Joking aside, this is what I've been doing instead of focusing on The Challenge.
Giant Link
So what is this? It's a compilation of 49 entries from 2008's VLDC1, three levels were lost so I included decoy levels instead as destroyed castle tiles. It also includes FPZero's entry which was posted in the submission thread but was not judged because the author was one of the judges.
Why am I doing it? Well, I saw this thread and I thought it would be cool if “the other 6” were also put together in one ROM. So I decided to do this.
This is only a level compilation, I don't intend to make this as big as the VLDC7 or VLDC8 collabs because this is a contest that was hosted almost 8 years ago and because those level were never meant to be placed in one ROM (it was already a pain reassigning all those levels that used level 105, 106, 107, etc. and map16 page 2). I do intend however, to do something more than just an empty overworld with levels, but I want to ask for your help and opinion on this.
1. Overworld
Based on the level themes we can use a sky world, a grassland world, a cave/mountain world, a dark/ghost house world and the usual best and worst worlds, I'd rather use the main map instead of using all 6 submaps because I want to save one submap for World X. Of course I'm open to suggestions about this, so if you think you have a better distribution let me hear it.
I'm accepting volunteers to design the submaps. Since this is a contest from 2008 I'd prefer if the overworld doesn't use anything that wasn't possible at that time, but of course this is not a requirement, so feel free to use anything you need. Do try not to make to too flashy though.
2. Switch Palaces
This is the subject I'm most hesitant about. As I said these levels were not meant to be put together in a ROM, so most levels that use switch palace blocks are the ones that have switches on them. This would normally not be a problem but there's one yellow switch palace and three green switch palaces in the ROM. My idea for this would be leaving the green switch to FPzero's level and change the other two to red and blue, but then there's another problem: capes. All three GSP levels use at least one green switch block as a cape container, what we can do here is make it so the blue and red switches also spawn capes, but then the problem is that you will be able to obtain capes in Flight of the Yoshi from red and blue blocks by hitting them with a shell (or with another cape) and you're not supposed to do that. If you have a better solution let me know.
Other than those, I think the only level that uses switch palace blocks is Frozen Future Fury. They are not active by default but they will be activated once the blue switch is pressed which couldn't happen in the original level. Personally I say we leave them like that but let me know if you'd rather leave them deactivated all the time. Giga's level uses 4-colored switch blocks, we can make it so those won't appear unless you activated all four switches but I'd rather not since those blocks were not intended for that purpose.
3. World X
As I said, one of the judge's level (the one with the green switch) is in the ROM. I was thinking to give this level its own submap (we can use the one FP made in his entry) and make it similar to VLDC8's world X. The thing is we can't make a "grab all YC" thing because some levels didn't have Yoshi Coins and I'd rather not add them. My idea is to make the level inaccessible until you've cleared all other exits. I will need somebody skilled in ASM for this though.
4. Custom Music?
The contest didn't allow custom music so all entries used the original soundtrack. We can choose to respect that, but we can also use remixes or we can go wild and use a complete custom soundtrack. Personally I'd rather respect the contest music, but I'll leave that up to you guys,
5. Bugs and missing levels
As I said, there are three missing entries, the authors are Raibys, Atomik and pas'ra'chilli (yes, there was somebody named like that, apparently, lol). If somebody has them I'd like to include them in the ROM. Otherwise we can either keep the decoy levels as "ghosts" or remove any trace of them from the ROM. This also makes thin think about the worst world, since two of the three missing levels should be there, shall we take them into account or not?
Regarding bugs, the ROM works almost perfectly. The only bug I couldn't fix was in Mountain Heights: in the cave after the midpoint, there' garbage appearing in the background, apparently this is caused by the layer 2 moving sprite. This didn't happen in the original level so I want to fix it. However, if I edited the level with LM the garbage appears, so it's probably related to some bug from a recent version of LM. I'd appreciate if this could be fixed.
A lot of levels can be broken if you bring Yoshi or a cape, so I want to insert counter-break patches to force the player small at the beginning of all levels. You were not supposed to brings powerups from another level here anyway.
If you find any other bugs in the ROM, they're probably insertion bugs, so please report them here.
----
Without further ado, I hope I can count with your help on this project. Enjoy your time trip and have a good stay at year 2008.
Edit: I already have Raibys and pas'ra'chilli's entry. I'm only missing Atomik's.
