Mario's Nightmare Quest

[CM30]

My third (and most likely final ever) Mario game mod, this is my latest project in (extremely slow) development. Basically, it's a fairly fancy Mario hack meant to resemble a Game Boy Advance game more than a SNES one, and to have various things from more recent Mario games like Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon and Super Mario 3D World.

 

As it's slow days, I've mostly been ripping the tilesets so far...

 

 

Maps with graphics from Mario Party Advance.

 

 

New intro level.  Mixes a custom SMB 3 style foreground from MFGG with a background from Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga.

 

 

Ruin tiles from Actraiser.

 

 

Some tests of GFX from the WarioWare series.  This one is from WarioWare Touched on the DS.

 

 

A level in progress with tiles from Castlevania Symphony of the Night. The clock gears animate as in the original game.

 

As for what's coming, well...

 

Some levels based on Wario Land 4, since I've got tiles from levels like Mystic Lake and Doodle Woods.  A battle with at least one Mario & Luigi Dream Team villain (I also plan to add a boss battle in the style of the giant battles from the last two games).  And maybe some levels made with the Jazz Jackrabbit tiles I found online (the Christmas and haunted house level ones).

 

There will also be some really nice sampled music too.

 

So, thoughts so far?

[Arcaith]

If you're hoping to use the different tilesets to create a dreamlike world where nothing is consistent, this looks good. However if you're not, it's a little jarring.

[Airikita]

Is this going to be a fan game, or is this a hack-in-progress? Looks cool.

[CM30]

If you're hoping to use the different tilesets to create a dreamlike world where nothing is consistent, this looks good. However if you're not, it's a little jarring.

The plot is that the setting is pretty much a dream.  That explains both the title and the final boss, who will be familiar to some Mario fans.  It also turns out the stages were assembled from content taken from other worlds, as part of the setting (and that the characters were transported from different settings entirely).

 

 

The opponent is Antasma from Mario & Luigi Dream Team.

 

 

This becomes clear in the final level/scenes.

 

The intro level is the only one that takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom.  Hence why it mostly has SMB 3 style tiles (from MFGG).  Mario/Luiigi gets transported there after a short intro scene level (in which the player can't die but can mostly figure out controls).

 

Also, been ripping some Zelda tiles:

 

 

From the Minish Cap.

 

 

From Four Swords Adventures (yes really, the 2D sections).

 

All Zelda style content will use sprites from the Four Swords series and Minish Cap, since they share an art style (for the most part).  The game itself generally uses GBA level technology, with a couple of exceptions.

[NoSkinnedKoopa]

This looks awesome! I really like the way your inspiring this off from the new Mario games, especially Dream Team and Dark Moon. I will play this for sure!

[CM30]

Thanks!  And yeah, it's been heavily inspired by recent games like Dream Team and Luigi's Mansion 2.  Simply because I think the Mario modding and fan game scene needs more references to recent games and less reliance on the NES/SNES era past.

 

Pity I can't find a port of this for SMW:

 

 

 

 

But I do plan to try and include a boss inspired by the giant bosses in Dream Team, which could be just as cool.

[NoSkinnedKoopa]

You should also have at least one boss from Dark Moon. I recommend the Possessed Spider or the Knightmare. And a boss from 3D World would be cool too.

[CM30]

You should also have at least one boss from Dark Moon. I recommend the Possessed Spider or the Knightmare. And a boss from 3D World would be cool too.

I've considered the knight boss from Dark Moon's Treacherous Mansion (Knightmare/Tough Possessor), but to be honest, I don't really have much room for it or an idea of how the fight could work.

 

A Mario 3D World boss could be interesting I suppose.  They do have a nice sprite of Bowser's car over on MFGG after all...

[CM30]

Well, I'll give people one update:

 

Okay, a few then...

 

 

The first is a demo showing off my latest background 'rip', from Metroid Zero Mission.  Goes very well with a Zelda level, surprisingly.

 

 

This is a level using Metroid graphics.  Metroid Zero Mission + Wario Land 4 graphics.  Work quite well I think, probably because the same team likely made them/used the same engine.

 

 

Early alpha of a random boss intro, with Ashley from WarioWare Touched. Will probably have text/boss subtitle, and the others will probably have Antasma (the normal version in the foreground with a shadow of the one winged angel form in the background), something from some other games (maybe Metal Slug and Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon) and Earthwake from Mario & Luigi Dream Team.  The graphics for two of those exist but haven't been added, the graphics for the other two need someone willing to draw them in a SNES/GBA style.  Which probably won't be too hard, given how Earthwake is kind of simple looking even for a 3DS title boss:

 

http://www.mariowiki.com/images/a/af/Earthwake_X.png

[CM30]

Not as if it matters, but a map screen ripped from a GBA Castlevania game:

 

 

Still needs awesome music and HDMA gradient, as well as level tiles/path.

