Orphan Moon (Metroid Hack)

[doc_remedy]

So a few years ago I started posting about a ROM hack I was working on titled Metroid: Lab-X.  Since then there has been a huge overhaul and the actual title is Orphan Moon.

I redrew almost every graphic in the game, including sprites as well as new music, levels and story that would fit as canon.

The premise:  Sometime after the destruction of Zebes, it's large moon has been found adrift, now in orbit around host star FS-176 and Metroid life has been detected.  Upon landing to inspect this, you find strange genetic alterations to lifeforms that were native to Zebes and scans suggest they have been fused with Metroid DNA, perhaps to weaponize them?

I ended up recomposing ALL the original music AGAIN in my DAW and will be releasing it (as it has no IP and I made it) as the Orphan Moon (Recomposed Game Soundtrack) and when that goes live everywhere, I'll drop the IPS patch for the ROM hack as well for everyone to play!

Here is a zip of some sprites and graphics in the attached .zip

[RT-55J]

Nice. Really glad to see you kept working on this. Looking forward to the finished game.

[doc_remedy]

I'm hoping to have it on a few ROM sites by March 1st because I also re-did all the music in my DAW and will be releasing that as the Orphan Moon (Recomposed Game Soundtrack) on March 1st, naturally because I'm an artist / musician first and foremost before any of this came into play.

Here is the official promo video, as the links come active I'll add them to the YouTube description!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Xr8H4lzJA

[RT-55J]

This looks very fresh. I'm excited to play it soon!

[altoiddealer]

All I have to say is, whoa  :whoa:

[nodever2]

This looks amazing. Did you draw the detailed pictures of Samus Aran, Necrol Feather, and Chozotroid? I love them.

[doc_remedy]

Yes and no. So full transparency is that although I used to draw heavily when I was younger, for these I initially generated a few AI concepts early on to see what it's take would be on certain keywords and features that fit my in-game character designs. None of these are those genersted images exactly, but they were retraced in some parts, recolored and tweaked a bit in various layers using photoshop before deleting the original layers behind them all.

So that's the real answer 😆

[doc_remedy]

Attached is the official Readme file for the game.  I'm excited and scared to see what the world thinks of this!

Here is the complete .zip of the IPS and extra bonus graphic folder with artwork and the complete game map from my dropbox, I also submitted the IPS patch to this site, delete if this link is not allowed.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/achzqe2ncotyomv23330j/Orphan-Moon-IPS-Patch.zip?rlkey=o3hz3bpvzn0oa38ja2lloto1i&dl=0

Here is the link to to map itself from my dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e22329f7zkwpzko1kgi2e/Orphan-Moon_Official-Map.png?rlkey=19w0wbb1qaisb2pxfg5egppgy&dl=0

Attached below is the .zip for the IPS and Readme

[P.Yoshi]

Congrats on the release, Doc! I'm excited to try it!

[RT-55J]

Daaaaang. Two new hacks within a day of each other? Now we're talkin'!

[doc_remedy]

What's the other? I'd love to check it out!  Also I hope I submitted everything right here haha

[RT-55J]

The other hack was neen's gossamer for Super Metroid.

The most common reason a submission isn't accepted (besides the approvers being lazy) is that the download link doesn't work. The site needs to be able to fetch the download directly from the link without any nonsense CAPTCHAs or other crud getting in the way (idk why we can't just upload files directly). The easiest way to do this is to link to a forum attachment here (or a Discord attachment).

You should also double check to make sure your screenshots work.

[doc_remedy]

Thanks, I'll be grabbing that too!  My hack is live on two ROM hacking sites and all the descriptions in the youtube promo have been updated!

[Kyouken]

Hey doc_remedy, loving the hack so far. The fresh coat of paint and music is great.

I'm running into a couple of problems early on that I wonder if it's the emulator I'm using or the version of the game I've used.
I'm using Mesen with Metroid (U) (PRG0) [!].

The first one is a softlock that probably isn't unique to my setup:
[spoiler]I managed to get up above the crumble blocks on the left and behind the blue column without the bombs, so I couldn't get out.

[/spoiler]

The second, third, and fourth item are things that make me think I need a different emulator/game version?
[spoiler]Two for one: I started with 7/10 missiles, picked up a missile drop from an enemy, and I'm capped at 5 now? I also opened this door before, and the game didn't remember.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Found this one by accident; the bombs respawned?

