Project M [CURRENT RELEASE: Version 3.6]

[...]

Please secure your wrist strap to contain hype.

Website | Smashboards | YouTube

Got permission from @SilentDoom to make a new topic about this game, so here we are. Hopefully it doesn't die out like the previous one but we'll see.

What Project M Is

Project M is a mod of Super Smash Bros. Brawl that makes the gameplay resemble that of Melee and in some areas, Smash 64. This makes the game much faster overall, more-combo oriented and reflex-based, and also reinstates advanced techniques from Melee such as wavedashing, L-cancelling, and SHFLLing to name a few. In short, it takes Brawl as the game base and makes it more competitively-oriented and having a much higher skill ceiling. Many Melee veterans are made to play similarly to their Melee or Smash 64 incarnations, while Brawl veterans are given new abilities in order to compete well in PM's environment. The mod had its first demo released in 2011, and has been living on since and has a very active and vibrant community and has a presence at tournaments alongside the official Smash games. Taken from the Project M boards' FAQ, this sums up things well to give you an idea of the game's design goals:

What is Project M?

Project M is a modification of Brawl inspired by Super Smash Bros. Melee's gameplay designed to add rich, technical gameplay to a balanced cast of characters while additionally enhancing the speed of play.

What is the goal of Project M?

Project M hopes to achieve a game similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee in many respects. It does not, however, intend to be a 1:1 Melee clone. The following is a list of the main aspects of Super Smash Bros. Melee that inspired and have carried over into Project M:

1) A fast-paced game.

2) With flowing, natural movement.

3) Where the player has a great degree of control over his character due to the technical skill that he's achieved.

4) The balance of offense and defense changes depending on the exact matchup and playstyle, but overall tends to favor offense slightly.

5) Offstage edgeguarding is risky but rewarding, while on-stage edgeguarding is safer but less rewarding. 6) Recoveries generally require great skill to use, with the advantage usually being with the edgeguarding player, with some exceptions.

7) The combos are challenging and spontaneous, with anything longer than 2-3 hits requiring a knowledge of both characters' options and some degree of prediction and/or a deep understanding of the mental aspect of the game.

Characters

Project M has a grand total of 41 characters, with most of the returning Melee veterans being mixed with Brawl's newcomers. Mewtwo and Roy were added in the game by the PM Dev Team's very own "clone engine", with Mewtwo being based off Lucario and Roy being based off... well, Marth. Every character has gotten either rather significant buffs (or nerfs in the case of a character like Meta Knight), moveset changes and the like for the sake of a game that's balanced as possible, making for a cast where any character has the potential to be viable. Some characters like Ganondorf, Toon Link, Roy and Lucas have been decloned in order to reference their source games better with giving their moves much more utility than before. Every character has been given new alternate costumes, such as Mario having a Dr. Mario alt that even has electric attacks and pills replacing fireballs! More characters are planned to be added through the clone engine, but nobody really knows when they'll be released.

Stages

Project M has a wide variety of stages as well, counting up to 44 stages total that can all be seen here! Stages that were cut from Melee or 64 are now brought back, such as Peach's Castle, Fountain of Dreams, Fourside, Saffron City, Melee's Final Destination and Yoshi's Story. There are also HD remakes of stages such as Dream Land and Meta Crystal from Smash 64, or completely new made stages by the PMDT such as Wario Land and Bowser's Castle. Alternate versions of stages can also be played, such as being able to play the original Smash 64 versions of Saffron City, Dream Land, and Melee's version of Battlefield. Some stages ended up being completely removed, such as 75m and Mario Bros. (thank god)

How To Download Project M

Getting Project M to play for yourself is ridiculously easy and takes a rather short time to do. Before anyone asks, you can play Project M on either a Wii or Wii U, so no threat to Wii U owners. Unfortunately, Project M has no PAL version at the moment, but it's possible to play the game on a PAL Wii through the wonders of Homebrew. There's a guide right here! If you live in America, here's the things you need:

• NTSC copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• NTSC Wii/Wii U
• 2GB SD card (just make sure it's not a PNY one, they're much larger than actually marketed)
• Download the game from Project M's website!
• If you're playing on Wii U, due to the GameCube controller adapter not having backward compatibility for Wii games, you'll need to use a Classic Controller or an adapter that connects your GCN controller to a Wiimote.

