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Ganymede - Some music credit (or, how Kevin ported 30% of the entire soundtrack)

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My apologies for the delayed response. Hard at work!

The track is Lonely Halls, one of my favorite SNES tracks period. I'm trying to use original compositions as much as possible but I can't deny myself this one.

I'm busy right now working on the game's introduction; up until this point, there have only been rudimentary ones. This one is going in a different direction, and it's the first true application of my story and narrative to the game itself. This is a work in progress. duh.

GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
I can't imagine how long it took to set all this up, but it was well worth it - this is one quality intro sequence! It sets the mood fairly decisively, but there's a decent amount of subtlety at play, too. I like in particular how the word-flood intensifies with no input from the player before starkly transitioning to a still room, player now in control. I imagine most first-time players would probably sit there for a moment before realizing they're even in control now, which would only add to the effect. And don't think I didn't spy that painting of a ship looming over the player from the get-go!

Also, kudos for making your house look like a house, that has house-y things inside of it. I've seen plenty of hacks over the years that have tried to bill a lamp and a sheet on some crates as a house, so I appreciate your going the extra mile.

If I might pick a few nits, first thing would be the text. I personally think the font itself is fine, but the colors could use some tweaking. I don't know how much freedom you have palette-wise, but I'd give some higher text/background contrast a try. Next is the "GO AWAY" right before the end of the first wave of text. The G being half-sunk in the rest of the letters made me misread the phrase as "OKAY" the first couple of times, though that may just be the consequence of .gif choppiness.

The words seem to be loosely organized into two columns - was this deliberate, or a limitation? It's not super jarring, but the extra degree of organization is at odds with the chaotic "panic" vibe I think you're reaching for. Also, I believe your status bar has just been painted the same color as your background - one can see the text sliding under the numbers on Layer 3 by looking carefully at the top of the screen.

Work in progress though it may be, it's still looking very well executed. Truly fine work!

I still haven't gotten around to trying the demo proper as of yet... Better feedback to be provided [eventually] -
I really like it! Do you draw those graphics yourself? Because that's very intersting and unique.
Sorry again for the late reply. I mean it is how I am pretty much, I post when I have stuff to show off. That's what it's for.

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I really like it! Do you draw those graphics yourself? Because that's very intersting and unique.


Yes, I draw all the graphics. I think pixel art is a lot of fun. There is only scant remnants of vanilla anything in the rom at this point, and most of it is stuff I have no use for or cause to replace at this point.

Originally posted by Maarfy
I can't imagine how long it took to set all this up, but it was well worth it - this is one quality intro sequence! It sets the mood fairly decisively, but there's a decent amount of subtlety at play, too. I like in particular how the word-flood intensifies with no input from the player before starkly transitioning to a still room, player now in control. I imagine most first-time players would probably sit there for a moment before realizing they're even in control now, which would only add to the effect. And don't think I didn't spy that painting of a ship looming over the player from the get-go!


:D Thank you. It's something I had in mind for a while and it's all done with tiles and graphics, no special asm tricks or anything. The final (ish) result below took two months of daily work. I have read and considered your suggestions about the piece but I've just wanted to press on. There are 26 ExGFX files at work.

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The words seem to be loosely organized into two columns - was this deliberate, or a limitation? It's not super jarring, but the extra degree of organization is at odds with the chaotic "panic" vibe I think you're reaching for. Also, I believe your status bar has just been painted the same color as your background - one can see the text sliding under the numbers on Layer 3 by looking carefully at the top of the screen.


I think I worked around the Layer 3 issue with a patch. The reason they are in columns is because the game was crashing when the player character touched the letters. I know how to fix it but full speed ahead! The crazy letter madness was kind of tedious to do.

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Work in progress though it may be, it's still looking very well executed. Truly fine work!

I still haven't gotten around to trying the demo proper as of yet... Better feedback to be provided [eventually] -


I can't wait. I am very interested in your feedback in particular.

