’Bout a week ago, as September started, a bunch o’ forest fires happened nearby.

The 1st question to ask is, ¿what’s wrong with the term “feminism”? The 2 answers I’ve always seen given:

1. “It’s antimale”.

2. “Men are greater victims”.

The hypocrisy o’ the 1st is obvious, since emphasizing male rights is just as biased.

The 2nd is hard to take seriously. Its proponents can cite various studies that show arbitrary situations in which men are worse off than women, such as IQ & life expectancy. However, these don’t say much ’bout actual relative power.

What would are statistics o’ political & economic power, & those show beyond doubt that in general women are worse off.

MRAs who do acknowledge these facts turn to the argument that these are caused not by society but by s’posed inherent flaws in women. 1st, this is a digression: it’s not saying, “No, society isn’t mo’ sexist gainst women”, it’s saying, “Yes, society is mo’ sexist gainst women, but they deserve it”.

2nd, it’s hypocritical, since MRAs ne’er accept that answer for the reason ’hind the statistics wherein men are worse off, such as IQ. ¿How can they reconcile this arbitrary inconsistency?

3rd, this is given as a bare assertion, not backed by any evidence, usually in the form o’ flimsy stereotypes that themselves have no proof. Worse, these stereotypes don’t e’en fit the modern way humans get success & power. You can tell someone has no societal savvy when they talk ’bout “alpha males”, as if we’re still baboons. The fact is that the most muscular & hostile people are mo’ likely to be lowly workers while the most successful humans are flabby, weak, ol’ men in suits. The fact that in the last few millennia since humans 1st developed human society has radically evolves far beyond the rate o’ their biological evolution — that whatever basis in helping survival whatever purported biological differences ’tween sexes has has long since become irrelevant in a world wherein coming up with creative slogans & being able to afford high-quality health care has mo’ importance than being able to bash someone on the skull or spawn healthy kin — is oddly beyond MRAs.

We end up deciding ’tween whether society or biology is to blame; that MRAs lean toward the latter with no evidence is peculiar since the former makes mo’ common sense & requires less explaining. They blatantly ignore the fact that societal rules are based largely on political & economic power, & thus these rules must, by objective empirical fact, be mainly controlled by men. Indeed, e’en those who acknowledge the truth o’ these studies keep to the conclusion that women have mo’ power, e’en though they contradict each other. They also ignore history, which also unquestionably shows a tradition o’ an e’en greater level o’ discrimination. & since this level was e’en greater than it is now, then it can’t be based on s’posed inherent biological flaws, since this imbalanced was lessen by societal changes, ’less they’re trying to take the mo’ absurd argument that women evolved ’way these greater biological flaws, in which case, ¿why couldn’t they do so e’en mo’?. The argument that this change was caused by society being biased in favor o’ women despite their s’posed biological flaws doesn’t make sense, thanks to those pesky empirical facts o’ their inferior political power, ’specially relative to the past. ¿Are they trying to argue that the time o’ gender equilibrium was when women couldn’t vote @ all? That would argue an interesting but absurd point: that women have greater skills @ influencing people relative to their actual power than men, which would be a strange superiority to grant to them, given all the flaws they s’posedly have. & yet, while men taking advantage o’ their s’posed biological flaws is fine, women doing the same is “corrupt”… This is ’nother inconsistency that lacks an explanation.

In sum: the idea that women have some mysterious “less initiative” gene is mo’ believable than that a tradition o’ sexism could continue into the present. I’m bleeding, I’ve been cut by Occam’s razor so much.

4th, e’en if women’s inferior power were due to inherent biological flaws, that wouldn’t be caused by them but by their biology that they can’t control &, the obvious corollary is that men’s purported biological advantages aren’t their own. The question then would be to ask why someone should be rewarded for something they didn’t do within their own individual will — what philosophy could logically argue for men’s “right” to have unearned advantages.

This is ’specially strange considering how oft MRAs criticize purported corruption, when being born into advantages is the biggest form o’ corruption one could have. Hell, if women did use their “wiles” to trick society into bending to their will, despite the empirical fact o’ their inferior political power, then that’d show mo’ individualist accomplishment than being born with genes. E’en manipulation requires some skills.

’Course, those who call themselves “feminists” don’t fall into the 2nd problem thanks to those same economic & political studies: they can accurately argue, through a mix o’ empirical fact & better consistency, that it’s a fact that, in general, society is mo’ biased gainst women than men & that the word compensates for that bias.

Thus, I can see a logical basis for calling someone who supports gender equality a “feminist” or a “equalitarian” — or some other neutral term — ( though the former, being an established term, would be less confusing ), no consistent logic backs any match o’ “gender equality” & “men’s rights activist”. Anyone who claims to serve both is either a manipulative liar or incompetent; those who don’t intend the former should change what they say if they want to avoid embarrassing themselves.

That’s a lot o’ words for, “‘Men’s rights activist’ is a bullshit term”.

This is the comic that most resembles the world I was trying to convey.

— 100% real quote by Pokémon creator, Satoshi Tajiri.

¿You remember all the inconsistent characterization?

& you can’t forget all those smooth panel transitions…

& then there are those setups that don’t make any sense…

¿& how could we live without that wonderful filler?

¿Remember, um… Pikachu & Leafaro being perverts?

We have, um… truly fucked up violence — so fucked-up that e’en Pikachu is appalled — happening to Firara for no reason @ all.

We have hilarious satire, like hilarious tips for beating the gym leaders in the 1st-gen Pokémon games, such as “Next, surge. Use Geodude. Or lick a donkey”. The best joke is that I couldn’t count & forgot either Koga or Sabrina.

& then we have that amazing artwork:

& then we have a comic wherein Leafaro gets addicted to gambling, causing Pikachu to get chased by a mobster Ditto & his rectangular bullets, & leading Pikachu to check himself into a mental asylum, which also has amazing artwork.

Leafaro heartily approves:

¡Order Pokémon Leaf Green & Fire Red Adventures #2 Today!

Milky Mountains

I don’t remember if I mentioned before my decision to add a “mountain” theme to lighten “desert”’s load, but I did. This is s’posed to be the 1st mountain level, so hopefully it’s not too hard for what will the… ¿5th level? There are quite a few areas that are free, such as a few o’ the slopes & the upward slope @ the end ( it’s e’en easier if you don’t jump; I think you’re guranteed not to get hit if you just hold left ).

