Attack of the Mutants 0.4

[DeNitro]

Here's version 0.4 of Attack of the Mutants =)

Changes
-MP3 music now playable from "/psp/music" folder. Use L/R to cycle songs
-New EBOOT icon and wallpaper art made by ArKo. Thanks ArKo!
-In game screenshot support added using the SELECT button
-Support for multiple custom mods which are loadable from the main menu
-Support for custom level change text
-Score display now shows up to 9,999,999 points
-Small asteroids on bonus level 2 are now worth 50 points
-Analog support added to all menus
-Player's lasers no longer downgrade after failing a bonus level
-Player's laser graphic now moddable. Added info in Readme_Mod.txt
-Mods now support custom music. See Readme_Mod.txt for filename/formats
-A few minor gameplay changes/additions
-Minor bug fixes including...
--Score sometimes not being increased after completing the asteroid bonus level
--Pausing game no longer affects bonus level timmers

Since the mod support was added in 0.3, I've seen some amazing player made mode come out.
I'm thinking about compiling and releasing a mod pack on Sunday November 5th. If any mod authors would like to have your mod included, please E-mail it over to me before then at DeNitro@hotmail.com I'm curious to see the cool things you guys can come up with :icon_smil

Hope you guys have fun!

--DeNitro

[xxxdvlman]

Ah hell yeah!! I'm hoping to have two mods done by then. Good work and I'll give some feedback on this new version in a day or two.

[ari2asem]

Dear DeNitro,

what about adding SAVING support for the game? suppose you are playing the game, you succed to come to level 9, then you died. after this u have to play just starting from level 1. wouldn't be better to have an option to save your game so that the next time u should start from level 9, and not from level 1? and logically, also support for loading earleir saved games.

i am not complaining abopout bad game. i just want to give the game more options. that's all

this game is really awesome. i only play this, even having 3 other games on UMD

[Swift]

Nice game! one suggestion though. The mp3 support in the game is great, (all homebrew should do that!) but could you also let the program search for mp3's one folder lower than Music. Couz I always keep different albums in different folders.

Keep up the good work!

[Matty323]

Nice, i have just tried this game out on the 2.0 Eboot Loader Version 7.0 and it load perfectly, and i can get a game to run but when i go to change the song, my PSP crahses. Other then that, its perfect

[natan333]

game icon looks great.
I love this game. Try to add more boss, more enemies , etc.

[xxxdvlman]

Denitro I'm try to get the final touches on my mod and all I need to do is the level change text and BG music.

Is the level_change_text.txt just one file with multiple lines of text or do I need to do a seperate one for each level? (ie level_change_text2.txt etc)

I did it as one long text file with each line representing a level with the exception of the two line levels, but only the level one text seems to show and the rest don't.

How can I convert mp3 to one of the supported formats? Is there a size limit?

[xxxdvlman]

Ok I got that it's one txt file and apparently there is a character per line limit. I noticed that all the ones that didn't show where the long ones. I shortened them and there they are. I'm too lazy to do a character by character test to find the actual limit, though I know I have one that's 55 long and works. Maybe you know off hand?

[Oblivion Odyssey]

NICE DeNitro!!! Great job, man! I would also love mp3 support in subfolders inside "MUSIC", and I'd love to see you add more powerups and unlockables. But great job!

__________________

[BrokenWing]

Originally Posted by ari2asem

what about adding SAVING support for the game?

No, that would be cheating lol. Us people here get a little competetive and post our high scores. A save feature would make this game lose it's competitiveness and it would lose that old-school feeling also. (Thinks of the NES game Spy Hunter)

Hey, great job on the new release DeNitro. You got alot of stuff added into this version. Hope you found that one glitch. I'll go test asap...as soon as I'm done modding my bullets for my Doom Mod and FF7 Mod lol.

P.S. Anyone have a good sprite for a good boss on AOTM for my FF7 mod?

[Twenty 2]

NICE WORK!!! Good luck with any future releases. I love this game!

[ArKo]

Hey, DeNitro! - great work!
I'm honored to see the eboot icon+wallpaper in your game.

I will finish the fansite soon, i promise - there is not much time at the present.

