The Conquest of West Side Island

Hey you guys, Maverick Kay Prime here! Posting what can only be described as my first hack. Mod... or whatever you wanna call it...

Yup, it's my first hack of Sonic 2. The one I had talked about earlier (if you came across that post). This is Shadow and Rouge in Sonic 2, or as I like to call it, The Conquest of West Side Island. Interesting name, I know.

This is just an extreme beta, however. This isn't anywhere near the final version of the hack, just so ya'know. But it's more far along than one of my earlier files of the hack, I'll tell ya that much.

So why am I posting what will clearly be a work in progress? Well, I what yous guys's opinions on things. Being so new to it, I'd like some help and ideas on what I should do, add, change, and so on. Not to mention I'd love some help (there are quite the few glitches in this, some I know about, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot more I don't know about).

Anyway, let me explain some things about my hack, starting with the characters.

Shadow is different from Sonic. Shadow jumps lower but runs faster. Also, thanks to selbi's jump-dash code, I was able to give Shadow a double-jump of his own. But it has it's own weird glitch. I'll explain that later...

Rouge on the other hand is the complete same as Tails. I haven't changed her physics and attributes yet. At least not in this file.

Emerald Hill Zone has had it's changes. I changed it's palette is different (it being darker to give off the illusion of night), and the background has had it's clouds removed. I want to change more, but I'm still learning Sonlvl. Which is what I use.

The first act of Emerald Hill Zone has been changed, by the way. It's completely different, and you'll see how it is when you play.

I've also changed the palette (and one certain area) in Chemical Plant Zone. But god is the palette blinding; even I'll admit that. I was trying to give it a 'daytime' feel in comparison to Emerald Hill, but it didn't go over too well. I'll change it in the future.

The music has also been changed; I've replaced it with 2-player modes Mystic Cave Zone. I have no idea how to use a sound diver, and my research of it has proven it to be confusing, so I'll save adding and changing music for later.

Now, on to the glitches.

There are some areas in Act 1 of Emerald Hill Zone where you can run through the walls. Collision is a mother, and I don't know how to change it. I'll - hopefully - fix it in the future.

The Star Post don't work. Like at all. Star Posts I have added into the stage with SonLvl are always blinking like they've been passed. I don't know how to turn them into an 'off' state. I'm pretty sure my lack of knowledge on SonLvl is what's causing this. Any help would be most thankful.

Shadow's double-jump doesn't always work. I think it has something to do with touching foot on solid ground. For the most part it works, until you land on a platform that can be stood on, but doesn't have actual collision in the stage. Like a floating platform. If Shadow jumps on it after using a double-jump, he can't jump off of it, and use another double-jump. Which can kill you. You'll see when you play the stage.

Also, because I changed the music in Emerald Hill zone, when you get a 1-up, the 1-up sound doesn't play. Instead, this weird and eerie music plays, and then everything goes dead silent. Nothing plays until you beat the stage. Scary stuff...

Other than that, that's all I have on my hack so far. Hopefully you guys can help me out with my problems, as well as help me grow. I plan on changing all the stages in the game, but for now, let's take it one step at a time.

But above all, I hope you enjoy. Even if it's just to laugh at my poor work.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/perw1nq5xd24hf8/s2built.bin?dl=0

 

You post a hack, you post screenshots too.

 

Oh... how do you post screen shots?

I seriously have no idea how any of this works...

 

Like this:

Code:

[IMG]%7Boption%7D[/IMG]<IMAGE URL>

 

 

Like this? I hope it worked...

By the by, how do you change the life counter? I don't know what file it is in the disassembly, if it is in the disassembly...

 

I'm really glad to see more Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles hacks be done. The variety is increasing and it is a nice breath of fresh air. I was even more impressed to see Shadow and Rouge in this. I can't think of the last time Rouge was in a Sonic hack. Major props for that! You pretty much mentioned the glitches that were very prominent and I really hope they are fixed at some point. The backgrounds seem to be okay and the sprite work on the characters seems to be well done.

