It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!

[lincolnic]

It looks like it's filled with a ton of really creative setups and obstacles, but I don't enjoy cape enough to want to boot it up. I wish I did, seems like a great hack!

 

[lincolnic]

Key jumps continued, morale improved. (Key jumps also improved!)

Spoiler: Low-fi gif to study/relax to

Now that I know how to do these, it's actually pretty fun. Turns out Arisendead was right when he said that you just need a little bit of practice! I kinda want to get the key jump practice hack that abc_ore streams just to keep messing around. I don't know why but I feel like honing this useless skill some more.

Anyway, when I haven't been key jumping, I've been playing AbstractTribe's new hack Fulfill the Dream. It's really good, but also really tough! It was submitted as intermediate but I feel like this is definitely an expert hack. In any case, really creative and brainy setups. I'm five exits in and looking forward to more.

 

[lincolnic]

Been quiet, huh? June has been a busy month, but I finished Fulfill the Dream last night. Overall I liked this hack a lot, but it has some issues. As I mentioned in my last post, it really feels like this should've been expert rather than intermediate. A lot of the setups are very tight, and there's a lot of what I perceived as creator bias -- there are so many obstacles where you just have to know exactly what's going on, or else you'll die.

Having said that, once you do know what you're doing, the setups are super clever and very original. The section lengths are typically pretty short and fair, which I suspect is why the moderators kept this in intermediate. As a whole it's packed with cool ideas and I'm glad I played it, I just felt like it could've chilled out a bit more sometimes.

Key jump PB is currently at 6 btw.

 

[lincolnic]

Just popping in from my vacation to say that I did a classic switch palace wall jump into yump...on my Pocket.

(I also played most of Quickie World 2 while waiting in the airport last week, but that doesn't feel as noteworthy.)

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Gonna stay up late to catch the SSStWW run later today?

 

[lincolnic]

Unfortunately not, all of the GDQ runs are at like 3 AM for me right now. Gonna have to catch up on everything in VOD form next week.

 

[lincolnic]

I've been playing pretty much just Elden Ring since the DLC dropped/I got home from vacation, but today I wanted to get a little Mario time in. I saw that Buflen released a beginner-level version of Chicanery while I was out of town (appropriate entitled Chicanery Beginner Edition) and that felt like the perfect way to get back into things. Turns out I made a good choice, the hack is great! Buflen did a fantastic job of stripping his levels down to the core and rebuilding them to be completely beginner-friendly. He really took the time to make this a solid hack in its own right. Many of the levels are brand new takes on their original concepts, plus there are five brand new levels as a bonus. It's an excellent companion piece to the original hack. Beginners will have a fun and varied challenge along the lines of the Quickie series, more advanced players get to have a chill time just doing some flowy kaizo stuff. There are 23 exits but it only took me an hour to clear. That's a credit to how readable these setups are; even after a month away from the game, I was able to one-shot multiple sections (occasionally entire levels). This definitely gets a big recommendation from me, no matter how experienced you may be.

 

[lincolnic]

Lush_50 seems to be making Nightmare Cafes again! Tonight in my continuing derust work, I played Nightmare Cafe Origins, which came out while I was away. It's good! I think Lush is pushing himself in some new directions this time. It's not super long (50ish rooms) but some of them are deceptively tough, and still feel fresh after god knows how many entries in the series. Nice little 45 minute hack.

He's just put out another one as well (Nightmare Cafe - Ninji's Adventure), so I'll probably get to that at some point too. I think I want to play something a little more substantial for my next hack, though.

 

[lincolnic]

So, nobody's talked about the GDQ runs at all yet (spoilers: everything ruled), but last night was another community milestone: week 300 of Romhack Races. If you didn't catch it live, go take a look at the VOD. If you remember Selicre from winning the most recent KLDC with their mind-blowing entry, they teamed up with MarsAmpere to bring us yet another level unlike anything that's been seen before. Selicre has notably been coding their own set of tools for SMW hacking as an alternative to Lunar Magic, and used them to make both this and their KLDC level. On the RHR Discord, Mars said that when they become publicly available, "it's going to be a cultural reset". I should stress that this level (and the KLDC one) don't require any extra chips or anything to run, it's all native. Personally, I can't wait to see what people come up with when they get the chance.

