Well guys, it’s interview time once again here at Gaming Reinvented. With the subject of today’s interview being the team responsible for some incredible New Super Mario Bros Wii mods.
Yep, this one is with the New Luigi Team, creators of such Luigi focused mods as Newer Super Luigi: Dark Moon and Super Luigi Land. Here are some trailers showing the two games in action:
As you can see, they’re an interesting bunch of titles to say the least. Indeed, with the former being one of the very few Halloween themed mods available for the game, and the latter having both New Super Luigi U physics and a new final boss, they’re both some of the most ambitious mods we’ve seen in years, with plenty of interesting mechanics and level concepts to keep players invested.
So, it’s time to learn all about them, plus the team that makes it all happen. Let’s get this interview going!
The Interview
First up, how about a bit of background info? Who’s involved in the New Luigi team?
Mullkaw: The idea of a “New Luigi Team” has gone through a couple iterations and if I’m being honest I forget most of the lore 💀. If I have my facts straight, then the idea was started around 2014 by Meorge, not long after the release of Newer SMBW. The idea was to NSLU-ify Newer (same map, 100sec levels, etc.) but that didn’t get very far. We also had the idea of making “specials” just as Newer Team had made Holiday Speical, Summer Sun, etc. and that’s where the idea (and name) for Newer Super Luigi Wii: Dark Moon came from. The modern iteration of the New Luigi Team mainly involved me (Mullkaw) as well as RedStoneMatt and Gamerboy. We also had help from such modders as Toms, Hus, Vekka, and everyone else listed in the credits.
RedStoneMatt: Hey there! I’m RedStoneMatt (also known as RSM) and I was the lead programmer and translation team leader on SLLW.
And how did you get into gaming? What was your first game?
Mullkaw: Growing up, the first gaming system I remember playing a lot on was the GBA. All of the games I had were licensed games, and they included franchises such as Spongebob, Barbie, and Dora the Explorer. The game Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission was one I played many many times. I also played a ton of flash games on the Internet like those on Andkon and Nitrome. I can’t remember ever not being into gaming lmao.
Mulkaw played this game a lot
RedStoneMatt: I think my first game was “New Super Mario Bros.” for the DS.
Received a DSi for Christmas along with the game when I was a kid.
I got into gaming almost immediately: I would play it almost every day (and I really struggled 100%ing it, 8-4’s Star Coins were particularly hard for my child self), then I got into New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and the rest is history.
I did kinda stop gaming and switched to game making instead around middle school though. And while I always did so as a hobby, making games is vastly different than gaming. I still play from time to time when a gale interests me, though
Gamerboy: One of the first games I can remember playing is Sonic Heroes. It was a PC version that came with two discs: one for installation, and one for actually playing the game. The game probably didn’t even run at half the speed it was supposed to (this was back when monitors were cube-shaped and “Bliss” was used as a wallpaper), but I didn’t seem to care and enjoyed playing as the “blue blur” nonetheless.
Gamerboy started with this version of Sonic Heroes
What games are you playing now?
Mullkaw: At the time of me writing this, I have a Breath of the Wild save file that’s very close to being able to beat the final boss, but I haven’t gotten around to it. Every once in a while I’ll play Smash or Mario Kart with friends or family, but other than that, I’ve got no games on my plate at the moment.
RedStoneMatt: Currently trying to 100% the remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. It was a very important game in my childhood
Gamerboy: Outside of testing my own mods, I’m not playing any games at the moment. I sold my Switch and removed Steam from my computer a while ago. That may sound like quite a surprise given my username, but there’s other things I need and want to do in life right now. If I had all the time in the world, I’d probably be going through the original Tomb Raider series and creating an elaborate world in Minecraft. If a new Xenoblade gets announced for the Switch successor, I imagine I’ll dip back into gaming a bit for that alone (if you haven’t played the Xenoblade trilogy or Xenoblade X, fix that as soon as possible!).
Onto a bit of Mario series background now. How did you first discover that series?
