The VG Resource

Around a year after I graduated from high school i discovered this nifty little program called TiledQT. With it, I could learn to make games, custom animations, and even edit certain files.

I just use it to make video game mockups. These Mockups are based on the Mega Man Zero and ZX games, using tiles and sprites from both series. All the maps were made using a series of squares I overlayed over the map, and then removed before posting to DeviantArt or Pixiv. These squares were the exact size of a GBA screen, and coupled with my knowledge of how Zero and the ZX characters move, allowed me to position enemies and obstacles in a fair way.

Now I used some boundaries in order to make these levels. You can see that Zero is a different color. That is the Junk Armor/ Hard Mode Armor. You won't take double damage or anything, it's just to show how weakened he is, because he was awakened in such a weird way. He cannot dash. He cannot Wall Jump. He cannot breathe underwater. He cannot stay in extremely cold or hot areas for too long. He cannot charge his buster. He ONLY has his buster for the first part of the 'game'. He's basically at this point MM1-3 Mega Man, only he can crouch instead of slide. You will need to find upgrades hidden in the levels or buy them yourself to power up.

Since I plan to redo the intro stage sometime this month, I will only post the Levels I'm satisfied with. Here they are. Each of these are works in progress, but still have enough done to get Zero to the boss level.


Area A-2

the Zero enemies in this stage. These are the only enemies you can destroy with your current equipment. the ZX enemies are too strong to destroy, but can be stunned for a few seconds with your buster, allowing you to walk past them. ZX enemies that barely comes above Zero's legs can be destroyed though.

Area A-3



Area I-1



Area I-2



 This is the first area to use the shop system. Basically in some stages there are either Pseudoroids or Biometal users. In the case of the former you can just buy or find the upgrade in the stage, but with the latter if you beat the biometal user, you get that upgrade along with the upgrade for the upgrade(Example. you get the Dash Jump, or Dash LV1 here. Beating the Biometal user in this level will give you the LV1 Dash, as well as the LV2 dash without having to pay or find them.) Biometal users are optional and if you don't beat them, they'll return in the final level. A Biometal user will stay in a level until you beat two Mutos, then they will move to another level. The Dash Jump is a mandatory upgrade and is unskippable.


Area I-3



When battling Pseudoroids, Zero can't harm them with the weapons he'll get until he gets a full body upgrade. the tradeoff here is that the Pseudoroids are on a time limit. If you played Mega Man ZX or ZX Advent, you'll know that they use Model W to power them. Well since Model W is gone, they have no way to recharge power, so you simply must survive their attacks until they shut down and teleport away. In the case of Hedgeshock, She is a lot faster and jump happy than in advent, but all you have to do for this first Pseudoroid is simply crouch on the bottom platform and she'll miss all her attacks.



First mission briefing.



Stage select works differently as well. The main bosses are the eight judges from Mega Man Zero 3, but they have 2 or 3 Mutos under their command in the same stage.  These stages are a somewhat Metroid/ Megaman-like deal where you can choose any of the bosses in any order you like, though beating the Judge first will have a beneficial effect on the stage and make it easier. If you see (Damaged) next to the boss name, this means that boss will be easy pickings. Likewise, if you see (Upgraded) next to the boss name, that boss will be stronger and start using it's EX skills more. Either way there will be a room gimmick if you see a boss with (weakened) or (upgraded) next to it. In the case of Staggroff, you have until time runs out to defeat him, otherwise Zero and the boss will be destroyed.




And lastly for now: Area F-1 (Frozen)



Because Zero is so weak, he cannot stay in the cold for long. When he steps into a cold area anywhere in the level, he will have three minutes to get to a heat source before he falls to the ground. The flowing water here flows in from another part of the level, and is hot enough to warm Zero up. You can also use health pickups to warm yourself up as well. He also cannot stay in the water here otherwise the timer will go down even faster.

The ZX enemy guarding the F-4 entrance means that a Pseudoroid or Biometal user is located in that area.  Beating Flizard will flood Area F-1 with liquid from F-2(and will flood other areas too like F-4. not all of Area F wil be flooded.) as well as melt all the ice and snow.

So that's it. What do you guys think?
Yes I know those snowy mountains look awful. I had to guess where the mountains were from the white background to make that background work.

You do not have to worry about the temperature in this area at all. The glaciers will start to melt the second you step on them, so you have hop from glacier to glacier before you fall in the warm mysterious liquid.



