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Cuphead
2
Attachment In 2019, Studio MDHR and the multinational automotive company Tesla announced that a special port of Cuphead would be released for the Tesla Arcade digital store and would be playable on the company's Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles. Due to storage limitations with the cars, the Tesla Arcade version only includes the stages in Inkwell Isle I. The game can only be played with a controller plugged into each vehicle's USB port, but can be played cooperatively with two players controlling Cuphead and Mugman. As part of the announcement, Studio MDHR released commemorative artwork of Cuphead and Mugman standing with a Model 3 car.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month April 20, 2024
Super Mario All-Stars
3
Due to a programming error, the player has a random chance of accessing debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 (specifically the one from the NES version of the game, which is carried over to the Super Mario All-Stars port). The debug mode only activates if a value of 80 is stored at the RAM address 7E0160, which can be manually edited by a devkit.

The NES version initializes the equivalent RAM address to 00 whenever the game is turned on, preventing the player from encountering debug mode during the normal course of play. However, due to an oversight, this does not occur in the SNES version, resulting in Super Mario All-Stars reading whatever value is generated by the console itself. Because this value is randomized during bootup, this means that the game has a small chance of activating debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 on a retail unit. While the theoretical probability of this occurring is 1/256, it can vary depending on the console's build and the power grid that it is connected to.
person VinchVolt calendar_month April 12, 2024
The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_All-Stars_(SNES)#Old_Debug_Mode
https://tcrf.net/Notes:Super_Mario_All-Stars

Supper Mario Broth video, the description of which includes an explanation for the oversight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiVoXiRo1M
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
1
In 2012, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was ported to the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network under the PlayStation 2 Classics line. However, it was taken down shortly afterwards with no official explanation. Audiences quickly inferred that the port's withdrawal was due to the poor reception it drew thanks to various emulation issues involved with it, though it may have also been due to THQ going bankrupt and Activision acquiring the license to make games based on Nickelodeon properties around the same time. Among these emulation issues, the 16:9 display (which was the default option) stretched the game rather than properly re-rendering it at a higher aspect ratio, the audio for in-engine cutscenes frequently stuttered and fell behind by up to a second, certain textures were noticeably blurry due to the game being displayed at a higher resolution than what it was designed for, and gameplay suffered from prominent input lag compared to the original release.
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 25, 2024
Tekken 8
1
In an interview with the game's producer Katsuhiro Harada published in IGN on September 15th, 2022, Harada was asked about his experience developing a game in Unreal Engine 5 for the first time and some of the more subtle aspects of working with the engine. He responded:

"It's a very difficult question. From a developer's perspective, not just for us, but developers in general in the industry, it's different from the end users' impression, where kind of like an iPhone 4 was being used up until a certain date and then, "Okay, now the iPhone 5 is out, it's awesome, it's brand new, everything works so much better." That's kind of the impression that your average user has when this new Unreal Engine 5 comes out. But in reality, it's not that case at all. It's like it's a continuing process. Obviously, we didn't just start developing a game on UE5. UE5 was announced quite some time ago, but we haven't seen games for it yet.

So we started on UE4 and gradually started porting certain elements of the game over into UE5 and also confirming the results. Like, "Okay, oh wow, the graphic level on this particular area improved greatly." And then other areas as well – the things that are important for a fighting game: the response time…those kind of things are stuff that we've been porting out into the game and then figuring out what to expect in that area as well. And we’ve been working closely with Epic to figure out how to optimize some of those processes for input. So we're just starting and it's going to continue from now on."
Sneakers
1
Sneakers' graphical style was originally going to look more like a picture book or two-dimensional cartoon, but after seeing a realistic fur CGI demonstration at SIGGRAPH, it was decided to use a more realistic style instead.
Crash Bandicoot
3
Dan Arey, a former Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog developer who worked on the second and third games in the series, praised the first game in a 1996 Retro Gamer magazine interview. Prior to joining Naughty Dog, he talked about how the game maintained its unique identity in the world of 3D platformers, even when faced with the groundbreaking influence of Super Mario 64. Arey emphasized that while Super Mario 64 embraced open-ended levels, programmer Andy Gavin and director Jason Rubin designed Crash Bandicoot to adhere to a more old-school, level-based structure while adding 3D depth to its platforming challenges by "going down 3D roads with occasional 2D side-wave elements, but everything was very focussed in terms of mechanics". Arey also expressed admiration for the game's technical achievements even before he joined Naughty Dog, which likely soon motivated him to do so:

