Project M

[DestructoX]

A long, long time ago, I made a post on a forum stating that I would create a remake of Metroid Zero Mission, on a much more intense difficulty level. I worked on it for about 9 months constantly testing, however two things occurred; I never updated the post frequently enough and the project also died. Why did it die? Well because after 9 months of work the coding collapsed in on itself and created several glitches, all of which were game breaking, but also, broke the editor, making it impossible to fix or patch the ROMs. I got really pissed, and dropped the entire thing, and never uttered a word on the project again. Now, I'm restarting this old project, and this time, I'm going to do it right. No short cuts, no sloppy editing, and actual regular updates. It also means that I'm attempting to spread this as much as I can, however it is difficult to find an active Metroid Forum. I hope I can create something that ALL Metroid Fans can enjoy.

Current notes and ideas
[spoiler]
What do you think of area scaling difficulty?
So say a Space Pirate in Brinstar does 100 damage, and one in Norfair does 200? This would keep certain enemies consistently difficult.

What do you think of mini bosses or "Fight Rooms"?
Mini bosses as in say, a space Pirate Commando? Or several? Fight Rooms would be rooms stuffed full of enemies, such as Metroids, Space Pirates etc, on dangerous ground, such as limited platforming over lava.

What do you think of stealth based Space Pirate sections?
Such as sneaking past Pirates in Brinstar for certain upgrades or to progress in the game?

What do you think of "Metroid Chambers"?
A hidden chamber in each area that contains many tanks but also, many well placed Metroids?

What do you think of "Caches"?
Loads of power ups stuffed into obscure random areas that are revealed through small details such as block particles?
[/spoiler]


This is to showcase some mechanics that I CAN abuse. (Yes, I know you people all ready understand it, but I HAVE to post it)
Basic Demo/Intro Video
[spoiler]
Project M - Basics
[/spoiler]

Brinstar Demo Video
[spoiler]
Brinstar Demo
[/spoiler]

Spikes. Help me decide. Left or Right.
[spoiler]
Spikes Demo
[/spoiler]

Screenies of Brinstar
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r594/TanelornX/Project%20M-Brinstar/IGBrin1.png
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r594/TanelornX/Project%20M-Brinstar/IGBrin2.png
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r594/TanelornX/Project%20M-Brinstar/IGBrin3.png
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r594/TanelornX/Project%20M-Brinstar/IGBrin4.png
http://i1173.photobucket.com/albums/r594/TanelornX/Project%20M-Brinstar/IGBrin5.png

PROGRESS STATUS
Currently working on room eight/nine. Progressing well. I published a Brinstar Demo and I've made progress on the "spikes" issue. Will be working on the first Space Pirate segment soon.

[Metaquarius]

Thanks God, MZM does not have spikes......

[DestructoX]

That's actually something I've been attempting to do. Trying to change a sprite, set it's speed to null etc, to essentially turn it into a set of spikes. Why would it be a bad thing :P?

[Metaquarius]

That's actually something I've been attempting to do. Trying to change a sprite, set it's speed to null etc, to essentially turn it into a set of spikes. Why would it be a bad thing :P?

Haha, you're incredible.  :lol:

If you're serious about making a hack that ALL Metroid Fans could enjoy, refrain from creating any sort of room filled with insane puzzles and death traps everywhere. AFAIK Metroid Fans are not exclusively hard-core gamers and machosits.  :^_^:

[DestructoX]

Yeah, I'm trying really difficult to draw the line between "this is interactive, yet a challenging type of fun" from the "randomly instantly kill you difficult (Which isn't actually difficult, just stupid).

The goal is to create a Metroid Game which is difficult for the average player. Zero Mission itself wasn't actually difficult. It was self inflicted difficulty, and that's something the average player wouldn't have bothered to do. It was really only the "hardcore" players that pushed themselves to the limits.

I want the game to be a fun challenge for the average player, without having to impose rules on oneself. I want it to be the ultimate Metroid challenge for the hardcores who will then take this higher base difficulty, and attempt the same runs with it that they did on the original.

Unfortunately, DH tends to break things when you edit values such as speed so I don't think spikes are an existing thing. I could simulate spikes by locking enemies in with Enemy Only Blocks though. Will look into.

