As a follow-up question, from what data is this world generated? Is there a premade map for which you are rendering, or is it generated some other way? Also, is the map static or can it be modified? Like, could you take a block out somewhere, or add a new block somewhere?

Yeah, did everybody go to some other website and leave us? Im shocked there isn’t more replies here. Would make a jaw dropping RPG overworld for sure!

Yeah, call it Stink’s Awakening and tell them it’s about a smelling salts seller XD

Holy crap! That’s amazing!

Super interesting, gotta fix my flash cart so that I can play it.

[koifish]

Awesome article. After reading this, I decided to play ZAS on an emulator before then trying it on a DMG, and the visual difference really is night and day. Also, not sure if anyone else got this vibe, but ZAS feels somewhat similar to me to Judgment Silversword on wonderswan color. Anyway, really enjoyed this article. It continues to cement T&E Soft as one of my favorite small-time developers.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by koifish.

My bad, thought I replied already. Unfortunately, I tried several different mini-USB cables, and confirmed that other devices successfully transferred data over the same cables, so I know it’s not an issue with the cables. I do have the original cable, and it works with other things, but not with the flashboy.

I’ve been a big junkie for just playing tons of pavlov, might have to buy it when it gets to final on quest. I’ve sort of given up on PC VR, I don’t see a point to it when you can go with something as easy and functional as the Quest. I do wire in sometimes, but mostly for sitting experiences, like emulating Gamecube in VR. I’m told 3DS also emulates in 3D on VR, and I’m excited to try it, but nothing there yet. If I’m up and moving around though, forget it! I’ll wait for the quest port. Comparatively simple graphics or less physics actions are not a deal-breaker to me.

Yes! I love it. Playing on Oculus Quest, it is finally a super-easy solution to emulate VB, and not only does it do stereoscopic 3D, but the controller even has a functionally identical layout! (more or less). It is in m opinion, the second-best thing there is for playing VB. The real deal is still king, but even in some ways I prefer the Quest (for sure I prefer it if I’m going out and about, or traveling). It’s amazing to be able to play Mario Clash on an airplane without fear of destroying something precious! I love VB Go and I strongly recommend anyone with an oculus quest go and try it out ASAP, or if you know someone with a quest, borrow theirs and try it out.

It looks like I just had a bad mix of epoxy before, comparing it to a second batch I used for another, unrelated repair. I had two bits in a container, the remnant of the second batch was yellowish and super-hard, while the remnant from the VB repair was gummy and mostly goo. I mixed a new batch and reapplied. I’m hopeful that it will work this time.

RetroDan wrote:
If you could provide a picture of the damage, is me able to give more specific advice.

I grabbed this picture of the damage. The two pieces fix back together smoothly, but it is also a rough, jagged edge, and not smooth in any way.

RetroDan wrote:
Use an epoxy to fuse the pieces back together. $5 on Amazon, let it cure for 24-36 hours, and you’re sorted.

Thanks for the quick response. Is it very difficult to apply cleanly? I know that in this case, the crack is somewhat small, maybe 2cm wide, it is also perpendicular to the ground, and I don’t know that I can easily remove the parts. Will it apply okay if it is still mounted in the system, or will the epoxy possibly leak out of the crack?

Sorry for asking a number of questions, I just don’t have experience using epoxy and want to make sure that I cover all the angles.

Just wanted to say that I’m working on a write-up of how Faceball 2000 works in multiplayer beyond four players. Wanted to mention that Penguin Wars actually doesn’t support 10 players at once, it only has a tournament mode that allows you to do the normal 1v1 matches with up to 10 entries in the tournament. You do not actually get 10 players concurrently.

Seam wrote:

mips5000 wrote:
I wanted everything video game related in 95, but didn’t feel compelled to blow my birthday/xmas load on it – so ebay when I had some disposable income.

I wish I got mine at a yard sale or flea market before the days of “seller+smartphone+ebay = no deals to be had” and retro game stores buying all stock and driving the prices way up.

yea, that kinda disgusts me. luckily all retro games and consoles i actually bought when they came and and held onto. no such thing as deals anymore.

I find I can luck out sometimes, mostly at the local flea market when people just want to sell and don’t care what it’s worth. But sometimes, the local record store is a good hit. They have a number of employees that handle pricing items that get brought in, and while they love to inflate console prices, they don’t always realize what they have. For example, I got the PS3 memory card adapter (to plug in your PS1/PS2 memory cards) for 5 bucks, back when it was worth around 50 or so.

