General Hack Ideas

[squishy_ichigo]

. . .
Did you guys ever even finish that?

* squishy_ichigo makes another point about community hacks failing

I'd join in to if I wasn't already stacked with my own shit to do. Not to mention all those favors I do for peoples.  Speaking of which, back to BSFAVOR!

[GF_Kennon]

. . .
Did you guys ever even finish that?

My bad, im not doing my part, but only because of massive distractions

[personitis]

Well, if this is going to be a community hack, I at least want to wait until I get my hack done first for two reasons.

1. It will be my first hack finished and after I should know my way around not just SMILE, but also the game and it's mechanics more than I do now.
2. So I can improve on my own level design skills. I think I'm pretty decent so far, but improvement never hurts.

Also, it being originally my idea, I've figured that two full hacks would be whelming to me at the time so I wanna hold off. =)

[Lunaria]

I'm not joining, as I know this hack is bound to fail from the start.

[personitis]

I'm not joining, as I know this hack is bound to fail from the start.

Eh, w/e. I'm not going to further that. Well, how about we get more back on topic than anything. I'll just start a topic when the time comes for the hack.

[Parabox]

If we are going to do a community hack, I'm just going to give ideas, can't do anything else, really.

[Phazar]

Here's an idea that popped up in IRC the other day:

Code Select Expand

[12:17] <Black_Falcon> charge the supermissile!!
[12:18] <Black_Falcon> like prime
[12:18] <Phazar> yeah
[12:18] <Phazar> that would be nice
[12:18] <@Grime> I don't think that could be done with a few simple byte changes. ;P
[12:18] <Phazar> in fact, maybe charge for normal missiles would also be interesting
[12:18] <Black_Falcon> but you'd need another button for shooting
[12:19] <@Grime> What'd be cool is charging missiles to fire super missiles.
[12:19] <@Grime> Then using super missiles for something else.
[12:19] <Phazar> idea: every weapon has Charge
[12:19] <Black_Falcon> yeah
[12:19] <Phazar> including Missiles/Supers
[12:19] <Phazar> maybe not PBs though
[12:19] <Black_Falcon> grapple lol
[12:19] <@Grime> Charging bombs. When you release, it puts off a bunch of explosions.
[12:19] <@Grime> Like when larger enemies die.
[12:20] <Black_Falcon> grapple charges while hanging around and let you fall down and die lol

[squishy_ichigo]

Yet another thing that needs added to SMP.
Charging your beam, shooting a missle, have it shoot as a Super Missle, and take 5 missles from your ammo count.

* squishy_ichigo has VERY high expectations from a SMP type game

[personitis]

Yet another thing that needs added to SMP.
Charging your beam, shooting a missle, have it shoot as a Super Missle, and take 5 missles from your ammo count.

* squishy_ichigo has VERY high expectations from a SMP type game

I'm sure that'll be included. Maps still need to be done though. <_<;

[Parabox]

Jathys better read this... I think SMILE needs a hack-lock function, like the one in Lunar Magic. It locks your hack, with IIRC a password you can still open it. This function would force pathetic gamers to actually play a hack, instead of using SMILE to give 'em everything and access to all rooms.

[Lunaria]

Jathys better read this... I think SMILE needs a hack-lock function, like the one in Lunar Magic. It locks your hack, with IIRC a password you can still open it. This function would force pathetic gamers to actually play a hack, instead of using SMILE to give 'em everything and access to all rooms.

The problem is that it only locks the hack for n00bs that don't know anything. Plus, there are much easier ways to lock the hack from SMILE.
Just look at the files that came with SMILE and you should know.

[Phazar]

DekuKnight: Read this for Jathys' hint of "how to lock ROMs from SMILE".

[Zhs2]

Jathys better read this... I think SMILE needs a hack-lock function, like the one in Lunar Magic. It locks your hack, with IIRC a password you can still open it. This function would force pathetic gamers to actually play a hack, instead of using SMILE to give 'em everything and access to all rooms.

There are, and will always be, people who cheat. There is no avoiding it. Why try to stop it? It's not going to help, and it never will. Where there are people who lock their roms, there will be people who bypass the lock protection as if it never existed. Lunar Magic suffers from the exact same problem, you know.

Of course, this is to say nothing of the nice people who will play through your entire hack without looking into SMILE. People have their own play preferences; there's not much you can do about other people, now, is there?

[Lunaria]

The easiest way and best way to lock your hack is to do it yourself one way or the other. People will then find that there is to much work with it to bother.
Eventually some one will open it simply for the reason of trying to best you. But by that time it should really not matter. :/

[personitis]

Since I'm in need of a idea to get me back into hacking, an idea hit me tonight (hint hint wink wink, upcomming hack): imagine having a certain amount of time to complete a series of many tasks or you lose... and start all over.

[squishy_ichigo]

I've actually had a series of ideas the last couple of days. (not having internet sucks!)

1.) Instead of using Samus, you use a space pirate.  This pirate would have moves Samus doesn't have like wall climbing, power grip, crawling on the ground.  Down side would be weaponary... I didn't plan TO much on it, so the ablities and such is still pretty wide open.

The game would draw the Space Pirate like it does already in game, using an extended sprite sheet of the one all ready in use. (extended for a few more poses, like crawling, ducking, etc.)

2.) An item based challenge. Samus can only carry 4 items at once.  If she tries to pickup a 5th item, she has to drop one of the ones she already has.  You would choose which item to drop from a pop-up window similar to the save window.
The item cancel button will prompt a message to take you back to the last save point in case you get stuck with the items you choose to keep.

