I’m finally done. I have to admit I didn’t put allot of work into this in the last couple of month. I was simply busy with other stuff and I will be even more busy in the near future. However, I wanted to push this out before things go too crazy.
First of all I would like to thank everyone who jumped on board to make this game possible. It was the first time I received so much support from the community (without even asking for it). You guys rock!
Here is what changed since the original demo-game:
– 56 unique levels (half of them designed by Benjamin Stevens) instead of the original 14 demo levels
– Hidden Faceball enemy reactivated
– Hidden Menu Image reactivated
– Hidden Music reactivated (instead of the same song over and over again)
– Improved controls (deal with it)
– disabled debug menu (thanks to HorvatM)
– Faceball start-logo (thanks to Morintari and RunnerPack for providing the source image for free)
– New text in credits (without typos)
– Level editor to change all of this stuff (if BPS would have had a tool like that they would have finished the game)
– Maybe some other stuff I can’t think of right now
I don’t know if there will be a card release. If there is one I will not earn any money on it. My cut can be used to buy cards for future repos.
Ben and I playtested all levels. However, I didn’t test the final game completely. Also keep in mind that this is my first ROM hack. So if you find glitches or stuff just post them here and I will see if it can be fixed.
Here is what changed since the original demo-game:
…
– Level editor to change all of this stuff (if BPS would have had a tool like that they would have finished the game)
…
This is a bit confusing to me. Did you intend to include the current level editor in the zip folder, or do you plan to release it at a later date after making more changes? Right now, I only find the new ROM in the zip folder.
Here is what changed since the original demo-game:
…
– Level editor to change all of this stuff (if BPS would have had a tool like that they would have finished the game)
…
This is a bit confusing to me. Did you intend to include the current level editor in the zip folder, or do you plan to release it at a later date after making more changes? Right now, I only find the new ROM in the zip folder.
I will release the level editor later including all sources. I wanted to include our level designs as well, if that’s ok for you.
Fantastic! Time to take out the VB yet again! I don’t even need to dust it off as you guys are keeping it nice and happy with lots of releases lately! 😀
This looks great! I did notice a few things that could use a little work though. I noticed that the screen that you use to adjust the focus and IPD as well as the background in the stage select screen still have the Japanese name showing. Other then that, I dont see anything that could use fixing at this moment. Great job!
Da_GPer wrote:
… I did notice a few things that could use a little work though. I noticed that the screen that you use to adjust the focus and IPD as well as the background in the stage select screen still have the Japanese name showing. Other then that, I dont see anything that could use fixing at this moment…
I wouldn’t count on those being altered anytime ever.
Anyway, I think it is important for the original name “NikoChan Battle” (ニコちゃんバトル) to still appear in the game.
It is important to note that “NikoChan Battle” was a brand new title that Bullet-Proof Software came up with for this final game in the Faceball series. All of the earlier titles in the series were “Faceball” (フェイスボール) even in Japan, and when this Virtual Boy game appeared on the release forecasts in the Famitsu Magazines back in 1995, it appeared for some time on those lists as “フェイスボール” (“Faceball”), but then the time came when those at Famitsu Magazine had learned that the working title had changed to “NikoChan Battle” (ニコちゃんバトル), so it then appeared on the release forecasts as “NikoChan Battle” (ニコちゃんバトル) from then on.
There will always be the question in my mind: If “NikoChan Battle” had been officially released in North America for the Virtual Boy, would it have received a new and similar title, or would they have left it as “Faceball”? If I had to pick one, I guess I would have to say that they probably would have left it as “Faceball,” since the USA doesn’t have a history of changing the title of a game within a running series so drastically; at least, I’m not aware of that happening for any game series. Nevertheless, since no official development work ever happened on the game with the intent of it then being released in North America, I personally will always regard the official title of the game to be “NikoChan Battle” and not “Faceball.”
