Super Metroid: Recovery

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Hello! I have wanted to make a hack for a long time, but I only recently have had the ability to do so. My original ideas for a hack were too extravagant for a first hack, but I am working on a hack that is within my skill level of making. It is called Super Metroid: Recovery because of the numerous times I've almost lost some or all of my progress, but have still found a way to get it back and keep working. I have a strange Item and Boss order in this hack, but I think it will be fun! I hope to have it out by the end of the year! I will try to post screenshots, once I figure out how to do so. If anyone can help me with that, that would be greatly appreciated!

[MetroidMst]

Screenshots need hosted on another site like Imgur. Once there, you can link to them here with the image tags. (It's under the bold icon for reference.)

Also hi, and I hope your hacking goes well and continues!

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I figured out how! Here are some images from my hack!

[Amorsis]

Looks good, I like the level design. Perhaps throw in some different palettes?

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I'm messing around a little with Enemy Palettes at the moment. (Mostly Space Pirates) I have a few more images. If you're going for an abbreviation for this hack, SM:R won't work (Because Redesign) And I don't think SM:Re would work either. (Again, because Redesign) Unless there is a preexisting hack with this abbreviation, I'll go with SM:Rec for now. Either way, I hope you enjoy the further notion of progress. Crateria and the Wrecked Ship are almost done!
[spoiler] [/spoiler]

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Hi! I'm adding some more images from new rooms in my hack I'm working on. I just have a few questions. The game will crash in some rooms when I use the X-ray Scope, and the game also crashed whenever Samus is in her morphing animation and entering water, or rolling into water on a slope. If anyone has the answer to this, I would greatly appreciate it!
[spoiler] [/spoiler]

[Steel Sparkle]

Interesting pics. Keep it up.

[personitis]

This is looking like a very fine vanilla hack. I do see one issue with this screenshot though:

The floor tiles in the tunnel above (where Morph Ball is) are upside down, unless that was intentional. :shocking:

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Thank you for pointing that out, I will be sure to fix it. I really need help figuring out the water morph crash though, it makes some parts of the hack unplayable or irritating and I don't know why it happens. Some early versions of my hack don't have it, but I can't pinpoint an exact time as of yet. I'm just perplexed by it. If anyone can help that would be wonderful. I don't want to have to copy paste all of my room data into a new rom. (Again)

[Jordan5]

Try being a little more specific with your problem, maybe providing some screenshots or videos of it happening which may give us an insight. We cannot really help you currently as you have only really told us 'My game crashes sometimes' and there are a billion reasons why that could be the case. If you can pinpoint the backup where it breaks you could do a file compare to see what has changed and then maybe have a look if things have been overwritten or use a debugger to watch any of the new code.

I will say, however, that you have some cool looking rooms and this hack shows a lot of promise. :grin: Just remember that if a room has to be traversed multiple times, try not to make it too cramped as it will start to become tedious.

Keep up the good work and let us know about the crash when you know some more details.

[FPzero]

I've heard of the X-Ray crash before. I think it's related to bad FX1 values being set in rooms. You'd occasionally see it in really older hacks. I don't know exactly what values cause the problem but try seeing if the rooms the crashes occur in have similar FX1 settings and then try and change them. As for the water crash, I've never heard of that one before so without pictures or a video we probably can't help there yet.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I have some images for the water entry crash. I'll look into which version changed it and what went wrong. These are just examples of when the game would crash. As you can see this makes the hack very frustrating to play. In all of these examples, the game has already crashed.
[spoiler] [/spoiler]

[Aran;Jaeger]

This water surface crash looks a lot like the way Drewseph messed up in his Redesign Axeil version where I encountered such type of crash the first time among any hacks.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I figured out what went wrong and was causing the crash. Two bytes in the bank regarding Samus' animations were blanked. I'm not sure why they went wrong or what exactly they do. For future reference, setting offset 80131-80132 to 00 00 as opposed to 0A A5 will initiate the water entry crash.

[FPzero]

Hey I'm glad you were able to figure it out. I would have had no idea what to do in your situation.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I'm working on Brinstar right now, mostly SporeSpawn and trying to make him more interesting. I've added a secret weakness of his, but I won't say what it is, you'll have to try it for yourself. I'm also going to work on Kraid's lair after this is done. I've found Ninja pirates can be tough to work with, but I have them too. I have a plan for Kraid as well. (He doesn't give you Varia Suit) I've figured out the whole item progression, It is very non-linear for those who like that kind of stuff, and I've also changed around the boss order.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I have an update on the X-ray crash! It seems with the main room where the crash is happening, the crash does not occur whenever the room is entered from a door that comes from another area, but if I leave the room and come back, the crash will occur. It also occurs in from any other door, or simply testing the room in quickmet. If anyone has something they know regarding this problem, I'd love to know how to fix it.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I have now basically completed Crateria and the Wrecked Ship! I have started to record footage of my hack in action! It can be found here.
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZbnUeN0hV4&t=10s[/spoiler]
The video does not show the whole hack so far, so stay tuned for more updates regarding the progress of the hack! I'm not sure I can be done by the end of the year, but I will try to get it out before the end of Winter. (Maybe)

[Miranda Gemini]

