Okay, the story is in progress, so I'll try to sum it up reeeeeal nicely.
First off, the aforementioned Star Rod is the same one of Paper Mario fame. I.e., it grants wishes. Thus, it's obvious that *someone* is gonna go for it to try to use it to take over the world. See Bowser in Paper Mario.
Second... I can't say why Dimentio's alive without spoiling the final Rainbow Road level. SERIOUSLY. Speaking of that level, that's Star Palace, resting place of the Star Rod. Weird, huh?
Now, story. HATE typing this out, as I keep changing it every time I type it out. So, I'll just give the short short version for now. (Hey, can't give the full one until I get a name for the Yoshi in the story. He loves clocks, and lives in the clock tower...and he can go backward and forward through time.)
Luigi wakes up one morning to find Mario gone. Mario went off to save Peach from Bowser (as usual), so Luigi decides to go on a picnic to the Gem Valley. As he's setting up, Mimi comes along. They chat a bit, and a mysterious white Yoshi appears, asking for their help. He says that someone named Dimentio has been chasing him around wanting info on how to reach the Star Rod. To combat Dimentio, he went into the future, and brought back Dr. Wily. But, since he knows nothing of future events until he sees them himself, he didn't know Wily was evil until it was too late. Dr. Wily sapped the Yoshi of most of his energy, and along comes Dimentio, again wanting to know how to get to the Star Rod. Dr. Wily asks what it is, Dimentio tells him. Wily then decides to go find some way to get to it. Dimentio gives chase. The Yoshi tells Luigi and Mimi that to get to the Star Rod, they must find the 7 Time Crystals (New name coming soon. >_>) Before the Yoshi can finish speaking about what they must do after that, someone attacks and knocks him off the ridge and down into the valley. It is Dimentio. He warns the two not to meddle in his plans, or they'll suffer a terrible fate. Then he flies off, and the Yoshi flees into the Clock Tower, then erects a magical barrier around it. Mimi persuades Luigi the coward into helping her help the Yoshi (Luigi's a coward, so he'd rather not do anything, of course), and they hop into a nearby pipe, which leads to the Silver Pipeline.
Again, it's a story in progress. Parts of it will sound stupid. I can't help that. I don't have that many ideas... ._.
As for the Sammer's Kingdom ground.... I'm getting sick of those tiles. I can't easily redraw the building tiles. For one, I need to have a gradient going from a dark blue to an orange-yellow. And even then, I have limited palette space in which to have said gradient! It's annoying. But I'll try your suggestion about the ground....
I don't wanna waste any more levels than I need to. Besides 104 and 0, all OW levels are taken. Seriously. And few of those are optional. ._. I also have this problem: The game is supposed to end after you beat the final boss. If I try to use some level for the "credits"... Then there's no real ending. The hack goes on and on. And I don't really want that.
Now, a real update.
Well, I installed FuSoYa's SMB3 pipes to a new ROM, and ported my hack's stuff over to it... But I also patched the 2-Player Only and Seperate Luigi GFX patches to it. Meaning I can finally start working on Mimi. ...Did I already say she's playable from the start? I have to do that, unfortunately. I don't want to use LevelASM to make some ASM hack that opens up Mimi for the rest of the game after beating 7-2. So instead, Mimi from the start, just like my story says. If I had any room in that intro message, I'd put "Luigi and Mimi" instead of "Luigi". But I don't.
Also, new OW player sprite:
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PLAYER GRAPHIC IN THE UPPER-LEFT CORNER. ...Seriously, don't. I haven't gotten around to changing the player graphics used by the Seperate Luigi GFX patch. Anyways, that little bubble thing is the new player sprite. Since Luigi and Mimi look nothing alike, I needed to use something that was character-independent, so to speak. Soooo... That. Luigi = Green, Mimi = Orange. The A tells you to press that button to enter a level! Press it? It changes to "OK!". For reals! Sooo....yeah. I'm kinda trying to find all the parts of the Caped (Player) tiles, flying. I think I'm gonna replace the Cape powerup with the Tanooki Suit, though....but then I'll need graphics for that, and I have limited space. >_<
Thanks for all the feedback!
<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money