But as for my VB story, it was basically the last Nintendo system I didn’t own. I got two for myself for Christmas several years ago (an extra head unit, no stand or visor, was thrown in), and I loved the games (Mario Clash and Red Alarm are awesome). Then my screens died, so I put them in a box until I later learned that there were people who could fix them. Got it taken care of and now I’m back to running VB games. Really loving Galactic Pinball now, it’s a lot of fun. And golf is better than expected, though a bit on the easy side to me.

The only thing i really would like is a better stand, something free-standing and adjustable would be great.

As a follow up, I actually found the guy who made that thread elsewhere (since I remember that I couldn’t seem to get in touch via that forum when I tried), and asked him about that experience, but never saw a reply detailing what he did. I’m curious too because I’ve tried gba link cables and never saw the game respond much. The one thing I witnessed was that on the other systems (not the player 1 system connected with the small purple plug but the others connected via grey plug), the gba screen would flash white and stay blank the whole time. It appeared to respond to the cable being in (that flashing behavior was unusual) but I couldn’t make anything of it. The one “main” unit just acted as if it was a single-player hookup. Compare to the four player adapter, which worked in that it would show on the title screen the number of connected systems, and then when you hit start, all systems would enter the menu. Also, the menu screen was synced between all systems (and any player could navigate the menu which could be pretty chaotic). I wasn’t able to get this behavior from gba cables, and he even had non-gba systems there (ie. Game boy color) which makes me question how he even connected them, given the plug differences would physically prevent a connection. My suspicion is that they were modified in some way, or that the linking wasn’t actually successful, but I withhold knowing for sure until I can talk to the guy about it.

I appreciate the pinout, I’m planning to start this within the next month, we will see how it goes.

Also an asude, I think the YouTube poster who mentioned the custom adapter might be on facebook, I did a little digging and I think it is the same David Nolte as is in both the YT post and the game credits. I wasn’t sure if I should reach out though, particularly as I don’t have a Facebook account, and getting random messages from new accounts is probably a warning sign to regular users

RunnerPack wrote:

koifish wrote:
…

There’s your problem. As can be read in the interview you linked, 5+ players can only be done with their special, unreleased daisy-chain cable…

Yes, you are indeed correct. As I pointed out, the article does indicate that their connector is needed for more than 4 players. I only wanted to mention the daisy-chaining of four player adapters to show that I have tried what is out there, and in particular for its popularity. The theory of daisy-chaining four-player adapters together is quite common online in discussion of this game (popular enough for the Faceball 2000 Wikipedia page to parrot it). Given its common appearance in conjunction with the game, I felt the need to address it. On that note, given that my tests of several different configurations of FPAs failed to produce the desired results, I feel my work was enough to put this theory to rest, and corroborate the information presented in that interview. If I get further with this then I’ll probably demonstrate what happens with different link configurations, if only for the sake of reporting thorough information on the subject, but for now I’m still on the trail of knowledge.

Fortunately I do have a ton of four player adapters (I found a pile of them at a used shop for cheap and, given I originally expected to be using many of them for this, I couldn’t pass them up), so sometime in the next month I should be able to get around to tinkering with one of them. Thanks for the heads-up on information, I admit I don’t know a lot about the link hardware but I now have an idea of what I have to accomplish.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I have info to contribute to this thread.

I too am trying to make Faceball 16-player a reality, but am struggling to get more than four copies to play nicely.

I’ve tried daisy-chaining 4-player adapters, both in a linear fashion (one plugging into the previous plugging into the previous…etc) and in the fashion indicated by DogP. Neither show any ability to link together.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100509163809/http://fb2k.retro-spect.ca/rchampagne.html

According to this page (an interview with one of the team members for Faceball 2000), they used a custom “special connector” that was intended to be packed in free with the game, but due to pressure from Nintendo the item was never released. However, they claim the game is still capable and that the functionality was never removed.

However, it does not seem to be doable using just the nintendo-made four player adapter. I think you will have to rebuild their custom link in order to get above 4 players.

Thank you for the reply. That was my plan actually, to get some units that cannot be salvaged and experiment on them. However, given my relatively weak soldering skills, I was also wondering if there were other activities related to fixing VB displays which would be good practice. I was also curious if any particular solder and/or tools are better than others for this kind of job.

Thank you for your support on my quest!