Awesome hacking ideas

"Mario the Really Useful Engine":

Here's another idea I've come up with, inspired by a popular Sonic 1 hack called "Sonic the Very Useful Engine" by VadaPega. Whenever you collect even a single coin, the music will turn into a full, 16-Bit rendition of the Thomas theme in SMW's instruments, similar to the Sonic hack. Also, when riding Yoshi (who would be redone to look like a tank locomotive), the drums should be replaced with a "chuffing" sound. And the Koopalings could become engines, with Bowser becoming Sir Topham Hatt (The Fat Controller), who replaced Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic hack.

And after accessing the Special World, Mario's face turns Grey, with big eyes and a small, rounded nose, and he gains a "funnel" coming out of his hat. The same thing should happen to Luigi, so you wouldn't have to be Mario to get it to work.

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Why haven't there been any hacks with Birdo as the main character? This site has all the bits and pieces needed to build a Birdo-themed SMW hack.

I'd build one, but I don't have the patience to see something through that could end up taking upwards of three or four months (for a BASIC hack).

I also don't want to spend such a long time building something...only to have it rejected for some reason or other.

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The meaning of life is 42 because potato.

I don't feed trolls. I feed THEM to Cthulhu. He finds them DELICIOUS.

because no-one likes birdo. birdo is the least-likeable mario character

assuming you like birdo: no offense

How about a Five Nights At Freddy's styled hack?

Mario would be in a small room trying not to get killed by animatronics.

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Formerly known as nick 139
My YouTube channel

I seriously wonder how that would work. Maybe the doors could be on/off solid blocks that eat up some kind of power and the light buttons could be separate entities that use ExAnimation lighting, and sometimes would reveal something undesirable. As for the camera feeds and jump scares, I have no idea.

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Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

Okay, the suggestion of a kangaroo as a player character nearly killed this thread.

Let me try a couple other ideas (not related to player characters):

1. You start each level with 99 units on the clock. To keep the timer from expiring, you need to find coins. Each coin = 1 second added to the clock. Each Yoshi coin = 20 seconds. The timer maxes out at 99, however.

2. Or, the faster you move, the slower your rather limited timer counts down. In other words, keep moving to stay alive!

3. What about a "master timer", which starts with 999 units, and counts down while you are in a level. To replenish this timer, you need to collect coins, like in 1. above.

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The meaning of life is 42 because potato.

I don't feed trolls. I feed THEM to Cthulhu. He finds them DELICIOUS.

Or, what if to make it harder, the timer wrapped around from 99 to 0, so if it exceeds 99, you die? So you have to move wisely.

That could be a potentially puzzling idea. What I think of is if Mario is always jumping, and he has a long tail that prevents him from being able to move backwards. IDK how that would work in a side scrolling setting but if possible, maybe it could be a top down view and he can only turn around by doing a u-turn.

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Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

That's sort of what the Sheila levels are like in Spyro 2: Season of Flame for the GBA. Sheila's a young kangaroo (she hasn't gotten her pouch yet), who keeps having trouble dealing with Rhynocs messing up the various domains of her Outback (one level has her planting flowers that the Rhynocs trampled, another has her thaw out space heaters that froze over).

Here's the basic movelist that I would suggest for a kangaroo character:

--Tail-balance Double Kick

--Tail Sweep (replaces cape swipe; turns Turn Blocks/breaks bricks from the side)

--Punch

--Springboard Jump (jump, then bounce off of your tail by pressing the jump button in mid-air, just like Gex)

--Ground Pound (works just like in Yoshi's Island)

I've already got ideas for the names for two games based on this theme:

Mario Down Under

Mario Down Under 2: Lost in the Outback

Some names for levels:

Mugwomp Stomp

Nullarbor Pains

Sydney Opera House of Horrors

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The meaning of life is 42 because potato.

I don't feed trolls. I feed THEM to Cthulhu. He finds them DELICIOUS.

Birdo's the most hated Mario character, eh? I find that hard to believe. That means the likes of Waluigi, Tatanga, and that rabbit thief in NSMBU place ahead of her.

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I wish there was a fist-bump emoticon, Proto Stratos. You hit the nail right on the head--sure, Birdo's an often-overlooked Mario character.

But, she might become a popular choice if the following is considered:


Create a powerup that functions like Birdo's eggs, in that you can jump on them, and either ride them as moving platforms, or pick them up while riding them, and use them like a single-use turtle shell (they fall off-screen upon hitting a solid object, but will plow through enemies like a turtle shell).

On top of the platform and turtle-shell uses, you can still use the eggs as basic projectiles.

A 3-in-1 projectile powerup! Beat that!

UPDATE: It's official--I appear to be SMWCentral's official "thread-killer". (Nearly) every time I post in a thread, I'm the last one to post in it, at least for a long time.

