DXF GAMES                                                                     Last Updated: 09/4/08

  

Maintained by: Dave                                                                                                                                                                                          "Hasslevania 2 is next!"

Hasslevania History thread from GameFAQs, courteousy of kevinski (archived)

Hasslevania on the Castlevania Wiki

 

Site Navigation:

About DXF Games  Who are we? What are we doing here? What's the deal?

Games List  Hey, this is what I do for fun! Why don't you check them out for yourself?

Equin Village Homepage  This game took me over 3 years to finish. It has a lot to it, which is why it has its very own section here!

Hasslevania Homepage My homage to Castlevania and other great games, mixed in with my brain. Take a look!

Reviews and Interviews   Some of you were gracious enough to write game reviews for DXF! If you want to submit one, mail it to me and see it here!

Necropolis Rising Homepage  Take control of an evil necromancer who's just arisen from the grave to restart a war against humanity- and win it this time.

Contact Us  Do you have a game comment or pricing question? Maybe you're stuck on one of our games? E-mail DXF Games and get answers quickly!

Daxon's Allies: (Affiliates) 

                                                      Latest News!

07/16/08: Hot on the heels of the Hasslevania 2 announcement comes the 10th donator to the DXF Games Development fund, Norig K! Thanks Norig, and I hope the map of Hasslevania helps you win it. I think I might have to make a whole separate donators page soon, which would be just fine by me! Actually, that would be pretty fun to do..

07/13/08: The secret game I've been working on is HASSLEVANIA 2: THIS SPACE FOR RENT. It's been a very long time coming, and will continue to be as even with more help than I had before it still won't be ready until 2009 at least. I'm taking my time with this one, and trying to get it "right" this time. I'm not going to play spoiler to my own game, but it does take place right after the events at the end of Hasslevania: The Quest for Shuteye. The plot moves in some very surprising directions, and for the most part is a lot deeper and a whole lot bigger than the original game. I'm taking existing elements from the first game and slapping them into a whole-new game universe to explore. Any other public updates I will post here.

06/30/08: Hello again on this, the last day of June. Three important things to announce in no particular order of importance: I received another donation to the DXF Games donation fund from Kyle H. Thanks again Kyle, and enjoy your new map of Hasslevania!! The 2nd order of business is that I only have 3 more animations for my hero's sprites and then it's ALL DONE! This has taken me months to finish (not solidly, for mentality's sake). Lastly, while waiting for my wife (she was in a shoe store- SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF) I went into a local Gamestop. Like I always do I asked around for the only GBA Castlevania I've yet to own, Circle of the Moon. THEY HAD IT!! It was only $9.99 so I scooped it up right away. I figure since I have about 20 hours of OT coming up this week that should cover the cost at the very least. I'm not very far into it yet but it's pretty challenging so far. Stupid Cerebus of doom...

06/24/08: Hey everybody, I just want to welcome the newest of Daxon's Allies 8-Bit City. And lookie here, so starts the 2nd row of the ally list! 8BC is a blog run by Heronblade, another GameFAQs regular. It's about what else- video games! In particular, some oldies that are big influences of mine, notably Legacy of the Wizard (see my trials below). Speaking of which I still need to grab that elusive 4th crown. Right now the only thing more elusive than that crown is the time in which to actually get the thing. And now, back to more Family Feud!

06/21/08: Last night I worked on more animations for the last of the hero sprites. As usual, I got bored after about an hour of doing this so I went and picked up where I left off 4 or 5 months ago on NES classic Legacy of the Wizard., which is one of my all-time favorite NES games. I forgot where I was in the game and what exactly I had to do next. I didn't want to cheat (a la savestates with NES Castlevania a little while ago), so I didn't use any FAQ or guide and went by (poor) memory alone. Needless to say I played the thing for about 3 or 4 hours straight and managed, somehow, to get Xemn (the father) to this crown in the picture below. All of the platforms to get to this thing were much higher than he could jump, and there was only one of those movable white blocks on the left side of the screen (not pictured). To make matters worse, one slip and you drop down into the next screen and have a hellish climb to get back up. I had to smash my guy against one of the ceiling enemies (also pictured) just in order to get enough of a boost to jump up and to the right where the chest with the crown was. I couldn't believe I actually did it, which is why this screenshot exists. I also can't believe I won this thing many times long ago without any map or guide!

06/19/08: FINALLY I'm on the last of the hero's sprites for the game in progress! I tell ya', having your gear show up on the hero is cool to look at, but if it isn't time consuming as hell. I also plan on letting everyone in on just what this secret game is in a few weeks or so. It won't be completed for quite awhile but I feel it's far enough along now that I can reveal to all 25 of you what it is. Like when a fetus gets eyes or bones!

06/15/08: Don't adjust your sets, but there was another donation made to the DXF Games development fund! A big thanks goes out to Jeff L! Enjoy your new map of Hasslevania, Jeff! In other news, the Rush concert was awesome as always! Forgetting my camera I had to borrow one of Rush's official pictures of the show. (of course they don't check cameras when I don't bring mine). I had to guess about where we were sitting. The seats were about 20 rows further back than I thought they would've been, but you could still see everybody. Neil continues to amaze / impress, with a totally new drum solo for this 2nd leg of the tour. It was really different- It didn't even end with the traditional Neil Gong-(tm)!! He was also playing some of it to the rhythm of the pre-chorus part of Distant Early Warning, or at least it sounded like it to me. He had this quiet bit in the middle using some sort of vibraphone sound mixed in with these little fills. I hope somehow this solo gets on the eventual live DVD later this year.

06/08/08: Well, I finally won the original NES Castlevania! (With save state assistance, unfortunately but it was the only way). The ending was really weak, especially for a game this tough. And then they throw you back into the first stage (only it's now called Stage 20) and there's random bats that make it even harder. Yeah, so I quit after about 5 minutes of that haha. After working pretty hard on more animations for the secret game yesterday I went back and played through some more of my old Richter save file on SotN. I went through the castle and killed maybe 7 or 8 bosses, but then I just kind of got bored with it so I shut it off. I then went and dug out my copy of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness which I hadn't played in about 2 years or so. Let me tell the uninitiated: This is the most complicated game ever created, even for a strategy game. Since it'd been so long since I last played the thing, it was a bit intimidating trying to remember just how to play it, so I had to go back to some really early (and easy) levels and get my bearings back. I ended up playing it for about 3 hours and although more complex than actual "rocket science" it's one of the great SRPGs ever. The voice overs are pretty cheesy too. I wonder where I've heard that before?...

06/05/08: I have some Castlevania news, and that is I finally won Portrait of Ruin the other day. It's a great game, but there are way too many freeze glitches / crashes that keep popping up and force me to shut the thing off. They all seem to be tied to Jonathan's subweapons. I can't believe the game made it to market with such obvious problems but it's still much better than I could do. (Of course they had hundreds professionals working on it day and night...) And in keeping up with the whole Castlevania theme, I finally went back and seriously tried to win the original NES Castlevania. Now back in the day I could never get anywhere in this game. Thankfully due to ROMs (deleted after 24 hours, of course!) and the miracle of the save state (or is it CURSE?) I was able to get all the way up to the final battle with Impossible Dracula. Um, I mean COUNT DRACULA! Anyhow, I didn't know the layout for any of the later stages and save-stated with 4 health just before the battle with Death / Grim Reaper. Holy crap I must have died almost 100 times before I finally beat him. Little did I know that all of his attacks do exactly 4 damage, meaning my Simon was in OHK land for hours. How anyone could ever beat this game on the original console without throwing it out a window I'll never know. Dracula.. HA! I can't even take more than 3 or 4 bars of life off of him before he kills me, and now I learn that there's a SECOND form too? Oh man, give me my Simon's Quest or SotN anyday over this. I'll go back and try to win the game again later, but it's way too late now! (And they said Hasslevania was hard? They must not have played CV1).

06/03/08: Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye has been listed as a Rush reference on the official Power Windows website! You can see it listed at the very bottom here. Power windows is a very respected site, so this is a great honor to me! As far as the new game goes, I'm making good progress. Right now time spent on it is mostly for the character sprite animations (at the rate of about 1 or 2 a night). Taking it slower is great, as I'm not getting burned out at all. This will make for a much better (and bigger!) game overall when it's done.

05/30/08: Lately there's been a ton of hits from Canadians- and I'm not talking about hockey here! Can somebody drop me a line and let me know where you heard of DXF Games, specifically if it's on a Canadian site? (Send the e-mail to: DXFgames@gmail.com) Hasslevania was also mentioned on The Punisher's blog and there were a ton of hits from both Spain and Mexico last week. Seems the word's getting spread, and I can't complain about that! EDIT: I found out where the hits were coming from, and it's a reposting of the Darren Gladstone article from PCWorld back in April about Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye. This particular Canadian-style article can be found here. And if for some weird reason one of the actual members of Rush reads this, guys can you swap out something and play The Enemy Within or Countdown for your June shows? Hint, hint!(I'm not asking for TCE, what am I crazy? Haha!)

05/12/08 (b): I also wanted to mention that Hasslevania has been included on the Castlevania wiki under fan games. You can check it out here. The links will be put on my homepage as well as the Hasslevania homepage for future reference.