So far this is looking okay. Nothing super exciting, but it shows promise.
Some slight criticisms from your video;
[spoiler]
1. Keeping in the Ceres station with very little changed is not usually a great start to any hack. I'd suggest taking the area out entirely.
2. When designing things such as puzzles, or hiding paths behind shot/bomb/etc. blocks, you need to take into consideration that the people playing your hack are going to have no idea where these are if there's no signposting that they're there (for example the shot block at 5:56). This isn't a huge deal in that location as there's only so many ways to get through that section, but as there is more space to explore these things can get really frustrating if they aren't well signposted, or at least hinted at.
3. Minor QOL suggestion - remove any "kill X enemies to unlock" doors, such as the one in the elevator room, where the player would then immediately run into a roadblock anyway (ie the morph passage after said door). Ideally remove every single one of them, but if you're insistent on having them in your hacks, at least remove the useless ones.
4. Bullet spongey enemies such as the pirates at the 9-ish minute mark are never fun to deal with.
[/spoiler]
The rest of the video I don't have much to say about. Your level design looks interesting enough, but I'd suggest that you look into changing door pointers and editing the default connections. As it is, many people will look at a half hack such as yours and, without any real unique feature to draw them into playing, will simply overlook it. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the work you have done, but in general I tend to avoid half hacks simply because I know I'd get more out of playing through the original game than a half hack of it. Unless you're confident that you can match the polish of the level design in Super Metroid, by following the original layout and having no additional interesting features to get the player to come back after their initial first impressions, your hack is simply going to get overlooked.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Thank you for your critiques. This is one of the reasons that I am doing this. I will be sure to fix some of the problems you mentioned. I know this is a half hack, but I still want to make it anyway. This is my introduction to hacking, and I want to prove that half hacks can be good. (Since most half hacks I've seen have been pretty poor.) I have an idea for later in the hack that might make it seem like less of a half hack. Video part 2 is out and can be found here:
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVe6UNmtCQ[/spoiler]
I hope that you can give me more critiques so I can continue to improve my hack.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Just came out with part 3! It can be found here. [spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYT08RmiL_E[/spoiler]
I also have an update on the X-Ray Crash! I seem to have fixed it, and I think I know why. In the two rooms in which it was occurring, They had Item PLMs that were set to respawn and had a Low value of 00, so they were 80 00. When X-ray was used, I guess it didn't know how to handle that kind of PLM? I'm not sure why it crashes the game, but I'm pretty sure that this is why.
I was going through my hack today, and giving unique Index values to all the Items and Doors I had in my hack. I realized that I had some items and Door Caps set to respawn. I fixed it and gave them new Index Values. (Thanks to the SMMM for telling me where free Index values are) While testing, I decided to try X-ray in the rooms, and It seemed to work fine. I then because ecstatic.
I think the reason that entering the room from another area would cause the crash to not occur is that entering the room from another area led to the collection of the bad item. When I would try to use X-ray, it wouldn't crash because the bad Item wasn't there anymore. When I left the room from another way and came back, the bad item would respawn, and X-ray would crash the game again.
Well, I'm glad I got through that spiel. I hope y'all like part 3 of the videos! I have recovered yet again from a detriment!

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Hello everybody! (Or at least the few of you who are still keeping up with this) I am still working on this hack a lot, though progress has slowed tremendously since school let back in. I try to work on it whenever I get the chance to. I have had episode 4 recorded for a while, but I'm having trouble with editing. At this point, I think I have enough content to make episode 5 pretty soon. Until then, Here are some screenshots from the newer parts of my hack.



I have attained many more skills in hack-building recently. (Such as how to build in Norfair's tileset) I hope to be able to use them in many creative ways later on in my hack. Due to the slowed production that school has brought upon me, I am pushing the expected release date back to an unknown time. I am sorry about this, but it is just the way it is. (Building rooms is time-consuming) Expect to see part 4 in the coming week, and part 5 shortly after that. I have big plans for later in the hack, so stay tuned!

[Jet3rd]

The hack is looking great! I hope you will be able to release this soon as it looks fun and I have been eagerly waiting for the release since I found this topic.
I am no good at creating hacks since I lack the Imagination and the will but your hack is looking great. Good luck!

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I finally am ready to show off Parts 4 and 5. I gave up on trying to edit the split parts together so I uploaded them separately. Anyway, here we go.
[spoiler]
Part 4
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNwcPIdzn0g[/spoiler]
Part 4.9
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCISRhK7ZZk[/spoiler]
Part 5
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCISRhK7ZZk[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
I am almost finished with Norfair, and will likely move on to finishing up Brinstar afterward. When that is done, it will be time to tackle the rest of Maridia! Fun! Maridia will likely take some time, both in planning and building. Maybe a month or two. After that is Tourian! If all goes well, my new estimated release date will be in June. Until then, thanks for all of the support Y'all have given me this past semester ever my hack, and for all of the critiques about how to make it better.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Brinstar is finally complete! I have recorded part 6 and it is now uploaded. I have found and implemented some more QOL Hex tweaks, so I hope y'all enjoy that. My work on the hack is now focused on the rest of Maridia, then to Tourian. I hope to have the hack released by June. If I don't have it out by then I will hopefully be at least to the playtesting stage by then.
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggCKDLntgZ4[/spoiler]