[HN Gopher] McDonald's Just Dropped a Brand New Game Boy Game in...
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McDonald's Just Dropped a Brand New Game Boy Game in 2023
Author : outime
Score : 320 points
Date : 2023-06-13 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (retrododo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (retrododo.com)
| tjohns wrote:
| Looking at the grimacesbirthday.com, I'm trying to figure out
| someone extracted a GameBoy ROM from that page.
|
| It looks like everything is implemented inside a WASM blob,
| containing what looks like binjgb (based on the strings).
|
| I'm assuming the game itself is also included in the data section
| at the end of the WASM blob. Are there any good tools for reverse
| engineering that? (Or am I missing a more obvious way of
| extracting the ROM?)
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| I can't quite tell if this is written by an LLM (and aided by a
| person, re: the developer is known) or the writing style is just
| so prolific that LLMs cant help but ape it.
|
| I think it's because every sentence is pretty short.
|
| These sentences end up being related, and should probably be just
| one paragraph.
|
| The writing style seems to separate everything out, I can say
| this might be what gives the impression of a LLM gluing parts
| together!
|
| I wonder if they received a McDonalds presser, and I wonder how
| much of those are still human-in-the-loop.
| tredre3 wrote:
| Well the author, Anthony, is a digital nomad who's known for
| minimal effort fluff pieces so it would seem like a natural
| progression to use LLMs. At some point retro dodo might skip
| the middle name and render him unemployed.
|
| I know I sound bitter but it's because retro dodo used to be a
| high quality production shop (still mostly is, to be fair).
| Though I understand that it wasn't sustainable for the original
| two guys to do everything alone (they've branched from blogging
| to youtubing to even book publishing after all)
| Clent wrote:
| The article is suggesting a ROM, I don't think McDonalds would
| risk Nintendo's ire.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I can't quite tell if this comment is written by an LLM (and
| aided by a person) or the writing style is just so prolific
| that LLMs cant help but ape it. I think it's because every
| sentence is pretty short.
|
| These sentences end up being related, and should probably be
| just one paragraph.
|
| The writing style seems to separate everything out, I can say
| this might be what gives the impression of a LLM gluing parts
| together!
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| Yes very funny. The sentence triplet is an intentional play
| at the articles style, including LLMs over-bright
| disposition. Thanks for playing though!
| jedberg wrote:
| FWIW I use a lot of line breaks when commenting on HN. Mainly
| because the text goes to a large width, and lot of folks on
| here use very wide screens.
|
| I like to make sure my main points are easily readable.
| mawadev wrote:
| The entire page on mobile is a wall of ads with text padded
| around it.
| throitallaway wrote:
| I call this the Twitter effect.
|
| Artificial limitations encourage the use of short and snappy
| communications.
|
| Also, who can be bothered to read through a paragraph today?
|
| I live my life one sentence at a time.
| geepytee wrote:
| This is some MSCHF level marketing, love it!
| zemo wrote:
| > it was developed using GB Studio
|
| yeah a lot of people in this thread seem to be completely unaware
| of GB Studio's existence, which is funny because a lot of people
| learn to make games in GB Studio nowadays. The GB Studio scene is
| pretty active.
| bogwog wrote:
| This is definitely the coolest marketing gimmick I've seen in a
| long time. It kind of makes me want to celebrate MY birthday at a
| McDonalds lol
| teej wrote:
| The agency who developed the game has a website that nails the
| Geocities-era aesthetic - https://krooltoys.com/
| isiahl wrote:
| Love that their logo is an homage to Yahooligans, Yahoo's old
| kids web portal.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20010708042828/http://www.yahool...
| [deleted]
| asylteltine wrote:
| [dead]
| WhiteRice wrote:
| I adore this, handheld gaming and fast food company marketing
| check so many nostalgia boxes for me.
|
| The accompanying website is a blast from the past too,
|
| https://grimacesbirthday.com/
| schlauerfox wrote:
| They immediately broke the nostalgia spell when they used 'smh'
| in the opening game, that was like hitting a brick wall of
| anachronism. Neat effort though. Glad someone got paid to make
| it.
| 634636346 wrote:
| How many Funkos do you own?
| bovermyer wrote:
| That's delightful. I needed a bit of levity in the wake of the
| latest AWS meltdown.