I played the level earlier today and it was sick as hell. If this is a clue about what the future of kaizo can be, I'm here for it.

 

[RT-55J]

oooh nice that's a neat level.

Is this new tooling of Selicre's moving away from the classical Lunar Magic romhacking method of treating the ROM as a binary blob to poke, and moving towards editing discrete files that can be applied to a fully symbolic disassembly?

 

[lincolnic]

You'd have to speak to them about the specifics, I have yet to see the tools myself. But I believe it's something along those lines! I can say for certain that it's meant to replace Lunar Magic while also being capable of so much more.

I mentioned Selicre's KLDC (Kaizo Level Design Contest, run annually by SMW Central) level in my last post, and you should take a look at that one too. In my opinion it's even more impressive, and I need to stress that both of these levels run on a normal SNES without SA1. In the comments they talk a tiny bit about how they pulled it off, and mention that their editor will be released "at some point soon". So we'll all probably be learning more about it any day now!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

So, nobody's talked about the GDQ runs at all yet (spoilers: everything ruled)...

I was able to watch the SSStWW run live and it was super fun. I missed catching the relay race live so I went back and I've watched the first 4-5 levels on the VOD. I honestly didn't like it as much as the one from two years ago (which is admittedly a high bar) because I found the level gimmicks were pretty confusing. Like, even as someone who has played dozens of kaizo hacks, I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. So I'd imagine that your average viewer probably found it to be a little overwhelming! That said, I did see the new D4/Dan Salvato level and holy cow, it was incredibly impressive. I should finish watching the VOD soon, I'm curious to see the rest of the levels. From what I've heard, getting the hack to work is pretty tough, in that it requires both MSU and SA-1? I should be able to run it on the MiSTer, might try to do so eventually.

I only watched the first few levels of the GPW3 run because spoilers, but it seemed pretty cool.

Selicre has notably been coding their own set of tools for SMW hacking as an alternative to Lunar Magic, and used them to make both this and their KLDC level. On the RHR Discord, Mars said that when they become publicly available, "it's going to be a cultural reset". I should stress that this level (and the KLDC one) don't require any extra chips or anything to run, it's all native. Personally, I can't wait to see what people come up with when they get the chance.

I played the level earlier today and it was sick as hell. If this is a clue about what the future of kaizo can be, I'm here for it.

OK, you've definitely piqued my interest. Maybe I'll load this one up tonight and have a look for myself...

 

[lincolnic]

That said, I did see the new D4/Dan Salvato level and holy cow, it was incredibly impressive. I should finish watching the VOD soon, I'm curious to see the rest of the levels. From what I've heard, getting the hack to work is pretty tough, in that it requires both MSU and SA-1? I should be able to run it on the MiSTer, might try to do so eventually.

Yeah, so from what I've seen D4 say, their level is basically streaming an mp4 through MSU-1, and all the interaction (i.e. hit detection) is based on the pixels of the video itself. There are no sprites! I can't immediately find a link but she also did an AMA on Reddit about it, it's worth looking into for sure.

As for the entire relay hack itself, the version they raced on stage is currently available through the RHR Discord, and they're working on "an extended version of the hack, one without format limitations" that they want to get up on SMW Central by the end of August. I'm not totally sure what that means, since I don't think D4 and Dan's level can run without MSU-1, but I guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

[lincolnic]

Finished a couple of hacks worth talking about in the past week or two!

First up was Chopped n Screwed, deported's expert vanilla hack from a couple of months ago. This one's a pretty big departure from their last hack Liquid Metal -- it's much more akin to what I've come to think of as the Goon Nation design style. Think Coldsweat and Tears, the vanilla levels of French Toast & French Fries, or even Day at the Turkey Races (though that one's much easier than the other examples). Relatively short single-section levels with setups that frequently require some amount of thinking to figure out. Now, you all know I'm a dingus, so I played this one with a clear video. Most of the levels in the other hacks I mentioned weren't super hard to decode, but this one has some real head-scratchers. Not every level was my cup of tea, though I did enjoy a bunch of them. I'm not sure if I'm super into the design style once the difficulty gets cranked up this high; even when you know what to do, the inputs are pretty tight and fairly demanding. Having said that, everything flows well and feels great to execute when you finally get it. I really appreciate the careful design that went into it, and have to marvel at the high amount of cleverness and ingenuity it takes to make levels like these. It's not a hack for everyone, but ultimately I'm glad I played it.

