Anorakun's Berry Good Stuff - Post-C3 Content Bonus Round!!

Day 1 - You're already there, silly!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - Fun HDMA, Edo and the story about the 32 screens storehouse

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

Post-C3 Content! Check it out!

--- Original Post below ---

Ey, C3 berry nation, welcome to another fun thread of mine. This time, I plan to showcase some graphics I've been ripping lately, and as usual, I'll update this thread as I find more fun stuff to share with you.

So, let's get on with this berry good show!

Jelly Time!

Jelly Boy 2 - Motor Maze (Exterior)









This background is seen in the first stage of Motor Maze, that has a lot of conveyor belts. It's perfect for a more urban area or industrial facility. It's a very large background, being able to be used with vertical scroll enabled.

Jelly Boy 2 - Motor Maze (Door Labyrinth)







The background of the second level of Motor Maze. This one is perfect for bonus rooms or more abstract level themings.

Jelly Boy 2 - Motor Maze (Factory)





A sinister dark factory background of the fourth stage of Motor Maze. This one definetely is perfect to be used with Kirby 64 - Factory music. Just kidding, can fit any factory level in general. It's very simple but versatile.

Jelly Boy 2 - Dark Palace (Rooftops)






A beautiful sky background seen in the fourth stage of Dark Palace. The original variant has parallax scrolling, so I suggest using that to make this background look even better. Good fit for sky levels.

Jelly Boy 2 - Gimmick Woods (Carousel House)





A sinister house background seen in the fifth stage of Gimmick Woods. I planned to rip the snow effect near the windows, but it uses some annoying color animation that I couldn't bother figure out. Yes, the windows have this blue shading because of the snow near to it. You can replicate it using Donkey Kong Country - Snow layer 3 behind the background. A good fit for a variety of levels. Feel free to change the blue colors at the window if not using it for a house in a snowy region.

Now for some Quackjam resources. Let's quack and jam now!

Castlevania: Dracula X - Stages 4 and 4' (Caverns)















Well, originally, I planned to make an entire Castlevania: Dracula X REMIXED from memory level (Kinda?!) for Boxman Tano, but not only it would get longer, but the testers would be "why?", so some resources went unused.

Here we have a lot of variants of the cavern background used in various portions of Stage 4 and 4' from Castlevania: Dracula X. Of course, it is not every version, but it is quite a lot of options.

The last one has a pillar in the background and got actually used in the hack. Unfortunately, I had to rip only half of the background, because the complete thing would eat a fuck ton of tiles.

The cavern background itself uses only palette row 3. The pillar variant uses additional colors in palette row 0 and 5.

Pick your favorite and have fun. Or create some funny colors for your hacks. Whichever works best.

Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Magginesu - Satsuma Village





This background was featured in Birdemic 2 from Boxman Tano. A great background for villages, mountains, deserts or places with big bird infestations. Anyway, there's a thing I should mention about it. I took some creative liberties to adapt it to Super Mario World.

Here is how it looks in the original game:





Removed layer 1 for more clarity.

Yeah, I kinda cheated a bit in this regard. But anyway, I hope you enjoy using this background, like how I did while placing deadly birds in Birdemic 2, from Boxman Tano.

And that's it for now. Stay tuned, because I might bring more graphics for this thread.

Perfect design, great job  Anorakun!

---

List Soundtrack - List Hacks

Mega Man X3 OSTs

The backgrounds are very beautiful, and it's impressive to see each one of them in Super Mario World. But for some reason, the second background reminded me a little of those abstract surrealism drawings, I honestly don't know why.

But it's very well done, congratulations  Anorakun!

Very CLEAN backgrounds and we could always use more Castlevania backgrounds. They're so evocative. And I think I spy the EPCOT dome :eyes:

---

NewPointless

Day 1 - Jelly, Castlevania and Goemon

Day 2 - You're already there, silly!

Day 3 - Soccer, Edo and 32 Screens Storehouse

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

Post-C3 Content! Check it out!

--- x ---

Thanks everyone for the kind feedback and words. I have few more stuff upon my sleeve and I must apologize, since I lied...

This thread will have a bit more than graphics. Sorry, I just realized I don't like to make multiple threads, lol. Let's get on with the show!

It's time for some good old parody humor!

Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius (SNES) - School (Bathroom)







Now, it is the perfect time to channel your inner 5th grade school kid. With this wacky and funny rip, you can make every unusual levels or terrible bathroom jokes. Or you can build a school themed level. I don't know. Be creative with this background. Yeah, you can expect anything from Parodius.

Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius (SNES) - High Speed Patrol (Temple Lord)







And now for a more normal graphic. Originally, it could only fit one screen, but I was able to expand it and loop properly. It's a background that's also featured in my hack, Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest. This background appears when the Temple Lord appears after a level focused in Lethal Enforcers? Yeah, Parodius has no set of rules, anything goes.

Includes a gorgeous uberasm HDMA gradient.

A great fit for mechanical cities in general.

Quackity Quack! Let's jammer!!

Now I'll present more graphics and a bit of fun trivia about Boxman Tano. Am I bit questionable? Yes I am!



Cactus Lotus







Originally, I was planning to use this volcano lotus reskin in Dracula X Stage 3 Remixed from Memory (Kinda?!), but due to my nature of making hard stuff, I had to remove the volcano lotus from one section and it went unused. This fun cactus plant is a perfect fit for arid places, in general. Made by No Body the Dragon.

Credits to NBTD.

-- x -

Now let's talk about something really QUESTIONABLE.

The Quackjam """"porting""" experience (aka little crime I've done in Quackjammers)

Yeah, for the first time in decades, I've decided to "port" stuff. With Boxman Tano, we wanted to make a VIP / YUMP-like / old school cool wacky hack, so naturally, i wanted to replicate a bit of this feeling bit porting two new songs. The thing is: I don't know how to port. So someone showcased to me a tool called Midi2SMW and well, it was a wonderful experience, at least, for this kind of contest where nothing super polished was required.

Now, please take a listen at these fun little ports. I won't share them because I don't feel they're substantial enough, unlike my graphics submission. It's just some fun things I've had fun adjusting while in Quackjam.

Birdemic 2 Song. Click to listen!

This is Transformed Oedo Castle, from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. Since I got tired of waiting someone port it, I did it myself, although using a tool, so technically, not a port per se. I spent a while figuring the best instruments for it and cleaning a bit the mml file. I didn't change note data, since I wanted it to be inaccurate on purpose. Yeah, my idea was to capture the vibe of a port coming from the 2010 ~ 2011 era. I've added some fun steel drums to the mix.

Convey Your Troubles. Listen here!

For this second "I made", I thought that the @0 sounded perfect as it was, so I kept the output mostly unchanged and tweaked only the volumes. People on TEAM JANK was against adding more instruments to this port. And so, this is the results. Hopefully I was able to capture an old-school vibe with it too.

Now for two crimes I've commited. I've also edited a legacy port and a site port. Sorry about that, it is about the vision of Boxman Tano.

Steel Drum "remix" of gocha's Castlevania Dracula X - Map. Listen here!

For this first little crime, I have only changed some samples for steel drums. It was changed specifically for Dracula X Stage 3 Remixed from Memory (Kinda?!). Sorry about that, gocha!

WaiWai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō - Bloody Tears ( Steel Drum "Remix"). Listen here!

The second crime is that I took  bebn legg's amazing Bloody Tears remix and added a bit more steel drums to it. It took me quite a while to figure out the correct samples to replace, but anyway, I wanted to give a clashing vibe with my Dracula X Stage 3 Remixed from Memory. Clashing assets, unfitting music and silly level design. All to create an unusual experience. Sorry, bebn, I did this to make my level even more questionable. Forgive me for this sin. lol.

And that's it for DAY 2. I hope you had a laugh or two with these "ports". Or that you all have enjoyed the graphics I've showcased so far. Happy C3, cheers!

---

Definitely didn't expect to see my name pop up when I clicked this thread haha. The slowly-fading-in @7 works really well actually.

That aside, these are some nice graphics. I feel like 90% of the backgrounds I look for in the GFX section are either skies or abstract shapes, so you're certainly delivering haha. Love the cactus lotus too.

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It is always nice to see more rips from various games be availible to be used for SMW hacks. Great job of these, Anora.