The intro is not 100% finished but it's close enough. This is how it all begins. It is a rendition of the album's first two tracks.

Little boat, ocean's deep.

I am working on updating the main thread, it is going to have a ton of updated information. This project is becoming extremely ambitious. At present, I have added a full list of all the levels in the game. I always feel the need to remind that all of them are playable (though one or two are actually broken at the moment).

The idea of bragging is really not attractive to me but I think it's just an honest thing to say that this is going to be one of the biggest, longest Super Mario World hacks ever. There's still a long way to go and I've got a lot of work ahead. I hope you enjoy.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
I'm at work polishing off another level. This is actually one of the first levels I did for the game and it has seen a couple of distinct looks. It used to be a hilly, athletic style romp (with the game's first appearance of secret passages). The passages remain but the whole character of the level is different otherwise. What once was Harrowing Highlands is now the much brighter and more uplifting Fear For the Worst.



Though I am completely replacing the assets, levels and story in the game, there are still Super Mario World concepts which are still there and I have expanded these concepts considerably. Take the colors of the Yoshis and Koopa Troopas. Each of the colors indicates a different kind of ability, for both Koopas and Yoshis. This is still true. It also applies to the man's color schemes, each tied to a form.

Yoshi is now the friend you see in the gif above. It does not have a name. When the man on the boat was a boy without a boat, he was a lonely kid who only had that one faithful companion. Think of Hobbes for Calvin, only while Hobbes is kind of a conscience, the boy's stuffed companion is a protector, someone who makes him feel safe from all the bullies in the world.

The Koopas have become Bullies. They are, in general, faster and more aggressive than vanilla Troopas, and there is a rare fifth variety that is often not possible to destroy.

Anyway, back to the colors. In Ganymede, the four colors are tied to a pair of related emotions.

BLUE is the color or sadness. It is the man's default color scheme (his default form is as Super Mario btw). These bullies are slow and the least aggressive. Blue is also the color of sunny skies and an optimistic outlook.

RED is the color of burning anger. It is hard to not be pissed off at a world which seems determined to alienate you. When equipped with the Flame of Rage, the man gains a red color scheme, his glasses become shades (I'm weirdly proud of that detail) and launches extra spicy profanities every time you press the Y button. Fireballs, in other words. Red Bullies are territorial and fast, and they are immune to the weaponized swear words. Red is also the color of love, of glowing passion and deep affection, if you are able to find such things.

YELLOW is the color of fear. Yellow is, of course, a term which itself describes fear. It is the color of your pants when you get shocked into losing bladder integrity. Yellow is the color of the boy, who only stayed sane long enough to grow into a man because he had a strong imagination and a faithful friend. Yellow bullies are only natural, all bullies are scared little Sad Sacks behind their scary masks. They are fast, but not terribly inclined to pick a fight unless they know they can win. Yellow is also the color of a peaceful sunrise after a dark night, and perhaps that of a medal awarded for acts of bravery.

GREEN is the color of envy and of jealousy, of knowing other people have it better than you do and seeing no good reason for it. The man sports green while carrying the Sword of Soaring. Green bullies are also territorial and can be used for great aeronautic feats. Green is also the color of ambition, a desire to do better and to achieve more, which is naturally a better alternative to being a green jealousy monster.

Next post, I'll go into detail about gameplay elements, as Ganymede has a lot of unique aspects to classic features like Dragon Coins, regular coins, the timer, and more. Stay tuned!
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Hello adoring fans!

So, it's been about five months since I updated this thread. That may make you think I've let it go and it's just another dead hack. In actuality, it's alive and better than ever. I'm just really terrible about updating (let's be honest, WIP threads never get much traffic anyway).

