(03/31/2000)
17:51: Hmm ... sorry, no update this week-end ... - 
I'm leaving to my friend's home and I won't be back before Sunday (hey, everybody has to see his friends sometimes, no?). He doesn't have a computer and I don't have a portable, so I won't be able to update anything ... I'm not sure if I'll have time for a new release of the editor Sunday, either ...
By the way, I have figured out something interesting with SMB2, though ... I don't know if it will be there in the next version of the editor, but who knows?
(03/27/2000)
17:07: Yet another bugfix released ... here comes version 0.53c -
This time, I have fixed the "Path not found" error that most people were probably getting.
Want to know how this error appeared? Ok. Well, when I added the "default color palettes" feature for Mario All-Stars, I put some code to generate the code for this feature and save it to "F:\a.txt", and forgot to remove that code in the program. So, unless you had a F: drive, you would get a "path not found" error. This has been fixed, now.
15:43: Bugfix for SMB2 Level Discombobulator (0.53b) released -
Well, as I thought, the bug was caused by the recently added icon (was it corrupted?). I fixed the icon and the problem is now solved! The features are exactly the same as in version 0.53, nothing more, nothing less.
Now it should work for everybody ...
08:22: Bug in version 0.53? -
Well, it looks like I'm not alone to get a "Unexpected error" message when trying to open my SMB2 level editor. But I know it should still work for most people (did I say I had 2 Windows directories, one buggy and one clean?). I'll probably look at it today and see if I can fix the problem, then maybe I'll release a bugfix (v0.53b). I don't think I'll put any new feature, though, since I won't really have time for it.
Someone else told me that he was getting a "Runtime error 76, path not found" error that didn't happen on previous versions ... for this I really don't see any explanation, since the only possible cause I see for it is when you try to load a SMB2 ROM when it isn't there.
(03/26/2000)
20:00: New SMB2 hack added ... -
As I had announced when I released version 0.38 of my SMB2 level editor, a new SMB2 hack, "Super Carrots, a new harvest", has been released. This one (made by DarKnight13) really looks great. Anyway, you can get it on the SMB2 Level Editor page.
19:57: SMB2 Level Discombobulator 0.53 released -
Here it is, another new version, and here's what's new (straight from the readme):
- Fixed the color problem with Mario All-Stars, now it uses the original SMB2 colors (stored in the editor) when editing Mario All-Stars.
- All ground and wall settings now appear with the right graphics, in the first 2 worlds.
- Levels in World 2 now appear with graphics from World 2 (Worlds 3 to 7 will come later).
- Added "Level info" dialog box, in which you can see the number of objects and where the level data is stored in the ROM.
oh yes, and my buggy Windows copy can no longer run it (I get a "Unexpected error" and it closes) ... although it still runs fine on my second Windows directory (which has almost nothing installed except the bare minimum and a few programs I use) and in Visual Basic (from the source code). Anybody knows why?
Anyway, it should still run fine for you. So ... go get it!
19:52: Ok, time for counter comparison ... -
Well, one day after the new counter started, here's the results:
New counter: 143 hits
Old counter: 90 hits
As you can see, the new counter counted 53 more hits (on a total of 143) than the old one. And no, only a small part of those are from me. It's now proven that the TheCounter counter is "forgetting" some of the visitors ... although it got back some of its reliability and works a little better. Too bad that the new one doesn't have any tracking features ...
11:53: Emulation World's banners put back up ... -
Well, I have just noticed that the ad banner at the top (which is a requirement for getting hosted in Emulation World) had disappeared, probably since a few days after I got hosted here. The reason? Well, when I got hosted, I didn't put the ad myself, and the HTML code for it wasn't in the index.html file on my hard disk, so when I uploaded updates, the ad code wasn't there and the ad disappeared.
I didn't even realise this by myself, it's the webmaster from OverClocked that told me about this ...
So I put it back and it won't disappear again ...
03:21: SMB2 Level Discombobulator updated to version 0.47! -
Another few hours of work done and here's another version. New features, some bugfixes, all is there, so what are you waiting? Go get it!
(03/25/2000)
19:36: News archive ... -
Hey, haven't I done many news today? Anyway, this time it's to tell you that the News Archive is now up, instead of just the old news from before I started using NewsUpdate. So you can see the old NewsUpdate news, now ... and it automatically gets updated, all I have to do is put up links for each month as soon as we get to those months.
18:57: New counter reinitialised -
Well, the new counter was counting hits from another place where I had installed a counter like this (they were sort of mixed up), so the hits were going up much more than the actual visits I was getting here.
Ok, so now I have finally figured out how to have separate counters and how to start new ones, and I have reset the new counter to zero and now it will only count the hits here. Let's compare again: the previous counter (TheCounter) was at 6071 when I resetted the new counter. Let's see how it will go ...
12:49: New counter installed ... -
The TheCounter counter lost most of its reliability and now I can't even check the counter stats! So I have put a second counter. That one doesn't have any tracking features or cool things like that but at least its reliability is MUCH better.
I'll still have both counters on my page. So now I'll see how many hits are not counted my TheCounter. Remember : it was at 6031 when I put the new counter, and the new one started at about 127 (most of them are myself). Let's see how it goes later ...
