And Another Thing - discussion thread (bowz soft deadline at August 29th)

[Daizo]

if it's really down to the wire, consider me as an option for the final boss. The fight I already coded for my level took a lot out of me, and I'm managing a lot of other stuff so only really contact me if it can't be figured out.

[SAJewers]

however whether people want cutscenes or not is just something im spitballing and if people want it then Good, if not then Okay. i feel like we shouldn't care about the greater asmt lore and its "official bible"'s rules, though i will give props if we dont just have serac be like a deuteragonist or antagonist or whatever for like the fifth time and i'm saying this as her adoptive dad. i'm sorry lol she's become a bit overused.

it's totally fine to not have cutscenes or do what tangy suggested which is

have only one cutscene consistign of four lines in the whole game

, just do what you want, i'll try to help within my mental and physical capabilities to make this hack good but also be able to make it past the finish line in one piece. don't feel forced to make a2xt1 on super nintendo. i mostly just suggested it since a2xt was going ham on story and i was like "hey maybe we could do a funny goof out of that".

If there's a bit of Mario due to being unable to make a graphic for it, it's fine, VIP certainly kept the Koopalings, even when they weren't in Mode 7, they just changed Bowser to Daddy Cool.

We have someone that can work on cutscene stuff, so might as well. As for defaut larry/ludwig gfx, my main concern is making things work plot-wise; right now they really stick out like a sore thumb

Should also note I had this idea in my head for

a Ned Flanders/Flandre Scarlet joke that could work for lemmy, provided we can write for that

Plot:

To be perfectly honest, I think the whole "there's plot going on but Demo doesn't care" trope is overdone by this point. I wouldn't mind having essentially no plot other than the mysterious opening sequence, like, not even a cutscene before the final boss. It's fine if there's "just a video game happening", like in the jumps. That's my big thought, but, uh, do whatever.

no reason why we can't have caring in the plot for this. Again, we don't need to a2xt-esque minutes-long cutscenes with massive plot, just a few lines to set up stuff and a few lines at the end of each world

fuxck is it scope creep? I'm down with us just using Go Red Team since that one is finished (literally SPC2MML). but wrt original tracks, i mostly just worry about some of the unused audio material from a2mt being properly used if it fits the stage bc that's good muzak. buckley is making original tracks for the end game, though i think they also considered, just,

making a kumikyoku remix

at one point.

worst case we'll just stick with the one

[KobaBeach]

We have someone that can work on cutscene stuff, so might as well. As for defaut larry/ludwig gfx, my main concern is making things work plot-wise; right now they really stick out like a sore thumb

Should also note I had this idea in my head for

a Ned Flanders/Flandre Scarlet joke that could work for lemmy, provided we can write for that

I feel like we should really organize a plot summary and skeleton because I am so out of the loop I have no idea what you're talking abt beyond the

techbro replacing like wendy or whatever

no reason why we can't have caring in the plot for this. Again, we don't need to a2xt-esque minutes-long cutscenes with massive plot, just a few lines to set up stuff and a few lines at the end of each world

put a scene where demo 360 noscopes one of the bosses adn you can see like very poorly detailed blood like fuckign panic in the mushroom kigndom adn then she says an epic one liner and iris is replaced with big smoke from gta (but only for that scene)

worst case we'll just stick with the one

super mario

[camwoodstock]

PLOT/CUTSCENES

also, just piping up and saying that we are LITERALLY just waiting for a call-sign from someone willing to help implement cutscenes with whatever engine we have to go "yes, we're going to have story cutscene for <x> thing" to basically go full hog on actually writing stuff, precisely BECAUSE we don't wanna commit to it until we know for a damn fact that cutscenes are 1) gonna happen and 2) which ones there'll be. until then we're just waitin' on standby, so don't worry much abt us.

