World 7 Boss: Hindenbird - Kipernal/MarioE (ASM), Alessio (GFX) - World 7

So, Wednesday, and I haven't made a whole lot of progress on this because, well, I was mostly working on this. Not to say that I got nothing done, just not enough to warrant a new patch/video (unless someone really needs one for some reason). Basically, the smash attack is 90% finished by now:

-The player is now correctly launched upwards high enough to hit the boss if he positions himself correctly.
-The boss now no longer gets stuck if the player is launched too high.
-The boss now has graphics while looking for the player.

Originally posted by Dinomar

When the boss is stand still, make its animation a bit faster, so the jetpack fire can animate properly without an absurd slow motion.

How about a slight modification: so that the legs and mouth don't animate as fast as the fire (which would look rather strange), I'll separate the fire from the rest of that pose and animate it at its own, faster speed.

Originally posted by MrDeePay

*awesome background*

Awesome background. I'll definitely be using that; thanks!

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

If you want, yes, I said that because i thought you wouldn't want to separate fire from sprite, but if you are willing to, even better.

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Just as a heads-up: this week's update is going to be Friday, not today. I hope no one minds terribly, but by then I should have something much more visibly interesting to show (instead of what I have now, which was a bunch more behind-the-scenes stuff). In particular, look forward to Mario finally (finally) interacting with the boss.

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

It's still Friday in...Alaska, I think...

Changes/bugs:

-Mario now interacts with the boss. It's not quite perfect yet; see the next point.

-The boss now learns from Mario's attacks, and won't be hit by the same attack twice. This doesn't work right with the smash attack yet, and dashing left and right are accidentally counted as their own attacks. Also, the graphics do not yet represent the changes (e.g. the boss will always be wearing the spiny hat regardless of whether or not he should be).

-The boss now does not stop at the side of the screen, but instead slows down. At extreme speeds he'll occasionally escape the screen, which will be fixed.

-The summon attack now includes a new enemy that slowly spawns vertical bullet bills from the top of the screen. The boss will always use this attack when this new enemy does not exist (i.e. if Mario defeats the enemy it will just be resummoned). The purpose of this is to make the bits between attacks less boring.
Note that, occasionally, the summoning attack will occur even if the enemy currently exists, and, occasionally, the attack will fail to spawn this new enemy. Both of these will be fixed.
Incidentally, for anyone curious, I scrapped the laser enemy in favor of this one for two reasons: the first is that it was huge, almost rivaling the boss itself in terms of size (though most of it was due to a huge lookup table required for the laser's math). The second is that it would have been too intrusive during the battle, and the player would have had to divert too much attention to it instead of the actual boss.

-The smash attack is "finished"...but glitchy as all hell. I tried to make the dodging look a bit nicer, but it ended up destroying quite a bit of the attack and I didn't have time to fix it. The boss acts weird during this attack right now, so take what you see with a grain of salt.

-Mario occasionally falls through the floor if he gets hit by the boss for some reason.

-The new graphics (background, jetpack, etc.) are not yet implemented. ...okay, techincally the background is assembled and in the level (you can see it in Lunar Magic), but it doesn't load correctly.

-The palette of the new enemy is wrong, and the graphics for the bullets are wrong.

-The dash attack does not hurt Mario after the boss has been hit while doing it.

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

The link to the new IPs doesn't work.

BTW, I'm back from a break.

I'm sorry, but I'm not good at SMW hacking, so I gave up on it. That means I'm leaving SMWCentral. Bye!

Thank you. It's been fixed.

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

Originally posted by Kipernal

-The summon attack now includes a new enemy that slowly spawns vertical bullet bills from the top of the screen. The boss will always use this attack when this new enemy does not exist (i.e. if Mario defeats the enemy it will just be resummoned).

I would just make this enemy be invulnerable to the shells instead. During my initial test, my first instinct was to take out the drone as soon as possible each time. This, however, meant the boss kept doing absolutely nothing but the summoning attack, over and over again, for a very considerable length of time. I actually wondered if something had broken with the boss before I reread your above post. I can imagine a similar situation occurring with many other players as well, so best to avoid the potential confusion in the first place by just making the drone shell-proof.

The jet attack also strikes me as a wee bit impossible to dodge. Aside from the initial swipe, the player has absolutely no idea where the boss is going to attack from before he appears, and once he's on screen, there's virtually no chance to dodge him. An arrow before each swipe might be a good idea here.

