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21
Map Gab / Purrfect Collection is Nigh, and a bit more
« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 23, 2025, 01:18:30 pm »
Just a heads-up, but, the long-anticipated Bubsy Purrfect Collection is just days away, and I for one am thrilled to see it coming!

It's a joy to see just about every game from Bubsy's past come back to the hands of fans once again, and that's including the rather obscure Jaguar game, "Fractured Furry Tales", and the infamous installment, Bubsy 3D, but the game's getting new improvements to ensure there's no direct repeat of why it went down as one of its badly-received 3D games in gaming history(and I don't blame that not much couldn't be fine tuned in time for its launch at that time).

A bit to relate on Bubsy 3D, it's getting a somewhat sequel, and the name may kinda sound like an April Fools joke, but believe me, it sure is not; "Bubsy 4D", made by an indie studio, Fabraz, and published by Atari.

Its story centers on Bubsy facing, once again, the Woolies, up to stealing yarnballs and Bubsy's Golden Fleece again, the very item Bubsy took back from the end of "The Woolies Strike Back", but this time, they're absconding the flocks of sheep on his planet to force them to steal it. However, they underestimated the sheep, because they revolted against them and are attempting to fight back the Woolies by building their own weapons, the "Baabots", to steal away the Fleece for themselves. Once again, its up to Bubsy to step in and save the Golden Fleece and his planet from their madness, but doing so won't be easier for him this time, because he's got two enemies in their newly-formed two-front war between them.

Needless to say, Bubsy's got a few new tricks up his sleeve for that game(alongside minor cosmetics, including the model from Bubsy 3D), including one ability to become a rolling hairball... sorta. In fact, that strongly reminds me of how Homer Simpson did his "Homer Ball", the power that can turn into a big ball of flab, from "The Simpsons Game", only Bubsy's weighing far less than everybody's favorite goofy, albeit notably rotund, but family protective and good-hearted, family man.

The newest Bubsy game's level amount is, well, once more, going to have 3 different planets, each having 5 levels, for a total of 15 levels, and, to guess right, new bosses are fought in the end of each planet's final level.

I think many of Bubsy's games' amounts on their worlds, levels, and bosses may need to be stepped up beyond that said repeated amounts.

If anyone asks, I wasn't too fond of "Paws on Fire" because the unnecessarily placed Bit Trip rhythm-based gameplay doesn't really suit the bobcat, me, and plenty of others, quite well. Sure, it was neat to take down Oinker P. Hamm again, and it was nice to see many of the characters from Bubsy II and the Bubsy TV pilot show up in the game, but I still felt that kind of rhythm-based gameplay should've been kept out in that.

While I do enjoy Bubsy's adventures, and I know that its not so bad to slightly experiment a bit differently now and then(but not far too much that can deviate away from its true roots), I still would've felt they were quite more in-line with its past 2D games, in hi-bit format, because, well, so many people grew up playing them, and Atari's present CEO, Wade Ross, thinks and believes that, to quote "the last thing anyone wants is a really generic platformer".

Really? "Generic"? In Bubsy's games? The majority of our gaming audience grew up playing and making 2D games, before and after Bubsy was made, and many still do today, because as long as imaginations sticks around, and great creative spirits are within us, NOTHING is ever completely generic in 2D games! I still love them! It all only depends on keeping them coherent to their original vision and their teams working well and in-line, too. I think his tastes on 2D games are quite off-kilter, as others', so far.

And, so far, there's not yet a 2D Bubsy game that had its levels made longer and larger than the past games' maps. The basic tech used to make them has increased greatly, so why not go for it?

Nevertheless, for those willing to get back to Bubsy's past adventures, they're probably gonna feel a bit rusty on level route memorization, and the games' maps are still yet to be charted.
22
Maps In Progress / Super Metroid cool map
« Last post by Cleeem on August 20, 2025, 06:11:40 am »
Hello !  :)
I share here a map I made for Super Metroid (Snes).

Thanks to MFreak, it is possible to play with a far more interactive map, with items only marked when you have not taken them yet. Very useful for backtracking. There is also map decoration on it.

