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05-13-24 12:56 AM |
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| Main - Posts by Sendy |
| Sendy |
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 Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 1/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Alright... Some of you may remember my hack that I started several years ago, called Sendy's World.
I recieved a lot of good feedback and feel that the game was eagerly anticipated, but eventually the hack died because it was choking on slowdowns caused by the original blocktool custom block inserter (by Jonwil if memory serves - it was an amazing tool for it's day). In an effort to salvage what I could, I rather ineffeciently made backups, tried to extract the assets of the game and insert them into a new file, but all of these efforts failed, resulting in a huge mess in my SMW folder. Anyways, I was quite upset about this, and decided not to touch SMW hacking again, because it was so time-consuming and addictive to me, that it was eating up my life. I couldn't even look in that folder again or open Lunar Magic without feeling pain. But time is a great healer, I'm a lot more mature now and have my gaming addiction somewhat under control (that's what I tell myself, anyway), and I decided to look at my Sendy's World stuff in LM, and it seems what I have is quite salvageable, with only two main problems: 1) The slowdown caused by the old custom block code. 2) I've lost the block association tooltips, which I think is stored in the a file called 'blocks'. I might be able to find this, or there might be a way of extrapolating it or working 'round this. I've heard there's a new block inserter that doesn't enduce slowdown, but would I have to port everything over to a fresh ROM? Personally, I've tried doing this before and it always failed. Anyway, the all new overworld is 75% done complete with some cool reveal animations, there are a lot of cool levels, though some have annoying parts that I would like to smooth out. If anyone would like to offer assistance, either in telling me what to do in detail, or offering to look at my files, that would be a huge help. If I'm unable to get SW back off the ground, I may well just start again from scratch, but with so much blood, sweat, tears and memories gone into it, I'd rather not. I think I've posted about returning to the SMW scene before, but that was a bit premature, and my life situation wasn't right for it. But now it is 
So if anyone that remembers me reads this, hi!
Regards, Sendy |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 2/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Actually the more I think about it, the more starting over from scratch seems like a good idea. It's not asif my work will be wasted, because:
1) I can import the badass overworld I made 2) I can re-use the graphics 3) I can re-impliment the great ideas I had, whilst skipping over the annoying parts, which were suprisingly frequent by my new standards! (My level design standards are somewhat more refined these days) Also, 4) A lot of the custom blocks I put in were frivilous and not really neccecary to good level design Thanks for the reply, and yes I'll post some screenshots in a couple of days; got a busy day tomorrow. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 3/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
I've had some unexpected good news... It seems, the hack that Blocktool Deluxe inserts, undoes all of the slowdown. So even though I've begun hacking from scratch, I don't have to now
That means SW is alive and kicking after at least 5 years
All I have to do is re-insert the custom blocks, which so far I've done about 30% of! That is fan-tastic! |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 4/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Yeah  I've had a long hiatus, but now I am back, and ready to tear sh1t up 
I've got a minor problem I need help with. In the original Blocktool program, somehow I managed to make my own tile, which was a turn block, which turned to steel when it had finished turning. That was pretty neat and a couple of levels depend on it, does anyone know how I might have done it? I'm also looking for the sticky blocks (slow mario down a lot) for the mud patches in my wilderness levels, but I think I saw them in the block list at SMW Central. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 5/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Well I knew the new block inserter didn't have slowdown, but I wasn't expecting it to fix the problems in my old ROM by applying the patch, if anything I was expecting it to conflict and probably cause a crash, so that was nice.
