Super Metroid Overhaul (Discussion and Teasers)

Edit history:

Bioniclegenius: 2009-01-05 06:54:19 pm

2008-10-31 10:57:21 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Ok, this is it: The project that I've been asking many questions in the SMILE help thread to get help with, what I've been spending the past month on! This is my first attempt at making a complete overhaul (hence the name) of the Super Metroid game. You've seen my Training patch, and that wasn't all that great, I admit. However, it was merely my first time using SMILE, and I only spent maybe one week on it. This one I'm following through to the end. So far, I have much of Crateria done, and have my progress log and my screenshots that I took here. This will likely be my ultimate project, because I'm still fairly bad at SMILE, compared to others here (*cough* like Dmantra *cough*), but there will hopefully be more following this after. Crateria's about 85% done, and I only have about 5 more rooms to fix up in it. Much as I hate to admit this, I'd have to consider this a half-hack, because even though I touch everything and every room, the layout it roughly the same as the original. The path will remain the same, but enemies and items and ALMOST EVERY TILE IN EVERY ROOM will be moved and changed. I'm leaving the doors alone, as well as the items, but some of the items I will move a little and conceal, making it a LOT harder to get them early. This may have the same route and plan as the original, but trust me, this is much more difficult. For instance, you must be able to wall jump up long chasms, precision jump, find hidden (but marked and kind of obvious) passages, and overall, ENJOY! I will be making more progress reports and screenshots as I progress. The patch will not be released until the project is COMPLETE. However, I just might release a couple save states, for certain rooms for you to have a sneak peak at... Remember, from here on out, the screenshots will only be at the site mentioned above. Unfortunately, I have a not-so-good site host, so I can't really make the images viewable there. Tell me what you think of this!
Also, happy Halloween, everyone!

By the way, that link up there leads to http://sites.google.com/site/supermetroidoverhaul/

Thread title:

Ok, this is it: The project that I've been asking many questions in the SMILE help thread to get help with, what I've been spending the past month on! This is my first attempt at making a complete overhaul (hence the name) of the Super Metroid game. You've seen my Training patch, and that wasn't all that great, I admit. However, it was merely my first time using SMILE, and I only spent maybe one week on it. This one I'm following through to the end. So far, I have much of Crateria done, and have my progress log and my screenshots that I took [url=http://sites.google.com/site/supermetroidoverhaul]here[/url]. This will likely be my ultimate project, because I'm still fairly bad at SMILE, compared to others here (*cough* like Dmantra *cough*), but there will hopefully be more following this after. Crateria's about 85% done, and I only have about 5 more rooms to fix up in it. Much as I hate to admit this, I'd have to consider this a half-hack, because even though I touch everything and every room, the layout it roughly the same as the original. The path will remain the same, but enemies and items and ALMOST EVERY TILE IN EVERY ROOM will be moved and changed. I'm leaving the doors alone, as well as the items, but some of the items I will move a little and conceal, making it a LOT harder to get them early. This may have the same route and plan as the original, but trust me, this is much more difficult. For instance, you must be able to wall jump up long chasms, precision jump, find hidden (but marked and kind of obvious) passages, and overall, ENJOY! I will be making more progress reports and screenshots as I progress. The patch will not be released until the project is COMPLETE. However, I just might release a couple save states, for certain rooms for you to have a sneak peak at... Remember, from here on out, the screenshots will only be at the site mentioned above. Unfortunately, I have a not-so-good site host, so I can't really make the images viewable there. Tell me what you think of this!
Also, happy Halloween, everyone!

By the way, that link up there leads to http://sites.google.com/site/supermetroidoverhaul/

Acheron

2008-11-01 12:05:49 am

Acclaimed Threshold

Constant Sorrows

I'd really rather you post at least a couple screenshots here, but as long as you're linking to actual content, it's technically not against the rules.

Oh, your first link is broke, by the way.

BiggestSchnoz

2008-11-01 12:49:09 am

[BANNED]

I like the screenshots and what's mentioned and all, but the thing that scares me about this hack is the mention of precision jumps. I hope there'll be some leeway in that regard. Either way, I'm sure it'll be good. Will all the bosses be a different color than the originals?? I think that would be cool, but would understand if not. :-)

Sadiztik Fish

2008-11-01 01:43:04 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Lol @ Blue Torizo. He was fun. I second Schnoz's idea of all bosses being different color. And why not enemies too?

