( Note: an idea I unfortunately hadn’t thought o’ implementing till now: each level’s music, most o’ which is custom [ stolen from SMW Central, adaptations o’ songs from real games ], as well as the game it’s originally from & whether or not it’s a spot-on adaption [ labelled “same” ]. I’ve also gone back to the previous post & added them. )

World C: Shroom City Mainland

Music: “Map Medley”, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

I don’t know how good a name that is for this area; like I said, none o’ this game was broken up into any kind o’ coherent “worlds”.

Unfriendly Forest

Music: “Forest Area”, Kirby’s Adventure

I question whether I should include this in this world, since it has nothing to do with cities; & as you’ll see soon, we won’t be staying in this world for long, anyway.

Early on I considered this 1 o’ my better levels. I just think it’s all right now. It does have a subtle quality in how fun the jumps are if you do them correctly. Unfortunately, thanks to both the jitteriness o’ trying to record emulator playing & my weakened game-playing skills after years without playing not only this hack, but Super Mario World in general, I don’t show off this level particularly well.

1 thing I will say ’bout this level is that I think I did do the nonlinear thing well. This 1 feels legitimately open-ended & has multiple paths & uses almost everything, rather than having a bunch o’ useless fluff everywhere. If I had any complaint, it’d be that there seem to be a few too many basic jumps & naked Koopas.

I would e’en say I don’t mind the use o’ the P-switch here. ¿Have I mentioned yet that I had an affinity for making you go somewhere to get something that allows you to get past something blocking a path right @ the start, like Wario Land 4?

I still stand by the trick to getting the keyhole — ’specially since it’s not e’en necessary; you can just run & jump up there if your timing’s right. In fact, from what I’ve seen o’ people playing this level, I don’t think many have gotten frustrated, since all always found an easier alternative. I like that: it’s a cute li’l trick that you get o’er with soon. It’s like a parody o’ bullshit jumps in bad Super Mario World hacks, but thankfully doesn’t make you endure 1 in actual.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

• P-Switch level count: 6 / 7
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

World D: The Darkness

Music: “Welcome to Crocodile Island”, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Hmm… Isn’t this familiar…

Flaming Femurs

Music: “Hot Head Bop”, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest ( Same )

This music’s so amazing that I didn’t mind having to hackily turn off sound effects seemingly arbitrarily to get it to work well.

Surprisingly, the sound doesn’t crack @ all in this playthrough, e’en though I always remembered kicking a Koopa shell somehow disobeyed the sound-effect-canceling sprite.

You’ll see soon ’nough that I like very dark levels — not for any sake o’ difficulty, but simply for aesthetics, not thinking @ all what problems this might cause for anyone who didn’t have a monitor as bright as mine or had weaker eyesight.

This actually might be the only time I intentionally used the darkness as a form o’ difficulty, @ the end with the blocks that blend in with the background. This level also originally had a block that was s’posed to change the palette to a brightened-up version to simulate turning the lights on, but I couldn’t get that to work without causing the palette to become a psychedelic mess, — & that’s not s’posed to happen till much later in this hack — so I had to scrap it.

These layer-2 rooms are god awful. I don’t think I’ve e’er done 1 well & knew it e’en @ the time, but forced myself to do them ’cause I tricked myself into thinking they added variety. The timing’s always off, forcing you to wait, which is always boring & awful. & this is the least-awful iteration.

Finally: the message box that tells you to jump into the lava to find a secret key isn’t just a parody o’ those cliché schoolyard rumors; in a much earlier version o’ this level I actually had that as a way to find a secret exit. That was back when I thought the best puzzles were those where I just changed the behavior o’ a block & hoped the player randomly guessed that the game rules changed for no reason — ’cause that’s always great game design.

Otherwise, there’s not much to say ’bout this level. A’least it’s short & simple for once. O yeah: & no P-switches.

• P-Switch level count: 6 / 8
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Cave of Misfortune

Music: “Mt. Moon”, Pokémon Red & Blue

I still think this level’s great & am still proud o’ the main gimmick. Too bad I suck @ games & fucked it up in this video.

’Nother detail I’m glad I added was changing some hex code so that the Koopas are no longer in the shells that pop out o’ the ?-blocks, which always made me wait for them to pop out & fall into a pit on earlier versions. Forcing yourself to play your own games the natural way is a great way to push yourself to optimize things, just for your own selfish goal o’ minimizing tedium.

I do worry that the secret exit might be too easy to find. I think if I were to do it now, I’d make it look like there’s a full ceiling, ’stead o’ that conspicuous line o’ empty dirt, while still having the beanstalk eat through it. This would do what I just mocked as lazy earlier, but in this case I think it’s fair, since the idea that vines eat through solid dirt isn’t necessarily solid, as evidenced by the fact that it ate through that solid middle dirt in the current version. If anything, the conspicuous line o’ empty dirt looks too much like cutoff, which was surely the core reason why this hack wasn’t accepted by SMW Central.

Also, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I designed the palette for the secret room. I’m also not so fond o’ how it’s the same thing as the main level. O well: a’least it’s short.

