Thursday, October 3, 2019

Q and A and some more small updates

Hello everyone, happy spooky season!

For some questions that may not have been answered before, here are some answers to those questions!

Q: "Will Power Grip be coming to FSMR? Will Grapple Beam still be in the game?"

A: Yes, Power grip will be making a return and will act as it did in previous games. It will already come equipped at the very beginning of the game, making it and the Long Beam both like permanent additions to Samus's power suit. Unlike the Long Beam however, we plan to let the player be able to toggle Power Grip on or off.
Grapple Beam is also making a return of course as well. Everything that was in the original Super Metroid is returning, this includes X-Ray Scope, beam combos and Crystal Flash.

Q: Are there any new additions coming to the game?
A: Yes. Not only are some items being moved around and some rooms undergoing a few changes (as will be shown later in this post), but there will be new things coming to the game. In just the last post alone we shared the Zuru returning from Metroid: Other M. If there is anything else that is new like new areas or items they will be shared later down the line or when the game is released.

Q: When is FSMR going to be released?
A: There is no set date as of now. It will unfortunately be quite a while until that question can be answered. Not this year I'm afraid to say.

Q: Will FSMR be available for [insert system here]?
A: We are going to try to make it availabe for whatever system we can, at the moment PC/ Windows is definitely going to have it. More info will come at a later date for other systems. We hope to have it available for Mac and Android also at the very least.


And now here are some updates to FSMR. Please note that these updates do not exactly reflect the most up to date progress of FSMR, there is much more under the hood than just what is shared here!

For a while now Samus's left facing sprites have also undergone some rework after deciding that having her back to the player may not be the most ideal presentation. An example is featured in this gif here of the updated turning animations:







Samus is not the only thing that has been getting worked on. Many enemies have custom sprite work as well, you can expect to see Zeelas, Skrees, Reos, Wavers, and many others in future updates! We are trying to minimize the amount of reused content from the previous games as we can. With that said, there will no doubt be reused assets still however. The Eticoons and Dachora's fusion sprites will be coming back, with new animations as well as Metroid: Zero Mission style Rippers, but slightly edited of course. Here is a small example of some more dymanic lighting tests on a Ripper:





As mentioned before as well, some rooms will be getting a few changes and items will be moved as well. Here is an example of a Power Bomb that you find in the upper section of Crateria:



In the original Super Metroid, the Power Bomb in question was behind a yellow door that led to a cave full of spikes and lava. When Metroid Zero Mission was released however, this room was still there but now it was a simple connector room that connected to the place where Samus finds the Power Grip and was no longer a cave. These two rooms from Metroid Zero Mission will be returning, the Power Bomb will be moved to a new room underneath the Power Grip area (Samus will already come equipped with it in the beginning). They may be small but the new morphball bomb sprite and power bomb tank can also be seen in this image. With this change also comes a new door in the area that connects Crateria and Wrecked ship on the upper right of the map. You can also drop down to the room below to leave instead of having to find your way back up.

As a final teaser for this post, this is an early preview of the subscreen:



The subscreen/ pause menu is going to be based on Metroid Prime and to an extent Other M. A lot of redesigns or new things coming to FSMR are going to be referencing past games, especially the 3D ones. The HUD is also based off the Prime series to keep in line with the subscreen design and things like the item expansions and certain creatures such as the Zuru are based off of/ from Metroid Other M.



Stay tuned for more updates to come later this year!

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Dynamic Lighting and Background artists

Hello all! Been a while since the last update. The original plan was to update every month, but we found it would not be viable so updates may just come along slowly.


Engine progress is still coming along, there will be an update as soon as it is ready to be shown! In the graphics department there has been a number of changes. More enemies have been made, some more environments have been worked on (as well as some improvements in the graphics) and we are hoping to add dynamic lighting to the game. Here is a small assortment of some of the new updates below:



A new tileset for the old brick areas in Crateria. The graphics for the walls are not complete but show a big more diversity in the stone shapes and types coming to this tileset. The Zebesian sprite has been updated.




An example of more graphics that have been updated, a computer terminal found inside Ceres.



Look out for this little guy! This is a new creature coming to Zebes.
You may remember these guys from Metroid: Other M, they are helpful little bugs called "Zuru."



Another insect-like creature, a Zebesian Roach. You may remember these guys hanging around different parts of Crateria in the original SM as well as Red Brinstar surrounding a corpse of a soldier. Perhaps they are related to the Zuru?


Samus's sprite has recieved some tweaks as well since the past update. The helmet fits her body better and some better shading and detailing has since been added. This is also showcasing the concept for how the Varia Suit sprite will look like!




Some experiments with dynamic lighting on Samus. Something we hope to add to really make this fan remake something special.



The FSMR team is also looking for artists to help with the backgrounds and eventually to help us with the dynamic lighting. We are hoping to make the backgrounds multilayered and dynamic as seen in games like Hollow Knight and Ghost Song, so if you or someone you know loves Metroid and is great at highly detailed landscapes and abstract cave art we are looking for you to join the team! :D