trans christian, any pronouns. artist at heart, programmer by trade. this is my journal of sketches, project notes, and assorted thoughts – spanning games, technology, creativity, neurodiversity, and more!
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Dev Commentary Time, And This One's Gonna Be Pretty In Depth, So Strap In!
dev commentary time, and this one's gonna be pretty in depth, so strap in!
Almond Aquarium's original name was Buttermilk Base, in the same vein as Buoy Base Galaxy (which is this level's music choice). but the level known as Buttermilk Base... was some bullshit!
when i returned to working on Retrush in 2021, Buttermilk Base was a standout case of, god, how do i fix this?? do i just need to redo it from scratch???
nah, it just needed lots of TLC. i was somehow able to retain and remix most of what was already there... in other words, this level makes a great case study for "how to salvage some garbage!"
let's start simple: Buttermilk Base had no fish in the whole level??? even though it would've absolutely been possible to add in older versions of Mari0. i just didn't think of it? i guess??
instead, most of the underwater sections were focused around normal enemies that move and fall slower in the water ("water-enemies"). like goombas. and spinies... for some reason.
so, for thematic and gameplay purposes, i added cheep cheeps to the water tanks instead.
the old water-enemy placements were really strange, like a stack of goombas tall enough to reach the ceiling, or a spiny that slowly falls into the exit hatch. replacing these with fish was pretty simple, i just needed to make sure the timing added a similar level of pressure.
a lot of the above-water level design has very tight corridors that operate as funnels between the more open water tanks. in Buttermilk Base, these tight corridors were filled with... paratroopas that bounce around erratically. what???
you were expected to either slip under these by running at full speed, or use the portal gun to sneak around them.
remember: this was before stars!! this level had mushrooms in it instead – you only got one extra hit and it made you too tall to slip underneath!!!
in one especially egregious case, this split path of TINY passages had two paratroopas – one where you could slip underneath, and one where you couldn't. the only indication of which was which, was a single coin on the top or bottom.
like come on, this is set up for failure!
what i did here to fix it was remix the intent – the top path is supposed to be "easier," and the bottom path requires a confident jump. so the new top path is free of enemies, and the bottom path has three goombas to bounce across, which takes a little precision. much better!
all of the other random paratroopas were similarly remixed by asking "what is the point of this nonsense? what is it trying to test?" and creating a new challenge within the same layout that tests the same thing more fairly. this makes the above-ground sections much more fun!
the above-ground also had some wacky moving platforms that felt super out of place and just served to annoy the player. i'm really not sure what i was thinking with these…?
much like the paratroopas, their replacements were thoughtful remixes – like blue gel or waterfalls.
that said, there are also some tweaks to the base layout of the level. most of them expand the underwater sections – like opening up this middle section, which makes it more of an open letter to find your own path and collect the Star Shards!
even though they were mostly just "tweaks," reworking the underwater sections so thoroughly means there's a lost tile: these diagonal tiles that were used for trippy underwater transitions. i like them, they just didn't fit the layout anymore! they're recolors of the SMB2J hills.
the biggest layout change is the very end of the level, which got a complete rework. i can tell i was bored and running out of steam here, because the best i could come up with were some weaksauce "defeat all the enemies" rooms. boring!!
i don't remember what inspired the new ending section but i am SO proud of it: it's another open invitation to either quickly and confidently hop between the waterfalls, or take the safe slower path across the top. a significant improvement!
anyway, that's a lot of work to fix up one stage! in truth, when i returned to working on Retrush with a deadline, this level was potentially on the chopping block. i didn't know whether i would have the time or energy to do all this when there were plenty of levels left to make.
luckily i had plenty of time, and there were no cut levels... i actually finished all of what i just described in one single, frenzied evening! and i'm super proud of myself for bringing this level up to par with the rest of the stages. it really needed the love!
i got a few compliments like "wow these are actually good underwater Mario levels for a change!" which is a compliment of the highest order in its own right... but it also validates that all this work was worth it, and that Retrush is a better level pack for including it 💖
Almond Aquarium (2-4) | Retrush
This abandoned, run-down aquarium has been flooded with Cheep Cheeps and other scavengers. The portal gun can save LOTS of time swimming through the water tanks if you know where to use it!
