Good Game Design - Invictus (Kaizo Mario ROM Hack)
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- I didn't expect to come back to the topic of Super Mario World Kaizo hacks, but Invictus is easily the best one I've played, and is a great example of how to introduce new elements to the player & build on itself toward a triumphant finale. Let's break it down!
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Thank you for putting the time into analysing this hack. Important to note that I had friends make the bosses for me and help me figure out a lot of the hurdles involved in using custom stuff early on as I didn't know what I was doing at the time. This was certainly a huge learning curve but I'm better prepared now for future projects :)
Thank you for creating this, Juz!
This is definitely a project worthy of a good look into anyways
Oi, janky hack m8!
!stacey
Invictus 2 confirmed!
Mario according to Nintendo: A cool funny and happy plumber.
Mario according to kaizo players: "Death is just another small step for this long road full of pain and chaos, and is nothing compared to me!"
Mario according to speedrunners: "I'm a reality-bender, everything is possible with just a jump"
To MatPat: Man, sure is weird Mario is a sadistic Nazi who kills innocent children. Well, what can you do?
SMG4: hehe mario dumb
LEGO: a chonkky lad
@@dippin4dots I thought he was a commie?
Speedrunner Mario: "I've been building speed for 50 hours in order to traverse over 100 parallel universes."
Original super mario world: *This game is easy because of spin jumps*
Hacked super mario world: *This game a is hard because of... spin jumps?*
"It's not nearly as easy as it looks"
That part looked like living hell, so I'm going to assume that the romhack would actually kill me
My thoughts exactly.
It is a hard hack actually won't recommend if you're not an kaizo player
This game reminds me so much about celeste, getting a second jump at the near end. And having kamick going left to right reminded me of chapter 3 a lot. And the fact that in both games the design is amazing. Really shows what indie games can do.
You know, I never even thought of it! I guess it's because the main mechanics in these games are different, which gives new meaning to (roughly) the same idea.
There's actually a kaizo community member named MiniMawile working on a full Celeste Mario hack right now! Mid air dashes, double jumps, wall jumps, Badeline laser beams, etc etc, the works!
Matt Thorson (one of the people behind Celeste) also has made a SMW hack, and has put out several Mario Maker levels. The link between Mario and Celeste is very strong.
"That's right, there are NO Kaizo blocks in this game...y'know, if it were me, I'd *say* that, and then I'd put *one* kaizo block right at the end." - GrandPOObear
Moments before disaster...
While I haven't played Invictus very far (and kind of lost interest in Kaizo Hacks), one of the strengths I saw in this one was communicating gameplay to the player; something I often found somewhat lacking in many hacks. A good example is the beginning of Biohazard (6:35) - the first time you are meant to “use“ the scrolling mechanic is by jumping on that green block (which seems to be the most logical thing to do) and coming out of the bottom of the screen, instead of expecting the player to jump into a hole in the ground, which would be counter-intuitive and possibly frustrating. (Unless, of course, you read the hint block at the beginning, but let's be real here, who actually reads the instructions?) You get to discover the mechanic, instead of thinking “Oh, that's what I'm supposed to do? Huh.“
Surely it's not huge, but it's a little detail that makes the game more intuitive and enjoyable to play. There are other examples, as well, but I'm typing on my phone right now, which is annoying, so I'm just gonna
zelda 2 kaizo when?
Lol
You should do more Avatar videos
@@dappitydingdong1219 you're gonna be pretty happy in a few days then
Hyped
Hi
Absolutely loved the video, but I was a bit confused when I was listening to it.
You say "vertical scrolling" when I think you mean "horizontal screen wrap," where items that go off the left/right appear on the other side, and "horizontal scrolling" when I think you mean "vertical screen wrap," where items that go off the top/bottom appear on the other side.
Yeah I realized afterward that I had gotten those two backward 💀
It’s ok man, it’s still a great video
I was confused for the same reason.
Holy shit I wasn’t expecting this! Invictus really is just as good as a lot of major games that have come out in the past few years
This is basically the opposite of AAA:
Fresh ideas, not being influenced by anyone/anything, made by 1 person and worth every penny- oh wait it's free!
@Omnipotent Squid Yeah, you're right! How could I forget that? :(
As someone who's grew up with those old Mario Rom hacks and fondly remember youtubers raging this hits me straight at home.
how come i always find you in every comments section?
There is Sega lord and u.
ProtonJon was the reason I started watching Let's Plays. His romhack reviews and Superman 64 series were legendary.