Sorry, I would've brought this up sooner had a minecraft kick not happened :<
I think VWF cutscene stuff are inserted? I have no idea unfortunately. But yes, they're happening. Presumably it'll be something like ASMT where there's a setup in the first level of each world and something at the end of each world, with occasional bits interspersed when needed, though I'll leave that up to you, since you're taking the lead on it.

oh! if we already have that VWF cutscene engine ready (weeee think that's the same one from ASMT1, right? please correct us if we're wrong, we're admittedly not familiar with the technical aspect of things) then that helps, especially since it means we know the format the cutscenes are in.

as for quantity, it's prooobably gonna be slimmer than ASMT1 was, we were thinking there'd just be an intro cutscene, (maybe) a post-bowz cutscene, and a pre-final boss (this one will either end up being the longest or shortest cutscene in the game depending on how we decide to pace it/if someone can confirm to us we're going with watchmaker) and ending cutscene duo respectively. so like, 3-4 cutscenes max, and 2 of those are the introduction and ending.

[SAJewers]

We have someone that can work on cutscene stuff, so might as well. As for defaut larry/ludwig gfx, my main concern is making things work plot-wise; right now they really stick out like a sore thumb

Should also note I had this idea in my head for

a Ned Flanders/Flandre Scarlet joke that could work for lemmy, provided we can write for that

I feel like we should really organize a plot summary and skeleton because I am so out of the loop I have no idea what you're talking abt beyond the

techbro replacing like wendy or whatever

super mario

There were a few draft ideas that were spitballed in the plot/title screen thread though, but we don't really have much firm yet, outside the single dumb plot thread idea in the forest world I came up with where Demo has to intervene in the Feud between Emerald Winston II and Everything D. Swan (who is also the reason the forest has deforested). I suspect the Rachel character from the quickwarp will also end up being plot-relevant in a similar vein to Con in ASMT.

Based on OW desicions we've made and camwoodstock's ideas I think the best option for plot is this:
Demo is going to the supermarket, but something happens along the way and wakes up on the shores of <unnamed island>. After defeating the boss of Siege at Castle Wolfenstein for no reason whatsoever, Demo meets and befriends Rachel, who agrees to help Demo get to the supermarket if Demo can help deal with some of the issues on the island. Each submap has it's own self-contained plot. After clearing the 4 submaps, Rachel is able to take Demo to where they think the supermarket is; however, a castle was built at the address Demo has. After defeating the Big Bad of the castle (again for no reason whatsoever), it's revealed the supermarket moved to a new address, and Demo is finally able to get her groceries. (cue credits)

PLOT/CUTSCENES

also, just piping up and saying that we are LITERALLY just waiting for a call-sign from someone willing to help implement cutscenes with whatever engine we have to go "yes, we're going to have story cutscene for <x> thing" to basically go full hog on actually writing stuff, precisely BECAUSE we don't wanna commit to it until we know for a damn fact that cutscenes are 1) gonna happen and 2) which ones there'll be. until then we're just waitin' on standby, so don't worry much abt us.

Sorry, I would've brought this up sooner had a minecraft kick not happened :<
I think VWF cutscene stuff are inserted? I have no idea unfortunately. But yes, they're happening. Presumably it'll be something like ASMT where there's a setup in the first level of each world and something at the end of each world, with occasional bits interspersed when needed, though I'll leave that up to you, since you're taking the lead on it.

oh! if we already have that VWF cutscene engine ready (weeee think that's the same one from ASMT1, right? please correct us if we're wrong, we're admittedly not familiar with the technical aspect of things) then that helps, especially since it means we know the format the cutscenes are in.

as for quantity, it's prooobably gonna be slimmer than ASMT1 was, we were thinking there'd just be an intro cutscene, (maybe) a post-bowz cutscene, and a pre-final boss (this one will either end up being the longest or shortest cutscene in the game depending on how we decide to pace it/if someone can confirm to us we're going with watchmaker) and ending cutscene duo respectively. so like, 3-4 cutscenes max, and 2 of those are the introduction and ending.

While not exactly cutscenes, we should probably also have some text at the start of each world, similar to how ASMT had con say something for every world, plus text at the end of each end-world castle (basically the castle destruction message)

[camwoodstock]

We have someone that can work on cutscene stuff, so might as well. As for defaut larry/ludwig gfx, my main concern is making things work plot-wise; right now they really stick out like a sore thumb

Should also note I had this idea in my head for

a Ned Flanders/Flandre Scarlet joke that could work for lemmy, provided we can write for that

I feel like we should really organize a plot summary and skeleton because I am so out of the loop I have no idea what you're talking abt beyond the

techbro replacing like wendy or whatever

super mario

There were a few draft ideas that were spitballed in the plot/title screen thread though, but we don't really have much firm yet, outside the single dumb plot thread idea in the forest world I came up with where Demo has to intervene in the Feud between Emerald Winston II and Everything D. Swan (who is also the reason the forest has deforested). I suspect the Rachel character from the quickwarp will also end up being plot-relevant in a similar vein to Con in ASMT.

