I'll have a Heineken for you, cause you rock...  :beer:

I don't see the prollem if people wanna finish dead hacks, there's a few hacks out there I wanna finish myself cause people been waiting for years for authors to finish'em but they're gone. I asked one author if he'd have a prollem if someone wanted to finish his hack, he read the PM and never bothered replying back to me, what a busta. I should finish it anyway lol!

I remember when I finished this hack, it was dead for years. All that needed to be one was edit 11 levels, of course I gotta give credit where it's due... ^^'

Well, I hope this doesn't end up a dead hack that needs someone else to finish. But if anyone feels like doing more than a straightforward port, with improvements to percived designe flaws, etc. I'd have no objections.

As for my philosophy on the matter, it's simple. Rom hacks exist because of the work of the original programmers, designers, and artists. Hacks exist without explicit permission and it's hypocritical to expect that others ask you for permission when you never did in the first place. While ROM hacking is legal (and I'd argue, ethical too), the simple fact is that without building on the hard work of others, the hacks are nothing. So if someone wants to build on my work (which in turn builds on the work of others) I see no problem with it. In fact, I applaude it.

As for open source, once this project is finalized, I intend to release a package that has all ASM modifications and all custom tools source code. Of course, the original SMB code is owned by big N and the level desings are copyright Hudson Soft, so it's a little too legally grey to really be considred open source, but the source will be ouyt there any way.

I appologize if this post is too philosophical to be of any use to anyone, I'm really drunk right now.

P.S. I'll check those bugs out sometime after I'm sober; Good night youz guyz. (That's new englander for "y'all".)

Please do not kill off this hack. Please don't...

I really would like to see you finish Worlds 7 and 8 on this.

Thank you,



Ben

Frantik, Karatorian,

I noticed in World 5-2 for SMBS there are the islands that you first see in World 1-3 and the blue water graphics that you first see in World 3-1. Around the middle of the stage (5-2) there are cloud block platforms. They're all missing in the SMBS for NES hack.

~Ben

I've produced a new version of the expanded world 1 through 6 based on the latest 5 and 6 patch. I've also fixed the halfway points. My earlier versions simply had the halfway data from the 1 through 4 patch, which, obviously didn't work for worlds 5 and 6. That's been rectified by trivially disabling the halfway page code as suggested by frantik.

Also included is new experimental Red Pirahna Plant code. Please report any strange Piranha Plant behavior (Red or Green, the code is intertwined) that you encounter. You can get the patch here.

In relation to the various engine limitations mentioned in the last post, I'd like to be able to overcome them, but I don't know what that would entail. Additionally, other ASM hacks will, of course, be higher priority. The water level thing should proabably be pretty easy, but the other two may be pretty complicated.

My whole goal for this project should be: 60% SMB Special original + 40% SMB 1 for NES.

Additional flaws I've discovered:
The stairway is missing in the goal area in World 2-3 (dungeon graphics).
A frenzied Spiny is seen towards the end of World 4-3.
The halfway point in World 5-3 puts Mario at a pit.

Still, keep it coming on Worlds 7 and 8, please...

~Ben (SMB2J-2Q)

You know there is a patch on the main site right? It fixes world 4-4.