Mullkaw: Next to the likes of Mickey Mouse and Pikachu, I would be really surprised if anyone under 50 isn’t at least aware of “Mr. Video Game Himself”. It wasn’t until I got a DS with Mario Kart around maybe 2010 that I could say I played a Mario game. Soon after came Super Mario 64 DS, and New Super Mario Bros Wii was soon to follow.
RedStoneMatt: As previously mentioned, NSMB was my first game so that’s how I got into it. I got a Wii not too long after and would play NSMBW all the time with my brother.
Gamerboy: The first Mario Kart game I played was Super Circuit, and that may have been where I was introduced to Mario. The first 3D Mario platformer I played was either Sunshine or Galaxy, and as for the 2D side of things, my first game may have been New Super Mario Bros. Wii…
What about New Super Mario Bros Wii itself? Is it your favourite Mario platformer?
Mullkaw: New Super Mario Bros Wii is a great game, but it’s by no means my favorite Mario platformer. However, I can say that exploring it alongside my siblings was a blast when I first played it all those years ago.
RedStoneMatt: New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a good platformer for its time in my opinion, but I might be biased because I played it a lot as a kid.
Although I do have to say, platformers that are better in my opinion already existed at the time, like Donkey Kong Country Returns.
NSMBW is my favourite Mario platformer indeed though, but the fact that I probably played it and its mods for hundreds of hours likely influenced this opinion a lot.
Gamerboy: It’s a great game, but not my favourite. I think it’s good in terms of the gameplay, visuals, and music, but there’s nothing it seems to excel at. Giant Bowser was a really cool surprise back on my first playthrough though, along with there being a “World 9” at the end. New Super Mario Bros. U would be my favourite of the modern 2D titles; I find the physics, gameplay mechanics, and visual design to be better than that of NSMBW. Out of the original 2D titles, I’d say Super Mario Bros. 3 is my favourite (although Super Mario Bros. is pretty close).
What are your thoughts about Super Mario Bros Wonder?
Mullkaw: Super Mario Bros Wonder is a very charming game. It’s pleasing to think that many people had as much fun in its multiplayer as I had back when I played NSMBW for the first time.
RedStoneMatt: It is wonderful! As soon as the Switch released I was hoping for a “New Super Mario Bros. Switch” and here we are! Although, I would have liked it more if we got some classic powerups back and more original bosses. The fact that some words don’t even have a boss really felt odd.
Gamerboy: This game is fresh on my mind, so I have a lot of thoughts and this will be a long answer. I think with Wonder, the highs are fairly high, but the lows are quite low, and the negatives ultimately outweigh the positives.
First, I’ll mention the positives. Visually-speaking, it’s my favourite out of the modern titles, with the flair, expressiveness, and style that deviates noticeably from other entries. The number of playable characters, and player one being able to play as anyone, is a kind of thing I’ve wanted for some time. The Badge abilities are fun, particularly the Wall-Climb Jump and the Grappling Vine. I like the style of the World Maps, which more resembles the one used by 3D World than the one used by previous 2D games. The Wonder Flowers are a nice addition; the ones that stood out to me are the Piranha Plant parade, the shadow levels, the jump that sends you shooting into space, and the level where the air becomes water and vice versa. The Bubble Flower and Drill Mushroom are neat power-ups.
Second, I’ll tackle some negatives. I would have liked the playable roster a lot more if there were unique abilities, such as Peach being able to float and Blue Toad running faster. I think there should have been an option to stack Badges so you can have multiple effects at once. Some of the Wonder Flower effects are repeated after a certain point (such as there being more than one shadow level), and I think these should have all been unique. The game is so lacking in boss variety (and by variety I mean you just fight Bowser Jr.) that a couple of Worlds don’t even have bosses at the end of them; hitting a giant button at the end of a conveyor belt is not a particularly thrilling substitute.
Finally, the thing that really kills the game for me is the difficulty, or rather the lack thereof. Even the five-star levels don’t pose much of a challenge: I reached the end of “Climb to the Beat”, for example, on my second try, and the other “hard” levels had a similar number of attempts. Perhaps the final level is engaging, but I don’t want to play an entire game hoping that the very end will suffice. I stopped playing part way through World 5 and I couldn’t be bothered to finish the game, which has never happened before.
