The Forever Mystery, Part One: Rescue!

Extra Files:

Eternity Readme.txt

Super Mario Eternity
The Forever Mystery
Part One: Rescue!
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By FirePhoenix, a.k.a. FP, SnowyFP (at least in winter :P)
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Demo Version 0.7
a.k.a. The Eternal Demo
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Merry Christmas everyone!  This is my present to all of you!
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This is "The Forever Mystery Part One: Rescue!", my attempt at hacking Super Mario World and my first TRUE release to the public.  Sure there have been demos before of previous projects but none have been as big as this one.

I highly recommend that you first play "The Forever Mystery Part Zero:  Prologue" before playing this hack, as it sets up the basic storyline for the hack.  It can be found in the Featured Hacks section on SMWCentral.net.

This is my biggest release to date:
48 Exits
43 Levels
That's not a big level to exit ratio but I'm calling a level anything you can enter off the Overworld, aside from pipes, no matter how small a level it is.  Even if it's one screen big with side exits, it's a level in my book.

My goal for this hack was to prove that it IS possible to have a hack of SMW that didn't have all of the fancy stuff that hacks nowadays basically require to be accepted.  I think I've pulled some pretty good concepts using the original SMW graphics.  That isn't to say I haven't used ExGFX.  Plenty of times I've modified the original graphics sets to fit what I want but as for bringing in graphics from other games, there's only one instance of that and only one instance of a level being completely composed of custom graphics.  Both of those cases are bonus levels that are found towards the end of the demo.

The game is not that hard on the difficulty scale but remember it's only up to world five in difficulty so that should explain it.  Even so, there are plenty of 1-ups to be found, through coins mostly but some levels will have more than one 1-up, some may even have a rare 3-up!  If you manage to get a Game Over, you should seriously think about getting gaming help. :P

The demo ends in world five.  The end was originally not supposed to be the way it is but I didn't want to have the demo end abruptly so I decided to end it properly.  Plus, I had the last level in this demo done for later in the game and decided, 'Why not use it to finish up right now?'  There are no credits at the end but there is a small, rather insignificant surprise if you play through all the way.

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Known Bugs/Issues:

There are probably a couple more bugs than what I know of here.  Let me know if you find any, and please check this list first to see if I've already mentioned it.  I didn't have time for outside beta testing, only testing by me.

~ Red Switch Palace REFUSES to get stomped/stay down after being stomped.
~ After activating the Special World colors, some of the paths in Confusion Forest become odd colors.  This is just because of what tiles I used when doing events and can't be bothered now to fix it and redo all my events.
~ Yoshis may turn all black in certain rooms.  This is just because of a small graphics change I did to them to allow for "multiple" colors of Yoshi.  I think I fixed all instances of this, however.
~ In the second to last level, the area with the Goal Point Sphere screws up the Fire Flower palette in the item box due to a recoloring I did for the Goal Point Sphere in that room.
~ Spike Tops won't appear in the second to last level.  I can't do anything about this.  There's something wrong with their coding that only makes them appear if you approach them from the left (IIRC).
~ Slowdown in various places, most notably in the Color Castle, second half of Piranha Pipeline, I believe a few rooms in Bowser's Castle.
~ The Goal Point in Cliffside Plateaus is strange.  You won't slow down after breaking the tape like normal, instead you'll continue at full speed until you land.  I have no explanation for this.
~ At one point you'll get a Springboard in the item box.  It's only meant for one level so if you take it to other levels, the colors of it in the box will be screwy.  Truth be told, the colors are slightly screwy in one of the areas in the level you're supposed to take it to.  This is probably a lazy fix for that level but, I'm on a tight schedule trying to release this for Christmas. :P  I started prepping it for release TWO DAYS before release date.
~ I THINK the opening movie de-syncs at one point.  It hasn't happened to me recently but IIRC it has happened before.  However, if it does this, there's nothing at that point that can kill Mario and make the movie level playable.  It'll just look like Mario is running around stupidly.
~ There's a Reznor boss fight outside of their normal arena in the game so the issues that pop up when that happens occur, like the bridge disappear smoke starting, chunks of Reznor missing, etc.

