When it comes to Super Mario 63 remakes and sequels, we’ve already looked into quite a few of them here on Gaming Reinvented. We’ve talked to the Super Mario 63 Redux team, and learn more about their efforts to remake the title for a new generation of gamers. We’ve talked to the Super Mario Galaxy 63 developer, and found out more about their project to translate the game to a 3D engine.

But that still left one project without an interview. One major Super Mario 63 fan game that needed its time in the spotlight.

That being, Super Mario 127. Originally created by Flarewire in 2020 and currently led by charpurrr, the game aims to provide a full sequel to the original title, complete with a new story, levels and mechanics inspired by that game. It’s an amazing looking project, and one which has received some incredible trailers over the last few years:

And it’s one which we’re very interested to learn about too. So, in today’s interview, we’re gonna do just that. To talk to the folks behind this intriguing looking game, and learn all about them, their work and their hopes for the project as a whole.

As a fabled Italian plumber once said, “Let’s a go!”

The Interview

First things first, who are you? Who’s part of the Super Mario 127 team here?

@plugandplaystation: Heyo! I’m Jake. I’m one of the two programming leads on the 127 team. At the moment I’m working on a rewrite of the Mario 127 engine, as well as helping out with the legacy engine team whenever they need a hand. Every now and then I’ll help out with the music, too!

@charpurrr: howdy, I’m charlotte. Although everyone here calls me anything but that for some reason. I’m like a robust art director they found somewhere in the slums of Belgium. Hence why I lead 127’s art team nowadays :33333

@ariejuice: Hi, I’m Arie. I’m the one who runs the music side for SM127 and sound designer. I mainly work on resources for Mario Kart and research in Nintendo equipment.

@goatsoup.mp3: Hi, my name is Gale Sosa– or known by the name I release music under; ‘goatsoup’. I am a sound director with @Arie for this game and also providing music.

I’m a pianist, music producer and composer. I primarily work on smaller indie games and occasionally fan/passion projects like this at the moment.

@pumpkinvolt: Hi I like pumpkins

@E_WOLFFE: I discovered 127 after playing 63 since my childhood. I knew I had to be a part of it, so I offered my services as a pixel-artist.

@linktober: I makey da level 🎃

@mama.luigi: Hi I’m Spongebob!! (I don’t really do anything for the game I just got on cus charlor funny and I’m also really active on the server) (Ig I do feedback stuff)

@retroreboot: Yo wuddup, I’m Mason. I’m a musician who’s working toward doing music for games full time. For 127 I’m doing both arrangements and original tracks. I joined shortly after the F3 trailer in 2022. I also do concept and reference art for sprites and help with animation.
Oh, I also do guitars.

@rudy12345mc: My name is Yoshikage Kira. I’m 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don’t smoke, but I occasionally drink. I’m in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I’m trying to explain that I’m a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn’t lose to anyone.

(I’m a level designer for the campaign but we haven’t gotten to much of that yet. I’m also the main host of level designing contests.)

@Doram: My name is Doram Baramour, and I have been a spriter and technical consultant on SM127 for a while now. A lot of the time I am moral support as one of the older members of the team at 46, but I also try to bring my many years of being a fan of Mario games to the table as well. I’m a helper.

@.dignity: Hiyo, I’m the second programming lead Dignity (or Rin). I lead the 0.8.0 update and organize the programming team. I snuck into here 3 years ago and they never found out then I made my way to the top mwahahahahaha

@am43210: I’m me[citation needed]

@snugglybun_scsp: I’m some random musician who’s trying to survive and prove herself in this world. I joined a few weeks ago, and I’m excited about what I’m going to compose for this fangame

@agentogames: I’m an artist who exists sometimes

@antonio444: My name is Konrad Cesar Antonio (I have 3 names), I am from Peru and I am an enthusiast of Mario fangames, especially sm63. I participate as a spriter quite detached from the matter for work reasons, I am 20 years old

@chriti03: Ciao! I’m Chri and I’m…well Christian in every way. I’m almost 20 yo and currently undergraduating at health biotech. Oh and also I’m the Italian level designer (who’s currently been on a huge status, lol)

@skeletontourguide: I’m a programmer from Canada that likes to make browser games! I’m known as Siddikinz on Newgrounds, which is where I upload most of my games!

@hrasyurr: Howdy! Name’s Asriel but normally called Azzy. I’m a pixel-artist. Often I do some work here and there in the pixel art area, obviously. I used to play SM63 a lot, so it’s great to be here. :3

@met3o: Heyo! It’s Meteo, I am from the UK (Nigerian descent) and am an animator, digital artist, game programmer, music producer, gymnast, casual gamer, Christian, computer science student. I joined the 127 dev team about a year ago as a programmer.

How did you get into gaming? What was your first game?

@plugandplaystation: That’s a tough one! My first game was… I think… playing Super Mario 64 or Mario Kart 64 at my aunt and uncle’s house. I don’t know if Windows XP 3D Space Pinball counts, but I probably played that before both of those. I’m not sure that I got into gaming per se. I think I kind of grew up with games always around. The way my family liked to bond was by taking turns playing games with each other.

@ariejuice: I got into gaming because of my mother purchasing a black GameCube during her pregnancy with me and my father who owned a PS2 Slim. So, I was already conditioned to gaming at a very young age. But, the first game I played was New Super Mario Bros Wii and Mario Kart Wii.

@E_WOLFFE: My uncle had an NES and when I visited he would let me play Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. When I was older I played whatever was free online, eventually finding SM63 on the mariogame.info website.

@goatsoup.mp3: When I was a kid, during the era of the 3DS, I had a DS lite and my first video game was ‘New Super Mario Bros’. It was my first foray into a video game, a Mario game and a really fun 2D Mario.

