Metroid: Space Complex (Metroid 1 NES Hack WIP)

[Dreamwhale]

You made some points. My initial thought is that i use the darkest brown shade ONLY for the walkable dunes you can stand on to make them stand out from the rest.
I used the same dune-outline tiles for the fg and bg dunes to efficiently save on CHR space.
So i will think of some more solution to make them easily visually separate even more.

I would love to see your proposal aka your picture edit. Do you have a discord account, this would be the easiest way to share pictures.
or maybe do some quick mediafire - upload.

Greets.


Overall glad you like this, it did eat time and effort beyond belief to do it.

I've never worked within the limitations of a NES game, so I can only imagine how much effort must have gone into this project. All I can say is that it does pay off.

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/j3cql3y3viwch

Keep in mind that these ("a" and "b") were just a quickly made to clarify my statement And naturally one would have to see it in motion. There are probably better ways to doing this and I'm looking forward to seeing your solutions.

edit: Here's an even more "radical" take:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/0vkyd0eywww9ver/file

[Mindflower]

I've never worked within the limitations of a NES game, so I can only imagine how much effort must have gone into this project. All I can say is that it does pay off.

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/j3cql3y3viwch

Keep in mind that these ("a" and "b") were just a quickly made to clarify my statement And naturally one would have to see it in motion. There are probably better ways to doing this and I'm looking forward to seeing your solutions.

edit: Here's an even more "radical" take:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/0vkyd0eywww9ver/file

I checked them out, and i will update my background dunes to somewhat similar to your proposal, thanks for that! And indeed, some more readability and differentiation of fore- and background elements is surely a good aim. Sorry for my late reply, i'm not that often online here, instead we focus on the discord.
October 18, 2020, 01:09:21 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Hello,

this time i'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
A random serious of old and new area's tilesets, animations, mockups and WIP documents.

***** SURFACE AREA *****







***** CAVE *****





***** TEMPLE *****





***** MARINE AREA *****



***** DESERT AREA *****



***** COLD AREA *****






For more frequent updates please feel invited to join the discord https://discord.gg/UhRqEJs
Cheers!

[Mindflower]

and at the moment it's working out cave tileset-time!

[Aclectico]

@Mindflower Just thought I'd stop by to say this is looking fantastic. Every time I check the forum for this project, I get more and more impressed with the progress you are making.

I'm curious though, most of the Metroid hacks I see alter the player sprite in some way - But, the jumping pose is usually the same (one leg is kind of pointing backward while the other is pointing down). I know this is due to a limitation with how the base game works (sharing jumping graphics with running graphics). I was never able to overcome this limitation myself without methods that will not work on original hardware. It was always frustrating because I thought the pose always looked a bit awkward. I'm wondering, have you seen any discussion recently at Metroid Construction in terms of attempting to alter this behavior? I think the look of both legs being crouched up (similar to Super Metroid) is a more dynamic look. But, I know it would also involve separating running and jumping graphics. I haven't seen a solution yet for Metroid that can be achieved exclusively with a .ips patch. I'm interested to know your thoughts.

BTW - really impressed with the blizzard effect and parallax effects!

**Edit 10/22/2020**
So, funny timing. P0ZN0 just brought to my attention a hack that was just released on October 18th. It looks a whole lot like that pesky jump pose issue was solved somehow. @Mindflower, I'm curious if you've seen this.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5463/

[cartridge_rom]

this project was canceled ?? 

has not updated for a long time, it is already finished or published ?

any news ?? Thank you 

[Mindflower]

this project was canceled ?? 

has not updated for a long time, it is already finished or published ?

any news ?? Thank you 

A definite NO! It's still up and running!
It's just that i had to take care of health issues and due to this was unable to put my time into this monster of a hack. But, i can gladly announce i am in good shape again and just recently slowly came back to work on Space Complex.
Thanks for your sincere interest, and most certainly i am gonna come up with news soon. Cheers

[StarWyvern]

 I did not know you had health issues. I am sorry to hear that. But I am glad you are better now. Looking forward to seeing all of the updates to this BEASTLY hack! This has to be the biggest set of changes to Metroid I have ever seen. The world needs this game. And you are gonna make it happen.

