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Ice cream flavors

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I've been saying we need to drop the titles for years.

People get into those mindsets when making hacks and it does nothing but stifle creativity. "I need to make my hack this way, or that way" when really I think a better mindset should be "I'm just gonna keep throwing in whatever the fuck I want and see what happens".
I think those terms are used a lot because some people are trying to describe or clarify the style they are going for with their hack... which I don't really see the big deal in as it kind of helps.


On the topic of limits and restrictions they aren't always a bad thing in my opinion. Sometimes it helps the hack stay consistent and stops it from becoming a disorganized mess.
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Originally posted by Ladida
Originally posted by MelodicCodes
But limitation drives innovation. I think that choosing not to limit yourself is silly, because it all but guarantees that your work will be average at best. Only by working under certain limits, self imposed or otherwise, can one create a real masterpiece.

This is more a philosophical point, but just look at how successful the indie game community is and you'll see what I mean. Hell, look at SMW hacking in general. SMW hacking is literally all about limitation driving innovation, and choosing to avoid any and all restrictions, especially in a medium like this, seems plain silly to me.

the snes already imposes enough limitations imo, just work with that


I can fully agree with Ladida. A good vanilla hack should be anyone's initial goal when hacking SMW, and although there is still quite some potential left in vanilla hacking (as this year's VLDC has shown), SMW hacking has been a thing for so long that pure vanilla hacks (those with no extra resources) have become rather uninteresting.


I want to clarify to Cascade real quick that my argument isn't necessarily for vanilla hacks. In fact, I rather decry the way the 'ice-cream flavours' work in general, specifically in just how superficial the respective limits really are.

At any rate, I suppose given that most of you seem to disagree, and that this is a partially subjective matter, I'll take defeat as gracefully as I can muster. I just don't necessarily understand what about my points was wrong.
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Originally posted by Ladida
the snes already imposes enough limitations imo, just work with that

I couldn't agree more.

I don't think there shouldn't be limits - otherwise we wouldn't be hacking a 20 year old game. But limiting yourself to just resources in the original SMW, or to just what Lunar Magic can do, restricts you even further. SMW by itself is not a very diverse game, and there's only so much you can do with it that hasn't been done before. But once you forego those silly restrictions and make use of graphics, music, ASM, etc., there are so many new possibilities, and SMW hacking becomes a lot more fun.
I just hack without considering ice cream flavors, I guess. I might occasionally work on something closer to the original SMW, but even then I don't really stick to vanilla and use anything that works well with it. I find it a lot more fun than sticking to any ice cream flavors for no actual reason, personally.
Originally posted by MelodicCodes
My thoughts exactly. Personally, I don't even like using the SA-1 patch, since it feels too far beyond what the SNES is capable of.


Strange opinion since SA-1 is a pretty legit and actually existing/used chip.

Considering that using SA-1 these days is so easy, I can hardly understand why anybody would not use it, barring those that want their game to work on flash carts.

Slowdown is probably the biggest bane of SMW hacking, the number one frustration in 99% of the hacks here, and a huge roadblock for creativity. At this moment, SA-1 is the only feasable solution for this enormous problem.

Quote
You have to remember that the SNES' processor had a clock speed lower than anything we use today. The creator of the SA-1 pack lists the SNES running at 3.56MhZ with FastROM. The thing had 128kb of RAM.

I'm listing this to get some perspective; [more stuff here]


As a low-level programmer myself, I can certainly see where you are coming from, but in many many many cases, it is simply not relevant anymore. Efficiency should not be solely measured on the performance of code but also in the time it took to arrive at that code. Time is expensive, and decent processing power is not (anymore).
Originally posted by MelodicCodes

But limitation drives innovation. I think that choosing not to limit yourself is silly, because it all but guarantees that your work will be average at best. Only by working under certain limits, self imposed or otherwise, can one create a real masterpiece.


Let me be clear: limits do not drive innovation. Ever. It just doesn't work that way. There are many ideas that can expand and make it amazing, and there are no limits to stop that idea. Limits are obstacles or walls that stops one's thinking on expanding that idea. With limits out of the picture, there could be many new and amazing ideas that can come up, whenever there isn't any boundaries to abide to.