"We saw some early demos when I was at Crystal Dynamics, and we were asking ourselves how they were getting so many polygons on the PlayStation. What they had done was pre-calculate the polygons you couldn't see from a fixed-camera viewpoint, so it looked like there were many more polygons being pushed on the system than ever before."
CrazyBus
2
Although CrazyBus is often discussed or reviewed as if it were a real video game sold for money, and included in ROM sets and pirated cartridges with authentic games, it was actually intended as a simple tech demo by a beginning developer posted on a Sega Genesis modding forum in 2004.
Super Mario World
1
Attachment Despite Yoshi being considered impossible to implement into an NES game by Nintendo engineers, Hummer Team's bootleg backport of Super Mario World managed to include a fully functional Yoshi, capable of eating with his tongue, coexisting with Mario's power-ups, and running off when hit.
Star Fox
subdirectory_arrow_right Starglider (Collection)
2
Argonaut Software's Starglider games released in the 1980s, which were first-person combat flight simulators rendered with wireframe vector graphics, inspired them to come up with a prototype that would eventually lead to the creation of the first Star Fox. They created a prototype for the Nintendo Entertainment System codenamed as "NESGlider" that was based on the original game, utilizing a similar method to accelerate graphics to how the Super FX chip for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System later would. When they showed this prototype to Nintendo in 1990, they were instead advised to port and develop the game for the then-upcoming SNES. After Argonauts did that, Nintendo declared that this was the best 3D graphics the console could produce and that they hadn't designed the SNES with 3D games in mind. Argonaut staff suggested that if they wanted better, then they should let them design a 3D chip for them, and thus the Super FX chip was born.
Star Fox 2
2
Contary to popular belief and Nintendo's own statements, Star Fox 2 does not require the use of the Super FX Chip 2 to run, as the Super FX Chip 2 only increases game size capacity support and not graphical support, and Star Fox 2 is small enough to fit on a regular Super FX Chip. Star Fox 2, however, cannot run on a MARIO chip, the first revision of the first Super FX Chip which was succeeded by the more graphically powerful GSU-1 and GSU-2 versions of the Super FX Chip.
Asteroids
1
Attachment Atari 2600's Asteroids has an unused functionality for showing graphics of the spaceship as a life counter instead of the number, much like the arcade version. This was most likely changed for processing power reasons, as only six ships can be displayed at a time.
New Super Mario Bros. 2
1
Attachment In the ending cutscene of New Super Mario Bros. 2, the Koopalings carry Bowser by the tail after his defeat while Mario and Peach run home. Due to the strain that rendering a large character like Bowser alongside the models of 9 other characters and a vehicle could cause on the 3DS hardware, Bowser does not use his regular model used in the rest of the game, but rather a set of flat pre-rendered graphics tilted to appear 3D.
Amazing Island
subdirectory_arrow_right Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color (Game)
3
"Teddy" is a 3D-modeling software that allows users to create 3D models by simply drawing freeform strokes, created by Takeo Igarashi. Along with being available on the Unity Asset Store and being part of the "Magical Sketch 3D" PC package, there are two video games that notably use the software: the GameCube game Amazing Island (as part of the game's monster creation system), and the PlayStation 2 game Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color (where it's used to create the game's Doodles).
Gran Trak 10
1
Gran Trak 10 was the first video game to store graphics on the ROM instead of mathematically generating them, the first video game about cars, and the first video game with a steering wheel control scheme.
Collection: pop'n music
subdirectory_arrow_right jubeat (Collection)
1
In JAEPO 2020, Konami unveiled two new rhythm arcade titles that were never released:

• "NEW pop'n music Welcome to Wonderland!" was created as a reboot to the long standing "pop'n music" series. The game used a different arcade cabinet with smaller buttons and a touch panel meant for new slide notes. Aesthetically, the game also utilized 3D models for the characters as opposed to 2D sprites. Both licensed songs exclusive to this cabinet, "Phantom Joke" and "少年よ我に帰れ", were added to "pop'n music peace" on August 3rd, 2020.