This week I also played through brand new hack Heat Wave from first time creator will___ (the underscores gang is growing). Right off the bat, this one is super impressive, doubly so because it's their debut. Everything looks great and feels super polished. A lot of this hack toes the line between standard and kaizo, sometimes verging on Morsel-esque gimmicks. While I didn't love every level, I was always able to appreciate the design. (I did like the vast majority of them!) You can tell that will___ put a ton of care into this one. I don't know if they came from Mario Maker or what, but they clearly have a bunch of experience making levels. The difficulty never gets too high, and everything is very readable. It's definitely a unique hack and I hope it gets some attention -- will___ is absolutely a creator to watch in the future. I enjoyed my time with this hack and I really hope they make more!

 

[lincolnic]

Earlier this week I played through Acid Tapes Vol. 1, by twicepipes. I'd already been thinking about this one, and then someone suggested it for this month's Kaizo Klub selection, so that sealed it. This hack was neat! It has a bit of a rough start -- the first couple of levels lean a little too hard into the "hey remember this old kaizo setup?" bit -- but it gets pretty fun once you get through there. I had a couple of extremely good runs where I was able to sight read like half a section at once and clear an exit, which always feels great. For me the hack really succeeded when it stopped making direct tributes to older hacks and built its own unique setups that were inspired by them instead. I dunno if I'd necessarily run it back again soon, but I'm glad I played it.

And then last night -- as my 199th hack! -- I played Lush's latest entry into the series, Nightmare Cafe - Ninji's Adventure. This one was actually pretty tough! It took me about twice as long to beat as these hacks normally do (two hours, instead of one). A bunch of the rooms require actual precision (lots of jumps into/through/around one-tile gaps), which I wasn't expecting but didn't hate. When I talked about the last Nightmare Cafe hack, I mentioned that you could see Lush branching out and pushing himself a bit more, and that's even more apparent in this one. Which is great! You love to see creators growing. I probably would've enjoyed the precision stuff a bit more if I'd known it was coming, but overall this was a pretty refreshing expansion of the Nightmare Cafeverse. Recommended if you'd like a slightly more challenging NC experience than the norm.

That brings me to my 200th hack! When I realized I was getting close to a milestone number, I started thinking about what to play for the occasion. I liked marking 100 hacks with one of the OGs (Dram World, though I'm sure none of you need reminding) and wanted to do something similar, but there really aren't that many old hacks that I'm particularly interested in playing. However, "not that many" doesn't mean "none", so I've decided that for my 200th hack it's time to play Super Riff World. Everyone loves Riff 2 (including me) but I feel like you don't see too many people playing Riff 1*, even though it's almost universally praised. I saw om_nom_nom playing it a little while ago, which helped push me in this direction. I booted it up earlier and got through the first three exits in about an hour. I'm sure it'll get much tougher as it goes on, but so far I'm enjoying it! I don't think the hack saves checkpoints, though, so I'll need to make sure I have time for an entire exit when I sit down to play.

*I mean this in comparison to other hacks of that era/style, seems like Dram 1/2 get a lot more airtime these days.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Good luck on Riff World! It's not a hack for everyone, but some of the better-known kaizo players absolutely swear by it.

Did you see this new Papanug hack, Perchance? It seems brutally difficult and fairly long, with a really tough boss at the end. So probably not for me! I did see someone playing Gambol 2 recently and that looked a lot more my speed. Plus, tons of pretty colors!

 

[lincolnic]

I've seen some of Perchance, but I have no desire to play it.