The most trouble I had with this level was coming up with ideas. It’s a rather plain level; but I don’t want every level to be a completely different gimmick or else the gimmick levels won’t feel fresh anymo’. Thus, this is just a normal level heading toward an end goal where most o’ the challenge is basic platforming & not getting hit by enemies. The 1 twist I allowed was having you spend most o’ the level going leftward, since I noticed most levels have you go from left to right, horizontally. Should probably add some mo’ verticality & s’pecially mo’ twisty paths. I did have an idea for a level where you start in the center & spiral out, but I’m not sure where I want to use it. Maybe “Hoot Chutes”.

There was an early version o’ this level that was e’en lamer than this. Then I came up with the chicken enemies — or rather, found a character design that seemed interesting ’nough to not make me feel as bad ’bout ripping off Koopas. I don’t remember if I said this yet, but making enemies is hard when the Super Mario Bros. games already came up with all the good ideas.

Also, I don’t show it here, but there’s a glitch I don’t know how to fix: in the hidden alcove with the gems, if you jump with Autumn’s left side slightly under the ceiling, Autumn will pop up straight through the wall to the top o’ the level. Probably caused by the code that keeps Autumn’s movement gainst walls or floor smooth by making horizontal collision detection mo’ demanding for vertical collision & vice-versa.

Bonus

I wasted a lot o’ time trying to optimize things, since this code is hilariously inefficient ( as well as cumbersome ). This time I actually profiled & found that using hash maps with strings as keys is a big waste, probably ’cause comparing strings is slow, & it’s done every frame to get the texture for every sprite, block, background, & letter o’ text. So I tried replaced this with some complicated system wherein all graphics strings are replaced with IDs, which the renderer would use to directly index an array o’ textures & the renderer would only compare strings for the creation o’ any graphic object to find which ID to give it ( either by finding an existing index o’ a texture or creating 1 if 1 didn’t already exist ).

This caused memory leaks & problems somewhere, so I scrapped it all. But I did capture some videos showing some o’ the greatest hits o’ the errors caused in the making:

I wasted e’en mo’ time playing round with refactoring the entire project into code that’s less sludgy. Not surprising, I haven’t found a way to make the sprite code less cumbersome; but I still have that other code lying round & may return to it later — ’specially if I can figure out how to get the racer sprite’s sequence o’ inputs to match up with “Rooftop Rumble” so she doesn’t fall off due to the slightest o’ differences or something.

Levels I May Work On Next:

• A farm level ( ¿in the ‘mountain’ theme set? ) that challenges you to defeat all the chicken enemy in its various forms ( this video only shows 3 forms; there’s also diagonal & circling chickens ) — think an easier version o’ the “Playing Railroad” gimmick, but without the ability to shoot.
• “Lunacy”, with a gravity mechanic, which I’ve implemented already.
• A bunch o’ other levels like “Pepperoncini Pyramid” & “Hoot Chutes” that I’ve been saying I’d work on for months.

Here’s where the messy source code is

12 years ago an utterly professional company known by the immensely clever name Pokéme — e’en though their work wasn’t particularly anime-styled & was, you know, comics on static paper & not animation — invented history when they released their 1st classic in January 2015. Today we shall be remembering these underrated gems.

Origins

The idea for the 1st series, Pokémon Leaf Green & Fire Red Adventures”, began 1 cloudy afternoon as the CEO was riding his scooter down the hill, having still not learned how to ride a bike till the tender age o’ infinity. The idea was to actually focus on the cute Pokémon critters & not the filthy flesh creatures, & that the best way to do that would be to have the Pokémon be able to talk real English, since the real anime showed how compelling Pokémon characters became when they voiced such Shakespearean lines as, “¡Pika Pikachu!” & “¡Meeeow! ¿did I not says ‘on topic’ heres? ¿Are you stupid or something?” Also, since I they truly hated the human characters so much @ the time, I they decided it’d be funny if the Pokémon screwed round with the humans.

A Boy and His Pikachu

Natural dialogue in the empty white void.

In the 1st Pokémon games, Pikachus had a patch on their bellies; in the 1st “Pokéme” comic, Pikachu wore gloves.

That makes 1 o’ them.

I don’t remember what Pikachu’s s’posed to be selling Firara. I don’t think a younger me would’ve imagined something gross like 1 o’ Leafaro’s pubes ( plus, as we’ll see later, that’d be a terrible scam gainst Firara ), so my best guess is a particularly hefty staple.

“Idiots: nobody till now figured out how much easier carrying round big sacks o’ money is by just super-gluing it to the back o’ your hand”.

& while we’re leagues below the ship that holds the barrel o’ quality, we might as well meme it up:

Nothing’s weirder than selling stuff on the market. Confirmed canon: Leafaro is a dirty communist.

What you fools may mistake as my weakness @ erasing cheap paper experts recognize as movement lines with the finest o’ detail.

This panel comes right after the previous. ¿Isn’t the pacing o’ this comic just smooth as linoleum?

Smooth as linoleum.

I’m curious myself. Not only is that ring that’s purportedly s’posed to be rope ( apparently transparent rope ) hilariously not tight ’nough to bound her legs in any way ( well, ’less she’s too stupid not to figure out how to move her legs in a li’l closer than as wide out as humanly possible ), said transparent rope isn’t e’en attached to anything, making it not so much “rope” as an antigravity ring. I’ve heard o’ B movies where you see string that’s not s’posed to be there; ¿but how could I fuck up not putting in string that’s s’posed to be there?

Natural smiles.

If you paid attention to what happened a mere second before, you’d know, Leafaro.

Also: super natural smiles.

Forget such triffling nonsense as Pikachu craning his neck awkwardly so that he’s facing the camera but his back is turned to the camera or Leafaro standing straight with his head just ’bove Pikachu’s level, implying that his entire lower body is underground; I forgot that for the longest time as a kid I thought “maybe” was spelled “mabye”. What a fucking tool.

