Contra : Locked 'N' Loaded

[ARGOROK]

I love the combination of sprites from different games, they fit perfectly in the MOD I have to congratulate you Bloodbane because for persons like you, persons like me are so happy remembering that glory days with this contra MOD thank you very much.

[Bloodbane]

Can you send my your train station and train ride because  I want to experiment with some backgrounds.

 The train station is vertical level, do you know how to set up vertical level?
 Train ride is wider than screenshot shows. I'd share these anyways.

[Mrgrill247]

Give me an example of how long the background should look and I can work with that.

[Mrgrill247]

Primeop from Scrollboss has these mugen stages with some fantastic backgrounds.  Your train stages can reflect a transformation from day to night. Check it out.

[Bloodbane]

Give me an example of how long the background should look and I can work with that.

 Hmm... have you played 2nd Contra mod demo? there are 2 vertical long levels there. The 1st one is in 1st stage while the 2nd one is in 3rd stage. The Train Station level length is about same with the latter.

[Mrgrill247]

Ok, Here is one example, I call this Starry Skies because of the famous Vangou Painting where the person is screaming.

Also the one below are nice.


And just for kicks, you can include Dracula's Castle from Rondo Of Blood.

[Bloodbane]

 I still haven't able to see how Neo City in prototype Contra 4 looks like so I decided to use the one in Contra 4 not prototype one. So mgman, please make the video. Hmmmm... maybe the video need to be split, one for top screen and the other for lower screen.

[mgman]

Hello, yes.

I've been trying different ways to record the level, but of course both screens is causing problems here. I thought for sure the top screen would be easier to record because there are usually far less sprites on it. But it's much more complex than that.

Then I hoped the DESMUME emulator's layer options would help, but they did not. As far as I know, tile viewer, map and OAM viewer as well as layer options are complete beta form right now as they don't function properly.

In the meantime, I'm trying to do it another way.

But there's also a guy I enlisted the help of, but it seem he was only after the Contra 4 ROM and seems to have disappeared.... Well.

[Bloodbane]

 Ow, I keep forgetting to update this thread even though World cup is over (it's almost a month!). Anyways as usual, here are the updates and thanks to God!
 Actually, I have finished one final boss but I can't show anything about that boss. That reminds me, the game mechanic I was working on turns out more complex than I thought so I scrapped it and use other reliable one. The result is still good though .

 I have tried looking for fonts but can't find decent ones so I decided to do some ripping and edit. This is how the updated title screen:



Contra is from Contra 4 while LOCKED 'N LOADED is edited from Contra 3's title. What do you think?

 The extra mission has 2 more levels now, the 1st one is this base level:

Enemy Base:



 The background is from Gunforce. You'll go to this level after fort posted months ago. The elevator object is grunt spawner and must be destroyed (unless you don't mind being swarmed by grunts ).
 One special thing about this level is that at the end, you'll meet the antagonist character (not shown in shots above BTW).

 The other one is this vertical mountain level:

High Mountain (Lower Part):



 Yes, this is the lower part. The top part is not made yet.
 The background is from Cyber Lip. Originally it's only thin platform but I edited it to form whole background and platform set. It turns out better than I thought .
 This vertical level has different design than previous similar levels cause this level has no seperate floors. Since there's no camera lock ability, it's possible for players to go all the way down but I leave that to player. OTOH I have set check points to change respawn point so players don't have to climb all the way up from below if they lost life.

 Speaking of extra mission, I think I can name it "Clone Soldiers Invasion" or something like that cause this mission features various type of Contra 3 grunts. That base is some sort of clone factory. As I said above, that antagonist character is the boss behind this invasion.

 Main mission is going to have another level, I haven't finished it yet but the background set is ready:

Neo City Rooftops:



 I don't have reliable emulator to rip background so I ripped these in crude way (screenshot + edit). The result is good enough as you can see above. The ruined building is the toughest part cause I have to put the broken furnitures properly.