| tomcam wrote:
| A proton and a neutron walk into a bar and order beers.
| Bartender says to the proton, "That be $10." He turns to the
| neutron and says "For you, no charge."
| xxpor wrote:
| I'm kind of shocked the physical tooling exists to make a Game
| Boy cartridge and chips more than anything else.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| You can buy flashable game boy cartridges on Amazon:
| https://www.amazon.com/gameboy-flash-cartridge/s?k=gameboy+f...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The cartridges were mostly just a rom chip on a PCB. Some had
| RAM and/or a simple bank controller.
| hbn wrote:
| They didn't actually do that, it seems to just be a ROM
| release.
|
| Though they could have. Limited Run Games does Gameboy
| cartridges. I'm not sure what kind of tooling they use for it
| though.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm kind of shocked the physical tooling exists to make a
| Game Boy cartridge and chips more than anything else._
|
| You can get brand new Atari 2600 cartridges in boxes and
| everything.
|
| Though, I think the shells are actually scavenged from old
| games.
| bityard wrote:
| It's pretty trivial for a company to make a mold for a plastic
| cartridge. The chips are nothing special, they are just ROMs.
| Cheap and widely available.
|
| In fact, I'm pretty confident that a competent DIYer could 3D
| print a cartridge shell, flash a ROM, and etch a PCB in an
| afternoon or two.
| retrac wrote:
| For the Atari 2600, Game Boy, etc., the first cartridges were
| nothing more than a ROM chip on a printed circuit board. Later
| games sometimes included a lot more functionality on the
| cartridge (battery-backed save RAM, bank switching hardware,
| etc.) which does make things complicated very quickly. Today,
| programmable logic is sometimes used to replace old custom IC
| designs used in cartridges, or to design something new.
|
| For games more complicated than a simple ROM chip, the Game Boy
| presents an interesting challenge: the cartridge is both very
| small and it needs to be able to run off battery power. That
| excludes using both a high-power-consumption modern SoC or
| FPGA, or using lots of discrete logic.
|
| But if it'll fit in 32 KB, it's 3D print a case, order a PCB,
| and program a standard Flash chip.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > For the Atari 2600, Game Boy, etc., the first cartridges
| were nothing more than a ROM chip on a printed circuit board.
|
| We've actually come full circle on this one. If you ever
| disassemble a Nintendo Switch Game Card that has a black area
| above the metal contacts, it doesn't even have a PCB. It's
| just a ROM chip, with metal contacts on the bottom shaped
| differently than your standard BGA pattern, contained in
| plastic. If it has a green area above the metal contacts,
| it's a PCB with the chip on the other side.
| hbn wrote:
| That would have been cool if they did a run of physical
| cartridges, with the box and everything.
|
| Limited Run Games does runs of physical Gameboy cartridges still.
| They have to restyle things to not have Nintendo branding, but it
| can be done.
| mattl wrote:
| Curious which technique they use to bypass the Nintendo logo on
| boot
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Either it's in the console ROM, in which case it's not a
| problem, or it's in the cartridge ROM, in which case I'd
| imagine it's just a matter of replacing the raster data with
| something else.
| mattl wrote:
| Yeah demoscene has a few hacks to get around the checks.
| kristopolous wrote:
| The entire project probably cost about as much as a couple months
| on an urban billboard (around $100,000 or so) and the ROI is
| probably higher.
|
| So this was likely a reasonable investment. You're going to get
| YouTubers covering it, people doing speed runs, blogs and news
| aggregators. Good return.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I was wondering how a newly made Game Boy Color game would be
| distributed today:
|
| > But today, twenty five years after the Game Boy Color was
| released, we can play Grimace's Birthday for free on our web
| browser.
|
| > It is unclear if McDonald's hoped to keep the game locked on
| their website or if there's any particular reason they wouldn't
| want us to have a ROM. (I would assume something something
| emulator, something something copyright infringement.)
|
| > But needless to say, the internet was very quick to rip the
| file and share it online.
|
| Now I want to track it down so I can tell what's different when I
| play the inevitable rom hacks.
| schappim wrote:
| Whilst there has been mention of the 1993 "McDonald's Treasure
| Land Adventure", I'm surprised nobody has called out their
| previously lost DS Game[1]. The game was distributed to
| McDonald's locations throughout Japan in 2010 for the training of
| existing employees[2].