WHY IS THE WORLD SO CRUEL TO ME?! URGH! *turns into Hulk, smashes computer, then walks away, dejected, leaving hole in wall*

Note that last two-line "rant" was meant as a joke. However, I would really appreciate it if anyone (besides me) started posting in this thread again. It's not like there's a sudden shortage of "awesome hacking ideas" or anything.

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The meaning of life is 42 because potato.

I don't feed trolls. I feed THEM to Cthulhu. He finds them DELICIOUS.

Someone should totally make a SMW hack featuring Venezuelan buses.

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Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

Aw, come on! HuFlungDu has already made a Desert Bus hack. Do we really need more bus-themed SMW hacks? Soon there will be so many, we'll need a new sub-forum under SMW Hacking.

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Not really an idea in the game sense, but a Mario World hacking smartphone app would be a pretty neat thing to have. Like, something that lets you use the equivalent of Lunar Magic, Sprite Tool, Block Tool and AddMusic K on a touch screen phone. You could end up making levels and ROM hacks on the commute to work/school/university.

It'd also help promote the hobby, since many of todays kids and gamers tend to use their desktop computers less and less, and many find the interfaces in the tools here rather archaic (especially all the command line ones). Imagine SMW hacking with a really cool modern looking GUI that let you make hacks just by flicking the screen.

Or if you could draw landmasses like in Smash Bros for Wii U's level editor, so you'd draw a shape on the touch screen and it'd try and auto fill it with the right tiles. No more carefully having to place blocks in rows.

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For gaming news and Wario discussions, check out Gaming Reinvented and Wario Forums respectively.

As for Mario's Nightmare Quest? Well, it's currently on Fusion Gameworks, ROM Hacking.net or the GCN at the moment.

What if instead of Mario's death frame, it showed Mario getting sliced up and bloodied by the Grinder? Or maybe also when he falls into lava it shows his skin melting off.

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Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

It'd be cool to see a death replacement of Mario explode with blood sprinkling everywhere as a normal death. I do like the idea of separate death frames for every Mario death encounter as well. Actually, here's all the possible deaths I can think of:

-Dying from an enemy from the top or sides presents the normal death animation.
-Having Mario get killed from under an enemy would have him get crunched to the ground.
-Dying from Tile 12F (Muncher) results in Mario getting eaten (or sink into the block) with blood sprinkling everywhere.
-Dying from Tile 005 (lava) reveals his skeleton (kinda like Bowser in NSMB for the DS), but animates like the original death otherwise.

As an alternative, also have a "clean version" without blood.

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Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

I Really have no idea if this is going to blow anyone out of the water or not, but I made something to take advantage of ExAnimation - and I found a way to make Black Piranna plants or black piranna plant-like blocks interesting.

Basically, make a boring gray block and a boring gray background like this - with all gray foreground tiles acting like black piranna plants.



However, once Mario gets his hands on a star. . .



Everything changes. The background is revealed and is flashing different colors as the blocks become colorful - no longer doing harm to the now-invincible Mario.

Basically, the idea is - Gray: Kills Mario. Rainbow: Doesn't kill Mario. All blocks turn gray if Mario isn't invincible.

This is all really just ExAnimation experimenting, trust me.

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Sometimes, I like to hack SMW. This is rare though, but I always try something new.


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~Developer for "Mario Enters the Void", an abandoned hack. The thread for the hack can be found Here ~

That's a cool idea, but I believe it's kind of been done before, with the "hurt" blocks that have made their way into various other hacks. For example, some time ago, I played a hack featuring two different colors of Jelectro. The black-and-white ones simply shrunk you (killed you if small), while the black-and-red ones killed you outright, unless you were currently using a Starman.

The rainbow effect as a visual cue that the blocks were safe to walk on is a good idea, though.

Might I suggest adding a bit of a grace period (say, three seconds) where the death blocks start flashing gray after your star power runs out? That might enable you to stretch out the time between Starman pickups, and make the player sweat a little bit (that is, until they figure out the grace period).

The trick is, to not let the player abuse the grace period. Maybe create two otherwise identical sets of death blocks--ones with the grace period, and ones without. The player won't know the difference, and thus not be as likely to abuse the grace period.

Also, to keep players from abusing the learned knowledge of where grace-period blocks are, juxtapose them with no-grace-period death blocks, so memorizing where the grace-period blocks are won't help (much).

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The meaning of life is 42 because potato.

I don't feed trolls. I feed THEM to Cthulhu. He finds them DELICIOUS.

Some hackers actually do something similar when they make demos, where the remaining content can be downloaded and added onto the current build (or just applied to a new ROM), and the player can continue playing the hack from where the demo left off by using their earlier save data. It does take some careful planning to pull off, and if too many things change between builds, it becomes impossible, but it's definitely possible to pull off with the right approach.

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