Mario Gaiden: Making SMB1 great again. Assistance needed!

[OneCrudeDude]

"Nepgear, HD Neptunia MK2"

Is that by chance a reference to the Hyperdimension Neptunia games for the PS3?

[Bisqwit]

Is this a rewrite of the game or does it still use the same engine at the base?

[w7n]

"Nepgear, HD Neptunia MK2"

Is that by chance a reference to the Hyperdimension Neptunia games for the PS3?

Well, quite obviously a direct reference, from the infamous 'conquest ending' of Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2. A pun on 'editing ROM and RAM', as this mechanic is specifically designed to combat save file editing.

Is this a rewrite of the game or does it still use the same engine at the base?

I've been editing the roots of the SMB engine in various aspects. But it's still based on the SMB engine, or it won't be called a ROM hack.

[M-Tee]

Have you made a concrete decision in art style? Will you be keeping the SMB-style sprites? If so, you'll want to keep things consistent.

ex. The boo in your boo effect screen has an outline, but the SMB sprites weren't outlined. So you're going to want to either move everything over to a new, SMB3-style design or edit the imports to match a SMB style.

I'm pretty sure that these are just placeholder graphics anyway, just wanted to bring it to your attention if not.

[Clippit]

Y'know? That MegaMan cutscene thing would be perfect on the Super Mario Bros. Special hack.

[w7n]

Have you made a concrete decision in art style? Will you be keeping the SMB-style sprites? If so, you'll want to keep things consistent.

ex. The boo in your boo effect screen has an outline, but the SMB sprites weren't outlined. So you're going to want to either move everything over to a new, SMB3-style design or edit the imports to match a SMB style.

I'm pretty sure that these are just placeholder graphics anyway, just wanted to bring it to your attention if not.

Well indeed these are placeholder graphics.
As I've said I really suck at graphics, though. My opinions are, the design of SMB3 graphics are simple and upbeat, and it should not be what the style should be in my game. I hope to put more emphasis on the details on the graphics e.g. shadow and bright area, parallax scrolling etc., so that it's made to be more realistic.

[w7n]

Progress is not so fast...
So a few images to show what I've been doing.

From left to right: the 'Cutscene' system(very powerful in manipulating the SMB system, but unable to do those Ninja Gaiden style cutscenes), the pools in overground levels, the pause screen which shows the description of your abilities and items.
(The pause screen may need revision in the future.)

Please ignore the crapped background. This is only meant to test the background system, and has been unchanged.


...And just by the way, another netizen has been helping me with the new level editor for this hack, and I've been planning the new level data structure of this game.

[southbird]

Progress is not so fast...

Took me 2.5 years to get Super Mario Bros. 3Mix done, heh. And that was after I did a whole disassembly of Super Mario Bros. 3, which took a couple years by itself...

You definitely have talent, lots of it. You clearly have a vision and you're following through with it. So that is awesome. 

I will note one thing; a while ago, earlier in this thread, you posted a video of a boss fight with a modified Bowser that took something on the order of almost 9 minutes to fight, with lots of hammers. Now, not sure if that was meant to be permanent or just a test of behavior modification, but I'd like to suggest not being so hardcore. And even if that's not meant to be final, this goes in general.

A lot of hacks seem to make things hard for difficulty's sake, not with any particular gameplay balance. I saw you doing some pretty clever tricks dodging those hammers, but you had the benefit of likely having played your own code repeatedly non-stop to get good at it. A new player will probably find that frustrating, and will likely use savestates frequently to circumvent your game design. Especially since Mario has at best 2 hits (unless you're planning to modify that as well.) Your "super powers" might tilt the scales a bit, but if I run out of coins, does that mean I'm just screwed into (x) minutes of tedium?

It's just something to consider... a feature I actually like about Mario games is that they generally don't make me want to toss the controller at the wall.

[Midna]

a feature I actually like about Mario games is that they generally don't make me want to toss the controller at the wall.

I don't know, the New and 3D Land/World series can get pretty fiendish sometimes...

[w7n]

Took me 2.5 years to get Super Mario Bros. 3Mix done, heh. And that was after I did a whole disassembly of Super Mario Bros. 3, which took a couple years by itself...

You definitely have talent, lots of it. You clearly have a vision and you're following through with it. So that is awesome. 

I will note one thing; a while ago, earlier in this thread, you posted a video of a boss fight with a modified Bowser that took something on the order of almost 9 minutes to fight, with lots of hammers. Now, not sure if that was meant to be permanent or just a test of behavior modification, but I'd like to suggest not being so hardcore. And even if that's not meant to be final, this goes in general.

A lot of hacks seem to make things hard for difficulty's sake, not with any particular gameplay balance. I saw you doing some pretty clever tricks dodging those hammers, but you had the benefit of likely having played your own code repeatedly non-stop to get good at it. A new player will probably find that frustrating, and will likely use savestates frequently to circumvent your game design. Especially since Mario has at best 2 hits (unless you're planning to modify that as well.) Your "super powers" might tilt the scales a bit, but if I run out of coins, does that mean I'm just screwed into (x) minutes of tedium?

It's just something to consider... a feature I actually like about Mario games is that they generally don't make me want to toss the controller at the wall.

