Happy Holidays!

May you all find peace this holiday. And may this new year bring us all prosperity and happiness.

I´ll be taking a small break from work (and AM2R) these last 2 weeks of the year. I´ll have plenty of time to put into the project on January.

I did manage to improve the subscreen these days:

This one is taken from the engine, that screen back there is from the actual game. The text is still part of each section´s bitmap, the values at the top are still fixed, and there´s still no validation for the switched abilities (you can toggle anything without having the item). But it´s functional, and it´s as far as it could get this year.

As always, you´re free to post your oppinions, or just drop by and say hi. I´ll try to make some time to answer your questions. Ah, BTW, I replied to most people on the last post´s comments. If you asked anything back then, check it out.

Well, take care, enjoy the celebrations and have fun.
My best wishes for all of you.

DoctorM64

About the subscreen

These days instead of progressing on level development, I worked on the menus and the subscreen. It´s really time-consuming to make a decent looking menu, and I´m still trying to put together a good subscreen layout.

So far, the main menu is done. I just have to add the classic small Samus cursor, and change the background for an original picture (that one is from the Metroid Prime comic).

On the other hand, the subscreen is barely functional. I´ve done the menu, but I´m still not convinced about the items layout. This is the latest mockup of it:

NOTE: THIS IS A MOCKUP!!!
Just to avoid complains about how much that screen sucks. This is just to determine where each part of the screen will be placed.
Anyway, the layout is inspired by Super Metroid (item grouping), Metroid Fusion (stats at the top of the subscreen), and there´s a brief description of every item on the bottom, like in Zero Mission.
The map screen will share the format (letterbox with blurred game screen on the background), to make the transition between both screens seamless.

For all the people asking: Yes, you´ll be able to toggle all the abilities and items you have via subscreen. By now I´ve scraped the idea of toggling beams in real time, there are no situations that need it, and you can do the same in the subscreen.

Well, once I have the proper artwork and layout, I´ll show you the progress. In the meantime, you can post your thoughts and suggestions about it, I´m all ears.

Progress Report

I´ve been very busy this month, and I couldn´t make as much progress as I wanted.
Most of my free time was spent expanding the industrial complex part of area 3, it was too short. Now it´s double the original size, changes the location of a Metroid fight, and there´s a place to get Super Missiles.

There are a couple of unique features that take some time to implement and tweak, so overall the rough map of the complex is done.

As for the entire project...

Game Engine
Physics, states, behaviours - 98% (some tweaking left)
Abilities - 98%
Powerup System - 100%
Weapons - 98%
Enemies - 40%
Map System - 95%
HUD - 100%
Level Design - 50%
Sound FX - 60%
Music - 20%

Metroids
Alpha - 90%
Gamma - 10%

System
Menus - 50%
Save System -10%
Game Management, cutscenes, etc. - 20%
External Resource Management - 70%

OVERALL PROGRESS - 60%

COMPLETED FEATURES
Samus
- Basic states (run, jump, spinjump)
- Morph ball
- Jump Ball
- Spider Ball
- Screw Attack
- Space Jump
- Speed Booster
- Super Jump (normal and ball form)
- ShineSpark
- Power Grip
- Wall Jump
- Hi Jump
- Power Suit
- Varia Suit
- Gravity Suit
- Combinable Beam Effects

Weapons
- Power Beam
- Bombs
- Missiles
- Super Missiles
- Ice Beam
- Plasma Beam
- Spazer Beam
- Wave Beam

Well, it´s quite obvious that it won´t be finished this year. I´m sorry, real life is eating my time these months, specially near the end of the year.
The most notable change these months compared to the last report (8 months ago), was the level design. Basically in that time I did area 2, revamped it, done area 3 and expanded it, and that´s without counting the new demo, that alone took about a month to complete.

Right now I´m about to start area 4, I´m trying to figure out a bigger layout that keeps the original idea.

Anyway, since customers tend to dissapear on summer, I´ll have a lot of free time in my hands for the project next month.