12/26/08: Wow, been awhile since I've made one of these eh? I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and happy New Year (doubly so for our supporters!) There's a lot of good news and more substantial H2 progress that of course I can't disclose right now and for that I appologize. The game does really feel a lot different than the first one while keeping much of the same things that I liked from before. Taking your time on something and trying to do it right does seem to be paying off in spades here. In a bit of other news I picked up my old save from Ainevoltas 2 last night and this time stuck with it until it was won. It's a very fun little game that unfortunately for the player ends all too soon. Had I known I was going to get into the end boss fight when I did I would've went back and tried to explore the previous areas more throughly. For example I only had 2/4 gems and none of the 3 guild memberships you can get. Kevinski.com now has a "whopping" 10 members and could use more so hop over there and sign up if you want.
12/01/08: Hey! A couple of things to tell you tonight. One is the link for the Hasslevania GameFAQs archive has been fixed and the other is that sometime soon (hopefully) the DXF Games site will get a redesign. I don't know how GOOD it'll be, but I need to straighten this mess out since it looks different on different computers (mostly text sizes and etc). More when I know, have a good one.
11/21/08: Happy Birthday to Hasslevania, which turns 1 today! On November 21st, 2007 Hasslevania version 1 was released to the public and so began the start of this fun (to make) DXF Games franchise. It is DXF's most popular title by far, and is in the process of spawning a sequel called "This Space for Rent". It's taking awhile though isn't it? I liken it to the gestation period of an elephant, which if memory serves is a 26 month deal. No, I don't think of it like that at all! In other happy news kevinski.com has finally risen from the ashes into a brand new website! Kevinski is a giant video game fanatic like me, and is one of the 3 brains behind Hasslevania 2's design. Registration there if free, and if you haven't already registered (which is like everybody haha) then sign the hell on up and post something about his new color scheme!
11/07/08: The Ghost in the Machine. Ah yes, no matter how long or how hard you work on any game there always seems to be these nagging little ghosts that exist within your program through no fault of your own (or the code's). Things that for all intents and purposes that SHOULD work of course don't at all or not nearly enough. I happened to fix a huge mofo ghost last night that has not only haunted H2 but the original Hasslevania as well. It has to do with players spamming the attack button (which is the space bar, in the Hasslevania control scheme). Anyhow, often you'd hear more than one attack sound per press, or the animations wouldn't always synch with those sound effects. It's nothing game-breaking, but it definately qualifies for the ghost status to me. Way back in December '07 when I started changing over the existing H1 engine to the current H2 engine this spirity bastard stowed away. Not only that but he brought his buddies, because the sfx problem happened much more often in H2 and the fix was a pain in the ass. I like fixing these nagging difficult problems every now and then because it just makes my game all that more solid in the end. And that's good enough news for this here post!
10/30/08: Hey, I just found the most awesome Hasslevania description ever! It's off of some freeware site, and resembles some of the great NES in-game texts of old. Someday (soon) I might put this in classic NES font to do it justice, but in the meantime get a gander of this:
"Do you like a ghastly houses? The places with a lot of bogeymen, ghost man and some other varment? Do you like a musty hall and traps? So, Hasslevania, jump'n game with RPG elements, is ready for your pleasure."
You can't make this stuff up people! I give this description a 14 out of 10 stars easy!
10/24/08: Non-Gaming news: I've recently finally found my long-lost sister (!!) that I figured I'd never see again, and that's pretty awesome and really unexpected. I suggest that everybody go out there and do the same thing, pronto! Non-H2 gaming News: I picked up Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia the other day and so far it's pretty good. Kevinski, the consumate completionist, has of course already won the thing. The manual it comes with however is extremely awful, both in content and design. It doesn't explain half of what can be found on the subscreen at all, or why there has to be these weird multiple listings of your gear when you in fact only have one in stock. To compensate for its lack of everything, they DID decide to give players the 3 pages of useful manual they did include in not 2 but THREE different languages! Now you can be under-informed in 3 different ways, and that's pretty special. H2 gaming News: I am very close to finishing the game's most complicated and important area. After that it should be gravy. Of course, OoE should have had a good manual too..