This has no chance of bricking your Wii or Brawl game save whatsoever, so don't worry about that either. Strictly follow the instructions in this video: 

Playing Project M Online

Yes, you are able to play this game over Wi-Fi despite the servers for Brawl's online being shut down. It doesn't require any fancy shit or hacking your Wii, so let that breath out. After you successfully get the game's launcher booted after watching the above video, make sure you go the "Update" first and wait for it to finish. After the update is done, go to "Addons" and download the Official PM Wi-Fi addon. You'll now be able to play Project M online with friends as long as you share your friend codes. You'll both be able to fight regardless if one friend owns a Wii and the other a Wii U! Your PM friend code is the same as your Brawl friend code.

And for those who play Dolphin, you can try out Netplay as well, here's a video tutorial:

So yeah... that's it, really. Hopefully this has convinced some of you to give the Project M a go! Even with Smash 4 being what most people play nowadays, I still alternate between it and PM and still adore it and all the Smash games really. PM has a lot of effort and dedication put into it that's evident throughout the entire mod, and the gameplay is just so satisfying and high-octane. I've been playing the game for three months and definitely am wanting to get into its scene even deeper. If you're primarily a Melee player and like to play Smash seriously, you'll feel right at home here. If anybody wants to play online by any chance, my FC is 2108-3174-1817. 

Discuss anything regarding PM here and your experiences with the game if you've played it before!

Edited October 12, 2015 by Felix

[DiamondX]

So, i cant play the game for having a pal wii?

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Might try it myself later, so I can give it a shot with my friends. I really like the Project M version of Snake

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So, i cant play the game for having a pal wii?

You can, but it's a very complicated process. Edited the original post to include the PAL guide, it's in the "How To Dowload Project M" part.

[Junko]

Since, I'm here, lemme educate y'all niggas on how to play this on Dolphin if you wish, that's how I do it.

You're gonna need a few things here:

• Dolphin v4.0.2 or above
• An NTSC ISO for Brawl (hah, you think I'm linking this lolno)
• A program called SD Card Maker
• Project M 3.6 or above (Homebrew ZIP)
• WinImage 9.0 or above
• Gecko OS

Got all those? Good, leggo.

1. Boot up the SD Card Maker and make a virtual SD card of 2GB in size. Click OK once a dialog box appears and you should have a file called sd.raw
2. Next, extract the PM zip file and boot open WinImage
   1. Hit File, Open and find the SD card that you maker
   2. Click Image, then Inject a Folder
   3. Navigate to where the PM folder (should contain "apps", "codes, and "projectm" or somethings to that effect) and inject that folder
   4. Hit File, Save and Close WinImage
3. Move the virtual SD to "Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii"
4. Extract the Gecko ZIP
5. Boot up Dolphin, right-click Brawl and set it as a default ISO
6. Hit Config at the top, then the Wii tab and tick the Insert SD Card box
7. Then hit Open, find the Gecko folder then go to "HBC" then "Gecko(ver number)" and open boot.elf
8. Note that to navigate the following menu you need an emulated or real GameCube controller setup.
9. Mosey on over to Config Options and scroll down to the Hook Type and set that to VBI
10. Save config, and hit Start game
11. From now on you will only need to press "Start Game", you won't need to set the hook type again

Project M should boot up and there ya go.

Oh, you wanna play online?

Fine, I suppose I should help out with that too. If you want Netplay, there's a guide in this very topic. But that only let's you play with other Dolphin users and that's fuckin' boring. We wanna play with Wii users too. We gotta fucks with Wimmifi.

You'll need:

• Dolphin v4.0-4889 or above
• That Brawl ISO you need for the game anyway
• Wiimmfi Patcher
• Wiimmfi Unbanner

Got all those? Let's go again.

1. Extract wiimmfi patcher and move your Brawl ISO into that folder
2. Run patch-wiimmfi.bat and that should send a patched version of the ISO into a sub-folder called "wiimmfi-images"
3. Run wiimmfi unbanner.exe and drag your Dolphin Emulator folder (in Documents) into the window and let it do it's magic
4. Boot up PM mosey over to online and you should be online with a friend code and everything
5. There's a multitude of errors and come with the territory here, the one I had an issue with was code 23911 which basically just meant come back in a day. Check out the list of codes here.

My friend code is 2153-4851-3136, let's goooooooooo.

[Cyalume]

Does anyone else experience increased input lag when playing this on Dolphin using a Gamecube controller adapter (the Smash one)?

[Guest]

Good timing! I've been hacking hacking the crap out of this thing!

 

[#EndyGate]

prohject em is bayd because it does not have mario bruddahs. smash 4 is the only game with mario bruddahs and bowz jun. therefore i`s better
 
#EndyGate

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EDIT: oops

Edited October 11, 2015 by Felix

[Nepenthe]

Okay, this EndyGate spam bullshit is not going to spread here. Knock it off.

[Junko]

Project M is closing down boys and girls. Check the site.

