Forum posts

Beta 3 (same as the version from Thursday): https://drive.google.com/open?id=13qQUVXQ6Me6a2vxZ6_m0qahgf-KJW5lO

Changes:
- Add some prerequisites to certain levels to increase the average number of tunnels that can have a boss
- Make upgrade graphics correctly reflect their items
- Randomize boss music with other music
- Support using wall 1+2 to pass through level 5 in the randomization logic
- Prevent using crusher to bypass hyper gate keeper
- Add Randomize Powerup Quantities option
- Add Wall 2 Last option to make most seeds 100% (at least barring use of exploits).
- Add Fix Exploits option that fixes the level 5 boss room exploit (more to come)
- Add Safe Mode option to hopefully prevent softlock scenarios when using Infinite Lives. However, this significantly reduces randomization, so it is recommended that it only be used with Infinite Lives, and only if you are not experienced enough to know not to go places you don't have the upgrades to get out of unless you have checked every other tunnel, as the randomizer will not put bosses there unless they give the needed upgrade.

Some major features currently being worked on:
- Randomize boss stats and add progression system that makes later bosses harder than earlier bosses
- Randomized dungeon layout
- All Bosses mode where all bosses must be killed to finish the game and upgrades are not given by bosses but found elsewhere in the level
- Fixes to additional bugs (harmful glitches) and exploits
- Investigating ways to reduce lag in the original game

New version for this week: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-NZttZ-k6K3DR2OuYZUZbrIuTxJ3d0j7

Not a large amount of changes, as most work was spent reverse-engineering (including for future stuff), rather than implementing:
- Enemy (but not yet boss) stats randomized
- Added options for random music, random lives, infinite lives, and infinite continues
- Fixed issues that created uncompletable level 7s
- Boss 8-1 can now appear in other levels

NOTE: While it should never generate an uncompletable seed (that'd be a bug), there are places where careless exploration can get you into places you can't get out with your current items (e.g. below the crusher blocks in level 5 without dive). Bosses should never be located in such places unless the boss provides the item to get out, so it's advisable to only explore such locations when all other options have already been exhausted, to avoid having to intentionally die or game over to get out.

There's still a ton of stuff on the todo list (more than is already implemented). Much more to come.

...hyper? What does hyper do in level 5?

Yeah. Right now I exploit the fact that every level has at least one tunnel accessible without any special items to simplify the algorithm by choosing what powerups go in what levels before choosing where the boss will be, rather than integrating the functions to choose level layout, powerup configuration, and boss locations into a single really complicated algorithm. This makes things much simpler, but I suspect will make certain locations (e.g. the first tunnel in level 5) much more common as boss locations than they really should be.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, I think I know a fairly easy way to generate seeds that have a larger number of possible boss locations in some levels. Simply make crusher a prerequisite for levels 5 and 7, and dive a corequisite for 5, with some probability. That'll significantly increase the likelihood of a seed having multiple locations to check for every level.

Oh yeah, here are the the tables used in determining completable level/powerup configurations. Hopefully you can figure out my shorthand; I should mention that tunnels are named according to screen/room X,Y (0-7) as determined by looking in ReMaster. Let me know if you see any errors in the data.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/528035919874359305/563875099195998230/Tables.xlsx

@Skavenger216 Do you know whether it was necessary to go down there to find the boss (or have the seed to check)? It shouldn't be possible for the boss to spawn in a location you can't get to or can't get out of, but if it did I'll have to look into that as a bug.

I'm planning on adding additional rooms (and coopting existing rooms) to use to randomize where the boss is in the overhead view. Boss items are already divorced from bosses (though changing the item graphics is todo). I'd also like to edit the levels so there's at least 2 ways to get to each gateway, to allow for strategic gambles by runners on where to go next. But even without that, when I first prototyped the algorithm for arranging levels and powerups I was surprised to find there are about 1400 completable level (i.e. what gateways go to what levels) and powerup configurations (not including all the other stuff that can be randomized). I'll also eventually make it not uniformly random, with more costly locations having a higher chance of having a boss (so the cost:average benefit ratio is about the same for all the tunnels).

