[GerbilSoft]

I will likely hold the drawing for the Sonic Boom giveaway tonight in #retro at around 9 PM EST (2 AM UTC), but for now, here's the results. (No graphs this time due to laziness. )

Total number of entries received: 60

Question #1: When Sonic Adventure 2 was ported to GameCube, one of the options on the main menu was removed. Which option was this?

The Dreamcast was one of the first consoles to include a way to connect to the Internet (via a dialup modem). Sega pushed this extensively, so many games included a way to get to the game's website. In SA2 (and SA1), this was through the "Home Page" option on the Main Menu. Since Nintendo didn't seem to know the Internet existed in 2001, this option was removed in the GameCube port.

Answers received:

• Home Page: 50
  
• Sound Test: 5
  
• Download Content: 1
  
• Language: 1
  
• Online Functionality: 1
  
• Online Play: 1
  
• VMU Select: 1

I accepted a few variants for "Home Page", including "SA2 website" and "Internet". "Download Content" was rejected because the Steam version has "Downloadable Content", which is probably what that was referring to. "VMU Select" isn't an option on the main menu; that's "File Select" in Options, which was reworked to use GameCube memory cards. "Online Functionality" and "Online Play" were also rejected because those both refer to online play, which no version of SA2 has (unless you count SonicFreak94's Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Network mod).

Question #2: What two Game Gear Sonic games were not released on cartridge outside of Japan?

Pretty much everyone got this one right. Sonic Drift and Tails' Skypatrol were not released on cartridge outside of Japan. They later made it out of the country in various re-releases, including Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut.

Answers received:

• Sonic Drift, Tails' Skypatrol: 59
  
• Sonic Drift, Sonic Drift 2: 1

Question #3: What assembly language do you need to know to hack the Sonic Advance series?

This one seemed to trip up a lot of people. The key thing is knowing that the assembly language used depends entirely on the CPU used on the given platform. The Game Boy Advance uses an ARM7TDMI CPU; hence, anything written for it is either assembled in or compiled to ARM assembly language. (I accepted ARM7 and ARM7TDMI, since those are merely more specific versions.)

Answers received:

• ARM(7TDMI): 39
  
• 68000: 3
  
• 6502: 2
  
• 65c816: 2
  
• ASM: 2
  
• C/C++: 2
  
• Z80: 2
  
• (no response): 2
  
• 08353CCC: 1
  
• GBA ASM: 1
  
• Hexadecimal: 1
  
• NO$GBA Debugger: 1
  
• Visual C++: 1
  
• .NET Framework: 1

I did not accept "GBA ASM" or "ASM" because those don't describe a specific assembly language. Similarly, C and C++ are both high-level languages, not assembly languages, and Visual C++ is an IDE. I was rather surprised by the amount of incorrect CPUs listed, since if you look up GBA on any reference site, you'll find that its primary CPU is a 16.78 MHz ARM7TDMI CPU, not a Z80 or 68000 or 65c816. (There is a GBZ80 CPU onboard for backwards-compatibility, but it's not usable in GBA mode.)

Question #4: Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) has branching story paths. What is the total number of possible paths throughout the storyline?

This question refers to the total number of possible *branches*, I.e. paths; not endings. If you check the List of Shadow the Hedgehog Library sequences, you'll see that there's a total of 326 possible paths throughout the storyline, with each path having 6 stages out of 22 total and one out of 10 possible endings, not including "The Last Way".

Answers received:

• 326: 53
  
• "Over 300": 2
  
• 51: 1
  
• "~45": 1
  
• 10: 2
  
• 3: 1

Since the answer was an exact number, I couldn't accept approximations, e.g. "Over 300".

Final Results:

• 4 Correct Answers: 35
  
• 3 Correct Answers: 14
  
• 2 Correct Answers: 7
  
• 1 Correct Answer: 4
  
• Epic Failure:

I will post a list of who got all four correct later today (semi-anonymized), along with ID numbers for the random drawing.



25-point Bonus Question: What C++ library used in recent Sonic games has the same name as one of Sonic's signature moves?

This question doesn't count for anything other than bragging rights. The answer is boost, a fairly popular C++ library used in lots of things, including Sonic Colors.

Only 21 out of the 60 entries included a submission for the bonus question.