05/12/08 (a): Quickly becoming MovieReviews.com or something, I saw (count them) four movies this weekend. The only theater one was the new Harold & Kumar, mostly due to the fact that it now costs at least $40 to take your sweetie out. Nothing like $14 popcorn, m&ms and ONE sprite, eh? The movie? It was pretty funny the first half, and then mostly blah for the second half. The others were rental jobs: Friday Night Lights, Juno, and There Will be Blood. All I'll say about those 3 is that they were all better than No Country for Old Men (vastly over-rated IMO.) and all not nearly as good as the last really great movie I've seen 3:10 to Yuma. There Will Be Blood, while definately well-acted, was a bit of a "WTF is up with this movie?" movie. It's one of those movies that ends exactly where you hope a movie doesn't end, and has you asking a million questions during the credit roll. Not enough was explained. It's based on a book called "Oil", so I guess I'll have some reading to do sometime soon. Juno was good, but it was just your "good indie movie-tm" nothing more really. At least a stripper penned it. There's something to be said about that! Nothing worth 4 oscar nominations, but that's my opinion of course and certainly not the majority. Friday Night Lights was good (and nothing like the TV show if you've seen it) but the end, again, was a "Why the hell did it end like that?!" movie. I know it's based on a true story but C'MON! Oh, and the ball bounced, it wasn't a catch! Good thing they have instant replay nowadays. Oh yeah, and I'm making a game too!

05/07/08: Hmmm, well the bad thing about working on a "secret project" is you can't really do too many of these can you? So let's just say I'm still working hard on it. In other news I saw Iron Man at the late late show this weekend with Ninja Brad and HOLY SH*T it was way better than I thought it'd be. Unlike Transformers which was all EFX, Iron Man had a great story and incredible acting to boot. Robert Downey Jr. made the role of Tony Stark really work, and now there's nobody else who'll ever do the character justice. (See also Christopher Reeve vs. Brandon Routh as Superman). I'd put this as my #2 favorite comic book movie of all time, behind Superman 2 (which'll never be topped) and just in front of Spiderman 2. I guess I'll do another post when I see another movie since I can't do one about the secret game, right?

04/26/08: DXF Games has a new corporate sponsor in PROPAGNE brand drinks! Founded in 1922 in Brooklyn, NY, their motto "Fuel both you AND your forklifts!" rings true to this day. I'm proud to have them aboard! So order up a cylinder, carefully open the brass valve fitting, and tip back a 50-lb cold one tonight!

04/22/08: Vitality, Vigor, and Vim. I think that's right? Anyhow, I've really been pumped about this new project lately and there doesn't appear to be any of the dreaded "solo programmer on stupidly huge project" burnout factor anywhere in sight. For those of you who want to know what it is I'm working on, I'll just say it's pretty cool. Ah yes, a description worthy of kings! Speaking of kings, can I just say that Rush's new live album Snakes & Arrows Live ROCKS THE HOUSE. I don't know how Geddy can nail the high parts of Circumstances like he does on it, it's really something. If downtuning their instruments a half step (or a whole step?) is all it takes to get a vocal performance like that from an older tune, I say keep that "special" red bass out the whole show and play some Hemispheres, Necromancer, or Enemy Within! You guys could still add a song or two by June right? Wink wink say no more..

04/16/08: Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye has won The Daily Click's Game of the Week #278. Thanks to everybody who voted for it! They covered up Neil's face but I guess with a name that long it was inevitable. The new game has another giant name too, but that won't be disclosed for quite awhile.

04/09/08: Hasslevania 2 and the special edition are being put on indefinite hiatus for now, as they require just much too much time for me to do them right by myself. However, I am currently working on something new that's pretty special and different. I want to try to make this a surprise so don't expect too many updates here on what it is until much later. It's going to explore a time in history I'm very interested in personally, but there will be a lot of artistic license, to say the least hahaha. It's also not going to feature any famous people in it, rock drummers or otherwise. All I'll say is it's original, and an RPG. I haven't made an RPG in years so I figure it's time to get going on this one. Oh, and I fixed my webhit counter, finally!

04/08/08: Sorry for the delay, but on Sunday I had exceeded my 1GB bandwidth here (!!) That's never happened in almost 3 years of DXFitude. First things, a big thanks goes out to Kenton P, the newest donator to DXF Games! Whether he's a Rush fan, or a Hasslevania fan, enjoy your new Hasslevania map! Also, if you want to make a donation you should know that I primarily use gmail to contact you, and some people have gmail blocked. If I get an error return message, I'll use my netzero account the next day. Thanks!

04/04/08: Shroomlock over at The Daily Click did a review for Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye and it scored a 7/10. It's not too bad of a score, as I guess I could have made some better choices for the main menu and a better story text display. But guys, it's Neil Peart, the best drummer of all time! I think that counts towards something too. A giant story is fine, he deserves nothing less IMO. EDIT: Wow, what a weird coincidence but the same game has been mentioned on PC World's website today too! (The giant spike in website activity here was a dead giveaway something was up.)At least this guy knows where I'm coming from with the Peart love hahaha, check out both reviews on the DXF Games review page.

04/01/08: No, it's no April Fool's joke. No, John Madden won't be appearing in any sidebar here soon (although wouldn't that be great). It's my latest game, Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye, and it's out right now! Check out the games page to download the puppy. If TigSource shaman Derek Yu poops on this game too, at least it only took me 2 months to make this time! And since it's a free game, Yuuuuuuu won't regret it! Thanks be to RUSH, and let's hope they celibrate the 30th anniversary of Hemispheres by playing the actual song when I see them this summer! It's all good! Weeeeeee haaaaaaahhh!!!

3/31/08: It's finally done! Now comes some mre testing, but so far it's passing with flying colors. Look for Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye either Wednesday or Thursday of this week! Thanks for the support everybody!

3/27/08: THE END IS NEAR! Well, for Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye it is. (I don't know about the asteroid hurtling towards Earth, ask later.) The game only has to be tested by someone other than me and the ending finalized. It's funny but for somebody who preaches gameplay over story constantly, this game has a pretty huge story, for an arcade game. The ending alone should be worth the price of admission, and unlike probably every other game I've ever made this one isn't terribly hard to beat. Look for the game to arrive sometime next week!

3/19/08: Appologies for all the downtime lately, but Sitesled does that occasionally. Rush's new concert double CD "Snakes and Arrows Live" is due out April 8th. Although not guaranteed, I'd like to release Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye around the same time too. I think I can realistically finish it by then and it'd be nice to have it be on the same day that their album comes out. I did this once before with Necropolis Rising IIRC (the same day an Oils compilation CD was released). I did a lot of work on the interface of NPMTCE, mostly how Neil now builds his drumset on the side of the screen instead of my previous crappy numerical representation that existed before. Some things had to be switched around a bit to make this work. A shot:

3/11/08: I'd guess that Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye should be out within a couple of weeks tops. Progress is going great on it, but I probably won't be updating the devlog below too many more times from now until then. In other news, Diablo 2 is still one of the best games ever and I've restarted after about a year off with a new Summonancer (which I've never tried out before). Here it is, about 7 years later and the game's still going strong online. I'm doing the single player offline campaign now, which is cool because dupes, hacks, and PKers ruined b.net for me. With the latest patch installed I should only be missing out on the ladder items and anni, which isn't too bad. I can't remember if Uber Trist is available offline but that's a long way off from now.

3/05/08: Oh, quickly here's the devlog for Neil Peart- Mission the Camera Eye. THE DEVLOG! This should be updated on a sort of regular basis, more or less. Sitesled's perpetual downtime lately is unfortunate, but hopefully it's overwith now.

3/01/08: And of course no sooner do I disclose the release date for the latest version of Hasslevania when Sitesled blows up. So, since the site has basically been down the entire time since my last post, I'm a little late. But hey, it's still March 1st so nobody can complain too much. (The game IS free afterall.). And so, without further ado, Hasslevania Version 3!!

2/28/08: Hasslevania Version 3's release date is going to be this Saturday, March 1st! Be on the lookout! In other news, Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye has new finished opening story cutscenes and a brand new MIDI remix version of the song "Xanadu" (from them, not Olivia Newton-John!). It was pretty tough to take an awesome 10 minute prog epic and turn it into 1 and a half minutes of cheesy video game music, but I think I did a decent job of it. I used my Midi Maker program to make it from scratch, as there is so much liberty with the thing it kind of needed to be made from scratch anyways. I have most of the song parts in there, but the arrangement is very different. If anything, it's better than playing the game with no music at all. Or IS it?

2/23/08: Work is going well for Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye! I added a new power tonight, The Necromancer, who looks a lot like DXF's own from Necropolis Rising. So far the confirmed Note Powers for Neil are: Available Light, The Necromancer, Hold Your Fire, Chemistry, Something for Nothing, Marathon, Countdown, Vital Signs, Test For Echo, Coldfire, and Time Stand Still. There are still a few more I want to add before it's done. I also did a lot of work on the graphics to make some parts look better, especially the temporary white squares that served as Xanadu's dungeon boundaries. So far, so good.

