It'sa me, Kaizo Mario!

[SilentSnake]

Welp, looks like I oopsed my way into another grind! Shocking, I know. I picked up Gaijin Mario, Morsel's only Intermediate kaizo hack, thinking it would just be a nice difficulty that would still be a good win for me. And it started out innocent enough, as the first level, a cute all cannon all the time level, took me like 30 minutes at most. Then came the mushroom escort level, which took me like...four hours. And then tonight I only beat a single exit, a water level with tracking Torpedo Teds capped off with a fast autoscroller where you have to hit question blocks to bounce yourself below projectiles. That level took...six hours. Looks like I'm in for the long haul again.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Eep! Is it possible no-one has reclassified it and it’s only listed as Intermediate because that’s the default category?

 

[SilentSnake]

It is not. It is there intentionally.

Again, it's okay. Morsel is my jam, so it's fine.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Well just remember that, if you need a break, you could probably finish all of Memento Mori in the time it took you to play that last level.

 

[lincolnic]

For whatever reason, I decided I wasn't ready to put Flip the Switch down, so I put another hour into it today and cleared the Yoshi level. The first half was actually kinda fun? The second half has one really cool setup, immediately followed by a trick that showcases just how janky hitting switches with Yoshi's tongue is.

The next level is one that I'm actually excited to play, so maybe things will pick up from here. On the other hand, it's followed by the level I'm least looking forward to (the water one). We will see.

 

[lincolnic]

Alright, I'm at 5 (of 7) exits and Flip the Switch has really started to pick up. Pneumatic Castle (one of the levels I was looking forward to) was really awesome, and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be my favorite level in the hack. It took 45 minutes but I enjoyed it the entire time. All the setups just felt good to play. And ThirdWall's Apartment (the level I was least looking forward to) was here and gone in about 20 minutes. I think ThirdWall knew people weren't gonna like an underwater ice level with Bumpties and a timer, and made it mercifully short*. Ultimately it wasn't even that bad.

The remaining two exits are both levels I'm looking forward to, so with a little luck I'll be wrapping this up tomorrow! As of right now I'm glad I've stuck with it.

*We're not gonna talk about the fact that it initially had a third section slop_core made him remove during playtesting.

 

[SilentSnake]

ThirdWall's Apartment was also a RHR level!

 

[lincolnic]

Almost! O'Hare Airport (the second one in the hack, with all the layer 2 parallax) was the race level, not ThirdWall's Apartment.

 

[lincolnic]

I have Flipped the Switch! The final two levels took 45 minutes and then an hour, respectively. The whole hack clocked in around 5 hours and 20 minutes, give or take. I didn't love every level, but the ones that were good were really good. I'd say Pneumatic Castle and Rattler Ridge (the final level) by themselves make the hack worth playing. At the end of the day I'm glad I did.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Nicely done! You've almost completed the Thirdwallogy.

 

[lincolnic]

I am not playing Broke World in its current state, sorry. Maybe not even after it's finished!

 

[SilentSnake]

Hey, there's always Super Smilers World and 69 Rooms of Wall to look forward to!

 

[lincolnic]

You joke but I'm legitimately excited for ThirdWall's sprite stacking hack, whenever he gets around to finishing that.

 

[lincolnic]

The new hack Nightmares has been getting some good praise around the usual kaizo corners, and the levels I saw looked pretty fun, so I started that one up today. Cleared three exits so far in about an hour, and it is in fact fun! A bunch of the sections have been very long, though. The first exit doesn't even have a checkpoint! It should. Anyway, the actual platforming hasn't been super demanding, so if things stay around this level of difficulty it should be a good ride to the end. Looking forward to playing more tomorrow.

 

[lincolnic]

The GDQ race teams and makers have finally been announced, and this lineup is absolutely stacked.

It's gonna be one to remember for sure.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

First off, RNG Dolphins is a great name and that is absolutely who I'm rooting for (sorry, Juz). Second, you're right, that list of creators is pretty fucking hype. It's a great mixture of old and new names, plus some wildcards like DtotheFourth and Maddy (allegedly). Third, I'm going to be on a trip to see some friends on July 1st, so I might have to watch it on-demand later. =[

 

[SilentSnake]

I beat two more exits of Gaijin tonight! The first took a mere 2 hours, and had the gimmick of teleporting Mario between halves of the screen using the shoulder buttons. The second level took over 5, but that was mostly because I'm a big dummy and overthought things as well as let my gameplay slip. It probably should have taken me two hours shorter if I wasn't dumb and bad lol. So that's 5/8 exits down. We're getting there!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Nice progress! I believe that Maddy allegedly used that teleportation gimmick in Sanic, it even made it into the trailer for the GDQ kaizo race.

