NG:Dev.Team keep working on their commercial NeoGeo title Kraut Buster. Via Facebook they shared a bigger status update.

Their latest message to us:

Dear customers,

with the year ending here is the current state of Kraut Buster for NEOGEO.

Compared to our original vision the game got pretty huge, basically twice as many mission parts, twice as many bosses etc. as originally planned. Without any additional financial costs to you, but at cost of waiting time.
At current projections the game will break even but will not generate any profits in the first year, but that was expected from the beginning, it was always a dream project for us.

Work on the final mission already started. We have the basic map done, currently it’s getting finalized pixel art.

The game is kinda “two games in one” both in content and game modes. It comes with two quite different feeling game modes.

* “Slug”* mode: Tactically and slower game mode, similar to the classic MS series. Lots of stops with fighting bigger enemies and a more tactical approach.
Due to the size of the game, we plan to offer a mission select (A or B) in this mode to keep the playtime around 30 minutes.

* “Contra”* mode: Fast and action oriented. Only stop at mini bosses and bosses and run and crush through enemy hordes. Probably no mission select here as the increased speed/flow gets the playtime under 30 minutes.

Enemy balancing and enemy placement may differ slightly to reflect the slightly different mechanics.
Weapons/Powerups/Secrets/Masks will be handled differently in this mode too.

* (Both game mode names are just placeholders)

We will show the “Contra” mode in a later video in 2017.

Some current statistic numbers (subject to change):

9+ bosses
6+ mini bosses
19 mission parts
207 screens.
Nearly all are individually hand drawn pixel screens (not tile based, think more fighting game backgrounds).
That’s like 86 KoF backgrounds (of course with less animation in KB). All combined, give a huge picture of 66240×240 pixels.

New screen shots from Mission 4-4 are available on the game site/the shop site and Facebook.

http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_0_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_1_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_2_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_3_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_4_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_5_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_6_512wx.jpg
http://www.ngdevdirect.com/images/kb_battleship_7_512wx.jpg

As you can see in the screen shots, we also reworked the HUD: We removed the big bubble head from the HUD as it looked too “western”/unfitting for NEOGEO to us. It also would have taken too much of the very small SFIX ROM space with the other characters.

Release date:

In the last newsletter from 16th June 2016 we stated:
“Currently Kraut Buster has no release date, but a release in the late 1st/early 2nd quarter of 2017 seems realistic.”

Our new estimate is to start beta testing in June and start to ship in September. We originally had planned to have 3 pixel artist full time on this project, but in the end only two were available over the full course. That lead to an unexpected delay.

We know that we started pre order too early for it, but without the pre orders we wouldn’t have been able to made a big game like this. The next few games will be smaller projects again, with similar work sizes like NEO XYX (pixelart) and Razion (CGI). We will probably do a huge project in the size of Kraut Buster in the future again, but not for a few years and in a different genre.

——————

MVS reprints:

Originally it was planned and communicated in the newsletter that the MVS reprints will be produced together with Kraut Buster MVS. As sales of the reprints are getting close to our minimum factory order amount we will try to produce them earlier. For now we set April 2017.

Thanks for being patient and happy holidays,
NGDEV

http://www.kraut-buster.com/

Mountain King updated his new WIP Atari VCS game The Gizzle Wap and the Great Blizzard.

It’s the holidays in Sundra. A great blizzard hit the land suddenly trapping anyone that was unfortunate enough to be caught outside. You play as the Gizzle Wap and the Moum Moum searching the land for survivors. Move the Gizzle Wap left and right and press up to jump. The Moum Moum will follow. Press the fire button to dig in the snow to search.

Listen closely to the Moum Moum. He has a better sense of where a creature might be buried. Dig where he sings. You may have to scan an area more than once to find something. He will not sing if he is standing on the Gizzle Wap or if he is too high in the sky.