2/19/07: While Hasslevania Version 3 is being tested, I am working on a new little arcade-y style game devoted to one of my favorite bands, RUSH! Maybe mostly for die-hards to totally get all the references, this new game takes place in the year 2111, New Year's Eve. Finally being invited to play at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, everyone thinks RUSH will play 2112 in its entirety (yes, they are all 160+ years old by then but just go with it). But drumming God Neil Peart has a last minute change of heart and wants to play The Camera Eye as a show of thanks to the fans for almost 200 years of support. Horrified, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson lock Neil backstage and take apart his giant 101 piece drumset, teleporting it into the icy caves of Xanadu (this is the future, teleporters exist!) Your goal is to guide Neil into Xanadu and recover and rebuild his huge kit in time for the big show! The title for this game is called "Neil Peart- Mission: The Camera Eye" and if all goes well should be out in a couple of weeks. I'm having a ball working on it, so that's helping a lot. I'm using a NES-style font and similar screen dimensions (320 x 240), but not the limited color palette that I originally intended. Here's what I have for the working title screen of the game right now:

2/13/08: Well, Klickcast #5 is out now, which has my interview at the end. There's a lot of footage of Hasslevania version 3 in the background and most of it came out really well. Take a look at the Klickcast's download page here.

2/10/08: The Special Edition has a new minor enemy now, the electric eel. Not too tough most of the time, but they can discharge a big burst of electricity which can pack a big whallop vs. Rovert. So far the only ones in the game inhabit the area I'm working on now, the Spooky Sub, but like the Skor-peons before them some might make their way into older areas of Hasslevania later. Also the Daily Click's new Klickcast should be out either later today or really soon, and I did an interview for them in it that contains some more about Version 3 and the Special Edition.

2/05/08: Hey everybody! First off, a big thanks to the latest DXF Games donator, Thomas S! Thank you, and enjoy your new map of Hasslevania and a spot on the list for the Hasslevania Special Edition!! Speaking of the game, I made a brand new minor enemy for it last night, and it came out great IMO. What I'm going to do, is list the special edition areas and enemies right along with the enemies in the previous versions, but have notation so you can tell which is for what. In fact, I've just made new ammendments to the Hasslevania enemy and area lists now!

1/30/08 (b): As far as the Hasslevania Special Edition goes, well, it's going well! Although it won't be ready for at least another 4 or 5 months at best guess, I have decided how it's going to be distributed. Any person who makes a donation to my DXF Games development fund will receive an e-mail from me which will include a link to the special edition game (when it's been completed). This offer is retroactive, so anybody who has already made a donation (5 of you, woo hoo!) already has the game coming to you! I feel this is a great way to reward people who have figured out that life's more than the XBOX360 and the latest OMFG Hi-end mega PC games.

1/30/08 (a): Back to the grindstone, and after some much needed time away from stuff, I have an announcement about Hasslevania to make. First, there is going to be another free version coming out soon enough. This Hasslevania Version 3 will be the last free copy of the game available to the public and includes a bit more bug fixes, but has two really great improvements that I've figured out how to do with Hasslevania 2 and thought might be nice in the original. You'll now get forward progress while swiging a weapon in mid air (you won't fall like a brick straight down now) and a brand new damage model for how Rovert takes injuries. Now when he gets hit, a little holy force field comes up (It's holy! Wow!) that makes him damage immune for about 4 seconds. Sounds easy, trust me these were tedious as hell to add but the end result seems to be very worth it. The other big change for version 3 is the omission of the Original Orange challenge, which is now replaced by the old Vanilla mode. This was mostly because there was no "normal" game mode in version 2, just easy, new game +, and a bunch of challenges. OVERSIGHT! Laughs aside, thanks to everyone who has expressed their condolences for my loss this past week.

1/24/08: I kind of have some really bad news. One of my cousins was murdered this week. From what I can gather, she was living with some older guy who has involvement with some stupid gang. The guy was physically abusive to her as well. I'm not going to harp on this, but all I can say is that if someone you love appears to be in domestic trouble, please try to talk to them and get them help if possible. Everybody makes some bad choices in life, but try to remember that we all start out as innocent little boys and girls and nobody deserves this. R.I.P. Shannon, nobody can hurt you now.

1/18/08: The big news is that I'm working on a Hasslevania Special Edition currently. Fixes and improvements to the engine are foremost (like being able to swing your weapons while jumping through the air and not fall straight down like a brick). There will also be new areas, bosses, items, and more! A complete list will be a while away from now, but it is important to note that this special edition (which is the core game + all the additions and changes as one product) will not be free this time. Hasslevania version 2 (the latest available) will remain free of course, but once again the special edition will not be. The price is TBA, but it's going to be pretty low. I won't predict when the special edition is going to be ready, but when the time is right you'll know.

1/15/08: Well, now it's even more official, lookie what I found:

Click on the above picture to take you to their article of 101 free games or something. I wish somebody from MS would have let me know this was coming up so I could get my secret update ready in time. Ooops! It's a secret I forgot, doh. More on this later, once I get over the shock of having one of my games in a big O-fficial rag like this one.

1/13/08: Hey everybody, so it looks like Hasslevania was mentioned in Games for Windows magazine Issue #15, Feburary 2008. That's cool! Also I want to give a big thanks to newest donator to the cause Rob B from my home state of Ohio! Thanks buddy, and enjoy your new Hasslevania map! I have an announcement of sorts but it's not ready yet. Stay tuned for more later.

1/12/08: There's rumblings that Hasslevania was mentioned somewhere in a Games for Windows magazine recently, but as of right now I can't seem to find the exact source on the internet anywhere. If you're here through the advice of that article, drop me a line at dxfgames@gmail.com and let me know what mag you saw the article in ok? Thanks! Also, it looks like the game was included on the free DVD for Level magazine. The guy who made the thing is always the last to know everything! What gives? I fling poop at thee! *THWAP*!

1/1/08: Happy New Year's! It's official now that Kevin B must have had a lot of wine last night and made a generous donation to the DXF Games development fund! Thanks Kevin!! Those 2 weapons have now been coded, and they both have special properties that work against different types of enemies. A lot of these new weapons do. I had way too much sleep for once so I am up very early this morning before yet another 12 hour day at work.. Hopefully one day Miyamoto will deliver me from that place altogether!  And since I know my work checks up on me here all the time, HIRE MORE PEOPLE, WILL YA!? We'd like to go back to a normal work week sometime this century!

12/27/07: Thanks for your continuing support of Hasslevania with your gameplay questions! I'll always try to answer them as soon as I can. I've almost gotten 2 of the new weapons finished for Hasslevania 2 and they came out pretty cool. One thing to note is that I've made the short sword in this game smaller than it was in the original Hasslevania. It just didn't seem like much of an actual short sword, since the thing is almost as big as Rovert was. Although you'd think that making a weapon smaller would suck, it actually looks a lot better this way. I think maybe this has to do with the fact that I've wanted to make this alteration for a long time now, but wasn't able to with the first game because everything was so intergrated. The best part about starting over is being able to make all of those needed additions I wanted to from way back.

12/22/07: I don't know if there'll be any huge ground-breaking announcements for awhile while Hasslevania 2 is kept under wraps, so until then I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (how generic!). Stay warm, stay safe, and thanks for coming back to DXF Games- the most popular website at my house!

12/16/07: Rikus was kind enough to put his video review of Hasslevania to text format up at the Daily Click and I've now added that review on the DXF Games reviews page. In Hasslevania 2 news, kevinski has had some excellent ideas on how to help improve Rovert's control scheme, and I've been trying to make the changes and get everything working properly. On a very early test, the results are very positive! The changes to the control scheme now give me a couple of more options to give Rovert some extra types of moves. He can now look upwards, for example, and it's going to be the first step in some nifty linked moves. The early idea is to have activating the high jump tie in with looking upwards first, instead of the old way of high jumping while coming out of a crouch (which sometimes made players do a high jump by accident while ducking down to avoid arrows and the like.) I'm hard at work, but the best part is that everything is still fresh and fun now. I better make the best use of this time before the eventual "dread and burnout" phase arrives later!

12/15/07: The Daily Click has a new Klikcast episode out (#4) and Hasslevania is featured as a video review in it! I also made up a little "Very Rovert Christmas" scene that plays out at the end of the episode. If you'd like to download the episode, you can check it out on its page here.

12/10/07: I suppose it's important to say a bit about the Hasslevania sequel. I'll say that the story is shaping up nicely for one. It's pretty interesting and is very different than that of the first game, which should be expected. Kevinski has some great ideas on new types of obstacles and ways for Rovert to move around. And oh yeah I thought of some good stuff too! And this may not be too popular but the sequel is also going to be a pay game with a free demo. I'd be a fool not to do so, what with the original Hasslevania with download totals far exceeding 10,000 units. As I've always done with my pay games, it will have a low price tag. Right now I'm working on the inventory / status screen for it, although technically my last session was cut short after a bad bout with stomach pains & intense nausea for about 3 hours. I hope it was the damn milk, because I tossed the rest of it this morning haha. Anyways, for the second time now in a few months the forces of imperfect food sources have tried to defeat me and I held them back (more successfully this last time). Hasslevania 2 shall not be derailed by tainted hot chocolate or poisoned cream of mushroom soup!

12/6/07: BLAH! Another bug! I don't know how I missed this before, because I was so sure it worked fine, but no. If you're playing a "Sans Devil" run in Hasslevania and go into where the devil normally is, his old conversation will still pop up even though he's not there! Although this might sound harmless, after the speech is done with, the game freezes up. The only way to right yourself is to exit the game by either pressing the "Q" or "F2" keys. I suppose for now all I can say is that if you're playing a Sans Devil game, well, don't go in his old room and you'll be fine. I don't want to have to take down and put up ANOTHER version of Hasslevania again, but what I'll do is make a list of any other bugs that other people have found and will go back sometime in the future and make the appropriate fixings. I'm just too busy right now, and the game is mostly very solid as it is.

