Hey Blog Squirrel, have an exclusive screenshot

We're getting into spoiler territory now so I'll be limiting these from now on.

However, with the work I've set myself up with... I really cannot guarantee for a while. In fact this is the first thing I've done to the game in about a month and a half.

The reason for this? Preparation for April Fools, teaching myself the entire A2 Computing course and the wonderful revision programme of every Units 4, 9 and 10 Physics papers from 1994 to 2003. The only reason you're seeing the above image today is because I got a bit tired of f_hot_dot.gifs.

But enough of that. Seems old Star Bird have stolen Quackers' player slot, and he's not happy. So bring on the Sonic 3 references!

Multi Kill

Something's not right, Squirrel hasn't updated three days in a row since... this blog was first opened!

Gots you some Poké Tetris in article form. This page was made months ago, got to a state of near completion, but never got uploaded. UNTIL NOW. As far as pirate Tetris clones go, this is as good as they're going to get.

Also I've got that big article on the Super Boy Series up. It's missing a grand total of ONE screenshot because I couldn't be bothered to hunt down the MSX ROM of Super Boy 1 again. Aside from the platformers it also covers games such as "Brother Adventure", "Dr. Hello" and "Super Bio Man 4" - all Mario MSX clones of some description from South Korea. Good brain rotting fun.

Of course I won't be able to check if these pages are up and working properly until people stop DDoS-ing 110mb's servers!

Bubblin and Bobblin

Another one? Has hell frozen over once again? Just got the Super Bubble Bobble article on tORP. Some may find it interesting. Some may find the fact that Kega Fusion 3.6 and up will run it more interesting. Some may not find it interesting at all.

tORP Update?

Say what?

Got an article up about Harry Potter's fantastic MegaDrive adventure. A terrible Pac-Man clone which was also released under the imaginative name of "Pokémon II". Might get a video up eventually too. EXCITING.

Currently working on getting a massive article done on the Super Boy Series - a bunch of Mario clones for the MSX and SG-1000/SG-3000 consoles. Should be both painful and soul destroying. There's also a Super Bubble Bobble page to come, but I haven't been inspired to take more screenshots as of yet.

I've had Super Boy 2 and 3 rips on MFGG and the like for ages. Tackled Super Boy 4 recently so if you're actually interested in the rips that my little site promises but never delievers, head on over to that Galaxy of Mario Fan Games.

Oh look a decent SHPDMBGWL4 site

What joy!

It has everything except 3 and 3 EX. Why? because old 110mb did not tell me of an 8Mb upload limit before I signed up! Those two will be added eventually but obviously they're going to need to be hosted off site again. Or split up into bits.

But the rest is there, including Player Adventure DX and an unfinished "about" page where I was going to reveal all sorts of stuff. Oh and there's guides. Hopefully this time it'll be permanent. And even if it isn't here's your chance to mirror it to your heart's content.


Though I'd be careful... I mean if SHPDMBGWL4 1 saw itself in the mirror it might faint due to it looking UGLY.

Now, let's see if I can come up with something to "blog" that isn't TGF tripe.

Follow me

And I shall lead ye to the promised land filled with blog posts about time travelling ducks and obscure games.

Noticed Blogger installed a few things to it's list of strange features. One of those is a "Followers" list, i.e. a list of followers. Now you too can subscribe to this blog. You could probably get RSS/Atom feeds anyway but that's not the point.

So, time to see if this blog has any followers I guess!


Also no, I didn't come up with anything decent before new year. Happy New Year btw.

Also yesterday marks the 4th year of me being attached by the hip to Mario Fan Games Galaxy, or at least its forums. It works out as 18.33% of my life... that's probably bad.

Oh goodie, more SHPDMBGWL4 4

I seem to have commitment issues with this blog of mine. I wouldn't be surprised if it ran off with another man. Though obviously I'd have to return the favour by sleeping with some other blog service.

Merry Christmas btw, even if it is a tad late now. I'd say "Happy New Year because I'm not likely to make another blog post", but I'm already running out of things to do so I might get that SHPDMBGWL4 site up before then. Or not.

It's a mystery!

!!!

What's this? A blog post?!

Yeah following some rather nifty pirate discoveries I shifted The Obscure Ripping Project to 100MB.com. It's not the best idea in the history of man, but it's a better one than leaving it on fateback because FTP services there suck.

Now at least I can update things quickly.

NEW ADDRESS:

http://torp.110mb.com/

Let the word of Squirrel be spread far and wide. Though not too far - there are bandwidth limits.


As for other things... well NCFC came and went, I never actually did anything dispite saying I would and adminship at MFGG is more time consuming than I had originally planned. But no matter.

Oh and I did update tORP a bit. SMW NES, Somari and Super Donkey Kong 2 got added to. In fact I uploaded my entire tORP folder so there might actually be a load of minor updates too, possibly some unfinished. Exciting!

Looks like tORP's going to have to move

Because after years of faithful reletively ad-free service Fateback have decided to put huge banners on the top of every page. Thanks Fateback!

