Today, we released the v1.2 version of the Remake. It fixes pretty much everything people have been reporting.
Reminder that the splash screen at the beginning of the game will show you which version you have.
If the patcher keeps giving you 1.1, clear your cache or download the ZIP file directly.
Here's the changelog:
# EBBR Version 1.2 patch notes
Thank you all again for the feedback and bug reports. We've adjusted some balancing again. From now on, we won't be
adjusting the balancing as much, except if there's any critical problems that need resolving. Bug fixes will continue
for as long as needed. As with last time, save files are compatible, and we've fixed some minor issues that affected
compatibility if the player saved at specific parts of the game.
And once again, please use this form for submitting bug reports.
We try to take in bug reports from all sorts of places, but it's easier for us if you go via this.
Contains spoilers! Read at your own risk.
## Balance changes
- Tweaked spawn rates in a few of the most congested areas of the game
- After certain events, enemies in earlier areas will now always run away from the player on the overworld, even if the party level threshold was not met
- In EarthBound, enemies will run away from the player if the party's combined level is 6 to 10 times the enemy's level (specific amount is chosen randomly per enemy spawned). However, since you have only three characters for most of the game in EarthBound Beginnings, enemies wouldn't run away as much as they do in EarthBound. This change aims to address that disparity
- The calculations for instantly winning a battle remain the same as vanilla
- Adjusted some PSI abilities:
- PK Freeze α, β, and γ cost slightly more (5, 11, and 23 PP respectively, up from 4, 9, and 18)
- PK Beam α and β cost slightly less (3 and 7 respectively, down from 5 and 11)
- PK Beam α and β now have slightly higher base damage (about 80 and 220 points respectively, up from 70 and 200)
- This change was made as PK Beam used to cost more than PK Freeze, but dealt less damage
- Teleport β is now learned at level 50, down from level 88
- You are still required to know Teleport α from an event beforehand. If you learn Teleport α after this level, Teleport β will be automatically learned at the same time
- Reduced the Offense and Defense of Dirty Rats
- Healing α can now cure poisonings
- Adjusted the balance of the Zoo:
- Tigers have slightly more HP and Offense
- Gorillas have 50% more Offense and slightly more HP and Defense
- Elephants will attack with their trunk more often and do a regular attack less often
- Bionic Centipedes will no longer attack in groups of two in the Zoo office building
- Adjusted the placements of enemy spawn areas in and around the Zoo
- Li'l Saucers will no longer attack in groups of two in northeast Podunk
- Magicant enemies earn less money
- Clumsy Bombers will now drop Bombs instead of Bottle rockets
- Noose Man enemies will use their binding attack more often
- Red Snakes now have about 50% more HP, are more resistant to fire and ice damage, less resistant to electricity damage, and have slightly more Luck
- Reduced the spawn rate of Red Snakes in Spookane after the area is cleared
- Significantly reduced the Speed stat of Big Foot enemies
- Several enemies in later parts of the game that used a "scratched with claws" attack will now use a stronger "clawed with sharp nails" attack
- R7037 and R7038 now have an attack that hits every party member. This is intended to reduce the amount of turns you can survive against them, as their battles are scripted losses
- The rolling HP meter mechanic allowed the player to survive much longer than intended
- R7037's HP was increased to make the fight against it while in the tank last longer, as the new attack made it significantly shorter with every hit being reflected
- When enemies use PK Beam Ω, it now has lower base damage (about 300, down from 400)
- Smilin' Ghost REALLY now only uses its "possess" action startin from its fourth turn
- This change was intended for v1.1, but didn't work correctly due to an oversight
## Other changes
- Added a line to the Repel ring's Help! description making it clear that enemies will ignore its effect if they are much stronger than you
- Adjusted the scale value on the town maps to read 1/100, which is roughly accurate
- The train route map still displays 1/5760, which is roughly accurate to the scaling in the NES original
- When Teddy becomes injured and the party is transported to the house on the outskirts of Ellay, made it so that a game over will send the party back to this location
