(Note: This is a true story, and sums up my thoughts as I was playing this, and I had no idea I was about to be bullshitted the way I was when I played this and I can say it is by far the creepiest hack I've played) If you were on irc you would have heard me talking about it as well, but anyways it's late at night, and I dont have alot of time, and I need to get to sleep, so this is all I have time for...
Get it here
http://bin.smwcentral.net/36667/MARIO%20(1).zip
So, it all happened, on tonight of all nights. I was bored, obviously contemplating what I thought I could do to waste time as I chatted with the people in #smwc. We had good times, and shared a few laughs together. Out of boredom, I decided to patrol the "Hacks waiting to be moderated" section. Seems that we had quite a bit, 33 if I recall correctly. The first few hacks I saw when I sorted them by date were a couple really horrible ones with bad screenshots to boot. Naturally showed these hacks to the centralites currently on #smwc. We were laughing at how bad some of them were, but then I got to a hack called "MARIO" just that, nothing more, nothing less. The description seemed quite odd, as if some japanese hacker was trying to translate the original plot of Super Mario World into english and failing horribly. I showed this to kieran and he started laughing at the description, it reads as follows.
I simply dismissed this as someone trying to act japanese and release a crappy hack with some edits, or so, thats what I thought this was, at first...
Curiosity got the best of me, I decided to download the hack. Not knowing what I was in for, since the single screenshot of the hack was the title screen with nothing but the letters "MARIO" from Super mario World's title screen. I thought it was a little odd how there were no dates or anything either as hackers usually place their names and dates on the titles to mark when the project was started.
So, when I opened the hack, I was greeted by 2 files. 1 called 3007014, a simple txt file 27 KB in size, and the IPS file, simply named "MARIO". For some odd reason I wanted to see what the author of the hack had to say, but I opened the hack in notepad but there was nothing but indistinguishable symbols and letters and punctuation, sort of like how when you open a rom in a txt editor like notepad. Seemes like the author just completely copied his rom to txt form, though I could be wrong. Taking a closer look, at the top of the TXT file mixed in with the jibberish I find the only thing that looks like english there. Here is a piece of what I found
To be honest I didn't know what to make of this, and I thought it was to simply waste some of my time by making me find some txt in the jibberish file. That I'm willing to bet no one will ever be able to make sense of.
I decided that my interest was growing steadily, so I started looking through my horribly disorganized download folder for a copy of a clean ROM I had downloaded a great deal of time before the events of tonight unfolded, and an IPS patcher of course my choice for the job was Lunar Ips.(LIPS).
So, I then proceeded to move the ROM and the IPS patcher to the folder with the hack. I patched the ROM, not knowing what to expect next, and I quickly hurried to drag it to ZSNES and play what I thought was to be shit in the form of a ROM image. I noticed on boot up that the author had taken the time to change the header of his hack. Instead of the usual "super marioworld" you normally see when booting up a rom in ZSNES, it just had the letters "MARIO" there again. At this point I gained a little hope, because normally people who do horrible half assed edits to the rom generally dont know enough to change a header title. I thought I wasnt wasting my time with this, and my mood brightened slightly at the thought of seeing that the author had to offer in his interesting little hack. So, the title screen loaded, exactly like it would with Super Mario World, except it had just "MARIO" on the title like I had mentioned earlier. Something else had grabbed my interest more-so than the unusual absence of layer 3 tiles on the title screen. Mario's normal bright colored and happy palette seemed, how can I put it..."dull". What was once Violette like red was now what seemed like grey with a slight red tint to it, and I'm fairly sure his pants were looking more grey than blue too...I thought this was strange, and I wondered why he had decided to give Mario such a dull palette...regardless as to what his intentions were, I felt that something was....wrong. Not in the sense that the palette was slightly bad, but, that the hack was, empty, like something had happened. Upon pressing start and selecting a new file, like alot of other countless mario hacks I have played in the past, there was some sort of intro screen that basically described the entirety of the plot in a short paragraph just small enough to fit into a small black box. I began reading, and for the mostpart, the message stayed the same, but there was one key factor that made this interesting. Apparently the main antagonist of this hack wasnt bowser at all.....it was....Mario?!?
