Metroid - Rogue Dawn

[Quietus]

It looks great, grimlock. :^_^:

[altoiddealer]

That's way awesome man  :nod:

[advancedpillow]

Whoo!! The quality of this is just so sick!

[mrrichard999]

That is a very kickass title screen! :D

[Grimlock]

New music tracks by Optomon:

NOTE:  The area location used in the videos does not reflect the final placement in game.

Track D

Track E

Track F

[Meeptroid]

Damn, Grimlock, be sure to tell Optomon great job from me, those sound nice, I presume Track D is a remix of Lower Norfair/Magmoor Caverns? If so, its pretty damn badass!

[Quietus]

They're pretty good actually. :^_^:

[DonnyDonovan]

I'm normally pretty indifferent about M1 hacks but I can't tell you how stoked I am for this. 

[samplerInfo]

Any news? I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out!  :bounce:

[Quietus]

It's only been a little over a month since the last update. It's quite common to have many months (sometimes years!) between updates I am sure that if anything worthwhile were updated, we'd be notified. :^_^:

[biospark]

Only update I know of is a new track by optomon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkPJpOeRwPk

[samplerInfo]

It's quite common to have many months (sometimes years!) between updates I am sure that if anything worthwhile were updated, we'd be notified. :^_^:

Ah, thanks. I've been watching this thread for a month or two, when I first got here there was a lot of activity but since it's been silent for a while I thought I'd ask.

[Grimlock]

Optomon must have just uploaded that track, I hadn't even heard it yet, lol.  He's really coming through on the music, diversifying the music for that area was some what of an optional item on the table, I'm pretty thrilled that he's putting the level of effort in that he is! 

There were a few recent set backs this summer that weren't related to the hack.  Sometimes personal events and responsibilities can consume our abilities to devote time and energy to our hobbies.  We're ramping up again right now, we had a bit of a dip in progress in November.  We're in a pretty good place as far as what's left on the 2-do list.  2016 is the 30 year anniversary for Metroids release so we're now aiming for a January release.  The holidays are pretty busy for most people so we can't promise anything but we're going to give it a solid effort.

[Grimlock]

Another music track by Optomon.  This track is intended for the previously unannounced underwater area:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnbojFENPwk

[biospark]

Two great songs and two great looking areas. You and optomon are certainly gifted. Keep it up!

[PKstarship]

I have to say the rain and bubble effects in thsse videos looks really cool.

Also, may I ask what the general diificulty of this will be once it's completed? I am really good at NEStroid so difficulty probably won't be much of an issue, but I'm just curious. Anyways, this hack is lookin' good :^_^:

[Grimlock]

I have to say the rain and bubble effects in thsse videos looks really cool.

Also, may I ask what the general diificulty of this will be once it's completed? I am really good at NEStroid so difficulty probably won't be much of an issue, but I'm just curious. Anyways, this hack is lookin' good :^_^:

I would place the difficulty somewhere between NEStroid and Super Metroid.  Super Metroid is (in my opinion) considerably more difficult than the original Metroid in most areas.  The original Metroid had some frustrating aspects to it that I think we've done a good job of eliminating such as the issue with your health starting so low (healing stations added to game).  So I would say it's probably going to be less frustrating than the original for most.  The fact that the world is massively expanded with new obstacles and challenges pushes the difficulty beyond NEStroid.  Super Metroid being a SNES game will always be more complex than any NEStroid game, RD will have some similar challenges but not nearly the number as Super Metroid has.   

[Infinitys_End]

Grimlock: I truly appreciate your tenacity and sheer passion creating this project, but there's absolutely no way this game won't be plagued with the usual slowdown and clunky playcontrol issues in standard NEStroid, right?  I mean, are you doing anything to improve performance or are you sticking to your guns and utilizing M1's vanilla engine, while only improving graphics/sound?  There's no way the minimap overlay won't cause slowdown or terrible flicker. (Sorry if this has been asked before)

I ask this because there were Metroidvanias made on the console that are super-responsive, fast, and fun, and they destroy Metroid's performance, so I know the NES can do things leaps and bound more efficiently than what M1 does, it just makes me wonder how that can be improved without reworking the entire game, essentially from scratch.  One gamee that come to mind is U•four•ia.

[QwaserTresa]

The progress looks really good, great job, the soundtracks are a mix some are more fitting then others but all great in their own rights imo, keep up the amazing work guys.

questions...
1.Will there be any Easter Eggs?
2.Will it be linear or will there be strats intentionally hidden for hardcore players to find? (things to keep speed runners busy)
3.Can u still get stuck in the doors and jump thru floors?