Gamerboy surprisingly didn’t struggle with this level
How did you first get into ROM hacking, or game development as a whole?
Mullkaw: After I got a Wii, I picked up Mario Kart Wii, and that game probably remains the one I’ve spent the most amount of time playing. One day in 2011, I came across a video on youtube of a very strange track in the game, one I had never seen before. It was called Incendia Castle and it turns out it was what’s called a “custom track” ??? Soon after, I had the Riivolution mod installed and I used that to play CTGP. But I then wondered what else could be done with Riivolution? This led me to NSMBW modding, and there I stayed for quite a while.
RedStoneMatt: I started ROM Hacking with NSMB for the DS. I was probably around 12 (maybe less?), but since I was very computer-savvy already, I quickly figured out how to use the level editor for that game.
My first ROM Hack was “NSMB: Re-edited levels” which aimed to provide small edits to some levels, and I then tried to make a full remake of SMB from the NES. Both of those mods ended up being abandoned.
Around the same age, a game development club was created in my hometown for kids who would like to see what it looked like. I attended it for a year and it was my first time actually writing code.
Gamerboy: I started ROM hacking back in 2015. I noticed that the website for Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii mentioned a “Reggie! Level Editor”, and the idea that I could make my own custom NSMBW levels was quite intriguing. Right away, there was a mod that I planned out and talked about (before even doing any real work on it, hehe); I hadn’t finished that one, but I still have the files kicking around somewhere. As far as making custom levels in general, I believe I started doing that with an online game called Super Mario Flash, which would’ve been quite a long time ago.
Why New Super Mario Bros Wii rather than any other game?
Mullkaw: Making levels in NSMBW is much easier than making custom tracks for MKW. The former really only requires you use the tool Reggie which is very lightweight and accessible for whatever run-of-the-mill laptop we had lying around back in 2011.
RedStoneMatt: NSMBW is (in my opinion) the most easily moddable game of the series, especially thanks to the work of the Newer Team on Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Back when I started, NSMB modding was a huge pain if you wanted to edit anything else than levels and graphics, and NSMBU had a very small base for code injection. And for both of those games, there were many parts that were unmoddable at the time due to lack of tools (but thankfully are now).
Gamerboy: I wouldn’t have been against trying to mod other games (I did dabble with NSMB briefly). NSMBW simply happened to be the first one that I learned I could mod, and it was relatively easy to get started with.
What other ROM hacks are you a fan of?
Mullkaw: The Newer Team projects are very popular in the NSMBW space and it’s for good reason. In terms of influence, popularity, and scale, their portfolio is very solid, and their mods are very good as well. Personally, I’ve always also been partial to the Weland & Leplap mods such as Epic Super Bowser world because those mods found ways to do interesting things with existing mechanics, and compared to the work of the Newer Team, they felt more “amateurish” but in the most positive sense of the word. It was endearing to play a mod that sat outside of the Newer Team umbrella but was so very enjoyable nonetheless. Lastly, I want to mention Cliffs of Spring by Duplo for breaking the mold in so many different ways all at once. From its graphics, to its music, to its level design, it was such a pleasure to play a mod so different yet so fun.
RedStoneMatt: For NSMBW, I of course have an infinite love for “Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii”. But I also particularly like Duplo’s “Cliffs of Spring” mod. There are plenty of other NSMBW ROM hacks that I like but it is hard to remember all of them.
Besides NSMBW, I really enjoyed “Newer DS” and Super Mario World ROM hacks like “A Plumber for All Seasons” and “The Twelve Magic Orbs”.
Gamerboy: I’d like to be able to list more than a couple, but I haven’t played a lot of other mods. Mentioning Newer Wii is obligatory I suppose. As far as I’m aware, that one remains unmatched in terms of the quantity of content, and it really does feel like a grand adventure. I recall enjoying Newer Falling Leaf as well.
After helping with the New Luigi Team mods, hacks that feature Luigi as the main character catch my attention easier than they would have otherwise. I tried Luigi’s Quest recently, which is inspired by Super Luigi Land Wii, and it’s pretty great. The levels are fairly long and well-designed, with each having two midway flag rooms that split up three sections. The tilesets and level themes are visually pleasing overall, there’s some clever ideas and secrets, and it gets quite difficult by the end.
