Sunday, January 22, 2012

The truth and secrets of Aquanoid: Revealed!

I dunno how this will help, but here's Stefan's e-mail as well. if Karsten is not active, you can try ringing him up instead and see what happens. stefan_heineke@hotmail.com


Big thanks to the very slim audience that reads this blog (perhaps one to five people) for sticking with me. I know I said a future post would cover something called "Wrapfield," and to those of you waiting, stay patient and please of all things, don't begin a flamewar.

Back in early September, I brought up a DOS game called "Aquanoid." Incase you don't know, it is one of those Arkanoid clones where you simply have to destroy all the bricks on the screen (that can be destroyed) with the assistance of powerups that spawn from the bricks that either help or hinder your progress. I'm currently working on a FAQ of Aquanoid which acts as a simple introduction to the game and spills all the details and guts of said game. Despite certain games sharing the same title, Aquanoid never received an official sequel from the original developers, Stefan Heineke and Karsten Finger, the former having a Youtube account, and the later who runs the game's official website.

As you can probably tell, Aquanoid, despite being almost two decades old, is very rare to come across. I'm not here to advertise the game, but rather to try and make it more well-known to err... very few people. And before you ask, yes I have the registered version in my possession. But you cannot find even one download of the registered version, despite the shareware version being relatively well-known and quite common to find. So the only way you can actually get the complete 149-level experience plus a number of extras in this period of time, is by contacting Karsten himself via karsten_finger@hotmail.com and sending the money (ten USD) to his Paypal (KarstenFinger@web.de). He'll then give you the zip containing the full version of Aquanoid personalized to display your name before the title screen, and offers another version of Aquanoid which contains 600+ more levels in separate level packs and a level editor. Sadly, I don't believe Karsten has any desire to upgrade Aquanoid so that it follows more common sense techniques seen in modern-day Arkanoid clones, like better ball control and such, so don't go demanding to him to release a V1.6. Besides, you may get a kick out of what this game has to offer for a low price.

As for you guys familiar to Aquanoid's shareware version, the basic registered version doesn't have relatively anything new aside from new levels, Z-Shooters, three new background patterns, and an alternative ending screen. The other version with the editor though will be your paradise if you love games that you love tweaking with a passion.

I should mention quickly and briefly that I will not give you Aquanoid's registered version. You can offer me lunch, draw fanart of my characters, or even hug my legs in deep sorrow, and I will not loan you my digital copy of Aquanoid, simply because I know damn well you'll want your name on the startup screen instead of mine. :P

Otherwise, that's it. If I can freely distribute my levels for Aquanoid, I will. Coming soon will be more custom modifications and fan-upgrades for more relatively unknown titles. See you next time.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Burn in hell SOPA +MHSR 1.2

Yea today is SOPA's attempt to destroy the internet. You know how just because people watched that movie 2012 that they're going to assume the world'll end this year in December. Well remember when they said the world would end last May? Didn't happen. How about over a decade ago with 2000? Nah. But if this shitty little SOPA law passes, it will bring forth the end of the world for the internet. There are many different things I could say about this issue, so just look around real good and you're bound to find some good articles and sites that oppose SOPA, and that I'm also in favor of. Honestly, these doucebeags don't realize the Internet is meant to be free.

But to go off-subject, here is a minor update for Mario Hack Series Recordings. It only adds two new songs, one from Techno Mario Bros., and the other from Automatic, however it includes some bonus tilesets from these hacks for whatever use. Three of them come from my Photobucket, the other was something stuck on my hard drive and not seen before in the online community.

But yea, Here's the download.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Translating "The Classroom with an Alien in it"

Now let me just bring you in on the subject real quick. Two summers ago I got a hold of possibly one of the rarest of children's novels (don't ask why I'm labeling it as such) known possibly under the title The Classroom with an Alien in it and gave it a proper mention. Still today I do not know an exact translation of the title, the author, the illustrator, or the company that published it (Google translate sucks at translating Japanese to Japanese).

Trying to dig deep into the book's source, none of the pages have any sort of readable English or even Engrish (only "Printed in Japan"). I tried typing the title into Google Translate and from there I could look at Japanese results; didn't work. I also tried getting info on the author by assembling his/her name as shown on the book with letters I could find; nothing done.

