Over the last decade or so, fan demakes have only skyrocketed in popularity. Whether it’s Hailbot’s Super Mario Sunshine DS, Kaze Emanuar’s attempts at N64 versions of Super Mario Sunshine or Odyssey, or various Super Mario Galaxy recreations for the DS and GBA, it seems to have almost become a competition to see which crazy games people can get running on the weakest possible hardware.
With today’s project being yet another great example. Named Super Mario Odyssey DS and created by French ROM hacker Ryv, the game aims to recreate the entirety of the Switch classic as a mod for Super Mario 64 DS. It’s an impressive effort, and one which has gotten only more so with the addition of a custom moveset and mechanics based on those in its inspiration:
So, we thought it’d be interesting to learn more about the game and where it’s going. About how Ryv implemented some of levels and mechanics here, how many of the original’s most unique moments will be brought over, and what other things he plans to work on once the game is done.
Let’s go!
The Interview
With our first question involving some background info. Where did your username come from?
The story behind my username will probably be disappointing but I really had a hard time finding a username that suited me well. I went by the name “RMY” at first but since I’m a French person and “RMY” sounds bad in French, I’ve decided to change it to “Ryv”. I always liked the letter Y, I also wanted a name that started with an R and the last condition was a 3-letter username. So “Ryv” came up.
How did you get into gaming?
I had a 3DS when I was 8. That might sound curious to a lot of gamers of my generation but I’ve never owned a DS myself. I indeed started with a 3DS and that’s pretty much how I got into videogames. Mario 3D Land was my first game ever on that console and a few months after, I received a R4 linker with Super Mario 64 DS on it. In parallel, I’ve watched a lot of my older friends playing Minecraft so when I was old enough to play on a computer, I really started to play a lot.
What are you playing at the moment?
Funny thing a lot of people probably don’t expect is that I don’t really call myself a ‘gamer’. I do play, but it’s always the same stuff. I probably played like 10-20 different videogames in my whole life, which is a lot but doesn’t really sound like it when I’m talking to real passionate gamers. A long answer just to say that I’m playing a lot of Minecraft (and has been for 12 years) and I’m also playing a lot of The Finals (which is currently the best FPS game, I’m not open to debate).
Was Super Mario Odyssey a major influence before you started this hack?
It was yes. I remember when I first play that game in 2017 when it came out, I really was mind-blown. I don’t really know what worked so well on me with that game but I loved it. To this day, it is still the game I played the most on my switch.
Onto Mario 64 DS hacking. How did you get interested in that community?
I was in the Mario 64 Hacking community before joining the Mario 64 DS Hacking community. Never really made anything that was relevant on Mario 64, just a few Mario colour swap because I was watching a lot of SMG4. I just realized one day that what people were doing with Mario 64 was also possible in Mario 64 DS and there was a community for it. And due to my personal story with the game, I’ve always preferred Mario 64 DS over Mario 64.
Are there any hacks that really inspired you in general?
I’d 100% say Star World, the remake of Star Road, originally made on Mario 64 by Skelux. I loved Star Road so much when I was younger so when the creator announced he was moving to Mario 64 DS and remake it 2 times bigger, I was definitely in. I really grew up with that ROM hack and the thing Skelux was able to do with Mario 64 DS is still insane to me.
Why did you decide to create Super Mario Odyssey DS?
Ever since I joined the SM64DS community, I knew I wanted to make a big project. I just didn’t know what exactly. The idea of creating a demake was always something interesting to me and after seeing 2 different people trying to recreate Mario Odyssey on Mario 64 DS, I just thought that it was interesting to challenge myself and make it.
And why use Super Mario 64 DS as a base? Why not another Mario game, or a homebrew engine?
As I said earlier, Mario 3D Land was actually my first ever Mario game. I spent a lot of time playing it and I naturally got interested in making hacks for that game. If you’re familiar with the Nintendo ROM hacking community in general, you might know that the 3D Land community is incredibly small. Not a lot of people are interested in that game because it’s not as popular as the other 3D Mario games and the process of creating a ROM Hack for 3D Land is way harder. Recreating Mario Odyssey on it always was an idea I had. I even thought of replacing the boomerang model with a Cappy model from the Mario boomerang suit. Ideas that never got past the idea stage. I always considered that making my project on the homebrew engine was too tedious since I had no coding knowledge so it never really was a solution for me. Also, I’m a guy who grew up watching people making ROM hacks and I definitely wanted to be a part of it.
