Khromak

The immortal is finished once again. As always, the final boss and the barrel swimming sections were the worst and took many, many tries. This year I didn't look at any videos or guides and played the whole thing from memory as a challenge to myself, I did alright

X-Men is beaten for another year. Always frustrating, but still has its fun parts. It's mostly enjoyable for me at this point, except when I get stuck in a corner or trapped by a magnet and die before I can control my character...

Beat captain planet, again. This has been a staple game for me every year for the contest. It's actually pretty fun once you learn all the tricks, though the controls can be a bit annoying at times. I aced most of the bosses this time around, where sometimes they've given me trouble in the past. Really creative game, give it a try (maybe with a guide) if you haven't already

Funny you guys mention it about Orb-3D, I've really enjoyed that game and played through it 2 or 3 times. There are some levels which are quite difficult and it can get frustrating, but I like it. I wouldn't say it's my favorite game ever, but definitely not a one-and-done, never play it again type.

Just finished adventure island 3, which of course is another new clear for me. I think it's probably my favorite of the three and the easiest (coincidence). It's pretty forgiving and, as is custom with this series, the final world is the real pita 

3 hours ago, mbd39 said:

I actually find AI2 to be even more frustrating than the first and more annoying to play. AI2 may have shorter levels but there are more of them, and you have to start back at the beginning of the world rather than the individual level when you game over which I hate. The bosses are also tougher and move around the map when you die to them which is another aspect that I hate. Plus some of the dinos feel very slippery to control which makes me avoid using them.

 

Yeah I agree the mechanics of it are much more frustrating, but I found the controls in AI2 to be much more manageable and there were FAR fewer jumps that were pixel perfect. They were much more generous with the weapons. In the original AI there are a bunch of levels with no weapons at all and you have to make it through the whole thing by jumping between every single enemy.

They're surprisingly different from each other, I have a hard time saying definitive things one way or the other, but I definitely feel like AI2 feels like it has more deliberate design where the original is more of like being beaten over the head with the difficulty stick.

They're both pretty fun though, and they give that Ninja Gaiden style feeling of mastery when you get good at them. I'm sure if I knew where more of the secrets were, I'd have a much easier time with them too.

Adventure island 2 is done, another first time clear for me. Hard to tell which of these two was tougher... I'm inclined to say the first one, but I spent a very long time on the last world of this one. There weren't any specific jumps that were harder, but the levels felt longer and with no checkpoints you have to do the whole thing in one shot.

The controls are WAY different between the two. I felt I had more control in this one and could adjust in mid air a lot more, which was nice. Playing them back to back is a trip though, definitely took some getting used to. 

Oh, and for this one I did it mostly blind, except on the last world I looked up which eggs to pick to get to which levels, because I was just picking randomly and it was sending me all over the world, sometimes to 6 or more levels before getting to the boss, which was frustrating.

Just finished adventure island, a new first time clear for me. It's a good game, but I sometimes wished they hadn't made some of the spider jumps so trolly. Very difficult, but nowhere near the hardest I've beaten thus far

Hey, I have a tattoo from this game!

I voted 9/10, it's an excellent game and anyone with even a passing interest in platformers absolutely must play it, can't recommend it enough. Love the art style, music, story, characters, it's just a beautiful game. The difficult is also, as others said, right there. It's easy enough to clear if you just want to say you beat it, but also punishingly difficult if you want a challenge. The secrets are great and well-hidden but mostly intuitive.

I haven't gotten close to completing all the achievements, which I blame on the terrible d-pad on the Switch Pro controller and not my lack of skills.

4 minutes ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

Man, I was at the last level of Rad Racer II and wanted to continue after a game over, but I accidentally pressed start instead of start + A, so I have to restart from level 1 again. This sucks. I'll continue tomorrow unless someone beats it in the meantime.

Less than 5 minutes ago (almost the exact same time) I just did the same thing with Adventure Island. Heartbreaking. I was on 7-3.

