Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip - Works in Progress

Hello one and all. I'm Biospark88. You may not know me, but I'm one of the older dogs in the ROM hacking community. I got into it back in '06 and '07 but quit for a long, LONG time mainly due to the stress of school. Back then, I was quite the regular on Acmlm's Board and Board 2, with my old handle Phazorite.

I'm just now getting back up to speed. I've revived my longest, proudest project already, but in the meantime I've decided to make a humble little vanilla hack.

Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip is based on Mario drinking a bad batch of Kool-Aid (how did it get into the Mario universe? Oh wait, never question Nintendo Logic!) and finding himself on a surreal island themed after the flavors of our beloved All-American sugar bomb.

I plan to release this as a YouTube miniseries in the future, but now it's just in its earliest stages. I'll have some screenies of the custom palettes up soon. ;)

NOTE: I'll be on vacation with no access to a computer for almost 2 weeks starting Sunday, so don't be surprised if you see nothing until then. Just a word of warning :\

"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

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Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip

It's generally a good idea not to open a hack thread until you've got some sort of visual material ready (screenshots, videos, whatever). What kind of feedback do you expect from people otherwise?

For now I'm going to just move this thread to the WIP subforum. Make sure to get some screenshots ready in time, or else this thread might have to be closed. (Less than a day would be ideal, but you seem to be absent for the next few days... yet another reason why you should have waited with opening this thread. Oh well.)

As promised, I have three screenies of my palettes. Hopefully this will get your appetites whetted for more. I created these mainly to hone my skills with custom palettes.

Blueberry Haunts (name tentative). I have yet to realize this level's design, so I used Valley Ghost House as a placeholder. I'm thinking of making the gas bubble's palette animate between light and dark blues.

Key Lime Cavern. This level is more puzzle-oriented and includes pools of highly corrosive lime juice (aka recolored lava). What you see here is just a test room before I actually make the real thing.

And finally:

Strawberry Bluffs, which combines platforming with a creating-eating block segment I'm currently designing. It's one of my favorite sprites in the game--such a shame more hackers don't utilize it.
And after I return from vacation, stay tuned for a translucent cave portion with some Layer 2 gimmicks.

And yes, I know there is cutoff there. It will be fixed before submission.

Please don't be too hard on me--I was never an expert, and I'm returning after a long hiatus. But fear not--I have great ambitions for my other hack, and I'm taking my time to become a featured hack author. Sooner or later, you'll see the fruits of my labor

"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

Supporting:

Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip

Looks okay. The palettes blend well together for me, I like them. The yoshi coin looks odd though with the flashing yellow and some blue edges. Yellow and blue don't go too well together. If you're using lunar magic 1.8x you can go to Level>Edit Animation Settings... and uncheck the 'Enable original game's palette animation' and change palette 6,4 to blue.

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The palettes are good, but there is no enemies and no source of fun gameplay value from what you've shown. Key Lime Cavern (cool name, BTW) is just a flat piece of ground and a wall from our view. Show us more, and we could get more interested in your hack.

Hey, I'm Riot. I used to use this website a lot but it has been quite a while since I've been a part of it. Help me out with any of the changes; it'd be much appreciated.

The ideas are pretty neat. Im not american or wherever cool aid is sold so Ive never tryed it but I like how levels are representing flavours with some trippy pallettes. Nice work!

The palettes look quite go, besides the last one, which looks a little eye-searing. I would darken the dots in the dirt there.

Originally posted by 1UPdudes

The ideas are pretty neat. Im not american or wherever cool aid is sold so Ive never tryed it but I like how levels are representing flavours with some trippy pallettes. Nice work!

Kool-Aid is American sugar-water, but still healthier than soda.

I didn't say anything before, but you should really fix the cutoff in the 3rd screen shot.

Hey, I'm Riot. I used to use this website a lot but it has been quite a while since I've been a part of it. Help me out with any of the changes; it'd be much appreciated.

