Super Metroid - Path to Darkness (BETA)

[SneakyLilFault]

Hi! This is the beta version to my unfinished Super Metroid Hack, for you guys to judge on! (I have yet to even implement Ceres, which will be about 1/5 of the hack.) What there is needed:

Good knowledge of morph balling.
Able to detect secrets within certain rooms.
Somewhat walljump skills.
and Short-Boosting[Speed Boosting with less speed.]

These are what there are SO far:

Morph Ball (New sprite)
Bombs (New sprite)
Missiles (40)
Super Missiles (10)
Power Bombs (5, Unachievable currently)
Wave Beam
Charge Beam
E-Tank (1)
Speed Booster
Hi-Jump Boots
Varia Suit (You'll never guess where it is.)
Grappling Hook (Hidden very well.)
Spazer Beam

Bosses:
Crateria Chozo (Good luck getting to it.)
Spore Spawn

Area Completion:

Crateria: 80%
Brinstar: 40%
Norfair: 0%
Maridia: 0%
Tourian: Staying the same
Ceres: 0%

Errors:
Destructed Tourian Elevator room at beginning has glitched background(probably can't fix :cry:)
The room where your 1st E-Tank is gotten without TASing has black tiles under the bridge
Some rooms have very little blocks missing

Tell me any errors you find and give me ANY feedback!

v1.1 IPS: https://www.mediafire.com/?87juwdnpewrr78d

[SneakyLilFault]

[urldeletedbecauseitsansmcandthosearetotallyagainsttherulesbro] !
Ha ha, very funny. Well, I added a v1.1 IPS. Check it.

[personitis]

Remove the download to the ROM. It's bad practice and is illegal. Instead, learn to use SMILE's feature which will make a patch of the ROM you can distribute without any issues or use Lunar IPS (LIPS) to do so.

[Lunaria]

`:3

Also, while there is nothing wrong with mediafire I recommending either using the sites attachment option or dropbox! Also, you're sharing an .smc file which is incorrect since that's a ROM file, hacks should be distributed in patch format. (For a number of different reasons!)

Really looking forward to seeing some of the jazz this hack is about but I don't really feel like downloading it do so. (And I'm sure others mirror me in this regard!) When taking screen shots I recommend saving them in .png instead of something else!

Welcome to metconst!

[SneakyLilFault]

Here's the IPS anyways: https://www.mediafire.com/?xwa81dh04yy89h0
(I took down the SMC)
Also, can you give me an application to take some photos? Thanks.

[MetroidMst]

If you are testing your hack on an emulator, which I assume you are, they probably have a built-in screenshot option. It will probably be different based on which one you use though, so look through the hotkey settings and you should find it there.

[Lunaria]

Relevant link: [Link]

[SneakyLilFault]

Here's some photos(Crys, I forgot ZSNESw had a built-in screenshot hotkey option.):

4th one is where you get the Power Bombs. It requires you to have all Super Missiles and Missiles. Power Bombs are NEEDED to complete the game.
Landing Area
Bombs
Charge Beam [While keeping location hidden]
Power Bombs

[begrimed]

I've seen much worse start-ups, but you've got a long way to go.

Also, if you spinjump against the side of the ship before you have morph ball, you get permanently stuck because it forces Samus into a crouch underneath it that morph ball is needed to get free from.

[SneakyLilFault]

I've seen much worse start-ups, but you've got a long way to go.

Also, if you spinjump against the side of the ship before you have morph ball, you get permanently stuck because it forces Samus into a crouch underneath it that morph ball is needed to get free from.

Thanks for notifying me, I'll fix that. I'm gonna work some more on the hack while I can anyways. -Made a v1.1-

[Vismund Cygnus]

First of all, I would recommend that you completely take out Ceres, and the intro text. In the original game it's fine, however in a hack it very rarely has any purpose at all, and generally speaking just makes players bored of your hack from the very start.

As for generally, you definitely have a long way to go in terms of learning to use smile before you release a hack. After a short time I've already found several sloping errors, not to mention what would widely be considered as nooby tiling. In terms of those "black squares" where the etank is, those are indeed very, very, very fixable. In addition, with the Green Pirate room just after that, having the player forced to morph really breaks up the flow of the gameplay, something that you really don't want to be doing, when one of the very strong points of Super Metroid is indeed its fast-paced movement and freedom of movement.

But I think the heart of the problem here is that instead of showing off what you've been making in something like RoTW or the General Screenshots thread, you've gone and made a topic (without screenshots, which is hugely frowned upon) and a patch with what to me looks like the first times you've screwed around in Smile, and you've gone and made a topic about this hack. The reality of this is that this hack won't ever be finished. If you do finish it, it will be widely criticized if it is still in a condition such as this.
So what I'd say is that you should probably abandon this one, and use it instead as a canvas for practising hacking. You seem very willing to learn, which is definitely good, so I'm going to link you to some tutorials that hopefully you'll find very helpful:
Person701's guide to SMILE is a tutorial that'll teach you a lot of basics that you might not have fully grasped yet, and is pretty much essential reading for new hackers.
BlackTelemores' SMILE FAQ is somewhat dated now, but it still has a lot of very good info that should help you out.
Grime's site has some of the most extensive tutorials on hacking, and while some of it is a little more advanced, it's almost all essential for when you're creating a full hack.
Finally, Shadow34370 made some guides on editing palettes and gfx, which anyone serious about hacking should look into.

