Mario's Keytastrophe: Demo 3 is finally here!

Download it here!

Screens:

The final batch of musical updates

This will be the final update before the release of Keytastrophe Demo 3. It is a batch of music I have redone with different samples, such as Gregorian chanting, synth, and a mysterious piano.

"Discord Bells Toll" - Final
"Shrines of the Lost" - Final
"Dissonance War March" - Final

With the music concluded, levels concluded, and nothing but a bunch of ASM to fix up, the demo will be here extremely soon. I won't go ahead and say "oh a week", because things come up. A week long project usually takes me two months, so just hang tight and sit at the edge of your seat for a while.

22 - "Twinkle Skyway" and more.

The 22nd song, and the "real" final song before demo 3 has been created. I wasn't too fond of the old Skyway theme, so I decided to revamp it and make it sound great. I also mixed in a familiar tune that I'm sure everyone will know:

22 - "Twinkle Skyway"

I am extremely close to releasing demo 3, though I have been saying that for the past month. I want the demo to be absolutely 100% perfect, and impress everyone who plays it. My ulitmate goal is to make it "perfect". Even though I have been done all the levels for weeks, I want it to be bug-free, and I want the unique ASM hacks I have implemented to work flawlessly.

That is all.

21 - "Melancholy"

Here is the 21st composed song for Keytastrophe, and probably one of my best. I mixed a lot of countermelodies together towards the end to give the song a very melodic and soothing feeling, yet slightly cheerful at the same time.

21 - "Melancholy"

I haven't decided where I'm going to use it yet, but it will most likely be for the shop and switch palaces, since it seems to suit them the most.

An even further musical emphasis...

After spending over two hours to rip this background from Bubsy II, I discovered that it fits perfectly with any of my switch palace/bonus room stages. It's not the ENTIRE background, as that would take up at least 4 ExGFX files, but it is a nice chunk of it.

Musical Background

It will serve it's purpose very well.

The Exodome has been breached!

...which means there is merely one level left after this one: the third castle. Of course, that also means that there are a couple secret levels, plus the shop, plus a couple other goodies .. eh, we're still a bit away from a demo I guess.

Anyway, here is a pic of the Staccato Exodome, which, for the moment, has no enemies.

Staccato Exodome Screen

The yellow/green/blue blocks will be for something special, but the only way to find out what for is to play the demo, as I won't reveal anything about them. The misaligned, darker block directly below Mario is a Thwomp, but it, too, will serve a special purpose. A lot of things you wouldn't expect will be very interactive in this level.

That's all for now.

Trebek, get in here!

Two updates this time, both relatively major. The first is a YouTube video showing a new thing I added. The second in the Staccato Exodome theme, now in SPC form so you don't have to go through a stupid patch process.



Watch it til the end and you'll see that you're racing the music instead of time ;) Took forever to get right, so enjoy.

Also, song 20 - Exo Mechanus, now in SPC form:

20 - Exo Mechanus

Enjoy!

20 - Exo Mechanus

So, it isn't the winter theme I promised. Instead, it is the Staccato Exodome theme. However, the problem with this one is that it sounds terrible on an SPC player due to the drums being the strong channel. I have made up a small test IPS to show it.

20 - Exo Mechanus

Apply it to a clean ROM, and enter the second pipe from the left on the overworld. You will hear the song.

Late update.

It's been a while since I posted anything - mainly due to me wanting to keep the last few chunks of world 3 secret. However, I might as well show this:

Staccato Eastwood: Spike Sources

The main purpose of this is to show two things: the SEALS counter in the status bar is now working properly. That makes a total of .. a lot of counters, which is going to hopefully add quite a bit to the replay value. The second thing I'm showing here is the animated (though you couldn't tell) energy sources. They're basically edited electricity sprites, but they will serve their purpose.

That's all - expect the next update to be the long-awaited winter theme song, hopefully.

Screenshotless update

Since I don't have anything epic to show at the moment, I'll just quickly jot down that I have finished the secret ship level, the S.S. Sorrowsong, and I am currently working on finishing the last couple levels of the third world. Since I now have all of my secret levels and bonus features implemented, it will be a pure grind of making levels til the demo. Expect about 40 exits when it is released, which will still hopefully be this month.

Expect new screenshots after this weekend!

19 - Moderato: Corrupt Mountains

The 19th song of Keytastrophe is here, at long last. It has been over a month since I made the 18th, and with the fourth world dawning upon me, I decided to do the mountain theme. I tried to mix upbeat, catchy, yet still eerie. Here it is:

19 - Moderato, Corrupt Mountains

Enjoy.

Shop updates, and song(s)!

I figured the shop could use a nicer background. Seeing as how it is nestled on the edge of a cliff, the background has windows that you can see outside from. It's nothing TOO fancy, but it looks good enough to serve it's purpose.

Melancholic Mart Final

Also, I ported another song that you, the user, are free to use in your hack. This is the Chuckola Reserve from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga.

MLSS - Chuckola Reserve TXT
MLSS - Chuckola Reserve SPC

I also finished this and made a pretty crystal effect in it. Feel free to use it in your hack too.

Donkey Kong Land/Country - Coral Capers/Aquatic Ambience TXT
Donkey Kong Land/Country - Coral Capers/Aquatic Ambience SPC

Enjoy!

Slightly new....

Since not everyone has seen these two upcoming screenshots, I figured I would post them for good measure. The first one is a submap of Fin, the Foreverealm. The hands and bones were hand drawn:

Picture of the Submap

The next screenshot is of the S. S. Sorrowsong, an "unlockable" level in Keytastropje. By "unlockable", I mean you can purchase it from the shop. I'll cover more about the shop in the future. In this screen, you must lead all of the skeletal Koopas to their graves through various methods to proceed. Of course, there will be storyline elements tied into it to, but that is left to the player to discover!

Picture of the Ship

On another note slightly unrelated, I finished my Blackout Basement sprite a while ago and figured I should probably pop it up here for people who want it. The only difference compared to the Donkey Kong Country version is that this version will fade everything, making it a tad tougher.

.CFG File
.ASM File

In case you're unaware of what it does, here is a video of the DKC version:



That's all for now.

Welcome.

Hello, and welcome to my blog about my SMW Hack, Mario's Keytastrophe. I go by SNN on the Internet, and have since 2005. You may know me as the creator of the Yoshi's Island hack, Kamek's Revenge. You may have also seen some of my posts floating around YouTube (SNN135) or some of my much older posts on various forums. You may not even know be at all, and found this page by complete accident. I encourage you to click the Back button if this is the case.

I will be using this blog for posting updates on my hack, Mario's Keytastrophe. Fun fact: this hack was rated number one on SMW Central for the longest time, and it has currently dropped to second. Some think this may turn out to be one of the best hacks ever created, while others simply thing it's good. It's all opinion based.

Anyway, be sure to check here regularily for updates. I will try to post my progress, along with new screenshots, songs, or other various surprises almost every day if I can.

In the meantime, here are a few old songs that are being used in Keytastrophe. All of them were hand-composed/created by me, and took a lot of a time.

"The Key Mirage"
"Fin, the Foreverealm"
"The Mainland"
"Castles of Keytastrophe"
"Largo Desert"
"Scourge Swamp"

You can also check out an older video here, with some spiffy level design, along with a submap: