New month, new patch! Got a whole lot of stuff to post about. I’m releasing the patch as 1.02c since there are still a few issues I want to iron out and want to make sure the menu improvements didn’t accidentally break anything before moving to version 1.03. Plus I wanted to have a release at the start of this month.
Grab it here:
1.02c Changes:
-Pressing B after selecting a character now deselects
-Pressing B on the character select screen when you haven’t selected a character brings you back to the main menu
-Idling in the Character Select Screen no longer automatically goes to the Stage Select Screen
-Idling in the Stage Select Screen no longer automatically starts the battle
-Character Select Screen had a major movement overhaul, Up/Down/Left/Right work like in a sane menu (left goes left, right goes right, up goes up, down goes down)
-Main Menu had a major movement overhaul, Up/Down/Left/Right work like in a sane menu (left goes left, right goes right, up goes up, down goes down)
-Skip Konami Logo with ABXY in addition to Start/Select
Known issues/improvements to be done to finalize 1.03:
-Single Player ignores you selecting an alternate color, needs to be fixed
-Adding hold to pause (just a couple frames, trying to give it just enough time to prevent accidental presses)
-Adding L+R+A+Start to quit a battle (will be replaced with a pause menu)
-Adding pressing B to return to Character Select Screen from Stage Select Screen
-Adding pressing B to return to Main Menu from Story Battle
-Returning to Main Menu from Character Select Screen needs to have a fade out instead of instantly transitioning to Main Menu
-(Possibly) Adding 2 extra palettes per character (more on that below)
-(Possibly) Upgrading Pause to a full Pause Menu (more on that below)
Extra Palettes:
Something I’m finally going to be getting to. The plan is 4 palettes for each character for now, and yes the Tournament Fighter Clone Turtles will be palettes (though modified slightly, they’re looking like a hybrid of the SNES and Genesis clone turtle palettes right now). If you can think of any good palettes (particularly ones that are from/reference some form of TMNT media) for Armaggon, Wingnut, or a 4th palette for Karai, that would be greatly appreciated.
Though I’d primarily like to have alternate colors to be taken from some form of official Turtles media, feel free to make any suggestions as I may expand the palette beyond 4 at some point. There’s only so many palettes I can extrapolate from shows/comics/toys/refs/etc. so I may end up using your suggested color palettes in the feature.
Current planned palettes:
Spoiler
Leo Palette 1 - Normal: Green
Leo Palette 2 - Alt: Yellow-Gray
Leo Palette 3 - Clone Turtle: Lavender
Leo Palette 4 - Dark Leo: Green-Blue
Raph Palette 1 - Normal: Green
Raph Palette 2 - Alt: Green-Blue
Raph Palette 3 - Clone Turtle: Lavender
Raph Palette 4 - Dark Raph: Red
Don Palette 1 - Normal: Green
Don Palette 2 - Alt: Yellow
Don Palette 3 - Clone Turtle: Lavender
Don Palette 4 - Dark Don: Purple
Mike Palette 1 - Normal: Green
Mike Palette 2 - Alt: Green-Blue
Mike Palette 3 - Clone Turtle: Lavender
Mike Palette 4 - Dark Mike: Yellow
Armaggon Palette 1 - Normal: Gray
Armaggon Palette 2 - Alt: Blue-Gray
Armaggon Palette 3 - ???
Armaggon Palette 4 - ???
Wingnut Palette 1 - Normal: Blue
Wingnut Palette 2 - Alt: Green
Wingnut Palette 3 - ??? maybe something based on a fellow Mutanimal?
Wingnut Palette 4 - ??? maybe something based on a fellow Mutanimal?
Chrome Dome Palette 1 - Normal: Brown and Gray
Chrome Dome Palette 2 - Alt: Lighter Brown and Orange
Chrome Dome Palette 3 - Canon: White-Gray and Black
Chrome Dome Palette 4 - Playmates 1991 Warrior Chrome Dome Toy: Light Blue and Black
Aska Palette 1 - Normal: Lavender and Red
Aska Palette 2 - Alt: Orange and Blue
Aska Palette 3 - Comic Mitsu: Blue and Yellow
Aska Palette 4 - Lotus Blossum: Dark Gray
War Palette 1 - Normal: Purple
War Palette 2 - Alt/Famine: Gold
War Palette 3 - Death: Dark Red (black eyes)
War Palette 4 - Pestilence: Black (pink eyes)
C. Shredder Palette 1 - Normal: Magenta
C. Shredder Palette 2 - Alt: Blue-Purple
C. Shredder Palette 3 - TV 1987: Gray
C. Shredder Palette 4 - Mega Blocks Minifigure: Light Blue
Rat King Palette 1 - Normal: Mauve-ish
Rat King Palette 2 - Alt: Sea Green
Rat King Palette 3 - TV 1987: Brown
Rat King Palette 4 - 2012/IDW: Black (Pale greenish skin)
Karai Palette 1 - Normal: Violet
Karai Palette 2 - Alt: Light Blue (Gray-ish hair)
Karai Palette 3 - Modern: Black
Karai Palette 4 - ???
