fcgamer

Lunch during the week is always a write-off for me, as I generally eat with a friend colleague of mine. Generally we eat local food, so fried rice, noodles, etc. For dinner tonight I had broccoli, bamboo, tofu skins, fish, some random greens, and purple rice. Dinner of champions.

What's wrong with coffee? Black coffee and tea are both good for you.

Yeah I decided not to be in this year after all. When trying to make a list, I honestly couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted, which I could reasonably expect someone else to be able to find. I guess I have too many games.

If you're going for truly rare items (note: rarity =/= value) then you'll grab what you can take. I own a few game boxes that are sunfaded or ripped or whatever , but are one of less than five known to exist. I know some friends with similar type items in their collections. When we are talking truly rare , not CND2 box rate, then condition isn't king imo.

Well the guy all but came up to mine. He was on the third floor landing, I live one above him. I heard the guy meowing in the stairwell, just made sure the door outside was opened so he wouldn't be trapped. Goodnight everyone.

This was a serious question / point, and others have also wondered about it, after I initially brought it up. @FrankenGraphics had addressed her opinion on it, but I would also be genuinely interested in hearing yours, as well as anyone else's. One could also label games as having the Color Dreams distinction, the Battle Kid distinction. In music, there's the AC/DC distinction. If we are going to be categorising NES homebrew games on a more philosophical level, then we should be discussing all aspects. If we don't want to do that, then it feels as if the distinction literally is just a bias or snobbery of sorts. Edit: this is just my opinion on the matter though, and I respect your difference of opinion.

It's gotten quite close to me, tried to rub up against my leg during our one recent encounter. I resisted the urge to actually attempt a petting, as I don't want to possibly spread anything to my indoor cat

I really like this collection too. So many obscure and rare items. I've been casually collecting these as I found them (well primarily the NTSC counterparts) but they just don't show up here often!

Yup better to confirm than run risk of trouble.

I don't think I actually have any if this stuff, but I love seeing it!

@Bronty yup totally agree, just giving you a hard time

Interestingly enough there is mention of agreeing to pay charges, but I've never had to experience it with any of the parcels returned to me.

I'm not sure that this is correct. On the customs forms, one has a choice to either return to sender or abandon. I've had several packages take holidays around the world and back to me due to wrong addresses.

I also found some other bootleg Famicom carts. Lickle is a highlight, so is Family Pinball oddly enough. That game is hard to find as a bootleg. The Sachen Hidden Chinese Chess game is also a nice one. The carts on the last picture are all broken, but I knew that before getting them. The value lies in the bootleg box for Dragon Quest III.

Picked up a few more items over the past few weeks. The first picture is of a locally made Famiclone. The second picture has two Sega games. The first is a Taiwanese original, the box had some water damage at the top but everything else looks fine. The other game is a bootleg of Shadow Dancer. Picture three has some really nice multicarts from Aaronix. It's funny, as this company was producing official Sega stuff in Taiwan, while at the same time cranking out bootleg Famicom stuff. Then there are some bootleg Famicom games with nice, generic labels. This was quite often done during the early days of bootleg Famicom carts.

I totally agree about the triangle thing, it's the same with any sort of product or item. Regarding the rest of your post, I'm not quite sure why, but I feel my point is either being missed, or ignored. I honestly don't agree with the quote from you above, at all, and I'd politely like to explain why. Time, money, and effort spent to create or do something should never be equated with quality. We've seen it with books, movies, games, music...you name it. Everyone has at some point seen a product that was just terrible, despite having tons of sweat, blood, and tears put into it. Likewise, there have been products which are great, made with little effort at all. Sending tons of money on the latest gear, and training for months, nonstop, won't guarantee you a place in the NBA or as a top marathon runner. It's the same with homebrew games. Depending on experience with homebrewing, experience in similar fields, talent, intelligence, even creativity would all play a role in how the game turns out. I believe someone could easily put lots of time and effort into a game just to have it flop, but does that automatically mean it should be classified as a cash grab? I'd personally hardly think so. Likewise, I'm sure there are some folks who could crank out a decent game with little effort, but it wouldn't even be up for consideration as a cash grab, even if it were. Then again it seems a bit silly to be discussing the cash grab aspect, if there's not even much money to be had, with every product produced requiring a bit of effort to make.

If you are reusing your own engine, it is going to cut down development time on the later products drastically, would it not? What if two devs swapped proprietary engines? Or even if Sivaks brother made a new game using the Battle Kid engine? Would these be considered okay, or not? If you are reusing bits of the code, at some point it ends up being the same situation as what people are arguing about when it comes to NESMaker.

@Hammerfestus hahaha, yes the one I currently have loves to be obnoxious in the early morning too. With double trouble, I shudder to imagine lol.

@MinusWorlds Let him in initially with the other cat present in the same room, or slowly work them up, first getting used to each other's scents before an initial formal meeting? I'm not going to rush out tomorrow and let the furry guy in or anything like that, but if he keeps hanging around down by my apartment building (before he had been up at the other side of the alley), then I might want to do something. I'd hate to see the guy get hit by a vehicle or something, and I really do look forward to seeing him as I near my home.