## Fixed issues
- Properly fixed the vanilla issue where enemies could spawn during the arrival cutscene after PSI Teleport and trigger invalid battles, and re-added enemy spawn areas that were removed to mitigate this issue in previous versions
- After some deliberation, we decided to not disable enemy spawns during the run-up for the PSI Teleport. Even though you can crash into invisible enemies who would appear after the crash, removing this would make the strategy of using PSI Teleport to avoid enemies too strong. It wasn't possible for us to fix the issue where newly-spawned enemies would appear invisible until after crashing
- Fixed an issue where, if you used another glitch to enter the Zoo early, you could become trapped behind the locked gate and monkey
- Clearing the Zoo area will now automatically unlock the gate and remove the monkey. You can also game over while in the Zoo to exit it
- We are not fixing the issue where you could access the Zoo early with a specific bug, because it is useful to speedrunners and unlikely to trigger by accident
- Fixed an issue where a section of the song "A Ghastly Site" was missing from the in-game soundtrack
- Fixed the issue where the Flamethrower could break down multiple times in a single usage if it hit many targets, causing many Flamethrower items to be removed from Lloyd's Goods
- Fixed an issue where using Auto Fight with Teddy in the party would occasionally freeze or crash the game
- Fixed the issue where Red Snakes would not always run away on the overworld
- Fixed an issue where less Gabilan enemies were appearing in the Yucca Desert than intended
- Fixed the doctor in Merrysville healing incorrectly when there are unconscious or petrified party members
- Fixed the issue where attempting to drop a Medium pizza would print the text from EarthBound for attempting to drop the Pak of bubble gum
- Fixed an issue where, if you positioned yourself correctly and talked to the mayor of Podunk, Pippi could walk through a desk. Now it is only possible to talk to him from in front of the desk
- Fixed an issue where the Mouthwash seller in the house north of Reindeer would take your money even if you did not have space to carry any more items
- Also added a Yes/No prompt before he sells you Mouthwash, and a new message if you select "No"
- Fixed an issue where it was possible to use PSI Teleport to run past the area transition trigger between the Swamp and Ellay
- Fixed an issue where corrupt graphics would flicker for a second if you got a game over and chose to return to the title screen
- Fixed an issue where talking to the biker in Ellay would cause them to face the wrong direction afterwards
- Adjusted two notes in the graphic for the Sing action which were incorrectly placed on the staff
- Fixed the town map configuration for a few locations in Podunk and Merrysville
- Fixed the town map configuration for Ana's room in Snowman
- Fixed the issue where the Mushroomised icon on the Status screen would use the wrong palette
- Fixed a miscoloured tile in an indoors tileset
- Fixed an issue where, when upgrading versions, if the player had saved at a specific time, the cutscenes with Mimmie and Minnie would not occur correctly
- Fixed an issue where, if the player had destroyed the tank in version 1.0 and then upgraded to a later version, returning to the location that the tank started at could cause strange effects
- Probably fixed an issue where a visual effect during a cutscene with Queen Mary would rarely not display as intended under unknown circumstances
- Probably fixed an issue where, after having your weapon confiscated by the police in Ellay, the player would rarely be unable to move under unknown circumstances
- Fixed an issue where Lloyd could repair items overnight even if he is not present in the party
- It is not possible to achieve this without editing the save file or otherwise modifying the game
- Fixed a vanilla issue where, if the player somehow got more than 999 HP or PP, some UI elements would display incorrectly
- If this happens, the values will display a maximum of 999, even if the true value is higher
- It is not possible to achieve this without editing the save file or otherwise modifying the game
- Fixed graphical map layering issues in:
- Podunk
- Merrysville
- Magicant
- Reindeer
- Spookane downtown
- Fixed areas where you could potentially wedge yourself into collision and get stuck in:
- Merrysville
- Reindeer
- Snowman
- Ellay
- Fixed grammar/spelling typos and other script adjustments:
- "remembered the tune." -> "learned the melody."
- "long tail." -> "tail thiiis long."
- "at all cost!" -> "no matter what!"