Here is the map I made :
https://mega.nz/file/q1QxFLKA#Yxciarn-fZWjsEBFAib9oIM9kz0-Z1IkwHPLODwq-SE

Here is the patch of MFreak :
https://metroidconstruction.com/resource.php?id=528
23
VGMaps Social Board / More Kokopolo Images
« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 17, 2025, 02:21:42 am »
I was able to find images about the first Kokopolo game that had Developer Diaries covers from NGamer's magazines through the months, from Oct 2008 to Apr 2009, before it became a DSiWare game, and then its post-launch article in Sep 2011 after its launch. They have W.I.P. screenshots, stage layouts, complete with placeholder tilesets, and sprites of the game at the time, and many of Keith's interviews printed in them.

If you look a bit closely on the 4th Developer Diary at the bottom-right of the image, you'll find a potential box cover of the game when it was targeted for DS in physical, with Kokopolo in it. That exact cover would be updated twice, the first time to remove the whiskers and accommodate the DSiWare addition, and the second time to reflect his recognizable design and added Jinbe in it for the 3DS re-release(still not seeing Tatsumo in it, though).

Take a look at them.













There's even artwork about All-Gen Gamers featuring Kokopolo's characters Keith made as tribute to it.

24
Map Requests / Re: Full map set for Sonic the Hedgehog's games
« Last post by G.E.R. on August 15, 2025, 02:41:36 am »
A robofish in one expocenter of robotics in Moscow, it look like enemy from forest-theme zones.
25
Gaming / Re: About "Hatch Tales"...
« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 15, 2025, 02:29:52 am »
Ever wonder why some games flop despite talented developers? I think it's because the vision isn't clear or cohesive. I once worked on a project where everyone had different ideas, and the final product was a mess.
Ooh... Sorry you went through some chaotic disorganization for that project. Guess they didn't follow some order and organized control on its vision through its development process. I could guess a few factors that contributed, such as scope-creeping, if its a game, but what else is new?

From my familiar experience in waiting too long to see Hatch Tales finished after all this time, its director delayed it so many times after diverting focus away from its development and put its development process into complete disorganization. It upset many backers after donating their pledges during its KickStarter campaign and gave up hope waiting for it to be released in disappointment.

It was meant to be a redoing of "Chicken Wiggle", the 3DS original game(not that the game ever needed one a short time after its launch), complete with extra bonus levels, even with its own theme, and a new campaign featuring Holly and Max, from Mutant Mudds, having his own adventure, too, that was ALL PROMISED for its launch, but Jools, its director, pulled EVERYTHING from it all, and STARTED OVER by axing EVERYTHING he and his hired contractors worked on and off for long, and making it just about Hatch trekking through Talonreach to stop Nazar's chilling ambitions for the kingdom, and leaving only most of Chicken Wiggle itself as its only hidden unlockable.

If anything, a game director IS responsible for managing organization and keeping game development well in order, retain any game project's coherency to its original vision, make sure the team/teams stay in-line to ensure its completion, and try their very best to minimize delay, unless necessary, not for excuse-making reasons, especially if it gets backed through a crowd-funding campaign and cannot disappoint backers that pledged to it.

I feel your kind of disappointment, pal, about the chaos you went through. If Jools continues that kind of chaotic disorganization for his game dev line of work, I worry of how he could maintain goodwill to the fans of his games, as others.
26
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
« Last post by JonLeung on August 13, 2025, 09:48:17 pm »
Okay, I got around to finishing Beyond Shadowgate (PC).

I'm not sure if I want to do a "marked" version, but to make up for that (???) if I don't ever do that, even though it's maybe more work, is that I made a version showing all the possible variations of all the screens in the game.  Maybe I need to come up with a better term than "Screens", but that's how I referred to them in zagato blackfist's submissions for the NES games Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and Uninvited (which inspired me to get all of those screens) as well as many other games, especially on the NES page...

Yeah, we're talking about over 1700 variations, yikes.

If a room has a single item in it that can be taken, there's two: one with the item there and one with it taken.  If there's a door that might be open or closed, that doubles it again.  For most rooms there aren't too many combinations.  But for some, there can be multiple items or multiple states, leading to exponential numbers of possibilities.  I tried to map them all as much as I could!

Believe it or not, I captured most of them in my playthroughs.  Since items can't be put down after they've been picked up (unless being used) and almost all doors can't be closed after they've been opened, it required a lot of saving and loading to be able to get the various combinations.  While I thought I was pretty good at getting all the combinations that I knew of per room, I kept finding stuff that I missed, like how the Wraith can appear in most rooms in the first half of Castle Shadowgate.  In this and a few other instances, mechaskrom's paint.net plugin that he made when I asked about comparing pixels made it easy to isolate differences (in cases where I couldn't just copy and paste rectangular or simple shapes), and from there, to copy over the right pixels to create combinations that I know are possible in the game, even if I hadn't actually done them in-game.  If the game didn't have such a rigid save system, it would be a lot easier...