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Modern Redrawn Mario Bros. 1.5 (last update - February 14, 2023, some new bonus frames, tons of minor touchups to various poses)

On Pixel Art Requests: Depends on what it is and if I have the time for it. If its complex and I don't have the time, don't expect me to accept it.

Projects I support:


Collapsed text: Show/Hide

[19:43] <StrikeForcer> I also want to say that "because everything on the internet is definitely true!" is a derailment tactic that serves as a shorthand change for "I dont accept the facts"

[19:44] <StrikeForcer> When the information posted clearly is fact-based.

Always great seeing people try out porting for the first time, even if it's not entirely polished or "good" even. Quackjam really does let people explore new territories in romhacking, especially two people porting for the first time.

Rips are rips, we gotta have them rips. Very nice work as always on the graphics, and Team JANK is honored to be the first to use some of these!

---

Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

Day 1 - Jelly Boy, Dracula X and Goemon rips!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - You're already there, silly!

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

Post-C3 Content! Check it out!

-- x --

Hey, everyone, thanks for the compliments and general feedback. Yeah, Quackjam motivated me to experiment a bit with custm music, even if a little bit. Hopefully someday we have a complete and much more friendly and accurate music tutorial. One can dream about it.

Now, to celebrate the release of Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest ~ Director's Cut, I'll share two more rips.

Also, if you missed this out, check out this thread of mine, it has all the information you need to know about it.

Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest is wacky and fun, but so can be your rom hacks too!

Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Dōchū: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake - Qubasa Castle (Soccer Field))







Yeah, I know, you might be thinking: "Hey, Anorakun, haven't you showcased this rip in a previous C3?"

And yes, I did. The difference now is that I've reripped it from scratch to make better usage from color 00.

Now comes the fun part,  Donut made a fun UberASM HDMA gradient code that is translucent in color 00, so this gives the background this beautiful effect. Which is kinda identical to how it looks in Ganbare Goemon 4. Here's a image of the HDMA gradient.



So yeah, please enjoy this update of an old rip of mine. And once again, thanks to Donut for making this HDMA gradient magic.

Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius (PSX) - Edo (Goemon Compact's Room)





You may remember this background from Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest. For so many times, I've tried to rip it with extreme accuracy while keeping a sane limit of palette rows being used. Yeah, I was planning to release this a long time ago. It proved to be a tough challenge, but finally, this year, after sacrificing some detail, I did it. Please remember that this is from a PSX game, which has a lot of VERY VERY VERY VERY similar color values glued together. Which is kinda annoying, because at first glance, you wouldn't even notice.

It's a very color heavy background, may require either using a remove status bar patch, a sprite status bar or swapping palette row 0 and 4 of places, if you really want to keep the vanilla status bar. Also, you need some ground to cover up some cutoff and, the background scrolling must be disabled.

But yeah, aside from that, please have fun making bosses arenas, title screens or fun levels using this resource.

This background is exclusive from the PSX version, it doesn't exist in the SNES version of the game.

And now, for more Quackjam related trivia!

The Tale of the Mysterious 32 Screens Storehouse from Boxman Tano and The Quest for the VIP Pass

Time for a fun story. I bet some of you have seen the gigantic and absurd storehouse from Boxman Tano, right?

If you haven't, please check the video for more information.



"Wow. That's insane and questionable. What was the idea behind this wack thing", you, the reader, might be thinking. And well, it all started with a very specific and rare bug with the NPC v.4.2 sprites made by wye. I was testing ~omh~ as usual, for the latest update which included a fuckton of features for it. And, this happened:



For some reason, this "turnip NPC" was using a wrong level ID and it got the message from the extremely hard icy gauntlet from world 6 of ~omh~. A bit before of Boxman Tano, I said to the Team JANK folks: "hey, I could do a 1F screen storehouse in my next project just for fun" or something among these lines.

It soon became an inside joke and when we started Boxman Tano for the amazing Quackjam contest, we decided to put this idea on practice. I wrote some NPCs, decided the aesthetics of it and even suggested that this was made by all the people in team. And so, Daizo came with a fun twist to it.

Each of us were designed to make some screens and Daizo gave us some challenge prompts, similar to how he worked in the making levels, bosses and castle rooms for Naughtyworld. And in the end of the day, we developed the screens without knowing what the other participants were making. Then, we glued it together and it became this wonderful thing that you see in the video above. A really masterful piece of questionability, isn't it? And yeah, all of this was born from a funny edge case glitch that appeared in omh, for some bizarre, of all things.

