[ZAPPSOFT]

Hello,

For about 3 years now, Zappsoft has been working on a Hack of the first Castlevania Game for the NES.
Just recently we returned for a second time at building the game.
This time we are not pressed for time as we were the first time around thus giving us plenty of time to edit the stages, sprites and palettes.

Here is a list of completed updates,

Title Screen Completely Redone (Aria Of Sorrow Logo And Skulls From Blood Moon)
Boss Sprites Cleaned Up
Candle Placement Fixed
All Stages Have Been Reedited (To Remove References To The Original Game)
Color Changes To Promote Epicness
New Bosses (Devil Head - Blood Moon) (Phanto - Super Mario Bros. 2) (Doppleganger - Original) (Alucard - Castlevania 3)
(Death - Blood Moon) (Dracula - Blood Moon/Unknown At This Point)
Intro Redone (Overflow Darkness Day Theme)

Pictures Coming Very Shortly!

ZAPPSOFT
July 19, 2012, 11:16:04 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Title Screen



Day Time Intro



Stage 01 - The Forest Swamp



Stage 02 - Castlevania - Main Entrance



Stage 04 - Alucard's Cave - Inspired By Castlevania 3 - Dracula's Curse



Stage 05 - Dungeon Of Severe Torture




More On The Way As Progress Develops!

ZAPPSOFT
July 19, 2012, 11:23:09 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Small Update,

The Title Screen has been updated again fixing the last "S" in Darkness,
We also changed Alucard's Cave, Cave Color to a more Brown Realistic Color.

ZAPPSOFT

[Bregalad]

Looks great !!

[ZAPPSOFT]

!UPDATE!

One of the major things that stands out in Version 1.0 was the difficulty,
Many commented on the fact that some of the stages had so many enemies flying around that only 2-4 actual gamers made it to the end smiling.

This was not unheard,
What we have decided to do this time around is release two versions of the final game.

One will be called Castlevania - Prelude Of Darkness (Easytype)
This will be like the easy mode that is available in the Japanese FDS version of the original Castlevania.
Making it so the softcore gamers can have fun too.

And of course the regular version will be released for the hardcore gamers that either love challenges or have
the old chip on the shoulder.

ZAPPSOFT
July 20, 2012, 12:29:15 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)More Pictures:

Bosses Now Have Help!



The Map Screen



Voted The Hardest Stage In The Game Thus Far



Alucard's Cave Recolored



The Castle Keep Is Actually More Than Just A Flight Of Stairs And A Room?!?!?!









ZAPPSOFT

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Stage 01 - The Forest Swamp



Stage 04 - Alucard's Cave - Inspired By Castlevania 3 - Dracula's Curse

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a REALLY HARD TIME finding the player character in there. You might want to try using a different shade of green for the swamp (or make it purple instead of green). In any case, the player character isn't contrasting enough.

Other than that, looks like you're being thorough. Good job!

[Vanya]

Pretty cool hack so far. If there's only one thing I can suggest it's that you work on improving the palettes. Some of them are REALLY atrocious. The NES palettes are limited, but there's no reason for Simon to blend into the first stage background like that. Keep it up, though, this hack has some potential.

[ZAPPSOFT]

!UPDATE!

One of our original ideas when designing Prelude Of Darkness was to do what was done in Chorus Of Mysteries,
Introducing a new hero, Jonathan Belmont, Was aimed to have a recognisable sign such as Richter Belmont,
When you think Richter you think Blue.
Unfortunately Jonathan's Color was chosen to be Green.
But we understand completely that the merging in the background is not that great.
Here is a picture of his new color, It's a type of light blue that causes him to stick out better than he did before.
Let us know what you think.

ZAPPSOFT



July 20, 2012, 12:04:16 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)With that said,
Looking at his new color, We don't want to give the illusion that this is Richter,
We are going to try a couple more ideas, Possible Orange or a type of Yellow.
Originally he was intended to have Yellow Hair, But we are having many sprite editing issues as far as only being able to use three colors since the forth is used for the background of the intro.
White Armor with Blondie Hair would be cool, Again we don't want to end up with a Henry Oldrey look alike.
That's it for now, More on the way!

