The member and staff member of the month for September are MarioE and HyperMario respectively. MarioE is a skilled and active ASMer who also helps people in the forums. HyperMario is a very nice staff member and helps a lot by moderating the forum and remoderating ExGFX. Enjoy the interviews.
Originally posted by MarioE's interview
1. How did you get into SMW hacking?
After I finished playing through SMA2 on the GBA when I was 11 or so, I would draw custom castle levels on paper that I thought could never be done in the real game. I found Lunar Magic while searching for custom levels in Super Mario World. I basically got hooked on SMW hacking right there. It was amazing to be able to move around the objects and sprite in the levels - never mind the fact that I actually didn't know how to put new objects or sprites inside, or how to not create a blatant level edit; I was amazed purely by being able to move things around.
2. Tell us about you personal hacking projects you've worked on in the past.
I've tried to create a full hack several times. I was never patient enough to actually finish the hack, though...
Probably the farthest I'd ever gotten was making a somewhat custom status bar, creating half of the overworld, and making a few levels that I don't think were actually very good. In fact, in several of my older videos showcasing some really, really old ASM I had made, you can see part of a castle level and the status bar that I had made: Link. Around that point, I decided to just stick with doing ASM, not bothering to create any more hack attempts.
3. I see you took part in the Super Mario World for dummies collab. Can you tell us your experience in that project?
I joined SMW: For Dummies on a whim, basically. Devann was asking if there were any people who could do ASM for a team hack, and I volunteered pretty quickly for it.
I had to create a patch which would basically introduce the player to a powerup or an item the first time that it was encountered with a message. For example, the first time that the player touched a mushroom, a message box would pop up saying, for instance, "You just got a mushroom! These make you big, allowing you to take more hits from enemies than you previously could."
I also had to create a level for the hack, which... was clearly not my forte, having canceled quite a few of hacks previously, mainly due to a considerable lack of patience but also because of what I thought was poor level design.
4. What got your interest towards ASM?
The ASM showoff thread. It pretty much started it all. I wanted to be able to create sprites and patches that were as good as the ones that I saw in the thread. In particular, Roy's mode 7 overworld, and the various pause screens that people made jumped out at me.
I actually learned the basics of ASM a lot earlier; I used Sukasa's 65c816 ASM tutorial, as well as Schwa's comparatively brief tutorial (small aside - it actually had an error in its description of the EOR opcode, which I didn't notice until quite a bit after reading through it). The inspiration to actually make blocks and sprites was from the ASM showoff thread, though. One of the first real sprites that I created was a giant goomba boss, and... I basically made a ton of stuff after that.
5. Can you give us your general thoughts on the SMW Central community?
The community here is quite nice. There are many people talented in all aspects of hacking here - to name a few (in no particular order): andy_k_250, Snifit, Alcaro, RednGreen, and Vitor Vilela. In general, everyone's pretty friendly and it's fun talking to the people here, especially on IRC. I've noticed the forums have gotten slightly less active over the past few months. The IRC, which I am, admittedly, much more active on, is still roughly the same in terms of activity as it always has been.
After I finished playing through SMA2 on the GBA when I was 11 or so, I would draw custom castle levels on paper that I thought could never be done in the real game. I found Lunar Magic while searching for custom levels in Super Mario World. I basically got hooked on SMW hacking right there. It was amazing to be able to move around the objects and sprite in the levels - never mind the fact that I actually didn't know how to put new objects or sprites inside, or how to not create a blatant level edit; I was amazed purely by being able to move things around.
2. Tell us about you personal hacking projects you've worked on in the past.
I've tried to create a full hack several times. I was never patient enough to actually finish the hack, though...
Probably the farthest I'd ever gotten was making a somewhat custom status bar, creating half of the overworld, and making a few levels that I don't think were actually very good. In fact, in several of my older videos showcasing some really, really old ASM I had made, you can see part of a castle level and the status bar that I had made: Link. Around that point, I decided to just stick with doing ASM, not bothering to create any more hack attempts.
3. I see you took part in the Super Mario World for dummies collab. Can you tell us your experience in that project?
I joined SMW: For Dummies on a whim, basically. Devann was asking if there were any people who could do ASM for a team hack, and I volunteered pretty quickly for it.
