Toffi 20-10-2025

Happy Spooky Month everyone! 💀 🧙 🍭
Another month another stage. 6 left to go.
We've been working on stage design and enemy placement.
Two stages have been completed design wise.

The collision, enemy and section data have all been refined to fit the greater complexity of later sections. Some of the larger details had to be cut down to size, but otherwise everything made it through all right.

After that, new artwork was done by Mlod!

We hope to accomplish more stage work to come, with 09 being complete before the end of October. In the mean time, here's a rough draft.

That about sums it up for this round. Please place any questions or comments in the REPLY-SECTION thread on the Discord server.

Toffi 20-09-2025

Back again! Only 3 months left before the end of 2025. Wow, time has flown by.

This time around, we have some sprite updates to cutscene animations and still screens set up and ready to go. Here's a few quick WIPs.

For a long while, the cast's sprite work was thought of as complete. One of the last finishing touches needed was the cutscene animations, which included the map screen walk cycles, hand shake animations and the ending cliffside animations. Rather than just copy the walk cycles like the original did, we decided to give these animations a little bit more flavor since they exist in a bank outside of the player's regular animation CHR sheets.

Here are some ideas that were brainstormed for the map screen walk cycle and are currently in the works:

• Claudia - Riding a mechanical contraption / playing with beakers
• Quincy - Sharpening a knife / eating wall meat
• Sonia - Reading the map we see on screen diegetically / practicing with a holy tomb
• Germain - Flipping cards / awkwardly singing

The same goes for handshake animations. Have each party member "accept the invitation" in a unique way that gives us some insight into their character:

• Claudia - Excitedly jumps about looking at Sonia as if they were a living museum of the 1490s
• Quincy - Grins with vengeful glee and flexes while holding their weapons
• Sonia - Always extends a hand for a handshake (but never gets one)
• Germain - Gracefully bows over and over again.

Lastly we have an in progress version of the revised name input screen. Which should be finalized by the end of the month.

The project is getting close to being complete! For all those interested, we're open for dev applicants. Even at the 11th hour. The team needs a hand getting some stage design set in place for the levels we have currently. If you're interested in giving Re-Vamp and stage design a try, feel free to DM me on Discord and we can get you started.

That's it for this round!

Toffi 20-08-2025

It's time for another monthly check-in on our ROM hacking journey, and August has been a productive one. While not every breakthrough comes with fireworks, the groundwork we've laid this month is setting us up for some exciting leaps ahead. Along with new tools we have an exciting way for you all to add ideas to see in game. So stick around for this one folks! We need your help.

Starting off small we have an update to an older enemy, the Red Cap, which came from a time before the semi outline art style for the project was chosen, so some small tweaks were applied to bring it back up to date without taking it too far away from older versions. From a development perspective, it's really easy to remake the same thing 100 times over until it's absolutely perfect so I'd much rather spend time on the new content we have coming in.

Starting with an early stage concept for the rooftop of the astral observatory. More graphical work towards the ending of this section is on its way.

Now time for the big reveal. With help from Terwilf, we have a new still screen engine for inserting graphics directly into the game's previously unreachable still screens. That means things like the Game Over screen, the Title screen and the Map screen can now receive further edits! So more to come soon.

Lastly, we need a hand from you folks to help us think of ideas for stage mechanics. As we move deeper into designing custom levels, we're realizing how crucial it is to strike the right balance between challenge and clarity. That's where you come in.

We're experimenting with creating a TTT model: Teach, Trap, Test for all the miscellaneous items and mechanics. That way, building out levels becomes easier with the ideas on the table. Hopefully this framework helps ensure that each new element introduced in a stage isn't just thrown at the player, but thoughtfully integrated.

=-=-=-=-=

Here's a list of the items that need covering:

• Breakable Block
• H Platform
• V Platform
• Crusher
• Moving Spikes
• Trapdoor
• Trapdoor with Spikes
• Pendulum
• Small Gear
• Large Gear
• Tiling Ledge
• Falling Blocks
• Acid Drops
• Scrolling Ledges

=-=-=-=-=

If you have any input on these, the REPLY-SECTION thread on the Discord server would be the best place to put them.