I'm nearly done with everywhere up to the first time you go into Norfair, so hopefully I can post it for test runs. I've had a few setbacks due to DH crap, but I should be able to progress at a fair rate now.

[Zero One]

This is something that I'm actually looking forward to. I'm comfortable with Zero Mission; playing it a couple of dozen times will do that to you. Abusing how Zero Mission works to produce a hack sounds like a load of fun to play!

[Metaquarius]

The goal is to create a Metroid Game which is difficult for the average player. Zero Mission itself wasn't actually difficult. It was self inflicted difficulty, and that's something the average player wouldn't have bothered to do. It was really only the "hardcore" players that pushed themselves to the limits.

I want the game to be a fun challenge for the average player, without having to impose rules on oneself. I want it to be the ultimate Metroid challenge for the hardcores who will then take this higher base difficulty, and attempt the same runs with it that they did on the original.

I understand your point of view. However, keep in mind difficulty should be kind of gradual.

[DestructoX]

I'm glad somebody is looking forward to it. It makes working on this a much more gratifying.

Yeah, keeping the difficulty and game play consistent is something that is difficult to do, due to lack of mechanics early into the game. I intend to test each area with the communities I'm working within to make sure that the game play is consistent, yet scaling.

There is no sense designing something for people if you don't get input from them

[Zhs2]

There is no sense designing something for people if you don't get input from them

I thought the whole point in making a hack or mod that was making something that was fun to you. If it is fun to the author, chances are it is fun for most everyone else.

I hope I can create something that ALL Metroid Fans can enjoy.

This is a pretty high goal to shoot for, and congrats if you hit it, but I daresay that even in the best case scenario you'll still have a few critics. Don't be afraid to let go and have fun with what you're creating.

Either way, this does sound interesting. A challenging game without a bullshit entry level for players is always good in my book, and Zero Mission did not deliver on challenge. Good luck to you.

[Qactis]

Well I love challenging hacks, as long as the difficulty is (like they said) gradually increasing, rather than starting off with 100 energy and the power suit and having to lava dive and fight enemies that take off 40 energy, or throwing spikes everywhere. On the other hand, designers often forget to increase the damage enemies deal once you upgrade your suit and have a lot of e-tanks. These are design flaws I see REALLY often in Super Metroid. I look at it simply as a lack of effort by the designer, who doesn't want to take the time to edit all of the damage values to make the game fair. The beginning shouldn't be the hardest, and the ending shouldn't be the easiest.

TL;DR, good luck with making it fair, and challenging.

It's also worth noting Interdpth, the guy who wrote DH, still hangs around IRC and probably the forums, so if you find a bug just post in the DH thread. When he's not working, he can probably come around and check it, and probably help.

[DestructoX]

There is no sense designing something for people if you don't get input from them

I thought the whole point in making a hack or mod that was making something that was fun to you. If it is fun to the author, chances are it is fun for most everyone else.

I hope I can create something that ALL Metroid Fans can enjoy.

This is a pretty high goal to shoot for, and congrats if you hit it, but I daresay that even in the best case scenario you'll still have a few critics. Don't be afraid to let go and have fun with what you're creating.

Either way, this does sound interesting. A challenging game without a bullshit entry level for players is always good in my book, and Zero Mission did not deliver on challenge. Good luck to you.

I enjoy the hacks and mods I work on, but the thing I find best of them is the enjoyment of another people. I love being able to create something for somebody else. I know it is VERY high goal to set oneself, and I know it is practically impossible to achieve straight out; there will always be somebody that can pick something out. But that doesn't mean I can't try for it.

I hope the entry level is decent enough to make it worth a play through for the elite. Maybe if you find it too easy you could restrict yourself in a similar way. The over all goal is too simply buff the difficulty in general.

Well I love challenging hacks, as long as the difficulty is (like they said) gradually increasing, rather than starting off with 100 energy and the power suit and having to lava dive and fight enemies that take off 40 energy, or throwing spikes everywhere. On the other hand, designers often forget to increase the damage enemies deal once you upgrade your suit and have a lot of e-tanks. These are design flaws I see REALLY often in Super Metroid. I look at it simply as a lack of effort by the designer, who doesn't want to take the time to edit all of the damage values to make the game fair. The beginning shouldn't be the hardest, and the ending shouldn't be the easiest.

