Saph and the Great Rebellion - Demo Release!

Greetings, denizens of SMWCentral! As a longtime user, staff member, and resident cute alien thingie drawer of this site, it might seem kind of silly that I have not made any hacks yet in all my years here. Well, the fact of the matter is that almost three years ago I resolved to change that, and began a project known as "Saph and the Great Rebellion," in which the player character is a Buzzy Beetle general who along with an army of other disgruntled members of his kind is fighting for his job back after the entire Buzzy Beetle platoon was laid off due to funding cuts.



Over the years I occasionally released small playable tidbits of the game, showcasing its unique playstyle and level design - Saph doesn't jump like Mario does, but rather he instead can scale every wall and ceiling he comes across, and dispatches enemies via his shell spin ability.





Furthermore, the game can, strictly speaking, be controlled with only one hand - all of Saph's in-level actions make use only of the directional D-Pad buttons, while the A, B, X, Y, L, and R buttons are not needed at all during gameplay. However, it has now been a long time since I really did or publicly mentioned anything regarding the hack's progress or release. Well, the truth of the matter is...


...I have come here to inform you that a Two-World Demo of my hack is here and available for download! I've been working on this project the whole time whenever I had a chance between school and family obligations and the like, and this is what I have to show for it. I hope you enjoy!

Download Download Download!

The file includes the game, and also a readme explaining the controls in detail, which will certainly come in handy. Minor story details and credits are included as well.

And as a final word, I would like to express my utmost grattitude toward two very special users whose names both happen to start with the letter "A." Alcaro is the one who from the beginning ensured that the wall-climbing, shell-slamming goodness of this hack were functional at all through the use of his amazing coding skills. Meanwhile, Azure, who has always been very special to me, provided me with beta testing, support, love, and most importantly, she is the one responsible for coding the two completely unique custom bosses that are featured in this version of Saph, as well as some of the music, and a certain particular powerup! Thank you so much, both of you! I would like to request to the C3 judges that should any awards be handed out for this entry, that any trophies won be also given to the other two users I mentioned above, as they were arguably just as important to this project's creation as I was, if not more. ^_^;

Hey! I remember this hack way back when in 2008, I posted in your old thread. It always looked cool how you could walk on walls and spin around in a little shell, so I'll be sure to check out the new demo.

I remember this hack as well. I think Megafonzie played an old version in his stream before, and I thought it was pretty neat how the whole hack was made and such. I'll definitely play this sometime.

Hey, this hack again! I remember this from 2, maybe 3 C3s ago? I'll be sure to play it!

I've never seen this before. The idea of a buzzy beetle is awesome! It's a must play for me!

Fantastic looking hack! The concept and the gameplay of it look very unique!

Heh. I've played to about the first level with a secret exit (maybe a bit after?), and it's actually pretty fun. I love the fact that you can play this hack with only one hand. Very, very great job here, Raibys. :3

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Good fucking bye.

Unlike most of the people here, I never heard of this hack before (I should check WIP threads more often), and I have to say the concept is verry unique, not only the character is not mario, but the whole gameplay is different from the original SMW and most of the hacks.

I will probably play this when the full version is out. Exelent job Raibys.

I love the idea of this hack, and I liked the new controls that went with it, but there were some small problems I found. I've only played up to Amethyst Arches, and there are some minor things I just wanted to point out.

1. Cutoff





In these two places, the net bars dont exacly touch the ground. Editing the GFX of the ground will easily solve this problem.


Also when Saph is running up a hill and turns the corner, his sprite changes into this:



The cutoff here makes it look like Saph is floating in mid-air, maybe some GFX editing would help? No really too sure, since I've never made my own character.

Fixing the cutoff will make the hack look nicer.

2. A Glitch *EDIT* This Glitch has been Fixed!

At Granite Grotto I was at this part of the level:


And then.....this happened when I ran back across it:



And when I ran across it normally:




I'm not sure what happened here, but that layout of blocks (The three gray blocks) needs to be changed. Also if this block layout exists anywhere else in the hack, I would change it because this might be level breaking.



He shouldn't be able to reach here.


3. One More Thing
At the start of Amethyst Arches, why can't Saph run up this wall?



Yeah, I know its the wall next to the beginning of the entrance and not many people would actually want to go back up, but there should be an 'X' block to signify you can't go up there. Otherwise it is inconsistent with the rest of the cavern walls in the game.

Otherwise, this is a great hack. The Music choices were good, the ExGFX were nice, and the concept and new controls were something new. Most of the problems here are minor and could easily be fixed.
Keep up the good work! I'm looking foward to the later levels.

Things like minor cutoff, I'll get to later. However, I fixed the little wall climby glitches you found. In both cases it was just the misplacement of a single tile that messed things up. No big deal to fix, really. The ZIP should have those little problems fixed now.

Also, I'm glad the overall response to this hack seems to be positive. ^_^;

I'll be submitting this to the hacks section a little after C3, once I see what all I ought to change regarding this version.

Getting to play this hack throughout its development has been fun, and it's really great to see the positive reaction to Raibys' hack. It makes him really happy, and it makes me happy too

Wait...can I still post in here? :o

C3 is over now, guys. I thank you all for your comments and feedback, and if you or anyone else has anything more to say about this hack, please take your discussion to the hack's Works-in-Progress-Forum thread.