Metroid: Xerox Mission (NORFAIR DEMO OUT)

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

Metroid Xerox Mission is a work-in-progress ROM hack being worked on by DannyPlaysSomeGames. The goal of the project is to fuse the world of Zero Mission onto Nestroid. So far, a demo is out, covering both Brinstar and Norfair, which is attached to the thread. Please note that the game is still in development, so please critique any bugs or problems you might have with the game in order to assure a good final product.

Screenshots:
[spoiler=Game]




[/spoiler]

FAQs
[spoiler=FAQs]What does it have?
Well, it has both Brinstar and Norfair, revamped levels and spritework based off Zero Mission, a shiny new hud alongside the + Saving patch by Snarfblam (huge thanks to him) that includes the walljump and minimap, and a few quality of life edits here, like reducing missiles required for doors and more missiles on pickup.

When is it coming out?
You heard this answer a thousand times, so take a wild guess.

Hey! Can it have x/y feature?
Every new feature considered has already been implemented or planned, and due to my extremely limited understanding of knowledge of ASM, those features are probably the only ones to be implemented.

Is that banner going to appear in the game?
No, it was just a quick thing whipped up in paint.net as promotion. As nice as it would be to have cutscenes, it'd be overdoing it a bit.

Are those save stations? Why don't they work?
First, no, those are recovery stations, that replenish health to maximum (you can now save manually via Up and A on controller 1, which brings you to the game over screen to save from there). Unfortunately, though, it hasn't been implemented as of yet in the demo because every time it's implemented, it resets the game on startup, so I'm still looking for a way to implement the HealyTileASM from Snarfblam (again, huge thanks to him) without it crashing. So for now, it's decorative.

Hey can I help on...?
This is a bit of a one-man project, so I rarely ask for help, unless it's something really difficult like the HealyTile ASM (and even then, I usually ask for help when I know I can't do that).

Besides, I already have most of the assets he needs (mainly the Metroid 1 disassembly and sprite rips of Zero Mission).

Will (insert other areas here) get a demo?
There might be a demo for both Kraid and Ridley, then finally be fully released with a properly redesigned Brinstar and Tourian.

Borger?
Borger[/spoiler]

You can download off the attachment bellow.

(NOTE: THE HACK IS KNOWN TO NOT WORK ON SOME EMULATORS, SUCH AS NESTOPIA. IT IS MOST RECOMMENDED YOU PLAY THIS ON FCEUX OR MESEN.)

Special thanks:
Snarfblam - advice, the + Saving patch, disassembly, HealyTile ASM, and among other things
Metconst Discord - lots of advice and very helpful people. Consult them if you want to try Metroid ROM Hacking of any kind yourself.

Hope you enjoy!

If you want to leave feedback of any kind, post a reply. This was made in a rush, so if anything's off, just point it out.

[Flower]

I could help you with the Healy hurty asm code,at least to the point which i have successfully implemented :
Got it to work, also for varying amount of door tiles plus i could get missile refill to work.
Just pm me in case i shall lend a hand.

Good to see another Metroid Hack! Good Luck! =)
Like the approach of degraded zero mission.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

I could help you with the Healy hurty asm code,at least to the point which i have successfully implemented :
Got it to work, also for varying amount of door tiles plus i could get missile refill to work.
Just pm me in case i shall lend a hand.

Good to see another Metroid Hack! Good Luck! =)
Like the approach of degraded zero mission.

Does your hack use the + Saving patch by Snarf? The issue is that in that patch, the address used for the new code in the healy tile ASM is used by the + Saving patch in order to allow saving (since that address is related to an unused save system). If it does, you can tell me to which new address you directed it to. If not, then thanks anyway.

[Flower]

I could help you with the Healy hurty asm code,at least to the point which i have successfully implemented :
Got it to work, also for varying amount of door tiles plus i could get missile refill to work.
Just pm me in case i shall lend a hand.

Good to see another Metroid Hack! Good Luck! =)
Like the approach of degraded zero mission.

Does your hack use the + Saving patch by Snarf? The issue is that in that patch, the address used for the new code in the healy tile ASM is used by the + Saving patch in order to allow saving (since that address is related to an unused save system). If it does, you can tell me to which new address you directed it to. If not, then thanks anyway.