Was Super Mario Sunshine DS a big influence? The original version definitely felt a lot like that game…
Yeah, it was! I remember watching the videos of the original creator of Sunshine DS, named Fiachra1993, who sadly deleted all of their videos a few years ago. When Hailbot took over the project to finish it, it kinda proved to me that making demakes was something possible on Mario 64 DS.
What were your full plans back then? Did you have any idea how other levels, enemies, bosses and mechanics were going to be handled with Super Mario 64 DS mechanics alone?
Making custom code for the game is something extremely new to me and it kinda changed the whole trajectory of the project. The original plan was to have Mario 64 DS with Odyssey levels and change the models/textures of the vanilla bosses so they match Mario Odyssey’s bosses. Extremely simple and not that interesting if I’m being honest. With a better understanding of the game and the possibility to make custom codes, it changes everything and I can now set my sights higher. The first thing I’ve done was to change Mario’s physics since I really don’t like the whole vanilla moveset. It’s something that I needed to do first because it affects all the level-design possibilities. I can now make more interesting levels, place higher platforms and add interesting game mechanics. All these things will definitely help the project to upgrade in terms of gaming experience and I’m really looking forward to it. But as it is still pretty new to me, I don’t have a lot of technical ideas on how I’m gonna handle bosses or other mechanics, but we’ll figure it out!
Regardless, the game’s changed a lot now, with Mario having Odyssey style movement, a capture ability, etc. What changed there? Did you become an expert programmer?
Definitely not. I would love to be an expert one day but I’m only learning right now. I have a little bit of technical background due to my work so I can learn pretty fast. I remember asking resources to coders of the Super Mario 64 DS Hacking community, never really figured it out myself, but I’ve said to them multiple times that I’ll learn all of that one day. I’m really glad I found the motivation to do so.
Has AI been used for this game?
Definitely. That’s something I really want to address, especially because the ROM hacking community has changed a lot these last few months because of AI. People making game swaps all over the internet, it’s mostly there for the show and not that interesting in my opinion. We’ve seen game decompilations made by AI too, something that originally was a big achievement because it was human-made. Now everything has changed and I don’t really know how to feel about that.
To refocus on the question, I indeed used AI to get there with the custom code but I just used it differently. AI coded for me at first but only for me to analyse after. It turns out that an AI can be a pretty good teacher to help you learn and that’s how I’ve been using it. I asked an AI to help me understand how the game works, how custom code and patches work because I couldn’t really find a starting point to learn as I never really was a developer before. It created plenty of resources and PDFs explaining in detail how to make custom codes for Mario 64 DS that were really useful to me. I really want to make these resources public for people interested but I still need to talk about the coders of the community first because AI probably found a non-conventional way of doing it, a way that I’m also using myself when coding now. Also, letting AI do all the stuff for you isn’t a viable solution in the long-term for these types of projects. If you don’t understand anything the AI is doing, you’re losing control of your project and the day you encounter a major issue in the code it can be really hard to solve. (Again, I’m only talking about projects on games that haven’t been fully decompiled yet).
Is the battle with the Broodal Topper going to get redone to not be a King Bob-omb model swap?
Yup, absolutely. The bob-omb model swap feels really old and it’s not really that fun to play. I also want to remake the Cap Kingdom itself because I know I’m capable of doing much better than this.
How are the other bosses going to work? Are you going to try and recreate things like the Ruined Dragon or Bowser’s Odyssey battle?
The dragon boss is something I really want to have in the game. Not only is it really epic to fight a dragon, it also is a real technical challenge that I want to take on. I’m definitely gonna remake the Odyssey Bowser fights as well but I’ll have to decide what will be scrapped. Mario 64 DS cannot contain all of the bosses that are in Mario Odyssey.
What captures will be present here? Goombas are shown in the demo, but are we going to see things like Pokios, Sherms or Uproots?
Still thinking about all of this. I can’t say for sure because it really is a question of optimization: if I need to make a kingdom smaller because it is too big for Mario 64 DS, then there are captures that will not be needed, bosses that won’t be added and storage space that I can save for other kingdoms. I’m currently still deciding what will be in the final game.
How about the big, somewhat unwieldy ones? Will Mario be able to capture a T Rex in this hack?
(same answer above, needs to be decided)
We’re also curious how the kingdoms will work here too, given many of them are massive in Super Mario Odyssey. Are you going to try and split them into sections?
