Thanks for the feedback, Skawo. It never hurts to have a second set of eyes.

One of my biggest fears about the hack is flooding it with difficulty, because the Achilles heel of it is that it's so big and there's only a limitation of two respawn points if you die. (Starting point, and Mid-Way point, which will be re-purposed)

Though there's no particular thing to do in this demo, it is just a sampler for the open world concept. Let's just say that in the full hack you'll have a general idea of where you need to go, but you'll be able to get there any way you want.

What I think would be really great is if I somehow managed to make the respawn point the last entrance used before you died. That'd be swell.

If you'd be willing to do that, I wouldn't object. Thanks! It'll have to be noted that since I'm using the overflow bug, the destination entrance for respawning will often be in an area that's not technically part of the original level, so I imagine it would be quite a hurdle tricking a game into being able to respawn into overflowed areas. I actually haven't tried setting a Mid-Way point in an overflow area yet.



You're pretty close, but collecting Power Stars doesn't end the mission. At the start of each mission, you are directed to an area that you need to explore. It is my intention to be able to use the Power Stars you've collected to unlock bonus post-game content.



Oh lol. XD



OK, i'll think about that.



That's basically correct, yeah.

So much for hiatus.

Pic of the Week - Week 14_{, although it's actually Week 16.}



Looks like I'm already back in the game, following the last few weeks just preparing the Demo Version. After some consideration, I've decided to rethink about how I design environments from here on in. I started off with a simple extension of the cave area that was seen in the demo. It seems some water from the nearby beach has leaked it's way into this portion of the cave. I wonder what's below the water?

I'm looking for a nice overworld theme to use for the hack. I don't want this hack's Main Theme to be a simple port of music from another Mario game, but I want to keep that kind of Mario flavor- I'm looking for something original that'll sound very Mario-like (or at the very least, a rearrangement/medley so it isn't so obvious). So far, the search hasn't been very successful. So suggestions are very welcome to anyone who's interested in helping me find the perfect overworld theme. Thanks in advance.

Pic of the Week - Week 15



Not much to say about this pic. There's some bouncy clouds, and Mario's bouncing on them. Pretty obvious stuff!

Pic of the Week - Week 16



Presenting a new theme: Tree! Obviously, this theme uses a lot of visual style from New Super Mario Bros. 2 (the real one), such as the tileset. The background is custom, but based on the ground tile in the tileset. I didn't plan to have this theme in the game originally. With the process I'm using to construct the open world, I have a limitation to how many themes I can use for the overworld. I did some math stuff, and figured I had enough room left to add another theme. I figured something that works well vertically would be best, because I'm going to start having to make more vertical areas now that I've already reached the horizontal edges of the map. The tree idea just kind of happened. And it makes a lot of geographical sense- underneath the tree is a flooded underground cave, and neighboring areas are forest themed.

By the way, that's not all to see this week. _{Well, technically it is.}

05 - A Hopeful Voyage.mp3

Presenting, my first custom music piece to have been imported into the hack completely solo, without any extra assistance! It uses the same instruments as Grassy Plains, but that's really just because it serves as an alternate overworld theme. I really want to have as many original pieces as I can- but that doesn't mean I don't want to include some music from past games that really resonated with me in some way. The Starship Mario theme is one of my favorites from Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Another theme that'll be in the full hack will be coming from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I won't say which theme though .

It took quite a bit of effort to get it into the form it is now. The tileset uses four palettes and all of them are basically maxed out in color.