The Metroid Construction Star Base Contest!

[MetroidMst]

Welcome to the Star Base Contest! In this contest your goal is to build a themed space station using the themes listed below. You can base the station off of 1 to 3 themes.
Some things to consider when making your hack are: collaborations are allowed, glows are highly encouraged, and lastly, don't bite off more than you can chew so that you can finish your hack on time.

Themes:
    -Infestation
    -Light/Dark
    -Interdimensional
    -Escape
    -Mystery
    -Alien
    -Abandoned
    -Hot/Cold
    -Emergency
    -Time
    -Overgrown
    -Submerged

Rules:
    1. The hack must be beatable in the sense that the player can get to the end credits.
    2. The hack must have a minimum of 15 rooms with a maximum of 60 rooms. rooms dedicated to Saves, maps, refills, and elevators do not count towards room total.
    3. ASM and graphics should properly convey the space station setting.
    4. There must be at least one Boss fight.

Hacks of these games are allowed
        -Any Metroid game.

Voting criteria:
    Hacks will be randomly paired up against each other in a bracket and be voted on head-to-head. Voting will be done by the public, with the winning hacks advancing until the final two are voted on.

Timing:
    Your time begins now, and you have until June 30th, 2024 to produce your completed masterpiece for the contest.

[dewhi100]

Contest organizers want as many remakes of Fusion as possible it seems.

[RT-55J]

[spoiler=Initial Pitch]At the beginning of Metroid Dread, Samus appears to be in the good graces of the Galactic Federation once again. How could this possibly be, after she illegally destroyed a protected wildlife reverse planet and the space station belonging to the GF's most lucrative government contractor?

The answer was simple: thanks to the efforts of a sympathetic juror, a wealthy corporate donor, and GF High Admiral Anthony Higgs, she was able to strike a plea bargin: by admitting fault, her sentence was reduced to only 2 weeks of community service.

And what might this service be, you ask? Why, it would be nothing other than another mission that only she could handle!

A space station and production facility belonging to the Intergalactic Treat Association sent out a distress call, and then immediately went silent. The station produced over 45% of the galaxy's ice cream, particularly the flavors of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. The contents of the distress call were not disclosed to the public or to Samus, but I.T.A. Food Industries demanded that she take the job.

Featuring 3 unique zones based off the component flavors of Neapolitan ice cream, and innovative power ups such as the Matcha Ball, Swirl Attack, and Vanilla Beam, help Samus uncover a massive conspiracy and stop a galaxy-wide shortage of ice cream in the soon-to-be-produced:

T O U R O F I T A L Y

If you wish to be my partner, please tag me publicly on Discord in the next 24 hours and tell me why your preferred Metroid game would be the perfect home for this vision.

Thank you for your consideration.[/spoiler]

EDIT: To avoid confusion, this post has been put under a spoilerpop.

If you're looking for the contest version of my hack, it's in this post.

[Metaquarius]

holy shit a contest. CRUSHMENT INCOMING !

[RT-55J]

good luck fitting x-fusion into 60 rooms meta i beliebe in u <3

[Metaquarius]

Let's say I have 1 MDB header with 2 unconnected 1x1 rooms within. Does this still count as 2 rooms or 1? What if they are connected with actual door transition tiles ?
What about room states which completely alter level data to the point you think it's another room ?
What about rooms that reuse same level data pointer but located in différent places on the map?

[RT-55J]

"A room is whatever a player would consider a room to be." - Voltaire (personal correspondence, 2024)

[OmegaDragnet9]

I managed to make a rough draft in editor of the entire map area for mine and I think I've stayed somewhere between the ranges specified.

I tend to like having save and refilll stations inside larger normal rooms. I have wondered if that alone would make those rooms not count towards the room total.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

    b. The hack must have a minimum of 15 rooms with a maximum of 60 rooms. rooms dedicated to Saves, maps, refills, and elevators do not count towards room total.

"Dedicated to" I think is just meant to encompass 1x1 rooms with just saves, maps, etc. or rooms where those are the only things you can do. If it's in a larger room, I think they would still count towards the maximum.

[nodever2]

My interpretation of this is that either way works as long as you can justify it I suppose. Trying to cram multiple "rooms" into one header will also give you other limitations - at least in SM (room size, tileset, music, enemy set/count, etc) so not like there isn't a cost to trying to use that to your advantage anyway.