Just beat battletoads. This year it took me like 7 tries to get through, so I'm definitely very rusty. Got to the dark queen with all my continues and then proceeded to waste them all practicing how to beat her... thankfully I didn't game over, I would've... been very upset

1 minute ago, OptOut said:

Well he says the first batch IS a test model, but as far as I understand he hasn't actually made one of his supposed consoles just yet. So it's not a test model, there is no test model yet. That picture isn't a picture of his prototype console, it's just a picture of what he expects it to look like. It's just a famiclone.

Therefore, I DO think it's misleading, honestly. I want to see a homebrew console, but he doesn't have one. He has an idea for one, but there's no telling it will ever come to fruition.

Don't just show us a picture of something that ISN'T what you're going to make, I want to so what you do have, that's what I'm saying.

What do you think he means when he says "the HDMI and USB interfaces are installed on the back panel"? He's also said that this console is playing something, it's just difficult to record the screen for some reason.

IDK, maybe he's lying or hiding things, but taking him at his word, this picture is of his console, which has been shoved into this case (because he hasn't had shells manufactured).

4 hours ago, OptOut said:

So, I would just like to make sure that people are clear about this fact, because otherwise it may be somewhat misleading.

I mean, in the OP he said:

On 1/6/2024 at 1:37 AM, zxdplay said:

The first batch of consoles is a test model, and the shell is borrowed from the FH-C26 (an 8-bit clone of the NES), and the HDMI and USB interfaces are installed on the back panel.

So I don't think there's a lot of misleading here. He was pointing to the console because Steam doesn't offer a physical cartridge, which he said is the way he prefers to develop/play games, also in the OP.

Say what you will about the viability or necessity for his idea, but he's not being misleading, he's only pointing out things he already said earlier in the thread for people making irrelevant suggestions

I wasn't reading VGS much this weekend so I missed this whole conversation but just went back and read it. I agree with most of what others are saying and will provide my opinion as well.

If this console came out, I would buy it as a curiosity/rare collectible, but I wouldn't have any hopes of it taking off.

As others have said, developers might appreciate the tools but only having a handful of customers for their games will make it difficult to justify developing or porting their game to this system when almost nobody will actually purchase it. Add on cartridge production/shipping costs to this and I would be surprised if anyone developed any games for this outside of their own personal projects.

This creates a negative feedback loop: if there are no games, players won't be interested in getting the system -> if players don't have the system, developers won't create games for it -> infinite loop

As others have said, there needs to be at least a couple/few fun games that play on this thing for any player to care enough to want to purchase it. If you think you can develop that and still keep the costs that low, go for it and let us know when it's fully functioning. If you have a console for $80 and games for $40 and they're high-quality games, I think you'd have at least a few customers, though as @Gloves mentioned, not enough from VGS alone you'll need to get out on Twitter/Reddit/Twitch/wherever and get people talking about it.

The problem will always be the future of the system. Even if you release 150 copies of this thing, you can't really make a lot of money selling 25-150 copies of a game, especially if they take years to develop. Platforms with a much larger player base which already exist are much better.

If your goal is to have fun making a hardware project, I think that's amazing and fully support you.

If you're looking to make something that others will use to develop games, I think you'll be very disappointed. Maybe some hobbyists would take it up as a pet project, but I think a near-0 number of commercial games would ever be developed for it.

If you're trying to solve your audio problems, I'd work with someone who knows more about the audio for the system your game is targeting and have them help you.

50 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Also I wanted to ask, how many people other than me are using real carts?  Not emulating them, or using an everdrive.

I haven't started participating in this year's contest (yet) but when I have for the past few years, I almost always use original carts. I sometimes use Everdrive if I want to practice certain stages/bosses/whatever, or if a game is going to take multiple days and has no save feature, but 99% of the time I'm playing on the original cart.