• P-Switch level count: 6 / 9
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Volcanic Valley

Music: “Hot Head Bop”, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest ( Same )

& now we get into some true shit. You have no idea how many deaths I had to edit out — & most o’ them were caused by the wonky hit detection o’ these slopes. In particular, the last slope before the pipe is, I think, impossible to do ’less you’re small or you’re super dexterous ’nough to duck & slide jump before falling into the lava. The saddest thing is, it’d be easy to solve, too: just make the slopes go deeper into the lava. That’s how Nintendo programmed the lava after all: the top block doesn’t kill you; just the body below it, allowing some padding before you die.

The inner caves are no better. They’re mostly the same, but now there’s a boring-ass skull-raft ride, which is so slow, it sucks. & as, um… raocow says in the video, the raft disappears if you let it leave the screen. & since you need to to enter the pipe, — e’en if you had a cape & could float o’er to it, the raft is the only ground you could use to enter the pipe — leaving you utterly fucked.

This was the 1st level to legitimately piss me off. It won’t be the last. E’en the lack o’ P-switches doesn’t save it.

• P-Switch level count: 6 / 10
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Shroom o’ Darkness

Music: “Mt. Moon”, Pokémon Red & Blue

Hey, it’s 1 out o’ a million o’ these. ’Cept without the cool bonus items that Super Demo World had which actually made them interesting. Look: you get to pay to get o’erpriced powerups you can easily get in a regular level; ¿isn’t that a great reward for all that bullshit?

But a’least you get some advice every Super Mario World hack-player knows.

Also, this doesn’t count for the P-switch count, since it doesn’t e’en have a goal.

Dead Shallows

Music: “Ghost House”, Super Mario World ( Same )

I was proud o’ this level till I found out The Second Reality Project already did its main gimmick years before me.

Going through the level backward underwater to get a P-switch you obviously couldn’t get, & using that P-switch to go through the main room a different way are cool, but not used to their best extent. I think putting them together is a waste o’ 2 good gimmicks. I love how I just threw together 2 clever gimmicks & did li’l with them while o’erusing P-switch puzzles & layer-2 bullshit in a dozen other levels ’cause I apparently didn’t have ’nough variety.

I thought I remembered an info box @ the end o’ the water room hinting that you should try to go through the 1st room ’gain without using the Torpedo Ted; but maybe I removed it ’cause I thought the solution was too obvious.

• P-Switch level count: 7 / 11
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

World A: Valley o’ Bowser’s ( revisited )

Music: “Valley of Bowser”, Super Mario World ( Same )

The Haunt

Music: “Shade Man – Ghouls ‘N Ghosts”, Mega Man 7 ( Based on 1st stage theme from Ghost ‘N Goblins games )

I remember this level being harder; surprisingly, I had less trouble this time than with “Cave of Misfortune”. Must’ve toned it down.

I know I must’ve toned down the P-switches, since I remember the original forced you to get both a blue & silver.

That said, other than the atmosphere, there’s not much to say ’bout it. There’s a subtle cleverness to the jump down the hill, which was much worse in earlier versions; I remember the jump through the plants in the upper part could be done quickly & flashily, which I don’t do, ’cause I’ve lost all skills I’ve developed in this game; the fact that you can use the silver P to go through the part easier is nice; though this was done better in other levels.

O yeah, & there’s keys all o’er, as some kind o’ joke… I guess. You’d have to ask teenage me. There’s no secret exit in this level, & there’s no keyhole anywhere.

• P-Switch level count: 8 / 12
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Sea of Sangre ( revisited )

Music: “Decisive Battle”, Final Fantasy VI

’Course, anyone watching the video o’ the 1st trip must’ve noticed that this was a red level with a secret exit.

Though it’s mo’ a hindrance to this level than a help, I decided to show off that there’s a red Yoshi hidden @ the top o’ the beginning o’ this level as an easter egg. The game’ll mention later that there’s 1 o’ each special color Yoshi in each level ( technically 2 levels for the blue Yoshi, thanks to the wing bonus ); but the red Yoshi’s the only 1 that’s hidden ( the others you have to encounter to 100% the game ), & most playthroughs I’ve seen hadn’t found it.

This is ’nother level that’s rather hard to comment on simply ’cause it’s just OK. I guess I thought having the goal in the middle o’ the room clever, though I bet I’ve done it better in ’nother level. Also, having ’nother “Find the P-Switch” puzzle loses whatever points it might’ve gained. Same with a long-winded bridge-building puzzle that’s only made bearable by flying & hitting them all @ once. I guess maybe that could be a clever way to reward those who think o’ that; I didn’t plan it but came up with it while testing the level in a desperate attempt to speed it up, since I tested these levels dozens o’ times.

Note how I tried to make this a trainer’s wheels version o’ Koopa hopping by making there by ground below. Also, ’twas pointless, since by this point it’s immensely likely you have a cape & can just fly o’er everything. You can see in the video that I started to do just that, only to stop & decide that I probably ought to show off the way you’re “s’posed” to do it. These trainer’s wheels are e’en mo’ odd if you do this exit on the way back, which is what I expect, you’ll have to go through much harder challenges ( ’specially if you play through that “Volcanic Valley” bullshit ).

• P-Switch level count: 8 / 12
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 2
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 2

Lab of Darkness

Music: “Fight Against an Armed Boss”, Super Mario RPG

’Stead o’ castles or fortresses, this game has laboratories, with a li’l green & gray icon I drew myself. I actually still like this decision, though I wish I’d picked better Mega Man graphics to steal.

