Super Metroid Arena MP

2009-02-21 01:36:41 pm

I've been coding some stuff for my own hacking purposes and as a result came up with this:

http://jathys.zophar.net/images/temp/torsuit02.wmv

If I press JUMP, the torizo jumps (forward, because I can't stand jumping backwards). If I press RUN, the torizo fires its beam. If I press SHOOT, the torizo scratches. LEFT/RIGHT turn the torizo in the correct direction. It's far from perfect, but I've just barely started it.

That said, it occurred to me late last night that it would be quite simple to have the torizo respond to Controller 2 instead of Controller 1. Then it occurred to me how very easy it would be to have 2 enemies in the room, each controlled by a seperate controller . . . The enemies would be specially coded to detect each other instead of samus. Throw in netplay and you've got a Multip Player Arena to fight in. That said:

[glow=red,2,300]Super Metroid: Arena MP[/glow]
A multi-player Super Metroid hack where players fight as different enemies. Choose what enemies to fight as, what room to fight in, then BAMM... You fight. Abilities and statistics of the enemies would be tweaked to make most fights more "fair" (for instance in case you have a torizo battling a geemer).

I expect this to be surprisingly easy to do, because I'm already able to control the torizo without many issues. Other enemies with fewer attacks would be easier to hijack. I also don't expect this to detract from my other hacking too much because:
1) If 2 enemies are coded, the game can be released... If 2 more get added, the game can be updated... This could be something that could be played before it's "done" without losing any of the fun in later versions as new enemies are ready to be used.
2) To start off with, all rooms would be 1x1 battle grounds (do to the scroll only following one point at a time... I have plans to allow bigger rooms later though, maybe). Anyone could make a different room to use in the arena, without having to commit too much time/effort. As the game wouldn't use most of the data of the game (few rooms, plms, enemies, states, etc...) overwriting wouldn't even be much of a problem and extra graphic sets should be able to be added in with minimum fuss. Some rooms could be cartoony, some could be dark, whatever.

This thread has gotten long enough already, so I'll just say a few last things and be done with it:
-Yes, I'm actually planning to do this (and am sure that I can do this).
-Will need volunteers to help test the thing so I know it works right (I can test controller 2, but not sure how it'd relate to netplay).
-Will want volunteers to create 1x1 battle rooms... Some can be filled with narrow tunnels for tiny enemies to battle in, though some should have large enough open areas that larger enemies such as a torizo could move around.
-Yes, Samus *might* be a playable character, though only one player could be samus at a time (and that player would likely have to be player 1.
-Yes, if you have no one to play against, you could play the game anyway (the computer will still have some control over the enemies when you're not pressing buttons), though this may be too easy depending on what enemies are fighting.

Thread title:

I've been coding some stuff for my own hacking purposes and as a result came up with this:

[url=http://jathys.zophar.net/images/temp/torsuit02.wmv]http://jathys.zophar.net/images/temp/torsuit02.wmv[/url]

If I press JUMP, the torizo jumps (forward, because I can't stand jumping backwards).  If I press RUN, the torizo fires its beam.  If I press SHOOT, the torizo scratches.  LEFT/RIGHT turn the torizo in the correct direction.  It's far from perfect, but I've just barely started it.

That said, it occurred to me late last night that it would be quite simple to have the torizo respond to Controller 2 instead of Controller 1.  Then it occurred to me how very easy it would be to have 2 enemies in the room, each controlled by a seperate controller . . . The enemies would be specially coded to detect each other instead of samus.  Throw in netplay and you've got a Multip Player Arena to fight in.  That said:

[glow=red,2,300]Super Metroid: Arena MP[/glow]
A multi-player Super Metroid hack where players fight as different enemies.  Choose what enemies to fight as, what room to fight in, then BAMM... You fight.  Abilities and statistics of the enemies would be tweaked to make most fights more "fair" (for instance in case you have a torizo battling a geemer).