ZAPPSOFT
July 20, 2012, 02:48:04 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)!UPDATE!

Here it is,
Jonathan Belmont is ALIVE!
After about 2 hours or editing we finally came to a final decision of making his armor Yellow.

[trapworth]

I'm not quite sure if I agree with the complete red of the "Dungeons of Severe Torture". A guy could rip his eyes out from dying several times on that screen. Possibly add in a couple of solid gray bricks?

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Well, the yellow does stand out, but how will it fare against the oranges in the game? How about seeing what colors you use for every background in every stage. Then, try to see if there's a color that can contrast against all of those backgrounds. This might not be an easy task and it might force you to recolor or rethink some things, but it will provide a better experience, I say.

Also, the head feels out of place; it's missing the contour from the rest of his body.

[Vanya]

You really need to not make the background just one main color. It makes it look bland. Most things in your first stage have no shading at all. It's all very flat.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

You really need to not make the background just one main color. It makes it look bland. Most things in your first stage have no shading at all. It's all very flat.

Well, I actually think the use of the black gives it some form of texture. But I guess using black for texture highlights and using a black contour for the player character can cause problems... What do you think if s/he uses a darker shade of green for the black in the backgrounds?

[trapworth]

Well, I actually think the use of the black gives it some form of texture. But I guess using black for texture highlights and using a black contour for the player character can cause problems... What do you think if s/he uses a darker shade of green for the black in the backgrounds?

I could see the extremely dark green working, but he/she already has used a metric ton of green in other zones. What about incorporating some brown to represent tree trunks and bark in the background for the Swamp and grey to represent the cave walls?

[ZAPPSOFT]

Hello,

Thank you all for your ideas,
We have attempted to try all of them and unfortunately the results were disastrous.
By changing the Trees it messed up the stairs and main platforms causing a glitch effect.
We were able to make Jonathan Yellow, But using the original dark hair concept to fix the head problems.
Also tried editing the Blood in Stage 5 but ended up with it looking way to much like the original.
The Caves have been edited to Brown/Dark Brown. Because of the details of the caves them selves it caused them to look like crap by making them gray and blue looked to much like the original.

Now for the good news,

Easytype Difficulty has been completed.
Original Difficulty is complete.
Ending Text has been modified to have a better sounding Epilogue.
Dracula's Final Form was given a Very Dark Blue to fix the Completely White mess we had before.
Dracula's First Form obtained a new head.
Stage Physics are 100% Complete, As far as color mods as of right now we are unsure if any more fixes can be done without damaging the rest of the scenery.

And last but not least,
It has been decided to release a "Hardtype Version" of the game.
This version will be for those who absolutely want a challenge and feel they can beat any game.
We suggest only "Super Pros" attempt this version.

And that's about it for now.

ZAPPSOFT
July 21, 2012, 11:29:34 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)!UPDATE!

Great News, After about 3 hours of trying and trying we finally came up with a unique sprite just for Jonathan Belmont.

Here he is!



Also,
When I was fixing some of the minor left overs, It finally hit me, An idea that I have never seen yet. Why does the hero have to stand in front of the Castle Walls in the intro?
He doesn't.
A great update here is, We edited the intro gate graphics so that when Jonathan walks up to the front, It is given the illusion that he is walking through the gate inside.

Here is a picture of the intro after he has already walked in.




ZAPPSOFT

[Valkyrie_Ace]

Jonathan's sprite doesn't look very hardcore, but at least it is easier to spot now. 

[trapworth]

Now that I look back at that title screen SS, is there anything ever going to be in that background behind "PREEELUDE OF DAAARKNESS". I assume there will be and that's just a nice placeholder for the moment.

[Bregalad]

Okay, I picked up the so called easy version, only to find myself facing dozen of instances of the first boss in the first stage, and to fight waves of medusa heads in the second stage, which is completely impossible to beat.

I give up.