Bloodsonic

2008-11-01 10:12:00 am

Quote from Sadiztik Fish:

Lol @ Blue Torizo. He was fun. I second Schnoz's idea of all bosses being different color. And why not enemies too?

And the palettes of the tiles. I'm pretty tired of seeing the same colors in every hack, so you should probably have the scenery match the enemies, right? Wink

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-01 10:34:33 am

Fear Me! (Or else...)

I will

. As to precision jumps, I just mean that you have maybe a 1-2 tile leeway. Down near the morphball, I lowered the ceiling. If you nail it to the pixel and jump on the edge, which really isn't that hard, you make it with tons of space to spare. If you don't, you still can catch the bottom edge of the wall and wall jump. I never really miss that jump, and that's maybe the second worst one. There was one I made completely by accident - you have to perfectly nail it, and although you have a little leeway, it's not really as much as a tile. You maybe have half a tile of leeway. Also, for the pictures, don't I have to have somewhere hosting them?

Sigfriedxx

2008-11-01 11:14:22 am

Quote from Bioniclegenius:

because I'm still fairly bad at SMILE, compared to others here (*cough* like Dmantra *cough*)

Have I already been forgotten for my work on Redesign =)

also, I must admit for something called Overhaul, I would hope that the visuals would be vastly improved. I know there isn't much just yet, but its looking to me like an average room hack to me. I'm not saying there isn't potential, however I think you could live up to the whole "overhaul" title and change everything.

also, Overhaul.... Redesign.... are you sure this hasn't been done =)

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-01 11:55:08 am

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Yeah, yeah, I know lol grin new

. I couldn't think of any name, and this just kinda fit it. Sorry that it may seem that way, but it's really not taken off of yours lol. And no, I didn't forget you. By the way, the ship room is pretty much finished for now. I have everything up to the bombs in the game done, mostly. I'll probably go back and modify them a bit, but that's the rough idea. I'm not giving full in-depth screenshots because I don't want to give away too much grin new

. Although, those are pretty much just the best areas. I haven't really done all that much past that. One of the issues I'm having is with some of these blocks - I made them so that you shoot one, all four act like they've been shot. It works like I want, except that it makes the door sound and does the door graphics. Maybe it's just the bts value of the shot block? I used the same bts values as the doors. Maybe I just need to make the shot block have a value of 00... I dunno. Anybody else know?

Bloodsonic

2008-11-01 12:03:43 pm

Quote from Sigfriedxx:

Quote from Bioniclegenius:

because I'm still fairly bad at SMILE, compared to others here (*cough* like Dmantra *cough*)

Have I already been forgotten for my work on Redesign =)

also, I must admit for something called Overhaul, I would hope that the visuals would be vastly improved. I know there isn't much just yet, but its looking to me like an average room hack to me. I'm not saying there isn't potential, however I think you could live up to the whole "overhaul" title and change everything.

also, Overhaul.... Redesign.... are you sure this hasn't been done =)

I haven't forgotten redesign. It convinced me to get my lazy ass to figure out how too add and expand rooms grin new

.
I was sort of expecting of something a bit more like redesign, because redesign is an overhaul..

Bioniclegenius

Edit history:

Bioniclegenius: 2008-11-01 02:45:41 pm

2008-11-01 02:43:23 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Well, yeah, but still... I only realized people might think I had ripped off the name AFTER I came up with it. I didn't necessarily want it to be a humorous name, like soup. I wanted it to relate to the game. Also, I think I just might have figured out how to let you guys see the images here... They're png, so that'll hopefully satisfy you guys laugh new

. Also, since I won't be putting updates here, but on my site, check there every other day or so. That's about how often I get time to work on the game, and it's usually in the evening. I'll tell you later if this changes. By the way, sorry about the first link being broken in my first post here. I dunno what's wrong with it.
By the way, I forgot. Where's the ship's palette located? I'd like to mess with that a bit. From here on out, I'll see what I can do about all the enemies' palettes. This will have to be considered a half-hack, unfortunately, because I don't really mess with the path, or the items all that much. I tend not to mess with enemies either, but I do some of that. Palettes will be my main job when I finish with an area - I'll go back and grab those.