Thanks to Leafaro’s gluttonous & linguistically incorrect theft o’ a scarce uppercase for his hip hope chant for all the spirited pre-teens, Pikachu was left for none @ the start o’ his sentence.

“¿Did you ‘atleast’ remember to draw my neck or Pikachu’s nose or not draw my arm as transparent? No…”

Magic water that makes it impossible to breathe, but makes it easy as air to speak. It must be magic, looking @ that sexy perspective up there.

I couldn’t have e’en bothered to erase the line through the middle o’ the pokéball.

I want to point out how extremely characters’ personalities shift throughout this series’ run: Pikachu starts out as an evil psychopath, Firara starts out cheerful & nice, Leafaro starts out as some high-strung yeller ( essentially Jon from Garfield ), & Torchic, who appears in a later issue, starts out as calm & deadpan ( i.e. boring ). Later, Pikachu’s mo’ a dumb jock who has some moral standards ( later “tortures” are less, “¡Ha, ha, murder!”, Firara’s an asshole, Leafaro’s a spineless wimp, & Torchic’s the one who in all seriousness despises humans & wants to kill them.

You probably think that’s it for the 1st issue. “Bursting with brilliant content, surely it couldn’t have mo’”. But you’d be wrong: there’s still 9 mo’ pages. Which means, no, I won’t be loosening the chains locking you to your chair.

This time we’ll only focus on the best parts, since I don’t have an eternity & there’s mo’ than 20 o’ these issues ( not including the Hamtaro 1s, which are just boring ).

Charmander, the Thief

Surprised I didn’t misspell it, “theif”. It’s remembering all my trip-ups with English’s many, many inconsistencies that leads me to believe that ol’ claim that children learn languages mo’ naturally & easily is bunk.

We start with some truly Marvel-quality animation wherein Firara has some disgustingly misshapen blog for legs.

Also, get used to Leafaro spontaneously losing his hair in random scenes — the illustrious Pokéme always kept their readers guessing.

Don’t be so amazed by her transparent arm, Leafaro: you already proved you could do the same in the previous story.

Laugh.

I’ve noticed I was quite creative with word-spacing back then.

Also, ’course “thee” is spelled the same as “the”; ¿Why wouldn’t it, considering it’s spelled completely different?

Also, for those who care deeply ’bout this series’ rich canon, you may notice that Leafaro’s shown without his hat, e’en though it’s later setup that nobody’s e’er seen under Leafaro’s hat.

Including Leafaro’s hair.

The way he says that, he’s probably s’posed to be referring to the canonical Dark Cave in Johto, not just any dark cave. ’Cept Leafaro & Firara canonically live in Pallet. Pallet is nowhere near Dark Cave, being in a completely different region & such.

“I’d better say this out loud so the cave lights itself up for me”

Charmander’s most devious scheme is his ventriloquist act on Pikachu.

Nobody has e’er thought to blow up someone they didn’t like the history o’ eternity.

So, Pikachu later decides he doesn’t want Firara to blow up, ’cause then he’d have nobody to torture — torturing humans being an immensely funny topic, by the way. So then he does this:

I can only imagine that Pikachu was that same guy who complained ’bout arrows hitting bombs blowing them up in Ocarina of Time.

After all, as the wise critic Anonymous once said eons ago:

What kind of piece of crap explosion is that? Mario can’t make people explode by hitting them with his hammer arrows!

Also, I always hated it when cartoons made a big deal out o’ something killing someone, & then they blow up & they’re fine. ¿Remember all those times Wile-E Cayote tried to “kill” the Road Runner with some explosion, only to hit himself & turn out perfectly fine. ¿What’s the point?

Over the Edge

Just for you.

Hilarious social commentary.

Leafaro transforms into a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man.

Accurate depiction o’ mental health issues.

Jiggly Puff, the Acomplist

In my defense, there was no hope o’ young me figuring out such a complex word as “accomplice” — & it’s not as if dictionaries existed back then.

Nothing’s better for working in the “black market” than wearing suspicious black shades & a black suit & saying out loud, “Nothing better than doing illicit activies, ¿am I right, everyone?”

Apparently I wasn’t right in the hands, what with how shaky & unreadable the writing is.

Jigglypuff, who finds Pikachu cute in his sexy The Matrix cosplay, agrees to help him with his hilarious scheme o’ having her make Firara fall asleep & draw on her face, ripped straight off from the anime that I hypocritically bashed as a kid.

Only 2 stories later, & Leafaro’s gone from, “How dare you keep indulging in ordinary capitalist behavior” to “So, ¿how many people did you fleece?” Just like Russia.

I, no joke, find the idea o’ pokéballs being these comfy li’l realms with lamps & other amenities endearing.

¿The outcome? Exactly as he crafted the plan.

I remember reading ’mong the mountains o’ writing advice I’ve read that if you give a character’s plans in-story, then it must go wrong, else it’ll look silly & repetitive — otherwise don’t give the plan @ all.

Pikachu vociferously defends his self-image, anticipating Tumblr by a decade or so.

I’m mo’ amused by what a narcissist Pikachu is — & I mean the medical term. Look @ that earnest expression he has on his face & see just how deeply he believes that he ne’er did anything wrong to Firara & deserves only the utmost respect for his prosocial behavior.

In a cave { named cerulean…

I have no idea why there’s a left brace before “named” & “cerulean” — ¿to show they’re connected? I also don’t know why I spontaneously change my story-title capitalization scheme to a Spanish-style — including not capitalizing “Cerulean”, when e’en Spanish titles would.

I’m going to drop kayfabe & completely trash this story, ’cause it’s dumb in too many ways to count — though I’ll try. Here’s it’s entirety.

My notes:

It’s full o’ inside jokes. “Anti-Hamtaro” is a reference to some ol’ sprite comics. “Hamtaro but with inverted graphics”, “Mario but grayscale & 5 times as big”, & “Wart but blue” were some o’ the brilliant character designs I came up with back then. ¿Why does Anti-Hamtaro work for Mewtwo? ’Cause he did in some ol’ sprite comic that’s thankfully disappeared off this planet. ¿Why did he in those ol’ comics? You’d have to go back in time & ask my younger self.

The world blowing up is from the also-high-quality Neglected Characters Comix, which I didn’t e’en make, & is now apparently being run by an Orwellian totalitarian poker machine.

