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| 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.
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| 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:
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| Original Dining Room Photo |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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...
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.
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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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