So, here's the current situation: I tend to really go all-out in anticipation of C3 events, to where I spend six hours or more a day for the whole month doing a hundred kinds of things I need to do before I feel comfortable sharing my game with the rest of you. Standards are high, and standing out means putting in effort. I got great responses this year and that makes it all worthwhile. After C3, however, I feel burned out and need to step away from the project and gain perspective, do other things, and just let it pupate for awhile until it's time to come back and get moving again.

The one major aspect of Ganymede that has eluded me since it first became a serious project was how to tell the story to the player. I've had it in my head, in outline, since 2016, and little by little, details form, connections form, and it all starts to form organically. But I had not yet figured out how I could actually tell that story using Super Mario World as a game engine.

So, during my little sojourn, I set my mind to thinking about this really central problem, and I think I've figured it out. Ganymede is a story about feelings and emotions, and this part has always been so. Then I came across the wheel of emotions (there are several varieties, this is the one I chose):



I have enough levels to dedicate one to each of these secondary emotions. At first, I was going to make it an indirect account of the man's life and past, with each level themed around a specific event, tied to a specific emotion. But, it seemed really daunting to tell an entire tale around just this guy, who for all his present predicaments, was still just a normal guy.

What I decided on was to, instead, make his personal story the basis for a series of fables. Each level is going to tell a story of its own. Each level has a totally unique look and aesthetic (I have 382 ExGfx files on the rom at present) and will explore each of the emotions on the wheel, not necessarily in order.

You will still be able to learn more about the man and how he got to this island, as well. I love hiding secrets in my levels, every level has them, and finding these secrets will tell you more about who the man is. This is a question which requires making acquaintance with all the people who were left behind when the man sailed away. I've got a whole backstory and am building the characters who will represent parents, siblings, friends, bosses, lovers and all the faces you only ever see once. I'm so excited to bring it all into reality.

Ganymede is about not knowing what the right answers are and making the best choices you can in the moment. Taking a boat and going to sea on a whim is not usually a good choice, so it hopefully gets better from there.

Going this route, and using the wheel of emotions as a basis, means that the time has come for major changes to come to the world maps and the overall order of the levels. It will be a challenge to find the perfect arrangement since there are so many secret exits now available for use. Oh yeah, I've also taken advantage of the new features of Lunar Magic 3 and am in the process of revising levels found in the demos to take advantage of the new vertical dimensions made available. So, if you've played any of the demos, you'll have a new experience the next time I drop one.

Here's some new stuff to look at:



The first new character is Grover. He meets you soon after arriving, because he had a dream in which The Man in Charge told him to wait on the beach, because you were going to wash up there. Grover can hold a conversation, and although he doesn't seem to have many answers to the shipwrecked sailor's many questions, he does have a working set of wings and helps set you on your initial path.



This is The Man in Charge. He walks through dreams and, it would seem, has some talent for predicting what is to come and being correct about it. His motives are unclear, but that is a smile you can't help but trust.



There was a point at which I came to understand that this little project I did in my free time could, one day, become something I might feel proud to show off. At this point, I had been replacing each level of SMW in sequence, making whole new levels, all following the same trajectory as the vanilla map. Originally Forest of Illusion 4, this level became The Brasswood Monster, and by the time I was done, I felt like I had a knack for doing this and sure that I wanted to take it all the way. By 2019, the level had become pretty out of date and so it was time to begin its transformation into what it will be.



Of all the level styles SMW has to offer, ghost houses have always been my favorites to re-make. The concept of ghost houses no longer exists in Ganymede, but I still have some waiting to be transformed into whatever they're going to become, and the House of Many Teeth was (in the original Thoughtful Mario World) the last and most challenging of them.



This is the first room of one of the game's final levels, and it's one that I designed to be really difficult for myself. The Halls of Scission is a level you can only access after you've overcome most of the challenges and gained the necessary wisdom. It's a grueling marathon with four parts. Enlightenment requires a little suffering.

