1. How did you find about SMW central and SMW hacking?

This may be the case for several other people, but I actually discovered SMW hacking when a friend showed me Protonjon's Kaizo Mario World video. I thought it would be hard to make a hack like that, but after viewing more videos, I eventually found a link to both Lunar Magic and SMWCentral. The rest is history.

2. Can you tell us a little about your first experiences with Lunar Magic, as well as your first attempts to make a hack?

Like I said, I found Lunar Magic in the description of a Youtube video. However, once I had downloaded it, I didn't know what to do. I thought it would be a very tedious and time-consuming process, but it wasn't. As for what I actually made with it, it was mostly blatant level edits. The first completely original level I created consisted of a climbing net for as many screens as there were, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. My first actual attempt at something was Jared World is Super, and I still laugh about that hack to this day. In all honesty, I wish I could erase that part of my hacking career.

3. Tell us a bit about you current project "COLORS", including what inspired you to make the hack and how you feel about the way it's going.

COLORS, in all honesty, has been the most fun I've ever had with hacking. After having done nothing hacking related for months, I wanted to try my hand at it again, and I began an unnamed hack that had no originality to it at all. It only took five minutes (and two screens) to completely lose interest and delete that attempt. A few weeks later, I tried once again, and as soon as I opened Lunar Magic, I questioned whether I should even bother. Out of curiosity (as well as boredom), I looked at some of the hacks waiting to be moderated. One of them had hideous clashing graphics, and I decided that I would make a hack whose graphics were all in one consistent style. However, pixel art was something I was never good at, so I decided to give every sprite and object in the game one color and leave it at that. Soon after, I thought about all sorts of crazy things I could do to take advantage of that, but many of them wouldn't be possible without ASM. Once I revealed COLORS to the public, Extroble asked if he could do ASM for it, and I accepted his generous offer. So for each level, I'd think of a gimmick, ask him to code it, and it would always be ready for me soon after, allowing me to get to work on the levels quickly. At this point, all of the levels are complete, and all I'm waiting on is for Extroble to finish the final boss of the hack. Because I don't want to spoil it, I've avoided posting any screenshots or information about it. So far, he's made excellent progress on it, which I'm happy for.

4. I'm sure many of us remember the old moltensnow character with the misplaced nose, what inspired you to create him and how do you feel about the way it became a SMW Central meme for quite some time?

Heh. I had a feeling something like this would be asked. In fifth grade, everyone's (myself included) favorite book was Diary of a Wimpy Kid. When I found out they made a DIY version where you could make it your own journal, I needed to make a character to represent me (in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid style, of course). So I made a character that had a vague resemblance to me and was easily recognizable. I didn't intend on using it outside of that journal, but because I couldn't think of a better avatar, I decided to draw the character in GIMP for the first time (after all, his only other appearances had been on paper). I had only just started using GIMP at the time, which is why it came out so horribly. The paper version of the character still has the misplaced nose, however.
Anyways, I only intended on using the character as my avatar for a short while, but when I figured out how exploitable he was, I drew him showing several different emotions and had my avatar randomize between them. I didn't intend for it to move beyond that, but after a while, the character became iconic. People began to make jokes about it, and I felt like I had no choice but to use that character or I just wouldn't be the same person. Once Zildjian made a thread about it, it had gotten out of hand. I'd unintentionally created a monster, and after thinking about it for some time, I got rid of the character. In all honesty, it's not that I dislike the character, it's that I dislike what he represents: myself. I can't stand how horrible I was as a person when I still used the character as my avatar, and I'm glad that I'm not that person anymore. Regardless, I still use the character sometimes, but I don't feel like I'm being forced to do so.

5. As an active member from the community, what motivates you to keep visiting this place?

I'm not completely sure; it could be a number of things. It's most likely because I've made quite a few friends here, as well as the fact that I like the atmosphere. The userbase is large enough to have a lot of people to discuss things with, but small enough to know a bit about each user, so we're all closer than users on other boards, which is why I guess so many of us have been here a long time. Out of all the boards I've registered at, this is the only one I still regularly visit and participate in, which leads me to believe that Kieran is right. This place certainly is Hotel California, and I can't imagine my life without it.

1. What cached your interest on SMW hacking?

The same as most others, I think. One of my earliest childhood memories is living in the basement of my aunt's house (along with my mother and father) and playing Super Mario World on our little 12-14" TV. As I grew up, I began designing various SMW levels (and Zelda dungeons) in MS Paint. One day, I happened to stumble across Zophar's Domain, which hosted some of the earliest SMW hacks, including TSRP. I remember it occurred right after my grade 8 "graduation", and I was so hyped to get home from prom to find out how he did it. I was eventually led to Acmlm's Board on July 1, 2005, and thus began my SMW hacking journey.

2. Many of your projects such as Mario's Keytastrophe, Final Destination and GIMMICK have gathered a lot of attention. Can you tell us a bit about them?

