Post Hack Scrubs Contest

[Quote58]

Looks like it's time for another contest metconst, so let's get to it.
This one is being brought to you by the 'Post Hack' committee, which consists of GFKennon, Jordan5, Oneof99, and DSO.

POST HACK SCRUBS
The next contest has arrived!
This contest is focused around non-linearity as Samus travels to all corners of the universe to scrub evil!

When:
June 1st to September 14th August 14th (with judging finishing on August 30th)

The rules are as follows:

• At least three items required to beat the game must be collectable in any order. Our hope is that the player can choose their own route and this adds an aspect of replayability to the hack. (Also interesting blind races YEAH)
• The theme is cleaning, and one of the most notable things about soaps is bubbles. Therefore, bubbles must be incorporated into the hack.
• Major items involved should be renamed to cleaning products, points will be given for the cleaning theme. Don't fall into the bleach without your rubber gloves!

The area of interest when it comes to scoring and voting are as follows:

• How well are rules 1-3 implemented (i.e. don't just put 3 major items all next to each other in one room) (9 points, 3 points per rule)
• How good the hack looks and feels to play (10 points)
• Was the testing done sufficient? How many minor and major bugs were there (5 points)

All of these hacks must be beatable, which means you have to be able to get to the credits screen.
(Squishy's endgame bts)

Now, get to it and POST HACK.

[Jiffy]

I promise I won't change the physics this time.  :yay:

[Mar99troid]

At least three items required to beat the game must be collectable in any order.

Do the three items all have to be all collectible, even though you can get one copy of the item elsewhere? For example, what if I place morph ball two times, three missile containers and one grapple beam. Does it still count if the player can only collect one morph ball, the grapple and all three missile containers (or only one/two) in any order?

[DSO]

Just wanted to post and bump this as a reminder:
August 14th is the final day to submit your hack. 5 days remain!

[Mar99troid]

Metroid Fusion C.L.E.A.N.S. [Version 1.0]
by Mar99troid "Spacepiratehacker54"

EDIT: THIS IS THE OLD VERSION. I RECOMMEND GETTING VERSION 1.1.

*Uploading the hack now, because I likely won't have any time during the next week for other edits.*

I'm happy to announce that this hack is finally finished and I was able to make my vision
of this hack I had, when the contest theme became public, come true. This is probably going
to be the only Fusion Hack in this contest, but I thought it's a nice
challenge to make an unlinear game out of a linear one, so I really
wanted to do this. While working on this I learned a lot about Assembly
Language and hacking GBAtroids, therefore I'm definitely not regretting working on this project.

Story:
[spoiler]While flying through space with her ship, Samus suddenly received an order
from a strange witty AI. It turns out the AI controls a huge space facility called C.L.E.A.N.S. .
The station is invaded by strange "dirty" lifeforms. Samus now has to put an end to this,
so biological research can be conducted on the ship once again.
[/spoiler]

What is this hack about?:
[spoiler]This hack is built in a way that you can take whatever path you want to
complete the game, there are multiple routes and lots of secrets, I recommend
this hack to people who have fun finding the best approach for speedruns or
those, who like exploration. However, there are no save or refil stations no refill stations (saves added in V1.1),
except Samus' ship (If you really REALLY want to save, then do it there.
I could have disabled ship saving, but I'm not THAT mean. :lol:),
since this game is really short and I think leaving
them out is better to give the hack more of an old arcade game feeling, like one
sitting and that's it, but there's more, if you take your time and beat
it more often. Three kinds of upgrades can be collected in any order, the forth one requires
two other upgrades and the rest is a secret for now, so have fun exploring!
[/spoiler]

The Assembly:
[spoiler]Making Fusion unlinear takes way more code than I expected. For example, the event music
is really annoying to work with and it turns out that the event counter is really key
for everything: bosses, items, door locks...
Still working on this was a real pleasure overall and in the future I might release some
Assembly files on the forums and the fruits of my research on this game, because I really
want Fusion to be more accessible to other hackers since it would be my favourite 2D-Metroid game if
Super Metroid didn't exist.[/spoiler]

The Testing:
[spoiler]Because I really didn't have that much time, there are many routes to take and I was the only tester,
some things still might not work correctly. If you happen to find a bug that's not already listed under
"Known Bugs" then please tell me (if possible before the contest ends). I'll update the hack if I can.[/spoiler]

