NinJax is a level editor for Ninja Gaiden created by never-obsolete. I've made this topic in response to his stated openness to user feedback.

Before I say anything else, I'd like to make it clear that the program is a wonderful tool to have and that I'm very grateful. The following things would be nice to have if you have time to implement them, but please don't think I'm complaining.  I've put an asterisk by the things that would help me most.

Bugs:

• EDIT: Stages 5-2, 5-3, 6-2 and 6-3 are missing several screens, so they can't be manipulated in the editor.
• **Sometimes, a newly added enemy has a value of 0 for its X spawn coordinate. This causes the enemy never to spawn in the game. NinJax does not currently allow the user to edit the X value numerically, so it requires digging into the hex editor to find the 0 coordinate. It would be nice to be able to set the X value numerically, just like the B value. (Note: sometimes the B value is also set to 0, which causes the enemy not to spawn or the game to freeze, but this is easy to fix with the numerical input.)
• When adding enemies, the editor often becomes buggy. Clicking on a different enemy after editing a newly added enemy changes its type and warps its location suddenly. The workaround for now is to save after every enemy edit and close/re-open the editor when this bug happens.
• **When I've added an enemy (increasing total number of enemies on the level), the new enemy infinitely respawns when killed. This happens normally in the unhacked game when standing on the spawn-triggering X coordinate. However, enemies added with NinJax seem to have a wider-than-normal spawn-triggering zone. Most of the time, this is undesirable, but there are circumstances when I like it. Can it be manipulated?
• When I try to edit a metatile in the "metatile palette" that is not used on the current level (i.e., one of the scrambly ones), the edits do not persist in the game. Is there a way to add my own metatiles to a level, or must I overwrite metatiles that are used in the default (unhacked) level?
• Edits to the cutscene text do not seem to work (text remains the same in-game). This is easy enough to manipulate in a hex editor, however. Not a big deal.

Questions:

• When adding enemies, it looks like the new enemy data overwrites data immediately next to the old enemy data. Is it overwriting anything important? I'm afraid of introducing bizarre and unfixable bugs. What is the limit for new enemy data and new level data? Is there a limit for each level, or just for the entire game?
• **On some levels, certain enemy sprites are unavailable. Is there any way to change this? In particular, it would be nice to add henchmen to the boss fights, since many of the bosses in the game are very easy.
• Where does the game define how the player physically interacts with metatiles? It would be nice to be able to see and manipulate these properties for each subtile or metatile in the NinJax. For example, passing through, latching onto the side, climbing up and down the side, or not passing through and not latching/climbing. Can I specify these properties for subtiles or metatiles that I make? This is more of a research question, interesting and useful but not as important for what I want to do at the moment.

Features:

• EDIT 2: When reversing the direction of a stage in the editor, could you also automatically flip the Screen X coordinate for the enemies? Otherwise, they always appear behind you for a brief moment before you walk forward and make them disappear, unless you manually change all the X coordinates so that they appear on the opposite side of the Base X line.
• **Eyedropper function for manipulating background tiles in the editor. Ctrl+click (or some other key/click combination) to select the metatile currently under the mouse in the map preview screen, so that I can immediately draw it on the map without finding it in the palette first.
  This would also be helpful for metatiles that are visually identical but actually have different properties, such as being mapped to/from different stages. For an example of this, in 2-2 at the bottom of the metatile palette, there are 6 metatiles that look like a ladder going up or down into space. Each one is a transition between different parts of the map. Mixing them up causes a stage warp, and it's tedious to debug.
• **Copy & Paste functionality for manipulating several metatiles at once in the map editor. For example, Shift+Click to draw a rectangle that selects 6 adjacent metatiles in the map editor, then Alt+Click to paste the entire selection.
  
• **Undo (even just one level deep)
• Emulator launcher button: launches the ROM currently being edited (the user predefines the path to the emulator). Optionally, if possible, include the ability for the user to select what Act and Stage to start at, and launch the ROM with those values set.
• **Act and/or Stage re-sequencer: Allow the game to start on, e.g., 3-1. After 3-1, 3-2, 3-3... go to stage 5-1. For even greater flexibility, allow e.g. 3-2 followed by 4-3 followed by 1-1. This would allow for better use of the stock maps and enemies while still creating a new feel for the game.

Thank you for any additional work you do on NinJax.