Project AM2R - Another Metroid 2 Remake

One of the most popular requests regarding control options is a dedicated Morph/Un-Morph button. I found myself having trouble double tapping down when I tested analog sticks, and since I already added Prime-Style control options (Spiderball), it was a matter of time until the Morph button was implemented. The button is configured at the options screen, and it coexists with the classic double tap morphing. There is now an option to disable the classic Morphball activation, so people who use analog controls won't un-morph by accident. That single button introduced a pretty significant amount of bugs... well, it exposed some of the older code that worked around even older issues. After many test builds the engine is stable and more flexible than ever. There are other control features being worked on, those will be announced as soon as they are stable, polished, and confirmed to be in the engine. Regarding the progress report, some people asked me about the "Steam Communit...

When Joypad support was added to AM2R, I received a lot of suggestions on how to improve it. Most of them were regarding compatibility with XBox 360 joypads, how they are detected and how the trigger buttons aren't registered as buttons. Furtunately, I was able to afford a wireless XBox 360 gamepad a couple of weeks ago, and I was able to add XInput support to the project, and properly test it. The gamepad is recognized in-game, and it has a dedicated button remapping screen on the options menu. Now, this is the progress report I promised. This describes several aspects of each area, with different completion ratios. The reference I use is: 0 Non-Existant 1 Being Designed / Concept Sketch / Asset Pre-Production 2 Functional, WIP resources  / Placeholder 3 Finished, working quality 4 Revision 1, great quality 5 Revision 2, excellent quality So, every aspect that has a score of 3 is ready (but has room for improveme...

This was a bit of a slow month. As usual, office work and family are taking most of my free time, and there wasn't much progress. I did dedicate some time planning some of the optional story elements, and how they will appear in game. The research and rescue teams are now given a little more exposition than before, having dedicated areas and not just being some object that triggered a log update. Production of the required assets has begun, and research of other aspects is underway (GF soldiers and their ship designs need to match their design in past games). Last week I was contacted by Sabre230 , he showed me a preview of an AM2R fan trailer he was producing. It was so cool I sent him some captures he could use. After he finished it, he gave me permission to upload it to my Youtube channel, so here it is: On the next update there will be a progress report. I'll dedicate this week to list of the remaining aspects that need revisions in all the areas. As always, than...

There's been some solid progress this month. The first phase of early playtesting began with a couple of selected players, and I'm already making changes to some of the Gamma fights. This section has been a little harder to develop and test than other areas. I usually do a lot of playtesting myself, and write down any details I find to check them later. The thing is, since the atmosphere is so dark and claustrophobic, I can't help but feel uncomfortable and constantly tense. Yes, I did the level design myself and I still feel uncertain about what the darkness hides, and that made testing a lot more stressing. The third miniboss is also being heavily tweaked, it showed to be as frustrating and unnecesarily hard as the first versions of Arachnus. This one will be a little bit easier, since the fight is mandatory to proceed to the rest of the area. We're in July, and that means it's time for the annual Metroid Marathon, a celebration that the awesome guys at Me...

AM2R has workarounds everywhere. When I get stuck with a problem, there's times when the best way to solve it is to avoid the situation altogether. This happened with subtractive blend modes. Whenever I used them, the transitions to the map screen broke, and artifacts appeared on the screen. Every once in a while I start to experiment, and I did find a way to solve that problem... a workaround within a workaround. But what do you want subtractive blend modes? - you might ask. Among other things, it can be used to create a real, multi-source lighting engine.  The one in confrontation just supports the light emitted by Samus. In a couple of minutes I was able to do some surface magic and come up with a pretty fast lighting engine. With this new tool, I can make some of the existing areas more atmospheric, and change the way certain places are designed. For example, the lower part of Area 3 was going to be just a vertical shaped breeding grounds area, with a different ...

I don't usually talk about my personal life, but when I do, I only mention events that affect the development times of AM2R. This has been the case lately. I wasn't able to renovate the rent contract of my studio, so I had to close it down. For the last 2 months I've been tearing apart the place I spent almost a year of work building. All of my equipment is at a warehouse, including my studio PC. Things can get pretty chaotic in this economy, you never know when the rent can raise all of the sudden, and this can be really harmful if you're caught off guard. Pink looks more Super Metroid-ish than lavender Anyway, progress was pretty scarce these days. Some small details were tweaked, including the color of the Wave Beam. I added many debugging tools to make the weapon/enemy balance much faster, and I managed to fix a couple of bugs involving sand blocks. Development will be a little slow for a couple of more weeks, the only part that will be completely halted fo...

Before I move on with the real news, I have to thank Sabre230 for the help in this year's April's fools post. He made the awesome 8 bit Adam portrait. Ok... now into the progress this month. I revamped some of the rooms of Area 3, now they have a more interesting enemy placement, and some of them have the Speed Booster contemplated for either secrets or shortcuts. Some small bugs were taken care of, along with some beam rebalancing (yet again). A couple of personal issues left me with no free time. I did manage to advance a bit on some fronts, but I was unable to dedicate AM2R the time it deserves. Hopefully, all will be sorted out in a couple of weeks. Thank you very much for following the project. As soon as I make significant progress, I'll be happy to post it. Have a good week!