Today this site celebrates 22 years of platformer appreciation, beat ’em up boosting, pixel art positivity and more!

Custom Sprites:
Adventure Island: Master Higgins
Battle Circuit: Pink Ostrich
Mega Man: Fire Man
Karate Champ: Judge
Street Fighter: Cammy – Super Street Fighter II fight stance
Marvel: six of the suit-wearing thugs from Capcom’s Punisher arcade game
Illmosis Network: Upski Daisy (Beans vs. Cornbread)
Kirby: King Dedede

Sprites:
the Punisher: added Jigsaw and Hawke. Just checked the file properties and it looks like I had some of those sprites ready in 2009 and forgot to add them to the gallery.

As usual, all these new things have been added to the main Image Generator, where you can make (and right-click save) your own images like the one at the top of this news post!

ToyBoss: photos of the amazing Storm Collectables Tyris Flare have been added. I’m still in a bit of shock that official Golden Axe figures are even being made, but even more shocked that I have Tyris. If the Gilius Thunderhead is still available when I get my money back up again, I’ll get him, too. I bought mine at BigBadToyStore, but Entertainment Earth has them, too.

BTW: just in case you haven’t heard, Jada Toys recently teased new lines of Street Fighter and classic Mega Man action figures, and samples will be shown at San Diego Comic Con. No news about the scale of these figures yet, but I’m hoping they’ll be in 1:12 scale to fit in with Marvel Legends and G.I.JOE Classified. Funko made a nice Mega Man and fully on-model and poseable Dr. Wily a few years ago and I hope the new figures fit that same scale, too.

Comic book characters have had a heavy presence on this site since the early days, so today’s spotlight falls on superhero characters from Marvel and DC Comics. Back when I started the site, anyone who wasn’t Batman, the X-Men, or Spider-Man was considered an obscure character (sometimes by their own companies), but that didn’t stop me from making sprite edits of Green Lantern Hal Jordan (who was still dead and buried both in the literal AND wrestling sense of the word), Black Widow, and Taskmaster. Now I’m spriting everything from scratch, replacing all the edits I made from Capcom sprites while trying to add characters I’ve never sprited before, and this update is a combination of that!

Custom Sprites: new sprites (and new galleries) include…
DC Comics: all-new scratch-made sprites of the Atom, Firestorm, Power Girl, Steel
Superman (Taito): the unknown female character found in the game’s rom (something I found using Turaco and posted on the site back in the early ’00s) and the basic drones.
Marvel Comics: the Blob, Pryo, Sentinel (all three based on their Konami beat ’em up/Pryde of the X-Men pilot appearances), Spider-Man (improved scratch-made sprite in “Spider-Man the Arcade Game” pose), Mysterio, the Green Goblin

Mini-logos
DC Comics: Firestorm, Steel
Marvel Comics: the Blob, Mysterio, Pyro

All newness was added to the GFX Image Generators, where you can make pics like the ones at the top of this news post!

I planned to skip a day and post these sprites and something else on Tuesday, but I just wait. Is there still something coming this Tuesday? Of course, and if you didn’t get enough comic book content today, come back tomorrow for some video fun!

Today is the 20th anniversary of the original ScrollBoss website. Starting on Tripod with a template and some miscolored PC screenshots and sprites from a Sega compilation, this site started as a place for me to talk about old action video games, especially the ones that didn’t have much presence on the internet back in the year 2000. It eventually grew into a place for me to do the same thing but now I’m making most of the sprites that I’m adding to the site, and I never would’ve believed it if you’d told me that decades ago.

This hasn’t been the easiest year for most of us, and the last few weeks have been really irritating for me, but working on this site and seeing your reactions to the pixel art has done what it’s always done for me, help pull me through some tough times. Thank you for that and I hope this place can do the same for you, even if it’s just for a few moments of browsing the galleries and messing with the image generators. There will be multiple updates throughout the week, along with some visitor participation moments (more on that in a bit), so stay tuned!

