Konami Training

[Master Roshambollah]

I played quite a bit of Wii with C. Urbanus during my last trip to Philly.  Primarily, we played bowling and tennis, and made some great avatars for Rosh, Urbanus and The Hood. 

Wii was also the focus of part of my last trip to Minneapolis, where I went to visit Team Hustler.  During my first home invasion scenario (thanks again to Rev, Tax and Rocky for making a dream come true,) the Rev badgered the terrified residents for over an hour, entreating them to hook up the Wii so we could play some bowling.

[R Cohrs]

Based on my experience with bowling and tennis, it seemed to be a decently accurate system.  My bowling score after just playing a few times roughly matched my real scores, but my friend is about twice as good at the Wii version than real life.   The controller does a great job with matching hand movements.  Nintendo's come a long way since I bought the horrid power glove years ago (which never worked).

The avatars (Mii's) are also interesting, and further support the kind of interaction that would make Wii RPS a great game.  Seems like there is great potential, and I'm guessing that any RPS fan whose used the system (like Master Rosh) would concur.  It would be easy to keep track of stats, host tournaments, and bring the game to "the next level."

[R Cohrs]

The toughest new Konami game that I've played in a while is Contra 4 for the DS.  I spent the last few weeks incessantly playing this game, and I'm proud to say I made it through Hard mode without resorting to the 100+ life glitch, mastered all the challenges, and unlocked the original NES Contra and Super C, an excellent bonus for the game to have.  This game takes a quick eye, lots of hand-eye coordination, and strong and nimble fingers to play; I highly recommend it as a workout for some RPS action.

Which brings me back to the Konami training thread; it's been a while here.  Another game that I picked up also for the DS was Konami Arcade Classics.  This game features some standards such as arcade Gradius, Contra (not the nes version), and Rush 'n' Attack, along with some lesser knowns like Rainbow Bell and Roc 'n' Rope.  I really enjoyed this title, and it also features another version of Yie-Ar Kung Fu.

So what's the obsession with Konami games?  Konami, especially in the late 80's and early 90's, featured some of the most fun but challenging games that I've ever played.  Besides the ones I've mentioned, Castlevania, Blades of Steel, Life Force, and so many more were so well made.  Extremely playable, great graphics and sound, but difficulty that could make a Norwegian Death Metal singer cry. 

So once again, I nod my head to video games as I continue my ongoing RPS training, as quick eyes, skillful hands, and being a glutton for punishment are definite crossover skills.

[Franklint]

Oh, wow. A video game thread on the Bullboard. Bliss.

I luuuuuuuuuuurve my video games. Been a Mario fanatic since I was small. Perhaps my long history of gaming has helped with RPS in some way. I guess we'll see in Sonoma, ay, Rosh?

Glad to see some of you older dudes play Wii. Wii is very much awesome. I would defeat both of you, hands down, at Wii tennis. Wait, scratch that. I would defeat the entire Bullboard, hands down, at Wii tennis. Yes. I am just that awesome. My skill level is over 2000 (2x the "pro" level), and still climbing. Don't believe me? Bring it on.

Cheers,
Franklint

[Master Roshambollah]

No doubt.  I've only played Wii a couple of times, over at C. Urbanus' place when I'm in Philly.  We mostly played tennis, Urbanus also being a big fan of it.  I've got say, the icons for Urbanus, the Hood and myself are pretty spot on.  I don't guess there's any way to post a screen shot...

[Franklint]

I think your best bet would be to take a digital photograph of the screen. While not being perfect quality, this method is perfectly sufficient to show Miis or other features.

Mine's pretty decent too, I must say. While there was no curly hair option, I found a groovy spikey one that looks fine.

Cheers,
Franklint

[R Cohrs]

I'm not very good at Wii tennis yet, but I did make it through the Paper Mario game and found most of the secrets.  Then I got a little too bored to find the flute helper guy.  I'm better at guitar hero than tennis, but expert mode is still tricky, especially the metal songs.  One game on Facebook seems to have a lot of RPS roots; the new version of Fight Club.  3 attacks and 3 choices of defense seems to keep with the tripartite elements of RPS. 

[R Cohrs]

Been playing Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on the DS lately.  The game mechanics are derived from RPS; R = close attack, P = magic, S = Air Attack.  During the training mode the game specifically says "think of this system like Rock, Paper, Scissors;" just another Final Fantasy RPS connection.  Decent game, not my fav in the FF series by far. 

[R Cohrs]

Found another game with an RPS link: Dragonball Z: Buu's Fury for the Game Boy Advance.  As I played yesterday I came to the climatic showdown between Gokuu, Vegita, and Kid Buu.  Gokuu and Vegita use RPS to decide who fights first.  Gokuu wins against Vegita with R against S, winning the honor of first to fight. 

[R Cohrs]

Here's the scoop on what I've been up to the last few days as it's been awhile since I've dropped in.
Besides teaching and generally enjoying my last couple of months here in Korea, I've been working pretty
intensely on creating a new rpg using an rpg making program.  This is the second one I've done, and the reason I'm writing about it here is because I was able to program a simple random rock paper scissors minigame (along with a slot machine, guess a number game, high-low game, etc... and of course the main story).