@BrokenWing:
do you know this site yet? it has great sprites!
http://sprites.fireball20xl.com/OS/HTML/square.htm

[BrokenWing]

Originally Posted by ArKo

Hey, DeNitro! - great work!
I'm honored to see the eboot icon+wallpaper in your game.

I will finish the fansite soon, i promise - there is not much time at the present.

@BrokenWing:
do you know this site yet? it has great sprites!
http://sprites.fireball20xl.com/OS/HTML/square.htm

Oh thx Arko. I'll have to check that site out. I'm going to release a new Mod shortly after my FF7 one. It will be simply an updated version of AOTM. I'm going to have ALOT of new messages also. A new background. The same ship only a sleeker and black version. And a new Electric Blue DS lol.

P.S. Just letting you know DeNitro the game froze on level 24 This time I was just moving using the analog stick and then it froze when an Angry Face and a Pizza were left.

[xxxdvlman]

Are there restrictions on the mp3 playback? I only have two songs in my music folder. One will play and the other will freeze the game and power down the psp when played in game. I've tried 5 times with the same result.

[BrokenWing]

Hey XXXdvlman,

Your mod is pretty awesome. The background looks great too. Hey, would you wanna help with the AOTM: Alternate Edition? It's gonna be like the current AOTM but I'm gonna try and "take it up a notch" lol. Basically it's gonna have the max text lines. (I think it's 200 currently) It will show some of my favorite sites and other random but interesting things. (Pspupdates will of course be the first site on there) Well, great job on the mod

[Mavcat]

I tried mp3 playback(1 gig stick )and men i kept pressing l i got a crash,even home button didnt work:Lvl 1,playing the star wars mod and i pressed R 2 times(3rd song in the list)and then i kept pressing L(to go to the end of the list )and it froze

[BrokenWing]

Originally Posted by Mavcat

I tried mp3 playback(1 gig stick )and men i kept pressing l i got a crash,even home button didnt work:Lvl 1,playing the star wars mod and i pressed R 2 times(3rd song in the list)and then i kept pressing L(to go to the end of the list )and it froze

My Advice? Don't do that anymore lol. Just remember this...
Quitters never win and Winners never quit...but if you never win and never quit then you're just stupid...Anyways, don't skip songs too fast lol.

[Mavcat]

started working on my mod, and i will not tell the theme,Muahahahahaha

Hint:Great GBA game
Edit:whenever i load my sprites they come up with a white bg,how do you remove them?i tried transparent bg,resizing them,everything!

[xxxdvlman]

Originally Posted by BrokenWing

Hey XXXdvlman,

Your mod is pretty awesome. The background looks great too. Hey, would you wanna help with the AOTM: Alternate Edition? It's gonna be like the current AOTM but I'm gonna try and "take it up a notch" lol. Basically it's gonna have the max text lines. (I think it's 200 currently) It will show some of my favorite sites and other random but interesting things. (Pspupdates will of course be the first site on there) Well, great job on the mod

Thanks Brokenwing!! I'd love to help, but I don't know if I'll have much time or whether I'm good enough for what you'll need me for. What parts of the alternate edition do you need help with?

[BrokenWing]

Well, I'll definetly need help with the 200 lines I'm trying to think of lol. You're pretty good at Title screens compared to me so if you could come up with an updated title screen that'd be great. One last thing, If you could find a cool background that is similar to the one from your mod that'd be great. My mom just got napster and I'm trying to get that to work right now for her Sony MD Player lol. I'll release my FF7 Mod as soon as I finish up on a few things then the Alternate Edition of AOTM Mod will be released shortly after.

[xxxdvlman]

Ok I'll start to work on a title screen similar to the original and a main background similar to my mod. Wouldn't that make them sort of similar though? Both being star scenes and all. I think I'll try something a little different but within the same scope and see what you think.

I still can't get my mp3 converted to a format that can be supported by aotm BG music playback. Do you have any idea?

[BrokenWing]

Originally Posted by xxxdvlman

Ok I'll start to work on a title screen similar to the original and a main background similar to my mod. Wouldn't that make them sort of similar though? Both being star scenes and all. I think I'll try something a little different but within the same scope and see what you think.