Story time is over, folks. I hope you've enjoyed the contents of day 3 of my C3 show. Hooray.

I'll bring more stuff soon, so stay tuned!

---

Day 1 - Jelly Boy, Dracula X and Goemon rips!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - Fun HDMA, Edo and the story about the 32 screens storehouse

Day 4 - You're already there, silly!

Post-C3 Content! Check it out!

---- x ----

Well, seems like today was a very slow day, ain't? A bit unfortunate, I guess.

Let's get the show going.

For more Quackjam stuff!

Castlevania: Dracula X - Stage 3 (Castle Walls ~Top Portion)







Here's a freebie for you all. Featured in Boxman Tano in the level Dracula X Stage 3 Remixed from Memory (Kinda?!).

Make up your castle outdoors level much more dark with this nice background. I hope you can use it so well like I did.

Vania's Castle Party of Modified Fun Resources

Now, I'm about to share some slightly modified resources.

Most of these are graphic releases, but some of them have small asm modifications to certain sprites, so they are much more fun to use. So, let's quack and jam, my dudes.

Hot Grinders



First, I would like to introduce you to the Hot Grinders! Watch out, they are so hot that can't be slidekilled or spinjumped at all. I altered their base speed a bit to make them much more fun. Graphics are by NBTD, I just have modified them to be easier to use palette exanimation on it. Special thanks to  Fernap for helping me figure out how enable this behavior without relying on the spinpick patch.

They're based on Hot Dinos from YUMP 2. And the Hot Ninjis from Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest ~ Director's Cut.

I edited Iceguy's Non-Line-Guided Grinder disassembly to make these fun things.

Check my hack out if you've missed it.

Angry / Axe Dry Bones (Dry Bones, Throw Bones in Arc)



This is a minor customization of  RussianMan 's Dry Bones, Throws Bones in Arc. You may recognize them because of my infamous MGL4 Level: Castlevania Dracula X Featuring Marisa Kirisame. raocow even enjoyed it quite a bit, unfortunately, a lot of folks were a bit intimidated by fun dry bones.



Unlike these ones showcased in the video, I nerfed their aggressiveness quite a bit. These Axe Dry Bones are playing a lot of Castlevania, they won't stop much before throwing three axes in a row, making them really nasty enemies.

They reappeared in Boxman Tano and I've made more changes, so they are less agressives than the ones in my MAGL4 level. Very menacing sprite, right?

Boomerang Dry Bones



This is a minor customization of  RussianMan's Boomerang Dry Bones.

These were also used in my MAGL4 level and Boxman Tano. They used to throw boomerang relentlessly, but I needed to nerf them for obvious reasons. One of them being using them in FastRom and the fact that it would scare [user=11520Daizo ]from playing my stuff in TANO.

I've modified their bone extended sprite to be thrown in a straight line, much like the Castlevania boomerang. Very fun sprite but a bit harder to use, since forcing player movement can be hard with them.

For obvious reasons, please copy only the modifications I've made, and use the current boomerang bone extended sprite. There was some weird oversight in the old boomerang bone sprite, which  Sonikku fixed in the latest update.

Knife Charles Gunner



uh, don't ask me why the gif is with glitchy visuals. lol.

This is a really small modification of  RussianMan's Gunnin' Chuck sprite, which can be found in this thread here!

Now it's possible to channel your inner Dio Brando. With this knife rain, any plumber will be scared or frozen in time. Hahahaha. Main inspiration is the knife subweapon, from Castlevania (obvious).

I've modified this Bullet Bill disassembly from  imamelia to make these knives. Not only they hurt Mario, you can't spinjump on them. Making them much more dangerous than a baseball.

I've used Super Mario World's default palette to shade the knife handle. This is just a edit from the original game by yours truly.

Holy Charles



This is  RussianMan's Puntin Chuck that throws explosives, which can be found in this thread here!

Compared to the other resources, I've only modified the graphics of the football.

Charles has become a religious person, so they decided to use their divine vocation to purify unlucky foes. And it just happened to be Mario. These Holy Waters sure pack a punch and would be a great reskin to differentiate them from normal footballs.

