Oki…let’s talk about faceball.

Well, actually lets not even talk about the faceball prototype yet..I’ll take a step back and talk about Danb’s ‘faceball’. When videos of faceball started to pop-up on planet vb ( http://www.youtube.com/user/VBNikoChanBattle (video isn’t the greatest)). Danb and I both wanted to bring this game to the masses. But, wet went about it two different ways. I went about ..trying to buy and release the prototype..and Danb (being smart) starting CODING the game. We were both doing these projects in secret. When I announced that I was going to release the prototype..without knowing it..i squared up and kicked Dan right in the groin. He returned the favor a few days ago when he released a demo of his game :). After promptly removing my testicle from my liver..I realized that it’s a good thing. Danb’s an incredible coder and he’s going to be taking his project in a slightly different direction. To show my support of his project..Dan now has a copy of the faceball prototype to help him in his development. While my faceball release will have more polish (as of now) and will be essentially stuck in the same ‘game’ mode (you go into a maze and kill stuff before they kill you). Dan’s will be totally open ended and I can’t wait to see where he goes with his project.

Now…the prototype faceball.

About me getting the game.

Some emails/Pm’s

Can I get the rom and play it ? -> yes I will release it in a few months for free

How much did you spend ? -> that’s private i spend 1X,xxx..that’s all you need to know. Please don’t guess/speculate at how much i spent…it’s private. It’s between me and who I bought it from.

Why did you spend so much ? -> vboy prototypes are expensive and rare. I wanted to. I knew I would lose money/my collection going into this

Can you send me the rom so i can play it ? ->no, I will release it in a few months for free

You lost your collection ? -> i kept most of my games. I sold my collection to pay for the prototype. I can’t write a check like that without getting shot by my wife..i’m in Kentucky..she can do it

Can you send me the rom so i can fiddle with it? -> dude..really ?

Who sold you the rom ? -> He’s Japanese. He’s name is private. He doesnt’ have any more. I didn’t get a rom. I got an official eprom board with the chips. I had to extract the rom.

I’d like to play the rom now..can you send it to me ? -> Sure, wait here..let me get my gun

Can I donate money ?..you’re a super good dude -> AHHZ see below

Donations/plans

Yea. I’d like to get some money back. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Most times people would run fundraisers to release the rom. And that’s cool. But, if people give me money..I’d like to give something back. Luckly I’m part of a team of people that started the process of releasing homebrew games on carts for people to enjoy. We’re going to use uncletusk’s website..and if you donate a min of 100 dollars. We’ll send you a cib copy of the prototype. We’re going to make you a manual..hand make a cart..and send it with a box and inserts.

The guys that are helping me out with this project were going to get a special edition of it for all of their hard work. Looks like I will be giving out (6) of these carts. When I mentioned this to people..they wanted some special edition carts also. SOOO..we’ll be making a limited number of ‘donators edition’ CIB copies. If you donate 200 dollars or more..we’ll send you this edition.

What’s special about this edition ?

It will be a smaller run. (confirmed)
The copies will be numbered (first 6 are taken for people working on this project). (confirmed)
There will have to be a pre-order/payment (chances are good..need to know how many to make)
There will be different artwork. (confirmed)
There will be a poster. (confirmed)
There will be a hintbook. (confirmed)
There will be a mini-disk with game music. (maybe)
These copies will be sent out before the others. (maybe)
There might be other stuff (good chance..i might be able to fit more in the box)
The (2) different copies will contain different roms. (confirmed) wait..What ??? *see below

About the prototype gameplay:

The game wasn’t finished. The ‘arena’ mode wasn’t done, but it’s selectable from the main menu. The main game you can say is done..maybe. It’s playable and fun..a bit to easy..running around a 3-d maze and shooting stuff is pretty freakin cool. The enemies are different from previous versions of the game. I’d like to see more enemies on each level and make it a bit harder..and more mazes. Right now you can sit down and finish the game in a night. There are typos and grammer stuff that’s wrong..and there’s a high score at the end that’s post as 123456789 (or something can’t remember).

I’ve given out copies of the game for people to playtest and work on. They can post more if they want.

Oh..and I said something about differnt roms…

It’s nice to have smart friends. Thunderstruck just finished up his ‘fishbone’ homebrew game..and he was on vacation. Wanted something to do..so off went the rom to him. BTW did I say he was smart ? He hasn’t had it long..but he can change mazes..change enemies (he found an additional one programmed in the rom that wasn’t in the game)..change enemy behaviors ect ect. He’ll prob start his own post today about his progress..but a level editor isn’t far off (I think). He’s done a great deal on the rom already..one of the editions we release will be his..and we’ll call it ‘Faceball: remastered’. I don’t post much..he can post more about it.

Which release will have what rom ? PUUH not sure yet.

