Starmen.Net

I am currently working on a remake of EarthBound (in the style of MOTHER 3/fan-made MOTHER 4). I have thought about creating this remake for years now and glad I’m finally acting on it.

I first played EarthBound almost 12 years ago and was completely floored; it was the type of game that I had never experienced before. Even though it’s an RPG, the fact that it was able to offer so much to the player in terms of a world to explore and characters with which to interact for a SNES game in the mid-90’s was astounding. It’s one of my favorite games, but obviously it still has some issues that make it a bit more klunky gameplay-wise (in my opinion) compared to MOTHER 3 which fixes virtually every issue. I thought it would be interesting to create a game with the same story, charm and humor as EarthBound but plays a little more smoothly.

Will feature:

• Reworked sprites and maps in the style of fan-made MOTHER 4 but all keeping the original layout of EarthBound
• Ability to run like in MOTHER 3
• Harder difficulty mode
• Additional optional bosses, side-quests, PSI abilities, items, and outfits
• New game/load game/sound player (plus additional options) from main menu as in MOTHER 3
• Consolidated menus as in fan-made MOTHER 4 (ex. taking out as many extra steps as possible, adding a key items menu, eliminating obtaining one item at a time, etc)
• Drastically reduced loading times

Please note that all assets shown so far are currently placeholders and are subject to change.
In addition, NO donations whatsoever will be accepted regarding this project.

Thank you!

custom engine or game maker ?

JustBear:

custom engine or game maker ?

This has been developed so far using GameMaker Studio 2.

BossCrafty:

I especially love your interior design. The inside of ness’s house was always lacking in the original.

Thanks! One of the goals is to make every place feel unique.

ThatTEEN13:

Oh, yes! This looks interesting. Now this is something I will be looking forward to.

Thanks for your support! I’ll post updates as often as I can.

Wow! I’ve seen this before, but I never anticipated this coming to starmen.net. Hey, if you’ve got a discord sever for this, I’d love to lend a hand!

:O Amazeballs!

So the interiors are styled almost akin to Mother 3 with a more top-down perspective, but the exterior retains EarthBound’s oblique projection, yes?

Okano:

Now that’s what I call sprite art!

oh yeah for the caterpillar trail store the player’s x and y in a ds list and auto delete the max amount of frames you want the player to follow behind.

Then go ahead and in the caterpillar players check if their assigned index is undefined if it is find the last defined index and set their x and y too it. Sorry if this is a bit complicated.

If you need I can moc up some code.

Thanks for your kind words. To be fair, most of the sprites are based on MOTHER 4’s, with a few that I’ve created myself. I’ll keep in mind your help regarding the caterpillar trail, though I don’t have much experience working with DS lists. Once I get the first portion of the game (Onett) 100% and add party members later, this will be a big help. And thank you for the offer!

TheName’sAndounuts:

Wow! I’ve seen this before, but I never anticipated this coming to starmen.net. Hey, if you’ve got a discord sever for this, I’d love to lend a hand!

Thanks! It’s very exciting to share this project with the Starmen.net community, as all of us here are fans of these great games. Shoot me a private message and I’ll send you the link for my Discord server.

Faris Marie:

This looks very nice! Excited to see more!

Thank you! Expect to see more on the way soon!

PianoMan547:

:O Amazeballs!

So the interiors are styled almost akin to Mother 3 with a more top-down perspective, but the exterior retains EarthBound’s oblique projection, yes?

Generally, yes… Most interiors will be similar to MOTHER 3’s style with a few exceptions.

someghostlyrobot:

that mother 4 aesthetic looks so nice, it fits surprisingly well.

Thanks, I agree! I always appreciated the look of that project and it ties over to EarthBound nicely.

PSIUser658:

This looks incredibly amazing! I didn’t know Game Maker Studio 2 let you do this much in great quality. The Mother 4 is a really great touch from your part! I’m astounded, and I’m definitely looking forward to more future updates. Kudos!

Thank you! The team is slowly growing and we’ll be posting more updates soon!

sawgm8eb:

This is very cool! The artwork is amazing. In the original game the room looks so dull but you made it look vibrant and colourful. Hope to see more from you.

Thank you! We’ve definitely drawn inspiration from MOTHER 4’s art style. There will be much more on the way for sure!

