Anyone Interested in Doing "SMB Special" for NES?

[frantik]

Yeah, gonna put out two patches, one with NES colors, one with X1 colors.  Personally I think the X1 colors & dithering look terrible but apparently people like it

[MathUser2929]

I like the changes made in the 2nd hack. It will be good to see the hack get closer to the real thing.

[erpster2]

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1011/

This is a updated version of the original hack. You should add this too.

this layout bugfix by PowerPanda should also be added to prevent potential "softlocks" in certain levels where players may get stuck.

[frantik]

Right now I'm thinking the final rom will feature a choice between two options.

The "Enhanced NES Version"

* Will use NES colors
* Enable the exit pipe in the trap room in 4-3.  I read somewhere that the developers didn't intend for that to be a trap

The other softlock area I may leave since the fix Power Panda put in changed the way that whole area works


The "X1" version

* incorporate graphics/color changes from Messatu
* leave in all level design bugs


Both will have the full title screen and be the most legit versions possible

[MathUser2929]

That sounds good. So, what do you have planned? Are you trying to add everything missing? What you've done looks pretty good.

[ShadowOne333]

Right now I'm thinking the final rom will feature a choice between two options.

The "Enhanced NES Version"

* Will use NES colors
* Enable the exit pipe in the trap room in 4-3.  I read somewhere that the developers didn't intend for that to be a trap

The other softlock area I may leave since the fix Power Panda put in changed the way that whole area works


The "X1" version

* incorporate graphics/color changes from Messatu
* leave in all level design bugs


Both will have the full title screen and be the most legit versions possible

If I may, I suggest making both the NES and X1 versions differences be only the graphics. I'd also like to play the X1 version with all the bugfixes in place.

I'd suggest making an optional IPS patch that applies to both versions, which solely restores the bugs and nothing else.
That'd add leaps to user choice and enjoyability.

[frantik]

Thinking about it more, I'll probably not include the bugs.. I realized the original release actually "fixed" one bug in 4-2 so already it wasn't accurate.  An the "trap room" just makes everyone upset anyways.  In 2012 one of the original developers tweeted about this hack and even about what they would fix " I definitely want to fix the place where I can't die until the time is up due to a dead end due to a bug.

Last night I added a feature to control how pipes work better.. in the original SMB, you only come out of a pipe if you go into a sideways pipe, and always drop from the ceiling if you go down a vertical pipe.  But in SMB Special, sometimes the opposite happens. In the original release I added some sideways pipes were vertical pipes should be.  Now those can be returned to vertical pipes. 

Also got all the enemies except icicles working

[MathUser2929]

Cool, how about the powerups too? I remeber it had some items not found in the other hack versions.

[frantik]

all the new power ups graphics are in there and the bee, wing, atom and clock all work properly.  still need to work on the hammer, that one will be the hardest to implement

[MathUser2929]

Looks good.

[thanksgoogle]

Would it be possible to implement the backgrounds and tiles from the original version? Like having the trees and bushes being the same sizes in the same places, the underwater blocks being above water in 3-1, etc.

[TRIFORCE89]

Holy moly! This is exciting and came out of nowhere.

Your original release is quite simply my favourite hack. I've played your NES port, Messatu's X1 version, and my graphic patch many many many times.

Really looking forward to experiencing this fully realized version. Thank you!

[Vanya]

Just saw this! Can't say how hyped I am to see this hack get all the extra love.
Dying to play it again with all the newly ported features!

[frantik]

Would it be possible to implement the backgrounds and tiles from the original version? Like having the trees and bushes being the same sizes in the same places, the underwater blocks being above water in 3-1, etc.

maybe the trees, since some of their placement seems to be "artistic".. the bushes and the rest not gonna worry about as much.

Did get the underground plant tiles and also the other ground tiles looking more like how it looks in the original



getting some of these screens totally accurate is more complicated than adding a few of the power ups!

[TRIFORCE89]

I don't recall if it was in your original port or the X1 rendition but I recall a visual glitch in underwater stages where the water and the sky used the same blue. Just pointing it out in case that's something you wanted to address on this version.

Also, curious how the Lucky Star (Atom) will be handled. Doesn't it have too many colours? Would this edited sheet from MFGG be helpful at all?

[frantik]

I don't recall if it was in your original port or the X1 rendition but I recall a visual glitch in underwater stages where the water and the sky used the same blue. Just pointing it out in case that's something you wanted to address on this version.

