This is a conference paper presented at the 2020 History of Games Conference. Iantorno, Michael. “Coded Canons: Videogame Alteration Practices and Negotiating Authenticity.” History of Games Conference, 21-24 October 2020, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Held online due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hello, my name is Michael and I am a PhD student in Concordia University’s Communication program...
Unearthed (EarthBound Hack) Demo Release
Unearthed Demo (vCS108) (requires a SNES Emulator) After many years of development, I’m happy to announce the release of a public demo of Unearthed. Covering the first few areas of the game, it features between 1-2 hours of gameplay. Many thanks go out to all the folks in the PK Hack community for helping out with the project, and to my brother for writing most of the game’s dialogue. Note:...
Unearthed Update: Shadowy Morg on a Shadowy Planet
Following a short winter hiatus, I have resumed production on Unearthed. I was forced to take some time off during the holidays (and an ill-timed move), but I’m now fully entrenched in the “actual game build” portion of development. As seen above, I’ve been having a lot of fun with NPC movement and script-writing. The first two areas of the game (Glensborough and Rocky Slalom) are both...
Halloween Twitch Stream: Now Online
On Wednesday October 26 at 8:00pm(EST), I was joined by the Starmen.net community on Twitch to play Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack! It was all part of the 2016 Halloween Funfest, and we had a great time playing through the fun (although extremely morbid) EarthBound mod. You can watch the full stream on YouTube, below. As an added bonus, I showed off the first 20-30 minutes of my EarthBound game hack...
Halloween Twitch Stream: October 27 @ 8:00pm
On Wednesday October 26 at 8:00pm(EST), join me and the Starmen.net community on Twitch as we play Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack! It’s all part of the 2016 Halloween Funfest. Also known as Press the B Button, Stupid!, this game is an award-winning ROM hack fan sequel of the 1995 cult-classic-role-playing-video-game EarthBound. In addition to being one of the most famous EarthBound hacks...
Unearthed Update: Cows and More
The cow you see above is a cow of destiny. It is the first NPC placed in Glensborough, and the first step towards a playable version of Unearthed. It seems weird to finally get to this point after so many years of work, but here we are. Some patch notes and general ramblings for all of you. I had to spend a bunch of time debugging sprites this week, as I realized that not all of them had their...
Unearthed Update: Twitch Stream Online
You may have caught this update already on YouTube or Twitter, but the Twitch stream from back in June is now online! It was a great time, and I may consider doing another one of these Twitch things once more of the game moves a bit further along. If you have any questions about the game that weren’t answered in the video, feel free to comment here or Tweet at me. Although I’ve been away...
Unearthed Twitch Stream: July 23 @ 9:00pm
After shying away from it for months, I’m finally putting together a Twitch stream for Unearthed! Tune into my channel on Thursday June 23 at 9:00pm(EST) to see new game features, ask questions about the hack’s development, and see my cats be general nuisances. The stream will put the spotlight on new game elements, including: New overworld and battle music. New enemies, abilities, and battle...