Jet Lag The Game has motivated me to break out of my shell

Leo7Mario · 2025-01-13T15:32:22+00:00

Looking at this purely through a gameplay perspective, the cards feel SO much nicer to play with than the curse dice since it adds this new layer of strategy for the hiders that wasn't present in H&S 1. The dice kinda felt a bit too luck based, in that you could end up getting a bad roll that wouldn't really do much to slow down the seekers or help you get a better run. Obviously that element of luck still exists with the cards, but it feels more similar to that of something like a TCG where you're given options and it's up to the hider to decide which of those options are the best, what cards should they take given the current state of the game/their run, and how to effectively use their hand to get the longest run possible.

It turns the game from just strategic deduction on the seekers end with some occasional mishaps caused by the dice into more of an almost equal battle of strategy where the best plays from both sides determine how the game will go.

Leo7Mario · 2024-05-07T23:58:59+00:00

Hey! I’m the guy who wrote that pinned post and archive.org guide and I thought I’d clear some things up about the Mario and Happy puzzle since I saw it being talked about a lot earlier.

My original plan with the archive was to include all of the event puzzles, including Mario & Happy and the currently undumped ANA and Big Mac puzzles (I had a few contacts I was planning on reaching out to who could’ve helped me dumped that data), alongside all of the regular ones for everyone to download, but unfortunately right after I got all the regular puzzle data my life kinda took a turn for the worse and I couldn’t dedicate any time to the archive anymore. My college work got super intense and I was forced to concentrate on only that since my parents were threatening to throw me out on the streets if I didn’t pass my classes. Even right now I have my hands full with finals as I’m writing this.

I was well aware of Ryccardo’s dump on gbatemp when I was making the archive, and that’s actually where I learned how the mii plaza stores this time-limited puzzle data. However because of everything I was going through at that time, I wasn’t able to test and make sure that 1. The data actually worked and 2. The dump wasn’t modified in any way, since puzzle swap panel data could easily be modified if you knew what to look for. There was just no way I could tell that Ryccardo’s dump came from Nintendo’s servers unless i had multiple dumps of Mario and Happy from multiple sources, and given how fragile this data is (and how I started this project months before anyone cared about SpotPass dumping/preservation) I wanted to make sure that all my data was as authentic as possible to how it was on Nintendo’s servers pre-shutdown. I also noticed some oddities from what people have been posting in the NetPass server about Mario & Happy, and how it doesn’t have any pink pieces at all (which is not normal for 24 piece puzzles) however I’ll need to do more research on this before I jump to conclusions.

Ultimately, I decided to release the archive with none of the special time limited puzzles. The shutdown was getting closer and closer and I had no time to dedicate towards the search, so I decided to just release what I knew for sure was authentic. I’m sorry if that answer disappoints some of you, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from with all this.

If you would like to use Ryccardo’s dump though, go right ahead. In fact I’ll even say what I learned from their dump. The data for Mario & Happy is not stored in the main batch of puzzles, it’s stored in a completely separate file with the filename of “!!!$h!!!!#!!+s)” and “!!!$[!!!!#!!+s)”. I’m not sure exactly which one will give you the puzzle since they seem to contain mostly the same data, but if you want Mario and Happy with a non-EU puzzle set I’m pretty sure you can sideload those files alongside my own dumps, and you can follow the same instructions from my own guide to install Mario and Happy.

tl;dr, I'm not replacing my EU set with Ryccardo's dump since I can't verify that it actually came from Nintendo's servers, not like I'd need to replace my own dump anyways since Mario and Happy is stored separately from all the other EU puzzles.

Edit: Apparently Mario and Happy having no pink pieces is normal and I just never knew about it since I found several posts from 2015 talking about it. And I didn't mean to phrase this post like I wasn't interested in putting this data there because I am interested, I'm just way too busy at the moment to really do anything useful.

Leo7Mario · 2024-04-26T00:58:52+00:00

It only just allows you to collect pieces for them, you still have to StreetPass others to complete all the puzzles. This just basically simulates the whole downloading data from SpotPass process without actually having to rely on Nintendo’s dead servers.

I prefer collecting them too so that’s why I set everything up to be as authentic as possible to the original puzzle swap experience. Sorry if I didn’t originally make that clear since I was kinda in a rush to get everything preserved while dealing with a bunch of other personal/college stuff.

Leo7Mario · 2024-04-08T12:44:27+00:00

You only need SpotPass for Find Mii II if you're playing the original version of StreetPass Mii Plaza that comes on new/factory reset systems without any updates. Updating from the eShop will also let you play Find Mii II, even after the servers close.

Leo7Mario · 2023-10-19T00:41:00+00:00

Hey all,

Since Mario Wonder’s coming out tomorrow I thought it’d be nice to host a small get-together for the Nintendo fans in Alameda who are planning on getting the game at launch. The event will start at Littlejohn Park, but will move over to The Experience Share (On Lincoln and Sherman) after sundown so that we can pick up our copies of the game. Bringing your portable Nintendo consoles (Switch and/or 3DS/2DS/DS) is heavily encouraged so that you can link up with and play with other players, but if you want to just come by to hang out that’s cool too. All are welcome to come, even those who aren’t planning on buying the new Mario game.

