The Pepsi DS

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It was only a few weeks ago that the McDonalds special edition Nintendo DSi was brought into the mainstream by Nick Robinson's YouTube video. That system was distributed to Japanese McDonalds stores along with one of two special training DS cartridge games, but did you know that this was not the first specially branded DS console made in collaboration with a food company?

This title for first branded DS goes back further than the DSi, further than even the Nintendo DS Lite, all the way back to the classic grey original Nintendo DS. While it may not be the first specially branded DS, the title for the first branded DS by a food company definitely goes to the PEPSI X NINTENDO collaboration Nintendo DS, a blue branded recolouring of the original DS' plastic, with a specially printed logo above the Nintendo badge.

I found out about this special DS whilst looking at different game auctions on Yahoo Auctions Japan. It can be interesting to see what video game things exist in Japan, and this system piqued my interest. So how did this special DS come into existence?

Link to Auction: https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/o448087868

Pepsi has a long history in Japan. The cola drink was launched by the Japan Pepsi Cola Company in 1958. As well as the soft drink Pepsi, other PepsiCo brands have become some of the largest food brands in Japan, with Pepsi being a popular beverage in Japan.

Source for Pepsi History: https://www.pepsico.com/pepsicojapan.html

Pepsi Twist and Diet Pepsi Twist are two low-sugar Pepsi variations, originally released in 2000 in the United States. When saccharin was used to create a lower-sugar version of Pepsi, the artificial sweetener left a bad after-taste. In order to counteract this, the decision was made to make the low-sugar drink lemon-flavoured. When aspartame became more common, Pepsi was later able to make a low-sugar variant of Pepsi that tasted much more like normal Pepsi, without having to add other flavours, although this isn't really important for the story of this device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Twist

To advertise this drink's launch in Japan, Pepsi partnered with Nintendo to make a limited run of 1000 special, blue Nintendo DS'. In 2005 Pepsi started a campaign where with the purchase of a 500ml bottle of Pepsi Twist or Diet Pepsi Twist, you would get one of 30 Nintendo-themed bottlecaps, and with the purchase of a 1.5 litre bottle of the drink, you would get one of eight rolls of tape featuring a level from Super Mario Bros. With the purchase of Pepsi Twist products in Japan, customers were also given the chance to win one of these limited edition consoles. While unlike the McDonalds DSi, which came with one of two training games to be used by staff, since the Pepsi DS was just a promotional item, it did not have any games or software with it, although it would have been cool to see a rare limited-run Pepsi-themed game. Although the DS did not come with a game, it did however come with a range of other special accessories. The console came with a blue metal case for the system, branded with the Nintendo DS and Pepsi logos, as well as a set of Pepsi-branded headphones as well as two blue DS cartridge covers. The DS also comes with a leaflet for the special DS as well as all the other things that come with a normal DS such as manuals for your system and your standard stylus.

http://devkits.handheldmuseum.com/NintendoDSPepsi/index.htm

https://www.ign.com/articles/2005/02/16/pepsi-introduces-special-edition-ds

This was not the first branded console, and will be far from the last. The Pepsi DS is an interesting look at how classic consoles were combined with the marketing of the time to create something unique. Who knows what the future will bring for consoles. Maybe KFC will make a gaming PC that can heat your chicken or something. Wait, they are doing that. Maybe in the future I can make something about that.

Make a Simple Text to Speech Windows Programs

Have you ever wanted to make your own text to speech program? Well you can use the following code to make a visual basics script program to turn your typing into speech using Microsoft SAPI.

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Dim Message, Speak Message=InputBox("Enter your text","Text to Speech") Set Speak=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice") Speak.Speak Message

Just open notepad and copy this text. Save with whatever name you want, as long as it ends with the .vbs file extension. Then just double-click on the icon to open the program. The program gives you a text box where you can type what you want it to say.

The Speedrun That Broke the Dropper

Bigre's the Dropper Map for Minecraft 1.5 has been a popular extension to Minecraft speedrunning, as one of the most popular and influential downloadable Minecraft maps of all time. It was to be expected that Dropper speedrunning would span into many categories for the many different ways of playing it.

Any% is a popular speedrunning category that asks for a player to try to get from the start of the game to the end any means necessary. It typically allows for users to skip levels, missions and items as long as they end up at the finish. They also normally allow the player to use glitches and bugs to their advantage. The Dropper any% speedrun requires for the player to get from the start area to the end area in the shortest amount of time possible. Timing starts as soon as you enter the door, and ends as soon as you enter the end area.