It cracks me up how there’s a cutscene showing Luigi jump off Yoshi, as a way to keep the game from glitching with Yoshi’s existence, & then slowly walking inside ( after Luigi the Magician makes the door open just by looking up @ it ), only to start you outside the castle ( to keep the darkened palette o’ the 1st inside room from infecting the cutscene ). Maybe it’s just the entrance to the courtyard.

Also, if this is s’posed to be a lab, ¿why’s it look so much like a castle? Just gotta use your imagination. It reminds me o’ when I was young & had to pretend a green hacky sack was Kirby & Leonardo’s blue triceratops ( from some prehistoric TMNT toys ) was Bowser. That’s just what you have to do when your resources are limited.

But this level blows. It’s too many mediocre sections taped together. I can’t help noticing that the best levels I did were those that were concise; this is bloated. The graphical gimmick — having the 1st section be dark & the 2nd section light — isn’t used beyond looks, & looks tacky. I guess in fairness, you can skip some o’ it; I only wish you could skip the worst o’ it: that god awful layer-2 section right after the 1st room.

Like always, the main goal is to find a P-switch & bring it back to the 1st dark subroom to get past a brown-block wall in ’nother sublevel. Unlike the other levels, I don’t like this use: it only adds fluff to a level that’s already stuffed with it. There are actually 2 places where you can get the P-switch, & this version makes those places much better; in the original, the P-switch in the light room was in the hall that led to ’nother room that already had 1, whereas going the other hallway & through the room that it leads to would give the player no P-switch @ all, while leading them back to the start. Considering the midpoint in the light room, that takes them back farther than if they’d died.

& then we have the final boss. I couldn’t figure out how to get the “Custom Boss” sprite to not crash my game & didn’t want to reuse the Koopa Kids, so I made up li’l puzzles with regular enemies & called them “bosses”. 1 I truly liked later; but here we just have a joke. I still think it’s all right. It’s a 1-time thing, & a relief after what a pain in the ass the level itself is.

“The Angry Exterminator” is a reference to some silly rom hack. I made a few satirical references to other rom hacks — making satirical references to other works in the same medium is something I oft do; but the truly good 1 comes much later.

• P-Switch level count: 9 / 13
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 3
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 3

The Red Switch

Music: “The Axem Rangers Drop In”, Super Mario RPG

But the true boss isn’t the lab, but the switch itself.

I like this dynamic: a ( s’posedly ) all-round-hard castle-like level followed by a simpler, puzzle level. I also like the aesthetics. It’s just too bad the design o’ the levels themselves were mostly lame.

This 1’s unquestionably the worst. There’s no focus @ all. It starts with a bunch o’ mindless jumps, has some awkward but easy section to get a spring, with an awkward way to get out ( which makes it impossible to bring Yoshi back with you & keep the spring ), & then has some dumb “run, but duck under the spikes” strewn round a long, empty hall ( which made bringing Yoshi impossible, anyway ). Padding. It ends with a short flight section that would be better if a better version wasn’t done in the Yellow Switch.

• P-Switch level count: 9 / 14
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 3
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 3

& this week’s journey ends with the best glitch: when you return to the map, you’re stuck on the switch. I have no idea why this happens, but I couldn’t fix it, no matter what I tried. You just have to reset the game. Good thing this game autosaves almost everything — ’cept Yoshi, which means it didn’t matter whether we could bring Yoshi with us or not.

Next week we truly explore Shroom City Mainland, starting with… ugh… a truly tiring level.

Sorry this is late: WordPress for some reason decided to keep this as a draft ‘stead o’ being scheduled & has such a crappy interface that I didn’t find out till I happened to stumble onto it now.

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Honest-to-god Huffington Post article:

To The Racist Guy Who Picked Up My Pencil During Class

Read this article & tell me it doesn’t sound like some wacky parody from The Onion.

I can only imagine the response article: “To The Rich Company That Exploits The Work O’ Desperate Journalists Without Paying Them Who Criticized Racism”¹.

Also, if we’re actually trying to make an intellectual argument to actually change the mind o’ a racist ( a futile endeavor ), I don’t think just asserting to them that racism’s bad is going to do anything. If anything, the racist, if they actually read this post ( ’cause I’m sure a racist Hairpiece-supporter would read Huffington Post ) would probably just convince themselves that you’re being all hostile — ¡& when they did you the great privilege o’ picking up your hefty pencil! — & convince themselves that this further backs up their view that the nonwhite-socialist-Starbucks-drinker Borg or whatever are crazy extreme pushy people or whatever & continue posting trite racist jokes ’cause they have no creativity.

Thanks for that, by the way. I mean, yeah, I’m sure your family getting deported is a problem & all; but I think we need to look @ the dire problems here, such as me having to see dumb racist jokes online & roll my eyes.

Huffington Post, I truly wish you’d learn that when you write articles arguing gainst legitimately bad things, you should try to not be stupid while doing so, so you don’t unintentionally hurt the cause you’re fighting for. Maybe if you actually paid your writers, you could get some who actually give a shit ’nough to try.

I already did this months ago, only I just found out it for some reason didn’t publish when I wanted it to.

Value Valhalla

You can probably guess that this is a parody o’ Super Mario Bros. coin heavens.

You’d be surprised what a pain ’twas to not just loop repeatedly, but to add that extra part after the 3rd loop with the diamond.

But fans o’ Pannekoek2012 will be excited ’bout one way it’s implemented — yes, that’s right: it involved parallel universes. No, this wasn’t as an intentional joke or reference; I actually experimented with having your character’s & the cloud’s positions revert back to the other edge, but couldn’t get it to work smoothly.