As for level design I'm not sure why there are Coconuts grabbing onto walls. It doesn't make too much sense considering they're supposed to grab onto trees and not walls but that's just me. It just seems weird in my opinion. I don't understand why there's so many pits or a free 1-up right at the beginning either.

Other than that I like the amount of potential that is in this and I do look forward to seeing further improvements on this in the future.

 

First, make a screen shot in the emulator (there should be an option for it in the menus, and a corresponding folder in the emulators folder). Then, use this site. Upload the images, then when it's done, copy the "direct link", click on the image button in the post editor, and paste the link. That's how I always make screen shots. Anyways, to the hack:

GENERAL COMMENTS

1. The character sprites aren't particularly bad, but some frames look odd, particularly Rouges jumping/rolling sprites, Shadows spring sprite, and Shadows walking and running sprites (the later of which has odd garbled looking stuff around his feet; if this is supposed to be dust or skids, it looks all wrong, and you should probably fix or remove it).
2. Shadow can't double jump from a platform. I actually have a fix for this, PM me if your interested.
3. Your, "getting a life" theme seems to mess up the sound driver; carefully read through this, the life theme is supposed to have a special flag at the end to return to the normal music playing mode.
4. The text all still refers to Sonic and Tails. For the options screen, go to "byte_97CA", all the text can be edited right there. As for the results screen, try Selbis' Sonic 2 Text Code Generator; it's not perfect, but it's better then nothing.
5. Shadows abilities are actually kind of interesting to play; it feels like a weird spin on knuckles gameplay, and I personally kinda like it.

EMERALD HILL ZONE

1. For starters, the palettes look nice here. I really like them
2. Death Pits. EVERYWHERE. The first rule of sonic hacking should be no death pits in the first level. No exceptions. The only time they ever appeared in a first level in the originals was in GHZ, and that was arguably accidental.
3. there are a couple dick moves here and there. If you playthrough and find that you hit one specific thing on nearly every playthrough, that probably means you should remove it.
4. The coconuts enemies are blindly placed everywhere. There are two important things about this badnik your ignoring; A., they're really annoying and should be placed sparingly, and B. they need to be hanging onto a part of the level, like trees or the side of a wall; they look very strange otherwise.
5. As you pointed out, all the signposts are broken. You need to give them a subtype; the default subtype, 0, renders them dysfunctional. Make sure you set each one to a different subtype between 1 and 9, and make them go in order from 1 to 9 from the beginning of the level to the end; when you pass a higher subtype starpost, it disables the ones with lower subtypes, so backtracking doesn't force you to start from a previous checkpost.
6. I know I'm repeating myself, but the deathpits make this level practically impossible; that's not what a first level is for. Remove all of them!

CHEMICAL PLANT

1. You're right; your chemical plant palette does suck... Why did you leave it in? Surely, you could just revert back to the original palette...

SPECIAL STAGES

1. Unchanged... I guess I wasn't expecting too much, anyway...

It has potential, but the edited layouts and a few technical issue need a lot of work.

EDIT: Wow, super ninja'd XD

 

When taking screenshots...


Also, you should put your screenshots in the your first post of your thread here.

 

Thanks a lot Pacguy64. I swear, you've been a lot of help for me since I've started.

Interesting thing about the death pits; I didn't mean to put so many of them in there. Sonlvl (what I use to hack my stages) doesn't tell me where the death line is. At least, I have no clue if it does. Most of the death pits were placed there because my stage goes too low. But you're right; there are way too many.

The only dick move I purposely put was that Buzzer after the first long spring away. Heh, heh...

Anyway, thanks for all the help; I'll be sure to start changing some things later on.

By the way, Pacguy64. I was interested in the way your special stages sent the player to some other zone, and not the Sonic 2 Special Stage Zone. I might ask you about it later.

