Princess Toadstool's Castle: Guest Room and Dining Room

Guest Room

Hello again folks! It's almost a week and I'm still here designing the same level. That couldn't be helped considering the fact that the Princess' Castle is huge. But here, at least we're making progress... slow and steady does it. Anyway, I am here to give you guys another sneak preview of the level I'm working on. Check out the photo to the left, this is the guest room, and there's someone here who's gonna give you a side quest. How about finding her kid? While it sounds so easy, don't let it fool you. The side quest can actually be a bit tricky.

Dining Room

The next photo I am going to show is the preview of the Dining Room. There are two cakes on the table, but you can't get some since nobody invited you to eat, and whadya know? Mario has some good manners, and no matter how hungry he is, he's not gonna take a bite. The dining room is empty, but it gets to show you guys how hard I labor on this project. The concept of the room was taken from an online picture of the Princess, Luigi, and some Toads, but to make the table empty, I had to edit some parts of it in Photoshop. And after hours of laboring, I finally manage to magically make the characters disappear. By the way, this was the original photo:

Original Dining Room Photo

Haunted Room

OK, I'm done with haunted room. You may ask, what the heck am I talking about? OK, this is just a little secret, but in Princess Toadstool's Castle, there is a Toad that'll inform you that there is a creepy place in the castle basement, and if you go further into this creepy area, you'll found a door marked by a Starman. That door requires 50 stars, and that's where the noises are coming from. If you can open this door, you'll be in the haunted room.

Now, this is just a rumor, but the room was said to be where the famous artist Vincent Van Gore once stayed. I'm not revealing how the room looks like though... let's keep it as a spoiler.

Princess Toadstool's Castle: The Basement

Princess Toadstool's Castle - Basement

Underneath Princess Toadstool's castle is the basement. This is where the Mushroom people keep their treasure, manage their water supply, etc. But aside from those, there's also a creepy room in here that can only be accessed by at least 50 power stars. I'm not gonna divulge what's in that room, but rest assured, it's one of the Princess' castle mystery. The photo to the right is what the basement looks like. The Toad to the left warns Mario about the creepy part of the basement, and the Toad to the right is the Treasure Vault Guard. He won't let you pass though. The Treasure Vault won't be accessible until you talk to the Chancellor.

OK, so now that the basement is complete, I'm on my way to creating the remaining castle wing, the Treasure Room, the hidden mystery room, the guest room, the Kitchen, the Dining Room, and finally, the Throne Room.

Super Mario Quest: Princess Toadstool Castle Update

Princess Toadstool's Castle

OK, after several days of struggling with game concepts, I have finally reached a Eureka! The creative juice just spilled in and all of a sudden, I am enveloped with ideas. Here is one of the idea that came into my mind, although I must admit it's not exactly the same with what I have in mind. But, without graphic artists to back me up, I just have to find for an alternative that may come closer to the concept, and this is the closest I can get. This part of the castle can be found right after the hallway. There are two doors here. One connects to the castle attic and the other one leads to the castle basement. For now, I have completed the attic, but I run out of ideas again when it comes to the basement.

Castle Attic

Unfortunately, the castle attic is not even close to what I had imagined, but I couldn't find a background that matches my concept so I have to create a simple background for the level. And after hours of experimenting with the graphics, this is what came out. The attic should have been a storage for items, but in this initial version, there are only kid's toys and some bookshelves in it. I am still thinking about adding a chest of some sort. Well see...

Secret Room #1

Day 3 for the Princess Toadstool Castle and I'm still working on the same level. Bummer. But I don't want to make Princess Peach's castle look gibberish. So gloves off, I am now using everything I know about Photoshop. By the way, I'm not posting any screenshots right now. I don't wanna spoil the fun since the level I am working now is the Secret Room #1. Actually, it's not so secret considering the fact that it can be found along the hallway of the castle, but it needs at least 10 stars to open. I'm also not telling what this level is all about, although I can give a hint that it's red and it has pictures in it.

