I was going to notice that that’s how the game should work. Nevertheless I decided to check first, and to my surprise, in the Snes version of Mega Man X and Mega Man X2, the dash and the air dash are both cancelled when the dash key is released. I didn’t check any other more recent version.

So I started to wonder, where did I get the idea of the one tap dash?

Since this game started with Bass, apparently I took the convention from Mega Man and Bass. There, a single tap will make Bass do the whole dash sequence.

Then I started to test how the gameplay would be affected if I enabled the cancelled dash with X. While the experience got closer to the Snes version, I noticed some unwanted stress in my finger having to hold the dash key to get the whole dash sequence.

In the end I decided this should be an option. By default the game will behave as usual, a single tap will make the whole dash.

But If you’d like to turn this off, press ENTER to access the options page. A new setting called One Tap Dash is there where you can set it off. This setting will be persisted between sessions.

Here’s a picture highlighting where the control is located.

Well, that was kind of fast to implement. Lately I’ve been holding features in favor of usability changes. I’ve been devising a way where you don’t have to clear your cache everytime I push an update. It is in place now and it is experimental, so I’ll keep polishing it a bit more.

Have fun!

To access him on Bass Abyss just select Mega Man and then Bad Box Art Mega Man. So, Mega Man is now a new page. I’m considering to move there the other 8-bit characters, just because the main character page is getting too cluttered. But maybe later.

And here’s the sprite sheet edit I did. Please don’t bash it much, I’m not very good at pixel art.

This was a really quick hack. Don’t expect anything exceptional about this character. No new weapons. Nothing. I didn’t even made him an opening because this concept simply didn’t exist a few days ago. Seriously, writing this post took a lot more time than placing the character in the game. Consider this an anomaly in response to current events, but I’m done with it and now I’m back to my normal schedule.

I feel like writing. Would you like to read more about this?

After the announcement of Bad Box Art Mega Man as a playable character for Street Fighter vs Tekken, I couldn’t help to ponder about it during these days. Even the Iphone MMX remake didn’t make me bother with a response.

Well, probably I should join the ride and draw Mega Man in an ever more hideous way? I didn’t feel like drawing old fat guys. Going to the opposite direction and draw a manly representation would be fine then? But that would take time that I’d rather devote to other things, it would feel forced, and it is not like I’m fond of this Mega Man version. I don’t know anything about him after all.

Whatever merits Capcom thinks this joke has, at least they got people talking about it. That’s fine, I guess. Now that a new younger generation is taking over management, should I expect to see a Pantless Mario by Nintendo? Or how about a Homeless Hobo Sonic by Sega. Something tells me that’s very unlikely to happen. Hey, but I’m no one to tell Capcom how to manage their intellectual property. Have fun guys.

The good thing is that we can always pretend this is some alternate universe Mega Man, and most likely that’s the actual case. In the end, this series is famous for its various timelines and universes completely unrelated, so there’s no way I can get too worried for this or anything.

Then it got me. Say, under a different management, or under a different universe if you like, what if Capcom America in 1987 were to take seriously the bad art box Mega Man (and all the bad box covers) and did a real game based on these concepts. A new series spinoff, with an original storyline, western scifi artwork, etc. And that’s how I got the idea that a good response should be in game form. I have the engine anyway. Yeah, I was ambivalent about how the game should be, parody or serious, parody or serious. Well, it would be a great parody to make a game with these concepts very seriously.

So I started to sketch around. Of course endless ideas came to me. But the thing was too ambitious and I really don’t want to spend too much time on this when I’m already busy with other projects. So to get that out of my system I decided to make Bad Box Art Mega Man playable in Bass Abyss. A start would be the sprite sheet anyway.

But if I were to make a game, to keep it true to the 1987 era, I’ll just use the same Robot Masters with palette swaps here and there. I’d set the history to happen in the space, kind of like Metroid. An Bad Box Art Meg Man would defeat the Robot Masters in some futuristic planet in another galaxy. How is that for some old school science fiction themed game?

Hope you got some inspiration with this and if you want to make your own Super Bad Box Art Mega Man Adventure ^TM, go for it!