- "scenerio" -> "scenario"
- "sparingly" -> "sparrowingly"
- "@take your time" -> "@Take your time"
- "Rosemary's manor" -> "Rosemarys' manor"
- Made a line break in one of Mom's phone call messages require a button prompt
- The cop who hints about Ninten's Telepathy will not do so if Ninten is not the party leader
- The person in Twinkle Elementary who asks if the party leader goes to this school will not do so if Lloyd is the party leader
- The secretary in Podunk Town Hall will not hint about Ana if Lloyd or Teddy are the party leader, and will have a slightly different line if Ana is the party leader
- Added line breaks to fix a couple places where, if a character's name was a specific width, formatting would be incorrect
- Added a line to the Hint Man where he mentions how to enter the Yucca Desert even though the train bridge is out
- Added a missing line from the original game from one of the train station clerks
- Added missing lines from the original game if you Check Teddy while he's lying injured in bed several times in a row
## Known issues
- Magic Butterflies can occasionally appear out-of-bounds in certain cave areas. We were unable to fix this issue due to the internal layout of the tileset
- The vanilla bug "ghost equip scramble" that was discovered when we were working on version 1.1 has not yet been fixed
- We were not able to reproduce or come up with a possible fix for the issue where, very rarely, Ana would start with Mushroomised status. There is only one known report of this issue so far. If you encounter it, please provide a bug report
Olivia here. The hack came out a week ago! It's been so lovely seeing people enjoy it, and especially cool seeing photos of people's CRT TV setups!
For some reason, YouTube's algorithm has been reccomending streams of this specific game to all of us! I wonder why! :D
Folks from the team have been dropping in on streamers playing through the hack, it's so much fun seeing people enjoy it firsthand.
I need to spend less time watching streams and more time concentrating at work, though...
It still feels unreal that this project has come to a satisfying conclusion and that it's out in the world, with people everywhere
enjoying it. Even retrogame fans who aren't hyperonline enough to be active on platforms like Discord.
On top of all the other surreal stuff this week, H.S resurfaced after six years of radio silence!
Here's what he said on the project's starmen.net forum thread:
Congratulations on the release!
I guess I owe everyone here an explanation and an apology. I am indeed alive and well. I had a lot of stuff going on in
the past, which caused me to lose both time and motivation to work on this project and other things. As time progressed,
projects like this drifted further from my mind until I mostly forgot about them. I only coincidentally heard about the
project revival today when a real life friend happened to mention it to me.
I am so, so sorry that I never got around to posting the source files I had before disappearing. I know I made a lot of
extra work for a lot of people, and I am truly sorry about that. But I'm also happy to see people were still willing to
carry on with the project despite all of that.
Congratulations again on seeing the project through until the end, I'm looking forward to playing this!
(More context about this aspect of the project's history is on the FAQ!)
It is so profoundly relieving to see him active after so many years. We had all assumed something horrible must've happened to him,
since he always used to say things like "when I finish the Remake"...and because his final
message to me was in April 2020.
It's thanks to him that the entire soundtrack was even possible. I adapted research he showed me right before he
vanished to make the EarthBound Instrument Packer,
a tool to import custom instrument samples into ROMs. This research was then adapted
into CoilSnake directly, allowing us to import custom instruments and
sequence data into our hacks with ease. But none of it would have been possible if H.S hadn't shown me how he imported the door closing
sound effect into instrument packs that didn't have it, back in 2020.
Shortly after the hack released, we put the project's Discord into read-only mode - Beta64 also does this. It's now a place for announcements and dev commentary only. This is because we are programmers and musicians, not Discord mods. We aren't built for maintaining an online community, we've got our own lives and jobs and real-life friends. We reccomend World of MOTHER, and starmen.net's official Discord server, if you want to chat with people about the Mother series. And, of course, the forum! That's where this all began!