12/4/07 (b): The second project is still in its early developmental stages, but I will say that the game is called HASSLEVANIA 2: THIS SPACE FOR RENT. To help make the game as good as it can be, I've enlisted the great kevinski (of some fine Hasslevania elements such as the Gala Moth, skelevator, and brittles ideas to name a few) to assist me with the overall design elements of the sequel. So far the two of us have come up with some great ideas and I think fans of the original game will be in for a treat. You're going to be seeing a lot of changes and at the same time instantly recognize the characters, artwork, and writing style of the first game. With a release date absolutely nowhere in sight, we'll have the proper time to ensure that Hasslevania 2 kicks giant amounts of ass!

12/4/07 (a): Once again proving that fans of DXF Games are the smartest fans in the world is Tim R, the latest person to make a donation to the DXF Games development fund! Thank you Tim, and have fun with your new map!! There are 2 projects in the works as we speak here at DXF Games, and both are Hasslevania related. The first one is going to be a Christmas short that will open up the next installment of The Daily Click's Klickcast Episode! The Klickcast is a summary of the month's events and games released during it, and features interviews from up and coming indie developers and vets alike. This one is of special interest to me though because it's going to feature a video review of Hasslevania! I've asked Ninja Bradley, who is of course THE voice of Rovert himself (among others) to assist me with his vocal talents for this Christmas short and he's agreed to do so. If all goes well, we should be able to get the voices down to tape this upcoming Sunday, and I should have the short done soon afterwards.

12/2/07: Hasslevania has won The Daily Click's game of the week award #262! I would really like to thank those who took the time to vote for it there! Hopefully the sequel can win as well, in the year 2009 or so. I consider the award to be an honor, and also fuel to continue making games for the people. Also, old mascot "Killer" the guinea pig has been sent off to the glue factory and replaced by new mascot Chris Subdevil. It was about time, eh?

12/1/07: I made up a great new challenge for myself yesterday and it's probably the toughest in Hasslevania so far. It's called the Manditory Run, where you just try to get things that you need to win the game and nothing else. There were a few choices to be made to do this and I think I picked the correct ones to give me the ultra-low 9% completion percentage after I won it. I could have maybe got 1 or 2% less but I accidentally did a codebook out of order and had to pick up an unskippable apple. I also got the treasure hoarde to avoid having to smash tons of candles for the $3000 axe all day. The weirdest part is that you can only really do this sanely on the new Wussy Schoolgirl mode. The healing coffins make it so that you don't have to constantly save and buy food from Oldie, since you can't pick up any food you find on the ground or in chests. You're also stuck with the same 8 max skill hearts you start out with, which means 4 high jumps maximum before you need to refill your hearts back up. It's an excellent challenge to try out, but you really need to think about the order you do things in more than usual, and jump over a few treasures as not to pick them up by mistake! Here's 2 screenshots of when I was done:

11/29/07: There's a new member of Daxon's Allies as of today, and that's Planet Freeplay! The guy there has been a big supporter of Hasslevania even before Rovert was a twinkle in his grandaddy's eye, so it's the least I can do to add his banner above. I almost lost my cell phone for good today, and when I called it I got directly sent to voicemail. The default girl's recorded voice came over the line and said "The person you are trying to reach.."  COUNT... DRACULA!!!! "is not available at this time." Oh man, I had completely forgot that I had recorded my voicemail name like that, with the voice and everything hahahaha. Thankfully the phone was not completely lost or taken by somebody, or that could have been a bit embarrassing going to meet them to get it back.

11/28/07: For the second day in a row somebody made a donation to DXF! Let's all thank Alec S! Enjoy your new map of  Hasslevania! And you can use your new map on the brand new HASSLEVANIA VERSION 2 which is out right now! There were some bug fixes and some minor graphical updates sure, but the most important change is that the game mode "Vanilla" has been changed to none other than "Wussy Schoolgirl"! Hooray! This new game mode is specially designed for players who are new to Hasslevania. It's still tough, but Rovert can get healed up to 50% of his life whenever he saves inside a coffin now! The trade off is that you can't get the good ending playing the "Wussy Schoolgirl" mode, but you can with any of the other 4 (or 5 if you also include the game mode that becomes available after you win the game). Hasslevania's already been downloaded thousands of times, and now it's time to try Version 2!

11/27/07: First and foremost, thank you Ed S. who was awesome and made a donation to the DXF Games development fund! I hope you enjoy your new map! I'm going to be putting up a Hasslevania version 2 soon. There was a bug that was discovered and it had been missed like 100 billion playthroughs before but it has to be fixed. It might not even happen to you while playing, but just in case here's what it is: In the LCD Tower, when you get to talk to Me Sued Ya the 2nd time around, well if you didn't kill the top most brittles with the Family Whip and just smashed him into a pile instead he can and will get up again and eventually walk over and damage or possibly kill Rovert during the cutscene! Sounds nasty to me, so this has to be repaired right away. You can still press ESC to skip past that scene but you'd miss out on some great parts of the Story that are pretty important to the game. I'll keep everybody posted as to when Version 2 will be ready to go, and thanks for the bug find Fifth!

11/25/07 (b): I've received an awesome review of Hasslevania from somebody who has won it this afternoon! It's from shockedfrog and it's now up on the games review page too with Shroomlock's. Oh, and the prize for anybody who donates to the DXF Games development fund is none other than a big screenshot map of Hasslevania in its entirety except for the elusive WTF Zone, which has been discovered by shockedfrog and Kaluroth so far. I'm going to go and buy a brand new notebook tomorrow morning while my car's at the dealer's and start going crazy on the thing with all the ideas and stuff I have planned for Hasslevania: Episode 2, This Space for Rent. I hope I can do my vision justice because right now my vision is pretty friggin' cool! Ahahaha....?

11/25/07 (a): I've been trying to promote Hasslevania on every message board that I can think of that its users would be remotely interested in. It's basically like a 3 hour endeavor every night before going to bed but it's a lot of fun to do. I just added another review of Hasslevania to the game reviews page, and it's another one from Shroomlock over at The Daily Click. I've also been answering more gameplay e-mail questions when I can. It's good to see that many people are indeed sticking it out through any difficulties and trying to win the game. There's even been a few more who have indeed won the whole thing! I'm in the process of making something that will be a small "Thank You" to those of you who have donated to the DXF Games development fund already. Be on the lookout for the reward soon!

11/23/07: I think what I'm going to do if I get enough donations is purchase Multimedia Fusion 2. I figure with its advanced features over MMF1.5 I could do a lot of spiffy stuff in a Hasslevania sequel- of which I'm starting to compile a ton of great ideas for. So much for a total game making vacation, right? I've added a few things to the site, most notably Derek Yu's review from TigSource and what I condsider an absolutely fantastic quote of criticism from Krinkle also over at TigSource about the 120MB of voiceovers on Hasslevania. Somehow I really like it and put it up on my Hasslevania Homepage's splash page as a tribute. Now that's weird!

11/22/07: All I can say is WOW! Hasslevania has been downloaded over 1700 times- from just the first mirror alone!!! (Thanks Dr. James for the awesome stat by the way!!) In minor celebration I've uploaded two new pictures for the "Information" and "Enemies" pages over on the Hasslevania Homepage. I have been trying hard to spread the word about the game on different message boards that are semi related to Castlevania in hopes for more future fans of the game. There have been a few of you who have e-mailed some gameplay questions and I have answered each one. I've spent so much time making the game that I don't think I'll ever be able to totally remove its imprint from my brain, so if you have any question or comment whatsoever, drop me an e-mail. Most of the reaction has been positive, with the majority of complaints being how hard it is to find your way after getting the high heel boots (see the entry below for help with that) and the demand for a "Hasslevania Lite" that features no voice overs which translates to a much smaller download. There are so many voiceovers entwined throughout the game that removing them all would be a giant task- one that I'm not up for anytime soon as I'm on a self-imposed break from coding for a little while to rest up for the next one. If there's ever a lite version, this will be the first place to find out about it, but since I feel the voiceovers add so much to the whole feel of the game don't look for the lite version until a long while from now.

11/21/07 (b): What a difference a few hours can make. The website has gotten over 1300 hits since I last posted, which for this site is really something else. Hasslevania was (sorta') featured a bit on TigSource where one Derek Yu observed "Screw this game!" LOL, awesome! Anyhow, a few of you have gotten stuck at the same part of the game just after purchasing the high heels, and mostly it's because you're not sure on where to go afterwards. Well, there are two possibilities: One is hard to find and the other is harder to find. The easier of the two I actually put a hint book in to help players out with it. In the first save room there's a book that says "A DRAFT!?" When you put that hint and the boots together it's not so hard anymore now is it? Good luck everybody, and spread the word about Hasslevania!

11/21/07 (a): Well, I'm sort of writing to you from the future I suppose because it's really still the 20th. However, I feel it's late enough in the day and I'll be too busy tomorrow morning so I'm releasing Hasslevania: The Quest for Shuteye... RIGHT NOW!

11/20/07: Well, it's been over 10 months and now the wait is only one more day. I don't know exactly when I can get it all together tomorrow, but rest assured that Hasslevania and its new homepage will be ready to go sometime on Wednesday. I have all my mirrors confirmed except for one, but that should be more than enough to work with if I still don't have the last by tomorrow. I'd like to thank everyone who offered to mirror the game, and trust me should there be a sequel I'll look into mp3 and ogg files for future speech files!

