Scrobins

Added Yo Yo Shuriken for the SNES and Mystic Origins for the NES

Thanksgiving bump

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Bought! I’ll add this to the almanac on Monday

Fortunately I never had the death slope, before Cambridge, I lived in a CT suburb but my car slid on the ice more that I care to remember. One time my dad was driving me somewhere and he tried to break at an intersection at the bottom of a gentle hill but the ice made him slide right through it, so he leaned on his horn to warn the car that was about to go through. Turns out a guy I knew was in that car and could see me through the window. He walked up to me later that week and was just like what the hell was that?

I look forward to backing your Kickstarter!

Sometimes the heart wants what it wants. When I lived in Cambridge, MA about 10 years ago, I was craving fresh baked cookies and I promised by girlfriend I'd make some so we could have cookies and cocoa while watching a blizzard that was hitting us at full blast. After the first few bodegas were closed due to the weather, I eventually reached a "I've been out here looking for a place that's open so long I ain't turning back now" place. I kept walking in the street (the sidewalks were piled with snow from the plows), and even had to jump into a snowpile to avoid an oncoming plow until I found a place that was open. And those cookies were somewhat worth it.

@fcgamer you say you aren't trying to trash Kevin's game...yet you keep cutting it down and telling him to stop defending himself. For someone who accuses others of being elitist as much as you, you're being a pompous ass.

Kevin is officially the Joe Biden of VGS.

I can’t wait until they open orders!

Mega Cat is doing something interesting. The individual games are not open for order yet, but they are offering limited edition holiday 3-packs for the NES and Genesis with the games below. Meow You're Playing With Power Gift Box (NES): Machine Cave, Multidude, Super Painter Available here Blast Processing Is For Lovers Gift Box (Genesis): Devwill Too, Misplaced, Old Towers Available here (update: these Mega Cat games available individually now too)

Added KS for Warp Coin Catastrophe foe GB along with a few other new games that made their presence known on Twitter. Demons of Asteborg opened pre-orders after their KS ended.

D’aww thanks. I was going over it earlier today to fix some typos but then felt like adding a few other tidbits.

MegaXmas’89 available now for the Genesis at nekojitagames.com Will update link in OP this evening

Backed! And I’ll add it to the Homebrew on the Horizon thread tonight.

Bump

You should come to MAGFest in January! I got to play the demo for The Meating when they brought it last year

Mine works ok, though I’m having trouble with the HBWC 2012 cart I ordered at the same time (it goes immediately from start screen to “time’s up”). They responded to my original support email but we’re still working through it. They’re probably inundated because of the holidays.

How’d I do???

Amazing seller! Great with communication, forthcoming with pictures and a good description, and the game itself plays perfectly. Would love to do business again!

Bump

JoshProd has had a countdown on his site's homepage with a big Saturn logo in the middle for months that finally reached 0 at midnight tonight EST (JoshProd.com), but nothing happened. I figured it was counting down to opening orders for Verdict Guilty, an impressive looking 2D fighter (Info on Verdict Guilty here), but I can't find any recent news promoting his website or referring to the countdown generally or this date specifically. Anyone have any ideas?

Updated to add Wampus (PM johnvanderhoe)!

I volunteer at a no-kill cat shelter, and after doing that long enough to feel like I knew how to take care of a cat after years of living with dogs, I adopted Honey, named after Honey Ryder the first cinematic Bond girl