I had to create a patch which would basically introduce the player to a powerup or an item the first time that it was encountered with a message. For example, the first time that the player touched a mushroom, a message box would pop up saying, for instance, "You just got a mushroom! These make you big, allowing you to take more hits from enemies than you previously could."
I also had to create a level for the hack, which... was clearly not my forte, having canceled quite a few of hacks previously, mainly due to a considerable lack of patience but also because of what I thought was poor level design.
4. What got your interest towards ASM?
The ASM showoff thread. It pretty much started it all. I wanted to be able to create sprites and patches that were as good as the ones that I saw in the thread. In particular, Roy's mode 7 overworld, and the various pause screens that people made jumped out at me.
I actually learned the basics of ASM a lot earlier; I used Sukasa's 65c816 ASM tutorial, as well as Schwa's comparatively brief tutorial (small aside - it actually had an error in its description of the EOR opcode, which I didn't notice until quite a bit after reading through it). The inspiration to actually make blocks and sprites was from the ASM showoff thread, though. One of the first real sprites that I created was a giant goomba boss, and... I basically made a ton of stuff after that.
5. Can you give us your general thoughts on the SMW Central community?
The community here is quite nice. There are many people talented in all aspects of hacking here - to name a few (in no particular order): andy_k_250, Snifit, Alcaro, RednGreen, and Vitor Vilela. In general, everyone's pretty friendly and it's fun talking to the people here, especially on IRC. I've noticed the forums have gotten slightly less active over the past few months. The IRC, which I am, admittedly, much more active on, is still roughly the same in terms of activity as it always has been.
Originally posted by HyperMario's interview
1. How did you get to know about SMWC?
It all started when my brother (who is now inactive here) found a bunch of Level Editors of certain games, and he proved it to me that ROM Hacking is possble. After several days, he showed me "Lunar Magic", the tool that we all know by now. After that, I started to make my own levels slowly, were some of these are insipred by other games. By one time, I was trying to replicate a Doomship from SMB3, but I noticed that the graphics doesn't fit well. Several days later, my brother downloaded new stuff again, and it contains a hack named "SMBDX" and "TLLDX". These hacks showed me that editing graphics are possible, so I asked my brother on how to do that. After more days have passed, my brother showed me this website and he showed me the Graphics section, and I found lots of neat stuff. Cutting the story to short, I decided to register somewhere around February 2008, and I'm here now as of this present date.
2. Tell us your experience around the site as a member and as a staff member.
As a member, I'd say that I've been enjoying my stay here throughout all these years. Well sure, I was inactive when I first joined, but I was able to return last 2010 after I managed to handle the internet by myself better (we have our own connection now). I wasn't kinda participative during my early years in here (small submissions, rarely posts on the forums), but even so, as a member, I'm liking my stay here.
Now as a staff member, it feels like a new path and chance has opened up to me. I never expected myself to become a part of the staff team due to my little confidence of being one, but now, I am taking this chance to help anyone on the community as possible as I can. The experience that I'm having now is great and fun; I can see how everything works, and how am I possible to assist. It's really great that now as a staff member that I'm now able to moderate one of the sections that I always keep an one on: Graphics. I still have a little experience on being staff, I say, since I'm one of those recently promoted users, but yet I want to see how much am I able to experience this great thing.
With all that said, I'm having a very great experience as one of the users on this site, even if I'm not one of those popular ones, yet I still enjoy myself from staying in here.
3. Why did you decided to specialize on GFX?
Well, that's because I love them. Graphics might be also in a form of art, so I like Graphics. It might be slightly relevant on this but I used to draw when I was little. I draw houses (but not someone an architect can draw), copy images from certain magazines, etc., and I even draw a custom Mario level. I also seem to have some nice taste on Graphics; I'm kinda picky (maybe about 17% of the time), and I always want to see Graphics in full use, without any palette or cutoff. Graphics seem to be related on my past talent, so I guess I have some experience on working with it. I also have some creativity (see current layout I guess, some of my levels) which I always want to make eye-pleasing. So yeah, I decided to specialize on Graphics because I love doing all sort of things related to it, even though, to be honest, I haven't made some hand-drawn by myself.
