Dude Shinobi Homebrews

[DragonLord1975]

Seeing Dude Shinobi being played in the arcades as shown in the comic, I was thinking on if someone were to make an actual Dude Shinobi beat-em-up fighting game for old school consoles like the NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive and others.

With homebrew games popping up like wildfire, it would be something to see a real Dude Shinobi game created for fun. Of course, it has to have the standards of all games like items, enemies and bosses. Fun stuff.

What do you think?

[Adam Dravian]

Seeing Dude Shinobi being played in the arcades as shown in the comic, I was thinking on if someone were to make an actual Dude Shinobi beat-em-up fighting game for old school consoles like the NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive and others.

With homebrew games popping up like wildfire, it would be something to see a real Dude Shinobi game created for fun. Of course, it has to have the standards of all games like items, enemies and bosses. Fun stuff.

What do you think?

Hah! I would fucking love that. In fact, it's actually something Jessica and I have talked about. But making a game, even a simple retro beat-em-up, is a huge task. Maybe if our comic ever blows up in popularity, it'd be something that we'd be able to tackle.

[Rijst]

Reading the title, I thought this was going to be about beer.

I'm planning to get some brewing kit in the new year, hence my confusion. I'm sure we can come up with a beer worthy of that name to make up for the lack of beat 'em up versions..

In the meanwhile there's always the Golden Axe PC port that I can't quite remember where I got it from..

[Rijst]

You can find it here: http://progameroms.com/segagenesis/SegaGenesis.html

You need to install the emulator first, but then it's pretty good fun. I love the soundtrack so much that I used the mp3 files as a ringtone on my phone.. 

[Adam Dravian]

You can find it here: http://progameroms.com/segagenesis/SegaGenesis.html

You need to install the emulator first, but then it's pretty good fun. I love the soundtrack so much that I used the mp3 files as a ringtone on my phone.. 

Science Dude, you're talking to Captain Emulation over here. I've been a huge fan of emulators since I first discovered NESticle in the '90s. MAME is probably my favorite emulator, as it's the only way to play most old arcade games.

But yeah, Golden Axe rules. I'm a mega-fan of the '80s barbarian trend of movies and video games. Some other rad '80s barbarian arcade games were Rastan and The Astyanax. The Astyanax was originaly released as Lord of Kings in Japan, and the flyer for it is pretty fucking amazing: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/legendaryaxe/lordofkingflyer.jpg

And by amazing, I mean absolutely retarded. They should have called the game "Lord of Arms." Jessica actually had that flyer as her desktop for the better part of the past year.

[Rijst]

Science Dude, you're talking to Captain Emulation over here. I've been a huge fan of emulators since I first discovered NESticle in the '90s. MAME is probably my favorite emulator, as it's the only way to play most old arcade games.

But yeah, Golden Axe rules. I'm a mega-fan of the '80s barbarian trend of movies and video games. Some other rad '80s barbarian arcade games were Rastan and The Astyanax. The Astyanax was originaly released as Lord of Kings in Japan, and the flyer for it is pretty fucking amazing: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/legendaryaxe/lordofkingflyer.jpg

And by amazing, I mean absolutely retarded. They should have called the game "Lord of Arms." Jessica actually had that flyer as her desktop for the better part of the past year.

Haha was she just taking the piss I hopehen? Those arms are ridiculous indeed and his face makes me think of Modern Talking. Is the game itself any good?

Seems to me this barbarian image was copied straight from Conan the Barbarian. Speaking of which, has anyone seen the 2011 version?

[Adam Dravian]

Science Dude, you're talking to Captain Emulation over here. I've been a huge fan of emulators since I first discovered NESticle in the '90s. MAME is probably my favorite emulator, as it's the only way to play most old arcade games.

