Frog Fractions

Jake Kaufman – Journey into the Rift

Let’s try an audio post again. WayForward’s music composer Jake “virt” Kaufman has a series of great chiptune albums. FX4 plays like an adventure movie soundtrack with orchestral stylings and guitar riffs, but in authentic NES sound. If you can’t see the Bandcamp player, there’s a YouTube player below it that should work for everyone, even Facebook.

And now, the blog’s first block quote! From the source:

INTO THE RIFT Despite the hazards of deep-sea exploration and growing diplomatic unease, the salvage operation begins. The surface team is protected by a small fleet of hired mercenaries. Hours into the dive, they are suddenly attacked by an unknown military force, far better equipped than any provincial warlord. The attackers suddenly retreat, however, as soon as the news breaks that the wreckage has been secured.

Source: Journey into the Rift | Jake Kaufman

RetroAchievements for Romhacks

RetroAchievements adds Xbox 360-style achievement hunting and leaderboards to thousands of classic games and romhacks. Uncommon games often have romhacks that work with RetroAchievements. Check Romhacking.net for patches you can apply with utilities like Floating IPS. I’ve already recommended Rockman 4 Minus Infinity but it also has RetroAchievements.

Dynamite Headdy delocalization by M.I.J.E.T. (RetroAchievements) The localization we got here removed most of the dialogue, added American pop culture references, and made the annoying tower boss fight four times as long. This fan translation doesn’t do any of that. Go collect those secret bonus points.

Pulseman translation by M.I.J.E.T. (RetroAchievements) My favorite game on Sega Channel had you build up static electricity and then discharge it to attack and move around. Most of the team that made it went on to make Pokémon Red and Blue.

Super Mario Land DX by toruzz (RetroAchievements) Also Super Mario Land 2 DX by toruzz (RetroAchievements) Super Mario Land is the first game I ever beat and a fine place to get started with romhacks. This turns Super Mario Land and its sequel into Game Boy Color games with some graphics redrawn for better visibility. The RetroAchievements add some nice challenges to keep things fresh.

Extra Mario Bros. by ATA (RetroAchievements) This romhack gives Mario a dose of Metroid-like exploration with collecting keys and permanent upgrades to reach new places. It’s still Super Mario Bros., so the screen only scrolls to the right.

Umihara Kawase translation by satsu (RetroAchievements) A new Umihara Kawase game just came out and I’m afraid to start it because I get hooked on these games for a long time. We’ve got a wedding to plan! The original game’s RetroAchievements keep track of every door and backpack you’ve reached, so try to get them all.

Source: RetroAchievements, Romhacking.net, and My Life in Gaming

Destiny Potato

Look at the bands I listen to. I’m not picky. If they’ve got heavy riffs, serious skills, catchy melodies, and good variety, I’m in. Posting your entire album online helps too. Serbian rock band Destiny Potato hits on all sixes. Potatoes gonna potate.

Source: Destiny Potato via Spotify Discover Weekly again

Hey guys! 

Check this out! LIve studio session of our song “indifferent”

SHARE cause it will help us alot <3

Much love DP <3

Awesome Games Done Quick

Awesome Games Done Quick 2015 is underway and my favorite games are already getting destroyed by top speedrunners. Check the schedule for the games you don’t want to miss. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive block has just begun. I keep the Twitch stream in fullscreen on one monitor and the QuakeNet IRC chat open on the other. While this is going on, I’ll be working on my own broken platform game for the VOGJam.

Wait, how did I post about this last year? Click the banner to go to the stream.

Source: https://gamesdonequick.com, YouTube, and the banner via the AGQD 2015 megathread via the FAQ

Kevin Birrell – Ti Classic Grand Master

Tetris the Grand Master 3 has the subtitle “Terror-Instinct”. KevinDDR has become the sixth player in the world and the first outside Japan to tame this beast and earn the rank of Grand Master in Classic Master mode. Only the best players who can get to and and beat the invisible credits roll consistently earn the right be tested for Grand Master rank, and Kevin pulled it off under pressure. Congratulations!

I really should have posted this one last night. Kevin's a friend, and I should have realized that his run was on YouTube and could have been blogged about. Sorry about that. Click for the full-size image.

Update: Replaced the unofficial AGDQ YouTube archive with the official one.

Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_b6H8dHHm0, Games Done Quick YouTube (was the unofficial YouTube archive), and Kawaiikochan Gaming No Korner

GRAND MASTER!! “DEMONIC GAMESOFT

It’s Comics for the recent amazing feat. It looks like a foreigner has obtained "Grand Master,” huh… we’ll discuss “Gosh, that’s difficult”. What’s more difficult, in gamesoft? Shiranai~

It’s a news piece on such a subject. It’s IIDX. Dolce vs “Mei.” It’s “Dodonpachi Crazy Run”.

It’s the Last Dragon and “The Master.”

