A year building

2007
So there I was, beginning 2007 without my studio, without work.
Me and my girlfriend couldn´t afford vacations this year, so we focused on finding a new place for my studio. By the end of february we found an old house near a train station, it was practically destroyed, but I could see more than ruins there.

I rented the place, and started rebuilding my recording studio. I´m definetly not a handyman, I had to learn how to do practically everything, since construction is very expensive here. About 9 months of continuous work later, I reopened my recording studio, along with 3 rehersal studios. You can take a look here if you want.
I finished 2007 with new hopes, and more importantly, more energy to put into the project.

2008
I moved the project to Game Maker 7, this boosted the overall engine speed a bit. I also decided to make public my game. So, here we are.
By the end of January I started working on a tech demo, so the people would be able to experience the engine while they wait for the finished game. I spent a whole month putting together a bunch of rooms with some of the most important powerups and even a boss battle.
Right before I released the demo, I made a trailer video. It received very good comments so far:


A few days later, about a week ago, I released the Tech Demo.
So, here it is, enjoy it!

Project AM2R Tech Demo (YoYoGames)
Project AM2R Tech Demo (64Digits)

Some screenshots of the demo:






I hope you enjoy ther demo, please leave comments with your impressions and suggestions.

Comments

Anonymous said…
As great as the demo is, are there any plans to add controller support? Metroid with a keyboard doesn't seem right.
DoctorM64 said…
Yes, customizable joypad support is planned.
Great. Just finished playing. Not that I managed to get everything. Great, just great. First things first:
I'm pretty sure you had lots of hard times with the engine, didn't you? But as far as I've seen it is great. Too bad that you didn't make the engine from scratch, but I guess it is still great, as this guy's engine is really advanced and high quality (And quite complicated. I'd rather make my own than use someone else's but that's because I like to use every opportunity to get better at programming).
Other than that, I think speed booster takes too long to charge. Cuting it by 10% would be nice. And I think the jump when doing the Booster Flight (can't remember the proper move) shouldn't be 1 block high, but half of a block. If you played Fusion, do you remember the underwater level where you unlocked Red doors? It was possible to leave this place using really complicated pattern of boostering. There you needed Half-block high jump. But that's just my personal opinion :).
And I liked how fast and dynamic Ridley is. Overall, this project is brilliant and I'm going to stick here for as long as you finish it :).
I hope it will happen soon.
Also, you want to make Metroid 2 remake, butare you going to make it identical, or will it be something totally fresh? :P
Vedrodicus said…
Looks awesome. You should head over to destructoid.com and check it out. There is quite a bit of talk going on about your project.
Anonymous said…
same can be said about Gametrailers.com. your video got "featured" on the frontpage so itll get some nice attention im sure :)
Unknown said…
Awesome, great work so far!
Anonymous said…
Looks promising enough. I too will check regluarly to get le latest news on your project. I hope to be able to play it very soon.
Death of Rats said…
You should try to make it so it supports the Xbox 360 controller.

Seriously, that thing was made for this kind of project.

Other than that, this thing is mighty impressive for something made using gamemaker.
fidgetwidget said…
How are you not worried that Nintendo is going to shut you down?
As much as I would love to see this on the DS, I have a bad feeling that Nintendo wouldn't appreciate what you are doing.
Anonymous said…
I have to agree with Brandon's sentiments. What you are doing is truly amazing and I absolutely loved playing your tech demo. Unfortunately, I have known Nintendo to stop other less-impressive Metroid remake projects before.

