Super Metroid Item Randomizer

Samus Aran Beauty Salon - A Super Metroid palette editor. SMILE - The 'Super Metroid Integrated Level Editor'. Metroid Super Zero Mission is a complete hack of Super Metroid that is heavily inspired by Metroid Zero Mission and incorporates numerous new features. Super Metroid: Redesign is the largest and most extensive hack. For editing Super Metroid, the de facto standard level editor is SMILE RF. Previous notable SMILE branches include SMILE 2.5, SMILE 3 (Parlor, WINE compatible) and SMILE JX. More recently, a tool called SMART has hit the scenes, offering automatic repointing and data management in addition to level editing. Super Metroid Integrated Level Editor, by Jathys. Edit by GFKennon: I have included my Wine copy, it functions mostly in Wine, but it wont function fully, but most of SMILE is better than none right?

Go to the Randomize! page to get started.

Change Log:

v2.10 - 2019-01-16

• Tournament difficulty has been updated with the following changes:
• Gauntlet no longer logically requires HiJump, Speed, IBJ or SpaceJump to enter.
• Pink brinstar Wave Gate no longer requires Hi-Jump
• Grapple now only requires access to Crocomire.
• Norfair Reserve area access now includes Ice Beam or Spring Ball in addition to previous requirements.
• WRITG logic now includes Spring ball, and has a fix to require Charge along with Ice Beam if required.
• Screw Attack location fixed to include a way to get back out. (HJ/Speed/SJ/IBJ/SpringBall)
• Suitless Maridia now includes Spring Ball as a substitute for Ice Beam.
• Some minor bug fixes to energy requirements for some locations.
• The randomizer filling algorithm has been slightly adjusted to give a slightly better minor item spread.
• The statistics for Power Bombs and SBA:s have been fixed to show properly.

v2.9 - 2017-11-16

• Casual difficulty has been updated and should now be somewhat easier.
• A few logic fixes for open mode has been done.
• Screw attack can now always be selected in the item menu.
• The animal surprises got a few bug fixes as well.
• There's now a new experimental 'Full' mode where all items are fully randomized. This mode uses the Tournament logic.
• Note that the Full mode is somewhat of a beta and might have issues where seeds can't be completed, please report these if possible.

v2.8 - 2017-08-23

• A new item placement algorithm has been implemented that creates a more uniform item distribution.
• This change will for example make certain late game locations more valuable instead of previously over-valued early game locations.
• The new algorithm is only in place for Tournament difficulty right now, but will be integrated into Normal and Casual later.
• Some minor logic bugs have been fixed - thanks to Dessyreqt for pointing many of these out.

v2.7 - 2017-08-09

• A new section has been added to the ending credits containing item randomizer staff credits and new cool gameplay statistics including a spoiler of the major item locations.
• Skipping the item at morph ball and going right will no longer awake zebes and make that item unobtainable.
• Some of the room changes have been redone to be less intrusive.
• The top part of the ammo icons will now show your maximum ammo of that type.
• Something strange is happening in the Bomb Torizo room when Zebes is exploding, go find out what at your own peril. (Results may vary)
• Open Mode has been added, this is a new mode where the following changes has been made to open up gameplay for a new experience.
  • The game starts with Zebes Awake and the Maridia Tube broken.
  • All doorshells that doesn't lead directly to an item has been changed to blue.
  • The bomb blocks in parlor and on the way to pink brinstar has been removed.
  • The yellow door shell to pink brinstar gate-room e-tank has been changed to blue.
  • You can now access all of the 'inner' Wrecked Ship without Morph Ball.
  • You can also access Charge Beam and Red Tower without Morph Ball.
  • You can also access Kraid's Lair without Morph Ball.
  • You can also access Botwoon e-tank and Mama Turtle e-tank without Morph Ball.
  • You can also access Screw Attack and Firefly e-tank without Morph Ball.
  • Bomb or Power Bomb blocks in place for the above cases have either been removed or changed into shot blocks.
  • Any morph ball tunnels in place for the above cases have also been expanded in height.
  • The spikes on the left side of Lava Dive have been removed to enable easier Hi-jumpless lava dive.
  • Gravity suit can now spawn in any location (including late Maridia).
  • Varia suit can now spawn anywhere but Lower Norfair.
  • Morph Ball can no longer spawn in Crateria or certain Brinstar locations.

v2.6 - 2017-07-17

• A seed identifier will now be shown when a file has been selected in the top consisting of 4 random enemy names.
• The red tower patch has been updated to correct some graphical issues.