So how exactly do you get from the start of the game to the end area as quickly as possible? Do you have to play all 17 levels to beat the game, or only the first 16 to get to the end area? There aren't any level skips in the Dropper are there? Well, no there aren't. There are no points in the games where you can find a way to skip a level or go to a level later on. It's always one level at a time.

Remember when I said that any% normally allows for you to use glitches? Well, while there may be no official level skips available, glitches can be used to skip levels. After you complete a level, and before you attempt the next dropper, your spawn point automatically changes to above the next dropper in order to allow you to automatically spawn above that dropper if you fail there. There is no need to even use the set spawnpoint buttons on the walls. This automatic spawn setting can be used to your advantage, or at least where your spawn is originally set can be.

Although when you start you spawn in the water out the front of the starting area, your spawnpoint isn't actually set there. You can test this by digging a hole in the wool under the water and drowning yourself. Whether from Bigre testing the game before going to the start for the release version, or for some other reason, your spawn point is actually at the final checkpoint before level 17. This means that if you are able to die before your checkpoint gets set elsewhere, you can travel straight to the last level. From here, you can simply run backwards to get to the end area. So this means that if you are able to die pretty much straight away, this would be the fastest way to speedrun the game. But how do you die at the start? There is no way to die in the water area outside of the first dropper, and if you fall down the first dropper but die, your spawn has already been reset meaning that you will instead respawn at the first level.

The thing is though, that you actually can die in the first level before your spawn point is set. If you die pretty much straight away in the first dropper, you can die before your respawn point is set. By going to the side as soon as you drop, you can gain just enough momentum as you hit the side of the dropper to die. From here, after you respawn, you can just run backwards and as soon as you reach the end of the tunnel and start falling down, you have finished the speedrun. In version 1.5, you can reliably do this in around 25 seconds for a complete run. This run completely breaks the game and takes away any challenge from playing. This has resulted in the speedrun.com leader boards for the map delisting the any% category, although for many other games strats that trivialise beating the game don't justify delisting a category, it would make sense regardless to keep the run in order for people to learn about this strategy.

How I Discovered A New Dropper Speedrunning Strategy

 The Dropper by Bigre may be one of the most famous Minecraft Maps of all time. The relatively simple concept of falling down and avoiding obstacles in order to survive getting to the bottom has spawned a huge genre of popular Minecraft maps over the past 8 years.

When you start the game or look at the download page, it only gives you a few simple instructions. "The Goal - Survive and Finish the Game", and "The Rule - Don't Break Blocks". The game gives you a few other basic rules and tips such as to play on version 1.5, but that is the gist of it. Now with these rules there is something that was left out, one important rule that most people wouldn't do because it would normally seem like cheating, but isn't. This one change could completely change the way that people are able to play the map. Although this method of playing the game is much slower than playing the game normally, it can make levels much easier, so easy in fact that on most levels with hard to do parkour jumps, you can be almost guaranteed to make them.

This one missing rule is that there is nothing that stops you from placing blocks. You may be thinking, "How do you place blocks if you can't break blocks to get them in the first place?". There are a few different ways to get things that you can place. The most obvious time that you are given blocks that you might be able to use are beds that you can find in a chest. Other than that, you can get blocks that drop from entities. While you think that this might be included in the rule saying that you can't break blocks, it isn't because blocks and entities are different. Of course the natural assumption is that you can't break entities for blocks, but if the rules don't prohibit it, it's allowed. So, how do you get blocks from entities in the Dropper? There are two ways. One is by crashing the boats on the toilet level so that they break and drop planks as well as sticks, the other is from sheep that can spawn in the game. The easiest way to get blocks is to get them from broken boats, and you only need a few in order to make your jumps easier.

By collecting planks of wood, you can bridge across the 3-block jumps in order to make them significantly easier, and allowing some of the hardest parkour jumps to be done with almost 100% accuracy. The reason why 3-block jumps are so hard in this version is because in version 1.5, you are unable to sprint.

Now is a video of my attempting the Dropper using this strategy, and although I don't do very well, and die quite a few times, I do quite well without any practice, finishing all 17 levels in less than 13 minutes.

You can  download the map for yourself at the following link: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/advpuzz-the-dropper-2-new-levels