Based on OW desicions we've made and camwoodstock's ideas I think the best option for plot is this:
Demo is going to the supermarket, but something happens along the way and wakes up on the shores of <unnamed island>. After defeating the boss of Siege at Castle Wolfenstein for no reason whatsoever, Demo meets and befriends Rachel, who agrees to help Demo get to the supermarket if Demo can help deal with some of the issues on the island. Each submap has it's own self-contained plot. After clearing the 4 submaps, Rachel is able to take Demo to where they think the supermarket is; however, a castle was built at the address Demo has. After defeating the Big Bad of the castle (again for no reason whatsoever), it's revealed the supermarket moved to a new address, and Demo is finally able to get her groceries. (cue credits)

PLOT/CUTSCENES

Sorry, I would've brought this up sooner had a minecraft kick not happened :<
I think VWF cutscene stuff are inserted? I have no idea unfortunately. But yes, they're happening. Presumably it'll be something like ASMT where there's a setup in the first level of each world and something at the end of each world, with occasional bits interspersed when needed, though I'll leave that up to you, since you're taking the lead on it.

oh! if we already have that VWF cutscene engine ready (weeee think that's the same one from ASMT1, right? please correct us if we're wrong, we're admittedly not familiar with the technical aspect of things) then that helps, especially since it means we know the format the cutscenes are in.

as for quantity, it's prooobably gonna be slimmer than ASMT1 was, we were thinking there'd just be an intro cutscene, (maybe) a post-bowz cutscene, and a pre-final boss (this one will either end up being the longest or shortest cutscene in the game depending on how we decide to pace it/if someone can confirm to us we're going with watchmaker) and ending cutscene duo respectively. so like, 3-4 cutscenes max, and 2 of those are the introduction and ending.

While not exactly cutscenes, we should probably also have some text at the start of each world, similar to how ASMT had con say something for every world, plus text at the end of each end-world castle (basically the castle destruction message)

also yea, the castle cutscenes (and the intro cutscene pop-up but that's besides the point) would also be there, but they'd be. a lot less in-depth compared to the proper CUTSCENE cutscenes, y'know? also, this is a bit of a silly question:

would it be possible to, for cutscenes only, make the joke that the big final level is like, the back room of the supermarket (they didn't have the groceries out on the store floor.) and the very definite final boss (whether they're the watchmaker or not) is the manager, technically. because if that's the story draft we go with, we think that'd be EXTREMELY funny to pretend the back of the supermarket is just this eldritch location that also, coincidentally, looks a little bit like what the hell

[SAJewers]

I feel like we should really organize a plot summary and skeleton because I am so out of the loop I have no idea what you're talking abt beyond the

techbro replacing like wendy or whatever

super mario

There were a few draft ideas that were spitballed in the plot/title screen thread though, but we don't really have much firm yet, outside the single dumb plot thread idea in the forest world I came up with where Demo has to intervene in the Feud between Emerald Winston II and Everything D. Swan (who is also the reason the forest has deforested). I suspect the Rachel character from the quickwarp will also end up being plot-relevant in a similar vein to Con in ASMT.

Based on OW desicions we've made and camwoodstock's ideas I think the best option for plot is this:
Demo is going to the supermarket, but something happens along the way and wakes up on the shores of <unnamed island>. After defeating the boss of Siege at Castle Wolfenstein for no reason whatsoever, Demo meets and befriends Rachel, who agrees to help Demo get to the supermarket if Demo can help deal with some of the issues on the island. Each submap has it's own self-contained plot. After clearing the 4 submaps, Rachel is able to take Demo to where they think the supermarket is; however, a castle was built at the address Demo has. After defeating the Big Bad of the castle (again for no reason whatsoever), it's revealed the supermarket moved to a new address, and Demo is finally able to get her groceries. (cue credits)

oh! if we already have that VWF cutscene engine ready (weeee think that's the same one from ASMT1, right? please correct us if we're wrong, we're admittedly not familiar with the technical aspect of things) then that helps, especially since it means we know the format the cutscenes are in.

