ROM Hack Interviews

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/romhacks/3mix-interview.htm

The recently released Super Mario Maker allows you to create your own Mario levels, but ROM hackers have been doing this for years (and incidentally, have gotten some of their videos taken down by Nintendo). In a new series of interviews, we talk to the developer of Super Mario 3mix, one of the most ambitious ROM hacks of Super Mario Bros. 3.

[cardinalfang]

Thanks for doing this! I actually played this one not that long ago, and was incredibly impressed with it. Like he says in the interview, sometimes the simplest concepts work the best as long as they're executed well.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Nice interview and pretty good advice at the end, thanks.

I'm only at the third world in this one but I'm enjoying it so far.

[ommadawnyawn2]

OK, just beat the main game. Really impressive hack overall! I'm not sure where else to post this so I'll just put it here. These are some issues I had with the game (I can post screenshots of most of these if you want):
- Severe slowdown here and there throughout the game (FCEUX 2.1.3) which sometimes made button presses not register properly
- Minor hit detection bug at the beginning of the sunken ship level and in 5-1 (coin block turns invisible and makes Mario jump constantly if you stand on it),
- Hit detection problems in the squeeze trap room in world 4's first fort (crouching at one point makes you teleport to an open area if you get squeezed instead of dying),
- Another hit detection bug happens in world 4's (I think it was) airship level where the hidden 1-up at the end of a segment is; If you're flying into it with the raccoon suit you can get stuck inside the wall touching the end of the segment/area here
- The screen stops scrolling upwards at one point in level 6-1 (after the waterfall with two 1-ups next to it)
- Non-functioning (?) screw platforms in world 6's final level. I know you've put functioning ones in other parts so maybe it was intentional, but it seemed like there should've been moving/blue ones near the star coin here to provide some challenge
- Unfinished levels can sometimes be passed by in the hub world. This happened once in world 6 and once in world 7
- You can't spawn a 1-up and a power up at the same time (the first item disappears if more than one is spawned). Not sure if this was the case in the original though and it only happened once for me

And here's some level design criticism (don't get me wrong, overall I was very impressed and would say it's a strong 8/10 in this category):
- Extra lives aren't saved. Items and star coins are so why not lives too? I like having a ton of lives on a save for when I go back and play previous levels or just feel like experimenting with stuff
- The game starts out too easy (except for some of the star coin locations); Because of this and the point below, I didn't feel like your hack really engaged me until ~World 3
- Very slow power up progression. I know what you were going for but with only the mushroom, flower and star are available for the first two worlds I would feel bored at times there, so I think some of the suit locations could be spread out more throughout the game
- Points of no return. When you build a game around collecting, it should generally be easy to go to the part of the level you want to if you've passed it instead of replaying from the beginning
- Some trial & error: Going up a screen in level 1-7 via the pipe means you can't jump down again outside of it (lower screen edge turns into a lethal pit), landing on an upside down koopa while upside down hurts you, one or two leaps of faith (world 7 giant level's underground section is one example where it's easy to jump into a pit by mistake), the odd route through world 6's final level where you need to go back through the pipe (which you can't normally do) - It's easy to accidentally go down the pit here, the scrolling and momentum stopping abruptly when you move into the first world's main boss encounter (the game makes you fall straight down as if you hit a wall and you also need to move right up to Bowser to make him start moving), some parts had an invisible block and enemies near the same spot leading to a few cheap hits
- Loose upward scrolling in underwater areas and a few other segments (last world 6 level for example). I'm pretty sure this was the case in the original too but would've liked to see it changed here anyway
- Uneven difficulty here and there after World 2: Easy world 3 main boss and world 4 mini-boss (the latter generally takes too long before the floor starts falling), pretty tough crabs encounter on the hub world, easy dino encounters,
- The lion mini-boss is also pretty easy because the invincibility time lasts the entire jump from one side to the other so there's no danger in touching it then
- Limited throwing controls; It's annoying when trying to bomb walls and if possible it should work like in SMW instead
- Some backtracking and dead space if you go for the star coins. Usually this is minor, but playing through most of the game in one sitting I kind of got sick of collecting star coins after a few worlds and this was a factor
- Can't move back and forth to make enemies respawn (for some puzzles). It's generally a good thing that they don't though and I'm not sure if you could make some enemies respawn and some not? Not a big issue though
- Some sidetracking just for standard coins; To me it gets old after a few worlds when you have more interesting rewards in the game like star coins, alternate exits and suits
- There are some distracting (garish and cluttered) backgrounds and some sprites blend in too much with the background

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/romhacks/nightcrawler-interview.htm

Nightcrawler is one of the most prolific members of the ROM hacking community, the collection of hobbyists who tinker with old video games to transform them into new creations. His English fan translations include I'Max's Dual Orb II, Bullet Proof Software's The Magical Land of Wozz, and Alfa System's Emerald Dragon.

[vivianjames]

Great interview. No idea where to start with rom hacking, but I really want to try it and insert my own sprite art on some games.

[hummy]

Yeah, this is an interesting and insightful interview, and I look forward to seeing more in the future if this turns into a running series. It reminded me a bit of these podcast interviews between others in the ROM hacking scene, but a bit more structured (and maybe a slightly narrower scope?)

[Woody Alien]

i never really cared much for ROM hacking and creating new games over existing ones, however I find the world of hobbyist translators fascinating especially for all the limitations they have to overcome, so it was an interesting read.

By the way, just the other day I had to register to the ROMhacking forums because I wanted to download an English translation for a game I intend to do an article on.