Metroid Master Blast

[mrrichard999]

Hello. This is our first attempt at doing a Metroid hack and we thought about implementing one with a Blaster Master theme. When pacnsacdave released his Dark Alliance hack for Blaster Master I figured why not do a hack for Metroid with the the Blaster Master theme? We teamed up and I bounced some ideas off him for graphics and other things and we came up with some neat concepts. Here are some screenshots of the graphics that have been done and the title screen. We still need to do the level designs yet but we wanted to iron out everything graphically before we take the next step forward which will be very very soon.

Also like to give credit to the authors of MDbTroid and Roidz' for using their doors, animated lava, and new Samus design. Also another thanks to Snarfblam for his auto-saving and wavy ice patch he released plus Editroid which is also making this project move forward greatly!

The story of this is that it takes place years after the events of Blaster Master and remnants of the space pirates are conducting weapons research and experimentation on what remained after Jason's events of the Blaster Master game. What horrors and grotesque things are happening on the world of Sophia the 3rd and what are the Space Pirates up to here? As Samus you must investigate and eliminate any threats in which you may discover on this strange far away world.....










*NOTE*
Also we are in need of somebody who is able to change the music in the game! If anybody is knowledgeable in this area we would welcome a great addition such as this to our hack! I took a crack at it and did not get too far :P

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

*deleted post*

[Digital_Mantra]

This makes for a beautiful companion to Dark Alliance. M1/BM BM/M1 !

[mrrichard999]

Nice! I can't wait to check it out.

Regarding the music, you could try Famitracker. It cannot import NSFs without a special plugin, but it can export them natively.

Unfortunately the sound engine used a different format. Snarfblam wrote a program called Metroid Tuner which can extract and inject music from the game but its involved in changing the music...

If it were easy as popping in an .NSF I would have done that already. I might nix around it again to see if I can figure something out but probably not till the end of the level designs. Going to start doing new levels after final exams next week.

[mrrichard999]

We added new looking doors for each level here. We took them from Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and made one out of the face of the guardian to get into level 2 in Blaster Master. We thought it would be a welcoming change instead of seeing the same looking door over and over again. Also we added a special playable character for those who beat the game in a fast enough time :)







Also does anybody know how to alter the enemy AI, speed or even add the feature for enemies to fire projectiles?

[snarfblam]

I think enemy code is largely a mystery. Did you have something specific in mind?

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

@mrrichard Those rooms need more tile variety.

[mrrichard999]

I think enemy code is largely a mystery. Did you have something specific in mind?

If its possible I would like the regular rotating enemies to move faster in Norfair and even faster in Ridley's & Kraid's lair. Not sure if its doable too but for the rippers to fire shots at Samus or spew projectiles.

@mrrichard Those rooms need more tile variety.

These pictures are just the rough layout and basic illustrations of whats going on. Once the level editing takes place I do want it to be eye pleasing and have more to the rooms than to what is currently shown. I will add more snapshots once work takes place. I have to wait till finals are over after next week otherwise if I start working on this, I will get sucked into it and I will have nothing studied :P

[Grimlock]

I'll give you a hand if I can.  I'm not a coder by any means, just a level designer and graphics artist.  If you need help in those areas let me know

[The Monster of Surrealton]

This looks incredible :O

[mrrichard999]

Thanks for the feedback everybody :)

I got a response on the board2 forum from infidelity about maybe getting the enemies to fire projectiles but I would not know where to start with this so I thought I would share it to maybe get some feedback on it

"Idk Metroid's assembly, but for projectiles, id try these ideas.

The colored spheres on the ground that shot half circled fireballs. Id watch that sprites asm, and see how it loads the projectile routine. And if your enemy is in the same prg-rom bank as the projectile asm, simply create a custom jsr routine to the start of the projectiles asm, for when you want the projectile to be initiated by whatever your jsr'ing from.

Also watch Kraid & Ridley too, for how they shoot projectiles. Idk other enemies off the top of my head that shoot."

