(08/30/2000)
20:19: Challenge Games mentioned on the EGM magazine! - 
I saw those interesting news a few days ago at Challenge Games, but now that a few scans of the magazine have been posted by somebody, I decided to post news here about this.
On pages 36-37 of that magazine was an article about ROM translations. But on top of page 36 was the interesting thing: it was about ROM hacking! It was a bit short though and didn't say much other than talking about Challenge Games and saying they took games like the Super Mario Bros series and edited the maps and graphics to make games harder. Right next to it though were two screenshots: one from Metroid Challenge, and one from Strange Mario Bros (yes, my SMB1 hack)!
Look at it here!
You can view the full scans here (which were taken from http://ctc.weyland-yutani.net/rombbs/message2/2270.html):
Page 36
Page 37
18:14: Interesting discovery with my email account ... -
Hehe, since my email account is on the Emulation World server, I decided to try something. You know, my email address is acmlm@mail.overclocked.org, right? Well, replace "overclocked.org" with the domain name of any other Emulation World site (like "acmlm@mail.zophar.net", "acmlm@mail.ztnet.com", "acmlm@mail.darkmazda.com", just to name a few) and it will still work! Another thing, you can also take out the "mail." part, so something like acmlm@ultrahle.com or acmlm@emuunlim.com would still be the same account.
To not make it too crazy, I'll just change my "official" email account to acmlm@overclocked.org, although acmlm@ztnet.com would be shorter. But it's up to you to choose any of those when emailing me, since they all point to the same account ...
Something similar applies to the page I go to do news updates, usually I went to http://ftp.overclocked.org/newsupdate and then did the login and password, but I just found out that http://ftp.ztnet.com does the same. Hehe ... (same for the WWWThreads boards too, although you'll get the board settings from the site you'll be on instead of mine, but I knew that for a long time)
(08/27/2000)
20:21: Site stats graphs updated, and challenge boards too! -
The title says it all, once again.
Still no hack updates today ... oh well. But don't worry, I'm not forgetting it!
01:59: Nice updates in the challenge boards today ... -
... mostly for Frank's hacks. His SMB3 hack got 5 new hard challenges, and a few more NSMs (by me and Frank) have been put up.
I got busy enough will all the updates, that I ran out of time to do the other updates I was planning to do! Maybe I'll do those next day ...
(08/26/2000)
17:51: And my birthday present was ... -
(woo, I'm turning 17 right at the moment I write this!)
... some socks, and other things like that! And I already had those! Actually it was a little joke, since I couldn't decide on what I wanted for my birthday and my parents didn't know what to buy me. My mother gave me $100 though so tomorrow I'll go buy something, which will be my real present (hehe)! Haha I still had a laugh ...
17:10: New affiliate : Dragon Eye Studios! -
Acmlm's ROM Hack Domain is proud to welcome its second affiliate, Dragon Eye Studios. That site isn't very popular yet, but it's growing! It features a few ROM hacks, like Mega Man: Wily's Conquest, Metroid Zebian Illusion, a Kid Icarus level hack, as well as a few other things. Vagla (the one taking charge of this site) is also looking for new members who are good in ROM hacking and are interested in joining. If you are interested, you can email him at vagla_des@hotmail.com. (edited at 20:05 -- I fixed the small mistakes in the Metroid hack's name ...)
I also did some updates to the Challenge Boards, with some new NSMs from me and a new hard challenge for Frank's 2nd SMB1 hack (from Frank himself).
13:08: Today is my birthday! -
That's right, I turn 17 today (around 5:50 PM, more precisely). One more year and I'll be 18 ... so I'm getting on my late teen ages. Thanks to a few people who already said Happy Birthday to me last night when it was past midnight (looks like they didn't forget it, hehe)!
(08/25/2000)
22:36: New section added ... Challenge Boards! -
Ever wanted to see if you were good at playing the hacks? That new section is for you! Try things like getting the most points without dying once, or play through the game as fast as possible, or just get through an hard level without getting hit! Right now there mostly are challenges for Strange Mario Bros 1 and Strange Mario Bros 3, but I put the "Highest score without dying" and "Fastest time" challenges for most other hacks (all those for which those challenges were appropriate), including those not done by me. I plan to add more later, but you can also submit me some at acmlm@mail.overclocked.org, just make sure it's hard enough, but not too near-impossible, while still being interesting.
