ecmyers

10 minutes ago, Scrobins said:

I’m just calling it back on the shelves because I don’t feel like taking a game back and forth between these two threads over and over. It is a pre-order, but it isn’t crowdfunding and at the moment it is just for a limited number of copies. I doubt the 300 will be gobbled up quickly though.

I'm curious to see how this does, and wishing them success with their first cartridge run. They're currently at 234 copies remaining "in stock" so there will be time to grab one if they get low and you're overtaken by FOMO.

On 9/20/2023 at 1:23 AM, zxdplay said:

star keeper was invited to participate in the steam event
Steam SHMUP Fest
25 Sep - 2 Oct, 2023

Congrats! I can't believe I missed that this was released in June, but I guess I've been busy this summer. I just purchased it, and I'm looking forward to trying it out. Hopefully it will work on my Steam Deck! I hope more people discover and play this great game.

I believe it's shipping on Tuesday!

Exciting! I preordered this in 2017. 

I would suggest sending Steam keys for the game to YouTube creators like John Riggs with big followings and an appreciation for NES homebrew games, as well as some Twitch streamers who play games like this, so they can review and/or stream the game and raise awareness. If the game is priced at $9.99 (seemingly the sweet spot for digital versions of NES homebrews) or less, some people who watch these videos would just buy the game to try it for themselves.

This is impressive and fast work, and I agree that it's a good path forward for the series. I'm very glad more people will be able to experience your wonderful game.

Meanwhile, apparently this has been hanging out on Twitter since October 2021. 

22 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

So, question for anyone already owning an original run Star Keeper. Would a second run, distinguishable from the first, bother you?

I would love to see a second run and a ROM release — games should be played, particularly games of this high quality. The original run will retain what value the current market sees fit, by virtue of it being an extremely limited edition (many of them numbered on the title screen) and an artifact with historic significance in itself. I agree wholeheartedly that collectors should not be a major consideration in what to do with the original game. I don't think most of the people who purchased it back then had any expectation that it would never see a wider public release one day.

A reissue of this game today would sell phenomenally well, partially because of its reputation, but especially because it's fantastic and worth playing.

I only know enough about NFTs to know I don't really care for them as a business model or a product. It sounds like you're just selling a license to make derivative works but in sort of a complicated and unintuitive way—and to multiple developers at once? I think you would be better off partnering with a particular developer to make new works and/or adapt or publish the original, if that's possible.

I think most people really just want to play the original game, and as someone fortunate enough to own a copy, I really want more people to be able to play it too. It's great and it's a shame it's not more widely available. To be honest, I think you may be overestimating the value of an IP that is only meaningful to a small group of people in an already niche market. Why would people be interested in purchasing a new game loosely related to the original Star Keeper, a game they have never played, maybe never even heard of, when the original developer isn't even actively involved? And if there is some value there, making the IP available to multiple people who can potentially churn out Star Keeper clones will only serve to dilute an already small market.

9 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I’m the new owner of #20! I have no idea which edition and am super excited to have it!

Did @dbarrett0928finish it fast and sell it already?

Welcome! I've got #42.

8 minutes ago, Scrobins said:

I definitely have a lot of updating to bring games from the Horizon thread here and move other games in development to the limbo section, and it will get done, it just is a bit daunted, and I've been busy and tired lately.

Thanks for all your efforts!

Airball is going on sale for NES and GBA tomorrow: 

EDIT: Whoops, looks like this was a canceled game that's now being released, so that probably doesn't count as homebrew.

Here's a new NES platformer that seems to have come out of nowhere, Bobby Six Seven from calgames, available now for $4.49: https://calgames.itch.io/bobby-six-seven

I quite like the look of this!

Edited to add: In-browser demo: https://theretroverse.com/product/bobby-six-seven/

1 hour ago, Jeevan said:

if u pm me times, you can figure out a time for a specific date, preferrably on the 22nd as that is the start date of the tournament!  The later into the weekend is if we can't get them all done in the beginning of the tournament, but if we get it all in 1 day, then so be it!

I'm going to be away all three days with slow/unreliable internet

16 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

so u are not signing up?

I would, but I have to be available to play during that weekend, right?

Oh no! I'm at a wedding the weekend of the 22nd 

I'll be playing this anyway and rooting for everyone! I'm so glad this is happening. Hopefully this is just the first of many tournaments.

Congratulations! I love that box art. I'm guessing there won't be a digital release, so maybe it's finally time I incorporated a Genesis into my console setup.

I guess that person or group would be the Star Keeper Keeper.

My understanding is that the RE copies are "worth" more because they're more limited than the limited editions, so enjoy your clean copy! I'm glad my limited edition doesn't have a special message on it, and as a science fiction geek it's really cool that I ended up with #42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

1 hour ago, Orab Games said:

Since when has VGS turned into an illegal homebrew warez forum? I'm pretty sure it goes against the developer's wishes to have this dumped and released to the public. He even said as much when he discussed not wanting his hard work lumped in with cheap Chinese clones. If someone uses their personal copy to create a backup and document the mapper, I see no ethical issues with that. However, I would be terribly disappointed in the homebrew collecting community if this rom was made public just because a few people feel entitled to own a rom.

I didn't say I was going to dump it or release the ROM, just that someone has been bugging me to do so over on my YouTube post. I'm aware that 87Arts does not want it to be released publicly, so of course I wouldn't share the ROM even if I could. I assumed it was OK to share pics of the PCB though, since I haven't seen them documented anywhere else.

Someone on YouTube is on me to dump the game, claiming "anyone" can modify the custom mapper to get it to work in an emulator. 

This did prompt me to finally open the game up to check out the PCB though, since I've never seen images of it. I meant to do it earlier, but I saw someone here comment that the fifth screw in the middle was glued in or something—however, my cart only has three screws, and it opened up no problem. Just for the curious, here are some shots of the custom PCB. If we aren't supposed to post images of it for some reason, feel free to delete this.

6 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I find it incredibly amusing that y'all had been searching for this code, and that with the similarities to the Konami code, nobody actually tried the Konami code I dunno, I feel like that would've been my first thought

We forgot that sometimes manuals leave out important information, by mistake or intention. It now seems like an obvious oversight on our parts!

Hey, everyone! I just figured out the cheat code!!!

OMG, YOU GUYS! I figured out the code!!!

I've been meaning to experiment with it more for a while, and when I just saw another copy of the game has emerged on eBay, I was inspired to try again. The thing is, I had forgotten the code we were using, so out of habit I just entered the regular Konami code.

That's right... Even though the code we found in the manual doesn't include B and A at the end, as far as I can tell, that is in fact the complete code.  Perhaps the manual was just meant to lead us in that direction. So yeah, here's how it works:

On the TITLE SCREEN, enter the good old Konami code: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. You will hear a short jingle when the game starts. (Normally it is silent when you press start.) Now when the game begins, you start with 35 lives!

I can't believe we hadn't tried this before, but hey, mystery finally solved! After more than two freaking years.

Unfortunately, it looks like once you use up all the extra lives, if you continue you start again with just the standard 3 lives. (I only tested this on stage 1.) But this should still many of us get farther in the game!

Have fun!