And Another Thing - RELEASE CANDIDATE OUT

[SAJewers]

For SPECIAL, we should set September 29th as the next hard deadline. I don't think we have quite enough sections for this level yet. I reserved two spots for this one today just to help a little bit.

Yeah. I don't think "YUMP2 Yellow Switch Palace" is something to realistically aim for, but it's supposed to be a marathon, so more levels are definitely necessary.

Regarding Iris, are you positive that Terry von Feleday never came up with a SMW spritesheet for her?

Yes. ASMT/A2MT Iris was always just a Purple Palette swap of Demo; it was only in ASMBXT that Iris was made to look different, in order to match SMBX Liugi's hitbox; She still looked pretty much the same though. Iris was redrawn again for A2XT Ep1 to look completely different, then everyone got new art for A2XT Ep2 with a different style.

Here was the reference guide for A2MT:


Having said that, I did come across this when making that football demo for 11A: https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=73397
This might help. Really the big thing is animation frames that don't exist in SMBX like wall running and cape flight.

We need to decide on who Ludwig (and maybe the boss of Snake Block Fortress) should be before we start with the plot and cutscenes. And does the boss of Spikes Do Hurt need to be a Ludwig battle to begin with? It could be something else. I personally don't think the postgame needs to tie into the main story. It can just be a side plot, so it can be worked on separately without any conflicts.

Scarfley put Ludwig there, and I'd rather not change that without their permission. Agreed about the postgame.

As for the credits, I added some other stuff that should be included like a Special Thanks section and a subcategory for custom boss coding. I subdivided In-House Music into AAT, A2MT, and ASMT subcategories. If anyone can help fill in whose music from those hacks we used, that would be great. Also, are we actually using music that 4season ported/composed? 4season had been listed in the music column, but I don't know what they contributed. Finally, I think all the people listed in Out-House Graphics/Music/ASM should be combined into a single Out-House Resources category. There are too many duplicates among those three lists, and if we keep things separated like that, we would be spending too much time listing people who weren't directly involved in the project. The credits should be more focused on the core team than anything else.

IIRC 4season made the music in level 013. I'm fine with a combined Out House Resources category.

As someone who is trying to step back for the sake of his mental health, I feel like it's fine if this isn't the same lorefest that the SMBX games are. I also feel like having everything done by the 29th is also a pipe dream, but I didn't say anything because I worried I wasn't giving enough deadlines and this was a good enough incentive for people.

Yeah, at most the "plot" should just be like in ASMT with a bit before the 1st level of every world and the Castle Destruction text, with a few cutscenes doted around where it makes sense. A2XT-esque story i think is a bit too much.

I forget who exactly did the original bad ones in ASMBXT but Ittababy updated her for A2XT1.

IIRC all the player graphics in ASMBXT were made by either darkychao, cadwyn, or terry (i think the lone exception is the goth raccoon iris that was done by mata hari).

[KobaBeach]

It may have been darkychao, ye

[Catabo]

I've seen what Catabo's done with Iris and it looks promising, but it might be too much of a style difference, especially if Demo is kept the way she is now. Something to keep in mind for the next SMW Demo game, perhaps. I think Iris should be listed as low priority on the todo list, since we don't really need her for the game to release.

Yeah, the Iris i posted wasn't strictly for AAT, more just that i felt like spriting a take on Iris that wasn't the messy ASMT Demo sprite or the hyper-detailed A2XT Iris sprite. If we did want to put it in AAT, i would also want to make a Demo to match and it would all be enough of a commitment for me to say it's solidly v1.1 territory. (then i would want to make a Goopa/Furba that are a compromise between the charming ASMT ones and the detailed A2MT ones, and then...)

The correct move is just letting Iris be a purple palette swap for now. Anyone actually plays the game in two-player and gets disappointed, tell them it's for the classic mojo.

[SAJewers]

Some other things I just now realized/found out:

• The Separate Luigi Graphics v3 patch and Player + Animated Tiles ExGFX uberasm don't really play well with each other
• The patch doesn't appear to change the hitbox for Luigi; the entire impetus for Iris having a different design from Demo stemmed from realizing during ASMBXT that SMBX Luigi has a taller hitbox compared to Mario, and Iris needed to be made taller to match.