Gaming Industry: Releases Last of Us Part 2
Snoman: *TIME TO COVER THE REAL CONTENT*
10:56 "You don't need a big studio or years of experience to make sure your project is intuitive" eehhhhh kinda true, but getting a hold of how to make intuitive designs while also making them intricate, engaging, and challenging, is something that I feel takes years of learning, whether that learning be making stages, or analyzing other stages and noting what works and what doesn't. Congrats on conquering Invictus man!
one of the best parts of the Mario community, both SMM and romhacks, is that good creators WANT you to beat their level.
even if its brutally hard, or troll-y "gotcha!" design, they WANT you to win, they GIVE you the answers. all you gotta do, is try again.
This isn’t specific to this video, but I felt like it was the best way to show my appreciation for this channel.
Every time you make a video about good game design, I think about what I could do with that if I ever made a game myself. (don't get your hopes up)
Like with your video on The Messenger: (about defying expectations) I'd go for characters that aren't what you expect, and I have some ideas for unexpected boss encounters.
As an example: going into a volcano, realising it's the boss of the world and fighting it while you're inside!
With this video, I learned a lot about pacing new elements so that they lets you learn their quirks, while not holding the player’s hand at all.
(also lots of other things about level design, but it would be boring to list them all here)
Thanks for the heart! (you can't edit comments without having the heart removed if you're wondering)
I think the same, I feel that when I finish my own game I will add a reference to each important UA-camr who helped me to learn about game design, and Snowman is one of them.
I noticed in your edits you got trolled a lot. Juzcook does have a compilation video of peoples' blind playthrough mostly of the community getting trolled.
What's that music at the end during the wrap up?
It's very triumphant and I like it
Treasure of the Rudras OST - Creatures from the Silent Sea
This is going to sound really dumb since this comparison is overused, but I enjoy Kaizo hacks the same way I enjoy Dark Souls. I wouldn't ever play them as I get frustrated easily, but I love watching them be played.
6:36 Is that a remixed version of The Warp Zone in VVVVVV? It sounds awesome!
Appropriate for that level too :3
Invictus is one of the best medium Kaizo hacks. And this video sums it up perfectly.
Am I the only weirdo that thought of a Baby in a Bane mask saying "Time to go Mobile" when he said he has a baby that's becoming increasingly mobile?
You're now ready for Grand Poo World 1 and 2!
and maybe 3!
gpw2 is my favorite rom hack that i’ve seen so far. i’d love if he covered it
@@shadycactus6146 Ive seen Snoman in Barb's chat so maybe.
Invictus has awesome music. What was the song at 12:00? It sounds like a Red&Green song but not one I've heard before.
Well, logically, you have to play Grand Poo World 2 next! An incredible hack, unless you want to wait for Barb to finish GPW3. Anyway, incredible video
Really cool vid! Loved how fresh this rom hack is. Would love to see you stream this! Also, feels good to see a new Snoman Gaming!
Hi Snoman, I want to ask you something, Could you do new episodes of "Bad Game Design"?
(I like the videos of Bad Game Design)
You are not forced, but It's just a request.
If you say yes, I show you some videogames for "Bad Game Design": This is the list of Bad Game Design:
1) Cube Life: Island Survival: It's worse than Minecraft. :(
2) KIngdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: This game have:
- Floaty combat system
- Unbalaced Optional Bosses
- Censorship on Braig Guns even if the guns are not realistic.
- "Too Many Difficulty Spikes! (I play this game on Standard Mode)
"
3) Super Smash Bros Ultimate: In this game we got:
- Mediocre Characters like Ridley and Byleth
- the characters are unbalaced
- The "Online Share Contents" Mode sucks,
- Framerate drops appear in some moments, for example in Multi-Man Smash
- There is a censorship in Onett Ospital.
5) Need for Speed Most Wanted: This game have:
- "Absence of Difficulty Options
!!!!!!!"
- The Police AI is broken, sometimes is stupid and sometimes the Police feels OP, because sometimes they find you even when they don't see you and when you far from them.
- The Drift is broken, the controls for the Drift are Clunky and I always have problem with the curves even with Upgrades on the cars.
- Too much bounty is required to challenge your rivals, basically in this game you are forced to be a criminal!
- The most difficult races didn't give you enough money when you win.
- "Too many Difficulty Spikes!!!!!!!"
6) Need for Speed Carbon: This game have similar flaws in comparison of Need for Speed Most Wanted, but this game have:
- The Drift are a little bit better but are still broken.
- The Police is OP, they find you very easily, and they never be slower than me even when you do upgrades on your cars.
