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I took a stab at it, even though it's twice as big as the limit   Edit: Update on last page. Kith fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jan 30, 2018 |
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Jan 30, 2018 02:46
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| # ? May 10, 2024 00:19 |
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Weeble posted:I'm kinda sad you couldn't actually finish the level with Rattley. Are there even any vanilla DKC2 levels that you can finish while transformed? It might not actually be possible. The levels in those last four videos must have been an absolute slog to play through. They were, however, really hilarious to watch. This is probably the worst world of the bunch when it comes to ideas that could be workable with better level design. Many of the earlier levels could be made tolerable by just adding more DK barrels, but levels like Endless Elevator or Traumatic Tunnel still wouldn't be much more playable. I did like the King Zings being used as regular enemies, complete with his three movement patterns. We're not likely to see more bosses just thrown into levels but it was a genuinely funny surprise to see him there.
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Jan 31, 2018 02:25
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Considering the original game is so finely tuned and crafted, how did the Cat of Nine Tails even make it into the game in the first place? It seems barely finished. It's like they were getting ready to ship the game, then some programmer burst out of the office and ran after the truck shouting "I WANT TO MAKE A CAT."
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Jan 31, 2018 10:07
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Brofessor Slayton posted:Are there even any vanilla DKC2 levels that you can finish while transformed? It might not actually be possible. Judging from the last set of videos it is not, in fact, possible to hit the goalpost transformed.
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Jan 31, 2018 11:04
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magikid posted:Considering the original game is so finely tuned and crafted, how did the Cat of Nine Tails even make it into the game in the first place? It seems barely finished. It's no secret that most game dev projects are sort of clusterfucks, so as frustrating as they are, it's not a surprise Cat o' Nine Tails made it into the game in a fairly rough state, I suppose. They are still, by far, one of my least favorite inclusions in the entire game, being buggy, ugly, and inconsistent as all hell. Fortunately I think they only appear in two levels in the base game, but of course a romhack is completely enamored with them and includes them in every other level.
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Jan 31, 2018 15:04
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magikid posted:Considering the original game is so finely tuned and crafted, how did the Cat of Nine Tails even make it into the game in the first place? It seems barely finished. Games typically have an awful lot of cut content -- things that get worked on, tried out, don't work, and don't make it into the final product. I assume that was the destiny for the Cat of Nine Tails, but somewhere near the end of development they found themselves coming up short on level gimmicks, so they shrugged, grabbed it (as being better than whatever other horrible half-finished ideas they had lying around), and just tried to set up the level design so that the cat's poor implementation wasn't too obvious. So it's not so much "I WANT TO MAKE A CAT" as "We're two weeks from ship, management says I need to design another swamp level, but I'm also swamped (har) working on the next game, so I guess I'll just poo poo out something with that stupid cat."
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Jan 31, 2018 21:29
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I wouldn't be surprised if one of the developers loved the pun so much that they insisted on putting it in.
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Feb 1, 2018 05:43
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It's time for a home invasion. Super Mario Land Two DX: Episode 05 - Macro Zone
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Feb 1, 2018 15:32
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get that OUT of my face posted:I wouldn't be surprised if one of the developers loved the pun so much that they insisted on putting it in. This is Rare, so yeah
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Feb 1, 2018 19:30
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Okay I just saw Endless Elevator and now believe the level designer has an untreated mental illness.
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Feb 1, 2018 20:53
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Today we reach the end of the simple romhack and take the fight back to Wario. Super Mario Land Two DX: Episode 06 - Finale Edit: Sound is now included. I apologize for the inconvenience. Doseku fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Feb 5, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 22:05
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Your video is missing sound.
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Feb 4, 2018 22:17
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Well crap. I'll fix that thanks.
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Feb 4, 2018 23:27
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And here's the end of Hacks 101 Sorry for taking so long to post the last update. I was having some nasty audio desync issues, but I sorted it out eventually. In the final episode we go over what not to do and make fun of the wacky dirt some more. I hope everyone enjoyed the ride, because it was super nostalgic for me going through this again.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:48
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I was laughing very hard the whole way through. Great job and thank you, you two. Is it bad I enjoyed the "bad"
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Feb 9, 2018 04:59
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Bad Palits was a masterpiece.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:47
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You gotta pause in the bonus game to see where you need to hit the blocks! (Thanks, Nintendo Power, probably.)
