MD Development: CotM 1st Public Demo Andor 2026-06-08 | Here it is, my first public demo of Mega Circle of the Moon. Download Link:drive.google.com/file/d/1hS0wFiXIiYldGrI9YKUn-uDP4LB1J4Db/view?usp=drive_linkSome Notes about the rom:I didn't test this latest version on original H/W, so I can't guaruantee it works there. However earlier builds did work great on original Hardware.Also please do not use soft reset, which will most probably break the game. This is something I need to fix later on, so only hard reset will work without any issues.It still uses a 6-button layout. A-Button JumpB-Button AttackC-Button UnusedStart-Button Go to MenuY-Button Activate / De-Activate DSS EffectX-Button UnusedZ-Button Activates Debug Modes (Using them will require 2nd Joypad Inputs)Not all the Sub Menus of the Stat Menu are done yet. DSS Menu is done (To Select DSS Card Combos)Item Menu is done (To equip items or use consumables)Card Menu is currently used to open the CastleMapOther Menus are not done yet. The Sound Menu has only some tracks to use, not the whole Soundtrack, although the whole soundtrack is done and already in the game.3 Save File Slots can be used.Hugh Baldwin can be selected already when starting a new game, but it is not recommended as I almost did nothing for him codewise. He doesn't even have all controls+animations wired in. Of course there are still lots of things which needs fine-tuning, also there will be bugs (maybe even game breaking ones) and the game has slow-downs when there are lots of enemies active, or especially at the Cerberus Boss fight.I did my best to reduce them already, but I will have to deep dive into it again I guess at a later time, to see if I can even improve it further.This demo features the whole first Catacombs area including the Cerberus boss fight. Credits:The whole soundtrack has been done by - youtube.com/@UCgCApna_C0JeHaZ3ngqjmKA youtube.com/@UC5CAIwM8ADZxzoSDfqKu4mg - Helped me to get the Dialogue Boxes work properly with transparency.
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance MD - Full Talos Scripted Scene Andor 2026-09-21 | It is finally done! Talos fully implemented ( Assembly Phase, Chase Phase, Falling Down Phase, Death Flame Burst Animation )All sound effects and screen shake effects are implemented.HUD and Combat UI visuals are implemented. The first WIP track ( Boss Battle Theme ) done by @jorgerfm364 is being featured here as well. I am looking forward to hear the next tracks of HoD he will do next - please be aware that the tracks are work in progress versions so far.
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance MD - Dialogue System, Maxim, Drawbridge Sounds Andor 2026-09-15 | Dialogue System added.VWF font renderer added and extracted the original games glyphs.Page continue sound effect added.Juste and Maxim Portrait Images added.Maxim Sprite added.Drawbridge Sounds added.Juste landing (impact) sound added.
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance MD - Mini update, rotating drawbridge and shadow trails effect Andor 2026-09-14 | Fixed Walk - Brake player state animation. Added Juste's shadow trails visuals ( but made them togglable ) And added the rotating drawbridge.
MD Dev: Harmony of Dissonance - PoC Test Andor 2026-09-11 | This is a proof of conept test of Harmony of Dissonance for the Sega Mega Drive. As I started in earlier videos I initially planned to do Aria of Sorrow on the SNES alongside CotM, but I couldn't find anyone who can do the soundtrack for SPC-700 sound chip. I had some discussions with @jorgerfm364 - who did a fantastic job doing the soundtrack of circle of the moon - and he would also do the HoD MD soundtrack. Also I didn't remember the game that well, and recently started to play it for some time and have to admit I underestimated it, I like it and decided that I will do HoD alongside my CotM development. When CotM is done this will get my full attention. The core gameplay mechanics and systems of CotM are done and implemented, now it is almost only a thing of adding new rooms and doing the enemies AI. I do still hope I can do Aria on SNES at given time, but it would be also a bit of wasted potential to doesn't use my MD CotM work, which I can re-use as a foundation for HoD.