4. What experiences you had playing SMW hacks so far?
I rarely play SMW Hacks, to be honest, so I'm not quite sure on my experience of me playing hacks. Even so, I still want to play some new recent hacks that we have now, I just can't find a good time due to me doing my own stuffs.
5. Tell us about your hack "Super mario Bros. 3 - The Secret Place".
It's my recent project of me taking a shot on SMW Hacking for the fourth time.
Before I started making SMB3TSP, I made 4 hacks, which all of them failed for reasons unknown or I forgot. The first one is probably my test hack, which is also where I learned all basic stuffs on SMW Hacking. This post has the screenshots of my second hack, in which I cancelled for unknown reasons. My third hack, which was in secret, has already failed after my first levels because of this post, with details explained. My fourth hack, which I'm attempting to do something different than to my usual hacks, got left out because I am super-lazy to continue that now, and I almost feel that it's out-of-date.
Now talking about SMB3TSP, I started working on this somewhere around 2011 (with only the first 3 screens of the first level done), and I decided to get it back somewhere around 2012, and made a Hack thread after finishing World 2. I am quite happy of the result of my hack, maybe proud of it, I seem to made something user-friendly, compared to my old hacks. I guess I'm putting so much effort on this one, and trying to avoid mistakes that I did in that past, so that I won't have to cancel it and make a new one again. It's because I really wanted to finish this hack, I made a far progress, and I want to see how it will go. While my hack isn't moved by the recent ASM these days, and with my little-good level design, I'm using the Graphics of the Hack to back it up, and I think that's enough for me.
Maybe I can share some details a bit: this hack will have some simple-but-not-too-complex plot, and I'll try to make sure it isn't that big for me to make. The hack's name is 100% related to the story that I'm planning, so make sure to watch how my hack progress, and drop-by on my thread if you feel that you want to.
6. Anything else to say before this interview ends?
Of course. First of all, I want to thank this website, SMWC, my first forum ever, for having a really great community. It somehow improved my life, as my views now were completely different compared to when I first joined, but my views on the community still hasn't changed; the place is filled with my friends, loving people, and helpful persons. It also made me explore the internet more, and I also learned some quite cool things that I want to keep.
Second, I want to thank my brother for helping me out everytime I need some help. Even though he's inactive on SMW Hacking, he still helps me on my hack by giving some ideas and feedbacks, which I'm really greatful for. He's always there for me, SMW Hacking or not.
I don't want to forget to give some shout-out for my four loving friends that I'm able to make this past Christmas. Because of them, I feel better now, and they've changed my life a lot. We always help each other when needed, always supporting each other's backs, and they're some really loving persons that I wish to meet on real life for once. I'm going to go ahead and paste the link of these four special friends of mine: Someone who I like to talk to with something silly, Someone who I see as a role model, Someone who likes me a lot, and who I like to treat, and last ... but not the least ... Someone who I deeply care and love.
And also to my friends that I made on #hyperpower, there's too many to mention, but I'm thankful for those who stayed there and made friends with me.
It all started when my brother (who is now inactive here) found a bunch of Level Editors of certain games, and he proved it to me that ROM Hacking is possble. After several days, he showed me "Lunar Magic", the tool that we all know by now. After that, I started to make my own levels slowly, were some of these are insipred by other games. By one time, I was trying to replicate a Doomship from SMB3, but I noticed that the graphics doesn't fit well. Several days later, my brother downloaded new stuff again, and it contains a hack named "SMBDX" and "TLLDX". These hacks showed me that editing graphics are possible, so I asked my brother on how to do that. After more days have passed, my brother showed me this website and he showed me the Graphics section, and I found lots of neat stuff. Cutting the story to short, I decided to register somewhere around February 2008, and I'm here now as of this present date.
2. Tell us your experience around the site as a member and as a staff member.
As a member, I'd say that I've been enjoying my stay here throughout all these years. Well sure, I was inactive when I first joined, but I was able to return last 2010 after I managed to handle the internet by myself better (we have our own connection now). I wasn't kinda participative during my early years in here (small submissions, rarely posts on the forums), but even so, as a member, I'm liking my stay here.
