Roadmap - July/2021

This publication was originally planned to be done around 10 days ago, but it had to be postponed by personal reasons and because of the recent events. Apologies for anyone who was waiting for the Roadmap post.

This roadmap normally contains projects which can be released on July, August or September, depending on how each one evolves. Every month I'll update it with progress updates and eventual changes.

Finished projects

• Super Mario World with SA-1 Pack - status: updates planned. MaxTile needs some updates to improve custom sprite <-> sprite priority handling and some additional fixes that I have done in SMW Widescreen that would be welcome to SA-1 Pack receive as well. SMW Widescreen also updated SA-1 Pack to version 1.41 low-power version, which introduces a few power optimization tricks which is not available on the main version yet. Project link: https://github.com/VitorVilela7/SA1-Pack 
• Gradius III with SA-1 Root - status: stable.
• Contra III with SA-1 Root - status: requires update. It doesn't work on hardware. For fixing the issue, I'm migrating the Super R-Type SA-1 architecture to Contra III and redoing part of the RAM remaps for improving the game stability.
• Super R-Type with SA-1 Root - status: stable.
• Race Drivin' with SA-1 Root - status: updates planned. The RPM display is buggy on MiSTer and real hardware. The last version available didn't fix completely the issue.
• Project FastROM: Super Castlevania IV - status: stable.
• Project FastROM: Axelay - status: stable.
• Project FastROM: F-Zero - status: stable.
• Super Mario World Widescreen - status: updates planned. There is issues, mostly visual that affects some sprites. The fix is planned when the Ultrawide verison is out.

In progress projects

• Super Mario World Ultrawide - status: in progress. This version has 21:9 aspect ratio. The fixes is mostly focused on level sections that breaks due of the large screen size, bosses such as Ludwig and Reznor being smaller than the internal screen (384x224 vs. 448x224) and some sprites that may wrongly spawn on the another side.
• Project FastROM: Secret of Mana - status: planned. The game is still being disassembled. Once the disassembly is done, the FastROM patch will be very straight-forward to do, since it's a less problematic technology compared to SA-1 and Super FX.
• Star Fox with Super FX 2 - status: in planning. I have not started the development cycle, but I'm studying the Super FX dev cart I have received from qwertymodo. It's a long term project which I will be able to get the initial results once I dominate completely the Super FX technology.
• Super Metroid with SA-1 support - status: in progress. Disassembly is pretty much done, which currently I'm focused in tagging the opcodes with the required annotations for generating the SA-1 memory remap list. As reveled on Twitter, Super Metroid SA-1 will improve its gameplay speed and will include some quality of life improvements.
• U.N. Squadron - Area 88 with SA-1 support - status: in progress. Currently I'm generating the SA-1 memory remap list. It has higher chances of getting done before Super Metroid, because it's 2/3 smaller compared to Super Metroid. Still it's a lot of work considering it's twice big compared to Gradius III and Super R-Type, for example.

Likely release order: Super Mario World Ultrawide -> U.N. Squadron SA-1 -> Super Metroid SA-1 -> Star Fox, with Secret of Mana and Contra III likely appearing in the middle of the releases...

What about Widescreen games?

Super Mario World Ultrawide (21:9 and 18:9 support) will be done first before deciding what widescreen projects will be focused on next. I have good expectations of more systems getting widescreen support through the next months, which if that happens will be pretty good for consolidating the widescreen specification.

What about the YouTube channel?

Recently I have received a lot of requests for doing a YouTube channel teaching the SNES ASM architecture and hints & tricks about the my work. The channel is planned to come once I have my space done, which is an unused room that still needs some renovations. I have plans for getting it ready in 3-4 months.

Thank you all for the support once again. We have been on some tough days and I'm sorry for the lack of activity but there is a lot of cool things planned and the projects will not stop at all. Count with me for anything in the SNES ROM hacking community.

Thank you for the read and have a great day.

- Vitor