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e6xOBCAVvA&ab_channel=NickR...
|
| [2] https://kotaku.com/we-can-all-finally-learn-how-to-make-
| big-...
| kibwen wrote:
| The era where "retro" meant "NES" is behind us, now retro means
| Game Boy Color, PS1, and Quake-era PC aesthetics. To wit, the
| developers of Shovel Knight (the premier NES platformer homage)
| are developing a GBC-styled Bloodborne-like called Mina the
| Hollower: https://www.yachtclubgames.com/games/mina-the-hollower/
| (though sadly it's not designed to run on original hardware).
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the PS2 is considered retro now too.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Many in the community, such as the long-running Retronauts
| podcast, use 10 years as the line when something becomes
| "retro". By that definition, the PS4 becomes retro later this
| year.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I'd even argue that any console that is no longer in
| production can be considered retro; after all, you're then
| dependent on secondhand consoles and repairs to be able to
| play things on them; they have become a finite product.
| bogwog wrote:
| There are Gen Z that played PS3/Xbox 360 when they were
| children, and are now adults out of college with their own
| children. I think that's a good measure of "retro", and it
| would mean PS4 will enter retro status in ~2031.
| consentreality wrote:
| The PS2 was released as far from now, in 2000, as the Atari
| 2600 was to it, in 1977.
| layer8 wrote:
| How many orders of retrotude is that in total?
| LesZedCB wrote:
| 42
| anthk wrote:
| Nope. I was born in 1987, and Chinese NES clones were sold well
| up to 1997 until everyone in ~1999 got a Play Station at home
| as the prices went down. So, to US, retro was NES and the older
| GB games such as Mario Land 1.
| bityard wrote:
| In the late 90's to early 2000's, I considered "retro" games to
| be anything from the beginning of time right up the the NES.
| So, roughly anything that fell out of popularity about 10 years
| in the past. It didn't seem weird because in the late 90's, we
| were calling everything in the '80's retro. All that funky
| synth music and hair was pretty weird and alien to those who
| grew up on either side of it, after all.
|
| The most modern gaming system in our living room (if you don't
| count the Steam Deck) is a Wii which is legitimately a retro
| system these days and I get a little grumpy every time I am
| reminded of this.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I find it difficult to call any PC that has a CPU clock
| expressed in GHz retro / vintage. Even though I know PCs 20
| years ago were already in that ballpark.
| anthk wrote:
| Pentium 3-4 CPUS up to SSE2 from the last days of the W98SE
| era surely are.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| The GBC was closer to a NES in capability than the SNES.
| willis936 wrote:
| Does anyone know if I can check which Mcdonald's have these? I
| have a bit of a retro collection and this would be a cute
| artifact to add.
|
| Oh it isn't a physical cart run. I was curious about the
| logistics of such a thing. If it were a physical cart I'd like to
| take a peek inside and see the board.
| somat wrote:
| The questions it raises are almost more interesting then the
| game.
|
| Why GBC? Did someone have a canceled but mostly finished
| mcdonalds game laying around since the late 90's and finally the
| right person at mcdonalds heard about it and got corporate to let
| them publish it as a marketing tie in?
| sosodev wrote:
| The article states that the game was made by a member of the
| gbc homebrew community.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Why did they decide to make a retro game and then hire a
| member of the gbc homebrew community? The choices behind this
| are interesting. Even after somebody successfully convinced
| corporate to fund this game it's surprising someone else
| didn't say "we could do this in Unity for half the price."
|
| It really only makes sense to me if someone on the corporate
| ladder was already a fan of the gbc homebrew community, or
| close to someone that was.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| If you want something retro is seems a lot easier to just
| get someone who made a quality homebrew game to make you
| one rather than search for some generic Unity shop and have
| them make something good that looks sufficently retro.
| facecheekwall wrote:
| That purple shake is so mysterious, it doesn't even have a
| database entry.
|
| "Big Mac(r), World Famous Fries(r) (Medium), undefined"
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >Just be sure to order some McDonald's to support them. Who
| knows... if we keep eating McDonald's, they might keep producing
| these oddball retro gaming related projects.
|
| >I, for one, will NEVER stop eating McDonald's. You have my word.