And some ideas we've come up with so far:

Breakable Block

• A wall blocks the players path with a bone pillar enemy on the other side. When they hit the enemy the whip breaks the block.
• The breakable block acts as a reward but makes a later platforming section harder if broken.
• Hidden blocks can make a fake out level exit with stairs that lead to nowhere. To proceed the player must find the suspicious blocks earlier in the level.

H Platform

• The room exit is on a higher platform. The H Platform moves up and down, perhaps with an easy enemy in the middle platform. There is no risk of falling which invites the player to jump on and off the platform at its max or middle height.
• The H platform jumps in and out of screen from a pit. The player can hop onto the platform to try and get the candle hidden near the bottom of the screen but must jump off before it disappears.
• A fast moving H platform jump is needed at its max height? (may need a hand with this one)

V Platform

• The room exit is over a small gap platform. The V Platform moves side to side linking the start and end. There is no risk of falling.
• A small platform inbetween gaps is available for the player to jump onto. This platform has a reward, but it is small and players may have trouble getting back onto the platform.
• A fast moving V Platform must be raced against to make it to the other side.

Crusher

• Since the Crusher is an instant kill, I'd start by having players hop onto its harmless top, with level design showing its spikes that damage players (perhaps a pit of skeletons).
• A single Crusher would block the way to an alcove with a prize. The player must dodge the spikes twice to proceed.
• Multiple spikes with gaps to provide timing windows, à la original game.

Moving Spikes

• Since these are also instant kill, and cannot be engaged without death, they should be introduced after the spike mechanic in a way that gradually ups the section's challenges.
• A set of Moving Spikes could be used for timed jumps with an extra section below that hides a reward.
• Moving Spikes could be combined with stairs to make traversal more difficult.

Trap Door

• One way to force an engagement is to block the path forward through jumping on a Trap Door to toggle it and fall down to a safer area.
• Have a section that blocks off extra goodies after a player hastily uses it to progress through the stage.
• Having Trap Doors be platforms in a row means players have to make fast split second jumps to move forward.

=-=-=-=-=

Having community input or ideas on how to use obstacles could help us develop a more clearly thought out and fluid design for stages that isn't just graphically interesting but functionally inspiring as well. Drop your ideas in the REPLY-SECTION thread on the Discord server, whether they be tweaks to the ideas below or new ones. We're always happy to hear them. That's it for this month's devlog. See you again in September!

Toffi 20-07-2025

Update day has come again!

As many of you who have been keeping up know, my computer with all of AoC's files got roasted. Boy am I glad all of it is here on Discord. The good news is: everything was saved and no progress was lost. The bad news is: this update might be a bit light on the visual content. As a replacement, there will be quite a bit more text than images this time around.

I want to peel back the curtain a bit on how the team approaches level design on a room by room basis. For those interested in game design, this might be helpful within your own hacks.

So how do you approach a level's difficulty compared to its flow? Is it possible to pander to veterans of the series while engaging those who have never touched the series before? This is a difficult challenge. I started by asking, what did the biggest platformers of the NES get right? Eventually I boiled it down to what I lovingly refer to as the three T's: Teach, Trap, Test.

-=-=-=-=-

I'll cover each of them and use a level (the one in our demo) as an example.

Teach

It's the creator's job to communicate to the player how to complete the level. If a mechanic is not clearly outlined, it will frustrate players when the mechanic becomes difficult. Make it clear what a player's options are. Teach the player to use a mechanic by forcing them into using it.

For the forge, that obstacle is the sinking junk. You have to teach a player that: A) This obstacle causes the player to sink, and B) If they wait too long they will fall down. So we put a dead end where there is a wall and some junk. To progress the player must wait to fall down.

Trap

Once a mechanic is learned, it should be given a win and failure state. If the player uses the mechanic, they might gain an advantage. If not, they might take damage or even lose a life. We try to make it clear immediately what a player did wrong after failure. In the early version of this level the player could jump for the reward and take on a more challenging section to gain a reward (like a health drop) after a junk platforming session. With failure leading to the player taking damage from the enemies below.

