We've added this skin with some adjustments for V6C. Thanks!

We've added this skin with some adjustments for V6C. Thanks!

Hell Wheel :0

Hello everyone! The Swarm's Mega Mapping Marathon contest has officially ended and, though long delayed, the pack and voting forms are here! There are 3 maps from contestants in total and I hope that you all can test them out and help contribute to the decision of finding a winner. How can you do that? It's simple!
First, download the pack here and try out the maps: https://allfearthesentinel.com/zandronum/download.php?file=swarmmmm-v1.pk3[url]
Next, fill out the forms for each map.

-SMMM01 - Arrival to the Jungle: https://forms.gle/crnuvMa71Mmx6g9x9[url]
-SMMM02 - Jailzone Brawl: https://forms.gle/2Ss9sNuMTocqKg8i9[url]
-SMMM03 - Data Management Facilities: https://forms.gle/RgcgUwmLM1SeeG2M9[url]

Since there are not many maps, the voting period will last for just a week, ending on 2/5/2026 11:59 PST. If you would like to vote for these maps you MUST be in Discord. If you would like to join, here is the event Discord
I'll be holding future (and far more polished) mapping contests here so please do stick and around in participate. It'll only be a few months time before the next contest!
Discord link: https://discord.gg/gzg34PDqpu[url]
I hope you all can appreciate the effort that the creators put into these maps. For any questions, please DM me, swarm9999, on Discord, thank you all so much.
-swarm9999

Notice for voting: Naturally, only one vote is allowed per person. If a vote is entered under a username not matching with any from the Discord then it will be discarded. If one username has multiple voting forms filled out to it, the owner of said username will be contacted to confirm which form is theirs and the others will be discarded. All answers will be compiled, averaged out, and publicized except for username for the map creators to read.

As a bonus here is my map that I added as a bonus to the pack. Please do note that this map is not qualified to be a winner. The form is merely for my own growth and amusement. Regardless, I do hope you can take the time to fill it out.
SMMMXX - The Weird: https://forms.gle/Df4N2WSkZrkkEZEn8[url]

I'm not adding in tri-color support to my weapons on the off-chance someone is using a postload file. And realistically, neither is anyone else going to even if it was a skin.

Regarding 3-color busters -- if work was put into it and to not go to waste, I think you could release them as a "skin",
since they just replace every vanilla weapon HUD it does not affect gameplay and so could be put in the postload folder or so. I would personally use it

This game just keeps cooking and cooking!

Hey all you Mega Fans! We're back again with another V6C Newsletter! It's been a minute since we've had a proper one of these, so I hope you all had a great New Year and the such!

So let's get right to it this time, shall we? I only have a couple things to show you and they're surprisingly not terribly map related this go around. Instead, I want to take a look at an existing weapon in the game...



Skull Barrier has always been a very interesting weapon in MM8BDM, exclusively focusing on the defensive capabilities of the shield. Originally it just provided straight invulnerability for a period of time with it eventually being changed to being able to tank any one hit while being able to switch to any other weapon.

While this was certainly very effective, it has proven to be almost too effective. After all, there is practically never a scenario where you shouldn't use Skull Barrier if you have it, it's a free hit after all. There was some talk about how to handle this, and some very out there different ideas. But we decided to keep the gist of what Skull Barrier is, but add an actual offensive twist to it.



First of all, you might notice that Skull Man's stage has received some quality of life updates. It's nothing game changing (hence why it's not the point of this newsletter) but try to see how much you can see in this clip.

Back to the point though, Skull Barrier can now act as an offensive on contact weapon! It will still protect you from any one hit, and that one hit will still pop the shield. But if you make contact with an opponent, the shield will pop with one burst of damage surrounding the user, which turns it into something of a rush weapon.
To compensate for this change, you can no longer switch off of Skull Barrier once you have it activated.

Though there's certainly one more detail that's worth mentioning about it. You might have noticed it in that first clip but this one will show it off better.



Contact with the enemy also provides a knockback effect! There's actually also a knockback effect if the shield is popped by a projectile, but it is much smaller and much less dangerous. In the past you'd often expect to see players with Skull Barrier running away from you, but now you might want to show more concern if they're running toward you!

Now, if you're looking very, very closely in that last clip, you might notice some item pickup sitting in the background of that shot. It is very hard to make out, so let me give you a closer look.



An important part of Skull Barrier in all of its versions has been its ability to cross dangerous terrain. While it still retains that ability in its current form, the fact that you have to commit far more to it without the ability to switch off had us want to provide an alternative means to pull this off.
So, introducing Shock Guard!



Shock Guard won't protect you from any enemy projectiles like Skull Barrier, but it acts as a passive item that will protect you from any deadly map hazards! Lava, pits, you name it. It will even protect you from the likes of a Cold Man Ice Block if one were to finish you off. Though it's important to keep in mind that if the damage of the hazard isn't lethal, it won't protect you from that damage.
But it does open a number of new options with map hazards that weren't possible before...



Now there is one more thing I should address before I wrap this newsletter up, and it's the state of the buster sprites in the last two clips. If you recall, a couple of months ago we hosted a community poll looking for feedback on the idea of changing the sprites from two colors to three. I want to really thank everyone who filled out that form and especially those who gave us feedback to go with it. There was a lot of different aspects to consider when it came to this change.

Though as you can likely tell from the above clips, we have officially decided to keep the same two color style that they've previously had. There's definitely something pretty and appealing about the three color style to be sure, but for various reasons we've decided it is better for the state of the game to keep it the way it is. The tricolor sprites came into existence to better match the art style of the more detailed weapon get screens and Megaman artwork, but it just wasn't possible to keep that style AND have the busters be easily readable at the same time. There were certainly ways to add more colors to tricolor to fix that readable part, but in doing so we lost the entire point behind doing tricolor in the first place, and instead of being based on the artwork, they just turned into weirdly detailed graphics that didn't match anything.
Really, this was just one of the aspects that influenced our decision, but you all don't need an essay at this exact moment. Regardless, I do want to thank you all one more time for your feedback on the community poll, it was very very important.

Anyhow! That is all for today's newsletter! We'll see you next time for some more Mega Man action!

I'll put my map submission here
https://allfearthesentinel.com/zandronum/download.php?file=ccmaptest-v0.7.pk3