[/spoiler]

The file screen remembers my pickups fine:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

If you think I should use a different emulator/version, let me know. Otherwise I'll keep going.

[doc_remedy]

First off, a HUGE thanks for testing this out! I'll go through your list in order:

1. Impressive that you got that energy tank hidden in the ceiling without the bombs lol That's definitely a soft lock as you should have the bombs but how the heck did you get up there?  As I said, that's impressive!

2. I'm not sure why picking up 2 missile drops is capping you at 5, that makes me scratch my head, a lot.  As far as the doors, I did turn off the memory for MOST doors in the game to make it more challenging, so THAT part is intentional at least.

3. The bombs re-spawning confuse me too, I'll have to try a few other emulators to see if that happens, even though it doesn't really do anything, it's super odd!

Thanks for testing this out as they are all things I didn't run into so I'll make a list of bugs for a possible updated version in the future.

[Kyouken]

Having fun with it so far!

For the softlock, I didn't actually get up to the Energy Tank up there. You can shoot the crumble blocks to the left from the underside and jump up behind the column.

The missile issue might just be with one tank early on - it's as if I've collected it and I haven't collected it at the same time (Schrödinger's missile tank?) I've collected a few more tanks and, on the save screen, it's listed correctly, but in-game, it's as if I'm missing a tank. Good to know about the doors though! That does make it challenging.

Bombs thing definitely isn't an issue gameplay-wise. If I notice other things like that or design-wise, I'll try to make note of them.

I'm at CEESEE H right now.

[doc_remedy]

Amy and all feedback is appreciated, I'm making a list and so far 2 soft locks have been found haha

[Kyouken]

I finished with a time of roughly under 3 hours.

Overall, enjoyed it quite a bit. Here's my pathing, for further context:
[spoiler]Maihkuh: Morph Ball, Missiles, Bombs, (Long Beam? I think)->Necrol Ferun: High Jump->Ceesee H: Necrol Feather, Ice Beam->Vulcarva: (Wave Beam?), Chozotroid, Screw Attack->Maihkuh: Varia Suit->AI Clone Lab: Alpha Chozotroid[/spoiler]

This was a very NES-Metroid-esque hack. In some ways, it was good in that sense. Other ways felt like it could have used some work to rise above the design of the game it was based on. If your scope was simply to be an NES Metroid hack design-wise, you probably don't need to do much else here. But if you desired and desire to polish it up, maybe consider some of the following critiques here.

Here's the good:
The best part about this hack is the graphics, hands-down. You really meant it when you said every tile and sprite were re-drawn. And it all looks so good. My favorite part about the graphics were the animations. Every area I was in felt alive and like I shouldn't be there! The variety in each tileset and the literal locations were good to look at and varied. I'd play this if it were just a graphic hack. Favorite area was Necrol Ferun.
The second best part is the story. You found a way to tell a story through the "scan visor" and the graphics themselves. Granted, there's only so much story and there's only so much you could do, but I really enjoyed it. Right up my alley. My favorite part about the story here was the foreshadowing in the [spoiler]AI Clone Lab: there were common enemies in the containment tubes, and you put a Chozo in there. I know that in Ceesee H there were Chozotroids, but the visual there I thought was great.[/spoiler]

The music was a bit above average for me - some tracks, like Maihkuh, Necrol Ferun, the AI Clone Labs, the Escape Theme, and the Item Room themes were great. Title screen was good too. The rest of it was either a bit grating, too repetitive, or both. I want to make note of the motif, too - I'm not terribly musically adept, but if I heard correctly, you tried to give an NES Metroid feel by keeping some elements of the original tracks in place. Is that right?


Midland:
The level design. Mostly vanilla, you moved some things around, but structured it like the NES Metroid. You made your own structures, used some of the existing structures, and employed them like the original did. The structures themselves were varied enough to where it felt fresh. I think you used them well enough.


Here's what might need some work:
There were a number of areas that didn't feel fair to the player, requiring the player to take damage in order to traverse. Concerning design philosophy, I feel it makes sense to give the player as much of a chance to avoid danger with the current tools they have. Generally, if there's an area that you can't traverse safely with the current tools, it should tell the player to leave, find something to help them with the problem, and then come back (this is why I wrote out my progression, in case I went somewhere without something I needed so you can weigh if what I'm saying is my fault for going outside the intended route or if it was still difficult to traverse with the given tools.) It felt like I had what I needed most of the time, and there were some areas that forced me to take damage somehow.
[spoiler]
Unfair jumps:



There were a couple of jumps that could be made with the Morph Ball glitch, but otherwise were terribly tricky without the High Jump. I only took one picture here.