Today, we released the v1.1 bugfix patch! Throughout the week, people have been encountering rare bugs that none of our playtesters ran across. After this patch, the game should hopefully be pretty darn rock solid. Here's a changelog of everything the team's fixed:
# EBBR Version 1.1 patch notes
Thank you for all the feedback and bug reports. We have fixed as many bugs as we can and implemented some balance
changes. Enemy spawns are slightly toned down, the early parts of the game have been made a little more forgiving, and
some enemies in the later parts of the game have been tweaked. Save files are compatible - your emulator will likely
automatically transfer the save if you give the new version the same filename and path as the old version, though it may
need to be done manually. Check your emulator's documentation.
We now have an official form for submitting bug reports: https://forms.gle/zdvX5fjmnjyeKQPT6
This helps us keep track of bug reports, so please submit issues there.
Contains spoilers! Read at your own risk.
## Balance changes
- Enemy spawns have been adjusted across the board. Generally, they are slightly less frequent
- The healer in the Podunk cemetery now charges less money ($25 for status effect curing and $16 for PP recovery, down from $60 and $50 respectively)
- Smilin' Ghost will only use its "possess" action starting from its fourth turn. However, it has slightly more HP and speed to compensate for the less threatening moveset
- When possessed by a Tiny Lil' Ghost, it will now freeze you in place slightly less than usual and attack you directly slightly more than usual
- Starman Junior is slightly less likely to use PK Beam α
- The Starman in the hotel in Spookane now has uniquely higher HP than other Starman enemies
- Omega Saucer can now use PK Beam α
- Ultra Barbot will use PK Beam γ less often
- Cerebrum has been given more Defense
- Gargoyle now starts with a shield of light instead of a power shield
- "Final blow" attack now forces a two-second delay before the player can act, making it deadlier due to the rolling HP mechanic
- Giygas uses the random-status-effect move slightly less often and the multi-hit attack slightly more often
## Other changes
- The battle against the Dragon can now also be initiated by interacting with the L button twice. Previously, the "Check" command would have to be explicitly selected. The level requirement has not changed
- Made it impossible to save in the Spookane hotel until the impostor Starman has been defeated. This prevents the player from becoming trapped if they are not strong enough to win
- Reworded the description of Dimension Slip to include extra information.
- The way the move works is that friends who have taken mortal damage will collapse before the warp. This prevents skipping too many battles when significantly underlevelled. This is now reflected in the description.
- Significantly slowed the speed at which the Magicant Crystal Caverns palette animates
- Hint Man phone calls now withdraw money directly from the bank instead of the cash on hand
- Added different terrain above Union Station hinting the player towards the path to Yucca Desert
- Added an arrow to Ellay's town map that points to Mt. Itoi
- Added a message for when the rocks blocking the train tracks are checked
- Added an interaction to a locked door in Spookane's suburbs
- Added a guard to Queen Mary's Castle who gives a cryptic hint about the elemental resistance properties of the Earth pendant, Sea pendant, and Star pendant.
