Do you remember Hocus Pocus, a classic platforming game from Apogee?
If you liked this game, then I have great news for you: A fully functional level and graphics editor for this game is finally here!
I was looking for a level editor for this game for long time, but unfortunately there never was a complete and fully functional one, althrough the level format was fully reverse-engineered during 2000's. Those I found (Hocus Creation Station by Violet CLM, Camoto Studio by Malvineous) were incomplete and quite hard to use, so I decided to make my own level editor and then I really finished it.
The main focus of my level editor is easiness of use (no difficult installation or pre-processing of the game files), simple and intuitive GUI, and many useful features to make editing of the levels faster and easier, for example:
- Three editing modes: Tile mode, Pattern mode and Block mode (here you can copy+paste)
- Pattern and block presets, ability to save your own presets
- Undo & Redo feature
- Minimap
- Quick test (save level & launch game in dosbox)
The program is not only a level editor, but it can also edit graphics (sprites) and export and import game resources (music, sounds, graphics files etc.)
The zip file contains a readme file and a document called Graphics replacement guide which explains in detail how Hocus Pocus graphics works and how to replace all kinds of graphics (tilesets, backdrops, sprites, fullscreen images etc.)
Download link:
Here
Official website:
http://www.shikadi.net/moddingwiki/HocusEditor
A new custom level to play:
This is a good and quite challenging new level made by Violet CLM with this level editor. Replaces E1L1.
To play the level:
1. Download the level editor and install it by unzipping all files and folders into your Hocus Pocus game folder (where HOCUS.EXE and HOCUS.DAT are located)
2. Download this zip file containing the new level and unzip all files into some folder
3. Start the editor and select "Tools" -> "Apply mod patch" in the main menu and open the patch.ini file you got in step 2. Remember to backup your original game files because this action will modify them.
4. Let the program close and launch Hocus Pocus!
Graphics modification demonstration:
To show you the full power of editing the sprites, I decided to turn Hocus Pocus into Doom marine and let him fight against the hellish monsters everyone knows from the legendary 3D game. Let's introduce Doom Pocus:
Fire Crocs turned into Imps and Devil Dan is now a Cacodemon.
Shooting dat Zombie and Imps.
Besieged by Lost Souls.
The final battle with a vicious Cyberdemon.
More screenshots:
The sprite editing UI.
Sprites being drawn on the map.
Editing level properties
The "Calculate VRAM usage" helps you manage the memory limitations.
Important note:
If you use this program and something is not clear to you, you don't know how to do something, run into a problem, or just find a bug or missing functionality, don't hesitate to ask me! I spent a reasonable time making this program and playing around with game modifications so I'm really willing to help you and share any information and experience.
If you make some new level or modification, just feel free to post it here on this thread, directly to me, or simply anywhere.