Middens/Gingiva Ripping Project (Complete)

[Dunkelschwamm]

Hey folks, Dunkelschwamm here.

[Edit: This project, as far as my involvement is concerned, is completed.  I have ripped everything from both Middens and Gingiva that I will and anybody who wishes to approach these games from this point will not be stepping on my toes.  Thanks for tuning in everybody!]

Just wanted to make this post to "lay my claim" as it were on Middens and its sequel, Gingiva.  

I haven't made many threads since the advent of the on-site submitting system.  I'll be sure to update my progress of the dual project here.  This is a project that will likely take several days or even a couple weeks, and during such projects I often get a little paranoid that somebody else will start ripping and submitting sheets that I already have queued for submission.  

I'm sure that at least some of you good folks will attest that I am a reliable ripper for such a chaotic and massive project.  I like to think that over the years I've built up a portfolio of rips that can help inspire confidence that I will handle these rips with precision, care, and completion.

One of the main reasons I am posting this is that I want to submit all of the sprites for these games at one time, rather than the trickling system that I employed during my rips of the three Lisa games.  As such, while I will be keeping progress reports in this thread to keep everybody updated, I will only actually submit the sprites for each game when it is finished.  This way the sprites should only show up on one site update, and hey, maybe we can make another new record (seriously, these games have a lot of specific characters with full battle animations and overworld sprites, and will certainly be my largest rips yet).

If you have any questions, feedback, criticisms of this procedure, or specific requests, feel free to comment.  I assure you that none of you will be met with hostility and that I am always happy to hear the opinions and corrections of others.

With that out of the way, I will post my current progress (having only decompiled the games' resources on October 2nd ((yesterday as of posting))).

Last Update: November 29th
Middens Progress:
Middens Party and NPCs fully ripped; pending on possible tiles/backdrop rips.

Gingiva Progress:
Pending ripping progress until class finals are complete.

Notes: I hope that none of this comes off as too pushy on my end, for having "laid claim" to these two games.  I am simply very enthusiastic about ripping these games and would hate for my projects to be interrupted because somebody else has begun submitting the sprites themselves.  This had happened a couple years ago when I was ripping PC First Person Shooters and I never really forgot the disappointment when my work had gone to waste, and these feelings of course could not be directed anywhere as nobody was at fault.  I wanted to include this explanation so that nobody gets the wrong idea and thinks that I'm being territorial.  I love you all and can't wait to make this contribution to the greatest and most comprehensive sprite database on the internet.

[Dunkelschwamm]

A brief update to give a glimpse into my ripping folder for Middens.



That's the sheets with the icons, and only a small selection of them.  I'm currently up to an impressive 143 sheets and wouldn't be surprised if I reach over 200 sheets by the time I am done with just this first game.  This is turning out to be quite the labor of love, but it will all be worth it when I see the full rip on TSR

[DarkGrievous7145]

WOW...

I have many such folders, minus icons, as many of my rips were done before I joined here, and were intended solely for my use/reference.
I plan to post probably all of them some day, though...

Well, good luck with all of that
And hmm...did a quick look at the page, the game seems interesting

Also, the staking claims thing is perfectly acceptable to me.
I kinda will be/am already doing the same, as I've had similar experiences...
It really is discouraging when that happens... I once nearly gave-up on a project completely because someone else came-along and did it before I could finish.
My only complaint about this would arise when nothing ever gets done, because at this point, I feel people lose their right and credibility to 'exclusively own/control' a project.

[Dunkelschwamm]

I couldn't agree more, DarkGrievous. One of the reasons for my constant updates is to ensure that I am actively ripping and not idling, preventing the game from receiving a proper rip. Your support goes great lengths to make me feel less iffy about my decision to lay claim to the games, as I was afraid that the general reaction would be fairly hostile.

Also, if you'd like to have my opinion on Middens, I would say that the game is certainly filled with interesting assets, but I can only recommend it in short bursts at a time. The layout is somewhat confusing and the battles are often a bit overwhelming. The chaotic nature of the game makes it difficult to tell which areas should be approached earlier than others, and some of the major game mechanics aren't implemented in the most smooth ways. Prolonged play can get somewhat tedious, and the novelty of the exquisite surrealist art starts to fall to the wayside of the uninspired and often aimless exploration. The game also has occasional issues with characters speaking in "WHOA DUDE THAT IS DEEP" language despite being especially cryptic without being terribly thought provoking, as if somebody is madly pretending or satirizing existential and post modern philosophers. I'm certainly a fan of the game's aesthetic over anything else about it, which is a field where the game REALLY exceeds.

