Shanghai.EXE: Cancelversary 2023

[Anonymous No.]

>Latest Release (0.560eWIP1) (same as last thread):
https://gitgud.io/SHNecro/shanghaiexe/-/releases

>What this is:
Shanghai.EXE was a Touhou-themed Megaman Battle Network clone.
Then the original developer got a C&D from Capcom and shut everything down, just before it was completed.
Luckily, someone leaked a donor-wall demo build, and the whole thing was made in C#, which meant it could be decompiled.
This is a modified/translated version of that demo build, implementing the end of the game following teased content, as well as various QoL changes and bugfixes.
The intent is to finish the rest of the game, which at this point consists of the postgame and some sidequests, with netplay being the final goal.

>Summary of changes since last year:
DeepNet1 map layout implemented in-game, basic work done on map objects
Entrance cutscene
Unfortunately not much else

>New stuff since last thread:
I won't sugarcoat things, I barely got anything done (again). I do work on the game when I have the time and focus, there hasn't been any sort of pause or hiatus, but you can see how well that's been working out.
The plan is still to finish the game, but in the same way that someone would plan to learn a new language, or restore an old car. It'll be done eventually, but please don't try to make plans around when a release might happen.

On the plus side, some other people have been stepping up and submitted merge requests for some boss fights and improvements to the language system, and I figured out the merge functions on the repo so those are now part of the source code. Not really being subtle here, but the source code should have literally everything you'd need to do anything you want with the code, and I don't think I need to say anything about "owning" any of it.

Back to the stuff I actually did manage to do, I'll probably do one more pass on the DeepNet1 map, it's workable at the moment but I'd tried some graphical changes to the conveyors that I don't think turned out too well, looking back. Besides that though, I'd finally call it done, and I can move on to other parts.
Map objects have also been placed on the map, vendors and g/b/pmds are in places that seem to make sense. All placeholder content at the moment, but thematically the area is meant to be the garbage dump, so most of them can be trash or mildly-useful rare-encounter S-rank rewards. The trouble will be the unique rewards and big-ticket vendor items, those will pretty much need to be custom-made, and I struggled with that in Heaven Area even after all the "to-be-used-later" key items. I finished those eventually though, so all I have to do is do it again.

[Anonymous No.]

Last year's post was all about the mechanics I had planned, it's up on the archive, but this year I guess it'll be about how bad those plans were. I'm fully scrapping the ideas for the frag "crafting" system and the SP->Illegal unlock/farm system.
For crafting, "make any chip/code you want" sounds pretty powerful but for 90% of chips you can already do that by remembering where the virus was and killing a couple. Ignoring the shit like Recov10 Y, you end up with a single-digit number of actually useful rewards especially at the literal last area of the game.
For SP navis, there was just no way to have them be both refightable and give good rewards without devolving into an absolute mess. So I gave up, the SP refights and illegal navi chips will be two separate systems. It'll be up to the implementation to avoid becoming "debug room but more walking", I'll just have to put more thought into it. Friendly navis at least will still be dead simple, V3s are easy to get so you can sacrifice as many as you like.

What I've been workshopping to replace the crafting system and the SP->illegal is going full minigame with the frag traders. The traders would still have the option of being the classic frag->rng chip trade by not engaging with the minigame, but with partial/full success a chip could "mutate" either its code or to its illegal version.
The picture describes it better than I could in text, I think that system should cover everything it needs to without overcomplicating things. Haven't worked through all the cases, like how darkchips would fit into the system, but nothing seems like it would be a dealbreaker.
We'll see how well it holds up in implementation though.

[Anonymous No.]

Legacy collection also came out, but I can't even blame it for any productivity issues, I burned out at 5 and only started back up recently, this time with no plan to 100%.

Lot of other things also happened this past year, AI's been exciting even just from the sidelines, haven't run / set up much of it myself but given my "art"style is already ripping off and tweaking other people's stuff I'm seeing quite a few possibilities. Anyone more familiar with AI know how well it handles spritework?

[Anonymous No.]

Thank for the update!
My guess is that AI for sprites is going to be harder than just any image generation, since it need to be coherent between frames to produce good looking animations.
Might still be useful, but it'll require some cleverness.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553743
Another year, another lackluster update from a super lazy dev. Why even bother?

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553763
>actually 100%'ing 4
Of course you're gonna burn out.

[Anonymous No.]

Well at least you're still around

[Anonymous No.]

>>45555157
What he said. The game is already finished as far as I'm concerned but seeing someone still working on it is a nice surprise.
Also has it really been 5 years. Jfc what the fuck am I doing with my life.

[Anonymous No.]