Da_GPer wrote:
This looks great! I did notice a few things that could use a little work though. I noticed that the screen that you use to adjust the focus and IPD as well as the background in the stage select screen still have the Japanese name showing. Other then that, I dont see anything that could use fixing at this moment. Great job!
I actually like having them still in Japanese. I changed the start screen mainly so that the game easily can be distinguished from the prototype. It wasn’t so much about providing a translated game.
DragonmasterDan wrote:
Wow, I just got a chance to try it. It’s WAAAAAAAY harder than the original version.
So, is it a good challenge or a frustratingly hard challenge? I was hoping to create a good challenge when I designed my mazes, without making the game near impossible. I have yet to play through Stages 2 and 4 (all of thunderstruck’s levels), so I can’t say anything about them, but I did play through and beat all of my stages, so all of the levels across Stage 1 and Stage 3, on an actual Virtual Boy system.
The thing that one learns when designing mazes is that one cannot trust the difficulty that one receives when testing out the mazes on Mednafen. The reason why is because the game runs very quickly and smoothly on Mednafen, so it is much easier to run through the levels and kill all of the enemies. On the hardware, however, the timer counts down at the same speed in real time as it does on Mednafen, but all of the action in the game runs more slowly, so it takes like twice the amount of time to do everything on hardware as it does on Mednafen. Thus, if people simply play my mazes on Mednafen, they might think that the game is pretty easy, but if they play it on hardware, that is where the true challenge is supposed to lie. Of course, it would be best that everybody play it on hardware if possible, the way it is supposed to be.
Even after having memorized all of my own mazes, I found that if I do everything as quickly as possible on the hardware, I will not have much more than 30 seconds left on the majority of my levels. For some levels, it might even be hard to have that much time left. Thus, I very well expected that most people would not be beating certain levels on their first try until after they memorized the mazes. I was hoping that this would offer good incentive, though, to keep at it and, thus, give the game good replayability.
DragonmasterDan wrote:
Wow, I just got a chance to try it. It’s WAAAAAAAY harder than the original version.
So, is it a good challenge or a frustratingly hard challenge? I was hoping to create a good challenge when I designed my mazes, without making the game near impossible. I have yet to play through Stages 2 and 4 (all of thunderstruck’s levels), so I can’t say anything about them, but I did play through and beat all of my stages, so all of the levels across Stage 1 and Stage 3, on an actual Virtual Boy system.
The thing that one learns when designing mazes is that one cannot trust the difficulty that one receives when testing out the mazes on Mednafen. The reason why is because the game runs very quickly and smoothly on Mednafen, so it is much easier to run through the levels and kill all of the enemies. On the hardware, however, the timer counts down at the same speed in real time as it does on Mednafen, but all of the action in the game runs more slowly, so it takes like twice the amount of time to do everything on hardware as it does on Mednafen. Thus, if people simply play my mazes on Mednafen, they might think that the game is pretty easy, but if they play it on hardware, that is where the true challenge is supposed to lie. Of course, it would be best that everybody play it on hardware if possible, the way it is supposed to be.
Even after having memorized all of my own mazes, I found that if I do everything as quickly as possible on the hardware, I will not have much more than 30 seconds left on the majority of my levels. For some levels, it might even be hard to have that much time left. Thus, I very well expected that most people would not be beating certain levels on their first try until after they memorized the mazes. I was hoping that this would offer good incentive, though, to keep at it and, thus, give the game good replayability.
It took me a while to get used to the strafing controls. I pretty much had to get used to only attacking when I have one enemy isolated on the map screen because of two of them show up, I get double teamed and slaughtered. It’s a lot harder, Level 1 Stage 1 is harder than any level in the original game.
Just spent the past two hours playing this and now the mrs is having a go at me!
Now this is how the game should have been if released, you guys have made a game that was just ok and turned it into one of the best version than on any other system. Great level designs and fair game play but it is no walk in the park, you really need to think about what your doing or they will come from behind and get you!
Brilliant work guys. Thanks very much.