Changes:

1. When finding a Fraze branch or bacon the Moum moum will no longer carry them away. Instead he will carry the Fraze a few feet away and eat it and then return. The Bacon Gizzle wap needs to touch to eat it. He will make a quick buzz sound when eating.
2. Bacon heals the Gizzle Wap more effectively.
3. The Moum Moum and the Gizzle Wap turn blue when their health becomes critically low ( no death yet)
4. You can no longer “spam” Dig. Instead you must wait until your previous hole fills before digging a new hole. Don’t worry the storm is pretty harsh. The Hole will fill quickly.
5. If the Blue Bunipy or the Cruncher becomes reburied, you will need to redig a hole where they are to rescue them.
6. When searching for food, there is a chance you will disturb a nest of ground Gnats. The warriors will relentless attack you. Dodge their attacks and dig holes to stop them.
7. Objects and creatures no longer “morph” This was a bug resulting from assigning multiple sprites to one virtual sprite.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/259569-the-gizzle-wap-and-the-great-blizzard-tent-name-wip/

Onduck Games Super Plumber Run got an update! Collect coins and avoid enemies and obstacles in this Super Mario Run style game.

Changes:

* Added Google Play Leaderboards and Achievements
* Some optimizations and bugfixes

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onduck.plumberrun

SuperMageWorld is a Jump’n Run game by JacPete.

Help Trisha on her way to defeat the enemies before the kingdom runs out of time. Jump and run through more than 50 levels in 5 different worlds (Jungle World, Castle World, Desert World, Ice World, Ghost World). Face different enemies, boss battles and traps in each world.

Changes:

– Fixed a bug that caused a flickering border on 16:10 devices.
– Falling platforms in greenlandvalley got a better collor.
– Have fun playing this jump and run game and thanks for the feedback!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Witch.World

Realms of Idle is a strategy game for Android by ilMare Games.

Release notes:

– Better screen adjustments
– More bugfixes

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ilmare.RealmsOfIdle

Avva:CandyReact by EvrythngEnterprises is a free candy based, endless game that tests your reaction speed, precision and concentration through sorting candy gumballs.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.EvrythngEnterprises.Avva

Oolite is a space sim game, inspired by Elite, powered by Objective-C and OpenGL, and designed as a small game that is easy for users to pick up, modify and expand upon. Almost every aspect of the game can be changed by using simple, free graphics packages and text editors. Ported to Pandora by ptitSeb.

Changes:

* Avoid writting to the NAND

http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=oolite_ptitseb

FCE Ultra GX is an NES emulator based on FCEUX. With it you can play NES games on your Wii/GameCube. The GUI is powered by libwiigui.

Features:

* Wiimote, Nunchuk, Classic, and Gamecube controller support
* iNES, FDS, VS, UNIF, and NSF ROM support
* 1-4 Player Support
* Zapper support
* Auto Load/Save Game States and RAM
* Custom controller configurations
* SD, USB, DVD, SMB, Zip, and 7z support
* Custom controller configurations
* 16:9 widescreen support
* Original/filtered/unfiltered video modes
* Turbo Mode – up to 2x the normal speed
* Cheat support (.CHT files and Game Genie)
* Famicom 3D System support
* IPS/UPS automatic patching support
* NES Compatibility Based on FCEUX 2.2.0+ (r2818)
* Open Source!

Changes:

* Hide saving dialog that pops up briefly when returning from a game
* Don’t ignore buttons when zapper is enabled. prevented “Gotcha! The Sport!” from working (thanks liuhb86!)

Free and legal NES roms to try with this emulator can be downloaded from here.

http://code.google.com/p/fceugc/

Visual Boy Advance is a Game Boy / Game Boy Advance Emulator for Wii / GameCube, based on VBA-M. The code is a continuation of Softdev and emu_kidid’s efforts, and uses libogc and devkitppc. The GUI is powered by libwiigui.

Features:

Wiimote, Nunchuk, Classic, and Gamecube controller support
SRAM and State saving
IPS/UPS/PPF patch support
Custom controller configurations
SD, USB, DVD, SMB, Zip, and 7z support
Compatibility based on VBA-M r927
MEM2 ROM Storage for fast access
Auto frame skip for those core heavy games
Turbo speed, video zooming, widescreen, and unfiltered video options

Changes:

* Hide saving dialog that pops up briefly when returning from a game

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Visual_Boy_Advance_GX

Aventura by Cleber Casali‎ is a port/conversion of Adventure from the Atari 2600 for Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and Sega CD. Please report any bugs or differences from the original worth fixing directly to the author.

Changes:

* Fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze when eaten by a dragon near the bottom of the screen.

http://devster.proboards.com/thread/1189/aventura-port-conversion-adventure-atari