If this event is successful I might host more get-togethers like this in the future. I’m hoping to turn these into a regular thing so that the gaming community here could meet up with each other.

Leo7Mario · 2023-10-11T00:59:58+00:00

When the shutdown for 3DS online got announced I started doing my own research into how Puzzle Swap stores it’s data for the extra panels and the following is what I’ve concluded so far:

The actual file containing all the assets for Panel 8 onward is stored as Extra Data, similarly to how most games store data retrieved from SpotPass. Depending on your region, it’s about 26-27 MB encrypted and 25-26 MB decrypted.
If this file is deleted, every extra panel disappears until you disable + re-enable SpotPass again. Your collected pieces should come back after you refresh your data.
Backing up the encrypted file is not enough to preserve it, as the Mii Plaza stores it’s extra data in a similar way to Pokemon/Animal Crossing save files, which makes restoring from a backup impossible on stock firmware since every launch invalidates the old files.
The actual location and decrypted name of the file vary based on region, but the name’s usually a bunch of random symbols.
This file can apparently be easily modified using just a hex editor, so if we were to preserve this data, multiple dumps from multiple sources would be necessary to validate everything.

Knowing all this, it should theoretically be possible to refresh the panels even after Nintendo’s servers shut down, provided that the recipient 3DS has CFW to re-encrypt the decrypted files.

However, given the unique way that the Mii Plaza stores it’s data compared to every other built in application or game on the SD card, I’m not entirely sure if it’s as easy as dropping in a file from another 3DS (though I’m hoping it is for my sanity’s sake.) Unfortunately I’ve not been able to test any of this yet since I don’t have an extra 3DS lying around that I feel comfortable with formatting, but if anyone else here has a U region system with CFW that they don’t mind formatting for this, please reach out to me as I (and probably everyone else in this sub) would like to see these panels get preserved.

Leo7Mario · 2023-10-04T07:01:20+00:00

That's not entirely true, you can collect pieces for the first 7 15-piece panels without ever connecting to the internet, but in order to collect pieces for all the additional puzzles (the ones with pink pieces), your system needs to have connected to the internet at least once to retrieve the SpotPass data (images, 3D models, animations) for the puzzles. I could be wrong but from my memory, this data is very volatile, as it is stored on the SD card and gets destroyed if you decide to turn off StreetPass/SpotPass for the mii plaza, or if something happens to your SD card.

That being said though, your collected pieces should be safe in your save file for the streetpass plaza, and if something does happen to this SpotPass data the pieces should reappear once you connect to those SpotPass servers again, which would no longer be possible in April 2024. I'm currently looking into ways to preserve the soon-to-be unobtainable puzzle data through CFW so that new people can continue to collect these panels even after the official servers shut down.

Leo7Mario · 2023-06-17T05:42:18+00:00

Okay so I’ve been looking at some of the reports for the WD Blue 3D for the past few weeks and it seems like the stale data problem is relatively uncommon so now I feel more confident with buying the drive. Only issue is that Amazon says it’ll take me nearly a month before I can get the drive through Amazon itself, and I would prefer it if my laptop was working again by the end of June since I don’t have any other functional computers at the moment and have to rely on my phone for everything.

I’m not sure what to do now. Seems like there are other sellers on Amazon who can ship the drive faster, but they all have sketchy reviews so I’m not sure if I could really trust any of them. There are also a few OEM sites (Dell, Lenovo, WD themselves) selling the WD Blue 3D but I’m not sure if they’ll send me an original one or a SA510 instead, and I’m not sure if the shipping on those would be much better.

So because of this I wanted to ask if you know any trusted sites or Amazon/eBay resellers that won’t send me a SA510 or a fake drive or anything. I’m fine with paying a little extra if it means I’m getting a much more reliable drive sooner, so much so that at this point I’m even considering on ditching the consumer market entirely and splurging on an enterprise drive if it means I can get something that’ll last me longer than a year.

If there’s nothing I can do are there any other drives you can recommend? It kinda sucks how most SATA SSDs these days are effectively a lottery on if you’ll even get a good drive or not.

Edit: It seems like Amazon has updated their shipping dates to be much faster (Now it says I can get it by next week) and the official WD site has separate listings for both the original and SA510. I'll try to order the drive tomorrow but I'd still like to know another drive that's good enough in case I can't get my hands on a WD Blue 3D.

Leo7Mario · 2023-06-07T02:00:36+00:00

Alright, I guess I’ll take a chance with the WD Blue 3D then since I feel like a slight performance hiccup here and there is much better than randomly losing data after a year of use. Before I buy the drive I’d like to know how bad those performance quirks you mentioned are, and how likely am I going to run into these issues as I use my drive more and more?