Characters being bored is ne’er a good basis for a story. Having them blow up the world makes it e’en less funny.

Island of the Blastoise

Fuck myself, I forgot how much padding was in this.

Don’t worry: I won’t subject you to this utterly uninteresting waste o’ paper & ’stead just show the title:

1. ’Twas vitally important to advertise the lack o’ humans in this story, so they know that it came after a nuclear war wiped them all off the planet.

2. 1 o’ the s’s is cursive, & nothing else is cursive @ all, including other s’s. @ the time I probably only knew how to write s’s in cursive.

Sorry, the 1 other note I’ll make is that this comic ends with a recap o’ a previous comic so Squirtle can react to said event, e’en though nobody cares. Wonderful plotting.

A Day at the Pokécenter

This comic’s much better without the “The End” panel so you can feel like you’re reading this right next to Family Circus while eating your morning bagels & vodka & crying into your newspaper o’er how empty your life is.

A Dark World

I’m guessing mo’ filler…

¿Does Leafaro not have a Pokédex? Later he’d be established as a huge nerd & 1 o’ the few competent Pokémon trainers in this series where Pokémon rarely fight each other & trainers rarely leave their home town.

Spoiler: the comic ends with Pikachu commiting violence gainst her.

Also, no part o’ this story is ’splained: ¿why was Pikachu in her bag? Clearly this is right up there with the briefcase in Pulp Fiction with brilliant cinematic mysteries.

Ice Cave

Nope, this 1’s a skipper for su —

Hold that. Look @ this:

“Oops: drinking those chemicals made my hand become massive”.

This comic’s just here to make people rethink attacking the original Pokémon games for being ugly.

¡Space grocery bag to the rescue! ( In this production Earth shall be played by a bowl o’ chicken noodle soup. )

A Time for Tranquility

This final story for this issue is mostly more o’ the same. I just want to show off these 2 panels that in full honesty go 1 after the other.

Smooth as linoleum.

I like to think that Leafaro’s awkward digression from Pikachu showing callous indifference to the prospect o’ murdering a li’l girl is his way o’ trying to avoid acknowledging his own role as a passive enabler. This comic teaches us that evil has many forms, which is why award-winning sociologist Phillip Zimbardo included it in The Lucifer Effect — 100% true fact.

I mean, this same comic establishes Pikachu as a pyromaniac.

I also want to add that Leafaro’s idea o’ a “place of tranquility” is just @ the foot o’ an ordinary tree in a place so plain, there isn’t e’en a horizon. To be fair, Leafaro clearly needed a break from all the… not training & not leaving his hometown that he does.

A good summary for this whole series.

If I torture you with more o’ these, I’ll try to be mo’ selective. There’s too much silly stuff to waste time on fucking juggling Anti-Hamtaro.

World J: The Warped Void

Music: “Main Menu”, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

“It’s just an empty void”. What a great ’scuse to not put any effort into map graphics, like I did throughout this whole hack. The only interesting part is how a lot o’ the level tiles are ?s, making the player figure out how many exits each level has.

I do really like this map song, though.

Easiest Level Ever

Music: “Green Greens”, ’bout every Kirby game

Laziest, too.

Originally this spot held “Let’s Abuse Yoshi”, a level much mo’ clever & fun. I think I replaced it ’cause a few parts were janky — specifically a part where you had to get through a corridor clogged by Chargin’ Chucks using Yoshi’s extra hit point & retrieve him ’fore he goes past the next Chuck. I shouldn’t have; jankiness is better than boring, ’specially for the last world.

• P-Switch level count: 30 / 50
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 15
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 8

Stratus Travesty

Music: “Green Greens”, ’bout every Kirby game

Message box: best way to deal with flaws isn’t to fix them, but to point them out so people know I made their experience less enjoyable on purpose & hate me e’en mo’.

See, the trick ’bout the end is that you have to not get hit with the feather the level gives you or you can’t fly & are screwed.

There’s nothing interesting to say ’bout this level. It’s mere OK.

• P-Switch level count: 30 / 51
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 15
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 8

Goomba Path

Music: “Enemy Battle”, Super Mario All-Stars: Super Mario Bros. 3 ( Same )

I don’t know what inspired it, but for some reason this world has a bunch o’ levels revolving round a certain enemy. This level focuses on Goombas & resources I ripped off from Super Mario Bros. 3, the 2nd o’ which is a tradition that continues to today in the bosom o’ Boskeopolis Land.

In particular, the “boss” rooms @ the end are a waste o’ time: I just copypastaed so many Goombas that the sprite engine slows to slime, ’cause repetition & slowness are always fun.

I seemed to like puzzles wherein you have to make small jumps under flat platforms to avoid getting stuck in a higher place & having to go back to go back down. I apologize for that.

In my defense, some o’ the running & jumping sections in the low corridors actually looked neat if you knew when to jump. But its been years since then & I’ve lost all my Super Mario World skills & memory for when to jump, so I make it look like shit.

• P-Switch level count: 30 / 52
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 15
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 8

Jungle of the Ninji

Music: “Overworld”, New Super Mario Bros.

Replace “Goomba” with “Ninji” & Super Mario Bros. 3 with Super Mario Bros. 2.

¿Did I truly need to make this key require Yoshi, & then force you to ditch him & bring the key all the way to the end? Great: every time I died, I had to go all ’cross the map to get ’nother. ’Nother reason cutting “Let’s Torture Yoshi” was a bad idea.

’Specially since that waterfall jump to the lower mushroom is bullshit. I think I remember adding that midpoint specifically to make that jump less bullshit. ’Cept it’s still bullshit — ’specially for the secret exit — & I should’ve just made it less bullshit. That “Ho, ho, don’t go to high or you have to go back & try ’gain” shit got ol’.

The Ninji “boss” is the dumbest, most trivial fight e’er. & this was a hack wherein a “boss” was a single Goomba as a joke.

• P-Switch level count: 31 / 53
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 15
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 8

Killer’s Fun House

Music: “Shy Guy’s Toy Box”, Paper Mario

The strangest time to insist on using Bullet Bill’s Japanese name. I guess I thought it sounded mo’ ironic.

