In Which I Polish Up My Unfinished "magnum Opus" From The Early Days Of Mari0 And Show It In Its Best

In which I polish up my unfinished "magnum opus" from the early days of Mari0 and show it in its best light – with 40+ music tracks, unfinished level concepts, and a complete version of the final boss. This is the DEFINITIVE look at one of my earliest major projects!

alright y'all... this is a weird one. health related. details under the cut

late last night as i was trying to sleep, something went POP in my forehead. ever since… it's hard to explain, but i feel more Alive. like i can feel things more clearly, i have depth perception again, i can focus and think straight again when i haven't been able to for… months. what the fuck?

truthfully all of what i just described, and... some more distressing symptoms, have been plaguing me for the past ten years of my life. i've always written it off as anxiety or dissociation or autism or etc, but if it can all clear up with a single pop...?

a hazy memory tells me these pops used to happen more frequently, that i would dip in and out of symptoms. but my symptoms haven't gotten better for the last several years... until today?

i really hope these symptoms stay gone this time... though they probably won't.

until i can see a doctor for this stuff, i'll just enjoy this time that i have... time where i actually feel ALIVE!

i'll be honest i've been REALLY avoidant of social media lately. i swear every time i pull up my feed it's some new disaster, some new celebrity drama, some new enshittification or shrinkflation or corporo-politico-socio-existentio-nonsense

and that's after i pared down my feeds significantly!

NINTENDO NO

In which I kick off my birthday celebrations by revisiting one of my all-time favorite kart racers with a bunch of friends! This is EASILY the most chaotic multiplayer stream I've ever done, especially when the game decided not to cooperate...

tomorrow for my birthday i am streaming my unfinished "magnum opus" Mari0 level pack from ten years ago, Zeta

and i am going the DISTANCE to show it as close to the original vision as possible. like adding all of the custom music that wasn't supported at the time (40+ tracks!)

i won't have time to build the few unfinished levels that remain but i *am* finishing the big final boss, which was maybe 25% done. to preserve its original vision i'm building it out with modern tools like custom enemies and event scripting – the result will be well worth the effort

i'm doing all of this while trying not to spoil myself on the rest of Zeta's level design, so that my reactions to it after 10 years are genuine... Zeta has this baffling yet strangely compelling design ethos that i want preserved in amber – from a younger me trying to "take level design seriously"

if you enjoyed my stream of my first level pack, New Super Mario World, then you're going to LOVE this

Zeta is a little more mature, a LOT more ambitious, and not a single iota more professional or respectful of the player's time. it's gonna be a riot