Metroid: Father Hunt

[ronny14]

I have played Metroid 1 many times. I have noticed that before, but it never really occurred to me that it does show a significance in using the missile on the door. Perhaps, the black brace that's on the door could come off when you have the missile launcher on? I think that could work, and the dots could be integrated into the door tube thing, I'm not sure what to refer to it as.

[Kriven]

and the dots could be integrated into the door tube thing, I'm not sure what to refer to it as.

A portal?

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

Once again, I think the design of the hatch isn't very readable. Here's one way of doing the missile hatch:

First, the door is normal. When you switch to missiles, the points appear. They then break as you shoot missiles at it, until the door opens.

Here's another, with it gradually shattering:

I hope this helps, at least!

[ronny14]

I actually really like both of the ideas, trying to get the dots in there without looking awkward with the shatter at the same time.

[ronny14]

I went with the implied design.

Frame 1- Unharmed missile door, missiles not active.
Frame 2- Missiles activated, door unharmed
Frames 5 through 7- Door gradually shatters
Also, although not pictured here, I made it so that the blue that appears when you activate the missile launcher goes away once the door begins to shatter, it makes it look much cleaner.

[Previous]

This should work well, yes!

[ssbawesome]

That looks better, it should be less confusing now.

[ronny14]

Toying with the engine and stuff, a ton of small tweaks were made that made the experience better, such as:
1)When you would face a wall and aim up, the wall would absorb your shot. I fixed this, you can now actually shoot up when facing a wall.
2)I lowered the drawing point for Samus by 1 pixel.

This is only a visual tweak, it removed the double outline between the floor and Samus's feet, and makes it look better when standing on some "rocky" terrain.
3)THE MAP WORKS

This took me forever. At first you had the whole map from the beginning, but I finally got it to work so that you can only see what you've explored. And because of that, I can now place dots where powerups are, like in the actual games.

I know I've had several small updates recently, but I don't get that much time at once, and these little things lead to a better experience.

[ronny14]

New blog post here:
http://metroidcomical.blogspot.com/2013/...hings.html
I'd normally summarize the post here, but when I do, it seems that the blog is insignificant. To be honest, I'm aiming for the blog to get the recognition for this game, and have the forum posts serve as a little local notification. But the opposite is happening, so if you wish to read the the new post, check out the blog please.

[Previous]

Still, it'd be appreciated not to have this as a form of "look here's where you can go to for the info" thread as that has too much of an advertisement topic and too little of a gamedev thread. At least that's how I think about it.

[Gors]

This is unrelated now that you already found a way around the portal, but the green highlight in the first Metroid's portals were not made to make a connection with Samus' missile shot. It is purely an effect of the NES limitation: when one color is changed in the sprite palette, it affects everything that uses it. Samus and the door happen to share this color, and therefore, when you change it, the door also changes. Another example of palette cycling happens in Legend of Zelda. When Link uses a green robe, the fast palette cycling enemies (such as Zora's fireballs or those electricity balls that roam in dungeons) will use the same green in the animation. Oce you get a magic ring and your robe color changes, the mentioned sprites will also change color.

It's interesting that even if in Metroid's case, it was purely a design limitation, you can infer this secondary meaning that 'the red doors have something to do with missile shots'. This is great game design imo.

[ronny14]

Still, it'd be appreciated not to have this as a form of "look here's where you can go to for the info" thread as that has too much of an advertisement topic and too little of a gamedev thread. At least that's how I think about it.

Alright. I won't continue posting like that, because now that I think about it, half the time I wouldn't have the patience to go look at a game's blog.

This is unrelated now that you already found a way around the portal, but the green highlight in the first Metroid's portals were not made to make a connection with Samus' missile shot. It is purely an effect of the NES limitation: when one color is changed in the sprite palette, it affects everything that uses it. Samus and the door happen to share this color, and therefore, when you change it, the door also changes. Another example of palette cycling happens in Legend of Zelda. When Link uses a green robe, the fast palette cycling enemies (such as Zora's fireballs or those electricity balls that roam in dungeons) will use the same green in the animation. Once you get a magic ring and your robe color changes, the mentioned sprites will also change color.

It's interesting that even if in Metroid's case, it was purely a design limitation, you can infer this secondary meaning that 'the red doors have something to do with missile shots'. This is great game design imo.

A lot of what defines Metroid today can be traced back to the limitations the earlier games had to deal with. Based on that, the behavior of the missile shine is probably coincidental, but is still a good indication.

[Bearded_Beast]

This is really cool. I like the sort of 'squished' and 'toon style. What are you making this in? I scrolled through the blog and didn't see what language or software you are using.

I am also supremely curious as to how you got the map to work in general. I've tried my hand at it using Game Maker 8 and had no luck.

[ronny14]

I'm making this in Game Maker 8, nothing too fancy.
The map is something I've struggled with since I started. I ended up with a rather long and complicated code that divided the screen into about 750 little "cells."
Each cell keeps track of 1 thing: Whether or not it should cover the map that is drawn below. When Samus is in a cell's location, the cell records the area it is in and then will reveal the map piece below it. Basically, if the cell has registered to show the map block in area 1, then it will hide the map block that is in the same position in area 2 until you visit that area.
It's rather basic compared to other map systems, and requires a lot of input, (the coordinates of each room must be specified) but I feel more in control with how the system works, and there doesn't seem to be a negative performance impact.

[Bearded_Beast]

I'm making this in Game Maker 8, nothing too fancy.
The map is something I've struggled with since I started. I ended up with a rather long and complicated code that divided the screen into about 750 little "cells."
Each cell keeps track of 1 thing: Whether or not it should cover the map that is drawn below. When Samus is in a cell's location, the cell records the area it is in and then will reveal the map piece below it. Basically, if the cell has registered to show the map block in area 1, then it will hide the map block that is in the same position in area 2 until you visit that area.
It's rather basic compared to other map systems, and requires a lot of input, (the coordinates of each room must be specified) but I feel more in control with how the system works, and there doesn't seem to be a negative performance impact.

OH! Ok, so it's like you have an array with the x/y positions of the rooms. Once the room is entered you change it's value... Hm.. that could be done with a couple of For loops and single sprite with several frames.

8x8 sprite, say... 12 frames, frame 0 being 'blank'
Array [ x, y] = 0 for not explored, nor known
1 = single room block, 2 left half long, 3 right half long, etc.