DarkSeed proto: Improvements , what can be done?

[dragonpt]

So i totally felt in love with this proto game that NeoTurfMasta found out

original thread here:
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...OUND-REVEALED-amp-RELEASED-quot-DarkSeed-quot

unfortunately its very incompleted :
-No sounds whatsoever
-missing sprites/ incomplete sprites
-Missing counter / power bars
-etc


Since i don't want to polute ( even more) .. the original thread im opening this one to gather opinions / feedback, maybe even learn something from the masters

i know this may be in vain to some extent, since there's some things we can't "fix" without source code

But i want to give it a shot and see what can be done

i've been researching for the past months everything that is related to neo-geo "hacking" like messing with sprites, moding some gfx stuff


So far i've been around the game counter/power bars:

- first thing first: it was very time consuming to lean how to work with the neogeo programs that are available,
and then to get the right "coordinates " of the power bar and counter in-game but once i got it:

https://imgur.com/sZZMsgg
https://imgur.com/EiZFGUr


and messing with the colours here:
https://imgur.com/Ms7imF1
https://imgur.com/PJVEcGA

i think the later is way better, opinions?



for this stuff im using this great tool from Spek, an Spanish guy

every single number is 2x4 squares (tiles) that needs to be edited ( so 8 total/ number)


cheers
And thanks again NTM by finding this gem and releasing it

 

[SuperGun]

I saw your posts in the original thread. The replies to them were unnecessarily defensive. Here is some positive input for you.

Firstly, change the NGH number to 099 (the nearest unused number to it) or to 09D (with D representing 4) or whatever else, but don’t leave it at 094 (if you put lots of time & effort into this) as it will cause confusion with the debug & uni bios as well as memory card support, etc. Every game should always have its own unique number; even protos, homebrews, hacks, etc.

Second, use Voltage Fighter and Money Puzzle Exchanger as your “foundations” and “repositories” from which to borrow, recycle, or reuse code from. Such as the missing S1 rom for example. Reason being, the previous programming team was doing just that, so things may line up & match up best that way. (such as fonts, colors, small sprites, and other items often utilized in the fix layers found there. This not only might save you work, but it may also be the closest approximation to what might have been intended (and used) for the game. (but suffered the unfortunate data loss)

Lastly, just like Raz utilized CS1 music as the best substitute for CS2 music, use Voltage Fighter & Exchanger for this as well.

As was stated before, by deactivating a marker, the game can boot up “normal” rather then straight into the debug mode screen, and then at that point, you can have the boot up jingle and implement a title screen, etc. No reason you can’t make it at the very least a more presentable & playable game with just these things alone. And once you get it that far, no doubt it may inspire others who are more technically proficient (but less motivated with the game in its current state) to step up and take it the rest of the way; such as finishing the incomplete characters, programming an intro, cut scenes, ending, etc. (the sky is the limit really at that point)

Anyhow, thanks for spending your time on this. And good luck to you.

 

[NeoTurfMasta]

The replies to them were unnecessarily defensive.

Yes, I sure was a little defensive. I wanted to make things perfectly clear that I did not withhold or modify ROM data. I never want to be associated with people who do that.

I wish dragonpt all the best of luck, and I hope he is able to improve DarkSeed.

 

[dragonpt]

Hi

Thanks for the feedback

In their defense , I wasn't very clear, sorry for that

The aim of this, isn't making one big hack, we all hate hacks, for real,
I just want to try and make the game more playable as I really enjoy playing it.

I'm an beginner at best on this things, and indeed I've been using mainly Voltage Fighter s1 stuff as base.

So far ( and this is time consuming , to find the right locations )

-Did the life/power bar
- time counter
- " combo hit"
- and yesterday finnaly found all the coordinates on s1 fix layer for all the characters names on the " character " selection screen .

As for the sprites, that's something I really need to dig better

There's some sprites that are totally feasible to be made:

1: some sprites only lacks colors ( and we can just add the proper characters color )
2: there's at least one char that only has sprites walking right to left, so its just an matter of rotating those sprites to have the sprites for both " directions "
Etc

Cheers

 

[kingcuckmelon1]

Much respect for putting the hard work in on this, all the best. I'll be watching.