Super Metroid Level Editor

v2.5 - 2017-07-10

• Screw attack and Speed Booster will no longer be available as start items, this was done to promote more early game item diversity.
• The following changes have been done to tournament mode:
• Reverted the blue brinstar e-tank room change, the major item is now back in the ceiling and the room is back to normal.
• Wall jumping up to early gauntlet without hi-jump will no longer be enforced for completion. (Note that going there early if you can is still going to be a good choice most of the time)
• Green gate glitching the blue wave-beam gate before the e-tank location in pink brinstar will now only be enforced if you have hi-jump.
• The bottom of red tower have been modified again to restore the right side to normal, but instead open up a path on the left side.

v2.4 - 2017-06-14

• Varia suit can no longer spawn in blue brinstar.
• Tournament difficulty added. This is the difficulty settings that will be used in the item randomizer tournament (http://supermetroid.challonge.com/itemrando).
• Please give feedback on possible changes and report any bugs you find in the Tournament difficulty as soon as possible!
• Some major noteworthy changes in the Tournament difficulty compared to Normal difficulty right now are these:
• Blue brinstar e-tank room major item is accessible without the ceiling damage boost.
• The first crumble block in early super mockball bridge is now a shot block to prevent softlocking without bombs.
• The speed blocks on top of dachora pit will no longer respawn to enable walljumping out
• The bottom of red tower is modified so that you can walljump back up without hi-jump
• Both blocks in the tunnel to spazer are now shot blocks to enable access to Spazer without bombs and prevent softlocking.
• The bomb blocks in the room before Hi-Jump are now shot blocks to enable access to Hi-Jump without bombs and prevent softlocking.
• The first heated norfair room has had the final platform raised to enable traversal without hi-jump or bombs.
• The bomb block in the bottom of the pillar in the moat room is now a shot block to prevent softlocking.
• The energy tank requirement for hell runs have been raised from 3 to 4.
• Gravity suit is now prevented from spawning at Space Jump, Plasma and Spring Ball locations.

v2.3 - 2017-05-27

• Fixed the ASM patch to not create a savefile from the gameplay demos, this fixes bugs #1 and #2. (Thanks InsaneFirebat for figuring out exactly what caused this)
• Initial support for Hard difficulty. Expect this to change from what it is currently.
• Some more behind the scenes work on patching and support for different methods of randomization per difficulty.

v2.2 - 2017-05-15

• Initial support for Casual difficulty, this is still under heavy development and may contain broken logic and patches.
• A lot of behind the scenes work on the patching system to support different patch methods, difficulty-specific patches, and optional patches.

v2.1 - 2017-04-21

• Fixed item visibility issue for Crateria and Pink brinstar Power Bombs. They are no longer in Chozo Balls

v2 - 2017-04-20

• First version uploaded - contains initial changes listed on the Information page

I’m happy to say we have a first ever game developer interview on Blimps Go 180! SavageWizzrobe worked on the Super Metroid Reimagined ROM hack, which I watched in a livestream with SW on Twitch. With any luck, we will have a review of Reimagined on the site.

blimpsgo180: You mentioned you made Super Metroid Reimagined with SMILE and a hex editor. I’ve heard game development is a lot of art and computer code. Do you disagree?

SavageWizzrobe: I hardly disagree. Making a game (or a ROM hack, for that matter) is mostly a mixture between an art and a science. It’s an art because you have a great deal of control of how you want the play environment to look. Tile layout, palette editing, and graphics editing are the main things that define a ROM hacker artistically.

It’s a science because making a game or hack takes knowledge of computer science. In addition, knowing how data is laid out in the game code helps tremendously. That, and writing custom code is a part of it as well.