As usual clear your cache to download the latest changes in the game. Have fun!

Recently I’ve been using a development system with better specs. That’s fine and all, but problems with performance are not easily spotted anymore. Now I’m really concerned about publishing code that will perform very bad on more modest hardware. I resisted to upgrade for a while for this reason.

I’m trying to find a solution that doesn’t require me to have another, slower pc next to me to test every time, sincerely what a bother. I could not see any problem running the game on this pc, nor in the quick tests I do in some other office very rarely, but I do saw the slowdown by accident when I ran the game on a virtual machine (Flash on Firefox on a Linux Mint VM). That’s not too bad, I’m actually fine with that workflow.

Um, now that I remember, there are some other bug fixes and balancing on First Armor X I did weeks ago. Sorry, a lot of little changes are made between distant sessions, I really can’t remember every detail when I update, but probably you’ll notice the little differences here and there.

As usual make sure to clear your cache to see the changes.

Screenshot galore:

As you can tell for the screenshots, I love the X-buster of this armor. I used to dash to the enemies and splatter the fully loaded buster right into their faces. I find this buster way more brutal for this kind of attack. With the Giga Armor buster you can still do quite a lot of damage when both shots connect, staying safely away of the enemies, but this one actually is more effective when you are really close to the target. Ah, good times . I tried to reproduce this fun the best I could, but there’s still room for improvement.

Happy New Year!

Well, we’ll have to settle with a video of my latest progress.

Merry Christmas!

Here are a plethora of screenshots.

Factor 10 – Scorpion’s Laboratory

Factor 11 – Aczer

Factor 12 – Jackalys

Final Factor – Scorpion’s Laboratory II

As you can see I had to use my top tier characters to beat them because some levels are really hard. Deadly jumps and traps everywhere. Besides I’m such a boss using Samus!

They are available in the custom level section. Go check them out!

The Level Editor is taking longer to publish than I expected. Now it supports things that even I hadn’t envisioned for this game, like dual direction doors. You can see them in Final Factor.

While many of these features have been coded in upon request, I’m still wondering if the way I implemented them was the best and make it final, or give it more thought before documenting something that might get obsolete soon. Decisions, decisions, oh well.

September already? Oh well, this took longer than I expected, but I ran into some bugs while preparing this update of Bass Abyss, so I fixed them.

I didn’t really have the time to study a lot the original Giga Crush mechanics from Mega Man X2. So I just went with some simple formula. You get hit, it loads a bit. On fully loaded, you can use it. The way to check the current level or use it is to switch to it, as another weapon. For this the usual DEL, PAGE DOWN keys are used.

Now, it took me a while to get used to it. Out of habit, I kept pausing the game expecting to see the X2 Weapon Screen to check the Giga Crush level. This got me thinking, it would be really nice to have it. But well, I was not going to have the time to do it. I really don’t have any plans to add any more weapons anyway, so I decided against it.

Now I’ll take it easy and keep fixing bugs before I release the level editor. Be sure to blast everyone to oblivion with this weapon. This version does work on bosses! Have fun!

As usual, they manage to push the engine to its limits. Usually they manage to expose bugs and I fix them right away so the game is now even faster than before.

To play these levels, just go to the Custom Level section and browse the level list!

Ok, here are some screenshots:

Factor 6 – Insylum by Scorpion

Factor 7 – Tirociri by Scorpion

Factor 8 – Ground Zero Homage by Scorpion

Factor 9 – Terror Fill by Scorpion

Renewed Ground Zero by Scorpion

Hunter #1 by Hunter

Hunter #2 by Hunter

Well, this took all my attention since my last post, but Giga Crush and the updated level editor should be coming soon!

For more details of this update and interesting tidbits, just read on.

Legendary Level 19

After years of wondering what happened after level 18, I finally did enough engine changes to feel the need to make new levels. Yeah, it is Boomer Kuwanger’s stage remixed, but well, it started as a proof of concept, and it grew a lot from there. I’m not the most creative person when it comes with level layouts, but I really love to see what others do.