Incidentally, I have tried the sticky block in the custom blocks list in SMWC, but they are nothing like the sticky block I used to have in the old blocktool. Can anyone help me out here? |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 6/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Posted by knuck No... All I know is it replaced the 'turn block with feather', and I made it by accidentally messing around with the basic controls of Jonwil's Blocktool. There was no ASM or anything like that... Does anyone know what became of the extra blocks extension that (I think) Jonwil made for Blocktool? I've downloaded the old block pack that lets you use the old blocks with Blocktool Deluxe, but I remember there being more blocks, such as the random door block (which sends you to one of three random areas, based on the current and next two screen exits). I really liked that idea for making certain sections vary from play to play, so you don't quite know what to expect. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 7/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
World 1 has almost finished recieving a massive overhaul; I am going for long levels and lots of polish, so I've been looking to the original games a lot for inspiration. I've also added a lot of patches, such as the cape flight disable patch, the yoshi carry-over disable patch, the dead enemies don't spawn coins patch, etc, to make the gameplay a bit more uniquer*
For those that are new to me and my hack, I am not a hacker but enjoy making platform games, and used to draw mario levels based on SMB1 and 3 with my best friends when I was a child. Now, 20 or so years later I am able to do what then seemed impossible, we all know what that is! Now onto the screenshots: 
Level 1-4 is completely rebuilt since the last version. I like the subtlety of this palette. 
1-4 finishes off with some gentle moving platforms. 
One of my favourites from SMB3 make a small debut here - donut lifts! Because it's the first world, falling isn't fatal but only sends you back. 
I'm slightly embarassed that this looks like so many other hacks out there, but I *did* start making this level 5 or 6 years ago, and I like the layout, so it stays. 
More. 
1-2, an autoscrolling level with two paths. 
I make a joke out of cruelty to Yoshi intermittently through the game, because I can. 
The middle section of 1-3 is this underground level with a lava ride in the middle. 
There's a starman waiting in the sky, he'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds. I rest my case. 
Give me a movable layer 2 and I'll squish Mario with it. 
A later submap, which needs touching up. I'm aware that Mario's askew here, but that's only because I used LM to get Mario there fast. 
And finally, if you wondered what the clockwork house from the previous pic would look like, here's a preview. All the gear wheels animate and hurt Mario. The tiles are from an 8 bit game, I'm sure you know which one, so due to the low number of colours I'm going for a dark, poorly lit kind of theme. (* Yeah, I know ) |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 8/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Thanks for the feedback blackholw89, I will certainly work on the palettes more when I get the hack back on my desktop, but for now I'm on a laptop, and for some reason, I can't do the keyboard combination required to make a gradient... And really, palette editing without graident generation is too fiddly for me.
I've already accepted that this kind of hack is, on the surface at least, somewhat out of fashion these days, but I believe the gameplay may make up for that, as I find myself playing the levels over and over again for a long time, which is something I can't say about my older SMW level work. I'm also making good use of custom sprites and blocks so that should help. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 9/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
The sprite looks cool, perhaps you might want to make the spikiness more pronounced, though as it is it looks 67.45% unstompable to me.
The overworld graphics are cool but the actual palette is a tad dreary and depressing, it reminds me of a wet weekend in Hull (which is interesting since I've never been there). Unless you're going for a stormy weather type world I'd brighten it a bit. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 10/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Thanks all for the encouragement... It's coming on in leaps and bounds though I'm starting to remember just how much persistence and work SMW hacking takes, if you wish to have pleasing results. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 11/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
I've seen the old thread here (or was it on SMWC?) about item memory index settings for levels, and use sensible settings myself, but recently I've been noticing, occasionally, coins seem to go missing from certain formations, EVEN when starting a level and going down a pipe which leads to the same level!