MD Dev: Mega CotM - Revised holy cross item crash ( Grand cross ) Andor 2026-09-02 | Beam now opens through three width stages instead of popping in.Central 32px pillar has mirrored dithered edges with a solid 16px core.Existing VRAM tiles are replaced once after the opening, so usage remains exactly 192/192. ( My reserved VRAM slots area for DSS effects ).Pillar now renders in the early sprite pass, protecting it from sprite-limit disappearance.S/H is disabled as the final white bloom begins, creating a stronger light outburst.Cross particles remain fully animated without alternating or blinking.Sound ( extracted from SotN ) is also added so it is not silent anymore.
MD Dev: Mega CotM - Item Crash Andor 2026-09-01 | The whole DSS implementation is almost done now - I am now doing the Pluto DSS card combinations, and the first one ( Pluto + Salamander ), is a special one, because it is like 6 different attacks in one. It will enable Nathan to use the awesome Item Crash ability!This is a short showcase presenting each item crash ( even the itemless one which is a very powerful but costly attack ).Sound effect for the Item Crash attacks not working properly currently, and when I used the itemless crash during the video capture I got a level up, which made a bug visible, in which Nathans "normal" sprite - that should be invisible during the Item Crash animation, is being visible. That bug is fixed already.Update: I found out that most of these item crash attacks actually have no dedicated sound effect in the original GBA game... I might try to add sound effects from other games that also feature the item crash attacks, as it seems a bit strange to me to have the effects visually but no audio to go along with them.
MD Dev: Mega CotM - More DSS Combos ( including the full screen summons ) Andor 2026-08-28 | I am still working out the complete DSS sub-system of 100 (!) combinations of various attacks / effects, familiars, full screen summons etc. I am almost done, and showcasing just a couple of them here, as showing all of them might be a bit boring ...Regarding the Uranus Action Card - Full screen summons: First I recreated them faithfully to the original but then got the overall feedback that heavy screen flashing is not ideal, and can be an issue for people, so I changed these effects to not do a fullscreen color flash but instead using color fade in/outs. Also in the case of the here showcases Uranus + Salamander fire elemental summon, I added a heat-haze effect to give the attack a bit more of visual "impact". You can also see the familiars ( they work very similar to the ones used in Symphony of the Night), I did showcase the Bat familiar here.
MD Dev: CotM - Reworked Dialogue and Item Text Andor 2026-07-30 | DIalogue and magic item pick up text is now using the same compact font as enemy names and item names already used.
MD Development: CotM - New Collision System, Better Performance, Accurate CastleMap, More DSS Effect Andor 2026-07-30 | I have used the past few Weeks to re-work quite a lot of things in my engine. The collision system has been reworked from scratch and is much more accurate now. It came with a cost of higher CPU work, so performance went down. However I did a lot of optimizations and right now I have even better overall performance and stable framerate than before with the simpler collision system.I have added the first couple maps of the next area (Abyss Stairway) - including Axe Armor enemy (one of my favs). Another sub-system that got rework from scratch is the castleMap which is now working 1:1 like the original game and performs well. I managed also to decrease loading times between map transitions or going to menu, or leaving menu. I completed all elemental whips (DSS Mercury Action card), all stat upgrades (Venus Action card), all swords and other attacks (Mars action card) and currently working out the Jupiter action card dss effects (that are both offensive and defensive). As a QoL feature I added Quick DSS Swap, so holding down the DSS button will toggle two small icons on top-right screen (HUD) and pressing dpad down/up will change action card, dpad left/right will change attribute card. Quick tap dss button will enable/disable dss effect.Also I have reworked my dialogue and item pick up text to use the same compact font that I used already for enemy names and item names - I will showcase the new font text in the next short video.
MD Dev: CotM - All Mercury + Attribute Card combos (Elemental Whips) Andor 2026-07-16 | All DSS Mercury Action card + any attribute card combination (elemental whips) are done now. This is a little showcase showing some of them in action.
