Majesco just made my day! Come this spring they will be combining two things I love into one wonderful puzzle package. New York Times Crosswords will feature 1000 puzzles from the newspaper of the same name. It will support hand written number recognition, and even wireless co-op. That’s awesome Majesco. Now if only you could make it able to download each day’s current crossword puzzle using Nintendo’s WiFi network. Oh well, I love the idea so much I hate to give them any cross words…

Wow, I’m hilarious.

Press Release

In case you are wondering, I haven’t forgotten about my lofty idea: The Year of the Pig Project. As promised, the last day of each month this year, I will shed more light into the process of this year’s ultimate goal, making a video game from scratch. Hit the jump for more…

This month’s goal was simple, but took a lot of thought. Come up with the idea for a game. I wanted it to be original, and I wanted it to be something I felt confident in undertaking (no Gears of War graphics). I have the idea for my game, and to be honest, I am pretty excited about it. Almost everyone I have talked to about my game idea, has not only been supportive, they have also been excited. I am getting ideas from friends about as fast as I can write them down.

First of all, have you ever played The Oregon Trail? If you are anywhere near my age, the answer is probably yes. It was one of the only games I could play at school that I actually enjoyed. If you aren’t familiar with it, check out this video. As with most things on the Internet, you can always find a nerd who uses crazy hand gestures to explain something for you.

Here’s my concept. The same resource management and path decision strategy elements of The Oregon Trail set in a Zombie infested post-apocalyptic world. Still with me? I know what you are thinking. It doesn’t sound very original, I mean I am seemingly ripping off an entire gameplay concept. But bear with me. The basic storyline is that it has been several months since the initial zombie outbreak. In the Romero timeline, it would be somewhere between Dawn and Day of the Dead. You and your friends have been safely hiding in that time, but your food and medical supplies are wearing thin. Rather than roam from abandoned town to abandoned town and ravaging random supplies, you decide to head to a rumored safe place. I haven’t worked out all the story elements yet, but the basic idea is that your party wants to eventually arrive at a place where society is trying to rebuild.

This is where the contrast of Oregon Trail pays off so well. Originally, The Oregon Trail game was a colorful tale about hope and the beginning of modern civilization. My game will be a fun little juxtaposition presenting a dark (but still humorous) tale of despair and the possible end of all civilization. Ultimately of course, you have the hopes of returning to civilization, but I won’t spoil the endings, I’ll let you play the game yourself.

As mentioned, the gameplay will be very similar to The Oregon Trail. Like the original, you will be managing food, gas, ammo, and direction and speed of travel. Multiple stories and game scenarios will be featured depending on the difficulty you choose. The greater the difficulty, the greater potential for a higher score. It will be dark on the surface, but I plan on putting in a lot of humor and random zombie references. There will always be the possibility of someone in your party getting bitten by a zombie. You will have to decide whether to kill them immediately, and lighten your load, albeit morbidly. Or continue in the hopes that a cure awaits at your destination. You will have to pick your rate and direction of travel, and random events can occur that determine your outcome. I haven’t yet decided on a name, but as a placeholder, I am just referring to the game as The Zombie Trail.

Now, what lies ahead? January’s goal has been reached, what’s in store for February? Research! I plan on watching (almost) every zombie movie ever. Yes, there are some out there I haven’t seen. Also, I plan on reading The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. Finally, I plan on playing The Oregon Trail dozens of times. As I said in the original post, this project is not about getting as much done in as little time as possible. It is more about consistency and good planning. I probably won’t even start coding until May.

Leave me some comments. How does my idea sound? Would you play this game? Any ideas you want to add? Do you also like the taste of brains?

Sure, you could play Wii Sports with as little motion as possible. But it just wouldn’t be as fun. Regardless, I found this video pretty funny.

Some crazy bike stunts done in GTA: San Andreas. Not sure if these are straight from the game, or the result of hacks or cheats. Either way, it is fun to watch.

