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Bugs
Version differencesThere are many versions of the game out there, Shobon no Action by Bluvel and OpenSyobonAction are just the most known.Unused Graphics#
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Inside the res folder are several unused variants of used graphics.
A third frame of the flying enemies seen in 1-3, with a different cape. Oddly, on the same file there is a duplicate of the used capeless frame.
An unused enemy that resembles Domo-kun, the mascot of NHK (who was extremely popular around this time).
The original checkpoint flag used in Shobon no Action by Chiku, later it was replaced by the unused version with japanese text in Shobon no Action by Bluvel.
A faceless enemy that heavily resembles the player in shape.
A single darkened frame of the enemy found in 1-4.
Brown and green mushrooms, presumably analogues of the Poison and 1-Up Mushrooms from Super Mario Bros. (and its Japanese sequel, in the former's case), and two alternate frames of the star. There is also a duplicate of the used mushroom graphic in the same file.
An open-eyed version of the clouds found in 1-3's "bonus" room.
A version of 1-4's castle bricks that more closely resembles the ones from Super Mario Bros. The in-game ones aren't shaded, like the rest of the game's tiles.
Unused Tiles#
White Block#
A white tile that can only be encountered with the random level generator. It acts solid.
Black Block#
Same thing as the white one, but black.
Unused Castle Block#
A second row block similar to the ones in the overworld and underground levels, intended for the castle stage.
Unused Horizontal Dodge Block#
A variant of the block found in level 1-1, but with different subtype.
Will move to the sides when hit.
Unused Enemies#
Some enemies have some coded behavior that is not used anywhere in the game, even in Random Mode:
Cannon Jien with different directions#
Enemy ID 7 is only spawned with subtype 0, however the code also handles subtypes 1, 2 and 3, which will make the enemy move backwards, up, and down respectively
Backwards Flame#
Enemy ID 10 is only spawned with subtype 0, but subtype 1 will make it go backwards
Slow Poisonous Mushroom#
Enemy ID 102 with subtype different to 1 will create a poisonous mushroom that is half speed than any other poisonous mushroom used in the game.
It is not just a "invalid subtype" since the game sets Poisonous Mushroom speed to 100 as default unless the subtype is 1.
ID: 200#
A enemy that looks like a Jisaku Jien.
Its ID is out of range, usually has size 0 (its size is read from out of bounds) and does not have collision for being stomped, so player will die when touching it.
Also it does not have a taunt/message when player dies.
Unused Objects#
In source code comments they are named 地面 (Ground):
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Unused Horizontal Pipe Entrace#
Object ID 40 with subtype 6 is a pipe that has a very similar code to the trap pipes found in 2-4, but one line of code is different, since it will trigger a flying player state instead.
Three Aramakis Trap#
Object ID 102 with subtype 9 is a trigger that will create 3 Aramakis when touched.
Unused Sounds and Music#
Unused Game Over Theme#
Inside the SE folder there is an audio file of the game over theme from Super Mario Bros. under the filename "gameover". While you do have a lives counter, it's impossible to get a game over as it goes into the negatives if you die while having zero lives.
Interestingly, there is a duplicate audio file for it under the filename of "gameoveｒ" in the same folder, with the "r" being formatted in Shift-JIS' fullwidth character set for... whatever reason. Upon closer inspection, the only difference of this duplicate is that it's very slightly modified to reduce popping in the audio, but it's still not used.
Unused Coin Block Hit Sound#
Inside SE directory there is another audio file named "brockcoin", which would be a combination of both "coin" and a block hit sound that's different from the one used in the game.
Hidden Level#
There is a 9th level, which internally is level 3-1. This level doesn't show up after beating Level 8 but can be accessed by pressing 9 on the title screen.
It is the only level that uses the snow block sprites in the whole game, while making the floor slippery. However, in OpenSyobonAction block graphics will be broken due to the missing snow sprites in the game, other versions of the game tried to fix this issue by changing the level theme to overworld, which would make the floor normal (not slippery).
This level also features a unique music track in some versions of the game, which is a mashup of the Cheetahmen theme and "Pursuit ~ Cornered" from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Hidden Game Mode#
Watch on YouTubePressing 0 enables a hidden random level generator that generates levels from completely random objects and blocks.
This is still present in OpenSyobonAction, a cross-platform fork of Shobon no Action by Bluvel. It also works in any game that uses the same engine, such as Memes Mario, etc.
Leftover Testing Variables#
fast (int)#
Setting this variable to 1 will make the game skip the player death animation
trap (int)#
Setting this variable to 1 will show all Objects with type higher or equal than 100 and less or equal to 299, internally all objects with types with that range (except type 200) are trap triggers, so with this variable the game will reveal their locations.
References#
- Chiku mentions posting the game around that time on his blog↩︎
- Basically, Japan has two systems for English romaji: Nihon-shiki and Hepburn. Usually, Japanese people are taught Kunrei-shiki first (it's easier to memorize and doesn't account for how Japanese is spoken), so Chiku used Kunrei-shiki on his Geocities blog by writing the game's title as "syobon_action_description" and "syobon-action" in his blog's URLs. Somewhere along the way, this got misinterpreted as the game's title actually being "Syobon Action" by the English-speaking Internet, and thus the English title became "Syobon Action".↩︎
- "Shobon no Action in Nameless Rumia's Wiki↩︎