Language…
16 users online: CroNo, Dennsen86, elegist, Golden Yoshi, Green Jerry, Hammerer,  Lazy, MellyMellouange, Metal-Yoshi94, mtheordinarygamer, Nayfal, Nemesis1407, Neuromancer, signature_steve, slopcore, Sweetdude - Guests: 344 - Bots: 370
Users: 64,795 (2,370 active)
Latest user: mathew

So many Kaizos

Originally posted by zacmario
I think the user is referring to last year or so. Looking for new content. I'd be curious what percentage of this year's hacks are kazio.

2018

6 Easy
45 Normal
23 Hard
91 Kaizo: Light
4 Kaizo: Hard
3 Pit
6 Very Hard
2017

12 Easy
66 Normal
26 Hard
38 Kaizo: Light
8 Kaizo: Hard
7 Pit
8 Very Hard
2016

14 Easy
80 Normal
45 Hard
10 Kaizo: Light
5 Kaizo: Hard

13 Very Hard
2015

150 Easy
277 Normal
92 Hard
9 Kaizo: Light
4 Kaizo: Hard
2 Pit
15 Very Hard
2014

21 Easy
69 Normal
30 Hard
7 Kaizo: Light
7 Kaizo: Hard


2013

51 Easy
96 Normal
29 Hard



1 Very Hard

<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
As far as I'm concerned that chart proves our point.

There's clearly a new trend developing.
                                                                                                                  
                              
Originally posted by LethalBrownies
As far as I'm concerned that chart proves our point.

There's clearly a new trend developing.


Only among kaizo: light...and you (and those on your camp) act like its a problem. Literally why you see an explosion of Kaizo: Light hacks in the past few years is because of the runaway successes of SMW Remix, Banzai Mario World, and Super Dram World, of which the former 2 gave concrete form to the idea of a "Savestateless Kaizo" that was semi-accessible to those aren't entirely in and for the Kaizo Mario World demographic, and the latter kicked off its own thing of gifting hacks for SMW speedrunners and Kaizo Mario World streamers. That's always going to happen among successful products and the best thing you can do is to curate those that shine above from the rabble.

Originally posted by danwaleby
They weren't always allowed on the site, there was a kaizo ban for a while. It might have been a little more saturated otherwise


Because the Kaizo hacking community at the time was still taking off from the whole trend Kaizo Mario World sets, that had no real standard of quality or framework of what to expect out of the genre out of copying what Kaizo Mario World did and even fewer understanding the ins and out of what made Kaizo Mario World successful as a hack, made worse by the fact that it was seen as part of the other issue of "YouTube SMW Hacks" being a thing which were generally low quality hacks. When Kaizo hacks became accepted into SMWC's hack database was when a codified set of standards was developed as a framework for such hacks.
Modern Redrawn Mario Bros. 1.5 (last update - February 14, 2023, some new bonus frames, tons of minor touchups to various poses)

On Pixel Art Requests: Depends on what it is and if I have the time for it. If its complex and I don't have the time, don't expect me to accept it.

Projects I support:


Finally, others have finally begun to see the specter that is haunting our beloved Super Mario World Central. Personally, I find it absolutely absurd and utterly appalling when I see what is occurring on this treasured website. If you have a keen eye, you may have also noticed the absolutely monstrous influx of the so called "Kaizo" hack. What is "Kaizo" anyway? Is it Japanese? Is it Morsel? Is it even a word? I have wrote a great many lengthy articles on this subject matter, but the entire premise still leaves me dumbfounded. However, I shall attempt to provide you a little history lesson to perhaps explain this horrid phenomena that is infiltrating our beloved hacking site.

Kaizo Mario World was created in 2015 by a particularly trollish hacker from Japan (I can only assume this hacker came from Mario Maker, a Wii game released a year prior). The hack featured numerous traits of bad design. One particularly large design flaw arose from the fact that the level 1-1 message box was written in Japanese. This message box was entirely intended to teach players how to jump. However, the language barrier prevented anyone from beating the hack. Finally, one brave soul was able to screenshot the message box and transpose it onto google translate (don't ask me how). That's what officially started it all.

After that, the so called "Kaizo genre" took off. At some point, a particularly devious hacker decided to create a "Kaizo" hack. Now, this hacker was also a gardener. He was famous all around the world for his variety of plants. He grew all sorts of tropical vegetation and fascinating flora. When he created this "Kaizo" hack, he wanted to bring a part of this garden into the hack itself. And thus, he created a muncher. The muncher was drawn from scratch in June of 2015 and custom-inserted into Super Mario World. When the people saw it, they were appalled, yet intrigued. From that day on, the plant he created continues to grow and spread its way across nearly every hack created.

Soon after, there was a particularly splendid period on the site. I call this the Golden Age of SMW hacking. It was during this period that almost no "Kaizo" hacks were submitted to this website. During this time period, the people basked in the tranquil splendor of peace and quiet. They dabbled in a few "easy" hacks, but nothing major.