The message says as follows.
What the? "This wasnt the original message from Super Mario World" I thought to myself. Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, seeing as how over my nearly 2 years at SMWCentral I have played countless hacks and have seen many different intro messages, but this one really stuck out. At this point I definitely knew there was something odd about this hack. Upon letting the intro level music play, I pressed the start button on my controller to finally get to the over-world and begin my journey into this unknown hack. Upon entering the overworld, everything seemed normal. Same old level paths, same old music, but, the level names were different. Instead of "YOSHI'S HOUSE" like it always has been every time I've ever played Super Mario World, it was now simply just "YOSHI'S". The "HOUSE" part was gone. I thought that this was strange, and I began to lose hope in the hack because it had seemed like barely anything had changed at all from the original. I was hoping to see something new. Well, unluckily for me, I got my wish, as you'll see when you read on. I decided to enter the level ou of curiosity. When I entered, the whole house that's normally there was gone. No more smoke, no more fire, no more little birdies, no more tree house. All that was left was the message box. I decided to hit it. Upon opening, the message I expected to be there was replaced with what seemed like binary.
Apparently it says, "notepad"
At this point, I was on irc telling everyone about how the hack was starting to weird me out, which in itself yielded some sarcastic responses, but hey, I expected it. Anyways, after this my interest level in the hack skyrocketed, and along with it my paranoia. Oh boy was in in for a fun surprise. So, I decided to head left. Upon reaching what was before known as "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1" the level was now labelled "never come back". Now I thought things were going to be all kaizo death trap, because generally that is what people name their levels in kaizo hacks to make sure the player doesn't go there. To my surprise, it wasn't quite that way, though, I wish that it had been. Upon entering level 105 I am greeted by the insanely loud clown car sound that bowser's flying vehicle makes right before peach falls out. Of course, with my headphones being moderately high, the sound scared the living shits out of me, which wouldnt have happened if I hadnt been so nervous before hand. I decided at this time it would be best if I turned the volume on my headphones down, as to not get anymore unpleasant surprises such as that one.
When I entered the level, other than the music, everything seemed to be the same, except for the fact that the little koopa that slides on the ledges wasn't there anymore, nor was the banzai bill. The dragon coin was still there, however for some odd reason I wasnt able to collect it, or rather, any dragon coins at all. The author made certain of that. I also noticed that there was a brown used block near the spot where the banzai bill normally shows up. I can only assume this was a revisit to the level after I had beaten it like I heard in some half assed creepy stories in other Mario games. Now I was wondering why things were like this, making me wonder about the intro message. Had Mario done something previously to dinosaur land? Was this in Bowser's point of view? I quickly dismissed the latter option, because it seemed kind of stupid. So that left me thinking that Mario at one point and time in the Author's story, did something, but what?
What did Mario do? My mind was nothing but rushing thoughts at this point. However I quickly dismissed them and ventured further into the level, only to find that all blocks had basically been hit, coins had been collected (save dragon coins, those were still there and unobtainable) that there were no enemies, and that I could no longer go down pipes? "What kind of bullshit was I playing here." I kept thinking to myself. At this poiny I felt uncomfortable. I decided to keep venturing. Eventually I came across a message box, which I wasn't surprised was still in the level. Being the idiot I am I went and hit the box. Upon hitting it, I am greeted with the familiar black box once again. The message was edited obvously. As I had figured that this was a given at this point. It reads as follows.