@linktober: My first game was one of the games on the Zelda Collector’s edition for GameCube, probably Zelda Ocarina of Time. I was not good at them and barely even beat the first temple, but I watched my sister play the n64 games all the way through.

@mama.luigi: I think my first game would’ve been like hill climb racing on a laptop a billion years ago, I got into gaming cus I was an iPad kid basically.

@retroreboot: I believe my first few games were SMB3 and Sonic and Knuckles on the Wii virtual console. Before that it was just the couple of super early mobile games I played on my parents’ phones.

@rudy12345mc: I thiiiink my first game was SMB1? Cousin had an NES? But SM64DS is the oldest game I remember having fond memories with. I remember chipping away at different stars at my cottage and such it was peak.

@Doram: My first game was Excitebike, mostly because the used NES my mother got for me came from a classmate that had traded his Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt for the game. It was actually not just my first game, but also my introduction to level design, which I have also loved ever since.

@.dignity.: Damn, good question… I don’t really remember, actually. I remember getting a laptop for one of my birthdays and then the next thing I knew I was on Newgrounds playing flash games. It might’ve been Riddle School, but I really don’t remember.

@snugglybun_scsp: I don’t remember, my memory is really awful x . x. I think that i got into gaming browsing for flash games when I was a kid because as someone in LATAM who didn’t have access to a video game console I wanted to experience the closest thing to playing Mario and Sonic but I didn’t know what an emulator was.

@agentogames: It was either Super Monkey Ball or Wii Sports. I used to have a copy of Mario Sunshine back in the day, but the disc didn’t work so I never played it.

@antonio444: Not counting Windows XP interactive children’s games, I estimate it may have been Mario & Luigi (DOS), although I grew up playing flash games

@chriti03: My first ever game…long story short i got it after i got diagnosed with a chronic intestinal disease, to like relive little me. It was a Nintendo DS and the first actual game i played (while i was still on anaesthesia effects) was like a Finding Nemo game i have never found anywhere? I should actually try search for it.

@hrasyurr: Mmm. My first game ever was SMW. I still remember beating a level that my older brother couldn’t. That first moment made me love Mario for well… a long time

@skeletontourguide: My first non-Mario game was “Toxic” by Nitrome. I used to play it on my parent’s old Windows XP desktop computer!

@met3o: Most of my first games were Mario-related, playing Mario Kart titles on my cousin’s game systems when I was a kid, and Mario flash-games in my browser before I got my first console, a Wii.

What about your first Mario game?

@hrasyurr: Super Mario World is one of the best 2D games in the series, I don’t think there’s much needed to say besides that lol. I really love how you can do spin jumps in this game though. Also, the cape feather is AWESOME!

If it wasn’t for that game, I probably wouldn’t be writing this today. It was one of my first inspirations for pixel art.

@plugandplaystation: My first Mario game that was mine was Super Mario Land for the Gameboy. I had an original Gameboy that came with it, but I remember trading it and a few other things to one of my cousins for a silver Gameboy Advance SP. I don’t know what ever happened to that cartridge, but I wish I had kept it safe!

@charpurrr: mannn I was like on an aeroplane I think and had a 3DS with the New Super Mario Bros game for the Nintendo dual screen system. My father must’ve gotten it for me because I can’t for the life of me remember ever getting it myself. That’s my first game though I think. Although my actual first memorable experiences were with Galaxy and that weird Ratatouille game on the Wii

@goatsoup.mp3: My first experiences with games had to have been mostly Mario at first. I had a hand-me-down Wii from my brother with a fair few games, including a lot of old Mario stuff. My family wasn’t in the financial spot to buy new games and all of that, so I grew up with a lot of Virtual Console games from the NES/SNES/N64 era.

The songs in those games are what I first started to practice by ear on piano too.. I probably would not be a musician today if I also wasn’t familiar with Mario!

@retroreboot: I played Super Mario Bros 3 on the Wii virtual console with my dad quite a bit back around elementary school. Maybe also Galaxy around the same time, I can’t really remember.

@mama.luigi: I think my first REAL Mario game was SMB3 on an emulator on the iPad I mentioned earlier (technically it was an Android tablet but thats not the bit) but it also had a bunch of funny bootlegs like Mario World 9.

@linktober: My first Mario game would have been Super Mario Sunshine, I definitely look back on it with rose tinted glasses because many find it terrible while I think it was great,

@rudy12345mc: I’ve always been a Mario guy. SMB1 is also cool. NSMBW is also one of the older ones I played, and I had this DS cartridge with like 30 Mario Games on it before I left my DSI out in the rain and it became unusable.

@Doram: My first Mario game was a rented Super Mario Bros. 2. I also joined the rest of the world in hyping the heck out of the movie “The Wizard”, purely because of the associated reveal of SMB3, and was HOPELESSLY a Mario fan past that point.

@.dignity.: My first Mario game? It’s gotta be SM64. I saw it on YouTube then decided that I would do anything to get my hands on it. We didn’t have an N64 back so I had to jump through lots of hoops to play the game.

@snugglybun_scsp: My first actual official Mario game was Super Mario All Stars i think, i played it on an emulator since like i said i didn’t have access to actual Nintendo stuff at the time.

@agentogames: If fangames count, it was SM63. But as for official games, the og Super Mario Bros. on Wii VC.

@antonio444: Mario & Luigi (DOS), is so old that it didn’t even have music, although I spent several years playing the excellent Super Mario Bros X.

@chriti03: And, continuing the story, the first mario game i played was very probably New Super Mario Bros., always enjoyed that game and it really got me into liking the mario series and platformers in general

@skeletontourguide: My first Mario game was probably Super Mario All-Stars. It was on an old SNES that used to belong to my mom! The SNES was at my grandparent’s house, so it was always a special occasion when I got to play it!

@ariejuice: All I remember holding the controller the wrong way in Mario Kart Wii because I couldn’t comprehend motion controls yet (I was 4) and proceeded to crash Mario at the trees in Mario Circuit.