Hello friends,

Six years ago, we started a journey born out of our shared love for competitive fighting games. Eventually, the electrifying passion that coursed through us arced out and drew in more people until our small circle of friends grew into a team, and that team grew into an international community. Project M and its community have grown larger than any of us ever anticipated, and it’s truly heartwarming to see all of the unforgettable connections and friendships that have been forged through this project.

Unfortunately, we’re here to say that we’re at the end of that road.

We’ve learned so much in the process of making Project M—accumulating life-changing lessons in communication, team work, professionalism, work ethic, and more—but there’s only so far we can take those skills in a volunteer project. With this in mind, we’ve made a difficult business decision: We’re ready to finish development here and move on to bigger and better ventures.

We realize that this will come as a shock to many of our fans. Please, forgive us. Again, it’s been an excruciating call to make, but it’s been made a bit easier by our satisfaction with the previous and final release, v3.6. We’ve spent six years polishing Project M, and rather than let it drag on through another several years of dwindling development and change-fatigue in the competitive circle, we’re going to consider our work complete.

In the mean time, we plan to be hard at work on new projects, built from the ground up. We can’t spill the beans just yet, but know that we’re looking towards a fresh start with brand new designs. Rather than splitting our focus, many of us want to dedicate ourselves to this new venture fully. In this way, we hope to maintain the level of quality and professionalism you’ve come to expect from us.

In summary, we are ceasing development of Project M (effective immediately) and will be making no further releases as we turn our attention towards an entirely new venture. As the PMDev team will be formally disbanded, please forward all official communications regarding Project M to video game attorney and business consultant . We appreciate your support and your understanding.

One final time,

PMDev

Thank you for playing!

Here's seemingly what the actual reason is:

And here's a mirror for the Homebrew version and a mirror for the Hackless version.

[DBZHedgy]

I'm more or less disappointed mainly due to the fact that Lyn, Knuckles, and Isaac were never finished

RIP in pieces

[...]

I'm disappointed, especially with all they future content they had planned. Now I can never go full Hungrybox by using the green headband alt in Jigglypuff. :C

Oh well, it's been a nice ride. PM is a really great game and I still have lots of fun playing it, even if 3.6 is the last version its interesting where the metagame will go since the game will no longer get updates.

[goku262002]

I hope some of the Devs get pissed off enough to release the content they were working hard on in some kind of leaked final release, this whole thing reeks of C&D from Nintendo and like hell I'll believe that sockpuppet of an attorney and whatever hes saying on twitter.

This is fucked, really fucked.

[-Robin-]

No C&D was involved.

 

Not like Nintendo wouldn't have full legal right to do that anyway.

[Junko]

I hope some of the Devs get pissed off enough to release the content they were working hard on in some kind of leaked final release, this whole thing reeks of C&D from Nintendo and like hell I'll believe that sockpuppet of an attorney and whatever hes saying on twitter.

This is fucked, really fucked.

No, it's basically to avoid a C&D from what I can tell, and to allocate all/most PMDT resource from Project M to Project Wavedash over at Wavedash Games.

[JaidynReiman]

Project M is closing down boys and girls. Check the site.

Here's seemingly what the actual reason is:

And here's a mirror for the Homebrew version and a mirror for the Hackless version.

Thanks for posting up the mirrors.

When I went to download it, my CAPTCHA was: "Crocodile Tears"

 

Damn...

[DBZHedgy]

Actually, it doesn't have anything to do with wavedash games

A member of the PMDT over on Smashboards confirmed this 

If you ask me, it's to avoid any infringement that the direct this month may cause.

[Junko]

So, in the end, we have no fucking clue why PM is done. However, I still doubt it's Nintendo's active influence.

[PSI Wind]

Well, we DO have someone who worked on PM on this very message board.......

[Junko]

Well, we DO have someone who worked on PM on this very message board.......

Two of them.

[...]

Well, we DO have someone who worked on PM on this very message board.......

SilentDoom and Strong Bad barely even come on SSMB anymore. They're both on Smashboards nowadays.

[Salamander]

It seems to me that, if Nintendo had wanted to kill Project M, they would have done so months ago, maybe even years.  This is not exactly obvious timing for them to suddenly decide that Project M needs to go, as opposed to, say, when they were releasing their own new Smash game a year ago.

[Dantemustdie00]

Yeah I doubt Nintendo has anything to do with this. If they wanted to get rid of Project M, they would've BEEN done it.

[MegasonicZX]

Yeah, count me in on the side that doesn't think nintendo really had anything to do with this. The devs probably mean what they said in that they are just tired of constantly making updates for this one project and just want to move onto new ventures (which will more than likely be fantastic if PM is any indication).