Yeah.. In SMB the water is weird, to get the light blue water, the game puts background tiles everywhere.  But this causes weirdness where you can't see mario exit/enter a pipe.  You can see it most obviously in SMB 8-4 in the water area of the castle, mario just "appears" on top of the pipe.  Since there is more entering and exiting pipes underwater in Super Mario Special, the water was changed so that there's no background tiles.  This does cause everything to be the same color.  I guess it could be changed to all be lighter blue.  I have been putting some thought into this since the rest of the game is getting much closer to the original

edit.. messed around way too long to get what is visually almost the same, but mario can be seen going in pipes with the light blue sky in water now

Also, curious how the Lucky Star (Atom) will be handled. Doesn't it have too many colours? Would this edited sheet from MFGG be helpful at all?

You can see the lucky star higher up in this thread



Got the underwater tiles looking green even above ground

[PowerPanda]

The other softlock area I may leave since the fix Power Panda put in changed the way that whole area works

Totally fine by me. I knew my addendum was going to be a matter of preference for most people.

I'd also recommed doing something about that ceiling in 7-4 though. If all of the blocks need to be dropped by 2, then the "faithfulness" in the rom is actually creating a challenge that wasn't present in the original. Now, I changed a few other things about that room so that the changes could happen without code shifting, and you are welcome to ignore all of those. Just don't make a 1-block gap right next to a fireball/icicle, as that almost guarantees forced damage.

[frantik]

I'd also recommed doing something about that ceiling in 7-4 though.

So I saw your comments about that and some other issues... if you play the latest version of the hack I released with Karatorian, those graphic glitches and the error you mention in 7-4 don't exist because they were fixed in the final bug fix version.  But the source code Karatorian released to the public didn't have the last bug fix update.  I think this caused those errors to be present in the X1 version and the later version put out by Triforce99.  When I first saw your hack posted I was confused about the bugs you mentioned, but when I got the source code and saw it wasn't up to date, it made a little more sense

I have been thinking about how to fix that one soft-lock area with the mushroom, and still penalize you for doing it wrong, just not make you wait for the clock to run down

[PowerPanda]

So I saw your comments about that and some other issues... if you play the latest version of the hack I released with Karatorian, those graphic glitches and the error you mention in 7-4 don't exist because they were fixed in the final bug fix version.  But the source code Karatorian released to the public didn't have the last bug fix update.  I think this caused those errors to be present in the X1 version and the later version put out by Triforce99.  When I first saw your hack posted I was confused about the bugs you mentioned, but when I got the source code and saw it wasn't up to date, it made a little more sense

I have been thinking about how to fix that one soft-lock area with the mushroom, and still penalize you for doing it wrong, just not make you wait for the clock to run down

Oh, I didn't know. I mainly played Triforce99's version, and assumed that was the latest one. Sorry about that misunderstanding.

For 2-3, I thought long and hard about what the original developers were trying to do. My belief is that they were trying to give you a mushroom, but prevent you from getting a Flower. The ability to lock yourself out of getting a mushroom was unintentional, I believe. I tried about 12 different versions of this room, and finally settled on what you see in this picture:


If you are VERY careful, you can get a fireflower from this room by crouch jumping. That requires never stepping past the powerup box. In that case, you'll get the flower, then fall down through the gap rather than clipping through the blocks on the right side. If you have moved far enough to the right to hit the hidden block, you are no longer able to fit through the gap on the left side (Edit: I tried again, and it is JUST possible to get the fireflower and clip through, but you have to really know what your doing ahead of time!). However, the mushroom, since it is allowed to travel off-screen, will still fall down on the left side and get to you, preventing a softlock.

I didn't really like changing the layout like this, but it was the best solution I could come up with that didn't produce obvious clipping.

I will say that I'm ecstatic for the changes you're putting in, adding the new powerups and such. When this is finished, I may invest in the hardware necessary to mod my Super Mario game and watch to add this as the 3rd game, in place of Ball.

[frantik]

I mainly played Triforce99's version, and assumed that was the latest one.

they are the latest released but don't have the last error fixes.  Kind of a shame actually..

My belief is that they were trying to give you a mushroom, but prevent you from getting a Flower. The ability to lock yourself out of getting a mushroom was unintentional, I believe.

I never thought of that, your changes make sense if you view it that way.  To me it just looks like a trap.. I feel like they could have put more hidden blocks if the intent was to allow you to get the mushroom.  Just putting the one hidden block makes it so you trap yourself easily.  I've been thinking about putting in hole to kill yourself if you get trapped or something. 

There's a similar trap room in 7-1, but that one is only a trap in the SMB engine version.  There's a 1up and a power up mushroom in the same small room,  if you hit the 1 up before collecting the power up mushroom, the power up mushroom will disappear because in SMB engine only one power up can exist at a time

Added in the icicles last night.. pretty much just need to figure out how to implement the hammer power up and most all the tough stuff will be done, though still some background graphics stuff I wanna work on.  Trying to get this done quick though, my free time is gonna become less again soon