11/17/07: At long last, Hasslevania's beta has gotten its first preview (in English) over at Indygamer. To all of you coming here that are new to this whole process, I welcome you and hope that you'll enjoy the game once it's out in like... Holy crap, FOUR DAYS!!! I'm adding the preview to the reviews and previews section here now, but if you'd like to see the original check it out here.

11/14/07: I've changed the look of Rovert's high jumps now into something much better than it was. Not even the testers have seen the new jumps yet and I think they'll be surprised. I think it really adds a lot to the look of the game in its own way and can't believe I didn't do it sooner. I'm also going back and not "dumbing down" some parts of the game by making it easier than it should be. If a part of the game is supposed to be hard, and you die 5 times trying to get past it, then that's the way it's going to be. The big difference here is that the difficulty won't come from something out of the player's control of crappy gameplay- if the player has the skills to succeed he will. Fall-through floors have made a slight comeback in the game, months after I took a few of the nasty ones out. They're supposed to be there, so they're back. The binoculars have been nerfed, but since nobody's played the game really with the super powered ones who will know the difference? I have some slight fixins' left to complete tonight as I discovered some more to do last night while I was playing and trying new things out. It's always something, this game.. If I get aggravated enough fixing bugs later I think I'll throw some more spikes in somewhere for the hell of it. Aha!

11/10/07: A couple of doozy glitches were discovered and fixed last night, and thankfully they were found because I would have never saw one of them coming from a mile away. It sure does pay to have a devoted team of beta testers help out for a game this big! Very importantly, although you guys won't know the difference I am nerfing the crap out of the binoculars power up item to have it only show where secret entrances are located, and not for every hidden item too which was the case before. It just made the game way too easy once you found them. Anyhow, they'll still be very valuble to Rovert they just won't hand deliver you the game a lot faster than need be. Some other rooms were rearranged a bit to reflect better puzzles and layouts. As if that wasn't good enough, there have been lots of cool people who have offered to help mirror the game when it's finished, as its 137 MB would have quickly killed my bandwidth (and in turn, this website). All in all, I'm very happy with how the game is shaping up, and happier still that it will actually be out when I said it was going to be!

11/9/07: One of the beta testers has won Hasslevania! He managed to get a 95% collection total, which is really good. Props be to Kaluroth who is the 2nd person to ever complete the game. I have been working a lot on the final product lately, including some music changes and adding some pop-up text screens for spoken lines that didn't have them before. There will probably still be a few minor lines that won't get a text bubble (Oldie's one liners are a good example), but most of the voice overs will.  Players that find the good map can also view a much more detailed version of this map from the continue game screen now that doesn't show while playing normally (you'll see what I mean). And although Kaluroth got a whopping 95%, he did not find the fabled WTF Zone. Who will find it first???

11/6/07: There have been 2 more bits of news concerning two of my games that have been showcased on two different Polish websites recently. One is a review for Necropolis Rising (3/5 stars) and the other is a preview for Hasslevania, which was done by one of my beta testers (a 5- out of 6 in the Slimaczek clickzine). I tried to translate both pages using the Poltran online service, but it did not come out very well at all. I am going to list the two links to the original pages in the reviews sections for now, and if you can read Polish that's awesome because you're doing better than me already! If I ever get it translated I'll post it as soon as possible. And thanks for those reviews / previews!!

11/5/07: Well, the word is that the game is kind of on the hard side. I've made some needed changes and improvements using the feedback that I've received from the testers so far. So far, there are 2 endings- a good one and a crap one, although the crap one is not really all that bad. I've made Dracula's fight a lot harder, and he does more damage and has more HP than his earlier form had. I've been working on a new Hasslevania Homepage for the game and it will be ready when November 21st rolls around. Unrelated, I picked up my first DS today (the red and black one) with Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Rune Factory. That's pretty much going to be my birthday and Christmas presents, but that's cool with me!

10/28/07: And so the beta build had been distributed to 3 individuals and an editor for which I had an agrgeement with about 6 or 7 months ago. And of course once it was away I promptly found a few glaring problems that were caused by some last minute tinkering with the "mystery challenge" on my part the night before. So yesterday I put in some serious time with the beta and fixed what I found while playing it through again. And also for a bug that one beta tester had found earlier that morning concerning taking damage in water while the map screen was up. (Which is supposed to be paused so that doesn't happen). See, testing works! The V.2 beta build was once again distributed to the testers and the editor today. This had to be done as some of the challenge problems were game-breaking beforehand. Oh, and I never said it here but I put a new review of Necropolis Rising up in the reviews page from Shroomlock over at The Daily Click. I had been so busy I forgot to mention it here.

10/26/07 (b): It appears there WAS a casualty of all this downtime lately... My Hasslevania Homepage!! It was somehow erased when I went to update it this morning, so I hope everybody remembered all of that information for later :(  I have put up a facsimile in the meantime until I can rebuild it at a later date.

10/26/07 (a): Hasslevania is done! Hasslevania is done! (Victory dance) Hasslevania is done! Okay, okay, well at least the beta build is! I plan on sending it to the HV beta test team tomorrow. While they test it out I'm going to go back and make some more endings possibly, and add a lot of bells & whistles. The beta build is very large at 136MB uncompressed. Once the beta has been tested and the appropriate changes made, family members and those who helped me will get first crack at the game. And then on November 21st it'll be ready for everybody to play. Due to the high interest in the game and the lack of bandwidth of Sitesled, I'm going to be using a couple of mirrors which will absolutely be neccessary in order to have more than 1 guy in a shack somewhere have a copy of the game. I was thinking on also giving donators to the site an early shot at the game too. I saw that other developers were doing this and it's a great idea!

10/24/07: I recorded a short gameplay trailer yesterday for Hasslevania that shows a bit more of what it's going to be like. The file size is 27MB, and the clarity is a lot better than the last trailer I made at 90%. It shows Rovert using his weapons and running around some small sections of The Museum, The Offensive Altar, and The Bog. I tried to blow through the intro / start to get to the actual gameplay parts but you can see some beginning stuff too. Check it out here. (EDIT: This clip was uploaded to YouTube courteousy of GameFAQ's kevinski and should help people view the file a lot easier. Thanks kevinski!!) I also almost have the Boom Box screen completely done and it looks pretty good. Beta testing should be on schedule for the end of the week or so. Once the beta testing is done I'm going to work on some of the aesthetics in certain places and try to make it look better all around.

10/22/07: Holy crap my website WORKS now! Sitesled (my host) has been down since last Saturday and now all of the sudden their servers appear to have become "unmelted"! I don't know where to start, there's been so much that's happened. Well, first and most importantly I want to give a shout out to Travis J, who made a donation last Friday night before all of Sitesled's crapola started. Thank you Travis!!! Necropolis Rising has also won The Daily Click's Game of the Week award # 256!! (I'm so glad I put the updated version up there!). And if that wasn't enough, I've finally finished the Dracula battle in Hasslevania!! I'm doing the ending sequence now actually, and might be mostly done as soon as tonight with it. I'll update the Hasslevania and Necropolis Rising homepages as soon as I can with the new information.

10/13/07: Necropolis Rising version 4 available now! There were some changes and slight bug fixes, and although there's probably still some more it's a lot better now. Differences include: Fixed it so arrows and wizard's spells can't hurt you while the subscreen is up, the Alchemy spell now kills the Demon Mage like it should have, the necro can swing his sword slightly faster than before, Spells can't go through any cactus now, and bat form can't fly over them either. The two biggest changes though are the option to SKIP the opening story screens (not opening title, just the story for a new game) by pressing ENTER, and that most of the Dark Power rewards have had their costs significantly lowered. I had tried to incorporate a newer movement engine for a few hours last night but the end result had the necro stopping dead in his tracks whenever any part of a side of him touched a wall, tree, or otherwise. While it looked good for awhile, it quickly turned to crap when I tried to move diagonally from that stopped position. So what I had was a necro who seemed to get stuck on EVERYTHING, and was MUCH more annoying than my current jittery bastard we all love. So the movement is the same, but I did try! Now back to Hasslevania!!

10/12/07: A flashy new donation button! Weeee!! Also, I am in talks with Gamesare with more distribution plans for Necropolis Rising. I'm also going back into the year-old game and tweaking some things to make it better. This updated version should be ready to go in a few days or so, and you'll hear it here frst when it's done. Plans include a better movement engine for the necro (no more bouncies if possible), lower dark power costs for rewards, and some other odds n' ends. Hasslevania got some needed minor bug fixes again yesterday, and I've updated the credits screen with the new list of beta testers that volunteered to help in a little more than a week's time.

10/10/07(b): In a shocking move no one saw coming, I have decided to release the Full version of Necropolis Rising to all for free! I want to try something new here at DXF Games, and see if it works. My thoughts are, if you really enjoy the game, I'd ask you to please make a small donation to DXF Games via the PayPal link above. I'm talking 50 cents or $1 small. The donations would be greatly appreciated and would go towards my future game developmental costs, since everything I make comes out of my own pockets with zero outside funding to speak of. If this donation system works, I won't have another pay game up here again. Until then, why not download Necropolis Rising and see if you like the full version yourself!