Test

Once a player is comfortable with a mechanic and can use it to their advantage, we test their skill. The goal is to make a difficult section that actively engages with the mechanic in a unique way. This forces a player to use their skill in order to defeat the challenge. If a player fails, they are adequately punished and the reward is surviving the section and reaching a checkpoint. If you fail, you will be taken back a short distance and must replay the trap part of the level. This gives players room to improve before they hit the test again. In the level, we have a player hoping over deadly pits while chasing a sliding platform. There's a clock element involved, which drives tension to complete the course before it's to late. This pressure can cause even veterans to slip up on rare occasions.

In the end, the goal of level design is to engage the player into continuing. As much as ClassicVania is known for its nail biting difficulty, fairness is our top priority. With secrets being for the hardcore players who can abuse mechanics and wordless tutorials for those just entering the world of Castlevania for the first time.

Here are some quick do not's the team has put in place so far. While these aren't hard rules, they are good to keep in mind so when they are broken, they become much more impactful:

• Don't design a flat space for walking with nothing in it.
• Don't make obscure or convoluted solutions mandatory.
• Don't make soft locks. If all characters cannot complete a section it should be re-worked.

And a few do's:

• Every element you place in the level should have a reason for existing.
• Make sure the decision a player makes feels like a choice rather than chance.
• Think of ways to reuse elements from traps you've already placed in your level.

-=-=-=-=-

Before I go, here are a few parts of stage design we have been working on.

We're working on the "Heart of Castlevania" which is the birthplace of the castle hidden deep within its core. This deep section of the castle can regenerate after it has fallen and acts as the seed of evil set to be reborn every 100 years. Inspired by this image, the stage is set to be built by fossilized souls.

With an added obsidian color.

Another "living" portion of CastleVania is being worked on. However, due to the nature of this section, it is set to be hidden for now. For those who don't mind spoilers, here it is. I'd suggest waiting for the final release before peeking.

I'm sure it will be quite shocking to come across. We hope that as these sections continue to develop and improve we can show more in the update days to come.

Thank you for checking in, hope to have more next month. Join the Discord server to discuss ideas and ask questions.

Toffi 20-06-2025

Update day! It's Update day!

Hello, welcome back all. Things have been steadily moving forward as we continue to tackle more enemies and stages.

Older enemies are getting a lot of love recently, as the team's been using the knowledge gained throughout the project to add in additional features that simply weren't possible earlier in development. Take, for example, the Shroom Walker.

Compared to its most recent update:

The sprite overlay and positional modification means we can get a lot more out of sprites than we used to. On a pixel per pixel level, some enemies have received more minor modifications. Such as the Nachtkrapp.

Here's the latest form with a revised lantern and skull:

SOTN room updates are still coming as we continue to work more on the level. Due to the color set limits of ReVamp, multiple rooms must follow the same color set. Which in the case of our magic grate means more cool layered effects.

The latest room update for this section:

The library has also received another room extension. The second half of the level is now in progress so expect to see more of that next month.

That's all for this round of updates. Feel free to chat, ask questions, or share your opinions in the Reply Section thread of the #monthly-showcase channel on the Discord server.

Toffi 20-05-2025

Back for another set of updates folks! We've been hard at work this month working on conceptualizing new sections and re-vamping old enemies (pun intended). Starting off, we have some concept work done on the ancient skeleton. It's been untouched since somewhere around 2021. Since then, a lot has improved sprite coding wise. It was suggested a more historically accurate skeleton was represented in the form of an ancient Dacian warrior.

Another idea was to try out another ancient Romanian warrior the Getae.

Work is being set up for Drac's start fight animation. Two ideas were brought up:

• Drac lazily reading a tome (CV Drac was reading 1897 Dracula) before snapping it closed in the air.
• Listening to the throne room music on a phonograph that plays on the way up the final staircase, only to break it and begin the boss room theme.

Drac's distance in the perspective throne room idea gives us more sprite space to play with. Hence, mini-Drac.