Gambol 2 is tougher than it looks! Probably nothing you can't handle, though. The colors are indeed very pretty, but I actually found it a little tough to read sometimes because the whole screen just kinda looks washed out. That might not be as much of an issue for you since you're playing on a smaller screen than I do? I actually have no clue if that'd affect anything but it made sense in my head.

 

[lincolnic]

On Thursday evening I beat Riff World, and in turn my 200th kaizo hack. About Riff itself: the hack is great, and absolutely deserves its status in the pantheon of classics. It's tough but (mostly) fair, with generally high readability and solid platforming. Before playing it myself I hadn't realized just how big an influence it's had, but I found myself recognizing several setups that other hacks had used in homage. The levels themselves were mostly fun, and while I didn't track my overall time (sorry Mike) I'd say they took an average of 20-40 minutes each. Even the levels I knew I wasn't looking forward to went down relatively quickly. I didn't have a lot of time for longer play sessions, so I was mostly playing for 60-90 minutes at a time, clearing 2-3 exits in a sitting. Definitely on the lower end of expert at this point, though the last handful of levels are a bit of a difficulty spike. In 2024, I've played some intermediate hacks that on a trick-by-trick basis are harder than Riff World. I will say that I shamelessly stole the speedrun strats for the final Bowser fight, because 1) there's no way to save the checkpoint beforehand, 2) I'd already gotten what I wanted from the hack, which was the platforming, and 3) vanilla Bowser edits aren't fun. Even so, it took me about 25-30 minutes.

Overall I'd recommend this hack to anyone who likes kaizo. It's an important part of the canon and as long as you can hang with vanilla retry, there's still a ton of fun to be had.

As far as clearing 200 hacks goes, I'm not even sure what you can say about it! I love this stupid game. I'm still finding new things to learn and new skills to sharpen. I'm incredibly grateful to all the creators in the community for putting in countless hours of work to give me (and others) a nearly endless stream of free entertainment and new ways to play one of my favorite games. I'm nearly four years into a hobby that started as something I wasn't even sure I'd be capable of when I started out. There's a part of me that misses the sense of accomplishment that used to come with beating any individual hack (or level!), but I've grown to be able to appreciate a hack or level on a macro level instead of being focused on getting through every individual setup as they come along. It's a little hard to quantify that kind of perspective shift, but it feels meaningful and valuable to me. I hope I get to keep doing this for more years to come.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

It goes without saying that this is an incredible accomplishment. My hat is off to you!

 

[lincolnic]

I appreciate that. I definitely wouldn't have gotten this far without you and Snake cheering me on in those early days. I should've said that in my last post. It's funny, when we were starting out it was such a giant achievement to finish any hack at all (and in some ways it still is, because kaizo is hard), but now I can finish many hacks in one or two sittings and it's kinda weird to be at that point! I hope I never forget what it felt like to beat a level or a hack in those first months of playing. I've had very few video game experiences as an adult that made me feel so accomplished.

Anyway, I'm not resting on my laurels. Yesterday and today I played the newly revamped version of Memento Mori, an early Saela hack which he rebuilt from the ground up and released a few months ago. I played the original version back in early 2022 and remembered almost nothing, so I can't speak to how different the new one is, but I can say this hack is a classic Saela banger. Outside of one level that uses the cursed "hold Y to swim faster" ASM, it's full of super fun platforming that feels great and is easy to read. Since I barely remembered any of the levels, I'm gonna say this new version was different enough to warrant a new place on my clear list as hack #201. Absolutely recommended if you like Saela's hacks, and who doesn't like those? There's at least one other Saela hack I never played (Enter the Void), I may check it out next. And I saw today that he's got a brand new one being playtested right now! Looking forward to that.

Speaking of the clear list, I somehow forgot to put it in my last post! Because I know you (and by "you" I mean Mike) want to see it.

Spoiler: 201 hacks and counting!