@met3o: First Official Nintendo Mario game I owned was New Super Mario Bros Wii, but I had played Mario Kart 8 & DS on other people’s systems before. However, the first Mario game I played and completed was Super Mario 63. Other fan-made titles like Super Mario Flash, Infinite Mario Bros, Mario Kombat, and Sonic in Mario World 2 were also among my first experiences in the Mario world.

How about your introduction to game development?

@plugandplaystation: It started around 2013 or 2014. The 3DS had been out for a little bit, and I started to get curious about how games were made for consoles. That led me down a 13 year-long rabbit hole that went from cracking games to modding defunct MMOs to writing my own game engine, then I ended up here with the 127 team. Now I have a job as a programmer in the gaming industry!

@charpurrr: i actually met our former lead through an old Roblox project iirc. we became friends and shortly after I already joined the 127 team. all my experience with game dev pretty much stems from this project alone – and anything I’ve done during the course of it

@E_WOLFFE: When I was about 11 years old, I was introduced to Khan Academy, and I took Java Script courses through that program. Later I took an online class teaching Java through modding Minecraft. I’ve dabbled in code since, but not much. Besides that, I liked making resource packs for Minecraft. I prefer making art for games, so I’ve worked with my friends on Minecraft resource packs and published my own tilesets on Itch.io.

@goatsoup.mp3: My first projects, I was still very new to music production but offered help to friends creating hobby games and fan projects (which was such a cool thing to me starting out).

I slowly got better over time through the rest of my teenage years. Working on a project, even one that fails (which happens in the small game space, fan passion project or not), you still do come out of it with some connections, which is how I got deeper into it along with learning and studying a lot along the way.

My music partner @Arie is someone I met and collaborated on projects that failed but got closer and better as coordinators and musicians and met more people along the way. We are now sound coordinators on this game.

Our last major project together was Super Mario Story, which I think in spite of the project’s cancellation, we did great work for the time and circumstances we were working in.. and we’ll do an even better job on SM127 with so much talent around us. I’m confident.

@ariejuice: Ironically, I knew nothing about game development besides from the occasional YouTube video and my first actual project (from the time writing this) 2 years ago and how I met @goatsoup.mp3. We worked on a couple fangame projects together. When she recruited me I sorta lied my way into the project and had no musical identity at the time so she had to teach me the ropes. We realized from messing around in different genres and what we wanted to accomplish from working in Super Mario Story’s OST that we have a strong bond with one another.

@mama.luigi: I got into Scratch when i was like 8 because of my dad and i stayed with that until i was like uhh 13 and ever since then i’ve been kinda coasting off of that

@linktober: messing around on the family computer made me encounter a lot of different things I would also mess around with, like the Mario 63 and Last Legacy level editors, scratch, other miscellaneous games that I couldn’t tell you what they are nowadays.

@rudy12345mc: Messed around with stuff like the Mario 63 editor, the Algodoo editor, and eventually made a lot of levels in Mario Maker 1 and 2, which I’m proud of. I made some small projects in Scratch. My absolute peak has been making levels for this game.

@Doram: I’ve been a programmer for years in other capacities, and my love of video games always hung around in the back of my mind as something I would love to get into development for. I was a big part of the SM63 community from almost the beginning, especially as it brought level design into the equation. When I found out about the push to develop SM127, I jumped on board immediately.

@.dignity.: My introduction was actually SM127, believe it or not. I was not interested in game dev at all before I noticed the project making its way through all the 63 discord servers. I decided then that I wanted to learn to code and help make the game. It took a few years but here I am.

@snugglybun_scsp: Tried to make my own games when I was a kid on GameMaker (before it was even called Studio, way back when version 8.1 was latest in 2011) and failing miserably. Then I gave up.

Although when it came to being in videogame dev communities themselves, I lurked on some of them for a long time. I was introduced to what could be described as SM127’s sister project, Super Mario 63 Redux, 2 years ago and I’ve talked to some of its developers; but not much on the side of actually doing gamedev stuff happened until very recently when Charrpur told me that I should try doing music for SM127.

@agentogames: I had a miniscule amount of experience coding with JavaScript via Khan Academy, and there were a few games I made a long time ago on a website called Tynker, but I don’t do much coding anymore, now I’m mainly doing art. I started sharing my art online recently, and one day FastMario suggested I apply to work on 127, so here I am.

@antonio444: I had a job offer as a sprinter in an indie games group in Peru, which I did not agree to, however I have been a pixel art artist for several years as side entertainment.

@chriti03: It was like 2020-2021 winter holidays, was kinda bored and started checking how unity works. It seemed very cool and without any knowledge I even tried joining a game jam. It ended up terribly because of miscommunication. In the meantime, I starting making levels with sm127, really enjoying it and then I ended up being on the coolest team! (charl is holding me on gun point rn)(disclaimer: this is false information but it could be true, be aware)

@hrasyurr: I kinda didn’t have an introduction? I have always liked spriting ever since I was a kid. This isn’t the first game I worked on, but certainly feels like it is. The team here is so nice, and funny. It’s an honour to be part of it.

The real first game project I worked on was a Super Mario fangame I was making by myself that didn’t really go that far as I didn’t have the programming skills I needed at the time.

@skeletontourguide: I started making games using Bitsy and Puzzlescript for Newgrounds in 2018. I used those engines because they didn’t require any coding, and I didn’t know how to program at the time. The games I made in those engines are pretty awful, but I still keep them up so I can see how far I’ve come as a developer!

@met3o: The very first time I tried making my own game mechanics was on an old version of Blender when I was still new to the software (back when Blender still had a game engine). But it wasn’t intuitive at all and I struggled with it and didn’t continue. Later on, small coding projects for school, as well as game dev/editing projects in university (C/Java) would give me a more thorough and robust, if technically challenging, approach to game dev from scratch.