In deciding how to write my gaming timeline, I found myself needing to go the full 15 because just writing this out has opened other memories and games that I have to highlight. 1. Frogger (Atari 2600): I was born in 1987, and for the first few years of my life, my exposure to gaming was limited to my parents’ Atari 5200 that had an adaptor for Atari 2600 games and the shareware my grandpa let me play so I wouldn’t be bored by the grown-ups talking whenever we visited (damn I wish I could remember some of those games; one was concentration with car logos, and another was a pretty simple helicopter game that went in infinite loops as you shot up a cityscape). Anyway, my folks had a fun set of games like Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., some “adult” games I wasn’t allowed to touch, and their favorite: Frogger. It was the most immersive game that I could understand and play reasonably well. I only really knew how to play their 2600 games because the controllers on their 5200 never worked. 2. Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt (NES): Somewhere around early grade school, my mom and I went to our church’s fall fair (which I came to love more than the other fairs my town’s churches held because mine was the only one that included video games for some reason) and she decided to buy me an NES that came with the ever-common dual cart. My dad was pissed because maybe he felt that I’d play outside and socialize less, or not be as good in school, or both. I think at the heart of it, he was worried to give me something I could easily retreat to. As much as I liked playing my parents’ Atari, it felt like something they shared with me and so it didn’t feel like a part of my world. And my NES did feel like something for me alone. And I did retreat to it, a lot. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up and I was teased often. My NES sometimes felt like the only place I had fun that lasted. I could score a run in kickball and get picked first for a team the next day, but a week later I’d step up to the plate and everyone would yell “move in”. I think my family picked up on this and tried to make games a family activity, as I’d sometimes learn we had another game when I walked into the family room and found my parents trying to play Bart vs. The World. 3. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (Macintosh): Sometimes my dad would get me educational games to play on the computer to hedge against whatever he was afraid would happen with the NES. I definitely wasn’t showing much potential when I needed a cheat sheet to understand some clues, then again what 6 year old New England kid knows what flaxen hair is or can identify what genre of music Willie Nelson plays? I think his trust that I hung onto some brains despite gaming came here, where (I’ve been told years later) I somehow hacked his PC at age 6 and was fooling around with whatever files he kept. Oops. Everyone knows this game generally, but anyone who has played this version can tell you it is so much creepier, especially when you get to the final city in each case and you get death threats. I used to be so happily creeped out playing this game in the evening in my dad’s office with the lights out. 4. Dragon Warrior (NES): About a year or two after getting my NES, I was at my church’s fall fair again, and there I picked up Dragon Warrior. I liked playing video games before, but I’d never felt so immersed as I was in the world this game created. I never paid attention to a game’s music as much, or craved playing again as soon as I turned the console off. Even when I wasn’t playing, I was thinking about what I needed to do the next time I played. To this day, I still mispronounce the character you are told is your ancestor: Erdrick by calling him Eed-rick (maybe I didn’t see the r, maybe I just thought it sounded better). I remember being ecstatic then disappointed when I saw in my local Funcoland’s listing that this game had sequels, but each one more expensive than the last. The hours of play went on and on when my parents gave me Dragon Warrior II for Christmas one year. By now, my parents were a little nervous I was going overboard and told me I could only play video games on the weekend, and when they saw how I’d get up early to go downstairs and play, only after noon on the weekend. I’d save coins I found on the ground and go to Funcoland once in a while to see what they had, but that church fair was my Super Bowl. I’d eventually pick up other gems like Maniac Mansion. If I got a good report card, my parents would get a movie from the local video place New Age of Video, and I could get a game for the weekend too, which was usually North & South, Godzilla 2, or Wizards and Warriors. 5. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis): A few years later, I was meandering about at my church’s fair once again (St. Mary’s Fall Festival for the win!) and my mom got me a Sega Genesis and Sonic. My dad complained about that slippery slope again, but I think I was a good enough kid and rarely asked for anything, that they indulged me. They were still worried I’d pay less attention in school, but I always got glowing reviews from my teachers, and I wasn’t glued to a Gameboy like a lot of their friends’ kids (really predicted staring at cell phones, eh?) so they weren’t too worried. 