I hope that, if this happens, you will be able to somehow compensate for this and make sure that we can all get your game somehow. I would certainly throw you a few bones for the final version once it is polished, released, and includes gamepad mapping.
Pedro Soares said…
This is some nice work you've done! Metroid 2 is one of the best games in the series. I'd love to see this running on DS but running on a PC is good enough. :) I hope this remake turns out great in a near future.
Anonymous said…
This is an absolutely impressive amount of work wasted on completely missing the point of Metroid 2.
Anonymous said…
First I'd like to congratulate you for the The great art and fantastic engine that manages to avoid the unprofessional feel that a majority of GM games seem to have.
However I have a little constructive criticism. The jumping needs to be a lot slower, Metroid games are actually designed to have "floaty" jumping physics to make mid air aiming and morph ball puzzles easier. The Enemies are also a little fast and the morph balls is a bit slow but those are very minor complaints. Jumping definitely needs to be fixed though (it just feels completely wrong since I'm currently playing through Super Metroid on VC and I'm use to that =P).
Unknown said…
It's on Kotaku too now : )
Anonymous said…
Great Work, good sense of observation. It's always hard to get how deep Nintendo controls are. Can't wait to play it and see how close you are from perfection.
Keep running.

f.m.
Anonymous said…
As for the jump complaints cited above, i think it's not necessaty to change that. In fact the jump in your tech demo is just like in Metroid Zero Mission, which had a different jump feel from Super Metroid. It'll depend wether you want your gameplay to look like that of Zero Mission or like that of Super Metroid. It's your choice, but either way, i'll agree with you, both are good IMO. One last small complaint i have is that Samus loses her energy a lot too fast when she falls in the lava. Anytime i fall in the lava at the beginning of the demo, i lose about 75% of my energy while struggling to get out of it which doesn't leave muc energy to go further in the demo. I think it should be fixed. Really.
J-Boogie said…
Yeah, I just tried this myself and it feels really awesome. About the only thing I'm wondering about is when you Shinespark horizontally and hit a ramp you don't continue running. Do you plan to change that or leave it as is?
J-Boogie said…
But I do have to ask: Is the Prince of Persia sucks comment just a joke or what?
Unknown said…
You need to take this website down, finish the game and then release it before Nintendo finds out, because they WILL shut you down.
Fantastic demo and brilliant work. You really managed to reproduce the control feelings of a Metroid game.

Looking forward for the finished game.