Based.
Thank you for all your hard work.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553743
Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553743
Uf, I was almost panicking that I thought I missed the update. Good to know youre still working on it anon, me and everyone else appreciate the effort.
So youre planning to add another post game area besides Heaven? Some sort of dumpster with junk data or something? Is that where the CirnoBX fight is going to be?
Also, do you plan to do anything with the "Cybeasts"? There is a sick unused track in the game that hinted something was planned but got scrapped.
Thanks still working on this mate.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45558192
>>45555831
lmao what hard work? Not only he's not the original dev but the latest release is the same from 1 year ago.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45559290
Two years, I copied that bit from the last thread, the next area would have to be completely done before I could make a release and that hasn't been happening, obviously.

>>45558192
A lot more details in last year's post, all spoilers of course. 3 frag types, 3 cybeasts, the B in BX.
Not like it's going to be a story arc or lore dump though, the track name and already-existing bits of foreshadowing on the boards are about all that will link the bossfights to the Cybeasts.

[Anonymous No.]

glad to see you're still kicking. and like the other anon said, for my purposes the game is already complete so anything extra you add is just a nice bonus.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553743
Frankly, I'm just happy to see this thread because it means people still care. If people didn't, we wouldn't be here now with the game in the first place.

I haven't been drawing as much this year as last, OP, but if you have another request for this year, feel free to ask and I'll see what I can do.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553743
Why did Capcom do it? After the endless sea of megaman and megaman x fangames, and them inviting the fan resident evil2 remake devs to visit their office in Japan i thought that they would never do such thing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45566904
Koki did the dumb and try to make money off it.
Better question would be why they did the same for Dream Force Hartmann when (1) there's no lifted assets unlike Shanghai and (2) it was going to be a free release.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45567471
At this point I don't bother questioning the retarded things Capcom does with megaman
Hell, they released NFTs for X's 30th anniversary

[Anonymous No.]

autocharge is the only thing i really want
>>45567471
in several ways too (stream donations and paywalls for the builds, he also wanted to sell the game once finished iirc)
>Better question would be why they did the same for Dream Force Hartmann
if i had to guess, the higher-up fossils at capcom read "steam release" and immediately assumed it was going to be sold for money

[Anonymous No.]

>>45567471
I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom didn't do the proper research and just assumed it was also Shanghai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45566876
Really I couldn't ask for anything, partly because if you do draw something you'll have done more work than I have.
In all honesty though, doing stuff with the map editor has kinda destroyed my ability to imagine scenes or characters without starting to disassemble it into event scripting, if I said a name it'd just be picking one out of a hat.
Go for your favorite, or, I dunno, the shittiest Cirno you can manage.

>>45566904
I won't do anyone's job for them, but during my playthroughs I had to stop a couple of times to pull up the spritesheets. What the hell was he thinking.

[Anonymous No.]

>Then the original developer got a C&D from Capcom and shut everything down, just before it was completed.
ouch...

[Anonymous No.]

Thank you for the update anon!
Nice to see you’re still around. I’ve seen some people on Twitter who do stuff with OpenBN have made working fights and sprites for some of the shanghai bosses. I wonder if they’d be able to work on this…

[Anonymous No.]

>>45576215
Are you purely working off kokis script now

[Anonymous No.]

>>45555758
You're putting something out, that is already better than most of 4chan dwellers

[Anonymous No.]

>>45600026
Script ended with the postgame teaser, anon, even the credit scenes were completely made up besides the end+morning after.
Everything else was filled in from bits and pieces, we got a handful of bystander NPC dialogue, Heaven1/2 were just the empty map, youmu+yuyuko were gifs from the artist's twitter.
This area all we got were some boss gifs, a still of another, and the tileset+background+music.

[Anonymous No.]

Bump for last minute holidays drawin'.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45576215
>Go for your favorite, or, I dunno, the shittiest Cirno you can manage.
I have channeled my inner Cirno and misread your comment completely, so have the dumbest Cirno I can possibly imagine.

>because if you do draw something you'll have done more work than I have.
ASPIRE FOR GREATNESS, OP. FOR YOU ARE A COOL DUDE!

[Anonymous No.]

Forgot about the shadow.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45615298
>>45615306
Hell yeah, merry Cirnomas.

Unless anyone's got any questions for me or anything to discuss, I'll probably see you all again next year, hopefully with something we can all be cheerful about.
Hope you all have a good one, everybody.

[Anonymous No.]

Bump for last minute holidays drawin'.

[Anonymous No.]

>>45553763
>Anyone more familiar with AI know how well it handles spritework?
My info is a bit outdated but people have successfully made ai gen simple sheets for styles like stardew valley and combined them with other models/loras.
Replicating that with MMBN style is probably possible, but would involve training/creating an ai model yourself, and you'd have to clean up the results anyways.