Super Metroid Ampera

[FPzero]

From the creator of Super Metroid Volta:

Welcome to Super Metroid Ampera.

I'd intended to keep this a secret for a lot longer than this but it's become very clear I have forgotten a lot of my previous knowledge of hacking this game.  Therefore I'm announcing this new project, SM Ampera, so I can start asking help publicly instead of private messaging Grime on IRC 24/7.

I suppose you could call it the spiritual successor to Volta.  It is not a remake of Volta, though I did consider that at one point.  I decided to try my hand at building something totally new and see where it goes.  I've been working on it for about a month now.  Full plot details have not been worked out yet.  Instead I've been focusing on making rooms and tilesets.  Most of the tilesets will be made by combining aspects of existing SM tilesets together, but in some cases I will be importing or drawing new custom graphics where necessary/appropriate.

Here's a few screenshots of some of those rooms and tilesets I've done so far.

[spoiler=Screenshots]

[/spoiler]

I don't expect the hack will be too large.  I want to keep it manageable for me to develop at a slower pace without it taking Fear numbers of years.  As such, the worlds will probably be smaller than many other hacks.  Speaking of the worlds:

Worlds:
Crateria (as of yet Unnamed): Cold mountains, warmer caves, eastern lake with ruins. (Screenshots 1, 2, 3)
Crystal Mine: More caves, crystal themed.  Probably also a mining outpost. Working on tileset ideas.
Toxic Inferno: Vegetation and ruins with toxic acid bubbling up (green lava).  Will also have a more heated (lava and acid) area. (Screenshot 5, wip tileset, room not final)
Ocean Trench:  Deep ocean trench, maybe a submarine at the bottom. Layout still wip, working on tileset ideas.
Outer Ring: Mechanical ring that surrounds the final area.  Pipes and metal bits. (Screenshot 4)
Tourian (as of yet Unnamed): Tourian-like I guess.  Haven't planned this at all yet.

Right, now that I've announced, I can actually begin asking questions and getting help in public.  My next goal is to actually plan out my item progression since up to now I've basically just been mapping rooms with a general "this is the beginning of the game, get morph then missiles then bombs" idea of where things should go.


Some quick Q&A predictions:

Q: What happened to Volta?
A: It's still dead, sorry.  Trying to go back and restart it would take more effort than making something new.

Q: The colors aren't as bright as Volta's colors?
A: Yeah, and I'm okay with that.  Even though most stuff is less saturated, I think the few rooms I've worked on so far look miles better that almost anything I made in Volta.  Think of them as a new style.

[Lazymoth]

This is beautiful! The colors are very nice. I love the pastel surface area. It looks so fresh and cool and minty.

[CrAzY]

Sad to hear about Volta, happy to hear you're still working on something. Those screen shots are really inviting. Loving the way you have Norfair looking in that picture, very vibrant! Good luck with construction!  :razz:

[Quietus]

Colour me excited. You always have such a fantastic grasp of palettes, and what looks great together. Good luck, and hopefully we'll see you carry this one through to completion. :^_^:

[Plutia]

Another hack to anticipate is always a good thing.

[RealRed]

A month seems like a little early to announce, but who cares.
You're one of the best designers of super metroid levels. I'm looking forward to this.

[FPzero]

Oh it's totally too early to announce but I'm gonna need to ask questions and I'd rather do it in a public setting, be it on the board or IRC, so I may as well say I'm working on something instead of having people ask "are you working on something" when I do.

[FPzero]

Spent the last couple days putting together the tileset for the Crystal Mine.  It's still not finished, mostly because I'm missing some more crystal-related graphics, but I'm getting satisfied with it so far.  I still have plenty of empty tiles in the set too, so I can add more as I need it.  Take a look:



Tileset so far is a mix of blue brinstar, Grime's Red Brinstar HD, Norfair (works on two palette rows), and imported graphics from Demon's Crest for the actual crystal areas.  I still need to add, as mentioned, more crystal stuff, and probably some mechanical parts since I also plan to have a more mechanical mining area somewhere in here.  Depending on how much mining graphics I need, I may need to cut some of this stuff but we'll see as I go forward.

[Dynastyx]

Good idea with the import from Demon's crest, it looks good in SM!

[LSD001]

This looks a cool hack, I also like the parts of the platform that is sticking into the acid has become green and kind of infected looking

[FPzero]

So I've been meaning to work on this recently but I've been distracted over the summer with work, leaving work and going back to school.  I did manage to finish a new room today so here's a big new room to make up for the lack of anything from here lately.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Quietus]

I'm usually a lover of your work, but I have to be honest and say that those Wrecked Ship tiles stick out like a sore thumb, and clash massively with the rest of the room.

[Dynastyx]

Maybe it's supposed to clash? Doesn't look bad from my perspective.

[FPzero]

I'm usually a lover of your work, but I have to be honest and say that those Wrecked Ship tiles stick out like a sore thumb, and clash massively with the rest of the room.

What do you find clashy about them?  Palette?  Style?  I'm always looking for feedback.

[RealRed]

I think the issue is that the WS tiles are really bright, whereas the rest of the foreground, well... isn't. The caves and bricks might could use some brightening, but at the very least, you should definitely make those tourian platforms at the bottom more visible.

[personitis]

Not only am I finding the WS tiles too bright, I also feel like their design is too plain in comparison to the rest of the graphics in the set.

[Quietus]

What do you find clashy about them?  Palette?  Style?  I'm always looking for feedback.

Pretty much this:

Not only am I finding the WS tiles too bright, I also feel like their design is too plain in comparison to the rest of the graphics in the set.

It's a mix of it all. They've very bright, very plain, and the tileset itself is relatively poor, with everything in straight lines.

[FPzero]

Well the brightness is easy enough to address.  I can rework the palette with ease.  The style though, that might be harder.  All I've done is import select WS tiles from the main WS tileset into this one, though I did purposefully only choose the "clean" WS tiles, not the "dirty" tiles you find closer to Phantoon.  I'll see if I can do anything about them.  It might be tricky though, WS tiles are very much straight line tiles.

Edit: I made some changes, due to the nature of dropbox links though, the original image is no longer available, just the modified one.