Quite honestly, that's the exact same problem i also have. I wasn't yet able to identify usable memory for both, and furthermore i am not even sure if there is enough memory to allocate without further expansion.
If you have success implementing both, please tell me. I do vice versa if i am successful.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

UPDATE: The Norfair Update is out, which not only adds in Norfair, but it also adds in a minimap and walljump to the game. HUZZAH!

Now all that's left is that damned healy tiles code.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates, it's because I'm back to school and 10th grade has been a bit of a trainwreck. As for the progress on the game, I've got a mix of both good and bad news (spoilers: the hack isn't cancelled or anything)

As for the good news, I've already finished the tileset for both Kraid's and Ridley's lair. This means that I can start desigining the levels soon.

Unfortunately, it's going to take a looooong while, before any progress gets made. Since I'm working on two areas, this means it's gonna take a lot of time, which I don't have much of because school and life and whatnot.

However, another reason for this long development cycle is actually good news. I'm working on something huge for a while now. No, it has nothing to do with fancy ASM (although I still need to work on that Healy Tile thing; already found a location for it (BF56-BFA6 in every level bank houses enough space, but it still keeps crashing :mad:)), but it's still impressive. However, in order to achieve such impressiveness, I gotta dedicate more time to tile placement. As for any idea of what it is, it's a surprise, but I'll give you a hint:
[spoiler]It's gonna be huge.[/spoiler]

As for any additional bad news, I still have no idea how to implement Healy Tiles (as I said). I still have to check what causes it to reset (I have zero idea on using a debugger or a trace logger, so it's gonna take a while), just to clarify where the issue is and hope I or at least someone can fix it.

Anyways, I hope this clarifies a lot, and leave a comment about whether you thought the Norfair Demo was good or not.

[rokim21]

Will there be any gameplay changes? It would be incredible to be able to shoot down.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

Will there be any gameplay changes? It would be incredible to be able to shoot down.

While I lack the ability to add diagonal or downwards aim, there's already a few quality of life changes in the demo, like a corner map, save system, wall jumping, and other things here and there. It would have proper recovery stations if I could figure out how to add the ASM. But what's there for now is good enough.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

1. Updated the patch a bit, to fix a few sprites, add in a proper game over and the option to choose black or colored backgrounds
2. I have a thread on romhacking.net of the project! (click here to check it out!)

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

It's been a while since I've posted on here so let me just sum it up: I just started recently to rebuild the entire ROM hack from scratch. This means that I am manually importing each and every screen in the Demo ROM + the screens I was working on into a fresh new ROM, due to the fact that the original ROM I was working on was screwed up (to explain, any further additional ASM would just cause the ROM to reset everytime I start up the game, which is a huge issue, not just because of the HealyTiles ASM, but because of how I also designed the tilesets of Kraid's Lair and Tourian). This is gonna take a while because not only am I rebuilding everything, I am also making good use of the situation and reorganizing everything to be a bit cleaner graphics-wise and properly redesign Brinstar. Fret not, though, this will take a while, but it's for the better. I'm currently waiting until Grimlock releases his new version of the Editroid software, and that will help a ton, since that version includes most of the Rogue Dawn ASM, which is exactly what I need (except for slopes, but I assume I can remove that bit of code from the .proj file). If you're wondering why I haven't been updating, that's probably why. But, don't worry, I'll try and find ways to speed up the process (I think I can use the Hex editor to copy the level data of one ROM to another, so that's a plus). Anyways, hope you have a wonderful summer, and I promise to make sure this ROM hack gets eventually finished. In the meantime, have the reorganized tilesets.



Any green blocks means that it's unused space, because I'm uncertain on what to add in. Either way, I hope this satisfies a bit in the meantime.

