[SCRIPT FINALIZED!] MAIN STORY CUTSCENE ZONE - "It's About Time (We Made The Thread. The Game Is Not About Time)"

[KobaBeach]

I can try and help with writing on and off, but I'd like to have feedback to know if my jokes land.

I can't promise I can be available all the time either, had a very bad mental health trigger episode last night ^^

[camwoodstock]

alrighty! looks like we'll be starting on that then. also uhhh just a very silly question for the sake of the actual sketches--we are correct in our guess that the background layer and the sprites are different layers even in this, right? we don't wanna make backgrounds that it turns out are WAY too complex because we need to cram a demo and iris onto the same layer as well ;P

[KobaBeach]

alrighty! looks like we'll be starting on that then. also uhhh just a very silly question for the sake of the actual sketches--we are correct in our guess that the background layer and the sprites are different layers even in this, right? we don't wanna make backgrounds that it turns out are WAY too complex because we need to cram a demo and iris onto the same layer as well ;P

I'm not accustomed to working with Romi's VWF cutscene engine yet but in the main graphics mode used for SMW, Mode 1, there are four layers.

Background Layer 3 is reserved for the HUD most of the time, and some stages use it for additional background graphics, which is why we have a sprite HUD situation going on.
Background Layer 2 is used for the main backgrounds, anything that's done with the background editor goes into it.
Background Layer 1 is for the foreground, so blocks and such.
And then there's the Object Layer which is used for Sprites, the player...

I'd imagine it uses Layer 3 for the Variable Width Font and main cutscene engine, while the main vignette window should be Layer 2 and Layer 1. I can try and look up the documentation in lx5's github. Hol' up.

Fake Edit: The main graphical vignettes use the Object Layer, so SP1-4 in terms of graphical usage. lx5's wiki is terrible, but it seems the asm code generally handles the graphical drawing as the VWF Cutscenes are themselves a sprite. Daizo mentioned being able to do widescreen vignettes, but we can make that a stretch goal for now, make sure it works properly in AAT's baserom before making that a thing.

The baserom is pretty buggy as is due to the size expansion, "thanks a lot" FuSoYa.

[camwoodstock]

Fake Edit: The main graphical vignettes use the Object Layer, so SP1-4 in terms of graphical usage. lx5's wiki is terrible, but it seems the asm code generally handles the graphical drawing as the VWF Cutscenes are themselves a sprite. Daizo mentioned being able to do widescreen vignettes, but we can make that a stretch goal for now, make sure it works properly in AAT's baserom before making that a thing.

The baserom is pretty buggy as is due to the size expansion, "thanks a lot" FuSoYa.

oh we were planning on drafting these with normal width 160x80 aspect ratio in mind ngl, just because we don't think widescreen would add much to anything except for like. Maybe 2 sequences in the whole game, tops???

[KobaBeach]

oh we were planning on drafting these with normal width 160x80 aspect ratio in mind ngl, just because we don't think widescreen would add much to anything except for like. Maybe 2 sequences in the whole game, tops???

I suppose, I just mean like having an aspect ratio that covers the top of the screen, which is not covered by the cutscene text.

Daizo did that for Faro and his' MaGL4 entry, the one with the Demon Yoshi (legit forgot his name, I'm sorry you two).

Just do your best you have ever done /donpachi /thebadDDPgame /ihaventplayeddodonpachi2yet

[Daizo]

no worries, people either call Zayken "Demon Yoshi" or "Yoshi.exe" lol.

I should point out that the cutscenes seen in Summoned isn't vwf cutscene tool, it's vwf dialogues patch which....it has benefits (bigger screen size + customizable positioning of the text + the ability to use layer 1+2 and the object layer), but it's also really chunky to install and might be a hassle to put in this late into the collab. You also have to actually code a lot more to have it preform some of the same tasks that cutscene tool has built in.

My only experience with dialogues is the QLDC2023 entry "Law & Order: Mushroom Kingdom Unit Pilot," but it uses an older version since the newest release was after I helped with that entry, and creating dialogue between the two versions is night and day.

