A linear Super Metroid hack?! WTF?!

[MetroidPeter]

OK, based on what I've seen on this forum, it's pretty safe to say people like Super Metroid (duh right?). But something I've consistently noticed is that people here tend to lean to making nonlinear speedrun-able SM hacks. Now I have no problem with this (I personally really like SM) but I'm curious to know what people would think of a linear SM hack. What I mean by this is one that has a bit more of a planned quest, and has a greater emphasis on story where you have a set of predetermined destinations that you go to in a set order (or maybe you have some freedom, but generally there isn't much sequence breaking), but the game doesn't limit entirely how you get there (kinda like Metroid Prime). I haven't seen any hacks that follow this format nor have I seen any forum posts regarding this topic. Let me know what your thoughts are.

[Cpt.Glitch]

Actually quite a few SM hacks are pretty linear. Also it depends on the player and how the linearity is executed.

[Vismund Cygnus]

(moved this to off-topic, it's a bit more relevant there)

There are plenty of linear Super Metroid hacks; look at Redesign, or Super Zero Mission(?). Both have very linear progressions in terms of what the author wanted the player to do; the point of a sequence break is doing something out of order. A planned sequence break is a faux pas of sorts; to intend a sequence break is to negate it as breaking a sequence, that is, the author expects it and therefore plans the rest of the hack around the possibility that the player has done this "sequence break". I guess it makes sense as being non-linear, but a sequence break shouldn't be intended.
I mean hell, you think any of the sequence breaks in the original Super Metroid were planned?

What I mean by this is one that has a bit more of a planned quest . . . where you have a set of predetermined destinations that you go to in a set order (or maybe you have some freedom, but generally there isn't much sequence breaking), but the game doesn't limit entirely how you get there

is a perfect summary of Super Metroid's gameplay. Super Metroid does in fact have a very specific order of events (do Ceres, get morph, missiles, bombs, charge, supers, high jump, beat kraid, speedboost, ice (spazer optional), power bombs, grapple (wave optional), phantoon, gravity, Draygon, Space Jump, Gold Torizo, Screw Attack, Ridley, Tourian, win). However the sequence breaks that the developers never intended to have in the game (and often worked specifically to try and force this path) are what give Super Metroid a sense of non-linearity. It is the same as any hack. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean the author meant for it to be so.


However, if you're looking for linear hacks, play any minihack.

[personitis]

While I can't speak on behalf of everybody, it seems to me as if players enjoy when they are either being linearly lead from point A to B to C etc., but are not fully consciously aware of it. In addition, once they know the game/hack after a playthrough or two, the enjoyment factor seems to up a bit after figuring out there are different ways and orders of events (intended or not and sometimes drastic, other times minute) of which they can reach end game (rewarding replay value). There are also those who just love the original so much that it usually won't matter whether or not if the hack is linear or open-ended.

[RealRed]

(moved this to off-topic, it's a bit more relevant there)

There are plenty of linear Super Metroid hacks; look at Redesign, or Super Zero Mission(?). Both have very linear progressions in terms of what the author wanted the player to do; the point of a sequence break is doing something out of order. A planned sequence break is a faux pas of sorts; to intend a sequence break is to negate it as breaking a sequence, that is, the author expects it and therefore plans the rest of the hack around the possibility that the player has done this "sequence break". I guess it makes sense as being non-linear, but a sequence break shouldn't be intended.

However the sequence breaks that the developers never intended to have in the game (and often worked specifically to try and force this path) are what give Super Metroid a sense of non-linearity. It is the same as any hack. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean the author meant for it to be so.

There's no way nintendo had no clue of any sequence breaks. How else could there be no permastucks? Not to mention, the game teaches you how to walljump and IBJ... that seems awfully enabling, doesn't it? Is it still a sequence break if the developer didn't intend it, knew of it and didn't try to prevent it?

[Digital_Mantra]

There's no way nintendo had no clue of any sequence breaks. How else could there be no permastucks?

This, right here. It perfectly explains why even though runners do sequence breaking routes, there's no oh shit I'm stuck moments. All was accounted for.
We are all hackers and beta testers here so we know that an official game would have a team that's actually getting paid around the clock to find these things.
They knew this all along and it was very smart of them to remain tight lipped for the last 20 years. Hell I bet they signed NDA forms for it, haha.

