Metroid - Rogue Dawn

[Grimlock]

I think this new hack is really going to be a game changer once it's done.  It's going to show the real potential of the M1 game engine as well as the editing power of Editroid.  Squared off bubble door sealed rooms will be a thing of the past.  Hopefully it will inspire others to look at M1 differently and push the game even further.

Here's a small section of Norfair to demonstrate the potential the M1 engine has in level design using the right techniques:
(Keep in mind this is a first draft of this area, I literally built this area yesterday, I haven't polished it up yet)

(Wide image - might need to scroll right to see the whole thing)
"Series of screens that make up an exit tunnel from a cave area"
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Norfair really has the cave theme down pretty good.  I'm leaning towards the wrecked ship idea for Ridley and combining the ruins theme of Kraids area with the alien vegetation/jungle theme.  I was also recently thinking some kind of ice/snow theme would be unique (but not necessarily sci-fi enough).  The wrecked ship idea would fit the sci-fi theme of Metroid pretty good though, I've already got some good ideas for it.  The ship area would require the use of the code that tricks the engine into thinking there is a door (already open) in a few screens (to stop the scrolling until the player figures out the correct way to advance).  The wrecked ship would have some natural elements since it would be buried and broken apart in some areas allowing you to access some cave areas.

I know in his last hack, the saving patch was optional. I don't know if it will be standard in Rogue Dawn (since it will be customized to suit the hack).

Right now I plan to only release one version of the hack which will include all of your modifications Snarfblam.

Before you become too invested in a particular design or layout relating to hurt/heal blocks, I think maybe I should whip up a demo so you can check out exactly how they behave. It's been a while since it was made, but iirc, their behavior might be slightly quirky.

That would be excellent!

EDIT:  Unrelated to the hurt/heal blocks is there a way to increase the scroll rate when cycling between vertical and horizontal scrolling areas?

I'll have to look into this

Two reasons behind my thinking on this:
A. limit players getting hit by creatures when the screen is scrolling. 
B. There will be several scrolling transitions in certain areas, it would make navigating faster and more fluid.

As far as "A" goes I know there is some code (Same website as the heal block code) that makes the creatures disappear when scrolling transitions are made, that would solve the getting hit part.  It might be easier to just use that code and not worry about "B".  Either way would be fine, maybe the scroll speed is just a simple hex modification, that would be nice.

[The Monster of Surrealton]

This looks really sexy :D

[Grimlock]

Snarfblam, the Norfair area is fairly large, what do you figure is the maximum number of unique screens that can be created with an expanded rom? 

Right now I have 87 screens in Norfair, I'll need to make somewhere between 40 and 50 more to fill in the area as planned although I could scale back if need be.

[Grimlock]

Thanks to mrrichards spiffy Metroid Blast wall shooter idea I added some wall shooters into Rogue Dawn today:

(Thanks for the idea :grin: )

[knuckles]

You've done so much, it doesn't really look like nes metroid anymore. It almost looks like super metroid! (all these graphical improvements, hidden enemies...) this is what's making me get interested in nes metroid hacking. doing alot with a little.

[snarfblam]

Snarfblam, the Norfair area is fairly large, what do you figure is the maximum number of unique screens that can be created with an expanded rom? 

Right now I have 87 screens in Norfair, I'll need to make somewhere between 40 and 50 more to fill in the area as planned although I could scale back if need be.

Depends on how many objects you cram into them. The way I make rooms, it looks like I'd probably hit a ceiling somewhere between $80 and $A0 screens per area, but I tend to pack lots of stuff in them. You should be able to get a pretty good idea where you're at going by the free space listed. I think there is roughly $3800 bytes available for screen data per area. You might want to double check that screens above number $80 work in game. I don't remember whether or not I've addressed that. If not, it's an easy enough fix.

[Grimlock]

I have that DPI issue so its difficult to know if the numbers are correct.  Here is where I am at now:

369 so 873 bytes of 14336 remaining, less than 10%.  I think I can make that work.

EDIT: looks like I just about hit the limit.  I'm going to have to decide if I want to scale back the  area size and increase the screen details or leave the screens but settle for little or no detail tiles in some.

[snarfblam]

Hmm... didn't realize that dpi bug was in 3.6. Maybe I should hurry up and release 3.7.

Hate to have to see you choose between cutting the level down or cutting out detail. No practical solutions spring to mind. It's amazing how quickly you can use up a space eight times as large as the original game's screen data. I may find myself in the same boat.

[Grimlock]

It worked out, I'm pretty much done with Norfair minus some detailing and enemy adjustments.  I eliminated about 10 screens from the original plan.  It didn't affect the flow of the area too much.  I'm going to use the remaining memory for details and enemys.

I have 63 remaining right now.

I'll probably take a break from the hack for about a week since I've been hitting it pretty hard.  If your interested in seeing what I have so far PM me an email address I can send the current build to you.  As long as you don't enter the Ridley elevator you should be good.  I placed blocks as stepping stones where the wall jump will have to be used.

EDIT: Sorry to those who misunderstood and sent me an email address.  I'm not currently releasing a public beta.  I was just offering Snarfblam an opportunity to look at what has been made so far since he has offered to work on game engine modifications for this hack, for testing purposes or whatever if need be.  Once the hack is near completion several play testers would be greatly appreciated, right now its too soon.

[Grimlock]

New Kraid tiles!