[KobaBeach]

no worries, people either call Zayken "Demon Yoshi" or "Yoshi.exe" lol.

i'd actually be insulted at any of my creations being called ____.exe (unless it's a battle network joke) but i also fucking hate jc-the-hyena because his entitled "That Annoying Kid You Used To Know" ass attitude always pissed me tf off. the reason he was forced to leave the internet over, is just a justification for me

guy got noticed over his bad writing and his head went so far into his ass he ran out of air

anyway, i see i see. it's cool

[camwoodstock]

hey! we have rough boards for the first cutscene done & you can see them HERE: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... sp=sharing

we'll be chipping away at the rest of the cutscenes in the coming days if all goes well, it's currently just cutscene 1 of 5 but hopefully it's looking good! of course nothing here is final (see: we deliberately did not include character sprites bc we wanted to ensure the backgrounds were clear, the backgrounds are VERY rough/not how they'll look in the final unless something goes Horribly wrong, actual dialogue is not finalized at all so just kinda feel the Vibes rather than the exact words) but hopefully our intent is clear with this one,

[Dragon Fogel]

Not a formal proofreading since this is an early draft, but just noting things that struck me.

-I liked Iris' recitation of all the things Uncle Broadsword expects them to do and if anything I think it should be even more ridiculous.
-Personally, I think it would be funny if Demo were genuinely excited about the holiday and tossed off random weird exposition about it. This would include some exposition relating to the final boss, but it could be mixed in with unrelated weird holiday lore. Basically the joke here is "this seems like random nonsense but it's actually relevant to the plot". (Of course, the plot is also random nonsense to a degree.) Also, there's already a good contrast in attitude between Demo and Iris in this scene and I feel like a sense of holiday excitement from Demo would heighten it.
-I got the sense that part of the idea is that Demo and Iris weren't even familiar with this area at all, so maybe Iris could ask "do you even know where the nearest grocery store is?" to make the situation even more ridiculous. And then maybe it turns out at the end that there was one very close by that just didn't show up on the map.

Overall, I like the general thrust of this scene and look forward to seeing it when it's more developed.

[PSI Ninja]

Thanks, this is exactly the format we wanted to see. Some ideas:

• Slide 3: I think the archaeological digsite (which is the first rest area) should be mentioned in the dialogue rather than in the narration. The text would probably flow better that way. Then this first scene could instead read something (roughly) like: "At Uncle Broadsword's Vacation Cabin, on a nondescript island five meters away from the mainland..."
• Slide 5: In response to Iris asking why Uncle Broadsword wanted them to cater the party, Demo could mention something along the lines of "Uncle B.'s spending all day at the digsite again - says he's on the verge of a big discovery, as usual", in addition to the other stuff. That would explain why he's not present in the cutscene, as well as foreshadow later events in the game.
• Based on the A2XT2 script, Demo generally refers to Uncle Broadsword as "Uncle B.", and Iris tends to not address him by name. There was one instance, though, where Iris just called him "Uncle Broadsword". I don't remember if this was already established in other Demoverse games outside of A2XT2.

You asked about cutscene limitations in the server, so here are a few things to keep in mind:

• As mentioned before, all of the graphics are composed of sprite tiles, even the foregrounds and backgrounds. We don't have to worry about placing Map16 blocks here.
• You can layer these sprite tiles on top of each other. So if you need to place an NPC into a scene, you don't need to bake the underlying background image into the NPC's graphics.
• My understanding is that all of SP1-SP4 can be used. So that gives us potentially 128 unique 16x16 tiles to work with per cutscene (32 tiles per ExGFX file).
• Since these are sprite graphics, you only have access to 8 palette rows with 15 colors (plus transparency) each. Demo's palette would take up an entire row, and so will Iris' palette. Each additional NPC will likely need their own palette row, too, so that will be the limiting factor here.
• I haven't tested this yet, but theoretically, we can get around these graphics constraints by having the cutscene teleport the player to another sublevel with a whole new set of ExGFX and palettes. Could be an option for long cutscenes with lots of varying set pieces and NPCs, but it would be a bit clunky, though.

[Daizo]

[*]I haven't tested this yet, but theoretically, we can get around these graphics constraints by having the cutscene teleport the player to another sublevel with a whole new set of ExGFX and palettes. Could be an option for long cutscenes with lots of varying set pieces and NPCs, but it would be a bit clunky, though.
[/list]

This is entirely possible to do, by the way.