Now..money….just to be open

yea 100 is a lot to donate for a game..but

For every 100 dollar donation..i have to get the game and mail it to you (well tusk does)..after all is said and done..i’ll actually get 45 dollars towards the release for every 100 dollar donation

For the 200 dollar donation (min)..I’ll prob wind up with 120 ish (?). Maybe I’ll auction a few of the numbered carts off on Nintendo age (great site btw)

My goal

If i don’t make a dime..rom will be released..lesson learned no hard feelings (from me..not the wife)
If i make 1k back..I’ll be fine..but my wife will be angry = sleeping on the couch prob.
If i make 3k back..I’ll be fine..wife will be disapointed = sleep in the bed, relations with the wife..prob..maybe
If i make 5k back..I’ll be fine..wife will be fine
If i make 7k back..I’ll be fine..wife and I will get a vacation this year
If i make 10k back..I’ll be amazed..wife will be amazed..I’ll take some money and do something for the vboy community..not sure what
If i make 50k..I’ll be dead..wife will get money and hide the gun in the lake (search the lake!!)

We’ll look to take donations and send out games in med Feb/early March (still working on artwork..need to make more carts ect ect)..maybe wait a month/month and a half then release all the roms i got.

Think i covered a lot..prob missed some stuff..

-Eric

Don’t email me asking for the rom..i can reload this gun fast

shenmueso wrote:
this is all very exciting! a never before seen VB game that was intended for legit release?
you really have gone above and beyond in acquiring the prototype, but it really doesn’t sit well with me that some guy was holding on to it and then sold it for such a big amount. i mean unless that japanese guy was solely responsible for coding the entire game, it’s really not his to sell like that and is a pretty anti-gamer thing to do to hold on to it in secret, only releasing it for big bucks. Even if he was on the staff that worked on it, it wasn’t his money that financed it, it was nintendos. What would he have done with it if no one had stumped up the cash? and was he pimping it around to try and find a buyer? if no one else had ever offered the money, he would have had a worthless piece of plastic.

Anyone with a love for gaming wouldn’t do this, i expect he was a money man for nintendo and somehow got a hold of it.

anyway, that’s not a reflection on you bigmac, you’re a legend. now if only someone would come forward with dragon hopper. lol

Well, in the end, we don’t know how he acquired the cartridge. And when it comes to unreleased protos and rare game variants, it truly is a collector’s market. Many collectors feel that the priced value of their “only copy in the world” proto massively diminishes once the game gets dumped — that’s why some people will have a “dumping price” before they’ll let anyone touch the cart.

While I’d much prefer everyone share everything in the open, I do get it. They’re trying to keep the value in their collection on top of its intrinsic value as a pile of games… but it would be nice for them to share as well.

I can’t donate $200 dollars, but I’ll donate something. Congrats on the purchase, sorry for the loss of the collection.

Wynd

Okonomiyaki wrote:

The unasked question that I was suggesting was that since (whomever it was, the super smart guy) figured out how to mess with the original rom in order to create the “remastered” version it stood as a possibility that they could somehow be merged in a single rom wrapper before being flashed?

I don’t know if that guy is so super smart. I asked him to add online multiplayer for 64 users. He said ‘it is technically not possible’. I mean, he probably could just copy some code from a game like Battlefield. I guess he is just lazy.

Maybe you should ask the elves instead? 😉

thunderstruck wrote:

MineStorm wrote:

I have no idea if this is technically possible. It is not like you can simply flash two VirtualBoy games on one card.

Both ROM’s together should be under 2MBytes. So, couldn’t you put in an option screen that lets you decide which version to run (when you first boot the cart) ?

I thought about that as well. I’m not sure if this would break the absolute addressing though… I guess someone smarter then may would have to do this.

Joining two ROMs into one is indeed possible, though it’s not easy and the results aren’t always perfect.

Here’s a ROM that contains GameHero and Fishbone. When it starts, both displays will be blank. Press the L button for GameHero or R for Fishbone.

You might experience some glitches because most of the code patching was done by a program I wrote, and it’s pretty much impossible for a program to guess everything correctly. Also, the games will overwrite each other’s data on the SRAM and I didn’t attempt to correct that. I also haven’t tested the ROM on hardware.

For Faceball, you’d probably have an easier job because the ROMs would be similar and probably nothing too serious would happen if one game tried to read the data from the other game.

Attachments:

1. jointest.zip

HorvatM wrote:

thunderstruck wrote:

MineStorm wrote:

I have no idea if this is technically possible. It is not like you can simply flash two VirtualBoy games on one card.

Both ROM’s together should be under 2MBytes. So, couldn’t you put in an option screen that lets you decide which version to run (when you first boot the cart) ?

I thought about that as well. I’m not sure if this would break the absolute addressing though… I guess someone smarter then may would have to do this.

Joining two ROMs into one is indeed possible, though it’s not easy and the results aren’t always perfect.

Here’s a ROM that contains GameHero and Fishbone. When it starts, both displays will be blank. Press the L button for GameHero or R for Fishbone.