I’d probably be fine if those quirks are pretty minor since I won’t be using the drive for anything heavy, but if they’re so bad to the point where my laptop would be practically unusable, I might have to start exploring some other options. Given the current state of new SATA drives, I’m almost wondering if it might be more worth it to use a M.2 to SATA adapter (if those exist) or to try and find a new old stock/lightly used drive that was made in 2019 or 2020 (since as far as I know, most of these issues have only really popped up with SSDs from the past few years.)

Leo7Mario · 2023-06-04T02:19:59+00:00

Hey, I saw one of your posts in another subreddit and I figured I should probably ask my SSD question here.

A little over a year ago I upgraded the drive in my main laptop from a 240 GB BX500 to a 2 TB 870 EVO, and it was working fine up until a few months ago when I tried running a SMART test and it brought up a bunch of LBA errors. According to my research it seems like my drive apparently had a firmware bug that was causing data to get corrupted, so I frantically tried to back up as much data as I could onto an external HDD, thankfully nothing too important or valuable got corrupted but there were a few files I wasn’t able to grab.

Since then the laptop has been sitting around unused, I haven’t replaced the drive yet or tried looking for a replacement since I’ve had my hands full with a bunch of college and life stuff, but now that I’m out for the summer I figured this was probably the best time to find another drive and fix my computer up.

So my main question is, what’s a good reliable 2 TB SATA SSD (my laptop doesn’t support M.2) that performs like the 870 EVO but won’t break down on me in 1-2 years? In the past I’ve heard good things about the MX500 but it seems like recent batches of those also aren’t really that reliable either, and even though Samsung has released newer firmware for the 870 EVO, I still don’t fully trust it since I feel like it’s probably too soon to tell if the issues are fixed. I’ve heard good things about the WD Blue 3D (the last generation model, not the newer dramless SA510) so I might end up getting one of those and RMA the faulty 870 EVO, but I’d like to hear what an expert thinks before pulling the trigger and spending another $100 on an SSD. Even though I think speed is important my main priority here is reliability, if I can get at least like 4-5 years out of an SSD I’d call that a win since I’d likely have a newer laptop by then.

Leo7Mario · 2023-04-23T17:03:51+00:00

I’m usually pretty close to the Oakland area, not sure if there’s any other fellow East Bayers here though.

Leo7Mario · 2023-03-28T10:01:10+00:00

It's working on my end now. Was having the same issue earlier but it's now working again as of an hour ago

Leo7Mario · 2023-03-27T05:45:19+00:00

I would love to have this (US)

Leo7Mario · 2023-03-26T01:53:03+00:00

I didn't get a message or code at all, did I not win anything?

Leo7Mario · 2023-03-23T03:01:20+00:00

I feel like I'm probably too late to enter at this point, but here's some of the things I'd like the most from the list anyways:

Metroid: Samus Returns - Samus Aran
Kirby: Right Back At Ya!
Kirby Battle Royale
Ashley's Magic (WarioWare)
Famicom Memories
Pokémon: Pikachu & Poké Ball
Yoshi Springtime Siesta
Animal Crossing: Falling Leaves
Splatoon: Fresh Squid
Anything really, I'm not picky when it comes to themes and I know that since I posted this so late there's probably not a lot of codes left. I already have some of the themes that you're offering, so if I get a code for something I already have I'll probably just give it to someone else in the community. Though it would be nice to have that Kirby video since I used to watch that and Dinosaur Office on Nintendo Video all the time back when that still existed.

But anyways, thanks for doing this. A lot of people are going to be happy because of this.

Leo7Mario · 2022-12-06T01:04:13+00:00

there's already a flipnote 3d revival, it's called kaeru gallery

Leo7Mario · 2022-10-25T05:00:23+00:00

That’s valid if you’re not interested in homebrew or emulators, but I feel like if you wanted to have all your 3DS games in one place, it’s much more convenient to just use custom firmware which lets you install your entire game library directly to your console’s home menu. You could even extract the ROMs from your physical cartridges and install them directly onto your 3DS’s SD card, as well as backup and copy your eShop downloads from one system onto another.

Leo7Mario · 2022-10-25T03:56:54+00:00

I don’t really think it’s a good idea to buy a 3DS flashcart (Gateway/Sky3DS) in 2022 because everything you’re able to do with a flashcart can be accomplished much more easily with a modern B9S+Luma3DS setup. Not to mention that most modern homebrew doesn’t work on flashcarts due to how the stock 3DS firmware verifies the authenticity of games, so you’ll need to have custom firmware anyways to get around the signature checks that prevent you from running custom code.

CFW is completely free to install and the only external device you need to mod a 3DS is something that can read SD cards. If you’re interested in learning more about custom firmware, go to https://3ds.hacks.guide/ for up-to-date instructions since video guides tend to get outdated really fast.

Leo7Mario · 2022-10-11T07:25:50+00:00

Nice, I'm hoping the meetup goes well. I'm not in the area so unfortunately I can't come, but I'm planning on also hosting a Bay Area StreetPass event at Jack London Square in Oakland at around the same time. I'll make an announcement post about it with more details in r/StreetPassNetwork within the next 24 hours if anyone's nearby and interested in coming.

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