as for quantity, it's prooobably gonna be slimmer than ASMT1 was, we were thinking there'd just be an intro cutscene, (maybe) a post-bowz cutscene, and a pre-final boss (this one will either end up being the longest or shortest cutscene in the game depending on how we decide to pace it/if someone can confirm to us we're going with watchmaker) and ending cutscene duo respectively. so like, 3-4 cutscenes max, and 2 of those are the introduction and ending.

While not exactly cutscenes, we should probably also have some text at the start of each world, similar to how ASMT had con say something for every world, plus text at the end of each end-world castle (basically the castle destruction message)

also yea, the castle cutscenes (and the intro cutscene pop-up but that's besides the point) would also be there, but they'd be. a lot less in-depth compared to the proper CUTSCENE cutscenes, y'know? also, this is a bit of a silly question:

would it be possible to, for cutscenes only, make the joke that the big final level is like, the back room of the supermarket (they didn't have the groceries out on the store floor.) and the very definite final boss (whether they're the watchmaker or not) is the manager, technically. because if that's the story draft we go with, we think that'd be EXTREMELY funny to pretend the back of the supermarket is just this eldritch location that also, coincidentally, looks a little bit like what the hell

[KobaBeach]

because if that's the story draft we go with, we think that'd be EXTREMELY funny to pretend the back of the supermarket is just this eldritch location that also, coincidentally, looks a little bit like what the hell

this is actively a good idea wtf. we shouldn't have good ideas /joke

[Catabo]

IRIS
Iris's sprites aren't fully done, and I'm hoping Catabo might be able to help out with this, since they offered to help out with some graphic stuff.
There are a few ASM things listed in the Todo list, but those don't 100% seem necessary and are more nice-to-haves that we can probably just drop.

I know nothing about technically formatting the sprites for SMW, but i assume it's some kind of endeavour of pasting the SMBX sprites/cutting them down a bit to fit in a sheet of the SMW Mario sprites which is then sliced up for insertion. If so, sure, i'll take a look. Has the shading been simplified to make it fit more in the SMW style? That could be worth doing while i'm at it.

GRAPHICS
Catabo made a new Bill graphic that hasn't been inserted yet. I'll get on that (now that I have push access on git).
While there are a few custom Sprites that don't have Demoverse equivalents yet, the 2 major graphics we need changing right now are Lemmy (For the Seige At Castle Wolfenstein Boss) and Ludwig (For the Spikes Do Hurt Boss). Hopefully Catabo or someone here can do something for this, so I don't have to try and cobble something together or we just have vanilla smw graphics for 2 bosses randomly.
We also need to replace Yoshi on the No-Yoshi Sign, but we can probably just take the overworld Catnip graphic for that?

Here are the graphics again for convenience, incl a few extra things i made:

I made a Torpedo Ted replacement too (it only flaps its butt because i assumed i'm only allowed to animate the 8×16 bit where Ted's animated propeller was, and it's got spikes to show you can't jump on it whereas you can jump on the bullet buns) and started on a Banzai Bill replacement, but i didn't bother to finish it because i figured there were specific limitations to the way the sprite is constructed that i didn't know about. I can finish it if peeps want. Maybe putting the bun face on the Banzai Bill would be enough? I don't remember if the game's doing a bunch-of-different-banzais gag.

bullet bun2.png (600 Bytes) Viewed 9235 times

aat torpedo bun.png (563 Bytes) Viewed 9235 times

aat torpedo bun block.png (459 Bytes) Viewed 9235 times

aat banzai bun wip.png (1.08 KiB) Viewed 9235 times

I'll play those two levels and see if i can find direction for boss re-sprites within.

TITLE SCREEN
I think Catabo Claimed this? IDK the status on this; hopefully we can get a status report?

Last time i worked on it, i'd gotten everything properly tile-aligned and was trying to scrunch everything down to four colours per tile. In the interest of actually getting it done, i think tomorrow i'm going to simplify it until it works rather than obsess over all the remaining pixels so i can pass it off to people to get it into the game.