But yeah, Golden Axe rules. I'm a mega-fan of the '80s barbarian trend of movies and video games. Some other rad '80s barbarian arcade games were Rastan and The Astyanax. The Astyanax was originaly released as Lord of Kings in Japan, and the flyer for it is pretty fucking amazing: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/legendaryaxe/lordofkingflyer.jpg

And by amazing, I mean absolutely retarded. They should have called the game "Lord of Arms." Jessica actually had that flyer as her desktop for the better part of the past year.

Haha was she just taking the piss I hopehen? Those arms are ridiculous indeed and his face makes me think of Modern Talking.

It made her laugh, so she made it her desktop. That video you linked to can't be viewed from the US, but we found another version of it. Good stuff. I love the "meowing" guitar. I think I'll have to add it to my massive "ultimate '80s playlist."

Is the game itself any good?

Hmm. Jessica and I played through it a long time ago, so I don't remember it all that well. But I'd say it's pretty comparable to Golden Axe.

Seems to me this barbarian image was copied straight from Conan the Barbarian. Speaking of which, has anyone seen the 2011 version?

Oh, boy. You've just struck on a sore spot. You see, I'm a huge fan of the original Robert E. Howard Conan stories that were written in the nineteen-thirties. The Arnold Conan films strayed pretty far from the source material (although I love the first movie in spite of the that, and Conan the Destroyer is entertainingly stupid--but fuck that thief character). When the 2011 Conan movie was first announced, it was heralded as a Conan movie that would stay true to the original stories. That got me super pumped and I followed its production really closely for years.

But things really went downhill during the production. For some reason they chose a director known for semi-descent horror movie remakes, and they hired a writing duo that produced a shitty script that wasn't at all true to the original Conan stories. At the last second, they brought in a more hardcore Conan fan to re-write the script. But by that point they'd already been building the sets and had the locations all scouted and the costumes made and such so there wasn't much that the new writer was allowed to change as far as the general plot was concerned.

I actually really liked Jason Momoa as Conan. It's just too bad he wasn't presented with a very good movie to act in.

When I finally saw it in the theater, I'd been so pumped about it for years, and I really wanted it to be rad as hell in spite of all the red flags during the production, but it was ultimately disappointing. It makes me pissed off when I think about what that movie could have been.

[Rijst]

Seems to me this barbarian image was copied straight from Conan the Barbarian. Speaking of which, has anyone seen the 2011 version?

Oh, boy. You've just struck on a sore spot. You see, I'm a huge fan of the original Robert E. Howard Conan stories that were written in the nineteen-thirties. The Arnold Conan films strayed pretty far from the source material (although I love the first movie in spite of the that, and Conan the Destroyer is entertainingly stupid--but fuck that thief character). When the 2011 Conan movie was first announced, it was heralded as a Conan movie that would stay true to the original stories. That got me super pumped and I followed its production really closely for years.

But things really went downhill during the production. For some reason they chose a director known for semi-descent horror movie remakes, and they hired a writing duo that produced a shitty script that wasn't at all true to the original Conan stories. At the last second, they brought in a more hardcore Conan fan to re-write the script. But by that point they'd already been building the sets and had the locations all scouted and the costumes made and such so there wasn't much that the new writer was allowed to change as far as the general plot was concerned.

I actually really liked Jason Momoa as Conan. It's just too bad he wasn't presented with a very good movie to act in.

When I finally saw it in the theater, I'd been so pumped about it for years, and I really wanted it to be rad as hell in spite of all the red flags during the production, but it was ultimately disappointing. It makes me pissed off when I think about what that movie could have been.

Right, I still need to see it then. I haven't read the books, mainly because I didn't know they were there, but I might pick them up at some point too. Sounds like a good read for the daily train journey. I usually don't trust promises of staying true to a book. Film is such a different medium that it simply screams for changes to be made although they usually go further than that.

Surprisingly, I think the War of the Worlds film with Tom Cruise stays surprisingly close to the book. Apart from the fact that it's set in modern day USA (instead of Victorian England), necessitating force fields to counter modern weapons, much of what happens in the film happens in the book as well and from the same point of view (a guy that's on the run for the aliens basically). I can really recommend the original story but I think the film was pretty good as well.

