New Exodus

[Kasel]

This is a remake of Exodus, my former project.

I'm positing my demo here for you all to give me some feedback.

Known issues:
The minimap isn't fixed yet.
Some tiles my need corrected make notes of them when they are found.
Backgrounds.  I know this already.

Anything you can fix and don't mind fixing, be my guest.

Anyways, enjoy.  

Note to the wise: Search for Charge Beam before fighting Spore Spawn otherwise you'll get stuck.  SAVE STATES are a must.

Screens:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

[herald83]

How soon do you want comments?  I started testing it out and got stuck at Spore Spawn without the Charge Beam (yeah, I didn't see the note until after I got stuck).

Gotta hit the sack for now but I'll definitely resume testing tomorrow at some point.  One comment I would like to make for now is that there are a bunch of places where you can get permastuck before nabbing the Morph Ball.  Maybe make some minor sloping adjustments to the rooms before picking up the Morph Ball to accommodate people with spin jumping issues?  It's not really a problem if you know what to look out for.  Love the neon blue on black (phazon-esque?) palettes!

[Scyzer]

Perhaps you should make charge required to get to spore spawn? Or make him vulnerable to normal shots :P

[Lunaria]

Mind uploading some screen shot?

I'm a bit biased to download anything without knowing exactly what I get. :<

[Kasel]

Herald:  Yeah I figured there might be some spots where you could get perm-stuck.  Thanks for noting them out.  I'll take care of those as soon as I can.

Sadiztyk:  I've tried making him vulnerable to normal shots via the enemy editor but alas, I failed.  For some reason, even if I have it set for him to take damage from a normal shot, he's still invulnerable to it.  I'd like to make it a must to have Charge Beam before fighting him but I'm not sure how.  If you know of anyway to do this, please let me know.

Crys:  Sorry about that.  I made the topic in a hurry so I didn't get a chance to upload any screenshots.  I'll get right on that as soon as I can and I'll be fixing the first post to give it a little more zaz as well.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

Well first things first. Designing a hack that requires Save States isn't the best idea around. If a certain power-up/upgrade is required, as someone else (Crys I think) said you should make it so that you can't get to whatever requires it until you have it. I think there's triggers for that. Bit flags or something, you'd probably have to ask someone who knows the Engine Language better than I do.

But like Crys, I also don't much like trying out hacks until I've had a chance to see what I'm getting myself into.

[Katelyn]

Perhaps you should use an original palette, gfx, and CRE instead of ripping from redesign! :awesome:

God man, even the physics are redesigny. >_>


ooo, a metroid phazon area!

Come on, man. >______________________>

[Kasel]

It's been said already that these graphics were used from those hacks.  It doesn't matter.  They were used, they look good, whats it matter?

[herald83]

I would have done this yesterday, but I was expecting a larger demo.  Here's what I got:

Major Gripes
To reiterate, the getting stuck @ Spore Spawn issue is big.  This should not be doable.  Personally, I would swap that Charge Beam for the first Missile pack and slap a red door on the path to Spore Spawn (it's easier) but if you can work out a way to tweak the events to go off when the Charge Beam is picked up, more power to you.

The sloping issues are also big.  Granted, I was dicking around and looking for stuff like this, but there are just too many spots that you can spin jump and land on some slopes that get you stuck before you pick up the Morph Ball.  The biggest one is actually above the door to the Morph Ball room: if you run at full speed across the crumble blocks and hit the wall => pwned.

Also related to slopes are your Morph Ball tunnels.  They're pretty and very cave-like, but if you want to use that many slopes in a tunnel you should implement one of the Morph Ball Lock patches.  They're really easy to use.

Minor Concerns
I'm not a huge fan of preserving all of Samus' momentum when she changes direction mid-spinjump, but if that's how you like it, I guess it's fine.  Unless you need this to move around some tricky rooms I would tone it down a little.

There's exactly ONE tile glitch I noticed.  In the morph ball tunnel right after you pick up the morph ball, there's a wall tile that looks like it's supposed to be the transparent one, instead of the one with the dark background.  Otherwise, big time kudos on the tiling.  I know some people were griping about ripping graphics, but as long as you have permission and give credit I won't fault you for it.  Even good graphics will suck on poor room design/decoration.

Recommendations
Definitely work on that map.  Even the stock mapping graphics will do for now.

Speaking of the map, from looking at it, I can tell that you've stuck with retiling existing rooms instead of expanding and remolding your own rooms.  Not a huge concern, as I only noticed this when I saw the original Brinstar map staring back at me.  I would definitely consider trying to branch out and use some original room layouts instead of restricting yourself to retiling rooms and repointing doors.

I noticed in SMILE that a LOT of the graphics for other rooms had been overwritten.  Did you repoint them?

Good luck, and I look forward to the next version.  Post some of those screenshots next time!

[Parabox]

It's been said already that these graphics were used from those hacks.  It doesn't matter.  They were used, they look good, whats it matter?

Please look up the user gunnargumpert and his last 400 posts or so. You'll see 'whats it matter'.

[Quietus]

What Parabox is trying to say (in a borderline trolling fashion - no need to needlessly bring names into it!) is that it's the common feeling among hackers that copying other people's work is not necessary, and comes across as lazy.  If you can't be bothered in its creation, why should we bother to play it?  Knowledge for hacking Super has leapt forward in recent years, and creating modified, if not custom, content is easy enough for anybody to do.  If you want some serious feedback, or more interest in your hack, change stuff more, and provide some quality content for people to draw their attention.