I’m a big fan of Super Mario and the Cliffs of Spring. The quality of it is so good that I imagine it’d be accurate to describe it as an anomaly. The music selection is nice, and the custom tilesets and level mechanics intertwine to form some interesting set pieces. The mod has a unique visual style; characters are desaturated and environments are monochromatic, which makes the occasional pops of colour really stand out. There’s more of a puzzle aspect along with the usual platforming, and the levels have a high but fair level of difficulty. I’d highly recommend playing it to those who haven’t already.
Either way, onto some Luigi Team projects now. What made you decide to start up the team here?
Mullkaw: Going back to the inception of Newer Super Luigi Wii: Dark Moon, I had made a decent amount of levels for it back in 2015 and had been sitting on them for a while. I then decided to use them to release a finished product in 2017.
Let’s talk about Newer Super Luigi: Dark Moon now. What gave you the idea to make this Luigi’s Mansion inspired Mario hack?
Mullkaw: I think it was because Newer Team had a holiday-themed special, a fall-themed special, as well as a summer-themed special, so the halloween theme seemed like a logical step beyond that.
What about adding Wario as a playable character? That’s a pleasant surprise given his absence in the Luigi’s Mansion games…
Mullkaw: Back in the day, someone called KTH made a playable Wario for NSMBW and it looked good enough so we decided he would work for the mod.
How did you get alternate costumes working? Was that complex in this engine?
Gamerboy: Alternate costumes are pretty easy. They’re implemented via options in the XML file that is used for Riivolution. If you enable the mod only, then the character is changed from Mario to Luigi as part of that. If a costume is enabled, it overwrites the relevant changes made by enabling the game. In an ideal world, I would prefer being able to swap costumes within the game itself as opposed to using the Riivolution menu, but that is beyond my skill set.
How did you choose the music there? It’s from a variety of sources, but remains fitting regardless…
Mullkaw: The music comes mostly comes from games that at the time I had played recently like Kirby Triple Deluxe and Super Metroid. I also threw in an OC Remix song which was inspired by the mod Cannon SMBW havning done the same.
Gamerboy: For the reverse mods, most of my music choices were based on having played a fair number of games and listening to different tracks and remixes on YouTube. Sometimes I look for ideas based on environment themes: for example, if I want a track for a snow level, then I’ll look for a compilation video of winter-themed tracks from other games. A couple of the tracks in Dark Moon Reverse were ideas given by Mullkaw after I asked him for suggestions. For Super Luigi Land Wii Special, IAmAwesome2 has helped with some track ideas.
What went into the level design here? Obviously it’s more Halloween themed than directly Luigi’s Mansion inspired…
Mullkaw: To this day I’ve never played any of the Luigi’s Mansion games and probably never will 😂. The main thing that went into the level design here having a diversity of visual themes and weird/underused gimmicks.
Surprisingly Mulkaw has never played a Luigi’s Mansion game
There are also quite a few hack variants too, like a reverse version. What inspired you to create those ones?
Gamerboy: There’s a couple sources of inspiration there. Some official Nintendo games have had alternate versions or extra game modes that put a twist on pre-existing content, like Ocarina of Time Master Quest, Donkey Kong Country Returns’ Mirror Mode, and Mirror Mode from the Mario Kart series. Luigi has also been associated with right-to-left levels as well, with Super Luigi Bros. from NES Remix 2. I wanted to provide a “full” experience to those playing Dark Moon and Luigi Land, and making reverse levels seemed like a natural way to do that. Also, I don’t think level design is my strong suit, and I enjoy working on visual aspects and fine-tuning the small details, so these variants are a great way to focus on what I like doing most.
Either way, onto Super Luigi Land Wii. What inspired you to create this game?