I still can't get my mp3 converted to a format that can be supported by aotm BG music playback. Do you have any idea?

Okay that sounds good. I'll look around for some freeware that allows us to convert music files to the supported format.

[xxxdvlman]

I've been doing some deep searching and can only find mod/s3m/xm to mp3 converters, but not the other way around which is making me think it's not possible. Let me ask this Q in another section of this forum.

[sumpaintballer41]

Is there a site with all these mods or are they included in the download. Is the source available for this game? thanx

[JoJaSc]

Hey Mavcat to get the BG on sprites transparent u gotta set the color to 0, 255, 255 which is like an aqua color, everything that color will be transparent

[sumpaintballer41]

Originally Posted by JoJaSc

Hey Mavcat to get the BG on sprites transparent u gotta set the color to 0, 255, 255 which is like an aqua color, everything that color will be transparent

But when two things collide or overlap wouldnt the corner outline still be there? I dont know from experience, im simply inquiring

[JoJaSc]

hey sumpaintballer41 go to arko's site its www.attackofthemutants.de .tt He has all the mods currently out hosted there including my extreme duck hunt mod also what do u mean by "the corner outline" i dont really understand what ur asking. I just did my pics and all the bgs that color. Thats the color denitro said u should do. Well maybe some1 smarter than me can answer that ?

[DeNitro]

The most amount of characters that can be displayed across the level change screen is 60 characters. If any more are in the "Level_Change_Text.tx t", it may not display. I'll have to see if I can change how it handles longer text in the next version.

For MP3 Limitations, I've tried 128 kbps, 256 kbps, and a variable kbps song. all at 44khz and they worked ok. Songs not at 44khz may cause problems. A definite limitation is the size of the mp3 though. When an mp3 is loaded, AOTM buffers the whole song into ram before it begins playback. It may be possible to have a larger mp3 overflow the buffer and cause a crash. I don't have any larger mp3's to test the size limit on. If anyone has an incompatable mp3, plz let me know the specs/size of the file so I can see if I can make them work =)

I'll also try to add playback from folders within the "/psp/music" folder in the next release.

For the questions about the BG_Music file, unfortunatly it's Not possible to convert an mp3 into an S3M (or MOD or XM). The S3M format is very similar to a .MID file, except in an S3M, the samples for the instruments are stored as recordings in the file itself. Mod Archives is a Great site to look for bgmusic from.

Thanks for the great feedback guys! :icon_smil

--DeNitro

[Mast3r_Shak3]

ok whenevr i start the game (using 0.7 loader and after a fresh reboot) theres no sound other than the BGM, can anyone help me with this problem??

[xxxdvlman]

Originally Posted by DeNitro

The most amount of characters that can be displayed across the level change screen is 60 characters. If any more are in the "Level_Change_Text.tx t", it may not display. I'll have to see if I can change how it handles longer text in the next version.

For MP3 Limitations, I've tried 128 kbps, 256 kbps, and a variable kbps song. all at 44khz and they worked ok. Songs not at 44khz may cause problems. A definite limitation is the size of the mp3 though. When an mp3 is loaded, AOTM buffers the whole song into ram before it begins playback. It may be possible to have a larger mp3 overflow the buffer and cause a crash. I don't have any larger mp3's to test the size limit on. If anyone has an incompatable mp3, plz let me know the specs/size of the file so I can see if I can make them work =)

I'll also try to add playback from folders within the "/psp/music" folder in the next release.

For the questions about the BG_Music file, unfortunatly it's Not possible to convert an mp3 into an S3M (or MOD or XM). The S3M format is very similar to a .MID file, except in an S3M, the samples for the instruments are stored as recordings in the file itself. Mod Archives is a Great site to look for bgmusic from.

Thanks for the great feedback guys! :icon_smil

--DeNitro

Thanks. I figured as much about the size of the mp3 because the one I was trying to play is 9 minutes long. It's ok though I got the perfect xm for the game anyway. Right now I'm doing up the text and then I'll release it officially probably tomorrow.

Two more suggestions: Have a volume adjust for BG music and FX. Also have two seperate BG clips, one for the title screen and the other for the game play. It would emphasis transition and seem more like a proffesional game.