[Flower]

It's been a while since I've posted on here so let me just sum it up: I just started recently to rebuild the entire ROM hack from scratch. This means that I am manually importing each and every screen in the Demo ROM + the screens I was working on into a fresh new ROM, due to the fact that the original ROM I was working on was screwed up (to explain, any further additional ASM would just cause the ROM to reset everytime I start up the game, which is a huge issue, not just because of the HealyTiles ASM, but because of how I also designed the tilesets of Kraid's Lair and Tourian). This is gonna take a while because not only am I rebuilding everything, I am also making good use of the situation and reorganizing everything to be a bit cleaner graphics-wise and properly redesign Brinstar. Fret not, though, this will take a while, but it's for the better. I'm currently waiting until Grimlock releases his new version of the Editroid software, and that will help a ton, since that version includes most of the Rogue Dawn ASM, which is exactly what I need (except for slopes, but I assume I can remove that bit of code from the .proj file). If you're wondering why I haven't been updating, that's probably why. But, don't worry, I'll try and find ways to speed up the process (I think I can use the Hex editor to copy the level data of one ROM to another, so that's a plus). Anyways, hope you have a wonderful summer, and I promise to make sure this ROM hack gets eventually finished. In the meantime, have the reorganized tilesets.



Any green blocks means that it's unused space, because I'm uncertain on what to add in. Either way, I hope this satisfies a bit in the meantime.

I exactly know what you mean, as that is exactly what i'll do as well, importing work from the old rom to a fresh MMC3-ROM. This will be worth the wait for sure.
For the point that you don't want to have slopes (am actually wondering why, i think they're awesome), you can rather easily fix them out with editroid 4's physics editor. so no problem there.
The tilesets look nice and reminiscent to ZM, good work!
Let's just hope the copy process will be manageable.

[DemonicSamus]

Absolutely phenomenal work! I cant wait to play the finished game.

I really hope you get the healy/hurty blocks to work, I could see someone saying it makes the game to easy but I feel it will mostly just reduce grinding.

I've played through it twice and have a few thoughts. First have you thought about making adjustments in the pacing? Like replacing the first ice beam with a missile to force players to go to Norfair to get it. Also you could adjust the spacing of the rippers in the shaft leading to the Varia suit room to require players to get the high jump boots first. Maybe place a small ledge protruding form the wall in that shaft just under the door to prevent wall climbing as well.

Some other ares I thought could use some adjustments would be. Perhaps make it hard to get through room 19,03 without high jump. I also feel that room 1c,0a could use some adjusting it is a little tricky to freeze both rippers and get on them and bomb jump up before they thaw out. I found getting the missile in room 13,16 to be frustrating.

One other thought would be that if you get Healy/hurty to work there is a setting to hurt Samus unless she has Varia suit. That might be implemented in Norfair to prevent player from going anywhere other than the Highjump boots and the ice beam until they get Varia.

I also noticed Rooms 1d, 12 – 14 tend to make the game glitch out, I think that stems from having two vertical areas next to each other.

I personally feel that the missiles in rooms 0e,01 and 18,05 could be hidden in new areas, it kind of feels unrewarding to get them in the pipe, but that's just me.

I'm also wondering if you are going to attempt to make it so you can pick up and care all eight energy tanks? I think its possible but I know it screws up the low health beep.

Is there any way to increase the size of the map screen when paused?

And finally is there any way to actually save the game in the recovery rooms? Maybe tricking the game by making it think there is an elevator or something like that.

Well anyway it is very impressive and I look forward to updates.

[DannyPlaysSomeGames]

I know I've been extremely silent on this project for a really long while and you're probably curious on the status of the project, so I'll keep it brief:

Good news: Finally found a way to implement all the ASM I was trying to figure out how to implement :thumbsup:
Bad news: Due to said way, I am forced to rebuild the ROM from scratch again :banghead:

But, at the very least, I am more likely to make progress because the major road bumps that were in the way are now pretty much gone basically.

Though, this also leads to another issue: organizing. Everything right now is somewhat of a cluttered mess because of how rough it all is right now. Hopefully, this shouldn't delay me an awful lot, but it's still something that's in the way. Hopefully, this project can be finished eventually, now that the major issues that were in the way are gone, I've recovered from the burnout I had a while back, and school's finally slowed down a bit, I can work on it more from time to time, though looking at it right now, I might not be able to finish this year (probably January or February would be a better estimate, but again, it's an estimate, not a firm date). Oh well, late or not, I'll try to make sure the project is finished.

[DemonicSamus]

Happy to hear you are making progress. I am excited to see your next build.