SMW Central Hall of Fame - Community Nominations for Past Years

Similar to the yearly nomination threads for the Hall of Fame we are looking for your input on hacks that will go into the classes for years past when the committee convenes around those years to retroactively do a class for a given year. Likewise, try to nominate forgotten gems or low profile releases that might fly under the radar of the Hall of Fame committee as they will very likely be aware of notable hacks, e.g, JUMP 1/2 or Grand Poo World 2.

What you nominated here must also be hacks that are published on SMW Central and available for people to play, which means we will not be considering off-site or "file bin" hacks as we cannot vouch for their quality or the intentions of the author as to its publication.

Rules for Nominations

• Do not nominate your own project(s)
  It should goes without saying that this isn't a thread to promote yourself or projects you were involved in but to advocate for the efforts of others.


• Provide some project details
  When nominating a project, go into a bit of detail about what the project is, who is involved, and if possible provide a link to it.


• State the Year and type of hack
  Put the year each nomination was released and what category of hack it belongs to (Standard, Kaizo) so that information can be easily picked out by folks when they go through the replies. (The year will be considered the year of release not the year it ended up in the SMW Central archive, e.g. Kaizo Mario World is 2007, not 2017 as it says on its page.)


• Justify your nomination(s)
  Provide a (brief) reason why you are nominating a hack and why you think or feel the hack should be in the Hall of Fame. Don't just comment "I love this hack please feature it!"


• Keep your nomination(s) a reasonable amount
  Also for the sake of keeping things easy to follow in the thread replies don't nominate dozens of hacks at once, try to be selective and meaningful about your choices.

Importantly: do not argue against other people's nominations, if you do that we will simply remove your comment(s). You are free to support a nomination that has already been made by seconding it or providing a nomination of your own for the same project.

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This thread is for nominations only, if you have questions or a point to discuss about this process please use the Hall of Fame's feedback thread or reach out to PR staff.

I am nominating Grand Poo World 2 (Kaizo - Expert, 2019). The game by BarbarousKing not only has incredible music and level design but the creativity of the puzzle needed for the best ending and the multiple endings proves a game that many will remember long after other Kaizo hacks blend in our memories. I especially loved the cameos of various Mario streamers and almost all the choices of music, some of which were ported specifically for this hack.

https://www.smwcentral.net//?p=section&a=details&id=19541

I suppose that none of these exactly qualify as "low profile releases", but in any case I'd be quite sad if any of them were overlooked, so here are my nominations:

Item Abuse (2009, Tool-Assisted: Pit)
The original Item Abuse. All these years later, it is still a good entryway to pit hacks, and its legacy can hardly be overstated.

ColonThree (2012, Tool-Assisted: Pit)
When it was released in 2012, it was both by far the longest pit hack out there and also one of the most creative ones. Quite a few of the setups seen in the kaizo and pit hacks which came after this can be directly or indirectly traced back to ColonThree. It also marks the first time that certain glitches were abused in a hack, with the mushroom clip in the ghost house section being perhaps the most interesting example (a glitch that, to my knowledge, is unique to ColonThree). While in terms of sheer difficulty, ColonThree has long been surpassed by other hacks and is by modern standards fairly "approachable" for a pit hack, it is still not to be underestimated and provides a challenge that I would recommend to anyone trying to deepen their understanding of Mario's movement mechanics. One tiny thing I personally appreciate about this hack are the occasional text snippets providing a vague story; they add to the hack in a way that hasn't been done in any pit hack (or generally, in fairly few) hacks since.

Cool or Cruel Stage 12 - Tubular (2014, Tool-Assisted: Kaizo)
The home of the infamous Fruit Dealer. Source of inspiration of many kaizo hacks following it. Even a decade later, we still see newly released levels that are directly based on portions of this level. Do I have to say more?

Item Abuse 3 (2015, Tool-Assisted: Pit)
When this was released in 2015, it was seen by many as the definitive answer to the long-standing question "How difficult and precise can an SMW hack be?". And even though Item Abuse 3 is generally no longer considered to be the hardest hack out there, it still provides a fair bit of challenge to anyone attempting it. Of course, the interesting question here is how that difficulty is achieved. While a good chunk of the difficulty comes from tricks that can reasonably be considered "overused" (e.g. shell jump chains), the perhaps hardest room, a hectic autoscroller focussing on long-distance block duplication, is unlike any of the pit hacks that came before. A pit hack that I would still recommend to anyone trying to test their TASing skills.

ARMAGEDDON (2021, Tool-Assisted: Pit)
An extremely long, creative and technically demanding pit hack. In its 20+ minutes of gameplay, it manages to keep innovation high, with each minute of gameplay containing several never-before-seen tricks and obscure glitches. It is also notable for its complete lack of pit hack tropes (e.g. it does not contain any shell jump chains). Complemented by a tasteful soundtrack and custom graphics, watching this hack is a treat and I'd recommend it to everyone.