I Remember Just Enough About These Levels That I Can't Contain My Excitement. Experimental Blends Of

i remember just enough about these levels that i can't contain my excitement. experimental blends of mario and portal elements. wildly inconsistent castles. WAY too many mazes. impossible to guess secret paths. levels so bad i buried them on purpose. an honest to god plot twist

y'all have NO idea what we're in for on friday it's gonna be magical. i'm going to be so nostalgic. i'm going to cringe into the stratosphere

FRIDAY'S FEATURE STREAM: come watch me replay my first ever Mari0 fangame, New Super Mario World! i haven't seen it in years, so i'll be live-reacting to all of my old levels – the good, the bad, and the VERY ugly. this is a one-of-a-kind stream that you don't want to miss!

New Super Mario World was the VERY FIRST time i got to make Mario levels, ever. before even Super Mario Maker! as we go through all 60 levels, you'll get to see where i got my start as a level designer while i reminisce on old memories and lessons learned. it's gonna be a good time~

the stream airs on Friday, June 2nd at 7pm central time (UTC-5)! you can view the time in your time zone or add it to your calendar from my Twitch schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/skysometric/schedule?segmentID=a1a31b05-4ed2-41c3-b998-504f22509537

you can also follow me here or on Twitch to get notified when i go live: https://www.twitch.tv/skysometric

if i were to stream this weekend – possibly even tonight – which would you most like to see

Applesauce Autumn (A-1) | Retrush

Welcome back to familiar plains of bricks and pipes... with a seasonal shift! This first Red Coin Remix is crawling with Spinies, all lined up for a good old shell combo. Just watch where you kick those things!

dev commentary time! this remix was made early enough that the foreground tiles i mentioned in the main level, Saltine Sewer, were a core part of the remix as well. when i made the decision to cut them, i had to consider the implications in both levels; this kind of back-and-forth between designing the main level and the remix was pretty common!

the most important change is that the Buzzy Beetles hanging from the ceiling would spawn in behind the walls and crawl out into the open, as though they were hiding just out of view. this was a cool effect, but ultimately, axing the foreground tiles completely was more important than a cool effect in one level. so the beetle spawns were replaced with a canned animation, and i called it a day.

looks like i also changed the palette of the beetles; the black is slightly more readable on the gray walls, but the blue is significantly more readable over the dark background.

the red "graffiti" tiles that replaced the foreground tiles are of extra importance here, because the arrows point to the same locations where stars were in the main level – except the bricks are harder to see. did you notice that, in every remix, stars are always in the same locations as their main level counterpart?

the blocks are less obvious than before, but possibly more helpful.

the other big change is that the platforms and gel were in much more frustrating locations in the original version. like, what even is this nonsense? the new version is much more straightforwardly designed while still requiring the player to think about what they're doing.

between this and the old version of Marshmallow Mash-Up, i seem to have really enjoyed getting experimental with the platforms for some reason.

surprisingly, that's... all there is to go over this time! this is another one that i more or less got right when i designed it in old versions of Mari0, which should come as a surprise after everything i described in the previous dev commentary.

you might think that the remixes would have less commentary overall, considering most of the layout work went into the main levels... but i actually have a LOT to say about the rest of the remixes. these are more than just "hard mode" palette swaps, they have as much development history as anything else!

Mango Mantle (A-2) | Retrush

Located deep beneath a castle, this twisty passage features platforms and gel that try to slow your descent enough to bleed the timer dry. Don't let it get to your head, or the enemies will get a bite of you instead!

new stream archive! in which we play my very favorite part of Minish Cap: returning books to the library. it's more exciting than it sounds~

you've probably noticed the glitched out HUD by now – it just uses a custom foreground to display some static elements on top of the regular HUD. the effect covers up all but the last digit of the timer, dialing up the tension… as you never know how much time is truly left!

this would be a nightmare if the timer was ever too strict, but let's pull back the curtain here – every single section gives you the maximum 50 in-game seconds (20 real seconds). that's enough time that the player knows when they're going too slow, so timing over feels fair.

getting the checkpoints to look corrupted was also fun – i didn't want to give away that they're all set to 50, so i came up with six unique ways of representing the number. the simple ones to explain are hexadecimal, binary, and scientific notation (5x10¹).

the other three are more complicated, like "%)" are the symbols above 5 and 0 on the keyboard's number row.

there's also the number 1 50 times, which looks SO silly…

and my personal favorite, "settime(50)" except the number is obscured by one of the background tiles! hehehe~

one last thing to mention is the "game over" transition cutscene that starts with the glitched flagpole in Vinegar Void. it was super challenging to put together and uses a lot of shortcuts, so i'm amazed that the effect still shines through. i made the sfx myself in Famistudio!

the cutscene bridges the whole crescendo of World 4, building on the level-by-level ascent into space and crashing into the chaotic mayhem of the finale. it's the centerpiece of the main campaign, the wow factor, the one thing i most dreamed of seeing people's reactions to…

so imagine my horror when I ACCIDENTALLY BROKE IT FOR MY BETA TESTERS. they didn't realize there was supposed to be a cutscene at all, and it made me quite sad!!

luckily, that incident got me to make sure i had it fixed in time for the full release.

so i want to give a HUGE shoutout to @notquiteapex for having the best reaction to the cutscene that i could've ever hoped for… from confusion to shock to realization to laughter, everything i dared dream of. it was such a treat to see live 💖

to wrap things up, i have just two regrets about the stage itself… one is that people stub their toes on some rough edges, but this is the first time i've attempted to balance a level like this! the other is that i wish i could've used more corrupted tiles and sanity effects 😈

but i want to set aside those regrets, because i poured my heart and soul into this ambitious finale, and i am SO proud of myself for pulling through to the end. what an incredible way to cap off the main campaign of Retrush! i hope my first real game has a finale this good~

Marshmallow Mash-Up (4-4) | Retrush

FLAGRANT SYSTEM ERROR. sprint to the finish line as the game itself corrupts around you in real time, smashing together data from every previous level into the ultimate test of confidence and finesse!