• "jubeat (2020)" was also meant to be a reboot, this time to the identically-named "jubeat" series. Unlike "Welcome to Wonderland", the gameplay remained identical between it and previous entries. The arcade cabinet itself was roughly 1.2X the size of previous iterations and ran at 60 fps, as opposed to 30fps. The cabinets also supported music videos and would have come in several colors. In 2021, a mobile version of jubeat released utilizing similar aesthetics to this cancelled version. 2022 saw the release of a new iteration, "jubeat Ave.", which utilized the previous arcade technology.
person aa1205 calendar_month January 3, 2024
RemyWiki page on cancelled BEMANI titles:
https://remywiki.com/Cancelled_Games#jubeat_(2020)
https://remywiki.com/Cancelled_Games#NEW_pop'n_music_Welcome_to_Wonderland!

RemyWiki page on NEW pop'n music Welcome to Wonderland!: https://remywiki.com/AC_NEW_pnm

Gameplay of Welcome to Wonderland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbVlUpMS71I

RemyWiki page on jubeat (2020): https://remywiki.com/AC_jb_2020

Footage of jubeat (2020):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1sl8C338Fs
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
1
According to the game's composer Allister Brimble, when sample waveforms are changed in a Game Boy Color game's music, the console will produce a clicking noise. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, which makes heavy use of the Game Boy Color's re-definable sample channel, had its music specifically composed so that the click would only occur to the beat of the song, making the click part of the percussion.
Final Fantasy V
5
Attachment The translation group RPGe's 1998 English translation of Final Fantasy V is considered to be one of the most widely-played and influential fan translations in video game history. It gained this reputation because it released before Squaresoft's first official translation in Final Fantasy Anthology in late 1999, and despite RPGe primarily consisting of inexperienced teenagers, it was regarded as a better translation than the official one, leading many Western players to first experience the game through it.

The first translation attempts stemmed from widespread confusion over Squaresoft not releasing three FF games in the West: Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, and FFV. Their decision to release Final Fantasy VII internationally under its original numbering after Final Fantasy VI was released in the West a few years earlier as the "third" game in the series also contributed to this.

The co-creator of RPGe, named Shadow, was inspired by an incomplete FFII translation by users Demi and Som2freak (the latter having later lent Shadow tools to work on FFV), and started translating FFV by making flashcards for which hex code corresponded to each Japanese and English character in the game's data. He promoted his efforts online using photoshopped FFV images and recruited other users to create RPGe, including translator David Timko, and a computer engineering major named Hooie who also asked Japanese instructors at his university to help translate some enemy names. RPGe's plan was to directly edit their English script into the text files of a ROM of the Japanese version, but their work was slow and tedious due to them having little experience with fan translations and being out of touch with fledgling emulation communities. This lead to technical issues with their text and sprite editing software, and English characters being poorly displayed under conditions that were originally designed for larger Japanese characters. The group also suffered from internal factionalism, and since Shadow promoted himself as the public face of the project, he found that he could not handle the attention and controversy that came from how seriously he took the project and RPGe itself, seeing the translation effort as a vital service to the Squaresoft fan community. After Demi published a lengthy post parodying Shadow, he "snapped" and left RPGe. The co-founders of RPGe would also eventually step down, but other users would take over and start their own work.

A user named Myria, who had argued against RPGe's hex editing approach to no avail, split off from their efforts beforehand to work on a separate translation. Sharing similar setbacks to them, she gradually parsed through the code used to handle the text files, and edited it so it could recognize English characters of different sizes and fit more in a dialogue box. Som2freak helped translate the script for a time, but then left the project after bringing on a new editor, named harmony7, who started heavily revising Som2freak's translations to his chagrin despite seeing several issues with it.

One of the most controversial aspects of the translation was the main character's name. Squaresoft's later English translation named him "Bartz", but RPGe's translation named him "Butz", which many joked sounds like "butts". Myria claimed that Butz was the most accurate translation based on documents and official merchandise using it "the way we'd written it" (for reference, the Romanized version of the Japanese name "バッツ" comes out as "Battsu"). However, Butz is used in real life as an actual German surname with a different pronunciation, the vowel being an "oe" sound like in the English words "put" and "good". Therefore, Bartz would make more sense to match up with the vowels in the Japanese name than Butz, and also fits better as a German first name since Bartz is a pet name for Bartholomäus (Bartholomew).

