Language…
12 users online: Anas, cletus_deletus,  Donut, GRIMMKIN, Gutawer, Isikoro, JezJitzu, masl,  Ringo, RPG Hacker,  RussianMan, Skewer - Guests: 258 - Bots: 324
Users: 64,795 (2,376 active)
Latest user: mathew

Weekly-ish Updates on the Status of SMWCP2


I'm sure most of you know by now that our current leader on this project, SNN, is moving on. He will be terribly missed as he was a great leader on this project. We all wish him the best.

As of a few moments ago, I have received all the files containing this project. I will be taking a few days to sort through all the files and threads to see what still needs to be done. I know I have seemingly absent from this area of the forums myself, but I assure you I have still been following this and will be updating a few things shortly.

From this point on, please direct all files that need to be submitted to me through PM. I will be making a followup post in a few days once I go through everything.

We are very close to the end guys. With the exception of a few of the 13b sublevels and some bosses, I would like to get this done before we hit the 2 year mark on this project.

I want to thank everyone who has stuck with us so far and those who will continue to help us wrap this up.
Layout by LDA during C3.
Had a feeling you'd get given the keys to this project.

Good luck, boss!
SMWC's official dentist since 2011.

YouTube - Threads - Bluesky

So as sort of a weekly update of what is going on. I got the final SMWC Coins in my possession and will be adding them to the next base rom update(along with a few updated sprites and blocks) once I transfer everything over to a new rom. After that, I will be out of things that need to be inserted and will begin beta testing from the beginning. I will try and fix things that I find along that way.

Here is a list of things that still need to be done;
World 2 boss still needs to be completed. I know cstutor has been eager to finish this up, is is currently waiting on Ludus to finish up the gfx

The World 3 boss was dropped by MetalJo. I have the unfinished sprite in my possession. So if anyone wants to finish it up, let me know

Not sure what is going on with the World 5 boss as I haven't heard anything from HFD. I do have the mode 7 Ferris wheel in my possession, but I wont insert it until I know its done

The World 6 boss is kinda on hold right now, Kipernal does want to finish it, but he was a few other project going on at the moment.

Not sure what going on with the World 8 boss I have not heard from YCZ on this nor do I know what is going on with the Norveg boss. Roy has not logged in over 4 weeks and I fear college may have got the better of him. If anyone knows how to get a hold of him, even just to see if he's ok, let us know.
We also need someone to make the world 8 map. The graphics are already inserted. I know I've heard that FalconPunch was going to take a crack at it, but I haven't heard of any progress

Then there is the world 9 boss. I'm going to tell you right now, I am about halfway there to just scrapping the whole idea. No one can seem to agree to what we are going to do with it and as much as I would like to have a world 9 boss, I think space in general will be an issue overall. We'll probably just end the level with a few cut scenes and call it a day unless we can come to a decision within the next week.

We also have all of the things on the TODO list that need to be completed too.


We also have the Credits and Hub;
Originally posted by S.N.N.
So I pulled a few ideas from the thread, and I wanted to finalize things. In regards to the Hub, does all of this sound okay?:

-A single building, perhaps with multiple floors.
-A mechanical jukebox (sound test) somewhere that becomes unlocked after a certain amount of SMWC coins.
-A computer which allows you to check your stats (exits, coins, switch palaces, etc).

I don't see the point of having actual life in the building. It would be nice if it was a little area Mario "stumbled upon" with a bunch of computers and stuff.

While I don't really agree with the "no life" thing, but I believe we are going with this as a final decision, which means we are going to need someone to work on a Credits Level and A Hub Level. I will be making corresponding threads for each of these for someone to work on. (EDIT: I'm gonna wait on the credits portion since we are still are still making decisions on this)

Which kinda brings me to our next topic. We need to decide on the SMWC coins. The coins are complete and work with the multiple midway points patch. I like the idea of using some of the coins to unlock the music box option in the hub. It would also be cool if we can use some to unlock the world 9 levels. But we still need to decide on what to do with the rest.

With the midway points, Sind has decided to use kaijuu's multiple midway patch for simplicity, since its take up less space and makes use out of the unused secondary entrances. Because of the way the tables are set up, there will be a limit of 3 midway points per level, which should be more than enough even for a long level like 13B if placed creatively.

