Super Metroid : Darkholme Hospital

[Cloud20]

Welcome to the Darkholme Hospital thread




THE DARKHOLME HOSPITAL VERSION 2.0 IS RELEASED RIGHT NOW
AN OPTIMIZED VERSION MADE BY JAM WILL COME IN MORE, SEE THE ATTACHMENT BELOW

Enjoy. Read carefully the readme text in the package.
The patch is for unheadered

Also don't miss this :

Darkholme 1994 Advertising (French)
Directors : Tony and Charlie
Editing/Writing : Tony
Soundtrack : Area XG/Charlie
Voice : Jeff

Special Thanks to 3HitCombo

Teasers :
Main Hack
[spoiler]Darkholme Hospital 2.0 - Teaser[/spoiler]
Keypatch A
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UW3Yx1FEko[/spoiler]
Keypatch B
[spoiler]Combustion Official Introduction[/spoiler]
Keypatch C
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivI4Ks2XhCQ[/spoiler]
Keypatch D
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laCryy7gBj8[/spoiler]
Keypatch E
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQRwYVymezQ[/spoiler]

[Qactis]

From what I can see (spamming play and pause during the last 3 seconds) it looks GREAT. If you need someone to redo your intro text in perfect English I'm sure someone here can help with that. I'd offer myself, but I am not the most reliable person to ask right now.

[Smiley]

Looks awesome! I'll try this sometime in the weekend.

[Qactis]

for headered D: whyyyyy

[passarbye]

MY EYES... @.@
warning: people with epilepsy shouldn't watch that vid.

other than that, it looks interesting.

[Quote58]

MY EYES... @.@
warning: people with epilepsy shouldn't watch that vid.

What the heck are you talking about?

Anyway, the hack looks great. I'll deffinatly give it a try later. Though, some of your palettes and tiling could use some work.

[Quietus]

Are you following me, Cloud12? :wink:

The hack's pretty good, and I enjoyed what I played the other day.  There is a difficulty spike when you get to the first water area, but generally the puzzle-like layout works better than you'd think.

[Charmander106]

I have played this today, at first it was okay. Then when you get a little further into the game then that's when the game goes from easy to just freaking tedious. The reason for it, the enemies. The only enemies so far are these morph-ball like floating spheres that move a little faster each time you progress. They also take ages to kill and they get harder to avoid, especially when your in water without the proper gear.

But the level design, graphics, and items are okay with me. Do I hate the hack? No I don't, but the enemies just get old and really just feels lazy design with your enemy placement/design.

[spoiler=Cloud12 please read!]I am stuck in the room with the Machine Gun, the gate won't do anything. I read your readme on the shutter but it did not do anything![/spoiler]

[Cloud20]

Hey guys! Thank you for all your replies. Qactis gave to me a good idea, with a corrected text, I can post a second teaser, i have few ideas about video montage and sound mixage. So your proposal is nice Qactis, and if you want to correct my text, you can do it and post it here  :^_^:

Ha, Quietus you finally finished hack, congratulations !!! I'm very glad you liked it, and thanks again for all your tips.  It's true, 4th floor is the passage which intensifies the adventure he he. Did you find all items? (100% checklist is available in PDF)

For Webber1900, i dont know if your problem is linked to the patch application or another thing. Logically, shooting white door with machine gun works. :blush: If you dont have plasma/SZ-91 supplied by .srm, you can't break it. For probes, probably another design will be released in v2.0, but morphing ball graphics are quite relevant here. :)

So the walkthrough for Floor 1 is here (spoilers). The beginning is quite easy, floor is empty and need only exploration
Super Metroid : Darkholme Hospital 100% - Floor 1

[Charmander106]

So that was why that random SRM file was there!

Anyway, finished it. Really nice hack, especially in the final part of the Hospital. Won't say why, its a secret. My only complaint is the difficulty spike when you make progress past the 3rd floor and lack of variety of enemies. Other than that, the hack needs a bit more polishing.

Super Metroid : Darkholme Hospital gets a 7/10 from me. good job Cloud12! Hope to see more from you.

[Quote58]

Wow. I haven't finished the hack yet, but it's amazing. I like how even though it gets insanely difficult at one point, all you have to do it tough is out for a little bit and then you get the equipment that makes things run much smoother.
I love the graphics, and ideas. The tiling could use a lot of work, and more enemy variety is deffinatly needed in v2.
I'll edit this post and give a nice long review when I finish it tomorrow, but from what I've played, this hack is brilliant.
Good job Cloud12.