And the best part of it? You can have fun with these slightly modified resources too. They're ready from the box to be used. Might require a few modifications, depending on what you want to use them with it, but nothing too hard of adjusting.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

So I hope you enjoy my silly graphics and small ASM modifications. I'm here to showcase how much can be done by just altering existing resources and trying to understand a small bit of ASM. Please credit the folks who made these resources, not only me because I did the graphics and small tweaks.

For ASM folks, please credit RussianMan, Fernap, imamelia, Sonikku (for fixing the boomerang in the recent version) and Iceguy. For graphics, NBTD and yours truly. I hope people can have fun with these fun little things I've modified.

Now, it's Aeron time once again!!

Ganbare Aeron Progress Report



A beautiful painting of a Yuki-Onna

So, you may be wondering why progress of Ganbare Aeron might slow? Or maybe not, but I'll tell how stuff is going anyway. So, I got caught in a storm lately. I've spent a lot of time in ~omh~ and Boxman Tano, two Team JANK hacks which consumed me a lot of energy, and that I'm very proud of having contributed. But not only that, I've worked hard on the Director's Cut of Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest, which took me more time than expected.

Well, I did a lot of progress on it last year, though. But two of the main HUB areas, Yuki's Onna Domain and Circo Carnival Park are not finished yet. They'll have a lot of NPCs and will be the levels which add a lot to the worldbuilding of this hack.

So, enough blabbering, here is some fun stuff I've been working on.



Haha, I was not joking. This amazing summary will push the B4VWF patch to its limit with how much text I've been adding. I'm doing it in a craft and careful way, so the wording and storytelling are engaging enough.



Shhhhh, be quiet at the library, Ninja-kun! Aeron's choosing which story he'll read now.



A beautiful statue. I wonder what is its meaning.



Oh! Never mind!

Now, I want to give an special thanks to someone so friendly and cool in this community:  Ahrion

He helped me with some awesome custom sfx magic that will be present in Ganbare Aeron! Hooray!



I've found this orange cat lost in the world of Popful Mail, so I brought him to a cozy nice bed and he lives in my hack now. He even meows if you try to talk with him. How cute!

The sample was ripped from Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius by  Segment1Zone2 and it got converted to custom sfx by  Ahrion



Here's a sneak peek from an idea I'll be using in the final level. You have limited ammo to use the gun. And you need to BREAK THE TARGETS! Yeah, that's it. I plan to add some coin indicator to help you figure out how many shots you have.

One neat little detail I've added is that it will say "RELOAD!" if the gun is empty. Once again, Ahrion used his amazing music magical powers and made it a custom sfx. This was ripped directly from the SNES version of Lethal Enforcers.

And that's it for day 4. I plan to bring more post-C3 content, so stay tuned, folks.

---

Day 1 - Jelly Boy, Dracula X and Goemon rips!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - Fun HDMA, Edo and the story about the 32 screens storehouse

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

Check out the previous days in the links above!

---- x ----

C3 is arriving to an end, as usual, thanks everyone that posted in this thread. To celebrate how much receptive folks have been to my fun stuff and dedicating their time seeing my silly content, I've prepared even more cool stuff for you. And without further ado...

WELCOME TO THE BONUS ROUND. POST-C3 CONTENT STARTS NOW!

Some drawings I've made during my personal challenge: Inkvember

Last year, I've decided to go back slowly into drawing stuff with pencil and paper. I'll admit it's kinda hard to practice for me, because I tend to slack off a lot and the effort to improve my trait and style. Since I missed Inktober, I've made my own Inkvember. I did my best to draw through the entire month of November, but it proved to be quite a hard task and that particular month itself had a lot of problematic events through my life. I've selected the best of these drawings and I'll showcase them right away, so let's take a look.

Inkvember 01 - Summer

content warning: a lot of exposed skin.



"Oh, Anorakun, I'm having a dejavu right now. Didn't you showcase a similar drawing at one of these C3 events?"

And yeah, you're correct, my friends! I wanted to practice new poses when I did the first version.



This time, I wanted to remake her body proportions. I felt that the previous drawing lacked more distinct proportions, a good face and personality in general. In the new drawing, I've added more details, shape and it achieves my initial vision. I might start to practice new poses and angles very soon.