I think that's all I have for now. I know most of you are probably busy with school this time of year, and believe me that is more important than anything, but even contributing 30 mins to a hour a day if you can will be more than appreciative.

Thanks for your time.
Layout by LDA during C3.
The world 9 boss needs to have a big, insanely "epic" opening and be comically easy to beat.

Its already been done in EREHPS EHT RAEF
Layout by LDA during C3.
If no one else has volunteered to do it by the time I get "back in" to this project (i.e. once AMK is done), then I suppose I'll take up the world 9 boss. I really don't want to see world 9 have an anticlimactic end after all it's been building up to.

Again, though, if anyone else wants it, feel free to take it.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.

I know even Alcaro and a few other at one point said they would take it if no one else did, but the problem is the ideas for it are all over the place and no one can agree on anything, so there is nothing to start from. However, you may want to skim through the thread, take a few ideas out for yourself and just build it the way you think would be an epic battle.
Layout by LDA during C3.

Extras



I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

Advertising Space

This post is to say that I have interest in setting up the extra midpoints. I'm familiar with Kaijyuu MMP, so it shouldn't be difficult.

Originally posted by Lightvayne
I know even Alcaro and a few other at one point said they would take it if no one else did, but the problem is the ideas for it are all over the place and no one can agree on anything, so there is nothing to start from. However, you may want to skim through the thread, take a few ideas out for yourself and just build it the way you think would be an epic battle.


Probably should've worded that better; I meant more along the lines of "If no one has actually stepped up and said 'Yes, I will code this boss,' then I'll do it". I know a couple of people have expressed interest, but nobody has actually done anything yet.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
Concerning the purpose of the coins, I proposed the following as the complete list of functions here:

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
20: Limited edition SMWC collector's plate, AKA the booby prize.

50: "What's Bowser up to now?" scene.

90: Powerup area, à la the Top Secret Area.

150, plus all 8 castles completed and Norveg defeated: Secret lab , AKA Asteroid Antics, thus kicking off the postgame.

200: Sound test.

246, plus World 9 completed
: Silly top-secret-extra-bonus-post-epiloguely-thing, perhaps with a code or cheat of some sort being listed at the end.


All in all, nothing too terribly complicated, but enough variety to make things sort of interesting. Furthermore, a reasonably thorough exploration of the main game is needed to access the post game, but the player is not absolutely required to hunt down every single coin in order to access real gameplay content, and the period for coin hunts (assuming the player has not being consistently looking for them throughout the game) is placed after completing World 8 and before beginning World 9, meaning it will not interrupt the natural flow of the game, but instead merely mark the boundary between the end of the normal story and the start of the epilogue. Finally, those who do wish to seek out every last coin are provided, in the manner of the DK coins in DCK2, with a prize that above all serves as a formal recognition of their accomplishment, and in the form of the code, perhaps provides a little bit of an extra something to serve as the analogue to the monetary award they would receive along with their Nobel medallion.


Does that strike folks as acceptable, at least as a general framework?

@MDP: I'll place you in charge of that then. Not sure if you want to go thought the current base rom and maybe start getting a list together of what needs to go where. Keep in mind that each level can only have a max of 3.

@Kip: That fine, but after thinking about it, I would much rather you look go after one of the other bosses that aren't complete yet. While we can get away without a world 9 boss, we can't be missing any of the 1 thru 8 bosses as they are a bit more crucial to the game. At this point in time, it may be best to hold off the world 9 boss until everything else is done.