 

Me being me, I use the Super Sonic cheat and played to see if the Super Sonic sprites were replaced, which unfortunately were not, Also CPZ's pallette is terrible, you may need to fix those, overall, I rate this: 5/10. I understand this is your first Sonic hack, so I decided to go easy on you.

 

Hey guys!

I just wanted to say I've updated this hack, so far as what I've had originally. For anyone who thought I had vanished (which might be a small few) I have been working on the hack. And, recently, I've made some improvements, specifically from taking what you all said here before. So, without further adieu, let me list the changes!

First off, the intro screen!



It's so off center it hurts...

I was able to change that, which while simple, really does warm my heart. I know it's off center, but for now it's a win. I'm keeping it as is, unless I find a way to center it so it isn't so trashy...

Next, the options screen!



I changed the options screen so it says Shadow and Rouge, instead of Sonic and Tails, and so on and so forth.

But enough about that. That's all simple stuff. Let me show you the things I've added and fixed so far.

First off, with help from Pacguy, I was able to fix Shadow's broken double-jump. Now it works when you jump on false platforms and what not. Secondly, a lot of areas where you can run into walls in the first zone has been changed so you can't run into them anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if you can still find some, however. The second zone has been changed as well, though very minor. The only thing majorly changed is the fight against Robotnik. You'll see when you get there.

Now about other additions. First off, the victory text has been changed for both Shadow and Rouge.





Thanks to Selbi's text generator, text at the end of a level now says Shadow and Rouge instead of Sonic and Tails when they beat a stage. Well, at least for Rouge. For Shadow, it just says 'STH'. Why? Because not every letter for 'Shadow' works with the game. So what I get is 'Shao'... which sucks, but hey, whatcha gonna do? Emerald Hills front text has been changed too... kinda... I wanted it to say 'Emerald Nights' but it instead says 'Emerald Nhi--" and the rest is just random miss-mash of garbage. I know why it does that, but all attempts to fix it result in my build throwing a hissy-fit. It deals with that darn 'include "TitleCards_Setup.asm"' part of the tutorial. I haven't the slightest clue where to put it, because every time I try to follow the steps, my build goes nuts! So, until I figure out how to fix it, 'Emerald Nhi--' is here to stay.

Also newly added, this guy!





Super Shadow! Though he isn't complete yet. When doing things like jumping, he still turns black like regular Shadow. I know it has to deal with the palette, but my palette changing skills aren't the best. I know how to change palettes, but the super palette is something different. I don't want to mess with it until I know what I'm doing, so Shadow doesn't come out pink or something like that.

Now, on to other stuff that I don't need pictures to show.

As stated, the first zone has been changed. No longer does death pits follow you around like gnats. There's also a second path which is a lot easier than the bottom one. Maybe too easy. I might make it a tad bit harder, depending on what you guys think.

Chemical Plant Zone's ugly palette is still there, though admittedly, it has grown on me. I don't think I'll keep it in the final version (if there ever will be a final version) but for now it stays. Just like the last time, no zones have been changed yet. i'm taking things slowly so i don't completely muck everything up and be forced to start over.

Also, the music in the first zone is fixed. No longer will the game go Silent Hill when you get an extra life, or will the music slow down when you get speed up shoes(?). 

And I've aligned many sprites so they don't jitter about wildly. It's not 100% done, but its a lot better than it once was.

Here are a list of things I plan on fixing in the future. Because why not!?

• Shadow's top speed sprites. I've been told they don't look the cleanest. I plan on going back and making them not look weird around the legs.
• A lot of Rouge's sprites are still kinda off-center. I plan on - as said earlier - aligning them.
• The special stage sprites are still unfinished, and I do intend on changing them when I get sprites of Rouge and Shadow in Sonic 2's special stage. Yeah, wish me luck on that one. Might have to make them myself...
• If - for whatever reason - you persist with this game until the very end, the ending sprites haven't been changed either. For those, I have sprites, I just need to find those blasted mappings! It's wild in these disassemblies!
• For whatever reason, whenever Super Shadow runs up an angle (as in goes in in a 90 degree angle) then his sprites become screwed. I have no clue why, but it does make me laugh. Tend to fix those, of course.
• Lastly, whenever Super Shadow stands on a leg, he becomes Super Sonic, but with Super Shadow's head. That... just makes me laugh...
• Also, aligning the palettes so that Super Shadow has jumping sprites and what not.