[Digital_Mantra]

I'm currently on the 4th floor and I must say, the concept of this hack is amazing. It's very refreshing from the usual mini-hacks.

However there are many issues. The .ips file is obviously patched wrong, requiring an .srm is weird, and the level design (while perfect for playing), could be more appealing.
The challenge spike raises drastically, making this a savestate hack. Requiring people to fetch this through youtube via a crap file depot site is tedious, and a .pdf format
for a very important note (regarding the requirement of the .srm file) is somewhat inaccessible to some people.

I'm only being critical about this hack because it has the potential to be perfect. Perfect.

Will update this post when I've finished this awesome mini-hack.

update: finished and wondering what was in the laundry room.

All in all, this is probably one of the best mini-hacks ever made (if the surrounding issues were sorted out such as the buggy ips/srm files).

Great hack Cloud12!

[Cloud20]

Thanks! I have fun with hacking since two years, but Darkholme is my first ips patch. If someone have any tips about how create correct patches, don't hesitate to post it here. Yes, this hack deserves few corrections to works cleanly.  :^_^:

It's a pity for PDF file, i began to create a simple .txt file but i wanted to integrate graphics elements for a more advanced guide.

Few ideas for v2.0 (but i haven't time to make it now) :
Add new room, logical progress
May be Floor 0/Main entry will have more importance
Add more mechanic enemies (the lack of enemies make sense for this story)
   -  Norfair NAMI/FUNE will be converted in a sort of security defender.
   -  KZAN, will be converted in hydraulic press
   -  OUMU, green worms, in a possible another ghost appearance

To Digital_Mantra : to discover what is in former laundry, it will be necessary to wait the walkthrough of Floor 6, I kept the last items rush for the end :)

[knuckles]

Nice hack.... How did you remove the.... story video things?

[Quietus]

I can't test right now, as I'm at work, but I'd imagine he used Tools > Text Editor, and removed the <MOVIE> lines.

[Cloud20]

For changing text, I used smile text editor yeah, but I made a video montage to remove intro videos. Texts are too long to be allowed in ROM memory, so I captured pieces of text to compile a video, with fades in/out.

I use a specific video software to crop and place titles at the center of the screen. :)

[Mon732]

It had to be me.
[spoiler=Permastuck][/spoiler]
I somersaulted into that gap.

EDIT:
[spoiler=Tut Tut :P][/spoiler]

[knuckles]

I can't test right now, as I'm at work, but I'd imagine he used Tools > Text Editor, and removed the <MOVIE> lines.

I tried that and the text was all glitchy. ( all  placed over each other. )

[Quote58]

Okay, I was going to edit my last post, but I'll just make a new one instead.
So, Review time.

Before I get into the hack itself, I feel I should talk about the rest of the .zip. You have indeed patched the rom incorrectly. This could likely be fixed quite easily by me or someone else around here. As well, why did you have to include the srm? Was it just so you start with plasma? If so, there's an easy hex edit to do just that. I don't even know what that desktop config does, but seeing as how this is a hack, it isn't needed and thus should not be included. And equally important, where the hack is to be gotten. People don't like random sites which make you wait a whole minute when you could be using dropbox. Or better yet, just attach the file up here on metconst.
I'd be happy to help in any way with fixing the aforementioned concerns. As well, I could fix some of the english in the intro and map station at the end.

