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It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!
- Thread starter MCBanjoMike
- Start date
While Snake and I were having lunch on Sunday, he reminded me that Super Curious World has new levels from TheBourgyman and drkrdnk, so yesterday I figured I'd spin it up. If you're not familiar, it's a collab hack from a bunch of people (many of them first time level creators) decided to CuriousAndSpurious, who's currently fighting cancer. The presence of so many new creators gave me a little pause, but the hack's got an open overworld, so I figured I'd nope out of any levels where I wasn't having fun. And I did that a few times, but I played enough to get a feel for all of them first. No one will be surprised when I say that drkrdnk's level was my favorite of the bunch, but I think it's great that folks in the community came together to show their friend they love him.
I played some Super Schrausch World 2 for Kaizo Klub! I...didn't like it very much. Played through the first 5-6 exits in the Bowser Jr path and I agree that it's extremely chaotic on the visual front. Custom tiles are used inconsistently, like the red girders that sometimes you can jump up through and sometimes you bonk on. Some enemies are replaced with alternate sprites but keep their original behaviour, so you're guaranteed to die the first time you meet them. The death air in the boss fight against the Darkoopatrol was annoying and felt really unnecessary. The levels themselves were OK, but I agree that 1/2 to 1/3 of the setups were real head-scratchers, even when you could tell what you were looking it. I can't say I had much fun with it and I doubt that I will finish the rest of the hack, unless someone can come up with a good reason to do so.
Yeah, I had every single one of those same reactions as well. I didn't care for the hack too much either, and if you're not into it now there's no reason to keep going. The rest of the hack is mostly more of the same. I think the creator genuinely has some good ideas, but they just can't seem to get out of their own way to let them shine through.
On the plus side, now you can play Turkey Races instead!
On the plus side, now you can play Turkey Races instead!
I might just! Depending on the whole hands situation. I just had a consultation with our hospitals' ergonomics advisor and I'll see how much of that I can apply to my home office, too. My hands weren't having the best time yesterday while I was playing, but I think my chair is maybe the culprit more than anything.
It's possible! If you're using armrests while you play, that could be putting pressure on the nerves in your arms as they pass through your elbows, or maybe you're holding your wrists at an extreme angle or something. Or maybe it's the SNES controller, which as we all know is a 30-year-old children's toy and not something meant for grownups. Hopefully you get it sorted out quickly!
Moving back to kaizo updates, there's another NEW Nightmare Cafe (4) and I played it. I found this one surprisingly frustrating in a few spots! There are some rooms where the thing you're supposed to do isn't readily apparent. I guess you could argue that as the 14th hack in the series, the player might be expected to remember the sorts of things other recent entries have done, but it's a little jarring to suddenly be thrown into a room with a completely different objective from everything that came before it. There's nothing really wrong with the hack, it's a perfectly cromulent Nightmare Cafe. Just a little tougher than I was expecting, I guess.
Moving back to kaizo updates, there's another NEW Nightmare Cafe (4) and I played it. I found this one surprisingly frustrating in a few spots! There are some rooms where the thing you're supposed to do isn't readily apparent. I guess you could argue that as the 14th hack in the series, the player might be expected to remember the sorts of things other recent entries have done, but it's a little jarring to suddenly be thrown into a room with a completely different objective from everything that came before it. There's nothing really wrong with the hack, it's a perfectly cromulent Nightmare Cafe. Just a little tougher than I was expecting, I guess.
The kaizo sicko of the group is back, baby! Getting back to it with something not so sicko, Akogare Mario World Deluxe. Polished off 12 exits in a 4.5 hour session. It's nice to return to this hack, and it's still fun, but I can't tell if the levels are unremarkable or if the levels are so ingrained in me that they just feel like a natural part of my kaizo being.
Either way, I burned through the exits rather quickly, except for the first fortress level, which took me 1.5 hours for some reason. I'm just going to blame it on having my attention divided between game and stream and move on with my life.
Either way, I burned through the exits rather quickly, except for the first fortress level, which took me 1.5 hours for some reason. I'm just going to blame it on having my attention divided between game and stream and move on with my life.