Let me know if you see people stream it. I love to watch people play my stuff

Also, I'm open to ideas how to randomize enemies, especially in the side-scroller sections. I'd really like to avoid hard-coding a set of possible substitions for every single enemy, but with so many vertical and vertical-horizontal platforming settings a lot of the time a given enemy can only be swapped with certain others in a context-dependent manner.

I've got a list of additional things to add, but what do you think of making water in 4/7 instant death even if you are in iframes? It seems like an exploit to me (similar to 4 of the bosses taking damage during pause).

As far as I can tell the Japanese and US versions use the same mapper (1).

Request: One of you pro runners to take this to GDQ

My new project is at the point of showing off: a Blaster Master randomizer. While I could give a list of what is randomized (in fact I had done just that before deleting it and writing this sentence), I think it would be more fun to try it and discover for yourselves.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Gw2qAiV6WbOb0h9ATmXjitzuDwHBBd0z
It requires the Blaster Master (U).nes ROM, with CRC32 52bcf64a.

There’s a lot more I’ve had planned from the beginning, but ran out of time to implement stuff before this weekend. There’s a bunch more I intend to randomize. I’d also like to fix some bugs and exploits in the original game. The title screen also needs to give the seed number and options, for use in competitions. And finally, the entire GUI was made in a few hours prior to release, and could use some more polish.

Two questions.

1. Does anybody still run this? Would there be enough interest to justify the effort to make a Blaster Master randomizer (yes I'm talking about myself, not suggesting "somebody" should do it)?

2. Is this game even feasible to make as a randomizer version? While answers need not be limited to this, one thing I'm particularly concerned with is how many dead end overhead zones there are; would randomizing boss locations within zones make runs unreasonably long?

Trying to get an idea of whether it would be worth the effort to make a (better) Metroid II randomizer based on EJRTQ (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4388/)

Final version: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4388/

All that's really changed from the last one is that various miscolored tiles have been fixed, and hidden passages are hidden again.

Couldn't help myself and went straight into implementing a bunch of new stuff on the wish list. The wish list is now empty for this release and all that's needed is as much testing as you can give it. See readme for full details.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/490065800225488916/526401163151671296/metroid_ii_-_color_ejrtq_v1.3_beta.zip

Again, let me know what you think or if you run into any issues. And if any of you record a video of a full run let me know the link.

Aaaand beta is live. There are still a couple things I want to fix before leaving beta (see readme), but it's fully playable. I'm starting to work on fixing the screen fade issue right now, and should have it fixed today or tomorrow. If I can ever find a way to reproduce the other issue I will be all over that.

I didn't get an answer to whether it's allowed to post links to ROM patches, so I guess we're gonna try it and find out.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/490065800225488916/519356964724277248/m2ejrt_fix.zip

Please give it a try and let me know if you like it and whether you encounter any issues not mentioned in the readme.

Oh, and if you make any YouTube videos of runs, post them so I can narcissistically watch them.

Almost done; a minor bug and some code cleanup and it's ready to go. Per feedback I've kept the timing the same as the original game. What is this site's policy with regard to posting ROM patches? Am I allowed to post links to patches, or do I just notify you guys when I release it and let you find it yourselves?

Hi, all.

I'm in the middle of making a colorization of Metroid 2 (see for work in progress teaser). I'd love to see it eventually used by the speedrun community, and I have some relevant questions.

First of all, does the speedrun community use colorization mods at all, or is it entirely orthodox? And if so, what requirements might that place on my mod? E.g. the GBC has hardware that allows it to copy data into graphics memory much faster than the GB, and I may later on take advantage of this for loading during screen transitions. Would this be an issue for use of it in speedrunning, as it would be faster than the original (e.g. each screen transition that involves a fadeout could be 0.5-1 second faster)? Any other issues I should be aware of?

If you really want an exotic experience, I can provide GG/PAR codes that cap your health at 1 and remove all heart tanks from the game (sub tanks too, but they're useless anyway when your health only goes up to 1)..