Okay, on to the hack!
On the whole
This hack starts out slow, with some eerie corridors, and strange enemies. However soon, it starts to get interesting. With faster enemies and a darker atmosphere, the deeper parts of the hospital get more dangerous. And quickly, it becomes less about exploration, and more about survival. Now when I first played through the majority of the hack, I was not using the srm, and thus, had no plasma beam. This meant that enemies were extremely difficult to fight. I had to start over when I got the machine gun and was stuck. Until restarting, I thought that the difficulty was quite unbalanced, but still workable. With the plasma beam, I rather like the balance. People complain about the spike around level 4, but I think it's a good thing. The hack up until then had been very....sleepy. Not boring, just simple. But the spike kind of wakes the player up, and forces you to focus to survive. I think that worked well. Good job.
Graphics and Design.
Well, you've got some absolutely outstanding gfx in this hack. They really shine in that final area, I mean wow, spooky. Your palettes however, could use work. The first couple of levels have palettes that are just, bleh. They don't blend well at all.
And along with bad palettes, your tiling in those parts of the hack is just, not good in many many spots. However, I'm sure this will improve in v2, so that's not a main concern, especially since this is your first hack. There are a few permastucks that you need to watch though, it's a common problem in first hacks, but it's important. It's very offputting to see permastucks in a hack.
The later gfx though, outstanding. I love the background doors idea, I was planning on doing something similar but you've done it brilliantly, and with gfx already in super.
One of the most important parts of a hack, is level design. And although I get what kind of place you were trying to make, there's a lot of boring design in start. Long corridors followed but small rooms and more corridors. Very reminiscent of the first metroid game. The design improves the farther you go, but the start could still use work. I do like the general layout though. Your level locked doors work really well, and how you went about dealing with unlocking, genius. Here I was just extending doors to do that when instead I should of used an enemy. Seriously, awesome job.
Story
Well, I didn't like the story much at first, but by the end, I was loving it. The lore like stuff at the end could use some work, not the best writing in terms of story. But I love the ideas, and how well they've been carried out without intruding on design, and gameplay. The gfx match the atmosphere perfectly. And that ending, wow. That was amazing.
This review is far too long I have work to do let's just conclude it now
This is deffinatly the best mini hack I've played yet (sorry hyperian). The combination of gfx, ideas, story, and atmosphere make this an absolutely brilliant hack v1. It has it's shortcomings, but on the whole, this is a wonderful hack. I love it

So, if I can help in any way concerning the problems mention at the start, I'd be happy to do so.
Good job with the hack, and I'd give it, hm, 8.5/10.

[Quietus]

I tried that and the text was all glitchy. ( all  placed over each other. )

For changing text, I used smile text editor yeah, but I made a video montage to remove intro videos. Texts are too long to be allowed in ROM memory, so I captured pieces of text to compile a video, with fades in/out.

I use a specific video software to crop and place titles at the center of the screen. :)

[Smiley]

Played this a bit. Now I'm stuck in the room with Impulse (Charge Beam) due to a scrolling error.

The view doesn't go farther to the left than that. Also, when I entered that room, the screen was all messed up. Going to the right fixed that, but because I can't open the gate because of that scrolling error, I'm stuck. :cry:

[Cloud20]

Nice review Shadow96, so yes I need help for patching and find hex values to make SZ-91 equipped at the beginning and reveal Main Entry map. I thought that I had cleaned all permastucks, but not. (Mon732 showed me one of them and a little graphic error :p ) For downloaded evidence at the end, i limited text for avoid to type left or right to scroll text format. Yes, it's a bad excuse and me too I think that text can't be worked again.
-  So these errors fixed in level design + hex values to avoid .srm + good patch = version 1.1

Yes, graphics of floor 1 are more empty than others floors, but i think this is making an clean ambiance at the beginning, I can fill it a little, but not too much, the game must be start very slowly.

ha, desktop piece is useless, the first folder color have been changed and a desktop file was created, sorry.

SMILEuser96 : another ips patch error I think so, undoubtedly I'm not lucky.  :sad: I'm sorry, I don't see another explanation. :(

Now my reply for knuckles. You can edit the text correctly when you type Enter at the end of your line in text editor.
So if you type constantly your text, it will be rewritten over your previous line on the screen. Don't forget to use Enter button to spread your text on the right lines. I hope I was understandable :)

Now, videos for floor 2 and 3  :^_^:

Floor 2
Super Metroid : Darkholme Hospital 100% - Floor 2

Floor 3
Super Metroid : Darkholme Hospital 100% - Floor 3

[Mon732]

reveal Main Entry map

I believe the Layer1_2 pointer in the first room of tourian shows the map for the area that the room is in.

[Cloud20]

Layer 1_2 ? Yeah, that could work. I will try it later  :^_^:

[passarbye]

haven't played this hack, but i will soon. i'll either repost, or edit this one with my opinion. :)

EDIT:

okay, permastuck.
why is there water in this room?
i used the .srm file so wtf?
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]
i'm half-tempted to open this in smile and correct it myself.