Originally, ASMBXT Iris was going to look pretty much the same as Demo, just being a recolour of Demo. Then cadwyn got a bit fancy. Quick research shows raocow intended Iris to just be a mostly green Demo, with a subtle upside down eye.

With that in mind (and knowing the planned timeline), we should probably just keep Iris as Green Demo, but fix the eye colours if we can (we should be able to if we swap the 3 skin tones and the 3 eye tones, since both share the same skin tones, and the 3 colours in the left of the palette aren't normally part of the player palette, and can be changed per-level)

[KobaBeach]

True, I wanted to make a patch for her eye colors, but I guess we can make a dumb, hacky UberASM as long as we study how the program flow is like on ROM. Check when the UberASM hijack runs and if the palette uploading routine runs before or after, to see if it overrides any writing on the UberASM side. There is a way to change colors on the palette quickly with minimal VRAM real estate thanks to a Lunar Magic hack involving ExAnimation, I just don't remember how to look for it. The RAM or ROM Map may have something on it?

Maybe DMA routines can work too? It's worth some research, it should be easy to set up for an intermediate ASMer.

[SAJewers]

Probably don't need need to do that. Just swap the colours around to be like this:

Screenshot 2023-08-22 133825.png (20.13 KiB) Viewed 22730 times

Then adjust the colours in yy-chr. Only issue would be we'd probably have to hexedit the Wooden Spike and Falling Spike to use a different Palette (The Brown and checkboard platforms look ok with the swapped colours)

[Lord Ruby]

Moving the colors on palette 8 will also mess up the default HP UI sprites, just so you know. The routine that uploads player graphics is at 00A300, it'd be best to modify it instead.

[KobaBeach]

Moving the colors on palette 8 will also mess up the default HP UI sprites, just so you know. The routine that uploads player graphics is at 00A300, it'd be best to modify it instead.

I agree with this. Moving the colors around is much simpler, but I don't know how much effort it is to fix everything else that may use Pal 8.

[SAJewers]

Moving the colors on palette 8 will also mess up the default HP UI sprites, just so you know. The routine that uploads player graphics is at 00A300, it'd be best to modify it instead.

I agree with this. Moving the colors around is much simpler, but I don't know how much effort it is to fix everything else that may use Pal 8.

I mean, you're gonna have to anyway, since Demo uses every colour in Pal 8, unless you're able to modify the palette for Demo only and not anything else.

[KobaBeach]

I mean, you're gonna have to anyway, since Demo uses every colour in Pal 8, unless you're able to modify the palette for Demo only and not anything else.

No I mean, editing the hex values for the colors in the routine, that get uploaded depending on which player is currently in the field. I wanted to add Iris' purple... iris, to replace the yellow ones that would get drawn when Demo is in play, instead of just being there all the time. It'd affect some stuff, such as the cape and whatnot, but the colors used in ASMBXT would still make for good shading. The purple cape for one, looks super good on Iris.

It may affect the sprite coins, but oh well, I feel like it's not necessary to deal with those.

[SAJewers]

That's the thing though, the iris uses colours 3-5. To change those means you're messing with the colours of the the Key, Flying Block, spikes, etc., unless it's possible with hex editing or asm to only affect Demo/Iris's colours.

Basically, it seems to me the options are:

• Swap the colours in the palette around, causing a few sprites to have different colours (unless change their palettes)
• Swap the colours in yychr around, giving Demo/Iris Jaundice
• Reduce the # of colours used for Demo/Iris

[KobaBeach]

That's the thing though, the iris uses colours 3-5. To change those means you're messing with the colours of the the Key, Flying Block, spikes, etc., unless it's possible with hex editing or asm to only affect Demo/Iris's colours.

That's what I'm saying, we can edit it to only change when Iris is at play. She'll get a purple key and cape and whatnot, but I think it should be fine. It's kind of an accidental cute touch.

[PSI Ninja]

So, Green Demo with a purple iris was posted on the AAT Discord earlier today:

While it doesn't look half bad, I'd still like to give the A2XT1 Iris sprites an honest try. After being established that Iris is the taller sister for about a decade, it would be weird to downgrade her to just being a recolor of Demo simply because it's more convenient for us. If coming up with new frames will prove too difficult for me (I'm not a pixel artist), then maybe we should reevaluate whether or not it's even worth having a 2 player mode at that point. In that case, we could just have the A2XT1 Iris make a cameo appearance in a cutscene or rest area.

To address some concerns about separate Iris graphics:

• The Separate Luigi Graphics v3 patch and Player + Animated Tiles ExGFX uberasm don't really play well with each other
• The patch doesn't appear to change the hitbox for Luigi; the entire impetus for Iris having a different design from Demo stemmed from realizing during ASMBXT that SMBX Luigi has a taller hitbox compared to Mario, and Iris needed to be made taller to match.

• Modifying the Player + Animated Tiles ExGFX UberASM doesn't seem too difficult to make work with Iris. My intuition is to just duplicate the tables with Iris' ExGFX, check to see if the player is Iris, then reference the Iris tables instead.
• I don't think accounting for different hitboxes between Demo and Iris really matters. Even though Iris is ~4 pixels taller than Demo, it shouldn't make that much of a difference to be confusing, and it would err on the side of a more generous hitbox for Iris.

We need to decide on who Ludwig (and maybe the boss of Snake Block Fortress) should be before we start with the plot and cutscenes. And does the boss of Spikes Do Hurt need to be a Ludwig battle to begin with? It could be something else. I personally don't think the postgame needs to tie into the main story. It can just be a side plot, so it can be worked on separately without any conflicts.

Scarfley put Ludwig there, and I'd rather not change that without their permission. Agreed about the postgame.

I was never sure if the Ludwig battle was just a placeholder or if it was the intended fight for that level. I can start pinging people tomorrow about things like this and other stuff on the todo list, so we can begin to get some much-needed answers to questions.

[SAJewers]

• I don't think accounting for different hitboxes between Demo and Iris really matters. Even though Iris is ~4 pixels taller than Demo, it shouldn't make that much of a difference to be confusing, and it would err on the side of a more generous hitbox for Iris.

My point in that regard was that Iris was only made to be taller because SMBX required it, otherwise she would've remained as "Green Demo". It seems raocow's original intent with Iris was to be like early Luigi (in that differences were subtle); that seems to have just got lost of the years. Having Iris just being a green Demo mostly fits the original intent, so I think it's fine to have it the way it is

EDIT: Just to be a bit more clear, if we're gonna do this, all we really need to do is extend the torso and legs down a few pixels, flip the eye, and maybe tweak the hair. That's all asmbxt ever did with Iris

[KobaBeach]

While it doesn't look half bad, I'd still like to give the A2XT1 Iris sprites an honest try. After being established that Iris is the taller sister for about a decade, it would be weird to downgrade her to just being a recolor of Demo simply because it's more convenient for us. If coming up with new frames will prove too difficult for me (I'm not a pixel artist), then maybe we should reevaluate whether or not it's even worth having a 2 player mode at that point. In that case, we could just have the A2XT1 Iris make a cameo appearance in a cutscene or rest area.

I agree with the latter, it's okay to have her make a cameo if it's too much. There are tutorials and a player ExGFX test room patch in SMWC to help make development easier if you decide to go ham. I mostly stuck to frankenspriting, myself. I am not a pixel artist yet, either.

[SAJewers]

title should probably be edited since deadline passed

anyway, i'll see what i can do to group the final castle rooms into floors. still waiting on the final boss though.

i did get the base down for the credits though:

We could probably even have avatars of people walking the aisles too

I forget who the plot person is supposed to be but now would probably be a good time to start that as well.

overworld work should recommence shortly once 1 of the 3 still-unfinished levels is finished (which should be soon?)

still need to do something with the boss for spikes do hurt, though we can swap ludwig for something else

idk what else is left sorry

[SMCslevelengine]

any suggestions for the avatars in the credits? sounds like a neat idea

[camwoodstock]

someone remind us tomorrow afternoon or so about this, we volunteered for cutscene writing like frame one and we are still down for that. but we only learned of this like moments before bed

and also to maybe send ref images for our sonas for that credits thing since uh. we don't feel confident in SMWing ourselves admittedly ^^;

