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The Blue Paratroopa support group

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I like the GFX set, it looks pretty nice to me, I guess we can use it for the later worlds.

About the submap, I can either remove the alternate path or the level in the bridge to make it shorter, I guess I'll go one with the second option. I guess a castle would be ok for the final level of this world, I've played several SMW hacks with a castle besides bower's one on the final world (allthought this is not our final world, but it's a bowser world). If we go on with the islands/water world the final level could be a shunken ship or an iceberg.

By the way, should we use the world number signs?
I suggest completely redesigning the right island. (And keep the bridge level-- distinctive level locations are good.)

A castle would sort of make sense as the last level of the Bowser world... except I'd think the Koopa would want to avoid castles that early in his adventure, so maybe not. (And a random note: Castles don't need to be the final level of their worlds.)

As for world number signs, I'd prefer to have them (it helps players know which world they're in (remember, they might not be as familiar with the hack as we are, especially if there are split paths))... should they be placed near the end of each world, or somewhere else (maybe near the beginning)?

(Extroble, if you want to make more redrawn tilesets, go ahead.)

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Okay, so I've gone ahead and tried to make some shelled overworld graphics for the koopa, but I'm sort of unsure of their quality.
yy-chr screenshot
.bin

I also set to work on a tileset to use for the Bowser world, and maybe some caves or something:
map16 screenshot
It's not quite done yet though, needs proper gradual slopes.

Also, I've noticed a few more things in the baserom. First, the lives counter still reads "Mario x #". That should probably be changed to just "Lives x #" or something.

The other thing is that power-ups are still globally exanimated. A few patches ago, I'd disabled them in the demo level but not deleted the actual animations (I wasn't sure whether we wanted them exanimated or not), so I guess should apologize for the confusion here.

So at this point would it be a good idea to start designing levels, or should it wait a while longer?
And are we going to be using Yoshi at all? I personally don't really want to, mostly because I don't think Yoshi would be particularly happy with a koopa trying to ride him.
That GFX10.bin file contains... no Koopa overworld graphics at all?

And yes, I agree with not using Yoshi (actually it was sort of implied to me from the start)... (That is, unless the Koopa meets a friendly Yoshi at some point? It could work... but it would be pretty strange.)


Anyway...

New base ROM patch: 1102210330.ips

I turned off the global ExAnimation, disabled the cape-spin, changed the player 2 palette to a yellow Koopa instead of green (and the fiery palette to a green Koopa, for Starman palette purposes), and redrew the "MARIO" and "LUIGI" to say "KOOPA" instead (in the same font).

(Also, I swapped around the layer 3 palette colors in order to color the "KOOPA" blue/yellow depending on player, and keep the goal star red. The timer and coins now use the formerly-LUIGI color, while the goal star uses the formerly-yellow color... Edit: Unfortunately, this seems to have affected the coloring of the layer 3 smasher things in Iggy's Castle. I'll probably revert the color changes and just leave the goal star blue.)

In addition, I added "© 2011 Blue Paratroopa Support Group" on the title screen, to make it a little more distinct.

That reminds me, are we going with Kadyastar's title suggestion of "Shades of Blue"?

Anyway, there's still one major issue with the Koopa player: although the cape-spin is now disabled, it's still possible to hit things with the "cape" while spin-jumping... (Also, the cape still appears when running up a wall.)

Also, if possible, I think it might look better if the Koopa's wings are folded when simply running (so they extend when jumping, falling, or similar).

In addition, due to our graphical changes, the bonus game is a bit strange... the 1ups are green shells, and the changing items are red shells, 1ups, and stars. I'll need to change the tilemaps/palettes of some of those... Edit: Using some hex-edits in the xE0E3 range, I managed to change the bonus game block items (they're now blue shells, wings, and stars), but the bonus game 1up tilemap doesn't seem to be in the ROM map...

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Originally posted by Zeldara109
That GFX10.bin file contains... no Koopa overworld graphics at all?

It... doesn't?
Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to manage a multitasking session with a bunch of files that all have the same name...

Here is a link to a graphics file that actually contains the graphics. I've tested it to make sure it's the right file this time, too. If it's still messed up, then I honestly don't know what to say.
Here is a GFX32 with the wall-running thing fixed. Also noticed a few climbing tiles cut off koopa's hand and fixed all of those that I could find. Though, I don't know how to edit a cape tile's x offset, so it's stuck at the middle of the shell when running up walls for now.

I think that Kadyastar's title could be better but I can't possibly imagine how. Now that I think about it, I realize that I probably expect way too much out the title of things anyway.

I'll start looking for the 1-up tile and spin jump thing tomorrow, it's super late right now. Though I can't think of any real way to turn that 1-up thing into a breakpoint...
The new overworld graphics look OK (I agree, a little small, but the original overworld Mario was pretty small in the first place), but they don't exactly contain the correct palette...

Anyway, here's a new patch (with my partially-fixed bonus game). Could you update that one with the correct overworld palette (and any other fixes you may happen to find)?

(I also made some hex-edits so fire flower blocks will produce feathers instead (just in case someone places the wrong power-up block), and the changing item roulette sprite should contain a 1up instead of a flower. I haven't yet reverted my layer 3 palette changes though.)