Next is for the SOTN fans out there. We have a tribute section planned in parts of AoC's Castlevania. Here's a sneek peek at some of the team's latest stage concepts. During early development, we had many single room stage concepts set up to gradually illustrate potential ideas. However, with more time and effort, a massive improvement was made.

Vs the latest demo

Multiple sub sections have also been set up for more room variety with the extra space saved.

Lastly, an up and coming section that illustrates a neat trick for the aspiring NES devs out there! This seemingly mystical grade can adapt to the backgrounds colors?

Surely it cannot be?! Notice the color palettes below. Because they share the same lightest color, the grate can seemingly blend into the top most layer. Leaving the other palettes to blend seamlessly into the third. Perhaps it might find greater use in other sections of the castle. So keep an eye out for more mysterious color shenanigans.

That's about all we have for this update. More rooms may be revealed as we come closer to the end of development.

Toffi 20-04-2025

We're super close to crossing the boss finish line here. Final Boss time! But before that, some updates on death 2 starting with the defeat pose.

We had a lot of ideas clawing their way through for Death 2. Here's a highlight list:

We had a return of a poltergeist using Death's scythe.

And a painting of Vlad.

Mixed together we got the ghostly image of drac over a poltergeist death.

More info to come on that part.

Here, a few variations on Dracula's hair.

And Dracula's idle pose.

And Dracula's attack stance.

For those who know NES limits, you might ask. How can the system do this much color? Well, you can technically pull off 1 extra color. That being universal transparency, but if the background is solid then you can use the extra BG color to your advantage. I picked this one up with my time working on Metroid.

It's got one critical flaw though. To get this extra color, the background must be a flat color. Otherwise the illusion would be broken.

Since Dracula's phase 1 movement is set on a certain path, we can set all of his potential teleportation spots to fully black.

The mock up of the super early test throne room without the cut space.

Giving an extra color free of charge. Well, that's it for this round. Until next time!

Toffi 20-03-2025

Welcome back to the monthly review! And then there were 2... We're getting close to the end of the game's Boss roster. After which, all that's left to do is the level design and music. This past month we've been working on completing Death and the Doppelganger fight. So onto the sprites.

Starting with Death's projectiles. In order to make a 2 color scythe possible we needed to make the second frame a smear frame to create the illusion of movement without ruining the attribute work.

Death's design uses a traditional 1860's war scythe. This was done to increase the scale of the sprite and decrease the potential for flickering. Lore wise, scythes were modified into weapons by farmers during periods of fighting. During development, we wanted to capture a much larger version of Death that could include more advanced details. In the end, there were not enough sprites to cover the whole body, so we incorporated an upper torso with his lower half sectioned into clockwork gears.

This idea was isolated for the second form, which uses bones for only a small part of a much more mechanically driven 2nd form. Here's a WIP sketch.

Lastly, more work is being done with the Doppelganger's rematch characters.

If things keep going steady, we might be able to present the big D next month! Get ready, Drac's on the prowl.

Toffi 20-02-2025

Welcome back! It's showcase time again, were finally getting close to 100% completion on bosses. Only 3 left to go.

We've been hard at work rebuilding custom boss sprites for Leviathan. As it turns out; the bigger the boss, the harder it is to reprogram. Meet Vali, the king of Kishkindha in the Hindu epic Ramayana. Vali obtained a pendant from his father, Indra, that which allowed him to restore his energy even when nearing death. Even after defeat he could return to the battlefield again and again till any war was won. The artifact and it's guardian were corrupted by the dark magic of Dracula. Its power to restore what was lost made it a powerful tool in the creation of the Aperture.

I know this one's been a bit short, but we have one last surprise for you all. Thanks to the efforts of the ASM guru Kristalinity I'm happy to present that Richter's coming to AoC! The old shadow matchup for doppelganger has been replaced with a SotN cast refight concept.

Dracula's shadow has stolen the forms from the last raid on Castlevania in 1797. Since it cannot create a form for itself, it mirrors those who come against its master. It may only manifest as a silhouette of past visitors.

Perhaps with enough ASM work one day we might be able to have a secondary cast available once you unlock second quest. But that's just a dream for now, haha. Until next time...

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.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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!