Kaizo stuff is still happening over here too. Yesterday and today I played through Burning Star by first time creator PixlBitNick, who I've never spoken to but I've seen around in plenty of chats. I wanted to play it because it was described as mostly vanilla, without any sections that were "overly difficult or complicated to figure out". And generally it fits that description, though I think there's a bit of creator bias -- sometimes there are giant difficulty spikes even within the same level. Setups are typically pretty readable though. The game's lone switch palace turned out to be a full-blown shell level, which I kind of didn't appreciate? But overall the hack was alright and Nick clearly put a lot of effort into it. He's got some cool ideas and I'll keep an eye out for more from him in the future.
In further exciting news, last night saw the release of Chicanery, the first SMW hack from former Mario Maker luminary Buflen. This one's been in the works for a little while and it's polished as hell. Nirv (of Tebeo fame) contributed color palettes, overworld design, and even a few level sections. I played for about an hour, cleared four exits, and am having a blast. The difficulty is pretty mild so far, but I think it may curve higher as I go. And as long as the levels keep being good, I'm here for it. It's still a bit early, but I think this one might end up being a must play.
In further exciting news, last night saw the release of Chicanery, the first SMW hack from former Mario Maker luminary Buflen. This one's been in the works for a little while and it's polished as hell. Nirv (of Tebeo fame) contributed color palettes, overworld design, and even a few level sections. I played for about an hour, cleared four exits, and am having a blast. The difficulty is pretty mild so far, but I think it may curve higher as I go. And as long as the levels keep being good, I'm here for it. It's still a bit early, but I think this one might end up being a must play.
That sounds really cool! I love it when creators get help from someone who specializes in one aspect of hack creation, like when they get Baba to make overworld maps.
You're gonna love the Turkey Races overworld then, fryinb brought in MegaScott for that one.
Speaking of Baba, I saw yesterday that he's working on a new hack that uses both SA1 and MSU-1. I'm very intrigued, but I don't know if I'll even be able to play it.
Speaking of Baba, I saw yesterday that he's working on a new hack that uses both SA1 and MSU-1. I'm very intrigued, but I don't know if I'll even be able to play it.
I played the first two levels of Turkey Races and...didn't like them all that much? I found the setups very hard to read, and both levels were designed so that you couldn't stop for a split-second without dying. Might give it another shot, but fryinb's hacks have been hit-and-miss for me in the past, so this one just might be a miss.
A+ overworld, though, just fantastic.
A+ overworld, though, just fantastic.
If you're willing to try, I'd say give it another couple of exits before you give it up completely. From what I remember my favorite levels were in the mid-game.
I played another three exits of Chicanery last night and loved (almost) every minute. Exits are still taking around 15-20 minutes...except for the last level I played, which has a final section that was somehow both longer and way more difficult than anything else in the hack so far. And when I say "way more difficult", I mean that one section took me nearly an hour. Worst trick: you have to do a crazy tight jump over a cluster of four poison mushrooms and under a low ceiling, and that's only about 2/3 of the way through it. Pretty frustrating!
I'm still excited to keep going with the hack, but that part was rough. It felt shockingly out of balance with the rest of the levels leading up to that point. Hopefully things clear up from here.
I played another three exits of Chicanery last night and loved (almost) every minute. Exits are still taking around 15-20 minutes...except for the last level I played, which has a final section that was somehow both longer and way more difficult than anything else in the hack so far. And when I say "way more difficult", I mean that one section took me nearly an hour. Worst trick: you have to do a crazy tight jump over a cluster of four poison mushrooms and under a low ceiling, and that's only about 2/3 of the way through it. Pretty frustrating!
I'm still excited to keep going with the hack, but that part was rough. It felt shockingly out of balance with the rest of the levels leading up to that point. Hopefully things clear up from here.
We talked about this a little last night but I think we need to preserve these clips for posterity, because after 340 hours ThirdWall has beaten Hacker's Dreams fully RTA. In fact, he basically beat that final room twice last night. The first attempt was going to succeed, but after the final input he ran into a bug that killed him instead of the boss. (With the help of flips and anon, they determined that he'd bounced off one of the boss's orbiters which weren't supposed to be solid, but for some reason became solid. This is being fixed.)