- Adjusted the dialogue of Youngtown's shop keeper
- Adjusted the dialogue of the weapons shop keeper in Reindeer
- Magicant bard's "..."s during his text no longer have extremely long delays
- Adjusted some battle backgrounds and letterbox settings
## Fixed issues
- Fixed an issue where using Telepathy on signs, doors, ladders, and other objects could cause strange text
- Fixed an issue where the start of the Famicom-version credits could show garbled graphics if the player had been playing for a while
- Fixed spots in the Mt. Itoi caves where you could walk out-of-bounds
- Fixed issue where some enemies had stats so high that they would overflow and become very low, such as two of the giant robot bosses
- Fixed issue where the player could return to the spot where the tank was parked after it's been destroyed to re-activate the tank sequence
- Fixed issue where warping to the girl who gives you the Friendship Ring would get you stuck inside her collision, unable to move
- Fixed issue where the player could temporarily lose access to some phone numbers if they loaded a save file in Ninten's house
- Fixed an issue where some area BGM would occasionally play incorrectly after a battle where "Flippant Foe" was the BGM
- Fixed an issue where the Old pass would reappear on the ground after Lloyd joins the party, even if it had already been collected
- Fixed an issue where it was impossible to run from battles with Starman in them
- Fixed an issue where the Real rocket dummy item could be obtained, and a Big bottle rocket would be removed from the inventory instead
- Fixed an issue where the trashcan Lloyd was hiding in would reappear after he joins your party
- Fixed issue where enemies could be fought after getting into the boat on Mt. Itoi, causing the wrong song to play after the battle
- Fixed an issue where a corrupted sprite may appear at the top of Mt. Itoi, replacing either the gravestone or the boulder
- Fixed an issue where the cutscene in Snowman after Ana has visited the Youngtown church would occur even if Ana was unconscious or petrified
- Also fixed an issue with the above where Ana's dad would not appear until you got close, and an issue where Ana would walk to the last position in the party instead of her own position
- Fixed items from the lockers in Twinkle Elementary disappearing if you cannot carry any more items when you try to open them
- Fixed a few issues that could occur if the player escaped the Starman boss in the Spookane hotel via the Onyx hook, Breadcrumbs, IC-Chip, or game over
- Fixed issue where Laura's chick would not appear until the player left the area and came back
- Fixed an issue where opening the town map on the westernmost edge of Spookane would display Ninten's icon in the top-left corner
- Fixed arrow on Spookane's town map pointing to Reindeer being labelled as "Merrysville"
- Adjusted positions of train station icon on Spookane's town map to match other town maps
- Added missing train station icon to Snowman's town map
- Fixed the town map in Ellay's hospital showing the wrong area
- Fixed an issue where the epilogue sequence timing could get out-of-sync when the text speed is set to Medium or Slow
- Fixed menus being visible for longer than intended during a cutscene with Lloyd
- Fixed issue where saving and quitting during the poltergeist sequence would prevent the screen-shaking effect from occurring until passing into another room
- Fixed issue where saving and quitting after the polgergeist sequence but before stepping outside could cause Ninten's mom to get stuck in front of the door until passing into another room
- Fixed an issue where the party could appear to pass through the railing of the bridge between Ellay and the Swamp during the walk-off animation
- Fixed issue where Ellay biker would respond to "Check" instead of "Talk to"
- Fixed an issue where a cop in Podunk would not give the correct information after clearing the Zoo, the swine that he is
- Fixed an issue where the "Menacing smile" action could raise the Defense of somebody besides the user
- Fixed an issue where the "Menacing smile" action would consume PP, and may produce a strange message if the user did not have enough PP
- Fixed the pilot in Yucca Desert refunding you the incorrect amount of money if you can't carry all the ticket stubs and have two or more party members
- Fixed Magic Butterflies being able to spawn inside train stations
- Fixed an issue where the mayor of Podunk would refer to the party leader unconditionally, even if the party leader was not Ninten and his message did not apply. He now has an original line for this case
- Fixed stray pixel in a Magicant NPC's sprite
- Fixed small graphical issue in Youngtown where one tree appeared to be on top of another
- Fixed miscoloured palette in the Podunk Town Hall
- Fixed Magic ribbon having an incorrect Help! description
- Fixed Sugar packet having an incorrect Help! description
- Added missing HP-restored values to the Help! descriptions of some items
- Added missing "it can be used many times" to the Help! descriptions of some items
- Fixed descriptions that refer to the uncontrollable crying status effect from EarthBound, which was replaced by blindness in this hack
- Fixed graphical map layering issues in: the Cemetery, Ellay, the Swamp, the Monkey Cave, and the Spookane drugstore
- Fixed areas where you could wedge yourself into collision and get stuck in: Podunk, the Zoo, Magicant, Reindeer, Spookane
- Fixed grammar/spelling typos and other script adjustments:
- "forfeit the battle" -> "forfeited the battle"
- "Yucca Desert - West" -> "Yucca Desert - North-East"
- "might never come again" -> "might never come back"
- "I heard an the exact same" -> "I heard the exact same"
- "deflects deadly Beam γ attacks" -> "deflects deadly PK Beam γ attacks"
- "was in a deep, deep sleep" -> "slumbers"
- "The good-looking boy sang quite a unique song" -> "The cool boy sang a very... unique song"
- "Ninten did not want to remember this strange melody" -> "Not even Ninten could learn this melody"
- "catsup" -> "ketchup"
- This was changed only because there is an actual condiment item named "Packet of ketchup" that the food item pairs with
- Added a message when you use Telepathy on the man who doesn't believe in psychic powers in Reindeer
## Known issues
- After investigating a bug report, we discovered a new vanilla EarthBound glitch which is now called "ghost equip scramble", where giving an equipped item to another character with a specific inventory setup could give the original owner of the item incorrect Defense and/or Luck stats until they changed, removed, or requipped their equipment. We are holding out on patching this until it is decided how useful it is to speedrunners
- We recieved one report of Ana starting with Mushroomised status, though we haven't been able to reproduce it or track down any potential causes
- The Mushroomised icon in the Status menu uses an incorrect palette
If you run into any bugs in v1.1, please send them our way via our bug report form.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for playing! Peace!
