ラクガキ (Rakugaki) Mario - the last VIP we will ever see...

[raocow]

well I've been having a lot of fun one way or another

[Lord Ruby]

Ah, what a gloriously devious kaizo trap today.

Does this hack have global graphics replacements? The transparent pixels on pipes are replaced with black pixels in today's level, and I recall something being off about the pipes in earlier levels, so that was probably it. Seems pretty random though, especially as some other blocks like cement blocks keep their transparent pixels.

[Heraga]

Ah, what a gloriously devious kaizo trap today.

Does this hack have global graphics replacements? The transparent pixels on pipes are replaced with black pixels in today's level, and I recall something being off about the pipes in earlier levels, so that was probably it. Seems pretty random though, especially as some other blocks like cement blocks keep their transparent pixels.

Nothing really global changed beyond the pipes, which use their Demo World TLC GFX much like most other Screen Scroll Pipe inclusions (which the VIPs did too). On/Off blocks aren't vanilla but they similarly use the older VIP equivalent, the newer YI On/Off I think were created by SIG sometime in 2010-2011. One may wonder why I didn't replace the cement with the VIP equivalent either. This was actually intentional, VIP2 and 3 for some reason reverted back to vanilla cement. Only VIP1, 4-6 use the iconic grey SMAS ones, but there is no answer as to why for VIP2/3 they were forgone. Have no fear though, they do show up in one level later on.

[PSI Ninja]

I replayed Go! Go! Mario!! and found that you can speed through it much more easily with the screen scrolled to the right. You can't just "go" otherwise, because the way the Ninjis spawn in forces the player to hesitate (with their quick hop just after landing). I found this level more enjoyable than the winged block level, because you have more freedom of movement and it's not an autoscroller.

One thing I've always wondered is why baseballs are so persistent in SMW. Even if you've scrolled far away from the Chuck that threw them, the baseballs just never seem to want to go away or they just appear out of thin air.

Regarding midpoints, I think whether or not a level should have one is just a matter of finding the right balance between length and difficulty. However, this is complicated by the fact that level length often factors into its difficulty. Plus, a lack of midpoints may have been an intentional design decision by the author, in order to challenge the player to survive longer. This is a completely different case from negligence on the designer's part or a lack of testing. Since there's no hard rule about midpoints, there will always be someone who's dissatisfied with how they're handled in games like this.

The name is based off of a misremembering about the end of World 4-1 in Yoshi's Island being vaguely similar to the concept of this level, much like other levels named after Yoshi's Island levels in the VIPs and other JP hacks.

I thought the concept was more similar to that of 2-E (Hit That Switch!!) than to 4-1. But since they're both from the same game, I can understand why there was a misremembering.

[Sugar]

which ironically VIP2 was the same

Albeit, to be fair to VIP2, the levels that don't have a Midway Point in World 2 of VIP2 are so short that they don't need one.

• Hyuururii-raraa
• R Secret Room
• The Use of a Key
• The Green Palace
• ( ^^)Swappin' Foes

Like I think I would struggle to put a Midway Point in a level with a very low time limit, a Top Secret Area where all you need to do is fly up, a level so short that raocow beat it in a minute, a Switch Palace that has pretty much no real obstacles, and an edit of World A-1 from Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels with different foes.

[KobaBeach]

I am definitely the sort of person that adds midpoints to levels I made that don’t need it lol

As can be seen with the sky stage I made before people told me it was okay to remove the midpoint.

On/Off blocks aren't vanilla but they similarly use the older VIP equivalent, the newer YI On/Off I think were created by SIG sometime in 2010-2011. One may wonder why I didn't replace the cement with the VIP equivalent either. This was actually intentional, VIP2 and 3 for some reason reverted back to vanilla cement. Only VIP1, 4-6 use the iconic grey SMAS ones, but there is no answer as to why for VIP2/3 they were forgone. Have no fear though, they do show up in one level later on.

There’s a difference?? (On/Off)

VIP cement is praxis, only reason its not in AAT is that we ported the A2MT graphics (still need to restore the Eat coins from ASMT).

[George]

Is there some way I can modify patch of Rakugaki Mario where I can manually unlock what exits I got and preserve the score or something? Because I didn't savestated when I was done for the day after I did a bunch of levels of World 6 and didn't want to do them again. I found some cheats on the internet that let me open 1st and 2nd exit, so I thought it would be okay so I overwrited the savestate that had a bunch of levels less, but when I started playing, sometimes when Mario jumps, the sound of Mario jumping just isn't there. So now I don't know what to do, seems like my patch has broken a little. I know the patch isn't unplayable, but I want everything to be perfect, even more when I like this game.
Can you please help me with this?
PS: Idk how to work with hex codes and similar things. So that would need a step-by-step guide.

