Betaman game pickups # 1

This is going to be an ongoing set of posts that's pretty much just a text version of the "MONTHLY VIDEO GAME PICKUPS" or "WEEKLY GAME PICKUPS" videos you see on YouTube, except not as frequent or consistent in posting as those. Rather than weekly or monthly updates, I will simply make a new post for new games I pick up. Typically I pick up games at a lovely game store in Granite City, IL called Game Busters, and I go to various flea market shops and pawn shops in my general area.

What's great about Game Busters, at least for the store I go to, is that they usually have what you're looking for. They also usually have multiple instances of it. The handheld selection is not that great, but I mostly go there for the classic console games, as they have a ton of games that not only appeal to my inner child, but they also appeal to me because the cases you bring to the counter end up using covers from The Cover Project website. It brings me back to when I was 8 and didn't know how what game reviews were. All you had to go by was the cover of the box or the disk case, and that's exactly how I feel when I pick up games there.

As for the flea markets, while Game Busters has great prices for what they're selling, sometimes they just don't have what I'm looking for. (The entire store re-sells any games or systems they buy from consumers because they obviously can't just buy shipments of game cartridges and disks from the company any more. As a result, the availability of certain games are reliant if someone recently came in and sold a copy of it.)
This is when I head down to the flea market shops and pawn shops down where I live. (I'd love to go down to Game Busters every weekend, but I don't live in Granite City. It's just where some relatives live.) These places usually have what Game Busters doesn't, though it's not in as good of condition half of the time. Usually I'll end up buying a few dirty old cartridges and maybe a cracked disk case on average, but if I'm lucky I can sometimes snag an almost perfect looking disk in a new case or a cartridge still in the box and maybe even with the manual.

So this time, I only went to Game Busters, since I'm with my parents for their class reunion. I picked up three games and they all look great!

1. The Mansion of Hidden Souls

I have no clue about this one. I picked it over Robotica, Daytona Speedway, and Sonic 3D Blast. (Which I already own.) Apparently it's the sequel to a Sega Mega CD game called Mansion of the Hidden Souls, though I don't know if I have to play the first one to understand this one. I'll play the Mega CD version first, just to be safe.

2. Sonic the Hedgehog

A classic for the Sega Megadrive, and it's a copy that was packaged with the system, as denoted by the giant NOT FOR RESALE sign on top of Sonic's head. There's not much to say, other then the fact that I will be printing out a new box cover for it.

3. DuckTales

A classic if there ever was one. This is the video game adaptation of one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, and EVERYONE should know what this game is. That's all I have to say on the issue.

So that's all I was able to pick up this time. I'll be sure to update every time I get a new batch of games, hopefully keeping the maximum at 3 to 5 games per update. It's currently 1:00 in the morning where I'm at, so I'd best be off to bed before my brain implodes from the lack of sleep I got last night adding to the lack of sleep I'm getting right now.

Simply MYST-ifying

Just a little preview of what I've been working on:

This is a 4 color monochromatic version of the first slide to Myst Island, scaled to a 160X144 pixel resolution.

In short, it's the first shot of Myst re-created for the GameBoy, the first of many... (This is going to be a long project.)

But how did I do it? Well first off, I took a high quality screenshot from the Masterpiece version of the game, originally 543X332.

Then I scaled it down to the Gameboy's native resolution, 160X144.

(Not pictured) The picture was then chopped up into 32X32 squares, with the bottom row being 32X16 due to the resolution. Next comes the meticulous process of turning a picture with over ten thousand colors into a picture with only 4 while still attempting to get the shading and detail right. As you can see, much detail was lost in the conversion.

And now we have our final product, compared side by side with the original:

For my first demo, I hope to have the entirety of Myst Island completed, puzzles and all.