Snes Dev: DVI German Translation - Title Menu, Intro and Somnia Village done + Speaker Name extra! Andor 2026-07-15 | I made some good progress with my Dragon Quest VI SNES German translation. The Title Menu is complete and fully working. The intro scene and the whole Somnia village is also done. I am currently working out the menu with it's options (like items, stats, etc.) I added a new feature which the NDS remake is using:Speaker Name in Dialogues as a seperate box attached on top-left of the regular dialogue/text box. Usually, in the SNES game the speaker name of important NPCs are within the regular textbox, but especially longer names, are taking up a whole line of three lines per dialogue box, in multi-page dialogues there is always a line wasted, so I decided to add this comfort feature to the SNES game as well.
MD Developemt: CotM - Reworked Maps, Smoother Walk/Dash Animation, Smoother Camera Y Movement Andor 2026-07-03 | Still no new content, but luckily I have now someone working on the assets. User @darkfalzx Has reworked some maps already, also the save room, game over screen, intro scene (including character portraits) And he doubled the frames of Nathans Walking & Dashing animations. I have changed the Camera Y movement, so it is now using deadzones and smoother rubber band like scrolling. Engine has been reworked too, so it should even perform a little bit better than before (Earth Demons Stalagmite Attach did sometimes result in stuttering effects - like HUD bar blinking for a frame or something similar) - that is also eliminated now.
MD Dev: CotM - SFII Mapper, more accurate hitboxes, improved performance, Double Jump + Backtracking Andor 2026-06-24 | I have spent some time now to improve the overall performance of my CotM engine.The Poison Worm Death animation was one of the known "hot paths". I could reduce the slow downs and in most cases eliminate them entirely. I did also polish the HitBoxes and now using multi boxes for bigger or odd shaped entities. Another big change is the use of the SFII Mapper to allow for a bigger rom size bigger than 4 MB. It was a big change and a lot of issues that were "harmless" and didn't cause any issues (so I wasn't even aware of them) suddenly caused the game to crash badly. But I take this is a good thing, it forced me to fix some issues I wasn't even aware of. The full soundtrack is now in the rom, so also the Sound Menu has all the tracks selectable now. The only new "Gameplay" content is the Upgrade room right after Cerberus boss room, where the player receives the Double Jump magic item which allows to backtrack to some areas that were not reachable before, and of progressing to the next area of the game. The double jump move + animation is implemented in the engine too. One of the areas that were not reachable has now some new enemies (Flea Man, Slime and Brain Floats).
SNES DQVI German Translation - Start Menu, Name Entry, Campfire Scene Andor 2026-06-15 | This is something I wanted to do Years ago but hadn't the skill and knowledge to do it. Since I made some good progress with the Aria of Sorrow project for the SNES, I felt confident enough to try tackle it again.I have a weak spot for the Dragon Quest series, especially the older entries. It is a pity that there is no 100% translated Patch for DQVI (NoPrgoress English Patch has some gameplay / menu issues and is not 100% translated). As far as I know there are currently two individual projects working on a new English translation, so I didn't want to be the third one and decided to translate it to my native language for my german speaking audience. I will use the official german localization of the NDS remake, which is in my opinion excellent. I managed to extract all dialogue texts of the original DQVI SNES rom, and of the NDS Rom - and I could match them by their internal IDs. My main project is still Circle of the Moon and it will stay my main project until it's done. So, Aria of Sorrow and this German translation of DQVI is just something I do in between whenever I feel I need some change.