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Feb 9, 2018 06:29
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Behold, the Lost World! It's...not nearly as bad as you were expecting, frankly. Really, this was a better world 6 than whatever garbage he actually put in K. Rool's Keep. Lost World (1) Lost World (2)
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Feb 9, 2018 08:19
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I know in DKC you can have 2 Enguarde's on the screen at the same time, and if you accelerate Quawks quick enough you can have 2 of them on the screen, no problem.
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Feb 9, 2018 16:01
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Wow, hahaha, Clapper as an obstacle is obscenely rude.
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Feb 9, 2018 20:39
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That underwater castle section sounded like a goddamn dial-up modem at times.
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Feb 10, 2018 00:52
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That bit was hilarious. Do tilesets pair up with a given set of soundfonts as well, such that using sprite objects in the wrong level type reference incorrect sounds? I can't think of why else that would happen, and I find it amazingly weird. Like, I'm not familiar with this being A Thing, but I guess it normally wouldn't come up...
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Feb 10, 2018 01:32
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I think it's related to sound channels and the fact that games typically work only as well as they need to. Super Metroid hacks occasionally have sound effect problems with sprites when they're used in areas with music they aren't normally going to be paired with. Metroids and Mocktroids for example required specific music tracks for their sound effects to load correctly, otherwise you get weird sounds playing instead.
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Feb 10, 2018 01:44
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Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
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Feb 10, 2018 01:52
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I found the water suddenly draining in the Enguard section (the first time) to be really hilarious for some reason.
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Feb 10, 2018 02:58
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Native Spirits actually looked fun.
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Feb 10, 2018 03:18
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Shady Amish Terror posted:That bit was hilarious. Do tilesets pair up with a given set of soundfonts as well, such that using sprite objects in the wrong level type reference incorrect sounds? I can't think of why else that would happen, and I find it amazingly weird. Like, I'm not familiar with this being A Thing, but I guess it normally wouldn't come up... Presumably it's tied to the music. The sound processor in the SNES is literally another CPU, running its own little program. That's why it's possible to "rip SPCs:" they're literally little programs, running on a co-processor. Generally the program running on the sound processor pulls double-duty: it plays the music for the area, but it's also in charge of playing sound effects when the main processor tells it to.
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Feb 10, 2018 03:31
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Color Printer posted:I found the water suddenly draining in the Enguard section (the first time) to be really hilarious for some reason. Just having to thrust forward on dry land to try and crawl away from the zinger was really bad design, but also pretty funny.
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Feb 10, 2018 03:53
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It probably works in a similar way to the way sound works in Pokemon RBY. There are pointers to specific sounds, but they rely on the correct sound bank (chunk of sound data, basically) being loaded into RAM. If a different sound bank is loaded (which is almost always dependent on the current music track since that needs to play continuously), the pointer probably doesn't point to sound data correctly, so it just takes what it finds, looks at it and goes "yeah that's a sound" and spits it out. It probably works like this in a lot of old games, that was just the only example I knew for sure 
Color Printer fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Feb 10, 2018 |
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Feb 10, 2018 04:12
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Color Printer posted:It probably works in a similar way to the way sound works in Pokemon RBY. There are pointers to specific sounds, but they rely on the correct sound bank (chunk of sound data, basically) being loaded into RAM. If a different sound bank is loaded (which is almost always dependent on the current music track since that needs to play continuously), the pointer probably doesn't point to sound data correctly, so it just takes what it finds, looks at it and goes "yeah that's a sound" and spits it out. Yeah. I don't know a lot about it but that seems to be what's happening. If there's a sound in the correct place, it will be played as normal and all is good. If the game tries to pull a sound effect for an enemy that is normally found under a different level/music set, it will play whatever sound it finds in that location instead. 16 minutes into the Crocodile Cauldron video you can hear green krockeads making a sound that's (iirc) normally only heard during the Kutlass battle. Sinking krockheads are found in the swamps but not in any place that plays the lava music (which is what's playing here) so I guess it is the music track that determines the library? If there isn't any sound data at all in the location the SPU tries to dig it from you just get garbled noise as it attempts to translate whatever data is in there into sound, like with those water enemies in the castle. Also Artix please enjoy this cover of Hot Head Bop by Poop Poop Fart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWa6gVunVLE Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Feb 10, 2018 |
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Feb 10, 2018 05:09
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Mak0rz posted:Also Artix please enjoy this cover of Hot Head Bop by Poop Poop Fart God I love this guy's covers. They sound so faithful to the real songs but just super high quality.