 

Progress is slow due to graphics ripping taking up a lot of time.

[john_smith_account]

I *love* smw mods!  

 

I hope you'll keep the difficulty in check.  Difficulty seems to be the down fall of many otherwise fine Mods.

[CM30]

Don't worry, the difficulty should be fine.

 

Remember, I made Mario End Game before this.  What was memorable about that?

 

How I completely screwed up the difficulty level in it.  Game turned out to be way, WAY too hard for most people to play, as this poor soul found out:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z3rtO-U550

 

Yeah, I won't make that mistake this time.  Plenty of items, much more fairly placed checkpoints, less over the difficulty and more balanced sprites and 'gimmicks' in general.

 

Also, if you don't like too much difficulty, well, perhaps my last game could be a good idea?

 

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1727/

 

It's deliberately meant to be very, very easy.  The whole game's basically designed so you can beat it under an hour, and fit the whole thing into a single episode in a Christmas Day Let's Play.

 

Mario's Nightmare Quest will be between the two extremes above.

[CM30]

Oh hey, library graphics from Castlevania Symphony of the Night:

 

 

But if you think that's interesting... well, just wait for the other stuff. I still at one point plan to make levels with tiles from Jazz Jackrabbit 1 and 2, which is proving quite difficult.  Namely, a haunted house level with the same tiles as Mario Fusion's sanguine mansion:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYxXLcxvos

 

And one area with tiles from the Clocktower in Symphony of the Night.  I already showed off part 1 of those tiles.  But that's just the 'easier' room to rip graphics from.

 

Yes, I plan to get the ones from about 2 minutes into this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkgEQ1b63Cg

 

So far, only progress is a background, which is currently not animated.  But I think I have a tileset set up in image format...

 

[CM30]

Voila, one alchemy lab bg:

 

 

I also have the foreground mostly ready (and can confirm it's compatible with SMW colour/space restrictions), I just need to add it to an ExGFX file and set it up in front of this background.

 

Here's the level the graphics are gonna be from:

 

http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/Castlevania-SymphonyOfTheNight-Dracula%27sCastle-AlchemyLaboratory.png

 

Look good?  My rip includes the columns, the main floor, the side corridor floor,  the spikes, the wooden crate and maybe the laboratory table.

 

P.S. I'm also gonna use some tiles from later games, like Castlevania DS titles and Castlevania Harmony of Despair.  Their graphics are surprisingly easy to rip for a Mario hack...

[CM30]

Oh hey, ripped about half the foreground (some tiles not shown):

 

 

As you can tell, while it's a bit off in terms of setup (I suspect I ripped the fg a bit wrong), it looks pretty cool regardless.

[CM30]

Voila, Symphony of the Night Throne Room:

 

 

It's a toned down version due to system limitations, but I think it works reasonably well for a cutscene/potential battle arena.

[CM30]

New area in progress:

 

 

Can you guess where the foreground and background are from?

[CM30]

Well, I shouldn't give away much more, but hey look, more from the final 'world'!

 

 

 

The former is from a generic part of the final castle world (it's gonna be the tileset used for most 'normal' rooms), the second is from outside the Clock Tower, also in the final world.  GFX for screen 1 are from Castlevania Symphony of the Night, GFX for screen 2 from SOTN and Castlevania Portrait of Ruin on Nintendo DS.

 

Next up, more interesting screens of earlier levels.  One of which is based on Actraiser, one based on Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and maybe one will be based on Mega Man 8.

[oddMLan]

I looooove this! Do you have an estimate of the progress you have made for this hack? Can't wait to play it *.* Don't rush it though.

Keep up the good stuff!

[CM30]

I looooove this! Do you have an estimate of the progress you have made for this hack? Can't wait to play it *.* Don't rush it though.

Keep up the good stuff!

 

Progress made is mostly graphical so far.  The graphics are roughly about 50-60% complete:

 

Intro - GFX complete, level mostly done

Forest level 1- About 70% done (BG and FG)

Mystic Lake - BG done, FG about 50% complete

Castle 1 - FG in progress, BG undecided

Haunted Forest/Cemetary - BG done, FG undecided

Haunted Mansion (Castle 2) - FG about 40% done, BGs done

Toy Stage - All BGs done, almost all FGs complete

Hooniversity (Castle 3) - FG about 70% done, BGs mostly non existent in general.