 

[dragonpt]

Hi thanks for the feedback

the WIP status

Chars names :
https://imgur.com/4mkcG1r

note: i know it's " Chal & Kyal " need to find a proper " & " and to see if i find some better fonts

Ingame power/life bars & counter:
life bar is from voltage fighter gowcaizer ( with some modifications to fit here the best, the counter will be changed with the VFG one)

also the "hit counter"

https://imgur.com/t5nYjse
https://imgur.com/C4ZCexR


around this for another hour or so today... til i go work...
Cheers

edit:

some bigger fonts ( looks bad )
https://imgur.com/2WH9Ibc

edit2:

cleaner fonts

https://imgur.com/iFuPP72

 

[dragonpt]

ok call me an idiot or whatever, but sometimes it's these simple things that make us happy

https://imgur.com/z9oPCps
https://imgur.com/leELOhb
https://imgur.com/gogo8jY
https://imgur.com/wxuOnIJ
https://imgur.com/vVSey78
https://imgur.com/ea5g9HE
https://imgur.com/II1jp6K
https://imgur.com/n9fuBRD
https://imgur.com/3zfj4NI

cheers

EDIT: found some sweet SWEET STUFF while debugging more the graphics part... so much i didnt went to work

preparing pics ...

 

[dragonpt]

Game had Character classes (Chaotic Neutral Lawful) graphics at the bottom

While debugging even more the graphics ...

this show up ( at the bottom ) :
https://imgur.com/LEeGeVT
https://imgur.com/HiecWxW

so what graphics where here?
after playing around i noticed something....





Lets play with Rod and Gallo
( CHAOS default class)

https://imgur.com/KQk4hHw
https://imgur.com/ItNgMS2

see the lenght and BLUE color?






Lets now play with Judo and Maxmillian
( LAW default class )

https://imgur.com/Pn7RPYe
https://imgur.com/KF6AdfW

Now, lenght changed and it's RED color







Lets play with chal & Kyal and Tear & wolf
( Neutral default class )

https://imgur.com/368Znla
https://imgur.com/c9iU6o8

diff lenght again and now GREEN color





All 3 different classes characters, had it's own different graphics at the bottom


perharps some kind of "per-class power bar " ?




This is awesome !

cheers

 

[SuperGun]

Thank you for these updates. Your progressing with this very well, which is excellent, but please pace yourself or you might burn out! And don’t neglect your work!

It’s interesting how they had so much variety & options planned for when choosing your fighter for the game. Reminds me of the later Samurai Showdown “treachery & chivalry” selections. I think the power bar & timer are looking good. One of those last pics you posted even looked like it had some shading effects added to it.

 

[kingcuckmelon1]

This is fantastic, did we know the characters names before this? "Head Counter" would have been an amazing sprite.

 

[dragonpt]

Thanks

I'm really happy doing this
Have finally been around sprites ( finnaly ) took a bit of time to learn how to work with the tools.

The goal with sprites, its not doing new ones, but fixing the color pallets , or no color at all in some chars.

There's some awesome sprites on C files ( c1+c2) that unfortunately didn't made it to be used on this prototype build, NTM has talked about a bit about this matter already


Cheers

 

[Xian Xi]

Great job dude, keep it up.

 

[Geddon_jt]

Very excited to see where this ends up, great job

 

[blotter12]

Awesome job. Keep up the great work!

 

[geladobom]

Fantastic Job!

 

[dragonpt]

Hi
since i had some requests, and please forgive me ( mod team ) if this isn't allowed PM me and i'll remove this .

This is a modification to the s1 allowing some cool stuff to be shown like chars names, combos, life bar...
This is fan made, only to those who really want to play this on an emu, also, to have a glimpse of how the game would possibly look like

How to use:
replace the s1 from the original rom, with this one ( i use WinKawaks emu )

s1.zip | by superdragonpt for Generic Device/Other

Download GApps, Roms, Kernels, Themes, Firmware, and more. Free file hosting for all Android developers.

www.androidfilehost.com

Cheers