[pacnsacdave]

@Kitsune_Phoenix. I actually made all of the levels and kept them as close to the original Blaster Master levels as possible. I've exhausted pretty much every tile available, so tell me... What needs to be "improved" on these levels? Just wondering because I have played Blaster Master many times and can tell you that the levels won't get much better than this.

[Grimlock]

pacnsacdave, I guess it depends on if they want to take some artistic license and add or improve on the original graphics.  I would encourage that personally.  Maybe have 75% MB tiles and create the other 25% to enhance the gameplay experience and add to the level design.  Keep enough of the original to make it obvious it's a master blaster themed hack, beyond that add tiles that give the game its own originality.

[RT-55J]

@Kitsune_Phoenix. I actually made all of the levels and kept them as close to the original Blaster Master levels as possible. I've exhausted pretty much every tile available, so tell me... What needs to be "improved" on these levels? Just wondering because I have played Blaster Master many times and can tell you that the levels won't get much better than this.

There are few general issues at the moment with the graphics:

- The lack of background graphics. Blaster Master adds a lot of detail to its environments by having a lot of the graphics be behind the player and not in the foreground. Unfortunately, I know Metroid 1 normally puts the Samus sprite behind the tilemap layer (and I wouldn't know how to change that without messing up doors in the process), which kind of throws a wrench in the idea. It might be something you have to sacrifice to an extent.

- A few key tiles look like they aren't, uhh... "tiling" together correctly. The main rock tiles in the first and second pics showing off the new doors are the most obvious examples of this at the moment.

- Some structures could use some tiles on the edges to smooth them out.

The new doors look sick. Me likey.

I got high hopes for this project. Keep at it!

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

While those new doors are pretty, they give off a "pre-rendered metallic" vibe and don't mesh well the art style.

[mrrichard999]

Got some progress to report, got 95% of Tourian done and 40% of Brinstar done. Working out all the platforms & tiles for the rest of the game to give it a more Blaster Master feel. Here are a few screenshots for Kraids lair, nothing super huge but its a start :)

[Grimlock]

It's great to see some progress with MMB, I'm looking forward to giving you a hand with it once you have the general level layout constructed.

[mrrichard999]

Just redid some stuff also for norfair to give the ice level some nice rigid surfaces, going to upload some photos of that once I get some nice structures put together. I actually figured the idea of the lava flowing from the pipes from your water dripping concept from Incursion :) Learning and finding more and more as I build these rooms.

Also here are a few more pictures for Brinstar, this is the forest portion of it. This part of the map will have other rooms and the most variety of all the sections of the game when all done.

[mrrichard999]

Was thinking about why there were only polyp shooters on floors and figured why can't they be put on the walls? Did some graphical work with flipping the sprite sides around and used Editroid for enemy placement and this worked out great! They fire out of both sides from the walls without any need for ASM works :D

[MetroidMst]

I am not sure how I feel about that. . . Those things can be nasty just sitting on floors.

[mrrichard999]

Thought it would be an interesting addition to running around in Norfair :D

[Grimlock]

Nice change up on the shooters, that should be pretty cool in game.  Do the shooters work for you?  I always had problems with them for some reason, maybe my placement...  I tried putting them in a vertical scrolling room and they seem to get lazy on me and only shoot rarely.  In the sewer area (Incursion) there is a shooter at the top of the small pipe with the valve on it (vertical scrolling room).  I left it in the game but it almost never shoots, hopefully yours will work better than mine did.

[mrrichard999]

I think it has to do with how many enemies are around the area when you place them. When I added them there were no other enemies in the area.  Enemy placement does get a little whacky when there are a lot in the area...

[Grimlock]

I failed to mention it earlier but your title screen for this hack looks fantastic, I'm going to have to get some pointers from you when I get started on mine.

[mrrichard999]

Pacnsacdave did all the title screen work for this one. Feel free to message him about it, he loves doing that kind of work.