It's May 1st! That means there are only six weeks left until the patch releases!
Ever since March, we've been fixing bugs at breakneck speed now that WAVE 2 is underway.
We've got twenty-one playtesters finding obscure glitches, casually playing through in VC, and
trying to break the game in interesting and creative ways.
Each version of the patch we release to the WAVE 2 playtesters comes with a laundry list of
stuff the team has fixed since the last patch. Here's some highlights!
- Flying Men no longer piggyback off of EB's Flying Man scripts, which
always assume the Flying Man is the second party member.
Their graves/tombstones are also not spawned immediately after they die,
and each tombstone is associated with *one* specific NPC.
This should fix previously reported bugs related to getting multiple Flying Men.
- Snowman's map has been extended to make getting to Ana more challenging.
- Being able to transfer Flying Men in your party to Mt. Itoi through the Magicant Fading cutscene has been fixed.
- EVE's sprite is now 64x64, reducing foreground errors when she walks past trees or rocks.
- There is now a bus in front of Twinkle Elementary.
- Hint Guy text is complete... needs testing
- Like a billion Reindeer priority and collision things
- Fireball no longer drops flamethrowers
- "revious weapon" typo fixed (this was in the vanilla game!)
- Breadcrumbs can no longer be stored
- Guard Dog, Starman (in the Spookane hotel), and Haunted Lamp can no longer be run from
- Fixed bug where it was possible to spawn directly into an enemy when using the IC Chip
- Fixed bug where Mom's number becomes unavailable if the Onyx Hook/IC Chip are used inside Ninten's house
- Fix for a vanilla bug when trying to take out an item from Escargo/storage
- Make sure the echo buffer is clear before loading a save file
- Keep Pippi's coffin when opened, make her face Ninten when talking, and made the coffin's opening script behave like the normal caskets for consistency
- Add animated rays of light to a few of the windows in George's underwater lab
One of the main things we're finding is tile background/foreground issues - also known as "priority" issues.
This is when some stray tiles in the tileset display on top of the party at certain angles.
Thankfully, bugs like this are really easy to fix thanks to EBME.
Shoutouts to Tricimir for taking care of most of these. She created lots of
the tilesets herself, so she knows them inside and out!
The Strategy Guide is coming along, but we probably won't be able to finish it in time for
the patch's release date. So, we plan on releasing a page a week starting on the weekend of
June 14th. There's going to be a thread in the Discord where we post them.
As far as music goes, things are still pretty much near complete aside from one or two songs.
Something I've been working on is touching up Bein' Friends - my initial arrangement was from
2015...so I've been making sure there aren't any wrong notes.
It was based off of the Smash Bros arrangement, and I've gotten
a lot better at transcription since then.
You can hear the more recent version on the Soundtrack page!
Well, that's plenty of stuff for this update! Thanks for checking in. I don't know how many
people read this website, but if you do, I appreciate you <3
-- Olivia
Hello everyone! Happy new year!