What are you waiting now, go play the hacks and beat the challenges!
I already put a few NSMs, mostly old ones of when I beat several of the challenges months ago, but I also made a few new ones.
Some of you may remember this from Challenge Games, and that active challenge board for SMB3 Challenge. I'm not stealing the idea, since first of all it's no longer there at Challenge Games, and secondly I got permission (and was even encouraged) to do it! Anyway, have fun ...
I also got a few hacks to update (and a new one to put up), and I'll do the hack update tomorrow.
(08/24/2000)
20:26: Not much has been happening here recently ... -
... but don't think I lost interest on my site. Indeed, I'm working on a few new things on this site, including a new section that will involve you in a fun (and challenging) way. Remember last month when I said something about working on something new? I'm still working on it, and it's getting a bit closer to a first release now, I might get it ready in a few weeks. When I'm not working on my hacks and not making any progress in them, you know I might be doing something else for this site, which you will notice in the next weeks.
I know that the current poll here has been running for over a month, and got a satisfying amount of votes (235 right now). I plan on replacing it before long, but I don't know (yet) what new poll to put there. Maybe once I'll get my new section done I'll make a new poll about it.
(08/20/2000)
21:24: End of summer vacation ... -
Well, today was my last day of vacation (which lasted almost 3 months), and I'll go back to school tomorrow morning. So, of course, that will cut down my computer time a bit, and I'll have less time to work on my site ... oh well. I'll still be there though, just like I was before the vacation ...
(08/15/2000)
19:31: Some fixing got done! -
Well, I did a few changes in some pages here, like the main page and the Strange Mario Bros 2 and Strange Mario Bros 3 sections. I fixed the display bugs in Internet Explorer (in those sections), put some border color (no effect in Netscape but borders already looked good), and changed the color scheme in the Strange Mario Bros 3. Almost nothing (except the color changing in the Strange Mario Bros 3 section) had an effect in Netscape so I didn't cause any new problems to appear.
01:44: Looks like some fixing will have to be done ... -
Well, I went around in my site looking at all the pages in Internet Explorer, and I noticed how some of them look really bad or have some weirdness in them that shouldn't be there, like the Strange Mario Bros 2 news section and the Strange Mario Bros 3 download page. Oh well, and when I think that's the way most people see my site, since most people use Internet Explorer ... at least there are a few small things here that do look slightly better in Internet Explorer. Now I just have to make sure I won't screw up the way my site looks in Netscape when fixing the way it looks in Internet Explorer ...
01:41: Site stats graphs updated -
The title says it all ...
(08/14/2000)
17:04: Reformat done! I'm back! -
Well, I reformatted my hard disk, and installed Windows 98 SE. It didn't happen without trouble though ... the reformatting worked fine, but the Win98 installation program just kept crashing, and I was getting warnings (from the BIOS) saying that the disk boot sector had to be modified. I brought my computer to a computer reparation centre, then some guy there proceeded to the installation, which worked ... he also cleaned my computer, which had (and I mean it) a LOT of dust. My processor fan was full of dust, and thanks to a BIOS feature that made it frequently slow down to 20-30% of its speed, it didn't burn out. My computer feels all new, even though it's still my 2-year-old computer with its old Pentium-MMX 200 MHz processor ...
Anyway, everything is fine again, I got my Internet connection working again and now I just have to reinstall my programs. I'll also have both browsers now (Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 4) so now that I can see how my site looks like in both I can do some better optimising and fix some display problems in Internet Explorer.
(08/13/2000)
22:05: Going to reformat my hard disk ... -
Well, a few days ago I made a full backup of my hard disk (thanks God I have a CD-Writer), so I can reformat my hard disk without losing anything. I'll also be upgrading to Windows 98 SE (currently I have Windows 95), and start fresh new with a clean system (the Windows 95 copy I have is really bugged).
So, until all is done, I'll be offline. It still shouldn't take too long, maybe just the night and tomorrow afternoon.
