It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!

[lincolnic]

Good progress today!


Two more checkpoints, which means I'm now in the fourth room of the castle (I have no idea how many there are in total). The first checkpoint I got today (second room) only took about 20 minutes, which was a cool vertical cape section with a rising lava floor to keep you moving fast. The third room was a rare vertical cape section where you have to descend, and while it was tough, I also appreciated the amount of restraint Barb showed in its design. You spend most of the section slow flying, so you can take it at your own pace, which is kind of the opposite of how the Eyrie felt. Very well designed, in my opinion. I spent an hour and 20 minutes in there before having to break for dinner, and I kept screwing up the final screen. Post-dinner, I was through it in another 10 minutes. Now I'm in another room without cape, but with some real speedy fire bars. I'll see what that's about tomorrow!

 

[lincolnic]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention last night. ChrisG (add your own underscores) has been streaming a bit of Lunar Magic for the past week or so. Could we see a Hark 3 or Korosu 3 next year? I hope so!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Oh that would be so cool. Hark 2 apparently took him like 2 years to make, so I won’t hold my breath.

 

[lincolnic]

I saw him playing some old unused Hark levels yesterday, too. I wonder if he'll rework any of them (assuming he is actually making a new hack).

Anyway, back to GPW3 talk, I've reached the final boss! It's not too much of a spoiler to say there's a final boss, right? I only spent half an hour with it so far, but I think it's gonna be a long one. Lots to learn for sure. I don't know the boss's official name, but I've seen some folks refer to it as Dry Bowser, which I don't love because it implies the existence of "Wet Bowser". And that just feels icky.

As far as non-boss stuff goes, it turned out to be a five room castle after all. The fire bar room where I stopped yesterday took about 40 minutes, and the final room was the easiest of all -- 20 minutes, even though it uses one of the community's least favorite sprites: the propeller block. Honestly, this whole level was really cool. Very fair section lengths, very solid design. Tough, but all things I knew how to handle. I was expecting it to be way worse! Though I guess I have no real idea how long this boss will take me.

I'd love to finish the hack before Monday rolls around but I have a feeling I won't be able to -- this weekend's gonna be pretty busy. Either way, the end is near!

 

[lincolnic]

I only got to play for half an hour yesterday and today (each, not combined), but I've made some good progress on the boss! PB is currently six hits, and then for some reason I keep dying either during or immediately after the airship fly-by. Still feeling positive and having fun with the fight; looking forward to learning the rest of it.

 

[lincolnic]

GPW3 is complete! It took two hours yesterday and 45 minutes today to get there. I have to get up early tomorrow and it'll take me a while to organize my thoughts for a recap post, so I'll come back for that tomorrow. Short version: very very good. I actually liked the final boss!

At the very least, I can total up my playtime -- roughly 44 hours and 35 minutes, as I noted things down in my posts. Which honestly feels pretty decent for a hack this big! (Also lol probably a quarter of that time was spent just in the two endgame bosses.)

Edited to add: I saw an updated version of Hark 2 got uploaded to SMW Central, but apparently the only change is that a few people who were mistakenly left out of the credits have finally been added in. Strong display of character, ChrisG___!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Huge congrats! That’s certainly a very respectable time, too. I’m hoping to have the chance to play a bit of this on the weekend, since we’re currently back home for a while.

I’ll have to upgrade my copy of Hark 2, wouldn’t want to snub anyone next time I play it!

 

[lincolnic]

I ended up falling asleep last night earlier than I have in a long time without being sick, so I didn't get to write anything. Let's fix that!

Final boss thoughts:

as mentioned above, I ended up surprising myself and enjoying this fight. It helps that it was easier than the Turbo Mode GPW2 Bowser guarding the previous exit. One thing I noticed specifically that helps the fight out is that unlike GPW2 Bowser, Dry Bones Bowser doesn't really change his moveset up between phases (two notable exceptions being the number of spikes he summons from the floor, and bouncing in his shell instead of staying on the ground) or even change the speed at which he attacks. Instead, it's the environment that changes. For me that drastically shortened the time I needed to learn to react to his attacks and had me doing viable attempts much quicker than GPW2 Bowser. I can honestly see a very good player hypothetically beating the final phase of this fight on their first attempt, if they don't panic and get a little lucky. The airship fly-by between the second and third phases was a hilarious surprise the first time I saw it, and a welcome mid-fight break once I'd seen it a few times.

