Whatever Happened to Byuu

 Whatever happened to me. That is for those not interested in old television, a link to the theme tune to the Likely Lads. 

Apart from being the correct way to spell Byuu, it has no bearing on this post, except to pose the question, what ever happened to Byuu?.

My second or so post on here was about the MSU1 unit for the SNES, at the time, ten years or so ago a way in the emulator BSNES to simulate the failed CDROM add on that Sony was developing in the mid 90's for the SNES.  

The author Byuu, was someone I've been following or so for years on forums, a mercurial chap best known for his work on the Emulators BSNES and its all dancing follow up Higan. The former a cycle accurate SNES emulator and the latter a expanded out into a multitude of systems taking in N64 during lockdown and when I last saw on the twatter, preliminary PS1 emulation (only Ridge Racer played if I recall correctly.)

Then, nothing, a few name changes from Byuu, to Near and Higan got rebranded as Ares, then bang, he deleted the whole thing. His site remain up although relevant emulation parts are archived,

 Seems like he moved to Japan and retired from the scene, I knew of the first as he regularly posted food and stuff on his twatter from Tokyo and places, but until looking into this never knew he'd retired from the scene. 

As someone who cannot program in any capacity I do kinda think he was cool even though I never got half the things he put up. but that whole scan and document every US / Euro SNES game to check for inconsistencies are what got me into doing the UK Hardy boys scanning project. Something barely documented and with a few inconsistent PDFs lying around the net. I could do better and this was the inspiration needed.

Whatever you do, big guy, I hope you have fun, and enjoy your retirement.

Edit: Seem s like he showed up on the twatter again, pushing a new re translation of Bahamut Lagoon for the SNES, ironically one of the first fan translations I ever downloaded back in dial up era. 

He's still retired from the scene, and it seems Higan has gotten a ZX Spectrum core to it now, which is cool. My words still stand though, nice retirement dude, keep safe.

Double Edit: Terrible news, seems that Near has passed on due to pressure from Kiwifarms of all places. Seems like there was a suicide attempt and no one can get in touch with him. I hope for his sake that he is OK and that he just wants time away from twitter, and it's not real. 

But if it's true then. Fuck....

Picross

I've been getting well into Picross recently.  You may know it under a load of different names but essentially it all boils down to using co ordinates to fill in a grid to make a picture. I'll explain how to do it below.

Pikachu I see you.

The numbers at the side state how many in a row or column there is to fill in so in a 10 by 10 grid if you see a 10 it means you can fill in the whole row. Numbers that are split (like 4 /5) have a space between them so you can fill in 4 spaces leave a space and fill in the rest.

Further rules come into play as if you have more than 6 spaces to fill in a row.  Instead of taking a guess on where they will be, count in the number you have from the edge and then put a cross at its furthest extent, do the same from the other side, finally fill the squares from the cross to the other cross including the squares with the crosses on.  If any of these are at an edge it will give you another chance to fill in some squares as it gives you a base to work from.  There are other better explanations for more advanced techniques out there but these are the basics and the built in tutorial is actually pretty good at explaining.

The downside of this apart from it being a freemium game and all that it entails, (limited energy for puzzling and move sets, pay for extra energy etc etc) is that what you are drawing isn't made clear, in fact I'll go as far as saying that unless you are a Pokemon and know intimately what it looks like from a blown up sprite, then you are going to be scratching your head quite a bit of the time.

It doesn't ruin it but then again it does make it bastard hard especially on the rare 20 by 15 grids.

In further news I've added a few PS3 games including Oblivion, Dark Souls 2 and the PS3 version of  Marvel V Capcom 3 which I played in HMV ages ago.  All that is moot though as I found out why its been chucked out, there are heatsink / GPU problems causing it to glitch like a bastard.  I'm of course going to get it fixed but if its not economical to do so then I won't bother.  Its the only reason why I didn't go all in last gen (that and always on internet connectivity), you can't rely on the hardware anymore.

Match 3 variants / varmints.

This should have gone up at Easter along with me wishing you a happy Easter and that but it didn't because I was A. away and B. when I was away the internet was down.  The better news is this PF Slot is done, we've decided to call it Puyo slot and apart from the congratualtions screen being in Japanese (it says congratulations) we've decided to release it and let someone else probe the SWF file and that.

Really Minuscule 5kb download below for those that like promotional Puyo Puyo based slot games.
http://www.mediafire.com/?gxj0b172uy1w0

Load it up in your web browser to play and ignore the tiny page size as it was made in 2003.