10/10/07(a): The WTF Zone has been re-put (??) into the game, and it is far and away the most secrety of secret places. Most people will never find it. Think of it a bit as like the warp zone to World -1 on Super Mario Brothers for the NES. Only this place is a lot more helpful if you find it. There will be no screenshots or other information ever posted about this place unless somebody else finds it first. There is another item in the game called a Hearts Refiller. Getting one as a reward for doing well in Bat Blasters is a cinch- all you need to do is beat your previous best score and shoot down 10 or more bats. Each time you can do this you'll get a Hearts Refiller on your way out. This only fills your skill hearts to maximum levels, and is not as useful as a hearts maximizer, but it's still something nice to get for an otherwise optional mini game. I went to a county fair near my house the other day and saw the biggest friggin' bull I've ever seen up close before! Seriously, the thing was even lying down and it was gigantic. It reminded me a lot of the Cow guardian statue to the entrance of the Moo Tomb. It was art imitating life all over again! See, it's fate for ya, because I would have gotten the cow idea eventually anyhow. Moo!

10/7/07: I can't believe I didn't do it sooner, but I finally drew character portraits for Hasslevania that show up when they speak. It took 4 or 5 hours to do them all, not because they're Picasos but because there's just so many of them. Now anybody can tell an Alex Deadson from a Ghouly Lee, for example. The pictures themselves I did from scratch, and not from enlarging the sprites' existing faces or anything like that. (Except for Dracula and Deaf, whose sprite faces fit the portrait window perfectly already.) They look a bit better than the sprites- but not too much. If I'm calling my game a 7-bit wonder, then the portraits weigh in as whopping 7.5 bit masterpieces, ahahaha.. I will have a completed beta copy ready in a couple of weeks that is going to be tested by 3 others and myself. I also owe an advance copy to Indygamer for a preview there! Everything seems to be on schedule as planned. What a non-familiar feeling this is!

10/6/07: Hasslevania homepage overhaul #1 is done. A lot more information has been posted, including a progress report which shows % completion and the game's current build / stage. Check it out when you get the chance!

10/4/07: The challenge modes have been implemented! It really wasn't half as hard as I thought it'd be to do. The types of games you can start anew are: Vanilla (the plain Jane normal game for first timers), Original Orange (iron armor is gone, some areas are restricted), Sans Devil (no backup in Chris subdevil), Decaffenated Run (all the coffees are removed from play), and the hardest one by far Heartless Bastard (you start out with 20 maximum skill hearts but all heart maximizers in the game are removed. For experts and me only.) I think it's a great idea to have these built into the game. Doing a swordless quest in Zelda is very hard, but the player may give up and go get the sword anyways later. In Hasslevania, the option to chicken out is removed from my challenges! Winning the game on different challenges will produce different endings. At least that's what I'm aiming for. I may add another challenge in later, but man it'd be HARD. Probably too much. We'll see!

10/2/07: All of the voiceovers are complete! The last bastion of outside dependancy has been shed, so now it's all up to me to make sure that this thing gets done and done right. The ending song, "Oh Rovert", has also been finished and it's really craptacular (in a good way). It's perfect for what I am trying to achieve. For those returning folks to here who are keeping score at home, the current filesize of Hasslevania is at 114 MB. So much is done, with some new ideas to add.. The most ambious one I can think of now is the option to start a game in different challenge modes. Each one will automatically limit the player in certain ways upon starting a new game so that the player won't be able to chicken out and abandon his self-imposed challenge when the going gets rough. The prison zombies scene is almost done. The Moo Tomb is a scant one room away from being finished. Dracula's battle should be done by the end of this week. I got Rush's Grace Under Pressure tour DVD and learned how to play "Vital Signs" on bass, which was amazing. And the Patriots are 4-0. Whatta' good week!

9/28/07 (b): OH, and in order to gain a wee bit of perspective on the order of the old school and how I might inject Hasslevania with more of it, I sat down last night and seriously tried to win Ironsword again got the first time in years and years. How'd I do? I got killed off completely at the volcano half of the fire stage. (Which is like level 3-1) Blah! I can't believe how cheap that game is with dishing out the damage- There's this one secret room in the water level where you can get the Cross of Sindain (which is only for points, which are completely useless in this game). Anyways, in order to get the cross you have to go past two sets of four purple falling happy face things that take 50% of your life away in a single hit. I died about 3 times getting that stupid cross (and going back through them to escape the room). That was NOTHING compared to my next game I tried though. Good ol' Ghosts N' Goblins for the NES. I had to save state like mad- I seriously must have died at least 75 times (NO EXAGGERATION PEOPLE) And I only got up to the dragon at the end of the 3rd level. This game is just ridiculously hard, and made Ironsword look like the cherry level of Pac Man. I actually laughed out loud when I made this impossible jump just to have two little demon things materialize out of THIN AIR and kill me. And so I say to the good future fans of Hasslevania, "I feel your pain, and although this game will be like it was from the old school, it will NOT be from the same cloth as Ghosts N' Goblins!!!" I'm in the entertainment business, not the "piss people off" business!

9/28/07 (a): To be the creator of something, it's a great thing. To constantly mess around with what you have in the attempt to make everything better in the end.. I have moved the entirety of the Moo Tomb to a better (and more logical) place, and it's much better now. I've also sealed off the entrance so that it's no longer easy to see / get to. If you want to find the tomb, you better explore and look hard all around! And there's another Chris Subdevil mini-scene, which should make all players under the age of 15 laugh their asses off. Let's see.. bug fixes, more fixes.. It seems like everytime I fill up a whole notebook page with things that need a' fixin' (and there's a whole lotta' fixin' to be had in any kind of game like this, especially mine lol) I seem to just keep covering new notebook pages with more crap that needs to be done. I'm saving all of these to take a picture of this glorious mess and it'll probably be in some sort of Hasslevania gallery option hahaha......?  In other stuff, a new enemy has appeared to try and stop Rovert, and it's another one from the Phantom Zo- er, REALM! This time it's the Phantom Zombie, and he's bad news! I'll most likely change his name to something better later.

9/24/07: Today's update isn't too Earth-shattering, but there were some improvements / additions to Hasslevania since the last post. The mini-game ended up working out just fine, and it's called Bat Blasters. Rovert will find an anti-aircraft gun somewhere in the castle and can use it (and go to a separate screen in 1st-person view) and just shoot away at a bunch of bats. It came out cool, especially since I've never made anything like a 1st person shooter before, (as basic as this one is). Since I have no idea what the inside of an aa gun turret looks like, it looks like something out of Star Wars. The other big thing is there is going to be a new underground game area. I'm calling it the Moo Tomb for now, but it'll probably get a name change eventually. Aside from that, I'm going to also be dipping into the phantom well again and put another type of ghostly enemy in the game somewhere. Just WHERE to put them is the real question though.

9/17/07: Credit where credit's due, the Hasslevania credits screen is completed! Thankfully, it's not like some other projects I've done where I'm listed 10 times. (Only 9 this time). I made sure to thank everybody who has helped in any way, from playtesters to family members to GameFAQs brainstormers. For those who came up with an idea that was used or I drew inspiration from, I've listed that idea next to their name. For the credits music, I redid the opening section of a very old song that my old band used to play called Headache. I was messing around with it just for fun, and for whatever reason it just works for this. Players can view the credits screen from the start menu, as I have different ideas for the end(ings) so the credits won't be shown there. I have a good idea for a new minigame, but I won't say anything more about it in case I can't get it to mesh with the rest of the game first.

9/12/07: Rovert swims with the fishes! Yep, I made up a bunch of little fish to swim in the waters of Hasslevania. Unlike Manny o' Warriors or sharks, these won't hurt you and can't be killed. Just to liven things up a bit, and more's on the way! 7 fish were made including: Bass, Pike, Clownfish, and a Gar. And a lot I don't know the names of but there's a red one, a dark blue one w/ pointy fins, and a silvery one that can be seen in the upper left-hand corner of the underwater shot of Rovert in the bubble. I made this silvery one a salt water exclusive. Bass and pond or lake fish are in the freshwater pools mostly. Not like anyone will care / call me on it, but oh well.

9/11/07: There are eight new screenshots up on the Hasslevania Homepage now! Included are some never-before shown places, and some updated shots of places that have been shown here before. I'm going to infuse a lot of life into the game, and you can start to see it here a bit with the screenshot of one of The Bog's rooms. I might use another atmosphere effect for another area, since I like the bog's green mist / fog a lot. We'll see, right?

9/7/07: Talk about a LONG wait! No, I don't mean the wait for Hasslevania to be completed, I mean the long wait it took for the U.S. Copyright office to add Equin Village to their recordbooks! I submitted the game and documentation way back in March of 2006, and although I got a confirmation letter of sorts a few months later, it was never in their online records whenever I checked. Well, I stopped checking maybe 6 or 7 months ago, and for laughs did it today. It's in there, hooray! The game, along with Equin, Dirn, Zisha, and the rest now have Uncle Sam backing. Like money! Hopefully my other stuff won't take quite as long to enter the official books. We'll see! Hasslevania-wise, some graphicial additions are going in to make things look and feel better. And although I didn't mention it here, there's now a specialized machine hidden somewhere that can convert Rovert's extra keys into moolah. The Key Machine (original nomenclature, I know) came out just great, and the whole thing took maybe 3 or 4 hours to do from start to finish. Tonight may indeed be when the rest of the voiceovers are completed; at least, that's what we're aiming for.