[Grimlock]

Grimlock: I truly appreciate your tenacity and sheer passion creating this project, but there's absolutely no way this game won't be plagued with the usual slowdown and clunky playcontrol issues in standard NEStroid, right?

Well, I can't speak for Snarfblam regarding the game engine changes he's made and/or may still plan to make but I can say the in game experience has been dramatically improved with the implementation of slope detection, modifications to the bombs, springball morph jumping, mid air morph, and player physics changes in game to enhance certain areas.  I understand where you're coming from, M1 was an earlier NES title and had some setbacks when compared to later game releases.  We never planned on completely replacing the original Metroid game engine with a new engine.   With that said there will be some unavoidable slow down on certain screens, I have tried to avoid placing too many enemies on any one screen to eliminate slow down where I can, we'll have to work out any remaining slow down issues with the enemies when we finally get started on play testing. 

I believe Snarfblam is planning on potentially fixing the game engine bug where palettes get loaded improperly when falling at an accelerated speed.  I'm pretty sure he's been working on other game engine optimisation where practical and if/when the opportunity arises.

are you doing anything to improve performance or are you sticking to your guns and utilizing M1's vanilla engine, while only improving graphics/sound? 

We're going to try and get this project wrapped up pretty soon.  I suppose if we wanted to completely replace the engine we're probably way too far in at this point.  We're going to release the game with the original M1 engine with any optimizations Snarfblam would like to  include.  The sound engine will be completely replaced or be based on a highly modified original sound engine.  We've actually been so busy with getting everything completed I didn't think to ask Optomon for any clarification on what he did with the sound engine, I can say it's a remarkable improvement.

There's no way the minimap overlay won't cause slowdown or terrible flicker.

I would only use the term terrible flicker in one area in game with it's current state of development.  The corner map has worked quite well during the short small area play testing I've done.  Once we get up to doing some serious play testing I still plan on providing you with a copy so we can get your take, I think you'll be impressed.

questions...
1.Will there be any Easter Eggs?
2.Will it be linear or will there be strats intentionally hidden for hardcore players to find? (things to keep speed runners busy)
3.Can u still get stuck in the doors and jump thru floors?

1. Yea, there are a lot of Easter eggs in this hack, in fact there is an entire hidden area.  There will be some info in the read me file once released for players who want to go the extra mile and located all of the items as well as a few clues on the Easter eggs.
2.  I've added a few hidden shortcuts and alternate routes with speed runners in mind.
3.  I suppose that trick may work, I actually considered this and tried to prevent it where players might get perma-stuck.

One other thing worth noting is that I designed all of the areas to avoid back tracking where possible.  By that I mean when you beat a boss you aren't expected to crawl all the way back through an entire area to the exit.  This holds true for many of the item pickups as well.

[Infinitys_End]

Once we get up to doing some serious play testing I still plan on providing you with a copy so we can get your take, I think you'll be impressed.

Awesome.  I'd be happy to playtest for you.  I'll give y'all all the press you want on the MDb, too.

[snarfblam]

Regarding slowdown, all in all there is more going on in this game, not less. Slowdown is more likely to occur in similar circumstances. What we do have going for us is that while the original game would make extensive re-use of screens with the approach of "spam the engine with enemies and see what sticks" (load as many enemies as possible, making enemy placement seem semi-random), Grimlock was much more strategic with enemy placement. That should make a big difference. Ideally, I'd love to write a utility to profile the game engine and determine exactly where things need to be optimized to reduce slowdown, but I don't think we'll have time for that.

As far as the minimap goes, it started out as a modification of Parasyte's corner map hack, but things got pretty ugly when too much was going on. I rewrote it to be more efficient and to use lowest priority sprites. If there is too much going on, the map will sacrifice itself rather than aggravate any other flickering issues. That said, it would be easy to include a patch to disable the minimap.

[Vanya]

Any chance of a level editor specifically suited to Rogue Dawn? Or does Rogue Dawn already have compatibility with existing editors?

[biospark]

Any chance of a level editor specifically suited to Rogue Dawn? Or does Rogue Dawn already have compatibility with existing editors?

I assume it will work with the unreleased version of editroid that grimlock has been using.

[Grimlock]

Just wanted to give everyone interested an update on our progress.  The level design is 100% complete, music is close to completion (90% range), and ASM for all of the key features is complete.  We're adding the final layers of polish for the level design, graphics and ASM modifications.  A few minor bugs are being worked out but that's expected at this point of development.  Once the music is complete we'll be bringing it into the master ROM file and then proceeding to active playtesting.

Being a prequel to the series the storyline is based on what is given in the original Metroid story.  That being the case I thought it would be a good idea to share a copy of the original Metroid story as written in the original Metroid instruction manual:

[spoiler]



[/spoiler]