Super Alien

[CharlesAverill]

Hi I'm new here. I only got into the Metroid franchise earlier this summer when I picked up Fusion, and then I worked my way to Super Metroid, which I immediately became obsessed with. I had already known that the series was somewhat influenced by the Alien movie franchise, and recently I had the idea to make a hack that plays through the storyline of Alien. It's appealing to someone as busy as me because 90% of the level design comes from the movies, and the game can be pretty straightforward and linear.

The problems I've encountered so far are:

• My normal computer is a Mac and SMILE doesn't seem to work on any version of WINE (and any version of SMILE doesn't seem to work on WINE). VirtualBox always gives me the fatal error and I can't find any free versions of Windows for BootCamp. I have access to a Windows desktop about 3 days a week, but I also have work and school to deal with, so no matter what the development time would be very, very long.
• I don't have a lot of experience with SM hacking. I did a birthday hack for my sister a few weeks ago but I didn't bother editing door connections, adding extra maps, etc.
• I feel like I'd be using the Ceres palette 90% of the time, which doesn't seem very interesting. I'd like to edit palettes as well but I have no idea how to even go about doing that.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say. I'd love to hear advice on the process from those experienced in it, tips on making a movie storyline flow in a game without text, or any other miscellaneous comments on the idea (I think it's my idea, I did some searching but couldn't find anyone with this same concept). Maybe someone on here would want to work with me on this?

Thank you!

[MetroidNerd#9001]

Hello, and welcome to the hacking community! The first piece of advice that anyone will give you here is to read the Super Metroid Mod Manual in its entirety. It will answer a lot of the basic questions that most hackers have. Palette editing can be done from within the graphics editor, which is within SMILE. If you want to edit the actual graphics, you will need to use Tile Layer Pro.

You have an interesting concept for a hack, just be warned that hacking is a very time-consuming task, especially if you can only use a Windows computer 3 days a week. It is also especially hard to make big ambitious projects work as a first hack, unless you are willing to devote a lot of time to it, but even so, I'd recommend starting with something smaller to learn how to fully use SMILE first, then come back to it as your second or third project. Either way, good luck with everything! I hope to see the kinds of things you can make!

SMMM: http://www.metroidconstruction.com/SMMM/

TLP: http://metroidconstruction.com/resource.php?id=64

Edit: As my signature says, it is integral that you never forget to make backups of your hacks while you are making them. You will save yourself so much grief down the road if you make backups about every 30 minutes while working, or before making major changes. (Like applying a hex tweak or patch, or changing graphics.) Also important, download a Hex editor if you have not already.