This blog is sitting idly by catching dust. Here's an unrelated work-in-progress tileset.

NCFC 2½: The smell of fear

There's absolutely no point in posting this because of the two places this blog is linked from, one is MFGG who are the biggest player in the Nintendo Community Fangame Convention (NCFC) and the other IS NCFC.

But it's still worth a look.

...or if you're not a games developer it'll be worth a look this October.

Also for the 2½ people who visit this blog, stuff did happen, and it was on MFGG, which is why I've yet to post anything big here.

Still here btw

And now that Sonic & Knuckles 5 has been dumped I've got to re-write large chunks of that tORP Somari page. And there's also SHPDMBGWL44. CRAZY.

Stuff will probably happen within the next few weeks.

And about time too

Upated that crazy old site of mine The Obscure Ripping Project. Still a lot more to come, but that's because I keep finding new things to re-write.

For now though, "enjoy" re-written Prince of Persia 2 MD and Somari pages, now with more stuffs. It's nuts because all I did was open the many Somari variations in Tile Molester and I managed to find, a) the release order and, b) an unused title screen. I'm quite impressed with myself!

Why MegaDrive > SNES Volume 1

So after that post I made a few weeks ago I downloaded and played the Super Nintendo version of Mickey Mania, and to my surprise, it sucked. Hence I made a video showing all the things the MegaDrive version has that the Super Nintendo ones doesn't... at least on the first level.

If you have a little search on my YouTube channel you can have a look at more tORP vids too. I'll be linking them up with their respective pages eventually.

The death and return of tORP (erman)

At some point in the future my semi-sexy site The Obscure Ripping Project will have a few new upgrades. What sort of "upgrades" you ask? Well here's a clue. And another. Because if pictures tell a thousand words and youtube videos show 30 pictures a second then that Donkey Kong video tells 8220000 words. That's like, more than most dictionaries.

I'm taking a page from the book of Hardcore Gaming 101, and will hopefully start hosting some comparison stuffs to those crazy pirate articles as well, rather than one or two screenshots. Who knows, maybe I'll even put in some rips!

Quality of the Youtube vids is rubbish I know. But it's either that or 150MB AVIs, and files that size make me feel uncomfortably small.

SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX

SHPDMBGWL4 GET

It's here. Enjoy it. Visit this topic for more info.

Unfortunately Sitesled decided to delete all my stuff without notifying me, so it's on Sendspace for now.

Game of the Moment - 18/03/08

What? Mickey Mouse?! That's kinda sad isn't it?!? Well yes, yes it is. Sad because Mickey Mania, my current GotM is one of the last Disney games to actually be good. Back in the days where companies like EA didn't invest thousands into hiring voice actors and stuff at the expense of good gameplay - where even Disney could get it right.

Mickey Mania is, in my opinion, the best of the 16 bit Disney titles that came out in the early 90s. It came out for the SNES and MegaDrive, with a graphically updated port on the Playstation and better music and a new level for the Mega CD, but it's the MegaDrive version that I remember as a youngling.

Up until last week I hadn't played this game in probably over 10 years, yet I distinctly remembered the first level. Why is this? Because the game is damn hard. Yes that's right, a HARD Disney game. When I was younger I never made it past the second level. I'm still struggling now, but that's what makes it a worthwile purchase - a sense of challenge.

Anyway Mickey does something that more characters should do, and that's go time travelling to periods in the past to meet other Mickeys for some reason. The above level, which is also the best level, is a Steamboat Willie stage, which starts off in black & white and slowly ends up being colourised. That'll be another thing more games should do.

Okay they say Kingdom Hearts is a good game too but outside of that would you really associate "quality" and "Disney video game" with each other? Because lately I'd say "no". When it comes to Mickey Mania though, I'd certainly say "yes".

New Prototypes

Drx, legend at the Sonic hacking scene has released a good couple hundred Sega prototypes for your pleasure, including Sonic 2 Beta 4 pictured above. It's a collection of pretty much every game revision on Sega's database between 1994 and 1995, which means there's a lot, ranging from the Sega Master System to 32X, and a few Saturn/Dreamcast/Gamecube protos being released as well. Also bear in mind this is probably the biggest batch of prototype releases... ever.

I'm sure drx could use the funds now so why not donate?

Progress Report

SHPDMBGWL4 3 EX has a percentage counter thing which obviously tells you your progress. Mine's 80%... which in my case means that I've programmed in 80% of the game. That also means it should be out and ready to disappoint within the next two months or so.

Also the game's about 25MB compressed right now. That's more than the last three combined.

...and done

http://torp.fateback.com/

Simple yes, but so much easier to work with.

tORP's getting a revamp

Or rather, a "devamp" because I'm scratching its current layout altogether for something much simpler and easier to work with. I'm not doing a great deal with this blog so chances are I'll be using it to post news on our good old friend "The Obscure Ripping Project" as well as current stuffs. Shouldn't be too intrusive though.