Anyway, there's must be some new time folks here who don't know who Natsumi is. Alright. I'll explain a bit about my original character with some old pictures. Some of you may recognize them.

Old Drawings of my shinobi OC: Show/Hide

Simplified version of her design



"Asserting dominance (T-POSE)"



In-Game Sprite from Aeron's Golden Cookie Quest and Ganbare Aeron.



Another drawing of her.

She's a serious, stoic and powerful ally to Aeron. Always saving him from trouble whenever possible. A bit distant, but extremely loyal to him. She works behind the scenes, killing enemy troops and gathering information in both of my SMW Hacks. Anyway, that's it about my shinobi OC.

Inkvember 04 - Power



This an evil / sinister version of my half dragon OC, Naomi Heavenward. She has been corrupted by some mysterious energy, which unleashes her combat potential even more.

For those who don't know her, she fits the brawler stereotype. High endurance and devastating blows. She also sometimes wield a spear for personal combat, though she mostly uses her fists and feet in combat. Despite all these traits, her normal self is a very extrovert person. Extremely energetic, optimistic and a wholesome friend in general. But yeah, everyone have their dark secrets.

Old Naomi Heavenward stuff I've showcased previously: Show/Hide

There she is wielding a spear.



Simplified design



Artwork made by a friend of mine


Such relaxed pose and look, wow!

Inkvember 05 - Weapon



Hey, look, it's Aeron and this time he's selling some old weapons. Wait a minute! Are cookies considered weapons?

This particular drawing is a direct reimagination of a infamous comic: Cow Tools.

Cow Tools: Show/Hide

Anyway, my wacky wizard OC doesn't need presentation. He's a goofy guy who can change artstyle and humor very easily, depending on what I want him to be. Hopefully more folks play my hacks to understand how Aeron behaves in such bizarre scenarios and situations.

Inkvember 06 - Toad

content warning: too hot to be handled

This time I've channeled my inner Cho Aniki and Brutal Mario energies to create this buffed up Toad. Nothing much to say, except he carries a funny weapon in the back and that he's too powerful, oh no!! I just drew this because I wanted to do something extremely silly and wtf.

Inkvember 07 - Knight



Please meet Musashi Iyori, the Third.

Previously, a strongknight, who has fought in many wars. She has retired, growing tired of the pain that so many conflicts caused in her life. Nowadays, she's a talented artisan and swordsmith. Her left arm has some strong demonic energy. She's quite formidable but rarely fights by her own. Usually she helps heroes by selling her awesome crafts.

She's a powerful and kind woman who helps Aeron in his quest on Ganbare Aeron. How she helps him? You'll know playing my hack when it's done. No spoiler for you all, lol.

A friend of mine liked her so much that he did a drawing of her. Please check out!



Once again, I need to emphasize: this drawing was made by a friend of mine

And not only that, I've an in-game sprite for her.

Special thanks to Dark Prince who used both artworks above to create it.

He used the Popful Mail's gate guard sprite as a base:



And this is the final result:





The final adjustments in the colors were made by me. We kept the same colors as of the guard npc from Popful Mail. I'm personally very happy with her in-game design and this look fits well her. Once again, thanks, Dark Prince for helping me out with my projects.

Also, I love that she uses the brazilian flag colors. minus the red ofc.

And yes, I created Musashi Iyori specifically for Aeron 2. For years, I've only head three OCs: Aeron, Natsumi and Naomi. Musashi Iyori came to life while I was working on my hack. I hope you all have enjoyed her design.

Inkvember 08 - Chimera



And so, I was burned out of ideas and one random night I've started drawing without any direction, rhyme or reason. Just sketching shapes at the paper. As I became frustrated, I kept repeating this behavior over and over. My soul guided my hand and when I saw, this is the final result. A mysterious creature that probably would be a perfect fit in a JRPG. Don't ask why I've done this, but I know that I'm happy with this drawing. I didn't think too much, I just accepted that I created a weird chimera creature which is creepy and bizarre.

That's it for now. Expect more POST-C3 Content sopn. Happy C3 everyone and thanks to the folks who gave me support through all these years and that've commented in this thread as well. All the feedback is pretty much appreciated.