03:57: Oh, almost forgot ... I got my 6000th visitor as well -
Unfortunately, it was just someone that came here looking for "nes rom hacks" in a search engine, so I'll never know who it was.
The counters really seem to be having problems. Their response is really slow, maybe even too slow, and my hits suddendly went a lot slower. Maybe they don't even count all the hits! Just to be sure about that, I'm almost going to install another counter and compare the stats ...
03:11: Oh -- and ... -
I forgot to say ... I have also updated (or added) the new SMB2 level hacks. Isn't it surprising that only a week after I released the editor, there's already 2 level hacks going on (even 3 if I count another one that's not yet released)? Anyway, you can get SMB2 Challenge (edited up to 1-2) and Hario (edited up to 1-3)! The third one coming probably soon is "Super Carrots, a new harvest" (if I remember the name right) and looks really promising as well.
When will I start "Strange Mario Bros 2"? Probably not soon. But I'm getting tempted, really tempted. Who knows ...?
03:07: SMB2 Level Discombobulator -- version 0.38 released! -
Another 4 hours of work ... and here's the result. This new version finally implement the special objects (at least partially), so much more levels will appear correctly now. I did some bugfixes as well, but still, beware, because it's easy to screw up a level. Anyway, there are a few more nice features, like faster scrolling (press Shift), page border viewing, special objects no longer show up as yellow squares, and level colors are read directly from the ROM (slows down loading a bit, though)! There are still a lot of things to add, though, but admit that with each release it's becoming a lot better!
(03/23/2000)
21:56: Expect next update to be tomorrow ... -
Sorry for the few people that were expecting a new version of the SMB2 level editor today, but I didn't have enough time for doing it. I have been working on it a bit, though, and I have implemented some more of the special objects, but only for loading yet (saving the level back could screw it up). I'll probably have time tomorrow, though, if nothing unexpected happens ...
(03/22/2000)
19:57: Oh, and before I forget ... -
Expect a new release of the SMB2 Level Discombobulator either tomorrow or Friday. I want to fix some of the bugs, and maybe I'll add a few more features later. Or I could also get back working on Strange Mario Bros 3, which didn't get an update for a long time ...
19:47: I'm getting tired of the counter's slow response ... -
... so guess what I did? No I didn't get rid of them (they have good tracking features), but just fixed my page so that the counters won't prevent the page to show up (in Netscape) it they don't load.
19:43: Site affiliate : Challenge Games! -
Yes, I'm now affiliated with Challenge Games! X-4000 (owner of Challenge Games) made the proposition yesterday and I agreed (of course). Challenge Games, a ROM Hacks site, is most known for the "Challenge" editions of NES games (especially SMB3 Challenge), but also hosts the "Hacker's Forum", where everybody can submit their hacks (if they're good enough). Of course my own hacks are there! Anyway, you should check it out, especially if you never went there.
(03/20/2000)
10:21: Counters work again, and some more to say ... -
Ok ... the counters seem to be back up running although they still have a slow response (like it was before).
It looks like I'm already getting so much credit for my SMB2 level editor (it's now available at Zophar's Domain and a few people are starting SMB2 level hacks) and I would like to thank everybody for that, not to mention the useful help from BMF54123 which figured out a few things in SMB2 that I didn't know about.
However, don't expect much new here before next week-end, since I'm now overloaded with school work I should have done last week. I did a lot of good work on my SMB2 editor but, you know ...
(03/19/2000)
15:47: Problems with counters ... -
No, that's not a site update today. You have probably noticed that the counters on my page won't show up anymore. I'm not responsible of this. It's only because the counter provider (TheCounter.com) is moving to another server (or something like that) since last night and not everything is set up properly. And since this morning, it looks like the counters are not working (they don't count visits)! I'm getting my hits stolen, damn them, I hope they'll be back up soon.
01:55: "SMB2 Level Discombobulator" v0.26 released! -
The editor name is now official, it's going to stay "The SMB2 Level Discombobulator". Anyway, version 0.26 has been released, and it's truly the last update before a while (since I won't have much time anymore to work on it). I added a few more features, though. Walls will now appear on vertical levels too, all enemies (except a few unknown ones) are shown (actual graphics instead of orange squares), and you can now select levels without having to scroll through every of them, with a simple dialog box.
And more patchs have been added, too! 2 more interesting (and harder) boss room challenges by WhooHooD'oh, and the start of a real SMB2 hack -- not Strange Mario Bros 2, but Super Mario Bros 2 Challenge -- made by x-4000.
(03/17/2000)
19:28: Small IPS patch for SMB2 added -
Oh yes, I forgot ... WhooHooD'oh recently sent me a level patch. With my SMB2 level editor, he has changed the 1-1 beginning onto a fun boss room with 2 Mousers. This has been put up on the SMB2 editor page during the update, you can get it!
19:11: New news format, and SMB2 editor v0.17 released! -
Yes, I have changed the news format. Now I use NewsUpdate, which makes news updates much simpler than they were before (when I was editing the HTML manually).
Version 0.17 of the SMB2 Level Discombobulator has been released! This is going to be the last important update before a while, though. Anyway, several nice features have been added, and now it can edit every level!
|
|