Mullkaw: I was sitting on the modified physics as well as a few quirky mechanics so I decided I was going to make some levels with them. Just like the last mod, I also wanted to have as many different visual identities for the levels as possible so that also played a role. But all in all, it was mainly being able to mess with what was added to Newer SMBW that inspired SLLW. For example, when making custom levels for the original NSMBW, if you want to have a Koopaling battle, you have to end the level right after. However, with Newer SMBW, you have the option to continue the level instead. I thought this was cool and used it multiple times in SLLW.
How did you port the physics from NSLU?
Mullkaw: The modification of the game’s physics was made possible thanks to John10v10. He found out where the values for the physics were located and how to modify them as well. Though it should be noted that the physics are not like they are in NSLU, and this is somewhat intentional, as I never really liked floaty platforming.
Level design seems to have evolved quite a bit too. How did the design process for that change here?
Mullkaw: The level design is more streamlined here since levels were sketched on paper before being implemented in-game. I would think about how I would enjoy moving through a level and then I would realize that in the level editor. As a result, they tended to be relatively linear, and once you learn them you can run through them a lot of the time. Another aspect of the level design is that I wanted to make the player use more movement options like the wall jump or triple jump. This is clear in the first level, where the only way to avoid wall jumping is using triple jumping, so no matter how you slice it, you’re using one of those techniques. I figured that no one playing a mod is not going to already be familiar with the game’s movement, so I might as well make use of it.
Any levels you consider your favourites?
Mullkaw: The last level of the main game is a standout level for me. Before the checkpoint is basically a six-minute gauntlet that mixes a bunch of different mechanics from earlier levels in the game, all while playing music from Celeste. After the checkpoint are the two phases of the final boss, and I’m really happy with the work that RedStoneMatt did on that. Another level I wound up liking was 3-2. This one is a vertical autoscroller with lava. Its first half was made by Vekka and it involves falling metal blocks as in Donkey Kong Country Returns 6-K. Its second half involves a raft of coins that you use p-switches to turn into a raft of brick blocks, and I’m very happy with how that idea turned out. Incidentally, it also uses Celeste music! Lastly, I’ll mention the three bonus levels for which the goal is to get to the end as quickly as possible. These are short and sweet and again I’m glad the idea panned out as well as it did in my head.
RedStoneMatt: I have to admit, I really like Windy Ruins.
I used to really dislike it because it was so hard and sadistic, but I actually love it for this very reason now.
Gamerboy: My favourite from World 1 would be Jungle Swing. I really like the yellow forest look, upbeat music, and the swaying Brick Block mechanic. Regarding World 2, Lowlight Labyrinth’s setting reminds me a lot of the levels in Dark Moon, and Ice Floe Ferry has a cool environment as well (even if it’s very similar to Rockslide Run). World 3 is where most of my favourites are at: Climb to the Top!, Perilous Passage, Chain Link Chamber, and Termina Tower. (Also Far Out is cool too.) Most of the levels I mentioned are very fun to try and speed through, which is probably part of why I like them so much. Chain Link Chamber in particular was meant to be a fast level, and it’s probably my overall favourite.
Or alternatively, any you feel a tad disappointed by?
Mullkaw: 2-3 went through a lot of iterations, but I never really wound up to satisfied with the result. It’s a very slow level, and though I did make it faster during development, it still wound up being quite slow 😁.
RedStoneMatt: Not really, SLLW has immensely great levels in my opinion, but I’m not a level designer so it’s easy to get me impressed with any good level. I’m sure some level designers will have some criticism to give due to their very high standards.
Gamerboy: I can’t say I’m too disappointed by any of them. If I had to pick some from each of the three main Worlds as my least favourites, they would be Ghastly Glade, Rockslide Run, and Lava Lair. They’re fine levels, but they don’t have the most exciting or challenging mechanics.
One thing that’s definitely gotten more advanced is the coding side of things, since the game seems to have a lot more unique mechanics than the last project did. What’s it like coding new elements for New Super Mario Bros Wii?
RedStoneMatt: I was very new to coding and Reverse-Engineering at the time. Because even though I did get into coding a long time ago, I stopped being a beginner only very recently.
Adding new enemies or bosses feels very good I have to say because it is not that hard to understand the inner workings of game actors, and seeing in-game actors behave like you actually programmed them to is very satisfying.