[KobaBeach]

very good cutscene so far + i love the strong bad image

• I haven't tested this yet, but theoretically, we can get around these graphics constraints by having the cutscene teleport the player to another sublevel with a whole new set of ExGFX and palettes. Could be an option for long cutscenes with lots of varying set pieces and NPCs, but it would be a bit clunky, though.

This is entirely possible to do, by the way.

We should do this for presentation purposes if necessary, but we shouldn't use this as an excuse to have thousand hour long cutscenes

Presentation matters more than one might think, I know this from doing very minimal study of JRPG battle systems (i will never shut up about jrpgs)

[camwoodstock]

we got to sit down & actually read the feedback, and we appreciate it GREATLY by the by thank you so much y'all! we will probably save actual revising for later once we have all of these fully drafted--that way, we don't end up stepping over ourselves constantly revising scene 1 over and over while never writing the rest of the cutscenes--but our thoughts as follows:

FOR DRAGON FOGEL'S COMMENTS:
* we would 100% be down for making iris reciting the demands more ridiculous. we had sort of a blip of "it'd be funny if they were tasked with decorations" but we figured that it'd maybe bury the lede a bit. maybe an-offhand remark of how he's been giving similarly comical burdens to other siblings, like apparently calleoca is responsible for a bunch of decorations and pandamona had to deal with presents in a VERY near-sighted play on his end, which mishi evidently dealt with off-screen would work best as a sweet spot?
* having demo be genuinely excited and foreshadow the Watchmaker/Windrose would be VERY SMART we're kicking ourselves for not thinking of this actually
* personally, we're a little adverse to the idea of there having secretly been another grocery store not too far away because it'd kinda result in the vibe that this plot could've very readily been avoided. we're not really going for a shaggy dog story vibe, we're aiming more for a "low-albeit-extant stakes at comically-high intensity relative to that" vibe. we DO however adore the specific line of iris indignantly asking "do you even know where the nearest grocery store is???" someone remind us to add that one

FOR PSI NINJA'S COMMENTS:
* we wanted to mention the area's specific name (we swear the idea to name it the "Food Desert" was mentioned somewhere) in the narration, plus we wanted to open with a narration line as-is. if we can find a way to flow the actual name of the place into the main dialogue, we'd be fine to do that though!
* that'd be a nice addition actually, both to explain why broadsword isn't around and foreshadow further stuff.
* good catch that demo calls broadsword uncle B. and that iris generally doesn't namedrop him at all. it'd probably take a bit of rewriting grammar on iris' lines but this'd be pretty easy to implement!
* admittedly none of our graphic ideas are finalized--both in a "programmer art" sense and we'll tackle any sort of limitations as they come up in ACTUAL art. our sketches are mostly the way they are to show a very rough idea of how they'd look if every limitation could be addressed one way or another.

now, we've got a bit to do before we can sit down and work on SCENE 2's draft, so we'll take this moment to ask a tangentially related question--does anyone have a good image of the world 1 castle/world 2's first level? we wanted to make the background there be pretty simple all things considered, but we did want it to look reasonably like it'd be somewhere between the world 1 castle and the start of world 2, as if rachel was just waiting there at that junction. we don't exactly feel like trying to download a whole base ROM to try to scour through to find both those level maps... ;P

[KobaBeach]

* good catch that demo calls broadsword uncle B. and that iris generally doesn't namedrop him at all. it'd probably take a bit of rewriting grammar on iris' lines but this'd be pretty easy to implement!

this actually makes a lot of sense because

broadsword is a terrible relative when it comes to green demo to the point that he barely knows her name

and also i hate that im talking about actual canon and character defining traits in a raocow fangame /j

now, we've got a bit to do before we can sit down and work on SCENE 2's draft, so we'll take this moment to ask a tangentially related question--does anyone have a good image of the world 1 castle/world 2's first level? we wanted to make the background there be pretty simple all things considered, but we did want it to look reasonably like it'd be somewhere between the world 1 castle and the start of world 2, as if rachel was just waiting there at that junction. we don't exactly feel like trying to download a whole base ROM to try to scour through to find both those level maps... ;P

the world 1 castle is mine, i used the old night time outer wall background from allstars smb3 mixed with the fancy tiled bricks of yoshi's island (the ones that are two colored)

it was repurposed in (and taken from) vip2 and 5, i believe the pre-bowser's castle stages in the former (no TDN) and the world 3 castle in the latter. i think also the asshimar stage in vip3 or whatever (i need to consoom more gundam)

the first stage of the open world map (beyond rachel's rebate whatever) is warning! a red radish morning which is basically the daikon radish tileset from smw but tinged more red, i can get a quick screenshot from an old baserom i have lying around so you two can get the proper accurate tones. let me just save my progress in this game.