Point of clarification: for games where I practice with an Everdrive, I still end up completing them on the original carts once I'm feeling ready to take a crack at full-game attempts.

I don't really see a difference between using an Everdrive/Powerpak vs using an original cart tbh, but I do it because I collected the damn things, and also because I want to completely remove the temptation to use a save state, even just to save time on games where it wouldn't offer any advantage.

My secret Santa was amazing this year! I got some buckeyes (not pictured because they were devoured by myself and my family), a few really thoughtful and detailed letters explaining all the games, and an absolute ton of games & manuals. 

Wally bear is a great choice, I've been meaning to play it and it's one of the (many) unlicensed NES games i don't own yet. 

The manuals are awesome, I was reading out the description of the Buffalo bills to my family since we've always been fans. I didn't realize it was oversized, never seen one before I don't think

The famicom games are where the real treasure is though. My Santa picked out a while smorgasbord of games, all hand picked based on their experiences with the system and the games.

I couldn't have possibly asked for more, you really killed it! Unfortunately they didn't identify themselves but I appreciate you kind stranger

12 hours ago, spacepup said:

To help us out can you specify exactly which badge you are requesting and/or how many?  I don't know which ones are in your count above or exactly how many.  Thanks!

Oh yeah duh, sorry. I think this should qualify for having 100 import games! 

OK, last badge for me along with another short story. Here's my import collection, a respectable amount of Famicom & FDS games. I picked up most of these (80%?) from one guy off Reddit, including an RGB modded twin famicom unit, a few years back. This includes all of the Famicom games with those aftermarket boxes and ~75% of the loose carts as well. Since then I've picked up 20 or so games, mostly because of the NES Completions thread here.

A lot of them are duplicates of NES games I already own, though I've picked up some Japan-exclusive releases and also games with regional differences.

Applying for the NES full collection badge. This is a picture of my shelves with the games on them (35 per shelf, 19 full shelves plus 11 on the last shelf). I have the 676 set, not including SE. I also don't have all the unlicensed games (yet!) and I don't believe I have any PAL games at all.

My homebrew collection is all NES and I've loved them all. I have beaten them all except: Haradius Zero, Nebs & Debs, Starkeeper.

Rollie, NEScape, Battle Kid, Battle Kid 2, Haradius Zero, Project Blue, Trophy, Roniu's Tale, Skate Cat, Force Bot, Twin Dragons, Micro Mages, Nebs & Debs, Witch & Wiz, Anguta, and Starkeeper.

Pictures

I'll take Collect: Systems - Nintendo Famicom 50. I'm close to 100 but not quite there. The loose carts are 9 rows of 6 (54) and the "boxed" ones are 5 rows of 8 (40) plus 3 on top for a total of 97!

Images

Prototype badge this time. I have the Vice: Project Doom PC-10 pictured and also have a Tiny Toon Adventures PC-10 proto as well (not pictured, because it's a PITA to get out and I don't think I have a picture on my phone.

Same pictures

Hope you don't mind if I continue to post the gallery, I can include individual pictures (in the post, or on Imgur) if it makes it quicker/easier to verify.

Would like to apply for Arcade cabinet badge now!

As someone who mostly plays high point value games, I'm definitely all for pain points returning. I also really enjoy the bonus game categories, especially homebrew/hacks/famicom/FDS games. Anything to try some new games.

Next year I'd love to get recommendations from people of their "must play" games with tips to help me get going on them. I'd like to expand my horizons a little bit in addition to playing the same games every year

6 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If you feel like helping out, splitting it into separate posts definitely makes it easier. If you don't I'll manage, but yeah if you do so, it helps. If you wanna do that I'd edit the first post to be 1 badge request, then trickle in the rest of your requests. 

Edited my posts from earlier in the thread to include 1 badge request each to avoid spamming the thread with 10 requests in a row. Here's a new one:

Tattoo of the main character/antagonist from Celeste!