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Other Things:

~ The hack is unlocked. Go ahead and look, there's nothing you'd want to steal from it anyway unless stealing good palettes is what you do :P.
~ Peach's rescue message is unchanged from when I had modified it to fit the storyline.  The storyline of the demo has nothing to do with the main intended storyline for the overall hack.  Therefore, the rescue message will seem a bit strange, but for whatever reason I'm unable to run the Message Editor Smallhacker made and fix it.
~ There is NO Yellow Switch palace in the game, nor is there a Yellow Switch hiding in any level.  If you see a Yellow Switch outline, ignore it please.
~ If you played "The Forever Mystery Part Zero: Prologue" you may remember how Mario talked to the player and had a "Player's Guide" for his own game as he traveled.  Sadly, neither of those ideas is present in this demo because I haven't had time to change message boxes to fit that style of talking.
~ You cannot play the opening level by normal means.  I decided not to include it in the game, only the movie.

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Bonus Content:

~ If you absolutely want to play some of the levels in progress I was working on, you can move around some pathing on the OW to allow yourself to play the following levels: (I cannot guarantee that beating these levels will not cause events to get messed up.  If you want to play these levels, I recommend doing so on a copied file.)
    Level 00F Amethyst Caverns (Pink/purple YI Cave GFX level, unfinished)
    Level 014 Yellow Switch Palace (Finished)
    Level 015 Northern Plains (Typical plains level, unfinished, can reach Goal Tape)
    Level 017 Crystal Ice Cave (Icy cave with crappy custom tileset and transparency, unfinished)
    Level 050 (no name) (Metroid Zero Mission Chozodia ruins level, can only be found by linking to this level from another level. Unfinished, completed version of this level has been ported to my frozen Shyguy jack.)
    Level 108 Vanilla Drop (Vanilla-y colored vertical cave, finished, not really sure why I didn't include it...)
    Level 112 Hidden Grotto (Power-up level, actually has a message block-in-item-box block IIRC, finished)
    Level 119 Lime Caverns (Green cave, dodge the Bullet Bills level, unfinished, can be beaten with inhuman flying skills.  Used to be VANILLA DOME 4 and I never deleted the sprites from the level so using the cape and sprites you can get to the end.
    Level 12C Cave of Inversion (You just have to see for yourself ;), unfinished)
    Level 130 Frozen Lake (Underwater icy level, Torpedo Ted/Rip Van Fish hell, STAR ROAD 2 remake, finished)
    Level 132 (no name) (STAR ROAD 3 remake, finished)
    Level 134 Pipe Atmosphere (Pipes, icy, Red Yoshi included, finished)
    Level 136 Free-Falling Fun (Free-fall level, plethora of things falling with you, finished)
    Level 13B Guest Level (Done by my brother, pipes, plains, finished)
~ If you look through my hack in Lunar Magic you may find a few random leftovers of ideas that didn't take flight or levels that have very minor changes, nothing big.

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Credits:

I'd like to thanks the following people whether they know they helped or not:
FuSoYa:  For Lunar Magic, LIPS 1.01, and his Fireball-breakable blocks.
Jonwil:  For BlockTool.
Smallhacker:  For the various SMW utilities he made.
Januschan:  For Translhextion16c.
Yy:  For YY-CHR.
mikeyk:  For Spritetool, SMB1 Bowser and the Level Ender.
SMWCentral:  For help and hosting.
Acmlm's Board/Board 2:  For support and getting my started interest started.
Jul:  For being an awesome message board to go to and hang out in.  I may not be an oldie like half of you but that doesn't matter anymore.  I think I'm accepted by now. :P
Drewseph:  For inspiring me with Super Metroid Redesign.  You won't ever read this because you don't play SMW hacks, but your hack really was the one that sparked my interest in Rom Hacking, even if SMW and SM hacking have nothing to do with each other. ;)
theawesomegimp/max102/whatever the hell you call yourself on the internet:  For being my semi reluctant/apathetic beta-tester and obligatory annoying brother. :P

Most importantly, the various supporters I never knew I had and only learned after I decided to quit SMW Hacking for a time that they supported me.  Thanks guys.  Without you guys I'd have had no reason to come and dig up this file that I haven't touched for almost six months. :)

Ok, this readme turned out to be WAY WAY WAAAAAAY longer than I expected.  I guess it's time to wrap it up.  In fact, I'm amazed that you're still reading this.  According to Word, you just read 4 pages!  Sure, I said read the readme but I didn't think you'd read ALL the way to here.  Bravo, you get a cookie!

Ok, ending time...

*ahem*

Thanks for playing and though I'm most likely retired from SMW Hacking, look for me in the Super Metroid hacking scene and around SMWCentral.  I may be done for now but that doesn't mean I'm gone.  You can't get rid of me THAT easy! ;)


--FirePhoenix