1. Learn 2 Kaizo
2. Quickie World 2
3. Baby Kaizo World (Any%)
4. Quickie World
5. Super Ryu World (since deleted)
6. Take It Easy World
7. Akogare Mario World
8. Little Mario World
9. Hyperion
10. Super Hark Bros
11. Quest for Corgi Butts (minus the final shell level, 100% cleared 10/13/22)
12. Invictus
13. Super Hark Bros 2
14. Akogare 2
15. Bunbun World
16. Bunbun World 2
17. Sayonara Mario World (originally unfinished, cleared 5/7/23)
18. El Dorado
19. Cute Kaizo World
20. Dancer to a Discordant System (originally unfinished, finished 8/27/22)
21. Mahogen
22. Kibeth Takes a Walk
23. Sweet 'n Sour (unfinished)
24. Grand Poo World 2
25. Nightmare Cafe
26. Orcus
27. Nightmare Cafe II
28. Nightmare Cafe III
29. Super World
30. Nightmare Cafe IV
31. Nightmare Cafe V
32. Purgatory
33. Nightmare Cafe VI
34. Nightmare Cafe VII
35. Mad with Kaizo Power
36. Nightmare Cafe VIII
37. Peachy Moat World
38. Nightmare Cafe IX
39. Nightmare Cafe X
40. Mostly Harmless
41. Baby Kaizo World (100%)
42. Quickie World: With a Vengeance 1.0
43. Cornucopia of Kaizo
44. Arcane Mario World
45. New Comfort Zone
46. Mario and Luigi Go to White Castle
47. Memory Lane
48. Super Amethyst Rocks
49. Memento Mori
50. Gaia
51. Boogie Wonderland 2.0
52. Groovy
53. Luminescent
54. Day in the Life
55. Quickie World: With a Vengeance 2.0
56. Celeste.smc
57. Autumn
58. Hyperion 2.0
59. Tebeo
60. Super Husky World
61. Joe Bros. 2
62. Joe Bros. 3
63. Sif World
64. Don't Panic
65. Briefly12 World
66. Chi
67. Titan Mario
68. Cuter Kaizo World
69. Love Yourself
70. Flip the Switch
71. Nightmares
72. Super Foo World Lite
73. Super Husky World 2
74. Tortured Souls
75. Ambivalence
76. The Getaway
77. Shell’s Retriever
78. Legends of the Hidden Thwimple
79. 2019 Blind Kaizo Relay Collaboration
80. Full Bloom
81. Super Nothing World
82. Mario Quits
83. Hangin with Mr. Koopa 2
84. Super Flash World
85. Brave New World
86. The Unknown
87. Ides of March
88. O’Ghim!
89. The Power Beneath
90. Kaizo Crisis
91. Misty Out There
92. Baby Kaizo World 2
93. Separate Ways
94. French Fries & French Toast
95. Super Gracie World
96. Ninja World 2
97. Ninja World 3
98. Sure Shot
99. No Biggie World
100. Super Dram World
101. Gambol
102. Halo 14 - Side A
103. Coffee & TV
104. Cruisy
105. Liquid Metal
106. Super LSG World
107. Super LSG World (B-Side)
108. Lucky
109. Sure Shot DELUXE EDITION
110. 2Learn2Kaizo
111. Hammer Time
112. Day at the Races
113. Sauna Mario World
114. Race to the Finish
115. Moon
116. Eikro
117. Ultraviolet
118. Linnaea
119. Samsara Mario World
120. Pineapple Porcupine
121. NEW Nightmare Cafe
122. Lurn 2 Shell
123. NEW Nightmare Cafe 2
124. Shelltopia
125. Shellax
126. NEW Nightmare Cafe 3
127. Rooms of Despair
128. Day at the Turkey Races
129. Super Schrausch World 2
130. Super Curious World
131. NEW Nightmare Cafe 4
132. Burning Star
133. Chicanery
134. Super Mario Gaia
135. Get On Up!
136. Riff World 2
137. Halo 14 - Side B
138. Super Struggler World
139. Escape from Kudzu Planet
140. Just Thanks
141. Nameless Kaizo World
142. Super Insecure World
143. Super Foo World 2
144. Natsukashii Mario World
145. Super Boonie World
146. Fragaria
147. Oops! All Fortresses
148. Colors
149. Dysphoria
150. Beautiful Dangerous
151. Entropy
152. Kaizo Kindergarten
153. Quest for Milk
154. The Long Way Home
155. Agnosthesia
156. Super Fruits ’n Veggies World
157. Mycelium
158. Super Foo World 0
159. Super Penny World
160. Fresh Hops
161. NEW Nightmare Cafe 5
162. Sweet World
163. Feginner
164. Brave New World 2
165. Grand Poo World 3
166. Summer
167. The First Round
168. Hysteria
169. Coldsweat and Tears
170. Choconilla Kaizo Island
171. Newbie Kaizo World
172. Once Again
173. Jouhou
174. Mistakes Were Made
175. Prickly Goo to the Rescue
176. Tower of Keys
177. MFC
178. Doro Chill
179. We Like It Here
180. Gambol 2
181. Easyland
182. Second Nature
183. Ja, Tack!
184. OK Mario
185. Papaya Mountain
186. Titan Mario 2
187. Toadventure
188. Tower of Glory
189. 4 Yumps for Yoshi
190. The Duality of Mario
191. Takumi V (46 exit)
192. Fulfill the Dream
193. Chicanery Beginner Edition
194. Nightmare Cafe Origins
195. Greñudo Planet 2
196. Chopped ’n Screwed
197. Heat Wave
198. Acid Tapes Vol. 1
199. Nightmare Cafe - Ninji’s Adventure
200. Super Riff World
201. Memento Mori 2.0