I know, it’s a day late. Regardless, this weeks Virtual Console release is a pretty sweet one. Here are the releases:

Mario Kart 64 - N64 (1000 Points)
Contra III: Alien Wars - SNES (800 Points)
Bonanza Bros. - Genesis (800 Points)
Comix Zone - Genesis (800 Points)

This makes two consecutive weeks with a solid first party offering. Thanks Nintendo! However, Chris pointed out (and I concur), that Mario Kart 64, while not being awful, is the weakest in series. Oh well, Contra III is a blast. I never did have a Genesis, so I can’t say I’ve even heard of Bonanza Bros. or Comix Zone. So dear reader, tell me, they worth anything?

Despite the fact that Mario Party will soon be delivering its eighth revision, I still love this series. However, since I can identify the fact that the formula is getting tired, I have hopeful expectations for Mario Party 8. Today, Joystiq featured a preliminary hands-on article, in which they talked about a couple of the mini games to be featured. Judging from the comments of that article, I noticed a few things. First of all, most people are much less forgiving of this franchise than I. I have really had some fun times with friends and this game, even going back as far as high school. I guess you could say, I am a Mario Party softie. Secondly, most people went as far as actually demanding online playability. Don’t hold your breath. I’m guessing Nintendo would have said something about it by now, if it were to be online enabled. However, it really would be a perfect game to launch online playability, so I guess we’ll see. The game has been pushed back to the second Quarter, which could be evidence of adding this functionality. But as we all know, it’s Nintendo. They are always late to the Party. Finally, most people there seemed to be overly tired of mini-games on the Wii. I can almost agree with them, we’ve seen Rayman, Super Monkey Ball, and Wario Ware, and soon Wii Play, all rife with mini games. But I have to say, Mario Party 8 is the best time for Nintendo to come up with something new. I’m sure we will see lots of motion inspired mini-games. But I really feel this could be a pivotal title for the series. The games need to be fun and something new, the presentation has to be top notch, and a new board level strategy should be introduced. Mario Party 8 has the unique opportunity to either breathe new life into the series, or kill it.

Despite giving us a press release that says it would launch tomorrow, Nintendo has just released the News Channel. This makes me happy. Now I can check all the news and weather I want around the world, and my Wii Channel browser doesn’t have an annoying “Coming Soon” block in it. I haven’t gotten a chance to try it out, since I was kind of in a rush this morning, but Chris says it’s pretty nice. You can view all the news based on location down to a specific city. All of the news is provided by the AP. With its release, Nintendo completes the initial lineup of functionality for the launch window. I guess the big question is what’s next? There are some rumors about an original games channel.

In case you missed the original release of Lumines Live, check out my furious post about it. Basically it was split up into one substantial base purchase with followup addon packs to milk even more money from you. The people weren’t happy. Apparently Microsoft has heard the complaints, and the deceptive addons aren’t actually going to be 600 MS Points, as originally reported. Instead, they will all launch at the promotional price of 100 MS Points, and will be 300 MS Points after 2/21/07. Now instead of $37.50 for the total package, you are looking at $18.75. Not as ridiculous, but definitely not a microtransaction either. I have to say I am finally considering this game to be a viable purchase. I will post a comment if I get it.

Recently I purchased the EZFlash IV Lite Deluxe cart for my DS Lite to play homebrew applications and games, game backups, and other things. This review may go over some heads, but here are the basics. A flash cart, is basically an empty cartridge, that you can copy DS or GBA code too. Whether that code is made by you, by others, or is just a ROM backup is up to you. As mentioned before you can use it to run homebrew games and apps (which you can make), listen to and watch multimedia files, and play DS and GBA games. Click the Read More link for the full review.