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dev commentary time! Cinnamon Cavern was the second ever level made for Retrush. like, this was made immediately after Gelato Grasslands. did i get sick of babying the player and jump straight torturing them? who can say! adhd is a fickle beast.
this level has always been Weird. it's just a little too tight, a little too dangerous, a bit too unforgiving for a pack based around Going Fast. that plus being one of the oldest levels means it's gotten the most feedback, far and away.
players often start the level by saying "i didn't realize those magma tiles were deadly," which was fixed in two ways. first was to add enemies that walk into the magma and die – the "show, don't tell" approach. it may have been my first feedback-driven change in the whole pack!
the other was to make the magma tiles more red than orange, which was admittedly a very late change. the original orange was a minor edit of the coin block palette that i was pretty proud of… but the color contrast was too close to the surrounding cavern.
magma readability aside, the other most common feedback was simply "this level is too hard." it can be hard to pin down exactly what the problem is or how to solve it… doubly so when the theme of the level is at odds with the core mechanics of the mappack!
most of my efforts were spent widening some especially cramped parts of the cave, or moving some magma veins that were too easy to walk right into. but for the most part, i wanted to keep the level intact – i really think it has great speedrun flow once you get the hang of it!
this section in particular gets the most flak, probably because you have to double back across some admittedly tiny safe spots. the intent here was to use the ropes as a guide, hugging the walls they attach to so you fall directly on the safe spots.
the trouble is, that's way too much thinking under pressure! i don't think a single person realized that was the intent here.
…but i knew this would be the case, and i thought about flipping it so that you jump into the ropes by accident and discover the trick on your own.
it didn't work out, because it required rearranging everything around it to the point that the original speedrun flow was unrecognizable. even then, the flipped section was too boring, not at all challenging, and didn't even do anything with the trick once the player learned it.
so i reverted it back to the original and just left it alone, because i was out of ideas and running out of time. i had bigger fish to fry and this section was already done. whatever. mark it as a Known Shippable, as we say in the biz.
"but sky," i hear you say. "that section wasn't so bad! you're being too hard on yourself."
yeah, i hear you. but consider this:
you used the star to breeze past it, didn't you?
stars absolutely TRIVIALIZE Cinnamon Cavern. it goes from being one of the hardest levels to one of the easiest, with no middle ground. the stars are all in highly telegraphed, easy to reach locations, practically as a "yeah i know this level sucks, go ahead and skip it" option.
even back in the day, when the mappack had mushrooms instead of stars… i don't think they helped enough! being tall made the cavern feel even more tight than usual, not to mention you only get one extra hit in a level that's lined wall-to-wall with danger.
nothing short of a complete rework would have quelled the perfectionism that i admit i hold in my heart.
so it came as no shock that one playtester said it was their least favorite level,
and it came as a complete shock that one playtester said it was their FAVORITE level.
"this one was a good mix of challenge while being fair, mainly due to all the cheap death spots being changed compared to the [second demo]."
wha?? hello???
…well, okay, i'm glad you like it!
moments like this remind me that it's not always my job to polish everything i make to a squeaky clean sheen; some people will still find the diamonds hidden in the rough, no matter how rough i might think it is.
Cinnamon Cavern (3-2) | Retrush
Danger lurks in every crevice of this blistering cave! The sparse enemies are hardly a threat compared to the crisscrossed veins of molten magma – watch your feet as you hot-foot it to the flag!
dev commentary time! Oregano Oak has a storied history that resulted in it being one of the very last levels ever built for Retrush. in fact, the stage as we know it didn't exist before this year!
back when Retrush was just 12 levels – worlds 1 through 3 – i had a little sketch in the 4-1 slot, effectively a bit of level concept art built out of tiles. it was a mineshaft inspired by Wario's Gold Mine, making good use of SMB1's varied set of brown and orange palettes!
i loved the concept but i wanted to keep Retrush properly scoped to 12 levels, so i had no place to add it into the mappack.
