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2/26/2006 6:41:40 PM | Posted by: Jeremy Burns | 18 comments
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Over the past two years I have been piecing together a Super Mario Brothers game designed to continue the wonder of the original side-scrolling series. It has finally reached the point where I can release it on the world and be proud of my creation. There is nothing left to add feature-wise to the game although I am definently still making more levels and possibly some new enemies. There will eventually be bosses too.

I designed this game as a mixture of all the best parts of other Mario games to date, and a few innovations on my part. There are three powerups besides the mushroom which include the standard fireflower, the hammer suit, and also the carrot that gives you floaty bunny ears. When you get a new item your current one is stored at the top of the screen like in Super Mario World. The poison mushroom, powerstar and P-Block also make appearances. Mario can also get the wingcap from Mario64 which allows him to fly for a while. Some pipes are enterable and there are functional doors also.

The level is timed by a burning fuse at the top of the screen. At the end of each level, there is a spinning wheel over a block which he must hit. When he hits the block a point comes out of it and stops the wheel either on a green or a red mushroom. If the wheel lands on a green mushroom, one of the red coins at the top of the screen turns green, and vice versa for landing on a red coin. When all of the colored coins at the top of the screen are the same color, Mario gets a 1UP.

The bitmaps of Mario are twice the resolution he is drawn in because at some point I hope to get someone to draw or enhance more detailed sprites. But until then, he looks fine.

The game is packaged with a world/level editor which is pretty straightforward to use. Some day I will write documentation on how to use it but if you really want to make your own levels, the editor is easy to figure out. The game is also designed to support mods.

Check out http://www.jeremy.ssr.be/for updates and info.

-Jeremy