Super Metroid: Sunshine

[Vismund Cygnus]

Super Metroid: Sunshine

*THIS HACK IS BASICALLY CANCELLED*
I know that I should never say never, but at this point I feel like I've done all I can do in regards to Super Metroid hacking. The monumental effort it would take to complete this hack is such that I don't see the value in doing so- I could just as easily work on something that is, in my eyes, much more fulfilling and rewarding.
It's been a fun ride, guys.  :^_^:

[spoiler=Original Post]
[spoiler=What is Sunshine?]Sunshine is going to be a full hack of Super Metroid. It will feature both custom and vanilla-esque tilesets, though they will be varied slightly from the original and palettes will be extremely different.
Sunshine will have a very different layout from the original game, with multiple paths being open from very early in the game, meaning there will be multiple item progressions, some more vanilla, some that are wacky.
Sunshine is designed to be a relatively easy hack, with no difficult tricks required to complete the hack, though to get 100% some skill will be required.
What do I mean by "difficult", you ask? I mean to the point of vanilla difficulty. Wall-jumping and bomb jumping will both be free to use and may help you take shortcuts throughout the hack, but you'll never need to use either skill. Same goes for shinesparking.
One thing that will be much more difficult than in the original game will be bosses, as I always found them to be disappointing in Super Metroid. The difficulty added to the bosses will hopefully not be artificial, but will instead provide a real challenge as opposed to just giving them 7x the amount of health.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Story?]
Having destroyed the Ceres Space Colony and kidnapped the last surviving Metroid, Ridley returns to his own Science Lab aboard the stolen BSL facility SL Mori, where he and his team of researchers begin studying it in a hope to further weaponise the creature.
Meanwhile, Samus, having received the distress signal from Ceres but arriving too late to stop the destruction, tails Ridley's craft to a nearby planet known as "Sunshine", so named for the year-round sunny weather the planet is famed for. In recent years the planet has been a hot-spot for Space Pirate activity, where it is believed they are operating a mine on the phazon-rich moon of the planet. Realising the opportunity to explore this rumour, Samus docks her gunship on the surface and sets out to discover what dark secrets lie beneath the sunny surface.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Why "Sunshine"?]
The idea originally came to me a long, long time ago after seeing how dark and dreary most hacks are. As such, I decided I wanted to make something bright, cheery and fun. Hopefully it will be aesthetically pleasing too.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=ETA?]
Pffft.
I have no intention of finishing this in the near future. There's still a ton of work to be done. Only 3 of the planned areas  have had work begun on them. It's far from done, the areas I have worked on don't even connect yet. An optimistic estimate would be mid-late 2015 HAHAHAHAHA. A realistic one would be somewhere in the next 5 years.  :heheh:
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=How can I get in on this amazing sounding piece of art?]
You can't, yet. As I said before, most of the work I've done doesn't actually fit together. However, I will be looking for beta testers at some point in the next year, when there's enough done to actually consider releasing a beta to a select few people. If you'd like to get involved with testing, PM me. People with hacking experience would be preferred, although newbies are welcome to ask, it's good to hear opinions from different perspectives.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Screenshots so Zeke doesn't get mad]



[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Videos to keep you amused until I finish]
Super Metroid Sunshine Preview #1 - Glows
[/spoiler]
So yeah. Hopefully this catches your attention, but don't get too excited yet.[/spoiler]

[Retroo]

that space pirate picture! :D

[Su]

These glorious pictures. In particular that "sunshine beach" one... yes. Yes yes YES! For far too long has there been a tradition of dark and dreary hacks where you can't see a thing.

[passarbye]

Looks really cool vis.
glad to see you've got more amazing stuff for us!

[Quietus]

I like the reflection effect.  It reminds me of the silhouette style room in Stardust. :^_^:

[MetroidMst]

For far too long has there been a tradition of dark and dreary hacks where you can't see a thing.

I know nothing of what you mean. A hack cannot be dark enough with the most radical palettes possible. In any case. This is worth it just for the image of my childhood's greatest nightmare.

[Quietus]

A hack cannot be dark enough

Before finishing this sentence, JAM's Blackout sprang to mind. :^_^:

[Eppy37]

10/10, already looks way better than Fear.

[Nikoshiba]

That looks really great !!!

[personitis]

And here I was thinking Samus was going to be running around Earth, cleaning up a whole bunch of gunk that Metroids and Ridley left behind, all while using a water cannon attached to her arm instead of a some energy blaster cannon thingy. :nod:

That said, I'm enjoying the color combinations used in each of the screenies. A lot. I'm guessing we'll be seeing the awesome multi-colored reef again as well and I feel like I've seen that Crateria palette somewhere before. If not, it's at the least very similar to Volta's but I can't hold it against you because just about everything has been done with that tileset. I also feel like I should take a note myself on the subject of making everything look cold and eerie where such variation is probably for the better.

