clickbait description: it took me 5 whole minutes to die in some questionable level
- Actual vulgar language warning
- This TAS contains some SWEAR words that might frighten CHILDREN and CONCERNED PARENTS!
Introduction
The Questionable Level Design Contest is a Super Mario World hacking contest hosted by AmperSam where entrants make a short, one level hack with the theme of simply being "questionable". It's a neat hack jam where folks make lots of interesting interpretations of the idea of "questionable" with incredibly silly and strange ideas that probably wouldn't fit in a full, conventional SMW hack.
QLDC #2 is where this particular SMW level hack comes in. Specifically, it's #18 in the Anonymized Entries patch collection. The main idea of this hack was the idea of making the map the actual meat of the level. The "actual" level at the end is intentionally terrible as the main punchline. I found this level really fun and interesting to play. As a goof I also decided to TAS the level as well since it is April Fools Day and all that.
I'll add actual hack author details and level name (assuming one exists) when the judging results actually come in. As of this writing (21 March 2023) the results haven't been finalized. I also intentionally didn't look up who's who with submissions so I'm in the dark about it until then.
- Update 4 April 2023
- The winners have been announced! The results thread is here: https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=124298
The hackers who teamed up to make this entry are Faro and MM102. This entry also won 1st place in the contest, so congrats the them. Also congrats to the other entrants in the contest.
Run notes
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.8
- BSNES 115+ core
- Single level ROM hack
- QLDC 2023, Anonymized Entry #18
Technical and mechanical notes
Going faster on the map isn't available until the 3rd map screen where the text above says it's an option. It's also not available for some maps for comedic effect.
Since this is a hack jam with a short deadline there are bound to be bugs in any given hack. In this particular one, due to going too fast the music for later sections simply do not start which sadly breaks some of the musical goofs in the hack. I can confirm they do work normally when I did a casual playthrough on the same core and emulator version.
I tried using the SMW BizHawk Lua script for info on subpixels but due to the extensive nature of what was changed the scripts simply didn't work. That definitely means that there's probably subpixel management that can be done to save extra time here and there.
Jumping off the P-switches in mid-air was faster than going back into the map movement sections. The one over lava saved roughly 10 frames over using map movement. It looks cool if nothing else.
I could have ended the inputs at frame 19947 with a jump into the muncher ceiling but I felt at least showing off a little bit of the "level" was worth it. Gotta show that the hacker committed to the bit at the end.
Special thanks
- AmperSam, for hosting this year's QLDC, and the QLDC judges for judging these weird and wild entries
- The SMW hacking community for their incredible hacks with a wide array of ideas
- Masterjun, for his incredible work on messing with Super Mario World and also actually being funny with his April Fools Day goofs
someone: I'm gonna kinda judge this or something
🙃
ThunderAxe31: Wow, what a cool hack! And you even picked it before anyone knew it was going to be the winner of the contest! 😃
Regarding the ending, I have to note that the only way to "beat" this game is by dying. Getting hit or falling doesn't make you lose lives, except in the last level. However, committing suicide in that last level is really trivial, so it makes sense to allow the author to perform there whatever playaround they wish, and still consider the movie goal as fastest-completion, as the rest of the game was cleared as fast as possible. In the practice, we will consider this as a stylistic choice, for which the publication page will have the "Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs" tag.
Accepting!!!