MD Development: CotM - Updated Jump / Mid-Air Attack Animation + Nathan Die Anim + Game Over Screen Andor 2026-06-10 | I have noticed that my jump animation was missing an an animation frame, also I didn't have dedicated Mid-Air Whip / Elemental Whip animation frames, instead I was using the standard Standing Attack animation frames. Jumping and Mid-Air attacks should now look smoother and more natural. Nathan can actually die now (not just being stale in "hit" state and unable to do anything), and when dying animation ends, the screen will slowly fade out, and game over screen will fade-in. Continue will load latest save file, and end will go back to Title Menu (with a fancy but simple staggered vertical tile wipe animation). The Game Over screen is one of the problematic assets where it does fully fill out the GBA screen (240x160 pixels) and leaves big black blank area on the Mega Drive (in my case in H32 mode = 256 x 224 pixels).If there is anyone who would like to re-draw that Game Over screen so it nicely fills out the whole screen I would be very happy. As I am no artist I can't do that task.
Mega Drive Development: CotM - Cerberus Improved Beam Attack Andor 2026-06-01 | I spent some more time working solely on Cerberus' light beam attack. My biggest issue is the positioning and to move Heads, Beam origin and full beams body in line, without too much movement (left/right, up/down), which is extremly difficultbecause of the 8 pixel boundary the bg tiles will snap to. So while the head is rotating the beam will not stay exactly in front of the both open mouths. Also I have not the same fine/granular motion as the original does (as I need to pre-bake every angle it would be too much memory cost), so my version has more sudden jumps anyway. The current version was really the best I can get it to look. Also added beam impact effects when the beam lands on solid ground or wall tiles. And Cerberus will choose one of the two outer platforms to jump at and do its beam attack. When Cerberus lands on solid ground/platform, will also cause a screen shake effect.
Mega Drive Development: CotM First Rough Cerberus Boss Preview Andor 2026-05-28 | Doing the Cerberus Boss is really challenging, yet fun. A lot of work went into getting Head rotation + room filling lightbeam attack to work properly. This is one of three States / Attacks Cerberus can do. They are all indicated by it's color. It will change for each phase / attack his color. Red color means he will do his huge lightbeam attack. This is the first attack I am currently trying to implement.
Mega Drive Development: CotM Boss Room | 1st Public Demo Release Upcoming! Andor 2026-05-26 | I have made progress quicker than I expected I would, so the big milestone I have set for Myself, aiming for end of this year, has almost been reached now. I have added all the maps/rooms of the Catacomb area, including new Enemies (like Gremlins, Spirits, Skeleton Spear, Mud Man, Hopper and Coffin + Mummies). My most recent work was adding the Cerberus boss room featuring the animated lingering flames background. Only thing missing now is the Cerberus Boss fight and that will complete the very first area in the game. As soon as Cerberus is done and I have fixed the remaining bugs that are known to Me, I will publish a first public demo.
MD Dev | CotM - New Rooms - Breakable Walls - Sliding through narrow passages - Skeleton Spear Enemy Andor 2026-05-12 | Recently added:- Breakable Walls- Upgrade Max MP/HP/Hearts Items- New Rooms- Sliding underneath low/narrow passagesWith my improved workflow regarding new maps and entity placement, I guess I will reach my first big milestone of getting the Catacombs done including the first boss, before end of the year (which had been my previous assumption). Maybe I will have a first playable public demo available within the next 1-2 Months :)
Aseprite Entity Placement / Export Script Andor 2026-05-11 | I made myself two Asesprite scripts to simplify the workflow of placing entities on a new map/room (Enemy Spawn Points, Static Entities, breakable / movable objects ...)and export them in a way so I can just copy/paste them into my project.
SNES Dev: Super Aria of Sorrow - Small Update: Sound Effects + Candles Andor 2026-05-05 | A small update of my Super Aria of Sorrow project. Candles with proper animation, and destroy animation are in now. I've added some sound effects like Knife Weapon swing, Somas Attack Voice variants, jumping and landing sfx, as well as candle destroy effect sound. I even added the original games behaviour, that the attack frames/state are being reset when doing an mid-air attack, and Soma is landing (grounded) again, so he can instantly attack again when grounded, instead of waiting for the attack animation to end properly. So when timed correctly two attacks can be done within a very short time window. I am already running out of Sound budget. The 64kb are already full. So I guess I really need to figure something out. I have only a couple of SFX in and downsampled them as much as I can without distorting them too much. But they are the raw sampled one-shot files. They are eating up too much memory. I guess I have to generate it via MML to save up memory, at least for the common audio data. For some scene / area related sounds I can use the rom bank switching to swap audio data.
