Homebrew GBA Oldies Homebrew game [RELEASE] MOTHER Demake (GBC)

[crookeddragon]

I made a GB Studio demake of MOTHER 1!
A port of MOTHER to the Gameboy Color.

However, due to restrictions, it is slightly different! The world is shrunken, the battle system is different, and items have been removed, but it's still MOTHER through and through!

Llyoid can only use items! Therefore you might want to get the non-consumable weapons asap! Ana can only use PSI, so make sure you keep her well-rested! And Teddy... He's Teddy, ready to fight alongside you!

Spoiler: TIPS

Check the menu! I added things like a melody checker in the status! It also tells you current HP, PP, and money! Telepathy tells you this and tells you current status in the PSI tab as well! Useful for when you don't know your current standing and need to heal.
The solution for most dungeons are the same as OG.
For Llyoid, there's a special thing about the Sweet's Factory trash can.
The Onyx Hook is a Menu option for ease of access to the magic cats as well as a bit of a fast travel outside of trains!

KNOWN BUG: PSI Teleport has an issue with enemy encounters, so it has been removed to prevent softlocking. However, with the shrunken size of the world, it shouldn't be as much of a slog should you forget a melody.

CREDITS:
Starmen.net: Resources
PSI-Hate: Support, Testing
crooked_crow (me): Programming, Music, Art

GITHUB: DOWNLOAD LINK

Note: If you encounter any bugs, please let us know in the thread so we can take a look at it!

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[Psi-hate]

Congrats on the release Crooked!! So exciting to see this out! MOTHER is one of my favorite games of all time and being able to see this project finally out there is incredible. I've played through this a few times in testing and it's been a blast, a very faithful "demake" despite the limitations, I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did!

 

[RustysJunk]

I'm so glad I stumbled upon this. I'm gonna play this NOW!!

 

[crookeddragon]

I'm so glad I stumbled upon this. I'm gonna play this NOW!!

Thank you so much!
While running through another playthrough, we noticed a minor bug and a softlock (XXCave flag wasn't set properly for Youngstown so you'd have to fight the dragon before leaving Magicant through Monkey Cave and it's a whole thing xp)
We're releasing an update to fix this right now, so make sure you have v1.0.2 from the github! (Unfortunately due to limitations, previous save files aren't compatible )

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Interesting for sure. Will try it.
Got surprised by the huge size of the ROM file.

Why "demake"? I always considered the GBC to be a portable NES or even more powerful (only with reduced resolution -- that limits things).

Hopefully Nintendo won't interfere.

 

[Jayro]

The Mother games already look 8-bit in style, and I feel a more faithful port could be achieved using GB Studio. I just don't have the passion for Mother/Earthbound games to do it.

 

[Psi-hate]

Interesting for sure. Will try it.
Got surprised by the huge size of the ROM file.

Why "demake"? I always considered the GBC to be a portable NES or even more powerful (only with reduced resolution -- that limits things).

Hopefully Nintendo won't interfere.

GB Studio, while powerful, it is oriented towards people who have little-to-none programming experience. There becomes a point where something you'll want to do just can't happen or needs to be done a different way than the original idea, as is the case with a lot of features here. All the maps, sprites, music, and whatever else asset were all manually remade for this project with the GBC in mind, and corners had to be cut especially in map design due to sprite limitations. Personally for me, I think it brings a close-enough experience to the original and I think the new, cut-down version like this might be a nice unique experience compared to the original ;D

 

[Xdqwerty]

cool

Post automatically merged: Jul 8, 2023

tough the music is kinda bad

 

[crookeddragon]

Interesting for sure. Will try it.
Got surprised by the huge size of the ROM file.

Why "demake"? I always considered the GBC to be a portable NES or even more powerful (only with reduced resolution -- that limits things).

Hopefully Nintendo won't interfere.

"Demake" was chosen as even simple things like the RPG fighting system had to be changed due to how the GBC (and in turn, GB Studio) limits things
As for the size, it is a whole game! Opening the file causes my computer to lag it's that big

Post automatically merged: Jul 8, 2023

The Mother games already look 8-bit in style, and I feel a more faithful port could be achieved using GB Studio. I just don't have the passion for Mother/Earthbound games to do it.

I'm not sure I understand, as this is GB Studio?

 

[Xdqwerty]

"Demake" was chosen as even simple things like the RPG fighting system had to be changed due to how the GBC (and in turn, GB Studio) limits things

I should mention that the Game Boy Color versions of the first 3 Dragon Quest games kept the combat the same as the original NES versions.
Just say

 

[Psi-hate]

I should mention that the Game Boy Color versions of the first 3 Dragon Quest games kept the combat the same as the original NES versions.
Just say

Because they were made by programmers with full control over the engine, they can do whatever they wanted. GB Studio is by no means the same thing, and without learning C or Z80 assembly and programming your own custom engine, there are limits to what you can do with the tools GB Studio provides. Just saying.