- the "Nitrous" is always useless, because the rivals can be faster than you and defeat you in the races even with the "Infinite Nitrous" cheat.
- "Absence of Difficulty Options!!!!!!!"
- "Too Many Difficulty Spikes!!!!!!!"
I hope I have been helpful with these suggestions!
But if you think these games are well designed, tell me why.
P.s: Sorry for the Bad English!
Invictus was my first hack played without savestates, I did beat it, took me a lot of time, but it is possible to kaizo beginners, it is hard, but it is fair and doesn't have a lot of jankyness (oi, janky hack m8), that is expected in SMW hacks in general, great hack, by far the best hack ever made.
Hey Snoman, just a heads-up: if you ever want to do a Good Game Design on a Doom "hack", you'd have a ball covering Sunlust. The gameplay design in it is, *bar none,* THE best in the community before or since.
That'd be great to cover!
You need to play Grand Poo World 2 then. It is the greatest Kaizo ROM hack made yet. I only wish it hadn't come out so soon after Invictus. Always felt like GPW2 robbed Invictus a bit. There was only a couple months between the two. So most of the bigtime speed runners moved to it only a little bit afterwards. Luckily there is a pretty significant Speed Running Community built around it.
One thing I want to note about your statement about super mario maker rely more on arrows and messaging of some sort than this hack
In this hack you play each level and you learn the layout design from playing through the hack. There can be different themes mechanics in the levels but you learn the general design of levels and thus it doesn't have to rely on messaging in the levels.
But in Super Mario Maker you have to design your levels as if this is the only level a player will play of your levels. You can have interconnected themes and ideas for a world you make but in a level if you just assume a player will know the concepts you throw out you hinder the players that got your levels individually and not in the world.
Well, SMWC has a lot of annual level design contests, some of them allows for extreme engine modifications that completely changes how the game even plays; but besides that, in a single level creators teach the mechanics and present challenges with them without over using arrows and coins.
To have a player figure out contextual hints feels way more satisfying than just follow the steps of what the game told you; and even then, sometimes the screen looks too cluttered to even know what indicator you are supposed to even be paying attention too.
There's a good reason that Super Mario Makers include indicators in their difficult levels, and that's because most people that are going to play it aren't going to stick around after a few deaths just to figure out what to do. There's no incentive to learn to play a single hard level out of thousands of hard levels when they can just skip it, and even less so if they're doing an endless run with a limit on the amount of lives they have.
Wow I've never been this early before
I like watching this videos to improve my projects
The reason people use indicators is because of the endless challenge and the fact that if someone dies once, they give up
Pway my wom hack!
But seriously you should try Cool Zone. I made it sure but I incidentally made it with the same vibe as Invictus. I say incidentally because Juz was developing it while I was making my own. :P
Man I remember being obsessed with SMW hacking for a few years in my childhood (2008-2011??) and even though it was such a small chapter in my life I remember those years fondly. I don't think its something I'll ever be able to come back to, the scene has evolved a lot those last few years..
I disagree. The fact that the scene is constantly changing is a great reason to keep coming back and trying out the new stuff. I only recently started getting into the modern Kaizo scene and it's a lot of fun and totally different from the ProtonJon days.
@@cubedmelons876 Its just too much for me to play the same thing over and over but again, that's just me.
I've been playing a lot of Mario 64 mods, but I think it's time for me to look into the Mario World modding scenes. This one looks really well made!
This game is expertly designed for people who like crazy difficulty, but it doesn't look fun at all.
I have this idea for a game that’s inspired by Kaizo Mario, but it’s less messy and more simple. Plus, it’s action-packed, and includes many Kaizo-like actions that are good for speedrunning. It’s also inspired by AdventNEON, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Meat Boy,, and many others. Maybe once I make that idea a reality, I could maybe let you help with level design!
You could look into geometry dash at some point too as its also a super challenging game once you get into the harder online levels and for the top levels can require hundreds of thousands of attempts to get consistent enough for them. the skill cap is incredibly high but there are steps to it everywhere and you can climb in skill really fast if youre dedicated enough.
Wow, truly some amazing Mario gameplay. GD... well done 👏👏👏
Snoman: 10:30 "But if I can do it, anyone can."
Also Snoman: 0:17 *mentions he's been playing lots of kaizo hacks in his free-time.
lol nope.
This was a really cool explanation, I had felt a lot of the things you pointed out but not really consciously acknowledged them.
Okay great hack, but where's Mystery Meat ?
It’s rewind time!