MD Dev: CotM - Item Menu, Consumables, Poison State, Equipment Andor 2026-05-05 | Recently added:Item MenuEquipmentConsumablesPoison Worm can inflict poison status on NathanUse Consumables (Potions, Antidotes etc.)
Snes Dev: Super Aria of Sorrow Update: Collisions, Slopes, Semi-Solid Tiles Andor 2026-04-30 | Next little Step further in my SNES Aria of Sorrow Engine:Standard Collision is in. Slopes detection and Semi-Solid Fall-Through Tiles are in.
MD Dev: Circle of the Moon - CastleMap + Map Cells Reveal Andor 2026-04-30 | CastleMap is now in. That was a difficult one...Only the Position marker, of current Nathan position on the Map is off and needs to be fixed.
Mega Drive Dev: Circle of the Moon - Save/Load Game Progress + SaveRoom Andor 2026-04-29 | Saving and loading the game progress is now fully functional. That means the three currently supported Game FileSlots can be used to save gameplay progress now. I worked hard on the Save Room which was really hard to get look good (and I am not 100% satisfied with it still). I am using two palettes for it since this room doesn't have enemies or anything so could use one more palette (but not a full palette as the lens flare effect etc. needs color too, and the save modal textboxes). I tried to implement the original lens flare effect but it doesn't looked too good, so I created an own effect, which is a glowing orb that gets bigger and brighter and afterwards reversing the effect and shrinks down and fades in normal palette back.
SNES Dev: Super Aria of Sorrow - SPC700 Music Test & Better Walking Animation Andor 2026-04-27 | I have experimented with converting GBA extracted soundtrack (midi files) to a SNES friendly format using different scripts (including MML).Of course this is nothing I would leave in the real game as is, but for now it's a nice placeholder music until I found someone who is doing the music :)The walking / idle and walking-change-direction-turn-over animations are much improved now. I had to re-write the engine quite a lot, because my Ambient System was eating up to many OAM entries. Somas Sprites are now being streamlined, so only the animFrames that are required right now are being streamlined and not kept live all the time.
Sega Mega Drive Development | Circle of the Moon Fully functional Main Menu Andor 2026-04-27 | I finished up the rest of the Main Menus options. So all game slots can be used now. New slots can be used. Slot name can be changed.Data can be copied over to another slot. Data slots can be deleted. I think now could be a good time to implement the save rooms, to save/load also the gameplay state.
Sega Mega Drive Dev | Circle of the Moon Level Up System, HP/MP Bar Update, All Sub Weapons Andor 2026-04-24 | Updated quite a lot of things gameplay wise:All Sub Weapons are in the game and fully implemented now.Nathan can take damage now. DSS Effects/Attacks are consuming MP.HP/MP Bar are actually updating now. Level Up System and Stats progression fully implemented.New sound effects. Rebalanced volume of sound effects.
SNES Dev | Super Aria of Sorrow - First Room got an Ambient System (Random Endless Spawning Bats) Andor 2026-04-22 | The first Room has now an Ambient System I wrote, so the normal gameplay (well I don't have much Gameplay at the moment ^^ but that will change soon) stays untouched.The Ambient System does two things:Add the cloud sprites so they are looking like on the original game now, more naturally and fixed on screen (not world pos). They are not moving but everything else (camera etc.) is scrolling. And the Ambient System is endlessly spawning four different bat types. There are 2 8x8 Bat sprites that appear to be far away. One 8x16 bat type that looks like it's nearer;And a hovering, front-looking 8x8 bat that is not moving but oscillating around the moon. The flying bats are moving across the screen and dispose themselves when they reached the end of the map. In the meanwhile new Bats are being spawned at random positions (clamped top and bottom, so they can only appear in between).And the bats, and also the clouds are being visible only through "blank" areas, like the "holes" in the foregrounds walls.
