Graphics from source files not in final ROM
Return to the Matoran Adventures homepageHere's where most of the juice is. I'm still working out how best to present the information here; at the moment I've settled on a mostly-chronological approach, with similar files grouped together.
Many of the files in the archive we were given have an edit date of 3 February 2002 at 12:41 PM (my time), suggesting they were copied over at that time from a different location.
old/attack (29 Oct 2001)
Sprite
This is the only image we can date with certainty to 2001. A higher resolution render of this Matoran model is on the Bricks to Bytes subpage for this game.
DysonSprites (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Dyson
"Dyson" as in "vacuum cleaner", presumably. From skimming dyson.c, it seems it would descend from
the top of the screen, grab the player, move back upwards, respawn the player (subtracting a life), and disappear.
Based on comments in player.c, this would've happened when the player fell into a bottomless pit. So
like Lakitu in Mario Kart, but a vacuum cleaner.
When descending, the top row of tiles would be duplicated above itself up to the top of the screen, creating the impression of a continuous tube.
EnergyPanel (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Looks like an early version of the HUD. The code folder includes a series of screenshots from April (named "Simple_{number}.png") which use a version halfway between this one and the final.
mask_black (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
mask_blue (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
mask_brown (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
mask_cyan (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
mask_green (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
mask_red (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Sprite
"Cyan" is certainly a strange word to use in reference to Kopaka's mask. It seems these were all converted at the
same time by the batch file masks.bat. They're referenced nowhere else in the code.
Masks (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Masks
Masks2
Masks3
Masks4
Masks5
Masks6
These are also not referenced anywhere else. Comparing these to the broken mask graphics, I think they're sorted in alphabetical order by color name: blue, brown, grey, purple, tourquoise [sic], yellow.
MenuCharIn (Before 3 Feb 2002)
CharacterButton
MenuMainIn (Before 3 Feb 2002)
MainButton
MenuOptIn (Before 3 Feb 2002)
OptionButton
MenuPassIn (Before 3 Feb 2002)
PasswordButton
A series of buttons that seem to go with newmenu. The overall design is remniscent of the main menu
for Bionicle the Game (PS2/PC/GameCube/XBOX), also by Argonaut, where the menus are presented as four tiles around
the Kini-Nui suva. Going by newmenu, it looks like here they'd be set into a cliff?
SmashSprites (Before 3 Feb 2002)
Smash
This file's associated header was once include'd by StratList.c, but was commented out.
villagergreen (7 Mar 2002)
Kongu's looking rough. Like the attack sprite above, this is probably a 3D render.
fireeffect (18 Mar 2002)
Hard to say. Note that the pattern (ignoring the 2 blank columns at right) could be tiled horizontally but not vertically. Not referenced elsewhere.
daytonight_rain_rain (20 Mar 2002)
Sure looks like junk data, huh? This is the earliest rainbow file in the code. 3 hours later, the used
rainbow daytonight_rain was created, both the same size with the same comments ("Orange and Purple
and Blue.." in the source file, "Red & Yellow and Pink and Green..." in the header file). I suspect both were
automatically generated from the same source palette and the later file is how it should look.
fecircle (26 Mar 2002)
"FE" likely stands for "front end", but outside of that, this could be anything.
fescalemap (30 Apr 2002)
cloudsprite (1 May 2002)
Cloud
These two files were created a day apart. References to both are commented out of displayscreen.c,
the file containing code for the opening splash screens and cutscene. To me this suggests that Matoran Adventures
at one point would open like the console game, with the familiar image of the camera descending through the clouds
towards Mata Nui. Of course, there isn't enough evidence to say for certain.
flashstripRed (13 May 2002)
flashstripGreen (13 May 2002)
flashstrip3 (14 May 2002)
flashstrip4 (14 May 2002)
flashstrip2 (16 May 2002)
frontend1 (23 May 2002)
Front1
frontend2 (23 May 2002)
Front2
frontend3 (23 May 2002)
Front3
Various attempts at the anime speed line backgrounds used for the opening cutscene. The final version,
flashstrip, is dated 30 May.
mainmenuglow (13 May 2002)
mmpal6 (5 Jun 2002)
mmpal1 (5 Jun 2002)
mmpal2 (5 Jun 2002)
mmpal3 (5 Jun 2002)
mmpal4 (5 Jun 2002)
mmpal5 (5 Jun 2002)
Some alternate designs and color tests for the main menu. These were all created on the same day, but given their
correspondance to the earlier mainmenuglow, they were probably the last rendition of an existing
design. The final main menu, mainmenu.c, is from 12 days later, 17 June.
A version of this design did make it into the final game as an overlay in the very busy loading screen graphics.
baragbody2 (27 May 2002)
BaragBody2
temp (16 Jul 2002)
BaragBody2
temp2 (16 Jul 2002)
BaragBits2
tempy (26 Jul 2002)
BaragBody2
Curiously, BaragBits2 was already defined in BaragBits.c (27 May), which is
present in the final ROM, just unimplemented. The palette data from the tempy.c version of
BaragBody2 was later copy-pasted into Muakaboss.c, where the boss code lives. It
probably comes as no surprise that when Gahdok dies and the screen goes white, Cahdok's palette is swapped in and
no other graphical changes are made.
baragbody2 and temp give us our clearest look into the sprite art process, which is
neat.
chieffloat (5 Jun 2002)
It's a Turaga, floating. It's unclear what the use case would be. Presented in greyscale.
smalllocust (18 Jun 2002)
SLocustWalk
Identical in contents to locustfly.c (4 Jul), which is in the ROM.
YellowMaskBKbmp (2 Jul 2002)
Predates the rest of the broken mask graphics by 2 minutes. Identical in contents to YellowMaskBK.c,
which is in the ROM.
frisbee2 (9 Jul 2002)
frisbee3 (9 Jul 2002)
I suspect these images were converted to sprite data so that their palettes could be copy-pasted into
frisbee.c, last modified 3 minutes after their creation.
bionicletitles (15 Jul 2002)
Bionicle
Created around 30 minutes before bioniclelogo.c, which is the same image, just 2 tiles wider.
bioniclelogo.c is in the ROM.
FEBohrok (16 Jul 2002)
When this file was created, an identical FEBohrok was already defined in fesprites.c (4
Jul). That one's in the ROM.
muakabdrainbow (22 Jul 2002)
The source file contains partial tile and map data, but it can't be pieced together into an actual image. So instead, I've rendered the color palette from top to bottom, as if it were a background gradient. Judging from the next file, I think this was the right approach.
muakabdrainbow_rain (22 Jul 2002)
The same background gradient as above, just with more colors at the end. This one is properly defined as a gradient.
Data from muakabdrainbow.c is referenced in a commented-out line in Muakaboss.c.
muakabdrainbow_rain.c is not referenced anywhere.