So in essence, art and computer code make up, I’d like to say 2/3 of game development. However, playtesting is another significant part of game development, which is critical to make sure the game works as it’s supposed to. The last thing you want is for a player to get stuck and lose minutes (or sometimes even hours) of progress, for example. Maps have to be playtested thoroughly and well-thought out to make sure the player has the best experience possible. After all, a game is meant to be played, so you must keep the player in mind at all times.

blimpsgo180: This sounds like time consuming work. How much time before a 1.0 version was ready?

SavageWizzrobe: If I had to guess, I started working on Super Metroid Reimagined at the beginning of 2013, then released it in about July 2016? So it took almost 3 years on and off.

blimpsgo180: Is the development pipeline pretty seemless? You just start changing the game and keep going?

SavageWizzrobe: Yes and no. With my own experience making Super Metroid: Reimagined, I had many ambitious ideas. As far as implementing them, however, a handful of them had to be scrapped. This is a rather common thing that happens in game development. Ideas need to transition over into game code. Because ambition is nearly infinite and a game only has a finite amount of space, problems arise. Also, hardware itself has limitations, and may not lend itself well to your grandiose ideas.

However, once I realized the limitations of hardware and data space and toned my ambition down, things mostly went pretty smoothly and linearly in making SM: Reimagined. Start designing a room, playtest it, finish it, on to the next room, rinse and repeat until done. Maybe go back now and then and make an adjustment or bug fix.

blimpsgo180: You say the game itself has a finite amount of space… I’m assuming the amount of data (in kilobytes) the [game] could store. Are there ways around this?

SavageWizzrobe: In part, I was referring to the amount of kilobytes that the game is. Basically, the ROM is divided up into memory banks, and each bank has a different purpose. Yet, each bank is also the same size at 2^16 bytes.

Specifically for Super Metroid, there are banks for room designs, graphics, interactable objects in each room, enemies in each room, and so on. If you do run out of space, however, it is possible to add up to 32 more banks to the ROM.

Fortunately, it is quite easy to add more space for room designs, which I did have to do. I maybe added 6 more banks to the ROM to store room designs? However, just because a workaround is possible doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. This is the case if you were to run out of space for anything other than room design data. Working around that would require not only moving the data around, but even changing the game’s code to read the data properly. In short, it’s a lot more trouble than what it’s worth, so you’re better off just saving space within those banks.

Other than the space within the ROM, there are limitations in the SNES hardware itself. For example, those coloured doors that you can only open with specific weapons, and that become permanently destroyed? You can only have so many of those due to the way door flag data is stored in the RAM. Also, care must be taken to ensure not too many enemies are processing at once, because that can cause a lot of lag and make the game not as fun to play.

Super Metroid Level Editor Tutorial

blimpsgo180: What’s your favorite Super Metroid hack which isn’t your own?

SavageWizzrobe: I had played a few hacks of Super Metroid before starting to make Reimagined, namely Project Base, Legacy, and Redesign (the original version, not Axiel Edition). Out of all of them, Redesign is my favourite, and inspired me to make my own hack. Many aspects of Redesign blew me away: the sheer size of its world, its challenge, its room design, its custom mechanics, and its overall ambition.

blimpsgo180: What is your favorite game, ROM Hack or otherwise?

SavageWizzrobe: It’s hard to pick just one favourite game of all-time, so I’ll go with two. Super Metroid is obviously one of them, along with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. These are both games that I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing and replaying, whether in casual play or even speedrunning or challenge running. They both have an open design and a large amount of sequence breaking, so with enough skill it’s possible to play these two games in just about any order you wish.

Speaking of sequence breaking as well, when designing Super Metroid Reimagined, I did put some sequence breaks in there for the more experienced Super Metroid players.

And in addition, what adds basically infinite replayability to these games? The fact that there are now randomizers for both OoT and SM!

[editor’s note: Wikipedia writes… In computer and video games, sequence breaking is the act of performing actions or obtaining items out of the intended linear order, or of skipping “required” actions or items entirely.]

blimpsgo180: Thank you so much for your time!!