Well, 1st off, I'm a ROM hacker who has a rather large interest in designing videogames for a living. As such, I see this as a nice opportunity tp practice my game-designing skills. As of today, my proficiencies include level design, story design, and setting design.
Other than that, I have a fine ear for music from a very wide array of genres. I'm considering trying to make my own music for SMW ROMs to use. As for how many soundtracks I have on my computer, well, I have well over 100 of them!
Some of my most favorite 2D platforming games of all time include not only the Mario series, but also the Wario Land series, the Donkey Kong Country/Land series, the Kirby series, the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the Super Smash Bros. series, the Metroid series, and recently, the freeware game Cave Story. As such, I hope to incorporate elements from each of these serieses into the design of my hacks.
Other 2D platforming games that I have some interest in:
Megaman series: As awesome as the gameplay in this series may be, most, if not all, of the official games are just too short, and the levels too long, for me to consider purchasing. However, I did play some very good Megaman fangames (for free even), like the ones found at http://www.maelstormm.com/, and I loved the gameplay of those games, though the levels still tended to be too long for my tastes.
Kid Chameleon, Earthworm Jim, Vectorman, Dynamite Headdy, and Ristar: All of these 2D platforming games had one thing in common: great reviews. So great that I might consider ordering each of these games for the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console sometime later so that I could check them out for myself.
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Hacks from SMW Central that I support:
Stranded
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I've been taking a break from working on my hack,
Rainbow Legends: S********'s Adventure, since the beginning of January 2009 when I've gained a renewed interest in playing World of Warcraft again. My interest in WoW has since quickly died down again, but now, after recently playing through Cave Story, I might want to start focusing on creating a similar game that builds upon Cave Story's formula with gameplay aspects from some other games like the 2D Metroid platforming games.
Anyways, progress had been rather slow, and many of my requests for custom blocks or sprites remained unfulfilled (and possibly forgotten). (I have to check again later if this still holds true.) I might have to learn ASM to be able to fulfill these unfulfilled requests, though programming is not my forté. (Level, story, and setting design are 3 of my most favorite proficiencies.)
Once I get back into ROM Hacking, here's what I have planned:
Designing a new outdoor ice/lava level that makes usage of the "Ice ON/OFF Setting Blocks". I was originally going to design an underground ice/lava level that used some sort of "Switchable Slippery Level Setting Blocks" (that checks whether the "Slippery Level" setting is on or off, and changes it to the opposite value to create a single "Ice ON/OFF Block"), though the level is being put on hold until such a custom block has been created.
Experimenting with some custom sprites. (May also try to figure out how to change the GFX that they're mapped to.)
- Once I get the hang of creating my own custom sprites, I'm planning on "importing" some of the enemies from Cave Story (such as all of the different types of Critters, both types of Beetles, Basu, Basil, the Gravekeeper, Sandcrocs, Stumpies, and more, perhaps even some simple bosses like Igor, Balrog (all forms), and Frenzied Toroko +) as custom sprites to add to any SMW Hack.
- I'm also planning on creating sprites for the Bomb and Tonberry enemies from the Final Fantasy series.