A’least this level is short ’nough to not get annoying. If you only have 1 trick or 2, you should keep your level to 1 trick or 2.

¿What does a fun house with Alfred Chicken & Wario Land 4 bonus tiles have to do with Bullet Bills?

I think this was 1 out o’ quite a few levels wherein I discovered that making you drag the P-switch back to the start was ridiculous, so I made the switch cause some blocks to make the race back after hitting the switch easier. I think it’s better that way.

The saddest part is that this Warped Void enemy “boss” is the best ’mong them — & it’s puzzle is just going in a loop.

• P-Switch level count: 32 / 54
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Lunaria

Music: “Title Theme”, SimCity ( SNES )

This was originally going to be the 1st level o’ the scrapped space world, the remnants o’ which can be seen in the map on the 1st post. The other planned levels, scrapped ’cause they sucked unbelievably, were a level where you had to swim through thin shafts ’tween walls o’ lava with a glowing rocky background called “Helios”, a lablike level with lots o’ shitty layer-2 shenanegans involving lava walls repainted green called “Cryogian”, whatever that’s s’posed to mean, & what would’ve been a haunted, darker-tinted moon level if I’d been able to think o’ mo’ than a straight path with a boo here & there called “Hades”.

I don’t know why I e’en bothered to keep “Lunaria”, since it sucks too — just not as hard as the others. The only original idea was having the secret exit in the Yoshi-wings section, & e’en that had the hitbox jank o’ totally-not-munchers & Yoshi caused by the programmers only intending for them to be used on the ground & not realizing that hacky rom hackers would want to spread them everywhere like weeds. Precise jumps o’er totally-not-munchers is hardly new, nor are Lotus Plants & Baseball Charlies, which are all o’er this world. This is, I believe, the only level in this hack that uses Monty Mole, simply ’cause I hadn’t thought to use them till then ( it’s funny how I took the time to look up patches & custom blocks on SMW Central for new gimmicks, but neglected a bunch o’ sprites, blocks, & general features already in the vanilla game ); but I don’t do anything with them, ¿so who cares?

Extra note: as noted ’bove, this level uses the title screen music from SimCity ( ’twas ’tween that & “The Moon” from Duck Tales; I figured this was the less cliché choice ). I was thinking how I should’ve chosen the SimCity menu theme for the title screen o’ this game ’stead o’ that metal Super Mario Bros. remix popularized by ASMT. It’s not as if the title screen needs to long a song, anyway. In my defense, I chose to use that song before that hack came out ( though the hack that rendition was actually made for, Cool or Cruel, which didn’t get nearly as much attention, already was ).

• P-Switch level count: 32 / 55
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Autumn Hills

Music: “Enemy Battle”, Super Mario All-Stars: Super Mario Bros. 3 ( Same )

Actually, you’d probably see brown grass in summer mo’ than autumn.

Speaking o’ neglected sprites, here’s those Chocolate Island dinos, used nowhere else. ( To be fair, ¿didn’t the real Super Mario World only use them in 2 levels? )

This level bugs me, ’cause its gimmick is ruined by its placement. Its gimmick is that, ’less you’re great with the cape, you need a blue Yoshi to get through, as there’s only a Yellow Koopa… but you’re guaranteed to have a blue Yoshi to get here ’cause the route to here is that Yoshi-wings secret exit that turns Yoshi blue.

This is also why my hack in general has so many bugs: I refused to make limiting choices, like making Yoshis & capes not stay with you after levels, which many hack makers recommend: I wanted to exploit as many stupid weird things as possible, including having a level wherein you needed to get a Yoshi from a totally different level.

• P-Switch level count: 32 / 56
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Attic Antics

Music: “No Eating Crackers in the Theater”, Mother 3 / “Shy Guy’s Toy Box”, Paper Mario

That’s some Rareware level naming there.

Didn’t know ’bout this horrendous game-breaking glitch with the midpoint. For those who don’t know, Super Mario World can easily kill you don’t put the camera’s vertical starting position near where you start. This is a common glitch in Super Mario World hacking. Now with a greater understand o’ game development & just looking @ how you die, I’d guess it’s not caused just by the camera not being where you are but probably caused by your character or the blocks below them not having collision detection while offscreen, causing your character to fall into the ground; when the camera catches up to them they’re already embedded in the ground. Now that they’re on-camera, collision detection resumes; but since you’re inside the ground, the game kills you, as it usually does when you’re smashed in solid blocks.

The 1st half o’ this level’s quite lame. The Piranha Plant section’s nothing new; & the part after that is full o’ filler & enemies that can fall on your head from offscreen. I love how I bothered to put all those blocks on the street in that middle area in some futile attempt to prevent flying, when you can easily fly from the very beginning & fly o’er the whole room.

I actually didn’t know ’bout the trick o’ jumping off Yoshi to reach the goal to skip the entire 2nd room all throughout development; I only learned ’bout it while watching a Let’s Play o’ this hack.

The 2nd portion’s all right. I like the idea o’ using grabbable items to reach a vine — I just wish I did mo’ with it. Also, ¿why’s there a vine in an attic? ¿Mold? ¿Why are some o’ the walls infested with Munchers? Obviously ’cause everything else in Dinosaur World is.

• P-Switch level count: 32 / 57
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Also, while we leave the mainland for good, I need to finally address some weird glitch wherein Luigi’s palette delays changing when returning to the o’erworld from a dark level…

Unforunately, the only way I can address it is with a silly meme:

Golden Bomb Mines

Music: “Mt. Moon”, Pokémon Red & Blue Versions

I remember liking this level a lot near the end o’ development, e’en though I didn’t remember much ’bout actually developing it. There was just something ’bout the trickiness o’ those slopes.

Maybe I was in a bad mood, — not helped by how late this update was coming — but I was less enamored this time. Those slopes seem less “tricky” now & mo’ “inconsistent”.

That said, I’d still call this level better than what we’ve seen so far in this world. In fact, it’s ironic that I was in an impatient mood while recording these next few videos, as looking back, these are some o’ the strongest levels.

This level does have cruft, though. ¿What’s the point o’ the water section? ¿To show off that it’s gold?

