Sotomura

2009 beta

How was Christmas and the New Year? Was it fine? I’ve got something new for the New Year, too.

Download now

This release is more of an incremental thing. It fixes a few bugs that people have encountered, but it also adds the updated Merson Cave map I showed off earlier. Give it a whirl if you’d like!

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link. This was the last known stable release of rijonAdventures, so the download button links to the current page.

Merson Cave VERSION UP.

Drag the slider to compare!

Old Old
New New

Yes, I was fully aware that the old map was ugly and outdated compared to many of the new areas in the game. It’s good to refresh something every once in a while. (Especially since the map hasn’t been touched for years.)

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link.

Merry Christmas!

EDIT: This version is out of date. Check out the rijonAdventures page for the latest version!

The rijonAdventures Christmas 2008 Beta is finally out!

Download now

This is my present to everyone.

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link. We do not currently have a copy of the Christmas 2008 Beta for download.

Okay okay, I lied about the updates part…

I’m preparing the Christmas beta though, just you wait!

In other news, I got a shiny award at The PokéCommunity and a pretty emblem too. (Truth be told, I actually made them.)

rijonAdventures, The PokéCommunity’s Hack of the Year for 2008.

A big thank-you to everyone who voted for rijonAdventures (if any) and the judges of the Hack of the Year. 😀

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link.

rijonAdventures Christmas beta!

A new beta will be released on December 25th! The beta will contain the entire campaign right until the Elite Four is beaten – South Rijon and a few secret areas will remain secret in the beta being released this Christmas.

I’ll keep posting updates, but for now, ciao!

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link.

The Elite Four’s Nina appears!

Another long while! But I’m still alive! School’s finally over! Time to introduce another character!

Nina trains flying-type Pokémon. At the start of the game, the Elite Four are on official leave, so Nina, a member of the Elite Four, is walking around the region looking for traces of Lugia. You’ll first see her in the Rijon Tunnel doing a bit of exploration. Meeting her is mostly crucial to the story, as after the league campaign you’ll be meeting her again and helping her out for something big…

(From the previous post and this post, you’ll notice that I’ve added a Javascript that zooms in on thumbnails. A lovely script, at that.)

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. We have not included Hiroshi’s lovely script here, but you can witness it for yourself here: Archive link. The original full size artwork included with the blog post has been lost.

Definite while

Been a while since my last update (three months). Much too busy this year, though I’ve been doing things. I’m not dead!

A lot of things are worked on, never you worry. The project goal has been thrown off a fair bit, but in the process, I can make a whole lot of refinements to the game. And clean up my dirty work. Maybe I’ll be able to release a beta with all of the Rijon region accessible.

In the meantime, take a look one of the kinds of changes I’m making.

Apparently, the computer of the artist who’s working on rijonAdventures’ excellent art has needed a reformat. But, hopefully I can show you guys more art later on!

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link. The images included with this post have been lost and only the thumbnails remain.

Sheral

The first time you walk into the Seashore City gym, there’s a surprise in store.

What kind of gym is this?!

The Gym Leader in this gym is Sheral. She’s a Psychic trainer who you can fight in the beta. Speaking of the beta, the layout is slightly different between the final and the released beta.

The problem is now locating where she is in the gym.

It’s quite a large gym. She’s in so many different places. They’re not her. Who’s the real one?

Where could she be?

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link.

Spinning the money wheel…

It’s been a long time without an update, so it’s time to deliver something new.

In the Goldenrod City Game Corner, which recently received a renovation, there’s a new game!

Put down a some of your money, and get coins. A bit devious, isn’t it? But, you have to be lucky! In the screenshots above, the player can put down 500 yen in a game of chance.

There are numerous outcomes dependent on chance. If you are unlucky enough to get “Bankrupt” (which happens often) then you’ll lose your bet. If you get a “no bonus”, you don’t lose your money. If you get any coins out of this, you still lose your bet but you get some coins out of it. On the table in the screenshot above, you can get 50 coins, but…

If you’re lucky, you can get up to 250 coins! …on this particular table only, that is.

2000 yen for 1000 coins max!?

There are different tables that bet different amounts. Perhaps you can fill your coin case much more easily?

Originally posted on the old Rijon website, now offline. Archive link.

UPS patching specification

Update: While rijonAdventures still uses the UPS format, we now have a different recommended method applying it to your ROM file. For up-to-date setup instructions, please click here.

rijonAdventures will be supporting a new patching format called UPS. This format allows for a much bigger ROM size (more for working on!). It’s a new format that aims to also iron out the problems with the IPS format.

(Note: rijonAdventures’ public beta is not currently using UPS.)

Please spread the use of this format!
UPS needs a big kickstart to get working, and it takes support from a lot of hacks! If you’re hacking a game, help the format out by changing from IPS to UPS.

And if you’re hacking Diamond and Pearl or plan to in the future, the UPS format will be absolutely necessary to use!

Read on to find out about why rijonAdventures will be using UPS and what benefits it provides.

Read more

rijonAdventures will be using a new patching format called UPS, created by byuu. This format is being used as it supports creating patches and applying them to sizes much larger than 16 MB. In comparison, IPS can only handle 16 MB.

Archivist’s note: byuu’s page is now offline, I have instead linked an archived page snapped at the time of this blog post.

What does this new format mean for rijonAdventures? Do other games use this format?

rijonAdventures will become a 32 MB ROM (or at least, larger than 16 MB). The extra space that UPS allows for means that there will be more content to put in the game. This can include much larger maps, more scripts and text, etc.

The version of rijonAdventures available to beta testers is in the UPS format, too.

The Unified Mother 3 Fan Translation project is already going to utilize the UPS format. For their intents and purposes, their use for the UPS format will further their ability to translate the game (and in their case, Mother 3 is unfortunately a 32 MB ROM, which IPS simply cannot support).

Will UPS files work in VisualBoyAdvance, Lunar IPS, etc.?

No. The UPS format’s specifications are different from the IPS format’s. However, just as there are patching programs for Lunar IPS, there are programs for UPS.

VisualBoyAdvance does not yet support UPS patches. Whether support will be implemented or not hasn’t been documented.

What program do I use to patch with UPS?

There are numerous UPS patchers available today. Windows users can download Tsukuyomi from here. Mac users can download UPS here.

Combination of three related posts on the old Rijon website, now offline, and PokéCommunity forums, now deleted. Blog post archive link. UPS page archive link. PokéCommunity post archive link. The links to the UPS patcher’s are no longer available. Please see our setup page for the more modern method of patching ROM files.

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