There was also one jump in the AI Clone Lab that is about pixel-perfect if not pixel-perfect.
These pictures are not an exhaustive list, but just what I remembered to take pictures of. I think there were some jumps/areas like this in the AI Clone Lab, too.

I have to take damage via enemies:

This one would be fine if I had bombs, but this comes before the bombs.



A couple times I had to take damage from the Metroids just to move past them.


[/spoiler]
It's important to note that I rarely if ever died because of these things. Once or twice in the beginning, and it was frustrating, but after I found an energy tank, it was easier. The placement of the enemies in this fashion wasn't as frequent as the jump issue unless you count putting spawners near doors.

There were some missile doors that respawned, and at first I didn't find it an issue, but after needing to go through some, I found it frustrating and tedious. You said it was designed that way for difficulty's sake, but I gave up farming for missiles and just used save states before I entered any missile door. I don't know if all of them were designed to respawn, but the few I ran into taught me not to trust them. It felt more tedious than difficult, honestly. A way to keep this design in the game without it being too tedious would be to up the missile drop's refill count from 2 to 3, 4, or 5, depending on how generous you wanted to be. I would have tolerated it if the pickups were either more frequent or they refilled more.

You already know about the softlock(s) and the Missile Expansion bug. One more bug, not game-breaking:
[spoiler]
The map here is drawn one tile too short to the right; the issue corrects itself in the corridor stemming from the shaft. You'll probably want to draw another tile in the corridor and push the entirety of the shaft over to the left one block.
Didn't check to see what this was like pre-elevator.

[/spoiler]


To end this on a good note:
The escape sequence was actually challenging and genuinely difficult/fun. IIRC most of the Metroid games' escape sequences aren't difficult or challenging. You just go from point A to point B with minimal sight-seeing. But I actually got caught up a couple of times because of the way you designed it and said out loud, "I'm not gonna die, am I?" with ~300 seconds left on the timer, right before I got out.


Summing it up, this is an NES Metroid hack that feels like an NES Metroid hack in good ways and not-so-good ways, with mostly good.

All in all, great job, doc. I recommend it!

[doc_remedy]

Super awesome breakdown!  I'll go through all these too 1 by 1!

1. The game was designed to allow sequence breaking, you can bring the wave beam in Necrol Ferun, you can can the Varia suit after you get the high jump boots in CeeSee H so any order is fine!

2. Thank you on the graphics compliments, a LOT of work went into the graphics, as I'm an artist, not particularly a coder in which i barely scrape by.

3. The music was a challenge, personally.  Writing the music as code is alien to me (a musician) for starters but I accepted the challenge. The levels Ceesee H and Vulcarva kept breaking the game when I expanded the music longer than like 2 measures and I really wish I could of done more there as well.  That's part of the reason why I released a recomposed game soundtrack where I replayed all the music, to give it more life and showcase my actual music background. Found HERE https://docremedy.bandcamp.com/album/orphan-moon-recomposed-game-soundtrack-8-bit-soundtrack So yeah, some levels are definitely repetitive and sadly I had to just deal with it.  So you actually picked up on that unknowingly so you deserve credit for that!

4. Level design I wanted to keep vanilla to give the same feel as the original, but with a slight spin on it.  I have an idea for an SNES Super Metroid hack that might deviate further from that, IF I ever pull the trigger.... But I decided to play it safe for the fans on this one.

5. What needs work!
A. Forcing the player to take damage with lava, enemies near doors, unfair jumps and 1 impossible jump (AI Clone Lab) was intentional, BUT I can understand why it's on the needs work list!  I'll take responsibility for all those decisions and admit they might have been bad ones even!  You got me here!

B. Missile doors that did not "save" were also intentional but it was a to make the game a bit hard to induce farming.  Another decision That may have been bad.  BUT if I did make them all "save" to memory the game would break on saving and some crucial items didn't "save" in your save states forcing you to get them again.  Maybe that's where the missile you picked up that's didn't commit to your total came from, even though it displayed right in the save file data.  I'll have to go back and look deeper into that.  A higher pick-up rate might of solved those problems and I also (if I ever make a new version) may take some missiles out of the game to give that "save" memory back to the game.  Once again, like the music, NES ROM restrictions that I wasn't smart enough to overcome.  But I'm down to make those edits if anyone is!

