Illumination LASER [X68000] Finally Released

[robivy64]

I'm pretty excited about this one, and the story of how the game was acquired is almost as good as the game itself.

The game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q70d2-wxiZk

For years, this video is the only evidence we had of this game's existence. The game was uncirculated and highly sought after by the X68000 community. I've been searching for this game for over 5 years.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a copy of the game surface in an auction on Yahoo Japan, buried within a pile of X68000 hardware and software.


With the help of some X68000 collectors, the lot was won (almost $1000!) and headed to the US, where an attempt to dump Illumination Laser would be made.

The progress of this purchase was documented on the NFG forums where, unbeknown to us, someone had been in contact with the developer of IL for over a year. The developer learned of the auction, and formally asked that we not release that copy of the game. We were disappointed, but decided to respect the developer's wishes.

The developer, who goes by TERRA, dusted off his X68000 and decided to put the finishing touches on the game and release it to the public on Saturday!

http://nfggames.com/x68000/Games/IlluminationLaser/

You've never played it so check it out and post what you think!

[KAI]

Nice, how can I emulate it? can't run it on WinX68k.

[Xyga]

What a nice guy this TERRA is ! *thumbsup*

[robivy64]

Not sure on emulating it. Runs perfectly on my X68000.

You try the .xdf?

[Eithrial]

It works fine on XM6 Type G. Read manual_en.txt to ensure that everything is properly configured.

[Pretas]

Haven't yet emulated an X68k game that requires a joystick for control. Before, I would map buttons and directions to the keyboard. How do I properly configure a joystick for XM6?

[LordHypnos]

Haven't yet emulated an X68k game that requires a joystick for control. Before, I would map buttons and directions to the keyboard. How do I properly configure a joystick for XM6?

IDK about XM6, but in WinX68000 it does it automatically. Perhaps this is also the case with XM6. Couldn't get this working with winx68k either, though. Couldn't get XM6 working in general. I'm about to try out Keropi, now.

[Pretas]

I can start the game in XM6, but none of the buttons work.

[LordHypnos]

How did you get XM6 working? mine gives me an error in spite of having the bios roms and such
Also tried EX68, and wouldn't work either. Gonna try the hd file

EDIT: XM6 is working fine. Still not loading the floppy though. No emulators, so far, can read the hdd file

[Magma Dragoon]

Which file exactly should I download, or should I download all of them?

[LordHypnos]

Alright. Looks working.
@Magma Dragoon - download the IL file. the DIM in there is the only image I could get to work. Maybe you can put the other images into the folder to get them to work though? Didn't try it yet

@Pretas: Tools > Options > Joystick change device A to usb gamepad (this is in XM6)

EDIT: Any one know how I can get this to boot faster? Maybe there is no way though.

[d3vak]

Thank you very much for this contribution!

[LordHypnos]

Wow, this game is hard as balls. First boss shoots fast as fuck.. So many homing missiles, also, but not the kind that you can destroy.
But yeah, thanks for posting this. Love the music, too.

EDIT: does anyone understand how shielding works in this? Not the option, but sometimes I get hit without losing a life. can't figure out what the pattern is.

[Plasmo]

This looks amazing.

[Blackbird]

This game looks hard as hell o_O. The player in that footage clearly knew what he was doing, but the stage 2 boss still completely destroyed him.

Awesome music, though! Someone get that uploaded so I can snap-add that to the compendium =).

[robivy64]

It's probably a little easier on the real hardware, as there is a moderate amount of slowdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4msUbOFAA1I

[BPzeBanshee]

I remember seeing the original video floating around about it ages ago, amazing to see it finally out to the public!

MESS just fixed its support for this game in the x68k driver and they've been doing a fair few improvements to make that driver a lot more compatible than it used to be. Personally I've been finding it easier to figure out than the weird Japanese standalone variants around the place.

[robivy64]

Thoughts on the game so far?

The only issue I found is that the sound effects overpower the music. I added "-BGM_VOL4" to I.X in the batch file and the sound is far more balanced.

[BPzeBanshee]

Thoughts on the game so far?

The only issue I found is that the sound effects overpower the music. I added "-BGM_VOL4" to I.X in the batch file and the sound is far more balanced.

Any ideas on how to get the opportunity to do that within an emulator? I haven't got a clue on how to add the LZH file to MESS as a hard drive and when I use the disk image it autoruns everything with a present I can't seem to change.

[robivy64]

You can do it in command line. Exit the game from the menu, type "ED AUTOEXEC.BAT"

Add "-BGM_VOL4" to the I.X line

Example:

float2.x
mcdrv -B64
I.x -BGM_VOL4
mcdrv -r

[LordHypnos]

ED AUTOEXEC.BAT gives me an error that I can't read because it's (unsurprisingly) in japanese. darn. I would have liked to be able to hear the music better

[robivy64]

Download this HDD image

http://nfggames.com/X68000/uploads/X68000_V4_IL.HDS

It has the BGM fixed IL installed, as well as a ton of other shooters.

[Evilmaxwar]

That is an awesome story!!
Games are meant to be played. Glad Terra decided to release the game. Will have to try it eventually.

[LordHypnos]

worked like a charm, thx robivy64

[BIL]

Excellent music! Just like Direct X and Project Moon... seems to be a recurring thing with X68k shooter rarities.

[LordHypnos]

Excellent music! Just like Direct X and Project Moon... seems to be a recurring thing with X68k shooter rarities.

Not to mention Cho Ren Sha, Hatenkou, and Zero Rei
And a lot of the commercial games, too.

[BPzeBanshee]

I must be doing something wrong, but MESS wont accept .hds (only .hdf for some reason), and XM6 is all funny with its configurations giving all kinds of weird Japanese messages. Any recommendations for *good* x68k emulators? Bonus points if it can also emulate its alpha blending which quite a few of the ones I tried a while back couldn't do.

[LordHypnos]

I must be doing something wrong, but MESS wont accept .hds (only .hdf for some reason), and XM6 is all funny with its configurations giving all kinds of weird Japanese messages. Any recommendations for *good* x68k emulators? Bonus points if it can also emulate its alpha blending which quite a few of the ones I tried a while back couldn't do.

No ideas for a better emu than xm6 that's compatible (I kind of prefer winx68k for some other things though), but if you follow these directions, you should be able to boot to an hds image (It's actually a SCSI hard drive image, generally xm6 assumes that there's only a floppy connected): http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x680 ... _mdx_files

[Xyga]

Couldn't get it to work under any emulator in the end.

Guess a compatible file will end up appearing sooner or later, I'll wait until then.

[LordHypnos]

Couldn't get it to work under any emulator in the end.

Guess a compatible file will end up appearing sooner or later, I'll wait until then.

did you try xm6, and the .dim file in the folder that's just labled "IL"? It took me a while to figure it out, but that worked for me. I d/led XM6 from zophar's domain