Here's one example of many combinations for a single room.


And in yet another room in Themiere Mansion, there's a clock, and there are way too many combinations with that, so I just included images of what all the 16 possible clock faces could be - I wasn't going to multiply the already numerous screens by 16!  And there are lots of skeleton death images there because while most monsters in the game that jump at you and kill you have the decency to cover up many of the variables in the room, this skeleton doesn't block the door (with three states) or the clock (with four states), so it appears 12 times!


Yeah, there are a LOT of ways to die in this game, so I marked deaths (and impending deaths) in red.

If you actually use these when playing, you might find them upside-down at first glance.  That is, earlier rooms are shown at the bottom and later rooms are shown at the tops of these images.  That's because this game moves from "south" to "north".  So it generally works, except for the cursed Themiere Mansion (once again), where the basement/dungeon areas appear above the second floor, since you do go to the second floor before you go to the basement.  But these are just showing combinations, if you want to find your way around, referring to the actual map with room connections makes more sense.

I can't believe it's mid-August, as this game came out last September.  Sheesh!  I enjoyed putting it together, and it was a good reminder of how much work even simple maps can be, but man, I got other projects to do!  :P
27
Gaming / The Legend Of Zelda is 33⅓ years old today!
« Last post by JonLeung on August 13, 2025, 09:13:17 am »

Today, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past is 33⅓ years old (in North America); that's ⅓ of a century!
It's the third game in one of Nintendo's top three franchises and "three" is often used in the series: the Triforce, number of goddesses, and main characters, among others.
Happy 33.333...rd!
Feeling old yet?
28
Map Requests / Re: Brave Fencer Musashi
« Last post by VGCartography on August 13, 2025, 06:50:04 am »
I plan to give this one a try at some point, I did a test with Duckstation 3D screenshots and it seemed to come out pretty well. I think doing isometric 3d maps should be doable.
29
Map Requests / Re: Brave Fencer Musashi
« Last post by ericstaine on August 12, 2025, 11:51:08 pm »
If anyone wants to try their hand at mapping a 3D game, may I suggest this wonderful title?

If anyone here is unfamiliar with this game, I would compare it gameplay-wise to a Zelda game.  You have a single large world, but you can only explore certain parts.  As you go through the game you get new abilities and open new areas, and find new dungeons with new bosses to fight.  Overall it plays linearly with a progressing storyline.
Also, the game is charming and funny. Lucky Draw Casino here offers a thrilling and engaging gaming experience for casino enthusiasts. It has a lighthearted setting with food-related names and doesn't take itself too seriously.
Try to get a real copy because for some reason some emulators don't draw the speech bubbles right.


If you're looking for a similar experience to classic Zelda games with its own unique twist, this sounds like a fantastic pick. The combination of exploration, gaining new abilities, and battling creative bosses really captures that nostalgic adventure vibe. Plus, the charming and humorous setting sounds like a refreshing change of pace. It's cool how games like this don't take themselves too seriously—it adds so much personality! And thanks for the tip about playing on a real copy, I’ll make sure to keep that in mind!
30
VGMaps Social Board / Happy Anniversary, Kokopolo!
« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 11, 2025, 09:31:54 am »
It's Kokopolo's debut anniversary today, and I felt showing some artwork to celebrate this day. (I can only give video links for the moment, unless I learn how to display actual videos from YouTube here. Sorry.)

The first game's artwork


Here's some links from Mediafire, courtesy of a user, "Goldmetalsonic", by request of sharing artwork of the first game in 2011 via NeoGAF.

The playable characters, Kokopolo and Tatsumo...
https://www.mediafire.com/view/ykdu2niqs450ylr/01_KOKOPOLO.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/54ptm5lrselvoqb/02_TATSUMO.jpg#

