A Mario fangame! It's a fangame! With Mario!

[Previous]

Oh hey vectors

Protip: Don't use bold outlines like that. Make normal, usual-width outlines. Then, take your bold outlines and put them behind everything else. That way, you'll avoid the clashing where inlines seperate from outlines.

[Star]

Took my time to go through this whole topic. The crazy-fun descriptions and awesomness of this game has got me hooked onto the finished product.
Never thought I'd be this excited for a mario fangame..especially one being made by Fawful himself. Keep up the good work, sir.
*salute*

[Zero Kirby]

Previous: I... never thought of that, actually. Huh. Welp, you learn something new everyday - Thanks! I'll fix it up and post it later.

Star: I HAVE FURY. Well, glad to hear it.

EDIT: Animated logo in game.

[Zero Kirby]

Pound, pound, poundin' the ground

Ground Pound's been added and I'm working on getting the other powerups into the mix as well - Boost Mario'll probably be next.

[Lexou Duck]

I have a few problems with your metal mario

he looks more like "rock mario" at the moment

take a look at this :


you see how metal is shaded differently than other materials ? it goes from specular white to pitch black, and has lots of reflected lights.

my advice is : use lots of references of metals, look at how it behaves with light, to reshade your sprite properly

[Zero Kirby]

I have a few problems with your metal mario

he looks more like "rock mario" at the moment

take a look at this :


you see how metal is shaded differently than other materials ? it goes from specular white to pitch black, and has lots of reflected lights.

my advice is : use lots of references of metals, look at how it behaves with light, to reshade your sprite properly

I'll give it a try but I'm not sure how well I'll actually do in that department. Still not that skilled at spriting and whatnot.

I do see what you mean though.

EDIT: Hmm



Am I on the right track, at least?

[Lexou Duck]

yeah you're sorta getting there, the idea of the drak gray line not touching the black outline is good, but it looks very flat atm (like metal mr.game&watch in SSBM)

what you should do is make that same dark gray line thicker in places where shading would be darker, see what i mean ?

[Zero Kirby]

Welp, taken Lexou's criticism's to heart and managed to update most of the Metal Mario sprites - still a work-in-progress but they do look much better now!

So here's some more screenshots


How pipes look in-game so far.

Seriously considering putting a platform in the pipe similar to the pipes in Partners in Time so that it doesn't look quite as... weird. Y'know?


How Boost Mario looks in-game so far.

Have also been thinking about his abilities which aren't implemented yet - five ways to Boost Jump on the ground (up, left, right, diagonals), all eight directions when skydiving, and not at all underwater is my idea right now. It'll basically be the Shinespark from the Metroid games but with limited range - probably based on how long you charge it up. Does this seem pretty good? I'd really like feedback on it.


An example of the new Metal Mario sprites.

I still have a few animations to go which are unfortunately the trickier/longer ones but heck, I'm almost done.


And an extra touch I recently added.

I also changed a number of voice clips to ones from Super Mario Sunshine since they're far less used than Super Mario 64 voice clips - I even added his "tired" sounds so that when you're low on health like this Mario sounds a lot more half-hearted in what he's doing.

So progress thus far is mostly aesthetic but welp. It's progress.

[Zero Kirby]

Finally finished updating all of the Metal Mario sprites and 100% finished his ground pound so he's done now, woohoo

I celebrated by updating the water graphics


Sure looks better now

Gonna work on a way to animate them as well, so look forward to that!

Also planning on adding Achievements because those are fun, right



First six are how they'd look in a scrolling menu of Achievements. Which set do you guys like the most? Ones you haven't gotten yet will contain hints as opposed to outright telling you how to get them, as you can see there. I don't think I'll track them based on which file you're playing, more as an overall thing since I think most people will use the extra files for extra playthroughs like speedruns or something.

Then there's how they'll notify you as you collect them in-game. Which one do you guys think looks better?

Also since I know some of you are going to ask an obvious question please don't, you know which one I'm talking about so please don't

[Lexou Duck]

why is falling down to your doom "clearing the game" ??

also the n°1 looks best imo

for the notification, try and find a way to make it so we can clearly see the icon, like maybe putting it on the right, where there isn't a corner eating up the space

[Zero Kirby]

why is falling down to your doom "clearing the game" ??

also the n°1 looks best imo

for the notification, try and find a way to make it so we can clearly see the icon, like maybe putting it on the right, where there isn't a corner eating up the space

1. Well hey, Game Over means the game's over so yeah

2. Thanks, and I quite agree

3. I tried that and it didn't look as good as what I had before, BUT I did do a little editing to come up with this:



I think it looks a lot better now, but maybe you have another suggestion?

