Toffi 20-12-2024
Howdy! It's showcase time again, we're getting closer to getting a demo out to you folks. This month's activities are just heating up as we're looking to have a demo out by the 31st. At the moment, all that's left to do is patch up the stage 06 boss and get the music in place before stage 06 can finally become playable. We're working hard to make this project just right and thank you all for your patience.
Currently, the team is looking into room swapping, which might hopefully extend the team's capability to produce custom level structures. One way that has been discussed is stair stitching, which would allow for one section of level geometry to be re-aligned with another. While the X and Y entry points for stairs have been discovered, we have yet to nail down the ability to stitch together custom rooms. Here's a glitch from the attempt.
On a more positive note, new jump animations have been set in place for Sonia with help from Ren on CHR bank optimizations. Two sprite tiles are left in her bank to possibly spruce up other frames. When constructing the jump animation, attention was placed into the potential for rapid rotational movement. This highlights the specific need to illustrate to the player the directional face of the sprite. If you take a close look you might notice the front leg acting as somewhat of an arrow, pointing the direction of the jump arc.
A potential for the clocktower gear has been presented. The black sprites here would act as cut holes rather than teeth, this presents a new possibility for a more complex gear without adding more tiles to the stage.
Lastly we have a few updates to the Soul Slag Egregore. Stage 06's boss. New glowing animations and a cooled rock form have been added in to increase the boss's details.
That's all for now. I better get back to work with how much there is to do before demo day! If you have any ideas, comments or concerns, feel free to post them in the Reply Section thread of the #monthly-showcase channel on the Discord server.
Toffi 20-11-2024
Happy Update Day!
Right on time too. November's creeping up on me hard, it seems like just yesterday it was January. Well, time flies when you’re having fun. Guess what? We finally finished the 100% completion mark on regular enemy sprites!! This is the first section of the project fully done (which is one MAJOR milestone). For this session we have a straggler from October and a few new obstacles and ideas.
Starting off with the Gargoyle. These decorative lights were imbued with dark magic as a last resort to defend the castle from intruders. However, they were never fully sculped as they were attached to the rooftops from the waist down. As a result, their form is incomplete. The fire they spew out from their mouths will burn the player as they attempt to make it to the final throne room.
Next is the Lunar Pendulum, a feature of the Alchemy Lab/Clock Tower. The obstacle has stayed mostly the same throughout the project before the hex hacking breakthrough we had earlier this year. Thankfully with a bit of bank tweaking and elbow grease we were able to fit this sprite in without any issues. Hopefully the same can be said for gears in stage 01 later down the line. The new sprite rotation algorithm has really helped sell the swinging motion of the pendulum here. More sprite rotational effects should be possible as time progresses. Unlike the SNES all the sprite scaling and rotation must be pre-rendered. This comes with 2 limitations. Scale and smoothness. However, on a small scale (like 8x8 chains) the final effect should be close.
We have a new font for the opening cutscene’s. Thanks to the originals re-usage of letter banks the total amount of game fonts can increase without removing each other.
Lastly, a new compression technique has been acquired. 1-bit CHR layering has been around since the Gameboy era, its usage in Castlevania 3 could double the active character memory. The drawback being the loss of 1 color palette. When looking at a raw CHR bank it might be a bit confusing so here’s how it works:
Firstly, a set of 1 color images must each use a different color. Then the two images are laid over one another, using the third color where the two overlap. During gameplay, 2 unique palettes are used which stream the same color to different slots in palette memory. By hiding one color and displaying another, both images can be pulled from the same slot in CHR memory. Which doubles the number of unique tiles we can use at once. Ultimately this means more unique tiles can be added into the backgrounds of our stages without having to worry about running into bottlenecks graphically.
Well, that wraps up this update. Now that the regular mode enemies are done. The only sprites left on the first playthrough are bosses. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions in the Discord.
Toffi 22-10-2024
Happy Late Update Day!
It's sometimes a bit late, my apologies. Well, it's spooky season. So, for this month the teams focus has been on getting the enemy sprite conversion rate up to that glorious 100%. I'm happy to say that we only have 2 left to go, with both being in their concept stage. Though there is a possibility we cover the hard mode enemies using a separate bank and code at a later point in time. But enough talk! Onto the baddies.