Mega Drive SGDK Development Circle of the Moon Sub Weapon Swapping Andor 2026-04-22 | This time I further expanded the Sub Weapon System in my engine. I always like to work on these classic Casltevania Series features. Of course Sub Weapons such as the dagger, the axe, the holy water etc. are a must. So far I did only implement the dagger. Now I have implemented the axe sub-weapon and also the swap system, so when an sub-weapon is already equipped and Nathan picks up another one, the current one will be dropped in an arc away from Nathan and can be picked up again (or not). The typical arc trajectory movement pattern of the Axe is looking accurate and I also added the missing "hit effect" that appears on the "impact point" on the enemy sprite when being hit by a weapon. Lots of more sound effects plus an own soundmanager system has been added too, but most of them are too quiet now, and can't be heared well, so I have to adjust the volume levels of music and sound effects better so both can be distinguished from each other better than how it is right now.
SNES Dev | Super Aria of Sorrow Andor 2026-04-21 | I know it might be too early to start such a "big" project while still heavily in development with my main Circle of the Moon SGDK Genesis/Mega Drive project, but when I work on such big and long lasting projects, sometimes I need something else; So often what I do are small sideprojects then. This is an exception, because I knew from the very beginning that if I am succesful with developing CotM, I would really like to do Aria of Sorrow next. I also knew that after doing a full game on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis), I want to do something on the SNES next.And don't ask me why, but in my mind Cirlce of the Moon suits the Mega Drive better, and Aria of Sorrow with its brighter and more colorful palette is better suited for the Super Nintendo. So I did work on a very rough prototype for the SNES in 65816 Assembly - Unfortunately, there is no good C framework like SGDK for the SNES. There is sneslib C library but its too small for a full fledge game like Aria of Sorrow will be. And that is another good reason to do something for the SNES. I am already rusty when it comes to Assembly (after doing two small game prototypes in 6502 for the NES), so it is also a good chance to maintain and further improve my Assembly skills. My plan for the future is:During the Week: Focusing heavily on CotM development. The next big milestone I want to reach until end of this Year is still to have the complete first area of the game with all its gameplay mechanics ready, so I can publish a public gameplay demo where You can play the game up to the first boss (Cerberus).On Weekends:I will enjoy the change and keep working in my Super Aria of Sorrow project. I expect to make quicker progress here, as the basic engine will be very similar to the engine I am doing for CotM. So most of the systems I did there, I just have to adapt to the SNES / Assembly code.It's super fun to work on both of these projects. I love the games, and hopefully are able to make two good versions that are worth to be played (I always try to add some unique content to make it not a pure 1:1 port with compromises because of an older hardware). It will be interesting if I might be able to fully use the Super Nintendo Hardware - Maybe using Mode 7 where it is applicable and useful!? We will see
CotM Development | HitBox and Sprite Offset Editor Andor 2026-04-21 | I built two tiny helper tools to speed up fine-tuning hitboxes and sprite position offsets.Both editors using HTML this was the quickest way to implement it. The Hitbox Editor let Me upload a spritesheet and draw a rectangle where I want the hitbox to be. Same goes for for the Sprite position offset editor, that i made for the elemental whips because they all have different reach and needs different positioning. This will be useful for other sprites as well, before I did it manually in Aseprite Editor or even in-game using debug functions, but both was a lot more time-consuming and not as nice as these two editors. I might expand the hitbox editor to support other shapes than rectangles, if required later on.