As you might have seen, the soundtrack as it is in-game has now been uploaded to this website!
You can check it out here.
It's been uploaded as SPC files, and uses the same SPC player that SMWCentral uses site-wide. I'm really proud of how the site
turned out. I designed the play buttons, too! They're based on the sound player in Mother 3.
Every single original arrangement in the game is here, excluding things like Youngtown, which just uses Paula's Theme from EarthBound,
the Hippie theme, and other vanilla songs. There are still one or two songs I want to touch up, but this is a massive milestone for the
project.
A few days ago, I wrote this on YouTube:
I still plan to record playback videos for everything, but... wow. The ever-present mountain of unfinished songs that's been there for the past twelve years of my life is gone. It feels unreal, and so satisfying. Thank you, all of you, for sticking around <3
Well, that was fun! The trailer is finally out!
Also, the Direct is finally out too. Please check out everyone's projects!
This past summer, Gabbi and I were going all over the place with the models and filming them,
and constantly tweaking the editing.
We also made a behind the scenes video that goes into our inspirations and scrapped ideas from prior years.
I'm really proud of how it turned out. The hack feels like a game from an alternate universe, and I think we nailed that vibe with the trailer too. Though there's a lot we wanted to do,
but just didn't have time for -- like, we wanted to use the Ninten model and other Mother 1 models a lot more.
Personally, I think people sometimes put too much effort into making flashy trailers compared to actually working on their projects, so I'm very glad to get back to pouring all my effort into
the soundtrack, and CCScript stuff. Shoutouts to this post from Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin
about stuff fan translation projects should avoid - pretty much all of them apply to gamedev and big romhacking projects with multiple people too.
The one that stuck out the most to me was "Don't announce anything or show off anything until you've made significant progress."
Here's some good news: thanks to our fellow PK Hack code wizards, and a LOT of adjustment of ROM addresses, CoilSnake can now (kind of) dump the MOTHER 2 dialogue in ccscript format.
This means that eventually, with enough coaxing, we'll be able to start working on the Japanese-language version of the project.
Here's what the team's been working on:
- Playtesting!
- Creating the battle action for the Flamethrower item
- Making sure freezing/glitches don't happen if you lose a battle while riding in the tank
- Redoing the Alien Investigation theme for the Zoo Office
- Continuing to reupload older songs to get rid of my deadname
- Continuing to replace certian older battle sprites and BGs with better ones
- Putting in better Don't Care names
- Adding NPCs to explain mechanics in EB's game engine, like the character windows flashing for better weapons
- Adding a flame to the Duncan's Factory rocket cutscene
- Adding SupremeKirb's Item Determiner system to the Mysterious Goodskeeper in Magicant so he can say stuff like "The Cookie? Don't worry, I'll keep it safe." vs. "George's Diary? Don't worry,
I'll keep it safe." depending on the item ID! This makes the text feel so much more natural - before, it was saying "The George's Diary?" Present boxes use this system, too.
- Using a new lua script by Catador to visualize active/inactive hotspots (and more easily debug them) in-game
- Opening a new pizza place in Merrysville
- Starting the long and arduous process of going through each and every item and making sure they work correctly and have the right descriptions
That's all for now!
--Olivia
Hello everyone! This is livvy94 with another update. We've got lots of news!
First off, Gabbi did a pretty extensive interview about the project! You can read it here!
Next, I've been doing playtesting streams! You can watch theme on my YouTube channel.
Please note that I play through THE WHOLE GAME - if you want to avoid spoilers, don't watch it.
I'm also getting ready to record all of the songs on the soundtrack in lossless format for their eventual release!
This involves exporting every song as an SPC file, then recording them in FLAC format, and adding the appropriate fadeout after two loops.
After the hack releases, the soundtrack will be available as a free download via Bandcamp, and also mirrored via Google Drive and Dropbox,
just like how SilvaGunner does it.
Khaj and a few other folks on the team are slowly but surely continuing work on the Player's Guide.
Tricimir has utilized newfound free tiles in the Magicant tileset to add some new map features. You can check them out here.
