Merry Christmas to you all! As my gift, I present to you all a lengthy demo of my Super Mario World hack, "The Forever Mystery Part One: Rescue!" It's not complete and probably never will be, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Here are some screens to draw you into the trying the game:





This is my attempt at proving that there can still be a good hack using many of the original game components. There are a few modified graphics of the original SMW tilesets and a few small custom graphics but no outside graphics except one bonus level at the end of the game.

I STRONGLY recommend reading the included Readme for details on the game, known bugs and explanations about the Bonus Content listed in the Other Things section.

I want to thank everyone that supported my hack throughout the year it's been in development. Without you guys, I'd have had no reason to pull this hack off the shelf two days before Christmas to fix it for release for all to enjoy. Thanks a lot.

Enough talking from me, (though you'll get a ton of it in the Readme ) just go on and enjoy the game!

Here's the link: Link.

Ooo, I liked the prologue, I'll definitely check this out. Looking from the screens I'd suggest that you put corners on the pipe level, but other than that it looks fine.

where can i get the prologue?

Here.

Very nice hack from what I've played thus far, though I seem to have found a rather problematic bug...

If you die in Bowser's Castle (second visit) after hitting the midpoint, when you reenter the stage, you shoot out of a cannon pipe and end up here:



You can't move to the right, and moving to the left causes you to take mysterious damage. There doesn't seem to be any way of exiting this area other than pressing start and select, which renders the stage impossible to complete if the midpoint is hit.

On a more minor note, the midpoint in Confusion Forest 5 doesn't seem to have any effect at all...

Yikes. Never noticed that. I sent Tatrion a fixed version so now you'll just have to wait until he puts that one up.

The reason that happened is just because I made the entrance back into the castle without thinking about the fact that I had set a No Vertical Scroll for that part of the level.

As for the Midway Point not working, I don't know why it's not working for you. I looked at it in LM and playtested and it worked fine for me.

Confusing Forest 5 is the one where you climb the tree, right? I thought I hit that midpoint, but I actually didn't, so that might be the problem there, cause it works for me.

Ace hack. There are so many side paths that I'm not sure if I'll find them all before christmas break ends.

I don't know what the problem could be. Maybe it's something about it being a vertical level. Those seem to do strange things every once in a while.

The fixed patch has been uploaded by Tatrion so you can now complete Bowser's Castle without fears of getting perma-stuck.

All right, with the castle glitch fixed, I managed to play all the way through. Extremely impressive all around. Despite the lack of ExGFX, the hack manages to pull off a very distinct visual style and mood. The storyline twists and non-linear overworld travel are nice touches as well--I especially like the Bowser battle/Princess rescue occurring so early in the game. I'd really love to see this followed through to its completion.

A few more specific comments...

1. Mario's looking rather pale on the overworld. Are you sure he's feeling all right?

2. I quite prefer your dark blue pallet to the original game's, which always seemed to veer just a teensy bit too much toward the purple side. However, the blue Koopa Troopa's shoes now suddenly get darker when it's knocked out of its shell. Then again, these are the same shoes that can change color depending on what shell their owner is currently wearing, so maybe that's not so odd.

3. The post-castle #3 message makes reference to Lemmy's "back castle". I'm assuming this is supposed to be "black castle", unless his front castle exists as a hidden stage

4. Putting the special item boxes directly inside abnormally irksome stages probably isn't a good idea. If the player accidentally picks up a powerup or gets hit causing the item to fall from the box before the point where it is supposed to be used, they are forced to trek all the way through the stage again in order to get another. I can understand why you might not want them to have such easy access to the special items (especially the spring board), but it seems a rather skewed trade off for the points where they're essential...

5. Time limits are just a little too stingy in a few stages. It doesn't really affect the difficulty of any particular stage, but I do end up hearing the "hurry up!" fanfare quite a lot, which of course is extremely emotionally distressing. Personally, I always thought the timer itself was a bit of a relic--an unnecessary holdover from rush-to-the-right can't-even-go-backwards style of the original SMB. SMW, on the other hand, allows much more opportunity for exploring and fooling around, and I always liked to take advantage of these. And honestly, the timer doesn't even have any in-game explanation. Why is Mario plagued by a mysterious countdown? Why does it cause him to die when it runs out? Why does hitting a goalpost nullify it? 'Tis one of the great mysteries of our time. Again, that's all just my personal preference; it's hardly an intrinsic flaw as is.

6. In the forest part of the last level, a flopping Cheep-Cheep briefly changes into a Piranha Plant stem. Such an amusing reversal!

7. Swoopers and spike tops make hilariously good stand-ins for metroid enemies. Bullet Bills less so, and they shoot out from odd places. The one who appears a significant distance above the recessed pipe especially bothers me.

8. The readme is a filthy liar--there is too a yellow switch palace in the game! If you press right after beating the last stage, Mario will walk off the map. Press up after this, and you can access the palace. It will even distribute the yellow blocks once you beat it! What it won't do, however, is save, and you can't get back onto the map once you walk off, so this beating it won't really do you any good, but it's fun to do in any case.

But that's all a mass of absurdly minor quibbling. What you've got here is an extremely enjoyable hack which manages to feel fresh and innovative without drastically altering the game play or throwing in most of the traditional bells and whistles. Excellent work on all fronts.

nice also how did you edit the bar at the top

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Comments in bold.


Thanks for all of your comments and I'm glad you enjoyed the hack.