The RPS game uses random variables, and I know it will throw at least 4 in a row.  Each throw the player chooses generates a random string, so they are independently random, and not linked to the previous throw.  As far as the main story goes, it's going along nicely but still will take quite a while to finish.  Having fun with this though and I'll probably put it on the net when I'm finished. 

My friend's also been doing the same kind of project, and made her own RPS game using a different technique.  It was pretty good and set up as a best 2 out of 3; unfortunately it switches throws every time so it's very easy to beat as long as you throw for a tie.

[Franklint]

Your time in Korea has flown by so quickly, even for us who aren't even there! I can't imagine how fast it must have gone for someone in the midst of the excitement of a new culture. I've personally loved your regular posts about your adventures, and they future-remind (new word) me of my Japanese adventure I plan to go on in a few years' time.

Are you, by any chance, using RPG Maker XP or RPG Maker VX? I've had experience with the former, and started out a pretty solid base for a game ages ago, but unfortunately it never went anywhere once I started using Mac regularly. I started getting back into it, but am finding VX to be much more advanced and, consequently, harder to use. Both are good applications for beginners, and come with a gargantuan set of templates, pictures and music tracks, as well as allowing high levels of customization. They are, perhaps, not quite as powerful as more code-based programs (RPG Maker is more or less drag-and-drop), which would allow a higher degree of flexibility.

Anyway, upload your first game and give us the link!

Cheers,
Franklint

[R Cohrs]

This time I'm using RPG Maker VX.  I don't know a ton about other programs in this vein, but I know it allows code writers to create their own scripts using Ruby, so maybe it's more flexible than it appears on the surface.  Since I'm not a code writer, I like that it's fairly easy to understand even for a beginner like me, although of course the more you know the better your games can get.  They offer almost no help in the actual game though, so I've either had to use trial and error or wade through websites just for small things.  It's a lot of fun for me though, cause I'm a nerd about it. 

One cool thing with this one is that you can import your own sound and graphics. I haven't done much with the graphics yet, but I made 2 cool items; a jukebox and a headphone set that both play real MP3s.  The headphone set was a bit tricky, since you've used the program a bit I'll nerd it out for ya: I made an item that links to a common event, and the common event allows the user to pick a song or else it shuts down.  The hard part was coming up with a way to use it anytime, so I programmed it to raise max Spirit by a point in order to be able to use it anywhere, and then the common event program lowers it back down.  This will work unless of course I max out my Spirit, but you gotta do some tricks like that with the programming limitations. 

Anyway, I realize this is super-boring for many people; although I suppose not considering some of the posts I've read here.  The first RPG I made was maybe 4 years ago or so, and I used an early version of RPG maker called Super Dante.  It was for the Super Famicom, but there's a translated version for a Super Nintendo emulator.  It has a severe flaw though, and that's every time you use a critical attack, the game freezes, so I built the game to be playable using magic all the way through.  I won't be putting this one up though for several reasons: it's a little dated, the glitch bothers me, and I'm working on the new one now so I'd rather just release that (eventually, like I said, still got a ways to go).

Ok, so also it would be great if you could go to Japan.  I loved living there, and I'm waiting anxiously now to hear about a final interview to teach at a public school there after I'm finished here.  I wrote about my Japan experiences here too, so if you're interested they should be archived in the general discussion area.   

[Franklint]

This seems as gooder place as any to mention this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=250449954897

It was a patent being sold on eBay for a Rock Paper Scissors online game, that would be available on Xbox Live and whatever the Sony equivalent is. It cost $90,000, and appeared to be from a seller who didn't have any feedback and joined up early last month. No wonder it didn't sell. If you're rich and awesome at designing games, contact the seller and I'm sure they'll be happy to scam you out of your money put up the sale again.

Cheers,
Franklint

[R Cohrs]

Playing Final Fantasy VIII now.  Don't really care for it too much, just doing it to kill boredom and because I'm a nerd that must get through all the FF games that I can.  The game has a Guardian Force summoning system, and when you use the summon "Brothers," 2 minotaurs rip the earth apart and send it flying into the sky.  They play a quick game of RPS, where the largest one always plays rock while the smallest plays paper.  The largest one is flung into the air to crash into the enemy as a result.  Maybe they should rename the GF to be the "Walker Bros."

[R Cohrs]

I've been exploring the Famicom Disk System lately, and stumbled across a RPS puzzle game.  It's called:

Famimaga Disk Vol. 6 - Janken Disk Shiro (Shiro probably means white if my basic Japanese doesn't fail me)

The game focuses on different rooms, some with treasure, that have blocks with Rock, Paper, and Scissors symbols.  The player must move the symbols to make the blocks disappear, such as lining up Scissors with Rock to make Scissors disappear.  There's multiple symbols on the screen, and some include a color value system, making it more difficult.  I only tapped the surface of this one, but this is a true RPS based game in old school Nintendo style.