Pony Poki Panic - Improvements to NES Hack [Version 1.1 - Submitted]

[RadioTails]

All the screenshots were taken using FCEUX Emulator while using the Nestopia palette.
The screenshots on the left are the original, while the ones on the right are the modified ones.

I've released Pony Poki Panic (Beta 3) which can be downloaded here (apply to "Super Mario Bros 2 (PRG 1) (U).nes" rom): https://www.mediafire.com/?y8lltujn5amj79x

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Update 5

I have submitted version 1.1.  Just got wait for it to be approved.

Once it has been approved, I'll submit a News Article to romhacking,net.  Keep an eye out for it.

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Update 4
Sorry for the lack of updates, but there hasn't really been anything worth showing, and even this is minor.

To celebrate the release of the My Little Pony: the Movie (the 2017 one, because they didn't learn anything from Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)...), I aim to release V1.1 on one of the following dates:
- 6th October (USA Release Date for the MLP Movie)
- 20th October - (UK Release Date for the MLP Movie)

It's more down to getting all the read me files put together.  I also hope this will give me time to fix the palette for the Hydra boss, but I suspect that might have to be a V1.2 release.

Anyway, I've made some changes to the title:


I felt the inclusion of Mattrizzle (designed the title logo) made it too crowded, so I took that name out.  Plus the lack of space made things difficult to work with.  Don't worry, I will include a Credits file that credits everyone for there hard work.

The title screen looks a lot better now, and I have put the respective years in.  I have also included the Version Number in, which will help in identify which version you are playing.


Now the Game Over screen originally looked like this:
   

It also bothered me that clicking RETRY takes you back to the Title Screen.  QUIT would have made more sense.  Plus it looks like it reads "CONTINUE 2".  They could have added a "x".

Now the issue was space.  To gain space, I raised the GAME OVER up by 1 and removed the text that was just placing blanks over it.  Then with a bit of shifting and changing RETRY to QUIT (well "QUIT      " to cover up the GAME OVER), it now looks like this:
   
I did think of having it like "CONTINUES: 1", which I can easily set it up like that.  Although the x makes a bit more sense.


I actually forgot that the currency they use in My Little Pony is bits, which basically do look like the Mario coins.  How convenient.

There was one case where "COINS" is mentioned.  I'll get that changed to "BITS".


I need to fix the height of the items when carried by the ponies.  They are slightly too high when they duck.  Also need to fix the Hydra palette issue.

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Update 3

Thanks photobucket for being a massive dick for giving no notice that people would have to pay $400 (haha, buck off) to display photos on other websites.  So I've got to move the pictures to an alternative free website, in this case https://imgbb.com/

After that moan, this hack is coming along nicely.  The next updates aren't too exiting, but they are necessary in making this hack good.

Finally got round to modifying the sprite where Nightmare Moon gets carried away.  Her eyes have been edited so she now looks "shocked" that she has been defeated.


Also there was a bug that was causing the first four lines on the people who are carrying Nightmare Moon (as seen in the left screenshot above).  It took me ages to track down the issue, and it turned out it was the Diamond sprite that was causing the issue.  I have no idea why it caused that issue.  To fix it, I swapped the Star and the Diamond around, which fixed the issue.  Not sure why it fixed it, but I'm not complaining.  Those sprites are what get thrown out of the tube at random during Nightmare Moon's boss, so it doesn't matter what order they are placed.


Asaki pointed out in Super Mario Bros. 2, the letter "O" is misaligned in one frame of the POW Block.  See this topic: http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=24281.0
So I made the fix in my hack.  Pretty easy fix.


SpiderDave used his amazing spider powers to fix another bug in Super Mario Bros. 2.  The issue was:

I fixed the issue where you do a charge jump holding an item, it now only resets left/right/down input.  Here's an updated SMB2 Improvement with that, fixed POW, and ellipsis if anyone wants to grab it or test.

It's hard to explain, but you can hold the run button while holding an item and jump without throwing it.  Thanks SpiderDave for posting the code.  I want to get him credited in the title screen, but I need to figure out how to move the tile data around (I have room 2 free hex bytes at the moment).

This next improvement won't make any game play differences, but it makes editing the graphics easier / doesn't repeat tiles (some being unused).

Here's what the PPU Data did look like:


Here's what it looks like now:


To understand what is going on, the above image I have highlighted in different colors.  Think of these as groups of tiles that get transferred from the ROM to the PPU:
- Red = Player Tiles
- Blue = Main Enemy / Item Tiles
- Purple = Specific Enemy / Item Tiles (different set for each world)
- Yellow = Background / Boss Tiles (different set for each world)
- Brown = Animated Tiles (8 frames in total)

So in the original Doki Doki Panic and the prototype of Super Mario Bros. 2, there was a lot less animation.  The albatross only used two frames of animation (taking up 16 tiles) and a bomb.  In Super Mario Bros. 2, the albatross and the bomb were given animations, along with other tiles as well.  However, the albatross and bomb data were still left in there, taking up unwanted space and the albatross's head was in the rom 8 times (8 sets of player data, 4 large and 4 small).  So I simply removed them.

The tiles next to albatross took me a while to figure out what they were.  Turns out they are the death animations when you kill the small Fryguys.  So I simple moved the data to the blue area and updated the game to load those tiles.  Plus they aren't being repeated 8 times.

In order to give the characters white eyes, the game loads a 8 x 16 sprite.  The sprite it loads is from the brown area.  This is where the animated tiles are, so they are stored in the rom 8 times. So I moved the tiles to the red area (player) data, so now each character can have a unique 8 x 16 tile (makes it WAY easier to edit) and it's not being repeated 8 times.

Also Luna's floating animation was in the blue area.  I moved this to the red area (player data) so it only gets loaded when you select her.

There are things I do need to fix:
- Adjust the height carrying values while holding an item (there are a bit off when they kneel).
- Make the Hydra boss use the Sprite palette 3 set.
- Add SpiderDrake to the title screen.

[Choppasmith]

I have heard of this hack, but never played it, but damn, that looks great! Well done!

[KingMike]

Note: You may have to click the image to make the image display the original resolution for the screenshots.  This forum is forcing some of them to have to have width and a height for some strange reason.  Somepony should look at that.

Intentional to prevent huge images from breaking the forum layout.

[Bonesy]

>somepony should look at that

dawg, equines can't romhack

[bradzx]

*saw this thread then turn it on my wii and remove old version of Pony Poki Panic then request for WAD to use this new version*   No wonder I didn't notice about graphic because I thought it was full version.   At least it look better than old version.   Keep it up.  Can't wait to see full version. 

[RadioTails]

Released a Beta 2 download.

[Googie]

Is this hack gonna have all new levels?

[RadioTails]

Is this hack gonna have all new levels?

I have no plans to add any new levels.  I just like the sprite work that herooftime1000 has done and felt his work could be improved, hence this project.

Released a Beta 3 download.

[RadioTails]

Update has been made!

[RadioTails]

I have submitted the file.  Just have to wait.