Actually while I was away at my aunts of all places we happened to use her Laptop for stuff and stumbled onto Acers game zone.

Serving up casual games like Diner dash and Zuma, it also had a few variants of the match 3 game I haven't seen before. 

Amazonia Oberon Media.

This is a hexagonal based version of the classic Bejewelled, where you match jewels in lines of three and they disappear.  Being hexagonal though, its really confusing and makes matching 3 a nightmare, you can match diagonally here as well which is a new feature.  The plot is some badly translated plot about releasing the spirits and seems to have been done in Bing translator and a potato.  We played about an hour before they kicked you out for not buying, and sadly there doesn't seem to be a free download that isn't riddled with crap like Yontoo, however you can download the demo here. 

Heroes Of Hellas.  Alawar Games.

This was the other stand out game from Acers pack.  A match 3 game where you have to run your pointer over 3 or more identical symbols to erase them.  The plot involves Zeus, father of the greek gods and some bollocks about a missing sceptre. 

Its all inconsequential stuff as the game is a gem allowing you to match some truly massive chains through this simple mechanic.  You'll also get coins to build a temple with and special thunderbolt panels that when linked can set off massive chains when they hit other thunderbolts.  When you free a hero you can make his or her panel to get a desktop wallpaper.

Heroes of hellas Demo versions can be downloaded here

Kuru Kuru Twinkle Onegai Ohoshisama.

My obsession in finding this out stems from a small picture in the only copy of Koro Koro comic I own.

Purchased from Lewisham bootsale and comprising of several oddities in itself, (not least a Mole Mania manga and some maze contest for Fushigi no Dungeon) Koro Koro comprises several strips based on established brands such as Pokemon, Mini4WD and Mario 64.   Its the same size and weight as a small brick.  Were not kidding, you can still purchase it from  places like the Japan center up town and the like.  Its one of these give aways that the pic is from (a puzzle game in which from the picture looks like your battling some sort of crab), for ages my Japanese was poor enough miss out the title, but a recent look through with 1337er skills brought up the name.  Kuru Kuru Twinkle Onegai Ohoshisama.

Snesorama gave us the proper links for downloading and we fired up EPSXE for perusal once we grabbed the iso.

First problem, sound isn't the greatest on this, in fact its not supported at all leaving just the sound effects (and just noise if you use the default plugin rather then Eternals SPU  plug in).

Second problem. Theres quite a bit of text to wade through including a scrolly menu system, and a big intro (thats skippable).  However we've put together a menu translation that will help you out in this case.

Main menu.
おはなし Story mode. Take on twelve signs of the zodiac for items
ずーうと One player mode
セーブ Save
ロード Load
せつめい　Config screen (controller)
つくる Construction kit  use おわり to exit here if you visit here by mistake.
ぱずる Puzzle mode.  You have one move to clear the screen and can play as any of the weirdos from story mode.
たたかえ Battle mode 2P only.

Hitting ずーうと (1p Mode will get you a mass of difficulty settings and afterward special attacks to pick through).
They range from まあまあ very easy Level 1 to 達人 expert mode Level 80, its just a case of flicking through and picking you level and then special attack.

Gameplay explanation.

OK, this is the real meat of the article.  You control a 2x2 cursor on screen.  Pressing X will flip it horizontally and pressing Circle will flip it vertically (Triangle has your special attack).  The aim of the game is to create lines of three gems in a row (or an L shape that works too) that disappear and create chains if there are blocks that can make three below you.
You'll get a whole row falling instead of the odd pair and its game over if it reaches the top of the screen.

Hampering your efforts are garbage blocks which look like breezeblocks.  Unlike any other game where making three the same will eliminate them, you have to make a line of them just like in Tetris. Unlike Tetris, when they drop they will clear everything  under them leaving you with extra space to work with.

Story mode works the same except you get x shaped garbage blocks to work with, and a selection of weird versions of zodiac characters, including the aforementioned crab creature and what looks like Chouanikis Adol and Samson further on.

In conclusion, the game is actually good, the different buttons used to flip become second nature over a while and it provides some tense moments for you especially if you concentrate on clearing blocks rather then watch the top of the screen.   Not quite sure why this didn't get a Midas Game release toward the end of the PS1s life as its the perfect fodder for a budget compilation.  Anyway our over all score is
3/5
Kuru Kuru Twinkle Onegai Ohoshisama
Tomy Inc.
Developer Tomcat
Released 1996.

Edit here are some screenshots.