Answers received:

• boost: 12
  
• Spindash: 7
  
• Peel Out: 1
  
• DASH: 1

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 07 November 2014 - 12:12 PM
Reason for edit: Clarify the GBZ80 in the GBA.

[JaxTH]

I would have entered but question 3 tripped me up and I ended up spending a few hours just on the SCHG for Sonic Advance because of it. I didn't enter because I knew that there would be people who would get that one right and found no point in trying to enter with only 3 correct questions.

Nice contest as always though.

[Josh]

Woo! I even got the bonus question right! Even if the random drawing doesn't go my way, this is still a great feeling. xD

[GerbilSoft]

Here's the full list of entrants. The list is sorted alphabetically by name, with a random number from 1 to 42 at the beginning.

I also added a few fake entries to make the random number generator a bit more "fair". If they're selected, then I'll spin again.

The drawing will take place in #retro at 10:00 PM EST (I.e. in 60 minutes). [Delayed a bit because I'm cleaning out spyware from my sister's laptop. />]

Fake entries:
1: [LOSE A TURN]
6: [RICK ROLL]
14: [THE GAME]
22: [QUACK]
28: [WTF BOOM]
37: [NYAN CAT]
42: [BANKRUPT]

Actual entries: (nickname used where aailable)
3: alberto.j.luevano
24: alienrun42
11: AndrewRoks1998
7: Anthon Prower
34: blazeheatnix1
23: Blue Dude
4: camjo-z
17: Chris Highwind
33: Connor Hamilton
32: D.A. Garden
5: danimation777
36: dariusamaru
10: diamondcutter
2: dustinvgmaster
30: ellgamer
26: gmmawesome
15: gold lightning
31: gomez.jeremy18
35: iceweb38
9: iGamr
19: linobro
20: ljaevien
27: logan-webb
29: mariomegaman50
16: NightBlader
8: pdelviscio
25: Puto
21: shirlofmattsbury
38: silbermanryan
18: sjaelster
40: sysco8lizard
12: thechaoticlord
39: Walnut
41: xboxtoon
13: ymroo

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 07 November 2014 - 08:59 PM
Reason for edit: +drawing time

[sonicblur]

The answer to number 3 is wrong anyway. It should be THUMB assembly language.

Very few GBA games actually ran in ARM mode.

[GerbilSoft]

sonicblur, on 07 November 2014 - 09:04 PM, said:

The answer to number 3 is wrong anyway. It should be THUMB assembly language.

Very few GBA games actually ran in ARM mode.

Pedantic. I would have accepted Thumb too, though no one really differentiates between the two anymore.

[GerbilSoft]

And the winners are: D.A. Garden and danimation777! Congratulations! I'll send out emails shortly.

Quote

[10:08:47 PM] <+GerbilSoft> the first winner is:
[10:08:48 PM] <+GerbilSoft> d42
[10:08:48 PM] <Rakka> d42: 42 ([1d42(42)=42])
[10:08:52 PM] <+GerbilSoft> ... bankrupt
[10:08:57 PM] <+GerbilSoft> let's try that again
[10:08:58 PM] <+GerbilSoft> d42
[10:08:58 PM] <Rakka> d42: 14 ([1d42(14)=14])
[10:09:03 PM] <+GerbilSoft> ... the game -_-
[10:09:08 PM] <+GerbilSoft> d42
[10:09:08 PM] <Rakka> d42: 32 ([1d42(32)=32])
[10:09:13 PM] <+GerbilSoft> 32: D.A. Garden
[10:09:26 PM] <+GerbilSoft> and the second winner is:
[10:09:27 PM] <+GerbilSoft> d42
[10:09:27 PM] <Rakka> d42: 5 ([1d42(5)=5])
[10:09:33 PM] <+GerbilSoft> 5: danimation777

[D.A. Garden]

Wait, I won? I actually won!? Awesome! Thanks very much GerbilSoft; much appreciated.

I'll be buying both games anyway as I collect them; I just won't be able to play them (and confirm the purchase fully) until a week before Christmas as I'm a student living away from home.

I'll keep you posted via email, or in IRC, if that's OK.

This post has been edited by D.A. Garden: 08 November 2014 - 06:57 AM

[Chris Highwind]

Huh. Seems even knowing you're not going to win doesn't make it not suck when you don't. Oh well, congrats to those who did!