The bulk of Myria's technical work ended in October 1997, with harmony7 still working to revise the entire script until something unexpected happened. An early version of the fan translation mysteriously appeared on a Geocities website with others taking credit for it. This prompted RPGe to release their work up to that point as "v0.96" on October 17, 1997, with the final patch eventually being released in June 1998. The translation patch received acclaim for its technical aspects and near-professional writing quality, and influenced other players to become translators, including Clyde Mandelin who would later create the English fan translation of Mother 3. Squaresoft never contacted RPGe about the translation, and while their 1999 localization of the game was seen as inferior to RPGe's, Myria would later opine that Square Enix's 2006 localization in Final Fantasy V: Advance was better than theirs. Myria continued hacking and reverse-engineering games and eventually earned a job at an undisclosed major video game company.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month December 24, 2023
Ultrakill
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3
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 23, 2023
Alien Resurrection
1
On December 19, 2023, programmer Martin Piper revealed a pair of hidden cheat codes he included in the original release of Alien Resurrection. To execute these codes, you need to go into the game's Options menu and unlock the Cheat Menu with the code Circle/Left on the D-Pad/Right on the D-Pad/Circle/Up on the D-Pad/R2. The cheats Piper revealed include the following:

• A level selection menu can be unlocked in the Options menu right after unlocking the Cheat Menu by pressing R1/Down on the D-Pad/R1/Right on the D-Pad/L1/Up on the D-Pad/L2/Square. If entered correctly, you will hear a "bonk" sound indicating the code has been activated. Re-entering the Cheat Menu will reveal an additional option to re-visit any section in any level in the game.

• The more notable of the two codes Piper revealed is one that allows the Alien Resurrection disc to act as a boot disc to play PlayStation games on any burned CD-R disc without the use of modding. This novelty method works with any PlayStation model (as long as you have something to block the tray disc sensor on newer models so you can swap out the disc with the tray open), and must be done after unlocking the level selection menu (you can save after unlocking this menu so you do not have to unlock it again if you want to perform the disc swap trick). Once that is unlocked, go back to the Options menu and enter the code Left on the D-Pad/Up on the D-Pad/Right on the D-Pad/Down on the D-Pad/Right on the D-Pad/Up on the D-Pad/Left on the D-Pad/Square/Triangle/Square/Triangle/L1. The "bonk" sound will again be heard if the code is activated. Next, go back to the Cheat Menu and set the level selection to Level 6 and Section 1. Then while highlighting Section 1, hold down L1 (Note: it's imperative to keep holding down L1 for the remainder of this method) and press X. The screen will turn black and the Alien Resurrection disc will stop spinning, at which point you can swap out the disc with a burned CD-R disc of any PlayStation game you desire. While still holding L1, hold Square and Triangle, and then release all three buttons to boot the burned CD-R game.

When asked by YouTube channel Modern Vintage Gamer, Piper revealed that the latter cheat code had never been disclosed to Sony when the game was sent in for certification as Sony would have immediately sent the game back and forced the developers to remove it since it acted as a backdoor for playing pirated games, and he believed that no other developers who worked on the game were made aware of it either. In a YouTube comment, he explained that he only revealed the codes now because it had been so long since the game's release and he did not want to hold onto the secret for the rest of his life. According to him, the intent of the feature stemmed from Alien Resurrection potentially being planned as a multi-disc game, with the feature being implemented as a test to see if discs could be changed without resetting the PlayStation. Unlike standard multi-disc games that function with the PlayStation's built-in ability to swap out discs through an API call to maintain memory data without fully resetting the console, Alien Resurrection has code that loads an .exe file on any burned CD-R disc you swap it out with to start that new game up while bypassing the PlayStation's anti-piracy protection check.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month December 23, 2023
War Thunder
2
Starting in 2021, War Thunder's official forums became notorious for being the center point of multiple leaks of export-restricted or regionally classified military documents from around the world detailing how various weapons and transportation equipment like tanks and fighter jets are built. The leaks are attributed to the fact that the game strives to depict the minutiae of warfare as realistically as possible, leading to players with military connections, or access to resources that are publicly available in other regions, sharing the documents on the forums in order to prove points regarding what would or would not be accurate in-game. Despite the forum moderators quickly removing these posts and issuing multiple warnings about them breaching international law, the issue became so prominent and recurring that laypeople began spreading rumors that the United States military had to start filtering out War Thunder players during the recruitment process, which American weapons contractor RTX Corporation denied.
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 13, 2023
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