Items with ammo (missles, supers, pbs) would gain unlimited ammo.  Touching ANY item plm would give you that item, and they woud respawn so you can get then again if you drop them.  Everthing else would act as it already does.

edit: forgot to mention Etanks work normally, thought that might be needed.

[Silver Skree]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but I noticed the other day (herp) that the message boxes for Map Stations, Energy/Missile Refills, and Save Stations don't have any wait time or music. Can someone make a patch so that code be used for item message boxes too? No interruption of the BGM, and no wait time.

[Scyzer]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but I noticed the other day (herp) that the message boxes for Map Stations, Energy/Missile Refills, and Save Stations don't have any wait time or music. Can someone make a patch so that code be used for item message boxes too? No interruption of the BGM, and no wait time.

I think you're refering to what I did for Impulsion. THere's absoultely NO message boxes at all. Save stations automatically save if you stop in them, map/energy/refill stations do their thing with no messages, and items done have any box. The music plays normally (with sounds unaffected) for all of them.

here's the vid:
No Message Boxes Update

I haven't made any patch for it (i might if there's enough demand for it). But I'm working towards having options in the game menu that you can select whether you want boxes or not for the entire game, so I want to get that done first.

[Silver Skree]

Actually, I'm not too keen on the idea of NO message boxes at all. I just want them to work like Map stations, Energy Refills, etc. did in the original; pop up, press button, go away.

[RT-55J]

Some general hack ideas:

- A hack where the goal is to get rid of all your upgrades, thus making it a literal "Metroid Reverse." For added flavor, it could begin with a timed sequence where you go through the escape sequence backwards and defeat Mother Brain. The original game would make a good candidate for this, given it's general open-endedness.
- A Metroid 2 hack centered around acid-diving. (Alternatively, a Super Metroid hack centered around Hell-Running.)
- A stage-based Metroid game/hack (let's call it Metroidvania :P ).
- A Metroid 3 hack centered around Gravity Suitless underwater platforming (dibs!).

The rest of this post contains babblings about previous hack ideas I've had:

A few years ago, I "designed" a Super Metroid hack on graph paper in my math notebook. It's about two pages long (landscape) and reasonably complete (except for Tourian and Lower Norfair), so I guess it could theoretically be turned into an actual hack. However, there are a ton of problems with that idea. For one, the map is very large and convoluted, and four years of smudging and lost memories leave me absolutely clueless as to what I intended for the player to do. That, and most of the design seem relatively thoughtless, with tons of rooms-for-rooms-sake and not much thought put into having a sensible sequence or anything. Also, the amount of ASM work would be absurd ("Hey, Kej! Could you hax these new items and bosses into the game plz!!!! thnx in advance!!!!"). Still, I see that I had some interesting ideas back then, like an upgradeable charge beam, a hot/steamy portion of Crateria (with a tube going all the way down to Norfair), a very devious maze before Kraid, many cleverly hidden secret-passages/items, and so on.

_{Side-note: Also in that notebook are a couple maps I made while playing some Metroid 1 hacks: Metroid Genocide and Metroid M (no relation to the upcoming game). The map of Genocide is reasonably complete, but the map of Metroid M in incomplete because I stopped playing (after realizing how tedious/awful the map design was). Even though both hacks were a bit uneven I liked mapping them as a went, so consider this a request for more Metroid 1 hacks (please).}

A couple years later I made a map on my computer of a completely different hack. The basic idea of it was that you could explore the dilapidated ruins of Brinstar, Norfair, and Tourian from Metroid 1 and some new areas under them (as stand-ins for Ridley and Kraid), and in the end go through a new Tourian that somehow overlaps the old Tourian. I didn't really go far in designing the world, because I didn't really know where to go from there (despite having an entire "sequence" planned!). That, and the idea wasn't really original, given the fact that even my previous hack idea (and Super Metroid itself) used it to a certain extent.

So, I've been thinking about consolidating the best/most feasible ideas from both hack ideas and consolidating them into a lean, exploration-based hack (think Metroid 1 (in terms of open-endedness)). Will I ever make it? Maybe not, but at least you can come to my funeral and declare me a failure in life if I don't.

[squishy_ichigo]

Here is a nice little concept I might be working on...

Gravity.wmv

Not sure if I will though

[RT-55J]

That reminds me of Metal Storm.

Which means it's automatically the best idea ever.

[UltimaOUlaw]

I'm trying to complete a full length hack but I need to know:

- how can I transfer GFX from other areas to a specific area without it not showing up or crashing smile? Example: I'm working with Crateria and I want to get the Standing Chozo GFX in the CRE tile table but everytime I try it in TLP it crashes smile or ends up somewhere else. All help is appreciated.  

[RealRed]

I'm trying to complete a full length hack but I need to know:

- how can I transfer GFX from other areas to a specific area without it not showing up or crashing smile? Example: I'm working with Crateria and I want to get the Standing Chozo GFX in the CRE tile table but everytime I try it in TLP it crashes smile or ends up somewhere else. All help is appreciated.  

You go ask in the Smile help thread.

But for good measure, if you want to copy and paste graphics from one place, you have to open both graphics files you export through smile in TLP, set their mode to SNES, go crazy with moving graphics, then re-import them into whatever hack you want them changed in. If that doesn't work, you must be doing something wrong in between.
Run on sentences, hell yeah.

[UltimaOUlaw]

thanks BloodSonic