Either way, let’s talk about the original Super Mario 63 for a bit. How did you find out about that game?

@plugandplaystation: I actually discovered it almost a month or two after it was released on Newgrounds! I enjoyed it, but my parents didn’t have an internet subscription, so my only way to play it was when I took trips to my grandparents– who had a computer that was decent enough to play it on. I actually never got to beat the game until recently.

@charpurrr: funnily enough I wasn’t as invested in the old game as some of the other team/community members. I never really got around to fully playing it until I started this project. I did play it before, but not that much basically.

@E_WOLFFE: When I was 8 or 9 my cousins showed me a website called mariogame.info, which had SM63 on it. Having a full-sized game for free is enough for any 8yo, but a level creator too? It was one of my favourite games growing up and I continue to play it from time to time.

@goatsoup.mp3: When I was small, I played a lot of flash games like a lot of kids with internet access back then, and yeah- SM63 was definitely one of them! I’m not super close with the original but I did spend a lot of time with it as a kid and I’m definitely familiar with the sounds it presented.

@mama.luigi: I don’t really remember but intuition tells me I probably looked up “Mario games for computer free” or something like that. I never did end up beating it since I was a bab but I do hold a lot of nostalgia for it despite that. I think it was the first flash game I ever played?

@linktober: I looked up Mario games on google years ago and found Super Mario Sunshine 64 on Newgrounds, and from there I found Super Mario 63

@retroreboot: I vaguely remember finding it on some flash game site and playing it just a little bit on a computer that could barely handle it. I didn’t play it very much but it’s stuck with me for some reason. Went back and played through it fully after joining the 127 team.

@rudy12345mc: I remember finding it and playing it a lot as a young child, and I ended up really gravitating towards the game throughout the years. It’s just kinda been a constant throughout my life since I found out about it. I was there before Thwomps were added p sure, I remember finding the odd demos and such too like SMS128 and the one without Tidal Isles.

@Doram: I originally came across SM63 when looking for fun Flash games for my young son, and I fell in love with it myself. I tracked down the original source for the game, and joined the official Runouw community, and the rest is history. I ended up running the original community for a number of years before the site for it went down, and kept with the community as it moved to Discord. Keeping up the wiki for SM63, I was there for the renaissance in the scene that spurred the start of the SM127 project, and took a slightly less involved role as a spriter at the time.

@.dignity.: It was when I was exploring Newgrounds a long time ago. I played a lot of really bad games and really good ones, then I came across SM63. At first, I thought it was a typo and the name was supposed to be SM64, but that thought was corrected quickly. I played through the game so many times I lost count, then I just kinda… forgot about it for a long time.

@snugglybun_scsp: Being someone who lurked in Newgrounds one day I found out about that game in 2009 and I instantly fell in love with it. It became one of my most favourite games during that time when I was a kid.

@agentogames: I remembered my older brother showing it to me once when I was like 3 or 4 years old, and it’s stuck in my memory ever since. It was one of the first video games I ever played.

@antonio444: I don’t remember the first time I played it. but I spent hours trying to get shine sprites, it’s quite nostalgic to have finished it.

@chriti03: Definitely while randomly searching for “Super Mario” on random flash games sites. I was never able to get past the initial castle for some random reason, I don’t really know. It was very cool tho, and i was able to fully enjoy it after i played the exe version some time ago.

@ariejuice: I found out from school and my cousin that’s about it really. Also, I grew up watching Newground animations and listening to its music. So I was eventually gonna find it one way or another.

@skeletontourguide: When I was a little kid, I didn’t have any gaming consoles at home. I really liked to play Mario at my grandparent’s place, so I would play a lot of Mario fan-games on my parent’s computer! Super Mario 63 was always one I would keep coming back to because it was one of the most polished and well-made ones I could find at the time!

@hrasyurr: After Mario World and Mario 3, I started searching a lot about Mario. It was then that I found out about Super Mario 64. I don’t remember exactly how I found Super Mario 63, but I remember seeing some gameplays of it and thinking to myself “This looks like Mario 64, how do I play it!?”

This game grew into me very quickly. Even though I couldn’t even tell how the controls worked.

@met3o: Originally, I played Super Mario Sunshine 64 – a very old beta similar to Mario 63 but EXTREMELY buggy, unpolished and unfinished. Then over time, I discovered different versions of Mario 63 alongside it, until I came across a host of the final version on A10.com and I decided to stick with it. Good fan-made Mario games have always been rare, and the early 2010s were no different. So Super Mario 63, along with a few others, stood out greatly to me. It took nearly a year, but eventually I completed it, making it among the longest times I have taken to beat a Super Mario game. I also finalized the 100% completion on Friday the 13th of November 2013, just under 10 years ago at the time of writing 🙂

Did you play Super Mario Sunshine 64 beforehand?

@plugandplaystation: I think so, but my memory is a little foggy. I vaguely remember it working for a little while but breaking about halfway through the intro sequence. Not sure why. Maybe it was because of the bootleg flash games website I was playing it on.

@charpurrr: mmmaybe I’m unsure. I can tell the difference nowadays but I don’t think I would’ve been able to do so a gazillion years ago.

@mama.luigi: No 🙂 I should do that probably

@linktober: Barely, I stopped playing it pretty quickly but I remember it.

@rudy12345mc: I remember clicking on it instead of 63 sometimes and wondering what it was and why it was more basic. Maybe I played it before 63 came out?

@Doram: No, I missed the original version of SM63, though I became aware of the early version once I joined the community. I happened to have missed out on the original Super Mario Sunshine as well, so the whole FLUDD experience was a pleasant surprise to me, and a fun addition to the Mario formula.