Best of luck and regards!
Anonymous said…
Alright man, this is really nifty! Way above and beyond any other Metroid fan games (and most GM games). And while I do have technical nitpicks about it (Samus is too small on screen - Super Metroid ran in 256x224, Zero Mission - 240x160, your game - 320x240 - that's why.) I have to congratulate you on achieving true Metroid feel to your project. And yes - Nintendo WILL shut you down, so do as claudio says.
Anonymous said…
An absolutely incredible amount of devotion to a project. Great job.
Matt Kish said…
Keep up the great work man! Long live the old-school!
Anonymous said…
Congratulations on all the attention and respect that you're getting, it's very, very well deserved. Looking forward to checking this out as soon as I get home!
Anonymous said…
Loving the look of this. One question: I'm planning a game of my own using GM7. However, keyboard controls always felt a bit clumsy to me, as I'm sure they have for many others. So my question is how one would give a joypad customization option with GM7.
Anonymous said…
For all of those wanting to use their gamepads, download a program called JoyToKey (or a similar program). You can then map the keyboard buttons to whatever controller button you want. It works flawlessly for me.
Anonymous said…
@kafei2006: I see, I've yet to play Zero Mission so I didn't realize. The original Metroid, Metroid Fusion and Super Metroid all had floaty jumping so I thought Zero Mission would be the same.
Maxi Power said…
Excellent.... great read and great demo.. ridely gave me the slaps though but overall looking very promising
Anonymous said…
Dude, this is pretty awesome. I love the Metroid series(especially Prime 1 & 2) and have always wondered if their were plans to remake Metroid 2 deep within EAD or Retro. The original game was rather difficult compared to the other Metroids, and the sound was god-awful. However, your remake in GM7 is absolutely glorious. It definitely feels like Zero Mission. Additionally, the usage of Metroid Metal on your Youtube clip was amazing. I wonder if you could get them to make some original songs for your final build. . . . When considering music, don't overlook ocremix.com either, they have some pretty dynamic stuff along with a huge mixing community that would no doubt be interested in your work. Finally, I was pleased to see you are taking name suggestions, for when I first heard of AM2R, I thought the name was terrible. Therefore, I suggest "Metroid Evolution." The title would be both a reference to the rebirth of the game and the evolutionary chain followed by the metroids within the game. Keep up the amazing work!
Anonymous said…
:) happy happy happy happy happy happy fun time :)
Anonymous said…
Well, I tried using the Win2Ds app and used the gamepad option, it was worth a try i got l button to work with takes you to the map but yeah everything else was a failure, it could work if you could customize the demos controls because Win2Ds's gamepad option doesnt let you set letters as a control for the xyab controll on the ds
Ray said…
Hola.
(Vienes de Argentina, asi que supongo que no hay problema que hable en español, ¿Verdad?)
Sé que este demo ya lleva bastante tiempo que salió, pero yo apenas llevo una semana que lo he estado jugando, y realmente es asombroso.
Pues en cuanto a los problemas que hay en el juego, ya te dijeron la mayoría: El excesivo daño de la lava, la lenta velocidad en MorphBall, la cantidad de distancia para usar el Speed Booster, cuando haces un Spin Jump y pones pausa, y aun asi el sonido continúa, entre otros.
Aunque tambien ayer he encontrado un bug/glitch (no sé como decirle), no sé si ya lo sabias pero lo pongo por si acaso: En el cuarto de la lava. Se trata de que en el bloque en el que se encuentra el Missile Tank, al momento de saltar y poner pausa justo antes de caer en ese bloque, al momento de
quitar la pausa te das cuenta que Samus ha "atravesado" parte del bloque, y se encuentra recibiendo daño por parte de la lava.
Pondré un video mas adelante para explicarlo graficamente.
Gracias por tu atencion.
Ray said…
http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/MiddleofNothing/?action=view¤t=MetroidGLitch0001.flv

Supongo que es bastante entendible =)
Ray said…
http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/
ee202/
MiddleofNothing/
?action=view¤t=
MetroidGLitch0001.flv

Ups, no sabia que esos errores ocurrian.
Solo copia el link por partes y listo, entonces =)
Hasta luego!
Anonymous said…
Hey can you by chance upload the engine somewhere
cause i cant make or find a working one and Im in charge of a Super Metroid Remake Project.

you can reach me at

Myspace.com/Metroid3Remake

Myspace.com/Fullmetal150

plz and thanks You will get Credit for your contribution
Anonymous said…
ive not played the tech demo yet but the youtube vid was spectaculer heres hoping the good people at nintendo take notice of all the well earned praise your getting and not shut you down quality work!
Anonymous said…
I can't wait for the final version to be compleated. the demo was awesome and the game play was smooth.
Tweek said…
Fantastic job, just a few ideas for some tweeks. First, an audio warning for when you have 30 units of health or less. Also, a color change in the amount of remaining missiles to let you know when they're full. Also, the text after you get an item lasts for too long; maybe let it disappear in half the time it takes to now. Also, add text to when you get subsequent energy and missile tanks to let you know how much your inventory has increased by. Finally, and probably most importantly, support for pressing more than three keyboard buttons at once (so one can charge, aim diagonally downward, and jump, or some other unconventional combination). Again, great job, and I'm a musician, so if you need any themes arranged, let me know.
alm17 said…
I am a (HUGE) Metroid fan but when I played this demo I thought it was as good as most of the nintendo games.
I cant wait for the finished version of AM2R.
Anonymous said…
is it on the ds
Brandon said…
absolutely amazing! I would love to see more if possible!
Anonymous said…
Usually, I hate fan games. However, because I am a Metroid fan and I have seen the unanimously positive feedback for this game, I really want to play this game.

Would it be possible to port this to Flash Player or something that can run on Mac? I really don't want to set up Boot Camp just to play this game, however great it is.

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