Have you ever wondered what it would be like for Mario to be in Geometry Dash?
OK, maybe not. But Famidash offers an unusual experience with its Retro Mode. Basically, gameplay and sprites are changed to make it look and act more like Super Mario Bros., but in Geometry Dash.
By far the most important feature is that cube, which is essentially Geometry Dash's fundamental gamemode, is replaced with "Mario" which has a variable-height jump depending on how long A is held down (much like the robot gamemode). This opens up a number of alternate routes in sections that were designed for the cube gamemode (the cube being limited to only a fixed jump). In my opinion, this change makes many of these sections more interesting since gameplay now is far more flexible. (And that's the reason I was interested in making this TAS in the first place.)
Other than the cube gamemode change, the ship is replaced with "swimming Mario" which functions more like the UFO. All other gamemode changes are just sprite edits.
Now if you are wondering whether the cube and ship changes would cause the levels to become unbeatable, well, fortunately it turns out the levels are still beatable. However, one of the coins (specifically the second coin in #12 Theory of Everything) cannot be obtained because of the ship change. However, it is possible to get this coin if Platformer Mode is activated, which disables autoscrolling and makes left/right movement control more like Super Mario Bros.
So I chose to allow Platformer Mode, not so much to make it even more like Super Mario Bros. (it's still a game where you run right for justice), but primarily because Mario is a coin collector and what's the point of playing as Mario if you don't get all the coins?
Goals
- All main levels 100% completion (all coins) with Retro Mode & Platformer Mode activated.
- All 22 main levels must be completed in order.
(The purpose of the last goal is to prevent playing the levels out of order for the sole purpose of ending input early or something equally inane. This is Famidash, not Monopoly. Additionally, I chose to end the movie after going back to the main menu, which I think is a better ending choice than just staring at the last results screen.)
Gameplay
There isn't much to say so I'll summarize:
- With Mario, I take routes and jumps that the cube is unable to.
- I try to (come as close as possible to) grazing spikes, especially in the UFO-like gamemodes.
- Famidash is a bit glitchy. It is possible to land and jump off some kinds of spikes sometimes (such as the black spikes in some levels) which is normally supposed to kill your player character.
- You can sometimes skip portals. Useful if a slowdown portal is skipped.
- You can trigger the same jump orb multiple times, as long as it doesn't reverse gravity.
- By jumping in a certain way near blue jump pads (reverse gravity and jump), you can get the reverse gravity without the jump. This usually doesn't work out but sometimes it can be used to show off.
- The corners where a square block meets a spike are usually safe to touch and jump off. This seems more like an accidental feature since Every End abuses this. However in Retro Mode, Mario doesn't jump up quickly enough from a front corner without hitting a triangular spike. Back corner is fine.
What's with the glitchy effect in some spots?
Those who are watching closely may notice a "glitchy" effect that looks like a mixture of junk at some points in the video. This happens whenever you press B in the Mario gamemode.
Now I think this is supposed to be a feature (like how pressing B as Fire Mario shoots fireballs), but it comes very close to being "it's not a feature, it's a bug". Pressing B as Mario in Retro Mode creates some kind of storm of fireballs and random junk for about 3 seconds. It serves absolutely no gameplay purpose, other than that the storm of junk can in some cases lag the game, and it can be spammed to really lag the game.
I typically only use this effect whenever I get bored while TASing (provided it doesn't lag the game, of course). It's not a particularly important feature to consciously care about.
Some more details about Retro Mode gamemode changes
OK, to be exact, the Retro Mode gamemodes just borrow from existing Famidash gamemodes, with Mario-themed sprites on top:
- Cube -> Mario (acts like Robot)
- Ship -> Swimming Mario (acts like UFO)
- Ball -> Koopa Shell (acts like Ball)
- UFO -> Lakitu Cloud (acts like UFO)
- Wave -> Bullet Bill (acts like Wave)
- Robot -> Mario (acts like Robot)
- Spider -> Thwomp (acts like Spider)
- Swing -> Lava Bubble (acts like Swing)
Why use the Huge.Man.v1.2.8 ROM?
The Retro Mode and Platformer Mode are in Fun Settings section (top right corner of the main menu), which is normally locked at the start in the base ROM. The Huge Man version is the only version which includes both the main levels and the Fun Settings section being unlocked at the start.
Can the custom levels be done in Retro Mode?
There are a few reasons why I'm not doing custom levels in Retro Mode.
First, as stated above, Huge.Man.v1.2.8 is the only version which has both main levels and an unlocked Fun Settings section. Huge.Man.v1.2.8 also includes all 88 custom levels from the various ROMs. Doing custom levels would mean doing all 88 of them.
Second, the Retro Mode changes to the cube and ship gamemodes ensure that it is very unlikely that all of them (especially the most difficult levels) are possible, even with Platform Mode on.
Because of this, it's not really possible at this point of time to do the custom levels in a way that will satisfy most viewers, so there's really no point trying. On the other hand the 22 main levels are pretty much canon at this point, so it should be the main levels (and the main levels only) that are done.
- Thanks to Walgrey for prior Famidash TASes which helped with making this TAS.
- There is a setting (in the main settings, not the fun settings) which allows for "2 Player mode". That is, there are two player characters simultaneously on the screen, and both players must reach the end with neither dying. While this mode would sound pretty entertaining, it turns out this mode is fatally bugged because blue orbs, that normally reverse gravity and boost the player up/down, only boost one player and fail to boost the other. I would have used this mode in this TAS had it worked correctly.
DrD2k9: Given the physics changes resulting from using this mode, we can consider it to be more than a simple reskin/graphics swap. Nothing in the run appears blatantly sub-optimal to a casual viewer (me). While
some improvement possibilites are noted in the forum discussion, I don't think the lack of these should prevent publication of this run. A new submission can always be made in the future that would implement these improvements.
As far as endpoint, again the
forum discussion noted that the game can be completed with less input. What is presented here can be considered a stylistic choice and isn't a reason for rejction. On that note: if someone were to submit an improvement to this run that chose to end input at the earliest possible moment, the last button press needed to complete the final stage would need to occur before frame 120812.
I'm not sure how I feel about the resitriction of doing the stages "in order." Generally I'm a fan of ending input as early as possible, so if doing the various stages in a different order would yield a faster overall run, I don't see why that would be considered a negative/problem. Regardless, it's not something I need to worry about right now; that's more a decision to be made by a future judge if someone tries to obsolete this run by using such a technique.
While not perfect, this is a fine run for publication. Accepting.
DrD2k9: Delaying until I can upload the improvement.
DrD2k9: Updated movie file with
improvement. This new version ends input at the earliest frame to finish the final stage instead of progressing through back tot he main menu. Run remains accepted. Added Walgrey as co-author.
Note to Publisher: We might need to add "platformer mode" as part of the goal/branch since that's a game mode selection that changes how the game is played. I'll let the publishing team determine what the best goal/branch description would be.
(The black spikes work similarly as well.)