@am43210: Yes, but I never got very far until I decided to 100% complete it recently. The sluggish player and camera movement always stuck out to me. Somehow the final SM63 ended up with a really kinetic movement system where you can zip around, chaining speed-boosting moves together and extending your airtime, to the point that a lot of the challenge comes from landing Mario on small platforms. I don’t know how this change came about, but I’m really thankful for it as it makes the game so appealing to return to.

@.dignity.: No, I played it afterwards. I only figured out that it was the earlier version of 63 after I joined the SM63 speedrunning community. It was definitely an… experience. But hey, every successful game has to start from somewhere.

@snugglybun_scsp: Yeah, I remember playing that game before SM63. It’s really jank even compared to SM63 itself but hey we all have to start from somewhere.

@agentogames: Uh… maybe? If I did, it was a long time ago.

@antonio444: Yes, it was common to find it by mistake since some game pages presented it as Super Mario 63 to attract attention, although it was not precisely the same

@chriti03: I’m pretty sure i haven’t

@ariejuice: nah

@skeletontourguide: I don’t think so. I played a lot of Mario browser games so it’s hard to remember!

@hrasyurr: First time hearing about it.

@met3o: I didn’t know this would be a question, but yes as I mentioned in another answer, I tried playing this a lot first and actually got relatively far once or twice, but the inconsistent physics, unpolished design, and glitches made it too hard to play much. Super Mario 63’s more smooth nature, fun atmosphere, and availability of save files were certainly a breath of fresh air in comparison.

What are your favourite elements of the game?

@plugandplaystation: The level editor and general feel of Mario’s movement in 2D is what I love the most. The story was also very memorable for me, not really because it was super amazing or anything, but mostly because it was a decent Mario story at a time when getting a new Mario game was a luxury for me. In retrospect, the very dated jokes that some of the Toad NPCs tell are also extremely funny to revisit now. (I love you, George Bush toad.)

@charpurrr: 100%. I love games with so much bonus content that you can keep playing the game for days even after you’ve beaten the main storyline.

@goatsoup.mp3: I really enjoyed the amount of content it had and how much I felt like I could interact with the game. I never got to play Super Mario Sunshine or any derivative project of that by fans so that is and might be one of the most prominent memories with the “FLUDD” mechanic.

@mama.luigi: Honestly I have dementia so this is kind of a tuff question but I think it’s mostly just the gameplay style, movement physics and whatnot. Fun game

@linktober: I really like the secrets in that game, I would find some of them as a kid and think that I was a mastermind 😮

@rudy12345mc: I’m sure you mean 63 in this question. I like the different secrets in the game being able to explore the castle and the levels for them. I also love the movement, the physics are sweet especially for a flash fan project, and using the different FLUDDs to get around is awesome. The level design and story are also cool, neat to see a mind corrupted Bowser. The structure of the game being pretty much open to play any level at any time if you know what you’re doing is also very nice, makes it the peak game to play on school lunch break. The toads are also funny.

@Doram: One of the things that really struck me about the original SM63 is how thoroughly it captured the Mario Brothers feel. The levels Runouw made for the main campaign really felt like real official levels, and having played Super Mario 64 for being able to get the references to the 3D levels, I admired their ability to translate a lot of that 3D gameplay back to 2D, and make it just as fun. And, having a Level Designer to be able to make my own levels that tried for that same feel, was simply amazing to me, as a long time Mario fan.

@.dignity.: The MOVEMENT. SM63 incorporates so many movement options without even including FLUDD or the different caps. I’m a speedrunner of SM63, so naturally I’ve spent hundreds of hours just moving around to practice the movement, and I’ve never felt the movement let me down other for some minor questionable design choices. Even after getting every shine and star coin so many times, the gameplay is what keeps the game fresh. (and the need to beat the game in under 6 minutes and 30 seconds)

@snugglybun_scsp: The fact that it’s surprisingly really competent and well put together for a 2009 flash Mario fangame. Like, it’s actually really fun to play even today. Everything’s so smooth, the controls make sense, the overall look is so vibrant, there’s so much content, etc.

@agentogames: Basically, the entire thing. The movement is super satisfying, the writing is absolutely amazing in retrospect (I wasn’t able to truly appreciate until recently), and my absolute favourite part was wandering Peach’s Castle and finding all the hidden passages.

@antonio444: It is quite satisfying to handle the physics of a 3D Mario in a 2D game, since it moves away from the static movements that one normally encounters, being able to do triple jumps and jump is quite fun. A mechanic that fascinated me about sm63 was that Mario would sleep if you stayed without moving for a few minutes; It was fun to discover it as a child, I hope they implement it in sm127

@chriti03: Surely the level designer open choices and the fast and vast moveset we got; it has always been nice to play for me because of them. I also really liked playing and replaying sample levels others devs made.

@ariejuice: Probably the movement and watching speedrunners completely demolish the game within minutes and how it takes elements of 2D Mario and blends with 64 and Galaxy 1.

@hrasyurr: F.L.U.D.D! At the time I didn’t know about Mario Sunshine, and that water machine looked so cool to me as a kid. Honestly it still does.

Oh, and also how it looks like Mario 64 in 2D.

AH! The final level of the game still holds up so well. It’s honestly one of the best experiences I’ve had in a platforming genre fangame.

@skeletontourguide: The game always had a very magical and whimsical feel. The open level design meant that there were always new secrets and splendours to find! The movement mechanics were also really fun to use.

@met3o: Luigi’s playability (cutscenes aside where he turns back into Mario), the game’s story, and just how fun all of the missions are with Mario/Luigi’s abilities. And the fact that it references 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy so well. And the fact that star coins get rewarded as much as shine sprites, if not more!

@E_WOLFFE: The creativity of the storyline, the inclusion of FLUDD, and the level designer are my favourite things. It set my expectations really high… perhaps too high for real Nintendo games sometimes.

Any you feel didn’t hold up too well?