I expect this to be surprisingly easy to do, because I'm already able to control the torizo without many issues.  Other enemies with fewer attacks would be easier to hijack.  I also don't expect this to detract from my other hacking too much because:
1) If 2 enemies are coded, the game can be released... If 2 more get added, the game can be updated... This could be something that could be played before it's "done" without losing any of the fun in later versions as new enemies are ready to be used.
2) To start off with, all rooms would be 1x1 battle grounds (do to the scroll only following one point at a time... I have plans to allow bigger rooms later though, maybe).  Anyone could make a different room to use in the arena, without having to commit too much time/effort.  As the game wouldn't use most of the data of the game (few rooms, plms, enemies, states, etc...) overwriting wouldn't even be much of a problem and extra graphic sets should be able to be added in with minimum fuss.  Some rooms could be cartoony, some could be dark, whatever.

This thread has gotten long enough already, so I'll just say a few last things and be done with it:
-Yes, I'm actually planning to do this (and am sure that I can do this).
-Will need volunteers to help test the thing so I know it works right (I can test controller 2, but not sure how it'd relate to netplay).
-Will want volunteers to create 1x1 battle rooms... Some can be filled with narrow tunnels for tiny enemies to battle in, though some should have large enough open areas that larger enemies such as a torizo could move around.
-Yes, Samus *might* be a playable character, though only one player could be samus at a time (and that player would likely have to be player 1.
-Yes, if you have no one to play against, you could play the game anyway (the computer will still have some control over the enemies when you're not pressing buttons), though this may be too easy depending on what enemies are fighting.

ducknerd

2009-02-21 01:43:05 pm

Eschews avatars

That wmv looks brilliant. I see some other purposes for that bit of code, though...

Deep_Space_Observer

Edit history:

Deep_Space_Observer: 2009-02-21 02:16:31 pm

2009-02-21 01:59:12 pm

I presume all rooms should be completely bare bones (No enemies or PLMs in them)?

Also, will FX like water or lava affect enemy behavior at all or not?

MetroidMst

2009-02-21 04:03:42 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

It looks interesting...

I would be willing to make some rooms, especially if they could get slightly bigger eventually since there aren't that many rooms to be had with one block except for different tilesets.

Jathys

2009-02-21 06:03:13 pm

Quote from ducknerd:

That wmv looks brilliant. I see some other purposes for that bit of code, though...

So do I. When I started hijacking the torizo, a multiplayer game wasn't even on my mind.

Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

I presume all rooms should be completely bare bones (No enemies or PLMs in them)?

Also, will FX like water or lava affect enemy behavior at all or not?

For right now, no enemies or plm's in the rooms, though I've considered the possibility of allowing extra enemies to be in there as well, though they'd be neutral/fodder. PLM's would be fine to include, though Samus-specific PLM's should be avoided (as only one player could be Samus and, for example, a gravity suit pick-up makes no sense for a geemer.

As for FX1 . . . I'll probably code it so that the enemies take damage from lava/acid, though I'm not sure the physics will be influenced by the liquids. Whereas that could be done, this is intended to be a side-project for me and not something I'd be concerning myself with major details of (except with the details of certain enemies that I have specific plans for in another hack: torizo, metroid, etc...)

Quote from MetroidMst:

I would be willing to make some rooms, especially if they could get slightly bigger eventually since there aren't that many rooms to be had with one block except for different tilesets.

My only hesitation on the larger rooms is that only one player could control the scroll of the room at a time. This could lead to one player being off screen and unable to see what they're doing. This could be especially irritating if one of the two players falls down a pit while the other player stands high above. Ideas I've had so far on this:
1) Center the scroll point directly between the two players . . . Don't let the players be more than a screen apart (not sure how to do this with falling though). If players were running away from each other, for instance, as soon as they were off screen the game would pull them back to the edge of the screen. Main concern here is that some people would be "scroll whores" and refuse to let you run to where you're trying to get to in a different portion of the room.
2) Scroll centered between the two players, but letting the players go off screen... Arrow icons would point in the direction of each player while off screen.
3) Split-screen, similar to games like Mario Kart and such..... In a game where you can move vertically so fast, this may be awkward to play with. Before being able to test that out though, the screen needs to be split. I'm pretty sure I could get the level data to appear correct on each player's 1/2 of the screen (of course, they'd each be seing 1/2 of a screen... in 1x1 rooms, this would simply appear normal). Getting the enemies to appear in the right locations with the split screen method could be a pain in the ass though.