9/4/07: What an extended break from here this is! Things done- in a list, everyone's favorite format, no doubt. List begins: 1.) Drac's Quarters is done and over with. It's completely in a darkness zone, which leads us to.. 2.) A master power switch. Finding this and turning it on will light up every darkness room in the entire game. 3.) Oldie's voiceovers are done and in the game now! The rest of the V/Os might be done as soon as this weekend. 4.) More outside areas are finished, with more on the way soon. 5.) The final battle with Count Dracula is being worked on. 6.) Some rooms have P.A. systems in them. If you see one of these, that means that there is always a small random chance to hear Dracula saying something in this room, usually something insignificant to his minions. Just a small extra in what will eventually be a lot of them. 7.) As of now, there are 101 treasures for Rovert to collect. There will be more in the finished game. 8.) More teleport orbs have been added along with some new shortcuts. There will be a lot of ways to get around in this game, at the very least! 9.) I want to have different endings. I'm not sure how many, but I'd say at least 3 of them. List over. I picked up Harmony of Dissonance the other day, and it's pretty good. I don't get why Juste Belmont is sporting Bo bo's (or Cons, Chuck Taylors, you know what I mean). And with inflatable basketball pump action for ankle support! HOD sure borrowed a lot from SOTN, from what I see. Too much, IMO. 50% through the main castle in less than a day and all I have is one spellbook? And I haven't seen ONE stinkin' breakable wall yet! Hasslevania has about a billion more secret things in it- hopefully not too much.. To the overkill machine!

8/18/07: Success, like the rice! We were not only able to do some voice over recording last night, but we got almost half of the total lines in the game done. Brad did a really great job, and has expanded his V/O role to take over some of the other characters in the game as well as Rovert's voice. At this rate, I'd estimate that voice overs should all be completely recorded in another session or two at the max. (You have to remember, my printed out script is about 15 pages at least). All these voices are going to be at a big cost, filesize-wise. They are going to make this eventual download HUGE when compared to the 12 or 13MB core game itself (a guess, but close). It's too bad this is going to be free, otherwise I'd have to arrange to send it out to customers on disc instead. Of course then I'd have to spend my days forever stuck at the post office, blah! If my initial predictions are even close to actual download numbers for Hasslevania, this game should promptly kill my allowed bandwidth for days upon release- Especially with the big file size. I just hope THIS time other websites won't hotlink all my stuff all over the place. I think I'll have it so that if that happens and I find out, I'll just change the location of the file. That way they'll have to mostly download the game off the.. *gasp!* actual page it's supposed to be on!!

8/14/07: It's been a bit, but it's all the same as I've still been very busy working on Hasslevania. Doors that can be opened with keys now remember when they've been opened so you won't have to open them again. There was enough space leftover in the save game file so it made sense to change it. There's a minor event that's pretty funny for the sub devil to do while Rovert is busy somewhere that came out great. I also had to fix it so that the devil couldn't kill any Brittles while they are down in a heap from Rovert's beatdowns. So instead, he flies over the pile until they get up... and THEN he kills them, because that's what he does best (next to putdowns and snappy comebacks.) The game is still coming, don't worry. It won't be August 21st like I thought back in June but just think of how much better it'll be because I didn't rush it!

8/09/07: The sub devil went down to Georgia.. Tonight was dedicated to Dracula's opening cutscene (with the game's first voiceover, hoorah!) and a lot of things concerning the Devil for Hire. The devil now has things that he does to bide the time away while Rovert is otherwise busy, like saving in a coffin or riding the skelevator. There' also a new cutscene that's activated while the devil is out somewhere that promptly gets him banned from somewhere.. His coding was streamlined to make him more efficient killing machine. I have to find a way to lessen his power, or else we'll have Chrisaegrim 2 on our hands in no time!!

8/07/07: R.I.P. Hasslevania's magic spells. It just didn't work out and made for a ton of bugs and freezes everywhere that I couldn't fix properly. I've completely restored the game how it was before the weapon spell moves. If there's to be a sequel I will build spells into the game from the ground up like everything else instead of trying to add something so complex so late in production.  The weapon book does still exist in game, only it's power is different. You can read it for insight on the different weapons available in Hasslevania, but best of all you'll receive a permanent +1 damage bonus for all melee weapons when you have it. The devil's coding has been reworked and it's a LOT more stable than it was before. He's also faster than ever, but consumes hearts at a rate of 1 every 4 seconds (instead of every 5 seconds like before).

8/06/07: Well, the voiceover session was kind of a big bust- there were a lot of technical problems with our engineer's sound recording program (really!) which sucked, A LOT. Anyhow, we managed to only get about 7 or so lines that were any good in about 4 or 5 hours time. Needless to say, this part is going to take a very long time at this rate. I can only ever go over there maybe once a week if I'm lucky, so hopefully we'll get a lot more done next time. Other than that, I've been working on making the game's title and continue menus a lot more streamlined and easier to use. And best of all is there's now an option to view Rovert's treasury from the continue menu that shows all the stuff he's collected. And some of the items will also show how many are left to find (like food and money bags). You'll still get the total completion percentage too, only now you can break it down and attempt to hunt down what you're missing.

8/4/07: The entire script of Hasslevania has been written and revised to what I want now. Which is just great, since we're going to be finally doing the voiceover recording later tonight! A definite future cutscene is going to involve some Prison Zombies, which was also inspired by an actual event I witnessed this past week while waiting for a train. It was so (unintentionally?) funny that I knew it just had to make it in here somehow. I won't be able to make it as good as the real deal, but it'll be close if I can help it. Other than those things, it's just bug testing as usual. Damn those spells and their sparkly effects!! Sure, it'll be cool in the end but I hope that next time I make a game like this I put the spells in at the beginning of the creation phase and not 7 months into it.

7/30/07: You take 2 parts Kuros and 1 parts Mario, smash them together in a big bowl, and add a quart of orange food coloring, and the result is now how Rovert jumps around. It's much better IMO than before. He definitely has a floaty feel, which allows players more leeway for making jumps over spike pits and stuff like that. I've incorporated it into all of the game's 92 frames so far that need it, and now I just have to clean up some little things that were changed by adding the new movment in. The puzzles before where you needed the speed boost from the Blade of Del Duio have all but been compromised by the new jump however, so I'll have to rework them a bit so that you can't solve them with a regular jump like now. There are wholly separate cutscenes now that are independant of the gameplay and are just there to add depth and / or character to Hasslevania. I've figured out a way to make these pretty seamless, so there may be quite a few of them before the game is through.

7/29/07: Okay, so some things have of course come up and I don't see the game being finished as I originally predicted it would be by 8/21 and still be the quality product that I have in my head. The voiceover plans fell through for later today and are getting pushed back at least a week or so, and I have to more or less scrap a big section of Rovert's platform movement and try something else to improve it. This was hard for me since I've had it pretty much set in stone since February, but all of my playtesters can't be wrong! Since everything is so very intergrated I might have to start over from the ground up, blah! So although I'm not sure of just WHEN Hasslevania will be done, rest assured that the product you will eventually play will be a lot better gameplay-wise than what was originally coming. I don't want to release anything that I can't stand behind 100%, which is why I'll just say the Hasslevania release date will be later. I'll post more when I know more about it, and hang in there!!

7/27/07: The streaming trailer from GameTrailers has an embed tag so now the trailer is up for everyone's non-downloading viewing on the Hasslevania Homepage! It really ties the whole thing together, what a great deal for me! I've secured the final voice for the game, an actual 4th-degree blackbelt, and he's going to be cast in the starring role of Rovert. I called dibs on most of the enemy NPCs in the game already and for sure I want to give the Devil for Hire his pipes. I want to have little scripted bickering matches between Rovert and the Devil while you're out playing the game. Mind you, the devil is not exactly in the easiest of places to find either. If you win the game without him, the map you're given (among other goodies) for the next playthrough will help you locate him.

7/26/07: I got another huge surge of traffic tonight, so I slapped on the Sherlock Holmes cap and magnifying glass and found out that the Hasslevania trailer has been added to Gametrailers.com. GAMETRAILERS.COM people! Holy crap, that's an awesome surprise. It seems to be inspiring the ire of many who might not realize what I'm trying to accomplish however. But best of all is this screenshot of my little 7 bit game with a budget of all of $50 (chips and drinks DO cost money afterall), among the likes of million-dollar masterpieces Metal Gear Solid 4, Crysis, Resident Evil 5 and Call of Duty 4. I think I just accomplished some sort of life's goal LOL. Now watch the train hit me tomorrow on the way to work!

7/25/07: Voiceover Recording is scheduled to begin this upcoming Sunday, with 2 out of 3 people I want confirmed. Also the good castle map you can get has been vastly improved to help players attempt to reach the coveted 100% treasure completion plateau! Drac's Quarters is being built, and Darkness Rooms are starting to spread around parts of Hasslevania. Makes it way harder when you can't see everything. Hoff Heads are no longer spell immune (sorry guys), so blast away with Burnflare or whathaveyou. There may be a need for near future beta testers too. If you're interested and the spot's still open, please contact me at dxfgames@gmail.com. This won't be for at least another 2 weeks.

7/21/07: Although it's turning out a bit tricky, magic has been incorporated into the game everywhere. It'll probably take me a day or two to work out the bugs, but I'm very glad that I put weapon powers in because it's very fun to do. The book that allows for such moves, "Weapon Powers & You", has now also been fully coded and completed. This book can be read (like the monster book and castle map) from the Continue Game screen in Rovert's house before you resume play. It tells you the name, requirements, description, and what weapon it comes off of. There are also now magic effect fields that show up on Rovert when he's under the influence of Insomniac's Rage and Fecal Fortitude spells. You can have both going at once, which is pretty busy-looking but cool IMO. The last order of business is that I've now made Hoff Heads magic immune. You can still crack them over the head with a magic weapon, but spell powers will have no effect. I may change this but as I see it I already have Phantom bats immune to non-magic attacks so it'd probably be a good idea to have an enemy from the other side. I put a screenshot of Rovert letting loose a Bellhump Blast in Engineering, to give you another look of some of the magic effects.

