A new SORMaker mod idea

While I was using SORMaker to create one of my unique adventures, I thought of an idea about my latest project.

Since I read about the Hub Network on the Internet years ago and I liked some of its shows, I have decided to start work on a mod based on some of my favorite programs and make the Streets of Rage characters appear in them, although I had to change the enemies' names to portray the original characters since SORMaker didn't allow changing the sprites.

I still haven't made up an official title for the mod but your suggestions for an official title will be welcome (I will start using that name when I have finished designing it).

The following shows will be covered by this mod:
• Transformers Prime
• Pound Puppies
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
• Littlest Pet Shop
• Family Game Night (used for bonus stages)

The mod contains unique fan-made stories I made in which the outcome may change if a player takes any alternate routes in some scenes.

I have also designed the custom portraits for the characters to be used in the texts so that the characters in question will say their lines during the cutscene sequences.

Perhaps if you're interested in assisting me on my project (e.g. designing the associated characters using pixel art, making them look like 8-bit style characters).  I have seen some of the My Little Pony characters drawn that way as an example when I visited some web pages.

Your comments about my mod idea are also welcome if you are interested.

I'd say Rage TV as a title? Considering it's a hub with different TV shows and cartoons? The hub could be a TV Station with entrances to the studios, kinda like it was in At The Movies.

Mr.Chewy-McFluffster2010 wrote:although I had to change the enemies' names to portray the original characters since SORMaker didn't allow changing the sprites.

It is possible to change the character sprites for mods for SORmaker, it's just that it's a really complex process.  Mr.Din is currently working on a mod that does just that.
http://www.sorrcommunity.com/t391-the-lab-of-dr-sidd-and-mr-din

In the meantime, the beta version of SOR3 Ultimate features a boss battle with Break who I assume replaces Shiva.  
http://www.sorrcommunity.com/t386-sor3-ultimate-mod-for-v5-final-test-phase

If your interested in replacing the characters, Mr.Din and CajNatalie should point you in the right direction, though it's a long road towards pulling it off.

Don Vecta wrote:I'd say Rage TV as a title? Considering it's a hub with different TV shows and cartoons? The hub could be a TV Station with entrances to the studios, kinda like it was in At The Movies.

Good suggestion, Don Vecta.  Rage T.V. (not to be confused with Smash T.V.) could be a good title but I started setting it up under the working title The Hub of Rage (the title might subject to change).

My idea is based on the defunct Hub Network (now called Discovery Family Channel) which broadcasted some of the Hasbro Studios programming but if you looked carefully at the first topic post, you'll see the shows I've planned to include.  I found out that Pound Puppies has had no appearances in a video game (except for a few Flash-based online games) compared to the other titles in the list.  Perhaps this would be an SoRR first for that experience to happen.

I have written the stories for the mod in which the player has to follow.  I will take the Pound Puppies story which I call "The Camp Adoption" as an example (the spoiler tag in this post hides the information — Click or tap to view depending on the device used to view the page).

Example story:

I also plan to use different fonts for the environment depending on the show the characters will re-enact (I will start designing the fonts and show you what they look like but I'll upload the screenshots of the action scenes later and maybe a few suggestions about improving the scenes when required).  An example would be the famous arcade-style font (the one invented by Atari but also used by other Japanese software houses such as Namco, Taito and Konami) which I'll use for selected My Little Pony-themed stages and in the Pound Puppies-themed stages, I'll use an 8×8 font that was used in the option menu from the SNES game, TMNT4: Turtles in Time plus a few more (mainly from some Genesis titles).

Because this is a fan-made project, I will also write the stories in my style.  For example, at the beginning of each scene of the MLP stages, I will use the time (in 12-hour Civilian format) and the location in the world of Equestria so that the story follows chronologically like in some of the X-Files-type shows.  In case of the Pound Puppies stages, the cutscene text would be styled like that of a typical 60's superhero sitcom but Pound Puppies is more of a Great Escape-type show about dogs.

It is currently in development because I am play-testing the project, but some developers have believed to have created placeholder stages for debugging purposes so that the game doesn't end abruptly (which is currently used to test the between-scene cutscenes) using the relevant 8×8 bitmap fonts for the representative re-enactments, which I did recently.

