Mario and the Spaghetti Napper
2nd out of 44
2022 Simpleflips Dream Hack Competition
A Super Mario 64 ROM Hacking competition I participated in with a friend. We took inspiration from Mario and Luigi: Dream Team and Psychonauts to create a short experience focused on entering the dreams of characters to find out who stole Mario’s spaghetti. While we worked together on the general structure and game events, I was responsible for actually making the levels themselves.
For this adventure, we had big goals with a lot of spectacle. I created all the individual art assets for the levels and major moments such as the first boss fight, and seeing it all come together in the end product was very fun. It was also really cool seeing all of the positive reactions to our competition entry, we were not expecting to get second place!
These hacks utilized Blender as a makeshift game engine, allowing easy modification and addition of level geometry, game assets, and more. It taught me a lot about the actual workflow of level design, utilizing much simpler and basic shapes before going more in-depth on even simple Nintendo 64-esque models.
The main gimmick utilized in this hack were dash pads, giving the player a massive burst of speed that allowed them not just to jump far, but also jump high. I had a lot of fun putting the dash pads to good use. In this image, the platforms aren’t the only dash pads around. The entire sand layer on the floor acts as one massive dash pad, forcing the player to go right back to the start of the stage if they miss a jump in a way that’s much more fun to watch than your average “fade-to-black and respawn” method.
Mario and the Markdown of Mayhem
3rd out of 82
2023 Simpleflips Troll Hack Competition
Another Mario 64 ROM Hacking competition I participated in, with the theme of “Troll.” We took inspiration from Pizza Tower and brainstormed the structure and major events as a team, giving the player a 30-minute time limit with various obstacles around to slow down the player. I was once again the one responsible for the levels themselves, from their design, to modeling them, to making sure everything was fun to play through.