TL;DR, good luck with making it fair, and challenging.

It's also worth noting Interdpth, the guy who wrote DH, still hangs around IRC and probably the forums, so if you find a bug just post in the DH thread. When he's not working, he can probably come around and check it, and probably help.

There will be virtually no lava diving early game, except for one segment, where it is VERY brief. The damage does start fairly high; expect to be 4-3 shotted by general attacks at 100 energy, or instantly killed by explosions. HOWEVER I compensate this by throwing out an early E-tank. It's better to have higher health early on because it gives me more room to play with numbers.

On the damage note, it isn't actually laziness that drives that to an extent. I'm not sure about how the ROM works for SM, but in ZM the damage is flat across all areas. The only way for me to beef up damage in different areas is to ROM split, which also allows me to avoid several another nasty DH glitches, such as save timing or reaching the block placement cap.

Don't worry about the ROM splitting. I know it might sound like a problem, but it isn't really. Say you're in Brinstar, right before Norfair. You press Shift F1 in VBA, to save to slot one. You close the ROM, but not VBA. You go the the sgm file, and rename it from Brinstar**.sgm to Norfair**.sgm. Open Norfair in the ROM, load the save you've carried over and BAM, you're in a modified Norfair whilst carrying over your stats from Brinstar

Also, I've modified the main post and added content. You might want to check it out.
Also, in regards to the rules, it says I cannot post ROMs here, which is a bannable offence. Is their anyway for me to say, get testing going. Can I simply post the ROM on the video instead of the site? I'm just a tad confused about that one.

[Zhs2]

I enjoy the hacks and mods I work on, but the thing I find best of them is the enjoyment of another people. I love being able to create something for somebody else.

If making hacks that other people like is fun to you, then by all means.

Also, in regards to the rules, it says I cannot post ROMs here, which is a bannable offence. Is their anyway for me to say, get testing going. Can I simply post the ROM on the video instead of the site? I'm just a tad confused about that one.

I know Youtube is probably the least likely to do anything about it, but sharing ROMs that include copyrighted code and content in whole or in part is illegal due to copyright law. What you want to do is create an IPS patch that other people can apply to ROMs of their own, as it contains only the changes that you have made to the ROM and is thus yours to share as you see fit. Lunar IPS has by far the simplest GUI to understand and does its job well. Don't forget to have a clean ROM of ZM on hand to compare with.

[interdpth]

What's the update on this? I need more ZM hackers.

[FlamingCobra]

What's the update on this? I need more ZM hackers.

interdpth! I'm glad to see you're back in the ballgame. I just wish our activity could be more in sync.

DestructoX: Honestly, if I was gonna make a "difficult" zero mission hack, I wouldn't change damage values or anything like that. I'd simply redo every room and make samus get the powerups in a different order and go to the different areas in a different order. Maybe throw in some space pirates here and there. Basically have samus going into deep norfair early and shutting off access to most of brinstar for a large portion of the game. And then when you finally get say... the gravity suit... to get past a previously impassable area, you find out that brinstar is nothing but a giant hellhole.

I'm also interested in seeing a Zero Mission hack with a dedicated "watery" region. Or better yet, have something like Maridia except filled with acid. Yeah, just a whole region that's an acid-filled cavern or something. Hell, if you redid every room and it'd be like she was on a completely different part of Zebes.

Do a lot more stuff with shinesparks. Make at least one shinespark as difficult as Fusion's "secret message" shinespark, except it's required to progress through the game. To be honest, I've wanted a Fusion redux with lots of shinesparks for quite some time now - at least it would "feel" like you're sequence breaking. Kind of.

That's all I have to say for now because I can't think of anything else.

Oh also another way you could increase the difficulty would be to be liberal with energy tanks but withold the varia and gravity suits for a long time. Or you could do the opposite - Samus gets the varia suit very early in the game but energy tanks are few and far between, hard to find, and even harder to get.