for the Virtual Boy. The purpose of this was both to help Mr. Anon out with his financial difficulties and to make my wildest Virtual Boy dreams come true. I never planned to let it be known that this game was in my Virtual Boy collection, since I didn’t want to tease others with what a great game I could play on my Virtual Boy, and I also have no plans to try to make a single penny off of this game myself, in order to try to recover any of the money that I spent to have this game made for me. I don’t know many of the details about copyright laws, but I felt that if I simply paid Mr. Anon to make me a game and then kept the game to myself, without sharing it with anyone or making any money off of it, I would not be violating any copyright laws, though the game would look and play like a copyright-protected game. Whether or not that is true, I don’t fully know, but I certainly know that Capcom would have never found out about this or cared at all about it if such had remained the case. Nevertheless, since multiple copies of this game have been made and are now out there in others’ hands, I felt it necessary to explain my part in this whole thing, since eventually some who have this game in their possession will learn that I myself am a hidden character within the game, who can be unlocked, and these people might wonder just why this is so. You see, Mr. Anon really made my wildest dreams come true, for not only can I play my favorite one-on-one fighting game of all time on my favorite video game system of all time, but I can do so as myself, who has all the abilities of the character I’m best with, Ken. Thus, no longer must I play as Ken, for I can now play as myself, Ben!

To be clear, I am not at all upset that others are enjoying this great game, though I very likely paid much more for it to be made than anyone else. Nevertheless, I do realize that now that news about this game has gotten out, many are upset that they might never get to play this gem, at least not the full version of it. If that is the case, I hope that none of them will hold it against me. I also want to make it perfectly clear that I will never give anybody a copy of the ROM of the finalized game, as I will have no part in its distribution, so it is best for one not to waste one’s time asking. It must be understood that this was just supposed to be a private project between me and Mr. Anon. Now, I myself have no idea if Mr. Anon is getting any money from the distribution of the copies of these CIB games, but I am fully convinced that if I had told Mr. Anon to make an original one-on-one fighter for the Virtual Boy, he would have done an amazing job and wouldn’t have had to worry about copyright laws at all if he then chose to sell and distribute copies of his game. I fully believe that Mr. Anon deserves to get paid for his programming work, as he is incredible at it, and I feel that people who want new games for the Virtual Boy, who don’t want to get into programming themselves, should be willing to pay programmers to make games for them, or give them some other incentive to make games for them, rather than expect free handouts from the hard work and dedication of others. Nevertheless, Mr. Anon, in this case, did not choose to make a new version of a copyright-protected game; I made that choice, and I did so for all of the reasons previously explained, which just made things easier given the specific circumstances. Therefore, if anybody out there decides to disrespect all this by trying to make a nice profit off of the sales of copies of the end result of this project that began as a personal thing between me and Mr. Anon, I am not at all shy to say that I seriously hope that trouble will come your way. If Capcom itself doesn’t come after you, then likely the good ol’ PVB mob here will. 🙂

—
Benjamin Stevens

Benjamin Stevens wrote:

thunderstruck wrote:
I’m not sure if money is the right way to keep a project going. I actually do appreciate it allot when people show interest in what I’m doing and of course when they like the final result. When I spent too much time on making a game I tend to burn out quite fast. Seeing that others actually care about what I’m doing makes a big difference.

Don’t get me wrong. I am definitely very grateful for the dedicated Virtual Boy game developers that we have here on Planet Virtual Boy, who do it in their spare time for fun and not at all for money. It’s just that it makes a lot of sense that if a person can do what he or she enjoys doing AND can also get rewarded for it, obviously it would be wise for the person to pursue an avenue where such can happen. I think of all the indie developers on STEAM who are doing what they love to do AND getting nice reimbursement for it. There are probably quite a few indie developers out there who could develop very great games for the Virtual Boy, but they currently have no interest in the Virtual Boy and also need money to keep paying the bills. Thus… maybe… just maybe… if they know that they can work a few months on a Virtual Boy game and can get money to pay the bills as a result of it, there might be some of them who will jump on the Virtual Boy scene and help make more of our wildest dreams come true!