Same for the first installment of the latest Sherlock Holmes films, Doyle wrote loads of different stories so the stuff that happens doesn't even matter that much. The interplay between Holmes and Watson was spot on however.

[Adam Dravian]

Right, I still need to see it then. I haven't read the books, mainly because I didn't know they were there, but I might pick them up at some point too. Sounds like a good read for the daily train journey. I usually don't trust promises of staying true to a book. Film is such a different medium that it simply screams for changes to be made although they usually go further than that.

A lot of people seem to have the impression that Conan started out as a comic character, because Marvel's Conan comics in the '70s were pretty popular. Anyway, if you're interested in the original stories, I highly recommend the three-book collection released by Del Rey in the early 2000s. Those three books collect every Conan story Robert E. Howard wrote (one novella and a bunch of short stories), and presents them in the order they were originally published. A lot of other Conan anthologies have edited versions of the stories and often use guesswork to try and put them into a chronological order. As they were originally written, the stories jump around Conan's life. Hell, the very first Conan story ever written takes place when he's already a king.

I don't expect any movie to be a straight adaptation of any particular Conan story (although a direct adaptation of the Conan novella would be awesome), but I was hopeful that the 2011 movie would both get the Conan character right, and be good. It kind of got the character right, but it fell short of being good.

Surprisingly, I think the War of the Worlds film with Tom Cruise stays surprisingly close to the book. Apart from the fact that it's set in modern day USA (instead of Victorian England), necessitating force fields to counter modern weapons, much of what happens in the film happens in the book as well and from the same point of view (a guy that's on the run for the aliens basically). I can really recommend the original story but I think the film was pretty good as well.

I enjoyed that War of the Worlds remake, but in general it bothers me how adaptations seem to always feel the need to update the story to have it take place during whatever the current year is. That often robs it of a lot of its charm and character. And some kinds of stories simply work better in certain time periods. For example, Weird Science works in part because computers were a very new and mysterious thing to most people in the '80s. The idea that a couple of nerds could somehow use a high-end computer to magically create a perfect woman was easier to swallow. I know they're planning on remaking it, but I don't know if it'll be set in modern times or not. Anyway, I don't buy into the excuse of, "but the audience won't be able to relate if it's not set in modern times." Every successful period piece begs to differ.

[Rijst]

Surprisingly, I think the War of the Worlds film with Tom Cruise stays surprisingly close to the book. Apart from the fact that it's set in modern day USA (instead of Victorian England), necessitating force fields to counter modern weapons, much of what happens in the film happens in the book as well and from the same point of view (a guy that's on the run for the aliens basically). I can really recommend the original story but I think the film was pretty good as well.

I enjoyed that War of the Worlds remake, but in general it bothers me how adaptations seem to always feel the need to update the story to have it take place during whatever the current year is. That often robs it of a lot of its charm and character. And some kinds of stories simply work better in certain time periods. For example, Weird Science works in part because computers were a very new and mysterious thing to most people in the '80s. The idea that a couple of nerds could somehow use a high-end computer to magically create a perfect woman was easier to swallow. I know they're planning on remaking it, but I don't know if it'll be set in modern times or not. Anyway, I don't buy into the excuse of, "but the audience won't be able to relate if it's not set in modern times." Every successful period piece begs to differ.

I agree, although I wonder if in case of WotW they didn't just want to set it in the US instead of England for some strange reason. Unfortunately they have to jump through all kinds of hoops to make it work in modern times. I guess the same goes for that Weird Science remake. Today there are movies where genetic engineering leads to all sorts of freakys outcomes. In 30 years' time everyone will (hopefully) look back on that in the same way they look at Weird Science and remakes won't work anymore because the premises lost credibility..