@plugandplaystation: I remember level sharing to be difficult to get working. You needed either a Newgrounds account or an account on Runouw’s site (maybe both?), and even then, it sometimes wouldn’t upload your levels. Maybe it was more a side effect of me being computer illiterate at the time, but regardless it’s still something we’re trying to make simpler and more intuitive for 127

@charpurrr: LD for sure, it was powerful at the time, but doesn’t hold up to modern standards anymore imo

@mama.luigi: Bowser sprite !!!! uh idk

@linktober: nah, i think it held up pretty well from what I remember.

@rudy12345mc: Runouw needed a spell checker at points, but I guess it made good family guy funny moments like “sittting” or “Meteor of Ultimite Destruction”. Oh, and the level editor lags to crap if you do anything more complicated than a single screen level with like 5 objects. Other than that yea it all holds up pretty solidly honestly. Will probably remain my favourite Flash Game of all time.

@retroreboot: the game is still fairly fun but some of the level design I find frustrating and I feel some kind of disconnect between the platforming and the enemies that makes them feel out of place. The writing also dates itself a fair bit. Still, the core gameplay is very fun.

@Doram: In the original SM63 community, one of the things we ran into many times was the limitations of Flash. Memory leaks and inefficient framework causing slowdown and crashes made pushing the envelope on Level Design a real pain for reasons that had nothing to do with the design of your level.

@am43210: There’s not a lot of enemy variety, and a lot of bosses stoop to spamming the same basic enemies between phases. The potential for more interesting combat is really promising, so it’s something i hope we can expand on. The Star Map is also kinda useless if you’re trying to get everything, since it doesn’t label the individual courses for secret Shines and Star Coins.

@.dignity.: With a game this old, there’re a bunch of things that don’t hold up today. The grammar and spelling are all over the place, and there are quite a few design choices that should have simply not happened (ahem, the Kamek shine in upstairs.) I could go on and on, but the thing that really annoys the most is the fact that the game only has 64 shines and 64 star coins hehe

@snugglybun_scsp: The fact that it’s still a 2009 Flash Mario game after all. Being made in Flash means that there’s a lot of inexplicable slowdown that wouldn’t happen if the game was coded in a different framework. Also, the fact that you could just break and glitch the game for some reason.

Graphic design in this game is something I have mixed feelings with, as the sprite clash on one hand makes me feel nostalgic about an era before standards of fan games and indie games increased significantly and they feel charming on their own way; but on the other hand, sometimes some graphics styles just don’t mesh well together at all.

@agentogames: Level designer. Didn’t know how it worked back then, and even though I do now, there’s way better stuff out there now. The graphic design is also… an acquired taste.

@antonio444: The level editor could never generate a level as good as the ones we see in campaign mode

@hrasyurr: I have a lot of nostalgia for it, so I might not be able to tell.

@skeletontourguide: The graphics are very old-school Newgrounds looking. It’s very charming, but you can clearly tell that it’s an old game just by looking at it!

@met3o: For a game coordinated mostly by two guys, Super Mario 63 is impressively robust, but it isn’t exactly perfect, though more than close enough!

As with the normal Super Mario 64 and to an extent Sunshine, this game’s gameplay isn’t particularly smooth by modern-day standards. Some gameplay choices (such as the Rainbow Ride missions) come to mind. Also, Luigi turns back into Mario during (many) cutscenes, as well as when you pick Bowser up in the final fight. Could’ve been patched imo, it almost feels like he was shoehorned in as a feature without much patching, though it’s still great to have him in there (and he should have been nerfed in some aspects like in Galaxy!)

@E_WOLFFE: Obviously the game is dated, its graphics limited, its references to U.S. presidents out of place.

Why did you decide to make a sequel to it?

@charpurrr: Mr Flarewire, our former lead, started it as a hobby/practice project that wasn’t ever planned to get as far as it did. Throughout the course of development, everyone just collectively decided it’d be a cool idea to make it a fully-fledged out little project ig!!

@plugandplaystation: What Charlotte said :P. But really, Super Mario 63 had some issues that didn’t hold up to most games nowadays, and with the death of Flash making access to the game much more difficult, most of us knew it was a good time to give the game a fresh coat of paint. My personal interest in the project started after someone on the Render96 team (now RetroAesthetics) showed off some gameplay of this new sequel to Super Mario 63. After I saw it, I immediately knew I wanted to be a part of its development in some way. I joined the Discord server for the project, and figured out that it was actually using the same game engine I was also learning to use!

@retroreboot: idk I just work here man

@Doram: At the time, SM63 had gotten a ton of new attention, and the end of Flash was no longer a far-off threat, but now a scheduled inevitability, and the decision made by all the new fans in concert with all the old ones was simple. We need to save this somehow. Thus Redux, SM127, and other projects took off at the time, to remake or add to SM63 with a new generation of programming, and the new age we are living in now began. We on the SM127 team were lucky at the time, because Runouw made a return to the internet at the time, and we actually got “official” sanction from the creator of SM63, to make the sequel to the famous Flash original, and we took the opportunity to make ours an attempt to make a whole new story to really be not just a remake, but a real sequel.

@.dignity.: Our former bigman Flarewire started it and, the moment I saw it, I joined the server and eventually made my way to the dev team because of my simple need for more SM63 and my love for the game. Now, I keep working on the game more or less because I feel the need to pick up where Flare left off.

@rudy12345mc: Mostly wanted to work on this after finding this sequel to my childhood game, playing it, then hanging out with the community and making and playing awesome levels for two years. Figured I should step up and try to do something for it officially if I was doing well in contests and such.

@agentogames: I didn’t even know this game existed until last year or so at SAGE, but after I found out and downloaded the demo, I was immediately invested. SM63 holds my earliest gaming memories, so I’m honoured to be a part of this project in any way, shape, or form.

@antonio444: Because sm63 is a game that deserves to surpass the barriers of the flash format, it is stimulating to play

@skeletontourguide: I think a co-op feature is definitely a worthy reason to make a sequel!