Zelda stage 1 - Main FG done, cave FG done, cloud and mountain ones in progress

Wind Temple (Castle 4) - FG and BGs complete

Desert 1 - FG and BG complete

Desert 2 - FG and BG complete

Final world - Clocktower Foyer, Alchemy Lab, part of Chapel, Throne Room and general castle graphics complete. Clock tower interior 50% done, with both backgrounds done and one foreground complete.  Space void section FG and BGs complete

 

Level design is at about 30%, sprites at about 0% (they're mostly chosen, although am waiting for a programmer to get back to me with two of the boss sprites), music at 0% (the music files and tool have been chosen, but nothing has been added yet) and other blocks and gimmicks at about 0%.  Estimated release date likely around 2015-2016.

 

Progress is slow mostly due to a personal preference; I didn't want to use any 'overused' graphics here.  So that means ripping every single tileset and background (bar a very few exceptions) myself. I could have very easily used simpler graphics in many places (or commonly used resources found on SMW Central and Mario Fan Games Galaxy), but I felt that would be too uninteresting.  Especially as part of why I rather loved games like Brutal Mario, Super Mario LD, the VIP series, Ice Man's games, etc was because they went outside the box in terms of ideas. Same with Super Mario Fusion Revival (which has inspired this game a lot).  The really unique graphics and ideas and content from non Mario like games really makes it stand out:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zqdg9kZAcc

 

This game probably won't look quite as impressive due to technical limitations, but hey, I at least want it to look... different to other such projects.  Just be warned, progress is slow due to other issues, like the fact I also run a bunch of different websites which I pretty much design and code from scratch as well as update.

[CM30]

So yeah, not so much an update, but an interesting experiment with this game.

 

Basically, I plan to mention it to a bunch of Nintendo sites (when it's done) in order to get some more coverage and to see who are actually genuine Nintendo fans and who are merely corporate sellouts.

 

So what do I mean by that?  What I mean is that a lot of gaming sites now, don't seem to have much actual interest in the gaming community as a whole, seeing the 'business' as a cheap way of getting easy cash and sometimes looking down upon traditional Nintendo fans and gamers with disdain (see all the social justice crap recently for good examples of this).

 

So I'm going to use this game as a way to test it.  I'll send it to about half my site's affiliates list, and I'll see exactly who actually cares for Nintendo, fandom, fan games, etc and who's just in it for the money, before identifying and ripping apart the latter for the sake of the future.

 

Thoughts on this idea?  It won't harm the quality of the game/ROM hack itself.

[CM30]

New stuff:

 

Switch Palace early screen:

 

 

Ghost house early screen:

 

 

These gfx are generic, and will be used for switch palaces and ghost houses respectively.  First tileset is from a sprite sheet by Shikaternia on Mario Fan Games Galaxy (with background from Mario Advance 4), second from a sheet by reghrhre on Super Mario Bros X.org (BG from Super Princess Peach).  Similar generic gfx sets will be used for other 'stock' levels, to avoid using a ridiculous amount of ExGFX files. Shops may be another example of a 'generic' level found in all worlds (albeit with different NPCs serving),

 

Per standard generic levels will use these standard graphics sets:

 

Haunted Forest - Actraiser 1 forest FG with BG from same game

General Forest - Custom grass/forest/meadow FG with some undecided BG

Desert - reghrhre's desert FG with some desert BG

Zelda world - None (castles/inside levels will mostly use Four Swords Adventures dungeon tiles)

Toy themed area - None (probably distinct tiles for the most part)

 

That should allow for some more stages.

 

Also, I have this music too:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Jql4aMgm0

 

Guess what kind of stage it'll be used on?

[CM30]

Minish Cap Royal Valley/graveyard:

 

 

Will lead into a Zelda style ghost house area.

[CM30]

Castlevania Rondo of Blood ghost ship:

 

 

 

What was that old comment about Rondo of Blood not being doable on a SNES? Yeah, it's for a ghost house. Bit of a delay though, I need to rip the tiles for outside the ship for the first part of the level, and make a second room with more puzzles/platforming.

[CM30]

So, this is probably a longshot, but... is there anyone out there willing to help with this game?

 

Cause as much as I try to do a lot of things, there are two things I can't do.  Namely ASM programming, and non ripped graphics. So, anyone here good at coding in SNES ASM and able to make sprites, bosses, etc?  Anyone here an artist able to work within SNES colour limitations when drawing characters from present era Nintendo games?