During the last coding competition a new member going by the nickname Red Metal joined planetvb. He planned to submit a VB port of Snatcher, a game that I had never heard of. After 7 post he stopped writing updates. Almost exactly one year ago someone else posted that Red Metal had passed away.

That post choked me up quite a bit. I had never talked to him but from his post I could tell that he was a very nice person. I felt like I missed my chance to get to know him. I tried to express that in a post but somehow my words felt meaningless to me.

It sparked an idea though… I could create a Snatcher port in his memory. So I started learning about the game and all the different versions. After playing it for a bit I came to the conclusion that it’s too complex. But somehow I couldn’t let the idea go.

One year and something like 200-300 hours of work later I have a first demo done. You can play up to the point where you leave for Alton Plaza. The Jordan Computer, inventory and shooting games are fully working. I had to skip the save feature and the video phone for now. To my knowledge it is furthers a homebrew Snatcher port has ever gotten.

Here are some features:
– Dynamic dialog system with alternating answers
– Dynamic inventory (Select button) that reacts to people in the room
– Every image has been converted to 3D
– PCM music and sound effects
– In game Jordan computer fully working
– Shooting games fully ported

Special Thanks go to:
– Bigmak and Minestorm for testing.
– Horvat for sharing his PCM code. In the end I wrote my own but it sure helped allot.
– Benjamin Stevens for testing and helping out with the transcripts.

I’m well aware that there are some imperfections in the game. I will continue polishing what is there and extending it until the game is fully completed. Even if it takes till the 25th vb anniversary.

I hope this is something Red Metal would have enjoyed playing.

Happy 20th anniversary everyone.

http://youtu.be/HbE8Zg908u4

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1. snatcher.demo_.1.vb.zip

Any word on any of your projects. Always interested.

Super excited to try this! Great job. Big fan of the Sega CD version. Do you have any ideas what youre going to do with the more… lewd content?

Well… it has been a quite long time since I worked on Snatcher (or anything VB related). I actually didn’t change a single thing after publishing the demo. However, I decided that it’s time to continue.

There is a long list of things that need to be done. I guess the first thing to do is add a save mechanism. I decided to not go with user triggered save files (like in the sega version) but simply save the progress while the game proceeds. That should also make the multiple roms problem a bit easier.

I already made a plan of how to do that. I might start programming sometime next week.

This is really exciting news! A save feature sounds amazing. Thanks for your dedication to this game and the VB scene 🙂

Sounds awesome man! It’s exciting to think of the next chapter of VB Snatcher, thanks for continuing the project!

This is great news. I loved the demo. Never played the game before and it’s great. I’ve been waiting for you to pick this back up. Super excited! thanks.

Awesome! I really enjoy how close this community is, it’s absolutely amazing how many games are being developed for VB. It’s the 3D marvel that I always impress my friends with.

I finally got around programming a bit. I added the basic code for accessing sram and added a layer on top that handles the game specific code. The game now automatically saves and loads the current screen. So you can switch the game off at any time an continue where you left. I need to move all of remaining data (like items in the inventory) to sram as well which is quite a bit of monkeywork.

I was considering having an actual save feature in one of the menus again as well. I would be a rather easy solution and of course reduce all the sram calls. But then again, I like the idea of having an auto save.

So awesome 🙂 Keep up the great work, we can’t wait to test this out!

Wow! I really hope to see the whole thing made! Excellent work!

I haven’t played Snatcher in full, but the Policenauts translation was one of my favorite games of all time! Would definitely really enjoy playing this on VB.

God speed!

Would absolutely love to see this get a physical release, and such a great backstory behind it. Good luck and fingers crossed 🙂

Snatcher is probably my most played adventure game EVER. I’ve finished it probably 5-7 times over the years. The story, voices, and music are all top notch.

I absolutely hate that Kojima continues to release Metal Gear over and over, with no love at all for one of his greatest titles. With today’s technology, I can only imagine how great a reboot would/could be.

Keep up the great work, and hopefully we can see a full release in the future. For sure put me down for a copy, if and when it ever gets to that point of course.

Put me down for a copy too. I would definitely pay for a physical release of this.