Volume warning for yelling on both clips:
I recommend looking directly at Mario if you're having trouble following along in that clip, because it's A Lot.
Despite saying "my soul left my body", TW knew what he had to do, and another 35 minutes later the journey finally ended.
This is an absolutely monumental achievement, not just in SMW but honestly I think in all of video games. Both of the other clears of the hack so far used save state practicing to learn sections before clearing them RTA, but this was done purely on console without any save state practice. It can be done.
For as much as 1f9 can be hard to understand, I do think it's a masterpiece of level creation. I can't even begin to fathom how anon was able to design and implement it. Even if he never makes another SMW level again, he's earned himself a place in the game's history and deserves just as much praise as ThirdWall for his achievement.
Volume warning for yelling on both clips:
I recommend looking directly at Mario if you're having trouble following along in that clip, because it's A Lot.
Despite saying "my soul left my body", TW knew what he had to do, and another 35 minutes later the journey finally ended.
This is an absolutely monumental achievement, not just in SMW but honestly I think in all of video games. Both of the other clears of the hack so far used save state practicing to learn sections before clearing them RTA, but this was done purely on console without any save state practice. It can be done.
For as much as 1f9 can be hard to understand, I do think it's a masterpiece of level creation. I can't even begin to fathom how anon was able to design and implement it. Even if he never makes another SMW level again, he's earned himself a place in the game's history and deserves just as much praise as ThirdWall for his achievement.
Wrapped up Chicanery earlier tonight. The difficulty really ramps up in the late game, and I got frustrated in a few spots, but I'd still recommend it to everyone. Just a really solid hack all around.
Next up is this month's Kaizo Klub pick, Super Mario Gaia. Not to be confused with the older hack called Gaia (by Edidoo, if I'm not mistaken?), this one is based on...Final Fantasy VII, of all things. I don't really know anything about it! It's got something like 28 exits though, so I'm hoping the levels aren't too long.
Next up is this month's Kaizo Klub pick, Super Mario Gaia. Not to be confused with the older hack called Gaia (by Edidoo, if I'm not mistaken?), this one is based on...Final Fantasy VII, of all things. I don't really know anything about it! It's got something like 28 exits though, so I'm hoping the levels aren't too long.
Finished Super Mario Gaia in two sittings. This hack was also not for me. Like Scrausch World, it was clearly a big labor of love from the creator with a lot of custom sprite work and cutscenes, but it also runs into some of the same issues of "what am I actually looking at". The overworld is actually extremely cool, it's completely redone to look like an RPG menu. But the level design itself fell a bit flat for me. Sections are pretty short and nothing's that hard, it was all just kinda "meh" overall. Plus there are a ton of boss fights. I suspect people with more FF7 nostalgia might enjoy it a bit more than I did, and that's okay. It's cool that this hack exists, it doesn't have to be my favorite.
I saw SpaceVixen playing Sayonara over the weekend, and it actually looked pretty fun, so I decided to pick up my old save from way back in the beginning of 2021 and finally finish the hack. When I stopped playing then, I was 6 exits in and not having a great time. The heavy chocolate stuff wasn't doing it for me and I was ready to play something else. But now, two years later and more experienced, I actually enjoyed the second half of the hack. Even stuff I normally hate, like the auto-run level, was pretty creative. I blasted through the next 6 exits in about an hour, then came back the next day for the final two levels. I had a good time with everything except the Bumpty room in the RNG castle, that room can go to hell. But overall I'm glad to have given this one another shot.
Yesterday I was looking through my SD card for another hack to run back since there's been a bit of a lull in releases lately and I decided to give Gambol another try. I think I was probably just in a bad mood when I played it the first time, because I had a lot of fun on the second go-round. I even had some one-shots of a few sections, which always feels great.