Then again, the game is free, so my criticism does little to say that the game isn't at least worth trying out.

I feel the sequel (prequel?) Gingiva solved some of the issues I had with the first game.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I have to fight low motivation levels and lack of free time to make progress lately, it seems...
You're not the only one here to do it, either...

Yeah, that sometimes happens...
There are some games I like the sequels/prequels a lot better.
It's probably a fairly common issue, too...
Seeing as the developer's skills and/or resources tend to improve, and/or the target platform's computational or graphics capabilities increase, the sequels have that opportunity to be surpass the originals. (Unless you're a certain developer responsible for Candy Crush Saga and it's spin-offs... of ALL the mobile games devs, I am probably most disgusted with them.)

[Dunkelschwamm]

Hahaha too true. I think in the case on Middens and Gingiva it was a matter of the designer consolidating his style and learning from his mistakes. Gingiva felt less aimless and relied far less on clunkily implemented game mechanics. Most importantly, however, was that the style felt much more consistent, whereas Middens feels really scattered and eclectic. It could have been a conscious decision to make a game that feels "collage-like" (as that's a common theme in Middens) but it felt distractingly disjointed and unpredictable in a way that, for me, was detrimental to the experience.

[Dunkelschwamm]

Update: Ripping on slow mode as I move through midterms and some hectic work schedule. I'm thinking that in a couple weeks I should have Middens fully ripped. What do you think: should I submit Middens once it is completed, or wait until I can submit Middens and Gingiva at once? All together we're looking at hundreds of sprite sheets.

[Ton]

That's a lot of files. Good luck!

[Dunkelschwamm]

Hey guys, just a brief update to say that I just finished with my midterms and will hopefully now have time to finish up Middens as quickly as possible. I'm sure that given the obscure nature of these games nobody is really waiting with eagerly chewed thumbnails for this project to be completed, but when I set out to finish a major project I like to keep folks updated.

One difficulty of ripping this game is the nature of the character graphics. Characters are portrayed inconsistently and often use redundant sprites. For example: Genie is a pistol with eyes and a mouth, but the pistol itself is shown to look very different depending on where in the game you see Genie (sometimes the handle is striped, sometimes it is white, sometimes it is black; sometimes the gun's barrel is snub nose, sometimes it is full length) and some of the sprites associated are reused for later characters (for example, eyes and legs sometimes attached to Genie may appear later attached to another character). To maximize the confusion, even editing the map source files does not always reveal every part of the segmented sprites, causing me to have to run the following process to ensure each character is ripped fully:
-Open a map
-Find a character within
-Rip all sprites directly associated with the map file
-Open the character script to determine what monster party they cause (the monster rarely looks like the overworld sprite at all)
-Determine from the monster party what sprite is used and how it is recolored
-Rip the monster sprite and apply recoloration
-Change map to include player start position
-Launch game to see if any other sprites had been included but were hidden in the map file proper
-If sprites are present, they must be hunted down in the extensive resources folder

This process does cause some redundant sprites to appear, but I feel that for the most organized and proper archival of Middens' sprites this is a necessary evil. At the very least, no two sprite sheets are exactly the same, and when monsters appear in the same map I do what I can to ensure that they are sorted to the same sheet. Because I appreciate the art style of Middens so much I intend for this to be a VERY thorough rip, and I will hold myself to similar obsession with quality when moving forward to Gingiva (which includes some more consistency but a lot more complex sprites and animated battle characters).

Anyway, that's all for my attempt at transparency into the process I have undertaken. I generally like to say, "It should only take a week or so" but given the busy nature of life and the constant surprises while sleuthing Middens' game files I would feel dishonest making promises at this point. When I have finished with the characters and am ready to move on to the tile sets I should have much more ease in predicting the full submission to the game.

And on that note, I'd like to conclude with a preemptive apology to whoever is going to be tasked with approving these sheets upon submission. There's already well over 200 sheets for Middens and there will certainly be many more before this rip is complete.

Thank you all for your patience and I can't wait to finish so I can submit.

[Dunkelschwamm]

Alright, final update for Middens: submitted 242 sprite sheets. Includes tons of characters from the game. At some point I might submit ripped tilesets as well, but I might just submit those as a zip because they are ridiculously huge tilesets. I'll likely cover a couple quick games before I jump into Gingiva.