@met3o: Super Mario 63 was literally my childhood, and now as an adult with a passion for these types of projects, I am eager to return and use it as inspiration to create a fresh, honourable sequel that many more can enjoy in the future, almost like a bookend to a story.

What’s going on story wise here? We’re gonna assume the plot is very different from the original game, right?

@linktober: being a sequel, there is a new plot that is not related to mario 63. Not my job to share though >:]

@charpurrr: (it is his job to share)

@retroreboot: (literally his job)

@rudy12345mc: (c’mon bro)

Umm, expect sand? Bowser and Kamek are gonna cause more trouble, and you’re going to team up with Eddie (the toad from the start of 63). The story won’t be set in Peach’s Castle, there will be a brand-new setting.

@Doram: XD Yup. We’re trying to keep the plot a bit of a mystery for now, and there’s been a lot of great work being done in the dev channels. We think we have some really cool ideas, and something that does justice to the legacy of SM63, so stay tuned!

@.dignity.: The plot is going to be a direct continuation but we can’t really spoil too much. It will be super different though!

@agentogames: What they said lol

@antonio444: @

@chriti03: *insert Tol face on a sign far away in the Sahara Desert

@ariejuice: (Literally his job and we’re still waiting)

How did you decide on a graphical style for the game? It certainly seems to strike a good balance between the original’s Yoshi’s Island/Mario & Luigi mash up style and a more consistent one from what we’ve seen so far…

@charpurrr: it took a really long time for us (the art team) to come up with a style that would do both the original game, and its fans justice. It started by redesigning Mario (which was originally just the Mario sprites from Mario & Luigi Bowser’s Inside Story), that eventually turned into redoing everything we have thus far.

The artstyle process for this game has been really messy. It started from purely programmer art due to the lack of a broader vision as mentioned before – then actual artists started joining the team and everything started to get a major graphical overhaul. After a solid 3 years with said art style, it started to feel a little dated. So, we came up with the current WIP one.

@rudy12345mc: Charlotte’s sprite work is awesome.

@Doram: Agreed, the current art direction is great, and an improvement over the first round we tried. We are working on making sure the engine is up to snuff as well with a rewrite, so hang in there as we work to put together the best game we can.

@plugandplaystation: Loving the confidence Doram. 😆 But really, the sprite direction wouldn’t at all have gotten to where it is today if it wasn’t for the many different contributors we’ve had on the art team over the past few years.

@antonio444: I wasn’t actively involved in the sprite revamp, but even jointly choosing a definitive sprite for Mario was a difficult task.

@chriti03: All i can say here is that PumpkinVolt and Charpurr are really based.

One of the most important aspects of a game’s presentation is its soundtrack, and 63 did a stellar job there. What’s the soundtrack like for 127?

@ariejuice: The 127 OST is supposed to be an evolution of the early 2000s sound with modern Nintendo sound design from the Wii era, I want this game to live up to the expectations of being a sequel to the original. That being said, 63’s campaign is gonna be a love letter to the game with new ideas and arranged music. While, 127 is gonna have a blend of both 63’s identity and original tracks. I want this OST to have diversity with music genres and an identity of its own. A goal I wanna do (myself personally) is to sound like Saitama Saisyu Heiki for the possible metal tracks in the game and ParagonX9 for 63’s campaign which I have sent below:

It’s an arrangement of “The Alternate Route” from 63.

Regarding Saitama Saisyu Heiki, I would love to make a boss theme or stage theme based off this: Crystal Frequency. But time will run its course and let’s see yeah?

@goatsoup.mp3: I think we are pushing for a hi-fi, well produced sound for this game with that 2000’s VGM touch, to invoke the original SM63 (which sampled many tracks made with that time period baked into it). I’ll be using my legacy sounds from that period, but I also do want to aim for it to be something that sounds original and like it was made today.

Aside from maybe access to a live band or so on (though we do have some instrumentalists), we don’t have a lot of limitations, really.

There is an important technical aspect of the sound I’d like to describe though.

While we’re producing music with software like any other modern game– I’d say one of the most helpful pieces of equipment we have providing sounds for us is the Roland Fantom X workstation. This was a popular keyboard workstation in the 2000’s and just has that exact sound we need and I think is really essential for what we’re setting out to do.

@retroreboot: Well for the 127 campaign, I believe the intent is to have a soundtrack that is mostly composed of new music, while still rearranging Mario staples like the star theme. As for the 63 portion of the game, the tracks used in 63 are being totally rearranged by myself and the other composers.

@am43210: A lot of the arrangements used in 63 are a bit kitschy in trying to make music from Super Mario 64 sound cool—well, aside from “The Alternate Route” (the “Koopa’s Road” remix), which pulls it off effortlessly. Those are elements that I want to combine with richer soundscapes and harmonies. I’m currently tweaking my contributions to improve the mixing, heighten the energy, and bring out the best in these tracks. I haven’t had much to go off of for original music yet, but I’m excited to go all out when the time comes!

@plugandplaystation: To kind of expound on what RetroReboot said, we’re trying to improve on the execution of the soundtrack in both the 63 and 127 campaigns. The current plan with the 127 campaign is to be conservative with how many remixes and covers of songs from previous Mario games we use, while still including some motifs wherever it seems right to. Some of the settings in the new 127 campaign have a reputation for pretty… generic music, especially when similar settings are used in other games. That’s something we’re trying to avoid from the get-go. But we really liked the ideas 63 had as far as using unconventional genres with Mario music (whether or not it holds up today is up for debate :)).

@snugglybun_scsp: I’m not sure, I’m someone who joined a few weeks ago and I’m following orders from those who know better than me in this whole thing. Although I would follow what has been set in stone most of the time, I also want to deviate from the rules and do something more unique and quirky for some special occasions of the game.