Just while we’re here, if in the event this ever becomes a physical release, absolutely add me to the list, I don’t care if it’s in 2 years, this post is my commitment to being “in” :p

jumpman wrote:
Snatcher is probably my most played adventure game EVER. I’ve finished it probably 5-7 times over the years. The story, voices, and music are all top notch.

I absolutely hate that Kojima continues to release Metal Gear over and over, with no love at all for one of his greatest titles. With today’s technology, I can only imagine how great a reboot would/could be.

Keep up the great work, and hopefully we can see a full release in the future. For sure put me down for a copy, if and when it ever gets to that point of course.

I’ve never played Snatcher, mainly because I despise all of Kojima’s Metal Gear games…except for the first two (yes, the NES ones, “I feel asleep!” and all), and I always figured that Snatcher’s hype was all part of the same nonsense.

If the ROM is ever finished, I might consider doing a physical release, though – seems a lot of people are super interested in this.

Quaze wrote:
Just while we’re here, if in the event this ever becomes a physical release, absolutely add me to the list, I don’t care if it’s in 2 years, this post is my commitment to being “in” :p

Nitrosoxide wrote:
Put me down for a copy too. I would definitely pay for a physical release of this.

I still plan to finish Snatcher. It’s kind of hard for me to get started again because I know as soon as I do it will consume allot of my time.

I’m also not sure how I feel about a physical release. While I like the idea I do have a problem with infringing copyrights.

RetroDan wrote:
If the ROM is ever finished, I might consider doing a physical release, though – seems a lot of people are super interested in this.

It wouldn’t be cool if you would just do that.

Bwahaha! I wasn’t simply going to do it without talking with you or compensating you, thunder. That’s not how I roll. I meant (though I see how it came across that way) that I’d love to help getting a physical release done. It wasn’t a “Dur hurr, I gunna make repro an’ takes all da munnie!” thing, have no fear.

thunderstruck wrote:

Quaze wrote:
Just while we’re here, if in the event this ever becomes a physical release, absolutely add me to the list, I don’t care if it’s in 2 years, this post is my commitment to being “in” :p

Nitrosoxide wrote:
Put me down for a copy too. I would definitely pay for a physical release of this.

I still plan to finish Snatcher. It’s kind of hard for me to get started again because I know as soon as I do it will consume allot of my time.

I’m also not sure how I feel about a physical release. While I like the idea I do have a problem with infringing copyrights.

I can certainly understand your reservations there and I do respect them. I don’t know if there’s any way to release the game as a “not-for-profit-making” fan project or how one would fund or approach such a project without stepping into those waters. Most ways I can think of could also be perceived as a loophole/circumvention with some nefariously-perceived intent attached to it, and most would basically equate to you selling the game to cover the cost of producing it, without making any profit for yourself.

Two issues with that: One, you’d still be “selling” the game, even if you weren’t “profiting” from the game. Two, it’s a lot of work, and you deserve something for that work. I understand there is such a thing as a “labour of love”, but nobody here expects (or wants) you to invest time and effort into something of that scale without compensating you in some way, your efforts deserve rewarding.

So there are some of the roadblocks, if there is anything we can do to break them down, by all available means we will. I certainly have no expectations at this point, but man, pie-in-the-sky it sure would be sweet for something like this to see the light of day someday.

Let’s not put ‘the cart before the horse’. It’s a great game so far, but a lot of work still needs to be put into it like thunder said.

-Eric

RetroDan wrote:
Bwahaha! I wasn’t simply going to do it without talking with you or compensating you, thunder. That’s not how I roll. I meant (though I see how it came across that way) that I’d love to help getting a physical release done. It wasn’t a “Dur hurr, I gunna make repro an’ takes all da munnie!” thing, have no fear.

Ahh, got that wrong, sorry.

I understand there is such a thing as a “labour of love”, but nobody here expects (or wants) you to invest time and effort into something of that scale without compensating you in some way, your efforts deserve rewarding.

I actually don’t want any compensation. However, with real cards being produced there always someone making money of it, even if it’s just the guy that resells his copy on ebay. So, not sure how I feel about that.

bigmak wrote:
Let’s not put ‘the cart before the horse’. It’s a great game so far, but a lot of work still needs to be put into it like thunder said.

-Eric

I think it’s fair enough to discuss these things now, even if the game isn’t going the be finished any time soon.