|
| Uh... hail marketing! Nothing quite like getting nostalgia
| exploited for corporate profits. But hey, its important to
| support... uh... 'retro gaming?'
| hbn wrote:
| The article feels very "teacher set a minimum word requirement
| on the essay"
| packetlost wrote:
| Get used to it, it's probably at least partially generated by
| ChatGPT which really likes fluffing up the prose.
| groestl wrote:
| TBH, there are also quite a few posts here in this thread
| where my internal ChatGPT detector goes off. The funny
| thing is, they could also very well be meant ironically,
| and I can't really separate this anymore.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Explains the recent slew of "long form" articles.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Kinda makes me think of those tobacco advertisements of
| yesteryear. It's like "oh hey, Winston cigarettes sponsored the
| Flintstones, I'll never stop smoking Winstons."
|
| Who knows, perhaps one day we'll look back on modern day fast
| food ads and consider them equivalent to cigarette ads.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Maybe the author likes retro games and fast food?
|
| The anti-corporatism shtick is so lame. Just because something
| is done by a massive corporation doesn't make the thing bad.
| Just because something is an advertisement doesn't make it bad.
|
| I think this is pretty cool. Maybe I'll buy some McDonalds
| today too.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Yeah, the evisceration of corporate-everything has really
| unnecessarily crowded out enjoyment of all the good parts,
| while at the same time somehow managing to look more
| ridiculous as a POV than I ever expected.
|
| Back in the edgy days, I never thought I'd find blanket-
| corporate-hatred becoming quite so lame, to the point of even
| taking on its own corporate-style blandness, in the 2020s...
| relativty wrote:
| The "other people don't speak how I prefer" regardless of
| the context is such a lame complaint.
|
| Corporate blandness has infected us all; from my reference
| frame you're just some bland text on a corporate website
| that silences spicy discourse.
|
| Are others lame or is that all you feel given
| hypernormalized routines?
|
| Look at the rebels willing to risk going against this
| thread by eating McDonalds; highway to the danger zone.
|
| How bold
| noduerme wrote:
| I was gonna eat McDonald's tonight anyway. Regardless of
| the sneering of the privileged commies who live around
| me.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| "privileged commies" is a fascinating oxymoron. Is that
| really how you think of the people that disagrees with
| you?
| relativty wrote:
| [dead]
| libraryatnight wrote:
| American culture is sick from advertising. There will never
| be enough anti corporate sentiment anywhere. You should
| assume these businesses are killing you and know it because
| that's the one thing they reliably do. Anything else is to
| distract you from that. If they do something "nice" you can
| bet they could have done more better.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I think this is pretty cool too, but um..
|
| > Just because something is done by a massive corporation
| doesn't make the thing bad
|
| I don't think anyone was saying this. Some airlines plant
| trees. That doesn't make planting trees bad.
|
| But massive corporations (with maybe ~1% or fewer exceptions)
| don't base their practices on anything remotely resembling
| bad or good, and this leads them to profit-seeking behaviours
| that harm people on an individual level (which I think is a
| "bad" thing), as well as the planet, the environment, the
| economy, their competitors.
|
| McDonalds is not a good or ethical company. The corporate
| apologism is "so lame".
| brvsft wrote:
| > I don't think anyone was saying this. Some airlines plant
| trees. That doesn't make planting trees bad.
|
| Then you misunderstood the comment in question. It was
| quite clearly saying this. We're reading an innocuous blog
| post, and this person is aping reddit /r/hailcorporate
| language to vilify a marketing ploy by McDonald's, _"
| exploiting nostalgia blah blah blah."_
|
| You're right, they are not a good or ethical company. If
| it's corporate apologism to disagree with this complaint
| about "exploitation" of nostalgia, count me in as an
| apologist too. This doesn't register on the list of
| corporate misdeeds for me to be mad about. I'm more upset
| with "flushable wipes" that end up clogging local sewage
| systems.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| It's hard to see what they misunderstood. The comment is
| about this thing being done by McDonald's rather than
| "something ... done by a massive corporation". The
| difference is in the specificity.
|
| The point I get is not that "advertising from any large
| corporation is Bad" but instead that advertising from a
| corporation whose operations are Bad is Bad (because that
| specific corporation is Bad). It reads to me as an
| uncharitable take that OP is saying "making retro video
| games is Bad" (because large corporations are Bad) when I
| read "McDonald's being McDonald's is Bad" (because
| McDonald's is Bad).