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Okay, so from your patch, I've changed the following:
-Fixed OW koopa palette
-Hex edited the properties of square behind koopa on the OW border (x20808), now uses first color in palette nine instead of luigi's skin color (Changing the yellow koopa OW palette made this necessary)
-Found tile to use for bonus game 1-up (x1805E) and made them appear as a green mushroom
-Changed x05142 to FF to disable the spin-jump cape thing
-Reverted the smasher palette changes
-Added a pipe to level 0 to the demo level to test the bonus game
-Made a few changes to the shell-less koopa in GFX32, most importantly he now uses his arms to carry things
Link
Also, I noticed that the overworld lives exchange thing still says "MARIO" and "LUIGI." I could look for the tilemaps/stripe images, but I can't think of what they'd be replaced by. "BLUE" and "YELLO" maybe, but I'd prefer to avoid the misspelling.

EDIT: Should we apply fastROM to this hack? It limits the ROM size to 4MB but I don't think Lunar Magic actually supports ROMs larger than that anyway.
You two did a nice job for those patches, we're getting close to the base patch now. We still need to fix the "Mario starts" message.

It took me a lot of work but I managed to make a better submap, now it contains 8 levels (7 if we don't count bowser's castle) and the player just has to go through 6 of them:


Here's a patch that includes the new submap. Also I hex edited the ROM to disable the lightning from the valley of bowser because it glitched the pallete.
Isn't the fastROM patch supposed to be applied to the ROM before Lunar Magic is used on it? Or was that an older version? FastROM sounds like a good idea though.

Though that reminds me... I think we should record the hex-edits we've been making (have you been already? I haven't, unfortunately), in case we need to port this to a new ROM at some point.


Edit: That map looks better... though maybe there could be a decoration on the lower-right corner of that raised platform that remains after the path is revealed? I know, that's a pretty minor detail, but the lack of decoration there sort of stands out to me.

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
I removed the rock on the lower right because the event caused it to cutoff, it appeares on the first screenshot because I took it before doing so.

Edit: should we add cutscenes for this hack? I'd say we add one at the end of each world to show some progress into the story (i.e. How the koopa lears about the Fos, when the ghosts start chasing them ect...)
The fastROM patch should optimally be applied as the very first thing you do to the ROM, but applying it later doesn't damage anything, just that the patch won't be as effective.

Since aj6666 pointed it out, I went ahead and fixed the "MARIO START !" screen; it now reads "KOOPA START !". It also uses the Mario palette instead of the yellow palette because I was hoping to make the text blue for blue koopa and yellow for yellow koopa, but unfortunately it seems that the graphics are 3bpp. I also learned today that the Mario Start message was programmed by some sort of psychopath (It uses nonsensically arranged dynamic tiles from gfx0f to gfx10, when it could very well just load gfx0f instead. I don't get it at all...).

I also returned the rock to the overworld, shifted one tile to the right so it didn't get cutoff.

And I changed the Nintendo Presents screen to read "Blue Paratroopa Support Group". Though I think the font may be a bit odd.

And that is exactly all the changes I've made since aj6666 posted the submap... Feels it a bit silly to post a patch but I feel like if I don't then I'll just forget entirely about the Mario Start thing.
Download

I'm sort of unsure about cutscenes... I think that the koopa could learn about the Fortress of Seclusion from an NPC or something in the first level, or maybe after getting to world 2. And I'd sort of assumed that having the boos follow him to FoS was supposed to be a surprise plot twist revealed after/as the koopa got there.

As for hex edits, I haven't been keeping proper track of them, but tried to post all the ones I made in the thread. I did save the Mario start edits to a .txt, though, because it's a whole lot of stuff changed.
I agree, the Boos appearing should be a surprise.

There could be some cutscenes at the beginning to help explain the background story, though. And probably some at the end of the game... do you want to go with a cutscene tool, or Map16-based cutscenes? (I personally prefer the latter.)

As for how the Koopa learns about the fortress... I was thinking that after wandering for a while, the Koopa finds out about the fortress somewhere. Maybe there's a map showing its location, that the Koopa finds hidden in a cave or similar?
After the Koopa finds that map, a new path would appear (Layer 1 event) leading from an earlier world toward the fortress (or alternately, there could be a switch palace level after the map, and a door-on-!-blocks secret exit somewhere earlier)... though the path to the fortress itself would be very dangerous (to explain why the fortress is so secluded); maybe the haunted forest could be on the way.

As for the logo... do you mind if I apply the patch that allows a 64x64 ExGFX logo, and redraw it to contain a blue Paratroopa image next to the "Blue Paratroopa Support Group" text?

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
I don't mind at all if you do the 64x64 graphic for the Nintendo Presents. If you do, you might want to avoid using my little logo entirely; it was designed around having barely enough space for the text and I think the font looks a bit weird because of that.

As for the koopa learning about the fortress, I like the idea a finding the map. Perhaps he could find it in some ghost house, so it would explain why the boos were angry? And I'd say a layer 1 event would probably be a better way to handle it, since I think the switch palaces should either go unused or left unrequired. I find it incredibly silly to follow the normal path of a game only to find myself at a switch palace... Maybe it's just me, though.