There's an orange cat that hangs out on the same alley in which I live. I've seen the guy off and on for quite vsome time, and he looks to be decently fed. I've spoken to a few neighbours about the guy, it seems he is indeed a stray. Recently the guy has gotten brazen enough to hang out downstairs, right outside of my apartment. His colourings remind me a lot of a cat I used to have back in the USA, who I loved dearly, but had passed away about six or seven years ago. So maybe he was reincarnated? Anyways, tonight the fluffy decided to enter into the apartment building stairwell and was relaxed there, and he meowed at me as I left the building. I've thought recently about taking the guy in, but aside from truly confirming that he is indeed a stray, and also adding more expenses to my monthly expenses, the number one concern is that I already have a cat, whom I've had and raised from kitten to adulthood, a five year old cat. For those with multiple cats / pets, I'd reckon that the first cat would get insanely jealous, hate the new cat, and all harmony would be lost. Is that a correct assumption? Any other factors that could make a difference? Most likely I won't try to adopt the orange street buddy of mine, but I'm just sort of thinking aloud here Edit: oh and pictures just for the curious

@Orab Games : from the gist of your most recent post, I see the following main points: 1. The guys who initially made some homebrew games and subsequently published them get a free pass if their initial releases were mediocre or substandard, but beginning hobbyists now wanting to enter into the ring don't get such a pass and are expected to release the next SMB or Battle Kid as their initial release? 2. People were cash grabbing homebrew games, yet at the same time you also just mentioned that there is little profit to be made, even more likely that money would be lost. So which is it? It can't be both, can it? 3. Crap "cash grabs" coming out at the same time as "good" releases, and taking away from money / sales. 4. It takes lots of effort to produce and release a game from start to finish. Here's my problem with it all. Didn't the folks in point 1 produce and release some mediocre games? Didn't we establish in point 2 that there is little money to be made even in this business? Even if point 3 is true (which is even subjective), we still need to keep in mind point 4, which is that it even takes effort to crank out a turd, and a lot of bottom feeders aren't going to be doing that. I also notice there was no comments about a from scratch guy reusing his or her engine for a new release. Likewise, it seems to me, all of the above had occurred with "by scratch" releases, in a day way before nes maker ever came out. So perhaps we should be gatekeeping our by scratch guys a bit more, instead of worrying about an influx of crap games from nes maker

That's right. I've had some sealed games though that suffered from water damage and had mold growing inside. Likewise, there's the battery situation. Sealed doesn't always guarantee pristine innards.

@FrankenGraphics ok I will watch that video in a bit, thanks for the recommendation. @Orab Games : I quite enjoyed reading the long post of yours; however, I'd have to politely disagree on a bunch of it, for numerous reasons. If we go back to the Nintendo Age days, there was a post that I remember very clearly. In that post, it had been mentioned that at that time, little (profit) was being made from those doing homebrews. In fact, that was one of the main driving forces surrounding the idea of the "limited edition" carts, something which I've always personally hated (since I'm a full set - style collector). Although I don't remember specific titles, some of the limited stuff that was auctioned was quite elaborate. Why do I bring this up? Because this is just one instance of the phrase I've heard numerous times over the years, that making homebrew games is not particularly profitable (barring a few exceptions, I'd guess). Keeping this in mind, it feels rather strange how it went from not particularly profitable to something that is so profitable, people can use a tool like NES maker to crank out a turd and get rich in no time flat. Does anyone here honestly believe that? Especially in light of what was said in the previous paragraph? Yes, it has certainly gotten easier over the years, with more documentation, the availability of new PCBs and shells, tools that are more user friendly for beginners, etc. At the end of the day though, it still requires a lot of work to put a game release together, period. The person needs to draw graphics, compose music, program (or use nes maker), design a box, design labels, design manuals, solder chips and components to PCBs, buy a rom programmer, market the product so that others will invest in it or purchase it. Yes, a few people will be ambitious enough to do this just for a few dollars, though I'd reckon that if the profits were as great as what people seem to be making it out to be, and if it was as easy to do as what seems to be suggested, then everyone would be doing it. Oddly enough, this hasn't been the case at all, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Regarding earlier homebrew guys and the earlier items they produced, the quality, etc: Here is my thing, it's a bit hypocritical to say that they get a pass since they had less to work to with, and that folks joining now must all crank out Mona Lisa's. A beginner is a beginner no matter what, and it's to be expected that a person's earlier works might not be as good as their later ones. But the public expectations shouldn't be set so high as to keep beginners from stepping on the stage, so to speak. Also, when discussing this whole thing, I'd like to point out about folks like Sivak or the guy behind the Halloween games, or we could even throw something like Color Dreams from back in the day into the mix, or anyone else. What I mean is, I'd venture a guess that a lot of the "from scratch" guys made their own engines as well, which they reuse to aid in their later products. Yes, I'm sure the engines may be tweaked and updated, but it's still reuse. Isn't this akin to what Mugi did, started with an engine and then updated it, even so much as now moving away from it? I guess what I'm saying is that if a guy reuses an engine they previously built and used in another project, can the later release really be considered from scratch? What if the guy let's his brother or friend use the engine to make a new game, what about then? Therein lies the problem as a whole. From what has been posted throughout this entire thread, we are quickly reaching a point of creating different rules and expectations for different people. The easiest way around this is to let everyone who wants to have a go, let people be artists and express themselves via homebrew games on old machines, and let people judge each item and purchase it based on its merits.

Are you looking for that Caesars Ambition game, the Taiwan Chinese version? What about Evander Holyfield boxing, Asian NTSC version? I got extras of both. Sadly no pal stuff from this region.

Here's what you do: Make a paid subscription database, proceeds from it go to paying the bills for hosting the database itself and also for VGS. People who contribute towards the database get a discount member price or maybe a kickback of sorts, to make it worth their while. Or maybe keep the database free, with a contribution pot, and the pot gets divided up every year amongst those who put forth efforts, based on how much effort they put forth.