It’s “Patreon Fan/Fun Club For The Support Of Kawaiis”.

Botchamania

Pro wrestling is good dumb fun, but it's hard work. It's easy for someone to do a move wrong, receive a move wrong, say something wrong, or have a table fail to cooperate. Those mistakes are called botches, and Botchamania is a highlight reel of botches. It's about the only wrestling I watch anymore.

Botchamania has to bounce around to different hosts due to copyright claims. Maffew's feed is the best way to get new Botchamanias as they're uploaded. If this video breaks, let me know and I'll find it again.

I like to keep this blog work safe, but Botchamania contains some NSFW language.

Source: Botchamania 238 | Botchamania

DemizuPosuka

It’s hard to keep up with people who post a lot. This maniac, DemizuPosuka, posts something new to pixiv three times a week. Each one looks like the cover of an indie comic book. I have no idea what most of these are called, even with Google Translate’s help.

Update: Whoa, Columbus’s resident Dr. Mario prodigy Katie provided translations in the Facebook comments. I didn’t expect that! Thank you!

Pretty sure I heard it’s around here somewhere…  (確かこのあたりと聞いたけれども)

I love it when stuff messes with gravity. Reverse gravity is fantasy enough that you'll never see it in real life, but simple enough that you can understand how things interact with it. Patema Inverted plays with reverse gravity non-stop. You should watch it.

Necessary evil and unnecessary conscience (必要悪といらない良心)

There's big cars, and then there's big enough to crush buildings and take a direct hit from the moon. NASA has that one colossal truck that carries rockets from the hangar to the launchpad. I think that's as close as we get.

What? We eating pumpkin again?! (「えっまたカボチャ食べるの」)

Here's a good desktop wallpaper. Animals and monsters, just chillin' and eating dinner. I'm cool with this. If this was a Mystery Dungeon game, that witch girl would have just picked a fight with the entire room.

10pm at an old book shop (古書店の午後十時)

Never under-estimate a pop-up book. Ashens reviewed one called Inside the Personal Computer that has a full desktop PC with a couple moving parts. I'd link to that video, but a link's title text can't have its own links. That would break the Internet. (But on Tumblr, I can link you to that Ashens video.)

Goodbye world (さよなら世界)

You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Sometimes things don't end well for DemizuPosuka's subjects. At least this one isn't about to be eaten by a monster.

Source: DemizuPosuka via PixivRss several times, translations from Katie on Facebook

Foothills Of Passage

Dead End Thrills brings out the best in video game environments. This community goes beyond simple screenshots by making modifications to the game engines to render super high resolution images so professional you'd think they're marketing assets. My dual-monitor desktop just got taken over by this one from the new Shadow Warrior.

The old WordPress blog had the 'large' 2221x945 version and a broken link to a ‘full’ 3755x1598 version. Never mind those, I found this 8192x3486 monster on Flickr. Enjoy!

Source: Flickr and foothillsofpassage.png via Dead End Thrills

Skeleton Hunter

I made another game! For VOGJam 1 the theme was “A Buggy Game,” so I made Skeleton Hunter, a broken little 2D platform game in HTML5. You are the hunter from Skeleton’s Revenge going around defeating skeletons and the necromancer that keeps summoning them. Jump backwards through walls, wrap around the screen, undo deaths by pressing Pause, and utterly pick apart the game. I hope this makes it into Awful Games Done Quick someday.

Google Chrome has gamepad support and is the recommended browser for playing this game. UPDATE: v1.02 has support for gamepads in Firefox and control config for all platforms.

Play at Bakamo Studios Play v1.02 with control config at Bakamo Studios Play at VOG Network

Yes, there is a way to reach the title screen with the hunter. Try escaping boss rooms.

Because I didn't have time to make a controller configuration menu, I basically just allowed for every control scheme at once. Even gamepads are supported if you're using Google Chrome. (Or Firefox in v1.02, which has a controller configuration menu now.

If you do a jump attack facing away from the wall, you can get inside the wall. I knew from the moment the theme was announced that I wanted to do a game with bad collision detection.

The skeleton wasn't even implemented until two days before the deadline. It turned out alright, though.

Holy crap, what happened here? Did that guy walk off the title screen to the right? You broke my game! How could you?

Source: http://hitstun.bakamostudios.com/vogjam/skeletonhunter.htm made from scratch in HTML5 and Javascript using Notepad++, Tiled, GIMP, FamiTracker, Bfxr, and Audacity.

Automatic

Well, this is neat. For years, we’ve seen OBD-II scanners that can read Check Engine light codes from your car at home, but Automatic goes much further by working this into a smartphone app. Automatic constantly monitors your fuel consumption, speed, and trip data while you drive and offers up tips to improve your driving style and use less fuel. If it detects an accident, it can even call the authorities for you.

Source: Automatic – Your Smart Driving Assistant via Wired