Once I saw the second phase, I spent a lot of time going "where's my airship?" After landing the final hit and watching Bowser hitch a ride and GTFO, I said it yet again. It was extremely satisfying to finally get the prompt to call my own ship in for the final shmup setpiece. This was a really neat surprise. I'm once again stunned at what D4 is able to make this game do. Somehow it took me a couple of attempts to realize I could press Y/X to move the ship faster; I thought I'd tried it right away but I guess I missed it. Once I got there it only took a few minutes to land the final hit and start rolling the credits.


Overall hack thoughts: I loved this. Even the levels where I didn't enjoy a particular gimmick (and there really weren't even that many!) still had me appreciating the setups and level design, which is a testament to his years of work building it. There's so much polish and creativity everywhere. Barb has outdone himself, and if this truly ends up being the last hack he makes then he'll have gone out on a gigantic high note. Having avoided most spoilers and discussion before it released, I was blown away. I don't want every hack to be this big, but I'm thrilled that I was able to really have a long and meaningful experience playing this one after waiting for it for so long. It took just shy of a month to clear! I don't think I've spent that long on any hack since GPW2. Outside of the boss grinds, I was fully engaged and excited to pick up my controller every time I sat down with it. It's such a labor of love and it feels like a real gift to the community.

And now that I'm done, I can finally check out the clip compilations, people's speedruns, and the TAS! I'll be shocked if this doesn't make it into SGDQ next year.

 

[lincolnic]

Did you know that there are other new kaizo hacks besides Grand Poo World 3? It's true! Between Thursday and today I played Summer, Morph_Moth's followup to their last hack Autumn. From what I'd seen of other people playing, I thought I was going to love this hack, but playing it myself it turned out to not really be for me. There were plenty of cool things in this hack, but there were also a lot of things that I didn't really get on with (some chocolate stuff I dislike, lots of "die to learn" design, etc). Still, it's a hack with a ton of charm and some adorable overworld screens, so maybe check out some videos from other folks and decide for yourselves if you'd like to play it.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I saw a little bit of Summer, definitely seems neat. I also saw drkrdnk testing some levels for Space Pig that seemed really creative and cool.

 

[lincolnic]

I haven't seen a lot of Space Pig's hack, but I'm very curious! I know he has a lot of experience from Mario Maker and he's been working on the hack for a really long time. I'm sure drkrdnk will give him some good feedback.

Today I played another recent hack, The First Round. This one comes from British streamer GamesInTweed, who I haven't watched a lot of but I see hanging out in various other streams I like. This one is listed as a beginner hack and while it starts off that way, I think it ends up in intermediate territory. That's okay, though, the hack was good! It's another one on the "charming and adorable" list, with a bunch of custom sprites and cutscenes in the service of telling its story. Later sections do get a bit tough, but I'd still recommend this one for beginners. It's not long and I think it'd be a good challenge after playing some easier stuff. Tweed put a lot of work into this one and it's got a lot of nice polish. I cleared it in about two hours and would recommend it for anyone who wants something on the lighter side. (I always feel a little bad about blasting through a hack that someone worked really hard on. I guess that's what replays are for.)

 

[lincolnic]

Between yesterday and Monday I played another recent hack, Hysteria. I'd seen folks like Barb and drkrdnk playing it and it seemed like it had some cool setups, so I made a note to come back after GPW3.

This is a tough one to judge! There are a lot of cool setups, but there's also a lot of inconsistency -- some real massive difficulty spikes, random chocolate stuff with no explanation, some visibility issues. There's an expectation of cape tech that I wouldn't think a hack of this difficulty would ask for (it was submitted as beginner, but moderated up to intermediate). Save prompts only show up after castles and switch palaces, but I have no idea if it actually saves after every level. Luckily the hack is short and generally low intermediate difficulty, so that didn't matter so much to me, but I can see a newer player being nervous and confused about it.

Having said all that: there really are a lot of fun levels and clever setups! If you're confident in your reading abilities and don't mind occasionally throwing a couple of Marios at an obstacle until it makes sense, there's worthwhile stuff here for sure. Plus it uses AmperSam's super sick Popcorn port in an early level. What more do you need?

 

[lincolnic]

I started Blaagon's hack Coldsweat and Tears today, which apparently came out in January of this year. What even is a 2023? Anyway, if anyone needs a refresher, this is 10 short single section levels built around weird vanilla setups. Surprising no one, I'm having an excellent time. I'm four exits in after about an hour, roughly half of which was spent on the first level (the first couple of screens are tough!). I could've kept playing but I want to stretch this one out a bit longer. Having said that, if the remaining levels are similar to the ones I've played so far I might finish it tomorrow anyway.