Although I haven’t done much DS development lately, I’ve kept on eye on the scene. It’s definitely grown a lot with cool additions like Sgstair’s WiFi library, completely opening up the platform with a wireless communications library.. One reason I haven’t done much is that my current flash card (512 MBit EFA), is a full sized GBA cart which annoyingly sticks out of my DS Lite, and requires a PassMe to work. With my old style DS, I was able to do a FlashMe, or reflash the firmware of the device to open up homebrew applications. Flashing the firmware of the DS Lite is a little trickier and could possibly “brick” it, so I was hesitant to even try that method.

Given that so much has changed in the shady world of flash cartridges, I began looking around to see what was out, and decided on getting a new one. Enter the EZFlash IV Lite Deluxe. It is a flash cart that takes a micro-SD card, and fits flush in the GBA slot for your DS-Lite. What’s even better is that recently this cart has been bundled with a NoPass card. The NoPass card does the same thing a PassMe did, but is the size of a DS cartridge, and basically allows you to run DS code from the GBA slot. A while ago, I had purchased a micro-SD card for my cell phone, but I barely ever used it, so I figurde this would be a great way to use it. Just for reference, I am using a SanDisk 1 GB micro-SD card.

Packaging and Delivery
I ordered it from the popular Chinese retailer Winsunx. Make sure you register before you buy it, you can get 5% off your order. Considering that it came from China, it came very fast, I ordered it on a Thursday, and it came the next Tuesday (which was even the day after MLK Day). Packaging wasn’t bad. It just came in a cardboard box, but it was held by a plastic tray, so there was no “wiggle” room in the box. It came safe and worked perfect, and judging from the FedEx envelope, it had even been thrown around a bit.

Build Quality
I have a couple of tiny qualms with the construction quality, but it is very good. First of all, as you can see from the photo below, the color is just a pinch off. However, I barely notice with normal use. Also, there is one side of the EZFlash that feels like it is loose sometimes. Whenever that happens, I just squeeze it and it snaps back in place. However, given the normally low quality in electronics coming from China, this one is built pretty well. Other than those two tiny problems, everything else is fine.

EZ4 Kernel
For some reason, the EZTeam refers to what loads the ROMs on your DS as the “kernel”. Most people call this a “loader”, but I guess when in Rome.. When I got it, the latest version was 1.72. It’s a pretty simple interface; you select which ROM or App you want to run. No sweat. One thing that is cool, is that you can skin the interface, and make it look however you want. However, the skin is completely dependent upon the kernel, so whenever you want to change the skin, you have to update the kernel. And say you find a skin that someone made months ago that is really awesome; chances are it was built on an old kernel, and it won’t have all the functionality you need. (Voice of experience).

EZ4 Client
To be honest, none of these flash cartridges are that easy to use, when compared to standard American electronic device client software. But among the Chinese devices, EZFlash is pretty umm, well, easy. The client software is what you will need to use to load ROMs on your micro-SD card. It will automatically name the file properly, based on a database of ROMS, and add the appropriate save type to the saves directory. You see, every time you play a game, the flash cart has to manage the type and location of your save. So make sure you use the client software to copy over ROMS.

Homebrew
All the classic GBA homebrew stuff seemed to work perfect, like PocketNES. But some DS homebrew apps seemed to have trouble when data was saved using FAT. I have since read this has something to do with the way EZFlash addresses the micro-SD card, and they’ve released a special library of methods called EZ4FATLIB to address this issue. Apparently, this is a big problem considering there are a lot of different flash cards out there, all with different data access methods. Luckily, someone named Chishm came up with a Dynamically Linked Device Interface, or DLDI. Dev’rs can build their homebrew apps on the DLDI, then you can patch your ROM with the appropriate DLDI patch for your flashcart. For example, A program called DSLiveWeather just came out with DLDI support, and previously it was incompatible with the EZFlash IV. After patching it with the EZFlash IV DLDI patch, it works fine.