@@snomangaming Meme comment aside, Invictus is a great hack in terms of level design and you've made me want to try it for myself, it looks really hard but also really fair once you understand its chocolate mechanics, Mystery Meat impresses me more on technical standpoint (recreating Earthbound, VVVVVV and UN Squadron in the SMW engine is just a true showcase of technical mastery) but I might prefer Invictus' level design more (even though comparing the two roms is kinda pointless because both hacks have different goals in mind when it comes to the desired play experience), great video overall as always
some amazing custom SMW music throughout this vid
If you're open to suggestions, maybe you could have a look at "Them's Fightin' Herds"?
It's a game that started as a My Little Pony fighting fangame and eventually became its own thing and ended up in EVO's current lineup.
From what I have heard, the mechanics are solid and the game apparently have a good tutorial.
I'm down to hear a review of TFH :) It can use more exposure.
i haven't been this early since havoc gaming uploaded a month or two ago
also snoman now has a stack of likes
You should do a good design/bad design video on Bug Fables compared to the modern Paper Mario games, going over what makes old PM fans go to Bug Fables and how modern PM can improve.
Wait, so...people can actually run this?
the world record for it has a single death and it was like, -1 sec into the level
its a hard hack for sure, but it sure as hell is learnable.
I'm a big fan of Juzcook. During his commentary of Dode's SGDQ 2019 speedrun of Invictus, he said it was deliberately designed to be speedrun. Which is why the overworld and levels are so streamlined. Unlike say, Grand Poo World 2 which Barb admits during his commentary of MitchFlowerPower's run of GPW2 at the same SGDQ that he never expected anyone to ever speed run it.
@@Aleph3575 i think he meant he didn't expect Mitch to run it
Invictus means unconquerable. Appropriate.
Cool vid to come back on! Somehow wasn’t subbed anymore but made sure to sub again. Take your time with the family!!
Next hack, GrandPooWorld2?
Since you like Kaizo Rom hacks so much, I'd HIGHLY reccomend you try out IWBTG fangames.
The original IWBTG was known for being pretty hard and it inspired a lot of fangames. Most are pretty bs and unfair, but quite a few have a lot of care and effort put into them (and some are even kinda easy!)
I would post links to how you can find your way around IWBTG fangames but if you do enough research and just try some out you should eventually find what you want (similar to Kaizo hacks)
Personally I would reccomend the original I Wanna Be The Guy and I Wanna Be The Fangame to start, not cause they are the easiest but cause they are the most "classic" and are generally well designed in a basic way (tho a lot of the fanbase ironically doesn't think the original holds up well)
If you want one that's really easy then try I Wanna Run The Marathon. There's like other easy ones but I sadly don't have THAT many memorized so I'm sure you can find them on your own.
Just felt the need to advertise these games cause I wish more people knew about them. They aren't perfect at all but man do they hit really hard when they are designed well!
(Bonus reccomendation...I Wanna Be The Boshy...one of the most popular ones and for good reason, very very hard bosses but they are EXTREMELY over the top! Artstyle is really good too! Also a classic but in a different way than the first 2 I reccomended you...)
I've done a few playthroughs of IWBTG fangames on my 2nd channel, I used to stream them regularly. Boshy is literally one of my favorite games of all time lol. Love them!
Lol I hear a SNES version of VVVVVV’s pressure cooker.
Oh, congrats for the baby :) Have fun, and don't worry, your free time for gaming will slowly but surely come back. Until of course you decide to have a second one :D
The qualitylevel of this Romhack is astonishing. I hope one day we get an Ocarina of Time romhack with the quality of the original.
too bad all of these mechanics have been either taken or used before making them all oversaturated making people see them to the point of being lazy
"Speedrunners When?" I hope soon, this game seems to deserve it.
A custom boss in SMW thats not a mecha koopa who spams fire balls, stuns the player, has over 5 phases and over 10 hit points? IMPOSSIBLE the smwcentral is incapable of making custom bosses.
12:02 This is exactly why I love well-done software updates:
You can improve your software after it had already been published.
If the original _Snoman's Land_ had been distributed on actual cartridges (which had no way to be updated afterwards), Snoman couldn't upgrade that game into today's good version without making it basically a sequel such as _Snoman's Land Championship Edition Turbo._
Some publishers and software development teams use this tool of software updates poorly, resulting in their software actually getting worse or the installation interrupting your usage at the most inconvenient times, creating the stigma that software updates are bad.
But more often than not, Software Updates are actually Great.
The fact that this is a kaizo hack that isn't designed to fuck you over in every possible way makes this really interesting
If your entire channel was super Mario world rom hack reviews, I would be totally down
I would either break my hands or break my computer before I beat this game.