& ’course, we have this “boss” which is the same as the Goomba “boss”, but e’en less tricky, since it’s just straight right ’stead o’ going upward.

• P-Switch level count: 32 / 58
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Twinkle Twinkle

Music: “Casino Night Zone”, Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Well, maybe not that strong…

The 1st half’s solid. I remember when late in development I considered that jump off the Yellow Koopas to be the hardest jump in the game ( now we see that that clearly goes to that 1st slope jump in “Golden Bomb Mines” ).

The 2nd half, though. “¿Wouldn’t it be delightful if you had to slowly bounce through small passageways walled in all directions by bouncy blocks like the padding o’ a mental ward?” Actually, I do like how those Koopas always find a way to bounce up into that powerup area you’d think would be safe. I ’specially like how I didn’t design that on purpose @ all — I was as delightfully surprised when I ran into it back when I was developing this.

Something that had ne’er happened to me till now: not getting all the coins on that brown block wall. You can see the point where Luigi matches my expression: freezing in stoic horror as my mind slowly reeled the possibility that I’d have to start all o’er. But, to my own surprise, I was able to fly through.

The rest is just filler meant to be funnier mo’ than fun — just like “Death Desert”. Particular example: the brown blocks @ the end that are s’posed to make you go, “Fuck, ¡I missed a P-switch? Better go all the way back…” only for the solution to be mo’ hidden blocks.

& as an extra hilarious joke, Luigi falls off the ending platform during the victory march, but doesn’t quite reach the bottom ( which would kill him & steal ’way his victory in what is popularly called a “kaizo trap” after an infamous level in that infamous hack ) before the level ends. That was a big gimmick o’ this hack: teasing kaizo without actually giving it, which was probably fresher in a time when kaizo hacks were still the standard, like… maybe the 1st year o’ this hack’s development.

• P-Switch level count: 33 / 59
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Persistence of Time

Music: “Peanut Plain”, Kirby Super Star

Here’s where I was inconsistent: ¿remember how I just recently said I refused to limit myself to keeping Yoshi out o’ levels he clearly didn’t belong ( like “Attic Antics” )? & yet I refused to apply the patch that allowed you to have mo’ than 19 characters per name ( well, without smushing letter together in hardcoded graphics, like the original Super Mario World did for “Forest of Illusions”’s names ), e’en though I wanted longer names. Here’s an example wherein I not only wanted it to have the word “the” & have it be “Persistence of Memory”, which is what the Dali painting’s actually called, but wanted it to be in its original Spanish, “La persistència de la memòria”, which would’ve been e’en harder to fit.

History repeats itself as I procrastinate allowing Boskeopolis Land to have levels that go beyond 1 line…

The note ’bout there being 1 o’ each color Yoshi is interesting ( not the least the fact that it’s wrong: you can also get a Blue Yoshi from that wings section o’ “Lunaria” ): you can’t 100% the game without finding the Yellow & Blue Yoshis, so they’re not all that secret. Only the Red Yoshi, which I showed off up ’bove the beginning o’ the 1st level, is truly secret.

Spreaking o’ the Yoshi section, its layout is odd. There’s just ’nough Koopas to feed Yoshi & leave 1 mo’. Knowing me, you’d think I’d leave just ’nough with none extra. The blocks are also setup so that it’s as awkward as possible to feed Yoshi, which I guess was the point, since I for some reason thought “awkward” meant “challenging”. ’Course it wouldn’t be LOTFS level without that awkward design leading to some hilarious glitches that kill you instantly. LOTFS teases you with intentional kaizo bullshit but doesn’t deliver, but does deliver kaizo bullshit by pure accident.

“HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” is a reference to a line spoken a few times from a poem by T.S. Eliot called “The Wasteland”, a famous example o’ modernist poetry ’mong the literati. Despite said popularity with serious literati, the all-caps & lack o’ punctuation are true to the poem — ’cept LOTFS actually adds punctuation: the original line said “ITS”, not “IT’S”. ’Cause o’ this, I was always surprised “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME” ne’er became a meme.

In the earlier 2012 version o’ this hack, this level had a blander background & “Green Greens” music. I always wanted this level to have “Gourmet Race”, what with the focus on speed, but there was no rendition on SMW Central & I was too incompetent to make any decent renditions, as my attempt @ “Sea Turtle Rock” showed. I later found “Peanut Plains” & settled for that, since ’twas close & was a’least mo’ fast-paced than “Green Greens”.

I think this is 1 o’ my better-designed levels. It’s full o’ things that can delay you; but if you’re clever, you can speed them up. For instance, you can actually jump o’er the Pokeys with precise jumps, skipping the delay o’ eating them, & you can skip building some o’ the bridge o’er the Lotus Plant if you know that you can run o’er block-wide gaps by holding the jump button.

2 flaws: I remember the goal being higher up, requiring you to hop off flying Koopas to reach it. Maybe I thought that was too hard, but I think it makes for better design. I also think the time’s not nearly tight ’nough: I wasn’t e’en going all that fast & I made it to the end with 50 whole seconds left. I think I wanted to time it so that the timer kept reaching 100 seconds so the song would keep getting faster & faster, thanks to the famous Funky glitch.

• P-Switch level count: 33 / 60
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Touchdown

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

The trick with this level was that I simply didn’t add a normal exit & set the normal exit to have no event. Thus, while most levels have no secret exits, this is the only level in this hack to have only a “secret exit”.

This was ’nother level I always liked, though it has its problems, too. That message box in the middle with the reset pipe is there ’cause some glitch I couldn’t figure out would sometimes cause the vine block to not make a vine when hit by the Rainbow Koopa, forcing you to warp to refresh the map.

There’s something to be said ’bout the oddness o’ this level’s layout. It’s s’posed to be a long stretch o’ a football field, only to be full o’ pipes. I guess that was the point. Strangely, despite this, the level does stay rather focused on the theme o’ Chargin’ Chucks & pipes & Piranha Plants. Then ’gain, ¿doesn’t most o’ this hack focus on those enemies?

¿Is that Muncher jump in the middle that I kept getting hit by e’en possible to make if big? I couldn’t do it @ all in my recent attempts.