7/20/07: I noticed a HUGE surge of hits here this morning, and upon some detective-y work I noticed that Hasslevania is up on Indygamer's news page!! To whoever put it up there I say a huge THANK YOU!! And now to announce, not only are weapon powers possible.. I FINISHED THEM IN ONE FRIGGIN NIGHT MWAHAHAHAHA!!! It was about 6 straight hours, but yep, they're going to be in the game 100%!! You need to find the book of weapon powers though. I was thinking that upon 2nd playthrough Rovert starts out with the book as one of the "winning it" rewards. The effects came out pretty cool, especially considering the time I had to work on it (i.e. not very much). In other news, Me-Sued-Ya returns to Hasslevania, only this time he's an NPC. The way I'm going to work him in should prove to be funny, and he's going to be intergal to the plot late in the game as well. It's all looking great, I'm psyched!! I will update the Hasslevania homepage with these new weapon powers shortly.

7/19/07: It's not up on the Hasslevania homepage, and won't be until it's set in stone, but I am trying to incorporate Weapon Powers in the game akin to magic spells. These powers will have steep requirements to cast, whether it be skill hearts, money, or even Rovert's own life force. I want to have one spell for every weapon. Since it's so late into production pulling this off might not work, but it's early enough for me to try it out and see for sure. Some of the effects would aid in exploration like creating keys or warping to the shop. Others will damage enemies. One will even heal Rovert (although the cost is huge). In other news, I had to take the whole of Del Duio's hideout and completely MOVE the thing to another section of the castle! This has to do with item placement that conflicted a bit with another one and it bothered me for awhile so now it's fixed. The laser brick computer is now harder to get to, but the way it's done it makes more sense and seems natural so it'll stay that way. The last thing to say is now when the devil for hire goes into one of his shenanaghans he has his own theme music that starts up. When you hear this music, you'll know he's up to something!

7/18/07: Nothing really beats 4 hours working on a puzzle that WORKS, is all I have to say. I've updated all 12 screenshots to show what some of the new changes look like. There's a couple in there that have never been shown anywhere, but basically I wanted to show some of the beginning game stuff. There's also a shot of that new basic map that players start off with in one of them too.

7/17/07: "Big changes, gonna' carry you.." That about sums up what's happened with Hasslevania over the past 2 days / nights. I spent basically every free hour I could working on it, and have made huge leaps towards finishing it. So much has been done, but the most important and non-spoiler information would be: A new enemy, "Manny O' Warrior, the Irish Jellyfish", Codebooks that give you the code digits for the LCD puzzle, Enemy lifebars that are color-coded to match them, Rovert's own life bar got an overhaul and is now orange instead of red, a starting and VERY basic "map", and a lot of minor bug fixes. The whole orange lifebar was done because there was one big boss that had a red lfebar and it looked like crap to have two red lifebars next to each other. I figure since Rovert's all about the orange anyhow it made sense to change it (and I'm glad that I did.) And although it sounds really easy, it was a tedious task that took almost an hour to change, blah!. The whole LCD tower / codebook sequences came out 100% right on the VERY FIRST ATTEMPT by me, which almost never happens and because of this the endgame and the parts leading up to it have now begun to get rolling along.

7/15/07: There has now been almost 4100 hits on the DXF Games homepage alone (Hooray!) To me, that's cool stuff, and to celibrate it a bit, I made up a new DXF logo, which by now no doubt you've probably noticed already on this very page! Last night I fixed a lot of problems that were "popping" up in a bubble room, and also made Del Duio's secret hideout! Thing is, I can't show any shots of it because I want the player to be totally surprised when / if they find it. I am also in the slow, slow process of re-doing the mini map. This was because I was having spacial issues where Hasslevania was too big for it's own good. (It didn't fit on the 90-room areas of space I gave it 7 months ago anymore). There has been suggestion that Drac's Quarters be a little like Aria of Sorrow's Chaos Realm, and it's not a bad idea. For those who don't know, the Chaos Realm in that game is how you get to the "good" ending. It's a wholly separate place from the rest of the castle, and doesn't even have a map. Since I still want to incorporate a darkness room(s), maybe I can come up with a winning combo of the two?

7/13/07: Friday the 13th.. Ooooooo!! OOOOOOO!!! Now that you are sufficiently scared out of your collective minds, it is time to mention that Hasslevania now sports new giant bubbles for Rovert to ride around in. They are created at the mouth of special mechanisms called Bubble Nozzles, which are in turn powered by the mighty (and well-hidden) Bubble Device! When activated the nozzles release these giant bubbles and they float to the surface of the water they're formed in. While riding bubbles is generally safe, one should be careful not to steer one into an enemy or brick wall / ceiling, lest your bubble be popped and you fall to great harms below. With the addition of several bubble nozzles throughout Hasslevania, castle travel is much expanded.

7/11/07: The biggest news today is that the planned boss "Me-Sued-Ya" is not going to be in the final game. It's a great idea, it's just that there's no room for him for what I have left. Do not worry about a lack of big bosses though! To replace Me-sued-Ya, there's now an optional boss called The Moat Monster, which is a bubble-breathing underwater dragon! This fight came out just awesome, and will really reward those who want to search the whole castle for treasures. There are also two new screenshots up on the Hasslevania homepage, and the moat monster is one of them (in between bubble attacks).

7/10/07: Okay, well I downloaded a flash plugin at home and found out that my flash Trailer doesn't work, so it's down now. Fellow Clicker Phizzy took it upon himself to compress the big trailer by using the XviD codec and now the trailer is only 5 MB!! I tried to view it, but this computer doesn't have the codec, so here's a quote from the man himself: "I suppose XviD's not a standard codec, but most people have it. VLC will play it (VLC will play everything), and so will your windows media player if you download the K-Lite Codec Pack." So if the 46 MB is too much for you, you can probably watch the 5 MB one instead!

7/9/07: There are now 3 versions of the new Hasslevania trailer up on the HV homepage! Unfortunatley, two are big at 46 and 17 MB, and the small one is really blurry and crappy (but only 1.2 MB). If you view the small one you should try not to maximize it and it'll look a bit better. Just imagine what this was supposed to look like (quality-wise) and that'll help too! Fear not though, for the actual game itself looks a lot better than the trailer does.

7/05/07: There is now a new room called The Freezer, which has some very unique obstacles in it such as a snowball cannon and my favorite, ratsicles. Ratsicles are drats that were too stupid to try and nest somewhere else and promptly froze to death. Frozen solid is more like it, as they can't hurt you but Rovert can shatter them with a hit from any weapon. The room is zero degrees centigrade, mostly because putting a sign near the door that said 32 degrees farenheit didn't look all that good. I wanted to call this room Da Coolah, after what Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes calls the lockup of Stalag (sp?) 13, but nobody would get it except me and a couple of old guys who will never see this game.

6/30/07: Hasslevania release date set for..

6/29/07: There was one hint book that was well-hidden but didn't really say anything useful, so I changed it into a Monster Book! The monster book is a written record of the different minor enemies found within Hasslevania, and can be accessed from the "continue game" screen that shows your acquired treasure percentage. There's also some new and very useful shortcuts to open the game up a lot more as far as non-linearity goes. Lastly, there's now a skelecopter somewhere in the game that shows up. I don't know how meaningful the skelecopter will be in the final product, but for now those hanging out on the roof can keep their eyes open for it. The top prize for Alucart's casino has also been changed to something very awesome indeed..

6/26/07: The Offensive Altar is complete, along with a new nasty boss, Black N' Dookie! Black N' Dookie is basically a monster made out of pure crap who wields a two-handed electric drill and dual machine nail guns. And he totes a gigantic black steel shield to boot. Hooray! On a cleaner note, new archery targets adorn the castle in places too. I wonder what would happen if Rovert practiced his aim with one?

6/21/07: The new area "The Roof" is already almost halfway done. It's easily distinguished by lots of black fog clouds and blacker castle spires. The spire top itself took me a lot longer to draw than I expected, mostly because the prototypes all ended up looking very flat and crappy (Not good at all!) The finished product looks the best out of the ones I made, and I ended up using black bricks for the base of the spire (although the rest of the castle's exterior is the regular gray color.) The only screenshot that didn't give too much away is now up and posted on the homepage, and although you can only see the bottom of the spire you guys will have to trust me that the pointy part looks cool too. Some of the underground passageways that had the darker gray brick backgrounds have been replaced with a muddy brown cavern background and it looks a lot better. So far, Hasslevania has 81 total rooms (area-wise), with an anticipated 105-110 rooms when it's finished. I would expect the game to be released sometime in August and I'll make sure to give everybody ample time to get ready for it.

6/19/07: Updates, and more updates! A new enemy called the Zerker will attempt to stop Rovert from reaching Count Dracula's inner sanctum. They are easily distinguished by black plate armor and their weapons of choice- Boomeraxes- which are small, razor sharp axes that move like boomerangs. Their defense is second to none, and in fact most of Rovert's weapons will simply glance off of it. Thankfully, Rovert can use his shield to deflect the b