10/17/08: It took long enough, but I've finally archived all the old "latest news" posts from 2005-2007. I figure there's enough crap on the homepage as it is. Maybe someday I'll get around to making other things here more streamlined. No, probably not! The link to the archive page is down at the bottom of the page. In other news, Hasslevania 2 is still going strong. It's going to be sort of huge so I wouldn't expect it to be out until... I don't know very late 2009 or maybe 2010. I won't release the thing until I'm 100% happy with it. After working on it a bit more last night I decided to pick up where my save state was on NES Ghosts n' Goblins again, which was with a non-armored Arthur, the FIREBALL weapon, and saved right before the dragon boss (I think it's stage 3 I can't remember). Anyhow the fireball weapon (which is the worst weapon in the whole impossible game BTW) is useless against the dragon, so I had to die and restart the stage. It wasn't hard to get Arthur killed, after all this IS G&G we're talking about here. Finally making it back to the dragon with the regular lance was hell enough, taking out all his body segments wasn't too terrible, but after about 30 or 40 more tries all I could get him down to was his head before my time ran out. They decided to toss in a timer that will kill you if any other aspect of this highly unfair game doesn't! A few times I also died jumping up to where the dragon was, and there was NOTHING there that should have killed Arthur. That's awesome- in G&G even nothing can kill you. I quit after about an hour of this. Maybe I'll go back in another 6 months after I forget how much I really don't like that game.
10/15/08: There's been a "break in" over at kevinski.com that's forcing him to find a new host. Since he has a special way with words, kevinski says it best:
"Sorry, but my Web host was hacked by some douchebag from Ukraine. Members, I'll keep you posted once I'm given more information as to what's going on. Don't attempt to sign into the site for now, just in case anything's being logged."
So what does this mean? Well, it's possible (yet not confirmed) that all of our Hasslevania 2 planning was compromised from this so and so. I have my own set of logs and tracking and am looking into seeing what else this guy did, and will do my part to find out who this is. This is not something we take lightly. On the plus side, I had the forethought to delete or change most of the important links to stuff I was working on so I don't believe any H2 early builds were leaked or anything. When we get ourselves righted again with a new host for kevinski that can prevent hacking into their system, we'll set up shop there and let you all know here. But for now it looks like our main method of fast communication and planning for the Hasslevania sequel has taken a bad turn, meaning the old ways of slow-exchange information are here again, undoubtably further delaying the game. So everybody say a big "Thank You!" to this fine pillar of society.
09/25/08: Sorry for the non-news lately but I've been too busy with things. The good news today is that I've purchased Multimedia Fusion 2 finally! You should know that the donations to the DXF Games development fund, or $48, went right into the price of the program. That's about 40% of the total cost less shipping if my math is right. For that I say a big THANK YOU!! I'm expecting MMF2 to arrive in the mail sometimes within the next 3 days. I'll then import the Hasslevania 2 project into the new program and go from there. And if you still would like to make a donation for further programs or just appreciation they'll always be accepted. The donation reward of the Hasslevania 1 map will still be valid for a long time to come. So keep checking back here for the latest news on Hasslevania 2!
09/04/08: Just made a post about Hasslevania 2 over at the Hasslevania forum on kevinski.com. Nothing too spectacular, but for the few who can't wait for the sequel to come out it might shed some light for you. I also learned recently that Hasslevania was up on Wikipedia for awhile, but was taken down not long ago. Thanks for trying to keep it up there Henge, you can't win 'em all but you can win a few.
08/27/08: Hello again, just dropping in to give a great big thank you to the newest and 11th donator to the DXF Games development fund Luca B, who made a stunningly large donation today! And as an added bonus, his name is Luca B, as in LUCA BLIGHT from Suikoden 2 which is insanely cool. (It's one of my all-time favorite PS1 games). Enjoy your map of Hasslevania Luca, and like I said if you have any other questions send me an e-mail and I'll answer straight away!
08/18/08: Hasslevania 2's engine is nearly complete! Ah yes, it's been a really long hard road since last December but man is it so much better than it was before. So although I'm planning on a release sometime in 2009, the good news is that it's coming along great. I have 2 other people helping me test every aspect of what I have so far, and between the 3 of us any bugs picked up are getting fixed by me as soon as they are detected. It's a lot better having some help this time, that's for sure.
08/04/08: I was contacted by e-mail by two people that one of their copies of Hasslevania was corrupted and wouldn't work. Kevinski did some great detective work and discovered one of my mirrors had a zip filesize problem, and also that another one still had Hasslevania version 2 on it (!!). I've removed those for now, and the two that are up there now are valid. I would suggest if you download the game from kevinski's site to sign up and join the forums there, which you can not only discuss Hasslevania but Sega, NES, and other stuff.
07/24/08: Hi again, here to welcome the newest of Daxon's allies, kevinski.com! Not only does his site feature video game and game accessory reviews, it also has forums- including one devoted to Hasslevania! I've included links to it in several places on my site, and of course you can always hit the kevinski.com banner above to get there. Registration is free, so get going! And as for Hasslevania 2, it's coming along nicely.
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!