There hasn't been much in the way of news at all lately, so just to keep things interesting, a Jade progress update.
The Map Editor is making great progress. Although, it is still far from complete. The screenshot is fairly accurate to what it currently does, although this one doesn't draw the boxes on the tiles. But, in this screenshot, you can clearly see every box and/or line drawn. The yellow one (in-game viewing area) will follow the mouse cursor, and display what you will see based on NTSC hardware specs. The Map Editor still needs tile editing properties, and battle backdrop editing. On the saving side, I'm still working on recompressing the map. Obviously, I still need to add support for the rest of the maps too, but other than that, the basic core of it is complete.
Once graphical editing of tiles is in place, the Equipment Editor will get its share for the weapon editing. Other than that, it is complete.
The Spells and Text editors' still haven't been touched yet. I've been too much into getting the Map Editor finished to even care about these two. Once the graphical editing is in though, the Spells Editor will also get its share, and be pretty much complete. As for the Text Editor, there's still Demi's vs Prototype I need to take care of, evil evil translations... >_>
Along with the Character Editor, once the graphical editing is in place, this will also receive its share, and be complete.
Ok, I think that about covers everything. If you have air conditioning, turn it on, unless you live in the southern hemisphere, in which case your furnace should be running. =\
A new FF1 hack
6-17-05
Lenophis
Some of you may remember Acmlm's old Mario Fantasy Adventure FF1 hack from long ago. He had since put the project on ice, and it went through a bit of a funk. But, now someone has taken it upon themselves to complete a very promising project when it first started out many years ago. Mario Fantasy Adventure Continued has been uploaded, and for your enjoyment. There is information about the game supplied with the link in the description area. Enjoy! My thanks to John for this submission.
blargg has sent in some NSFE's. Deadly Towers, Fester's Quest, an update to Rygar which gave the songs track names, Solstice, and Tombs & Treasure. Also, it appears that I never did upload the updated Crystalis, which I thought I did. Thanks for pointing that out, Aspiring Squire. :)
Also, Hiryuu has given me a suggestion for the NSFE page, which I will do before long. It will display the last few NSFE's uploaded, and the date that they were, kind of like how Zophar's NSF archive is organized.
Are we on hiatus?
5-25-05
Lenophis
Wow, it's been a lot longer than I thought since the last news post. Almost two months to the day. Sorry about that everyone... Got some news to share, so listen up. First, NSFE news. Aspiring Squire sent in an update for Crystalis, sorry I didn't get that up sooner. One of the tracks was missing before, and is now included. I myself have updated Final Fantasy 2, but quite some time ago and never said anything about it. It is merely a playlist tweak, nothing more.
Now on the hack front, an FF1 hack called Mario RPG - Subcon's Revenge has been submitted to us. It's far from finished, and does show some promise. Judging from the screenshots, it could be easily mistaken for Mario Fantasy Adventure, but it's not. There's also Final Fantasy - Defenders of the Horizons. Apparently there were supposed to be some screenshots, but sifting through websites to get them isn't exactly my style. For future reference, please include all wanted screenshots with the submissions. There were a ton more hacks to upload, I haven't gotten to those yet. I'll get those up in the next day or so.
ALL of these hacks, not a single FF2 hack been submitted yet, and I've made two. Come on people. =p Do you guys feel that Jade can't quite do that great of a job yet, or is FF2 simply not cared for? I suppose I should update the progress of Jade while I'm at it...
All but two editors are back up to what was in the last official release. The Spells and Text editor's still need to be brought back up to speed, but I haven't been paying much attention to those two. I've been concentrating on getting a map editor started first. Right now, a map is drawn (finally), it only took 8 months of my life. *insert 'use VB!' comments here* So it's coming along, although my hoping for an April release is kinda "meh." It'll be released when I'm convinced it's ready, and until the Map Editor can do what I want it to, it could be a while. :) If my personal bin wasn't going through a funk at the moment, I'd post some screenshots. Once the server is fixed, I'll post the screenshots, and they should be a sight for sore eyes. That's all for now.