I pretty much am in agreement with RN on this boss so far. While I like what it does, it does need some tweaking.

- Too many times it summoned Koopas and that thing that drops stuff.
- Swiping attack seems too hard to dodge after the 1st jump.
- The smash attack sometimes makes Hidenbird go off screen and never come back, lets Mario jump way too high for way too long, and sometimes when Mario falls down back onto the floor he falls through the floor.

Hey, this is turning out great! I agree with the above comments, but if there's one thing to add I think it needs another "generic" attack, you know? Like a simple ranged shot that he can just fling whenever he feels like it, because as of now it's all "big" attacks, if you catch my drift. A bit difficult to explain, and it isn't really a needed addition so it isn't a big deal.

But seriously nice job Kipernal!

In addition to that, I also find that it summons too many koopas at once, only because it causes slowdown. And it seems like an HP counter has not yet been set.

I do like how Hidenbird starts to learn from its mistakes by dodging Mario after being hit from doing a certain attack.

I no longer have interest in SMW Hacking as I did when I first started several years ago.

Okay, so it's completely playable up until the boss's death, and with a bit of tweaking, it could almost be inserted into the ROM as is. But I want to address a few issues people commented on first.

Bugs/changes:

-All graphics are now implemented. With the sole exception of the boss occasionally facing the wrong way while firing bullet bills, I think everything's set.

- The background is properly implemented, though there is a minor issue with the rightmost column of tiles being improperly offset.

- The boss now has health, and can be defeated. Right now all that happens is the level end is triggered; are we going with the boss exploding for an ending? Should the boss itself explode (like a bob-omb), or should the boss be killed by an explosion (like an enemy standing next to a bob-omb)?

- Interaction between Mario and the boss should be perfect now. The two exceptions are that while smashing into the blimp, Mario doesn't interact with the boss, and the dashing attack still can sometimes push Mario under the blimp, killing him.

- That being said, Mario should no longer fall through the floor during the smash attack.

- If enemies are on the blimp during the smash attack, the will not bounce around with the blimp.

- If Mario's x position is less than the boss's x position, he may not be launched correctly during the smash attack.

- The boss can still be shoved offscreen while idle or dodging Mario's counterattack under rare circumstances.

- A bunch of other minor things. If anybody notices any glitches other than these, please speak up!

Originally posted by Lynnes

Hey, this is turning out great! I agree with the above comments, but if there's one thing to add I think it needs another "generic" attack, you know? Like a simple ranged shot that he can just fling whenever he feels like it, because as of now it's all "big" attacks, if you catch my drift.

I think I know what you're talking about, and it's something I tried to address with the enemy that spawns downwards-facing bullet bills. It's not really working as I indented to, though. I might just re-retool the enemy spawn attack so that the boss does it while he's idle instead of as its own attack.

Originally posted by cstutor89

lets Mario jump way too high for way too long,

That was intentional, though I can change it if people don't like it. My idea was that, if Mario stands at at the apex of the shockwave, he is launched much higher, giving the player a much greater chance of hitting the boss before landing back on the blimp.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew

I would just make this enemy be invulnerable to the shells instead. During my initial test, my first instinct was to take out the drone as soon as possible each time. This, however, meant the boss kept doing absolutely nothing but the summoning attack, over and over again, for a very considerable length of time. I actually wondered if something had broken with the boss before I reread your above post. I can imagine a similar situation occurring with many other players as well, so best to avoid the potential confusion in the first place by just making the drone shell-proof.

See my response to Lynnes' post; I'm probably going to change that attack...again.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew

The jet attack also strikes me as a wee bit impossible to dodge. Aside from the initial swipe, the player has absolutely no idea where the boss is going to attack from before he appears, and once he's on screen, there's virtually no chance to dodge him. An arrow before each swipe might be a good idea here.

Personally, I don't find the attack all that difficult, and was actually thinking of ways to make it a bit harder, so I appreciate you pointing that out. I didn't get a chance to add an arrow this time around due to odd glitches that kept appearing, so made the attack slightly slower as a temporary compensation (I don't know if it will help, though).

