Wherefore art thou, Spider Ball? (My Christmas Wish)

[dewhi100]

I've seen talk tossed around concerning spider ball, and read that there have been 1 or 2 patches that are since removed, or else never made public.

Are there any spider balls out there?

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Regardless, I have my own idea for one (As I'm sure many more before me have had also). It'd take some doing though, as it hijacks the physics engine:

IF (spider ball is equipped AND Samus is a ball AND she's colliding with at least one surface AND the "spider ball button" is being held):
Calculate the normal of the surfaces she is colliding with. Gravity pulls in the opposite of that direction.
Spring Ball propels her in the direction of the normal. (losing contact with the surface will nullify Spider Ball, however, until she collides with another surface.)

Samus can only move perpendicular to the normal. Two options for movement:

1. Use the + pad for movement. Samus moves in the direction most closely approximated by the + pad input.
2. Use L to move one way, and R to move the other. (Holding either triggers Spider Ball.)

Depending on how it's tweaked, it could allow for interesting puzzles. Samus could be prevented from Spider-Balling around the outside of corners, as she would lose Spider Ball. I'm designing maps with these mechanics in mind already. And if I could build and test the maps with this spider ball, my Christmas Wish would come true.

Where to start?

[RealRed]

With 65816 assembly guides/manuals.

[Quote58]

To answer your first question, there have been 2 fully functional spider balls made and shown to the public. The first by Jathys, and you can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKf8vHe4bWc
and one by Scyzer, but I don't think the video is up on youtube.

As for other spiderball like things, there have been a few. Scyzer made a patch a long time ago that provided functionality similar to the spiderball in Metroid prime, crashtour made a spiderball like thing that couldn't do slopes as of the time of the video he had, and I made a gravity changing ball item thing you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgFeRrWrwkQ

As for any released ones? Scyzer had originally released an .ips of the prime style one, but it was badly coded and she took it down eventually. Other than that, no.

With regard to your idea, you can certainly do what you're suggesting for vertical spiderball collision (the gravity ball video I linked could easily be modified to do that, since the automorph stuff I made handles checking blocks around samus), but that only works for ceilings, not walls.

However, a simple spider ball isn't actually particularly complicated to make, and doesn't require changing the direction of gravity at all. In the comments of Jathys' video, he explains that mainly all he did was change the fall routine so that if she is in spiderball, she doesn't fall if she's touching a block.

So as for where to start? If you already know any SNES ASM, then I suggest looking into the physics routines and trying to make this yourself. Otherwise, someone will release a spiderball patch eventually.

[dewhi100]

Thanks for the information. It is a little disheartening to know that there aren't any available to the general public, but the videos are good. It sounds as if my idea over-thinks the implementation.

I read in a different thread that the physics engine is a little complex. When you changed gravity did you have to make that change in one place, or did you have to insert the same code into multiple branches?

[Flower]

and I made a gravity changing ball item thing you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgFeRrWrwkQ

This reminds me so much of Mega Man 5's Gravity Man Stage. Would go for some interesting level design for Metroid Games, keep it up! =)

[Cardweaver]

A little late to the party, but it's relevant.
There is also this, which I've been using for 8 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sji6gtaeoA

It only works on ceilings, and if you stop holding a direction you fall.