Author Topic: Super Pitfall NES (improvements) (Read 99062 times)

John Enigma · « **Reply #200 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:19:57 pm »

Quote from: protomank on July 14, 2016, 12:56:11 pm

I had to come here and comment on this hack.
I had Super Pitfall, actually a clone as my console and almost anything was here in Brazil at the time. It made me mad because of the bugs and illogical hidden items, and for a while I actually even had forgot I had the game, until a friend of mine said he loved it, I went and looked into my old game list, and there it was.
Talking about the game with this friend yesterday, I decided to look if anyone had fixed the physics or items in this game, and, oh my, oh my, what a big surprise!

Your graphics look amazing and I am dying to test it on my NES (yes, today I own original console and carts, heheheh). You have my total support and admiration. This looks really amazing, having lots of fixes, improvements and fantastic graphics in on package is a dream, the game looks like a indie game made today for steam. Great work.

Wow!

I can see a lot of Brazilians played Super Pitfall a lot on a Famiclone console, just like many Americans played Super Mario Bros. on the NES.

protomank · « **Reply #201 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:22:08 pm »

Key akira/cospefogo, I noticed you there in the comments

@John Enigma: yeah, Super Pitfall was a bundle in Phantom System, a popular clone over here. While it was not the clone I had (mine was called Turbo Game), it was an easy to find cartridge due to that fact.

nesrocks · « **Reply #202 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:23:41 pm »

protomank: Thanks for the inspiration! That's good to hear, as I plan to make a game for steam right after this. I think I'll also release a portuguese translated version of the hack when I'm done, as there isn't a lot of text (macbee's idea).

John Enigma: I think that super pitfall was easier to find here than super mario bros, at first. So we had a chance to try this game before being able to judge that it was so badly programmed. Our only references were atari 2600 games.

cospefogo · « **Reply #203 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:57:23 pm »

Quote from: nesrocks on July 14, 2016, 01:23:41 pm

John Enigma: I think that super pitfall was easier to find here than super mario bros, at first. So we had a chance to try this game before being able to judge that it was so badly programmed. Our only references were atari 2600 games.

And hell yeah... Everybody at the time knew Pitfall on Atari 2600. It was everywhere... Being able to play something called "S U P E R" Pitfall always was a thrill!

nesrocks · « **Reply #204 on:** July 17, 2016, 11:22:34 pm »

Just a small update. I'm working on the darkworld's sprites and I noticed some room for improvement. Here's old and new:

I think I'll make a small modification to the masked caveman's head as the small white dot doesn't move in my new animation, as it should. (I'm still not sure if this white dot was intentional by the original artist or not)

FCandChill · « **Reply #205 on:** July 18, 2016, 12:52:47 am »

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Da_GPer · « **Reply #206 on:** July 18, 2016, 03:15:42 am »

The changes you did on both the dark world and the enemies are amazing. I do agree that the "dot" needs to be removed, but I also will agree that the enemies dont look threatening enough. Maybe adding a little something to them to make them more scary or show that they are dangerous or a threat would be a good idea. Sort of like what you did for Pitfall Harry and the gang.

protomank · « **Reply #207 on:** July 18, 2016, 07:32:28 am »

While the pixel art looks amazing and the animation is superb, there is a little detail I want to point out.
The original characters looked like African (or descendants) people wearing ritual masks, much like in the old 80's movies that showed African cannibals, and your new art made them look like zombies. Of course, there are some tribes in Africa that paint their skins as white, but it is hard to tell just by looking at the sprites.

While we could argue that the original game was racist, I kind of liked this aspect of the game, that reminded me of old Tarzan movies, when he faced some unknown tribes with different cultures and their masks and rituals. I don't mind the change, was wanted to share this point of view

MathUser2929 · « **Reply #208 on:** July 18, 2016, 07:54:16 am »

Yet another example of whitewashing.