Well, yeah, but still... I only realized people might think I had ripped off the name AFTER I came up with it. I didn't necessarily want it to be a humorous name, like soup. I wanted it to relate to the game. Also, I think I just might have figured out how to let you guys see the images here... They're png, so that'll hopefully satisfy you guys :laugh:. Also, since I won't be putting updates here, but on my site, check there every other day or so. That's about how often I get time to work on the game, and it's usually in the evening. I'll tell you later if this changes. By the way, sorry about the first link being broken in my first post here. I dunno what's wrong with it.
By the way, I forgot. Where's the ship's palette located? I'd like to mess with that a bit. From here on out, I'll see what I can do about all the enemies' palettes. This will have to be considered a half-hack, unfortunately, because I don't really mess with the path, or the items all that much. I tend not to mess with enemies either, but I do some of that. Palettes will be my main job when I finish with an area - I'll go back and grab those.

attachments:

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00000.png

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00001.png

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00002.png

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00003.png

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00004.png

Super Metroid Overhaul Test_00005.png

Bolognab

2008-11-01 02:46:06 pm

What I've seen so far is not great.

Also, overhaul=completely new stuff, right? Overhaul is not a half hack. So, so far, the name has nothing to do with your hack.

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-01 02:55:39 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Oh, give me a break laugh new

. This is only the first draft. After I finish it, I'm going to go all the way back through and redo some stuff, make it better and such. Ya know, I'm thinking of releasing a save state, so you can try it out in a room or two... So far, the ship room undertook the most extensive changing. I spent about a week total in there. My next favorite room is either the second missle pack or the room with the Eticoons... Hm. Which should I do? The ship room is definitely not in the final stage of its remaking, but it is getting close. I just need to go back and work on that area above it... Still, which room should I give a sneak peek at? Hm... Hopefully a large room - small rooms don't have enough to look at.

Bloodsonic

2008-11-01 03:18:48 pm

I respect the above post, mainly for it's first sentence.
maybe after you get a general idea of each different room, you can rearrange them to make it a full hack. Surely you'll gain experience in using smile during your project, right? :D

Bioniclegenius

Edit history:

Bioniclegenius: 2008-11-02 07:48:38 pm

2008-11-01 03:34:17 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Yeah, but that's also what I spent most of the time making my Training patch (igh :-&) doing - learning SMILE. I tried learning just about everything from here and there to get a more complete knowledge of SMILE, mainly through merely doing. I might get some time to work on it this evening, but certainly not until then. Minimum time I'll be able to start working on this is maybe 5:30, and that's only if I'm extremely lucky and everything goes my way. If not 5:30, I might be able to get it around 7:00 or so. Still, I might not get any time this evening to work on it... Anyways, which room are you guys most eager to see?

Edit: Fixed that first link in the first post.

Edit2: Update to the site. See today's entry to see what I've done today!

Edit3: Well, I checked the doors, and I checked the scrolls. They're both the same, and the only thing I've changed since this last worked was the kago's palette. Now it crashes when you enter the room! ARG!

Edit4: Ok, now, after maybe an hour or so messing with SMILE's weird recovery and backup system, which apparently messes up frequently, and now have most of it back to normal. I lost most of my progress from the past 3 days or so, but I hope to be able to make that up. Hopefully, we're back in business. Oh, and I will be closing the pole the first time I'm on after today, so get your votes in quick! If they're a tie, I'll decide between which is better.

Yeah, but that's also what I spent most of the time making my Training patch (igh :-&) doing - learning SMILE. I tried learning just about everything from here and there to get a more complete knowledge of SMILE, mainly through merely [i]doing[/i]. I might get some time to work on it this evening, but certainly not until then. Minimum time I'll be able to start working on this is maybe 5:30, and that's only if I'm extremely lucky and everything goes my way. If not 5:30, I might be able to get it around 7:00 or so. Still, I might not get any time this evening to work on it... Anyways, which room are you guys most eager to see?

Edit: Fixed that first link in the first post.

Edit2: Update to the site. See today's entry to see what I've done today!

Edit3: Well, I checked the doors, and I checked the scrolls. They're both the same, and the only thing I've changed since this last worked was the kago's palette. Now it crashes when you enter the room! ARG!

Edit4: Ok, now, after maybe an hour or so messing with SMILE's weird recovery and backup system, which apparently messes up frequently, and now have most of it back to normal. I lost most of my progress from the past 3 days or so, but I hope to be able to make that up. Hopefully, we're back in business. Oh, and I will be closing the pole the first time I'm on after today, so get your votes in quick! If they're a tie, I'll decide between which is better.

Acheron

2008-11-02 08:27:39 pm

Acclaimed Threshold

Constant Sorrows

Everyone totally breaks a room or ten in their hacking adventures. Don't feel bad about it, just learn from it.