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

Looks great! The only real issue that I could find is the inconsistencies about when you're able to hit him when he's doing his "rushing from the side" attack. Seems like I could hit him the first time he did it (not the first pass), but any times after that, he'd hurt me if I tried to jump on him.

Also, if you're standing in the center of the screen, he kinda flips out with his direction (he hovers back and forth while idle, but he also tries to face in your direction).

Warning: Opinions expressed by Lexie or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Lexie himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

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I'm loving this boss battle so far. A few tings to point out;
-During the bullet bill attack, if the boss coming from the right side of the screen, he is facing the wrong way.
- I had a weird glitch during the around where jumped up above the screen using the bullet bills and somehow manged the freeze the game
- Currently 3 hits seems a bit too little, maybe up it to 5?

Layout by LDA during C3.

Originally posted by Lightvayne

During the bullet bill attack, if the boss coming from the right side of the screen, he is facing the wrong way.

On the other hand, that actually lets you get a good look at the remote controller, whereas when he's facing the toward Mario, much of it is offscreen. Sure it's a little odd that he would be facing away from his opponent, but it sort of makes sense if you assume he's looking at the cannons which are firing the bullets.

On the other hand, maybe having him indeed face the toward Mario but shifted over just a touch so the controller is in view might be the best solution.

Originally posted by Lightvayne

Currently 3 hits seems a bit too little, maybe up it to 5?

It seems to me that depending whether or not the boss decideds to favor you with the attacks he uses, three hits can seem too few, just the right amount, or even excessive. During my first few unsuccessful attempts at the boss, three seemed like it would be an appropriate number, as he did a good mix of new and repeat attacks. The first time I did beat him, on the other hand, he hardly repeated any attacks at all, so the battle seemed far too short. And in one particular instance, he kept repeating the dash and especially the bullet attack over and over again, and on the rare instances where he did indeed dive, only did so on the extreme right side of the screen, so Mario never bounced properly, resulting in the battle dragging on for far too long. It sort of seems to be the luck of the draw which one of these scenarios the player gets.

That said, I suspect five hits might shift things too far in the opposite direction, as well as requiring two new attacks, repeating the previous ones, both of which might make the battle continue on for too long. Perhaps a good compromise might be to raise the number of hits to four, and add one more final attack, which the boss only performs after you've thwarted him in all his previous attacks.

Originally posted by Kipernal

That being said, Mario should no longer fall through the floor during the smash attack.

This did actually happen to me just once, right as the floor was about to settle down. I wasn't able to duplicate it again, so it's apparently a rarity, but not an impossibility.

Originally posted by Kipernal

The boss now has health, and can be defeated. Right now all that happens is the level end is triggered; are we going with the boss exploding for an ending? Should the boss itself explode (like a bob-omb), or should the boss be killed by an explosion (like an enemy standing next to a bob-omb)

I was thinking the former, as it would be the more unexpected and amusing option, though the latter could conceivably work as well.

All said, the boss is definitely shaping up nicely, and I look forward to the finished version.

Have you worked out the death sprite animation frames yet? I suggest his jetpack blows up and he falls into the background in cinders.

Your layout has been removed.

I suggest using mode 7 for dying frame. Clouds will begin darker every hit (Or maybe the whole screen.) and when the last hit will be there his jetpack will give out shines (windowing) and then you'll change level mode (per scanlines, cause the ground will stay there) from mode 2 to mode 7 and he will disappear in the BG.

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I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

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Far too complicated for something too miniscule, plus I don't think Mode 7 and Mode 2 can co-exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Just make good ol' Quackers blow up.

Originally posted by Luigi370

I suggest using mode 7 for dying frame. Clouds will begin darker every hit (Or maybe the whole screen.) and when the last hit will be there his jetpack will give out shines (windowing) and then you'll change level mode (per scanlines, cause the ground will stay there) from mode 2 to mode 7 and he will disappear in the BG.

Why do I have a feeling you have no idea what the SNES can do and not to? The OAM is not large enough to handle everything that'd need to not be on the mode 7 layer.

Besides, using mode 7 for the sake of using mode 7 is nonsense. This hack is not a tech demo and should not pretend to be one.

<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation

I actually proposed something of similar to Kipernal, even if it works a bit differently, but i am not sure if he will do it: i guess due of lack of time and ROM space, though. We'll see what Kipernal wants to do.