[Quietus]

there's no oh shit I'm stuck moments.

The most obvious one of these I usually think of is in one of the sandfall rooms that leads to Spring Ball, where (if you don't have Gravity, and are struggling to get out) you can roll straight through the wall, shoot upward, and escape with a simple jump.

Also, I would say that most hacks have linearity planned, even if that sequence ends up being completely broken.

[Drewseph]

Nintendo probably didn't know about sequence breaks.  when designing the game they knew that upgrades could be manually turned on or off.  they probably just made sure that because of this that all rooms could have some way of escaping. 

[Mayo-chan]

Whether they knew or not, the reason why Super Metroid could be broken the way it was because the developers didn't have enough time. A month before launch the team literally just finished a map they could all agree with. If they did find any sequence breaks with the finalized map, they were pretty much screwed and had to document it as a 'known shippable', as in, a bug that was found late in development period that is considered so 'harmless' it could be released without the public knowing.

Regardless, the reason Super Metroid's unlinearity was so satisfying was because its secret moves and glitches rose the skill ceiling. The reason why it rose the skill ceiling was because they are tied to the player's inputs and can be performed consistently. Once you're able to master these moves unintended to the developer, you've basically opened up the game much further than what had been anticipated. A consequence of this is that if you're able to skip to further areas of the game with less items and ammunition, you're going to be faced with much higher difficulty, and the game 'naturally' balances itself out, further rewarding more skilled players if they're able to survive. If you survive the gauntlet you created, the item you sequence broke to obtain is a perfect reward for such a feat. Super and Prime were unintentionally balanced perfectly so the more you skip through the game the harder it gets, until you get your reward in most cases.

By contrast, a linear game has less of a skill ceiling, as there are less ways to travel across the world and less potential of a threat because you are following the difficulty curve intended by the developers. That's not to say that a linear game can't allow a flexible skill ceiling (Devil May Cry comes to mind), but it's something to consider if you decided to create a linear Super Metroid hack.

Always reward more skilled players, even if it's linear. Have an 'easy' and a 'hard' path through your areas, both lead to the same thing, but the 'hard' path contains more of a reward in some way.

[Lunaria]

The people behind Prime have actively done changes to prevent sequence breaking in later releases, sadly. I think it's fair to say that the Super Metroid team did not know of all the possibly sequence breaks and glitches. It's hard to know what parts of Super Metroid was designed in certain ways by accident or what was planned, but the title itself is a bloody masterpiece.

[RT-55J]

In terms of SM's "intended" sequence breaks, I feel like it's clear at the very least that they anticipated stubborn people bomb jumping everywhere. This is why the Chozo statue in Lower Norfair checks to see if you have the Space Jump, why the door to the Plasma Beam is unlocked until after beating Draygon, and why you can't bombjump underwater without the gravity suit.

I'm fairly certain that getting the Wave Beam early and getting Crocmire's power bombs first were both intended sequence breaks. The first because it is so trivial; the second because it's a very natural result of the first (because of the wave gate's proximity) and because Crocmire's power bombs are also presented like a major upgrade would be.

Other than that, I don't have a clue what they anticipated.

(btw, suitless Maridia has a number of situations where you can screw yourself over and get permanently stuck, though even getting into those situations requires doing a ceiling glitch first.)

Anyhow, back on topic: when I first saw this thread I thought it was going to be a call for something stage based, like an old school Castlevania or a Turrican. That would be pretty awesome, imo.

[Mayo-chan]

Oh my god somebody else who knows Turrican <3

I've been thinking of how a Metroid-like Turrican game would play out back when I was super-into those games :P

[Aran;Jaeger]

What I mean by this is one that has a bit more of a planned quest, and has a greater emphasis on story where you have a set of predetermined destinations that you go to in a set order (or maybe you have some freedom, but generally there isn't much sequence breaking)

In general, I can agree with what most said, but I´d say: One should be careful with the amount of different/possible sequences that are allowed or put into a hack to obtain a web of available, by the developer (and maybe also testers) known [or as "potentially possible" seen/estimated if it is not directly known or was not tested by the author (in which case such a sequence would be a so-called "known unknown", since the author then is at least aware of this potential option/sequence, but it is not confirmed to be possible)] paths/sequences, since in general, depending on how much you know about the game´s mechanics and depending on the size of a planned SM hack, it might quite possibly happen that the hack gets broken further open by people who see options where others maybe don´t [i.e. there can be by the hack author "unknown knowns" (in this case, these "knowns" would be options or exploitable mechanics) that are known by others].