...but as we all know, "keeping it properly scoped" sure lasted long! so when i expanded Retrush to add a fourth world, this concept was on the shortlist.
at the same time that i expanded it, i also decided that Retrush should have four vertical levels – one per world. i had two already, Saltine Sewer and Pineapple Pipeline, so i needed two more. i decided to pick the mineshaft for this, and named it Quinoa Quarry!
...eagle eyed readers may have noticed by this point that Oregano Oak is not a mineshaft, not a vertical level, and not called Quinoa Quarry. what gives?
for starters, i kind of shot myself in the foot before getting out of the starting gate. the mineshaft concept i had was very horizontal, and trying to adapt it to a vertical passage was next to impossible. the structures i tried to add to it were pretty repetitive and boring.
the concept was tweaked to use the SMB1 ground tiles with alternating palettes for a faux 3D effect, which looks REALLY cool and i wish i could've made it work. the remix's palette was already decided – a green, mossy variation – and it would've been called… Oregano Overgrowth.
Oregano Overgrowth was more inspired by the mossy walkways of Hollow Knight's Greenpath, but i never got far enough with the base level to do any actual concepting with the remix, so this mostly exists in my memory. (the screenshot above is a recreation!)
instead, i got sick of slamming my head against the wall, and decided to pivot to another old concept i had sitting around from an unrelated project (shown here). this is where Oregano Oak and Nougat Nimbus were born... though i was still trying to make it a vertical level!
Oregano Oak was going to be more like ascending a big tree, with large branches to climb into and around, as well as the bushy platforms we're familiar with today. Nougat Nimbus was intended to go the *other* way, starting at the top of a thunderhead and working your way down.
this concept, too, was short-lived, as i couldn't come up with structures that were satisfying to climb in both directions. once again, i had painted myself into a corner.
and that's about when i paused working on Retrush in 2019. with nothing concrete, just failed attempts.
i came back to the mappack in 2021, mostly porting Retrush to a later version of Mari0 (which was an involved process), and then spent 2022 preparing to release the second demo (when i got sick for a while). finally we arrive at 2023, and Oregano Oak is still just a concept.
it felt like i no longer had the time or energy to throw together level geometry like i once did... i stared at the level's blank canvas trying to make *anything* work, and coming up woefully short.
this was the level that really made me question whether i should cut Retrush back down to three worlds. this one, and some of the underbaked levels mentioned previously... it seemed like it would be too much work to bring them all up to par.
"i wish i just had something to start with," i said to myself. "just a little bit of level geometry to build on. i wish younger me had left *something* to work with."
as a matter of fact... i did. and when i realized, i went rushing to open an especially old version of Mari0.
did you know the creators of Mari0 attended Gamescom for several years? they had playable versions of Mari0, Not Tetris, and more on the convention floor. Mari0 was set up as a "time trials" demo with ghosts of other players and a unique speedrunning level!
one year the developers asked the community to make a speedrunning level for them to take to Gamescom. being knee-deep in Retrush, i jumped at the chance! iirc, i was the only person to finish... because i already had material to work with.
the level i submitted was called Reprise, and it was a "best-hits" mash-up from several levels of Retrush with some connective tissue. the developers had some great feedback for it, some of which made it back into Retrush itself!
returning to Oregano Oak, i was very interested in how deep this "connective tissue" ran, and if i could use any of it in a new level. i hit the jackpot: a completely unique middle section based around classic athletic-style mushroom platforming. exactly what i was looking for!
i copied over as much of that old work as i could, which ended up covering about a third of the level – but the momentum and excitement carried me to complete the rest of the level extremely quickly. Oregano Oak went from 0 to 100 in just two days!
it wasn't the vertical level i dreamed of, but making it a horizontal level and reusing my old work helped me Actually Make The Level instead of feeling stuck forever and removing it from the pack. symmetry and planning is nice, but sometimes you just gotta get the work done!
the end result is one of my favorite levels in the whole thing, with a unique speedrun flow that really shows how much i've improved over the years!
Oregano Oak is the epitome of Retrush's development cycle – it may have taken nine years, but it's way better for having taken its time.
Oregano Oak (3-3) | Retrush
A classic athletic style level with a fresh coat of paint! The flying enemies provide lots of opportunities for bouncing to shortcuts on higher platforms... and with good timing, some of the falling enemies do too!