Concerning cutscenes, I'd say go with Map16. Fancier cutscenes don't really seem like they'd fit in well with a SMW-styled hack.
I still like the idea of the Boos coming from a haunted forest that happened to be one of the earlier worlds (whether before or after the place with the map).

Yes, I plan on redrawing the presents logo-- I sort of enjoy making pixel-based text like that. (I've created a few logos for my own hacks and Kamek's Revenge 2.0, and even the "You are the 1st Yoshi!!" text in my userbar.)

TSRP2 used a switch palace at the end of world 7 (see videos 65, 66, 68 in my TSRP2 playthrough if you're curious about the details)... but then again, that game declared it a power supply switch that was needed to re-enable the portals so Mario could return. Since there wouldn't be a direct explanation for the switch, I say go with the layer 1 event.

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
I think the map could be located on a ghost house inside the haunted forest. I remember Extroble mentioned something about placing the fortress of seclusion on a mountain, so I made this drawing to sugest how we should make the overworld, it's kind of inspired in the brutal mario OW (yes, I know I suck at drawing.)



The W# stands for "world #" (I guess you could tell this yourselves but just to make sure).

W2 would be and Island/water world.
W3 could be a grassland, or dessert, or basicaly anything.
W4 would be the haunted forest, when that world is beaten a path to W5 will appear, this world would be made in a submap (somehow like the forest of illusions).
W5 Would be something like the mountain's cliff.
W6 would be a cave, this wourld would also be made in a submap.
W7 is the upper part of the mountain, I was thinking about a snowy world for this.
The FoS would be located at the top of the mountain, and we would use annother submap for this where there are no other levels as Extroble sugested.

About switch palaces, I was thinking about placing all of them in the same submap and make the accesible via warp stars hidden around the overworld
I don't like the idea of the map (or the fortress) being associated with the ghosts in the first place...

I'd prefer it if the Koopa travels through the haunted forest, then finds the map sometime after that. Then when backtracking, the ghosts see him again and are annoyed at how often he's traveling through their forest. So they decide to follow him, eventually reaching the fortress around the same time he does, and either attack him or ambush him there.

As for the fortress's actual location... I wouldn't exactly like it to be on top of a snowy mountain, for the same reason that I don't like it in a dark cave.

I was thinking of it being on a peninsula, somewhere on the left or right side of a main continent... it would be up on a cliff (so it couldn't be reached from the water, instead only by following a dangerous path from the mainland, maybe traveling through a cave on the way), but at the same time would seem like a nice place to live in, if you can reach it in the first place. (I'll upload a sketch if I can figure out a way to do that.)

Switch palaces? I think I'd prefer for them to simply be scattered around, as usual... though could they be actual normal-length levels instead of rooms that are only a few screens long? I prefer it that way.

Regarding the "KOOPA START" tiles... the K doesn't appear for me?

For the lives swap though, I suppose we could overwrite some of the tiles in the Super Mario World logo for a 5-tile "YELLOW" (assuming we can't just use the "YELLOW" that already existed for the Yellow Switch Palace). Or they could both simply be changed to "KOOPA".

Anyway, I've been attempting to draw a replacement for the Nintendo Presents logo... what do you think of these?

  

Personally, I prefer the font I used in the second one (maybe add another pixel between "Paratroopa" and "Support"), but the letter "a" looks a little strange... Any ideas on how I could improve the logo?

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Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
Originally posted by Extroble

Bug report:
Stop saving level 000 without removing those extra tiles at the top of screen 1, it enables scrolling (=cutoff).

Edit: Bug report #2: Green berries are ugly. Make them use color A instead of 2.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
I was thinking about placing the switch palaces in some kind of power plant, since it would make sense for a switch to be placed there, but I wouldn't mind if they are scratched around. I agree they should be full lenght levels.

The fortress of seclusion should be placed in a hiiden place in my opinion, if you don't want it to be on the top of a mountain I'm ok with that, but a peninsula sounds like a realy noticeable place to me....Maybe it could be placed in the middle of a dry desert where nobody lives or goes it's more peacefull than the dark cave and the mountain top and less noticeable than a peninsula.

About the logo, I prefer the first image, I don't like the small text. Maybe we could use the logo in the credit scene as well, which makes me think: we should have a custom ending, it wouldn't make much sense to see the koopa walking folowed by Yoshi, the princess and the seven eggs.
Hey, would you guys rather use my multi-midway point patch instead of Kaijyuu's? Mine doesn't require any secondary exits, and you can still have up to 8 midway points per overworld level.

Also, as far as Addmusic goes, we should definitely be using HuFlungDu's (technically Romi's with some edits and a new MORE.bin).

Also x2, you do realize that the latest versions of Lunar Magic have the FastROM patch built in...right?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
I guess we should use HFD's addmusic since aparently all the other ones are going to get removed.

About the multi midway patch...well, we already inserted the other one so I'm not sure if we can insert yours without glitching.

There hasn't been many new posts here in the last days, come on Zeldara and Extroble, we need to revive this thread.

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