Erock's Christmas Present

So I don't know if anyone here knows, but I've been working on my own Super Mario World puzzle hack for a few years. I never really advertised it here, but alas now I am, but only kind of privately.

I would just like to know what your opinions are on my game. Was the game fun? Did it suck? Do you have any suggestions? That kind of stuff.

I have put a ton of work into this trying to make it the best that I can so I hope you guys try it out and let me know what you think.

http://bin.smwcentral.net/u/22015/SML%2BBeta%2B2.2.ips

Cool.

I'll try a little bit of it out now and do a more extended play of it tomorrow after all of the holiday fuss dies down.

I played it about as much as I'm going to tonight (got other things to do). I made it to the first ghost house and decided to reset to see if it saved my progress. It did so just fine and this is a very cool hack. So far it's been really fun. I really like the idea of this being a puzzle game instead of a more traditional SMW hack.

This is the only oddity I noticed:


At this point I'm going to assume that I used the wrong ROM as there were no patching instructions. Did it on ZSNES and SNES9x

How much of it is done so far? Since it is a beta I'm guessing that means it's basically finished...?

Are you planning to make any graphics changes?

That's about all I have for now. I'll play it some more tomorrow and get back to you with more questions or suggestions.

Good job.

The title and intro screens are not inserted nor made yet. The levels are more or less done. It's almost finished.

Now that I've got more time I started playing this again but i got stuck on this level:



I've gotten the coins I needed but I can't get the blocks I need to appear so that I can get the green question mark. On my previous try I got the coins and got an additional block to appear by accident but had to start+select to restart because I accidentally got too many coins. Now I don't know how to get any more blocks to appear. I try jumping, throwing Yoshi from this angle, that angle. Nothing... HELP!

For the level that you screen shotted. In that level you need yoshi to grow in his big state to jump off him and get the goal. To make small yoshi big you have to eat 5 berries. So all you need is one more berry to eat and you got it solved.

As far as making the block appear...hmm... i don't know what you mean. in this level there isnt any blocks to appear.

For the level that you screen shotted. In that level you need yoshi to grow in his big state to jump off him and get the goal. To make small yoshi big you have to eat 5 berries. So all you need is one more berry to eat and you got it solved.

So does that mean that I just need AT LEAST 4 coins to make it through those blocks instead of exactly 4? I wasn't sure because I wasn't familiar with this mechanic as I do not typically play SMW hacks.

As far as making the block appear...hmm... i don't know what you mean. in this level there isnt any blocks to appear.

Wow. Maybe I broke it. LOL Must have just been a one time thing. No wonder I couldn't get it to reproduce.

EDIT: Maybe it just looked like it was an extra block. I think maybe I just paused the game at an odd moment and got the wrong idea.

the custom blocks that require coins as for a minimum so you can have more and thats okay.

also when yoshi grows up on the 5th berry eaten it doesnt count as a coin.

I spent a bit of time playing the game some more and managed to get this far before deciding it was time to take a break:


This game is really fun and pretty challenging at times. I love it. 8)

I noticed a few peculiarities but was unable to get screenshots of them because I actually did my playing on a real console via my SNES Powerpak. I'm not aware of a level skip so I was unable to skip to the levels in question after loading the save and ROM into an emu. I also tried to see if I could screenshot the levels in Lunar Magic but it was of course locked.


-in the castle level with two winged koopas floating up and down and the fire flower where you must get two coins: the flower appeared to be behind the fence but was actually in front of it.

-the level where you are in an enclosed space with an on/off switch, a 1 block and the level exit: the black enemy that rides along the track over head appeared to fly off the track down into the area with you if you did not turn him into a coin in time but never actually did. He would just suddenly appear back on the track.

It seemed like there was at least one more trivial oddity like those mentioned that I am forgetting.

More questions:
-What sort of GFX edits are you planning on doing?
-Are you planning on adding any new music?
-How many levels are there in total?
-Suggestion: remove the opening demo where Mario is doing stuff in one of those special zone levels.

That's all for now.

thanks for all your comments

-in the castle level with two winged koopas floating up and down and the fire flower where you must get two coins: the flower appeared to be behind the fence but was actually in front of it.

I am aware of this, but currently don't know how to fix it. [edit] actually i just got a freaking cool idea on how i might solve this thanks! [/edit]

-the level where you are in an enclosed space with an on/off switch, a 1 block and the level exit: the black enemy that rides along the track over head appeared to fly off the track down into the area with you if you did not turn him into a coin in time but never actually did. He would just suddenly appear back on the track.

hahah. this has never happened to me yet I know exactly what's going on here. what's happening is that the fuzzball is actually off screen when the level starts. when the fuzzball flies off screen he then respawns like at the start of the level. consider this more of convince than anything else. this is also why its cool to have other play the game because this NEVER happened to me because i know exactly how to solve it every time and never miss him.

-What sort of GFX edits are you planning on doing?

Since I'm using all of the original rules of smw as the theme of my hack i wanted to keep all the graphics original looking. that being said, there is actually a ton of extra graphics in this hack, but those extra graphics only serve to blend in with the original graphics and thus look as if I have no custom graphics at first glance.

-Are you planning on adding any new music?

possibly for the title screen and the ending screen but the levels music will most likely not be changed.

-How many levels are there in total?

i think its 105

-Suggestion: remove the opening demo where Mario is doing stuff in one of those special zone levels.

yes, this will of course be changed and im already working on it.

Since I'm using all of the original rules of smw as the theme of my hack i wanted to keep all the graphics original looking.