[Catabo]

VIP cement is praxis, only reason its not in AAT is that we ported the A2MT graphics (still need to restore the Eat coins from ASMT).

secret lore unlocked: VIP cement is Roman concrete

[Heraga]

I'm surprised you didn't catch that first hallway drop room being a reference to the VIP1 Forest Castle! (But I guess that leaves that level name open to something else...) Also, despite that castle message being rather ominous, you're supposed to have read it prior to encountering Tricky Moving 1, the other main World 3 stages aren't as difficult.

There’s a difference?? (On/Off)

It's not too noticeable but at some point the ones on the bottom became the normal usage ones. I think it may've been Anikiti who made the top versions, as those were as far back as Luigi's Adventure. Note that none of the VIPs ever used the bottom either iirc.

Anacron

Level By---

WhiteYoshiEgg

This level's name is in reference to a service task that Linux Operating Systems can perform, which is ironic given the level is Windows themed. The creator of this level also created the original Windows XP tileset way back in 2007-2008 and, for this hack, thought it would be fun to create a new set just like the old one. The date the bottom of the taskbar shows was the same date that this level was submitted, but I probably should've updated it to match the release date....

Narrow Hallway in the House

Level By---

MST

The first level that this creator made for the hack. When originally approached to create a level, I found out that they apparently had contributed towards the development of the VIPs in some capacity, and made this level as a tribute to TSC's Classic VIP1 World 4 Castle. Only the second room is a true homage though, the rest try and follow through the mindset of the level. Because this was submitted without a castle destruction message, Pogyo and myself wrote one for it at the end of development.

[WYE]

Comments on one of today's levels (includes author spoilers):

Anacron is inspired by the Windows levels popular in the late 2000s, which I *think* I've contributed to by making graphics for several Windows versions. This level features a tileset made specifically for this hack, modeled after the more or less brand-new Windows 11. (the date in the taskbar is actually the exact time the graphics were drawn :>)

There are basically two meanings to the level name:

• it's anachronistic for a pseudo-2008 hack to be featuring Windows 11 graphics.
• it's anachronistic for me to make another Windows tileset after all these years (I believe I made the very first one in 2008).

I was looking for a name that captured the anachronism of it all while being tech-related; no special relation to the Linux software called Anacron.

When Heraga approached me about contributing, I was intrigued and made a level and that's basically it. I didn't realize then how Japanese- and VIP-influenced this hack would be, and (from what I've seen so far) how much my level would end up standing out. In keeping with the 2008 spirit I didn't give my usual amount of thought to level design, and my levels tend to be easy and good-natured anyway, so this turned into quite a romp - a stark contrast to the levels before it!

[raocow]

I'm surprised you didn't catch that first hallway drop room being a reference to the VIP1 Forest Castle!

oh I recognised it, but you have to admit that this is very fitting as a video title

[KobaBeach]

There’s a difference?? (On/Off)

It's not too noticeable but at some point the ones on the bottom became the normal usage ones. I think it may've been Anikiti who made the top versions, as those were as far back as Luigi's Adventure. Note that none of the VIPs ever used the bottom either iirc.

You showed me this on Discord, but fascinating. AAT is currently using the top, if anyone from the AAT Team wishes to change to the bottom ones, feel free to reply! I just worry about palette real estate. I could check if any of the VIPs use the latter.

I took the graphics AAT used from either VIP5 or VIP1, and I am currently (well not right now, but in the present) in the process of extracting some ExGFX from older hacks so I have some basic ExGFX for level making purposes (mostly not for public consumption unless I'm especially proud of any level, and I am never proud). SMWC's are too polished for me, I love jank. I'm the sort of person who admits Chrono Trigger is the better game, probably the best JRPG, but prefers Legend of Mana and SaGa Frontier in a more personal aspect.

I actually caught

MST

's VIP1 reference because VIP1 is my most replayed VIP, not because of favoritism, more because I'm a stickler for chronological release order with most video games and I have a bad habit of restarting a piece of media if I spend too long without interacting with said piece.