Now, I thought things were starting to get the vibe that the author was a twisted and warped individual, and that I was right about Mario having done something. At this point I was basically rushing to get to the end of the level, so I just scurried by, and then i come across another message box, however this one was just a blank box with "POINT OF ADVICE" at the top with nothing else in it. I quickly disregarded it and headed off further to the right hoping to free myself of the hell that was once level 105. Upon reaching the end I saw a fireflower in the top block where the 4 way block intersection used to be, however its too high for me to reach by normal means, so I just continued onward, like the blind curious idiot I am would do. So I finally beat the level, and as usual the path to the Yellow Switch Palace is unlocked. I decided to head up the path that normally leads to the Yellow Switch Palace, and I find that when I enter the main over-world, every other landmass and decoration besides the ghosts from the ghost houses and Yoshi's island itself are gone. Nothing really changed at the yellow switch palace except for the switch message. All that changed was that -SWITCH PALACE- was changed to -MARIO WORLD-. Boring. Anyways, just when I thought I was done with this abomination that calls itself a hack, I find that Yoshi's Island 2 has also been edited. "Oh joy!" I thought to myself. <sarcasm/>
Upon reaching Yoshi's Island 2 I find that it has been renamed to YOSHI'S HOUSE, the original name of level 104.
I decide to enter and find that the palette of the level has been changed along with the background. They seemed to have been changed to the same palette as Yoshi'S Island 3, you know, Greenish tan and such. Except the background was pushed down some and was now a rotting brown color, and that the vegetation on the FG was now no longer present. I decide to explore the level a bit and come across the trail of koopas, that countless players have used a shell to rack free 1up's with. I decide to ignore them and go see if anymore of the level is changed. I eventually come across the ? that holds Yoshi and decide to free him. Upon freeing him, I now get this message.
This had me wondering what kind of sick and twisted hack I'm playing. I'm now having thoughts of all possible scenarios of Mario Attacking Dinosaur Land horribly and causing irreversible damage. The author had me hooked with his sick little game, and like any other idiot, I took the bait and kept coming back for more..
To be continued tomorrow....
Get it here
http://bin.smwcentral.net/36667/MARIO%20(1).zip
So, it all happened, on tonight of all nights. I was bored, obviously contemplating what I thought I could do to waste time as I chatted with the people in #smwc. We had good times, and shared a few laughs together. Out of boredom, I decided to patrol the "Hacks waiting to be moderated" section. Seems that we had quite a bit, 33 if I recall correctly. The first few hacks I saw when I sorted them by date were a couple really horrible ones with bad screenshots to boot. Naturally showed these hacks to the centralites currently on #smwc. We were laughing at how bad some of them were, but then I got to a hack called "MARIO" just that, nothing more, nothing less. The description seemed quite odd, as if some japanese hacker was trying to translate the original plot of Super Mario World into english and failing horribly. I showed this to kieran and he started laughing at the description, it reads as follows.
Originally posted by hack
As you play the role of Super Mario plumber, verify that you are beautiful Purinsesutozutouru again Bowser kidnapped the evil king. It is your job to save her! This hack includes six levels of very long.
As you play the role of Super Mario plumber, verify that you are beautiful Purinsesutozutouru again Bowser kidnapped the evil king. It is your job to save her! This hack includes six levels of very long.
I simply dismissed this as someone trying to act japanese and release a crappy hack with some edits, or so, thats what I thought this was, at first...
Curiosity got the best of me, I decided to download the hack. Not knowing what I was in for, since the single screenshot of the hack was the title screen with nothing but the letters "MARIO" from Super mario World's title screen. I thought it was a little odd how there were no dates or anything either as hackers usually place their names and dates on the titles to mark when the project was started.
So, when I opened the hack, I was greeted by 2 files. 1 called 3007014, a simple txt file 27 KB in size, and the IPS file, simply named "MARIO". For some odd reason I wanted to see what the author of the hack had to say, but I opened the hack in notepad but there was nothing but indistinguishable symbols and letters and punctuation, sort of like how when you open a rom in a txt editor like notepad. Seemes like the author just completely copied his rom to txt form, though I could be wrong. Taking a closer look, at the top of the TXT file mixed in with the jibberish I find the only thing that looks like english there. Here is a piece of what I found
Originally posted by txt_file
ÿØÿà JFIF H H ÿþ 1find me find me find me find me find me find meÿÛ C
ÿØÿà JFIF H H ÿþ 1find me find me find me find me find me find meÿÛ C
To be honest I didn't know what to make of this, and I thought it was to simply waste some of my time by making me find some txt in the jibberish file. That I'm willing to bet no one will ever be able to make sense of.