Finally, if you haven't played the game yet and would like to, the Winter 2019 C3 Demo can be found here. It is the most up-to-date public demo. Brasswood Monster and The House of Many Teeth are not playable in this demo, but there are others I did not mention. Hope you have fun, and I'm always really happy when someone has something to say about it. So don't be shy!

https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/25495/Ganymede%2BC3%2BWinter%2B2019.zip
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Hello.

So, I've been sparsely attending SMWC services lately. I was making Ganymede on a 2009-era HP computer, which got too slow to really even be functional. I'm really cheap and I spend little money on anything, so I went for about five months without a PC, and therefore progress appears to have ground to a halt.

However, I do still have a phone, and there's a whole story for Ganymede that has, in large part, existed in my own head (it's okay, I'm good at keeping things there). This seemed like a good opportunity to shift focus away from the game building aspect and towards actually pulling this thing out of my head and making it a little more real.

Ganymede's story is told through a series of poems. Some of them are vignettes, focusing on the man and the people in his life. Some of them are fables, which take a more oblique look at his feelings and motivations. And then, there are those which tell the story as it is happening. My idea is to tie each level to one of these poems. I wrote over 40 of the 75 (or so) I intend to complete.

And now I have a working PC (for now, at least) so I have a lot of work to do. My goal is to have a new demo ready for C3, and then be done with those early levels and get to work integrating the dozens of others and upgrading them (some of them are extra janky looking because I have not updated them after making major changes elsewhere).

ALL WASHED UP

It looks like he has made it.
It seems like he's okay.

How he got here's all a blur, though.
His memories are vague.

Crash of lightning, ocean roars
Ripped his boat to pieces, then
dumped him on the shore.

No one to join him or leave him behind.
No one to help him, so far from mankind
No one to talk to, not that he's inclined.
No one except him.
And he thinks that’s just fine.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Yo that hack sure is neat! I hope Ganymede goes back home with his dog, also nice gfx as well
i also hope you release the demo soon, i am impatient UwU
I was starting to get worried that the project was shelved, given how rare you were. Glad to know that things are still proceeding!
Certainly looking forward to the new demo and story bits, as well.

As for story progression, you give a variety of poems that dole out story bits, but are they still intended to be written into sections of the level themselves or do you plan on displaying it any other way?


Other Submissions of mine!
A lot of them will be part of the levels themselves (I think of it like you're playing across a page of a storybook), but quite a few of them are speech, and those will probably display via message box.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame


This is the prologue, redone and maximized for this new, plague-ridden decade. Creating this required the use of 30 ExGFX files, and I find myself really enjoying being able to stretch them to the limit. When you don't have to construct entire levels, you can really get a lot of detail in there.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Big Celeste energy with that intro, and that’s definitely a good thing

allow shy guy emojis in post footers you cowards!
Dang, I have been loosely following this for quite a bit and I gotta say, this might be the Story hack to end all Story hacks out there. Keep this up dude!
Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

Thank you all.

My goal is to have a full demo ready for C3. This demo will include the entire first chapter, with six levels. Completing the demo will open up some more levels for you to try, as a bonus. I'm still working a full-time, newly-essential job while most of the world has shut down, which will be my excuse if I don't deliver. But I think I will!



GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Boy, this hack have so much potential, looking forward to it, it will for sure be well known
I really love how the cape became some kind of flame sword thing
Keep up the good job #smw{:TUP:}
Originally posted by Von Fahrenheit
Big Celeste energy with that intro.

Right? I had the same impression
The latest level is The Dying Light.

This is the third level. If you've played any of the demos over the years, you've played some much more primitive version of this level. It's probably my favorite yet.



You'll note that there is also a new HUD which has new counters on it.

HEALTH remains as before, a great little system created by MarioFanGamer.

FOOD is found throughout many levels. In the future, this will help you be more effective with your jump attack. The more food you eat, the more likely a jump will harm the target. If your stomach is empty, you'll probably just bounce off their heads harmlessly. This system has not yet been implemented in the game.