[url=http://s298.photobucket.com/user/verifiaman/media/55335028_p0_zpscwoxutz9.png.html][/url]

Area Gimmicks:

The air coming out of the pipes will freeze you, shaving 30 seconds off your countdown.

The snow is thicker here, much thicker. and as such, you will have LESS time to get a health pickup or get indoors before you die.

The snowballs will roll down the hill by themselves when you're near, and the big snowball near the end will do double damage due to how big it is.

When you see the Variants(purple enemies) that means you are close to the Judge. The next area is the boss fight.

The main gimmick in this area, aside from the cold weather timer, is the plane shifting. You go into a door and head into the background. I did this to save file space.


Blazin flizard has the same attacks he has in Zero 3: He throws his frill, shoots fire, and will go into the center of the boss field and shoot from his frill. The difference is that the room is larger and his attack radius is much larger.
He also has new attacks:
The first is where he'll throw his frill but fireballs will shoot from it.
The second is a variation of his flamethrower, where he'll spray fireballs after shooting his flamethrower.
The third is where he will throw his frill, but when the frill hits the ground it will roll back and forth on the floor five times until going back to Flizard. All the while Flizard will jump at you and shoot fire.

The boss behind the yellow door is late game.

As a last note, you will find npcs in levels with help icons, with blue and red help icons denoting importance.


http://www.mmbnchronox.com/forum/archive...ad-10.html Dynamo sprite taken from here.

slow down partner, while i'm not against your enthusiasm to make your very own Megaman game, the problem is nothing in it other than level design is original, now if you want to try your hand at making your own tiles and characters which would improve the game's position as an original game from just another Megaman clone, then we here will be happy to critique your sprites and generally improve you as a sprite/pixel artist

(03-29-2016, 11:28 PM)Hiynastrike Wrote: [ -> ]slow down partner, while i'm not against your enthusiasm to make your very own Megaman game, the problem is nothing in it other than level design is original, now if you want to try your hand at making your own tiles and characters which would improve the game's position as an original game from just another Megaman clone, then we here will be happy to critique your sprites and generally improve you as a sprite/pixel artist

This is something that, while I like to do, don't have the patience for. My computer can't even run something like Doom Builder 2(drivers are from 2002 and I don't have the money to update them), so it chugs when I use the program for the level maker. And in addtion to getting the resources (my computer plays DS games super slow) In addition to that I'm not even that good at recoloring anything. I didn't get that Zero sprite from anywhere, I had to play Zero 2 hard mode because I couldn't tell which color to start with to recolor Zero into his hard mode sprite.

Edit: I should clarify: I know how to recolor: replace lightest colors an go down to the darkest colors and vice versa. even when I have just two sprites in an image program for me to try to color swap I have problems with it.

Last edit: I can't design characters for the life of me. At all.

(03-30-2016, 12:16 AM)verifiaman Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-29-2016, 11:28 PM)Hiynastrike Wrote: [ -> ]slow down partner, while i'm not against your enthusiasm to make your very own Megaman game, the problem is nothing in it other than level design is original, now if you want to try your hand at making your own tiles and characters which would improve the game's position as an original game from just another Megaman clone, then we here will be happy to critique your sprites and generally improve you as a sprite/pixel artist

This is something that, while I like to do, don't have the patience for. My computer can't even run something like Doom Builder 2(drivers are from 2002 and I don't have the money to update them), so it chugs when I use the program for the level maker. And in addtion to getting the resources (my computer plays DS games super slow) In addition to that I'm not even that good at recoloring anything. I didn't get that Zero sprite from anywhere, I had to play Zero 2 hard mode because I couldn't tell which color to start with to recolor Zero into his hard mode sprite.

Edit: I should clarify: I know how to recolor: replace lightest colors an go down to the darkest colors and vice versa. even when I have just two sprites in an image program for me to try to color swap I have problems with it.

Last edit: I can't design characters for the life of me. At all.

If it's an issue in having the right program then I can say that any sprite can be made in MS Paint which comes with most if not all Windows OSes, some versions handle it better but mostly it's the hammer and forge in the smithy that is spriting/pixel art

Also, do you think anyone here in the VGR was born with a paintbrush in hand? We study what has worked in the past and how it improves us as artists, you might want to look at this

http://www.vg-resource.com/thread-25474-...#pid559214


Once you made some sprites, just post them to the thread and the people of VGR will give you critique to help you get going and generally improve as a sprite artist