Probably, yes. I’m currently working on Sand Kingdom, which is definitely way too big for the game so I’m thinking about a reinterpretation of this kingdom. We’ll see in the future!
How does progression work? Is there going to be a kingdom select screen for the Odyssey?
Added a pipe into the Odyssey. A pipe that takes you to a place in which you can select the kingdoms. It is already made; I just didn’t show it.
Do any of those 2D sections appear?
As I’m pretty new to coding, I have to admit that I currently have no idea on how to do such a thing haha. But time and effort will teach.
Either way, the game looks fantastic in all its updates. How did you create the graphics for this title?
Thanks! I did it the same way the others SM64DS ROM Hackers did. 3D modelling, heavy topology-optimization, texturing and shading. As Mario 64 DS doesn’t have a physical render-engine, Nintendo managed to create depth in the 3D models by adding shading using gradients, what we call ‘vertex-shading’. That’s what we also do to enhance the quality of a 3D model in Mario 64 DS. It’s a very important step if you want your model to look right.
What about the music? Do Mario 64 DS hacks support streamed music, or are these songs in MIDI form?
MIDI files. Streamed music doesn’t exist in SM64DS. Some people of the community already did research on that subject but couldn’t really find anything. Fortunately, I’ve been doing music for 5 years so I can recreate the songs by ear. It’s a long and tedious process but I currently have no choice.
Will Super Mario 64 DS’ extra characters be featured here? Or is this a solo Mario outing?
I shared a picture of Luigi’s Balloon world character model a few years ago. I might have some ideas on this.
How about mini games, battle mode, etc? Do those get sacrificed to save ROM space?
Yeah, that’s how it all works. Minigames are not used in ROM hacks so it’s pretty much free space. That’s where I, and all other ROM hackers, store all the custom NPCs and objects.
So far, what’s your favourite level in the game?
I’d say the Odyssey. It’s more of a hub than a level but that’s the first time I’ve made something that was really close to the original game. I received a lot of positive comments about this.
Any other project plans for when this game is done?
I need to get to completion first, which is gonna take a while, but (un)fortunately I have many other projects that I want to work on, and projects that I’m already working on right now.
Do you have any interest in getting into indie game development in future?
I had when I was younger, I was using Scratch all day long to make games. I created so much on this software that I even wanted to make a platformer-RPG game at some point. I started to work on something that I called ‘Banished Lands’, but gave up really fast. It was my cleanest attempt at making something playable. The more stuff I added to the game, the more complicated it got because Scratch is very limited (it’s also not a coding software). As of today, I’m not interested in indie game development, no. But who knows, maybe someday?
Finally, what advice would you give someone looking into getting into Super Mario 64 DS hack development, or game development as a whole?
Curiosity. It is ABSOLUTELY required. You won’t get anything done if you are not curious enough. That’s an advice you can apply to your everyday life, especially if you’re into artistic stuff. ROM hackers are obsessed people that are very curious and interested in what they do. Passion is a thing, but you won’t get a project done only out of passion. It takes curiosity, obsession sometimes, and also discipline if you’re on a big project. I’m far from being the best example here but it’s all of these things that helped me to get there.
Yeah, that sounds fair to us. At the end of the day, ROM hacking (and modding in general) is basically defined by curiosity. It’s all about asking yourself the question “is this crazy idea possible?” then figuring out a way to make that a reality. A lot of the most interesting projects aren’t created by folks with well thought out, carefully considered development plans, they’re made by borderline insane people that think they can turn Super Mario World into a racing game or make an open world simulation in Super Mario 64’s engine. Almost every impressive ROM hack of today is something that would sound patently absurd even a few years earlier, and whose success came down to a determined developer or team pushing the very boundaries of the original engine.
And we definitely can’t disagree with the discipline or obsession either side of things either. These projects are made by people that pour hours into learning esoteric programming languages and frameworks for consoles discontinued decades ago, who constantly need to worry about the smallest details when it comes to saving resources, and who are willing to put years of their life into a game that will never give them a financial return. If you’re not obsessed with completing your dream project at all costs, ROM hacking simply isn’t the hobby for you.
Still, thanks for the interview! It was interesting to learn more about what went into Super Mario Odyssey DS, and how such a project could even hope to reimagine the Switch classic on the original Nintendo DS. We’re excited to see your progress so far, and would love to check out the final game whenever it’s finished.
But what do you think? Did you enjoy the interview, or were there any obvious questions we missed here? Leave your thoughts on social media, or over on our Discord server today!