Then, something terrible happened. Something truly, awfully, horrible happened. He arrived. Carrying nothing but a blue (?) briefcase and a trusty Lunar Magic (TM), he emerged from out of nowhere and stood against the website. He declared that he would permanently bring forth a new era of Kaizo, an era of trollish treachery and insidious debauchery. As the upholder of jank law, he reinstated the same craziness that we saw in 2015 from the original Kaizo. From that point, there was hack after hack after hack submitted. Our poor little SMW hack waiting section could barely handle it! And to this day, his tomfoolery runs wild, as countless of his minions submit their devious hacks on the site to terrorize its citizens. Now, my fellow SMWCers, we must put an end to Kaizo, once and for all. The time is now. Delete the muncher, wipe out the reset prompt, destroy the shell jumps, and annihilate the yoshi sacrifices. It's time that we bring back a second golden age. One where we have barely any hacks submitted to the site, and we can rest in world peace.
I mean, there's an easy solution to the problem: if you think Kaizo hacks outnumber other hacks too much, just create more other hacks. Can't always expect other people to solve all of your problems.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Isn't the point of romhacking to have fun? This is what it all boils down to, right?

I don't see how people can hate on an entire category of romhacks when there's not much different about them other than difficulty. If people want to talk about oversaturation, let's talk about how vanilla hacks always have the same graphics, and the same enemies, and the same music, and also make up a good chunk of the hacks on the site.

If more people are making Kaizo hacks, isn't that an indicator that a lot of people enjoy making and playing them? I don't even think anyone's considered the amount of DOWNLOADS these hacks have. Check every hack you see when you apply a search filter for Kaizo: Light hacks only. All of them have hundreds of downloads, some even have thousands. This is consistent for each hack! If the majority of players didn't enjoy Kaizo, they wouldn't be nearly as popular as normal hacks. The influx of Kaizo hacks, let alone difficulty, clearly isn't an issue to whoever is playing these hacks. If the average lurker is anywhere near as picky as the active users here, that means a LOT.

If it's obvious that people just really like Kaizo, why wouldn't we keep making them? The purpose of romhacking, like I said before, is having fun. That should apply to both sides. Right now, it looks like we struck gold if that is what we're trying to achieve.
Originally posted by NaroGugul
I dont think theres a point on creating a different section.
You can always just click on 'filter results' and just select the difficulty you want.



But it is very difficult to use the filter results lmao.

By the way I am a Kaizohacker myself and it is not easy to create a level. Sometimes it takes so long to make a Good Level.
What caused that there are so many Super (insert a kaizo speedrunner's name here) World hacks, is speedrunners. Blame Panga for starting this trend with his Super Dram World dedicated to dram55. After that, Dode dedicated his kaizo hack to PangaeaPanga. And so many people started making those. A lot of people here and there enjoy watching kaizo hacks, less playing and even less creating them. If you compare download counts of kaizo: light and normal hacks, most of the former's will still be very far from the most downloaded hacks' on the site.

A lot of them have no custom music and substantial amounts of custom palettes, let alone ASM. Why? Because a lot of people realize they can often be more creative than when making regular hacks and are stubborn enough to start making their own evil levels, but not so many want to or are capable of learning to make their hacks feel less like the original game.

You can't forbid them making kaizo: light if it's something that they genuinely enjoy a lot more than your everyday normal hack. As I said before, kaizo hacks are a great field for creativity. If you think that there are too many kaizo hacks being accepted in the last year, the creators can also make easier hacks that can also be enjoyable, e.g. JUMP. As a proud kaizo hacker, I don't hesitate to say that you might be capable of making something that's (almost) as enjoyable as kaizos, but can be played by a bigger group of people. Even if you're a kaizo hacker, you should at least once try to make a hack like that.

BTW, I don't think we need a separate section for kaizo hacks. Result filter is already sufficient. It's not too hard to use it, just click on Filter Results, slide upon Difficulty menu, expand it and choose kaizo: light if you're looking for easy kaizo hacks.
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
-----
Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

Haha okay to give my actual, serious opinion on the matter, it's actually awesome to see so many good hacks submitted this year. I'm not sure if SMWC has realized this, but outside the site, there really has been huge growth and interest in hacking. It's an interest that I haven't seen from SMWC itself in a long time, and it's quite inspiring. I, for one, am excited to see these new hackers one day branch out and explore different genres of hacking. However, right now, Kaizo is much more popular and there are way more active Kaizo hackers than active non-Kaizo hackers that exist.

At first, I was happy to see hacking finally popular again but I was stubborn because I wanted to see more hacks that appealed to me (which would be puzzlish kaizo, I'm not really a fan of shell jumps). But I had to dismiss that feeling. I should just be thankful that an inspired group of individuals are having fun and we are finally seeing hacks made again.