Looking forward this but I've plenty of patience. :wink:

[Vismund Cygnus]

I'll be the first to admit that the palette is heavily based on Volta's. Originally I ha d intended on just using the Volta palette, however I thought some of the colours, on the main stone palette in particular, looked a bit off so I changed them. I also changed the grass and moss to look hopefully more vibrant. The sky palette is almost identical, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. That was a good spot though, I'll give you that.  :^_^:

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

*deleted post*

[Vismund Cygnus]

You mean the lack of a suit palette?
You haven't seen the last one yet! :heheh:

[FPzero]

I'll be the first to admit that the palette is heavily based on Volta's. Originally I ha d intended on just using the Volta palette, however I thought some of the colours, on the main stone palette in particular, looked a bit off so I changed them. I also changed the grass and moss to look hopefully more vibrant. The sky palette is almost identical, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. That was a good spot though, I'll give you that.  :^_^:

I still can't believe my unfinished hack from over three years ago still influences people this much. :V

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

*deleted post*

[Quietus]

I agree with Kitsune.  All colours apart from those in the visible spectrum look awful. :O_o:

[Vismund Cygnus]

I still can't believe my unfinished hack from over three years ago still influences people this much. :V

You have a good eye for colours is why.  :heheh:

[Quietus]

Yup, exactly that.  It was eye candy from one end to the other (except those ice blocks :wink:).

[Vismund Cygnus]

Minor Bumpdate.

Progress is being made quicker than expected. Still not enough to give it a realistic percentage number, nor a realistic release date. So still "within the next 5 years". But yeah. Stuff is happening and ideas are being solidified. Expect me to ask for beta testers one day.

And with that in mind;
Less "Bomb Torizo", more "Space Pirate Captain".

(Disregard the map - I haven't actually put the room in its real spot yet.)

[Quietus]

Looks good, though the darker blocks just in front of the door look a little out of place.

[Black Falcon]

Speaking of 'out of place'
That screenshot is a good example of why I dislike tilesets like this.
IMO it just doesn't feel right with Super Metroid's art style.
Now don't get me wrong, the tileset and the room you made with it are really awesome looking, it's just that without adjustments to fit the graphics style of SM the tileset kinda feels off.
Just my two cents.  :heheh:

[Vismund Cygnus]

Speaking of 'out of place'
That screenshot is a good example of why I dislike tilesets like this.
IMO it just doesn't feel right with Super Metroid's art style.
Now don't get me wrong, the tileset and the room you made with it are really awesome looking, it's just that without adjustments to fit the graphics style of SM the tileset kinda feels off.
Just my two cents.  :heheh:

I would have to completely agree with you. The tileset is very out of place when compared to the usual graphic style of Super Metroid.
However:
The entire point of that particular area is that it is indeed very out of place in the otherwise bright and happy world of Sunshine. It's meant to be a very stark contrast. Otherwise it would look rather awful, it doesn't blend well with anything else in the hack whatsoever. But as I said, the area is supposed to stand out from the rest and is a rather large part of the reason that I chose to use the fully custom tileset for it as opposed to an extension of a vanilla tileset as I have with the rest of the planet.
I am genuinely thankful for the feedback though, I can certainly understand why you may feel as though it doesn't work. But that is the point of it, so in some respects, I'm glad you think that!  :heheh:

[Grimlock]

Just checked out your screenshots.  I'm loving your use of color, and the reflection effect looks pretty amazing.  I'm going to try and work something like that in to my M1 hack.

[Vismund Cygnus]

It's been over 2 months since I said anything here, but I promise stuff is happening. So here's what I call:

Vismund's Amazing Progress Report: Winter* 2014
*Yes winter you silly Northern Hemispherians

I've done more work on this than I thought. All of the tilesets are finished. The topic post has been updated with screenshots of all except one tileset, which I'm leaving out because I haven't shown it off to anyone yet and it deserves its own epic reveal when I feel like it. So yeah, that's one big hurdle leapt over.
As for everything else, given the very small amounts of ASM in the hack I can basically call that done. There's still a lot of boss palettes to be done, and the majority of rooms. Were I a man of percentages, I'd post something like this:

• Area GFX: 100%
• Area Palettes: 99% (one thing needs tweaking)
• Enemy GFX: 95% (there's still this one guy I want to edit)
• ASM: 50% (which, to be fair, is like one thing)
• Boss Palettes: 20%
• Enemy Palettes: 30% (could be more if there's palettes I can steal from other enemies)
• Mapping: 13%
• Rooms: 8% (this will increase dramatically now that other things are done)
• Testing: 0%

Of course, I'm not a man of percentages, so all I can say is that the hack is "not done but nearing ready for needing testers". That being said, things are happening, and a 2015 release may not be the far-fetched idea I first suggested it as. Again, I'll tell you not to get your hopes up.
So yeah, I'll conclude this by saying that I'll need testers soon (I only have one I can confirm as existing), and that I'll try not to spam updates on this.

Peace out,
Vismund.

[Quietus]

Cool.  Vismund pops in to let us know that he's added some shine to Sunshine.  It's nice to see that you've got the preparation done in good time.  Now, to build the world (so we can all blow it up at the end)!