I'm not sure if I showed this, but this was the last WIP change I had made to MM:
I removed the score display, but more importantly - I added a new meter display. The green is health, and when you select a weapon the energy bar splits into two and the red side is the weapon energy. I have finished it, but below it is supposed to be a box and an icon to show which weapon is selected (MMX style). The bar is fully functional, so it's not just mockup screens. It was to do, because it's pixel plotting code. Not that I probably needed it, but the resource from removing the score display was more than adequate for the routine to work.
Anyway, all the enemies for level one are redrawn with extended colors. It takes a little bit time though, because of how I have it hacked - it has to check for every "room" of monsters (this is at the beginning of the level). So I still need to create hack tables for the other levels outside of Cutman. Probably a few full days of solid work.
Just to be clear,
this project isn't cancelled. It might take me forever to finish it - but it will be a PCE-obey-fied version of Megaman when I'm done with it.
I'm also thinking of releasing the source code in intervals, as I go along. Well, for the curiously minded.
Hmm.. so slowdown is eliminated from the game simply because the PCE runs the game code faster than the NES. But these sprite hacks actually have a secondary purpose other than color enhancement; they actually speed up the game logic code because it's faster to use PCE large sprites than it is to use NES small 8x8 sprites to make larger ones. The other thing is that larger sprite cells over the native NES ones, which I've converted all sprites in the game to, also reduce the sprite flicker limit - by a huge amount! This means I can add background or foreground sprites for parallax and other similar effects. For instance in Cutman's level, I want to add scrolling clouds as a second BG layer behind the graphics. I'm also going to add a gradient sky effect via hsync. Freeing up cpu resource allows me to allocate it else where like these effects.
6 button controller support is in place already, just not functional. I'm going to assign quick weapon select for the extra buttons. Just need to receive my 6 button controller.