I understand that this might be frusturating if you do not play or cannot play Kaizos. But understand that Kaizo is simply the current trend and the popular genre right now, and that's not a big deal. The bigger benefit is that there are countless awesome people that have been introduced to hacking and SMWC through this trend, and I expect (and hope) that they will stick around for much longer and they will outlast the trend.
I'm really amazed that despite the fact that I have made 2 or 3 posts stating that I'm not denigrating or talking down about kaizo hacks or those who like to make/play them, or that they are easy to make, the majority of people responding to me and my point of view are using that argument. #smw{>_>}

All I'm saying is that I hope Super Mario Maker hasn't influenced the SMW hacking community to such a degree that massively difficult games are the only things people want to make anymore. Because speedrunnning doesn't fascinate me.
And don't even get me started on the fact that streamers seem to be the ones getting picked for hack moderating positions here.
                                                                                                                  
                              
Originally posted by LethalBrownies
And don't even get me started on the fact that streamers seem to be the ones getting picked for hack moderating positions here.

All members fit for the position they are specialized in will get picked. Maybe the fact of streamers getting the position is a coincidence, but it's not a trend.

And nobody is attacking your arguments at all. It's just that the argument you and others who defend there are too many kaizos stick with is easily refuted by simply counting the amount of SMW hacks that are submitted, not even half of them being kaizo. And kaizo wasn't even that popular back then, but whatever, I guess.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Originally posted by Katerpie
Originally posted by LethalBrownies
And don't even get me started on the fact that streamers seem to be the ones getting picked for hack moderating positions here.

All members fit for the position they are specialized in will get picked. Maybe the fact of streamers getting the position is a coincidence, but it's not a trend.


Also it literally doesn't matter as long as they moderate properly. (which they are)
Originally posted by LethalBrownies

And don't even get me started on the fact that streamers seem to be the ones getting picked for hack moderating positions here.


Assuming you're talking about Linkdead and myself here, I think some introduction is in order. I've been using this site since roughly 2010, possibly earlier (mostly without a username) and didn't begin streaming until 2015. I assume the story is similar for Linkdead, although he's been streaming a little longer than me. We both have a huge passion for Kaizo-style romhacks and have been fortunate in drawing audiences while playing them.

Inevitably, people learn what (kaizo) romhacks are from watching the two of us (among others), and they are often intrigued but without direction. These people and the SMWC community have been disconnected for a long time, and in the past year staff reached out to us since there was a shortage of kaizo moderators, and I assume no one else's name came to mind since playing kaizo hacks is indeed kind of a niche thing.

Since then, Linkdead and I have been doing our absolute best trying to review the entirety of hacks categorized as kaizo to give direction to these newer players, and additionally (hopefully) bridge the disconnect between stream watchers and the SMWC community. This is beneficial for the growth of SMWC, and gives direction to newer players interested in romhacks, not even just kaizo hacks. In fact, I've seen quite a few people find and contribute to this site from our streams and I'm very grateful for it. I hope that isn't a problem.
Originally posted by LethalBrownies

And don't even get me started on the fact that streamers seem to be the ones getting picked for hack moderating positions here.


not throwing some wood to fire.. but i would really like to hear more about it.
could you develop this further?
Point taken, guys, point taken. #smw{^_^;} I really meant no offense.

You're absolutely right. If you get the job done, what's the effing problem? I over reacted.
                                                                                                                  
                              
Originally posted by zacmario
I think the user is referring to last year or so. Looking for new content. I'd be curious what percentage of this year's hacks are kazio.


That's EXACTLY what I mean. The mass majority of recent hacks have been Kaizos. Using the difficulty filter doesn't help well at all, considering that you can't toggle it like, say, the "length" or "date" of the hacks.
It feels like a good idea, having a url to a list/gallery view of the hack-type; efficient..? There's some. It's cool, remembering Ctrl+F|Checkboxes. Thinking of 'SMW Hacks' #lm{exppal}'List/Gallery Of hack-type'(an ideal for 'misc/special' categories) (Fine?) #lm{exppal} Default filter marking 'AZ',off 'Author',(stuck)'Time'. Drawn to the feeling. Neat aesthetical details in gallery #lm{objects}
Many of you have misunderstood what I'm saying. I don't HATE kaizos NOR do I want them gone or decreased. I LOVE watching TASes of them. I'm saying that since the popularity of Kaizos have lead to a mass influx of uploads recently, that I think we should now have a subsection specifically for Kaizos. Guys this should be a win/win for EVERYONE. They'd be in their own sections. That way, if you only want Kaizos, you'll have a kaizo section. If you're like me and only want adventurous hacks, you'd have a section for that, too. It'd be more organized and easier to navigate through without the burden of sorting through the ones that you don't want. That's all I'm trying to get across. This ain't an "Anti-Kaizo" thread. So please, put your guns away.
what other kind of segregation you want it to have?
theres already different forums, different tags, different mods, different standards, etc..
i honestly dont get it
Originally posted by NaroGugul
what other kind of segregation you want it to have?
theres already different forums, different tags, different mods, different standards, etc..
i honestly dont get it


Really? Gonna go that route?