I see your point now. I’m all in for a community funded virtual boy game. We would need trustworthy developers and quite some funding though.

i’ll always hope to see our talented community come together to start a Kickstarter campaign. a new VB CIB game with a ROM release tier and support for modern 3D hardware.

[jaycee900]

Thanks for the story Ben, certainly helps knowing this to reduce the jealousy!

I hope the game was worth the wait and money, enjoy it Ben!

I too hope their can be future games backed with a Kickstarter type project.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by jaycee900.

Strongly agree with what was said above me. With the results seen here, this would be the first kickstarter I would actually put money into. Would not hesitate one bit.

This conclusion to Hyper Fighting is mind blowing, thanks for sharing Ben! Even though it’s SFII and I like SNK fighters better, it is sad to think that this otherwise completed game has to be locked away forever. We have so few games to play on Virtual Boy as it is…

My vote would be a ROM hack of Hyper Fighting with a better funded release so Mr. Anon can be paid appropriately. The more the game is changed, the less likely copyright infringement is. A ROM hack is always faster to make than an all new game built from scratch.

Well, first, thank you Ben for this incredible story, and your dedication to the Virtual Boy scene.

Then, to all the users of the forum, as i’ve read many messages about the opportunity of a Kickstarter to release a full VB game, i would like to talk seriously about it.
I’ve follow this forum for about 5 years, and i’ve been struck by the dedication of some members, and the unity of the community. The completion of Hyper Fighting had proove (thanks to Ben) that it was possible to finalyze a game that might exploit the full potential of the VB system, so maybe it’s time to start this new adventure.

– probably the first thing will be to open a new dedicated thread about this project. First to have a constructive debate about what kind of game we are looking for, and maybe also to edit a list of people that would be “in” when the kickstarter will be launch (a kind of pre-registration to see who is interested)
– maybe having a kind of direction board for this project would be a good idea, with some of the most popular and trustworthy people of this forum (like Krisse, Bigmak, Lester Knight, Benjamin Stevens, thunderstruck, Dog P, Runner Pack, Guy Perfect …), as they are the people who have been the most implicated in the development
– i also did note that some good ideas about financing had been said earlier. As Bigmak said “having the coders get a certain % or dollar amount from the games sold would be an easier way to fund projects” : the idea of a percentage coupled with a Kickstarter funding might be attractive enough to interest some developpers.

(- also in another thread, people start to talk about having Starfox on VB. As Benjamin Stevens said ” if some one […] made the game, they could take absolutely everything from Nintendo’s version, so all ships, characters, enemies, bosses, etc., put it into a full game”. I wonder how would it be difficult to ‘take the things’ from the nintendo version? Would it means taking the elements of the SNES version, and giving it to a developper, and asking him to make them playable on VB?)

Well, that was just a first post to start the movement, and i’ll be happy if we can discuss it all together.

-Norty-

i would love nothing more than to run the daily aspects of a VB kickstarter campaign. if this is ever seriously considered, that is. kickstarter, facebook, twitter, daily updates, writing the campaign page, answering e-mails, etc. being involved with such a project would be an invaluable learning experience and a great thing to drop onto a resume.

I don’t post often here (read more often) but I’ve been following this project since I saw the demo. Its awesome that the game has developed to the point of production quality. I would be interested also in a kick starter for this. I understand the copyright issues relating to the distribution. Perhaps a way around it would be to sell a ‘kit’ that gives you the hardware and tools possible to create your own cart? I understand that the flashboy doesn’t have enough memory to run this. I’ll continue to follow this and hopefully a distribution method of some type can be established so the community can enjoy it while also providing the developers compensation for their efforts. I’m certainly interested.

Whoa! The Flashboy does not have enough memory to run this?

This, I didn’t know. :*(

it has been mentioned more than a few times that the ROM is too large to fit on the current FB+ design. excuse me if i am reading into your text wrongly, your comments read like you are upset and perhaps complaining. you would have known this before making your FB+ purchase if you had done some research.