[Kasel]

Herald:  Yeah I know some of the tiles will need to be changed and I'm going to be working on that before I proceed with any further part of the game.  As for the mapping and rooms, I'm still very much a newb when it comes to hacking, I don't know everything that I need to know but this is a learning experience for me.  With each room I create, I'm learning new things to make it better.  I can and will get the map worked out but as for creating my own rooms, I dunno when I'm going to start screwing around with that.  Probably not until I became a little more familiar with SMILE and the way everything works.

The rest of you:  Is that all you can do?  You don't even take the time to look at the rooms and notice my designs, regardless of the set?  You just immediately shoot me down because I happened to use a tileset from a different hack which I did because I mean fuck...They look damn good and on that note, not ONCE did I ever take claim to ANY of those sets.  The credit belongs to the owners and the owners only.  I only take credit for the design in which I used them, not the sets themselves.  It pains me to think that none of you can appreciate anything unless it was made from utter scratch, even if the rooms still look nice, you just talk down to us newer users like we are utter garbage and it's bullshit.  This is my first hack ever, it's the first hack I have ever even released a playable portion of it.  You can't expect a miracle, you can't expect every little detail to be to your liking but you do anyways.  I'm really regretting ever bringing this hack to any of your knowledge because you don't take the time to look at the details, just the set and then you just shut it down and bitch at me about it.  IT'S BULLSHIT is what it is.  I know this may sound rude but I frown upon people who don't take even the least amount of consideration for the lesser folk.   

[Masked_Felix]

I agree with Parabox. No matter how new, users should always create rooms from their own content. It's too easy not to. The only excuse to use someone else's work is if you have their written permission/support or are collaborating.

[Kasel]

To all of you:  I will be continuing work on this hack.  I will be fixing issues with the slopes to remove the perma-stuck locations, etc.  I probably won't be able to find them all but I'm going to be doing what I can to get rid of a good percentage of them.  The map will be fixed as well before the next release of a demo but before I send out another release, I'm going to try and get a little more done then what I have.  I will probably release another when I get the game finished all the way up to Kraid so stay tuned.  Here in the next hour or so, I'm going to be fixing the first post to add screens cause I know some of you want those before you will even touch the demo.

Sincerely,
Kasel

[Zhs2]

I'm pretty sure Drewseph said specifically about using his level design and/or graphics. Even so, the thing that really matters here is that you're making something fun to play. There are going to be a lot of self-justifying fourteen year olds who post simply to bust your balls. :grin:

Even so, Quietus' post is a valid concern - things that people have seen before are going to wow less than something completely new and original.

[Kasel]

Drewseph gave me full permission to use redesign tiles if I wanted to as long as I didn't go overboard and steal everything.  :3

[Quietus]

In no way did I mean to talk down to you.  I was just expressing the general feeling toward using other people's work.  The easiest solution would have been to state that they were borrowed, and that you'd be creating your own stuff later.  That way, people would have known that you only wanted criticism for the layout.  We can only comment on what you present us with...

[Kasel]

I see your point.  I would have created my own stuff but I have zero experience in that field but I've tried it in the past and failed miserably.  It's something that is going to take me quite some time to be able to create even the smallest of GFX.  The hack will still be good regardless of the set, of course it's not anything like whats already been made but I'm proud of how it's going so far.

As I've said, my second hack will be a lot better.  It will be way more original when it comes to room layouts (New Exodus is using all the same room locations as the original just completely different ways to enter and traverse them and the sets have been changed from the original as well as long as the soundtracks for each area)  But with my second, I'm going to be adding my own rooms, TRYING to make my own GFX, shit like that.  This is only my first hack and it's more of a learning process for me and with you guys commenting on things like sloping as missing tiles and possibly giving me a tip on how to make it better (Other then the graphic sets), it really helps me to learn how to better myself and my work cause my ultimate goal: Make the best hack ever. :3  That's going to be years away but hey!  You need a goal, right?

[Digital_Mantra]

You don't even take the time to look at the rooms and notice my designs, regardless of the set?  You just immediately shoot me down because I happened to use a tileset from a different hack...

I'd love to comment on your level design, but I'll need some screenshots or a video.
Personally I don't care what tileset you use, more so how you use it.

Property theft in my eyes only falls into three categories regarding SM Hacking:
1) Blatantly stealing someones aesthetic without incorporating their own ideas to make it evolve.
2) Using someone's unique tileset in and around the same time they are, not a hack that's been around what.. over 3 years now?
3) Stealing coding without asking. This one's a biggie.

[Kasel]

I keep meaning to put in some screens but I keep getting distracted. x.x

As for the second part of your reply, I have permission to use the redesign sets, the coding, though similiar, is still slightly different.  I prefer a higher gravity, it just makes the game seem that much harder.  Other then that, the only code that is the same as redesign is the bomb jumping ad this is because...I mean come on, it's just so much better then any original bomb jumping code but that is the ONLY thing that is exactly the same.  Everything else is different enough to be called my own thing, except for the tilesets of course.

[Jasonv]

i hope you know what your doing

[Kasel]

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

[Katelyn]

It means that he is a retard, Kasel. Do not mind his post. ;D


Fixed review: This demo is pretty good. There are some tile errors and rooms that needed more detail, but it's pretty good.

[Zhs2]

i hope you know what your doing

Man, get the fuck back out the damn door.

[IMetroRat]

LMFAO^10000000