As an extra update, I manage to hack SMBX's hardcoded graphics (or graphics that had been compiled along with the source code) with the help of Captain N of the SMBX Revived Forum. Now, NPCs no longer have this exclamation mark over their head. Same with the sign boards. I have added a unique feature in Super Mario Quest. A feature that allows players to try to explore Mario's magical world by talking to items and on certain spots. If the exclamation mark is there, then obviously, the players would know that there is a secret item in there, but now that the exclamation mark is gone, the players would have no way of knowing unless he/she explores it.

Super Mario Quest: Princess' Toadstool's Castle featuring the Library

Progress on Princess Toadstool's Castle has been slow lately due to its immensity and complexity. Princess Toadstool's Castle isn't just your average size level, it's huge with lots of rooms to explore. Within the castle itself, you can expect some magical things to happen, and of course, it's not going to be complete without the easter eggs hidden within. It's gonna be a fun pack adventure for Super Mario. Anyway, in this video, I'm going to focus on the Castle Library. It's currently without sound and is empty, but I plan to add something more into the room in the next coming updates. The library's design was originally conceptualized by BloodElf300 and it use to be called Magic Library (see screenshot below).

Magic Library by BloodElf300

BloodElf300 lost the level when he cancelled his SMBX project, but thanks to Squishy Rex, he was able to find me all the graphics needed for the level. This enabled me to rebuilt BloodElf300's library level using the SMBX Level Editor. I changed a few things around, but the main idea is entirely BloodElf's.

Working on Princess' Castle

Intro of Super Mario Quest Princess' Castle Level

I have arrive at the point will one finds his ideas blocked. I hadn't made much progress on the Princess' Castle level I'm now currently working on. Aside from running out of ideas, I also run out of graphic resources for the interior of the castle. Among the resources that I need are wallpapers for the castle, and some door background object, particularly, the one with the Star (kinda like Super Mario 64 setup).

The snapshot to the left was taken from the Intro of the stage. Neat hunh? I just hope Nintendo doesn't sue me for using that picture.

Princess' Castle Interior

The next snapshot was taken on the Main Hall of the Castle. You can find some NPC Toadstools hanging around there. You can interact with them but they offer you nothing but small talk. And although one of them tells you to go straight to reach the Throne Room, it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

The neat background is courtesy of Zypher, I couldn't have done it without the guy.

Mushroom Kingdom Demo

Ok, now this one really cost me two days to work on. I kind of trick the SMBX engine to do a SMRPG scenario in it, but nope, I did not hack the engine. Seriously, hacking SMBX would be difficult without an ASM blueprint, which only Redigit has. Until, he releases the source code, that won't be happening anytime soon. Anyway, back to the new Mario game I was developing. I ripped off some of SMRPG's graphics by hacking it (thanks for Giangurgolo for that), and I borrowed Squishy Rex's graphics of the Acorn trees and the bushes to get the Mushroom Kingdom theme I was looking for. The Toadstools and some of the isometric photos came from SMRPG of course. In this scenario, I am building an NPC interaction base on the previous Mario adventure — SMRPG: Legend of the Seven Stars story to be more specific. Anyway, just watch the video to get an idea.

World Map of Mushroom Kingdom

Super Mario Quest World Map: Mushroom Kingdom

Super Mario Quest is complete with a World Map. Here is a sample of one of the Islands and continents it features. The one above is the map of Mushroom Kingdom, home of  the toadstools and country of Princess Peach. Perhaps, this is one small island, but you can expect to see larger continents in the next coming updates.

Mushroom Kingdom Level

Mushroom Kingdom Level

The game development progress had been slow, but gradually, my ship's moving forward. OK, so now here is another update on Super Mario Quest. So far, I'm on the Mushroom Kingdom level and I had been trying to design the town. Unfortunately, I seem to be lacking some graphics for the houses and the welcome sign, so I had to create the graphics from scratch. Well, it's not that very good but at least it can give us a background. The picture here is how the level looks like after the new graphics had been installed. There is also a feature in this town that may come as something outside of the ordinary. When you go inside houses, you are no longer able to explore freely as you could outside. You can only jump to trigger a conversation with the NPC or press up to exit the building. Well, it's a cheap trick to drive the development faster, but since there is nothing much to obtain inside the house other than talk, it makes no difference anyway.