I decided that my interest was growing steadily, so I started looking through my horribly disorganized download folder for a copy of a clean ROM I had downloaded a great deal of time before the events of tonight unfolded, and an IPS patcher of course my choice for the job was Lunar Ips.(LIPS).
So, I then proceeded to move the ROM and the IPS patcher to the folder with the hack. I patched the ROM, not knowing what to expect next, and I quickly hurried to drag it to ZSNES and play what I thought was to be shit in the form of a ROM image. I noticed on boot up that the author had taken the time to change the header of his hack. Instead of the usual "super marioworld" you normally see when booting up a rom in ZSNES, it just had the letters "MARIO" there again. At this point I gained a little hope, because normally people who do horrible half assed edits to the rom generally dont know enough to change a header title. I thought I wasnt wasting my time with this, and my mood brightened slightly at the thought of seeing that the author had to offer in his interesting little hack. So, the title screen loaded, exactly like it would with Super Mario World, except it had just "MARIO" on the title like I had mentioned earlier. Something else had grabbed my interest more-so than the unusual absence of layer 3 tiles on the title screen. Mario's normal bright colored and happy palette seemed, how can I put it..."dull". What was once Violette like red was now what seemed like grey with a slight red tint to it, and I'm fairly sure his pants were looking more grey than blue too...I thought this was strange, and I wondered why he had decided to give Mario such a dull palette...regardless as to what his intentions were, I felt that something was....wrong. Not in the sense that the palette was slightly bad, but, that the hack was, empty, like something had happened. Upon pressing start and selecting a new file, like alot of other countless mario hacks I have played in the past, there was some sort of intro screen that basically described the entirety of the plot in a short paragraph just small enough to fit into a small black box. I began reading, and for the mostpart, the message stayed the same, but there was one key factor that made this interesting. Apparently the main antagonist of this hack wasnt bowser at all.....it was....Mario?!?
The message says as follows.
Originally posted by Game
Welcome! This is Dinosaur Land. In this strange land we find that Princess Toadstool is missing again! Looks like Mario is at it again!
Welcome! This is Dinosaur Land. In this strange land we find that Princess Toadstool is missing again! Looks like Mario is at it again!
What the? "This wasnt the original message from Super Mario World" I thought to myself. Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, seeing as how over my nearly 2 years at SMWCentral I have played countless hacks and have seen many different intro messages, but this one really stuck out. At this point I definitely knew there was something odd about this hack. Upon letting the intro level music play, I pressed the start button on my controller to finally get to the over-world and begin my journey into this unknown hack. Upon entering the overworld, everything seemed normal. Same old level paths, same old music, but, the level names were different. Instead of "YOSHI'S HOUSE" like it always has been every time I've ever played Super Mario World, it was now simply just "YOSHI'S". The "HOUSE" part was gone. I thought that this was strange, and I began to lose hope in the hack because it had seemed like barely anything had changed at all from the original. I was hoping to see something new. Well, unluckily for me, I got my wish, as you'll see when you read on. I decided to enter the level ou of curiosity. When I entered, the whole house that's normally there was gone. No more smoke, no more fire, no more little birdies, no more tree house. All that was left was the message box. I decided to hit it. Upon opening, the message I expected to be there was replaced with what seemed like binary.