KingMike · « **Reply #209 on:** July 18, 2016, 08:44:23 am »

Quote from: nesrocks on July 13, 2016, 09:48:07 pm

Oh yeah, I never thought he'd do an AVGN episode. I think he only does those for old official releases, not hacks.
About sending him a cartridge maybe I will in the future. Living in Brazil the costs are kind of prohibite, but I might get there hehe

He did Hong Kong '97. The origin of the game seems like a mystery, though I've assumed it was some random demo-scene homebrew. I've seen a discussion, of something complete else, on Tomato's Legends of Localization divert into HK97 and who "HappySoft" was. (they've assumed it was either a Japanese or Chinese "company" but couldn't decide which)
And he also did a series of short reviews one Christmas (wasn't it 2014?), which I guess he each counts as an episode. That included Crazy Bus, a homebrew ripoff of Desert Bus for the Genesis. I've heard it was originally just some kind of compiler test demo. Someone still reproed it and mailed it to him.

M-Tee · « **Reply #210 on:** July 18, 2016, 09:21:39 am »

Those sprites look great and the transition to more zombie-inspired designs is a swell way to handle the questionable content of the original.

nesrocks · « **Reply #211 on:** July 18, 2016, 09:35:07 am »

FCandChill: Nice observations. Those are quick fixes. I don't mind the animation being different (the head wobble), but on the masked man it is indeed strange because his neck bounces up and down and the head doesn't. I'll make his head move up and down too.

Da_GPer: I think I might review the concept.

protomank: I never thought of them that way, specially because the big one looks like he's dead instead of wearing a skull mask and they both seem to be wearing long sleeves.

At least now I have reorganized the tiles in the rom (reassigning tiles was like hell) so making conceptual changes is easier. Here's old and new tiles:

In my opinion making them clearly cannibals is an interesting concept. I never knew what they were supposed to be, but maybe that + their lack of animation (life) made them so uneasy and disturbing to look at. That uneasiness is lacking in the new sprites. I'll wait and see if there's more feedback about this here and then come back to these.

Just a reminder: their in-game behavior is a lot zombie-like, except for the occasional projectile shooting. I can already adjust their move speed, their shot speed, and how often they shoot.

edit: the US manual mentions them as cavemen, while the japanese one seems to say they are simply underground people (confirmation needed. If anyone has the japanese manual please share. I couldn't find it anywhere on the internet).

edit2: There is one unused enemy in the rom that gave me a real scare when I tested it. I think I'll add it somewhere with original graphics.

M-Tee · « **Reply #212 on:** July 18, 2016, 12:46:02 pm »

Your new designs definitely have a creepiness to them that's working for them. Always excited to see what gets posted in this thread.

FCandChill · « **Reply #213 on:** July 18, 2016, 02:55:33 pm »

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Googie · « **Reply #214 on:** July 22, 2016, 07:07:58 pm »

I've been watching the progress of this hack for a while, cool changes you've been making, I can't wait to play it when it's done...

nesrocks · « **Reply #215 on:** July 23, 2016, 06:26:47 pm »

So, if I wanted to put the hack on a cart would it be possible with the MMC3 patch? I've converted the hack to MMC3 using infidelity's patch at some point and now it's MMC3. It's not really using anything mapper specific so I can convert it back to UNROM, I would just need to redo a bit of the hud logic as it is using an area on the rom that was made empty by his patch.

As a side note, bte lamented that he won't have time to redo the sound engine or change the songs as he originally intended, so those tasks are up for grabs again.

FCandChill · « **Reply #216 on:** July 23, 2016, 07:34:39 pm »

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Da_GPer · « **Reply #217 on:** July 23, 2016, 07:53:24 pm »

Well, the good news is MMC3 can actually help you as it seems everyone now days is using that to make there ROM hacks. They might be able to help you better. It is sad hearing about the sound guy leaving. I hope you can find a replacement.

nesrocks · « **Reply #218 on:** July 24, 2016, 02:00:04 pm »

Alright, I'll leave it on mmc3 then.

Here's how I've been using MapEd Pro to edit the rooms. I have opened a second window with the original rooms on the right to make it clearer.

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7111&p=176023#p176023

I'm really greateful for the map editor, but it'd be so helpful if it was open source so I could make some improvements:
image export, load rooms in a different order, zoom, metatile attribute editting, bigger editable area for full hd screens, load rom directly instead of sepparate files, just to name a few.
Maybe the original idea of making an open source editor wasn't so bad after all.

FCandChill · « **Reply #219 on:** July 24, 2016, 02:25:19 pm »

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