+

possibly for the title screen and the ending screen but the levels music will most likely not be changed.

That's a little disappointing, but it doesn't lower my opinion of the hack. I was hoping that it would have custom character sprites and all new music. At the least I was hoping that Princess Peach would be the main character (since Super Peachy World pops up in ZSNES). Oh well...

-in the castle level with two winged koopas floating up and down and the fire flower where you must get two coins: the flower appeared to be behind the fence but was actually in front of it.

This is now fixed!

-the level where you are in an enclosed space with an on/off switch, a 1 block and the level exit: the black enemy that rides along the track over head appeared to fly off the track down into the area with you if you did not turn him into a coin in time but never actually did. He would just suddenly appear back on the track.

actually i now checked this out and it is a much more serious problem then i imagined. I'm currently working on this.

That's a little disappointing, but it doesn't lower my opinion of the hack. I was hoping that it would have custom character sprites and all new music.

Actually this is the idea for my next hack. it will be a completely original game with all new music and characters. mario won't even be in it. this is because i will be using tons of custom resources at smwcentral and to make it all work in one game the game will simply be an original one. it will be in the same style as this mario hack is.

Super Peachy World

haha, super peachy world just is the default name when you lock your hack.

-the level where you are in an enclosed space with an on/off switch, a 1 block and the level exit: the black enemy that rides along the track over head appeared to fly off the track down into the area with you

This is now fixed as well. thanks again for finding this.

Nice and fun hack, erobrocks.

I'm glad you posted this here Erock.

Up 'til now I've had very little interest in creating a SMW hack because 1) so many people do and 2) I really couldn't think of any unique uses for this game's engine. Playing your hack has given me a fresh perspective on this game's assets.

Once again, I think you have a very cool hack here.

(and don't worry, I'm not going to steal any of your ideas ).

The reason for creating a Mario hack was because I wanted to make my very own game and Zelda 3 hacking really is just too hard.

I may know some info about Hyrule Magic and some Zelda 3 hacking stuff, but I don't have the knowledge that some of the other hackers here have.

If Hyrule Magic bugs my rom. I have no idea on how to fix this.

So after making many puzzles with Hyrule Magic I decided to try another and much better rom editor Lunar Magic and make my own game. I took all the puzzle elements that I've thought of in Zelda and just applied them to Mario.

At first I didn't even think I was going to be able to make puzzles in smw because its a 2-D game and no overhead like Zelda. But I proved myself wrong and accomplished it anyway.

There are so many tools and resources for smw that making a hack is probably a 100 times easier than with a Zelda hack.

But this is also why people go nuts over a new Zelda hack, because they are so much harder to make.

I had another session of play last night. I'm about 60 levels in and it's still awesome. There was a level where I had to direct the coins to where I could collect 64 of them... That one made me want to pull my hair out but I managed to finish it. Even though it was incredibly frustrating, when I finally did kick it's ass it was very satisfying. LOL

I've got an old friend who's coming over tonight. We're gonna smoke out for the first time in a long time and I think we'll probably play some of this.

had another session of play last night. I'm about 60 levels in and it's still awesome.

That's great. I'm glad you have made it this far!

There was a level where I had to direct the coins to where I could collect 64 of them... That one made me want to pull my hair out but I managed to finish it. Even though it was incredibly frustrating, when I finally did kick it's ass it was very satisfying. LOL

Here is a fun fact. Originally I had 5 of those types of levels in the game, but I got complaints from other play testers. So as a result I got rid of some of them. Now there are only 2 levels like the one you described and only 1 of them is mandatory. The other one is optional and near the end of the game.

I keep forgetting to point out that I'm stuck on level 57, I think it is. The one where you have to get 9 coins and there are those 2 giant spiked pounders coming down. That level is insane, but I'll probably be able to get it eventually.

SunGodPortal wrote:I keep forgetting to point out that I'm stuck on level 57, I think it is. The one where you have to get 9 coins and there are those 2 giant spiked pounders coming down. That level is insane, but I'll probably be able to get it eventually.

Its actually pretty easy just wait and see.

1) Hit the P-switch at just the right time when they are going up.

2) Get the two coin blocks on the left side, top one first then bottom one

3) Jump on the spring next

4) Finally get the other two coin blocks on the left

This room is actually the mid boss!

Maybe that's where I goofed up. I kept trying to get the top coin last. I guess doing it that way makes it nearly impossible to time. I'll play it again later tonight and see if I can get passed it.

I started playing this again. Picked up where I left off (on that last level that I mentioned being stuck on). Made it a few levels beyond that and then saved. This game really is awesome Erock. I assume you are still working on this?

Yes, I'm still working on it. In fact it's almost finished! A lot has been done since you have played it although the levels are pretty much the same.

The title screen and intro story screen are inserted as well as many other improvements.

You sungod, are also in the credits since you provided good feedback while testing this.

The game should be done sometime in the summer for sure!

Let me know when you beat the entire game sungod.

You sungod, are also in the credits since you provided good feedback while testing this.

Whoa cool. Thanks. I did not expect this.

I was just thinking that besides the obvious stuff, this game is great because it's good whether you have plenty of time or just a few minutes here or there. If you only have a few minutes you can just play a few levels (since they are so short) and it saves your progress at every step. If you want to play for a while then you can just play a bunch of them since there are so many.

I played it with a few friends one time (via my Powerpak and a real SNES) and they all really liked it too. We all seemed to agree that it was a very fun and clever use of the SMW engine.