Topic: Sword of Mana (GBA)

[Troy Lundin]

Finished another 300 or so scenes. This brings the total up to 1242. Almost done! In all honesty, I can finish by tomorrow. Hope you guys are ready.

[Paco]

Ok, I didn't realize you started already. There isn't anything specific I want. You will have to add the chests and angel statues. Basically, anything that is on the sprite layer.

no big deal, since after the Raw Maps is done there is not much to add from Sprite Layer.

Only thing I can think of is major story NPCs, such as NPCs you talk to that would start a boss battle or something. This is your part of the mapping. Be creative.
Also, I hope you are very familiar with the game. The scenes I capture aren't named after the area they are in, they are named by the ID. You can see this in the attachments I post.

Leave it to Trop and me. We will discuss it first before we start working on it or else there will be a mess. ^^

[Troy Lundin]

Question: Is Vinquette Hall(?) a maze or does it have a lot of pointless, similar looking rooms?

I am getting tons of rooms that look the same. Also, most of the rooms only have Noon and Night versions.

Update: Up to 1488 scenes. I found a couple more 'interesting' scenes.

013D is named "Flashback Scene" in-game. NPCs can be walked through and not spoken with.
06A1 is named "Black Screen" in-game. NPCs cannot be spoken with.
06A9 is named "Glass Desert4" in-game. NPCs cannot be spoken with.
08AD is just a Japanese character I would like translated. This is what shows up on every ID past the cactus-plant ones.

[Trop]

Vinquette Hall has a lot of similar looking rooms.  You can only enter Vinquette Hall at night, everything you do there takes place there at night.  Those other scenes are cut scenes that take place in areas you can never actually go to.

You want how much stuff added?  OK, that's not a small project at all.  Let me go over this:

First of all are you going to do all areas in all times of day?  Because that would mapping the game out four times.  If not I'll have to make time of day icons that can be placed next to things.

Paco, if you're marking chest contents right on the map then you can do like you did in BoF and mark other items received from people or non chest objects the same way.  Like the grandpa in Topple who gives you the Magic Rope.

I'll place different color highlights around Flag NPC's, Quest Giver NPC's, and whatever other kind of important characters there might be.  I'm not going into detail like in MA though, that would mean linking tons of maps together to explain one quest.  Remember the blue haired kid in Topple that gave you the barbecued newt?  That quest goes on right to one of the final towns.

Goddess statues don't need to be highlighted.  I don't think we have to mark areas where the player has to do something special like cross a pit with the flail or wait until night to see the invisible bridges in the glass desert either.

I'll probably mark rare monsters, along with monsters that drop quest specific items off to the side of the room they appear in but we'll see.

Do you want to make some kind of special thing for those damn weapon specific orbs?  I'm not marking damage zones like the lava in the subsea volcano, or things like the sand conveyor belts in the jadd desert, those should be obvious.

There are switches in the sealed cave, the mine, and other places that make up puzzles just like the west forest in MA.  Do you want to mark those in some way or ignore them?

I thought I'd let you make all your marks and changes before I do any at all so we don't have to do some kind of tricky merging.  What else am I missing here?

[Troy Lundin]

Okay, I finished up just the Noon scenes. It seems the game uses Noon as the default time of day if it only uses one time of day for a scene.
Anyway, now you have something to work with. http://www.4shared.com/file/Ceg2bsHt/Sword_of_Mana_-_Maps__Noon_.html

Also, attached is "Debug Room". Enjoy.

[Paco]

@Troy Can you also upload the other times-Maps too?

For example: i want to use the Night-Maps for Castle Vinquette.

[Troy Lundin]

The Night scenes are exactly the same as the Noon scenes for that area. Some scenes only used one time of day. For example: 0881 is outside Vinquette Castle (I think). That is the Noon version of that scene. The other times are non-existant. You can see this is you use the following codes in VBA:

020003B4:0880
020003B4:0882
020003B4:0883

To get the code to work you have to change areas.

Those codes access the Morning, Evening and Night versions of that scene, respectively. Some Vinquette scenes use all four times, most use just the Noon and Night version only. Either way, they are all the same. Also, if you keep an eye on the offset 020003B4, you can see what scene you are on. This may help piecing the areas together.

I always wondered why the different times for that area looked the same. Trop cleared it up when he said you can only enter at night.

I can upload all the scenes later. I want to run them through PNGGauntlet first so it isn't a 90MB file.

[Troy Lundin]

Here is the full pack of scenes.

Scenes that end with:
0, 4, 8, C are Morning.
1, 5, 9, D are Noon.
2, 6, A, E are evening.
3, 7, B, F are Night.

Scenes that are entirely Magenta haven't been captured yet. These should just be some Morning and Evening scenes.
Scenes that are mostly Magenta but have a rectangle of black don't exist in the game. They just came up as a black screen.

http://www.4shared.com/file/CV6yGLyl/Sword_of_Mana_-_Scenes__Full_.html

[Trop]

I'm thinking NPC's will be listed in a make shift legend with small amounts of info about each.  Something like what Paco's doing with the monsters.

[Paco]

@Troy Do mind that the Maps are not finished yet, but which do you like more? A or B?

[Troy Lundin]

Is there a unique (or semi-unique) icon for each item in the game? If so, you could just place the icon above each chest and then have a small key somewhere that shows the name of each icon.

The issue with the first one (item names outside the scenes) is that it may become impossible to accomplish on larger maps without a lot of empty space. The desert maybe?
The issue with the second one (item names inside the scenes) may arise if there happens to be chests next to each other. Or close enough that they may overlap.

Also, make sure you are spacing the scenes the correct distance apart. I explained in more detail a few posts back. Basically, it's way they are spaced in the game. If they aren't spaced this way, some of the scenes may overlap. I have a program that can help a lot with spacing. Basically, it allows you to move the scenes 8 pixels at a time so you can line them up easier. I can put it up if you wish to use it.

I love the NPC info and the exit signs. The credit box is a bit large.

[Paco]

Is there a unique (or semi-unique) icon for each item in the game? If so, you could just place the icon above each chest and then have a small key somewhere that shows the name of each icon.

I didnt play very far yet to say for sure, but most Items-Icons are unique except for Raw Material where there is many different Name for the same Icon.

I love the NPC info and the exit signs. The credit box is a bit large.

There is no NPC Info yet (well, there are no NPC in Batmo Cave) just Monster Info. really? then i will make it smaller, but that have time until the Project is done.

[Troy Lundin]

I meant NPC as in Non-player character. I consider monsters non-playable. Would be cool if they were playable, though.

[Trop]

If only all SD games were like Legend of Mana.  My NPC listings will mimic Paco's monster listings with things like quests or items they give you.  The story advancing elements (Flags) you wanted will also be there.

[Paco]

I meant NPC as in Non-player character. I consider monsters non-playable. Would be cool if they were playable, though.

For me NPC are character which you talk to and they dont attack you. All other are Monster or enemies.

But lets us stop that and continue with the Game.

and here is C. What do you think? Later there may be 2 item with different name but use the same Icon, but we will see about that then.