Dev Commentary Time! As We Start Going Through The Remixes It's Important To Keep In Mind How Much Of

dev commentary time! as we start going through the remixes it's important to keep in mind how much of a technical marvel these have always been, both in old and new versions of the engine... in ways that frequently made it a headache to work with them.

current versions of the red coins are a fully custom object – collecting one does all of the work behind the scenes to adjust the timer, spawn the flashing time indicator, and count both how many and which ones have been collected. they can be collected in all the ways a regular coin can – such as being bumped from below – and they can also be "precollected" when restarting from a checkpoint. there's even dynamic red coins set up to fly around or fall in from the top of the screen!

new "single-object" red coin on the left, old hacky nonsense on the right.

suffice to say, all of that was practically impossible in old versions of Mari0. the old red coins were a much different beast; they were in fact regular coin tiles with a custom graphic and a region trigger attached to several stage entities that would adjust the timer and track collection. there was no way to make the coins move from their spot, and no way to "precollect" them from checkpoints – meaning no checkpoints in remixes AT ALL.

worse still, those old red coins were very challenging just to add to the level in the first place. let's say i placed one already and i wanted to move it later; there's no way to just "move" the coin and the entities attached, so i'd have to delete it completely and replace each component in the new location.

on top of that, the size of the coin's hitbox is less than one tile, and the region trigger couldn't be made that small in the editor... so when i was ready to "lock in" the red coins, i would open the level in a text editor and manually adjust the size of the region triggers. yes, really. (pictured on the right is how i got "bumping" the coins below the bricks to work – the region trigger extends below the brick!)

the little orange squares over the top of the red coin show the size of the region trigger. it's tiny.

anyway, you get the point by now. the old red coins were inflexible – hard to place, hard to replace, and hard to find good places for. but i was ambitious enough that i did all that work anyway... i finished HALF of the remixes in the old version! and Applesauce Autumn is probably the best of those early attempts, because it has the least changes of them all.

most of what i did to patch up this level (besides smooth out the enemies a bit) was add things that i wanted to do in the original but couldn't, like… pre-placed Koopa shells. can you believe something that simple was impossible in older versions of Mari0???

also pictured is a star that was removed due to being too hard to reach.

adding red coin bits was also a pretty major change – those weren't possible in old versions either. the old red coin location was just floating over these bricks, just out of reach for anything but a running jump. really mean for being the first remix!

there also wasn't a koopa shell here originally. i like how the shell bounces around after it's kicked, meaning the floor here is never truly safe~

finally there's the two coins between the pipes, which had their times adjusted. in the new version, both give 20 time. in the old version, the first gives 30... and the second gives 10, which was purposefully not enough time to reach the next coin.

no old version needed, the difference is just numbers.

why did i do this? i wanted the player to puzzle out why the first one was giving way too much time and the second wasn't giving enough, with the eventual solution being to grab the one on the right first and double back for the one on the left. i wanted the player to discover this early on in the remixes... because i intended to pull a similar stunt in several remixes!!

suffice to say this did NOT survive into the final release. it's purposefully obtuse, it adds nothing to the level, and it's impossible to tell this is happening on your first time through because the coins aren't marked.

a recurring theme throughout these remixes is going to be how much more mean they used to be, because when i first made the remixes, i did not intend for anyone but the most hardcore challengers to tackle them. these weren't supposed to be for casual players; that's what the main levels were for. besides, it's not like i could add checkpoints or anything...

well, thank god i eventually could, because that got me to rethink practically all of the remixes.

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!

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!

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!

Kolache Keep (3-4) | Retrush #Mari0

This classic castle features bridges that sink behind the lava on a timer, meaning less room to slip past the fire bars and other enemies. The cycles all line up for an impressive run, but the execution is extra tight!

Pierogi Pier (A-4) | Retrush

BOMBS AWAY! This battered boardwalk is under assault from constant cannon fire. Stay on your toes, because the explosions will open up shortcuts – and sometimes even *destroy* them!

new stream archive! in which we get lost in both sidequests AND main quests, eventually finding our way to the wind element! spent a lot of time with my head in the clouds, ehehe~