...Wow
3-26-05
Lenophis
Grond has sent an update (and it looks to be the final version) of his very impressive hack, Final Fantasy++. It is now at v1.2, and he has some more screens to show. He also mentioned that the other ones were pretty outdated. But, for oogling and "ooh's" and "ahhh's" I'd decided to leave the old ones up. Thanks for the news, Grond. :)
And now, the obligitory Jade news. If you haven't found out by now, I've decided to completely re-write Jade. During some testing a while back, not long after the last beta, it just stopped working. The re-write is coming along quite smoothly, and I expect to be back up to where I was before the "crash" in a short time. For now, you can view some newscreenshots, and take note, those are separate links. As for an expected release data, you should know that I never do that...
That's all for now. Let the spring weather finally set in. :)
The SECOND Final Fantasy 2 hack
2-26-05
Lenophis
This long worked on project is now ready. King Lettuce and myself have been working on this for a long time, and we have decided that it is ready. Our hack, Demonic Pandemonium is a complete overhaul of Final Fantasy 2. Unfortunately, there are no screenshots to show off. But that's ok, there aren't any graphical changes (except the dialogue box and font, which isn't much). Enjoy the hack!
Will you be my Valentine?
2-14-05
Lenophis
Although I don't have any sweet treats to share, I do have some normal treats. OnionKid Genis has sent in his FF1 hack, Zelda 2010. It does look pretty interesting, and is worth a look-see. :) Thanks for the submission OKG.
Seems like everytime I have news, Jade manages to sneak itself in somehow. This time, there is some major news. I have decided to do a complete re-write of Jade. For the MFC haters, you will love this. I have decided to not use MFC at all. But don't worry, I won't dive into VB... ;) Hopefully this way, I'll have an easier time with the map, and might even get the music editor in sooner than I had hoped. :)
All in all, it's probably been cold for a good majority of you, so bundle up with the one you love. :)
First real news of the new year
1-29-05
Lenophis
Ok, January is getting close to being over and done with already. So, before the switch to the groundhog month (February), I have some news.
And now, Jade news. This next update will contain some likeness for everyone. First, Jade will now remember settings like how FFHackster does. Although I haven't really progressed with the Map Editor or any drawing (helps if I attempt it really), this should still be a nicely welcomed update. Now if only my beta testers would say anything about what it can do so far... >_> You know, like bug reports, stuff that should be added/removed, etc. The update is far from complete, and I also plan on addressing the Prototype aspect in the Text Editor a little more like I said I would a couple months ago. I plan on making the dialogue completely editable with the Prototype, so I can declare that more or less complete.
At this time, I am open to ideas on what I should consider adding in to Jade. There's only so much I can do, so please keep the requests realistic.
Happy New Year!
1-01-05
Lenophis
It's the new year! Many people decide to get plastered on this such occasion, and I am not one of them. My uncle would see this as any other day in the first place. =\ Have a safe one everybody.
Much to be thankful for
11-26-04
Lenophis
Happy turkey day everyone! Errr wait, posted after midnight, no longer turkey day. Oops. =\ I have to give thanks to blm07, for submitting some NSFE's. Astynax, Jurassic Park, Milon's Secret Castle, and an update to M.C. Kids. I have no idea who ripped Milon's Secret Castle, and I did some searching. And in a lapse of memory, I forgot to add Duck Hunt (VS) to that list. Thanks blm07, keep them coming. :)
I am also thankful that a new version of Jade was completed today. Although the update is fairly minor, there are a couple of major details (which makes no sense.) So without further ado, here are the details:
Character Editor: o_O After ALL of this time, saving "unarmed" into the weapon and shield slots gives problems. You'll need to re-save any character that have nothing equipped in either slot.
Text Editor: I believe everything is in place, except length detection. There's even a "Help me!" button if you need some quick pointers. Well, if you are editing the Prototype, I have to ask that you refrain from editing dialogue, as it still isn't not displaying correctly yet. Sorry everyone, I'll get it, one step at a time though.
Allowed changing of the pointer value. This should give much more freedom to the experienced users. It won't affect where it currently saves to text, as that will still be the old value (before you changed the pointer.) You'll need to save any text changes with the pointer already where you want it.