You might experience some glitches because most of the code patching was done by a program I wrote, and it’s pretty much impossible for a program to guess everything correctly. Also, the games will overwrite each other’s data on the SRAM and I didn’t attempt to correct that. I also haven’t tested the ROM on hardware.

For Faceball, you’d probably have an easier job because the ROMs would be similar and probably nothing too serious would happen if one game tried to read the data from the other game.

That is pretty cool.

God Damn! I can’t wait!!!

This joint file is, indeed, really neat. I’ll have to go for Fishbone High Scores on this version and see if I notice any differences in gameplay from the stand-alone ROM. With this program applied to ROMs, now the “Thunderstruck Collection” or “HorvatM Collection,” etc. could each be released on individual carts.

HorvatM wrote:

Here’s a ROM that contains GameHero and Fishbone. When it starts, both displays will be blank. Press the L button for GameHero or R for Fishbone.

You might experience some glitches because most of the code patching was done by a program I wrote, and it’s pretty much impossible for a program to guess everything correctly. Also, the games will overwrite each other’s data on the SRAM and I didn’t attempt to correct that. I also haven’t tested the ROM on hardware.

Perhaps you’ve already discovered it yourself, but I’m just posting to let you know that I tried out the joint file on hardware, and GameHero seemed to run just fine, but Fishbone didn’t work at all; it just gave me a blank screen with garbled sound. The joint file did run perfectly for me in Reality Boy, though.

That will be tough to fix. Right now I can’t think of anything that might be the cause.

Now that I know what it was you were trying to sell me a few months back, I do want one! 🙂 I will be purchasing.

Hey, this just hit Penny Arcade TV…

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/thq-going-to-pieces

Before this goes any further…I will NOT be releasing this game in cart for sale in any way.

I thought it would be nice for people who donate to help cover the cost of the release to get a piece of the game..a physical piece. But, I’ve had many emails/pms explaining how illegal it would be for me to gain anything from a physical release. I have been told that if i attempt a cart release of the prototype rom, emails and phone calls will be made and at that point..things get messy.

So, now what ?

I will still release the rom for free..just gimme a week or two.

I have 50 carts with the rom on them..I will devise a system to give these carts out for free.

I will accept donations to help cover the cost of the prototype release..but in no way/shape or form will it mean you will be getting a physical copy of the game.

-Eric

bigmak wrote:
Before this goes any further…I will NOT be releasing this game in cart for sale in any way.

I thought it would be nice for people who donate to help cover the cost of the release to get a piece of the game..a physical piece. But, I’ve had many emails/pms explaining how illegal it would be for me to gain anything from a physical release. I have been told that if i attempt a cart release of the prototype rom, emails and phone calls will be made and at that point..things get messy.

So, now what ?

I will still release the rom for free..just gimme a week or two.

I have 50 carts with the rom on them..I will devise a system to give these carts out for free.

I will accept donations to help cover the cost of the prototype release..but in no way/shape or form will it mean you will be getting a physical copy of the game.

-Eric

It doesn’t make a big difference to me. I will still support you with the same amount of money I initially planned. Having the ROM is already pretty cool.

It is sad to hear that some jerks can simply screw up the card release though. Personally, I blame Screw-Attack for this. They didn’t took the time to do proper research on their news-story. Thereby, they left their viewers with a wrong impression of what was going on. I hope they will realize at some point that they have the responsibility to check their facts because otherwise they will harm other projects as well.

Who owns the rights to the game? Isn’t the company defunct? With that said, was the code ever copyrighted? Who would be on the other end of those calls and emails? There is no company to claim ownership, right? I think it is time to trace the provenance and attempt to find who might hold the copyright. It would be a shame to see this reproduction die.

Well that sucks. Gotta love it when people are mean to be mean. Trolling, if you will. Will definitely donate to help cover the release anyway. I get where they’re coming from, but this feels more like people being dicks than it does them having a principled argument.

Maybe the homebrew version of Faceball will get a release… it’d be nice to have a proper cart.

Edit:// I guess I mostly just want new VB games to come out on cartridges. As someone else mentioned before, the Vectrex has more homebrew games than it does originals, and this feels like a cooler version of that, and it’s fun to be a part of.

That’s true , it would be illegal but if you accept donations and it doesn’t mind you are selling games … any problem!! . So if you are agree please send me your paypal account to help you to recover the cost of the proto , it doesn’t matter if I can’t get a cart.

Too much press, I guess. Not sure how this would be any different than selling Bound High carts, in principle…
Probably an idle threat, but I don’t blame you for not taking any chances.

:[

If you give me one of your free carts, we can pretend like I won’t pay for it. Will that help? (P.S. Bonus for the CIB as initially planned.)

This really sucks. You’re doing such good work bringing us Faceball. Us collectors really want a CIB copy of this game and have no problem paying for it. Ignore those other people. Don’t let the VB fans suffer because of this. I would love for a CIB copy of Faceball as would many other hardcore VB fans. Please don’t rob us of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because of some random people.