That seems counter-intuitive, and it's not asif I have an insane amount of coins on my levels. I find I can minimize it by being quite stingy with coins, for example, often I will place just one coin over a jump, or little formations of 2 and 3 to lead and tease the player around. Is there any understanding in the community of how these indexes work? It's just weird that the original SMW never seemed to have this problem. Is there a limit and are the entries based on whole objects (i.e 3x2 blocks of coins placed down) or on the individual coins within the coin objects you place? Could any modern developments in hacking such as custom blocks/sprites be messing with it? As for eliminating the problems, I've heard of people shifting coins left and right to fix it, but I'm not sure what that entails (re-arranging the coins or just jiggling them in the editor and re-saving?). My fix is usually to place map16 coins to patch the holes up, it seems the map16 coins don't use the item memory indexes and will appear regardless. Having the player be able to collect a few coins again is better than having an ugly gap in an otherwise symmetrical or balanced formation. Sorry if this is rather longwinded, but I really care about this, and I'm freaking tired, since I didn't sleep at all last night. (Because I was worrying about my coin formations... Um.... Just kidding.... Yeah)
Any help would be gladly recieved! EDIT: Well it seems nobody cares, or this is a taboo subject or something, but anyways, I've experimented and it seems using Map16 access does not ensure that a coin will always appear, regardless of the item memory bank, which is a bit of a bummer, but at least now I know. This would be a new post but I remember something about rules forbidding it. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 12/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
I'd find a continuous looping layer 2 scrolling (either up or down - preferably configurable) really interesting, as seen in this video at 0:20:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiVO9McdjdQ&feature=PlayList&p=96E3A817DDADBA2C&index=27 How it works, in case it isn't obvious, is that it moves layer 2 in a sawtooth pattern, and layer 2 is constructed such that the top and bottom portions are identical, so when it jumps back it creates the illusion of continuous movement. This routine would also be useful for creating Mario 1 style lift columns as seen in the underground levels, and if it could work left/right for vertical levels, that would be the cherry on the thing. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 13/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
That's an interesting idea, and certainly original. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out. I don't remember anything about blood in a mansion since I'm new here, but I indiscriminately approve of anything to do with blood and gore, since I have a slight imbalance |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 14/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Having read the tutorials that come to hand, it seems there is no mention of inserting music into a hacked game so far... Presumably it *is* possible to do, but I have no idea how much more tricky it is.
Are there any music hackers out there that like the look of Sendy's World and would be willing to help out? I've nearly finished most of world 2 now and will post screenshots when I get some time (prolly tonite). Last night I spent a couple of hours downloading from the music section and making a shortlist of my favourite themes, and somehow the vanilla SMW music seems rather dull now :> Senders |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 15/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Posted by Sparx This one had me stumped for ages, I had to watch a walkthrough on youtube to get it in the end. Spoiler:
Basically when you're in the corridor with the little hole in the celing halfway through (I think it's a door but it could be a pipe), you will see a flying koopa fairly early on that level. Jump into the koopa and it will change direction (hence the name sacrifice since you have to lose your bigness). Now follow the flying koopa and use it to assist you up through the hole to the exit. Edit: Woah, this was an ancient post, they probably figured it out by now anyways, lol |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 16/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
I keep meaning to sign up there, yes. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 17/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Posted by Hieda no Akyu Thanks for setting me in the right direction. After a quick bit of testing, I've found out how it works. Each block of coins is divided into vertical strips of 1 tile each, and collecting any coins in that section of the block flags it as 'collected', causing the whole strip to vanish. I have fairly recently realized just how overboard I'd gone with coins, anyway, so I've cut it right back to just enough to not look empty. When you add the fact that all my levels are LONG, having them full of coins is just bad news. It's a shame because coins are so fun to collect. Incidentally, does anyone know a way to set the number of coins you need for a free life to 200? Is that even possible? |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 18/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Seriously, the cape in SMW is the most overpowered powerup in any platform game, like, ever...
Is there a way to prevent 'infinite twirling' where you are essentially immune to attacks from the sides as long as you keep tapping the button? I mean, if there was a slight delay between the twirls, you would have to time your attacks, as opposed to being able to just smash through virtually everything as long as you can muster the staggeringly difficult skill of steadily tapping a button. I figure, since there's a slight delay with the racoon tail twirl (at least I'm pretty sure there is), this stands a chance of being able to be done with a simple hack. I realize I'm being fussy here, since it's just a powerup, and the player doesn't have it all the time, but I have to admit it bugs me a bit when designing levels. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 19/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Posted by [Riko]Posted by Sendy Fantastic, thanks Riko. |
| Sendy |
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Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 20/22 EXP: 7648 Next: 273 Since: 04-27-09 Last post: 5348 days Last view: 5338 days |
Posted by carsr4carpeople1 Yes, I never remember plowing through enemies in SMB3. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the cape is ridiculously overpowered in so many ways and breaks virtually any game you put it in. It's also REALLY fun to use, it just has so many design flaws that break levels. I guess that's what you get when you rush a game out because of deadlines... Thanks for looking into it, cars, hopefully you'll get lucky
p.s. Does anyone want to hear some more ranting about the cape from me? Plenty more where that came from |
| Main - Posts by Sendy |
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