Thanks for the feedback. About that boss fight:
In my plan it's a sidequest boss that only appears after the player has cleared the game. No other boss takes that long to defeat. As an example: the second longest boss in my plan only has about 1/3 HP of the boss in the video.
My planned boss mechanic is:
1: If you're Regular/Super Mario, you'll be automatically changed to Fiery Mario. Otherwise you'll keep your current powerup.
2: In the boss fight the timer starts at a calculated value. Mechanic: If x is the limit of the time limit for the boss fight, then the actual time limit is the smaller value between (0.75x + time left in midstage/2) and x. Because of this mechanic, since there should always be a save point before a boss fight, if you ever fail a boss fight, the next time you fight the boss you'll have more time to spare.
3: If you get hit during the boss fight, the timer decreases by 100 but you won't get hurt. This is already shown in the video twice.
4: There will be lots of coins before the boss battle, and presumably a few bonus coins during the boss battle.

[southbird]

I don't know, the New and 3D Land/World series can get pretty fiendish sometimes...

I should qualify that a bit. Most of the time they don't. But you're right, there's always a few select levels in there that just somehow cause strife. Actually I'm mostly worried about "Kaizo" style hacks that have become popular in recent time. It's like people are always trying to find a way to make a hack that is trying to find the absolute limit that anyone could possibly play it, rather than being inviting to all players old and new. Sometimes it's not quite that, but there's another problem where if you're the sole person making and testing your hack, you might actually get so good at it you can't tell what's too mean anymore. I've fallen into that trap a few times.

[w7n]

So back in business...
Just reworked the graphics system and changed the minimum sprite size from 8x8 to 8x16.
This saves sprite space in the OAM, and bosses can use more sprites. It saves processing time too.
The downside: It wastes CHR space...

No preview image, sorry.

Next step is the level data processing routine--which is, presumably, the LAST big system change.
After that, we're mostly done with the system work.

Edit: You want some images? OK here are 2 images.

Left: Bat Mario in bat form, and his fireball. Also notice the wave-like scroll. (The wave-like scroll is a test, it will be altered and used in specific stages)
Right: 'Next 1UP' function. Next 1UP scores are: 10000*n^2. (The item description of Gifted Star is a parody of the anime Strawberry Panic. The so-called 'Etoile election'...)
Also there's an upgrade called fire-bomb which is obtained by collecting a second fire flower. After obtaining it, when the player's fireballs hit something, it will explode and kill nearby enemies.
And: The mechanics of vines are changed to those in SMB3. Also some bugfix of the original SMB engine.

[Bahamut ZERO]

You can do it! From what I've seen and read through in this topic, this is definately gonna be EPIC. 


Not to mention it's extremely refreshing to see a new SMB1 hack after so long!

[w7n]

VRC7 music engine Rev2 is complete!
(Just coded a certain cover track into the game)

Edit: Still trying to eliminate lag. The current lagless limit is:
2A03 Music + 18 IRQs + 5 enemies(all of them with collision detection), scroll not scrolling

[Grimoire LD]

Wow. This is really, really impressive! I love the idea of having the Coins do Something for once and the extra effort you're putting into it will make it fit its monicker of "epic"!

[NukeOTron]

Funny question... Do you still need new graphics for this? While I don't do much rom hacking these days, I am still a pretty good sprite artist. After all, I still make games of my own.
I don't think I can make Mario himself any more realistic without ruining his infamously oversized nose and mustache, so, do you just want the BG graphics highly detailed, or both the BG graphics and the sprites? It's an NES, you know...

...just note that I can only draw stuff, not edit palettes or increase the size of the rom to add more stuff.
So... what do you need?

[MaxMouse]

Keep it up man, it's looking great so far. I especially love the new scrolling system, gives way to many new possibilities.

[w7n]

>>NukeOTron
Well, I can't answer your question right now, sorry...


New updates:

(Ignore the crap background)
Why is Mario killed? Answer: The middle part of the scroll is moving up but the ceiling is stationary, and Mario gets squished.

Also, what do you expect from a new powerup called Gunner Mario?
Gunner Mario fires rapidly in 10 directions, but only on the ground, and firing slows his speed down.

Minor updates:
>Spin jump is being made. It doesn't have the glitching of getting hurt when spin jumping onto 2 enemies (in SMW) Still, the graphics is incomplete. Spin jump can't break bricks below in this game.
>When you stomp an enemy, you can hold A to bounce higher.
>The accelerating & braking mechanic is faster, to make Mario easier to control. Also one important change: B no longer works as the running button. Instead, you simply run by holding the D-pad.
>Infinite continues... and extremely player-friendly continue mechanics. Continuing resets your score, but boosts your state to Fire Mario with Fire-bomb upgrade(i.e. 'Full Power Up'), and sends you back to the last checkpoint. Your continue count is recorded though.
>Some more DPCM samples which are played on the title screen.

[w7n]

Terribly sorry for a real long development gap. (Actually not all due to real-life issues, I had been participating in Famicompo Pico 2015 and won 1st in covers)
Anyway, this project isn't dead and I'm pretty much decided to continue working on it as long as I have spare time, but it really could progress slower due to real life issues(career and whatsoever).

A minor feature I've just programmed is the cheat feature: Enter cheat codes to get maximum invincibility time, maximum gold, rare equipment etc, but one use of the cheat code would set your continue count to 99 and name you a WUSS.

[Grimlock]

I'm glad to see you're still working on this project, I was wondering what ever became of it.