Mockup Frenzy #8: Megaman!

[AdamAtomic]

From user QuickSilva, a.k.a. Jason, a new Mockup Frenzy activity!

Mockup Frenzy #8 : Megaman!



Challenge
Were you excited by the announcement of a new Megaman game but equally dissapointed by Capcom's decision to take the graphics all the way back to the beginning of the series? Well now is your chance to show them how Megaman 9 should have looked! Your task is to create your very own boss character, one complete tileset and set of enemies to populate your stage using the limitations of the original NES (See NES specs below.)

Start Date
Monday 18th August 2008

Deadline
Monday 1st September 2008

Notes
No rips or edits please. All entries must be 100% your own work apart from the possible inclusion of the main Megaman sprite.

NES colors, resolution and restrictions.
(Kindly supplied by AdamAtomic )



And finally some samples to get you started. These are from Megaman 6 and show just how far Capcom had come with the series graphics towards the end.




For extra inspiration take a look at some real Megaman levels and sprites from the following sites.

http://www.vgmaps.com/
http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/

Lastly, a sample boss avatar. Please make sure that your boss avatar fits inside this template.



All that is left to say now is to have fun and enjoy the challenge


RESULTS:

Alex Hanson-White, floatvoid, floatvoid:


gamingjustin, huZba, joe123:


Lord Ash, mice, mice:
 

mice, moket, Mt:


Mt, Pietepiet, ptoing:


QuickSilva, QuickSilva, QuickSilva:


rdcarvallo, rdcarvallo, Red Mist:
 

Rosse, Rosse, Rosse:
 

Ryona, Tobe, vierbit:


Zccc, Zccc, Zccc:


Xion:



Finally, we had a bunch of submissions that weren't full-on mockups but still get at the heart of the activity:



Sorry for the INSANELY LATE COLLATING AND UPLOADING!  Happy holidays, pixelators 

[vagabondarts]

amazing challenge!

I love old-school MegaMan.  ...looking forward to contributing and seeing everyone's submissions!   
Those MM6 screens show how skilled capcom became on the NES hardware. 
Didn't MM6 also use one of the advanced chips on the actual cart (like Castlevania 3) to provide a greater variety of colors on screen or something?

[AdamAtomic]

I don't believe so, but they did use more than 4 palettes per level, which very few other games did.  They would change the palette once you had advanced well past the screens that used the old one.

[Zurnathus]

man...looking back at these i'm amazed how good it all looks with the limits they had

[Dex]

Wow, this looks pretty awesome. I might just have to try this out! 

[Conceit]

Oooohkay, been doing research for my own reasons...but...might as well post it here. The most popular of these games have entries in VGmaps, and even complete runs on youtube...so this is just to give you some ropes on the best NES stuff out there.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/ninja-gaiden-iii-the-ancient-ship-of-doom/screenshots/gameShotId,83318/
Ninja Gaiden 3, the first levels in particular have great graphics

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/batman-the-video-game_/screenshots/gameShotId,42623/
Batman. I think it's got the best atmosphere in NES bar none.

Some screens I myself grabbed from TripWorld, a game for GB that is equally well done.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/little-samson/screenshots/gameShotId,253929/ Little Samson....among of the best and most unknown NES games. good thing there are several screenshots here, this one doesnt have an entry at Videogame Maps


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnp6P7Kgeoo
Aaaand as reiterative as it might be, Star Ocean Blue sphere footage, AGAIN. I reaaally should play trough that game..bummer, an RPG and in japanese -_-

Let's show Inafune some ingenious tile conservation =O

[Ryona]

Ooh! This sounds like it could be fun! 

...Though, I'd hate to sound like a ditz, but can anyone explain to me what all this below means?

[tehwexxl0rz]

Personally, I think this prompt is much too narrow for a Mockup Frenzy.... Everyone is asked to make a mockup of the same game?
An already existing game no less! Even when I don't submit, one of my favorite things about this activity is seeing everyone else's diverse ideas for original games and hopefully finding inspiration from them!

[Ryona]

Even though this mockup-thingie is based off of a videogame franchize, people can still get real creative! And it's a nice base to work from.

Here's my boss character so far. And yes, I know I deviated away from the "blank" man consistancy in the series, but I wanted to break away from the monotonousness by making this boss a woman.

Sue me. lol 

Now, without further ado, I give you WARP-WOMAN!
Her main power is teleportation.



Oh, and I used Mega-Man for size reference.

I'm thinking I should probably make Warp-Woman bigger in the portrait pic.