|
| (where Bad = "not good or ethical")
| golergka wrote:
| Their profits pay pensions of the ordinary people. How is
| that not a good thing?
| brvsft wrote:
| I would otherwise be 'on your side' but this is not a
| great take. Lockheed Martin's profits also help pay for
| pensions. Phillip-Morris as well. I don't think this
| makes their business actions a net good.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > I don't think anyone was saying this. Some airlines
| plant trees. That doesn't make planting trees bad.
| moonchrome wrote:
| > don't base their practices on anything remotely
| resembling bad or good
|
| Exactly - they base it on profit and people who think this
| is good react accordingly
| bentcorner wrote:
| Paste this reply:\r\n Their Big Macs are also incredibly
| tasty. The sauce and double patty beats anything at their
| competitors.
| krapp wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Fuck capitalism, though.
| willis936 wrote:
| If anyone can find a spark of counterculture in 2023 I
| encourage it. There is no longer a battleground for the soul
| of society. It's safe to say the suits won.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Of course there is a battleground. The counterculture is
| more alive than ever. It's just all been thoroughly
| subsumed by capitalism.
|
| Those kids on the streets protesting most recent excesses
| of multinational corporations? The hoodies and Guy Fawkes
| masks they're wearing, the signs they're holding, the
| chains they're rattling - all bought on Amazon, happily
| providing specialized merch for the "fuck the system"
| market niche. And what do those kids achieve? Mostly they
| generate attention that moves newspapers and keeps millions
| glued to where they can be best exposed to ads. Etc.
|
| Yes, the suits love the anti-corporate movements. They are
| a quite profitable form of entertainment.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Are you familiar with normcore? There's an argument to be
| made that the most counterculture thing you can do is to
| semi-ironically eat a Happy Meal in order to support indie
| Gameboy devs
| ForHackernews wrote:
| https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
| gowld wrote:
| Why not give money to support retro game creators, instead
| indirectly via a fast food chain?
| howlin wrote:
| > I think this is pretty cool. Maybe I'll buy some McDonalds
| today too.
|
| Plenty of people will have plenty of issues with a major
| corporation. But it's worth pointing out that McDonald's is
| one of the most prominent fast food chains which has no
| problem with animal abuse in terms of products from horribly
| treated livestock animals. They have trouble even making
| their french fries livestock-torture free .
|
| Maybe this issue doesn't personally matter to you, but it
| does create a huge problem for a company that does something
| so shamelessly unethical.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Chex Quest and Sneak King were both pretty amusing for what
| they were.
| poisonarena wrote:
| For me, it's the McChicken. The best fast food sandwich. I
| even ask for extra McChicken sauce packets and the staff is
| so friendly and more than willing to oblige.
|
| One time I asked for McChicken sauce packets and they gave me
| three. I said, "Wow, three for free!" and the nice friendly
| McDonald's worker laughed and said, "I'm going to call you
| 3-for-free!".
|
| Now the staff greets me with "hey it's 3-for-free!" and
| ALWAYS give me three packets. It's such a fun and cool
| atmosphere at my local McDonald's restaurant, I go there at
| least 3 times a week for lunch and a large iced coffee with
| milk instead of cream, 1-2 times for breakfast on the
| weekend, and maybe once for dinner when I'm in a rush but
| want a great meal that is affordable, fast, and can match my
| daily nutritional needs.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| What is McChicken sauce packets? Mayonnaise?
| gowld wrote:
| It's a Canadian thing
|
| https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/product/mcchicken-
| sauce-p...
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I'm concerned that it says "Mayonnaise Style Sauce
| Packet" and thank you for bringing that to my attention!
| ksaj wrote:
| Mayonnaise Style Sauce ingredients: Soybean oil, Water,
| Liquid egg yolk, Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Mustard seeds,
| Mustard bran, Xanthan gum, Potassium sorbate, Calcium
| disodium EDTA.
|
| Miracle Whip ingredients: water, soybean oil, sugar,
| vinegar, modified cornstarch, egg yolks, salt, mustard,
| spices, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA, dried
| garlic.
|
| Thankfully you don't have to be too concerned then. It's
| probably for the same reason Miracle Whip doesn't
| actually call itself mayonnaise, and Hellmann's Real
| Mayonnaise does. I suspect it's because they have mustard
| and other non-mayonnaise ingredients (spices, garlic...).