For other kinds of code edits (like the addition of the quick restart feature), it is much harder because you need to understand PowerPC assembly (the internal language of the Wii’s CPU, to put it simply) which can be tricky.
Interestingly, the game also has a new boss too, with the final Kamek battle playing like a hybrid of the vanilla Kamek and giant Bowser fights with various twists and gimmicks. What was it like coding such an incredible finale?
RedStoneMatt: It was actually very hard. Many people call NewerSMBW bosses “boring” but they really don’t realise how hard it is to program a good bossfight in NSMBW.
The Kamek bossfight was the first custom boss released since NewerSMBW, so there were high expectations.
It required lots of balancing, I had lots of discussions with Mullkaw about it.
Making a boss fight was interesting, hard enough but not too hard, replayable, fair, and giving it a Nintendo-like feel might actually be harder than the programming itself.
I think it could have been much better though, as many parts of the bossfight feel a little odd, and some bugs are still present in the current release, but considering my lack of programming skills at the time I think it is good enough!
Were similarly unique bosses planned for the other worlds at any point?
RedStoneMatt: Not for the other worlds, no, but a secret post-game custom boss was in the talks. I wanted to program it and have it released as version 1.2 but I never did it in the end.
There are also lots of translations of these games to other languages too, including French, Italian and Japanese. What was it like getting these games translated into all these languages?
RedStoneMatt: It wasn’t easy, actually. Some languages had some oddities that forced us to make language-specific edits.
For example, Dutch doesn’t even have a translation in the original. It only has one for the wii strap screen but for the rest it uses English, so I had to patch away the code that made the game fall back on English when detecting a Dutch console.
German has some very long level names so I had to extend the size of the level pause menu to make them fit.
Japanese uses specific characters that need a specific encoding that the NewerSMBW file formats didn’t support so very hacky things had to be made for this.
And also, since every language has its bundle of unique characters, those had to be added to the font file.
I am very happy with the final result though, it is currently the only NewerSMBW-based mod that supports translations as of now, as far as I know.
Huge thanks to our translation team!
Are there any other languages you hope to see the mod made available in?
RedStoneMatt: I wished we could have gotten Korean and Taiwanese but those two versions of the game weren’t supported by our code injection system at the time.
Regardless, both Dark Moon and Luigi Land have been exceptionally well received, with lots of people praising them online. How does it feel knowing your work is so popular?
Mullkaw: It feels nice, the support has always been much appreciated 😊.
RedStoneMatt: Feels particularly good to me because I had lots of precedents of people disliking my modding work at the time. It was really nice to see so many people appreciate the QoL changes, the bossfight and the translations, although some people did give rightful criticism on some of it.
Gamerboy: I don’t think of the original Dark Moon or Luigi Land as being “my work”. I did a large number of small contributions (with visuals, play-testing, and ideas/feedback), but I wasn’t involved with any major parts like level designing or coding. As for the reverse mods, I do have creative control over those, and have spent what I think is an inordinate amount of time in polishing them, but they are, for the most part, leveraging pre-existing content from the original mods.
In any case, I am glad that players from around the world have been able to enjoy these mods through online distribution. I am also grateful for the feedback I’ve received regarding the reverse mods; I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I don’t think I can see or evaluate my work the way others can, so hearing that people have enjoyed it is appreciated.
Do you have any plans for a third full length hack like this? Perhaps after Super Luigi Land Wii Special is done?
Mullkaw: 😂
Finally, what advice would you give someone looking to get into NSMBW modding, or game development as a whole?
Mullkaw: People will tell you that you want to be accommodating and fair in the way you make/implement parts of your mod, which is definitely something you want to keep in mind. However, something that I don’t hear said a lot is that, at the end of the day, the only guaranteed audience member you have is yourself. The only one who will undoubtedly play through every level is the one who made the levels. So why do anything to tarnish that experience? Again, you definitely want to adhere to good design principles, but don’t be afraid to be avant-garde if it’s in a way that you find interesting or fun. Share your ideas and see who latches on. And even if no one does, you’ve still expressed yourself in your creation, and that is art for art’s sake.