Giant Link
So what is this? It's a compilation of 49 entries from 2008's VLDC1, three levels were lost so I included decoy levels instead as destroyed castle tiles. It also includes FPZero's entry which was posted in the submission thread but was not judged because the author was one of the judges.
Why am I doing it? Well, I saw this thread and I thought it would be cool if “the other 6” were also put together in one ROM. So I decided to do this.
This is only a level compilation, I don't intend to make this as big as the VLDC7 or VLDC8 collabs because this is a contest that was hosted almost 8 years ago and because those level were never meant to be placed in one ROM (it was already a pain reassigning all those levels that used level 105, 106, 107, etc. and map16 page 2). I do intend however, to do something more than just an empty overworld with levels, but I want to ask for your help and opinion on this.
1. Overworld
Based on the level themes we can use a sky world, a grassland world, a cave/mountain world, a dark/ghost house world and the usual best and worst worlds, I'd rather use the main map instead of using all 6 submaps because I want to save one submap for World X. Of course I'm open to suggestions about this, so if you think you have a better distribution let me hear it.
I'm accepting volunteers to design the submaps. Since this is a contest from 2008 I'd prefer if the overworld doesn't use anything that wasn't possible at that time, but of course this is not a requirement, so feel free to use anything you need. Do try not to make to too flashy though.
2. Switch Palaces
This is the subject I'm most hesitant about. As I said these levels were not meant to be put together in a ROM, so most levels that use switch palace blocks are the ones that have switches on them. This would normally not be a problem but there's one yellow switch palace and three green switch palaces in the ROM. My idea for this would be leaving the green switch to FPzero's level and change the other two to red and blue, but then there's another problem: capes. All three GSP levels use at least one green switch block as a cape container, what we can do here is make it so the blue and red switches also spawn capes, but then the problem is that you will be able to obtain capes in Flight of the Yoshi from red and blue blocks by hitting them with a shell (or with another cape) and you're not supposed to do that. If you have a better solution let me know.
Other than those, I think the only level that uses switch palace blocks is Frozen Future Fury. They are not active by default but they will be activated once the blue switch is pressed which couldn't happen in the original level. Personally I say we leave them like that but let me know if you'd rather leave them deactivated all the time. Giga's level uses 4-colored switch blocks, we can make it so those won't appear unless you activated all four switches but I'd rather not since those blocks were not intended for that purpose.
3. World X
As I said, one of the judge's level (the one with the green switch) is in the ROM. I was thinking to give this level its own submap (we can use the one FP made in his entry) and make it similar to VLDC8's world X. The thing is we can't make a "grab all YC" thing because some levels didn't have Yoshi Coins and I'd rather not add them. My idea is to make the level inaccessible until you've cleared all other exits. I will need somebody skilled in ASM for this though.
4. Custom Music?
The contest didn't allow custom music so all entries used the original soundtrack. We can choose to respect that, but we can also use remixes or we can go wild and use a complete custom soundtrack. Personally I'd rather respect the contest music, but I'll leave that up to you guys,
5. Bugs and missing levels
As I said, there are three missing entries, the authors are Raibys, Atomik and pas'ra'chilli (yes, there was somebody named like that, apparently, lol). If somebody has them I'd like to include them in the ROM. Otherwise we can either keep the decoy levels as "ghosts" or remove any trace of them from the ROM. This also makes thin think about the worst world, since two of the three missing levels should be there, shall we take them into account or not?
Regarding bugs, the ROM works almost perfectly. The only bug I couldn't fix was in Mountain Heights: in the cave after the midpoint, there' garbage appearing in the background, apparently this is caused by the layer 2 moving sprite. This didn't happen in the original level so I want to fix it. However, if I edited the level with LM the garbage appears, so it's probably related to some bug from a recent version of LM. I'd appreciate if this could be fixed.
A lot of levels can be broken if you bring Yoshi or a cape, so I want to insert counter-break patches to force the player small at the beginning of all levels. You were not supposed to brings powerups from another level here anyway.
If you find any other bugs in the ROM, they're probably insertion bugs, so please report them here.
----
Without further ado, I hope I can count with your help on this project. Enjoy your time trip and have a good stay at year 2008.
Edit: I already have Raibys and pas'ra'chilli's entry. I'm only missing Atomik's.
