Halo 14 Side B

Halo 14 Side B was kind of in development around the same time as Side A. We actually thought we might release them at the same time too. As mentioned in the Side A recollection, it was meant to use a lot of the same gimmicks for a harder, more experimental follow up but we eventually decided to not reuse too many previous ideas. It's hard to tell if it ended up being harder, but it was definitely more experimental. Side A had a lot of chocolate, but the gameplay was still relatively straightforward. Side B had a number of gimmicks that actually felt relatively new, one being very special to us.

The story continues to follow Mario trying to get his hands on The Fragile after Phanto grabbed the last copy. It kind of makes Mario out to be a bit of a psychopath, since Phanto bought the last copy fair and square. Mario basically followed him home and killed him in order to get his copy.

The first two levels start out pretty normally to ease the player in. And then She's Lost Control throws in the chocolate. To give an idea about where this hack could have gone: This level originally had Mario moving left and right via the L and R buttons. The d-pad would control a cursor, and you had to press the b button while it hovered over sprites to kill them and clear a path for Mario. We did actually get it working, but in the end it felt a little too clunky.

Having Mario stare into your goddamn soul during Afterglow was a happy accident. There was an ASM that is supposed to make Mario always spin, but for some reason when we applied it, it just caused him to stare blankly at the screen. We thought it was funny so we kept it in. We even made sure every screenshot we submitted for the hack had Mario staring at the player.

Sugarbread went through a huge transformation. Originally, pretty much all of the walkable ground was on layer 2. That version of it is actually still in the trailer. During testing, we realized it was way too easy to accidentally mess up all of the timings, so we ended up redesigning most of the level.

Featherweight was our first cape level that we ever made. The first section combined motor skills with sticky ceiling and when it was time to design section 2, we just decided to throw cape into the mix and see what happens. We feel like it worked out surprisingly well and Featherweight is one of the best levels in the hack.

And All That Could Have Been introduced a gimmick we were pretty psyched about that SJAndCharlieTheCat helped us get working, affectionately titled Broter Skills by B2De81. Using the two player with the same controller ASM, we were able to map L and R to switch between Mario and Luigi, with certain blocks only traversable by one of them. That, coupled with a good timer, made for a tense final level.

And of course there is MarchromT30A...

Light had a day where he had to build a trellis and swing for his kids in his backyard. While he was digging, he kept thinking about different mechanics that could be brought from other games to SMW. Eventually he started thinking about board games, including one he had played recently - Space Alert.

The idea of Space Alert is that you are on a ship with your team. Various recordings will play, and you have to decide who will take what action. Moving around the ship, adding energy, launching missiles, etc. And then the event plays out after all the planning is done. The idea of this translated to the following message:

We didn't even know if it was possible, but if it was, we knew spooonsss would figure it out. We had a working version in just a few days. It worked even better than we thought it would honestly, with spooonsss giving some input that would add a great amount of polish to it.

Over the years we have talked multiple times about how lucky we got that both of us immediately found the gimmick fun and enjoyable. It's certainly not for everyone, and if one of us would have been unable to work with it, Memorabilia would have never happened. Thank god and you're welcome!

MarchromT30A became the blueprint and foundation for Memorabilia. The level was originally... three times as long as it currently is? But that told us we had plenty of ideas of where to go. Plus we wanted to see what we could actually do with it.

The level names follow Side A, acting as a playlist for Mario as he hunts Phanto down.

Side B:

Biscuit by Portishead

Bloodflowers by The Cure

She's Lost Control by Joy Division

Listen Now by The Knife

Disgustipated by Tool

Afterglow by Chvrches

MARCHROMT30A by Aphex Twin

Hatred by Gesaffelstein

Sugarbread by Soap&Skin

Featherweight by All Else Failed

All That Could Have Been by Nine Inch Nails

Any Last Words by Heavy Sigh

In the end we both prefer Side B over Side A. If it is any harder, that's mostly because input-playback is such a wild card. Regardless of difficulty, this one feels more creative and polished and aside from a few aesthetic oversights we are still very happy and content with how it turned out.