Now as a staff member, it feels like a new path and chance has opened up to me. I never expected myself to become a part of the staff team due to my little confidence of being one, but now, I am taking this chance to help anyone on the community as possible as I can. The experience that I'm having now is great and fun; I can see how everything works, and how am I possible to assist. It's really great that now as a staff member that I'm now able to moderate one of the sections that I always keep an one on: Graphics. I still have a little experience on being staff, I say, since I'm one of those recently promoted users, but yet I want to see how much am I able to experience this great thing.
With all that said, I'm having a very great experience as one of the users on this site, even if I'm not one of those popular ones, yet I still enjoy myself from staying in here.
3. Why did you decided to specialize on GFX?
Well, that's because I love them. Graphics might be also in a form of art, so I like Graphics. It might be slightly relevant on this but I used to draw when I was little. I draw houses (but not someone an architect can draw), copy images from certain magazines, etc., and I even draw a custom Mario level. I also seem to have some nice taste on Graphics; I'm kinda picky (maybe about 17% of the time), and I always want to see Graphics in full use, without any palette or cutoff. Graphics seem to be related on my past talent, so I guess I have some experience on working with it. I also have some creativity (see current layout I guess, some of my levels) which I always want to make eye-pleasing. So yeah, I decided to specialize on Graphics because I love doing all sort of things related to it, even though, to be honest, I haven't made some hand-drawn by myself.
4. What experiences you had playing SMW hacks so far?
I rarely play SMW Hacks, to be honest, so I'm not quite sure on my experience of me playing hacks. Even so, I still want to play some new recent hacks that we have now, I just can't find a good time due to me doing my own stuffs.
5. Tell us about your hack "Super mario Bros. 3 - The Secret Place".
It's my recent project of me taking a shot on SMW Hacking for the fourth time.
Before I started making SMB3TSP, I made 4 hacks, which all of them failed for reasons unknown or I forgot. The first one is probably my test hack, which is also where I learned all basic stuffs on SMW Hacking. This post has the screenshots of my second hack, in which I cancelled for unknown reasons. My third hack, which was in secret, has already failed after my first levels because of this post, with details explained. My fourth hack, which I'm attempting to do something different than to my usual hacks, got left out because I am super-lazy to continue that now, and I almost feel that it's out-of-date.
Now talking about SMB3TSP, I started working on this somewhere around 2011 (with only the first 3 screens of the first level done), and I decided to get it back somewhere around 2012, and made a Hack thread after finishing World 2. I am quite happy of the result of my hack, maybe proud of it, I seem to made something user-friendly, compared to my old hacks. I guess I'm putting so much effort on this one, and trying to avoid mistakes that I did in that past, so that I won't have to cancel it and make a new one again. It's because I really wanted to finish this hack, I made a far progress, and I want to see how it will go. While my hack isn't moved by the recent ASM these days, and with my little-good level design, I'm using the Graphics of the Hack to back it up, and I think that's enough for me.
Maybe I can share some details a bit: this hack will have some simple-but-not-too-complex plot, and I'll try to make sure it isn't that big for me to make. The hack's name is 100% related to the story that I'm planning, so make sure to watch how my hack progress, and drop-by on my thread if you feel that you want to.
6. Anything else to say before this interview ends?
Of course. First of all, I want to thank this website, SMWC, my first forum ever, for having a really great community. It somehow improved my life, as my views now were completely different compared to when I first joined, but my views on the community still hasn't changed; the place is filled with my friends, loving people, and helpful persons. It also made me explore the internet more, and I also learned some quite cool things that I want to keep.
Second, I want to thank my brother for helping me out everytime I need some help. Even though he's inactive on SMW Hacking, he still helps me on my hack by giving some ideas and feedbacks, which I'm really greatful for. He's always there for me, SMW Hacking or not.
I don't want to forget to give some shout-out for my four loving friends that I'm able to make this past Christmas. Because of them, I feel better now, and they've changed my life a lot. We always help each other when needed, always supporting each other's backs, and they're some really loving persons that I wish to meet on real life for once. I'm going to go ahead and paste the link of these four special friends of mine: Someone who I like to talk to with something silly, Someone who I see as a role model, Someone who likes me a lot, and who I like to treat, and last ... but not the least ... Someone who I deeply care and love.
And also to my friends that I made on #hyperpower, there's too many to mention, but I'm thankful for those who stayed there and made friends with me.