[MrMister]

Mega Man 9 actually has a woman boss. I kinda agree with The Weckslors, because everything has to subscribe to the mega man series. Subscribing is bad. Ascribing good.. Level ideas could be fun to come up with, though.
Think I got a good idea too

[Ryona]

Oh wow! I just looked on Wiki, and you're right, there is a female boss by the name of Splash-Woman.
Also, I had no idea that this new Mega-Man 9 game was being designed to look like it's out of the 80s! That's neat!

I'm actually a little confused... I heard of and played a Mega-Man game called 'Mega-Man X' for SNES. Doesn't "X" mean it's the tenth game? If so, why is 9 just getting made now?

[ptoing]

Mega Man X is an entire different spinoff series.

[Conceit]

yes, megaman has like 5 different series by now; each characterized by a specific tone and a different look (for example megaman characters have little detail (blips, knick-nacks, fins, spikes...etc) on their armor, and can have bare chests. X characters must by rule have chest armor and usually have a lot more bulk and clutter...MegamanX as a character also goes from a total boy scout to someone who is concerned about the effects of war and whatnot.

Or atleast it used to be, now it's like they're creating new series for the hell of it, no diference in tone or look.Just re-set continuities and a few minor gameplay tweaks.

Personally, I think this prompt is much too narrow for a Mockup Frenzy.... Everyone is asked to make a mockup of the same game?

You're missing the point! this is our chance as pixel artists to prove our worth and restore honor to pixelart by showing CAPCOM that NES does not equal halfassed graphics 

or something

[Luzeke]

I think this is an awesome challenge, being the mega Mega Man-fan that I am 

Going to work on this instantly!

[Zccc]

I would participate, but I don't know the NES restrictions...
Those in the image are confusing me.

[AdamAtomic]

Mockup Frenzy #7 was also on NES specs, and there are lots of helpful posts in that thread that go over some of the more confusing parts of the spec.  Also, no one is going to string you up if you have one extra color in one tile or something, the main idea here is just to show capcom what they COULD have done, instead of what they did

[Lee N]

Oh wow! I just looked on Wiki, and you're right, there is a female boss by the name of Splash-Woman.

This is what she looks like (in greyscale at least):



It's from the official achievements list for the game:

http://inside.mygamercard.net/2008/08/12/achievements-for-mega-man-9-reward-the-hardcore/


edit: apparently they didn't appreciate me hotlinking directly to their server, so I fixed the image url.

[Alex Hanson-White]

i think it would be worth mentioning how many tiles a person should be considering using since this would also be a valid limitation on the NES and this challenge though i dunno how many tiles the new megaman will be using per level or whatnot(i guess you can find/look at the original tilesets as an example)..
i did some digging and found this: http://nocash.emubase.de/everynes.htm#pputilememory
from what i understand(and i could be wrong) sprites and tiles are stored in some ppu memory thing inside the cartridges.. and up to 512 8x8 tiles can be used for tiles/sprites.
also you can use a background palette for each 2x2 group of 8x8 tiles i think..
if anyone else wants to interpret that information on that site, go ahead.

[PypeBros]

and up to 512 8x8 tiles can be used for tiles/sprites.

true. That's what will be your practical limit within a level. The specs remain vague on "whatever mapping mechanism (blablablah)", and imho that's for purpose. Electronically speaking, you could very well make your cartridge in such a way that a special "write" to character rom switch the circuitry so that you're now using the tileset for level 2 rather than the initial tileset.

That's theoretically possible, and i guess this has been done in latest games, but be prepared to be charged a higher price per cartridge if you opt for that technology

[gamingjustin]

That's nuts. I was going to do Warp Man myself until I saw Ryona's Warp Woman!... Sorta had an idea he'd pick Megaman up, teleport to drop you above some spikes, and you'd have to navigate the right way in time-- something along those lines. Ya beat me to it! Anyway, I ended up creating TEMPO MAN. I guess the series never felt the need for a music-themed boss what with all the music references already (Rock, Roll, Blues, Bass, Treble) and the great music, period.

This is all I have done for now, but I plan to make a Megaman-sized sprite as well as some level tiles. He's just got some shades, spiky hair and some big headphones. Yeah, nothin' too exciting yet.


And yeah, I agree Warp Woman needs to fill up a bit more of that frame. It's great the way it is now, but I've seen your other excellent sprites and I'm quite sure it could be even better. (I think mine's too big actually...)

[Lord Ash]

count me in
I'll post something soon

[floatvoid]

I was curious, if the limit for sprites its 8x16, how are we able to get characters much larger than that? (gutsman for example) Or, these guys: http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/files/Classic/MM1/Boss/mm1bigenemysheet.gif

Does this use some kind of code trickery to tile up a bunch of sprite images in sequence?