With that said, I honestly don't really mind vanilla and chocolate being the main 2 flavors to classify a hack in question. A vanilla hack is taking of what you already have (no sources, GFX, music, anything along those lines), and making something new out of it. Now with chocolate hacks, you have access to sources and there shouldn't be anything vanilla-related anywhere in the hack you are trying to create. With choco-nilla, there is vanilla materials, with a twist on what the creator is trying to do (say, custom blocks to match with a theme of some sort, mild use of ExGFX, etc). If someone is going to make a new flavor, there has to be something that can make that hack classified as such. I just don't know what it could be that can start a new flavor.
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I personally have the tendency of mixing vanilla elements and chocolate elements. I feel there's just more surprise when a hack that looks like SMW throws a curve ball at the player with ASM (and sometimes even graphics). That's why series such as "SMW: VIP & Wall MIX series" and "SMW Yeah!!" works so well.

I'm not against any flavor though. Vanilla Hacks are able to push the limits of what Lunar Magic can do to SMW, and Chocolate Hacks show you how much you can change SMW.
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I hate limitations like this. My (newer) hacks, for example, don't follow the rules of chocolate, vanilla, choconilla, or whatever the fuck people say these days. Maybe one level would be totally custom, and the next level would have lots of "vanilla" elements. I don't really think it should matter. Just do whatever you like. Don't limit yourself.
Originally posted by Kagami Hiiragi
Let me be clear: limits do not drive innovation. Ever.


Actually, they do, but not in the way you might be thinking.

Suppose someone were to make a hack where Mario cannot jump. If I just said that without any context, you might think this is a horrible idea, but a creative hacker will think of many ways to work around that limitation, such utilizing platforms/noteblocks to provide vertical momentum, giving the player items and powerups to deal with enemies, and such. Captain Toad's Tresure Tracker was essentially built around this limitation and it was a very fun game.

In this way, designers are innovating ways to work around the limitations. I guess you can call it a MacGyver-esque approach, where designers can come up with amazing stuff using a limited toolkit. We're not thinking "What do I need to use to create this?" but rather, "What can I do with these materials?" and exploring for every possible application of those materials.
Originally posted by GeminiRage
In this way, designers are innovating ways to work around the limitations. I guess you can call it a MacGyver-esque approach, where designers can come up with amazing stuff using a limited toolkit. We're not thinking "What do I need to use to create this?" but rather, "What can I do with these materials?" and exploring for every possible application of those materials.

Perfect summary of my preferred design style.
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Limitations can be a way to force yourself to do things you usually wouldn't do. If you have access to everything do you think you will eventually use all the resources under your belt? Of course not! You'll probably just use what's easier for you to work with and you probably won't innovate much. Now imagine you can't use those resources you like so much, you'll have to leave your conform zone use other items you wouldn't use otherwise, and thus you will start innovating.

Take the recent 24 hour contest as an example. I don't think many people under normal circumstances would take one of the original levels, remove all the sprites and add their own. What's so innovative about this you ask? Well if you can't move any objects around and place them to your liking you'll have to find out a new way to place sprites so that it fits with the level layout, that means dealing with large areas of flatness and pits wich may be something you normally wouldn't deal with.
Re: limitations.

Remember everyone, you only have a say in the limitations of your own projects. Don't tell other people they're being too limited or not enough. It's their art project, after all, not yours.

I'll complain if, say, someone has a hack that breaks on real hardware. Not because they're not conforming to my limitation standards, but it appears to me that they are not conforming to their own. If they wanna make a game completely outside the SNES's limitations I won't stop them or complain so long as they're deliberately doing so, and not just being ignorant or fooling themselves.



And yeah limitations are great for innovation. If the possibilities are literally endless, then we just meander around and don't really get anywhere. There's simply too many options and it becomes difficult if not impossible to simplify, optimize and make things concise. Ever heard of the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention"? With limited time and resources, one can more easily analyze every possibility. With no limitations, one's completely overloaded with choices.

Self-imposed limitations are a more directed form of this. It can force artists and inventors to break out of their regular habits and find new ways of doing things (maybe even better ways of doing things!). Sometimes those limitations actually do get in the way too much and should be done away with, but deciding when that is true is all part of artistic skill.
Originally posted by Ragey
At this moment, SA-1 is the only feasable solution for this enormous problem.