Any thoughts on the scrolling issue or different ideas of how to handle it would be greatly appreciated. As you can tell though, the scrolling issue is probably one of the hardest things to deal with on this.

[quote="ducknerd"]
That wmv looks brilliant. I see some other purposes for that bit of code, though...
[/quote]So do I.  When I started hijacking the torizo, a multiplayer game wasn't even on my mind.

[quote="Deep_Space_Observer"]
I presume all rooms should be completely bare bones (No enemies or PLMs in them)?

Also, will FX like water or lava affect enemy behavior at all or not? 
[/quote]
For right now, no enemies or plm's in the rooms, though I've considered the possibility of allowing extra enemies to be in there as well, though they'd be neutral/fodder.  PLM's would be fine to include, though Samus-specific PLM's should be avoided (as only one player could be Samus and, for example, a gravity suit pick-up makes no sense for a geemer.

As for FX1 . . . I'll probably code it so that the enemies take damage from lava/acid, though I'm not sure the physics will be influenced by the liquids.  Whereas that could be done, this is intended to be a side-project for me and not something I'd be concerning myself with major details of (except with the details of certain enemies that I have specific plans for in another hack: torizo, metroid, etc...)

[quote="MetroidMst"]
I would be willing to make some rooms, especially if they could get slightly bigger eventually since there aren't that many rooms to be had with one block except for different tilesets.
[/quote]
My only hesitation on the larger rooms is that only one player could control the scroll of the room at a time.  This could lead to one player being off screen and unable to see what they're doing.  This could be especially irritating if one of the two players falls down a pit while the other player stands high above.  Ideas I've had so far on this:
1) Center the scroll point directly between the two players . . . Don't let the players be more than a screen apart (not sure how to do this with falling though).  If players were running away from each other, for instance, as soon as they were off screen the game would pull them back to the edge of the screen.  Main concern here is that some people would be "scroll whores" and refuse to let you run to where you're trying to get to in a different portion of the room.
2) Scroll centered between the two players, but letting the players go off screen... Arrow icons would point in the direction of each player while off screen.
3) Split-screen, similar to games like Mario Kart and such..... In a game where you can move vertically so fast, this may be awkward to play with.  Before being able to test that out though, the screen needs to be split.  I'm pretty sure I could get the level data to appear correct on each player's 1/2 of the screen (of course, they'd each be seing 1/2 of a screen... in 1x1 rooms, this would simply appear normal).  Getting the enemies to appear in the right locations with the split screen method could be a pain in the ass though.

Any thoughts on the scrolling issue or different ideas of how to handle it would be greatly appreciated.  As you can tell though, the scrolling issue is probably one of the hardest things to deal with on this.

P.JMan

2009-02-21 07:28:56 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

What about the zooming out approach?

Crys

2009-02-21 07:31:42 pm

Green-Kirby, ROAR!

Quote from Jathys:

-Will need volunteers to help test the thing so I know it works right (I can test controller 2, but not sure how it'd relate to netplay).

If you net play on Zsnes and run via some thing. (I prefer hamachi) The hosting part is auto player 1 and any one that joins is player 2. In the net play window you can change that at any time though.

Though this is in the older Zsnes versions that still have netplay. Most of the newer ones don't.

Jathys

2009-02-21 07:35:57 pm

Quote from P.JMan:

What about the zooming out approach?