Mega Man X Giga Armor

I love that armor. I always loved the X2 Buster. Back then, when I noticed it would do double damage to a boss if both shots connected. The image got imprint in my mind forever.

Originally, Fall of 21XX was meant to be played using that armor. X-Hunters vs X2 Armor. I ripped the sprites from back then. Soon enough, reality hit me. It was too complex to implement. I barely managed to solve the wall climb. Anything else was going to take too much time and, as an extension of the Fire Man Incoming Storm engine, I already had reached its limits. I knew I wouldn’t accomplish too much and a complete rewrite was required soon. That rewrite would be in a new project, Bass Abyss.

In retrospective, now I realize how improbable it would have been for me to reach the goal if I had persisted. I just didn’t have the infrastructure, knowledge and time I do have now. When I saw the chance to do it on Bass Abyss, I was not going to let the opportunity pass. So, at long last, the Giga Armor is playable!

You’ll notice that for this release, something is still missing. If you saw the video of my previous post, at the very end I release the Giga Crush. Well, for this update I didn’t have the time to implement the proper charge logic, but it will be ready for the next update in August.

1.0

What does the 1.0 mark mean?

Not much. Ok, I had hoped it would be a full, functional, bug free game, like the good console games of old. At some point I was really aiming to that.

As praiseworthy as this sounds, sometimes this is not too realistic. Sometimes it is better to ship early, ship often, and fix bugs as you go. Experience with other products like Windows Update, WordPress and many other software products with infrastructure to update themselves, indicates that an approach where patches and updates are easily delivered is more realistic. Sure, Bass Abyss is nowhere near as complex as those projects, but in my case the problem is the time I can devote to it. So, this has been the more pragmatic way for me to deliver from time to time. Get to some ‘complete’ state, and ship.

I do consider I have reached an interesting milestone with this release. Camera transitions, rooms, doors, new level editor. Foundation wise, it was huge. But still, there’s a lot of stuff I want to do. So, I’d better let go the 1.0 full complete release goal, and start to grow from here.

For the next update:

• Giga Crush
• Level Editor

Have fun!

Since the previous update, I had already decided to add Mega Man X’s Giga Armor. I had the sprite armor ripped for years, but that is a tale for another post.

I seem to remind I had the Giga Armor implemented in relatively little time. But I decided to keep it. I use to do that as my back up plan. It was too soon, and at worst, if I didn’t have the time to work in anything else, I could buy time with this. While that was the plan, I didn’t develop much for several weeks afterwards.

Closer to my update deadline, I decided to revise some stuff I’ve been delaying. The concept of “rooms”. I’ll probably talk more about that in the next update, but the thing is, for something that started as a simple experimentation, it went so well and I saw so much progress that I decided to hold the update, and build a new level.

It was just going to be a demo level, but again, what started as a proof of several concepts, based on Boomer Kuwanger’s level, it went so nice that I could not help to kept adding stuff to the engine. Then I went: “This is it, this deserves to be Level 19. At long last!”.

Later on, I decided I didn’t want to have a simple exit. I wanted a boss battle. You know, this stuff takes time. I like to consider my options, decide on some music, and little by little I start to put things together. A boss has weapons, attacks, states, attack points, sound effects. Well, I was in a roll, weeks went on, I just didn’t mind.

Then, I few weeks ago I was debating over to stop there and update. But then I went. “Come on, this looks too good, just a little more. I want doors. Boss doors. Mega Man X Boss Doors. I had them on Fall of 21XX. I want them here now!”.

I pushed the release date again and I started to work in those doors.

This is oversimplified of course, but really, this must be the most extensive update in years. New character, new opening, new level, new boss, new music, new tiles, new editor. Complete insanity.

And still, you’ll have to wait a just a little more. I expect to polish this a bit more and have this published before the month ends. In the mean time, enjoy the video preview. I used to be strict with my “no spoilers” rule, but I really love to record these videos for the posterity.

Fun fact. The last time I updated, Mega Man Universe was cancelled. Now Capcom had to ruin my weeks of anticipation working in this update by cancelling yet another Mega Man game: Mega Man Legends 3. Coincidence much? Still, such horrible timing.

I decided to update anyway.