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| probably no eggs, which is what holds the oil and water
| together
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Hey, good for you finding something that you like, but god
| damn if this doesn't read like ad copy. If you're not
| getting paid by them, you should be.
|
| You probably already know this, but fast food 5 times a
| week is basically putting in a request for health problems.
| boneitis wrote:
| Right. My experience in this realm is often the store
| employee either charging me or acting like I'm stealing
| from their personal savings account by asking for extra
| sauce.
|
| e: Wow, I got sniped big time.
| robgibbons wrote:
| It's a copypasta. There are different versions floating
| around, but this one's my favorite:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnXgbMgfkYg
| lovich wrote:
| As someone who eats like shit all I can think at that list
| is that's a lot of McDonald's
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| >> when I'm in a rush but want a great meal that is
| affordable, fast, and can match my daily nutritional needs.
|
| Huh. My experience with McDonald's: never met daily
| nutritional needs, no longer affordable and struggling to
| be fast.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Sounds like a win for society of you eat as much of it as
| possible. It'd really teach us a lesson if you ate multiple
| meals a day.
| larvaetron wrote:
| > The anti-corporatism shtick is so lame.
|
| Oh give me a break.
| perardi wrote:
| Don't have a cow, man.
| tropdrop wrote:
| Honestly I've been impressed with their fish sandwich
| recently - wild caught and actually flaky filet!
| toolz wrote:
| I'm no expert, but I thought we should prefer farm raised,
| no? Seems weird to advertise they are wild caught when
| that's a big concern with over-fishing in the wild.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| My understanding of the situation is that the U.S.
| federal government has been doing an excellent job of
| managing fisheries over the past couple of decades --
| there was an overfishing crisis in the 80's, but since
| then we've gotten our act together and implemented
| population monitoring and fishing quotas. There are
| definitely problems (especially with certain methods of
| fishing causing bycatch problems or habitat destruction),
| but researchers and regulators seem to be mostly on top
| of them. Farm-raised fish have their own set of
| challenges -- mainly health concerns and the potential
| for environmental disasters [0] -- so there's not
| necessarily a clear winner between farmed and wild fish.
| It also depends heavily on the particular species of
| fish.
|
| My source for this is an elective class I took at Oregon
| State University a few years ago, taught by a professor
| who is deeply involved in fishery research and
| management. So perhaps he was biased, but from what he
| presented I was thoroughly impressed with the
| sustainability practices of the seafood industry. One of
| my big takeaways was that wild Alaskan halibut in
| particular (which is what McDonald's uses) is among the
| best seafoods, and one of the most sustainable foods in
| existence.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypress_Island_Atlanti
| c_salmon...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Pick your poison. Wild caught can deplete wild fish and
| farmed fish pollutes the environment. I spring for wild
| caught whenever possible.
| gowld wrote:
| There's a third option...
| artursapek wrote:
| Not a nutritionally viable one
| Alupis wrote:
| Literally everything you do has an impact in some way on
| the environment. If you want to boycott everything, you
| won't have an existence.
|
| Living is all about understanding trade offs and making
| informed decisions. Just because plants don't scream when
| you kill them doesn't mean a plant-only diet is without
| negative effects as well.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > If you want to boycott everything, you won't have an
| existence.
|
| And a fourth option, it seems. However dark.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| For bulk, sure; for flavour, wild is superior. But it's a
| finite luxury.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Have you been trying the fish sandwich multiple times over
| the course of time? I didn't think that was allowed.
| cazum wrote:
| I don't think it's unreasonable anti-corporatism so much as
| it's a very rational cynicism about the psychological effect
| of marketing.
|
| They did something cool and now you want to give them money.
| Why is that?
| veave wrote:
| Ask a busker
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Because the food is delicious.
| toolz wrote:
| What is rational about being cynical that I want to spend
| my money on things I think are cool?
|
| Maybe there's merit in asking why I think it's cool to
| begin with (and in this case I hardly think mcdonalds is
| responsible for people who like gameboy games), but there
| doesn't seem to be much to gain in asking myself why I want
| to spend money on things I like. What else should I spend
| my money on?