Thus, the way the loop actually works is that while you & the cloud you’re on keeps gaining X position, the Map class manipulates the rest o’ the level to give the illusion that it’s looping. The camera is changed so that it no longer stops @ the width o’ the map, but goes on fore’er, & the map code for giving block indexes to the block system changes so that it gives one relative to how it calculates what the left edge o’ the particular “current loop”, which is calculated based on the player’s position, rather than outputting invalid indices past the edge o’ the level. ( As a note, recall that I mentioned in the last post how the cart level required the horizontal edges o’ the screen to be even to making the cart not bump into blocks from 1 edge while on the other edge. I fixed that now. )

The sprites also had to be repositioned ( ‘cept for the main cloud platform sprite: it does loop back round if you let it go past the edge o’ the screen; but due to nuances for how it works, it has its own separate code for looping ). Said repositioning code only works if the sprites reset to their original position, for some reason. Luckily, the bees automatically do that, anyway, & the cloud block sprites can do so without any problem. ( Note: not only are the bouncy blocks sprites; so are the flat ones, to make it so their eyes follow you. Yes, I created extra work for myself just so I could make blocks watch your character. )

I should point out that this level theoretically works fine looping in the other direction, too ( though the diamond part’s only programmed to appear on the 3rd loop going rightward, e’en if going leftward from the 4th loop ). In the original version o’ this level, there was a 2nd cloud up top that went leftward. However, I felt it ruined the gimmick o’ this level, since it made looping horizontally unnecessary, since one could just go back & forth. Plus, it wasn’t all the useful, since you can reach close to the top already. Lastly, changing it to work with the extra diamond area made it impossible to keep the cloud platforms in sync. This impressive feat was the only reason I cared ’bout keeping the other cloud, & since it’s now gone, I see no reason to still want the cloud platform. I think the level works much better now.

Levels to come: a sewer level influenced by “Wet-Dry World” & a sky level where you’re a flying owl.

Download source code.

Believe it or not, I’m still working on this — just not doing anything productive or worthy showing.

’Twas a bad time to stumble on economics articles.

I just have to mention the words “Less Wrong” & you’ll probably already smack your forehead. From what I’ve seen, “Less Wrong” are like most people, in that they try to not be idiots; but unlike most people, they make the idiotic decision to constantly brag ’bout how much better @ not being idiots they are than other people without any evidence while simultaneously pretending that they don’t do so.

To be fair, these “rationalists” should be praised for brilliantly figuring out something that benefits us all: they can assuage their shriveled egos while we can get hours o’ hilarity making fun o’ how shriveled their egos are.

If I were an actor in an improv show, and my prompt was “annoying person who’s never read any economics, criticizing economists”, I think I could nail it. I’d say something like:

Economists think that they can figure out everything by sitting in their armchairs and coming up with ‘models’ based on ideas like ‘the only motivation is greed’ or ‘everyone behaves perfectly rationally’. But they didn’t predict the housing bubble, they didn’t predict the subprime mortgage crisis, and they didn’t predict Lehman Brothers. All they ever do is talk about how capitalism is perfect and government regulation never works, then act shocked when the real world doesn’t conform to their theories.

Fun tip to economists: making childish strawmen arguments is a great way to confirm others’ judgments that, yes, economists are much mo’ mentally mediocre than they like to pretend they are.

This criticism’s very clichedness should make it suspect.

No, I think the fact that you pulled it out o’ your dick hole makes it mo’ suspect.

It would be very strange if there were a standard set of criticisms of economists, which practically everyone knew about and agreed with, and the only people who hadn’t gotten the message yet were economists themselves.

“¿What’s ‘hive mind’ mean? ¿What’s bias? ¡I don’t understand these elusive terms!”

If any moron on a street corner could correctly point out the errors being made by bigshot PhDs, why would the PhDs never consider changing?

So this superrationalist relies on appeal to authority — the idea that PhDs must be smart, ’cause that’s what PhDs are. Meanwhile, average people must be dumb, ’cause o’ “appeal to obscurity”. This hyperrationalist post sure is a great way to win Logical Fallacy Bingo.

A few of these are completely made up…

No, don’t underrate yourself, man: I’m quite sure you made all o’ them up.

[M]y impression is that economists not only know about these criticisms, but invented them.

Too bad your “impression” has the validity o’ what I heard ’bout in my fever dreams ( but are much less entertaining, sadly ).

For the next quote, I made sure to highlight all the fun regurgitated buzzwords that show that, no, this person didn’t put any thought into what they were saying.

During the last few paradigm shifts in economics, the new guard levied these complaints against the old guard, mostly won, and their arguments percolated down into the culture as The Correct Arguments To Use Against Economics.

Also, apparently German-style nouns are the rational way to do scare quotes.

As a psychiatrist, I constantly get told that my field is about “blaming everything on your mother” or thinks “everything is serotonin deficiency“.

Truly the most hurtful slur anyone has e’er punted @ someone.

Maybe people would be less ignorant ’bout the things you know so much ’bout if you actually provided scientific evidence that they’re wrong, rather than just telling them they’re wrong & tut-tutting them. Or e’en providing real evidence o’ these defamations rather than just saying some nebulous mass o’ people told you these things, “just take me @ my promise”.