So, maybe be prepared that unknown sequence breaks could happen, and then, those preferably should not get the player either stuck [i.e. its definition: "A state in which a player (or even TAS) could not anymore continue to the end of the hack without being forced to reset the game at the last save-point" (or shorter: "stuck = reset button needed")] or even perma-stuck [i.e. its definition: "Having saved the game at a point/in a situation at which it is impossible for a player (or TAS) to continue finishing the hack without having to restart at a new savefile." (or shorter: "perma-stuck = clearing the savefile needed" if even resetting cannot help)].
For example: One can design a (more or less linear) hack/game in such a way that the hack is prepared for by the author unaware (or as unlikely seen) breaks [e.g. Super Metroid, which does by far not always crash if one breaks out of the web of possible sequences of which the authors were (at least individually at some point in time) aware of] or a game can be designed to lead into a crash/(perma-)stuck if such breaks happen [i.e. as far as I heard, Metroid Fusion does not allow the game to be continued after at least certain sequence breaks]. The later design option can be chosen intentionally or happen due to an/some oversight(s), but at the end, it would be up to the author which game design should be favored.
- - -

Regardless, the reason Super Metroid's unlinearity was so satisfying was because its secret moves and glitches rose the skill ceiling.
By contrast, a linear game has less of a skill ceiling, as there are less ways to travel across the world and less potential of a threat because you are following the difficulty curve intended by the developers.

The statement "a linear game cannot reach the skill-ceiling a given non-linear game provides" is maybe true in special cases (depending on the definition of "skill"), but does not always need to be the case. I.e.: The following statement holds true: Given a non-linear SM hack and all its execution-wise difficult routes one can take, one can construct a linear hack with at least the same skill-ceiling by simply putting all these given obstacles into a linear, forced path. Just saying (because certain hacks that I may plan for the future would be meant to be completely linear)...

There's no way nintendo had no clue of any sequence breaks. How else could there be no permastucks?

This, right here. It perfectly explains why even though runners do sequence breaking routes, there's no oh shit I'm stuck moments. All was accounted for.
They knew this all along and it was very smart of them to remain tight lipped for the last 20 years. Hell I bet they signed NDA forms for it, haha.

"DeerForce intended it, Kappa", or in other words: Oh man, so wrong...
If you knew how many ways there are in Super Metroid to get stuck, perma-stuck or to crash the game, either humanly or via TAS even without major glitches (but since there are so many of them, I will not bother to list them here)...
[Probably simplest example of them all that should be well-known already since it is part of the age old inbounds Low% analysis: Saving down in Tourian with low SuperMissile ammunition and a low Missile cap.]

I think it's fair to say that the Super Metroid team did know of all the possibly sequence breaks and glitches.

I heavily doubt that.

- - -
[On the definition of "sequence breaks": Although one could define "sequence break" in different ways, the term itself already implicitly tells that a "sequence break" at least partially changes a given/fixed "sequence" to which this "sequence break" refers to, which not necessarily needs to be the/a sequence/path that was at least at some point (partially) known by the author, but it would make sense to refer to either one sequence or a web of sequences the author was aware of, since in general, people not involved with a game do not know much about sequences in the mentioned game.
Another theoretical technicality would also be: "How much do some given sequences need to differ to be considered different?"
But regarding the rather hard expression "break", one can surely differentiate/categorize sequence breaks into "major" breaks and "minor" breaks depending on either how much influence/consequences such a break has on the game and/or how easily the given break can be found.
For example: A lot of hype/excitement was going on when all the people found "sequence breaks" for Hyper Metroid, but honestly, most of those were rather trivial "soft" breaks, if at all, and not only because they were simple applications/combinations of the available mechanics (while being aware of the mechanic changes) that are already known and e.g. partially listed in the physics compendium I am working on, but also since the hack is quite open anyways, compared to the majority of other hacks.]

[Lunaria]

I think it's fair to say that the Super Metroid team did not know of all the possibly sequence breaks and glitches.

I heavily doubt that.

Ah, thank you, I actually missed a "not" in that sentence, I went back and fixed it.