Before you play:
1.Pressing down and the jump button at the same time allows you to use ladders from above.
2.Pressing the start button after the demos played brings you back to the title screen.
3.Continuous wall-jumping on one wall (hack patched to allow this) and mid-air morph ball are techniques required
to beat this hack.
4.Sometimes it might seem like advanced techniques (like jump extent) are required to progress. However
there will almost always be another alternate route to take. Search around, if
you aren't that skilled, and you may find another way.
5."Sequence breaking", if you can call it like that, is not only possible, but requested (that's what
this hack was made for, multiple solutions can lead you on the right path)

Some Screenies:




Known Bugs (nothing gamebreaking and no softlocks so far, phew):
[spoiler]1.Water GFX:
Sometimes the water in room 9 (the lowest room on the map) glitches
out and orange dots appear over it

2.Fusion and its event music:
The game uses event music which "overrules" all the music which is
supposed to play in the room instead. To prevent this, I wrote
a code, which writes 1F 58 00 00 00 00 at offset 0x30019DD.
This works for the most part of the game, until you defeat the
charge beam x core and leave the room (in the vanilla game after
leaving the room Sector 1's music (0x4) plays and is prioritized).
Instead of the music, that is supposed to play, the navigation room music plays, for the rest
of the game. After leaving the room again the nav music and the
music supposed to be played are mixed up and that of course
sounds really odd. However, there's a fix. Apparently the item
fanfare (or any fanfare in particular) somehow tells the music
engine to stop being dumb, the nav music disappears and everything
is back to normal. This means after defeating the boss I have to force
the player to collect an item so everything becomes normal again.
I have wasted hours on a solution to this, but to no avail.
If someone knows what happens exactly in the RAM when an item is
collected or if you have any knowledge about how the game handles
event music and fanfares then please tell me.
Even Cpt. Glitch and Biospark couldn't help me, so I guess this
is still unexplored territory. For now the code I wrote after
putting in days of research has to suffice I guess (it isn't perfect
and the music might eventually be screwed up at some points, but with
my code and edits it's at least acceptable)

3.Escape Timer GFX:
The Escape Timer will glitch out if a message is displayed because
the timer and almost all message boxes use up the same gfx row. I tried
fixing this wherever possible, but since all rooms should still be able to be
entered during the escape scene it's impossible to come up with a full fix,
so please understand.

4.Ending Percentage:
I've hadn't had time to program a routine calculating the ending
percentage yet, so that would also be one thing to do. For now, if you got 28%,
you got everything.
   -699 Energy
   -85 Missiles
   -24 Power Bombs
26 Power Bombs
5.Demos:
I only made 3 demos because I was lazy. The other ones may not look good, but they don't
break the game (don't initiate a game over).[/spoiler]

WARNING/SPOILER:
[spoiler]This hack contains content not safe for work, in form
of graphics which show partial nudity and maybe some
language. Player discretion is advised![/spoiler]

Credit goes to:
   [spoiler]

• Biospark (I copied and modified a part of his code for the endgame activation routine,
  to make it work for specific coordinates and he also helped me with some stuff, like the Samus' spawn point when
          saving the game using the ship)
• Interdpth (for finding out how to activate the meltdown alarm)
• Cpt. Glitch (for helping me while learning assembly)

[/spoiler]


What I did entirely (or almost entirely) myself (SPOILERS!):
   [spoiler]Writing code for...
       

• hijacking the main game loop (EXTREMELY useful!!!)
• skipping the pre-title scene
• giving upgrades to Samus, under certain conditions
• preventing the event music to play (sort of)
• changing the physics depending on the room and area

   and also (of course) editing graphics and working on the hack with MAGE[/spoiler]

GFX Credits (SPOILERS!):
   [spoiler]-Super Mario Sunshine Sprites (Spriter's Resource)
      Sprites ripped by Bacon & Rogultgot, Edited by Flare
   -Sci-Fi Gates by nicnubill-d7qctin
   -Minecraft mat-iron mat-reinforcedglass
   -Kirby Squeak Squad - Doc (HAL, Nintendo)
   -Metroid Zero Mission - Mothership
   -Metal Slug Advance - Final Mission - Part 1: Outskirts
   -Kirby Super Star Ultra - Halberd
      Ripped by Nonnie Grey and spritesandfights (Spriter's Resource)
   -973982 - A-Z@Tamamon Metroid Samus Aran, "Samus barbara stephanie victoria aran" (Geldroid Wiki)
   -i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/853/462/df7.png
   -tsukemon love r18, santa festal presents 2016 SUMMER, Kafuu Chino 2038223 (zerochan.net)
   -Kongou (Kantai Collection) full 1960408 (zerochan.net)
   -Free shipping Touhou Alice Margatroid Hugging Pillow, UT8sS9DXiXbXXagOFbXJ.jpg (www.aliexpress.com)
   ...and some other generic google pics with scaled down resolution,less colors, etc...[/spoiler]

