Trying to get back into Game Development

As in creating my own games in Game Maker or other engines. After I had started working on BSSF2: Glamor Queen, I kept forgetting how to code in GML. This also extends to the philosophy I used to do when I created my own Game Maker games as a hobby.

These days, I have no idea how to balance my time between browsing platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, Bluesky, etc, rotoscoping my own model renders, developing Game Maker games, and more. I'm afraid I've run past my prime time as far as creating Game Maker games goes. The best I can do is to keep recycling code from my previous games. A nice thing to know is that games written in pre-Studio versions of Game Maker can run on a Steam Deck under custom Proton settings, with some caveats such as the complete lack of MIDI audio, or sounds not being able to interrupt themselves. Larger games seem to crash at random.

Vernon Rant (Post-2023)

Ah, Vernon, my oldest brother. For the longest time, he's always been this cool guy with a great sense of humor and morale. He has a tremendous ability to apply logic to situations. When I was little, I used to be afraid to talk to him, but that has long since changed.

At least 3 months after Diane and co. got a new house in October of 2022, Vernon started to change... drastically, for the absolute worst. Some term that must have originated from the Matrix movie, called colored "pills" or what have you, caught the attention of many people across the internet. Often times you'll have to hear about such a term.

By far one of the most annoying traits Vernon has gained, are the constant click sounds on whatever phone he uses. Combine that with almost always having some yapping (usually from YouTube videos/streams) playing on a video game console, both night and day. After doing a little bit of research, yes, there are people who have to sleep to sound. And unfortunately, Vernon seemingly became one of those people. Like, you can't leave a console on without an apparent reason and expect others not to moderate you. Vernon also seems to fake his sleep sometimes, as there are times when I could clearly hear him snoring, I would turn off the TV, causing Vernon to react to it and wonder what happened.

The yapping playing at midnight especially bothers me, as it seems like I am not allowed to concentrate on creating content. I also dislike hearing constant donations or yelling/screaming from the streams he's listening to, or when he has his phone playing audio at midnight on speaker. Another thing I dislike is when he's playing a console in one room, while listening to the TV in another room, but I believe he's done this before 2023. The light on his phone is also very distracting. I swear, no other content creator has to deal with such things. Whenever the console is off at midnight, I can't help but feel a sigh of relief.

As an anime fan, I also especially hate it when Vernon starts playing a video/stream of some obnoxious lady. Another thing that annoys me are his weird sleep intervals. Often times, he can't sleep for a solid length of time. Plus, it's hard to correctly judge if he's genuinely fast asleep. There's even been times when he would turn the  Xbox One back on, shortly before  falling back to sleep.  Things like those completely shut down my enthusiasm, and it hurts me deep inside that I have to put up with them for many years to come.  There was even a time when the Xbox One's power supply was dying, so Vernon had to buy a new one from Gamestop for $50.

On an extra note, Vernon tends to have sound playing on his phone at midnight.

I hope this rant ages poorly, but I heavily doubt that it will.

Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi - PS1 and Saturn Version Differences

PS1

 

Saturn

PS1

Saturn

PS1

 

Saturn

 

 Here's a list of differences between the Playstation and Saturn versions that I compiled:

PS1:
-This version is harder than the Saturn version.
-Load times seem to be shorter.
-The characters don't animate in their profiles in the opening.
-There isn't as much noticeable slowdown.
-Music plays earlier.
-Cutscenes have no transition effect.
-You have to press Select+Start to skip cutscenes.
-The title menu's cursor is a large rectangle.
-Doesn't have a Stereo/Mono sound option.
-You can only choose from 3 different button configurations.
-The loading screen's text takes up 2 lines.
-The order of subsequent characters are always random.
-The gadget box and character icons on the HUD doesn't have a black outline.
-The ItemPower text is in Yellow.
-The save menu uses a more simpler background.
-The save menu doesn't label the stages by their numbers.
-The save menu's borders are in purple.
-The save file select doesn't show any thumbnails.
-Cutscenes use a yellow downwards triangle to denote fully printed text.
-No option to make cutscene messages automatically play after each other.
-Each Character has only one voice clip for spawning and taking damage.
-No speech upon clearing a stage.
-The gadget switch sound effect doesn't cut off.
-Shizuka's victory animation has her eyes remain fully open.
-Only Stage 1 has health items.
-Stage 2A has brighter textures.
-The music doesn't reset when loading another area (such as Stage 1-2).
-Stage 4A's backgrounds have nice wavy effects.
-Stage 4A has a reverb effect for sounds and voices.
-Stage 4A doesn't play the boss theme until you reach the octopus.
-Stage 4A shows a large, pixelated piece of ink that the octopus emerges from.
-The octopus doesn't make noises.
-To choose Stage 4B, the S. Light and Hoop gadgets are grouped with the top ones.
-Stage 6 has brighter textures.
-Stage 6 has blue flying robots that shoot yellow projectiles at you.
-Stage 6 has rotating laser hazards that are solid.
-Stage 7 plays a music track that isn't used in the Saturn version.
-Stage 7's cube totems only take away 1 HP if their explosion hits you.
-Stage 7's white shock wave enemy has a transparency effect.
-Stage 8's textures aren't as blurry.
-Stage 8's doors that haven't been tagged yet have their numbers in red.
-The Staff Roll doesn't have a background.
-The last message in the ending merely consists of text.

