October 13th, 2015 | EarthBound, Images | 19 Comments

Many readers have sent me e-mails about a new theory that popped up on Reddit recently – the moles in the gold mine in EarthBound all think they’re the 3rd strongest for a reason:

I had never stopped to consider why they all claimed to be the 3rd strongest (aside from just pure silliness), so this is a pretty nifty theory!

October 8th, 2015 | EarthBound, Misc. | 49 Comments

Wukeywukey recently shared a helpful resource on Reddit for EarthBound fans who’ve finished the MOTHER series and are looking for something new to play. You can check out the chart here:

(click for full size)

This got me wondering what I might personally recommend… and then THAT got me wondering what other fans might recommend too. So if you have any similar suggestions or flowchart ideas like this, share them in the comments!

Really glad to see StarTropics on the list, BTW! It’s always felt like our own version of the MOTHER series that Japan never got 😛

September 25th, 2015 | EarthBound, Events, Videos | 3 Comments

Stephen Georg, who EarthBound fans might also know as xfis, has been a professional vlogger on YouTube for years. He attended Camp Fangamer back in July 2015 hoping to get some footage for his channel… but so much happened at the event that he was left with too MUCH footage!

Anyway, he recently shared this via e-mail:

I’ve finally gotten around to editing the vlogs I shot during Camp Fangamer, and decided some additional footage and camera angles from the Twitch stream would be a nice touch. After I got permission from Reid, I started cutting together the video and quickly realized that there’s just too much great stuff to leave things out. So against my better judgment, I took several days to edit down the 9 hour stream to just 2 hours.

My initial intention wasn’t to cut the entire show, but I realized that a 9 hour video is a huge barrier to people, and I want to make sure folks get a chance to experience the magic that I did at Camp Fangamer. So I’m hoping this 2 hour version is a little more palatable. It keeps all the major events from Day 1, including all the guests, and Pokey/lawyer appearances.

I’m gonna start working on condensing Day 2, but it’ll be several days to a week because it’s even longer than Day 1.

If someone didn’t watch live, I hope they at least give this 2-hour version a shot. Camp Fangamer was incredible, and I think this video shows that!

Here’s his condensed video for Day 1 of Camp Fangamer 2015:

And if you missed it, here’s his condensed video for Day 0 of Camp Fangamer – it’s called “Day 0” because it wasn’t technically a part of the event but it wound up being a major day of its own 😛

So much happened over those three days that not even *I* have caught up with it all yet, so these videos and Cap’s recap article are filling in a lot of the gaps for me.

Here’s hoping that if Fangamer does another Camp Fangamer, it’ll be 7th Saga-themed!

September 23rd, 2015 | EarthBound, Events | 3 Comments

Cap from the Nerdy Show recently posted a nice article about what happened during the Camp Fangamer a few months ago. It’s got some great, detailed info and some awesome photos – check it out here!

It’s still unclear if there’ll ever be another Camp Fangamer in the future. But if you’d like there to be more, let Fangamer know! Tell them on Twitter or leave a special note when you order stuff from them! And then maybe my dream of a Gyromite-themed Camp Fangamer will come true!

September 18th, 2015 | Audio Stuff, EarthBound, MOTHER 3 | 7 Comments

Nelward Music has done some cool MOTHER 3 tunes lately – what’s so unique is that they sound like they’re from EarthBound at first!

Anyway, here are some of the latest musicial creations:

There’s a lot more to see and hear, too, not just EarthBound stuff! Go here to check them out!

September 15th, 2015 | EarthBound, Videos | 26 Comments

Super Mario Maker was released a few days ago, and although I have yet to play it, I’ve seen a lot of people making Metroid-themed levels, Zelda-themed levels, and even EarthBound-themed levels.

If you’ve created an EarthBound-themed level, share your code in the comments so others can try it out!

September 11th, 2015 | Audio Stuff, EarthBound, Events, Interviews | 1 Comment

Ryan Stevens sent this in the other day:

Hey! My name is Ryan Stevens and I made a podcast called Game is a 4 Letter Word, it’s not a typical “Whatcha playing/talk about the news” roundtable, it’s a documentary show, like This American Life, that uses a 4 letter word each week for inspiration.

For episode 3, CULT, my producer Matt went to Fangamer 2015 and produced a bunch of story segments that the EB community might be interested in, just thought you’d like to know.

You can check it out here:

• Listen on iTunes
• Listen/download with your browser

While Camp Fangamer was going on a few months ago, a bunch of attendees were interviewed for this podcast, including me and Poe! So if you’d like to hear how fellow fans describe EarthBound and the following that it’s built, check this out!

I was actually told that Poe and I talked so much that we might have our full interview in a totally separate, independent podcast of its own sometime, but I think I mostly just rambled on about MOTHER 3 for too long, so there’s not much to be missed 😛

September 4th, 2015 | EarthBound, Hacking | 9 Comments

A few years back I wanted to learn the C# language and how to make Windows programs. So I taught myself by making a program that randomizes a lot of the elements in EarthBound to create the EarthBound Reshuffler!

Since then, many other programmers have wanted to know how the reshuffler works. I’ve received many requests for the source code, but I could never find the latest version. Until now!

So if you’d like to take a peek under the hood and see how everything is duct-taped together, here you go:

• EarthBound Reshuffler source code

An EarthBound fan named Rydel recently used my source code of an earlier, outdated Reshuffler build to make a new, customized version – you can find out more about it here. It has some features that my latest release doesn’t have, like randomized shops, randomized map palettes, and more. Check it out!

And if you happen to use my source code for your own project, let me know if you create anything cool! I’d like to see how my wacky program evolves in the hands of others 😛

September 4th, 2015 | Images, MOTHER 3 | 10 Comments

The upcoming Mario Maker game has a bunch of extra characters included that you can unlock – we’ve already seen Ness, but now we have some pics of Lucas too!

Nintendo’s been trying to keep a tight lid on these things, making it hard to find videos of them in action. So for right now, the screenshots above are the only thing I can seem to find on social media sites.

I assume you’ll need to eventually get a Lucas amiibo to unlock this Lucas character in the game, but I haven’t been following the game’s development too much. So if I’m wrong, let me know!

September 3rd, 2015 | Audio Stuff, EarthBound 64 | 52 Comments

For the past year or so I’ve heard a number of different rumors and stories that someone has acquired a prototype of the Nintendo 64 version of MOTHER 3. I’ve never put much faith in it because it’s never accompanied with pictures or other evidence. Here’s an interesting e-mail from a reader, though:

Hello, I was looking at earthbound 64 info because.. eh why not? anyways, i found some tracks I’ve never heard of before that supposedly come from Earthbound 64. I don’t know if this guy is a troll or not but he does have genuine OST of video games so.. maybe?

And here are the videos in question:

Until now, the only officially released EarthBound 64/MOTHER 3 N64 music are three other tunes that you can find here. So if the above music is legit, this is the first new EarthBound 64 stuff to come to light since 2000!

I can’t say if it’s real or not with just these videos, plus the fact that “music” is misspelled on everyone one is a little weird. I don’t know, what do you think? Legit or fake?

UPDATE: Shogo Sakai, the game’s musician, says he has nothing to do with this music.

@skyrunner14 自分とは関係のないものです。

— 酒井 省吾 (@Shogo_Sakai) September 4, 2015