Universal MegaManEffect

Long before there was Billable there was a weekend hack called the MegaManEffect. What is the MegaManEffect?

The MegaManEffect is an application that emulates an effect seen in the classic NES game Mega Man 2. When you launch an OS X application, the screen goes dark, stars sweep the night sky and your application’s icon is presented in a blue letter box bar with a cheesy 8-bit music introduction.

MegaManEffect

MegaManEffect was written while I attended the ADHOC/MacHack conference in 2004 and took second place in the ADHOC Labs Showcase! In the summer of 2005 the application hit a nerve in the community generating tons of interest and downloads. It is to this day the most distributed code I’ve even written by myself.

Anyways, a while back my personal site imploded and the MegaManEffect download page disappeared. After many, many emails I’m finally putting it back online here and even upgraded it to a Universal Binary so it runs great on Intel Macs.

The source for MegaManEffect is available under a BSD license on the new Clickable Bliss Google Code Project. Checkout via SVN using:

svn checkout http://clickablebliss.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Cocoa/MegaManEffect ~/Desktop/MegaManEffect

The code itself isn’t terribly good (it was written as I was still learning Cocoa) but oh well. :-) Enjoy.

Update: If you like MegaManEffect, you might like Pop Rock by fellow indie Justin Miller.

Posted on: June 30, 2007 – 8:35 PM

22 Comments

  1. pauldwaite wrote:

    “What is the MegaManEffect?”

    I don’t want to sound hyperbolic, but the phrase “greatest bit of OS X software I’ve ever seen” does spring to mind.

    I installed it on my ancient G4 Mac test machine at my old job. I’d forget it was activated and the sound was on, so I’d launch up Safari and suddenly treat the entire office to the Megaman intro music. Really helped build up my credibility as a professional member of the team :)

    Good on ya for resurrecting it.

  2. champion wrote:

    Sorta bug report: I’m on OS X 10.4.10 Intel, and if I hide the window that says “Turn on the ‘Mega Man Effect’”, it un-hides anytime the animation plays.

    No surprise if you don’t feel like debugging, but just so you know.

  3. Mike Zornek wrote:

    @champion I don’t experience that behavior, but the little window does show every time you click on the dock icon. Thanks for the feedback.

  4. Mashi wrote:

    I remember hearing about this on AOTS, and when I finally got my Mac to run OS X I went on the hunt for this application. Then I forgot about it for several months, but I’m happy to have found it again. I’ve downloaded it and tried to open it, but it ends up quitting automatically. Is it safe to assume that it doesn’t run on 10.2.8? Or am I doing it wrong?

  5. koro wrote:

    so, leopard compatible? I think i’ll have to download this and give it a try at work.

  6. sikanrong wrote:

    dude! I just fired this up because i wanted to see it, and I swear I started laughing my ASS off for 5 minutes. it really is the best OSX app in forever + 1

  7. Phil wrote:

    Man i almost dropped a tear. Thanks buddy, i love it.

  8. brendan wrote:

    i remember getting this game for christmas when i was younger.. 6 or 7.. i played it for hours on end until i finally beat it. it’s still my favourite game!

  9. david morris wrote:

    Just wanted to thanks for creating maybe the best app ever. I just made the switch to Mac and was having some qualms about it—until I downloaded friggin MegaManEffect! It’s at its most awesome when you forget it’s on and then you’re like, What?! Now I have to fight TextEdit?!

  10. John wrote:

    To say this is the most awesome piece of software in the known univers is anything but hyperbole. Understatement is more like it. Any chance this could be ported to Linux? I’d love to see this in the Ubuntu repositories.

  11. Terrance (Megaman) S wrote:

    O MY GOD. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS APP. i wont lie as soon as i put it on i opend about everysingle app i had just to hear it then closed it so i could open them again hahahah youve just made one of the biggest megaman fanz the happiest man on earth THANK YOU SO MUCH =))

  12. Bruce wrote:

    Any plans to turn it into a System Preference so it doesn’t show up in the dock? I’d like to surprise my friends with it.

  13. Mike Zornek wrote:

    No plans for a system preference version, but there are easy ways to hide the dock icon. You’ll need to edit the info.plist inside the app bundle as described here:

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010701191518268&query=hide%2Bprogram%2Bdock%2Bicon

    Or use an app that does it for you like:

    http://foggynoggin.com/dockdodger

    (I haven’t used the above just found it during the google search.)

  14. dejonez wrote:

    the coolest mac app ever!!

  15. Owen wrote:

    I swear there used to be a Windows version of this; used it throughout college. What happened to the Windows version?

  16. Vic Van wrote:

    Is it there a linux compatible version?

  17. Mike Zornek wrote:

    The only version I ever wrote was for Mac OS X. I know of a Windows version but had nothing to do with it. I have never heard of a Linux version.

  18. Nyan Cat wrote:

    OMG!I <3 it,it makes me not bored when my apps load THANK YOU!!!BECAUSE I”M YOUNG IT WOULD MAKE ME LAUGH!HEHE NYAN CAT OUT!

  19. Adrian wrote:

    Works in Mac OS X Lion!

  20. jorge wrote:

    yay! i thought this had been lost forever

  21. Adam wrote:

    Make an iPad version!

  22. Anders Sjögren wrote:

    Works on Mountain Lion as well! Great job.

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