C. The soft lock, I overlooked that for sure and 1 more was discovered too in Necrol Ferun, smh.  Maybe I need a new version revision regardless to fix those first if anything!

C. I never noticed that map was off there!  I swear I thought I tested it a million times!  Oh my, I may have to go look closer at that too!

6. The escape sequence I edited a zillion times and progressively made it easier as I had a hard time completing it for the first dozen or so renditions.  I think I found a happy medium of "oh crap, I might not make it" and "oh, I had plenty of time, after-all" and that actually took a lot of work and testing haha!

All in all, I can't thank you enough for the incredibly in depth review!  I'm glad you found it enjoyable! 

I finished with a time of roughly under 3 hours.

Overall, enjoyed it quite a bit. Here's my pathing, for further context:
[spoiler]Maihkuh: Morph Ball, Missiles, Bombs, (Long Beam? I think)->Necrol Ferun: High Jump->Ceesee H: Necrol Feather, Ice Beam->Vulcarva: (Wave Beam?), Chozotroid, Screw Attack->Maihkuh: Varia Suit->AI Clone Lab: Alpha Chozotroid[/spoiler]

This was a very NES-Metroid-esque hack. In some ways, it was good in that sense. Other ways felt like it could have used some work to rise above the design of the game it was based on. If your scope was simply to be an NES Metroid hack design-wise, you probably don't need to do much else here. But if you desired and desire to polish it up, maybe consider some of the following critiques here.

Here's the good:
The best part about this hack is the graphics, hands-down. You really meant it when you said every tile and sprite were re-drawn. And it all looks so good. My favorite part about the graphics were the animations. Every area I was in felt alive and like I shouldn't be there! The variety in each tileset and the literal locations were good to look at and varied. I'd play this if it were just a graphic hack. Favorite area was Necrol Ferun.
The second best part is the story. You found a way to tell a story through the "scan visor" and the graphics themselves. Granted, there's only so much story and there's only so much you could do, but I really enjoyed it. Right up my alley. My favorite part about the story here was the foreshadowing in the [spoiler]AI Clone Lab: there were common enemies in the containment tubes, and you put a Chozo in there. I know that in Ceesee H there were Chozotroids, but the visual there I thought was great.[/spoiler]

The music was a bit above average for me - some tracks, like Maihkuh, Necrol Ferun, the AI Clone Labs, the Escape Theme, and the Item Room themes were great. Title screen was good too. The rest of it was either a bit grating, too repetitive, or both. I want to make note of the motif, too - I'm not terribly musically adept, but if I heard correctly, you tried to give an NES Metroid feel by keeping some elements of the original tracks in place. Is that right?


Midland:
The level design. Mostly vanilla, you moved some things around, but structured it like the NES Metroid. You made your own structures, used some of the existing structures, and employed them like the original did. The structures themselves were varied enough to where it felt fresh. I think you used them well enough.


Here's what might need some work:
There were a number of areas that didn't feel fair to the player, requiring the player to take damage in order to traverse. Concerning design philosophy, I feel it makes sense to give the player as much of a chance to avoid danger with the current tools they have. Generally, if there's an area that you can't traverse safely with the current tools, it should tell the player to leave, find something to help them with the problem, and then come back (this is why I wrote out my progression, in case I went somewhere without something I needed so you can weigh if what I'm saying is my fault for going outside the intended route or if it was still difficult to traverse with the given tools.) It felt like I had what I needed most of the time, and there were some areas that forced me to take damage somehow.
[spoiler]
Unfair jumps:



There were a couple of jumps that could be made with the Morph Ball glitch, but otherwise were terribly tricky without the High Jump. I only took one picture here.



There was also one jump in the AI Clone Lab that is about pixel-perfect if not pixel-perfect.
These pictures are not an exhaustive list, but just what I remembered to take pictures of. I think there were some jumps/areas like this in the AI Clone Lab, too.

I have to take damage via enemies:

This one would be fine if I had bombs, but this comes before the bombs.



A couple times I had to take damage from the Metroids just to move past them.


[/spoiler]
It's important to note that I rarely if ever died because of these things. Once or twice in the beginning, and it was frustrating, but after I found an energy tank, it was easier. The placement of the enemies in this fashion wasn't as frequent as the jump issue unless you count putting spawners near doors.