WATER is vital to your survival, and continuously depletes. If you run out, you will succumb to thirst. Water can be found throughout levels, and you also get some from eating, too.

FLASK holds extra water. When you collect water, you take a sip and store one in the flask. You can drink from the flask whenever, and your WATER will increase, but if you happen to run out of water, you'll drink whatever is in the flask automatically. The flask gets
spilled and loses its contents whenever you take damage. It can hold 99 extra water, any water collected afterwards is drunken immediately and added to WATER.

DREAMS is, in essence, a death counter for a game where you don't die. You just wake up from one dream and begin another right away. Ganymede is long and occasionally pretty hard, so it's a way to score your performance. It doesn't affect the game in any other way.

Thanks to Darolac for his creation of the water system. You're a real hero to me, and I am very grateful!

Other ASM patch I have in mind:

-Deplete the timer at a 1.5% rate when running and swimming.
-The FOOD system, as described above.
-Display completion percentage on overworld map (by dividing the current number of exits by a user-defined number of maximum exits)
-Make spin jump cost 2 coins.

I have really big plans for Ganymede. I also want to do a hard mode, with variations to make the whole thing much more challenging, and bundle both versions together for a really big experience that I really hope I can hook you into.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Originally posted by Ondore's Lies
If you've played any of the demos over the years, you've played some much more primitive version of this level.

Ah, I do remember this one. Always glad to see this thing moving ever forward!

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FLASK holds extra water. When you collect water, you take a sip and store one in the flask. You can drink from the flask whenever, and your WATER will increase, but if you happen to run out of water, you'll drink whatever is in the flask automatically. The flask gets spilled and loses its contents whenever you take damage. It can hold 99 extra water, any water collected afterwards is drunken immediately and added to WATER.

Do I assume correctly that the main WATER value has a hard cap that has to be played around? I imagine it'd have to, otherwise the flask is little more than "water you can lose by getting hit," meaning the optimal strategy is to drink the flask as soon as possible whenever possible. Or have I misunderstood?

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Other ASM patch I have in mind:

-Deplete the timer at a 1.5% rate when running and swimming.
-The FOOD system, as described above.
-Display completion percentage on overworld map (by dividing the current number of exits by a user-defined number of maximum exits)
-Make spin jump cost 2 coins.

At least two of these are pretty doable off the cuff:



The others aren't really that bad either, just a little tedious to get into on a whim. Hopefully this is a start at least. I continue to wish you all the best with your project!
Wow, that's incredible. Thank you so much for that, Maarfy!

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Do I assume correctly that the main WATER value has a hard cap that has to be played around? I imagine it'd have to, otherwise the flask is little more than "water you can lose by getting hit," meaning the optimal strategy is to drink the flask as soon as possible whenever possible. Or have I misunderstood?

At present, there is no cap on how much water you can have at once. It is generally good to drink water whenever you can, but you keep whatever is in the flask when you beat a level (and there are bonus areas where you can fill it up at will), so you can take a full flask with you into other levels, where you might really need it.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Maarfy truly makes the dream work. Cheers for letting our weird indie hacks come to life! The hack itself seems like it's coming along quite well, especially with that very snazzy HUD layout you designed. But a few notes:

• At around 0:51, is that a message block? I'm guessing you blocked out the entire area simply to obfuscate the layer 3 weirdness that happens when you activate one of those?
• Since water is a coin analogue and Blockreator has a section for coin behavior, would you/have you considered a variety of water "amounts" that vary on size? Or possibly a pool of water that fills the canteen all the way instead of just collecting an entire screen's worth of droplets?
• As good as the HUD is, it does have one problem: one half of the numbers are harder to see than the others. 3s look like 8s in particular.
• Did you not like the original jump sound? You've replaced a lot of sounds with SMAS styled ones, but the lack of a jump sound is quite noticeable.


Other Submissions of mine!

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