 

[lincolnic]

I said "Enter the Void" in my last post, but I ended up going back and playing Saela's very first hack Silencio yesterday. It was mostly very fun and chill, except for the final level, which features one of the most painful gimmicks I've played in recent memory: on/off switches that reverse your controls. And you don't even get any easy baby jumps to get used to the mechanic, you're thrown straight into tough setups. The rest of the hack was rad though. It's got a lot of the things we've come to expect from Saela (setups that loop back on themselves, vertical autoscrollers, Extreme Vibes) but it seems like he hadn't made the decision to fully commit to his style yet. I've not yet played Enter the Void but there's a real through line you can follow through his work. Very much looking forward to his new one.

Today I played a surprise new hack from mmmdoggy, EGO WORLD (caps his), finishing off an accidental trilogy that started with Separate Ways and Super Insecure World (one of my favorite hacks of last year). Much like SIW, this new hack is short and sweet, clocking in for me at somewhere short of 2 hours. Also like SIW, EGO WORLD is full of super creative levels and setups that really emphasize fun over difficulty. It's full of references to his other hacks and even some levels from We Like It Here. This hack's a no brainer for the mmmdoggy enthusiast, but I'd also recommend it for anyone who likes having a good time.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

It was bugging me that I never completed RHR 300, so I sat down today and finally chuffed it out. It was really hard! And I was pretty grumpy at the level for most of that time, which I will freely admit is not a good look. Plus, when I finally got the the end and grabbed the orb, Mario flew off and then nothing happened. I guess that’s just how it goes, but I would have liked…something.

Anyway, this has convinced me to stay the heck away from difficult/high precision hacks in the future, but it has also made me want to play some easier stuff again. I should try that rebuild of Chicanery, or maybe run through another New! Nightmare Cafe soon.

 

[lincolnic]

Hey, nice job on beating the level! It's a tough one for sure, be proud of that clear. I can confirm that the black screen is just how the level ends. I found it pretty anti-climactic too!

I highly, highly recommend the beginner version of Chicanery. Just a super good hack, and a great way to ease back into kaizo too. You may also be interested in the most recent RHR level, 50 Easy Challenges from none other than NewPointless. This one was rated something like a 2 or 3 for difficulty and they had a bunch of first-time racers sign up as a result. It's basically like NP made a teeny little Nightmare Cafe. I played it today (with a clear time of 14:00 exactly) and it was a lot of fun! NewPointless is such a solid designer that even though he's made a bunch of very different styles of hack, they all feel unique and entirely focused. It was very cool to see what he came up with that was aimed specifically at an easier difficulty level.

 

[lincolnic]

I've cleared a handful of hacks between my last post and this one, but I'm really posting to say that I did my first midair today. Given that I'm not entirely sure how I did it, it might also be my last midair! I was idly making attempts to kill some time, and after a few minutes one just happened and took me completely by surprise.