Yo, this looks promising. I wish you luck with the project, though, I have a question.
First of all, most sprites are taken DIRECTLY from Mother 4, and some are just edited. I hope they are just placeholders?? You seem to be doing this on your own, and this is just pre-alpha, so I can understand at least. It just itches me that you didn’t specifically say if the assets are placeholders or not. If they are, you should aim to finding a bunch of good spriters in the near future, and I wish you luck with that.
Otherwise, it’s not really ok to use ripped M4 sprites and not say anything about this particular issue, but you seem to be doing a good job with the gameplay part, judging from your video I saw earlier.
For now, I don’t know what to say, but this looks really good so far, I just hope that you’ll get the project done. And yeah, take notes about the visual part, a proper devteam is useful for every project. Good luck!

…C-can I help with sprites?

Bound:

Yo, this looks promising. I wish you luck with the project, though, I have a question.
First of all, most sprites are taken DIRECTLY from Mother 4, and some are just edited. I hope they are just placeholders?? You seem to be doing this on your own, and this is just pre-alpha, so I can understand at least. It just itches me that you didn’t specifically say if the assets are placeholders or not. If they are, you should aim to finding a bunch of good spriters in the near future, and I wish you luck with that.
Otherwise, it’s not really ok to use ripped M4 sprites and not say anything about this particular issue, but you seem to be doing a good job with the gameplay part, judging from your video I saw earlier.
For now, I don’t know what to say, but this looks really good so far, I just hope that you’ll get the project done. And yeah, take notes about the visual part, a proper devteam is useful for every project. Good luck!

sands:

Hey, good to see how people love Earthbound!
I was just wondering, most of the stuff you showed until now are just placeholders?
I know you’re getting inspiration from the Mother 4 game, but a lot of the sprites seem to be the same as in that game.
Assuming this is just a pre-alpha, you’re gonna end up making your own sprites later on, right?
In my opinion, you should also try to get the color palette closer to Earthbound’s, it has a very iconic style that I think Mother 4 tried to go a little different from.
You should probably contact the Mother 4 developers to see what they think of your project! They’re very open and I’m sure they’d be willing to help.
Anyway, wish you luck on your project!

The initial post of this thread has been edited to more clearly reflect the focus of this project. I apologize for any confusion.

Firstly, thank you for your interest, and I appreciate your constructive criticism. Originally this was set to be a showcase of how an EarthBound game could play using GameMaker with more modern mechanics and features, with the intention of sharing progress with the Starmen.net community. However the project has grown to be more than that, and with a team dedicated to working on specific aspects of this game, we have gone back to the drawing board in some spots. This means that, now with a team of artists, we are implementing all-new original sprite work. Rest assured that we aim to ultimately make this project our own, in all areas.

Yeah, I like how Ness’s house turned out! A working kitchen, a wall painting, a ceiling fan—- is that a light switch on the wall? There were never any light switches in EB!

PianoMan547:

Yeah, I like how Ness’s house turned out! A working kitchen, a wall painting, a ceiling fan—- is that a light switch on the wall? There were never any light switches in EB!

Thanks! Environments are getting a bit of an overhaul but we still plan to keep the same level of detail.

Will the battle sprites be overhauled, too?

Please don’t pull a “Mother 4-es” cancellation on us. It would be a shame to see a project like this pulled. It’s so amazing that I love it! There is barely any EarthBound fan games and this will be god-tier when it’s finished. This is astonishing my man!

Well this certainly looks ambitious enough! I’m a musician composer-producer, so if you need any arrangements you know who to call.

Squares:

Well this certainly looks ambitious enough! I’m a musician composer-producer, so if you need any arrangements you know who to call.

Thanks! If you’re interested in working, please send me a PM with some examples from your portfolio.

It’s fantastic to see the power of Earthbound.
And the fans are incredible !
This project is so great, continue MultiVolt ! I support you and I’m certainly not the only one !

Welp, i just hope that this can be completed, too beautiful to let it die like many other projects.

I can’t do anything to help unless it consists in transalting the game to Spanish with Native level, wich is just useless because it’s a project in development. 10/10

Everyone has already said what I’m going to say right now, but I’ll say it either way:

It looks awesome!

What you did to Ness’s House is absolutely pleasing to look at!!
A stove, a sink, a fan and even a light switch really breathe new air into that house.

Probably a useless question, but will the enemy sprites be remade? I noticed the battle screenshot has a sprite from the original game.

Looks really great, and you are using GameMaker Studio 2, which is a plus! It seems you did a great job keeping the charm of Earthbound’s art style, which is great. Good job man, can’t wait to see how this progresses!

One of the most promising things I’ve seen on here. I’m wishing the best of luck on you!