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Feb 10, 2018 05:35
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Yeah, I feel real dumb for not immediately realizing that that was the answer now, because I already knew about the concept of a soundbank and I already knew enough from emulation stuff and videos about console hardware that I should have realized it was just whatever nonsense happened to be in the soundbank associated with that music track. For some reason I had a brain fart and failed to connect the dots.Mak0rz posted:Also Artix please enjoy this cover of Hot Head Bop by Poop Poop Fart Also, yes, that is real good cover; they've done several others that are worth listening to as well, but I love the bubbling in this one.
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Feb 10, 2018 05:50
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Taking a drink when you die appears to have been a bad idea. I'm nearly through my plum wine and it's only 14 minutes in the first video. EDIT: I wisely did not refill my drink to continue. I'd have had at least four times as much as I did and I don't want to wake up with a hangover. Shei-kun fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 10, 2018 |
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Feb 10, 2018 09:43
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By the way, since FPzero brought it up in the video, I checked to see how the game responded to combining animal crates and the transform barrels and the answer is.......nothing special. If you hop into an animal buddy barrel riding another, whether they're the same or not, it just turns you into the correct buddy and the one you're riding is lost. If you break open an a crate while an animal buddy is being ridden or you are transformed, nothing is inside. If you are not yet on or transformed into an animal buddy, you can open multiple buddies from crates but you can't interact with them while you're riding or transformed. also i guess enguarde breaks in levels that don't have specific water areas. enguarde, please EDIT: I got bumped by a Klobber and now Enguarde can't move or do anything (also i can't pause?) Color Printer fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Feb 11, 2018 |
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Feb 10, 2018 20:56
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That cannonball castle level was actually pretty cool.
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Feb 10, 2018 21:44
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And so our journey comes to a close. I'd give some closing thoughts, but really, what else is there to say? It's okay at best, downright unplayable at worst, and spends most of its time wallowing in the "disappointing" end of the scale due to a combination of poor level design or over-reliance on enemy spam. The levels where he eases up and lets the platforming be the show (see: the ice level that worked like Toxic Tower) are actually really good! Just a shame about everything else. The Flying Krock
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Feb 20, 2018 07:49
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I love that you jumped on the first hot air balloon and immediately jumped off and went the other way without a word. Just nope nope nope. I think this romhack had the exact same problem most of the bad levels in VLDC had, in that the level designers just don't understand the game they're designing for. These games give you two hits or so and have a single mid-level checkpoint and that's it. The obstacles are supposed to be more spaced out and manageable because the system makes each one way more potentially punishing. But this hack throws poo poo at you like it's trying to be a Megaman game and then takes away what little forgiveness for error you could have had with DK barrels. Even Megaman drops healing for you every so often in case you have to just brute force something. At the end it was basically asking you to play Super Meat Boy with only five lives, very long levels and a long wait between retries. That still doesn't cover stuff like the level where enemies just randomly drop on you from offscreen. All that says to me is that the romhacker is rather, well, stupid on top of not knowing the game he's working on. What, you have a better explanation?
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Feb 20, 2018 10:22
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magikid posted:All that says to me is that the romhacker is rather, well, stupid on top of not knowing the game he's working on. What, you have a better explanation? Yep. Game design is a skill, and one that the highly technical hackers (that you need to get a hack to exist at all) simply don't have. You see this pattern all the time, especially with games that have limited or no hacking community. The first efforts are spent on just figuring out how the system works and being able to change anything, anything at all, without breaking the game horribly. Then people start figuring out how to make larger-scale changes, and eventually you get the first really ambitious person who manages to more-or-less productionize the process and make a total overhaul hack. But even though they're building on a lot of prior work (possibly their own work), it's still a huge amount of technical effort -- that is, not just deciding what to do, but figuring out how to get the game to do it. Not to mention, since it is the first really large-scale overhaul, it's impossible for the hacker to have prior experience at making levels for the game. The best you can hope for is that they have experience at making levels for some other game(s). I would say that pretty much invariably, the first total-overhaul hacks are bad, from a gameplay perspective. The biggest value they provide is that they lay the groundwork for future, better hacks.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:35
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I'm having flashbacks to the time I did Squawks section of Animal Antics as Squitter and all of a sudden I need a drink
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Feb 20, 2018 17:16
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| # ? May 10, 2024 00:19 |
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Cat o' Nine Hells would be my first choice for the silver Cat.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:32
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