Here’s a couple of quick rough drafts I’ve done so far. These still have some work to go, but I think the finished products will end up looking great.
Clone turtle time, both old (1993) and new (2006)!
Since his gold palette sorta uses the colors of Famine, I based his new alternate colors off of the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Archie comics, Death and Pestilence.
Chrome Dome finally living up to its name!
Pause Menu:
Idea suggested by my brother, no idea why I never thought of it. In theory it shouldn’t be too difficult to set up, and it allows for things such as an ingame viewable movelist, changing controls mid battle, a simple ‘quit’ option instead of L+R+A+Start, all sorts of stuff for my planned Practice Mode and anything else we can think of.
Possible Netplay:
So, SD2SNES Flash Cart has modifiable firmware, has a USB slot and can read/write to the SD Card. There are WiFi capable SD cards that effectively have miniature linux computers in them, which also happen to be notoriously easy to hack into and reprogram. In theory, there’s nothing stopping me from adding a ‘net chip’ to the SD2SNES that can utilize the USB or WiFi SD Card as a workaround to be able to play games on LAN or over the internet from your actual unmodified SNES console, and possibly even modifying Tournament Fighters to have GGPO-like net play if I can set it up right/ms is low enough. The SD2SNES itself is the last thing I’d need to begin investigating it right now and should have it soon. If it works, besides the obvious ability to play against others online on an actual SNES, I could even set up delightful hacks allowing LAN/Online 8 player Super Mario Kart, 4 player F-Zero, 1v1 Metal Marines (personal favorite of mine), 8 player Civilization 1, 20 player Top Gear 1-2-3, etc. Really hoping the Wifi SD Card works out, being able to effectively just plop SNESes right next to each-other or near a WiFi hub and play LAN/Online would be awesome.
New Characters:
As my skills and my rom hacking tools are improving, I’m becoming more and more confident I can do this… atleast on the coding end of things. I can kind of do spriting myself, but I’m not confident that it’ll be the quality I want (looking like it was always part of the game) so I may need to recruit some talent soon. Plus I’ll also need to look into voices and possibly new stages, and music to go with them. If all goes well in the future Championship Fighters could feel like a proper sequel.
Regarding the “5th ‘Clone’ Turtle” borrowing some moves from the others, that is something I’m considering as a possibility for characters after the initial 20 for Championship Fighters is done. Slash in his Turtles in Time incarnation is something I’d really want, but I had the problem that Mike already has the Blanka Rolling Attack and Triceratron/Zorax would also have it too, so making him a blatant partial hybrid/clone character works out for him so I don’t have to worry too much about making his specials stand out. The set of copied special moves I have in mind are Raph’s Power Drill, Don’s Ground Claw, Mike’s Dynamite Bomber and Leo’s Shining Blade, how does that sound? I feel like it’d fit him well.
Side note: I’ve also decided against the Aska split in Championship Fighters. I’ll still get her Japan sprites implemented somehow for both TF and CF versions, maybe having it selectable like ‘old’ characters in SSF2T.
In case people decided they wanted to send me character requests, I only want to add characters that would’ve existed in the SNES era, so I’d only consider characters existing before the N64’s release (so pretty much just those from the Archie and Mirage comics, and the 1987 cartoon). Obviously though don’t expect them for a long while, since the NES/Mega Drive cast comes first.
tl;dr I’m getting close to adding extra palettes and nearing completion of all the basic menu improvements, my rom hacking skills and tools are improving, I’ll soon have the ability to test on actual hardware, Championship Fighters will soon be able to be worked on, netplay on actual unmodded SNES hardware (besides the use of the SD2SNES) may be a thing in the future, new characters are looking more and more possible for me to do, and in general the future is looking great.