On the SNES hardware? Not too likely. Would depend upon mode 7 and require a huge overhaul of the engine. Even then, it wouldn't effect the sprites.

Quote from Crys:

Though this is in the older Zsnes versions that still have netplay. Most of the newer ones don't.

Yeah, the passed few releases of zsnes have disappointed at times. I still find myself using 1.36.

MetroidMst

2009-02-21 08:01:34 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

The split screen idea seems like it would work well if there are no enemies. I suppose it wouldn't be possible for each player to have their own view so everyone could go anywhere and an arrow(s) to point to players offscreen from player one/two. That I think would be the ideal set-up, but it would probably not work on the SNES or take way too much effort for a side project.

Polo

2009-02-21 08:19:08 pm

Perhaps set it up so the map up in the corner becomes a radar for the players, pointing them to the location of others and showing them as dots on the maps.

Jathys

2009-02-21 10:35:21 pm

Just keep in mind that:
a) There will be enemies of some type, because the players will *be* enemies.
b) Seperate views are only possible to the limit of a normal SNES, which only supported one television at a time.
c) Larger rooms will probably become the aim later on, but are only a thought at this point.

Still though, I could use FX1 to create a translucent (4 colors only) map of the room and could keep cursors visible on that to show player position in larger rooms... No real point with this line except to remind myself of the thought later.

Opium

2009-02-21 11:41:45 pm

Awesome idea. It will be interesting to see how you make the enemies strong enough to actually be a threat to samus. I can't picture any of them being made to be as agile as she is.

Jathys

2009-02-21 11:50:10 pm

Quote from Opium:

Awesome idea. It will be interesting to see how you make the enemies strong enough to actually be a threat to samus. I can't picture any of them being made to be as agile as she is.

Well, you have to keep in mind:
1) The enemies will be controlled by actual brains, not just AI.
2) Samus doesn't actually even have to be in the game, though she'll probably be playable.
3) Equipment can be limited and some enemies are more agile than others... Take the karate pirate things shortly before Ridley.
4) If given a choice between playing:
a) Samus -vs- Geemer
b) Torizo -vs- Kraid
Which would you rather see? The choice is obvious.

Torizo -vs- Kraid? I'm not sure that's even technically possible. All I know for certain is that the torizo will die.

MetroidMst

2009-02-21 11:55:00 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

I don't see very many things winning against Kraid period. Wall pirates may be his undoing though...

Personally, I think Metroid -vs- Ridley is a much more interesting proposition. I also believe that if one player is a boss enemy, then all of them should be, because otherwise it would be a complete massacre. (Except for Spore Spawn.) And Phantoon would be sort of cheap unless he can't "cloak" himself.

Jathys

2009-02-22 12:51:53 am

Quote from MetroidMst:

I don't see very many things winning against Kraid period. Wall pirates may be his undoing though...

Personally, I think Metroid -vs- Ridley is a much more interesting proposition. I also believe that if one player is a boss enemy, then all of them should be, because otherwise it would be a complete massacre. (Except for Spore Spawn.) And Phantoon would be sort of cheap unless he can't "cloak" himself.

Bosses can't likely go up against each other though, because bosses tend to be very... hmmm.... very "picky" about what they do and don't allow. As for imbalances though, things can be adjusted slightly to smooth things out. For instance, let Phantoon cloak himself, but doing so could slowly drain his HP (or there could be a delay after doing so, during which time his defence would be reduced)... Play as an eticoon, as the eticoons could be given screw attack ability... Of course, only a select few enemies will be coded for this (at least at first).

As for the torizo (the only enemy I've officially started work on, as I need it for other things anyway), I hope to test a 2-player netplay with someone for some beta testing purposes. If all goes well there, I may actually get a Samus-vs-Torizo version of this out by the 1st (only for testing purposes, so don't expect much).

[quote="MetroidMst"]
I don't see very many things winning against Kraid period. Wall pirates may be his undoing though...