Many people may not know at this point, but if Addmusic wasn't released, I would have likely never started KT, and as such I wouldn't be here today. One of my longest running dreams was to create custom music for SMW, so as soon as I found out about Addmusic, it renewed my interest in SMW hacking. KT itself was inspired by a hack another user (can't for the life of me remember his name, though I believe he still posts here now and then) called Mario vs. Bowser. The hack consisted of several single-screen puzzles where you had to get the key to the keyhole. Unfortunately, I stopped working on that hack about two years ago, soon after the last demo.

Final Destination was a project created by Foursword4 and myself. It was meant to be the first full Metroid-vania SMW hack. I had coded a Paper Mario-esque save system for it, custom heart-refilling blocks, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Unfortunately, partway through the project, Foursword4's father fell terminally ill with cancer and died soon after. As such, he was in no state to really continue hacking at that time, and I was left to work on FD alone for a while. Eventually, I stopped working on it, although I still possess and unreleased copy of it which has about 2-3 hours worth of content. I might release it one day.

As for Gimmick .. I don't have too much to say about that one. All it really consists of is a bunch of levels which would not fit in any other project I made. As such, the themes of the levels are really random and disjointed (such as a mechanical pyramid, a giant spire of stars in the desert, and a time temple). It's been a lot of fun to make so far and it's well over halfway done. I hope I'll muster the motivation to finish and release it at some point.

3. As one of the few users who has tried YI hacking, can you tell use your experience about it compared to SMW hacking?

Well, if it means anything, the only hack I've ever finished is in fact a Yoshi's Island hack .. except I made it back when EggVine was the main editor. Compared to SMW, it was an utter and total nightmare. EggVine was a very unstable program which crashed non-stop, and some of the crashes would actually corrupt not only the level, but the entire ROM as well. I lost about 20-30 hours worth of work at one point because I placed an object slightly outside of the editor and it spat out a bunch of broken levels in response.

I should make it clear that I've always liked Yoshi's Island more than SMW as a game, simply because there is literally so much you can do with the engine. Nowadays, however, I enjoy hacking SMW more than YI. I do encourage people who love YI to try hacking it though, especially given that Romi released Golden Egg. It's a fantastic user-friendly editor that is leagues better than EggVine, and makes hacking the game almost as easy as Lunar Magic does for SMW.

4. You're probably one of SWM Central's best composers and porters. Please describe your experience with music, including why you decided to dedicate to it.

As I stated in an earlier question, one of my dreams was to compose custom music for SMW once I started hacking it. It may come as a surprise to some that I had never composed a song prior to working with SMW - that is, my first full composition ever can be found within Mario's Keytastrophe. Prior to that, I had played many instruments in real life, but never actually spent the time trying to write music. SMW hacking basically introduced me the idea of composition using more "professional" tools like FL Studio.

I think what it boils down to for me is the satisfaction of hearing a finished piece of work. It's the same as an artist as they watch their drawing come together. Hearing a music piece slowly take form is an awesome feeling, and you're able to show it off once it is done. It's also a more short-term goal as opposed to a huge long-term goal of making an entire hack, which is why I think I've always preferred working with music over any other aspect in SMW. Nowadays, I've broadened my horizons and have been composing a few tracks for some full non-hacks made by friends. I also have a couple of friends at my university working on a game (they're in the computer science program), so I'm doing a few tracks for them as well.

5. Even if you're not the creator of the site, a lot of people respect you and consider you as the main admin. How do you feel about it?

I guess it's not too surprising. I'm not bashing Kieran or anything - he does a great job with maintaining the site, and the fact that he's hosting the entire server from home is a pretty great gesture - but he's just not too active with the userbase. I try to involve myself with as many people here as I can (contests, SMWCP2, etc), and I try to maintain order as much as possible (which often involving sorting out a lot of drama between users and the like). What it really comes down to is the fact that I try to come off as more of a "friend" and an equal than some kind of tyrant. It's an Internet forum after all, and I have a life. I recognize everyone here is just like me as well, and despite what some people think, having a name color doesn't immediately make you the best at everything. At the same time though, if people are being obnoxious or stupid, I make it a habit to call them out on it in hopes of getting them to realize their problems.

That being said, I guess the answer to the question as a whole would be that I feel pretty good about it.


6. As a veteran from the acmlm board, what can you say about how SMW hacking and its community have evolved.

It's been roughly 7 years and 2 months since I first registered on Acmlm's Board. The biggest thing I've noticed about the community is how much it has grown and matured over the past seven years. Without a doubt, this site still has a fair bit of newbies (and some idiots, unfortunately), but at the same time, there are a ridiculous amount of talented people here. We have people like smkdan, Vitor Vilela, FPI, HuFlungDu, Lynnes, Smallhacker, imamelia, Rameau's Nephew, MrDeePay, Alcaro, AxemJinx, Jimmy52905, Slash Man, FuSoYa himself .. and so many more. It's because of people like the ones I've mentioned that SMW hacking has come as far as it has. Without them, this community would not be nearly as large as it is today, and I'm grateful that I've had the chance to be a part of it for this long.