 

[lincolnic]

Wrapped up Nightmares today. Good hack, do recommend! I do think some of the sections are a bit too long, but aside from one Bumpty + ice physics + fire flower level I generally had a lot of fun. Total playtime was probably somewhere around 5-6 hours if I had to guess? I didn't keep a close eye on that. But it's definitely a hack where you can clear multiple exits in a sitting and feel pretty good about it. Put it on your lists!

 

[lincolnic]

Monday night I decided to run back New Comfort Zone, which I did in two sittings between then and yesterday. Even though I'd forgotten a lot of it, this second playthrough took maybe 2.5 hours. Most importantly, this hack still rules. I know Orka's stepped away from streaming for the time being but I hope he keeps making hacks, because between this and Titan he's really become one of my favorite creators.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

What's the deal with that, anyway? Orka has always been pretty private and I never knew if streaming was an important source of revenue for him or just something he did on the side.

Not a lot of kaizo news from me right now. I'm about 17 exits into Memento Mori, but I haven't played a ton of kaizo lately.

 

[lincolnic]

It's nothing bad, he just got a new job and needs to focus on that. I think he said he'll still stream occasionally, but it'll be a while before he figures out if it's something he can do regularly again.

 

[lincolnic]

In the last couple of days I saw both Barb and GlitchCat really enjoying Super Foo World, and about half of the levels looked cool, but the other half of them had VVVVVV-type gravity reversals and wall jumps. I figured that was enough to give this one a pass, but then Super Foo World Lite appeared in the SMW Central waiting section today, which claimed to have removed 100% of the reverse gravity and wall jump levels! So that was enough for me to try it out.

This is the creator's first hack, and it's a pretty strong start. There are a couple of double jump levels I didn't enjoy (does anyone?), but there was also a bunch of satisfying platforming. My main issue is that most of the levels don't have checkpoints, and they're not short. But even with that, it goes by pretty quickly. No bosses, no secrets, not even a single shell jump. I think I wrapped the hack up in about 2.5 hours. I don't know if I'd necessarily run it back, but it scratched the kaizo itch for another day. I'll be very curious to see what this creator's next hack looks like, if they make another.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Finished Memento Mori! I really enjoyed it, bar the fast swimming level. I could see even picking this up to do a few speedruns eventually, although I'm not quite ready to get back into that sort of stuff just yet. Only thing I didn't like was the shoutout to a certain triple feline in the credits, which maybe doesn't reflect super well on Saela's taste in streamers.

 

[lincolnic]

Ugh, that's a bummer. I've seen Saela in drkrdnk and ThirdWall's streams but I guess I don't really know anything else about them. Too bad, I liked Memento Mori a lot.

 

[SilentSnake]

Back at the Gaijin grind today. I cleared one exit, but it was a rather large one. Let's just say it's Morsel's take on an Ultra Star, and it's every bit as wild as it sounds. None of the sections were too bad, but there were four sections in this level, so it took a total of 5.5 hours to clear. (This makes sense, as it was originally a KLDC level and those tend to be long.) 6/8 exits down!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Almost there! Any idea how tough the last two exits are?

I saw Juz play a bit of that new Saela/Light hack this morning, it looked pretty neat! I might give it a try, since I don't have an easier hack on the go right now (also I love that intermediate-level stuff now falls into my "easy" category).

 

[SilentSnake]

No clue! Also, I think this is one of those "one more levels than exits" kind of games if the overworld is anything to go off of.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

The sheer treachery of it all.

 

[lincolnic]

That new Saela/LightAligns hack looks like it's on the upper end of intermediate, beware! Also, there's a puzzle that's pretty involved.

As for me, apparently Super Husky World 2 was released and moderated on Sunday all before I even knew it was coming out. I said I'd play this a couple of months ago, and so I shall. It looks like it's got a real old-school kaizo vibe, which I could be into.