[KobaBeach]

make sure koba's like a fifty feet tall giant as he is in my heart (no not really tbh just edit a romancing saga 2 player unit sprite to look like him like the heavy infantry or some shit, it'd be funnier, i can supply refs as best as i can)

someone remind us tomorrow afternoon or so about this

hey gamers

[camwoodstock]

hey gamers

oh hey we're actually available! several hours later due to reasons Oops.
anyways uhhh someone familiar with the general plot synopsis & how many cutscenes we're gonna have please give us the lowdown (either here or in the romhack shack works for us)

[SAJewers]

So, Green Demo with a purple iris was posted on the AAT Discord earlier today:

So i posted this in discord earlier, but I've been thinking about the sprites that use Palette 8 (The Demo/Iris Palette), and wonder if maybe we should slide the colours for most of them over so that they math both Demo and Iris:

In addition, we should probably change falling spike, sandcastle, broken block effect, and piledriver palettes to something else; the sandcastle and broken block effect both look odd without the yellow/brown palette to me, while the falling spike and piledriver imo kinda needs to be yellow to blend in or else they're too obvious from afar.

edit: oh yeah i forgot the gate from the castle intro if effected too, that needs to go yellow

[PSI Ninja]

So you wanted to make those sprites use the back half of palette 8 instead of the front half? If we do that, the side effect is that those sprites would change colors whenever the player gets or loses fire status. I don't know if there's a smarter way to remap the colors on the same palette row to prevent that from happening.

In general, I don't mind having color differences for some sprites depending on if the player is Demo or Iris, and I think some of us agreed that it would be a fun quirk. However, I agree that we should at least remap the colors for the Falling Spike, Piledriver, etc. to make them blend in better with their surroundings. It might require using a different palette row. Would be tricky to find a consistent location for the affected colors across all of the levels that include those sprites, though.

[SAJewers]

So you wanted to make those sprites use the back half of palette 8 instead of the front half? If we do that, the side effect is that those sprites would change colors whenever the player gets or loses fire status. I don't know if there's a smarter way to remap the colors on the same palette row to prevent that from happening.

In general, I don't mind having color differences for some sprites depending on if the player is Demo or Iris, and I think some of us agreed that it would be a fun quirk. However, I agree that we should at least remap the colors for the Falling Spike, Piledriver, etc. to make them blend in better with their surroundings. It might require using a different palette row. Would be tricky to find a consistent location for the affected colors across all of the levels that include those sprites, though.

Only other option would be to use colours 6/7/8 in Palette 8, which, ironically, uses the same colours on both Demo and Iris. Having said that, we could also change those colours as Demo. Most raocow depictions of demo give her a more orange eye than the brownish colours currently used (probably just the default smw colours)
edit: also, raocow used a more salmon colour for demo's eye in wth

Palette A should be fine to swap to for those sprites (though the piledriver might be able to use the last 2 colours in palette 9).

[SAJewers]

Since it was mentioned in the other thread, we're hoping to get something to raocow around late February/early March. Of the major things left to do:

• Overworld - Luckwaive said in Discord "My hope is that I can complete the overworld by or around end of the year"
• Final Boss - Lord Ruby said in Discord "I've been very busy the last month, but should have much more time now, so it's hard to estimate exactly how much there's left."
• Cutscenes - camwoodstock said in the cutscene thread "if we can find the time for it we would like to at LEAST finish every cutscene in draft form by the end of the year, the main issue is just finding that time."
• Levels - I thought I saw PSI Ninja say somewhere his remaining two levels would be done soon-ish, but I can't find it
• Credits - I'm just waiting for everything else to be done

I believe there are a few other small things, like doing a few more things for SPECIAL, but that's not blocking a release to raocow.

For me, I think if we can get those things done by the end of the year/1st week of January, that should give enough time to have more public bug testing in January and February; then we can coordinate with raocow's schedule so it's ready to release by the end of the Galaxy 2 LP.

[Lord Ruby]

That timeline seems a bit too optimistic, to be honest. I can maybe finish at some point in January. But note: My "maybe", Luck's "my hope", Cam's "if we can find time".