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Day 1 - Jelly Boy, Dracula X and Goemon rips!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - Fun HDMA, Edo and the story about the 32 screens storehouse

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

POST-C3 CONTENT ROUND 1 - Inkvember drawings and cool trivia

Previous content above. Check it out!

--- x ---

And with C3 forums closing very soon, I might be unable to bring more content, but who knows.

Anyway, welcome to...

BONUS STAGE!

I've talked a lot about Boxman Tano and the Quest for the VIP Pass, so for today, I'll showcase each of my levels, except Banoran's Mall rooms, because I want you to play the hack by yourselves and suffer on them, I mean, check them out.

The download for the hack can found here: https://smwc.me/1632770

I'll explain my creative process and thoughts behind each one, as well, so...

Let's go!

Birdemic 2 Turboblaster Golden Blu-Ray Edition



This is a spiritual sucessor to the first part of my Kaizo Level Design Contest 2022 level: Michael Bay Studios. In the first section, I've presented a lot of Albatosses and they're very rude, suicidal and crazy. But a doubt was planted in my head: "Can albatosses drop other sprites than bob-ombs and torpedoes?"

And the answer for this question is this level. Due to time constraints, I've ended making it on the short side. Each Albatoss is color coded so you know what they will do. Green ones always drop little birds (ninjis), pink ones drop Mega Moles, red ones drop grenades (torpedoes), grey ones drop the deadly Ninja Bros. and lastly, the blue ones drop Goal Sphere Orbs. I was planning to make more versions, like ones that drop grinders or that drop Chargin Chucks or even Bumpties.

Unfortunately for  Segment1Zone2, I didn't have time to make Albatosses that drop bumpties. But don't worry, Seg, I'll dedicate them for your next birthday.

This level proves a point: Albatosses can be quite versatile sprite, but in my humble opinion, they need to be easier to customize. In the future, I might request a more customizable Albatoss, having to do MULTIPLE ASM files is a pain in the butt, so having extra bytes to configure its behavior would be the optimal way.

The background was chosen to fit with the music, which you can see in my Day 2 post in this thread. This was my attempt of making an easier level, but in the end of the day, it turned to be a very Anorakun level, lmao. I guess I can't make chill levels.

The secret room is based on the concept of a hostile NPC. You know how in a lot of games the playable character enter sother people's house without their consent and get away with it? Oh yea, this time, a very mad man didn't like to see Tano entering his house, so he attacked him with this amazing Supreme Bowling Balls of Doom!

This level has some small inspirations in PLAN T, another level of BOXMAN TANO, which instead of Albatosses, uses mean color coded jumping venus plants to make the player panic.

Convey your Troubles - Mt. Akiyoshidai



This one is definetely a concept of all time. While working on my levels for ~omh~ last year, I had this idea of making a level consisting almost entirely of conveyor belts, but the day never saw the light's day. Then, I started working on it for Boxman Tano. I finished a "first half" and then showcased it to  Daizo Dee Von and he was like: "I approve this level, you can submit", and I was like "but Daizo, I was planning to do much more conveyor belts, add new variants like sticky conveyors where you can't jump, ON-OFF conveyors and etc" and he said to me that the level was already very hard and demanding, so it was already enough.

I was planning to make another level using this gimmick, but time constraints prevented me to do so.

This level here can be quite tricky to navigate. The main reason is that conveyor belts affect your player and the sprites in the entire level, so you need to plan your moves a bit, since you'll be "fighting against the current".

I made it look extremely easy, but one easy mistake can cost you very much, which is why this level is on the shorter side.

I did my best to explore how conveyor belt works there. Did you know that the bottom side of conveyor affects upside down sprites? Yeah, this is a very versatile block. So yeah, sparkies are the perfect candidates for this kind of idea.

For the portrait room of this area, I've used a fun vanilla quirk that I discovered recently: for some reason, throw blocks can hide powerup sprites such as 1-up, so I played around a bit this fact to reward the player with some extra lives for finding this area.



Speaking of that, this secret was Daizo's idea. In the video, I showcase how to access the secret area using this interesting fact.

Dracula X Stage 3 Remixed from Memory (Kinda?!)



And finally, for the level that took me the longest time to make. This is a joke at the concept of "made from memory". Instead, I decided to go a step further and REMIXED it from my memory. Since putting the player straight on stage 3 of Dracula X would be not satisfactory, I've added a short intro story, which is just the first screen of Stage 7 (from the very same game).