• P-Switch level count: 33 / 61
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

Wonka Factory

Music: “Fear Factory”, Donkey Kong Country

After 2 strong levels we get a meh level. Clearly the aesthetics & the underutilized mechanics o’ conveyor belts & Li’l Sparkys masquerading as Super Mario Bros. 2 Sparks were s’posed to carry this level. Most o’ the 1st room is easily-dodged enemies on conveyor belts, with the only difficulty being the silly 1-tile conveyor jumps, & most o’ the 2nd room are easily-dodged Thwomps & Ball-’n-Chains, with the conveyor belts not doing much to change anything. Finally there’s ’nother autoscroller with unpredictable Podobos. The most interesting part is Wendy being a boss ( ¿Why didn’t I call this “Wendy’s Factory”? ¿Did I think nobody would get the reference or did I want her to be a surprise? ), marred by a wonky camera.

• P-Switch level count: 33 / 62
• Levels with mo’ than 1 switch: 16
• Levels with mo’ than 1 o’ the same switch: 9

@ this point we’ve reached 84 exits ( & 62 levels, oddly, which means I must’ve miscounted somewhere, ’cause I remember there being only 60 levels ). That leaves 1 mo’: the aptly-named “The Last Levels”. As the plural “levels” indicates, it’s a big exit, which I’ll go into next update.

Playing Railroad

This level was a task, & you can see why with all the fun features I decided to include. This was a case o’ my artistic side o’erriding my careful programming self ( which, now that I remember what my code looks like, doesn’t exist ). I kept insisting that I must have some feature, e’en if it meant adding mo’ weird, rare conditions to my already-bloated code. It wasn’t ’nough to have the ability to shoot while standing, ducking, & being able to shoot upward & to have various enemies that do similarly; I insisted on having the level goal be “kill all the enemies”, since I found this level to be the 1 where killing enemies was the most fun. I had planned on having this level goal since the beginning, but my original goal would be that it’d be in a 1-map level, where I could simply test if the sprite vector is empty. But this level has multiple maps, & I definitely wasn’t cutting out my swanky roof section. This left a problem: only the current map’s sprites are loaded, & they’re reloaded ’tween maps, which causes any dead sprites to respawn. So I had to create a way to keep track o’ certain sprites I didn’t want to respawn & add some extra code to delete that sprite from the map’s sprite index vector so that when it respawned sprites that sprite’s flag would no longer be there ( similar to how blocks that disappear, such as gems, work ). ’Course, since I was lazy & didn’t want to keep manually counting how many enemies are in the level in total for the level goal, I had to create an extra function that loops through every map & looks for certain sprite IDs.

You may notice that the roof section has wind ( which makes the jumps — ’specially that spring jump — much harder than they seem ). This actually didn’t require hardly any reprogramming, since I already had the wind mechanic programmed for a level I plan to make later. The only reprogramming I had to do was some hacky fix to keep the springs ( which are sprites now ) from being affected by the wind. I actually mulled o’er whether I wanted to Cowpokers up on the roof to be affected by wind, as it messed up the arrangement I meant for the rightmost area ( wherein the Cowpokers are on crates ); but then I decided that having that the wind-based version is mo’ interesting.

The rest was was aesthetics, which is always surprisingly mo’ challenging & complicated than actual gameplay… & also required reprogramming. To allow that tunnel background, I had to fiddle a lot with the background image layer class to allow for a specific # o’ BG repeats ( before ’twas either infinitely or no repeat @ all ) & had to make it so that when the background goes too far left, it wraps back to the right ( which, to be fair, also would fix an unlikely — e’en with these fast-scrolling BGs it’d take 32-bit & higher computers a’least an hour or so for the int to reach the ~ -2 billion bottom limit — bug wherein the background movement X position wraps back to the int max value ). It still feels a bit janky, though — I particularly don’t like it when the tunnel appears right when you enter a map. Ideally it’d be rarer & take a’least a few minutes in a map to appear. Also, the tunnel doesn’t appear in the boss room ’cause its small map causes the tunnel to glitch out. Technically I could just enlarge the map & limit the camera ( the reason the boss room is in a different map — though you can see a decoy that’s just for show in the 1st map — is to keep the room on-screen, as I found the boss fight too janky with the boss offscreen ), but that felt wasteful.

The best part o’ these graphics is that I oft had to heavily readjust things when I decided to change things. For instance, the inner-train BG originally was just an image with repeat-x till I decided I wanted to have gaps ’tween train cars & show past the walls. Obviously having the background tile out into the outside o’ the train made no sense, so I had to break the image up into tiles & have them be a tile background layer, with no tiles in the outside parts¹. The problem with that is that I wanted those swanky translucent windows that appear ’hind that chair, which meant I needed a 2nd tile background layer. Now I changed it so that any layers in Tiled past 2 ( the sprite layer ) gets added as a tile background layer, allowing for theoretically infinite².

The window highlights, which were far harder to do than you might think, were ’nother example where I kept going back & forth. @ 1st I made animations for the train windows & the doors, only to realize I could just have consistent highlight graphics below all the graphics as a tile background layer & just have the windows be cut out with transparency… ’cept you sometimes go ’hind the windows, & they need to be in front o’ sprites, which is impossible with background tile layers ( they’re backgrounds, after all ). But the doors & front window don’t have this problem, so I finally settled with window highlights & solid highlights that go ’hind the doors & front window. & since you ne’er go ’hind the side window on the front car with the boss room, I just had those windows be in the background tile layer & added a block with a gray triangle in the top-right corner to make that angled window.

If you’re curious how the train graphics look so you can see the sheer weight o’ the window highlight tiles:

The used windows highlights take up a whole 480 tiles, as opposed to ’bout 128 for all the rest — almost 4 times the girth.

Note that you can also see remnants o’ the ol’ door-window highlight graphics, as I ne’er got round to reclaiming that space & using it for the inside background tiles.

Actually making all these tiles was much mo’ tedious than you’d expect. Basically, I created a GIMP file with the black BG, white highlights, & a hidden layer with a solid color for the size o’ the graphic & kept going back & forth, moving the highlights up by 1 pixel & cropping to the hidden layer & saving a png for a total o’ 32 to 48 frames total for each type. Then I just copied them all into some CSS sprites app to put them all together, as seen in the graphic.