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Unfortunately, this has been a rather busy week for me, so I don't have enough to warrent a new patch (again, unless, for some reason, someone really wants it).

Originally posted by Alexander

Looks great! The only real issue that I could find is the inconsistencies about when you're able to hit him when he's doing his "rushing from the side" attack. Seems like I could hit him the first time he did it (not the first pass), but any times after that, he'd hurt me if I tried to jump on him.

That's because after you hit him the first time, he dons a spiky helmet for subsequent dashing attacks. I've added sparkles to his helmet (like Mario's invincibility sparkles) to make this a bit clearer.

Originally posted by Alexander

Also, if you're standing in the center of the screen, he kinda flips out with his direction (he hovers back and forth while idle, but he also tries to face in your direction).

Not sure I can do a whole lot about that. ...well, actually, maybe I could make him have a minimum speed before turning around...I'll see how that works.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew

It seems to me that depending whether or not the boss decideds to favor you with the attacks he uses, three hits can seem too few, just the right amount, or even excessive. During my first few unsuccessful attempts at the boss, three seemed like it would be an appropriate number, as he did a good mix of new and repeat attacks. The first time I did beat him, on the other hand, he hardly repeated any attacks at all, so the battle seemed far too short. And in one particular instance, he kept repeating the dash and especially the bullet attack over and over again, and on the rare instances where he did indeed dive, only did so on the extreme right side of the screen, so Mario never bounced properly, resulting in the battle dragging on for far too long. It sort of seems to be the luck of the draw which one of these scenarios the player gets.

What I could do is manipulate the random number generator so that the boss will always do one "real" attack (where the player hits), one "fake" attack (where the player cannot hit), and then leans further away from that attack afterwards.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew

That said, I suspect five hits might shift things too far in the opposite direction, as well as requiring two new attacks, repeating the previous ones, both of which might make the battle continue on for too long. Perhaps a good compromise might be to raise the number of hits to four, and add one more final attack, which the boss only performs after you've thwarted him in all his previous attacks.

I like the idea, but I can't come up with a "fitting" final attack. To make it truly final, one of them has to die (otherwise the attack repeating itself over and over will feel dull, scripted, and anticlimactic), which will make it either too easy or too hard.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew

Originally posted by Kipernal

That being said, Mario should no longer fall through the floor during the smash attack.

This did actually happen to me just once, right as the floor was about to settle down. I wasn't able to duplicate it again, so it's apparently a rarity, but not an impossibility.

This should be actually fixed now. It seemed to be caused by Mario being under the "normal" floor height on the very last frame of the effect, so when everything returned to normal, the special physics stopped, but because Mario was still under the floor by just a few pixels, he continued to fall. Now, whenever the floor is still, the game refuses to let Mario be beneath it.

Originally posted by CrystalJadeStrike

Have you worked out the death sprite animation frames yet? I suggest his jetpack blows up and he falls into the background in cinders.

Right now, he blows up like a bob-omb, but if the general consensus is to switch it to his jetpack exploding, I can do that instead.

Originally posted by Lightvayne

I'm loving this boss battle so far. A few tings to point out;
-During the bullet bill attack, if the boss coming from the right side of the screen, he is facing the wrong way.

This was mentioned in my release post, but, while I was just going to fix it and be done with it, I rather liked Rameau's Nephew's idea of having the boss accidentally "wander" into view while facing the cannons offscreen, and then facing Mario and dodging him the other times. It actually makes a bit more sense this way, as well.

Originally posted by Lightvayne

- I had a weird glitch during the around where jumped up above the screen using the bullet bills and somehow manged the freeze the game

That's a glitch with SMW, not the boss. I think the Feather power-up Fix patch would fix it.

Originally posted by Dinomar

I actually proposed something of similar to Kipernal, even if it works a bit differently, but i am not sure if he will do it: i guess due of lack of time and ROM space, though. We'll see what Kipernal wants to do.

Yeah, at this point it's looking like ROM space would be the biggest issue. It would require that the cloud background be preassembled in the GFX files so that we could use large sprites to fill the background (16 64x64 sprites composing the background, with the boss on mode 7's layer 1), wasting a lot of ROM space with duplicate tiles. And even if that weren't the case, the background size would be limited to 128x128 (tiled), while the current one is 256x256. It was a good idea, but not really worth it for a 2-second cutscene.

I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.