[AdamAtomic]

Does this use some kind of code trickery to tile up a bunch of sprite images in sequence?

Yes - even super mario is made up of some 8 sprites, at least.  But the really big megaman enemies (just like the giant bosses in lots of other NES games) are just tiles

[MrMister]

Here's what I got so far

[rdcarvallo]

Here goes 2 of my 8 robot masters: Katana Man and Scorpion Man, still W.I.P.


The original design of Katana Man:


I'll try to make my 8 robot masters.

The tileset/stage will be the Katana Man ~ Samurai themed stage.

[floatvoid]

AdamAtomic: Cool, thanks .

Ok, here goes. Just as a preface, I haven't touched pixel art in a good number of years... probably 5 or so. Just getting back in the groove of things.

Obviously I haven't been following the rules 100% yet. Since this is my first foray into the pixel domain in a while, I'm kind of pushing past NES limits to get in the groove, then I may push back and re-optimize later. Goes without saying, this is VERY VERY w-i-p.



I call him MOUNTAIN MAN. He's a gunslingin' cowboy from the west (west of Dr.Wiley's evil factory!). He rocks a big-ole beard and six-shooters for hands.

[AdamAtomic]

Aaah badass start, floatvoid, looking forward to seeing where this is going   At least on my screen your cowboy looks a little bit like a terrifying owl right now, maybe better delineation between the 'stache and the...cool clint eastwood mexican shawl thingy?

[Ryona]

That's nuts. I was going to do Warp Man myself until I saw Ryona's Warp Woman!

Aw, sowwy. But Tempo-Man is actually a really cool idea. I like the portrait pic.
And actually before I came up with Warp-Woman, I was going to go with Galaxy-Woman, but I then changed my mind. Glad I did because I later found out that there will be a Galaxy-Man in MegaMan 9! haha


Anyway, here's an update of my schtuff...
I updated Warp-Woman's portrait and created a few enemies so far.




I like what I see from everyone else. 

[Pietepiet]

I've been lurking for far too long, figured I'd finally show myself for this challenge.

Because I'm not actually sure if my idea is allowed, I figured I'd post this WIP first before I start working on the tiles. This is SneakMan, with the power to, obviously, sneak around and completely disappear in stealth. Also included is an enemy. My source of inspiration should be quite obvious, which is why I'm asking if something like this is allowed for this challenge. If not, I'll think of something else, no problem



Cheers!

[QuickSilva]

Solid Snake? Of course it`s OK. At this small size you can hardly tell anyway. Just have fun with it. The rules are only there as guidelines but the main emphasis is on enjoying yourself. Of course, being original is always the best option though.

Love all of the other entries so far, especially yours Ryona! Keep em coming guys (and gals ) Looking forward to seeing some tilesets too.

Jason.

[Luzeke]

Here's what I currently have on my guy: Brute Man!



I think I overshot color restrictions with 2 colors with the axe. The level theme is going to be a medieval battlefield with wooden siege machines and stuff 

Edit// May change the axe, it looks a bit off...

[floatvoid]

Aaah badass start, floatvoid, looking forward to seeing where this is going   At least on my screen your cowboy looks a little bit like a terrifying owl right now, maybe better delineation between the 'stache and the...cool clint eastwood mexican shawl thingy?

Thanks . I see part of the problem here, as that's supposed to be a giant beard, not a 'mexican shawl thingy'. Although, that's not a bad idea.

[huZba]

Only Pietepiet's character is within limits so far i think?

Bruteman would flicker even if he was alone on the screen. Also it's using all the allowed 4 different sprite palettes by himself.
Check out the cinematendo thread for restrictions.

[Luzeke]

I used Stone man for size reference, but maybe he got just a little too big . Anyway, hacked away at the colors and scaled him down to using 2 palettes max. 
Also fixed the axe. Does it look better?



I'll see what I can do to scale him down, without loosing the effect I wanted.

[huZba]

Still no go. One sprite is 8x8, 3 colors + alpha (one color is always alpha? Can't have a tile with 4 colors without alpha? have to check on that)
I can't slice bruteman to 8x8 pieces without some pieces having too many colors.
8 sprites per scanline and at the tip of the axe there's a part that needs at least 7 sprites. So width is the issue here.
Notice how stone man is exactly 4 tiles wide and 5 tiles high. The face has two sprites on top of each other. Same with the red sphere.
So at maximum stoneman has 5 sprites on one scanline. Megaman has 3, so that's a total of 8, so stoneman probably flickers when you shoot at him.

