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SMW: The Star Field

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Early this year I released the first demo of Super Mario World: The Star Field. I didn't start a thread about it and did nothing to advertise it, yet it's been recieved very well and has, to my surprise, for a long time remained one of the highest rated non-featured hacks on the site. I'm sure that's partially just luck.

My goal with this project is to make a full-length hack with vanilla levels design. There are some non-vanilla elements, but I call it vanilla level design as the levels could be in a vanilla hack. There are custom sprites, but the custom sprites, such as NPC's, are used to tell the story, not to change level design. I wanted to give each level it's own feel and make them play differently. I am using the SMW Redrawn graphics. I know lots of people say they are overused, but I like them, and as I'm not adding lots of exgfx, this gives the game more of a vanilla feel. I am trying to use lots of custom palettes, however. I find most people who use these graphics don't tweak the palettes.

Demo two will be released soon. The first demo contained the first two worlds, plus one difficult world seven level. The next demo contains worlds 1 through 4, however, I decided to remove the world 7 level from this demo, as I felt many of the world 4 levels were hard enough that I didn't need to include a world 7 level to have one difficult level.

Partially I decided to start a thread this time because I have some concerns with how the hack is turning out. The levels are getting quite difficult, and if I keep making more worlds that get harder and harder, it may become too frustrating. Right now I like the difficulty, and I'll be leaving it mostly as is for this demo, though players who don't like challenging hacks won't like it. There are two things I'm considering doing about the difficulty for the final version. I could either add a health patch, specifically the SMB 2 health patch (cause I could then hide heart containers in certain levels and I already have plans for were some of them would be) so Mario could take more hits so it would be easier, or I could do two versions of the hack - a hard version, and a normal version where I tone down the difficulty. I'll welcome opinions on this once I release the demo.

And now, I'll show off some of my levels.

This is the castle of world 3:

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A secret world 3 level:

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A world 4 level:

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And another world 4 level:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sdblBMXS9TI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sdblBMXS9TI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

If anyone wants to beta test, I'll be ready for beta testers in a day or so. I'll probably only use 2 or 3 beta testers.
Current Project: Puzzleshmup             Links: Twitter | YouTube | Mario Maker
Looking good, I'm not a big fan of redrawn graphics at all, but they're implemented pretty well in this hack. The only thing that I really didn't like was the ghost house FG and BG in the toybox level. I think a "happier" FG and BG would fit better. But overall, looks good so far.

My YouTube Channel
Why does Wily's theme from Megaman 2 seem to fit so well?
Nice level design for the World 3 Castle. The only flaw I had seen was the Thwomp at 2:39.

Mushroom Lake is a nice, long level. I like the music you used in the first cave.

Offtopic: Will he make it, or won't he? "Of course he will, it's on TV."

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