Zeta Metroids

So, NCFC is over. It was even cooler than last year, and AM2R was given again the "Best Metroid Booth" award. I was sure the award was going to be given to the guys of Project Prime (BTW, check it out if you haven´t). Thanks to all the great people at NCFC!

Here´s the trailer I made for the event, and some new pics:

There are mixed oppinions about the Zetas.
First of all, this is a Work In Progress sprite, and I decided to show it just for the NCFC. The animations are unfinished, and there are details to tweak about the overall apprearance.
Second, I took a slightly different approach in the design. The original Zeta seemed to be designed within the limits of the sprite size, and it´s a good middle step between the original Gamma and the original Omega designs displayed in-game.

In my case, Omegas will be fairly smilar to the ones in Fusion, in terms of size and proportions. If I were to use a more "traditional" design, there would be a major evolutionary difference wih the Omegas. So I redid the design by associating the Omegas to a T-Rex (in terms of relative proportions), and the Zetas to Velociraptors.

Desinging Zetas as "Armored velociraptors with a Metroid core in their belly" was my starting point. The whole Metroid changed a lot, and it will continue to change as the animation and gameplay demand it. Don´t worry, a longer tail and thicker legs are on my to-do list.

Also on the video 2 parts of the new area are shown. One big ruin-like corridor and the water area (for Gravity Suit fun). I´m planning these areas right now.

I´ll be tweaking the Zetas these days, it was great to hear all of your concerns about the proportions. I´ll consider some of them, since having other points of view makes a better result.

Thanks for your comments!

NCFC 2009 is coming...

NCFC begins tonight, and this year will be awesome as always.
Last year AM2R made an appearance in its own booth, it was the first time the Alpha Metroids were shown to the world.

I do have some exclusive material for this year. No new demo, but I´m sharing the progress of these months. It´s a surprise...
I´ll post the material here after the convention is over, don´t worry.

Unlike last year, I´ll be appearing every once in a while in the NCFC chat. If you want to exchange some words with me, come by the chat room. I´ll be online tonight during the opening ceremony.

Comments about the new material are welcome. I read the ones of the last post, and I was really tempted by some of the ideas you shared with me. The limit here is my time, and the ammount of effort I can put in the project right now.

Well, enjoy the Nintendo Community Fangame Convention.

Progress, and challenge mode

There was a lot of progress with Zeta Metroids. Right now they walk, crouch, jump and do a horrendously animated claw attack (soon to be redrawn). I just realized that since this is a ground based enemy, it will require much more testing than the floating ones. Specially when the environment limits the Metroid´s movement, there´s room for exploits.

So, last time I mentioned Challenge Mode. And there were many cool suggestions about it, and the possible escape sequence (thanks!!!). Here´s what I have planned so far for this mode:
- It will be available after completing the normal game once.
- All the lava will be gone, so you can explore freely.
- The item and Metroid placement will be changed.
- There will be extra Metroid fights, even maybe more than one at the same time.
- A boss rush mode could be unlocked after completing Challenge Mode.

One thing I know for sure, challenge mode will be done after the game is finished. This means I´ll release the game once it´s completed, and challenge mode will be done in the first update. This way I´ll be fixing all the details you find in the game, and add the new mode in the update.

I want to thank you all for the great feedback of these last posts, and for the patience you have with this project. If there´s something you´d like to suggest for Challenge Mode, feel free to post it.

To escape or not to escape (sequence)

In the last post there was a very interesting suggestion by Palamon: A final escape sequence after the Queen fight. It´s true, the planet is succeptible to earthquakes caused by Metroids, and killing the biggest one of them all could easily cause some disaster.

Ok, but you (supposedly) have Gravity Suit by the time you reach the end, and lava isn´t much of a threat now. If the escape is going to be dramatic, it should be more menacing than lava and some falling rocks. And making so would deviate too much from the original game, IMHO. The moment you first see the hatchling, and peacefully reach the surface is a classic scene.

I might consider making an escape sequence for "Challenge Mode", a special mode for hardcore players. I´d like to hear your oppinions about this.

About the progress: I´m starting with the AI of the Zeta Metroids. I had to make a custom animation system, since there are separate body parts with different numbers of frames. Using the built-in variables was impossible.
Right now the Zetas can only walk, soon they´ll have some cool attacks (as soon as I start animating those). All of my time is being dedicated to these creatures, so there wasn´t much progress in the level design part.

Sorry for the lack of updates, there´s not much to report lately, since a single enemy animation and AI takes too much time to make so little progress. Like always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Zetas are alive! (almost)

Hyruleswordsman finally found some time between exams to work on the Zeta Metroid sprites. After many revisions, the standing sprite is done. Like in many other aspects of the project, I started animating the sprite, thinking it wouldn´t be as difficult as it seemed. I was SO wrong.

I´m kinda getting the hang of it, and there´s still a lot to animate. The ingame object uses a wireframe sketch right now, it gives a better idea on how the sprite will behave with the environment. It´ll take a lot of work, but it will be worth it.

I finished tiling the tower part of area 4, next up are the spiky caves. Those will be done really fast, I just need a "skpiky" tileset. I guess I´ll have to draw it...

Thanks for the achievements suggestions by the way. Don´t worry, they will be more challenge based than anything else. I´m not that much of a fan of the "You fired a Missile!!!" kind of achievements, instead they could be like the skill points of the Ratchet and Clank series, for example.
Onscreen notification will be optional.

Progress these weeks might be slow, I´m struggling to keep my business alive, and that takes a lot of time and energy.

Like always, comments and suggestions are welcome.