ALSO general announcement that I'm gonna start working on the Options Menu now, whee hoorah woohoo



So Controls is pretty obvious, you'll get to change the game's control scheme. I'm planning on including a couple presets though so hopefully you won't have to unless you WANT to give yourself arthritis. In any case you'll get to change the game's controls. Same thing with Gamepads, a couple presets (though so far I've only an Xbox Controller map, so if you have another with a different map, please, let me know) and then full customization.

For Display, that's going to be something like doubling the size of the screen or the like - the resolution will stay at 400x240 no matter what, you'll just have a bigger window! You'll also have options to turn off the Controller Indicator during gameplay, and probably some HUD options as well (maybe a minimal version of the HUD or different styles like in Kirby 64 - still thinking about what I can do there, though programming additional HUDs honestly won't be too hard).

Sound & Music, you can change the volume of... sounds and music. Welp. I'll probably include a Sound Test for after you clear the game.

And Achievements (yes I know I misspelled it dammit aaaaaaa) is, of course, checking to see what Achievements you've unlocked and getting hints for ones you haven't. Wowee! I've written a (oddly lengthy) list of Achievements that I'll cut down and implement after I'm done with this Options Menu.

After that it's back to working on Boost Mario. So about him:


No I didn't really try

This is how I'm planning him (kind of, read on for why). Use him to break through Brick Blocks, and has a distinct advantage in skydiving. Can't break blocks below him, that's a job for Metal Mario, and can't boost or use pipes underwater like everyone but Metal Mario. Each powerup is supposed to have their own unique situations where they're most useful or most useless, so that it encourages picking the right one for the job than just "welp time to tanooki around" like in other Mario games

On the far right are "ricochet" ideas. Like, if you hit a wall while Boosting you'll bounce off at a 90-degree angle. The bottom one is an idea for making it more like a Wall Jump where if you time your button presses right you can bounce higher than normal but I'm afraid that

A) This'll make the powerup needlessly complex
B) I'll completely neglect to make puzzles based on it

and then I realized that you ALREADY use Boost Jumps to reach higher areas so making it so that you need to reach even more higher areas is kind of

redundant

So no ricocheting.

[Previous]

You know, I'm really impressed by your project here.

I just don't like that bright blue aqua color you use for achievement text and options buttons

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

i love this boost mario concept; not just for the obvious combining-sonic-and-mario connotations, but also for the planning that's gone into making it and other powerups useful for different reasons, sort of like a kirby game that only gives you a few powers and leaves you to figure out how best to use them.

this may be the only mario fan game i've ever had a real interest in. nice work, so far!

[Zero Kirby]

You know, I'm really impressed by your project here.

I just don't like that bright blue aqua color you use for achievement text and options buttons

That bright color's straight out of Mario Kart DS, and I see what you mean. I'll try some different pallets for them!

i love this boost mario concept; not just for the obvious combining-sonic-and-mario connotations, but also for the planning that's gone into making it and other powerups useful for different reasons, sort of like a kirby game that only gives you a few powers and leaves you to figure out how best to use them.

this may be the only mario fan game i've ever had a real interest in. nice work, so far!

Oh yeah, the whole thing is from a previous Metroidvania concept I had where you used the different powerups to reach new areas. In this game they do work a little differently and have different uses, and there'll be a way to finish every level with any powerup you please, but secret exits and such will require specific powerups, and certain areas will definitely be easier to get through with one powerup over another.

[Zero Kirby]

Time for a weird thing now

So I found a Bowser's Inside Story soundfont and have been playing around with a MIDI-soundfont-whatevererratorthing and figured

"Hey wait! My game uses the BIS style! Maybe I should make the soundtrack fit?!"

So have yeself a listen here to this Sonic 1 Game Gear MIDI by SwordBolt put through the M&L3 soundfont



I think it's a rousing success and now I'm planning on doing the whole soundtrack this way. No need to worry about weird differentiations in instrumentation with this deviation from my original intention of soundtrackification.

Think it's a good idea? Great idea? Terrible idea I have no idea why you would want to do this it's just more work and will make the game move along slower STOP IT YOU PERSON

(Since I can't actually make MIDIs myself they'll come right off of VGMusic like every other fangamer does. I won't even give myself editing credit because what am I even doing besides saying "MAKE THIS NOISE INSTEAD")