| cazum wrote:
| But that's not what's happening.
|
| They made a Gameboy game and now you're buying
| hamburgers.
|
| If you're doing a 'vote with your wallet' thing to try to
| convince them to make more retro games that at least
| makes sense, even if id argue it's a little naive, but
| that's not even what were talking about. They made a
| videogame and now people are pledging to buy their
| hamburgers.
| comfypotato wrote:
| Acknowledging that it's a multifaceted mega-corp (and
| some of the facets are bad) is it really naive to
| associate excellent marketing with moral goodness? What
| is this marketing doing if not signaling that at least
| some of the company reflects values you support? Deciding
| to support the company by buying hamburgers logically
| follows.
|
| I'm enjoying the corporate apologetics personally. I've
| heard there is a Christian resurgence among the youth,
| and this makes me wonder if there will be a resurgence of
| pro-capitalism sentiment as well. Ideas, values, culture:
| it all evolves with time.
| disruptalot wrote:
| It makes perfect sense. McDonalds did something
| unconventional and apparently popular. People that found
| that valuable send the strongest signal you can send in
| an economy - money. "Corporate profits" take a look at
| the bank and they think "hmm, that seemed to work, we'll
| do more of that". They might not produce another gameboy
| game, that signal might need to be calibrated over
| further attempts to figure out why people bought more
| hamburgers. But certainly some signal concerning the
| approach they took will be loud and clear.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| That makes perfect sense to me.
|
| McDonalds obviously made the game in the hope that it
| will sell more hamburgers. If you buy a hamburger, their
| strategy worked, which means they (and other companies
| that are watching) have a reason to do similar things in
| the future.
|
| What's weird about incentivizing behavior you like in the
| hope that you get more of that behavior?
| ksaj wrote:
| The behaviour in question isn't simply producing retro
| games. It is producing something unique and interesting
| that their competitors are not offering. It is an edge.
|
| If their competitors copycat McDonalds' marketing, they
| totally didn't get that message, because by the time they
| clone it, the uniqueness McDonalds demonstrated does not
| apply to them - they've made a copy, or even a shadow of
| what came moments before. The edge McDonalds had is their
| cliff to behold unless they find something unique to
| counter with.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| It may be reasonable and rational but it makes for very
| boring reading.
| chatmasta wrote:
| I cannot read any enthusiastic endorsement of McDonald's
| without thinking of the meme/patent [0] from Sony proposing
| that viewers skip commercials by yelling brand names at their
| TV:
|
| > Say "McDonald's" to end commercial
|
| > "McDonald's!"
|
| [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sony-patent-mcdonalds/
| endisneigh wrote:
| The irony of this post on YCombinator
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| It is okay to like things, even if those things are marketing
| campaigns by global corporations.
| artursapek wrote:
| You will eat the feedlot beef to support retro video games,
| citizen
| praisewhitey wrote:
| They're clearly joking.
| superdisk wrote:
| I wrote the music engine they used in this game... never thought
| I'd see the day haha :)
| iAmAPencilYo wrote:
| That's pretty cool! Is this a new development or something that
| was reused from decades ago?
| superdisk wrote:
| I built the initial version in late 2019 and have been
| maintaining it since. It's used by GB Studio which is what
| this game was made with.
|
| https://nickfa.ro/index.php/HUGETracker
| esotericsean wrote:
| I've been using GPTPlayer with my GBDK project. Is there
| any benefit to me switching to HUGE?
| superdisk wrote:
| There's a mismatch between GBT Player and the GB hardware
| due to what can be expressed in the .mod format, meaning
| GBT is only capable of really beepy sounds (unless you're
| super good). hUGE gives more control over the hardware
| since it was made for it (and you can losslessly import
| GBT .mods). Ultimately though you can use whatever works
| for you, there are other drivers out there as well.
| krapp wrote:
| Related: The 10 Year Hunt for the Lost McDonald's DS Game[0]
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e6xOBCAVvA
| i_c_b wrote:
| This isn't even the first legitimately interesting video game
| connection to McDonalds, weirdly.