If I were an actor in an improv show, and my prompt was “annoying person who’s never read anything about rationality, criticizing rationalists”, it would go something like…

No, stop. Nobody’s going to buy your shitty Ayn Rand plays. Stick to constantly asking people, “¿How does that make you feel?” till their hour is up. ( ¡Ha! ¡You missed a cliché! )

I didn’t bother reading his “play”, since he himself already warned me that ’twas stupid, & I’m not sure why he thought I’d want to read something stupid. Which makes me wonder why he wrote this post in itself… or why I’m reading it if I don’t like reading stupid things… Hmm…

Like the economics example, these combine basic mistakes with legitimate criticisms levied by rationalists themselves against previous rationalist paradigms or flaws in the movement.

’Cept, unlike economists, who have true PhDs & actual academic standards, there’s no rule regarding who can & can’t describe themselves as “rationalists” — well, ’cept a minimum level o’ narcissism. I can put underwear on my head & run round traffic calling myself a “rationalist” all I want, & you can’t prove me wrong, or e’en “mo’ wrong”.

Like the electroconvulsive therapy example, they’re necessarily the opposite…

O fucking God, this diction. ¿“Necessarily the opposite”?

There have been past paradigms for which some of these criticisms are pretty fair. I think especially of the late-19th/early-20th century Progressive movement.

“I think” is my favorite mathematical proof.

But notice how many of those names are blue. Each of those links goes to book reviews, by me, of books studying those people and how they went wrong.

“¿See? You’re wrong. The fact that I wrote some shitty blog review on these classics proves that I’m right. Obviously it’s physically impossible to write a stupid or wrong review”.

So consider the possibility that the rationalist community has a plan somewhat more interesting than just “remain blissfully unaware of past failures and continue to repeat them again and again”.

How ’bout I consider the possibility that the “rationalist community” is just a made-up name for your adult-child clubhouse & that though they “plan” something different from sitting round regurgitating thoughts that’ve already been made, they do something e’en less interesting than that.

Hey, if you can prove something with “I think”, so can I.

Modern rationalists don’t think they’ve achieved perfect rationality.

“¡Look @ how humble I am for thinking I’m not an intellectual god in fleshy form! ¡Please lay ’pon my feet all your adulation for my magnificent humility!”

[T]hey keep trying to get people to call them “aspiring rationalists” only to be frustrated by the phrase being too long[.]

You should replace “by the phrase being too long” with “by everyone ’stead calling us ‘narcissistic shitbrains’”.

( my compromise proposal to shorten it to “aspies” was inexplicably rejected ).

“For some reason, e’en my fellow narcissistic twats didn’t buy my attempt to appropriate a true social condition with my need for pity @ the weakest o’ criticisms”.

I can back him up on 1 thing, though: from my experience with psychiatrists ( who told me I shouldn’t publish these — ¡But they can’t stop me now! ), I oft see them throw round slurs for medical conditions for the people they’re s’posed to be helping. I know my psychiatrist was all, “Man, those fucking retards. ¿Am I right? Let me disclose all the stories ’bout this 1 loser named Becky Brown who was too pussy to leave their house”. So we can see that this psychiatrist is showing the utmost professionalism here.

They try to focus on doubting themselves instead of criticizing others.

¡Which he’s done so well here! ¡Look @ how oft he criticized his poor self, & didn’t e’en say a single bad word gainst any o’ the people who criticized him! ¡How noble!

They don’t pooh-pooh academia and domain expertise – in the last survey, about 20% of people above age 30 had PhDs.

“We don’t pee-pee academia; we just cite irrelevant statistics”.

They don’t reject criticism and self-correction…

Well, ’cept for all those “annoying” people who have “never read any economics” or have “never read anything about rationality”…

Tip: focus less on appropriating Aspergers & mo’ on trying to get pity for your obvious bout o’ Alzheimers.

They don’t want to blithely destroy all existing institutions[.]

¿What the hell does that have to do with anything?

O, great. So they’re not fun. I see.

[T]his is the only community I know where interjecting with “Chesterton’s fence!” is a universally understood counterargument which shifts the burden of proof back on the proponent.

“This is the only community out o’ the few I actually know that pretends that using obscure slang terms is the road to rationality”.

Sadly, wrong there, too.

They have said approximately one zillion times that they don’t like Spock and think he’s a bad role model.

OK, I tolerated all your other inanities — but being mean ’nough to hate Spock goes too far. He died in 1 o’ the movies… ¿I think? ¿Didn’t his actor die, too?

Fuck it: just pretend I made some shitty joke ’bout some dumb show I obviously ne’er watched.

They include painters, poets, dancers, photographers, and novelists.

Apparently his idea o’ propaganda is listing irrelevant “facts” he made up in a second. “They don’t eat @ Burger King; they eat @ Panda express. They include people who own mice, cats, armadillos, & iguanas”.

They…well… “they never have romantic relationships” seems like maybe the opposite of the criticism that somebody familiar with the community might apply.

His totally rational argument is “Man, we totally get lots o’ tail, unlike you losers”.

[…]encourage each other to give various percents of their income to charity, and founded or lead various charitable organizations.

“We are the only people to e’er do so, ’course”.

Look.

( Swings head all round, turns back to the screen & shrugs. )

I’m the last person who’s going to deny that the road we’re on is littered with the skulls of the people who tried to do this before us.