And then, I limited myself to two screens to make my fucked up "five rooms castle".



And yes, I've copied the levels aesthetics quite faithfully. But I went a step further. To make homage to old SMW hacks, I've added a lot of stylistic graphic clashing. Super Mario Bros. - Koopa Shells mixed with Super Mario World Redrawn enemies? A wiggler chain chomp? Yoshi's Island Spike Ball as reskin of Reflecting Podoboos? Dry Bones throwing Axes? Every element in the five rooms was thought to clash with the foreground and background element, in the sense that they look out of place. I did my very best to make such wack aesthetics, while making everything readable and fair enough.

Some of you might not understand the ending of the level where Tano falls off. It's based on the bad route of Castlevania Dracula X. If you complete the pillar room without falling, you get the chance of achieving the true ending of the game, if you're unlucky and fall off, you get to other stage and the bad ending route is unlocked. So I expanded on this concept by making Tano fall out of the castle (second falling screen) and arrive to stage 4, where the level actually ends.

Originally, I planned to do an entire Castlevania Dracula X remixed from memory, with alternate paths, but it would consume a lot of time, patience and my sanity, and  Daizo Dee Von probably would yell at me for making a very fucked up level. So I ended choosing Stage 3, which is notable for having very distinct rooms. It just happened to fit the concept of five rooms castle so well.

I'm also very proud of the meme I've added in the end, which initially was just a nonsensical joke, but ended turning up in an important plot point to Boxman Tano. AHAHAH yes! The lore gets even deeper.

Also you may be wondering "carry sands"? What does that mean?

Well...





If you go the map and find THE RUINED, you'll find our friendly skeleton Sans and his buddy, sands. Sands is a carryable skeleton, but he is not useful at this specific level. But he is in the Dracula X level. (And in another level that I won't spoil).

So these were my thoughts while making these three wacky levels of Boxman Tano. Which one is your favorite? What do you think about my silly creations? Please share your thoughts if possible. I'm not sure if i have any more content for C3, but stay tuned, because I might bring more stuff, who knows? Cheers, and happy C3, everyone.

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Wooow, so much great stuff here! I especially love the caverns and the dry bones! Great job overall!

Tano definitely has a lot of thought put into it's levels, and to tie the levels together in the narrative like the reoccurrence of "sands" the skeleton.

I think I have made the right call to keep your stuff on the shorter end. Because of the frequent checkpointing in castlevania I didn't mind it that much there, though they are essentially 5 short 'mini levels' stitched together so it was still managable. Your style does lend itself better as shorter bursts, especially considering you tend to mash 3-4 obstacles per screen instead of like one obstacle per 1-2 screens like most other people.

Interesting lil retrospective. Overall a good thread.

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Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

I too feel your levels are cool but work better in short-ish length.

As for the rest of the thread, those are some nice backgrounds rips. I like the castlevania caverns.
I wonder who will use the bathroom background.

Day 1 - Jelly Boy, Dracula X and Goemon rips!

Day 2 - Parodius, fun enemy reskins and Quackjam "ports";

Day 3 - Fun HDMA, Edo and the story about the 32 screens storehouse

Day 4 - Castlevania party and Aeron 2 development reports

POST-C3 CONTENT ROUND 1 - Inkvember drawings and cool trivia

POST-C3 CONTENT ROUND 2 - My Boxman Tano levels (spoilers from the Questionable Hackjam!)

Previous content above. Check it out!

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Thanks for the kind words, Ondore's. That means a lot to me. And also, thanks Daizo and yogui for the feedback provided, it has been quite fun to work on Team JANK hacks.

Really appreciate each piece of feedback given in this thread. Since you were so kind, here is a small freebie for everyone!

Metal Slug: 2nd Mission - Stage 1-1





This is the background that appears in the first stage of Metal Slug: 2nd Mission, a Neo Geo Pocket game. It's a perfect fit for retro themed mountain stages. And yeah, since there's dithering everywhere, it took me two EXGFX files to rip it.

Anyway, I hope you like this neat graphic.

And that's it ! The forums will close very soon, but I hope everyone had a fantastic time visiting this thread.

Happy C3, everyone!

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