Bringing This One Back For Mar10 Day

bringing this one back for Mar10 Day 💖

Here's a belated treat for Mario's 35th anniversary: an isometric maze built atop Mario's running animation from SMB1! Use the pipes to travel between the different layers and make your way to the finish.

This maze is a full overhaul of one that I drew on graph paper for Mario's 25th anniversary, a whole decade ago! Once I came up with the idea for the pipes, I just *knew* I had to digitize this one, heh ✨

Nine years. Sixteen levels. One plumber… with a portal gun.

Retrush, the retro speedrunning level pack for Mari0, is finally out! If you like classic Mario and going fast, this one's for you. Check it out and grab it here:

skyso.me

Retrush

The retro speedrunning mappack for Mari0: AE!

Retrush is a race against the clock! You have just a few precious seconds to get from checkpoint to checkpoint… but, you have infinite lives - so get moving, and go blaze a fearless trail!

From grasslands and deserts to aquariums and power plants, each level has its own unique flavor and elements. Between familiar SMB/Portal mechanics and new custom elements like Star Shards, there's no telling what's in the next level!

Frequent checkpoints and stars help to ease in novice players, while experts can skip the training wheels and go for the perfect run. Every level can be conquered with pure platforming, or you can use the portal gun to skip sections or find shortcuts. Anything goes!

The graphics are simply recolors of tiles from the original SMB and Lost Levels, but rearranged to create unique structures and landscapes. Further, custom animated tiles and backgrounds truly bring the levels to life. It's a simple aesthetic designed to look better than ever!

Every level also has an extra challenge stage with Red Coins instead of time gates! New obstacles are added for increased difficulty, and the color palettes are changed to make the levels feel fresh. Altogether, that's 16 more levels, for a grand total of 32!

After clearing all 16 main levels, a level select allows you to replay any stages you want - or tackle their remixes. It even saves which remixes you've cleared!* What happens if you clear them all…?

* Mari0 does not have autosave! Be sure to pause and save from the menu periodically.

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Ready to play? Let's go! Head to this link to grab both the game (Mari0) and the level pack (Retrush): https://retrush.skysometric.co/#download

Once you have both, open the game and choose Select Mappack from the menu. Drag Retrush.zip onto the game window and you're ready to play!

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…and yes, this really took me nearly NINE YEARS to finish! That's like a third of my life! But today just so happens to be my birthday, and what better way to celebrate than to wrap this up and start a new chapter? 🎉🎉🎉

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🔊 Crank the volume up! Music used: Time Trials 8 Bit by Bulby https://youtu.be/KDD6LFAO4WU

Tomorrow.

well, that's all the throwback thursday clips i had queued up! and i'm fresh out of other material for the time being...

i enjoyed having regular content out and reliving old memories, but now i'm focused on the final push towards wrapping up Retrush – not much longer to go!

i'm still aiming to release Retrush for my birthday at the end of next month, but i'm not 100% confident i can make it in time – and i definitely won't make it if i spend too much time recording any more "regular content." so that's taking a break for now, but it will return!

Retrush only has three more levels to go, but there's a ton more polish that i've been frankly neglecting (and who knows how long that'll take...)

if we're lucky there might be some final promo videos – but otherwise, see you at the finish line! 🏁

SUPER 1

Super 1 was originally going to be a series of all the letters in the word Super, but like a true ADHD kid i stopped after the first one lol. this uses a perspective warping technique that's less technically complex than it looks – i originally sketched this one on paper!

the grid lines aren't fully erased here so it's a little raw, but it gives a good idea of how the underlying grid works. a surprising number of my mazes in this journal use a compass in some form or fashion...

Hive

and now for an entirely new maze! what started as an exercise in hexagonal spirals ended up quite a lot like a simpler version of my old maze Diamond Hex. i quite enjoy how twisty the passages get 💖

this was hard to get a clean picture of since it spans the whole page, but i'm proud of the line work on this one! i dunno when i started inking over the maze after it's finished, but the process is really therapeutic...