At this time, I recommend that you change Richard's name to something else. (Prefferably six letters in length.) If you choose to, you'll have to find the four or five instances in the dialogue where his name is spelled out. Obviously, you'll want to change them. Afterwards, find the following table entries, and delete them. They interfere with the normal letters used, so much to the point that Jade will always find these first before the normal ones. Again, this is up to you, but should you choose to, you have more freedom on any new characters you may add to the font. Here are the table entries:
E8=R
E9=ic
EA=h
EB=a
EC=r
I also have something else to be thankful for, I'm now releasing the source for every future version of Jade as well. My reasons for not releasing it much sooner, at first the code was just sloppy. I had planned on making this open source from the beginning, but the code was pretty horrible. Now though, it's still horrible. But read-able horrible. Don't flame my code for stupid reasons, it's still not fully optimized. That is all for this holiday, see you for the next!
In other news, Jade will be receiving an update sooner or later. One minor bug fix, some updates to the Text Editor, and that's about it. I'm working on a new editor in the background, and I won't even be showing it until it gets much closer to being finished.
Finally, the "pride and joy." Over the course of the last few months, a friend and myself have been working on a Final Fantasy 2 hack. It's not finished yet, but we are nearing completion sooner than either of us had expected. No release date has been set, but you can bet that when it is finished, I'll make a lot of noise about it. ;) That's all for now.
Jade v0.10d
11-04-04
Lenophis
Jade was updated tonight, now at v.10d. I've weeded out the little quirks of v0.10, which were kinda annoying. Here are the details:
The trick was on you! Errr, yeah, that's it... Safe to say I rushed v.10 when I said I wouldn't rush any releases anymore. Ugh, sorry everyone.
Monster Editor: Some stats weren't looking past the 256 KB portion of the rom even if the combo cart was loaded. That has been fixed.
Spells Editor: Added the palette number next to the palette, so you don't have to click on "change palette" just to know what palette you are looking at.
Text Editor: CROcOp found an error with saving, and it is fixed. You can safely edit the Miscellaneous now. But...BUT...I haven't touched dialogue, so that's still off limits, well, to the best of your self control.
Weapon Editor: Palette changing didn't work, I forgot to add that to the saving routine... Oops?
Added the palette number next to the palette, the same as the Spells Editor.
Evil error!
11-02-04
Lenophis
Jade has an evil bug! I received an email from CROcOp about a possible issue with the Text Editor, and it's a big one. To put it simply, my if statement that checks to see if you are editing dialogue for some reason does not work. That in turns messes up everything that isn't dialgoue. Since this only saves one thing at a time, that may or may not be a good thing. But thanks to CROcOp, this error has been found. But until I get this fixed, do NOT EDIT ANY text in the Text Editor... Damnit, I thought this was good too.... Arghhhhhhh.
Jade v0.10
10-31-04
Lenophis
I have an early Halloween treat for everyone. Jade has been updated to v 0.10. And here are the details:
Yay, tenths digit for version number. *fanfare*
Misc.: Apparently the palette file wasn't entirely accurate. So it has been updated. *shrug* The old one was FFHackster's palette file, in case anyone is curious.
Character Editor: Minor cosmetic tweak.
Formation Editor: Figured out how palettes are displayed (in battle) and are now editable. Note that the monsters that are a whole pattern table will use both palettes regardless. You can also change the palettes themselves.
Currently, changing a color of a palette will be pseudo permanent. If you wish to revert back to the old color, avoid saving, exit and re-open Jade. (Or just change it back, whichever works for you.)
Spells Editor: That little issue with palette's has been solved, animation's are all that remain now. :)
Text Editor: As of now, just about everything displays for dialogue. I've also discovered that the Prototype translation has massive conflicts with Demi's translation. However, since there's an issue with keywords in dialogue, and character name's are yet to be displayed, I still recommend against saving any dialogue changes.
Weapon Editor: Figured out what weapons use what palettes, and some weapons don't have palettes. ("Unarmed" and every shield.) NOW, I just need to enable editing the in-battle graphic of each weapon. :)
Do enjoy, and happy Halloween to everyone.
Jade v0.09d
10-15-04
Lenophis
Well, after some effort, or lack thereof, Jade has been updated. It now rests at version .09d, here are the details:
Character Editor: I've expanded the items in the two belts slots. ANY item can be saved there. But if your game crashes (like if you put Phin/Fin or a key item other than the Hiryuu in a slot, etc) don't yell at me.
o_O When I optimized the code a couple verions back, I must have accidently deleted the line to save magic defense experience. Oopsie, it's fixed.