Raz and Raini's House

The picture to the left is not a snapshot of the Super Mario RPG game, as you would never see Raz and Raini stand side by side inside their house. Though the sprites and the tiles did originate from SMRPG. Well, it's a little trick I did to get the RPG ambient I was looking for.

SMBX Super Mario Quest - Mushroom Way

Here's one of the levels of the Super Mario Quest game I'm developing. This video was taken from the Mushroom Kingdom level, Mushroom Way. This level is right after the level where a toadstool summons Mario to the palace. The level is accompanied by the presence of toadstools, who would give Mario some basic tips. It is also the level where you would be introduced into a Super Mario Bros.-type Goomba for the first time.

New Mario Bros. Sprite

A Mario Sprite

Earlier, I promised to give gamers a Super Mario Bros. X game that features high quality graphics. While, I cannot make it look 3D or above the 256-color palette GIF that SMBX supports, I could tweak some of the graphics a little to make it look cleaner. The example to the left is one of those tweaked sprites. It replaced the Mario All-Stars sprite with the Super Mario World Mario sprite. As you can see, it's more cleaner compared to the default Mario sprite that the SMBX engine uses.

Of course, there are more enhanced pictures to come. But for now, I remodeled the Mario Bros. - Mario and Luigi. The world map may also feature some additional sprites not normally found in the default SMBX engine.

Mario Bros.

Here is an additional snapshot of the two remodeled sprites. You can see that compared to the Toadstool, the two new sprites actually look much cleaner. I intend to keep some of the default sprites in place but rest assured, you would see some enhancements.

Super Mario Quest

Super Mario Bros X

Super Mario Bros. X is a software developed by Redigit (Andrew Spinks) that allows a user to create his own 2D Mario games. The program has two main components, the Level Editor and the Game runner. In the level editor, a user can easily create maps and levels using the program's built-in graphics, or run simple scripts. The Game runner on the other hand, compiles these into a playable game.

Super Mario Bros. X combines all the essential games of the classic Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario World, and some extras from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario RPG. Furthermore, it can be customized to create additional stunning effects and unique gameplay.

There are so many customized levels for SMBX, and they have been really great. I decided to add one more to that collection, but I intend mine to be unique; something that has never been thought of. So I present the idea of a Super Mario RPG side-scrolling game, which I entitled Super Mario Quest.

Currently, Super Mario Quest is on the works, but here's what to expect:

- A Mario Bros. game with Mario and Luigi as the players.
- An enormous world map that spans at least 16 worlds.
- A combination of Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG and Super Mario 64 elements, plus its own unique graphics and story line.
- It's an RPG side scrolling game. Meaning, it is a 2D side-scroller but with a story line complete with quests and adventures.
- Over 1000 levels to explore.
- High Replay Value is guaranteed due to the presence of hidden Magic Stars and easter egg secrets.
- You can find all the Super Mario All-Star powerups.
- You can ride Yoshi from Super Mario World. He comes in different colors.
- Quests are available. Including level sidequests.
- Unique graphics, music soundtracks and sounds.
- High definition graphics may be employed.
- Difficulty range from very easy to extremely difficult.
- Advance scripts.

Super Mario Quest Intro

Anyway, here's a sample. The picture to the right was taken from Super Mario Quest's Intro level, wherein a toad come to Mario's house and informs Mario that he's been summoned by the Chancellor. The story may be a little different from the previous Mario games, and although there is still the missing Princess and save the damsel in distress scenario, the story won't be circling around it.

You can also expect new enemies in this game, and bosses that come in different forms and sizes. Bowser is still among your foes, but he's not the only one you'll be dealing with.