The actual solution to that is good level design. Admittedly there are times when slowdown is a problem because there are too many non enemy sprites that need to be on screen at once, and with the limitations of the SNES these can't be handled another way, but more often than not slowdown is caused by bad level designers throwing bad amounts of enemies at the screen and hoping that makes it interesting.

Originally posted by Kaijyuu
Self-imposed limitations are a more directed form of this. It can force artists and inventors to break out of their regular habits and find new ways of doing things (maybe even better ways of doing things!). Sometimes those limitations actually do get in the way too much and should be done away with, but deciding when that is true is all part of artistic skill.

I have to agree with this. A month or so ago, I created a hack where I limited myself to be only allowed to do things I suck at. Because of this limitation, the hack sucked. However, and more importantly, the things that I did (level design, music, mostly) were the best instances of those things that I've ever done, and I could implement what I learned while working on them in a more interesting hack. Which I think is neat.

Edit: regarding flavor designations: They are pretty stupid. Vanilla means the base SMW game, chocolate means you have shitty taste in ice cream.

I'm mostly being facetious. There needs to be some way to keep the filthy coders out of some of the contests, and flavors seem as good a delineating name as anything else.
Originally posted by aj6666
Limitations can be a way to force yourself to do things you usually wouldn't do. If you have access to everything do you think you will eventually use all the resources under your belt? Of course not! You'll probably just use what's easier for you to work with and you probably won't innovate much. Now imagine you can't use those resources you like so much, you'll have to leave your conform zone use other items you wouldn't use otherwise, and thus you will start innovating.

Take the recent 24 hour contest as an example. I don't think many people under normal circumstances would take one of the original levels, remove all the sprites and add their own. What's so innovative about this you ask? Well if you can't move any objects around and place them to your liking you'll have to find out a new way to place sprites so that it fits with the level layout, that means dealing with large areas of flatness and pits wich may be something you normally wouldn't deal with.


That could inspire a new style of level design, where the terrain is placed first and then the sprites are placed afterwards.


Originally posted by HuFlungDu
Originally posted by Ragey
At this moment, SA-1 is the only feasable solution for this enormous problem.

The actual solution to that is good level design. Admittedly there are times when slowdown is a problem because there are too many non enemy sprites that need to be on screen at once, and with the limitations of the SNES these can't be handled another way, but more often than not slowdown is caused by bad level designers throwing bad amounts of enemies at the screen and hoping that makes it interesting.


It's a bit easy to call all/most instances of high sprite density bad level design without knowing more.

Furthermore, slowdown is also a problem in horizontal level that have vertical scroll enabled, and can be introduced by the player performing unforeseen actions such as taking a shell or uncollected powerup beyond an area that it was intended for. It is pretty much impossible with the default SMW engine to gracefully handle or prevent this. Additionally, layer 2 interaction has shit performance in almost all cases.

I guess most people can live with some slowdown, but for me it is simply unacceptable. The game must run properly under all circumstances, and the limitations of the default SMW engine are too restrictive to my taste.

Though I seem to go offtopic on this a bit.
Originally posted by Cascade
That could inspire a new style of level design, where the terrain is placed first and then the sprites are placed afterwards.

This is nothing new. I remember there being a number of people that use that technique without any errors.

Regarding the current topic, I don't forcefully impose flavors on my hacks as opposed to before, but I normally pick whatever I think is easier to me and work around the given limitations. A custom resource, while not necessary for your hack to be so polished, could be the main spot where you can start innovating and appeal people who are familiar with them or not. Limiting yourself to anything isn't always bad if you test what you have enough.

I have a project that will be mostly based on that, and I thought of creative usages for what I downloaded from the respective sections.
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Instead of 'choconilla', should we refer to it as 'cookies and cream' instead?
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I don't mind the term vanilla, because vanilla is a particular style. I guess Chocolate and Choconilla are considered styles too, but they just seem more like the norm for hacks to me.

Also I don't see why people say that vanilla is so restrictive. To me it's anything but, because there's a lot of stuff, graphics sprites or otherwise, that rarely get used, so I can use those things in a creative way. This is why I'm considering making a vanilla hack, so I can show that vanilla isn't as restrictive as people say it is. Just my opinion though.
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