About the associated characters, it would be better if they are used as part of the background in selected scenes, which could be useful if an ADD_INTRO tag is detected near the object to initiate a mid-stage conversation. They would also appear to look like 8-bit style designs (I would love to see the Pound Puppies or Littlest Pet Shop characters feature in 8-bit style in this mod; it's a complex process at first but when done, you will be able to see them as you would never have seen them before back in the day).

Well if your interested in some inspiration Benny26 made a mod called At The Movies which has a similar concept as what your working on.
http://www.sorrcommunity.com/t65-sor-at-the-movies-directors-cut?highlight=at+the+movies

Might want to give that a look if you haven't already to gain some inspiration.

As for the technical limitations, I'm currently waiting until SOR3:Ultimate mod is released since that's going to feature Break as a boss.  Once that's out I'm going to tinker with the sprite replacement files for Break so I can see if I can make tutorial(with CajNatalie's permission. Keep in mind that this is a modding technique that the  community has yet to master).  Part of the problem with replacing the sprites for enemies is that it's just glitchy as replacing sprites causes random colored pixels to pop up.  I believe that the process of replacing sprites involves coloring the pixels that would appear off of the sprite, but I haven't even looked at the files for long so I wouldn't know.  

Anyway.  Good luck.

I'll try my best on continuing my work but this mod is actually an 8-in-1 adventure.  Only four stories can be participated per session (If I like, I could show you some of the scenes I am working on).

Mr.Chewy-McFluffster2010 wrote:I'll try my best on continuing my work but this mod is actually an 8-in-1 adventure.  Only four stories can be participated per session (If I like, I could show you some of the scenes I am working on).

In fact, that's the purpose of this section of WIP's, to show progress of a project.

Recently, I am working on more of the stages to my mod and may have documented on my progress mentally, although I could have written a text file containing my report.

I designed more stages to test, for instance, the scenes for the first LPS-themed story called "Littlest Fight Club" on Stage 1, although technically SORMaker uses Stage 6 because of the JUMP_STAGE tag at the end of Stage 1P in which the Syndicate has captured the animals throughout the city and is holding an illegal Fight Club/Mortal Kombat-style tournament in the basement of the Largest Ever Pet Store where the pets from the current and previous generations of the Littlest Pet Shop franchise are forced to participate.  However, Axel and his team are also trying to end the battle in the process with the help of Russell Ferguson, Sunil Nevla and Zoë Trent (in exchange for Mr. X's team jamming Mrs. Twombly's new electronic cash register, forcing her business to be relocated to the biggest pet superstore in Downtown City until a ransom is paid to them).  Since the last-gen characters don't have default names, I named them just for that section.

Also staying on my progress, I tested the Denoiser utility on the video arcade scene from an FPG in the SORR.DAT file which I used for the arcade level in one of the Pound Puppies-themed stories, where Carter Thomas (a fan character I designed which is portrayed by Edward Hunter aka Skate) snuck out of his bedroom to meet his friends there in his side of the story.  The end-result was near perfect just to fix the lower-left corner of the image.  That arcade scene made me realize it had a makeover thus giving it a futuristic new look, compared to the one I play tested in the first Pound Puppies story where I took the alternate route in Stage 1B leading to the building (where it looks run-down and outdated like in the original Streets of Rage 2 game on the Genesis).

I also fixed the cutscene texts using Notepad if I wanted to use a dollar currency symbol or anything else in the dialogs.  That is because my custom CUTSCENESA.FPG file contains extra characters that are not included by default just to fill the entire character set (the new version of Cutscene Maker utility prevented me from entering these symbols).  I even created a different font for that file which was featured in an educational game on my V.Smile called Thomas & Friends: Engines Working Together.  I decided to use that font so SOR Remake's cutscenes might look better with additional symbols that can only be displayed if the cutscene texts have been changed using Notepad or a similar text editor.

That was my current progress report.  Next time I perform my play testing of the mod (which may currently be called Rage TV (based on the Discovery Family Channel's animated shows)), I will try and submit the screenshots and suggest any enhancements to the community.