I scrapped my dead looking block Kraid tiles for something a bit more lively:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[MetroidMst]

Do you dream in acid? Because that room makes me high.

[Lunaria]

This hack is looking bloody amazing, I hope it will play as well as it looks! :>

[Grimlock]

Do you dream in acid? Because that room makes me high.

Must be the THC I injected into the pixels.   :whoa: :lol:

[Grimlock]

This hack is looking bloody amazing, I hope it will play as well as it looks! :>

Thanks, I made these graphics this morning, they're about 75% done.

[snarfblam]

Trying to make a nice lush forest/jungle with the M1 engine would be a monumental challenge, but it would be epic if you pulled it off.

Congratulations. You have achieved epic status. You really seem to have a knack for making beautiful screens in M1.

* snarfblam jelly

By the way, I should probably let you know where I'm at with the ASM (I can PM you next time if you prefer). I had to sort out a conflict between Metroid+Saving and the updated expansion ASM that Editroid applies plus what turned out to be a bug in FCEUX that was causing the game to crash. Finally got all that sorted out, so yesterday I started with Metroid+Saving as a base and added in wall-jump as a pickup (long beam always enabled) and faster screen transitions. I should be able to chip away at the rest throughout the week.

[Quietus]

I'm just adding my voice to the existing chorus singing your praises for that Kraid area. :cool:

[Quote58]

those gfx :O

[Grimlock]

By the way, I should probably let you know where I'm at with the ASM (I can PM you next time if you prefer). I had to sort out a conflict between Metroid+Saving and the updated expansion ASM that Editroid applies plus what turned out to be a bug in FCEUX that was causing the game to crash. Finally got all that sorted out, so yesterday I started with Metroid+Saving as a base and added in wall-jump as a pickup (long beam always enabled) and faster screen transitions. I should be able to chip away at the rest throughout the week.

Great!  Let me know if you need the current build to test anything.  Mainly the screen scrolling speed I would imagine, since I use the screen scrolling doorless work around pretty extensively in Norfair (planet surface), it would probably need to be tuned to work best.  I guess you could just delete some doors in a vanilla rom to test just the same. 

It sounds like your going to be well ahead of me on the ASM vs. area builds, thanks for your efforts!

[Grimlock]

Trying to make a nice lush forest/jungle with the M1 engine would be a monumental challenge, but it would be epic if you pulled it off.

Congratulations. You have achieved epic status. You really seem to have a knack for making beautiful screens in M1.

* snarfblam jelly

Woo hoo!  Ill take it  :grin: ... but what comes after epic  :pwuh: ? I gotta have something to shoot for!!!   :colonrightv:

[Quietus]

Godlike, of course. :^_^:

[Grimlock]

EDIT:  Scratch that.  I did some more testing and looping across the grid appears to cause problems with the item placement as well.  Anything that relys on specific coordinates within the grid is probably affected.  I'll use plan B for what I was trying to work into the area designs.

Original post:
Snarfblam, I just wanted to give you a heads up on something regarding the mini map.  Odb718 brought up an issue with the map graphics distorting if you pass the edge of the screen grid and loop to the other side.  I plan to add something in the Kraid and Ridley areas that will cause a loop across the grid.  I set up a test and the graphics get garbled up in both the corner and pause map.  Would it be possible to make the loop work without graphics distortions?  If not that's fine I can change my plans and go a different route (PM if you need more specifics on what I was planning to do).

Post 31:
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,2434.20.html

His example image:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Quietus]

Mini tip: If you want to link to a specific reply, you can place your mouse over the yellow text at the top of the reply, then copy the link.  e.g. In this reply, it's the bit that says Re: Metroid - Rogue Dawn.  Anybody clicking will be taken straight to it. :^_^:

[Grimlock]

Thanks for the tip, I was wondering how people where doing that.  :cool:

[snarfblam]

EDIT:  Scratch that.  I did some more testing and looping across the grid appears to cause problems with the item placement as well.  Anything that relays on specific coordinates within the grid is probably affected.  I'll use plan B for what I was trying to work into the area designs.

Original post:
Snarfblam, I just wanted to give you a heads up on something regarding the mini map.  Odb718 brought up an issue with the map graphics distorting if you pass the edge of the screen grid and loop to the other side.  I plan to add something in the Kraid and Ridley areas that will cause a loop across the grid.  I set up a test and the graphics get garbled up in both the corner and pause map.  Would it be possible to make the loop work without graphics distortions?  If not that's fine I can change my plans and go a different route (PM if you need more specifics on what I was planning to do).

I don't understand what the image is supposed to be depicting, but I do understand the idea of wrapping from one edge of the map to the other, and I'm not surprised that it causes bugs with the maps. I've experimented with the wrap-around trick before too, and I've run into the same bugs with item placement. It's actually theoretically possible to make it work, provided that none of the locations where you spawn are in a wrapped-around area, but you would have to hex-edit the item data, and if you have to do any item editing after that, things might go haywire.

There is an alternative, however. You can manually change the current map coordinates in the screen load routine. You can achieve roughly the same effect, and even do more complex things with it. I've actually thought up a few tricks you can do with this. I can give a more detailed explanation tomorrow.

[Grimlock]

I don't understand what the image is supposed to be depicting

His image resolution was a bit large for posting in a forum, you have to scroll to the right.  The image (far right) shows how the graphics distort in the map (Corner map) after passing the edge of the grid. Anyway I'll PM you what I was trying to do so I don't spoil it if it gets implemented.