Super Luna Game (and my other super short My Little Pony-themed Super Mario World hacks)

[DPBOX 74]

DOWNLOAD LINK

Why play Luna Game when you can play SUPER Luna Game?

It's actually called Super because it's on the Super Nintendo. It's a little 5 minute long Super Mario World hack that consists of a single level that I made. 

It's a level I made for a contest SMWCentral, the Super Mario World hacking website, hosted to see who can make the best Super Mario World level featuring a certain theme, and you're not supposed to put your name in there to avoid favoritism by the judges. The theme was "questionable". You had to make a questionable level. You had to make a weird, unprofessional, and jokey level filled with glitches and other things that normally break the site's rules on level design.

Here are the results of the contest. I even got an award, Best Non-Mario Sprite. If you want to see the judges' comments on my level, look at entry 70 for the 4 judges here.

You need this tool to patch that .bps patch to an American Super Mario World ROM. You need a Super Nintendo emulator that's NOT ZSNES, I recommend SNES9X, to play the game. If it still doesn't work, just open it up in this tool, click yes if a message appears, close it down, then patch that .bps patch to the ROM.

I may make sequels to this so stay tuned.

What do you guys think of this? Do you like it?

I also have another contest entry I could show, this one being far more serious. Would you guys be interested in playing that level, too?

Edited October 26, 2021 by DPBOX

[StormyVenture 31]

Meh.

There's just not a lot there and what is there isn't all that enjoyable. You have a "level" with Luna as a character sprite and Discord gets a cameo appearance of a sort. It probably does a decent job of meeting the criteria of "questionable", but otherwise it's not that great.

It took me a while to figure out that 'shooting' the flowers turns them into coins and in the "chaos" part of the level it is very hard to tell what can be killed and what can't.

I do think you could make something a whole lot better out of the basic elements (i.e. Luna, Discord, Canterlot Gardens, Luna stuck in some sort of chaos mode/world) here.

---

If you think your other entry is worth sharing, I'd be willing to have a look.

[DPBOX 74]

Here's my other contest entry. It was for the Chocolate Level Design Contest #6 from Spring 2020. You had to make a good level by modifying a Super Mario World ROM any way you wanted. My level is called Smokey Mountain, and you play as Spike. It's a collect-a-thon style level like those old Nintendo 64 games.

It still wasn't that great according to the judges, ranking 54th place out of 64, but I think it was a fun experience and something unique. You can read the comments of the judges here.

[StormyVenture 31]

I definitely think the judges and I were on the same page with the first one up top, though they had more patience than me if they made it to the other end of the level. That is, the MLP reference is clear, it's okay play wise, but it falls short of what it could be.

 

Quote

Here's my other contest entry. It was for the Chocolate Level Design Contest #6 from Spring 2020. You had to make a good level by modifying a Super Mario World ROM any way you wanted. My level is called Smokey Mountain, and you play as Spike. It's a collect-a-thon style level like those old Nintendo 64 games.

Regarding your other entry, it's a little more like what I'd expect, but could use improvement.

For starters I would suggest figuring out if you can change the level names (and if so, make it more thematically appropriate) as well as clearly indicate that the level to the right side is a dead end. The latter could be accomplished with a simple level name change (e.g. 'Not This Way!'), some in-level signage (chain of signs telling you to stop and turn around already), a solid wall/obstruction, or possibly an obnoxiously frustrating level with a congratulatory message informing you of how this was totally pointless and you should have gone left.

Unfortunately I didn't get past the first "real" level even after 5 tries. Playability wise it seems just a tad too difficult for someone who never a SNES and the original game. I do have the SNES Classic though which I think has SMW2, so maybe I'll play that at some point.

I do think your first level is just a little too difficult though with it's jumps that are relatively hard to make, floating platform that falls right away (lose game once just finding that out), and enemies positioned out of view and in places you're likely to bump into even if you stick the landing. Also, maybe it's just the way the game was or SNES 9x as an emulator, but Spike seems like he moves too fast and the spinning jump is a little unpredictable somehow in terms of landing position.  

  

P.S.  

I'd suggest directly linking to the javascript, web page version of the patching tool (link in download description on SMWCentral). I found that it makes for an easier flow from seeing your post to trying out the patched rom (and one less download).

Edited October 28, 2021 by StormyVenture

[DPBOX 74]

1 hour ago, StormyVenture said:

floating platform that falls right away

What floating platform?

[StormyVenture 31]

21 hours ago, DPBOX said:

What floating platform?

I apologize for any confusion.  

  In the first level to the left after starting a new game there is a gray platform (w/a horizontal chevron texture?) about 3-4 jumps to the right. There are two flower platforms between the level start and the gray platform.  

That platform will fall down after maybe 5-10 seconds of staying put and cause an insta-death.  

I'm calling it a 'floating' platform because there's nothing below it to land on and it disappears or drops quite abruptly after a short time of standing on it.

[DPBOX 74]

You're not supposed to go to the levels on the left and right. Disregard those 2. The only level that matters and the one that was judged is the one in the middle called SMOKEY MOUNTAIN.

[StormyVenture 31]

Okay...

I didn't see another obvious route, but I'm not real familiar with the original game. I can have another look later.

That does lend a bit more weight to my comment about marking other paths as the wrong way, though.

Edited October 30, 2021 by StormyVenture

[Cash In 22,314]

I played through it for a while, but I didn't finish the level. First, the custom sprites are good and the garden area looks pretty nice visually, so I'll give you props for that. The second part is where it falls short. I know this hack was entered in a questionable level design contest, but there was too much and from what I can tell, it was way too long. There was also some placement that I was not huge on - there was a point early on where a Goomba just fell on top of me without anyway to know that it would.  The concept itself is decent and I think you could do a lot with it if you continue to build on it.