@RN: I'm perfectly fine with that. If everyone else can agree with that plan, we'll move forward with it.
Layout by LDA during C3.
@RN I liked those ideas then, and I like them today. I say we keep them.
Check out my music!
I like the idea, minus the booby prize. I don't really like the idea of a useless prize, so instead, why not have the Jukebox open then, but you barely have access to any songs in it? To open more, perhaps you have to get EVERY SMWCoin in each world to unlock the songs first heard in that world? Or, just plain get more coins. The more you get, the more songs open up. It allows for a ton of coin unlocks, which might keep people interested in getting all the coins after opening asteroid antics.
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
That's certainly an idea. How exactly would we organize it, though? Would there by a certain number of music sets or "albums" in the jukebox, each unlocked by a certain number of coins, and containing a number of tracks to be unlocked at once, or would it instead rather progress on a track-by-track basis, presumably with a list of "miscellaneous prizes" posted on the wall next to the jukebox describing the number of coins needed for the other rewards?
I say the player needs to collect all the coins in each world/area to hear the songs played in said area. If you find a song only in one level, that all the coins in that level unlock that song. Songs like boss themes and overworld themes can be unlocked when the entire world is beaten. Clustering songs together into harder-to-attain rewards doesn't appear to be very appealing to the player.

This could be problemetic if a song is used more then once, however. I haven't watched smwcp2 at all, so i don't know if this happens or not.
Later.
Nearly every song is used more than once (and probably a majority of levels use more than one song), with the exception of the castle themes and a scant few others. A few tracks are definitively associated with a specific world (all the Oriental themes, the Carnival themes for the most part), but others appear repeatedly throughout the game, and don't necessarily have a particular "allegiance" to one area over another. Unlocking tracks upon their first appearance appearance in the hack would also be disproportionally tilted toward the early game, which runs counter to the idea still having many tracks to unlock post-Asteroid-Antics. As such, the track order would necessarily have to be semi-arbitrary, though there could certainly be a general thematic progression through the worlds with an increasing number of coins collected, plus a few of the miscellaneous tracks thrown in on each "album" for good measure.
Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
That's certainly an idea. How exactly would we organize it, though? Would there by a certain number of music sets or "albums" in the jukebox, each unlocked by a certain number of coins, and containing a number of tracks to be unlocked at once, or would it instead rather progress on a track-by-track basis, presumably with a list of "miscellaneous prizes" posted on the wall next to the jukebox describing the number of coins needed for the other rewards?

The "albums" idea sounds good. I'd honestly like to see them as where each track is from a specific world, and you unlock a world's album by getting all SMWCoins in it. After all, you do have to admit it'd be kinda weird to have them be gained in a linear order based on number of coins collected, and the player goes World 1 -> World 2 -> World 4 and opens up World 3's tracks without ever setting foot in any level there.

Unfortunately, at the same time, that doesn't really seem like much of a gradual reward if it's unlocked by how many worlds you've claimed all SMWCoins in...
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money
I'd personally imagine the SMWC coins would probably work better if the player had a little more freedom in which particular coins they obtain to get any particular prize, since tying certain prizes to specific coins makes the treasure hunt aspect seem a little more limited and a little less open-ended, as well as opening up the prospect for frustration when it comes to more annoying coins. It is, admittedly, true that it's rather a bit odd that a player could in theory unlock tracks they've potentially not yet heard in the level themselves, but that's not really all that unheard of in games with sound tests (indeed, Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa II has every track accessible from jukeboxes found in every town from essentially the start of the game), and I imagine this effect will likely be reduced by the fact that relatively few players will both be interested in coin hunting and trying to actively collect SMWC coins, as the two goals are more than a bit contradictory.

Well, in the spirit of trying to make weekly updates, I should probably give you progress on whats been going on this week.

I have been attempting to transfer things to a new baserom the past few days. After few failed attempts and crashes later, think I have a few things pinpointed that may be causing the issue. If I'm lucky I should have the new base up this week including things like the finalized version of the title screen (thanks leod), multiple midway points + SMWCoins in a fully functional state (thanks Sind), Music now inserted with AMK (thanks Kipernal) and a few other updates. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it. :P

As for the issue of the SMWC coins, you guys need to remember that someone still has to code the albums and jukebox, etc. If it gets to be too complicated, no one is going to want to take up the task of coding it. I would prefer to keeping it a simple as possible (ie. RN's original proposal or something similar)
Layout by LDA during C3.


Well, talking about the jukebox, I could code it, but I need to know how SMWC Coins are stored into the ROM (or RAM). With this in hands and some LevelASM and a custom Block, I think it's possible to me to finish the jukebox.





Dream team (feed them, please):