The really funny part is that I was doing this in the Learn 2 Kaizo midair room, and I still didn't make it across the gap to the goal tape. But at least I can now say that I've Done A Midair.

 

[lincolnic]

Things have been quiet for a bit, huh? I've actually been playing this whole time, just not talking too much about it. But I mostly came in to say that Saela and LightAligns just stealth-dropped not one but two hacks today. One is called First Step Forward, and they actually submitted it as a beginner hack. It's got 11 (short) exits, I blasted through it in 30-40 minutes and had a great time. Even had a couple of one shots. It's super approachable and has all the best parts of their design style. I'd place this one as "upper beginner", bordering on low intermediate. It'll be a great challenge for newer players who want to move up to tougher stuff, and a super fun time for more experienced players who just want some chill jumps.

The other hack is called Signals and it's intermediate. It's listed as only having six exits, so I cut myself off after the first two to have more to play tomorrow, but so far I feel like it might be the toughest of their hacks so far? The levels I've played so far have been sick, but in terms of input density they feel a lot tighter than previous hacks. That's not a bad thing -- more like Saela and LightAligns have decided to take the gloves off a little bit and step things up a notch. The levels still flow super well and I'm psyched to play more next time.

I do want to talk a bit more about other hacks I've played lately, but it's getting late so I'll hold off for a bit longer. Though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that good old Slopcore released a new one recently too, Cute as Shell. I guess the Cute Trilogy is now complete? Anyway, despite the name, it isn't really a "shell hack" so much as a hack with the occasional shell trick in it. It's listed as beginner like the other Cute hacks and it was also a good time. Recommended even if the title might otherwise make you hesitate. If you can do a shell jump, you're all set.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Ooh I should definitely play First Step Forward and then use that as a springboard to finally finish Agnosthesia (my save has been sitting at the start of the special world for months now).

 

[lincolnic]

Dooooo iiiiiiitttttt

I finished Signals today and it's also great. Surprise! It's funny, I was actually thinking about running Agnosthesia back right before these came out since there's been kind of a dearth of hacks lately. I probably still will, but these new hacks were perfectly timed.

 

[lincolnic]

Somehow it's been nearly two months, let's bring a little life back to this thread.

A bunch of interesting hacks were released since then! Mithrillionaire dropped Kaizo Crisis 2, which I knew had been in the works for a little while but had no idea it was ready for release. Like the original Kaizo Crisis, this one is a relatively small expert hack full of well thought-out and unique setups. I wouldn't say that I can recognize Mith's design style on sight, exactly, but his levels don't play like anyone else's. (To be clear, this is great.) I really enjoyed my time with this one and recommend it to anyone who wants a tougher challenge.

Soon after that, not to be content with releasing two solid hacks on the same day, Saela dropped a 21 exit solo venture called Epiphany. Ultimately I'm conflicted about this one -- I loved most of it, but the final level has an absurd amount of sections and some of Saela's most cursed ASM yet. Some parts of it felt truly awful to play, and having so much of it back to back at the end of the game really tested my patience. It kind of soured me on the hack overall, even though there were 20 other exits beforehand that were perfectly fine. I have no idea if any playtesters spoke up about anything in the level, but I certainly felt like they should've. I would recommend the first 20 exits of the hack, and then as much of the last level as you can stand without getting frustrated. There's plenty to enjoy along the way before you get to the end.

And then! There was a new VLskoot hack out of nowhere, 9 Dreams. This one was relatively chill, outside of some spawn issues I had in one level, and did some really cool tricks with palettes and backgrounds that I've never seen before. Overall it's one of VL's easier hacks and it's a good one.

And then! On the day after (American) Thanksgiving, pnaha finally released Sauna Mario World 2. Just like the original, this one appeared more or less out of nowhere right before the end of the year, and it's one of the rare sequels that completely outdoes its predecessor. The original Sauna was very fun in its own right but this is one of my favorite hacks of the year. The levels are fun and creative while still being very readable, section lengths are extremely fair, and the difficulty is overall pretty chill. This was one of those hacks that I had to force myself not to binge in a single sitting, because I just wanted to keep playing every time I beat a level. In the end I think I did it in two, maybe three. There were a couple of gimmicks that I didn't love, but the relatively short sections meant that nothing overstayed its welcome. This is a no-brainer recommendation from me. If you only play one hack I've mentioned in this post, make it Sauna Mario World 2.