Text Editor: Length detection is in only for the character names. And, also fixed that nagging error that would decapitate the stats of any named changed character.
For now, editing the Epilogue has been left out. There is a conflict between the Prototype and Demi's translations. I'll get this figured out. (There's actually a couple conflicts, but this was the only crash bug producing conflict.)
The advise of not editing dialogue still applies, as I've now been deciphering the variables. They still do not display at this time. Don't click the Save button with Epilogue highlited, or else be drown in your own stupidity.
Formation Editor: *NEW* Now you can finally change the insane battle formation data. Errr, well, most of it. Hehehehe... For now, I choose to be evil and not let you change what two palettes are used. Rest assured, all of the data will be editable soon enough.
Spoils Editor: *NEW* I ran out of room in the Monster Editor, so this was made as a result. There are 60 sets of things that can be dropped. The "random" amounts of Gil that can be dropped was a good idea actually, and I'm kind of surprised it was used again in the later games of the series. (FF4 on up.)
Some updates
10-13-04
Lenophis
I have some news for everyone. First, I have updated the Spoils Bytes, it is much easier to read, and fully explained. Jade is coming along nicely, as I've optimized, and in some cases, re-optimized some code. Haven't worked on the Formations Editor too much, but it is being worked on.
Also, since there's now a point, the FF2 Patches archive is now open. Right now, it boasts one whole hack, which is the mini arena I made a week or so ago. Hopefully in the not-so-distant-future I can finish the pride and joy. All in due time. Enjoy!
Upcoming new version
10-10-04
Lenophis
I hope that there will be many happy people. Sometime soon (within the next two weeks is my current timeframe, but not 100% sure on that) a new version of Jade will be done. I found the rest of the Gil and Item drops, and made a new bytes file with that info. The descriptions are probably lacking a little, but it should still be pretty easy to follow. I'll most likely update it not too long from now. As a result of this, the monster bytes underwent revisions to remove the item drop data, nothing major.
But wait, there's more. Someone by the name of tornado4734 has kindly given me the battle formation data. Although not completely cracked, this is much more than I had previously discovered, so again, thanks buddy. The new version will contain a Formation Editor, which will let you edit the formation setups. =\ Also, since the palette pointers were finally found, I may even make monster graphic editing.
This shouldn't take too long to finish, but you never know. The Spoils Editor is already complete too, so the formations remain until the new version is ready. Bottom line, I'd say this is good news. =p
Jade: Added two more tables, a DTE for the standard, and a DTE for the prototype. The two normal tables have been adjusted as a result.
Font Editor: *NEW* Guess what, this doesn't really do anything except show the font. =p It also displays a pretty small picture.
Shop Editor: *NEW* With the exception of the empty slot, you can put anything you want in a shop. Just know that some items aren't really meant to be used... Right now, you can edit the contents of the shops, just not shop locations (for that, I would need town/dungeon map data). Thanks to Dragonsbrethren of the TEK boards for identifying a shop location, the Tropical Island shop.
Text Editor: *NEW* Right now, you can edit any text that the editor already sees. You CAN edit dialogue, however, I highly recommend against it. Not everything is displayed with dialogue, and saving would overwrite what isn't displayed. In short, bad. Also, there's no length detection and nothing to prevent you from overwriting existing data. Just be mindful of what you are editing and what comes next in terms of text, and you'll be fine.
Character Editor: Removed the safeguard about learning spells in order. The idea was nice in principle, but was ultimately pointless. Also, see the next section for further details.
Really did fix the dominant hand and row position saving errors.
Monster Editor: Minor cosmetic tweak, made the 'Added effect' area a bit smaller, and stretched out the 'Elemental Weakness' and 'Elemental Absorb.' This way, it should be easier to distinguish which set is which. (Better be, anyway. It can't get more obvious than the current setup.) =\
I came to my senses with stats. You can now edit Index 0 of HP, strength, number of hits, and accuracy.
As a side note I forgot to mention, do NOT edit and save character names. You'll spend a lot of time wondering what happened to that character's stats.
Errors return!
9-21-04
Lenophis
After some spamming of a few boards about my new upcoming hack, I've discovered a few evil errors with Jade. After some consideration, I believe I'll do a release to fix all of the discovered problems. Here are the details:
Character Editor: I thought I had fixed this problem. But dominant hand and row position do not save correctly. Not only that, you will have a party full of Firion's and Maria's.