[Morinis]

this project was canceled ?? 

has not updated for a long time, it is already finished or published ?

any news ?? Thank you 

Just because a project doesn't have anything posted to it in quite some time doesn't necessarily mean it's cancelled.  Never believe a rumor mill about any project if it's cancelled unless the creator(s) announce something along those lines.  I know some people of over 10 years on  here that haven't posted on their thread for about that length of time which are still working on their project around real life endeavors.


Be courteous and thoughtful when it comes to stuff like this

[cartridge_rom]

Morinis, asked it because the thread was blocked by romhacking when it had no activity in 4 months, the doubts have been asked in a correct way, there is no offense of any kind.

good luck and health to Mindflower. cheer up 

thank you for this Metroid NES project 

[Morinis]

Morinis, asked it because the thread was blocked by romhacking when it had no activity in 4 months, the doubts have been asked in a correct way, there is no offense of any kind.

How was it blocked?  Anyone could access it.

In  honesty, I wasn't sure as I've been squashing stuff by people on behalf of MindFlower of them saying this is cancelled.  Been doing it a lot so was in defense mode, my bad 

[Flaviogames]

Mindflower: I'm new here and I've been looking at the projects and there are 2 that are among the most incredible that will be remarkable, yours and another one from SMW that is also incredible, I would like to congratulate you for the very beautiful incredible work, I want to know if it is possible add another animation frame to run more beautiful, I saw a metroid hack where the guy added a little bigger sprites similar to the super metroid and also improved the animation and the movement was amazing, do you think about doing something like that? I subscribed to your channel, I wait for news, I hope you are well because I read that you were in health problems and that you were recovered and I was wondering if everything is fine
May 09, 2021, 08:00:33 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Mindflower: when I'm playing Nes' metroid I think it's bad the way the gun fires slowly and often fails, can this be corrected so that when you hold the trigger button, it fires quickly without failing? I know that there is a limit on speed, but I know that in the original game this function is very bad

[Mindflower]

Mindflower: I'm new here and I've been looking at the projects and there are 2 that are among the most incredible that will be remarkable, yours and another one from SMW that is also incredible, I would like to congratulate you for the very beautiful incredible work, I want to know if it is possible add another animation frame to run more beautiful, I saw a metroid hack where the guy added a little bigger sprites similar to the super metroid and also improved the animation and the movement was amazing, do you think about doing something like that? I subscribed to your channel, I wait for news, I hope you are well because I read that you were in health problems and that you were recovered and I was wondering if everything is fine
May 09, 2021, 08:00:33 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Mindflower: when I'm playing Nes' metroid I think it's bad the way the gun fires slowly and often fails, can this be corrected so that when you hold the trigger button, it fires quickly without failing? I know that there is a limit on speed, but I know that in the original game this function is very bad

hey flavio,

first sorry for my late reply, i haven't been here for quite some time. well, what i did is changing the running animation for Samus to a smooth 1-2-3-2 transition, which is a small but notable change.
For the gun firing i do not intend to implement auto-fire. tbh i would not even know by hand how to do so, and also the code bank within the rom is full anyway, there are many changes and asm edits compared to og Metroid. Space Jump, advanced Water Mechanics, Wall Jump, to name a few.
I think the gun firing mechanism is ok as is.

Thanks for your interest!

And also yes, i'm back working at it again.
Hopefully i will be back here soon with some updates. Stay tuned, and of course healthy!

[Flaviogames]

Mindflower: Glad to hear you're alright, I was worried you might have been a Covid victim, I picked up covid recently but thank God the symptoms were light and I survived to see your rack complete if God allows me, your project is impressive, waiting for news, I also subscribed to your channel, post a video there, I have a youtube channel I'm Brazilian, would I be able to get a beta of your game to post a video and leave the link to your channel for more people know?