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-02 08:43:12 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Well, I now have the documentation process and what error it was that I caught on the website. I had added a plm to the previous room, because I used one of the arrow plms to make a grey door, and replaced the arrow with a new plm. Now, I just shortened the gap that I took it from by one tile, so I don't need it anymore. Would a horizontal do in place of that plm, or do I need that to copy a plm scroll changer? If I need the plm, I'll just leave it a space shorter. Actually, I'll probably do that anyways. Anyways, we're now back on track, and I have finally gotten the vertical blocks in the morphball room worked out. 3 more rooms, then we're on to Brinstar, and we won't deal with Crateria anymore (most likely) after that until we come all the way back around the game to it again.

Black Telomeres

2008-11-02 08:55:59 pm

I thought the backup system didn't even work according to Jathys laugh new

Bloodsonic

2008-11-02 09:10:35 pm

I don't trust the backup system. I back up my whole rom just about every day I hack.

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-02 09:14:56 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

The backup system didn't work. Well, it did at first, but then I tried to open the ship room. After I opened the ship room, then it went wrong. The ship room was made up of random tiles, and after I finally managed to fix that by taking the killed patches out of the killed folder and putting them back in the regular, then the ship room was fine. It was the second room that was bad after that. Finally, I just grabbed the second-to-last patch I had made myself, which didn't have the error, and went from that. Luckily, there wasn't that much that I had changed between them, so I used that. Unfortunately, I lost all my palette work on the enemies, other than the chozo and the suits. By the way, I'm planning to go back into the chozo room and make it harder. Spikes here and there, etc. Possibly the treadmill tiles, like in the Mockingbird Station hack. That was the hardest Chozo battle I ever had! It was an actual challenge, lol. Probably something like that, but not exactly. I don't want to copy it exactly, but there are some things off of it that I want to use. Sound good? Improve the chances of you guys voting for that room? Personally, I think that the second missle room is probably one of the better ones that I've made. It's a nice way of introducing the first enemies you see into this game. It also makes it nearly required to get those missles, although you really can get by without them. It's easier to get them there, though, because you're required to come within at least two tiles of them.

From now on, I'm going to start making a new patch every time I do something significant. If it's only something like a two-tile update, it's really not going to be worth making a patch of then, so I'll only do it after large changes.

The backup system didn't work. Well, it did at first, but then I tried to open the ship room. After I opened the ship room, then it went wrong. The ship room was made up of random tiles, and after I finally managed to fix that by taking the killed patches out of the killed folder and putting them back in the regular, then the ship room was fine. It was the second room that was bad after that. Finally, I just grabbed the second-to-last patch I had made myself, which didn't have the error, and went from that. Luckily, there wasn't that much that I had changed between them, so I used that. Unfortunately, I lost all my palette work on the enemies, other than the chozo and the suits. By the way, I'm planning to go back into the chozo room and make it harder. Spikes here and there, etc. Possibly the treadmill tiles, like in the Mockingbird Station hack. That was the hardest Chozo battle I ever had! It was an actual challenge, lol. Probably something like that, but not exactly. I don't want to copy it exactly, but there are some things off of it that I want to use. Sound good? Improve the chances of you guys voting for that room? Personally, I think that the second missle room is probably one of the better ones that I've made. It's a nice way of introducing the first enemies you see into this game. It also makes it nearly required to get those missles, although you really can get by without them. It's easier to get them there, though, because you're required to come within at least two tiles of them.

From now on, I'm going to start making a new patch every time I do something significant. If it's only something like a two-tile update, it's really not going to be worth making a patch of then, so I'll only do it after large changes.

FirePhoenix

2008-11-03 12:09:41 am

Just copy your whole rom and store the copies in a folder, and number them so you can have old backups in case anything goes wrong with them. It's the easiest method and hasn't failed me yet. Just remember to take frequent backups so you don't find yourself with a gamebreaker and a backup from two weeks ago.

MetroidMst

2008-11-03 05:38:34 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

Quote from FirePhoenix0:

Just copy your whole rom and store the copies in a folder, and number them so you can have old backups in case anything goes wrong with them. It's the easiest method and hasn't failed me yet. Just remember to take frequent backups so you don't find yourself with a gamebreaker and a backup from two weeks ago.

Listen to this advice. It would've saved me and DSO a lot of time if we had done it at the beginning.

MoogleEmperor

2008-11-03 05:40:06 pm

I personally use SMILE's IPS patch maker to make my backups. More time consuming, but it takes up much less space.