“This’ll be ensured when I finalize my robotic space pod, which’ll keep me ’live while the rest o’ you suckers drown in the seas o’ death”.

We’ve looked at the creepy skull pyramids and thought “huh, better try to do the opposite of what those guys did”.

“I’ll just assure you that we won’t be fuck-ups & you’ll just unconditionally believe me, ¿right?”

If you have this sort of concern, and you want to accuse us of it, please do a quick Google search to make sure that everybody hasn’t been condemning it and promising not to do it since the beginning.

Google is, after all, the most rigorous source o’ scientific knowledge.

We’re almost certainly still making horrendous mistakes that people thirty years from now will rightly criticize us for. But they’re new mistakes.

No: inane, arrogant douchebaggery’s as ol’ as fire.

And I hope that maybe having a community dedicated to carefully checking its own thought processes and trying to minimize error in every way possible will make us have slightly fewer horrendous mistakes than people who don’t do that.

Considering the utter lack o’ self-awareness present in this post, that’s guaranteed to fail.

If this is what passes as “rationalist” in the western world, I’m not surprised that it’s filling its leadership roles with the most pompous buffoons in the world. Welcome to Hairpiece America: where e’en the left is stupid, & the right has to become e’en stupider to keep ’head.

(
  define
  ( on-and-on text )
  (
    define
    been-done
    ( string " has been done already" )
  )
  (
    string-append
    text
    ( on-and-on been-done )
  )
)

(
  display
  (
    on-and-on
    ( string "This" )
  )
)

I think the average citizen would make a better web designer than a lot o’ so-called professional web designers simply ’cause they don’t try the excessive nonsense that web designers do & nobody else would e’en think to do ’cause it’s so insane. It’s the equivalent o’ someone bragging ’bout how amazing they look & then suddenly shitting all o’er their pants; they expect users to marvel @ their prowess, but ’stead we turn up our noses & cringe. Ugh. It’s the power glove o’ web design: ’stead o playing a perfectly good but “drab” controller, you fuck round with a glove like a jackass.

Take login forms. A novice who just learned HTML from 1 o’ the millions o’ O’Reilly books out there would create a basic form that would load to a basic “¡You’ve logged in, Jim!” page. Boring & less than 1% accurate in regards to the user’s name, but operable.

Now, let me tell you ’bout the login page o’ some website that shall go unnamed, like Voldemort. ’Stead o’ using a basic page, it uses a custom window made with a div & CSS magic.¹ & since this is a div, it has no scroll bar; if you use the actual window’s scroll bar, the div will simply stay in place while the website you can faintly see ’hind it scrolls ’cause the div uses a fixed position. Now, ¿what happens when a vital element — say, the confirmation button — is off-screen? The answer is that you’re fucked; you can’t use the form. I e’en tried pressing Enter or highlighting with my mouse downward. Nothing worked. I’ll tell you what I did do: give up with disgust @ the scent o’ the designer’s feces-filled drawers.

I could try to give mo’ examples, but thankfully my mind’s blocked them out like traumatizing moments. I do remember 1 website long ago that was s’posed to help teach me web design & had the brilliant idea to have the navigation bar’s text rotated 90° so that you had to crane your neck just to see it. I still don’t e’en know how they did that, much less what made them think ’twas a good idea.

Here’s a common example from others who have seen this problem themselves, albeit 1 that’s rarer & a bit hyperbolic: magic JavaScript links. ¿Who needs boring ol’ anchor tags with their lame-ass semantics & SEO advantages when we can waste memory & bandwidth to load some JavaShit that does the same thing?

To be fair, many designers in general do this. It’s why my laptop mouse randomly clicks things when I move it ’cause the genius designers wanted to show off their awesome ability to click when you lightly tap the mouse pad ’stead o’ using the click button just below it — you know, what you do every time to put your finger on the pad so you can move it @ all. They were wrong: they didn’t prove themselves to be awesome; they simply shit their pants in front o’ everyone. It’s the same reason many DS games, including the otherwise awesome Wario: Master of Disguise & the always not-awesome Diddy Kong Racing DS², were made mo’ frustrating by the MIC, whose mood swings determine whether your heavy blowing for minutes straight into it does anything or not. ’Gain, the designers thought they were being brilliant making something that easily could’ve been controlled by a simple button use some new control; ’stead they made the Power Glove 2.0. & they shit their pants in front o’ us all & made us all look ’way in shame.

¿Is that what you want, designers? ¿To watch so many people look @ you in disgust while feces slides down your pant legs all o’er your shoes? Then don’t do all this fancy shit. Just make the shit work intuitively & call it a day. As Vincent Flanders said, “Nobody e’er complained that a site worked too well”.

& for god’s sake, ’nough with the arbitrary rules for filling out forms. I must’ve wasted half an hour waiting for a page to load so it could tell me there was an error ’cause some jackass web designer arbitrarily decided that commas weren’t valid characters for a superfluous catch phrase they forced me to create or that it must be within some narrow range o’ characters. Said designer probably thought they were clever figuring out all o’ the code to create these limits & this wacky new security measure. They weren’t. They only wasted my time having to clean up all o’ the excrement they sprayed all o’er my walls.