Current state:

aat title wip 202306a.png (3.21 KiB) Viewed 9235 times

Top row of colours is all colours used (you can see there are a few colours i need to get rid of), then the other rows are palettes 0/1/2. Areas with purple background are tiles used (my notes say it's 163 tiles in total). I'm going to get rid of all the anti-aliasing on the "AND ANOTHER THING" logo; i originally assumed it would be okay/easy to fit it within the limitations, but it's just not worth it.

The plot discussion that just happened has my approval.

[SAJewers]

I know nothing about technically formatting the sprites for SMW, but i assume it's some kind of endeavour of pasting the SMBX sprites/cutting them down a bit to fit in a sheet of the SMW Mario sprites which is then sliced up for insertion. If so, sure, i'll take a look. Has the shading been simplified to make it fit more in the SMW style? That could be worth doing while i'm at it.

I don't know what's been done or how it's been done, if you want to see the current status, it's here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... /Luigi.bin

It does look like the new new palette is place (She's been changed from Purple to Green), so something has been done.

Here are the graphics again for convenience, incl a few extra things i made:

I made a Torpedo Ted replacement too (it only flaps its butt because i assumed i'm only allowed to animate the 8×16 bit where Ted's animated propeller was, and it's got spikes to show you can't jump on it whereas you can jump on the bullet buns) and started on a Banzai Bill replacement, but i didn't bother to finish it because i figured there were specific limitations to the way the sprite is constructed that i didn't know about. I can finish it if peeps want. Maybe putting the bun face on the Banzai Bill would be enough? I don't remember if the game's doing a bunch-of-different-banzais gag.
bullet bun2.png
aat torpedo bun.png
aat torpedo bun block.png
aat banzai bun wip.png

I'll play those two levels and see if i can find direction for boss re-sprites within.

I'll insert those later, and I'd be up for inserting a new banzai bill if others are interested in you going ahead with that. As for the 2 bosses, you should probably coordinate with camwoodstock, since both bosses will likely be plot-relevant.

Last time i worked on it, i'd gotten everything properly tile-aligned and was trying to scrunch everything down to four colours per tile. In the interest of actually getting it done, i think tomorrow i'm going to simplify it until it works rather than obsess over all the remaining pixels so i can pass it off to people to get it into the game.

Current state:

aat title wip 202306a.png
Top row of colours is all colours used (you can see there are a few colours i need to get rid of), then the other rows are palettes 0/1/2. Areas with purple background are tiles used (my notes say it's 163 tiles in total). I'm going to get rid of all the anti-aliasing on the "AND ANOTHER THING" logo; i originally assumed it would be okay/easy to fit it within the limitations, but it's just not worth it.

The plot discussion that just happened has my approval.
[/quote]
Are you also planning on doing the level part of it, or will someone need to claim that as well?

[KobaBeach]

I know nothing about technically formatting the sprites for SMW, but i assume it's some kind of endeavour of pasting the SMBX sprites/cutting them down a bit to fit in a sheet of the SMW Mario sprites which is then sliced up for insertion. If so, sure, i'll take a look. Has the shading been simplified to make it fit more in the SMW style? That could be worth doing while i'm at it.

I don't know what's been done or how it's been done, if you want to see the current status, it's here: https://github.com/lion65816/aat/blob/m ... /Luigi.bin

It does look like the new new palette is place (She's been changed from Purple to Green), so something has been done.

my method for it is literally just image editing on paint.net and then copypasting and properly coloring it on yychr, which is just how i rip shit now. i don't really do well with snesgfx, it tries to turn every image into using only one palette due to how its coded.

im literally just copypasting the a2xt graphics onto a png of the mario tilesheet and then applying that onto yychr and making it match the palette properly

[Catabo]

Are you also planning on doing the level part of it, or will someone need to claim that as well?

Nope. I was just making a logo.

It might be fun to just make the title screen level be an already-existing level in the game? Postgame? I think it's neat to have an "oh this is the title screen level!" moment.

im literally just copypasting the a2xt graphics onto a png of the mario tilesheet and then applying that onto yychr and making it match the palette properly

k, so you've got it covered and i won't worry about it?

[KobaBeach]

im literally just copypasting the a2xt graphics onto a png of the mario tilesheet and then applying that onto yychr and making it match the palette properly

k, so you've got it covered and i won't worry about it?

It might be best that I work on that aspect, yes, but I don't know if I'll be available to work on it all the time due to exhaustion. Is that fine for y'all or? Copypasting in paint.net is no biggie but like. It takes a while and rote repetition, if it's not a hyperfixation or like grinding in an rpg where you at least have numbers increasing, can wear me out very easily.

It might be fun to just make the title screen level be an already-existing level in the game? Postgame? I think it's neat to have an "oh this is the title screen level!" moment.

Doesn't have to not be one, so! Either way I'm ambivalent, I think it'd be funny that if it was an ingame level that the gameplay was kind of a bit of a joke, like how the VIP3 title's portrayal of Clash on the VIP Bridge has Boon (Mario in Normal Edition) just in walking speed at all times, or do a super optimized run like I've seen a few times. But we don't have to force a "challenge/handicap run" in the title screen demo if we can't think of one that's entertaining enough.

[SAJewers]

im literally just copypasting the a2xt graphics onto a png of the mario tilesheet and then applying that onto yychr and making it match the palette properly

k, so you've got it covered and i won't worry about it?

It might be best that I work on that aspect, yes, but I don't know if I'll be available to work on it all the time due to exhaustion. Is that fine for y'all or? Copypasting in paint.net is no biggie but like. It takes a while and rote repetition, if it's not a hyperfixation or like grinding in an rpg where you at least have numbers increasing, can wear me out very easily.

If you're able to do it.

I just don't want you to be burdened with it if you're not able to and someone else is able to step up

[KobaBeach]

If you're able to do it.

I just don't want you to be burdened with it if you're not able to and someone else is able to step up

I might be able, but if it gets really close to like a supposed "ship date" where everything is done and my side is Not Done, I'm gonna just scrap it for the sake of the project and save what's done for like a squeakquel unless Rixi feels like doing Retraux Iris for the next project (NOT this one, we cannot afford that rn).

I'd suggest them to draw the tiles based on a SMW spritesheet they can find on tSR or some such bc the Mario GFX bin is a goddamned meme due to 8x8 tile amount optimizations, i.e removing repeats and flipped tiles, it's why most people go for the 32x32 character sprite patch since you can just insert larger characters and also not care about tile optimization.

I've ripped a few stuff in the past and don't usually have too much trouble with distinguishing 8x8 tiles thanks to image editors' zooming function, and me just being good at distinguishing pixels for some reason, so I could handle insertion myself.

I'll be fine with inserting the L/R Mario and Luigi costume patch since Valentine told me "shit's fun why not insert it stupid", but I'd rather have Iris finished first so you're not just selecting a palette swap, but again, that's just me. I feel like it'd be nicer if you can pick between hime cut with curls alien or bob cut alien for the purposes of expressing yourself.

[SAJewers]

Yeah that patch shouldn't be added until the Iris sheet is done.

If you can't finish it though, and Catabo is able to, there's no reason why we still can't do it

[PSI Ninja]

Found a bit of time on my vacation to catch up on AAT things. At this point, I think we should make things as easy as possible on ourselves to finish. Looking at the todo list on the spreadsheet, I agree with deep-sixing extraneous stuff like the three-digit lives counter and separate death tracking for Demo and Iris. The effort is better spent on fixing the various high-priority ASM bugs. Also, I've had a change of heart regarding status bar consistency as I mentioned in the level testing thread. It's not going to be worth the extra work to do that, and I guess the inconsistency may be considered part of the charm of being a collab.

Today, SAJ and I took care of a bunch of items on the todo list, including new overworld border decorations and adding the bunny graphics for some enemies. The next steps for me are to add reset door/pipe graphics to levels that use them, and to finish up Level D. Just need to focus on one thing at a time, and a big project is easily broken down into manageable pieces.

SPECIAL
Hasn't really been worked on yet, and will likely be on the backburner until after the final castle is done.
I should be able to take this on and get it done, though any help would be appreciated.

Let's think about what to do with SPECIAL after all the Final Castle rooms are in.

It might be fun to just make the title screen level be an already-existing level in the game? Postgame? I think it's neat to have an "oh this is the title screen level!" moment.

Sounds good to me if we use an existing level to show off in the title screen. The best part is that we won't have to do any extra work.

There's also a bit of stuff left to do with regards to the

postgame

.

The idea of scattering clues all over the game has grown on me more and more over time, so I'm actually really motivated to take a shot at coming up with some kind of La-Mulana-esque sequence of puzzles for the first rest area, but I know PSI Ninja is also interested in setting it up.

I'm interested in seeing what you're able to come up with. Feel free to share any ideas in the postgame thread when you're ready. Probably a good idea to offload this to you or someone else right now, because I still have to finish Level D (which will need a complete overhaul).

One more thing I would like to comment on: the deadline. August 29th was mentioned as the soft deadline for Final Castle rooms and for a bunch of remaining stuff, which sounds feasible. But I really think we should try to wrap up the collab before the end of the year. If it continues to be dragged out, then we risk more project members losing interest, and it will take even longer to be released. At some point, we should make a big, final push towards completion. I'll do everything I can to help make that happen.

[KobaBeach]

One more thing I would like to comment on: the deadline. August 29th was mentioned as the soft deadline for Final Castle rooms and for a bunch of remaining stuff, which sounds feasible. But I really think we should try to wrap up the collab before the end of the year. If it continues to be dragged out, then we risk more project members losing interest, and it will take even longer to be released. At some point, we should make a big, final push towards completion. I'll do everything I can to help make that happen.

Big mood.

[SAJewers]

SPECIAL
Hasn't really been worked on yet, and will likely be on the backburner until after the final castle is done.
I should be able to take this on and get it done, though any help would be appreciated.

Let's think about what to do with SPECIAL after all the Final Castle rooms are in.

If I can stop procrastinating and make the 2 other final castgle rooms I want to make, I can start to take a look at SPECIAL (Assuming no one else wants to step in and help). I think the idea of "postgame remixes" still stands, and I'm willing to give it a shot.

It might be fun to just make the title screen level be an already-existing level in the game? Postgame? I think it's neat to have an "oh this is the title screen level!" moment.

Sounds good to me if we use an existing level to show off in the title screen. The best part is that we won't have to do any extra work.

Should we use the same music as the level, or use a different track for the title screen?

One more thing I would like to comment on: the deadline. August 29th was mentioned as the soft deadline for Final Castle rooms and for a bunch of remaining stuff, which sounds feasible. But I really think we should try to wrap up the collab before the end of the year. If it continues to be dragged out, then we risk more project members losing interest, and it will take even longer to be released. At some point, we should make a big, final push towards completion. I'll do everything I can to help make that happen.

I still think we should try and get this wrapped up and in raocow's hands for Advent if possible. Maybe we should move the soft deadline for final castle rooms to the beginning of August, and make the end of August be drop-dead "everything must be roughly in place" date, which would give us a couple of months for final testing/tweaking.

[KobaBeach]

I still think we should try and get this wrapped up and in raocow's hands for Advent if possible. Maybe we should move the soft deadline for final castle rooms to the beginning of August, and make the end of August be drop-dead "everything must be roughly in place" date, which would give us a couple of months for final testing/tweaking.

I feel like we should finish this before the end of the year but I don't want this to be framed as "a present for raocow"

[KobaBeach]

i dunno I'd just feel gross that we just treat everyone's work as like something made solely for raocow. I'm definitely overthinking it but like, I don't want this to be an advent gift just to suck raocow off, to put it bluntly. It makes me uncomfortable. I'm not taking people in places like Discordhaus who act like the Advents are a massive circlejerk into account, those people don't matter to me. I'm just speaking on my own thoughts.