There were some missile doors that respawned, and at first I didn't find it an issue, but after needing to go through some, I found it frustrating and tedious. You said it was designed that way for difficulty's sake, but I gave up farming for missiles and just used save states before I entered any missile door. I don't know if all of them were designed to respawn, but the few I ran into taught me not to trust them. It felt more tedious than difficult, honestly. A way to keep this design in the game without it being too tedious would be to up the missile drop's refill count from 2 to 3, 4, or 5, depending on how generous you wanted to be. I would have tolerated it if the pickups were either more frequent or they refilled more.

You already know about the softlock(s) and the Missile Expansion bug. One more bug, not game-breaking:
[spoiler]
The map here is drawn one tile too short to the right; the issue corrects itself in the corridor stemming from the shaft. You'll probably want to draw another tile in the corridor and push the entirety of the shaft over to the left one block.
Didn't check to see what this was like pre-elevator.

[/spoiler]


To end this on a good note:
The escape sequence was actually challenging and genuinely difficult/fun. IIRC most of the Metroid games' escape sequences aren't difficult or challenging. You just go from point A to point B with minimal sight-seeing. But I actually got caught up a couple of times because of the way you designed it and said out loud, "I'm not gonna die, am I?" with ~300 seconds left on the timer, right before I got out.


Summing it up, this is an NES Metroid hack that feels like an NES Metroid hack in good ways and not-so-good ways, with mostly good.

All in all, great job, doc. I recommend it!

[Kyouken]

B. Missile doors that did not "save" were also intentional but it was a to make the game a bit hard to induce farming.  Another decision That may have been bad.  BUT if I did make them all "save" to memory the game would break on saving and some crucial items didn't "save" in your save states forcing you to get them again.  Maybe that's where the missile you picked up that's didn't commit to your total came from, even though it displayed right in the save file data.  I'll have to go back and look deeper into that.  A higher pick-up rate might of solved those problems and I also (if I ever make a new version) may take some missiles out of the game to give that "save" memory back to the game.  Once again, like the music, NES ROM restrictions that I wasn't smart enough to overcome.  But I'm down to make those edits if anyone is!

Ah, so some of these things were due to memory or other limitations with the engine itself, I see. Though they still matter, that's a different story. You did the best with what you had, and no one can fault you for that! Truth be told I that while I understand some things hacking-wise, I don't know a whole lot about actually hacking Metroid games.

The only other thing I have to mention is about the missile tank - for clarification, I only started using save states after I replied to the thread about it the first time. I could understand your thought process, however. Save states do tend to mess things up sometimes.

[doc_remedy]

Limitations aside. I probably made a few bad decisions lol Looks like I need to dive in deeper and figure it out. Worked great for the emulators and devices I tested the save states on, but there's so many variables to consider too, I could of easily overlooked aomething. What emulator are you using again? Mesen?  I appreciate all your input and help!

[Kyouken]

Sure thing, doc. I'm using [Mesen Version: 2.0.0 Build Date: Mar 22 2023, 01:03:28]. The version of the game I'm using is [Metroid (U) (PRG0) [!]]

I tried to replicate it in New Game+ just now, but nothing doing. I believe this is the tank, but don't quote me on it:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

If I think of it later I'll try to play around with it from a fresh start.

Assuming this thing is an actual issue and not just a one-off, from what information you've given me, my thoughts are that because there's a limit to what the game remembers concerning doors, items, and the likes, perhaps either a door or tank isn't marked correctly to be remembered and stored, or there's one too many objects the hack is expected to remember.

If this is how it works, and if we don't know how many objects the game can remember, one might be able to see what the original stores, and continually test that limit until something breaks. Then you could see how many things you're asking the hack to remember and match it with the limit, move some things around, etc.
Or, a probable faster way would be to just remove one stored object requirement at a time until everything that's collected is stored properly. Both seem tedious for little payout, though. At the moment I can't see another way around it, save for using a preset save-file.

Granted this is all for one tank.

[RT-55J]

Also I hope I submitted everything right here haha

I talked with an approver and he said that the issue is that the screenshots are broken.

My suggestion is to try uploading them to a site like imgur and getting direct links to the images.

[doc_remedy]

Thanks!  I'll try again! Clarification helps a lot, I appreciate you!