Anyway, that's about it on this addition to the hack. Yeah, it still needs some work, but I'm getting there. I intend on eliminating Sonic and Tails from the game entirely. So far, that's nearly happened, though Shadow and Rouge's life counter still says 'Sonic' and 'Tails' respectfully. However, that's not the end of this! No, no! I have one more thing to say!

I am planning on making another hack, which is pretty much the same thing. With 'Conquest of West Side Island' I'm planning on changing stages and what not. However, my original goal was to make 'Shadow in Sonic 2'. So I've got something else going on at the same time as this hack. Another one which is - simply put - Shadow and Rouge in Sonic 2. No stage changes or anything; Just Shadow and Rouge replacing Tails and Sonic, with their own attributes and what not. But that's a story for another day.

I hope you guys can help me out with my hack some more. As usual, any help given is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thanks especially to Pacguy, who helped me a lot behind the scenes. Without his help, things might still be crappy looking, or crappy working.

Oh well, that's about it for now. Enjoy!

Just so you know, the link up there is the link that's changed. I'm not posting another one, unless I should...

 

This seems to bring up a red screen of death no matter what I do... Have you toyed around with the ROM header? That usually is what causes that type of crash.

 

It comes up with a red screen for me too in Kega Fusion but it works fine in Gens. One thing I like is that Shadow feels heavy with his low jump. Also, the loops don't work correctly.

 

I've got no real opinion on the hack besides; getting stuck in some of the loops, and some of the sprite frames being glitched or off positioned.  The sprites designs for what they are, are not too bad.

It seems though that the checksum is a real issue to some, which is the reason I'm posting a response.  I was however, going to wait for more progress.  The checksum can be fixed by changing the ROM size in the header (reducing it by 2).  Offset 0001A4 00200001 to 001FFFFF.  I suspect the reason Gens gets away with this, is likely because it clears data using 00's, thereas Kega clears data using FF's.

 

Thanks for the help you guys. I've changed the file so the checksum can (hopefully) work. I guess I should use a different emulator instead of Gens32, which is what I use.

Also, I know the loop-de-loops don't work properly. I swear, they're a real pain in my dorsal fin. I'm trying to fix those, by the way. Though, any help or tips is grateful.

 

I reccomend checking out how the loops in default EHZ work; they have special objects called path swappers set up around them, which can be really confusing to work with. Just using the setup from EH should do the trick.

 

Hey you guys! Remember me!?

No...? Well, I'm not really surprised. I started this hack some time ago, then just kinda left. I stopped working on it for a while, then just suddenly got the urge to start working on it. And so, here I am, ready to show off what (little) progress I made on the hack as of returning. I have to say, it did give me the kick I needed to start working on hacks again. It was fun, dare I say. But, now I digress...

Things that have changed:

1. I have decided to somewhat go backwards on my hack. If that makes no sense, bare with me, it does. I figured trying to do a complete change with different stages was gonna be kinda hard for a beginner (shocking, right?), so I figured it would be best to simply start things off simple.So, I decided to simply change the art, and try new and better things the further along I went with the hack. One can see that with the first zone, which has a different palette and background from the usual Emerald Hill Zone. I continued this with Chemical Plant Zone which originally just had an ugly palette, now has a new background. It was something I learned in Sonlvl (an amazing tool by the way), and have constantly been applying. I can't wait to start working on Aquatic Ruins Zone.

