Hey everyone, I wanted to take this moment to talk about the compilation hacks we produce for contests. The production of VLDC7, 8 and 9 were amazing - each one exceeding the last in scope. We attempted to go even further than 9 with VLDCX, but circumstances led to the projects hiatus.
The amount of people who have both the time and ability to insert various .mwls, map16s, exgfx, music, secondary exits and so on - and remap them to make sure there are no conflicts are few and far between. With how we've done things in the past, it's just not efficient for us to continue these same methods of compiling resources for a hack.
So for the bad news out of the way first: unfortunately, VLDCX and KLDC 2017 will no longer be supported projects by the staff team. With VLDC11, BLDC, and KLDC 2019 happening since, these compilations have just fallen too far in the past for us to reasonably justify applying the resources to create it without it impacting another avenue of the site. This doesn't mean these projects won't ever exist - Blind Devil helped revive SMWCP2 as a personal effort and then we helped him get the team, and if others are interested in continuing these projects we can help with what we can. Or, these projects could be reasonably completed if circumstances can change.
And that's the thing - the circumstances can change. I'd like to announce the SMW Level Inserter Tool Project. Helmed by randomdude999, this tool will be able to both insert and remap .mwls, map16 files, ExGFX, Music, Custom Sprites, and everything contest entries tend to have. We're looking for your guys help to make this tool a reality! You can view the current repo here, and if you're adept in C++ and interested to help, please contact randomdude999 via PM or Discord for access to contribute to this.
We also have an internal project led by Maarfy tentatively titled Project Chomps. It's a giant patch that applies all of the necessary ASM for our contest collabs (placement, whether a level acts as an overworld or submap for moles and hammers, if it has a secret exit, etc etc), plus it'll include Thomas's VLDCX Menu for use in future collabs.
We're not happy to have missed out on VLDCX and KLDC, along with having no plans for a VLDC11 collab - but the time it takes to manually manage it just isn't realistic. So I hope with the development of this tool, compiling a baserom can happen in just a few clicks - and the rest of the time can be spent on the overworld and bugtesting.
Thanks for understanding, and I or any other staff will be happy to answer any questions about this.
The amount of people who have both the time and ability to insert various .mwls, map16s, exgfx, music, secondary exits and so on - and remap them to make sure there are no conflicts are few and far between. With how we've done things in the past, it's just not efficient for us to continue these same methods of compiling resources for a hack.
So for the bad news out of the way first: unfortunately, VLDCX and KLDC 2017 will no longer be supported projects by the staff team. With VLDC11, BLDC, and KLDC 2019 happening since, these compilations have just fallen too far in the past for us to reasonably justify applying the resources to create it without it impacting another avenue of the site. This doesn't mean these projects won't ever exist - Blind Devil helped revive SMWCP2 as a personal effort and then we helped him get the team, and if others are interested in continuing these projects we can help with what we can. Or, these projects could be reasonably completed if circumstances can change.
And that's the thing - the circumstances can change. I'd like to announce the SMW Level Inserter Tool Project. Helmed by randomdude999, this tool will be able to both insert and remap .mwls, map16 files, ExGFX, Music, Custom Sprites, and everything contest entries tend to have. We're looking for your guys help to make this tool a reality! You can view the current repo here, and if you're adept in C++ and interested to help, please contact randomdude999 via PM or Discord for access to contribute to this.
We also have an internal project led by Maarfy tentatively titled Project Chomps. It's a giant patch that applies all of the necessary ASM for our contest collabs (placement, whether a level acts as an overworld or submap for moles and hammers, if it has a secret exit, etc etc), plus it'll include Thomas's VLDCX Menu for use in future collabs.
We're not happy to have missed out on VLDCX and KLDC, along with having no plans for a VLDC11 collab - but the time it takes to manually manage it just isn't realistic. So I hope with the development of this tool, compiling a baserom can happen in just a few clicks - and the rest of the time can be spent on the overworld and bugtesting.
Thanks for understanding, and I or any other staff will be happy to answer any questions about this.