Originally posted by Riot898

The palettes are good, but there is no enemies and no source of fun gameplay value from what you've shown. Key Lime Cavern (cool name, BTW) is just a flat piece of ground and a wall from our view. Show us more, and we could get more interested in your hack.

As he has said this is just to demonstrate some of the palettes for now.

On my oppinion? It looks great but bad cutoff in the third screenshot.

So remember kids! If you ever get caught having tosave a princess from a foreign land after getting dragged down a drain pipe, jumping while spinning in a circle can help you greatly by allowing you to jump on spinning saw blades, ghosts, and allow you to control your jump better!

The palettes are pretty nice, except for Strawberry Bluffs, which rather hurts my eyes. :/

Good fucking bye.

Thanks everyone for the generally positive reviews. I won't have access to Lunar Magic for a week since im on vacation, but I design all my levels on paper first so I can still make some silent progress while I'm away. Good things come to those who wait! I can still login from time to time though.

So the pink is too bright? Should I reduce the saturation or just darken it? And about the dots--if they get any darker the outlines look weird and the ground looks really flat.

And thanks a ton cyphermur for telling me how to disable the Dragon Coin's flash.

Biospark88 out!

"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

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Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip

Why not try use a palette that looks more like the surface of a strawberry? you know red with light dots.

Something like this:

I just did a quick palette edit for reference.

My Current Hacking Project: "Static E"
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Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip (maybe?)

Originally posted by Lost ECHO

Why not try use a palette that looks more like the surface of a strawberry? you know red with light dots.

Something like this:

I just did a quick palette edit for reference.

That looks awful.

SMWC's official dentist since 2011.

YouTube - Threads - Bluesky

Originally posted by Lost ECHO

Why not try use a palette that looks more like the surface of a strawberry? you know red with light dots.

Something like this:

I just did a quick palette edit for reference.

If you changed the green inside the red dirt to a different color (Black or a darker red) And made the grass darker it would look a lot better.

Slowly regaining interest in hacking

As I said it was only for reference not an actual palette to be used.

My Current Hacking Project: "Static E"
Supporting:
Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip (maybe?)

Thanks for your patience so far, viewers. I'm enjoying my low key getaway in Monterey, Calif. But don't think I haven't made progress. I've finished most of my Strawberry Scramble (new name) sketch and should be well into another by the time I return home. If all goes well, expect a YouTube video before the end of August.

And I have three more levels in brainstorming phase: Cherry Cauldron (lava), Spearmint Serac (ice) and Grape Expectations (a partially underwater castle). Screenies will be posted next week.

A word of warning: school starts in mid September, and I simply can't combine college and hacking. I may login now and then but don't expect any progress till the quarter ends.

"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

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Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip

So how many levels are you planing. I know off the top of my head there are a good dozen different flavors of Kool-aid. Also are you going to do "Special" levels for Kool-aid's special mixes (like the Mystery Color mix) they sometimes sell?

My Current Hacking Project: "Static E"
Supporting:
Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip (maybe?)

A suggest, why not to include also Tang and Zuko levels? X)

For the people that ask about "Zuko" is almost the same as Kool-aid but more natural.

Check out my levels in SMM2, including a remake of my old hack "Super Mario Epic 2 DX". Maker ID: 1XL-B6V-N5G

Goodbye SMWCentral and happy hacking :)

I was initially planning to make only 6 or so, but I'd say about 12 levels plus a few secret ones. And most levels will have a secret exit.I really like the idea of a mystery flavor. Maybe that could be the final level.

How's this for a secret: Tang tower? It'd be in a small secret submap accessed by secret exits. It'll be a sort of garbage dump called the Pit of Rejected Flavors. The main overworld will contain the rest of the game.

Stay tuned!

"(Z->)90° - (E-N²W)90°t=1"

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Current project: Mario's Kool-Aid Acid Trip

It would be funny if you made the final boss into the Kool-Aid Man, heheheh

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