(08/12/2000)
22:46: Good thing I have my new email account ... -
... mostly because Hotmail is down since a few days and I can't access my Hotmail account. I also got used to Netscape Messenger and now I like it much better than Hotmail. It's faster, more reliable, there's a "You got mail" notification feature, I have unlimited space and better control on the mail I get. I also don't get any spam mail, and I'm very happy about that (I used to get a lot of that crap in my old account).
22:05: Zophar's Domain hits 10 million! -
Zophar's Domain, a great and very popular emulation site, got it's 10000000th visitor about 20 minutes ago. I have to say, 10 million is quite impressive (even though there are a few emulation sites that got more than that) ... happy 10000000th to Zophar's Domain!
P.S. I got the 10000028th hit ... and the 9999700th about one minute before. Oh well ... I was not alone to reload the counter, trying to get the 10000000th hit!
02:21: 4 hacks updated, 2 hacks added! -
Wow, finally a good update in the hack archive! Let's take a look at what's new:
- Frank's first SMB1 hack has been updated with a few bugfixes
- Frank started working on his third SMB1 hack, in which all levels (including pipe, water and castle levels) will be tree levels. World 1 is done currently.
- Frank's SMB3 hack now has World 8 done, and is now completed!
- Recovery1's SMB2 hack now has World 6 done ... only World 7 is left!
- EDS Mario also got updated, with World 3 done.
- And last, but not least, Chocobo Dragon Warrior has been added as well.
Well, that's all for tonight ...
(08/07/2000)
20:04: Acmlm's ROM Hack Domain reaches the 30000 hit mark! -
Around 5:40 PM EST, Acmlm's ROM Hack Domain got its 30000th visitor (or visit, as it isn't unique hits), about two months after getting to 20000. Way to go! Once again, thank you all for visiting my site and keeping me motivated on updating it.
(08/06/2000)
01:51: Site stats graphs updated -
It's a 2-week update this time since there was no update to it last week ...
01:21: One hack added -
A new SMB3 hack has been added. It's a level hack (with a few graphic changes) by Johns Program : The Second World of SMB3. Levels up to 3-7 are done, and some of them are very different from the original. How good is this hack? Well, it's up to you to try it and see for yourself!
(08/03/2000)
00:35: New email address ... -
Well, I got really bored of some of the limitations with my current email account (from Hotmail), and as I noticed that with my site hosted in Emulation World I could get an email account from there, I decided to give it a try. So now my email address is acmlm@mail.overclocked.org. I'll still check my current account (acmlm_jf32@hotmail.com) occasionally, though, so it won't really be a problem if you send emails there.
With that new account, there's no more of that 2000k size limit that was getting on my nerves, and I'm pretty sure there might be a few other good things. Now I just have to get used to Netscape Messenger, which is the only program I've got to access my new account (but that will have to do for now).
00:29: One hack added! -
A new SMB1 hack got added, and it's an almost complete level-only hack by Neo Darkshadow. Although only levels are changed, it's still worth playing, as the levels are pretty good.
(08/01/2000)
10:13: Mario Improvement 3 updated to version 0.95! -
Great news for you SMB3 hackers, the well-known SMB3 level editor by LincolnSoft got a nice update (several days ago, when I was away), featuring quite a bit of improvement to the previous version (0.75):
- Much more support for levels in Mario All-Stars, now you can edit all levels although things like map pointers, level headers, etc. can't be edited yet.
- Pipe ways and hammer bros levels are now supported, as well as some "lost" levels.
- New editing mode (freeform mode) that allows you to build a level from scratch by adding objects and enemies, then saving it to a ROM or a M3L (Mario 3 Level) file.
- Map screen sprites are supported. Now you can move and change things on the map, like Hammer Brothers, Pirhana Plants, Ships and Tanks, and that also includes the "Help!" thing next to the castle as well as some more.
- You can now use map level pointers to go to levels and edit them.
- Vertical levels now display correctly (in the NES SMB3)
- The editor is now open source, which means you can use the source to improve the program, or just take a look at how it's done (it's programmed in C, and compiled with DJGPP).
Oh and yes, get the new version at LincolnSoft!
|
|