I also recently caught up on a few hacks that I missed when they first came out, namely Icarus from CircleFriendo and Vah Knee Yah from Scags. Icarus is a short precision hack made of single screen rooms, generally focusing on doing one or two (or three?) specific things per room. Some room are tougher than others but overall it felt pretty approachable. I had fun with this one. Vah Knee Yah, as the name implies, is a vanilla hack in a similar vein as Blaagon's Coldsweat and Tears. This was a really fun challenge. It's the kind of hack where the real difficulty lies in the intricacies of controlling Mario -- when you watch someone else play these levels, you can very easily say "That doesn't look too bad," but trying them yourself is a very different matter. It really earns its expert rating through asking for a certain degree of finesse from the player rather than being super input-dense or tech-heavy.

I've finally got Fail World loaded up on my SD card for the near future, and there's a new Nightmare Cafe I'll probably check out soon too. I'd forgotten about Fail World since I wasn't feeling up to it when it came out, but I recently saw someone playing it for its two year anniversary and it looked pretty fun. I've been playing a lot of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown this week, but once I get back to SMW those two are likely where I'll start.

 

[lincolnic]

My kaizo plans took a pretty sharp left turn between my last post and this past week. I blame om_nomnom_nomnom, because I saw him streaming the level in My Favorite Things where I had previously put my playthrough on hold. He's currently doing a runback; archivists of this thread may remember that watching him play it the first time is what got me to pick it up in the first place. Just like then, watching him do the runback made me want to give the hack another shot. I checked a few pages back in this thread and it turns out I'd started this one in October 2023. I had a lot of fun with it but hit a bit of a wall in the switch palace (a very long and tight P-switch run with no checkpoints). The input density was taking a toll and I just needed a break.

Now, with a little more than another year of experience under my belt, it's still extremely hard, but it all feels a lot more doable. I came back and cleared that switch palace in about two hours, and have mostly been clearing a section (or occasionally a full level) per play session. I expected most of them to be multi-hour affairs, but sections have generally gone down in anywhere from ~45 minutes at the fastest to around an hour and a half. The exception would be today, where the second half of Cherokee (the level with the infamous "eric" sprite) took me about three and a half hours. There were a couple of nasty sequences that took some time to lock in, but outside of those I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. And somehow I'm nearly done with the hack already! I just have the five room castle left*, and I fully expect this to take at least a couple of sittings. If I spend my playtime tomorrow learning the rooms individually, I'll feel good about that progress.

*I don't think I'm going to play the final shell level. While I'm sure I could learn it, I don't really want to spend hours grinding extremely high-level shell tricks -- this hack can be pretty tough on the hands just in the normal levels, and I imagine the shell tricks will be even tougher. If I'm going to practice super niche kaizo stuff, it's going to be key jumps, damnit. But seriously, revolug himself has said that if he ever updated the hack again, he'd put the credits after the five room castle and have the shell level be optional after that, so if the creator says beating the castle counts as beating the game, that's good enough for me.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Congrats on the progress, that’s a monster hack from what I’ve seen. And regular shell levels already exact enough of a toll from the hands, there’s no need to play an extra difficult one if that’s not what you’re looking for.

I played some kaizo today, too! I finally got myself an FX Pak Pro, nominally to play Archipelago randomizers on hardware, but I set up my Super Nintendo with a CRT TV for the first time in months and I couldn’t resist playing a little Let’s Give Up while I was at it. Considering how little kaizo I've played recently, I’d say I did all right, making it back to Fly Tree and completing the first section in a couple of hours. It’s probably the coolest hack I’ve played, and it looks just gorgeous on a CRT. I can’t really keep this setup
in place right now, since the CRT is kind of blocking the regular TV in its current position, so I may not finish my run back any time soon.