|
| Treasure is an influential game development studio that did a lot
| of really interesting work in the mid to late 90s, responsible
| for games like Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga,
| Bangai-o, Silhouette Mirage, Dynamite Headdy, Mischief Makers,
| Alien Soldier, and others. They were a bunch of ex-Konami
| developers (who had worked on games like Contra 3, Axelay, Super
| Castlevania 4, the arcade Simpsons) who were tired of making
| license games and wanted to make their own original games. A few
| of their games did well in the market, but they and their
| particular approach to innovation in action game rule systems has
| had a much, much bigger impact on other action game developers
| since.
|
| And their very first game when they left Konami and started their
| own studio, the game they had to make to stay afloat to make
| Gunstar Heroes, was... a Sega Genesis McDonalds game, the 1993
| "McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure".
|
| Longplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNbmJyL872c
|
| I've never played it, but it looks really solid and vastly better
| than it has any right to be.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Don't forget the legend of the lost Mcdonand's Training DS
| Game: https://kotaku.com/we-can-all-finally-learn-how-to-make-
| big-...
| saulrh wrote:
| That game's music is particularly special. Listen to the final
| boss theme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJaWgvWvvgc.
| shon wrote:
| Yep, thanks for posting. I have it on my Batocera rig right
| now.
|
| Also let's not forget about the long tradition of Pepsi video
| games including the interesting Japanese Pepsiman and the
| PlayStation release!
|
| https://youtu.be/lNF3dBiSH4M
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I've seen Pepsiman played at a GDQ[0] event and it is such
| good entertainment. I forget which year it was but I remember
| commentary about how the community found the guy who did the
| acting ("Pepsi for TV Game!") in the game and how he claimed
| to have been specifically directed to use broken English.
| (I'll look around for the video. It was a short discussion
| but still interesting.)
|
| [0] https://gamesdonequick.com/
| binji wrote:
| This is using my gameboy emulator, binjgb[0], on the website!
| (well one of my gameboy emulators, heh [1][2]) It's been used as
| the emulator for GB Studio for a little while now, but I don't
| know how often people embed it in their websites, so it's really
| cool to see.
|
| [0] https://github.com/binji/binjgb [1]
| https://github.com/binji/pokegb [2] https://binji.github.io/raw-
| wasm/badgb/
| j-kent wrote:
| Poor Ronald, not even invited to Grimace's party. IT really did a
| number on Mcdonald's branding.
| wturner wrote:
| In beginning of the game, the McDonalds logo only appears on a
| garbage can and if you run into it - you die. It's a positive
| message for health conscious parents.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Back in college (now 15 years ago) I did an analysis of fast
| food menus for a nutrition class.
|
| McDonalds turned out to be the easiest to get a healthy meal
| from at the time. They had things like salads, apple slices,
| and a much wider variety of items than other fast food
| restaurants meaning that if you were to eat there every day it
| was much easier to make different healthy meals than it was at
| the others but like an order of magnitude.
|
| Basically just skip the soft drink and only occasionally order
| the fries and you'll be fine.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Title is a bit misleading - it's a ROM for an emulator, it isn't
| a game that you could play on an actual Gameboy, were you still
| to own one.
| circuit10 wrote:
| You can if you have a flashcart
| jonny_eh wrote:
| You can burn it to a ROM.
| DanTheManPR wrote:
| I just tried the rom out on my flashcart, and it boots and
| plays on a real gameboy.
| circuit10 wrote:
| If it's only officially playable through an emulator I wonder why
| didn't just use a modern game engine to make something in a pixel
| art style? This is definitely more interesting though
| foldor wrote:
| It gives it enough authenticity to make headlines. A generic
| html game wouldn't have made any where near the same buzz.
| circuit10 wrote:
| Do they advertise it as a Game Boy Color game anywhere? I
| wouldn't be surprised if they can't (or rather don't want to
| risk it) for trademark reasons
|
| Edit: The game page itself doesn't mention it but the article
| has information on how it was made and by who so they must
| have got the information somehow, maybe the developer talked
| about it
| bityard wrote:
| The article implies it runs on GBC hardware and a few comments
| on HN here confirm it.
| circuit10 wrote:
| That's why I said "officially". I doubt they want you to rip
| the ROM from the page or they would just add a download to it
| Nition wrote:
| What the parent comment means is, they're not releasing it on
| the hardware officially. So it didn't need to be specifically
| a GameBoy Color game.
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