Multimedia
As I mentioned before, you can use a flash cart to view and listen to multimedia files. This is done with an amazing program called Moonshell. One caveat of the homebrew community is that there are usually more ideas than fully featured programs. In other words, people get great ideas, but never follow through and make a fully tested feature rich application. Moonshell is the exception. I first heard of it a couple of years ago, but it has evolved into a very stable all purpose shell program. Without performing any special conversions, you can use Moonshell to listen to MP3s, OGGs, NSFs, and SPCs, and you can view JPGs and BMPs. In order to watch a video, you need to convert it to DGP format, using the DGP conversion tools. They are pretty easy to use, and work great. You can even read books with Moonshell. Check out Moonbooks, a project aimed at getting public domain classics to be formatted for viewing on Moonshell. All you need to do is launch Moonshell from the EZFlash loader, and then you can select your files to read/view/watch/listen to. The only thing is, make sure you don’t load NDS files (DS ROMs) from Moonshell. I don’t know why, but I saw this on the EZFlash forums: “Do not attempt to run NDS Games via Moonshell, it can cause permanent damage to your EZ4 cart. “ I don’t like the sound of that.

GBA Compatibility
One reason I chose the EZFlash IV, aside from its aesthetics, was its superior GBA compatibility. Other smaller, Slot-1 solutions exist, but as of yet, none will allow you to play GBA ROMs on them. Not only does EZFlash support GBA, it has among the highest compatibility as far as number of save types, and games it supports. I believe the only drawback is the lack of an RTC (Real Time Clock). However, as far as I know, only Pokemon games even use that feature. So all those great GBA games I loved I can play without hauling around a ton of bulky cartridges. If GBA compatibility doesn’t matter to you, check out the EZFlash V, it’s a Slot-1 flash cart made by the same people.

Storage
The fact that I can use a micro-SD card is great. It makes the storage cheaper, and upgradeable. 1 GB is pretty big for these ROMs, I can put dozens of DS and GBA games, hundreds of NES Games, Homebrew Apps, A few music albums, a couple of full length movies, and still have plenty of room left.

Conclusion
Altogether, the EZFlash IV Lite Deluxe is a wonderful little device. There is almost no end to the number of fun and innovative things you can do with it. I completely recommend it. The only time I would say not to get it, is if you aren’t interested in playing GBA ROMs. The EZFlash V just recently came out. It is a Slot-1 device (Size of a DS cart), that also uses a micro-SD card. However, there is no GBA support.

Product Information
EZFlash IV Lite Deluxe Bundle Package (Jet Black) - Winsunx ($45)
1 GB SanDisk Micro-SD (TF) Card - Newegg ($26.99)

Pros
Superior GBA compatibility
Fits DS Lite perfect
Micro-DS allows high capacity and extendibility
Decent DS/GBA ROM loading software
Low Price

Cons
Some Homebrew FAT Incompatibilities
Some concerns with construction quality

Nintendo is all about getting the word about DS Lite out to the non gamer generation. The latest publicity stunt, err, I mean promotion, gives a free DS Lite and Brain Age to 100 “Ageless” Americans. They are 100 people aged 54-100 who “run marathons and tame lions. They are stuntmen and NASCAR racers. They don’t let their chronological age define who they are, and they set a positive role model for people of all ages.” You know what I’m talking about. They got spunk, moxie, pizazz, zip, gusto, and all that jazz. Check out the press release for a full list of recipients and accomplishments. Ironically, I wonder how many of these will end up on eBay.

Press Release

I always get a kick out of which Google searches direct someone to my blog. But according to a recent post from a fellow blogger, I do it to make fun of my readers, and inflate my ego. I had no idea. I really think he is just looking to force an argument. I find them funny not because I am ridiculing the actual search, but because a piece of software guessed someone was looking for my site, when they clearly weren’t. Aside from that, I find all the data to be interesting, not a way to inflate my ego. Well, let’s do something different today. Here are where my readers are from.

United States - 21
United Kingdom - 6
Canada - 4
Germany - 1
Malaysia - 1
Belgium - 1
Netherlands - 1
Sweden - 1