However, through this experiment, I did receive the following: "さとづまきこ", which could possibly translate to "Sato Dzumaki". And of course searching that didn't work either. All I got was a stupendous search fail of nothing but Naruto-related content and images. So as far as I can tell, I'm perhaps one of the few, if any Americans to know about the book, let alone own it. And if I can somehow learn the language, I can see what exactly the whole thing is about (it's a chapter book, not a manga), but aside from that, it does have some cute images. Definitely a "You Can't Read This" from JewWario.

I cannot translate the book as once again, I do not know Japanese; and even if I had to resort to Japanese sites like Pixiv, I wouldn't risk it as "durrhurr you wrecked Rosenkreuzstilette years ago but stopped therefore you are bad person." So the only thing I must ask from this, if you, or anyone you know of, knows Japanese, please translate the title and/or author(s) of this novel properly into English. Search up it's Japanese name if you have to, heck if I have to gut out anything else from this in order to translate more of this mess, I will.

Good night. I'll see if I can get another thing up soon. What is it? Well can anyone say... WRAPFIELD?

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Realm of Sixty Million Mega Man Clones

And yet we have our first post of the new year.

On the beginnings of January, I have a announcement. You know how clones of everything exist nowadays? Well, in the future (yes, re-read that, future), I would like to develop just for the fun of it and the entertainment of my followers, plus to the dismay of the haters and prove to them how a clone, especially one based on Kenji Inafune's flagship series, is done right.

This Megaman clone will be based on my OC series and it's characters. The plot will be somewhat similar to the original Mega Man; eight guys have gone bad thanks to an unknown villian, and you're sent to straighten their butts out and return the area back to normal. The game has an opening stage, the classic "Target Select" screen with 8 bosses,  then a final castle with five levels (and a true final stage), belonging to Joker. The game would have some bonus features, like an "Endless" mode, a "Challenge" mode, "Time Attack," "Score Attack," "Boss Attack," and an unlockable "Intense" difficulty. As for saving, the game uses both a basic save and Mega Man-styled password feature, though using passwords prevents the player from unlocking any new features playing through the game, as the passwords can send the player right to the beginning of Joker Stage 5.

Online leaderboards would be put into full effect, showing off the fastest and highest-scoring players in the main game, Time Attack, Score Attack, Boss Attack, Endless.

To control Aozora, the player can use the arrow keys to move, look up, crouch, climb up, and slide down ladders, plus aim your weapons upwards and while crouching. X jumps (which can also be done to drop off ladders and other climbable objects, like hooks and ropes), Z fires your active weapon, and C or a combination of X and down makes Aozora slide, in which he may also fire while sliding. Enter and Esc both pause the game to switch weapons and use items (including setting misc options with display and sound; these can also be set from the title screen's Options menu), while automatic weapon switching would be done mid-game through the A and S keys. These additional commands are not to make the game easier; which leads to the game's difficulty.

The difficulty will not come from cheap and confusing level designs, but from skilled enemies and AI with original designs, few (though not many) level puzzles, and balanced level lengths, sort of like a cross between core Megaman games, Megamari and Rokko Chan.

Gamepad/Controller support is also present incase keyboard controls prove to be too difficult for the player.

The weapons you obtain from the bosses of the eight stages are actually intended to be upgrades to your starting weapon, and are therefore meant to cause much more havoc, besides better firing capabilities and/or more powerful projectiles. Bosses don't take as much damage from special weapons as normal enemies do. Using a bosses' main Weakness will multiply it's attack power by 1.5, while using a resistance will halve the attack power of the weapon. The planned weapons can be read here, but the support/transport items are shown below as I never spirited them.

Springboard-One: Like the Rush Coil. You'll plant a springboard on the ground and use it to bounce higher.
Hover-Two: Like Item-1 from Mega Man 2 or the balloon item from Mega Man 4, place it and you can stand on it for a short time, allowing you to get to higher places. It's a little safer than Springboard-One.
Winger-Three: A cross between Item-2 from Mega Man 2 and the newer versions of Rush Jet (the ones available in Megaman 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10), this one allows you to cross certain chasms. or take shortcuts across difficult parts of the level. Can be steered.
Aquatic-Four: This game's version of Rush Marine. Jump in and you have added protection (enemy attacks only do half damage when you're in the Aquatic Four) and better control underwater.
Darn, that was a lot to process. But believe me, I'll figure out how to make it all work.