2. Rouge now has a double jump. Her's is different from Shadows, however. Shadow remains in a spin ball, while Rouge's comes out and thrusts with her wings. It was something I learned thanks to a tutorial online about animations (one that escapes me at this moment). Because Rouge uncurls, she's vulnerable, unlike Shadow. I plan on making her's a full on flight, but one thing at a time.

3. As stated before, Chemical Plant Zone has changed. I was told the palette looked ugly (and it did), but I couldn't figure out how to return it to normal through Sonlvl without a lot of trail and error. So instead of just making a bigger mess, I decided to play with the hand I (foolishly), dealt myself. What we get is something I'm proud of. Learning how to edit certain blocks through Sonlvl through mapping, I changed the city in the background. It's not massively different, but it does give things a different, more morning feel. If you catch my drift. I like it a lot, even if I am just stroking my ego a tiny bit. Only a tiny bit though.

4. The title card has changed slightly. Instead of Sonic comes out, a bronzed Shadow comes out instead. I was trying to change the front title, obviously, and got that instead. If I fool with the palettes, I'd probably get Shadow looking right, but I've decided to change what I have planned. Change to what, I don't know yet. I hope I get and idea soon. Plus, Tails is still there instead of Rouge. Why? Because when I put Rouge there, the palette had her looking so ugly. Made me laugh, but I think I'll pass on adding her for now.

Other than that, things haven't changed other at all. Once you enter Aquatic Ruins Zone, it goes right back to normal. I came back to show progress has been made on the hack, even if it is minor (not to me though; I worked my butt off for this crap). I also wouldn't mind a little pointers here and there.

Now... if I can only figure out how to hack the music... hm...



Here's the video to the changes I've done in Chemical Plant Zone. Yeah, the quality's pretty trashy, ain't it? Blasted Movie Maker... I'll go back to recording videos how I used to.

Also, here's the link to the hack itself. Because duh.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/perw1nq5xd24hf8/s2built.bin?dl=0

 

Ah, your hack runs into a common problem that I've seen with basically any hack that uses Shadow. His movement animations just don't look natural at all. This is in part due to the movement nature of Shadow, as unlike basically all other characters, he uses jets to propel himself forward, essentially "skating" to run. What makes it weird is that when going faster, foot movement shouldn't increase. Imagine how people themselves skate to visualize what I mean here. Combine that with the art style just not visually matching that of Sonic 2, and it just doesn't give the correct style vibe. Also may want to take a second or third glance at your palettes, as while they aren't godawful eyesores, they still stick out too much to really feel like they belong still. Combine that with a few other minor details and nitpicks, and you've got a lot to still work on.

Don't be discouraged by the issues; merely take them, understand them, and use them to up your work to that next step. Keep at it and learn from what doesn't work, and I'm sure your next version will be better than the last.

 

Don't forget about the multiple mapping errors in Shadows and Rouges sprites, that make them look more odd. Like this

At the next frame she is 5 pixels moved over to the left, and it looks really odd. There are other examples, which are pretty easy to spot, though so I wont list them all, here is another example though.

I don't think he is supposed to be in the wall here, its harder to spot if there is no wall, so Ill give you that, but my other gripe is how the sprite is used doesn't make sense to me.
Also, you might want to understand how VRAM works, and how to view it, example.

I use Exodus to do this, but there are other programs, like Gens KMod to view where each tile of the art is in the VRAM. The best part about Exodus though is you can view the tiles and their animations in real time. As you can see your new art is overwriting the CPZ Pylon. Also to hack in music there is a program called Mid2SMPS, that can load a midi file and convert it to be used in game. To edit the midis, I would recommend FL Studio, to do so, because usually the midi may be using too many channels and the conversion will sound terrible. I found a bug with the double jump as well, it seems Rouge is using the same flag Shadow uses to do it, so if you jump and Rouge uses the jump, Shadow won't be able to use the double jump till he hits the ground again. So as the hack as a whole so far, it needs a lot of work, its a good start though, also I thought the layouts were different the last time I played, guess you changed them back. Well that's all I had to say, good luck with the hack.