 

[lincolnic]

I did end up finishing Coldsweat and Tears yesterday. The whole thing probably took around 2.5 hours. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm ran out a bit in the back half -- the levels were all still very cool, but they also got a bit more frustrating for me. This is 100% my problem and not the hack's; I should've left it until I was in a better mood. The hack is great, Blaagon's come a super long way between Super Penny World and this one. If you're looking for something that'll exercise your kaizo brain and impress you with a bunch of cool setups in easily digestible chunks, this is the hack for you.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

It was fun discovering the "open world" part of the hack the other night! I think I have a somewhat unhealthy relationship with Barb's work, in that I don't always love playing his levels but I'm very interested in the high-concept stuff that he puts into his hacks. Actually beating the levels sometimes feels like the chore I have to do in order to see the cool surprises. It's nice that he's sprinkled that stuff liberally into the early game this time around, rather than saving most of it for the last 10% of the hack. I should try to finish a few more levels this week, because after that I'll probably be out of the house for a few weeks again while they destroy parts of it.

 

[lincolnic]

GPW3 is legitimately full of delightful surprises from start to finish. And I really think it's overall easier (and dare I say friendlier?) than GPW2, so I hope you'll enjoy your time with it rather than feeling like a chore. There's so much cool stuff in the hack that I've been waiting to talk about with you and Snake!

Which reminds me, I need to find your VOD so I can see your reaction to finding the airship.

Anyway, I've been meaning to do a 2023 Kaizo Wrapup, just haven't had the time/energy. I played something like 54 hacks this year! Lots to talk about. Maybe I'll try to get into it over the weekend.

 

[lincolnic]

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention: everyone's pal GlitchCat7 is running Luminescent at AGDQ next week! Currently scheduled for 11:14 AM (EST) on Friday, but you know how GDQ schedules shift. Whenever it ends up happening, it's gonna be great.

 

[SilentSnake]

Hi, I still exist. I’ve been chipping away at GPW3 on stream for a bit now, have 14 exits done, and loving most of it. The last two levels I did were

Spoiler

the cycling disappearing blocks level and the Yoshi autorunner. The former was a nice challenge with a fun fucked up Reznor, while I found the latter really needed more or better indicators. Next is the bouncing Yoshi level, which I dabbled a bit in and seems neat, will report in once I do.

 

[lincolnic]

the cycling disappearing blocks level

I thought this one was really cool, especially the second half. It was just so refreshingly unexpected and different from your typical kaizo section.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I've been watching Thirdwall make levels in Lunar Magic and he is coming up with some truly disturbing stuff. I think I may prefer to watch people play these levels than actually try my hand at them!

I also played a small amount of GPW3, getting the checkpoint in Ropeburn. That bit with the Chuck at the end of the first section was extremely confusing.

 

[lincolnic]

Two thirds of ThirdWall's new hack look awesome, the remaining third is "oh god why". But I'm excited to play it!

I've seen a bunch of people play Ropeburn now and I feel like most folks don't know what to do at that spot. Am I the only one who thought it was fine? There are indicators telling you to jump on the koopaling. In any event, I really liked that level. The inputs feel good.

 

[lincolnic]

I still haven't sat down and written my 2023 wrapup, but I did play my first hack of 2024! I've played Choconilla Kaizo Island, which is the January pick for Kaizo Klub (remember that? it's still going!). This was a 2022 hack by Azula16, which might be a familiar name for folks who've played Newbie Kaizo World. It was a pretty good way to get back into playing after taking a few weeks off -- most sections are extremely short (like, shorter than Quickie World sections) and pretty readable. There were maybe three setups that I found inconsistent and awkward, but by and large it's pretty friendly. The entire hack (13 exits) only took an hour even though I felt rusty. The final level is a tricky shell level, the rest is just platforming.

The short sections are really nice because 1) it's hard to get too frustrated if you hit a weird setup and 2) there are plenty of chances to get some good reads, one-shot a section, and end up feeling good about yourself. If anyone wants a short kaizo snack, give this one a look.

 

[SilentSnake]

Hi, I’ve been asked to do something neat for SMWC, stay tuned…

 

[lincolnic]

Now this is a very intriguing development!

The other day I played Newbie Kaizo World (as mentioned in my last post) because I'm still feeling rusty and I didn't have too many other ideas. It was fine! Very short sections again, but it went so quickly I don't really remember much of it. The whole hack was over in 30-45 minutes! I can see why this was one popular for speedrunners for a bit.

I started a runback of Arcane Mario World a couple of days ago to try and shake off the rust. It's going well! Still feeling out of practice, but I'm definitely clearing levels way faster than I did the first time I played the hack. Gotta be in good shape for when ThirdWall drops his new one!

