Random Hack/Mini Project Thread

Back in my day, we would host our stuff on our own web space.

Actually, I still do that.

 

This seemed like the ideal choice for years, but life happened and I couldn’t keep the web space or domain, and many links in my old posts are now dead.

Rather unfortunate for my trail, but lesson learned
(Now I have my web address printed in my poetry book and I have to try to keep it all this time! Can’t edit what’s already produced!)

 

I really wish people would stop trying to use Discord as a file host or wiki.

 

I also wish they would stop using it for research communities, all those servers are going to be lost to time in the future because none of it will be backed up like forums are... Hopefully more people will learn with time to upload their files on sites like Google Drive.

 

It's gotten even worse now that Discord's drive space has caught up to them and they're deleting old files. Nothing annoys me more nowadays than when I'm working on a project and need files, only to find theyre only stored on a discord message from 5 years ago that is now dead.

 

I've also been noticing some images of various posts disappearing because they used Discord to host it, and it got deleted after a while.

Outside of things being at risk of being lost to time and its CDN not designed to hold files long term, there's also the fact that it is less accessible compared to a regular website, because you need a Discord account and you need to have an invite link to the server. The "forum" feature of Discord also feels more like it was designed for conversations and questions, and not for guides and resources. After all, Discord is a chat program, soooo...

 

The wiki thing got me thinking; I mean there's clearly a market for it, Discord may not be designed for such a thing, but perhaps something could be made in that way, with carefully considered restrictions it might be viable to have a specialised chat-wiki of a similar nature, but specifically for wiki.

On topic though; ASMX is a new one on me, I've heard it in passing and people appear to be praising it highly, what is it that sets it appart from the others (and what are the negatives too, that's important)?

 

From what I know, it's just like AS in that it's a multi-CPU assembler, but it supports Z80 without needing to use macros and stuff.
As for the negatives, there's no string functions, you can't reference global labels locally, you can't name registers and it lacks detailed error messages, for example. It's also quite buggy, as Clownacy mentioned here.

 

Sonic 1 - Special Stage Glitch Heaven

Have you ever entered an OG special stage with debug mode enabled and gone out of bounds? If you have, you probably didn't see much before accidentally hitting a goal block or emerald mixed in with some garbage data.

This mini hack introduces a few adjustments specifically designed to let you explore these forbidden areas completely on your own terms. There are also a few minor tweaks to make the exploration smoother and more enjoyable.

Controls:
- C: Jump
- B: Debug Mode (you'll need this)
- A + left/right: Rotate the stage manually
- Pause + A: Go to the next Special Stage (it might be interesting to see if this affects the garbled data in any way)

As a hack all about exploring glitches (and thrown together in 30 minutes), expect a lot of wonky stuff, including the occasional crash.

Happy exploring!

 

A slightly more functional Sonic 3 prototype:

• Level Select is disabled by default; press Up+Up+Down+Down+Up+Up to access.
• Level Select is modified to list the remaining "normal" S&K zones and add its character swap through C.
• Angel Island intro now plays in regular gameplay, and title card now displays afterwards to prevent corruption.
• Mushroom Valley and Lava Reef have been partially restored with their badniks in debug mode.
• Super Sonic is fully playable (uses the all Emeralds code from the final; 2, 4, 5, 6).
• Level results actually play sound and properly switch music for the next act.
• Some surprises in Debug Mode.

Download
(yes, it's GitHub, Sonic Retro refused to let me upload a 1.5 MB file)

 

The Return of Dr. Eggman Retake:
A redo of Return of Dr. Eggman, now rebuilt from scratch on a more stable codebase. Most of the stuff hasn't been reimplemented yet, but it has the following:

• Loads and loads of bug fixes (too many to list, but just imagine every major glitch and it has likely been fixed)
• Tails can fly, and unlike previous builds can now carry Sonic (still need to fix bugs relating to this)
• Hyper Sonic is added, press Left+Left+Right+Right on the title screen
• Other smaller additions such as victory poses

 

A small PAK for MD-Sonic.

 

So frankly, I don't know if I'll return to this project. I last touched it in July, and it was meant to be my SHC 2024 submission, but work got in the way, and the deadline's long passed, so meh. So this is a prototype, and don't pester me about bugs or unfinished content
Presenting: Metal Sonic's Challenge
The premise is simple. Sonic 1, but you race Metal Sonic through each stage.
This was the tech demo to demonstrate what you could do with this guide I wrote a few months back, as I used it to record my gameplay for Metal Sonic's data.
Metal will randomly speed up and attack you, and you can attack him to slow him down.
No checkpoints, no bosses, just get to the end of the stage the fastest.
Screenshots:

 

There's no proper documentation, and Krikzz's sample is written in C instead of assembly, with literally no comments. With the PC companion app only really being used for receiving string data. But I did write a Python companion app to dump raw data into a binary file.