Current state of FSMR

 Hey everyone! Been quite a while huh?


This will be sad news I'm afraid to say... There has been some progress since the last update to the blog but unfortunately for the foreseeable future FSMR is no longer moving forward with development.

It's been a crazy couple of years that has been pretty rough on just about everyone, this extends to the FSMR team and myself. 
It has also been a challenge finding other artists and programmers who are interested in FSMR... Super Metroid is a pretty massive game. Add in any new additional content that was planned, tiny level details, programming all these new things and it becomes quite a lot of work even for a small professional team!

Maybe one day we will be able to start this project back up again, I know a lot of people were looking forward to FSMR but it just isn't feasible at this current time I'm afraid to say...

Some quick and simple concepts of how we could bring back the power grip room
and make the room before that held a power bomb in Super Metroid connect better visually with the Metroid: Zero Mission version of the room.

A simple image showing new sprites for the power beam.

Some rooms and areas were to have drastic redesigns to make certain areas and features really stand out.

This Tourian tileset was made by the very talented Shmegleskimo with a few additional tiles I made for more variety. Tourian would have had this whole red and blue wiring theme going on, almost like veins.

An unfinished piece of artwork for the opening scene. Other than just remaking everything, nebula clouds and Zebes moons were to be new additions from the original.

While FSMR might not be moving forward for the time being, some of the FSMR team and I along with new team members will be working on a new project highly inspired by the Metroid games...
A sci-fi horror Metroidvania on Saturn's moon Titan currently called "Pavor Nocturnus."

An ominous coastline and 360 aiming?!

This will be the last post here until FSMR possibly reboots again in the future. I am sorry to have to end the project once again but until we can assemble a bigger team among other issues, FSMR is on ice once again.
Thank you all for keeping up with the project, hopefully someday in the near future this project will come back to life and something will finally be released! Until then, keep an eye out for Pavor Nocturnus!

-Sarkuvaria

Background update

Hello everyone! Here is another update to FSMR's progress. The world is going through some crazy times lately so things have been a bit on and off as of late. I hope everyone is staying safe and doing well during these times.

We have had a new background artist on the team for quite some time now and for this update I will be sharing some of his amazing work!

A room inside Ceres has been reimagined with tanks of liquid
and ventilation underneath them.

Much like AM2R, the background for areas near the surface may be open
to view the outside world of Crateria!

Pink Brinstar's backgrounds now feature more prominent
spires and spores can be seen growing in the background.

Some other new updates include a small environment change. In Metroid: Zero Mission the area surrounding Wrecked Ship was decorated with green rocks. This will carry over to FSMR as well, tying the two together more closely for a bit of continuity.

This post isn't as large of an update as I had hoped it would be but I wanted everyone to know there is still progress being made on FSMR, it has slowed down some but hopefully once everything that is happening in the world dies down some progress will pick back up.

Stay safe everyone, and thank you for continuing to keep watch on FSMR's progress!

-Sarkuvaria

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!

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

Christmas update

Happy Holidays to everyone from the FSMR team! We hope everyone has been having a wonderful time this December! For those of you looking forward to FSMR this post certainly has some great treats for you!

We are starting this post off with the image you see above, this is of course a recreation of the Super Metroid intro using Samus's power suit design from Samus Returns. The blinking animation is completely finished and will be shown in a future trailer.

Ceres is pretty much done, this is a rough draft of the map without the foreground or background objects.

Ceres is going to feel bigger in some ways. There are doors in the background
that open up as Samus passes by them to reveal rooms or hallways, showing there is more to Ceres than what we saw in the original Super Metroid.

The image here is what Ridley's room looked like before the
resolution change. The resolution was 288x224, the same as
 the original Super Metroid.

This was the room shown in the December 17th edit. The resolution
is now 320x240, the same as AM2R's. The room is quite a bit bigger but not too big.

This room is a mockup, so it may not end up looking quite the same in the
final version. This was a test to see how the eye sensor would look like in
Blue Brinstar's tileset. The eye sensor didn't appear much in the original
Super Metroid, but you can expect them to play a bigger role in FSMR.

The animation for it was fun to create. The eye sensor looks more "evil" in
a lot of ways

The environments will feel more organic and realistic, 8 new slope angles that don't
appear in Super Metroid, Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion are being added. With it, you can almost make a perfect circle as seen above.

Power-ups are getting a facelift. This is an example of how
Missile Expansions and Energy Tanks are going to look like.

This is how Samus's turn animation for all actions will work.
Turning right to left will have her turn facing the player.
Left to right will have her back to the player. I chose to create the animation
like this to give a feeling of depth, and also because this is how the
animation was like in Samus Returns.

 The first Zebesian shown on the blog! The tileset here is still experimental.

 Pink Brinstar's reveal! The tileset is still a work in progress, but
more or less will look like this. Find the Metaree!

Doors from Pink Brinstar going to Green Brinstar will have this
transition tileset. A new door variant is also seen here, the brass colored doors
appear in this area of Brinstar. The ones in Green Brinstar have vines clinging to them.