RedStoneMatt: NSMBW modding is very hard. As time goes on, the standards of the community gets higher and higher so making good levels can be VERY time consuming.
Same for graphics: most of what was considered a good tileset five years ago is now considered as garbage.
Programming has never been easier though! As time goes on, people document more and more parts of the game’s code, and there is a very good PowerPC Assembly beginner guide made by grishhung that’ll help you get started if you are interested.
For game development as a whole, I’d advise watching Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel, as he gives very important game development advice there.
In any case, you need to learn how to take criticism. So many modders, myself included, began their modding journey by thinking that criticism was insulting.
It is not though, and even though some people struggle to express their criticism in a constructive way, you still need to consider it and try to improve.
Gamerboy: Regarding NSMBW modding specifically, I would recommend starting small. Try creating a level or two before worrying about making logos or announcing mods. If you want help with a mod, have something to show off first to entice people. Get familiar not just with the Reggie level editor, but other tools as well, such as BrawlBox if you’re interested in creating custom textures or models. Learn how the player characters and level mechanics move, function, and interact with each other, in order to maximise the quality of the content you create. (Don’t make your jumps and coin arcs too small! Don’t be afraid to raise the difficulty and challenge the player!). There are resources out there such as the NSMBW Modding Wiki, and there are Discord communities dedicated to NSMBW modding and specific mods, so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask others for help and information.
Regarding game development as a whole, inspiration for level ideas, visuals, and other aspects can come from lots of different sources. If you’re interested in making a platforming game, for example, then it might not be a bad idea to play a variety of different platforming games to gather ideas. When trying to come up with ideas for visuals, the genre of the games you draw from doesn’t matter as much. The method of drawing inspiration from pre-existing things can go beyond playing games as well.
Lastly, It’s always much easier to imagine a concept than it is to bring it into reality. From my observations, it’s quite common for modders and developers to start off with energy and enthusiasm and then be drained and discouraged before completing their work. That can happen in endeavours outside of modding or game development as well; with any ambitious goal, I think a change in feelings will most likely happen to anyone, even if they are still motivated enough to ultimately finish their work. With that in mind, I would say that you should keep yourself and your well-being as your top priority; these are just mods and games after all. At the same time, if you truly wish to bring your ideas to fruition and have the means to do so, then when things get tough, remember why you started, keep moving, and see things through to the end.
Yeah, it’s far harder to actually create a game or mechanic than it is to imagine it, that’s for sure. A moderately creative individual can easily break down the steps required to implement an interesting boss or level gimmick, plus how it’d work in all sorts of potential situations, but actually coding it up is another story entirely. There have been far too many times we’ve had an interesting idea for a level or mechanic, only to find it’s taken ten times longer than expected to actually make the thing.
Being an idea guy is easy, but going from that to creating a video game is a far bigger leap than many ever expected.
It’s also definitely true that standards are increasing, both in the New Super Mario Bros Wii modding community and that for every game under the sun.
Back in the days before Newer Super Mario Bros Wii, even creating a full game was seen as an impressive achievement, while adding new enemies, bosses and mechanics was seen as the craziest form of dark magic.
Now? Those things are everywhere. Custom elements are almost expected from major NSMBW hacks now, and full games are a dime a dozen. The ceiling has been raised dramatically, and people’s expectations have only increased along with it.
What’s more, other communities are even crazier here. Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, the Sonic series… People in those communities expect a level of quality found in a top notch Nintendo game now. A game that only uses existing resources and sticks to the original formula almost certainly won’t stand out anymore.
Either way, that shouldn’t discourage anyone here. Unless you’re trying to become the next Kaze Emanuar or get a bunch of news articles written about your game, you shouldn’t be solely making games for fame or attention. You should make the games you want to make, and try your best with what you know and can learn.
Regardless, that’s the interview done and dusted. Thanks to the folks on the New Luigi Team for their answers here, and for their awesome work on mods like Newer Super Luigi: Dark Moon and New Super Luigi Land. Definitely check out their work on social media, or download the mods to try them out for yourself!
So, what did you think? Did you enjoy reading about these projects? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!