Saturn:
-This version is much easier than the Playstation version.
-Load times seem to be much longer.
-The characters animate in their profiles in the opening.
-The game slows down more during parts of certain stages.
-Music has a longer delay before it starts playing.
-Cutscenes have fade transitions.
-Cutscenes can be skipped with just the Start button.
-Includes an option for the sound to be in Stereo or Mono.
-The title menu's cursor is an animated icon of Doraemon.
-You can remap each individual command.
-The loading screen's text takes up 1 line.
-Character order seems to remain the same, depending on the 1st character.
-The gadget box and character icons on the HUD have a black outline.
-The ItemPower text is Black with a white rectanglular highlight.
-The save menu's background appears to be Nobita's room.
-The save menu labels the stages by their numbers in addition to their names.
-The save menu's borders are in lime green.
-The save file select shows a thumbnail of the most recent stage beaten.
-Cutscenes use an animated icon of Doraemon to denote fully printed text.
-Cutscene messages can automatically proceed with B button, and manually with A.
-Characters have two voice clips for spawning and taking damage each.
-Each character plays a victory voice clip upon clearing a stage, all of which are taken from the ending, except for Suneo's.
-The gadget switch sound effect was shortened.
-Shizuka's victory animation appears to have her eyes slightly closed.
-Health items were added to more Stages.
-Stage 2A has darker textures.
-The music resets when loading another area (such as Stage 1-2).
-Stage 4A's backgrounds are static.
-Stage 4A's reverb effect is absent.
-Stage 4A plays the boss theme as soon as the blue sea creature appears.
-Stage 4A's ink was changed to a black orb with a blue outline.
-The octopus makes noises.
-To choose Stage 4B, you choose an alternate option during the preceding cutscene.
-Stage 6 has darker textures.
-Stage 6's blue flying robots were completely removed.
-Stage 6's rotating lasers were completely removed.
-Stage 7 goes straight to displaying the Station's km meter.
-Apparently, if any of Stage 7's cube totems explode, they instantly kill you.
-Shock waves are opaque due to the Saturn hardware lacking transparency capabilities.
-Stage 8's textures are much more blurry.
-Stage 8's doors that haven't been tagged yet have their numbers in yellow.
-The Staff Roll was given an animated space background and a new font.
-The last message after the ending has a picture of Doraemon and Nobita waving.

Both:
-The button configuration header's text is different.
-Menu sounds are different.
-The jump and line switch sound effects are completely different.
-Both versions have a completely different death jingle.
-Different air pistol sound.
-Different gadget jingles.
-Dinosaur Boss in Stage 3 is more brownish on PSX and less detailed on Saturn.
-Octopus Boss in Stage 4A has a different appearance.
-Most of Stage 7's scenery have completely different textures.

PSX Emulators:
-BizHawk crashes after the 1st intro cutscene if the CDDA audio is not present.
-Slowdown is mostly removed from Stage 4A.

Saturn Emulators:
-On Yabause, not all of the sound effects play.
-Yabause has much faster load times.
-Yabause makes the first character in the party wave their arm faster.
-Load times are 4-5 seconds shorter on SSF.
-SSF has less slowdown. Especially apparent on Stage 4A.
-On Mednafen and RetroArch's Beetle Saturn core, the select cursor might not show up in the save menu.

Steam Account History

 Near the end of 2010, I created my very first Steam account, Lorenzo The Comic (as in comic book). I can't remember the motivation behind it, aside from the fact that my brother had created his Steam account a year prior. My first Steam account wasn't used all that much.

In 2013, I bought Sonic 4: Episode 1 and Sonic Generations for PC on a different website. It turns out that they required Steam to play. So I went and used my 1st Steam account so I could play them. Later that year, I was eagerly waiting for the PC release of Skullgirls, and eventually joined the Skullheart forums.

By 2016, I had pretty much forgotten about my first Steam account, and created my 2nd one in January of that year. I was more active on my 2nd account than before. That account got community banned in September of next year due to spam, then I created another Steam account which I completely forgot about. I created yet another Steam account near the end of 2017, which also got community banned in February of 2020 for the same reason as my 2nd main account. By this point, I had pretty much given up on Steam.

These days, I'm stuck with an account from 2020 that I created during a time when Game Maker Studio 2 Mobile was on sale.

It took me until a few days ago, that I realized that I could provide my activation methods of the games I had purchased on my 1st Steam account to Steam Support. I finally changed the email address on my very 1st Steam account, after all those years of it being attached to an email service that seems to be defunct. Nowadays, I would keep my 1st account as it is mostly, for historical purposes.

Here is my 1st account.

Unobtainable Pokémon in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald

Generation III of Pokémon holds a special place in my heart. Although I didn't start playing Gen III until roughly a month before Gen IV's western release, it advanced the series in so many ways, when going from the Game Boy Color to the Game Boy Advance. Gen III introduced a lot of features, such as running shoes, abilities, natures and double battles. The user interfaces were also redefined, with all the Pokémon now having their own menu icons.

A thing that felt weird to me, was that a lot of the Pokémon from previous generations couldn't be obtained in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald without trading with other Gen III games. These include Fire Red, Leaf Green, Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness.

There's something about the shading style and poses on the sprites in RSE, that I don't know how to describe them. I like most of the Kanto Pokémon sprites in RSE better than the ones in FRLG which often had more generic poses, although FRLG did have some better back sprites such as Alakzam's. Most returning Pokémon's back sprites in RSE were revamps of their Gen II back sprites.

Back in 2009, I used to spend countless hours trading Pokémon from my copies of Sapphire, FRLG and Colosseum onto Emerald.

All Pokémon Sprite Animations