doc eggfan

The Eggfan Story Part 1 (First Draft)<br />
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After purchasing his first computer in 1997, Eggfan was introduced to emulation via a friend and early DOS versions of Genecyst and Nesticle. These and subsequent roms were supplied to him on 3.5' floppy disks, as internet access was a luxury he could not afford while he was paying off his computer. <br />
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In 1999, through the wonders of pre-paid dial up internet and a 10 metre long modular telephone extension cable, Eggfan discovered many new and interesting variations of his favourite series of games. One of these games, Sonic 2 Ultima, prompted him to send his first email to a total stranger to enquire about how such trickery were possible. Surprisingly, Ultima indulged Eggfan's annoying questions in good spirit and a few emails were exchanged. It was through this correspondence that Ultima revealed the existence of the message board 'Sonic Cult' , and it was here where Eggfan would take his first steps into the community. <br />
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After much messing around with such tools as Sonic Hacking Whiz Pro and ESE, Eggfan released his first hack to the world - Sonic 2K2. Whilst it was only a palette and sprite hack at this time, it was well received due to its bold and dramatic use of colour and unusual level themes. <br />
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Eggfan continued to work on his hack whilst lurking in the hacking sub-forum, but through the tutelage and encouragement of the ever affable and always friendly Saxman, he ventured north up the boards to the everything else forum. He found to his surprise that he fit in rather well with this rag tag group of weirdos, and was soon indulging in his trademark nonsense and arguments over religion that he has since become famous for. <br />
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In 200X?, when Nemesis finally cracked the Nemesis compression format. Eggfan pounced on these new tools and was soon utilising them to the full extent of his ability. He became a pioneer in this field, seemingly because no one else knew how to operate a command line program or manipulate a rom in hex without bricking it. His next few releases of Sonic 2K2, now renamed Sonic 2: Aluminium Edition, so named after the precious metal of a 10th anniversary gift, were some of the first in the world to feature newly modified compressed art in game. <br />
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During his compressed art manipulations for his Sky Chase mod set underwater, Eggfan discovered that the Balkiry badnik was equipped with landing gear that was unused in the game. This was Eggfan's first discovery, and it would not be his last. <br />
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Eggfan's mastery of manipulating compressed art garnered the attention of many a newbie, pestering him for his expertise. Eggfan started to spend less time 'live' on the net, which is a habit he has yet to break even today.<br />
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His new found notoriety was not all bad news however. Ultima got back in touch with Eggfan and invited him to join an elite group of hackers under the name of Shadowsoft. Eggfan started to spend more and more time at the Shadowsoft forums, his new found elitist refuge away from the persistent squeals of the common throng. <br />
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While Eggfan remained on the periphery of Shadowsoft's main project - Terra Galactica, he made himself useful in other endeavours. Plans were made with OrdosAlpha and ? To create a database of compressed art for Sonic 2, complete with idiot proof tutorials. Some progress was made and a website was created, but the idea was soon superseded by the release of TSDC, and the project was discontinued. <br />
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It was also under Shadowsoft that Eggfan began work on his most ambitious project to date – The Eggfan Trilogy. <br />
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In 2003? the research and hacking scene had virtually ground to a halt. It was proclaimed that the age of research was over and all of the roms and betas had been picked clean. There was nothing left to find and a general malaise descended on the community. Of course, Dr. Eggfan knew better. There was a frontier that had not yet been claimed. The 8-bit series of Sonic Games had been left virtually untouched, virgin lands just begging to be conquered. Eggfan took it upon himself to reignite the passion for research in the stagnating community. This would be the cornerstone of the Eggfan Trilogy - Project: Rebirth.<br />
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Since Hivebrain? had already written a comprehensive break-down of the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog, Eggfan focussed his attention on the second game in the 8-bit series - Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Conducted in secret, only the members of Shadowsoft were privvy to a private development blog, Eggfan found to his surprise that Sonic 2 gave up her secrets quite easily, and there was a rather extensive amount of unused level art and sprite art, including loop art for underground zone, a waterslide in Aqua Lake Zone, sprites of Tails crying, and alternate boss art for Sky High Zone, also known as &quot;the retarded chicken&quot;.<br />
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On (the date) The Eggfan Trilogy was released to an eagerly awaiting public. Interest had been piqued by Eggfan's cunning use of signature banners, and each part of the trilogy was released on a staggered release schedule. The first Part was the latest version of Aluminium Edition. featuring the world's first fully complete sonic and tails sprite edit. Every single frame of animation had been edited in the infamous 'brown shoe' cel shaded style. This release of S2AlE also exploited a glitch that Eggfan discovered in the penultimate boss fight which made the battle much more insanely difficult.<br />
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Project Rebirth was released as part 2 of the trilogy. It took the form of the world's first hack of an 8-bit Sonic rom, featuring new palettes and level themes, a fully complete sonic sprite based on the art style of Sonic's Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket, and every piece of uncompressed art in the game had been modified. This included the final three bosses, each modified to represent the progressive evolution of metal sonic style bosses in the sonic series, renamed Unit 0, Unit 1, and Unit 2 respectively. Also released as part of Project: Rebirth were images of the missing art discovered and a comprehensive art hacking guide for Sonic 2 (which was soon superceeded by Hivebrain's complete rom breakdown).<br />
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The final part of the Trilogy was an excercise in frivolity - The Hybridisation Project. Combining the experience of both parts 1 and 2. Eggfan proceded to create a mash up of the art style of 8-bit Sonic 2, using the 16-bit Sonic 2 rom as a base. The palettes were limited to the Master System's 64 colours, the sonic sprite completely modified to resemble the 8-bit style, and Eggfan dipped his toe into Kosinski compressed level art modification for the first time. Although not as revolutionary as Rebirth, the Hybridisation Project was well recieved for it's unique concept, despite the fact that the project was obviously far from complete and Underground zone literally looked like shit. <br />
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The Eggfan trilogy spread throughout the internet from message board to message board and can still be found in both the goodgen and goodsms rom sets. To Eggfan's great surprise, he is still finding praise heaped upon his creations years later, in lands as far a field as Russia, Brazil, and Israel. Unfortunately, Project Rebirth failed to ignite any major excitement in the community over 8-bit hacking. Although a few disparate and industrious individuals continued to plug away at it in the background, it is unlikely that Eggfan can claim any credit for this. Project Rebirth was ultimately a failure. <br />
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In the aftermath of the trilogy's release, it became patently obvious that Eggfan was somewhat enamoured with the Master System and the 8-bit series of games. He was approached by Pachuka, hat in hand, to write the articles for the 8-bit games for his Sonic Cult website which had been left blank for many years. Eggfan quite excited about being recognised by the man at the top - He had finally entered the inner circle - and was eager to please the Boss man. He immediately wrote up the entry for Sonic Chaos, and then promptly procrastinated in writing the rest.<br />
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It was also around this time that marked a turning point in Eggfan's status in the community. Up until this point he had been quite well-behaved, friendly, and good-natured. In other words, boring. That would all change in one fateful event, a case of mistaken gender identity, and the birth of Eggfag....