I'll check around for NES sprite editors to see how the enemies are built.

-Edit-
Here's how stoneman is divided. His legs are mirrored and use the same tile.
also portrait   16 tiles + 3 sprites make the final image.
(NOTE that the black is actually transparent in the portrait and shows the BG fill color, so there's no black in the tiles or sprites.)

Technical things aside, i really like bruteman. He fits megaman and has character. With a bit of headscratching it should be possible to get a result very similar to what he looks like now AND meet the restraints too.

[mice]

Sprites can be 8x16 as well.

Still don't get this, we're supposed to do a mockup, right?

[Luzeke]

Tried to make him smaller without sacrificing too much. I guess he's still too big . Made so that the feet uses the same sprite.
Then I tried to further make him less wide.


De-widening > Further De-widening > 8x8 breakup of the leftmost sprite.

Technical things aside, i really like bruteman. He fits megaman and has character. With a bit of headscratching it should be possible to get a result very similar to what he looks like now AND meet the restraints too.

Thanks 

[Krut]

You could prolly´ save up a tile by mirroring the top of the head (and retouching the shading on that part), one tile on the shoulder pad could get the same treatment also.

[huZba]

Start counting the colors in the tiles  In the middle there's plenty with 4 colors, which is 1 too many. Use one palette with black, white and orange. And other one with black, orange(could try something else?) and red. I guess 2 unique palettes for the enemies is the maximum, cause megaman always hogs 2 for himself, of which the other one is rotating when you charge and the other one is white, black and face color. I guess the face colors can be used on the enemy palettes too.

It's getting there, just a bit more sprinting and we have a nes-able boss.
I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

[Pietepiet]

I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

I fully agree. I'm still a bit confused, though. I divided MegaMan's original sprite into 8x8 tiles, and he also has a few tiles which have four colours, mainly around the face area. How does that work exactly? I see StoneMan has a seperate tile for the eyes/mouth. Does that one get pasted on with code, or something like that? And does that apply to MegaMan as well, then?

[Luzeke]

I think I've managed to make him NES-ok. Had to take away the axe for that though, it took up too much space. I also made him monochrome. Save for the face there's only black, orange and dark red. I could make him use double sprites, as Pietpiet talked about in the above post. Sort of like I guess they did with Plantman. But that up the sprite count unreasonably.



I guess the axe has to magically appear when needed 

[Dusty]

I find this NES stuff, pondering the same things as the developers of ancient times, extremely fascinating.

I fully agree. I'm still a bit confused, though. I divided MegaMan's original sprite into 8x8 tiles, and he also has a few tiles which have four colours, mainly around the face area. How does that work exactly? I see StoneMan has a seperate tile for the eyes/mouth. Does that one get pasted on with code, or something like that? And does that apply to MegaMan as well, then?

Overlaying sprites?

[mice]

'I'm Pipeman'
Sadly, not megamanish at all.

[Squiggly_P]

Check out the flicker on this. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIBcpowkU3A
MM6 being taped from a TV / NES
I think by the end of the series' run on the NES they weren't really that concerned with flicker.  Most of the bigger enemies flicker, even if you're not shooting at them.  Even the bosses.  Just being on the same level as them will cause it, let alone the two or three projectiles that might be on the same line.  So I really think your original Brute Man wouldn't have been so improbable a design in the games.

[Timpa]

I'm not very familiar with pixelart but I gave this a shot... Have no idea if the restrictions are correct or not but what the heck..

[PypeBros]

'I'm Pipeman'

Oh well, pipeman *must* have a mustache or a red hat, doesn't he ?

[crab2selout.png]

If it's 4 colours per tile then how do the purple flowers in this screen work? they've got white, yellow, two purples and black.

[Alex Hanson-White]

if you watch the video squiggly posted, youll see at that spot that they are flashing sprites or some sort o fpowerup things i thinK(i dunno what you call em)

[Souly]

I just realized the red wouldn't be allowed.

[Mt®]

Hey, I'm stopping by to post some mockups I did today, for this challenge.
It's been a year or so since my last post, so noone probably remembers me.

So here's.. well, the mockups




I tried to stay true to the original megaman art. Obviously Mega man's sprite + the HPbar/E-tank and the bullets aren't original, however
I can assure you the rest is! :[

Aaand.. the boss:

I call 'her' Snow Woman.. for now (name pending)
Also them yellow thingies in the mugshot are the blinking sprite thingies you see while you're selecting a boss.