Anyway, this post was way too long. Just play and enjoy already!
Donwload is attached. (You need to patch Metroid Fusion U)

[Mar99troid]

Metroid Fusion C.L.E.A.N.S. [Version 1.1]

LOOK AT POST OF VERSION 1.0 FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE HACK

-Implementation of two saves after it has been requested so many times (Discord, Forums,...)
-Damage dealt by enemies is reduced a little bit
-Tiling errors in bleach pool and softlock in secret power bomb shaft fixed
-Made the room with the purple liquid more bearable and less wierd
-Entry to escape route more visible
-A new room in the mysterious maze (nothing special)

Even if you've beaten the hack already, I'd kindly ask you to try it again, because firstly it'll be less frustrating now and secondly it's impossible to visit all rooms in one sitting and I've got the feeling not many have found the secret rooms and some hidden messages yet.
So have fun exploring!

Update on 100%:
-699 energy
-85 missiles
-26 powerbombs

Download is attached, use Metroid Fusion U.

[Crystal_Knight]

Super Metroid: Space Junk

Story:
     At some point in galactic history a powerful company purchased a beautiful plot in space. They used this plot to build The Space Grand Resort and Spa. However, there was one tiny, maybe large issue. There was a space junkyard(?) within view of the resort, and ruined the view. How were customers going to enjoy their stay at the resort with such a hideous view (that the owners of the resort somehow did not notice while the resort was being built). The answer was simple. Buyout the space junkyard(?) and have it cleaned up (blown up). The resort sent out men to try doing just this, but a mysterious force was keeping of the timebombs from going off. The company was at a loss as how to clean up (destroy) the junkyard. That is, until an intern of the janitor spoke up during a meeting, "I have heard tales of a bounty hunter that blows up almost every planet she visits doing her job." Because of this intern Samus received a very simple job--clean up (blow up) the space junkyard(?), and find out why the other timebombs were not blowing up.

Info:

• You will not NEED any advanced techniques to beat the hack
• This is my largest hack to date by far
• The main tileset is drawn by myself. The CRE tileset is a modified version of the original
• Respin is a thing

The 3 items you can get in any order
[spoiler]

• Hi-Jump
• Grapple Beam
• Varia Suit

[/spoiler]

Item Totals
[spoiler]

• 95 Missiles
• 7 E-Tanks
• 10 Super Missiles
• 15 Power Bombs

[/spoiler]

edit: updated ips file to fix minor map bug
edit 2: updated ips to fix a BG bug due to roomstates. I really should get myself a tester...

[liamnajor]

Metroid 2: Metroid Purge

The space pirate collection team from sr388 were (predictably) destroyed en route home because of a containment breach, crashing into an asteroid. Years later, the GF has detected their cargo, and Samus must once again infiltrate the hive to purge the Metroids and their queen before they spread...

screenshots:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]

screenshot 2 is 100% complete

[Ing-ing]

Ing-ing presents...


SYMPHONY OF SOAP



The Ordinary City is under attack by the evil forces of spikes, bubble-sludge and vegetation.
Samus was doing her grocery shopping, when suddenly the bridge was out. Now she has to
fight through the city and clean it from the evil creatures, but more importantly, she
has to find a ship so that she can take her groceries home.

Something something blah blah hack ips

[Jiffy]

Alright, August 14th is officially over!
That's a nice variety of hacks. 2 GBA hacks, the first (real) Metroid 2 contest hack, and only 1 Super Metroid hack?!
Thank you for submitting your contest hacks, and the POST HACK committee will be looking through your hacks and cleaning the mess! Final results will be posted August 30th.
Here are all of the contest hacks:

Metroid Fusion C.L.E.A.N.S - By Mar99troid

Super Metroid Space Junk - By Crystal_Knight

Metroid 2 - Metroid Purge - By Liamnajor

Metroid Zero Mission - SYMPHONY OF SOAP - By Ing_Ing

Discussion for these hacks can be posted in these threads, but do remember to keep things in spoilers. Also, please upload your hack to the site if you haven't already.

[Jiffy]

I need to remind you all that voting/reviews must be posted in this thread, and spoilers/discussion are taking it over, even if unintentionally. I shall move all discussion posts to a new thread here, while voting/reviews for the hacks can be done in this thread.