Also today, I finally tried plugging my Analogue Pocket into the dock and playing it on the TV to see what the latency situation was. There's definitely a tiny bit, probably something similar to when I was playing on emulator before I got the NT, but it's not terrible! I'll stick with the NT for kaizo as it doesn't have any latency, but since the Pocket supports SA1 I finally get to play A Plumber for All Seasons! I ran through the first world and really dug it, the hack is charming as hell. Looking forward to seeing what the other seasons have in store for me.
Yesterday I was looking through my SD card for another hack to run back since there's been a bit of a lull in releases lately and I decided to give Gambol another try. I think I was probably just in a bad mood when I played it the first time, because I had a lot of fun on the second go-round. I even had some one-shots of a few sections, which always feels great.
Also today, I finally tried plugging my Analogue Pocket into the dock and playing it on the TV to see what the latency situation was. There's definitely a tiny bit, probably something similar to when I was playing on emulator before I got the NT, but it's not terrible! I'll stick with the NT for kaizo as it doesn't have any latency, but since the Pocket supports SA1 I finally get to play A Plumber for All Seasons! I ran through the first world and really dug it, the hack is charming as hell. Looking forward to seeing what the other seasons have in store for me.
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I'm glad you were able to enjoy Gambol! I thought it was a pretty fun hack, and it looks great to boot. I think our enjoyment of games can often be swayed by our moods or the circumstances around when we play them, and that we tend to be less objective than we think. Like how I didn't enjoy the first couple levels in Turkey Races playing it alone, but had fun with the next few when I was hanging out with you guys.
I'll be interested to hear how you get along with the Pocket, I'm actually a bit surprised to hear that the dock adds lag. What kind of controller were you using with it? Normally, Analog's stuff is quite responsive, but I haven't seen any tests done on that dock so far.
I'll be interested to hear how you get along with the Pocket, I'm actually a bit surprised to hear that the dock adds lag. What kind of controller were you using with it? Normally, Analog's stuff is quite responsive, but I haven't seen any tests done on that dock so far.
Same PS5 controller that I use on the NT. It's not a lot of lag -- a couple of frames, maybe -- but after playing without any for the past two years it's hard to go back. I could feel it for spin jumps but it's 100% fine for everything that's not kaizo. (On the other hand, I did manage to do a frame-perfect spin jump off a note block while playing Plumber for All Seasons last night, so maybe it's fine all around.)
The NT has some kind of zero latency mode built in, which the Pocket/dock lacks. People have been wondering if they'll add it in a later firmware update (hope so!) but who knows with Analogue.
The NT has some kind of zero latency mode built in, which the Pocket/dock lacks. People have been wondering if they'll add it in a later firmware update (hope so!) but who knows with Analogue.
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Despite saying "my soul left my body", TW knew what he had to do, and another 35 minutes later the journey finally ended.
Just poked my head in this thread, and wow, it's impressive the degree to which I have no earthly idea what the heck is going on in that level. I assume if you watched to whole hack it would gradually introduce some of what seem to be like half a dozen overlapping concepts there...
Not really; each level in the hack is pretty much its own little universe. There are a few things that did show up in previous levels (like the Celeste-esque dashes), but for this particular section, what you need to know is that Mario is constantly being transported to new areas, and the screen will very briefly flash a preview of what the next one is going to be. As I mentioned in my post, it helps to keep your vision focused on Mario. Watching in slow motion can also help get a sense of what's going on.
In any event, Hacker's Dreams is meant to be the most difficult RTA-viable hack ever, and was in development for about a decade. There are a couple of clears on YouTube now and you should definitely look them up to see what the rest of the hack is like, it's a totally unique experience.
Yeah, 1F9 is on another level (if you will forgive the pun). The number of people who have finished the hack RTA is currently in the single digits, including the creator.
Including the creator, four people have beaten it. Three of them (including the creator) beat it using save states to practice particular obstacles before clearing full sections RTA, but ThirdWall (whose clips I posted above) is the only person so far who's beaten it entirely without any save state practice whatsoever.