[dewhi100]

Announcing my contest entry, Super Roomtroid, where I make hundreds of 1x1 rooms but put them on the same map coordinates. Oh, and uh 15 of them are "different", the rest are the same room. How can you tell? The only way I can explain it is that it's something you just feel in your landing site heart.

[MetroidMst]

Let's say I have 1 MDB header with 2 unconnected 1x1 rooms within. Does this still count as 2 rooms or 1? What if they are connected with actual door transition tiles ?
What about room states which completely alter level data to the point you think it's another room ?
What about rooms that reuse same level data pointer but located in différent places on the map?

Just to make sure everyone knows.
As Nodever said, the answer to this question is YES.

[TobiMikami]

I'd play along but I don't know if using my game engine would be fair, even though I know some of you can out-do in a ROM what I can do in a game, but I don't have the time or patients to play with ROMs lol so good luck I guess. Maybe some of these will be motivational to watch, I hope.

[RT-55J]

Announcing my contest entry, Super Roomtroid, where I make hundreds of 1x1 rooms but put them on the same map coordinates. Oh, and uh 15 of them are "different", the rest are the same room. How can you tell? The only way I can explain it is that it's something you just feel in your landing site heart.

well dewhi, I look forward to seeing your contribution to the nestroid hacking community.

[starlightintheriver]

So if I may ask, let's say I have a room which at first appears to be a simple recharge station, but actually has a secret cubby with an item in it. Would that count as a separate room, or would that still not be counted on account of being mostly a dedicated recharge room?

[RT-55J]

The rules state that "rooms dedicated to Saves, maps, refills, and elevators do not count towards room total."

If you have a room with a map or a save or whatever that you could reasonably argue does not count as being solely dedicated to that one purpose, then go right ahead and count it imho. MST's not your dad.

[dewhi100]

MST's not your dad.

...unless?

[RT-55J]

That would be quite the soap-operatic plot twist for the MetConst High School arc.

[MetroidMst]

So if I may ask, let's say I have a room which at first appears to be a simple recharge station, but actually has a secret cubby with an item in it. Would that count as a separate room, or would that still not be counted on account of being mostly a dedicated recharge room?

I would probably count that toward the room limit, since it isn't just that one thing.

[Secret Agent Klunk]

I'd play along but I don't know if using my game engine would be fair, even though I know some of you can out-do in a ROM what I can do in a game, but I don't have the time or patients to play with ROMs lol so good luck I guess. Maybe some of these will be motivational to watch, I hope.

Actually, that would in fact be allowed. I never specified that custom engines were not allowed when I wrote up the contest and sent it in, as long as they were made before the contest was announced. So I would say if you have the time for it to go for it!

[Scooterboot9697]

I'd play along but I don't know if using my game engine would be fair, even though I know some of you can out-do in a ROM what I can do in a game, but I don't have the time or patients to play with ROMs lol so good luck I guess. Maybe some of these will be motivational to watch, I hope.

Actually, that would in fact be allowed. I never specified that custom engines were not allowed when I wrote up the contest and sent it in, as long as they were made before the contest was announced. So I would say if you have the time for it to go for it!

[Secret Agent Klunk]

Having talked to the moderators further about allowing custom engines we have concluded that submissions using custom engines are not eligible to win unfortunately. However I personally would love to see what could be made from custom engines and I still encourage those of you who have them to submit something if you have the time and the will to do so. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up.

I think in the future I might try to write up a contest that is more oriented around using custom engines similar to like a game jam but for metroid or metroid-like games. If this is something people would be interested in feel free to hit me up on discord, or maybe I'll open up a forum about it after this contest has concluded.

[TobiMikami]

It would definitely make things a bit more interesting. I think that we've made improvements in hacking that rival that of custom engines, it would really bring out the best in competition if you ask me.

[Secret Agent Klunk]

It would definitely make things a bit more interesting. I think that we've made improvements in hacking that rival that of custom engines, it would really bring out the best in competition if you ask me.

For sure, I think I will definitely look into doing one oriented towards using these engines, though after some thought it might be better to tread on the side of caution and maybe not label them as metroid games so as not to risk getting DMCAs from papa nintendo.

[OmegaDragnet9]

Splitting hairs here. The landing site room I created, does this count for the room count? It is basically a giant save room.