 

[Xdqwerty]

Because they were made by programmers with full control over the engine, they can do whatever they wanted. GB Studio is by no means the same thing, and without learning C or Z80 assembly and programming your own custom engine, there are limits to what you can do with the tools GB Studio provides. Just saying.

okay. just saying

 

[jbheydude]

its cool but not very accurate to og

 

[KleinesSinchen]

As for the size, it is a whole game! Opening the file causes my computer to lag it's that big

I just compared it to the original NES game. That is much smaller (and to my knowledge there weren't even mappers for NES for 4MB)

Maybe GB Studio is less efficient than building a complete game in Z80 assembly?
=====

Your new game is a fun thing. I have one complaint though (I'm probably the only one thinking like that):

Where is the difficulty?​

Mother 1 has brutal difficulty. Even the first enemies beat the player in no time until (very slowly) grinding to higher levels. In this demake I played in a few minutes until rescuing the girl hidden in the cemetery... without dying (or healing) once. Just by button mashing.

 

[Psi-hate]

I just compared it to the original NES game. That is much smaller (and to my knowledge there weren't even mappers for NES for 4MB)

Maybe GB Studio is less efficient than building a complete game in Z80 assembly?
=====

Your new game is a fun thing. I have one complaint though (I'm probably the only one thinking like that):

Where is the difficulty?​

Mother 1 has brutal difficulty. Even the first enemies beat the player in no time until (very slowly) grinding to higher levels. In this demake I played in a few minutes until rescuing the girl hidden in the cemetery... without dying (or healing) once. Just by button mashing.

GB-Studio if I recall spits out 4mb ROMs by default, I imagine a considerable amount of space is just padding, I haven't looked. Of course Z80 assembly is more efficient, an engine like GB-Studio is going to have a lot of redundancy and bloat since it's so modular.

As for difficulty, I think stats were adjusted for the player characters to be more like EB as that's what crooked felt was more fun for her. She did try and make different versions that were either exactly Mother 1's OG stats, or more akin to Earthbound's balance, but it was a mess keeping track of the builds when there were still work to be done. Maybe an update to the difficulty can be done now that the game seems to be stable.

 

[crookeddragon]

Where is the difficulty?​

GB-Studio if I recall spits out 4mb ROMs by default, I imagine a considerable amount of space is just padding, I haven't looked. Of course Z80 assembly is more efficient, an engine like GB-Studio is going to have a lot of redundancy and bloat since it's so modular.

As for difficulty, I think stats were adjusted for the player characters to be more like EB as that's what crooked felt was more fun for her. She did try and make different versions that were either exactly Mother 1's OG stats, or more akin to Earthbound's balance, but it was a mess keeping track of the builds when there were still work to be done. Maybe an update to the difficulty can be done now that the game seems to be stable.

This is correct! I made various versions to test difficulty while we were still testing the Zoo (one with completely EB stats for both enemies and allies, one with M1's OG stats, and various combinations). I had to also keep in mind though that allies couldn't use items.

Which, to those wondering, I *did* try to fit the OG battle system in the game, however, the battles are scenes with limited space as they have to call upon scripts for ally level, stats, exp, gold, weapons, what items you have, etc. While I was making it, I found out quickly that three Ninten-like turns and an enemy turn could work, but three turns with different mechanics (battle items or PSI) *with* an enemy turn didn't. And I had to account for all of the allies you could obtain for every battle (like if you went back to Podunk with Teddy). It just didn't fit the scene's limited space.

So in order to make Llyoid and Ana more unique, I made it so that their special options were still in the game. If I were to make them like Ninten, I'd also have to remove Llyoid's items from the overworld as well, making items more repetitive (because I removed "other" items due to, again, scene space).

I can definitely work on the project's complete and more polished version to bring things like an OG stat version if people want! As bizarre as this project is, I want people to enjoy it

 

[Vorde]

This is an interesting concept with it being more of a Gameboy Re-imagining of the game as opposed to a Demake imho (since it contains "-make" which is related to the word "remake" which I wouldn't consider this to be with all the changes).
However with using GB Studio, and a small team, it is impressive to see what can be done with these new tools, and I'm glad to see someone using them to create passion projects like this.
Please take my criticism as a grain of salt as I do not know how to program at all, and do not understand the complete undertaking in demaking a game.