Today and yesterday I played through Get On Up!, the second hack from MorrieTheMagpie. This one came out in January and didn't get a ton of attention -- I personally skipped it because I wasn't super into Morrie's first hack Chi -- but it turned out to be really good! It's not particularly tough, definitely on the lower end of intermediate, and I finished it in two sittings. There were some really cool levels, including at least one gimmick (carryable on/off blocks) that I'd never seen before. The only real criticism I have is that the final level (a castle where you can choose your path, a la GPW2) suddenly introduces some chocolate gimmicks that don't appear anywhere else in the hack, which felt like a weird choice to end on. But overall I had a good time with this one! Would recommend to anyone looking for a chill and creative hack.
om_nom has been running back Riff 2 lately and it's made me consider giving that hack another shot too. Playing through A Plumber for All Seasons made me realize that slow retry only really bothers me if I keep dying right at the beginning of a section. For science, I went and played through the second level today (I'd previously beaten the first and then noped out). I'm still not a slow retry fan, but it didn't bother me enough to keep me from beating the level. Will I finish this hack? I dunno yet! But I can imagine playing a few more levels, at least.
om_nom has been running back Riff 2 lately and it's made me consider giving that hack another shot too. Playing through A Plumber for All Seasons made me realize that slow retry only really bothers me if I keep dying right at the beginning of a section. For science, I went and played through the second level today (I'd previously beaten the first and then noped out). I'm still not a slow retry fan, but it didn't bother me enough to keep me from beating the level. Will I finish this hack? I dunno yet! But I can imagine playing a few more levels, at least.
You could just play one level a year and you’d finish the game in 2055!
Aw geez, I’m gonna have to completely rewrite this timeline now
So hey, it's a week later and I'm 20 exits into Riff 2. It's been an interesting play so far! The levels are very intentionally designed for you to one-cycle pretty much every obstacle, but there are also a lot of instances where you can stop and wait for something if necessary. And it feels like a completely different hack if you play it slowly. From my point of view, it really feels like Freakin_HA wants you to do the one-cycles, so that's how I've been playing. The levels are extremely well designed and polished, but I do kinda wish there was some more variety in their tempos beyond "go fastest". I guess the vanilla retry might be intended to give you a little breather between attempts.
For the most part I'm having a good time though. It's actually been easier than I expected. Outside of that first session last Sunday, I've been playing in relatively short sessions (typically no more than 90 minutes) and still clearing 2-3 exits in a sitting. Call it maybe 10-12 hours of playtime? I haven't really kept track. Section lengths have been pretty fair and I haven't even been trolled that much. Having said that, I think the difficulty is going to increase significantly for the final stretch of levels (I still have 12 left), so we'll see if I can keep that pace up. I'm hoping to wrap it up next weekend-ish if all goes well.
For the most part I'm having a good time though. It's actually been easier than I expected. Outside of that first session last Sunday, I've been playing in relatively short sessions (typically no more than 90 minutes) and still clearing 2-3 exits in a sitting. Call it maybe 10-12 hours of playtime? I haven't really kept track. Section lengths have been pretty fair and I haven't even been trolled that much. Having said that, I think the difficulty is going to increase significantly for the final stretch of levels (I still have 12 left), so we'll see if I can keep that pace up. I'm hoping to wrap it up next weekend-ish if all goes well.
That's some great progress! I guess I've never thought too much about how difficult Riff 2 is beyond "pretty hard", but it sounds like it's not the toughest thing you've played by a long shot. Did you play that vertical castle level yet?
It's definitely an expert hack in that it expects you to have a particular degree of control over Mario, but I've also definitely played harder. Although I have a feeling the final third of the game is going to be notably tougher, based on what I've seen. I'll report back!
As far as that level, you mean Red Eyes and Tears, right? It's a little earlier on in the hack, yeah. That level was always one of the ones I'd want to play when I saw other folks playing it. It's one of the highlights for sure, even if a couple of the setups are a little mean. I managed to get into the boss door on my first try though!
As far as that level, you mean Red Eyes and Tears, right? It's a little earlier on in the hack, yeah. That level was always one of the ones I'd want to play when I saw other folks playing it. It's one of the highlights for sure, even if a couple of the setups are a little mean. I managed to get into the boss door on my first try though!