The SnapSnap Plant
https://www.mediafire.com/view/by1yirt7n363eh2/SNAPSNAP.jpg#

The 20 enemies appeared in the games so far(really would like some new enemies now and then)...
https://www.mediafire.com/view/5dpjparbihxssd1/01-PAPPYO.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/82h45i6chussd6l/02-HAWANUTS.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/ibw5k4ulqrz4h4q/03-MERRIKET.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/fytf8bsavylrtvr/04-TROPAKAHN.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/d4bth7z8idhiyyh/05-LUPAWAII.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/rlx9apnn7x1r6l9/06-CHICKABOOM.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/4m0uaa83ihwqyiu/07-PONPORUU.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/aqk7fplisnsin82/08-THORNOPIO.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/xmiasd1oydejd48/09-STUNION.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/decs5bnerk10vdb/10-KASANOBARKA.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/q8m19mwfovvy3wy/11-MOGUMA.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/xobozm9q0ahf188/12-STARPHID.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/zr8hj8kezbv4vye/13-STARPHAT.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/g1yf5keg53fjjfl/14-POWPIPER.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/xgi92byz1g0mybp/15-KURAKURA.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/o6c0neod3en0eoz/16-COCANOISE.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/qtcgcqb8ghjgesc/17-TOPLOCANO.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/88tkfff4cr6bkad/18-ROCKTOPUS.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/dobmdd00w8lxbov/19-DIZZYLINE.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/x1a99o1nwa9x5ka/20-SPACEMANBOSCARO.jpg#

The first game's bosses...
https://www.mediafire.com/view/m51bphpaivwqk7k/A_SACRATOPS.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/ogx1cfetwesdvdl/B-OAKLEYPOKLEY.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/avwa4488z8d2633/C_RAIKU.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/4z4d43sxa3e1osz/D_TOTEMATOR.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/2x3b3hqqeej51bc/E-PICCOLOCO.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/91slgaga4c045h3/F_PEKTAIL.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/vgxhihb0j448bhk/G-BURNSIDES.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/8l4zm41z3xirl2q/H-PANDORA.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/tvrzv4chsels2m7/I-BABABOOM.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/fip9xwaxkofse95/J-JINBE.jpg#
https://www.mediafire.com/view/4gzv202x2e1rl37/CHOMPCHOMP.jpg#

Houdini Starfish
https://www.mediafire.com/view/43q74894keg2g2j/HOUDINI-STARFISH.jpg#

Astrobug
https://www.mediafire.com/view/1dbuq1h1xyu7b0l/ASTROBUG.jpg#

The Sun and Moon POW Brothers
https://www.mediafire.com/view/286pcy4vy3op668/POW-BROTHERS.jpg#

I have a few maps of the two games Keith showed as part of the 10th anniversary run. Mind you, two of them are in jpgs, the rest are pngs. I didn't do any map ripping, so you know; Keith just only provided them.

Here they are!









Here's the bosses of Kokopolo 3D Keith Webb made when it was in the works in 2012, a very short time after it began in June 2012(still would be nice to see clean versions of these bosses).

SCARECLOWN

DUST RA RA

KAMALOON

JITSTAR

KINTARON

CACTUSK

BANDOZA(Incorrectly spelled as "BANDOZER")

SHINTOTO

ROCK A TOCK

MIKOSUKI


Here's Kokopolo DX's Logo and Cover Artwork for those who want to see.




There's some artwork about the game's development history when it was targeted for Neo Geo Pocket Color, before it was changed and moved to Game Boy Advance, DS, and finally, DSiWare. Let me tell you, I have never seen it before now, and it is amazing! Take a look!

KOKOPOLO SKETCHES 1

KOKOPOLO SKETCHES 2

KOKOPOLO LINEUP

KOKOPOLO BOSS LINEUP


Keith pondered if he could make a new Neo Geo Pocket Color game for it as a de-make, but I would honestly feel it should be a prequel, fittingly called "Go! Go! Kokopolo Pocket", centered on how Kokopolo and Tatsumo became best friends and how their adventures began, before the DSiWare debut. And, the handheld should have new second screen hardware add-on created that acts as a precursor to the DS dual-screen gameplay.

If I could see the finalized artwork of all of Kokpolo DX's bosses, I'd show them to you here.

Keith made a very well-known favorite artwork centered on the Wii's Virtual Console's commemoration. Here's the image called "Hyper 8-Bit Memories"!



There's a video review about Kokopolo 3D after its launch. Here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc5VkWvOePo

If Keith could stop by, he'd know I was doing good at bringing more attention to the series. Maybe he'd come by sometime, if he's able.

If you like to see some insight about him and his pal, Jmac, there's a video here. If you want to watch the whole thing, go ahead. The timestamp for Keith's projects in the works is 19:20, if you want to skip to it. Here's the video's link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFp0M1EyC8

If anyone here wants to do some celebrating about the series, feel free.
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