EDIT:

Top - Red Radish
Bottom - Wolfenstein

And Another Thing-001.png (41.58 KiB) Viewed 33928 times

[SAJewers]

Just wondering now that I think about it, but is Cutscene #1 going to wholesale replace what's currently in there now for the intro level, or is it going after all of that?

[camwoodstock]

so we do NOT have the images ready rn because Fucking Eepy & need a few reference images still (this was mentioned in the OW layout thread but also we had an idea that now necessitates an image of the actual rachel's rebate rotorcraft area) but we had an EXTREMELY rough rough draft of the dialogue/text for scene 2 that are currently on the slides. absolutely Not final by any means (especially since it lacks visual aid, it's not even final for the first draft) but we had the idea and we sat down and decided we needed to make it.

Just wondering now that I think about it, but is Cutscene #1 going to wholesale replace what's currently in there now for the intro level, or is it going after all of that?

the way we envisioned it we figured Cutscene #1 was going to be kinda like the opening cutscene for ASMT the first, in which it plays on a new save from the start of the game itself--we admittedly aren't sure of what's currently IN the intro level cutscene

[SAJewers]

the way we envisioned it we figured Cutscene #1 was going to be kinda like the opening cutscene for ASMT the first, in which it plays on a new save from the start of the game itself--we admittedly aren't sure of what's currently IN the intro level cutscene

It's less of a cutscene, and more of a level (sorta like in a2mt)

there's a bit of a callback to it in SPECIAL

[camwoodstock]

the way we envisioned it we figured Cutscene #1 was going to be kinda like the opening cutscene for ASMT the first, in which it plays on a new save from the start of the game itself--we admittedly aren't sure of what's currently IN the intro level cutscene

It's less of a cutscene, and more of a level (sorta like in a2mt)

there's a bit of a callback to it in SPECIAL

we guess we'd need to see what's in the level itself to make a proper judgement, since it sounds like in the worst-case scenario we may need to rewrite any text in that sequence

[PSI Ninja]

Just wondering now that I think about it, but is Cutscene #1 going to wholesale replace what's currently in there now for the intro level, or is it going after all of that?

It would make sense if the cutscene came after the intro level sequence rather than before it. How they tie together would be up to the writer. We probably don't want to throw away all of your work on the intro level, and I do like the callback to it in SPECIAL.

we guess we'd need to see what's in the level itself to make a proper judgement, since it sounds like in the worst-case scenario we may need to rewrite any text in that sequence

You should probably play through the intro level to get a better idea what it's all about. You can download the patch file here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... ck_bps.bps

It's the first thing that shows up on a new file, and it should only take a couple of minutes to get through. Just don't hit the message box at the start - it'll take you out of the intro and put you on the world map.

[camwoodstock]

You should probably play through the intro level to get a better idea what it's all about. You can download the patch file here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... ck_bps.bps

It's the first thing that shows up on a new file, and it should only take a couple of minutes to get through. Just don't hit the message box at the start - it'll take you out of the intro and put you on the world map.

...okay admittedly this is very silly, we don't know how to apply a BPS file off the top of our head. this might be because it is 1:15 AM as we type this but we do not have the chops atm to handle this. someone prod us to do this when we wake up, we just wanted to let it be known we DID see this, we just haven't gotten to do it quite yet

also yeah we would like to re-iterate that we fully intend to, even in the worst-case scenario, probably just rewrite some stuff so the level and its subsequent cameo in SPECIAL can stay fully intact. we have zero intent to be like "sorry! we've decided we're more important, KILL this level girlies!!!" because like. being real here while we haven't gotten to see things just yet (y'know. what with the aforementioned BPS woes) we have a vague idea of potentially replacing the last narration line in our cutscene draft of them setting off from the vacation cabin to instead possibly be part of the opening text for the opening level itself. unless that line is just far jankier/more conflicting than we're anticipating it being? again, can't check atm. ;P

[SAJewers]

You should probably play through the intro level to get a better idea what it's all about. You can download the patch file here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... ck_bps.bps

It's the first thing that shows up on a new file, and it should only take a couple of minutes to get through. Just don't hit the message box at the start - it'll take you out of the intro and put you on the world map.

...okay admittedly this is very silly, we don't know how to apply a BPS file off the top of our head. this might be because it is 1:15 AM as we type this but we do not have the chops atm to handle this. someone prod us to do this when we wake up, we just wanted to let it be known we DID see this, we just haven't gotten to do it quite yet

also yeah we would like to re-iterate that we fully intend to, even in the worst-case scenario, probably just rewrite some stuff so the level and its subsequent cameo in SPECIAL can stay fully intact. we have zero intent to be like "sorry! we've decided we're more important, KILL this level girlies!!!" because like. being real here while we haven't gotten to see things just yet (y'know. what with the aforementioned BPS woes) we have a vague idea of potentially replacing the last narration line in our cutscene draft of them setting off from the vacation cabin to instead possibly be part of the opening text for the opening level itself. unless that line is just far jankier/more conflicting than we're anticipating it being? again, can't check atm. ;P

https://www.romhacking.net/patch/
select your SMW ROM as the ROM file and that .bps as the Patch file, and you should be good to go

I'd say 1F4 is freely editable but I think the OW at this point has been designed with 1F4's design in mind, so it may not be as editable

[camwoodstock]

You should probably play through the intro level to get a better idea what it's all about. You can download the patch file here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... ck_bps.bps

It's the first thing that shows up on a new file, and it should only take a couple of minutes to get through. Just don't hit the message box at the start - it'll take you out of the intro and put you on the world map.

...okay admittedly this is very silly, we don't know how to apply a BPS file off the top of our head. this might be because it is 1:15 AM as we type this but we do not have the chops atm to handle this. someone prod us to do this when we wake up, we just wanted to let it be known we DID see this, we just haven't gotten to do it quite yet

also yeah we would like to re-iterate that we fully intend to, even in the worst-case scenario, probably just rewrite some stuff so the level and its subsequent cameo in SPECIAL can stay fully intact. we have zero intent to be like "sorry! we've decided we're more important, KILL this level girlies!!!" because like. being real here while we haven't gotten to see things just yet (y'know. what with the aforementioned BPS woes) we have a vague idea of potentially replacing the last narration line in our cutscene draft of them setting off from the vacation cabin to instead possibly be part of the opening text for the opening level itself. unless that line is just far jankier/more conflicting than we're anticipating it being? again, can't check atm. ;P

https://www.romhacking.net/patch/
select your SMW ROM as the ROM file and that .bps as the Patch file, and you should be good to go

I'd say 1F4 is freely editable but I think the OW at this point has been designed with 1F4's design in mind, so it may not be as editable

okay, that explains a lot--we tried using Lunar IPS because it's what we know and got snagged on how it turns out that IPSes and BPSes are different. after a bit of wrestling we finally got to sit down and do the thing.

anyhoo our observations:

• we had one job--don't hit the message block early or it skips what we're meant to look at--and we hit it immediately. Well done us
• we are kind of in love with this sequence and do want to fit it in Somewhere. we know this much. however we do think having it be the Very First Thing is very much at odds with the plot currently laid out, so obviously, we'd need to shuffle the order a little bit. especially seeing as the end of the level is very obviously a stand-in for the intro cutscene, and scene 1 is meant to be exactly that. however, after thinking about it, we do think we have An idea for how we could integrate this into the opening while still having Cutscene 1.
• now, we don't know if this was the intent behind the sequence admittedly--however, in the sequence itself, as we played it, we envision it a little bit like demo having a bit of a daydream of her past adventures, as we noticed it references a LOT of prior ASMT levels and of course Trial of Space playing.
• following the above: we think this could be a very fitting thing that appears immediately after cutscene 1. scene 1 would be altered so that instead of just immediately rushing out the door and going forward, maybe iris could snarkily ask (in a very sibling teasing another sibling-esque manner) "are you Sure this is a good idea? like, when was the last time you went on adventure all willy-nilly like that?" (dialogue not final at all), and demo tries to respond before she kinda just has a brief flashback of sorts as she tries to think of an answer. this level does seem to exist partially to help players de-rust if it's been awhile since they played SMW--it chucks a lot of challenges at them that are entirely optional, and death lets you continue just as much as success. this is appreciated as it has been awhile since we played SMW
• of course, with everything mentioned above, there's an obvious caveat: demo at the shoreline is gonna be swapped out for something else. we think a funny idea would be them outside the cabin and iris is standing there dumbfounded, while the textbox is dialogue from Iris that says smth like "Demo? We don't have all day to reflect on things, that's tomorrow. Let's get a move on, if we're heading out." (the "that's tomorrow" is in reference to Important ABCD Holiday), kind of similar to ASMT's intro using the intro bubble as a gag where it's a character in-universe speaking that's hijacked as being the intro bubble.
• the one thing we're not sure how to fit in is the falling sequence at the very very start. if that's the thing referenced in SPECIAL, putting that at the very end of the sequence feels best--otherwise if it's just there for flavor, we feel like we could probably nix that seeing as the full cutscene 1 is already trying to do its job

we hope this is coherent! we've been all over the place today and only JUST got to sit down and do this.

[KobaBeach]

"sorry! we've decided we're more important, KILL this level girlies!!!"

im putting this on the wall

[camwoodstock]

"sorry! we've decided we're more important, KILL this level girlies!!!"

im putting this on the wall

WE'VE BEEN QUOTE MINED

fr though let us know how workable our concept would be since we admittedly don't have full context for the intent behind that sequence, ESPECIALLY the falling at the start, that could make-or-break how much we need to shuffle around

[camwoodstock]

SHAMELESSLY COPY-PASTING & REITERATING STUFF FROM THE DISCORD SO IT'S ON THE RECORD/WE DON'T FORGET:

ah. we think the overworld thing (the start of the overworld currently is on the shoreline from the end of the original opening sequence) is pretty easily fixable. just make it the cabin, we can either do in-house graphics for a 16x16 icon there or we can do just stock yoshi's house gfx even if it doesn't make too much sense.

the falling thing is definitely a LOT more tricky. we obviously aren't gonna get rid of it if it's the entire crux of the SPECIAL reference, but we do wonder if like. okay this is gonna be a little hard for us to put in the words so instead we'll just list how we're envisioning this in order:

• scene 1 happens, but as they're leaving the door instead of narration, iris off-handedly asks when the last time demo did an adventure was
• IF SOMEHOW UNAVOIDABLE: SLOT THE FALLING SEQUENCE HERE, this might be very confusing however
• the majority of the playable sequence goes here. y'know, a bunch of segments from prior ASMT projects reframed as a sort of de-rusting course
• OPTIMALLY: we could reframe the falling sequence a little bit as it being a sort of "vision of the future" (possibly implied to be because of the watchmaker/windrose or maybe the allure of the postgame-only antagonist at some point? preferably the former even if it'd make the inevitable scene 4 cutscene a little more difficult to write for, but it could always be the latter if it really comes to it), or at the very least make it fit in a little less conspicously here. if memory serves, demo is an outline for the playable sequence while colored for the falling sequence--we think perhaps we could make her an outline here, but you could also argue there's artistic merit to making her something else here (silhouetted, retain her as full-color, making her monochrome, anything other than "just outlined"), since this is contextualized as a "future vision". admittedly, we do think it'd be a nice thing to end on this, so that when it appears at the start of SPECIAL, it's striking--this is where you left off, and now you're back here. admittedly, though, there may be other stuff later in SPECIAL we're just not familiar with that contradicts this, so let us know if this is impossible somehow.
• vanilla intro with iris' dialogue saying smth to the effect of "...demo, why are you dawdling, we've gotta head out now"

we do think that if we frame it right, putting the falling sequence after the main gameplay introduction could work as a very striking visual that'll make a much larger impact when it comes back for the postgame. sort of a whole "the bookend hits different with all that context for it" dealio. we just wanna make sure that doesn't like, somehow majorly conflict, seeing as we have stated we expressly are not touching the postgame subplot at all ;P