6. Eagle Eye Mysteries (PC): Around now was the height of AOL and the never-ending stream of discs that came in the mail, including free games and demos. My folks would get me a mix of educational stuff from the catalogs to play as well as brain-melting games. There were quite a number of PC games I dove into like Dark Forces and TIE Fighter out of the Star Wars universe or Sonic CD and Ecco the Dolphin (both of which I would eventually buy again when I got a Sega CD, and Raptor: Call of the Shadows (the first shmup I felt remotely able to play well), but head and shoulders above them was Eagle Eye Mysteries, a point-and-click adventure in the spirit of the Monkey Island games that mixed silly adventures with history and puzzle solving. What was really interesting was that once you solved all the mysteries, there was a new mode that would replay all the same cases but would subtly change a few details and the answer, and you had to do it all over again and fight your memory reminding you of clues from the previous version that no longer applied. Every once in a while I look to see if someone tried to port this game to Sega CD, but alas. 7. Super Mario 64 (N64): I’ve said a few times already how much my dad resisted getting new consoles, yet simultaneously rewarded me with games when I did well on my report cards. At the end of middle school, my dad decided I was doing well enough that he got me an N64. It was a little outdated by then, but the point was that this was the first console I didn’t get second-hand and it came from him. I was not good at this game though I loved it anyway because it was so new to what I’d played before. Eventually the other classics of the N64 came my way like Goldeneye and Mario Kart, but Super Mario 64 was the first game on a first-hand console. Around high school I decided to test breaking my parents’ rules limiting game time. By then I was consistently making high honor roll while performing in the marching/concert band, the concert choir and madrigal singers, the fall dramas/spring musicals, and eventually holding down a part time job, so when my mom pointed out I was breaking the rules, I said “hey I’m doing all these things and everything is going great, so maybe you should trust my judgment in what I do for my own well-being,” and she said “you know what? I think you’re right!” Game on! 8 & 9. Dragon Warrior III & IV (NES): When I left home for college, I decided I wanted to go after games I hadn’t pursued before. I realized that between having some of my own money with the job I had at my local dry cleaners at the end of high school and the new job I’d have at my college’s main library and being out of the bubble I’d lived in at home, now was the time to go after those games that seemed too expensive as a kid reading Funcoland’s price sheets. So I got Dragon Warrior III and IV and played the hell out of them that first summer back from college. The worlds were bigger, the monsters cooler, the variety of just everything was greater, and all this in a series I already loved way too much. 10. Swords & Serpents (NES): I’d gotten a Game Genie years before and it came with the book of codes. I was such an RPG fan because of my love of Dragon Warrior that I went through the code book and made a note of every game that referenced hit points, thinking ooh this must be another fun RPG. I eventually bought those games and realized how far off my well-meaning younger self was. But I decided to make the most of it by bringing them to my friend’s house during the summer when we were both home from college so we could laugh at them. We went through the pile and had a good laugh, but when we popped in Swords & Serpents we laughed but still decided to play it anyway because it let us use the Four Score and my friend’s brothers were around and some other friends had also dropped by. The next thing we knew, we were getting together several nights throughout the summer to work our way through this ridiculous game. My friend would write down the long passcodes in a tattered notebook and we’d argue over what letter/number he was trying to write in his terrible handwriting. I don’t think my friend is here on VGS but he does live streams of old games on YouTube if anyone wants to check him out (his user name is KarmaJolt). At this point in my life, gaming wasn’t the safe retreat I used to need. I’d “come out of my shell” and made friends and felt more confident about myself. Gaming now was…just a fun way to spend time, lose myself from regular stresses, and spend time with friends who liked these old games too. 11. Phantasy Star (Sega Master System): Fast forward even further: I’ve graduated law school and have moved to DC. There’s no longer a series of steps for some plan for my life, I’m now “out there.” I’d never really stopped buying games, but the past few years I left them all at home and would dust them off when I visited my parents. Now I took them back with me to DC and wanted to build out my collection and get all those games that every self-respecting owner of X console should have. So I got the Contras and the Streets of Rage games, and eventually decided I wanted to expand to other consoles as well. I would eventually finally buy an SNES and Super Game Boy as well as a Sega CD, 32X, and most recently a Saturn, but my first priority was the Power Base Converter so I could buy Master System games. At some point in high school, my folks gave me a brief subscription to Game Informer. The issues were mostly not useful since the issues I received focused on more modern consoles than anything I had. But one issue was their hundredth issue and it featured their Top 100 Games of All Time list, and you can bet I was keeping track of what looked good on consoles I had. Except for one that stuck out: Phantasy Star. The description called it the game that inspired Dragon Warrior, so you can imagine how much I was foaming at the mouth to play it. Once in a while I’d wonder if I should get a Master System, but usually decided I wouldn’t buy a whole console just for one game, and anything else on the Master System worth playing seemed to have a port to another console. But when I learned about the Power Base Converter, all bets were off and I got that game I’d been dying to play for years. 