I also loved the government site that had a quite low ( my 1st name barely fit, & it’s not that long ) character limit for names. Presumably this is purely to satisfy the nostalgia in fans o’ ol’ NES RPGs, since I can’t imagine their servers being so weak that they can’t handle strings with mo’ than a dozen characters — ¡you might as well ask them to host your MP4s, man! ¿What happens if you’re real name is too long? You’re fucked, that’s what. Better shell out the money to legally change your name just so you can pay your debts. You don’t want creditors calling you & having to respond with, “Sorry I couldn’t pay today; my name doesn’t fit in your website. I tried to pretend my name was ’Sebast,’ as I always named Cecil back in 1992, but then I was put in prison for not mo’ than 5 years”.

( Note: went back & added music notes to each level analysis. )

It’s hard to divide Legend of the Four Switches into “worlds”, since, as I mentioned in the intro, they sometimes blend into each other. Mo’ importantly, the main path I’ll be going through will leave & return to worlds. However, I’ll try to divide the levels into bunches & describe them as I introduce them.

World A: Valley o’ Bowser’s

In a strike o’ irony, the 1st world is Bowser’s land. You start with 2 levels unlocked: “King Koopa Kastle” & “Sea of Sangre”.

King Koopa Kastle ( 1st visit )

Music: “Bowser’s Castle ( Second Time )”, Super Mario RPG

( Yes, this is some frankenstein o’ classic & modern ¡Let’s Play!™s wherein I embed uncommentated videos accompanied by text below. Technological advancements are slow in my village. )

However, the 1st level is blocked off from completion till you hit all 4 switches, leaving you with just a taunting info box & a pipe that shoots you out o’ the level.

Having the exit be due to a pipe shooting you offscreen was a way to fix an earlier glitch: having the castle itself make you exit the level by touching the screens makes the functionality carry into all the following sublevels. It turns out that a sublevel later in the level actually requires you to touch the edge o’ the screen, making the level impossible. However, I didn’t want to force the player to kill themselves to leave the level. Luckily, I thought o’ this solution. I’m actually glad, since I find the shooting out o’ the pipe — specially with its solemn ghost house music — quite amusing.

Sea of Sangre

Music: “Decisive Battle”, Final Fantasy VI

Despite how ridiculously edgy the use o’ blood for water is ( though, to be fair, it’s ne’er explicitly stated, save for the use o’ a Latin term in the title; it could just be metaphorical ), I do like the aesthetic o’ having the 1st level be dark, with the dramatic “Decisive Battle” music from Final Fantasy VI. Not so fond o’ the sound glitches that happen when you do things, though. Didn’t remember that.

The level itself, though, is… ehhh. Interestingly ’nough, it’s linear, though there is a nice pointless use o’ a P-switch right @ the end, just so you can reach the exit.

Most o’ the level is rudimentary, & much o’ it feels empty. There’s also a random pattern o’ blocks just thrown ’bout @ the end o’ the water section.

Ghosts ’n Goblins

Music: “Fortress”, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island ( ¿Same? )

In addition to nonlinear levels, I was big on just weird levels that make you think, ¿What’s the point o’ this? This level starts you in the middle o’ a long empty hall with the only door on the far left side. It’s dumb.

The next room is a li’l better: it’s a li’l puzzle wherein you have to grab a Koopa shell @ the end & bring it back to the middle to throw it @ a vertical column o’ blocks helpfully pointed out by an arrow o’ coins to make a vine grow upward, allowing you to climb up & grab the P-switch.

Granted, as a few o’ the SMW Central people pointed out, despite the holes in the floor, one could still spin jump off Boos to reach to the top early. But I don’t mind that so much, since that’s probably harder to do than the main way to complete the level. Unlike some SMW hackers, I was less obsessed with ensuring people played my levels the “right” way & was quite fine with alternate ways to beat levels, which was why I allow the player to take cape feathers into any level they want, which most SMW hack designers recommend gainst, since it allows one to fly o’er entire levels. To me, if ’twas fine for one to do so in the original SMW, ’twas fine to do it in my hack.

As an aside, I’m now going to keep a counter for levels with P-switches. So far we’re @ 2 out o’ 2. ( “King Koopa Kastle” doesn’t count, since we haven’t gone through it all yet. Also, spoiler alert: it has P-switches, too. )

Then take the P-Switch to the pipe @ the end o’ the level, which leads back to the empty hallway. Hitting the P-Switch creates a door @ the far right side o’ the room, which leads to the goal.

I’m not sure how to feel ’bout this last part. It’s not exactly spelled out; but I’m not sure if it’s particularly hard to figure out, either. It’s not as if the game punishes you deeply if you hit the P-Switch too early; you’ll just have to redo the level, essentially, without needing to kill yourself.

Still, this trial-&-error puzzle could easily get tedious. If I were to remake this level, I’d cut out that whole empty hallway, make you start in the grayscale room, & just put the goal where the P-Switch is. Cuts out the fat. Sure, it makes spin-jumping on boos skip the entire level; but it’s the 2nd level, for god’s sake. Diddy’s Kong Quest had warp barrels that let you skip whole levels in every level in the 1st 2 worlds. Plus, I like the dynamic o’ having the 1st level be a relatively long but simple level & the 2nd level be a short puzzle.

World B: Mushroom Island

After you beat “Ghosts ’n Goblins”, you unlock a pipe on the o’erworld. Go into that pipe, & you’ll be taken to the 1st level spot o’ “Mushroom Island”.