Custom Sprites: new sprites (and new galleries) include…
Bionic Commando (NEW separate gallery): Radd Spencer (NES design) in MvC3/MvCI fight stance
Double Dragon: Billy and Jimmy Lee (DD Advance fight stance)
Dragon’s Crown(NEW separate gallery): Elf, Wizard
the Legend of Kage: Kage
Metroid: Zero Suit Samus
Rushing Beat: Kazan (Brawl Brothers/Rushing Beat Ran select screen pose)
Streets of Rage: Cherry Hunter
Sunset Riders (NEW!): FINALLY, right? Standard gunfight stance remakes for all four heroes kick off the new gallery.
NuChallenger: : Brad Steel (completing the hero team from Treachery in Beatdown City)

All newness has been added to the GFX Generators where you can make your own graphics like the examples up there!


The print company I work through, Perfect Posters, reopened a while ago, so prints are once again available for sale in the shop! Also, I’ve set up a page on RedBubble with some original pixel art available mostly as stickers, but it’s on a few other products, too.


I pay to keep my sites hosted with my own money, so any sales puts a little money back into my pocket and helps support my Maruchan Instant Lunch habit!


Later this week, I’ll put together a special arcade background for the image generator based on YOUR votes. The Twitter post is here and the Instagram post is here, but I’ll repeat the set-up here. Leave a reply with up to seven games you’d like to see based on this list. NOTE: if you choose “Capcom Big Blue (Capcom’s late 80s to late 90s arcade games that worked on the CPS or CPS2 system)” or “Neo Geo”, please mention WHICH games for that you want (“Capcom Big Blue – Captain Commando” or “Neo Geo Metal Slug 2 and Samurai Shodown”). Here’s the list (click to see the full sized version):

The ScrollBoss site is 17 years old today, but the celebration will go on for more than a day! For now, let’s deal with today’s newness:

Custom sprites
Golden Axe: the Bad Brothers
Streets of Rage: Onihime & Yasha SoR/BK3 (stand and crouch sprites), Abadede SoR/BK2
Crime Fighters series: Faust
Nintendo: Bowser
Kunio-Kun: Yamada
River City Ransom: Slick (Yamada’s counterpart)
Sega: Dr. Eggman/Dr. Robotnik (classic game style)

All that newness is also in the main GFX Generator, where you can make screenshots just like the one at the top of this post!

It’s been a while since I uploaded a video, so I put another short clip compilation, but finally with the real ScrollBoss theme (for better or for worse, that’s up to you).

Be ready for another update tomorrow!

To everyone who has checked out the site back in the days of Vs. Mode fights and Minus World madness (the site section, not the completely different website), those who just visited for the first time today and every party person who falls somewhere in between, thank you for stopping by and making these sixteen pixel-packed years fly by. Get ready for multiple days of anniversary updates, starting with a seven-sprite kickoff!


Custom Sprites:
Capcom: Protoman (with variant)
Konami: Sledge (Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2)
– – Castlevania: Trevor Belmont, Sypha (SotN Cape up variant of the earlier sprite)
IREM: Straw from Ninja Baseball Bat Man
Taito: Sayo-chan (a.k.a. Pocky) from Kiki Kai Kai, Zeke from Zoo Keeper (both in-game and cabinet art styles)
Sega: Sonic the Hedgehog… decided to start running right as I clicked on the GFX Generator screenshot maker. See, that’s just rude. Maybe someone told him Protoman was the coolest person in the pic or perhaps he was scared off by the Zoo Keeper. Don’t worry, this isn’t the only update this week, so let’s see if I can get him to slow down for another sprite before the anniversary updates are done.

All sprites were added to the aforementioned GFX Generators (the old GroupShot and Vs generators).

Today marks 15 years of this site’s existence on the outskirts of the internet! Most of today’s update centers on sprites that I wanted to redo from scratch, but there’s also a new ScrollBoss character (you’ll see more from her in future updates) and sprites based on the games of late, great Iwata-san.

Custom Sprites
HAL Laboratory: Lolo and Lala (Eggerland series) kick off the new gallery.
Nintendo: Balloon Fighter added.
Sega: a new scratch-made Shiva (Streets of Rage series) sprite added.
DC: Green Lantern Hal Jordan
G.I.JOE: the Baroness
Illmosis Network: The new gallery starts with “V” but my other characters will be added later.

Mini-logos
Nintendo: Balloon Fight

All of those sprites were added to the GFX Generators


I’m still a bit worn out from the past few weeks and the yesterday’s great convention, so I couldn’t write the big, detailed “Thank You” post that I wanted to make yet, but will get that together this week. For now, I’d just like to thank everyone who visits the site. You’re one of the biggest factors that kept me going through that whole time. ScrollBoss has been here since the days when these older games were looked down upon by a lot of people and I’ve tried to let this place be a lighthouse for anyone looking for place to appreciate older action games and pixel art. I still have a lot of new things on the way for this site, so I hope you keep visiting every once in a while!

The move has been (thankfully) delayed and I can post a modest 14th anniversary update!

Game Index – Dynamite Düx (arcade and SMS)

Custom Sprites – the following galleries were updated:
Capcom: Airman from Mega Man 2 added.
Final Fight: El Gado and Hollywood from Final Fight added.
Sega: Werewolf (fight stance) from Altered Beast, Bin and Pin from Dynamite Düx added, new scratch-made Tyris sprite added to Golden Axe.

Tips, Tricks & Codes – TMNT Tournament Fighters (SNES) added.

GFX Generators
– Capcom: new El Gado & Hollywood char (sharing one slot) added, Airman sprites added to “Robot Masters” char slot.
– Sega: Dynamite Düx added, Altered Beast char gets new Werewolf sprite.

Also, I’m now selling prints on Illmosis.net, and there are a few game-related pics (including Tyris Flare, Ms. Pac-Man, and Silent Hill’s nurse) in the mix. Check out that page here:

Illmosis.net Prints page

I’ve also started an Illmosis Facebook page, mostly because there are far too many people who’ll only hang out on Facebook. Until a worthy social site successor with better operating practices and less psy-ops experiments on their uses emerges, check out the Facebook page if you’re already a member of that site!
Illmosis Facebook page
The positive note here is interacting with other fansite friends and communities, so at least it’s not completely horrible!


Be sure to check out Jeremy Parish’s new site, Metroidvania.com, dedicated to games that use open paths instead of fixed levels. You know, games like the Pitfall series, the non-arcade Bionic Commando games, and (of course) the Metroid and map-based Castlevania games. I’m really looking forward to seeing what this site turns into as I’m a big fan of this game style.



The new edition of Rob “Dire” Strangman’s “Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman” is now available at http://www.memoirsofavirtualcaveman.net!

There’s a ton of new content, including contributions and interviews with David Crane (Pitfall!), Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars’ Revenge, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Yuzo Koshiro (soundtracks of Streets of Rage, the Revenge of Shinobi, Actraiser), Kouichi “Isuke” Yotsui (director of arcade Strider, Cannon Dancer/Osman), Sushi-X (EGM), Sam Roberts (The Light Sword Cypher Mainframe), Caitlin ‘Cipater’ Oliver (Splatterhouse hi-score record breaker) and so many others that my hands would be tired if I added them all. Just go to the site and see for yourself! BTW: I drew the cover, but don’t let that stop you from buying the book!


Due to the upcoming move to a different apartment (much like last year), this anniversary update is small because I needed time to pack. I’ll try to make up for that by having a few bigger updates in August and September, the 8th and 9th months of the year, to give some serious love to the Revenge of 1989 theme.

I’d like to thank everyone who has visited this site, contributed to it, or spread the word about it. This site is (usually) fun to work on, but it’s even more fun when other people can enjoy it, too. I’ll keep working to make it more fun for you and I hope you keep coming back. In fact, I hope something there convinces you to make game-related things of your own. Thank you and keep