Bioniclegenius

2008-11-03 06:35:51 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

How does it take more space? And, as I said, I'm now going to try to close this poll. Currently, the long shaft with the purple ledges is in the major majority with 5 votes, whereas the next highest is 2, so even if I can't close it or anything, I'm sticking to that. Acheron, if I can't get rid of the poll, could you kill it? Thanks in advance. Hold on a sec, and I'll attach the file. Also, I'm still working on the Chozo fight, and I just made it to the point where this is the second time I've actually lost this fight. The first was in Mockingbird station, which took me 2 tries to kill! This one, I gave up after one, and I'm changing it. It had an inadverdant side effect of making the area where you could fight him only about 4 tiles wide, so it was impossible to avoid him. As it is now, this might be even harder, although you have a wider horizontal area. Anybody want to change their votes before I do this? I'll attach the save state to the next post. You have maybe 10 minutes to reply with a petition or something. If no one objects, we're going with this. Thanks for all your feedback, guys!

How does it take more space? And, as I said, I'm now going to try to close this poll. Currently, the long shaft with the purple ledges is in the [u]major[/u] majority with 5 votes, whereas the next highest is 2, so even if I can't close it or anything, I'm sticking to that. Acheron, if I can't get rid of the poll, could you kill it? Thanks in advance. Hold on a sec, and I'll attach the file. Also, I'm still working on the Chozo fight, and I just made it to the point where this is the second time I've actually lost this fight. The first was in Mockingbird station, which took me 2 tries to kill! This one, I gave up after one, and I'm changing it. It had an inadverdant side effect of making the area where you could fight him only about 4 tiles wide, so it was impossible to avoid him. As it is now, this might be even harder, although you have a wider horizontal area. Anybody want to change their votes before I do this? I'll attach the save state to the next post. You have maybe 10 minutes to reply with a petition or something. If no one objects, we're going with this. Thanks for all your feedback, guys!

Bioniclegenius

Edit history:

Bioniclegenius: 2008-11-04 10:16:21 pm

2008-11-03 06:53:57 pm

Fear Me! (Or else...)

Ok, since I can't figure out how to get rid of the poll, or how to attach stuff to a previous post by editing it, I have to double post here. The poll wouldn't affect the double posting, but I now also have to say it's officially closed. I'll release maybe one savestate per area as I finish them, and if there's another room you want to see that's not on the list, just mention it in a post. Here's the savestate, though - enjoy, and tell me what you think! I always accept criticism and comments on this kind of stuff, unless it's just something like 'this was terrible!' Also, if this has any problems, it's just because it's a savestate. Don't worry about it. It shouldn't have them otherwise. Also, this is in the second state of the room, right after you get the morphball and the missiles. It's intended to be difficult, and this requires an acute knowledge of wall jumping.

Edit: Ok, right now, I'm working on making a quick video of the beginning, so you can see how it's starting to shape up. However, I need to be able to record it. I'm having issues on that end, because the snes9x doesn't really help me out that much. It works, but the screen is small and it has lag at just the wrong moments, causing me to mess up and die. So, I'm trying to figure out how to make video using the zsnes, which works for me.

Ok, since I can't figure out how to get rid of the poll, or how to attach stuff to a previous post by editing it, I have to double post here. The poll wouldn't affect the double posting, but I now also have to say it's officially closed. I'll release maybe one savestate per area as I finish them, and if there's another room you want to see that's not on the list, just mention it in a post. Here's the savestate, though - enjoy, and tell me what you think! I always accept criticism and comments on this kind of stuff, unless it's just something like 'this was terrible!' Also, if this has any problems, it's just because it's a savestate. Don't worry about it. It shouldn't have them otherwise. Also, this is in the second state of the room, right after you get the morphball and the missiles. It's intended to be difficult, and this requires an acute knowledge of wall jumping.

Edit: Ok, right now, I'm working on making a quick video of the beginning, so you can see how it's starting to shape up. However, I need to be able to record it. I'm having issues on that end, because the snes9x doesn't really help me out that much. It works, but the screen is small and it has lag at just the wrong moments, causing me to mess up and die. So, I'm trying to figure out how to make video using the zsnes, which works for me.

attachment:

Super Metroid Overhaul Test.zst

BiggestSchnoz

2008-11-09 10:43:21 pm

[BANNED]

I was just wondering, how's progress going on this hack?? I'd understand if you're putting it on hold because of our competition, just curious.

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