Super Mario Theta, 10/21: Demo Up

This game looks really good!

Umm, by yourself? I think that a team consisting of 10 members would have harder times with keeping their stuff as a secret.

But I dunno.

I think he means that he doesn't want to give everything away at one time.

The game looks extremely solid. Do want.

Yay!
It's coming really soon....
I can't wait to download it!

And here we are, one year later.
And what a year it has been.
We're off to a great start after a rather rocky night tonight, but the site is finally up and rolling. The screenshots are not up yet, but they will be tomorrow, until then please enjoy some from last year. But the real big news is that the demo is finally here. Yes, we're not lying, it's finally here.
Super Mario Theta is really starting to take form guys, and I'm very pleased to announce it's progress is moving along steadily. But as always with good news comes bad news, and for those who haven't looked on the site, I am sorry to say that the game has been delayed to 2009. Not that this is a bad thing, but Yoshiman and I are not going to rush this game out in poor condition.
But in light of this we also have some other news. In case you didn't read, Super Mario Theta will be our last game. We've both decided that after this we're out. We're gone. We're finished. Yoshiman is moving onto his actual life, and personally I don't think I could ever work with someone in the same way again. But never fear, this has only motivated us more to make this game great.

So until our next update. Play the demo. Report bugs. Share stuff. Discuss

-MG


PS. We apologize for the rotating platform in the forest. It will be fixed soon enough.

This post has been edited by Mario Gamer on Oct 21 2008, 01:44 AM

Couldn't you make games by yourself?

Ontopic, I'm downloading the demo right now. Seems GREAT.

I could but they'd never compare in my eyes. So we're ending it on a good note.

Absolutely loved it. I told you all the problems I had. The biggest plus for me was the intro with the smatterings of color and some Toads with no color at all.

I've downloaded and played the NCFC demo ^-^

+For one, the idea is amazing. I wish I've had such an idea or even Nintendo would come up with something as creative as this. The color effects are really cool and I take it when you retrieve colors, the environment dynamically changes? If that's the case then it would be what I expected and rock the house.

+The level design is very intelligent. Loads of details instead of plain platforming, this makes each level recognizable, I liked that very much.

- The engine. The engine is neither very impressive nor very accurate. When you groundpound on a spring you get stuck, slopes are very messy and all in all the movement doesn't feel very natural.
But in the end, the engine doesn't make the game *un*playable, so I can live with it, but only because the rest is so great.

~ Graphics. While the color/black-white effects look good and most of the enemies look good too (lol ripped), the custom Mario is not very beautiful. the animation has weird jumps in it (hotspot issues?) and Mario looks like he's on drugs with those eyes.
If you improved on that Mario, graphics would be perfect, but really, I don't like this Mario sprite and its animation.


Yeah, this sums it up, I guess.
I highly doubt though that the engine will get much better and so I don't expect much from the next time I get to play this, however, I'll still download and play the full game later because of the interesting idea and level designs. I'd give this demo a 8/10, meassured by todays standards.

+Oh and how could I forget the music?
It rocks, 'nuff said. Excellent job, Yoshiman!

I agree the music is outstanding. I'll post a full review later when I do video recording at home on all the fan games I play.

got stuck when I groundpounded in the castle courtyard.

I expected more from all the hype, but it's alright. I hope you're planning on replacing all the out-of-style sprites from SNES games :F

The presentation and level design is absolutely top notch. The graphics and music are wonderful. I also love all the little touches, like other characters you can talk to and the special coins you can collect. Unfortunately, the engine is game-breakingly buggy. I only played the first two levels, but I floated up through blocks, got trapped in a wall, caught in the middle of a piston, became invisible, and saw Buzzy Beetles shoot through the walls.

I really want to love Theta, but gameplay-wise, it's a bit of a mess.

This post has been edited by ShadowMan on Oct 21 2008, 07:39 PM

Thanks for the engine glitch notes, we'll get on those. As for the overall engine I'm sorry you didn't find it very...natural but as always we're improving it everyday.

Don't know what you mean by the lol ripped thing but the Mario will not be changing. You're actually the first complaint I've gotten about him so I'm a bit surprised. Regardless, thanks for all the feedback.

@Shadowman, hey thanks, like I said it's always being improved upon.

@ Anyone else, I'd love if some people would point out specific objects they think are out of place since it's been a common complaint.

Aren't all the enemy sprites ripped? (as opposed to custom)
Because if they are, they would obviously look good, that's why I said "lol ripped".

However, if those enemy sprites are all custom, then you've done a good job on them (hence why I thought they were ripped)

Uh they're about half and half to be honest.

The Wigglers and Beetles are ripped.The Koopas are edited. The Goombas and Spiders are custom.

Why do the plot and screens remind me of Da Blob?

This is great, I loved how you told the story and everything in semi real-time.

The platform engine needs to be worked on though, I found myself clinging to walls almost 80% of the time

Anddd here is my gameplay video of Super mario Theta. Yes I realize I ran into some glitches, but it was still fun overall. Didn't get to complete the 3rd level though.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5RwXsAXFbi4