Apparently it says, "notepad"
At this point, I was on irc telling everyone about how the hack was starting to weird me out, which in itself yielded some sarcastic responses, but hey, I expected it. Anyways, after this my interest level in the hack skyrocketed, and along with it my paranoia. Oh boy was in in for a fun surprise. So, I decided to head left. Upon reaching what was before known as "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1" the level was now labelled "never come back". Now I thought things were going to be all kaizo death trap, because generally that is what people name their levels in kaizo hacks to make sure the player doesn't go there. To my surprise, it wasn't quite that way, though, I wish that it had been. Upon entering level 105 I am greeted by the insanely loud clown car sound that bowser's flying vehicle makes right before peach falls out. Of course, with my headphones being moderately high, the sound scared the living shits out of me, which wouldnt have happened if I hadnt been so nervous before hand. I decided at this time it would be best if I turned the volume on my headphones down, as to not get anymore unpleasant surprises such as that one.
When I entered the level, other than the music, everything seemed to be the same, except for the fact that the little koopa that slides on the ledges wasn't there anymore, nor was the banzai bill. The dragon coin was still there, however for some odd reason I wasnt able to collect it, or rather, any dragon coins at all. The author made certain of that. I also noticed that there was a brown used block near the spot where the banzai bill normally shows up. I can only assume this was a revisit to the level after I had beaten it like I heard in some half assed creepy stories in other Mario games. Now I was wondering why things were like this, making me wonder about the intro message. Had Mario done something previously to dinosaur land? Was this in Bowser's point of view? I quickly dismissed the latter option, because it seemed kind of stupid. So that left me thinking that Mario at one point and time in the Author's story, did something, but what?
What did Mario do? My mind was nothing but rushing thoughts at this point. However I quickly dismissed them and ventured further into the level, only to find that all blocks had basically been hit, coins had been collected (save dragon coins, those were still there and unobtainable) that there were no enemies, and that I could no longer go down pipes? "What kind of bullshit was I playing here." I kept thinking to myself. At this poiny I felt uncomfortable. I decided to keep venturing. Eventually I came across a message box, which I wasn't surprised was still in the level. Being the idiot I am I went and hit the box. Upon hitting it, I am greeted with the familiar black box once again. The message was edited obvously. As I had figured that this was a given at this point. It reads as follows.
Now, I thought things were starting to get the vibe that the author was a twisted and warped individual, and that I was right about Mario having done something. At this point I was basically rushing to get to the end of the level, so I just scurried by, and then i come across another message box, however this one was just a blank box with "POINT OF ADVICE" at the top with nothing else in it. I quickly disregarded it and headed off further to the right hoping to free myself of the hell that was once level 105. Upon reaching the end I saw a fireflower in the top block where the 4 way block intersection used to be, however its too high for me to reach by normal means, so I just continued onward, like the blind curious idiot I am would do. So I finally beat the level, and as usual the path to the Yellow Switch Palace is unlocked. I decided to head up the path that normally leads to the Yellow Switch Palace, and I find that when I enter the main over-world, every other landmass and decoration besides the ghosts from the ghost houses and Yoshi's island itself are gone. Nothing really changed at the yellow switch palace except for the switch message. All that changed was that -SWITCH PALACE- was changed to -MARIO WORLD-. Boring. Anyways, just when I thought I was done with this abomination that calls itself a hack, I find that Yoshi's Island 2 has also been edited. "Oh joy!" I thought to myself. <sarcasm/>
Upon reaching Yoshi's Island 2 I find that it has been renamed to YOSHI'S HOUSE, the original name of level 104.
I decide to enter and find that the palette of the level has been changed along with the background. They seemed to have been changed to the same palette as Yoshi'S Island 3, you know, Greenish tan and such. Except the background was pushed down some and was now a rotting brown color, and that the vegetation on the FG was now no longer present. I decide to explore the level a bit and come across the trail of koopas, that countless players have used a shell to rack free 1up's with. I decide to ignore them and go see if anymore of the level is changed. I eventually come across the ? that holds Yoshi and decide to free him. Upon freeing him, I now get this message.
This had me wondering what kind of sick and twisted hack I'm playing. I'm now having thoughts of all possible scenarios of Mario Attacking Dinosaur Land horribly and causing irreversible damage. The author had me hooked with his sick little game, and like any other idiot, I took the bait and kept coming back for more..
To be continued tomorrow....