I don't like when an entire video is in 16:9 because the Intro is in 16:9, but then the entire rest of the video is supposed to be in 4:3, which results in black bars during the entire video.
Every time I see this mistake I must think of these poor people who have double black bars on their 4:3 screen when they watch this video.
No hate to you, but I think this advice would substancially improve your already good videos. You don't even have to do much in the way of cropping your intro, and Endcards are still available in 4:3.
These looks like Celeste b and c side levels, dope
Or D Side! =)
I think those are generally easier because one section is shorter.
Except of course 8-C and the DLC stages which ARE really long.
This looks fantastic, mario world is my favorite game in the series but original kaizo always struck me as .... too frustrating. This looks more my speed, maybe it's the extra polish.
This and Grand Poo World 2 are two of my favorite _games_, let alone ROM hacks. I hope you like GPW2 too!
I feel like you made this to flex them skills lol
I love your intro music. It’s so soothing.
Kaizo? More like Kuso am I rite!
Seriously though, I can't take a game based on trial and error being praised for its good game design very seriously, even though I agree with everything you said.
If you liked this, then I highly recommend Grand Poo World 2
Great, informative video. Love the way you talk about game design, always makes me think harder about my own game design, thanks!
Idk if you take suggestions or anything, but you should try playing Terraria, and doing a game design review on it. I know it's not the usual you do on your channel, but it's a really good game and I think you'll enjoy it.
This Kaizo hack looks like Celeste to me!
Every level having a unique ability/game mechanic that makes it feel unique, and the last level throwing everything you've learned at you. Also, the level difficulty does seem to be comparable to that of the C-Sides, or maybe even the fan-made D-Sides. I've spent hours on a single D-Side level and this hack seems to be just like that game I absolute LOVE!!
I never thought a Kaizo Game could have good game design.
But then again, I never played the B-Side levels in Celeste.
Literally insanity to my eyes, also legendary skills, I'm glad a snowman has some boons and muses
Thank god I'm not the only one!
I remember when hacks used to be about everyone getting a shot. Hell even Mario Maker though seems less about the creative and more just about insanity everywhere.
"Is harder than it looks", wtf did I just watch o.O
Great video! Now, looking forward to the GPW3 vid next year! :D
Nice to see you back! Have you try out some celeste mods?
There is a lot of great community made maps out there
Awww an increasingly mobile baby!!! Hope you and your family are doing well :)
Wait... is the hardest level harder then the Celeste dlc?!
Different games
I would say so yes
Wait stop stop stop stop. Are you sure it was released in 2018! Has it really been that long?
4:22 This song's on the tip of my tongue ugh...Anyone help? What is it?
€: Found it! It's from Castlevania: The Adventure, it's called Battle of the Holy (Stage 1's theme)
Is it possible that one day you could do grand poo world 2? The design is also fascinating and I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
The game ends on a 5 phase autoscroller with no checkpoints. Any good will it had leading up to that is dashed on the ground.
Invictus is just perfection. There really is nothing to criticize. I play it quite often and it never gets boring!
Invictus is seriously one of the best rom hacks ever. It totally changed the game for SMW rom hacks. Everyone should see this game played
"See it played", because none of us are good enough to play it ourselves :p
I was wondering were you where thanks for the great video!
He’s doing invictus? Heck yea!
Please do an episode on Treasure of the Rudras!!! I heard you throw that song in there!!
352nd. Ppl are mad. 69 dislikes
we really scraping the bottom of the barrel here
I would love to see GameGrumps play this 🤣 🤣 🤣
Those "penguins" are called "Bumpty's" lol
That troll with the spikes and pipes is the meanest thing I've seen in a Mario hack
Now I just need a list of the music used in this video. Be good to listen to. :)
Does this have infinite lives? Cause with how this game teaches you by killing you/quick minute reflexes, infinte lives would be better
yes
The level design is so clever that it made me laugh out of joy!
Wait... you explained how the penguins worked but just referred to "Mario 3" for the parabeetles. Have you not played Yoshi's Island? :o
I'm not a fan of Super Mario World, but this game looks great! I don't have a good way to play ROM hacks, though.
*Background music/song research thread* [3/15 found]
If you recognize any of the songs, please help us in the replies.
Also check our music research subreddit : t.ly/ePFF
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06:35 : VVVVVV - Pressure Cooker : t.ly/lLjQ
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08:52 : Super Mario 64 - Bowser's Road : t.ly/5NYo
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