Gabbi and I comissioned BigSharkZ to draw box art, and he just finished! You can check it out here!
And finally, I've finished editing the Mother Direct trailer! I ran the entire thing through my VCR for extra nineties charm. I would best describe it as a Nintendo Power-style ad from an alternate reality, like how
the hack feels like playing a game from an alternate reality. Gabbi and I worked on it for months, I'm excited to show everyone.
You can find updates about the current iteration of the Mother Direct here.
That's all for now!
--Olivia
This is livvy94, music director for the EarthBound Beginnings Remake hack, and now, suddenly, community manager!
It's been an exciting and slightly terrifying week. SupremeKirb, team member, coder extrordinaire, and creator
of EBME, edited together a quick trailer for this year's F3 fangame showcase. The audio was swapped out (without
us knowing) due to Kaze getting a copyright strike on my arrangement of All That I Needed (Was You). Gabbi released
the trailer with the proper audio soon after on her YouTube channel, and the support was overwhelming. We've
gotten so many comments, and the project has been talked about on
GoNintendo,
Time Extension,
and even Kotaku.
It's extremely humbling.
In the prior weeks, I've been hard at work coding this site in raw HTML, with very minimal CSS. I'm a big fan of
Neocities and the freedom/customization that goes into making personal websites,
so this has been fun to experiment with. Gabbi and I have based the site's design on Nintendo's website from 1997,
as seen here!
And now, we have a lot more eyes on not only the project, but this site, the FAQ I wrote,
and this Newsroom page, which formerly just had placeholder text. So, I think
this would be a good place to post diary-like updates. I think this is a good idea not only because it's generally
smart to post regular updates, but also because I think this will be nostalgic to look back on in the future.
Yesterday, I uploaded a new version of the Poltergeist theme - now with a freshly-recorded electric guitar instrument that
doesn't evoke funny skeletons.
I've been re-uploading a lot of the songs on the soundtrack
to my YouTube channel, mostly to get rid of videos
with my old name, or with subpar mixing due to how I recorded the songs at the time. In 2013 and 2014, I used to either record straight
from EBMusEd, or an SPC visualizer I ran in DOSBox... As always, I'm linking to the old uploads and comment sections for
posterity, now unlisted.
Gabbi also posted an update on her YouTube channel's community tab. Here's the text of that:
I honestly didn't expect the project to get this much attention. We are working on one last trailer that has a lot of
surprises in it for the next MOTHER Direct (hosted by a different team from NOKOGODO).
The specific date of when this hack drops has been revealed on our neocities site's FAQ page -- 6/14/2026.
11 months, I know... that's kind of a long wait, and I feel bad because that's basically a year, but there's also a chance
we'll just release it early. Could be much sooner than this date, but I really want to make sure we take care of as many bugs
as possible. Once everything seems ready for release, I'll make an announcement video and links in the description of where you
can download the patch file. We also have a bluesky page.
If any of you are worried about this being another "Winter 2014" scenario, I can reassure you that this project will come out
no matter what. My latest livestream vod features me playing through
the hack - from the poltergeist all the way until the end credits - and occasionally fixing bugs.
There, you can judge for yourself how close this is to actually releasing.
Thank you for all the kind words, and your patience. There have been a lot of comments from people who've truly been in it for
the long haul - people who learned about the project all the way back in 2007. Hearing these stories means a lot to everyone on
the team.
Here's what the team is working on right now!
- Movement scripting: coffins shaking
- Movement scripting: you rescue Pippi, you both walk to the door, and she faces you
- Movement scripting: Edge case where if you walk past the Healer in the Mt. Itoi cabin, he walks up to you and says this, and gives you a free heal
- Trying to implement the items invented by the weird teacher who lives in the school, and his shop menu
- Taking into account edge cases in the Live House scene like Ninten being alone, and various combinations of characters being petrified or dead
- Green pixels on the tables in the Live House after the palette transition (this bug is visible in the F3 trailer... oops)
That's all for this update! See you in the next one!
--Olivia