Weapon Editor: When saving, the Air bit is not saved. I forgot that one line. Don't worry, there's no corruption or "blah, where did it save?!" possibility.
Actually, I did make a version 0.07 that I never did release. It had the Shop Editor and a sneak peak at the Text Editor. But now that I have something to release, everyone will get a good look anyway. :) And, thanks to Jathys, I can draw the way I had intended to!
Look for a release within the week. Enjoy!
Lots of tunes
9-19-04
Lenophis
All NSFE submissions today, and there are 6 to go over. Jari has submitted a fix to Megaman 5, submitted Wizards and Warriors 1, 2, 3, Hebereke. Also, Xkeeper has submitted Jackal. I also owe Xkeeper an apology, it was his submission of Marble Madness, and not mine. Sorry bud! Hope everyone enjoys the tunes.
More music
9-12-04
Lenophis
Tsu Ryu has done it again. He has sent in four more NSFE's. The new NSFE's are Highway Star/Rad Racer, Slayers TRY, Tsu Ryu's Original Set Volume 4, and Tsu Ryu's Summer 04. Thank you for the submission, Tsu. Hope everyone enjoys the new tunes.
New music
9-04-04
Lenophis
Although I uploaded over a week ago, there has been no other news to add with this. With the blessings of Sliver-X from Panicus, I have converted his Dragoon X Omega II NSF to an NSFE, and uploaded it to the archive. Do enjoy. Dragoon X Omega II is the FF1 hack he and Thaddeus are working on, and what they have been showing off looks very impressive.
New stuff
8-19-04
Lenophis
With the new look live, I can now announce two new NSFE's. Kagerato has submitted Ninja Gaiden 2, and I have added Marble Madness. Thanks to Xkeeper of the Hack Archives for the track names, and suggestion to do the NSF. Thanks to Kagerato for Ninja Gaiden 2 as well. Hope everyone enjoys the new look.
You think I would make a post and not mention Jade? I'm hoping for an update relatively soon, but I can't promise anything. The Shop Editor is done, and the Text Editor is creeping along. And no, there isn't any graphical editing yet. When I learn how to code, it'll be implemented, and my beta testers will laugh at me because I probably won't even get it right. =\
New Site!
8-19-04
Disch
Yes, it's long overdue. The wretched color scheme and horrid design of the old site was really getting on my nerves. I must have insane when I made it. Anyway, this design is done and is much easier to look at. Purple is a very nice color, and the various shades of purple along with other shades of purple and the occasional shade of blue is very nice compared to the blazing and blinding red of the old design that was WAY too loud. Several things have been changing, making the overall site design much less stupid.
One thing in particular to note is the page for FF1 hacks. Voting has been moved to each hack's individual page, which also contains screenshots, a description and other info (or.. will... if/when descriptions and stuff get written up).
The horrid framed sidebar has been removed for a real sidebar. Various crappy programs have been removed (since they were waaaay too crappy to be worth a download and were ultimately a shame to everything we stand for). The NewsArchive is a little better... there's better descriptions for all the programs... screenshots for programs that didn't have screenshots before, and other awesome things.
For those of you using IE, the page will appear darker than it's supposed to. Blame it on IE's shitty PNG support. I refuse to sub in larger gifs... so I urge all you using IE to get a real browser. The page has been tested on Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Konquerer and various other browsers (thanks to a few buddies on IRC), so it SHOULD look good on whichever one you're using.
There are also some new goodies which have made their way to Slick Productions. Namely, Slick NSF, which can be a handy-dandy tool for NSF rippers. There's also a doc on FDS Sound which could aid NSF player or NES emu authors.
If you visit the news archive, old links in old news posts probably won't work. Yeah it's a bummer but I'm not gonna go back and change all them by hand, so whatever.
As for the status of NotSo... I'm currently doing a full rewrite. There are various reasons why. One is because I hope to expand it to other media players for other platforms (not just for Winamp... but hopefully for XMMS and maybe a mac player too). Also, I'm doing various additions and corrections to things as I go, which is much easier than going back through old code and fixing things. Anyway... don't expect another release for quite some time.... but expect the next one to be a bang ;D.
That's about it. Enjoy the new site and all that stuff. Peace.