Starting off, there have been some changes to Germain's cursed form. During the original gameplay the boss would lag significantly and flicker due to enemies on screen. This is the case for a lot of CV3 bosses, however with the innovations made to sprite hacking this issue has become a lot less drastic. The attacks of what we dub “The Fool” have been redone to fit Germains attacks. The cards have been cut back from 2 sprites down to 1 and have been given two colors for each side, deepening their flipping motion.
The fireballs have been replaced with 3d glass wireframe prisms to make them a bit more creative.
Due to the way CV3 is structured we can currently control 1 custom enemy color palette per BLK. Most of the newest enemies set up have used these custom loaded colors to drastically improve the amounts of possible color combinations. During the process of making new enemies the need to organize the games room color function was clear. Most unused room colors were randomized.
After everything was said and done, we found there are 19 open color combos to set per room. This means we can assign a custom enemy palette then re-use it in other locations when that enemy or an enemy with a shared palette appears. However, the custom colors are not tied to an enemy sprite directly though. This means two custom color enemies cannot appear at the same time.
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With that being said, let's finally get to enemies. Starting with the Berserker Armor. This elite trooper is resilient to many weapons. Many would be heroes have tried to best it before and have all failed. Now it attacks using the stockpile of weapons lodged in its back. Can you finally best it?
Next up, a touch up on one of the games' oldest enemies. The classic skeleton. Every undead army needs a batch of these guys. Cheap to mass produce on a budget they're frail, nimble, dull and obedient. Now sporting more pronounced cheekbones and deeper eye sockets, these updated models are more unique and expressive. Due to how these enemies are tied together these changes effect the whip and red skelly's.
After which we have the boss mummy twins Nekhen and Buto. In 33BC Egypt was split into two kingdoms: North and South Egypt. Nekhen ruled the north and Buto ruled the south, both bickered constantly over which kingdom was better. Both kings became deathly ill. To outdo one another; even in death, they both wished pleased Anubis in hopes of a better afterlife. In the end they became unintentionally equal, identical in everything but name. Centuries later their tombs were unearthed, and their sarcophagi were shipped to Romania in order to obtain the dark artifacts needed fuel the Aperture. Both were gifted with the power of regeneration. Even if beaten they will reform themselves piece by piece. By the time Sonia reaches them, the two have been reduced to a mess of floating parts. They attack with beetles.
Deep within the bowels of Castlevania rise the bizarre anomaly Etaoin Shrdlu's. This shrewd imp has been messing with writer’s work stamping whatever it sees with mindless gibberish. It feasts on bad ideas, finding great flavor in the most vulgar texts. When the forces of hell rose in 1895, it hopped in unnoticed and uncontrolled. Neither Dracula nor Death know that it even exists, those who have tried to harness its power have been met with only misfortune. Its goals are solely mischievous yet unknown.
And that’s it for October. Have any replies or thoughts on this update? Join our Discord server.
Any and all feedback is welcome.
Toffi 20-09-2024
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Now onto the good stuff! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
It's been a hot minute since our last update. So much has been added into the project. Usually, monthly recaps go over the advancement the project had made, often they'll include some peeks behind the curtain at development. That includes improvements made to existing tiles, updates with code ext. Hope you all enjoy!
Alright, first off we have a chalice of immortality which was harvested by the monks in the most remote parts of the mountains. In the middle ages Iðunn, the Norse goddess of youth and apples, gave these monks seeds single seed a mythical and legendary artifact. Everything was being kept only within the secret society, however when Dracula's great attack rolled around the monks solidified their souls in order to protect the apples from unwanted hands.
Each item has a unique color responding to the partner you choose.
Next up, the cash bag. To fit more in line with 1890s Romania it's been debated on whether the US Dollar or the Romanian Lei symbol should be used. Here are a few attempts at getting something onto the bag. What do you guys think?
After that, we have some player and enemy sprite enchantments. Germain's playing cards are now blue!
New floating platform types have been setup for the whole cast.
With some help from Hacks Roms and Terwilf we got a custom title screen running. Innovation on that end has us hopeful more custom screens will be coming along soon.
Sonia got a massive whip upgrade with a new whip type! Now after collecting 3 powerups the Vampire killer burns with holy fire!
New upgrades have also been given to the chain and leather whip animations giving each some unique flair.
Claudia and Quincy have also received some work. Claudia got a new hammer and Quincy has new crouch and hang frames.
That's all for now! See you next month!