 

[SilentSnake]

I've been playing some kaizo off stream, and started Far a day, near dismay by cozyduck. This hack is themed around exploring electricity in SMW, and the first level immediately distinguishes itself from Crab Army, cozyduck's last hack, by only limiting itself to one uncommon custom sprite: electric charge. I cleared the first exit, which played with how electricity interacts with water, using blocks with the electric charge stapled onto them to create cycles where a body of water is charged and dangerous.

This certainly had tight moments, especially with how close the game wants you to enter water to when it starts or stops hurting. But for the most part, this was a thinky level. Once you know how to do a trick, it's easy to replicate, and checkpoints are mostly generous. I like it, it's a very me hack so far, gonna keep going.

 

[lincolnic]

After finishing my Arcane runback, I saw our old pal Nix playing Flip the Switch the other day and realized it would be a great way to warm up for ThirdWall's upcoming hack. So I ran that one back too over the past few days. Surprising no one, it's still great! I didn't keep close track of my clear times, but it was probably 4-5 hours altogether. I know I did almost everything faster than my original clear...except for ThirdWall's Apartment (the water level with the Bumpties), which for some reason took me almost an hour this time around. I was very pleased to blast through the final level in about 15 minutes, though at the same time I wish I got to spend a little more time there because that's one of the best levels in the hack.

Next up is the new hack Once Again from Daffoxy. I liked their Husky World games, and the new one seemed cool from when I saw om_nom playtesting. It looks like the levels are fairly short, so hopefully now that I'm a little less rusty I'll be able to get through it at a good pace.

 

[lincolnic]

I played the first two exits of Once Again after writing that last post, and finished the rest of it yesterday. It was a good hack! I'd classify it as solidly intermediate. The obstacles have some teeth, but the sections are very short so nothing feels too egregious. I wouldn't be surprised if some folks pick this up for speedruns. I wish I had more to say about it, but most of it went by really quickly (aside from a big difficulty spike in one level). I think I did the whole thing in under 2 hours. If you're looking for some good readable platforming that won't take all of your free time, this is the hack for you.

 

[lincolnic]

I was expecting Snake to post about this already, but since he hasn't, I guess I will? So our friend Snake hit me up out of the blue about two weeks ago and said "hey, you like Day at the Turkey Races, right? Want to write a thing about it immediately?" Turns out A Thing ended up being for its induction into SMW Central's brand new Hall of Fame. It is extremely humbling for me to contribute to something filled with actual giants of the community, so thanks to Snake for roping me in.

In terms of actually playing hacks, at some point this weekend I played Jouhou, which was LightAligns' first hack. I remembered it existed a while ago and have been curious about it, so I finally got to see what the deal was. It's interesting -- a lot of the hack is pretty vanilla, and like many first hacks it's a little rough around the edges, but there are some hints of where he would go after teaming up with Saela (for instance: at least two vertical autoscrollers). I almost feel like there must be some unreleased hack in between Jouhou and The Reconciliation of Ascension where the two of them learned how to combine their powers, but that one only came out four months after Jouhou. That's nuts! They must've worked and iterated on those levels nonstop. What a team.

As for Jouhou itself, I didn't keep close track of my play time, but I cleared it in a sitting. Took probably around an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Perfectly cromulent hack in its own right, but I think LightAligns really took off as a creator after he started working with Saela. It was neat to see where he started, though.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I was expecting Snake to post about this already, but since he hasn't, I guess I will? So our friend Snake hit me up out of the blue about two weeks ago and said "hey, you like Day at the Turkey Races, right? Want to write a thing about it immediately?" Turns out A Thing ended up being for its induction into SMW Central's brand new Hall of Fame. It is extremely humbling for me to contribute to something filled with actual giants of the community, so thanks to Snake for roping me in.

A Hall of Fame is an excellent idea! I read both your entries and they were great, Snake's made me curious to try Far a day (oh my god I just got the joke), and yours had me wondering if I should pick Turkey Races back up at some point. Life has been so very busy for the last few months, but things are a little calmer now and I have access to my kaizo setup again, so I might try to get back into it this weekend. I should probably warm up with something easier before contuing my GPW3 journey, tho.

 

[lincolnic]

yours had me wondering if I should pick Turkey Races back up at some point.

Yes you should. And thanks for the kind words.

ThirdWall's new hack Mistakes Were Made is out! I only had time to play the first level tonight, but it's off to a fine start so far. I think this hack's gonna kick my ass.