I'm trying to cut on it because it's just murder on progress, like, for example, I've long given up on the idea of an all-anime-wide Digimon-athon, rewatching Adventure 99 is too much of an ordeal if I'm only doing it to reach what I haven't seen yet (undubbed!Frontier, and everything after that regardless of dub except for a few episodes of Xros Wars season 1, Appmon, tri. and Savers).

[Grounder]

[George]

Is there some way I can modify patch of Rakugaki Mario where I can manually unlock what exits I got and preserve the score or something? Because I didn't savestated when I was done for the day after I did a bunch of levels of World 6 and didn't want to do them again. I found some cheats on the internet that let me open 1st and 2nd exit, so I thought it would be okay so I overwrited the savestate that had a bunch of levels less, but when I started playing, sometimes when Mario jumps, the sound of Mario jumping just isn't there. So now I don't know what to do, seems like my patch has broken a little. I know the patch isn't unplayable, but I want everything to be perfect, even more when I like this game.
Can you please help me with this?
PS: Idk how to work with hex codes and similar things. So that would need a step-by-step guide.

So about my last post, it seems like the saws sound sometimes cancels the Mario jump sound when you're jumping multiple times on the ground. Can you please check if it's doing the same for you? If so, then I can start where I left off. If not, then is there some jumping sound patch to make the sound work properly? Thanks for checking it for me.

[Heraga]

Why is Everybody Running Away?!

Level By---

RussianMan

The first level by this author, meant to be an average VIP midgame level (is world 3 midgame...? I'd say it's the start...). This level was submitted with the title "IDK", but was changed in post-processing. There's a hidden moon in this level, but it's pretty obvious where it is. Surprisingly I had more trouble with the first half of the level than the second (farming for cape for both halves certainly helps though.)

World 3 in general is the weird asm/gimmick world of this hack, so get ready for that(?!) Next level and the World 3 castle are my favorites of the hack.

[Skye]

.

[Nao]

I've seen a streamer beat this level within a decent number of tries, reacting to some obstacles but not all. They were able to beat the goal room first try though.

[FourteenthOrder]

The beginning was so promising, but this level singlehandedly caused me to drop playing this hack. "React to each new obstacle in a fraction of a second in the exact right way or restart the long autoscroller" is just like the most unfun garbage and killed any interest I had in continuing. -_-

Hopefully the rest of the game will retain the earlier qualities. This back-and-forth lately feels like the game isn't sure whether it's going for "pastiche of the early VIPs" or just "superhard hack made with the limitations of that time" and those are very different design philosophies.

i really want to love this hack because the concept and effort that went into it are so great but it's really starting to lose me right now

[Daizo]

This back-and-forth lately feels like the game isn't sure whether it's going for "pastiche of the early VIPs" or just "superhard hack made with the limitations of that time" and those are very different design philosophies.

That is sort of the nature of collabs unfortunately. Each designer remembers the VIPs very differently, some very well understand it while others confuse it for "hey let's make a superhard with nonsense gimmicks".

I mean look, I bet even back when vip was being made they were just making levels. There isn't a true VIP-like like how there isn't really a YUMPlike or a JUMPlike (original JUMP anyway, JUMP1/2 definitely really focused on perfecting itself). That's why mimicking styles isn't the greatest idea.

[Grounder]

i'm sorry, but this game pretty clearly sucks at this point*

*might be my bad mood talking, but on the other hand like half of the levels so far would qualify as stinkers to me

[Skye]

.

[Daizo]

little bit uncalled for, we're barely like a quarter into the game.

[PSI Ninja]

After many attempts, I ended up practicing the second half of Why Is Everybody Running Away!? with savestates before I could beat it on a single savestateless run. This is the same way I handled the Kaizo levels in YUMP 2 and other related hacks. I guess I "cheated" myself by doing this, because the main difficulty of these types of levels is puzzling out when and how to react to obstacles on the fly. However, playing the level "honestly" and learning incrementally would be way too much of a time sink for me.

That being said, I still think that today's level was more pleasant to play than the winged block level. The latter is simply more awkward and restrictive, with the setups sometimes being inconsistent. Once you've figured out how to beat the former, it's really not that hard to execute, although there is still some challenge in memorizing what hazards come next. Not at all surprising that raocow didn't get as frustrated today as he did playing the other level.

[Grounder]

little bit uncalled for, we're barely like a quarter into the game.

To that I reply with "if the seams are showing this early, I can only imagine it's not going to get better"

[KobaBeach]

.