I'm anxious to see the improved animation, shooting in metroid is now automatic you just can hold the button to shoot and it keeps shooting, the problem is that it fails a lot and forces us to use the turbo function, when using the turbo function there are two problems 1 if the turbo speed is too fast, it shoots a little and then shoots again during this pause, the other problem is that when walking and shooting with turbo function it harms the animation, so it would be interesting to correct the shot so as not to fail , is it possible? I wanted to give you a suggestion, in the desert scene when the enemy appears that comes out from under the scene, this is strange because the senario looks like the sand has a three-dimensional view, that is, the bottom of the scene is close to our view so the enemy would have to go ahead until you get to where Samus is and not just go up, running by stepping out of a hole or seeing from above
July 03, 2021, 11:04:09 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Mindflower: I was playing medroid nes and I noticed something that is missing in this game and should be added to your project even if it takes a lot longer, is the system to bend down and be able to shoot the enemies down ok this is very important even more that your project is a brand new game, do you think this is possible? there is a metroid hack for us that it has better animation and big sprite and can also bend down, do you know the hack? if you don't know how to phase this you could try speaking the author of the hack

[Flaviogames]

Mindflow: are you okay? we are waiting for your return

[StarWyvern]

It has been a while. How is your health mindflower? Are you ok?

[Flaviogames]

Mindflower: how is your project going? please don't give up this game is very beautiful

[Mindflower]

It has been a while. How is your health mindflower? Are you ok?

Mindflower: how is your project going? please don't give up this game is very beautiful

Hello!
First of all, I'm ok. Lately i've been overcoming Covid as well, and i'm feeling better overall. Thanks for your interest and nice words!

In the recent two weeks i have been turning up gears and continued working on the hack.

We've been able to implement a custom sound engine onto the game, which grants me much more creative freedom as a composer, especially compared to the rather limited vanilla metroid sound engine.
Now we are using nesdoug's fork of famitone, namely Famitone5, instead.
Due to this i began reconstructing the game's soundtrack.
I show you some of those efforts here:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surface Area Demo Track
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519241262029602826/958341636579029062/surface_demo_1.3.mp3


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ice Cave Demo Track
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519241262029602826/958137425090207814/Ice_Demo_1.3_quieter_drums.mp3


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Underwater Marine Demo Track
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519241262029602826/954058187517075506/water_demo_1.1_.mp3


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Area Demo Track
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519241262029602826/956964162590875728/riptide_fabric_1.3.mp3


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other than that, this game means a lot of work, and there is still so much of it ahead, but it's going forward.
Sure this will be worked on solely on spare time, but i grew more confident that progress will be made.
So yes, this is mainly what I'm doing at the moment:

- Drawing out the world map and plot in regards to item progression and routing.
- Designing several tilesets
- Composing music and sound effects.
- Learning how to work with a custom sound engine including custom assembly, which i am still a beginner with (but I'm learning).
- and more.

Hope you all are doing great, stay healthy!
~. Mindflower .~


P.S. For more frequent updates on the progress, feel engaged to contact me on discord (Mindflower#7650 on Discord), and join the Space Complex-Channel!

[Flaviogames]

Mindflower: glad everything is ok, I had covid but it was nothing serious, about your project we are happy to know that it is going well and that we will have new songs, I remember that I commented about the shooting being faster when keeping the button pressed and at the time you said you didn't know how to do it, would it be possible for you to seek knowledge to do this? thanks for your attention, if possible make a video for your channel showing scenes because they are very well made to be from the Nes 8 bit

[Mindflower]

Mindflower: glad everything is ok, I had covid but it was nothing serious, about your project we are happy to know that it is going well and that we will have new songs, I remember that I commented about the shooting being faster when keeping the button pressed and at the time you said you didn't know how to do it, would it be possible for you to seek knowledge to do this? thanks for your attention, if possible make a video for your channel showing scenes because they are very well made to be from the Nes 8 bit

I have no change of the gun firing mechanism planned. At least not in the near future. You could theoretically just enable auto-fire if you wanna be sneaky?
For the video footage, yes i intended to upload some stuff to my Youtube-Channel whenever i have enough in-game stuff to show off.
April 01, 2022, 09:01:23 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)


I have been redoing the Surface Area Tileset, implemented it into the rom and made a first test room.

[Flaviogames]

Mindflower: ok we are waiting for video on the channel, as soon as possible add a link so we can test a beta version