Personally, I think Metroid -vs- Ridley is a much more interesting proposition. I also believe that if one player is a boss enemy, then all of them should be, because otherwise it would be a complete massacre. (Except for Spore Spawn.) And Phantoon would be sort of cheap unless he can't "cloak" himself.
[/quote]

Bosses can't likely go up against each other though, because bosses tend to be very... hmmm.... very "picky" about what they do and don't allow.  As for imbalances though, things can be adjusted slightly to smooth things out.  For instance, let Phantoon cloak himself, but doing so could slowly drain his HP (or there could be a delay after doing so, during which time his defence would be reduced)... Play as an eticoon, as the eticoons could be given screw attack ability... Of course, only a select few enemies will be coded for this (at least at first).

As for the torizo (the only enemy I've officially started work on, as I need it for other things anyway), I hope to test a 2-player netplay with someone for some beta testing purposes.  If all goes well there, I may actually get a Samus-vs-Torizo version of this out by the 1st (only for testing purposes, so don't expect much).

uNsane

2009-02-22 09:03:37 pm

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Having savable records of this would be crazy-awesome.

Jathys

2009-02-22 09:11:45 pm

Quote from uNsane:

Having savable records of this would be crazy-awesome.

Not sure how SRM's work in netplay, but I would guess the save SRM gets saved on both computers? What happens if one person has the SRM and the other doesn't? So confussled. Rest assured, this is something I'm trying to figure out.

Crys

2009-02-23 12:58:43 am

Green-Kirby, ROAR!

Quote from Jathys:

Quote from uNsane:

Having savable records of this would be crazy-awesome.

Not sure how SRM's work in netplay, but I would guess the save SRM gets saved on both computers? What happens if one person has the SRM and the other doesn't? So confussled. Rest assured, this is something I'm trying to figure out.

Only one of the players get the SRM via Zsnes. You can pick who though at the start of the session.

Sadiztik Fish

Edit history:

Sadiztik Fish: 2009-02-23 02:28:16 am

2009-02-23 02:15:32 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Wow! I'd love to make some 1x1 rooms. Actually I'm making one now grin new

attachments:

Arena 1 BTS.png

Arena 1.png

Quietus

2009-02-23 08:13:44 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Don't the slopes on the roof also need square BTS blocks behind them, to stop you getting stuck if you're jumping along them? Eh?

Crys

2009-02-23 10:10:22 am

Green-Kirby, ROAR!

Quote from Quietus:

Don't the slopes on the roof also need square BTS blocks behind them, to stop you getting stuck if you're jumping along them? Eh?

That would only be a problem for samus not the rest of the enemies.

Zhs2

2009-02-23 10:13:27 am

Yo.

Since this gameplay hack is mainly about putting players behind the wheel when it comes to enemy AND Samus movement, it may be in Sadizt's best interest to leave behind no possible error! aiwebs_011

Polo

2009-02-23 10:38:40 am

I use both emulators depending on my mood or thing I need to do.

Yes, I guess I would netplay this.

Sadiztik Fish

2009-02-24 04:42:36 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Well it was just a quick design... I didn't exactly mean for Jathys to actually use it in the game (well, I'd be honoured if he did grin new

)

But I spose I'll put the BTS slopes on the ceiling too aiwebs_022

.

SleepingSeaweed

2009-02-24 04:33:53 pm

A lot of enemies do damage just by coming into contact, so how will that work when it's enemy vs enemy? Imagine for example a kihunter against a sidehopper... it would be stupid to just have them run into each other until they die.

When I saw this I came to think one of your (Jathys) patches that would make the screen follow an enemy instead of Samus. So I was thinking... how about making single player arenas where the player controls an enemy to fight against other enemies? Since there would be no second player involved scrolling wouldn't be an issue (or would it?) so bigger arenas could be made.

	Yes, on zsnes.	(6)
	Yes, on snes9x.	(2)
	No one to play against.	(4)
	I would to play this.	(22)
	No.	(8)