CotM Debug Overlay Modes Andor 2026-04-15 | I built a debug overlay mode into my game. It uses joypad 2 buttons to cycle between overlay modespause current gameplay sceneframe advanceprint lists (activeEnemies, activeAttacks etc.) to the console via kprintfThere are three overlay modes. 1) is displaying entitiy slot, position, state etc.2) is drawing hitboxes (they are tile-approximate, not pixel perfect)3) adding spawn markers, spawn ids and active spawn-cell markers
CotM new physics / camera system / pooled Entity system / Full EarthDemon AI Andor 2026-04-14 | I spent a lot of time re-writing my engine to use only one global unified EntitiyPool instead of many entity pools (one for enemy, one for proejctiles etc.)Also I managed to get the exact values the original game uses for the player movement / physics and also the camera system. It should look and feel now much closer to the original GBA game. The EarthDemon AI is now fully implemented and I am quite satisfied with the outcome. It's not 100% accurate but the best I could manage to do so far. It has an interesting AI behaviour. - centered/symmetric activation - side-neutral distance checks- close re-attack vs chase vs retreat decisions,- cancellable cast- mirrored two-phase retreat- dynamic safe retreat point- idle float waiting- spike damage only on the peak frame.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | EarthDemon Preview Andor 2026-03-27 | I've spent a lot of time re-doing my engine (not done yet) but I improved how my Enemies are being spawned / despawned within the rooms. Also improved the enemies AI. I spent also the whole Week on/off on the Earthdemon (one of my favs), which has an interesting movement / floating pattern. It is by no means done, but at least I have some of it's states done. Need to fine-tune the floating patterns still and need to do the stalagmite ground attack, and the Earthdemons die anim.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | H32 Mode and minor improvements Andor 2026-03-19 | I've spent quite some time to improve some minor things in the game, fixed some bugs, improved collisions a bit. The major update is that I have changed the game to use the H32 screen mode (256 x 224) which will from now on the main view for the game as this is the closest resolution to the originam game, and the assets are made for that res. I had to redo the dialogue text as H32 mode reduces the sprite limit per horizontal line from 20 to 16 (so 4 less characters I can display per line). Also I did have issues with the text box when the map has already scrolled and the map Y Position was not a multiple of 8, that the text was shifted and not in line with the transparent background lines. Now I am calculating if map Y-Pos is not a multiple of 8 and how much I need to offset the text/image position, so that it's again in line witht he transparent lines. I implemented DSS Card drops, and the Dash Boot Upgrade item is now on it's correct place (also the dashing is of course only possible when the dash boots has been picked up).
MD Circle of the Moon | Slightly improved falling down sequence + sfx Andor 2026-03-05 | I tried to slightly improve the falling down sequence to make it look a little bit more as the original sequence. Still not too happy with how it looks, but at least somewhat better as the breaking ground tilesm (rocks) are now falling down longer than before and the big rocks are rotating. I also added some sound effects.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | Intro Scene almost done Andor 2026-03-04 | I've spent more time on this Intro Scene, but I must admit I got kind of annoyed with the 2nd half of the scene, where Nathan and Hugh are falling down to the Catacombs. It is super difficult to observe all the things going on frame per frame in the Originakl game: All the flame effects, all the different kind of stones when the ground is breaking and falling down together with Nathan and Hugh. It's more than 30 sprites for the stones alone, and they are changing display order and priority every frame, which is making it so difficult to get it to look as the original game. So, the falling down part I just did by feeling and not looking to close, to what original GBA game does. What I still need to do is add sound effects, and then I am happy to move on with the actual game as making the scene was extremly stressful. The 1st half was all fun, especially doing the dialogue boxes.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | New Intro Scene Update Andor 2026-02-27 | I am still working hard on getting the Intro Scene done. It's more work than I have thought it would be (and I knew it would be a lot).I could further improve the Text boxes by do a fade in / out effect of the transparent lines (of the box). Also the character portraits do fade in now, like they do on the original GBA game.One of the most challenging tasks were to get all the sprites and images using the 4 available color palettes of each 16 colors. Especially the detailed character portraits were difficult. There just so many different character sprites and stuff on the same screen, at the same time. I did my very best to make them look good. The textboxes and the dialogue is working pretty well now. The only part missing now is where Nathan and Hugh are falling down to the Catacombs area and animating the breaking up of the ground etc. And of course the missing sound effects and music (the track will change when they fall down).
