2024 September 2
It's a rare day with a second update!
I just finished collecting the results from my recent market research survey from a couple weeks back.
The results, with some detailed commentary, can be found in the form of this mailbag in the About section.
Thank you, all who participated!
2024 September 2
A couple days late, but I'd like to announce something regarding my contest hack that I keep talking about:
I won!
Now please go play some of the other hacks from the Starbase contest! (The list should be near the bottom of the page.)
2024 August 28
Super Metroid Axiom is a recent mini-hack by Metaquarius. It recreates the first area from the hit 2015 indie search-action dungeon-scroller key-ring metro-vania game Axiom Verge in Super Metroid. It's a neat little hack and I recommend that you play it. It gets a nice thumbs up from me. :)
Anyhow, you know why I'm making this post. As always, head to the maps page for the goods.
2024 August 23
I'm holding a market research survey because a bunch of y'all keep telling me that I should make that marketable plushie of myself, as seen in one of the secret rooms in Tour of Italy.
Will I do anything with the results? Only time will tell...
2024 August 19
Yesterday, on a lark, I made a map of the hack Achelous from the recent Starbase Contest. I knew the author was working on an updated, post-contest version of the hack, but I had wanted to make a map of it since I played it originally.
Not an hour after I finished the map, the author posted the DX update on the forums.
What this means is that you're getting two map for the price of one (on the maps page, as always).
Enjoy! :)
2024 August 17
Yesterday my friend Ambureon finished making a detailed map of my hack Tour of Italy. Check it out on their site!
In honor of this, I removed the direct embed of my provisional map from my maps page, and instead added a little notice to redirect all you critters to the fun internet doggy's webpage instead. Please enjoy. :)
2024 August 9
Oil Spill is one of the few, proud hacks for Metroid Fusion. It manages to circumvent the game's rigid event system to provide a non-linear experience. Unfortunately, the boss balancing is a bit rough, but if you're familiar with the game it shouldn't be too hard.
Anyhow, you probably know why I'm bringing this hack up. I made a map of it! Check it out!
You're probably also wondering how I pushed this map out so quickly after my previous one. The answer is that
I am very efficient and sleep as little as possibleI've had the map 95% done since April, but I got occupied with a bunch of other projects (the M2 speedrun, Super Junkoid map, Tour of Italy, etc.) so it took me forever to finish the last couple of steps. Regardless, the map is here now rather than on indefinite hiatus, so I can rest easy now.
2024 August 5
We got another map today, and this one's a doozy!
Samus Wants Robot is a fascinating hack that was submitted to the recent Metroid Construction Starbase Contest. It combines a whole host of different inspirations to create a form of search action that I've never seen before. Inspired by the aesthetics of the Robot Wants Kitty series (not to be confused with Robot Finds Kitten), it takes place in an hourglass-shaped space station that Samus must explore like a grain of sound (always going downwards). When she gets to the bottom, the station flips upside-down, and she must explore the station again, until she reaches the bottom again, repeating the whole process until she wins the game. The top half of the station is always cold while the bottom half is always superheated, leading to an idiosyncratic combination of reconnaissance followed by timed kaizo platforming.
(Like any hack by Croakomire, this has been verified to crush the spirits of top-level players, which is how you know you're in for a good time.)
Being such a unique idea, I couldn't stop thinking about it until I finished making a map of it, which is now on the Maps page. Please enjoy it, even if you'll never play the hack.
Also, I added a proper link to The Cereth Invasion to the contest list article, just as a matter of general bookkeeping (you should play it :3 ).
2024 July 21
On a lark, I decided yesterday to catalogue every contest hack that hack been submitted to a contest on MetConst. Check out the list here.
As an article, it's probably quite dry, but I hope it proves to be a useful resource to some folks.
2024 July 15
Super Junkoid, one of the best hacks of Super Metroid, finally has a detailed, 1:8 scale map. Take a gander at it on the Maps page, as always.
I started this project towards the end of April (ignoring the feasibility study a couple months earlier), and made terrifying amounts of progress during the first couple weeks of May. However, because I wanted to make a good hack for the Starbase Contest (and I did!), I decided to shelve the project until I finished my own hack.
Anyhoo, it turns out that I was astonishingly close to being finished with the map when I dropped it. All I had to do at that point was just play through the game and pick out any graphics that I couldn't easily extract from the editor.
I also have another nearly-done-but-on-a-months-long-hiatus hack map that should see the light of day in the near future. Please look forward to it!
P.S. I finally added links to all the hacks on the maps page. I realized that having links there could be considered common courtesy, and also it might help with something called "CEO" (??? idk i'm no interwebs expert but ppl make it sound very important).
2024 July 10
I noticed that some people are stuggling to find progression in my new Super Metroid hack (Tour of Italy), and I also noticed that people are also searching for "super metroid tourofitaly map" on major search engines, so I decided to make a quick 'n dirty map of the hack. It's not up to my usual standards, but it should be enough for you to get 100%.
As always, you can find it on the Maps page.
(I suggest playing without a map if possible, but at the end of the day I'm not your mom.)
2024 July 5
The free service that was hosting our wonderful guestbook for free, 123guestbook.com, has shut down recently. Currently they are in read-only mode, but they claim they are shutting down 4 days ago, so it's impossible to say how long they will last.
In the spirit of archival, the guestbook has been saved and its final copy is now being hosted here.
Stuff like this is budging me ever so slightly closer to making my own forum.
2024 July 3
Hello everyone! While I only posted one update last quarter, know that it's not because I was dead. I've actually been pretty busy!
In April, I participated in a speedrunning race of Metroid 2, against some fellow named "squidman" during the "Game Over Cancer" marathon benefitting the Canadian Cancer Society. Squidman was a moderately experienced speedrunner who was new to Metroid 2, while I was not very much of a speedrunner but was very experienced and knowledgeable with Metroid 2. We ended up being very close to each others times when we practiced, and when the day of the race came it was anybody's guess who would win.
I won't spoil who won, but I will say that it was an incredible race and that we both got new personal bests and top 10 leaderboard times during the race. You can watch the race on either Twitch (which preserves the chat) or YouTube (which has a less annoying player).
Beyond that, I ended up making a new, mostly-fledged ROM hack for the Metroid Construction "Starbase Contest", which started at the beginning of May and ended at the end of June. There ended up being ELEVEN hacks produced for this contest, and one of them was even named Eleven!
My contribution to this contest ended up being a hack called T O U R O F I T A L Y. I'd describe it as a hack with a very silly premise that makes a serious attempt at being a well-designed game that is approachable and interesting to both novices and experts. Currently it's the highest rated hack on Metroid Construction, so strike it while it's hot before the haters show up!
Now, with three romhacks under my belt, I think that's enough to warrant creating a subpage in the works section, if you don't mind me.