Finally the ship has been updated. The ship is based on the one
that makes an appearence in the Super Smash Bros series, and to an extent
based on Metroid Other M's design. The patterned windshield is inspired from
Samus Return's design as well.

Some control changes are being made as well. The controls for the game are being talked about often so we can keep improving them. The team has been looking at how the controls could work on PlayStation and Xbox controllers and how we can utilize Samus's whole arsenal and access everything quickly.

A new change we have been looking into is a new weapon selection system. How this works is a button is held down and a menu is brought up to select what you want to use. The menu would look something like this for example:

After making your selection, you hold down the "armed" button (Let's say R1 for example) to use what you selected. Missiles would work as they do in MZM, with R1 toggling them on or off if you hold it or not, and X-Ray Scope would automatically turn on the moment you hit R1.


Well, this about wraps up FSMR's Christmas update. As 2019 rolls in so will more progress until FSMR's eventual release! Happy holidays to everyone and see you next update!

Post Thanksgiving update

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving this month! There is some exciting news in FSMR's development for November's update:

• A new engine is currently being worked on, as more progress is made more information will come along with new updates.
• Ceres station has a huge collection of graphics and art being put into it, this is now about 90% complete. This may seem strange for a place so small but it will soon make sense.
• A lot of new graphics and tilesets have been getting a lot of work done on them. Although there are quite a few things that could be shown now, they are under the tree and will be featured in the Christmas update.
• FSMR's resolution is now officially 320x240. This is the same resolution seen in AM2R and is larger than the GBA titles (240x160). With this change Zebes will feel larger than before. Bosses that are meant to be fought in smaller spaces and feel tense while engaging won't lose the same feelings with this change I promise you.
• Samus's sprite design will be staying as is, I am sorry for those of you who may have wanted something a bit more classic or different. I can safely say that everything is being ironed out with her poses and design. The FSMR team and I wants to pour as much detail and work into making this remake as perfect as possible.
  
  
  And lastly, depending on how progress continues everyone can expect a new video update sometime early next year at most. There will also be at least one update a month from now on for sure so long as significant changes and progress is made. So be sure to check the blog near the end of each month for more updates! And as always, until next time!
  
  

December 17th edit:

For those wondering more about Ceres and anything new with it, I won't be revealing anything quite yet, but for now here is a screenshot of a certain room and an early Christmas screenshot:

Some things to note: HUD is still a wip, this is the current rendition of it. Samus's sprite has been updated with new shading. The baby Metroid sprite is custom and cute. Ceres has new doors based on the automatic doors on board B.S.L.

Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again, grab your buckets and get ready for some treats!

Throughout FSMR's long span of progress, Samus's sprite has gone through many iterations. The current version will be the final design, taking a lot of influences from Samus Returns.

The gravity suit was shown in the last update, but that design may not be accurate to how she will look, as her suit design blends other designs throughout the series.


Some new changes are coming to the overall gameplay as well. Beam combos are still a thing but no longer work quite the same way they did before; in a good way. You will be able to activate them the same way with power bombs, however you will no longer need to go to the menu and turn off everything except the beam you want to use. You can now select a "primary beam", which will automatically select the most recent beam Samus aquires but you can change any time on the menu or through the hot keys/ R2 and L2 on controllers.Your primary beam will be featured as the color of the lights on Samus's arm cannon, this does not affect how the beams stack however.


Reworking Samus's animation has been fun so far. Unlike games like Other M or Fusion, I hope to portray Samus's personality through her body language and the way she interacts with the environment. You can expect to see some idle animations as seen in the Prime series or AM2R.

The environments in this remake are also getting a facelift. The overall style is a somewhat enhanced version of Metroid: Zero Mission, many assets from Zero Mission will be returning in fact while some that could have been used will be replaced entirely with custom assets. Not too long ago, a personal friend who would have been creating all new backgrounds became more invested in other parts of his personal life and his own art projects and cannot do any work for FSMR anymore, so any new backgrounds coming to FSMR will have to wait.

Samus's new facing the player idle can be seen occasionally, especially after exiting her gunship.

A whole lot of temporary background. There is a room next to this that will not be featured in the remake whilst being in the original. The missile tank that was once there is somewhere else now!

The temporary background does not do this room justice, this is the first fungus cave Samus enters after retrieving morphball bombs.

Norfair is also recieveing a bit of a facelift. Power grip will be returning and be a part of Samus's arsenal right from the start. As you may have noticed as well Samus's back is to the player when she faces left, another piece of inspiration from Samus Returns.

I think this room might be important for some reason...

Whilst these are all mockups, they are also built in the current engine and are playable rooms. Samus's sprites still have a long way to go, you could say these are mockups utilizing Samus's new design, which has not been implimented yet.

The screen resolution for these images follow the same as the GBA, 240x160. The room designs are based on this resolution size, however this is temporary and will be increasing for those wondering if the resolution will stay as-is.


Happy Halloween everyone, stay safe today and I hope to bring more FSMR content soon! Until next time!