New levels for Monster Bash and Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure

[Poet]

Good idea. I'll try that.

EDIT: Well I tried it, I'm afraid it didn't help.
But thanks for the suggestion.

[Poet]

There must be something hard coded for level 4 and 5. I can't make any substantial changes to level 4 and no changes at all to level 5 (whether I remove the skeletons in these levels or not) without the game crashing when loading these levels. So I will leave these levels alone. It's a good thing I didn't have any of them opened in Camoto while I saved my new levels or else level 4 and 5 would not have worked in my mod.

I can make changes to level 2 if I reduce the size of the level but I will wait with that until the skeleton issue may be solved.

Btw, over at Public Commander Keen Forum I saw a thread about Monster Bash and according to something I read there it seems Camoto can edit episode 2 (and possibly 3) too. But when I start a Monster Bash project in Camoto I find only episode 1 available, even if I have all episodes in the folder I let Camoto copy the files from.

All the same I am very content with having been able to make levels for episode 1, my favorite episode. Thanks again for the great game editor Camoto.

EDIT: I have found out how to make a new level 4. So my next level will be a level 4 replacement.

[Malvineous]

The unused enemy in episode 1 is that black cannon thing with the yellow legs. To my knowledge it doesn't appear anywhere in episode 1.

Since you say loading and saving a level without any changes breaks it, this is definitely a bug in Camoto.

I am 99% certain it's going to be the sprite list, as there's no way to know which sprite filenames are needed in a level other than hard coding the list. The list is definitely incomplete, it's just a bit more incomplete than I thought!

If you have the command line tools set up, you can use "gamearch" to extract and replace the sprite files (*.sgl) for each level from the main .DAT file. I am pretty sure that extracting the .sgl file from the original game and putting it in your mod's DAT file will fix those levels that break by just saving them unchanged. Unfortunately even if this works it would mean you'd be limited to only using those sprites that are in the original levels - if you wanted to add new sprites you'd have to hex edit the .sgl file to add the important sprite filenames that the game has to load for your level.

If you can work out how to extract the .sgl file, I'd recommend finding a free hex editor and using it to look at the .sgl file. It's basically a text file but with special null characters instead of spaces, so it's really easy to add your own entries to the list. I'm sure it wouldn't take you long to figure out which sprite names you had to add that Camoto left out, in order to get the level working. (If you load and save a level unchanged, then compare the original .sgl against the updated .sgl, you will see which filenames were removed, and can try to add these back one by one until you figure out which names are important.)

If you suspect memory is an issue you can use the M+F10 key combination while playing the level in the game to see how much memory you have left. If you test your level every time you add a new kind of sprite, you will be able to keep an eye on the amount of free memory and make sure it doesn't get too low.

IIRC Camoto shows sprites with no images as a default question mark icon, but it's been so long since I've looked at it I can't actually remember now!

[Poet]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll look into it.

I believe the cannon with legs appears in episode 1 level 6.

I discovered I could make a new level 5 if I deleted absolutely everything in it before starting to put things into it.

In the weekend I will upload the next version, v4.0. It will include 7 new levels, level 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, and two modified levels, 1 and 7. Level 2 will still be unchanged.

[Poet]

My Monster Bash mod NewBash1 has been updated to v4.0 and all levels are changed.

Please read the txt file included in the download for special notes about some of the levels.

[Poet]

A new version, v5.0 is now available.
I managed to make the hanging skeletons work flawlessly in my new level 2 by adding the jaw bone sprites to the level (in an out of sight spot) and by not adding too much else to the level.
Thanks for all tips and suggestions that made me realize I could solve the problem that way.
I have also fixed some other invisibility bugs in a similar way.

EDIT: The latest version is now v6.0. with an expanded version of my new level 2.

[Malvineous]

That's a great workaround for the problem, it never occurred to me to do that!

If there were other problems you fixed in a similar way, let me know so I can update the sprite list on the ModdingWiki for future reference.

[Poet]

I added the lightning sprite to make the lightning show, I did that in level 3. And I added the dragon eye, dragon flame and dragon smoke sprites to level 4 to make these elements show.

(Because of a couple of other small correction the latest version is now v6.2.)

[Poet]

I have added the necessary sprites to level 3 to make the Count Chuck dialogue look right. I did the same to level 7 and added a little extra to that level to make the dialogue which appears in level 7 more appropriate.

[Poet]

I have now played through my mod on the hard difficulty setting. I will most likely not make any more changes or additions to it. The final version ended up being v7.1.

[Poet]

Recently I have been working on my Monster Bash mod again. Among the latest changes is a fix that makes the end sequence work. I added some sprites to the last level (level 10), and to the end sequence itself, to make it work. I still don't use the cyclops for level 10 (unlike in the original), you will find the cyclops in one of my other levels. The end sequence uses the background graphics for level 4 and 5. Since I had modified that graphic file I also needed to make some small changes to the background of the end sequence.

[Poet]

What would need to be done to make Camoto edit Monster Bash episode 2 and 3?

[Typhoon_MkII]

So, these levels are already available? I'll have a try then, and will keep you informed of how I like them! I just finished sifting through a bunch of [url=https://]spam link snipped[/url] for my boss, outside of what my job usually demands, so I need some simple, harmless, fun, and I need it now.

[Poet]

Yes, you find my new Monster Bash levels here:
http://www.poetsoftware.no/mods/monster_bash/index.html

See also my Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure levels:
http://www.poetsoftware.no/mods/cosmo/index.html

I hope you like the levels, and have fun.