Submission Guidelines

Standard Hack Guidelines

Categorization Guidelineslink

Please read the following descriptions of each of the 4 Standard categories and try to submit to the most appropriate category. Keep in mind that the category a hack gets put in is determined by the peak difficulty of the game; the hardest challenges found in the submitted hack will be what determines the category it ends up in.

Standard Categories
Standard: Easy	Hacks in this category are overall easier than the base game. Levels don't approach the difficulty that you may find in some of the Special World levels in the base game and the level design doesn't challenge the player too heavily. Obstacles tend to be sparser and more open and power-ups are plentiful. Hacks here should be approachable to most people or novice platformer players.
Standard: Normal	Similar in difficulty to completing all levels in Super Mario World. Hacks here should be approachable for most players, but as they develop comfort with the game's movement they may lose a considerable amount of lives in late game levels.
Standard: Hard	The starting difficulty is around that of later game levels of Super Mario World. You can expect things to ramp up and the level design will be a bit more challenging when it comes to the gimmicks used, the level construction and enemy placement. There may be fewer power-ups than expected and levels may be a bit longer. Players are expected to have either played other hacks or have some skill at platformers to start here.
Standard: Very Hard	Hacks in this category differ a great deal from Super Mario World and will exceed the difficulty of the base game's hardest levels even in the early game. Some hacks in this category may expect competency in niche skill sets, such as precise cape flying, or use of obscure mechanics. Players going to play hacks submitted here are expected to have mastered the game's movement, have familiarity with how all the enemies behave (including some custom ones), and are able to react and adapt to obstacles with a lot of variance. Players should have a great deal of experience playing other hacks. There is no cap on difficulty in this category so even expert players should expect to encounter some brutal challenges here, so it is recommended that the descriptions of a hack submitted here warn or give players a sense of what they're in for.

The system is not perfect and there's a lot of variation within these categories and all categories have outliers that may seem out of place. If you suspect something is miscategorized, or could be recategorized for whatever reason reach out to the moderation team.

Additional Guidelineslink

• Standard hacks should give players a chance to react  §
  Hacks submitted to any of the above categories should not overwhelmingly use sudden damage from unpredictable events in levels, otherwise known as "Kaizo traps". Obstacles should be reasonably designed for players to read and react to in order to complete, but they can still be quite challenging as the Very Hard category shows.


• Standard Hacks should not require technical knowledge  §
  Obstacles that require technical knowledge of the base game to clear should be avoided in standard levels. An excessive amount of this is in a submission to the Easy, Normal or Hard categories may result in rejection (especially in the lower difficulties) or being moved to or additionally categorized as Kaizo.


• Standard Hacks should be free of softlock trolls  §
  If the player is trapped in any way that forces them to wait out the timer or reset, either as a troll or an unintentional softlock, your hack will be rejected. This is a not uncommon troll in Kaizo or Troll hacks but is not advisable in Standard hacks.


• Standard Hacks should be beatable without tool-assistance  §
  It is strongly discouraged to submit a hack with levels that are only beatable with save-states or other tool assistance. People downloading hacks from the Standard categories should reasonably expect to be able to beat them without the use of tool-assistance, therefore hacks submitted to these categories should be created with that expectation in mind.

Remember to review the Guidelines for all hacks in addition to these before submitting your hack.