[OneOf99]

Judging by OneOf99

MF Clean
[spoiler]
+ Great idea with clorox as acid and dirt as x-parasites
+ Blue space area had a neat gimmick, especially when it came to climbing and wall jumping
+ Several good rooms with good room design, shame that there were fewer of these and more of just hard platforming

- A lot of very basic tilesets, probably should have just recolored fusion tilesets
- Extremely unforgiving, and not in a challenging way. The escape sequence is extremely hard and a lot of enemies can near one shot you
- Seems that the creator did not know about room scroll boundaries, as there are several walls (and even doors) outside of the camera's view[/spoiler]

Space Junk
[spoiler]
+ Good distribution of items across the map and telegraphing what is needed for areas
+ Bosses were fair, and Phantoon had a very nice palette
+ Graphics were top notch, sub-areas felt very distinct and unique

- Music was chosen well but ended being quite repetitive. You can only hear so much maridia before you go mad
- The E-tanks were too well hidden at the beginning, should have had one out in the open just to give the player some breathing room
- A lot of backtracking with little shortcuts. I went through the same halls well over 6 times while looking for one item[/spoiler]

Symphony of Soap
[spoiler]+ Graphics were nice
+ Speedboost jump was interesting and utilized many times, so it didn't feel *too* gimmicky
+ Deorem was easy idk what everyone else is talking about

- The difficulty was too high in some areas, with constricting hallways preventing you from passing without damage
- Softlock at Kiru Giru if you visit his room a second time. Seems like it should have been an easy catch. I was required to ram-edit in order to continue without a complete file reset
- Ending sequence was underwhelming
- Items were either underwhelming or too hidden. Morph ball is a big offender[/spoiler]

M2: Purge
[spoiler]
+ Interesting concept, it played fine and didn't have any major glitches

- Repetitive rooms, items gotten don't really affect where you go
- Some minor text errors[/spoiler]

Total Scoring
[spoiler]

Hack Name	Items	Bubbles	Theme	Gameplay	Bugs	Total
M2: Purge	1	3	1	4	4	13/24
Symphony	1	3	2	5	3	14/24
MF: Clean	2	3	3	6	4	18/24
Space Junk	3	3	3	8	5	22/24

[/spoiler]

[Jordan5]

  _____   ____   _____ _______   _    _          _____ _  __           _____            _                   
|  __ \ / __ \ / ____|__   __| | |  | |   /\   / ____| |/ /          |  __ \          (_)                 
| |__) | |  | | (___    | |    | |__| |  /  \ | |    | ' /   ______  | |__) |_____   ___  _____      _____
|  ___/| |  | |\___ \   | |    |  __  | / /\ \| |    |  <   |______| |  _  // _ \ \ / / |/ _ \ \ /\ / / __|
| |    | |__| |____) |  | |    | |  | |/ ____ \ |____| . \           | | \ \  __/\ V /| |  __/\ V  V /\__ \
|_|     \____/|_____/   |_|    |_|  |_/_/    \_\_____|_|\_\          |_|  \_\___| \_/ |_|\___| \_/\_/ |___/                                                                                                           

-----MF C.L.E.A.N.S-----
[spoiler]
+ Excellent item names
+ Fits theme very well
+ Minimal Nav rooms
- Did the station run out of budget for more save rooms?
- High difficulty for anyone who doesn't play a lot of fusion (and even then...)
- Scrolls/offscreen stuff [/spoiler]

-----SM Space Junk-----
[spoiler]
+ Good item names
+ Fits theme well
+ Very open ended, everyone seemed to play a different way (where the hell were the first PBs?)
+ Fun to play and get lost in (anhd not too big for that to be a problem)
- Some things hidden perhaps a little too well
- Permastucks, man.
[/spoiler]

-----ZM Symphony of Soap-----
[spoiler]
+ Interesting mechanics
+ Solid theme
+ Clear choice of paths made things interesting for item progression
- The final boss was made frustrating due to the physics, rather than anything else[/spoiler]

-----M2 Metroid Purge-----
[spoiler]
+ Lots of bubbles
+ Impressive for M2
- Plenty of bugs
- No change in item names (Do we even know how to do this yet?)
- Did you do the items thing? You don't need to kill the metroids to get to the queen and you probably don't need much equipment to kill her if you #gitgud (Which I did not)[/spoiler]


Scores:
[spoiler]

Hack Name	Items	Bubbles	Theme	Gameplay	Bugs	Total
M2: Purge	1	3	1	4	3	12/24
Symphony	2	3	2	5	4	16/24
MF: Clean	2	3	3	3	4	16/24
Space Junk	3	3	3	9	2	21/24

[/spoiler]

[GF_Kennon]

Reviews!