Anyway, hopefully this helps you out a little. Feel free to PM myself or any other members really, most of us would be willing to help out if you're patient and willing to learn. Alternatively jump onto IRC and when somebody is around, they'll help you out. Just don't expect people to be waiting on your every whim, or nobody is going to give you any time at all.
Anyway, WELCOME TO METROID CONSTRUCTION!  :lol:

[FPzero]

My biggest complaint is that you have no tiling variety.  Crateria is nothing but that one platform tile and its slopes and that vertical pipe tile.  You absolutely need to work on using other tiles.  Crateria's tileset is not that difficult to use.  Don't be afraid to try it out and use it to your advantage.

You've also got a lot of slopes that aren't working properly.  Make sure you're applying the right BTS settings to your slopes so that Samus can run up AND down them smoothly.

Your Bombs pickup is respawning.  I believe it's caused by the item having a High of 80 or above.  Make its High 00 and don't forget that every item you place needs its own unique Low.  It's might be helpful to keep a spreadsheet documenting what numbers you've used and where you've placed them.

I think Vismund may have mentioned some of this, as I think he was writing his post at the same time I was.

[Lunaria]

There is also an more in-depth video tutorial/walkthrough on some of smiles functionalities as well as things to think about when designing rooms available here: [Link] It's not done yet but it covers a lot of things that I think are important when you're at the stage you're at.

[SneakyLilFault]

First of all, I would recommend that you completely take out Ceres, and the intro text. In the original game it's fine, however in a hack it very rarely has any purpose at all, and generally speaking just makes players bored of your hack from the very start.

As for generally, you definitely have a long way to go in terms of learning to use smile before you release a hack. After a short time I've already found several sloping errors, not to mention what would widely be considered as nooby tiling. In terms of those "black squares" where the etank is, those are indeed very, very, very fixable. In addition, with the Green Pirate room just after that, having the player forced to morph really breaks up the flow of the gameplay, something that you really don't want to be doing, when one of the very strong points of Super Metroid is indeed its fast-paced movement and freedom of movement.

But I think the heart of the problem here is that instead of showing off what you've been making in something like RoTW or the General Screenshots thread, you've gone and made a topic (without screenshots, which is hugely frowned upon) and a patch with what to me looks like the first times you've screwed around in Smile, and you've gone and made a topic about this hack. The reality of this is that this hack won't ever be finished. If you do finish it, it will be widely criticized if it is still in a condition such as this.
So what I'd say is that you should probably abandon this one, and use it instead as a canvas for practising hacking. You seem very willing to learn, which is definitely good, so I'm going to link you to some tutorials that hopefully you'll find very helpful:
Person701's guide to SMILE is a tutorial that'll teach you a lot of basics that you might not have fully grasped yet, and is pretty much essential reading for new hackers.
BlackTelemores' SMILE FAQ is somewhat dated now, but it still has a lot of very good info that should help you out.
Grime's site has some of the most extensive tutorials on hacking, and while some of it is a little more advanced, it's almost all essential for when you're creating a full hack.
Finally, Shadow34370 made some guides on editing palettes and gfx, which anyone serious about hacking should look into.

Anyway, hopefully this helps you out a little. Feel free to PM myself or any other members really, most of us would be willing to help out if you're patient and willing to learn. Alternatively jump onto IRC and when somebody is around, they'll help you out. Just don't expect people to be waiting on your every whim, or nobody is going to give you any time at all.
Anyway, WELCOME TO METROID CONSTRUCTION!  :lol:

This post made me start a new hack, and I'm already making the rooms EXTREMELY swapped. (Elevator in the first room.)
By the way, how do I make GFX files work in TLP? It keeps getting garbled.

[Quietus]

It's probably the format.  Check View > Format > SNES, and remember that you will most likely want the palettes as well.

[SneakyLilFault]

It's probably the format.  Check View > Format > SNES, and remember that you will most likely want the palettes as well.

The format is already SNES. After that, it still won't load GFX files.

[Quietus]

Can you provide any more information?

To be clear, are you following the usual steps, and are exporting the graphics sets from within SMILE?
You then open TLP, and try to open the .gfx file?
Which graphics set were you trying to open?

[FPzero]

I know that I use the graphics program YY-CHR for my editing so if TLP doesn't work out you may want to try that one.  Otherwise, if you can't find the .gfx files in the Open menu, change it so that you're looking at All Files instead of the standard .bin, .smc, etc files.  I know I have to do this with YY-CHR; it might be the same with TLP.

[SneakyLilFault]

Anyone know how to edit item names? (Ex. Plasma Beam to Bounce Beam[which might be added :nod:])

[Quietus]

Check MetroidMst's guide in the documents section on the main site.