[Adam Dravian]

Today there are movies where genetic engineering leads to all sorts of freakys outcomes. In 30 years' time everyone will (hopefully) look back on that in the same way they look at Weird Science and remakes won't work anymore because the premises lost credibility..

I wouldn't get my hoped up, Science Dude. After all, criminal investigation shows still use the whole "enhance the image by zooming in which somehow magically increases the resolution" thing, despite it being a huge joke to a large number of viewers in today's Photoshop-savvy world.

Hollywood doesn't like to let things go. Like action movies and their love of unnecessary cocking of guns for dramatic effect.

[Rijst]

Today there are movies where genetic engineering leads to all sorts of freakys outcomes. In 30 years' time everyone will (hopefully) look back on that in the same way they look at Weird Science and remakes won't work anymore because the premises lost credibility..

I wouldn't get my hoped up, Science Dude. After all, criminal investigation shows still use the whole "enhance the image by zooming in which somehow magically increases the resolution" thing, despite it being a huge joke to a large number of viewers in today's Photoshop-savvy world.

Hollywood doesn't like to let things go. Like action movies and their love of unnecessary cocking of guns for dramatic effect.

And punch lines, there's always time for a punch line..

[Brianator]

Seeing Dude Shinobi being played in the arcades as shown in the comic, I was thinking on if someone were to make an actual Dude Shinobi beat-em-up fighting game for old school consoles like the NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive and others.

With homebrew games popping up like wildfire, it would be something to see a real Dude Shinobi game created for fun. Of course, it has to have the standards of all games like items, enemies and bosses. Fun stuff.

What do you think?

Hah! I would fucking love that. In fact, it's actually something Jessica and I have talked about. But making a game, even a simple retro beat-em-up, is a huge task. Maybe if our comic ever blows up in popularity, it'd be something that we'd be able to tackle.

Hey guys, there's this guy called Pacnsacdave who might be able to do that sort of thing.  He has a website called http://pacnsacdave.weebly.com/.  I learned about him from watching the LJN Defender on Youtube.  As a matter of fact Pacnsacdave made an LJN Defender NES Game.  The Youtube video of the LJN Defender game can be found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCWcCMA8T0 .

[Adam Dravian]

Hey guys, there's this guy called Pacnsacdave who might be able to do that sort of thing.  He has a website called http://pacnsacdave.weebly.com/.  I learned about him from watching the LJN Defender on Youtube.  As a matter of fact Pacnsacdave made an LJN Defender NES Game.  The Youtube video of the LJN Defender game can be found here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCWcCMA8T0 .

Whoa, that was a lot to sink my teeth into. This Pacnsacdave dude needs some kind of "About" page for his site or at least a bit of descriptive text to better explain what all these games on his site are. Apparently the guy makes NES ROM hacks where he mashes up assets from various games to create "new" games. What I find baffling is that he's actually charging money for some of these, like "Batman Vs. Predator." No way does he have permission to sell a game using those licenses. I'm guessing he's gotten away with it so far because he's not very well known.

It'd certainly be a neat novelty to have an SN8X game created by stitching together assets from various NES games, but if we were to ever make an actual Satan Ninja video game, I'd want to go the legitimate route and make a game from scratch. We'd take inspiration from retro games for sure, but I'd want the SN8X game to stand alone as its own thing. A good example would be the Scott Pilgrim game that came out a few years ago. It wears its River City Ransom influence on its sleeve, but it still manages to be it's own unique game.

[Rijst]

I had to re-read the entire thread to figure out what this was about and where the conversation went. My initial response was the exact same as it was back then, by the way..

I still haven't seen that new-ish Conan film, I haven't read the books, I no longer go to work by train and I'd almost forgotten I have Golden Axe on my laptop.

Definitely stay on this side of the law, there's potential for never ending pain if you steal something while trying to become successful.

That said, a quick google search informed me that creating a side-scroll beat-em-up game is incredibly difficult and not something to do by yourself on the side.