Current status: actually in progress, it seems.
If you'd like to play it now, here's a mostly-fixed version, from 2011-7-31:
http://media.smwcentral.net/Zeldara/yikr196.ips
(update 2011-7-30: 4-2's flower should work now)
If you find any issues in the latest release that you think still need fixing (other than that it's still missing Extra 5), I'd appreciate it if you notify me somehow.
Note: The above patch needs to be applied to a Super Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island (V1.0) (U) headered ROM.
(The ROM should be exactly 2097664 bytes if headered, and 2097152 bytes if headerless.)
If you have a (V1.0) (U) headerless ROM, you may find it easier to apply this patch instead, which should allow you to play the hack. (However, you won't be able to use certain YI hacking tools on a headerless ROM unless you add a header (using HeAdder, SNESTool, a hex-editor, or another method).)
---
YIKR2: fixing the Kamek's Revenge glitches
I've enjoyed playing Kamek's Revenge a lot, but I became pretty annoyed at the glitches. (And at the difficulty, the first time around, though now I can handle it.)
So, I've been making a modified version of Kamek's Revenge, fixing as many glitches as I can.
(I originally did this in a few levels to help myself learn YI hacking, but then I became motivated to create a fixed version.)
I call the new version Kamek's Revenge 2.0, which I often abbreviate YIKR2. (To distinguish the original version, I call that YIKR1.)
Note: If you have not played the original version of Kamek's Revenge, this topic might not make much sense. My posts here assume everyone reading is familiar with the original, or at least doesn't care about the way I casually reference various levels by number, as well as what would be considered general YIKR spoilers.
---
Progress: ~96% done
49/01/03/01
Intro-level
1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 1-6 1-7 1-8 Extra-1
2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 2-7 2-8 Extra-2
3-1 3-2 3-3 3-4 3-5 3-6 3-7 3-8 Extra-3
4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 4-7 4-8 Extra-4
5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4 5-5 5-6 5-7 5-8 Extra-5
6-1 6-2 6-3 6-4 6-5 6-6 6-7 6-8 Extra-6
- Ready for final testing (i.e. release)
- Partially edited, but still requires more edits/testing
- Unedited
- Contains known major glitches
- Corrupted, needs to be copied from backup
- Extra level progress: See below
What remains:
- Finish creating Extra 5
- Fix a list of bugs reported in v1.96
- Make the credits (?) (I think I'll just leave the original credits, actually)
- Release, and fix anything discovered afterward
(Note: Sometimes the number of levels ready for final testing will decrease. This can happen when I edit an area that's shared between two or more levels, when I discover something while randomly playing a level, when I think of a new idea but still need to implement it, or when I find out a level became corrupted due to bad pointers. Also, I've developed a much higher quality standard since I first begun.)
---
This is a list of changes I've made or am making (in approximate order of priority), with videos (sorted by wherever they best fit):
Here's a YouTube playlist if you prefer to watch all of the videos without sorting through the links here. (The changes are also listed in the video descriptions.)
Note that most of these videos may be out-of-date.
Make a working, 100%-able 4-3
- This was the first thing I did. I know it fits into the other categories, but it was the highest priority, so I'm listing it first.
- YIKR2 - 4-3: Green Green Bay (100%!)
Fix the glitched Middle Rings in 5-2, 5-5, 5-8, 6-3, 6-4, and 6-8
- For all of these except 6-8, the Middle Ring locations were actually in the ROM, so all I needed to do was change the Midring value in the header.
Make every level 100%-able, with exactly 20 red coins and 5 flowers
- Sometimes fixing item memory glitches was enough for this. Other times, I added one red coin. In one case, I replaced two extra flowers with red coins.
- In the case of levels with too many red coins, I find a group of red coins (preferably a less visible group) and change one to a normal coin.
Prevent item memory glitches
- This was done generally by moving/removing normal coins and other items, or by changing the Midring setting of the headers.
- Note: I am not trying to fix every single item memory glitch; if it only affects a few normal coins, and I can't fix it easily, I may leave it alone.
Prevent sprite limit glitches whenever an important sprite is involved
- Important sprites include flowers, ? clouds, up arrows, ! switches, doors, enemies that are required for a puzzle, and so on.
- If I needed to fix a glitch of this type, I either removed one or two sprites that I found to have little effect on the gameplay, or I stretched out the whole room to be a screen or two wider (spreading the stretching throughout the room to be mostly unnoticeable).
Fix the message spacing at the points where it looked strange
- The actual words of SNN's existing messages are unchanged (with one exception: I changed "adventure" to "journey" in the intro message because it fits better-- "adventure" would have needed to be bumped to the next line, leaving a large gap. "Journey" also sounds better to me in the surrounding text.)
- I've also changed the spacing in many level titles, so they're more centered or otherwise look better (including making "2-7: Mt. Stone" fit on one line)
Fix the spelling and grammar in the text
- 5-6 is now titled "Poochy and the Egg" (instead of "Poochey")
- 4-2 is now titled "The Monkeys' Fairground Fun" (I added the apostrophe)
- 3-8 is now titled "Rocky Castle of Chance..." (I added a third dot (this isn't shown in my video, as it was done after))
- Kamek's 5-4 message now says "Well let's see you beat this, you wimp!!!" (I added the apostrophe and the comma)
Modify the text that was left unchanged from the original game
- These are: the Kamek messages in 1-8, 2-4, 2-8, 3-4, 4-4, 4-8, 5-8, and 6-4, all of the boss text in 6-8, the first flower and Middle Ring messages, and the names of Extras 4 and 5.
- I changed Kamek's generic Baby Mario messages into generic revenge messages. (You can see some of them in the videos.)
- My Middle Ring message: "This is a Middle Ring. You'll restart here when you die." (Notice the "when"...)
(Play the hack when it's done for the other messages. Or wait until someone uploads a playthrough.)
- The pre-title-screen story scene text is mostly unchanged, though. (The images just don't fit with the hack's story. If I tried to add text that works, it may become too similar to my own hack's story...)
Fix the title screen graphics (see beginning of this post)
- Restored black-line borders in Yoshi's Island logo to match original YI
- Completely redesigned the "Kamek's Revenge" text; it now says "Kamek's Revenge 2.0"
- Copyright date is now "2007-2013" and has all black-line borders
- Stars are no longer smiling
Make working, 100%-able Extras 3 through 6
- Be warned, some of these Extra levels are insanely difficult!
- I also gave them custom level icons (well, they're the original icons with different palettes and capitalized "E"'s).
- Note that the level design quality may be a little lower than what I'm satisfied with, as I'm prioritizing glitch-fixing here, not level design. The levels should be at least the quality of the average glitch-fixed YIKR level though (and the original Extra 1 and 2 are basically filler levels anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much if Extras 4-6 are also filler).
- Extra 3: Ice to Meet You! - 100% done (preview)
- Extra 4: Intro to Chaos - 100% done
- Extra 5: The Pit of ?? Trials - 45% done
- Extra 6: Kamek's Revenge 2.0 - 100% done
Make a working intro level (since fixing 4-3 corrupted the original intro)
- I basically used screenshots of the original intro level to reconstruct it in a different level. The new one is almost exactly the same.
- YIKR2 - The Beginning (this video includes up to halfway through 1-2)
Fix glitched message blocks (especially the one in 2-7)
- This was done by setting the Layer Ordering Property to 5.
- I also added a message in 5-4 that was in the ROM but unused.
Fix unfair puzzles / traps / item placement
- There wasn't too much of this (unless the strange difficulty curve is considered unfair, or unless lag is considered unfair-- though lag actually makes some levels easier for me), but besides fixing the 2-7 message block, I've added a few arrows and coin trails.
- Edit: Actually, there were plenty of points where a player would have to die if they had no eggs and no egg refills. I either added egg blocks (or sometimes Shy Guy generators) to those parts, or removed the enemy/obstacle that blocked the path to an egg refill or place to reload the room.
- In addition, I added a message block to 6-2 hinting to the player about a certain Fuzzy glitch...
Prevent places where a player can be permanently trapped with no place to die
- There weren't many of these, and they were mainly caused by sprite limits. (There is still one place where this could happen, but the player would have to cause it deliberately, as it involves destroying 40+ spikes in the 1-8 maze, in a section with no egg blocks.)
Make the Layer 1 palettes more consistent throughout each level
- This was done especially in castles. (I switched between tilesets 6, 10, and 14 to make the castle graphics consistent as well.)
Fix any other glitches that I happen to encounter
- I sometimes fixed strange screen scrolling glitches by adding an XFD, XFE, or XFF sprite, or by adding death spikes below the screen.
- I added walls to prevent the player from skipping the keys in 5-3 and 6-6. (Yes, I fixed the helpful glitches as well.)
- I replaced 3-8's glitched boss explosion with a not-so-glitchy level-ending key sprite. It still doesn't play victory music though. (Would a standard goal ring be better?)
- I corrected the x-2 and x-7 Yoshi colors on the map. (Yes, I realize that was a glitch in the original YI, but that doesn't prevent me from fixing it!)
- I removed the Podoboo from the Salvo battle (it sometimes had graphical glitches during Kamek's magic, and was pretty pointless anyway).
- I fixed 3-4's victory music to be the normal victory theme instead of the x-8 theme. (I left 6-7's victory music alone, though; I think x-8 victory music works fine for the second-to-last level. I originally assumed it was intentional, anyway.)
Edit the level titles to be more centered
And various little touches of my own... Here are just a few.
- There was some space left after I modified the spacing in the intro message; I added "Hack by S.N.N.; v2.0 by Zeldara." in those lines.
- Moved the Yoshi colors in World 6 back one level (so 5-8's is green, 6-1's is pink, 6-2's is light blue, and so on; 6-7's is dark blue)
- Added some red coins to the intro level
- Changed a few decorations (only if I needed to modify the area for another purpose, or if the existing decorations were glitchy)
- Modified a few bosses (nowhere near the modifications in my own hack, though)
- Added a Middle Ring to 6-3 (that level is so long...), 6-7 (same here), 6-2, 2-Extra, and 5-3 (In YIKR1: 4 elemental trials, 3 have Middle Rings. Consistency anyone? And the one with no Middle Ring was the most difficult).
- Reduced the length of 1-8's spike maze (it still has every intersection, but the corridors are much shorter)
- The x-7 levels have standard music now (bonus area / invincibility music is definitely unfitting there)
- 4-2 has invincibility music now (as it works better than bonus game music)
- Swapped 6-3 and 6-5 (to hopefully make the original 6-5 a bit less of a blatant level edit (I also renamed it "The Cave of Insanity" for the same reason))
- Swapped 2-3 and 2-4 (The Haunted Garrison is more of a castle than Edge of the Sky; also, Edge of the Sky ends with a castle portion)
- Made Naval Piranha the boss of 4-8 (after all, 4-8 is a sewer, with no Koopas but plenty of Piranha Plants)
- Similarly, changed the bosses of 5-4, 5-8, and 6-4 to be more fitting to the level themes
- Renamed 4-4 "The Sealed Ruins" (the level is neither crumbling nor aquatic, but it does contain a lot of keys)
- Renamed 1-2 "Spike Garden" (the original title, "Saws and the Donut", really doesn't make sense to me)
I've also tried to reduce the worst of the lag (4-3, 5-1, 5-4, and the Tap-Tap chases come to mind). I used the same techniques as when dealing with sprite limit glitches.
However, I have a feeling that there will still be major lag for some people who have different play styles than I do... that may be something that will need to be addressed after the release.
---
If anyone know of glitches etc. that I did not list here, please tell me.
The videos in my YIKR1 99.2% playthrough may help.
---
√ Also, does anyone know a way that I can change the title screen graphics? (fix the missing black lines, and make the year 2010, or 2006-2010 if it fits)
Ycompress does not work, due to the ROM being 0x202000 for some reason instead of 0x200200. (The Entrance and Midring editors do not work either-- I used Translhextion for those.)
(I now know how to change the title screen graphics. Directions are in this post if anyone is curious.)
–=–=–=–=–=–=–
Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3
If you'd like to play it now, here's a mostly-fixed version, from 2011-7-31:
http://media.smwcentral.net/Zeldara/yikr196.ips
(update 2011-7-30: 4-2's flower should work now)
If you find any issues in the latest release that you think still need fixing (other than that it's still missing Extra 5), I'd appreciate it if you notify me somehow.
Note: The above patch needs to be applied to a Super Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island (V1.0) (U) headered ROM.
(The ROM should be exactly 2097664 bytes if headered, and 2097152 bytes if headerless.)
If you have a (V1.0) (U) headerless ROM, you may find it easier to apply this patch instead, which should allow you to play the hack. (However, you won't be able to use certain YI hacking tools on a headerless ROM unless you add a header (using HeAdder, SNESTool, a hex-editor, or another method).)
---
YIKR2: fixing the Kamek's Revenge glitches
I've enjoyed playing Kamek's Revenge a lot, but I became pretty annoyed at the glitches. (And at the difficulty, the first time around, though now I can handle it.)
So, I've been making a modified version of Kamek's Revenge, fixing as many glitches as I can.
(I originally did this in a few levels to help myself learn YI hacking, but then I became motivated to create a fixed version.)
I call the new version Kamek's Revenge 2.0, which I often abbreviate YIKR2. (To distinguish the original version, I call that YIKR1.)
Note: If you have not played the original version of Kamek's Revenge, this topic might not make much sense. My posts here assume everyone reading is familiar with the original, or at least doesn't care about the way I casually reference various levels by number, as well as what would be considered general YIKR spoilers.
---
Progress: ~96% done
49/01/03/01
Intro-level
1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 1-6 1-7 1-8 Extra-1
2-1 2-2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-6 2-7 2-8 Extra-2
3-1 3-2 3-3 3-4 3-5 3-6 3-7 3-8 Extra-3
4-1 4-2 4-3 4-4 4-5 4-6 4-7 4-8 Extra-4
5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4 5-5 5-6 5-7 5-8 Extra-5
6-1 6-2 6-3 6-4 6-5 6-6 6-7 6-8 Extra-6
- Ready for final testing (i.e. release)
- Partially edited, but still requires more edits/testing
- Unedited
- Contains known major glitches
- Corrupted, needs to be copied from backup
- Extra level progress: See below
What remains:
- Finish creating Extra 5
- Fix a list of bugs reported in v1.96
- Make the credits (?) (I think I'll just leave the original credits, actually)
- Release, and fix anything discovered afterward
(Note: Sometimes the number of levels ready for final testing will decrease. This can happen when I edit an area that's shared between two or more levels, when I discover something while randomly playing a level, when I think of a new idea but still need to implement it, or when I find out a level became corrupted due to bad pointers. Also, I've developed a much higher quality standard since I first begun.)
---
This is a list of changes I've made or am making (in approximate order of priority), with videos (sorted by wherever they best fit):
Here's a YouTube playlist if you prefer to watch all of the videos without sorting through the links here. (The changes are also listed in the video descriptions.)
Note that most of these videos may be out-of-date.
Make a working, 100%-able 4-3
- This was the first thing I did. I know it fits into the other categories, but it was the highest priority, so I'm listing it first.
- YIKR2 - 4-3: Green Green Bay (100%!)
Fix the glitched Middle Rings in 5-2, 5-5, 5-8, 6-3, 6-4, and 6-8
- For all of these except 6-8, the Middle Ring locations were actually in the ROM, so all I needed to do was change the Midring value in the header.
Make every level 100%-able, with exactly 20 red coins and 5 flowers
- Sometimes fixing item memory glitches was enough for this. Other times, I added one red coin. In one case, I replaced two extra flowers with red coins.
- In the case of levels with too many red coins, I find a group of red coins (preferably a less visible group) and change one to a normal coin.
Prevent item memory glitches
- This was done generally by moving/removing normal coins and other items, or by changing the Midring setting of the headers.
- Note: I am not trying to fix every single item memory glitch; if it only affects a few normal coins, and I can't fix it easily, I may leave it alone.
Prevent sprite limit glitches whenever an important sprite is involved
- Important sprites include flowers, ? clouds, up arrows, ! switches, doors, enemies that are required for a puzzle, and so on.