12. Haunted Halloween ‘85 (NES): I’d mentioned that around the same time I was looking to build out my collection and have the essentials so I could have a well-rounded library and experience the best of my consoles. At some point while researching “the essentials” I came across an article about new games made for old consoles. What is this homebrew? I had to know more. I dove into a number of the games mentioned in these articles, which also ultimately led me to NintendoAge, such as Star Versus and Battle Kid, but if I check my e-mails, Haunted Halloween ‘85 was the first one I went ahead and bought. It looked and played great, and as much as I liked the collecting I’d been doing to build out my collection, this was maybe the first game since Dragon Warrior III that gave me that child-like feeling of joy I got playing my games as a kid. 13. Larry and the Long Look for a Luscious Lover (NES): By now I was just starting to poke around in the homebrew scene, but still focusing on my wishlist of licensed games. But in my curiosity I was learning more about what was out there and how to get a copy of it. I was such a newbie, I remember e-mailing morphcat in 2017 to ask if he had any copies of Super Bat Puncher! But NA had a couple of threads specifically discussing what homebrew games out there the community recommended. I made a list of what piqued my interest and started surfing eBay. Larry was the game that marked when I started really focusing on my homebrew collection more than anything else, because it seemed timing was everything when it came to finding myself a copy of a game in limited supply that seldom changed hands. I was hooked. 14 & 15. Spook-o’-tron & Cowlitz Gamers Second Adventure (NES): Both of these games were on my wishlist, but it seemed I had just missed out on them when I found this community. I messaged Beau on Kickstarter and he was so nice. We talked a bit about his new game and the next thing I knew we were chatting on NA about just about everything, all because I was some bright-eyed n00b asking about his game that I had just missed the Kickstarter to buy. Meanwhile, I found Chelsea’s e-mail in John Hancock’s thread that said to reach out to her about getting a copy of Cowlitz. Unfortunately she said she was holding them in reserve for the upcoming 2018 PRGE. We emailed back and forth a bit and became friendly, she mentioned that if I attended PRGE and looked for her, she’d have a copy for me. I thought to myself, hmm it would be cool to visit Portland, but I don’t want to visit just for an expo (I’d never gone to one before so I didn’t know whether it was something I could make a day of) so if I can find something else to do there, I’ll go. Bells went off in my head, something was telling me that I’d already made this deal with myself about Portland. What was it? Oh! Not far outside the city was one of the only places in the continental U.S. where you can do scenic, off a picturesque bridge bungee jumping. I planned the trip right as I lost my job, but you know what, I hadn’t had a real vacation in 7 years, so I was going to enjoy this. I told Beau, and he told me that he was planning on going too and would sell a few copies of his game to pay for the trip and I should look for him at the NA booth. To add some hilarity to the story, I was reviewing the back catalogs of Metal Jesus and friends’ videos for recommendations of other gems to seek out, when I came across a video by Radical Reggie’s friend Joe titled “Scam Alert: Sean Robinson” WTF? Apparently someone with my same name was at the center of the Coleco Chameleon kerfuffle. You can imagine how nervous I was to attend now. Did anyone think I was that Sean?? As I learned later, Chelsea originally sold me the game but withdrew the sale because she thought I was that Sean, but in our back and forth emails realized we couldn’t be the same person, and, feeling bad about making that assumption, set a copy of Cowlitz aside for me. John Hancock, who was standing next to her when she told me this, said “oh yeah we hate that guy, but you’re not him so don’t worry, we’ll tell everyone you’re ‘the good Sean Robinson.’” Which he absolutely did, when I met Jeffrey Wittenhagen, we were talking about all the games I tagged with stickies in his recent homebrew book when John walked by, waved at Jeff, and said “I see you’re talking to the good Sean.” It was the dumbest little inside joke, but it made me appreciate what a fun community this is. So I got to meet Beau and Chelsea, as well as John Hancock and Jeffrey Wittenhagen, got a few games off my wishlist, and had the best time I’d had in ages, visitng great restaurants, going bungee jumping, and just exploring a beautiful new city, all because I reached out to a couple of people about trying to find a couple of homebrew games.