Streamer-friend Ambureon wants to play some friends' romhacks for their 5th streamiversary:
Announcement Skeet (https://bsky.app/profile/ambureon.bsky.social/post/3mfy3wtomqc2m)
Hacks of any game are acceptable, not just Super Metroid.
The streamiversary event will be in mid/late June, but for logistical reasons the effective deadline for submissions is the first week of June. Please understand.
Anyhow, I finally have an idea, and want to see where I can go with it.
The idea I have is a morph-ball only hack like the classic B2-TW (https://metroidconstruction.com/hack.php?id=142).
I think you will understand the motivation when you see what the morph ball looks like for Ambureon's custom sprite:
000-its-working.png
(The sprite was made by my buddy BachelorSoft, who's going through some major life challenges right now. Please give him some money (https://ko-fi.com/bachelor_soft).)
I have An Idea for a custom intro, but I don't want to commit to it quite yet.
Writing out my plans for my own sake:
- Figure out how B2-TW lets the player save/load while morphed.
- Find/create however many morph ball powers I can manage in a week or two.
- Sketch a design for a world and play sequence with those powers in mind.
- Find some tilesets and music to use.
- See if I can implement some silly NPCs dialogue boxes.
- Make the hack.
The plot is that some Pokemon-inhabited world is being attacked by Metroid creatures, and it's up to resident metroiding-expert Ambureon to save the day with their metroiding experience.
Working title is "Dogtroid."
this is gonna be great. let me know if you need anything :smug:
loading the game in the morphed pose was ezpz (I just copied B2-TW's homework):
001-load-as-dog.png
modifying save points so they don't require or force a stand looks like it'll be relatively easy too
and morph lock will also be pretty dang simple, assuming this resource (https://metroidconstruction.com/resource.php?id=296) works as advertised (and I can just cut out the stuff about an additional collision type)
that's enough for tonight
Quote from: neen on Sun, 2026 - 03 - 22, 07:58 PMthis is gonna be great. let me know if you need anything :smug:
your screwtank.asm file helped give me bearings for my high-jump-tanks.asm file. nothing's implemented yet, but i feel like all the pieces are in place...
glad i could help, i recall that file being a real mess though
I've workshopped several possible intros to this hack and I've landed on one that is extremely, extremely funny.
but I need to wait until I get the basics down before getting embroiled in such frivolities :pensive:
we got dog-saving:
002-dog-save.png
i also got morph lock working
good day
this doggie can paddle
004-doggie-paddle.png
Yesterday I integrated the dash ball item ASM into my project and today I integrated another pre-existing custom item.
I have plans for two more movement related items, and then I think that'll be everything I want in terms of movement.
After that, there's an environmental mechanic I'm tempted to implement, along with a passive collectible for it. And then after that I want some custom attacks. I have three ideas I wanna implement there, but I'm kinda afraid that they'll be too much Effort™.
Once I have that all figured out, I can start the hack in earnest.
I made this graphic for the big new MetConst contest:
OceanRuins.png
Since I've already added water-related mechanics, I think I'll try double-dipping this one hack into these two contests.
double dog dip
mockup:
HUD mockup.png
I got two HUD items working today and vanilla bombs not working.
If you want the intro spoiled for you, here it is. (https://bsky.app/profile/samarantes.neocities.org/post/3mlrl7sswoc2b)
(Also, I guess I finally found a use-case for Bluesky: short videos that I don't want to upload to YouTube.)
so far, the hardest thing i've done for this project is "re-allow the player to lay normal bombs"
007-clear-as-hud.png
love to see a very normal dog hud :smug:
008-hud-wip.png
very nice dog hud
I feel like my next steps are to integrate the oxygen and universal ammo patches.
(BigDomino's O2 meter patch seems a bit heavyweight for my purposes tho...)
Still haven't done any work on my silly jump upgrade idea yet...
I need a proper TODO list.
My current plan is to do as much ASM-y stuff as I can until the end of the month, and then hard-pivot to level design.
dogtroid item select.gif
still a few HUD things left to do, but that should be all the hard HUD stuff :)
dogtroid jump.gif
Quickmet_044.png
boots, beams and beanz... :smug:
it's one of thos days where all i'm thinking about at work is acking rohms...
The equipment screen is all done, and all the custom mechanics are working how I want them to.
Now to BS some level design for a week and then spend the rest of the time polishing stuff.
that's award-winning game design right there :smug:
finally greyboxing some level design :smug:
award winning greyboxmaxing
I got 10 rooms hooked up to each other, and some of them even have level design!
Depending on the sizes of the remaining rooms, I suspect the hack will be between 30-40 rooms in size. (Tour of Italy had around 60-ish, as a point of comparison (not that the hacks are that comparable))
current progress:
Screenshot 2026-06-01 223545.png
out of an abundance of caution, the room names have been edited out of this image (not that they were very legible in the first place)
those are some award winningly designed rooms
up to 16 rooms as of tonight
i should go to sleep...
Up to 22 rooms as of last night.
Probably 15 or so more rooms for the main area, plus however many more for the finale.
(Note: I have no tilesets imported and am just using the CRE brick texture for everything right now.)
28 rooms connected, and about 12 remaining for the main area
the design feels like it's coming together... (famous last words)
up to 34 rooms -- about 7 more rooms to add, plus 5 or so move out of the placeholder phase.
I implemented a Maridian turbo-tube for one of my rooms. Felt nice to get that working.
I have now officially added more rooms than exist in vanilla Crateria.
Finally started putting the minimap together with the silly Map Overhaul (whose features are overkill for my hack).
Still have only a vague idea of how the final area will be structured...
been busy with life this week so i've gotten less done that i'd have liked since monday
I decided to make blank versions of the remaining rooms and connect them, so that's something at least.
again, a busy couple of day IRL, but I got another room cranked out and the sprites for the minor items finally drawn
Important milestone: All rooms prior to the final area have been greyboxed.
Only one scroll PLM (trigger) has been used in the production of this hack thusfar.
Now to just add the items, enemies, tilesets, and tweak things until they're fun. Surely I will have no difficulties doing this before, uh, this next Saturday.
here's the current silhouette of the map:
Area map sihlouette.png
All items have now been placed. They are working very wonderfully with MFreak's Map Overhaul (so the dots disappear :yay:). I have also adjusted the item PLMs so they behave how I want (I've shuffled their uses around).
finally got around to changing the message boxes, as well as implementing a trigger to display dialogue
I also implemented the key things necessary for the ending sequence, even if I don't have any level design there.
last night i drew a good portion of the item sprites
still need to do a few more, but they look okay to me at least
oh yeah i also did a full playthrough (sans finale) last night i guess that's worth mentioning
oh, sans is at the finale, that's cool
All item sprites have been drawn, I made some adjustments to the physics, and I fixed the saves.
Still no tiling, enemies, music, or final area, but I think it's at the point where I could give it to people to beta test.
(Note: For some reason, the intro cutscene replays every time you load a save. Weird bug.)
here's some unrealistic expectations for how good this is gonna look:
009-tiling-at-last-2x.png
very well dogged, rt :smug:
gotta have this ready by thursday evening
cutting it close...
I watched the stream; all I can say is lol
glad you liked it :smug:
After this, I'm tempted to host something like this for myself, since as of this coming October we'll be celebrating 5 years of Samantha Arantes --- a Sam Jam, if you will.
it'd be for any form of art, not just hax
thoughts?