Metroid Purge
[spoiler]
+ Everything is bubbles
~ Its hard to not have some repetative rooms in M2 but there were a few here
~ Maybe its just M2 but I managed to get a lot of garbled graphics
- Go to Queen, go directly to queen, do not pass go, do not collect 200 Missiles
[/spoiler]

Space Junk
[spoiler]
+ The item names tickled me good
+ Theme was good, I particually liked all the little bits of junk scattered in the background tiles.
+ Good graphics

- Maridia music did eventually start grating on me a tad
[/spoiler]

C.L.E.A.N.S
[spoiler]
+ The theme was pretty great
+ Good graphics
+ Good item names

- Maybe I just need to "Git Gud" but it was a bit too hard for me.
- Offscreen stuff
[/spoiler]

Symphony of Soap
[spoiler]
+ Good consistent theme
+ The speedboost jump was a pretty interesting mechanic

- I know I need to "Git Gud" but difficulty got a bit hard for me in places
[/spoiler]

Scores!
[spoiler]

Hack Name	Items	Bubbles	Theme	Gameplay	Bugs	Total
Metroid Purge	1	3	1	3	3	11/24
Space Junk	3	3	3	7	4	20/24
C.L.E.A.N.S	2	3	3	4	4	16/24
Symphony of Soap	2	3	3	5	4	17/24

[/spoiler]

[liamnajor]

- No change in item names (Do we even know how to do this yet?)

I did not until 4 days ago, which is long after the contest ended

[DSO]

Metroid Purge

[spoiler]
The first time I've played M2 and it's a hack. Took a little getting used to. Lots of bubbles, but unfortunately the choice of game limited what you could do as far as theme and it felt a little buggy. I still enjoyed it overall, maybe I'll finally play M2. Thank you very much for the contribution![/spoiler]

C.L.E.A.N.S

[spoiler]
This was my first time playing Fusion on an emulator and my gameplay experience suffered as I struggled to get through this one and resorted to savestates as I was getting too frustrated. You made good use of the theme, how much did chlorox pay you?
Also semi-angryfirephysics. I liked the concept of being outside the ship, but navigation just felt slow and clunky, especially when I was forced to try and maneuver around enemies (especially when they're below and you can't see them until you're right on top of them).
[/spoiler]

Space Junk

[spoiler]
I definitely enjoyed Space Junk. All that junk in the tileset looked a little funky, but considering the nature of the contest it fit pretty well. A solid entry.
[/spoiler]

$ymphony of $oap

[spoiler]
Unlike Fusion, I actually have played Zero Mission on emulator before, so getting into this one wasn't so hard...
Except I kept falling down during the MMX intro for ten minutes.
This one ended up being my favorite I played in the end. I didn't quite feel it got the theme as well as Space Junk or C.L.E.A.N.S, but I really enjoyed the music, the Imago resprite, the mix of MMX tiles, and the 'new gameplay mechanic'. Ending was a little wierd though. Boss wasn't too tough (I just took damage from the ripper)
[/spoiler]

My scoresheet:
[spoiler]

Hack Name	Items	Bubbles	Theme	Gameplay	Bugs	Total
Metroid Purge	1	3	1	5	2	12/24
Space Junk	3	3	3	7	3	19/24
C.L.E.A.N.S	2	2	3	3	3	13/24
Symphony of Soap	3	2	2	9	4	20/24

[/spoiler]

[Jiffy]

The results are in!

• Super Metroid: Space Junk (82 points)
• Metroid Fusion C.L.E.A.N.S (69 points)
• Symphony of Soap (67 points)
• Metroid 2: Metroid Purge (48 points)

Well done for entering guys, and well done to Crystal_Knight for winning his second contest in a row!

Post Hack Scrubs contest is wrapped up, and I thank Quote, the post hack committee and the contest board for the co-operation. See you next mission.  :wink:

[Jordan5]

Thanks for your entries everyone! We had four great hacks from four different games - exactly what the competition is about. I'm impressed by how much you were all able to do in the time, even if I was a scrub and died a lot.

Congrats to Crystal_Knight for cleaning up, you managed to make a hack that fits the theme perfectly and was fun-to-play with a great tileset.

We've had two good contests from the committees, now it's time for you guys :nod: