Language…
4 users online: Astrakitu, cletus_deletus,  Donut, RPG Hacker - Guests: 260 - Bots: 359
Users: 64,795 (2,376 active)
Latest user: mathew

World 9 Final Boss: Norveg - Deeke/Eevee (GFX), anonimzwx/Von Fahrenheit (ASM)

Link Thread Closed

Complete

Originally posted by S.N.N.
I've sent Roy the details for the first phase of this now, so he'll likely be working on that for the next little while. As far as I know, the second phase is complete barring some testing.


This.

Testers may go wild at this boss not too long from now (and this, I can ASSURE you). ;) Now phase one is in progress.
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------

Roy.



Also renaming this and placing it in the boss forum
Layout by LDA during C3.
Yep. What's the T_T for though? :o
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
Need an update, man. It's been two months.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Lexie or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Lexie himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.


Yoshi's Island Disassembly C3 Thread
SPASM - LevelASM for Yoshi's Island!
Yoshi's Island Disassembly Data Dump Wiki

Originally posted by Roy
Yep. What's the T_T for though? :o

Your lack of updates made Mario cry...

You should be a shamed of yourself. :|
Layout by LDA during C3.
Derp. I guess. >_>
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
I can at least vouch for Roy and say he has been working on this, albeit a bit too quietly (meaning if he ends up posting the entire boss for testing, a lot may have to be changed).
Eh, who knows. Roy probably doesn't want to spoil anything. If that's the case, maybe he should just post "I'm working on it", but PM SNN and others in that field the test results. After all, the Final Boss IS the final boss, so yeah.
I think that he's busy for many other stuff... or he's in holidays, but i don't know (August is holyday month in Italy): i know that when he doesn't post very often and i rarely see him online, actually. If it is for this, i'm pretty sorry for having bothered him for something some weeks ago: he has anything better to think than Norveg, but if he finishes this, i think he'll be satisfied.
My deviantART
My Youtube channel
My avatar
Watch, i made a Super Mario 64 level
Well, he said it would be done and ready for testing before the end of August. Hopefully he can stay true to that.
Yep. The insertion will probably be pretty easy too - apart from the cluster sprite, all of the ASM data is packed into just two sprites (skypop.asm with 108c bytes and norveg.asm with 154c bytes, I expect both of these values to raise in the next two days).

Dinomar provided a background for me now, so we actually have something we can look at for the first phase. That background can be used as a base for the Mode 7 plane (finally some graphics for that huge thing!) so that's good. As for a background in the second phase, the industrial park Dinomar showed me seemed nice to me. I understood that this background is already within the game.

For a little checklist, I guess this would do and then it's finally testing phase. I know, that took forever:
* Build Mode 7 plane (this should be really quick now that I have graphics)
* Vortex & double-size attack for first phase.
* Perhaps another attack for phase two? Not top priority but when I look at the first phase, the second phase's attacks seem a little bland. Varied, but bland.
* A few graphical tweaks, as well as adding the background. Can't take long.

You guys have any idea how we are going to "connect" this battle to the credits? The end as I have it now is Norveg burning up in his own flames and falling down. If that works with you, then in what way should we proceed?

Also, my humble apologies for the general lack of public communication on my side. I should've handled that better. Truth to be said, before this month the progress was actually quite minimal as I prioritized other things and procrastinated this project. Progress did exist and there was a boss, but it was minimal. This month I kinda worked my ass of on it, so I hope the result is going to be satisfactory.

In any case, this thing is fully compatible with BSNES so far. ;)
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
There was mention of Norveg having a final self-destruct attack during the planning phase; this still seems an interesting idea. Maybe he could even deliver a sort of mock-polite faux-concession of defeat, which is in actuality a bitter parting shot intended to disarm Mario:

Quote
(wheeze) OK, you
made your point--
I'm a businessman,
not a scrapper.
But well done,
Mario, you fought
boldly. A token of
my appreciation--


And then he unleashes his final attack, which consumes both him (the burning-up-and-falling method describe being perfectly suited for this), and, he hopes, Mario. Obviously the player will seek to avoid this, however.

As for tying this into the ending...While thinking about that in the script-writing process, I had personally imagined that after Mario survives the final kamikaze attack, all seems to be well--but his flying machine proceeds to be hit by a piece of debris knocked loose from the attack, or he runs out of fuel at exactly the wrong moment, and in either case plummets to earth. He then comically lands in the countryside right next to Luigi (who reacts as nonchalantly as though Mario had simple walked up in the standard manner) and the mutant fish from earlier, and the three have a brief conversation (the nature of which I've mostly sketched out already) before we transition into the credits proper. That would presumably all be cutscene material, though, separate from the boss as such.

As for the actual transition to the credits themselves...well, that would depend on exactly how we're handling those this time around, which I don't think was ever properly decided. Perhaps that merits a topic in itself?
Sure thing, I'll probably add that attack.

I have a question to S.N.N. or whoever else knows this. How much space do we have? I need at least 4 graphic slots (two for the sprites, two for the Mode 7 plane+background and perhaps I need another one for the FG in phase one, but maybe I can combine that one with the Mode 7 graphics). Furthermore, I have a cluster sprite (~couple hundreds of bytes, I assume), but the biggest space eaters will be skypop.asm and norveg.asm which are $13ad and $154c bytes at the time of writing. Especially skypop.asm will become even (much) larger because I'm incorporating the Mode 7 map in it. It's possible that it reaches $2000 bytes if a sophisticated map is made. $2000 bytes is 8 kb, or 8192 bytes. Given the fact that a full ROM bank is 32768 bytes, that's quite a lot. For all sprites together I will probably need $3800-$4000 bytes - half a bank. They don't need to be placed in the same bank, though.

3 days until the deadline that was given to me, let's see how this will play out.
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
Banks $F1 to $FF are fully free as far as I know. Beyond that, we have very little space. How does that work for you?
Banks $F1 to $FF, you say. Well, I could place the (larger) tables in there, so that would clear away at most half of the data I am using now.
Placing the rest of the sprites (actual code) in banks $F1 to $FF is possible but extremely tedious as recoding is in order here. (You cannot read from RAM in 16-bit addressing there unless you change the data bank register, in case you wonder.) So, if possible, this should be avoided.

How much space is "very little space"? Would there be a chunk of space for a $800 byte sized sprite, insertable via Sprite Tool? Perhaps two of those sprites? If there is, then there's no problem.

e: I am assuming ExGFX are stored in those banks although frankly I have no idea if they truly are. But if they are, no problem there.
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
If it's any help, I'm planning on porting stuff to a new base ROM, so all of the sprites will end up being inserted below bank $40. I was basically just giving you an idea of exactly how many bytes were left in the ROM. In the long run, banks $F1 - $FF will probably just be filled with ExGFX.
Oh, alright - then there's absolutely no space issue. =)
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
Well, I may disappoint some people here, but I can say I am not quite done yet. This was something I had expected already, but now we have it.

I can't leave you guys empty-handed again, though, so I'm just going to bring out a very much Beta version of Norveg. It's a bit bland still, the first phase having only one of its main attacks in it and the laser trigger thing. Norveg is supposed to walk in that phase, don't worry, but he just doesn't yet. I have to enable ground interaction and all that. Phase one also is going to change in the way the foreground and background looks, as cloud and SMW ground graphics obviously do not fit there. Ideally, I want to use the FG3 from level 132. The background is going to disappear entirely as Layer 2 will be used for one of Norveg's attacks, if planned right. This will be the attack where Norveg doubles in size, something I must accomplish on Layer 2 as the OAM in its current state is not really fit for that. This means I will put the "background" on Layer 1. May be a little tricky.

As for phase two: it's quite a bit closer to being finished, but there are still a number of things I need to do there:
* Finish the Mode 7 map entirely. More water must be added.
* You will scroll around the map. I have yet to finish the table that controls the speed and direction of this and whether your altitude lowers or rises. Also, when the altitude changes, so will you. (Your plane will move downwards if Norveg rises, so you have to steer against that.)
Also, the factory in the background will probably move a bit.
* I must make sure that you cannot scroll too close to the outside of the map. That part is a repeated tile 0 and it clashes with the rest of the sand graphics - that won't look good if viewed too close.
* Norveg needs a final attack. Will be worked on. Obviously. Also I'm thinking of the background being destroyed when Norveg dies. Thoughts?

Anyway - what do I want you to do with the beta? Obviously I would like to see if you can find any bugs with it currently, things that shouldn't happen. HDMA errors, VRAM errors (in BSNES and such), OAM errors (cut-off sprite tiles), errors with Norveg or the skypop himself, you name it. If you can find anything out of the ordinary, please report it here. If you have constructive criticism, please report it accordingly. I can only learn from feedback and I really want this boss to be better than the previous final boss. Also, I do not mind adjusting the HDMA background to something else if some people deem it to be necessary.

Known bugs:
* You can "crash" into the water in the second phase, when you die. That looks weird. I am going to avoid this by making you crash on fixed destinations.
* There is a chance that top-leftmost of the tiles in phase one does not get removed. Will be dealt with.
* If you get a GAME OVER in phase one, the HDMA gradient stays on. Will be dealt with.

e: If anyone wonders what the attacks of phase 1 are supposed to be, here goes:

- Norveg shoots an exploding cluster ball (is already in)
- Norveg shoots a stable homing cluster ball (not in)
- Norveg drinks potion and generates a clone (not in)
- Norveg fires a laser over the ground (not in, but the code for it is)
- Norveg doubles in size (not in, this is a time-consuming thing I predict)
- One of the attacks near the end of phase 1: Norveg generates a vortex-like structure (time-consuming, could be on Layer 2)


e2: Oh yeah, if you manage to beat both phases of Norveg: it isn't quite finished yet, so there's nothing at the end.
--------> Don't follow "Find Roy's Dignity", my hack. Because it's pretty outdated. <--------
It's a bit more difficult to comment on a boss which is obviously far from finished, but here's my subjective impression of things presently stand (with the understanding that the final version will likely be a good deal more lively):

Incompleteness aside, I admit I was sort of surprised by the general nature of phase 1; most of the discussion in the planing phase seemed to revolve around the first phase involving Norveg attacking in a sort of heavily armored machine (which would also explain why the room the two of you are fighting in is destroyed when this phase is defeated), and the second phase being more of a man-to-man fight after he's stripped of this advantage. It just seems to make a little more sense that Norveg would be the sort to use the resources around him a little more to his advantage at first, with the second phase being more of his desperate last stand, rather than him fighting so "directly" right from the start. The cluster bomb also seems a little too similar to the attacks he uses in the second phase; it seems as though the battle might feel a bit more epic if the nature of the fight in each of the phases were a bit more distinct, as it were. I did like the addition of the laser as a method of attack, though; it's always nice to see a boss damaged by means of something other than jumping or throwing objects.

As for the second phase; the thing that strikes me above all is the surprisingly slow pace of the battle. Some of this feeling is admittedly due to the lack of a proper final boss tune, the incomplete background scrolling and the like, but I think the greater part has to do with the actual movement patterns of both combatants, namely the Sky Pop's general slowness, and Norveg's tendency to stand in place for much of the battle, his angle of firing changing somewhat, but his relative position not so much. A Norveg with less of a projectile spread but greater tendency to move around when firing his projectiles might seem a bit more exciting. I also wonder if he could use a little more variety in his attacks--very much near the end of the battle, he started doing a fire-lauching attack in addition to his normal shooting--why not work this in earlier? Maybe have pieces of falling debris belched forth from the factory as it's going haywire come into play as the battle progresses as well?

I also can't say as was that keen on the scrolling laser attack. Though not as sometimes-undogeable as Toadsworth's in SMWCP, it certainly seems that way at first--it took quite some time before I realized I was supposed to move in the direction opposite that in which the arrow was pointing in order to avoid damage. The fact that this attack also sort of seems (at least in its present form of presentation) to come out of nowhere rather than being generated by Norveg himself makes it feel a bit awkward and tacked on to the battle.

The crash effect is absolutely amazing, though.

Complete

Link Thread Closed