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | Intro Scene & Textboxes now with real transparency Andor 2026-02-24 | Thanks to youtube.com/@UC5CAIwM8ADZxzoSDfqKu4mg I now have very nice looking transparent text boxes. Furthermore I tried to improve the colors of the scene. It looks a bit more colorful now. I am now using one full palette only for the room on top of the map. I might do a palette change while Nathan is falling down into the Catacombs area, as the tile set on the bottom of the map (where the catacombs area begins) is quite different, and to match the colors of the next few maps). Credits:Transparent Effect Code: youtube.com/@UC5CAIwM8ADZxzoSDfqKu4mg Music / YM2612 Cover: youtube.com/@UCgCApna_C0JeHaZ3ngqjmKA
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK |Intro Sequence now with Textboxes and Dialogue! Andor 2026-02-20 | Adding the Dialogue/Textboxes was a pain to get properly working in my game, but I think I have it in flexible way now, so I can from now on, quickly add more dialogues. I am happy to move on with the Into scene and complete it soon.The music is done by: youtube.com/@UCgCApna_C0JeHaZ3ngqjmKA
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | Intro Sequence (unfinished) Andor 2026-02-19 | The first part of the Intro sequence, where Camilla is summoning Dracula. There is a lot to do still. The text boxes (plus character portraits) are missing, the sound effects are missing, and the Vampire Killers (Nathan, Hugh and Graham Baldwin) who are breaking into the room after Dracula has been summoned. Graham will then be held as a hostage by Dracula and Nathan & Hugh are falling down into the Catacombs.I don't like how the background looks currently, I need to get a better compromise regarding colors used. But this screen and the cutscene is really tricky, because not only the background needs a lot of colors because of the different terrain (below the room is the start of the Catacombs area and it's using a different set of tiles (with their own unique colors). Also there are five (!) main character sprites, the door sprite, the coffin of dracula and the portraits within the Textboxes. Will be really challening to fit them all into the 4 possible color palettes while still making sure it does looks good.
Poison Worm Die Animation Andor 2026-02-16 | I still need to fine-tune the Posion Worms die animation, but here is how it looks right now.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | Poison Worm Enemy Draft Andor 2026-02-13 | The first draft version of the last enemy type of the 3rd Map of the Catacombs area - the Poison Worm. It has quite complex AI, as it drops little poison worms to the ground and they have their own AI. Also the die animation of the big chunk of Poison worms is rather complex and still needs to be done. But I have done a rough version of the "hit" animation, where some of the poison worms are being whipped away from the chunk of worms.
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | More enemies Andor 2026-02-11 | After I have struggled with a nasty bug for almost one Week, I have now added all the enemies of one of the very first rooms in the game (except the Poison Worm, which I still have to add) with the exact enemy placement of the original game.I've also tried to "expand" the left wall tiles in the first room (the room has a smaller width than the MDs screen resolution).
MD Circle of the Moon | SGDK | First test using the original GBA Assets size (1x size) Andor 2026-02-04 | As the scaling by 1.5x did open up too many issues, I decided to go back to original Assets size (the GBA uses 240x160 internal resolution, so everything is now like a bit zoomed out). I did adapt my project to the smaller size, and showcasing the first test run. There are still some hitboxes and other stuff I need to adjust, but most should fit now. Also the slopes collision is now more accurate because of the correct tile placement (before with the 1.5 scaling it was offset slightly). One issue however, which I haven't had before is that some rooms are smaller than the MDs screen size (width and/or height), so there are black bars on the sides (or top/down) at narrow rooms. But I think this was quite normal with other games too. I do really hope I can soon continue to do new content again.