Why don’t we just get some funds together and commission Mr. Anon to resize the ROM? or take a few things out to make the game fit?

with the price i paid for two copies i would be a little bit upset if the full ROM was released. a few years from now i would probably feel differently. a stripped down 1-player version with less music/options i could get behind.

Lester Knight wrote:
with the price i paid for two copies i would be a little bit upset if the full ROM was released. a few years from now i would probably feel differently. a stripped down 1-player version with less music/options i could get behind.

I feel the prices we paid were reasonable considering the amount of work and professional style programming that went into making this retail like experience. Not to mention the R&D of the new chips to support this game. It was a little bit more expensive than other homebrews/hacks but I feel it was well deserving of its price point. If others want to fund making a rom release compatible with our current Flashboy + then so be it. Everyone deserves a chance to play this great game.

I feel like this game should be left in lore and forgotten. We should move away from it, far away because it’s copyright infringement and do not need that sort of situation cracking down upon our heads.

HoMenace wrote:

I feel the prices we paid were reasonable considering the amount of work and professional style programming that went into making this retail like experience. Not to mention the R&D of the new chips to support this game. It was a little bit more expensive than other homebrews/hacks but I feel it was well deserving of its price point.

i understand that, and i’m not debating that. what i am saying is that i do not feel others should have free/cheaper access to a ROM just because they feel it unfair that they could not buy a CIB. all homebrew CIB releases are limited, some much more so than this release. a restricted (MAC address perhaps? — although that has its own inherent issues) ROM release for a similar cost as the CIB would be one thing. I just don’t want to see this ROM spread for free, not at this point. again, in a few years i might feel differently.

Was this game even available to the general public? The way I saw it was that it was only available to a select group of inside people.

And what was the price those who got it physically? It would help in understanding why you’d not want it released as a full rom. Part of it seems unfair to those who wanted this game, but didn’t even have access to purchasing it to begin with.

i will have to ask if those involved want that number released. what i will say is that it wasn’t cheap and it also wasn’t so expensive that i am regretting my purchase. what would be unfair to me is that i purchased it so that others could later get it for free.

you have to keep in mind that a lot of CIB releases (Atari, NES, Genesis, Vectrex, etc) usually have 25-100 unit runs, when they are gone — they are gone. someone will always feel left out, which is why developers usually release the full ROM or a slightly crippled version of it. in this case the ROM contains highly copyrighted properties. the only ROM release we would ever see would be an unsanctioned dump and probably not compiled from sources.

Why all the secrecy? I’m sure it was upwards of $400 each. I’ve seen Youtube videos of the unboxing. Was there even a regular signup period for purchase?

I’m not bitter or angry, but why was the game physically produced in the first place? Isn’t that like the epitome of copyright infringement? Good for VB fans and the like.

It’s more set in stone when it is on a cartridge as opposed to a rom file.

Johnny365 wrote:
why was the game physically produced in the first place? Isn’t that like the epitome of copyright infringement? Good for VB fans and the like.

info related to why it was made, how it was made, and copyright should all be in the 1st post. you’ll also find info that should partially explain how the CIB private release was a side-deal with the developer.

While the cartridge was expensive, I don’t think it was excessive… and I think the price was very fair considering that it was a full release that required a more expensive cartridge, and supported the developer. Even if the ROM was released, it’d only be playable in an emulator until someone made a larger flash cart… so those that purchased carts still get the benefit.

I wouldn’t feel bad if the developer decided to release the ROM, but I also respect their wishes. If they really wanted the ROM out there, I’m sure they could release it. But I wouldn’t dump and release the ROM if they didn’t want it out there.

While you could argue that the game isn’t really theirs… it’s much more theirs than mine, and for one, clearly the developer is good at this, and I hope they make more games. If they’re selling cartridges to make money, and only sell a few before the ROM gets out there, then they’re probably gonna be discouraged from doing it again. And who knows… maybe they’re redoing the characters, graphics, sounds, etc. and planning a full release. Putting this ROM out there might affect the release of that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if others don’t feel the same way as I do though, since it was sorta a commercial release… and, well… the commercial ROMs are out there.

And before anyone asks… no, I haven’t dumped it.

DogP