& now thinking ’bout it, it’d probably be much mo’ efficient to replace the door & front window highlights with a single graphic that’s just moved & tiled a certain way. I could e’en do that with the background image layer already programmed in, too. That’d save a whopping 288 tiles & probably a couple KB on the tile graphic.

& since I was being anal-retentive, I got round to improving graphics from eons ago. For example, you’ll notice I added shine animation to the gems, which didn’t take nearly as long as the window highlights. I also made the springs sprites so I could add animation & was surprised @ how well I was able to make them work.

The worst thing is that I can still think o’ a bunch o’ things I want to add to this level, but I felt that there had to come a time when I stopped. Part o’ me wants to add mo’ frames to the shooting animations for “cowgirl” Autumn & the Cowpokers. Also, I feel like the edges o’ the tunnel look awkward. I tried to make it look smooth with a bit o’ gradient, but it still looks clunky.

Finally, I wanted to have the train jerk up & down, like the train stages in Wario Land II do, but that’d require being able to move every block — including those in the background tile layers — up & down & would probably require having all the blocks permanent to prevent the up-&-down motion becoming janky when you scroll the camera & replace the blocks. Also, it’d probably complicate the gameplay as well as all that & would require a lot o’ testing, & basically I didn’t think ’twas worth all the effort. Maybe later. I have been puzzling ’bout making the block code mo’ efficient so I could just load them all @ once, which may be mo’ efficient that constantly regenerating them whenever the camera moves, but I’m not sure if it’s truly worth it.

Funny ’nough, I got so focused on talking ’bout graphics that I ne’er talked ’bout the difficulty o’ this level. Part o’ me feels like I might’ve gone o’erkill; on the other side, I have found that the mo’ I played this level, the easier I found it. @ 1st I thought trying to beat the level quickly was ridiculous — ’specially with the randomness o’ all the enemies’ shooting — & made the time challenge 1:50, e’en though my earlier attempts gave me a best time o’ 1:45, only to pleasantly surprise myself while recording by my ability to beat it in the 1:30s in only 3 tries ( 1 failed attempts shown on accident due to incompetent video editing ) — & that’s on a run in which I take a safety heart & make many other li’l mistakes; someone actually good @ games could probably beat this level in the 1:20s a’least. Clearly I must’ve found the difficulty fun since I kept making myself make things harder, — ’specially the boss³, who I e’en considered giving 2 mo’ hit points & for whom I did crank up the shooting frquency — since I found it mo’ exciting. In particular, I changed the boss so that it also shot low since I quickly discovered I could just duck & cheese him without the possibility o’ getting hit otherwise ( it’s still much easier to duck & shoot @ it while jumping o’er low shots, as shown in the video ). In fairness, the level does also provide plenty o’ hearts, including an infinite-use full-heal block right before the boss.

All the death pits in the upper section don’t help, ’specially with the wind. As I mentioned, some o’ the jumps are trickier than they look thanks to the wind & how it messes up Autumn’s momentum, ’specially the spring jump.

The Future

I think I might do a beach level ( a pirate level ) next.

Accompanying music.

Whenever I hear someone complain ’bout those lazy people who try to influence politics purely through social media — i.e. through communication — I always want to ask them what they think truly decides politics in modern civilization. Presumably they should get off their ass & go challenge the President to an honorable battle to the death, as is usually the means for enacting political change in modern society.

This should be contrasted with serious pundits who sit on their ass & write news articles or talk on TV all day, or those lazy politicians who literally control politics through sitting on their ass, talking, & signing pieces o’ paper. ¿How does that degenerate nobody Hairpiece expect to do anything sitting round in that white house all day?

I might e’en be callous ’nough to compare hashtag activists to that lazy bum Thomas Paine who just wrote some silly pamphlets — the 1700s equivalent o’ a Tumblr blog post — & sent them round all his friends. One may e’en be surprised that that most infamous inciter o’ political change, Karl Marx, spent quite a lot o’ his time sitting on his ass writing books & sending gossipy mail to his commie friends.

& on that subject, I might e’en go far ’nough to put on my Marx hat — or pirate hat; I get them confused a lot — & note that perhaps the only thing different from social media & the other examples I gave were that social media is used by dirty normal people, the dirty majority, whereas sitting on your ass writing newspaper articles or talking on TV is different ’cause those are reserved only for those who, um… ¿are rich? Can’t truly see how the average blowhard on TV or in the newspapers is any mo’ qualified. I know no hashtag could e’er meet the scientific sophistication o’ such wisdom as, “Suck on it, Iraq”, “How did the moon get there”, or Jon Stewart & Colbert making jokes ’bout eating a banana as if it’s a penis.

See, I’m mixed, ’cause I agree that most online political propaganda is inane. I hope it’s not too controversial o’ me to argue that, nah, I just don’t think random pictures o’ particularly hideous frogs has the same intellectual rigor o’, say, Voltaire — & I’m not e’en comparing them to the famous philosopher, since that’d be a laughable comparison, but that musician who made that song on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. It’s just that I can’t take these criticisms seriously when they come from people just as idiotic.

Look, let’s be balanced here: the internet, TV, & newspapers are all equally braindead & you should probably be reading actual scientific journals or works by actual renown historians, you lazy bum. Or just read ’bout silly bootleg video games, ’cause it’s not like you’ll be able to do anything ’bout anything, anyway.

Which makes one wonder why anyone cares whether some high schoolers posting some wicked Rage Against the Machine lyrics on Twitter & what kind o’ deep insecurities rich people who get paid to write for big newspapers must have to consider it worth their time to smugly compare themselves to such serious targets o’ satire. “¡I sure showed that college freshman still living with their parents!” I know that’s why I make fun o’ everyone else, so clearly it must be the case for everyone else.

¡& it’s by Link himself!

I’d make a joke ’bout the CD-i games being better than Ocarina of Time, but that’s just lying. I would say that the cutscenes, being so good they’re bad, are a thousand times mo’ entertaining than anything in Ocarina of Time; but anyone who has actually played those games would know how horrendously shitty their controls & physics & everything are. Playing Ocarina of Time is like watching grass dry; playing The Wand of Gamelon or The Faces of Evil is like watching someone drive a drill into your eyes.