- If I needed to fix a glitch of this type, I either removed one or two sprites that I found to have little effect on the gameplay, or I stretched out the whole room to be a screen or two wider (spreading the stretching throughout the room to be mostly unnoticeable).
Fix the message spacing at the points where it looked strange
- The actual words of SNN's existing messages are unchanged (with one exception: I changed "adventure" to "journey" in the intro message because it fits better-- "adventure" would have needed to be bumped to the next line, leaving a large gap. "Journey" also sounds better to me in the surrounding text.)
- I've also changed the spacing in many level titles, so they're more centered or otherwise look better (including making "2-7: Mt. Stone" fit on one line)
Fix the spelling and grammar in the text
- 5-6 is now titled "Poochy and the Egg" (instead of "Poochey")
- 4-2 is now titled "The Monkeys' Fairground Fun" (I added the apostrophe)
- 3-8 is now titled "Rocky Castle of Chance..." (I added a third dot (this isn't shown in my video, as it was done after))
- Kamek's 5-4 message now says "Well let's see you beat this, you wimp!!!" (I added the apostrophe and the comma)
Modify the text that was left unchanged from the original game
- These are: the Kamek messages in 1-8, 2-4, 2-8, 3-4, 4-4, 4-8, 5-8, and 6-4, all of the boss text in 6-8, the first flower and Middle Ring messages, and the names of Extras 4 and 5.
- I changed Kamek's generic Baby Mario messages into generic revenge messages. (You can see some of them in the videos.)
- My Middle Ring message: "This is a Middle Ring. You'll restart here when you die." (Notice the "when"...)
(Play the hack when it's done for the other messages. Or wait until someone uploads a playthrough.)
- The pre-title-screen story scene text is mostly unchanged, though. (The images just don't fit with the hack's story. If I tried to add text that works, it may become too similar to my own hack's story...)
Fix the title screen graphics (see beginning of this post)
- Restored black-line borders in Yoshi's Island logo to match original YI
- Completely redesigned the "Kamek's Revenge" text; it now says "Kamek's Revenge 2.0"
- Copyright date is now "2007-2013" and has all black-line borders
- Stars are no longer smiling
Make working, 100%-able Extras 3 through 6
- Be warned, some of these Extra levels are insanely difficult!
- I also gave them custom level icons (well, they're the original icons with different palettes and capitalized "E"'s).
- Note that the level design quality may be a little lower than what I'm satisfied with, as I'm prioritizing glitch-fixing here, not level design. The levels should be at least the quality of the average glitch-fixed YIKR level though (and the original Extra 1 and 2 are basically filler levels anyway, so it shouldn't matter too much if Extras 4-6 are also filler).
- Extra 3: Ice to Meet You! - 100% done (preview)
- Extra 4: Intro to Chaos - 100% done
- Extra 5: The Pit of ?? Trials - 45% done
- Extra 6: Kamek's Revenge 2.0 - 100% done
Make a working intro level (since fixing 4-3 corrupted the original intro)
- I basically used screenshots of the original intro level to reconstruct it in a different level. The new one is almost exactly the same.
- YIKR2 - The Beginning (this video includes up to halfway through 1-2)
Fix glitched message blocks (especially the one in 2-7)
- This was done by setting the Layer Ordering Property to 5.
- I also added a message in 5-4 that was in the ROM but unused.
Fix unfair puzzles / traps / item placement
- There wasn't too much of this (unless the strange difficulty curve is considered unfair, or unless lag is considered unfair-- though lag actually makes some levels easier for me), but besides fixing the 2-7 message block, I've added a few arrows and coin trails.
- Edit: Actually, there were plenty of points where a player would have to die if they had no eggs and no egg refills. I either added egg blocks (or sometimes Shy Guy generators) to those parts, or removed the enemy/obstacle that blocked the path to an egg refill or place to reload the room.
- In addition, I added a message block to 6-2 hinting to the player about a certain Fuzzy glitch...
Prevent places where a player can be permanently trapped with no place to die
- There weren't many of these, and they were mainly caused by sprite limits. (There is still one place where this could happen, but the player would have to cause it deliberately, as it involves destroying 40+ spikes in the 1-8 maze, in a section with no egg blocks.)
Make the Layer 1 palettes more consistent throughout each level
- This was done especially in castles. (I switched between tilesets 6, 10, and 14 to make the castle graphics consistent as well.)
Fix any other glitches that I happen to encounter
- I sometimes fixed strange screen scrolling glitches by adding an XFD, XFE, or XFF sprite, or by adding death spikes below the screen.
- I added walls to prevent the player from skipping the keys in 5-3 and 6-6. (Yes, I fixed the helpful glitches as well.)
- I replaced 3-8's glitched boss explosion with a not-so-glitchy level-ending key sprite. It still doesn't play victory music though. (Would a standard goal ring be better?)
- I corrected the x-2 and x-7 Yoshi colors on the map. (Yes, I realize that was a glitch in the original YI, but that doesn't prevent me from fixing it!)
- I removed the Podoboo from the Salvo battle (it sometimes had graphical glitches during Kamek's magic, and was pretty pointless anyway).
- I fixed 3-4's victory music to be the normal victory theme instead of the x-8 theme. (I left 6-7's victory music alone, though; I think x-8 victory music works fine for the second-to-last level. I originally assumed it was intentional, anyway.)
Edit the level titles to be more centered
And various little touches of my own... Here are just a few.
- There was some space left after I modified the spacing in the intro message; I added "Hack by S.N.N.; v2.0 by Zeldara." in those lines.
- Moved the Yoshi colors in World 6 back one level (so 5-8's is green, 6-1's is pink, 6-2's is light blue, and so on; 6-7's is dark blue)
- Added some red coins to the intro level
- Changed a few decorations (only if I needed to modify the area for another purpose, or if the existing decorations were glitchy)
- Modified a few bosses (nowhere near the modifications in my own hack, though)
- Added a Middle Ring to 6-3 (that level is so long...), 6-7 (same here), 6-2, 2-Extra, and 5-3 (In YIKR1: 4 elemental trials, 3 have Middle Rings. Consistency anyone? And the one with no Middle Ring was the most difficult).
- Reduced the length of 1-8's spike maze (it still has every intersection, but the corridors are much shorter)
- The x-7 levels have standard music now (bonus area / invincibility music is definitely unfitting there)
- 4-2 has invincibility music now (as it works better than bonus game music)
- Swapped 6-3 and 6-5 (to hopefully make the original 6-5 a bit less of a blatant level edit (I also renamed it "The Cave of Insanity" for the same reason))
- Swapped 2-3 and 2-4 (The Haunted Garrison is more of a castle than Edge of the Sky; also, Edge of the Sky ends with a castle portion)
- Made Naval Piranha the boss of 4-8 (after all, 4-8 is a sewer, with no Koopas but plenty of Piranha Plants)
- Similarly, changed the bosses of 5-4, 5-8, and 6-4 to be more fitting to the level themes
- Renamed 4-4 "The Sealed Ruins" (the level is neither crumbling nor aquatic, but it does contain a lot of keys)
- Renamed 1-2 "Spike Garden" (the original title, "Saws and the Donut", really doesn't make sense to me)
I've also tried to reduce the worst of the lag (4-3, 5-1, 5-4, and the Tap-Tap chases come to mind). I used the same techniques as when dealing with sprite limit glitches.
However, I have a feeling that there will still be major lag for some people who have different play styles than I do... that may be something that will need to be addressed after the release.
---
If anyone know of glitches etc. that I did not list here, please tell me.
The videos in my YIKR1 99.2% playthrough may help.
---
√ Also, does anyone know a way that I can change the title screen graphics? (fix the missing black lines, and make the year 2010, or 2006-2010 if it fits)
Ycompress does not work, due to the ROM being 0x202000 for some reason instead of 0x200200. (The Entrance and Midring editors do not work either-- I used Translhextion for those.)
(I now know how to change the title screen graphics. Directions are in this post if anyone is curious.)
–=–=–=–=–=–=–
Advynia: a Yoshi's Island editor - Alyssa's Unlikely Trap demo 3