[camwoodstock]

we will say: we would--personally--like to wait for the bowz/finale stages to both be done before we start workin' on writing, just so we have like, maximum things to work with when it comes to storywriting, and y'know, give potential plot details like the identity of the BBEG and which direction we're taking the general plot to simmer and solidify. from there we'd like to set a completely arbitrary deadline of "end of september" to at least DRAFT the cutscenes.

we'd also like to ask that, once the time is right (read: the bowz/finale stages are basically done and have met their deadlines, all the level order stuff has been solved and the subplots of the worlds are figured out, etc.), if an organizer type (likely either koba or SAJewers) were to ping us on the talkhaus forums and tell us, in no uncertain terms, which of the following we are set to do:

• opening cutscene
• if we're doing a post-bowz cutscene, to do that
• if we're doing a pre-final boss cutscene, to do that
• ending cutscene
• if nobody else wants to do the end of world cutscenes with the castle destructions/if those weren't already covered, and if we're doing those, we'd like to know

because, y'know, us being on standby is no good if we don't know exactly what to do and when to do it. ;P

[KobaBeach]

words spoken by a monky and/or a liom

I'll do my best to remind you two, but I must stress the reason I'm staying hands off with plot and story and final boss concepts is that. Okay this will be a bit blunt, I feel, but.

• I feel my ideas aren't funny nor would they fit the Demoverse.
• I know nothing about the general ASMT """bible""" and I really don't care for it, I just like the character designs.
• As an aside for the first one, if I did something like shoving an RPG boss as the main villain a la VIP5, I feel like I'd be betraying the spirit of the collab, unless everyone was okay with it.

It's why I was very worried about democracy in the final boss' design phase. You may have remembered the time I went apeshit over a Rainbow Dash powerup in ASMT64 when I was like 15? It's kind of like that, but less cringe on my end. I'd like something that reflects the team's tastes or at least the community's tastes if I were to come up with something.

Like keeping the RPG example in mind, RPGs aren't a staple of raocow's channel, regardless of this not being made solely with him in mind or not. The LPs are well regarded (I guess except Zwei and Vangers tho), but it's not something that speaks to the "spirit" of the vibes here. It kind of works in VIP5 because at no point is Bowser or Daddy Cool ever mentioned unlike the other games (except the credits which Literally Write "Daddy Cool, Who Didn't Show Up At All"), though it's still kind of weird.

I suggested adding in Isabelle from Legend of Heroes III at one point, but it was entirely as a riff on Julius' role on VIP5 and as a joke boss, rather than my own fanservice. I was told it's been too many years (four, really), so it wouldn't work as satire and, they have a point.

That's why I'm trying to stay away from the plot thing. I'm sorry I can't help better.

For instance, my thought about including another game's villain as a boss was Justice from Guilty Gear, as raocow likes fighting games and especially that series, but it'd require quite a bit of spritework to make her design work well on SMW's limitations, otherwise we'd get like carol's Castle Dedede bosses where Dedede and Kracko just look like Utter Shit due to being resized in Paint or w/e. I cannot do that to ArcSys' godly GGX sprites lol.

I also don't like my concept for the "Watchmaker" lol.

I'd appreciate it if we didn't go the Serac route though, she needs a break, she's been in like Postgame, A2XT1&2, I think MaGLX3... C'mon lol, it'd ruin her appeal. Maybe just have her as an NPC on the side.

If raocow wants to reply to this message of mine somehow I'd appreciate it, again, the sole focus of this isn't him despite him being part of the target audience, but his input, as someone who has managed two webcomics (and a half, lets not forget exupéry), would be extremely worthwhile for myself. I don't think you (cam + Tori) really have to concern yourselves with that, I feel like you can manage.

[raocow]

[If raocow wants to reply to this message of mine somehow I'd appreciate it, again,

I mean

does the boss have to be from something?

make it a blobby cat or something

[SAJewers]

I'd appreciate it if we didn't go the Serac route though, she needs a break, she's been in like Postgame, A2XT1&2, I think MaGLX3... C'mon lol, it'd ruin her appeal. Maybe just have her as an NPC on the side.

Last I checked, the only "established Demo Universe characters" that are in are

Nevada and Uncle Denmark, who basically have cameo appearances in 2 of the rest areas. (Unless you count Turtle Parrot as the postgame boss)

I do have a plan to use

Mishi

in a final castle room, but that's not gonna affect the plot. I don't think any other established character will be put in the game in any way that would affect the plot, as it seems like the few characters we have left to make will either be original or taken from elsewhere.

make it a blobby cat or something

is someone able to make that