I want to emphasize that last part: there’s no pipe back to “Valley o’ Bowser”. It’s a 1-way trip. Don’t worry: unlike certain hacks ( [cough] Super Demo World [cough] ), it’s impossible to screw yourself out o’ 100% in this game. There’s an alternate entrance back into “Valley o’ Bowser” later.

I’m still proud o’ this design choice. I feel it makes the o’erworld feel mo’ mysterious.

Island of Ergot

Music: “Flower Garden”, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

While the true 1st level was a twist on 1st levels, being a dark & red level with ominous music, the 1st level o’ “Mushroom Island” is what a typical game would have as a 1st level: a green grassland. Granted, the sky’s still a nighly dark blue.

Though it’s not particularly brilliant, I like this level. It’s a simple romp with a few choice enemies, broken by 2 simple “puzzles”, if you could call them that. I like the use o’ the P-Switch as to build the coin bridge & the level ends @ a dead-end with power-ups & expects you to enter 1 o’ the many piranha-plant pipes just before the dead-end to find the goal. As I mentioned, these early levels were made when I still had some creativity & wasn’t just copying the same ideas.

O yeah, & an STD joke. ¿What? ¿Was this programmed in C++? ( Ho, ho, ho… O… ).

P-Switch level count: 3 / 3.

Fungi Forest

Music: “Forest Area”, Kirby’s Adventure

Here’s probably the best P-Switch puzzle I created. It’s a twist on the usual puzzle: collect the coins in front o’ the wall o’ brown blocks so that when you inevitably find the P-Switch, you can reach the brown blocks, which will then be coins. ’Cept, ’hind the brown blocks is just a pipe that leads back to the start o’ the level. Careful-eyed players will notice that the tip o’ the wall o’ coins is under a pipe that otherwise looks like it’s just a part o’ the o’erall pipe construction. You’re s’posed to hit the P-Switch so you can stand on the coins & enter that pipe.

You can’t bring the P-Switch with you from the top o’ the pipe construction, either, as you can only enter it from upward-only cloud blocks & can only leave by hitting the switch to make the brown blocks turn into coins, making it a bit o’ a race o’ sorts.

There’s not much to say ’bout the cave interlude. It’s just a boring raft ride forcing you to hop anytime a Blaarg pops out or a bat flies down @ you. I tried to make it a li’l mo’ interesting from the original version by giving the ceiling weird patterns. But it’s still not notable. Probably be better if this section were cut.

The last “puzzle” is OK. You need to grab a throw block & throw it @ the wall o’ turn blocks so you can go through it to reach the goal. To reach the turn blocks, you’ll have to defeat the Amazing Flying Hammer Bro & use his platform to reach it, which means you’ll probably have to go back afterward to get the throw block so you’ll have time to use it.

My only problem is the superfluous use o’ the P-Switch to get through the brown-block-wall ’tween the throw blocks & the turn blocks. I guess the “puzzle” was ’sposed to be that you’re ’sposed to pay attention & notice that there’s land under the throw blocks, which otherwise seem to be o’er a bottomless pit. But that’s a lame puzzle, & would’ve worked better somewhere else. I’d cut it.

Also, Yoshi & turn blocks are great:

If I have any problem with this level, o’erall, other than the 2nd P-Switch & the cave section, it’d be that it doesn’t fit the theme well. It’s s’posed to be a forest level, but most o’ it is pipe structures.

• P-Switch level count: 4 / 4
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Basidio Bridge

Music: “The Tidal Coast / Sea Turtle Rock / Beneath the Waves”, Wario Land 3

I really liked the puzzle @ the beginning, where you have to kick a shell down in the small passageway @ the bottom to hit a block @ the end & create a vine. I also like the use o’ the P-Switch to create a race to the beginning to enter the pipe just @ the start, surrounded by brown blocks. I think it’s probably the inspiration from Wario Land 3 & 4, but I like levels where the goal is @ the beginning, which must be unlocked by getting something @ the end, & then take a different path back to the start. In fact, now that I think ’bout it, this puzzle is a lot like Wario Land 4: the P-Switch is like the also-blue frog switch, forcing you to race to the beginning before the switch runs out.

Speaking o’ Wario Land 3, this level’s music is from that game — though, strangely, not from the level that takes place on a bridge. It’s the only song I converted myself, & it shows.

• P-Switch level count: 5 / 5
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

Pepsi Lake

Music: “Underwater Tunnels”, Wario Land II

This level completely changed since the 2011 version o’ this hack. You can see an early version here. Also, in an e’en earlier version, the water was the boring ordinary blue ’stead o’ cola-brown-&-black.

The main change is that the level is vertical now, ’stead o’ horizontal, & it’s simplified. It’s just a short swim-through, dodging piranha plants & munchers. @ the time I remade this, I felt the original was too ordinary, & noted that vertical water levels were rare. I also like the alcove that the midway point is in. Just a li’l divergence.

E’en better: ¡there’s no P-Switch! This was after I realized how o’er-used they were & cut it out. The original, as the video shows, makes you go into some generic ice subroom found in some random pipe ’mong millions to get a P-Switch so you can pass through ’nother brown-block wall. None o’ this hasn’t been done before, & much better. I don’t miss it @ all.

You know, I just noticed ’pon reviewing the footage that the 2nd message box references “upcoming Torpedo Teds” that aren’t in the newer version o’ this level.

• P-Switch level count: 5 / 6
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 1
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 1

That’s it for now. We’ll continue on the mainland next update.