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GORF: Now on GameBoy Advance!


Jess Ragan

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Thanks! Yeah, I wanted to make sure that the challenges were tough enough to keep gamers playing for a while, but not impossible. That reminds me... anyone complete challenge 25, The Professional, yet? (I haven't.)

 

Kojote of PDRoms was kind enough to cover this on his site. I'm going to try to get a little publicity from IndieGames and Auntie Pixelante as well.

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...However, I can't get this to work on a flash cartridge, for reasons I don't fully understand.

 

 

There might be something wacky with the header on this. It's valid according to GBATA, but NO$GBA whines about a value at 0xB2. My kludge to get it to work on my EZ-Flash 3in1 was just replacing 0xB0-0xBF with 16 bytes from an already-working-on-my-setup homebrew ROM...and NO$GBA stopped whining too. :/

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I went the arcade route and just put the high scores immediately after the attract mode. They're still not immediately accessible, but better than having to play through an entire game to reach them.

 

(No, I won't add the game demos after the attract mode. I'M JUST ONE MAN, DAMMIT!)

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Thanks! I'm glad people are enjoying the game, although I'll admit that I wish it had made more of an impact. I chalk it up to a poor choice of system for a project like this. The GameBoy Advance is too old to catch on with mainstream gamers, yet too new to raise an eyebrow with gamers who remember GORF from their youths. If I had the know-how to make GORF for the ColecoVision (or better yet, Wizard of Wor), people would have gone apeshit over it!

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Fantastic work! I'd stopped following this project because I didn't think that any of the emulators available to me would be able to play it at the proper speed, but I didn't realize that the Boycott Advance issue was now fixed. The score is still corrupted/obscured, but the game plays at the right speed.

 

I hadn't seen the matrix challenges before, and they're really fun -- exactly the right kind of unlockable content, where it adds value without getting in the way of the main game. I've been playing now for an hour and a half, and have gotten all but two of them (Space Warp #3 and #4). After numerous failed attempts to strategize, I ended up getting the Professional in two shots (one for the shield, one for the flagship), to my surprise -- I guess Han Solo would be proud.

 

Anyway, this whole port is a class act all around. It plays really well, feels very polished, and all the added content seems completely natural and well-chosen. It deserves a lot more attention -- September is a tough time to release new content, since so many people (myself included) are involved in back-to-school stuff -- and I hope it turns out to be a real sleeper hit in the GBA community.

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Thanks, I really appreciate the thorough review! You're the first person to really dig into the Mission Matrix and come back with a detailed analysis. I'm really proud of how that turned out... despite its age, GORF lends itself extremely well to a Crazy Box/achievements system due to the diversity of its gameplay.

 

So, tell me more about your situation. Why are you only able to play the game with Boycott Advance? I used Visual Boy Advance and a Supercard SD for all my playtesting... to be honest, I don't think I TRIED anything else. It wasn't because I couldn't use other emulators... only because I never really wanted to, since the game runs without a hitch on VBA.

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Thanks, I really appreciate the thorough review! You're the first person to really dig into the Mission Matrix and come back with a detailed analysis. I'm really proud of how that turned out... despite its age, GORF lends itself extremely well to a Crazy Box/achievements system due to the diversity of its gameplay.

You're welcome! And agreed, I think it suits the game very well, and the missions offer just the right level of challenge and time commitment.

 

So, tell me more about your situation. Why are you only able to play the game with Boycott Advance?

I'm running OS X 10.4.11 on a PPC Mac (PowerBook G4/1.5GHz), and so my options are limited; Boycott Advance runs at full speed on that setup, whereas Visual Boy Advance doesn't quite seem to make it. I don't own a GBA or flashcart, so real hardware's out. I suppose I could try it on my Dreamcast, since there are emulators available on that platform that aren't available on OS X/PPC.

 

There's only one critical improvement necessary, IMHO: with all the in-jokes and allusions, I urge you to consider including a picture of Kermit the Gorf in the gallery (assuming he's not already in there, and I just haven't unlocked it yet!). It just wouldn't be the same without him! ;)

 

By the way, who's the woman in the gallery? A dev for the original Gorf?

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Gah! That whole Kermit the Gorf thing drove me nuts! That kept popping up when I was looking for pictures to use in the art gallery. What's the story with that, anyway?

 

Yes, the woman in the gallery is actually Jamie Faye Fenton, a developer at Nutting Associates who created GORF along with Dave Nutting. The curious thing is that she didn't begin life as a woman... she helped start the long-running, head-scratching tradition of transgendered video game programmers, along with the late Dani Bunton. You can bring up a little more information on Fenton and the other exhibits in the art gallery by pressing the A button... a purple window slides out from the bottom of the screen with a description of the currently displayed image.

 

Vic George: Not bad, not bad! However, where's the credit for my company JessCREATIONS?

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