 Some of you might wonder, where's the ground level one? don't worry, I'm going to make that too.

 mgman, look at this edit:



 These are the 1st 2 buildings in Neo city. As you can see they are complete not missing anything in the middle. As I said before, it is possible to recreate the missing middle. It's almost like finding missing puzzle piece which fit.
 If I can't find that missing piece, I could just edit the whole part and it's almost perfect . Well, I say so cause the colors are not consistent here, the lower part is brighter than upper part. It turns out the emulator has different brightness for each screen.

 I'll be busy in the next weeks so progress will be slower. I'll fill that rooftop level and make the ground level.

[ryomaneo]

This is truly amazing outstanding bloodbane u are a pro at creating mods.  Ps terrific title screen   

[maxman]

Looking at the pics takes my breath. The stages ollk look so spectacular, even the entities. I see a Sensei doing his best in modding.

[ARGOROK]

There is no doubt bloodbane, you?re a master doing MODS, looking at those images oh my, this MOD gonna be pretty good, your excellent work always is pretty good thanks man, I?m waiting the release of this masterpiece.

[badjab326]

I love the title screen, as well as the new stages. Great work once again.

[mgman]

I'm sorry I can't be of more help to you Bloodbane when it comes to the city level. Make no mistake I did spend a lot of time trying to rip that background, but I simply lack the skill. Even you're better than me Bloodbane

Like I said, I tried enlisting the aid of someone over at sprites-inc (what a mistake), but it seems the guy wanted to swindle me just for the Contra 4 ROM and ran off.

Anyway, as no surprise, your updates are top notch and I can never expect better... but you come out with even better in each of your next updates!

[Bloodbane]

 As I said, progress is slow but I still manage to get these updates. Oh before that, I have completed one month of fasting couple days ago and celebrate it in Idul Fitri 2 days ago. It was tough but with God's help, I succeeded .
 Just like before, with God's help, here are the updates:

Neo City Rooftops:



 It has been filled with enemies and subbosses.
 That's the roofs and here's the ground level one:

Neo City:



 Hectic don't you think? You could understand what's going on when you have played this level .
 These 2 levels are last levels before final boss in one path(for spoiler). The final boss is done but can't show anything !. It's epic battle for sure!

 With those finished, the 1st mission is complete. However, 2nd mission (Clone  Soldiers) is not finished yet. I am going to complete it so the mod will have 2 seperate mission in one pack. I am planning to have more missions but I'll focus on these 2 1st.

 For the 2nd mission, I have completed this level:

vs Train Battle:



 Those who have played Hardcorps should be familiar with this train. In that game, we ride the train while some soldiers on bike shoot on us. In this level, it's the opposite, we ride bike while soldiers on train shoot on us .
 This is unique level so to speak since it's combination of motorbike level and regular scrolling level. It's the only one in the mod.

 If you pay attention closely, 2 frames of animated gif above shows new enemy, grunt with laser gun. The laser gun is from Gunforce usually mounted on Choppers, Carts and Cable Elevators (what do you call these?) while the grunt is edited from various poses.

 In 2nd demo, boss rush combines bosses from 1st and 2nd mission. It's good challenge but I figured that it would too hard to deal with so many bosses considering 1st mission has many bosses combined from all paths. 2nd demo only have less than half of bosses so it's OK but for complete mod I decided to make this hub:

Boss Rush Hub:



 which contains 3 entries to 3 different boss rush.
 1 = all bosses from 1st mission
 2 = all bosses from 2nd mission
 X = all bosses from both mission (X means Extreme)

 With this HUB, players can choose which boss rush they like. Extreme is for skilled players .
 Of course, this mode is locked until one mode is cleared 4 times.

 That reminds me, I decided to give some slack by giving 5 credits with 5 lives per credit in this mod. I hope that's enough , well don't spend one credit per stage since each mission has more than 5 stages.

 I also have made this simple Howtoplay:

HowToPlay:



 It describes all moves in the mod. What do you think? is it comprehensive enough?

 With all of these, the only things left are the 2nd part of mountain tower+boss and cutscenes. I think I'd make intro and endings only. Or anybody wants in-game cutscenes?

 Well, back to work!