One of the difficulties I have with working here is being a tracker user in the middle of FL Studio users, and i wonder how that’s gonna influence the output and overall feel of the game’s OST (or if I’m going to pick up a more traditional DAW eventually)

@antonio444: (I just want to say that, please, “alternate route” only lacks the climax that “Koopa Road original” has in which the cymbals sound, with that it would be perfect and I could die in peace)

Are there going to be more original songs, or remixes of those from existing games?

@am43210: I am biased and would push for more original music like how Retro says for 127. There’s more room for creativity by presenting completely new ideas than old ones in a coat of a new paint.
I will say, even with arrangements in 127, we will still try to find ways to surprise you with how we’ll show old tunes to you again.

For 63, I encouraged the musicians on that to make sure the sound, while newly produced, is still inspired and faithful to the original 63 in some ways so players feel a sense of familiarity.

@plugandplaystation: (I’m with the goat on this one)

@snugglybun_scsp: (I agree with goat too)

@antonio444: who knows

What are your favourite levels so far?

@linktober: from the sample levels I am a big fan of Gold Rush Gulch and its decoration. Some of the community levels are very cool too, some of my personal favourites being made in our community’s design contests.

@charpurrr: literally any level by the guys whose levels were so awesome – they got hired

@rudy12345mc: I think the coolest thing so far has been the 9 part “Alexandria Space Station” that someone made. In addition, the “Grand Tollaboration Castle” and “Grand Tol Archipelago” are a couple of really cool collab levels that I hosted. Other than that, pretty much every contest we’ve had has had some unique stand out bangers so I’d check past contests we’ve done for cool levels. We’re planning on adding some of the community’s favourite levels to the samples in the next update so look out for that.

Oh yea the Nice Day anthropology is cool too that was very silly.

@mama.luigi: the nice day series but like unironically. also one must imagine and level 999

@Doram: One of the things that is so great about Level Design is that you don’t even HAVE to make it play or feel like a Mario game. There have been a lot of really great off-beat levels shared out there in the community that give really fun experiences, no matter the framework. I still want to see what we come up with as the main campaign levels, so I don’t want to choose a favourite just yet, but both the development group and the larger community have been keeping the project alive with a never-ending stream of new fun levels.

@.dignity.: Lost Caves by Chri in the sample levels, because of how close it feels to an actual open world level. It feels like something that you’d see in 63 with some tweaking.

@plugandplaystation: Probably All Season Vacation. I appreciate the more mechanical ideas of levels, especially the ones that push the boundaries of the engine. Not just because of the cool ideas they have, but also because of how easy they can be to break… which despite popular belief is a good thing for the programmer! All of the updates to the game I’ve worked on were playtested on All Season Vacation, because it was usually the first level to break if something went wrong. 😆

@skeletontourguide: There are so many good ones it’s hard to say! I’ve played a ton of great levels with my brother in co-op mode.

@snugglybun_scsp: I’m not sure what to choose x . x, I’m bad with choosing favourites. There are a lot of SM127 levels that are really amazing. Also, there’s the fact that when 0.8.0 comes they will be radically different.

@antonio444: It’s difficult for me to decide, I feel that if I mention one level I would be forgetting other quite beautiful ones (in other words, I don’t remember their level names XD)

@chriti03: Basically all late Link and Rudy levels are very nice and worth playing. As said, most of the community levels made for contests are also always worth a check. (Also, very honoured to be mentioned by dignity 🙏)

@E_WOLFFE: The Alexandria Space Station series is my favourite so far.

Any really cool level ideas you’re excited to show off in future?

@linktober: YES, especially with some of the tools that will be developed for the level designer, it will be extremely fun to make some of these levels.

@charpurrr: As the LD becomes even more powerful, more levels will start using environmental effects and fancy lights everywhere. I think this’ll make everything look so pretty and awesome and cool. IIRC we have some really awesome Bowser neon city level planned for the campaign.

@chriti03: You guys may not be ready for them

@skeletontourguide: I’ve never really used the editor myself, but with all the new quality-of-life features we’re adding, I might have to give it a go!

What are the bosses like? Presumably they’ll be very different from those in either Super Mario 63 or its inspirations…

@linktober: we are not too far into planning for bosses, but we do have some ideas that include completely new bosses.

@rudy12345mc: We’re gonna be adding the Boss Baby as a boss in this game, it’ll be awesome we’re planning a whole 7 phase boss encounter for him.

Uhh yea someone else answer this one.

@mama.luigi: rugby be serious for 5 seconds challenge (impossible)

@Doram: Yes, similar to the plot, there’s stuff we haven’t decided on yet, and stuff we don’t want to spoil. Though with the new mechanics going into the game, you can absolutely expect the bosses to play quite differently.

Will other characters be playable here? Like Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, etc?

@charpurrr: Luigi for sure, as he was in 63 and there’s a new design for him already. We did have other characters planned but with the current rate of development, we might have to stick with our two brothers only :c

@rudy12345mc: Yoshi is basically unofficially confirmed at this point. We’ll see if he makes it in. Mario and Luigi will also be able to unlock different palettes throughout the game. Wario would be awesome to have, giving him a Wario Land / Pizza Tower inspired moveset has been brought up once or twice, but don’t count on him making it into the game currently. Character modding would be awesome once the game goes open source.

@plugandplaystation: (I’ve been secretly working on a playable Wario this whole time without anybody knowing about it. Surprise!)

But seriously, it’d be nice to have some different characters with different play styles in the future. That’s definitely being prepared for in the rewrite of the engine. We’re also planning on adding some more advanced modding tools to the game as development continues, so who knows, maybe YOU can make a new character! (Yes, you! Reading the article!)

@skeletontourguide: Luigi is playable for player 1 or 2. Or both!

Any interesting powerups? Maybe inspired by Wonder or other recent games?

@charpurrr: some of the 63 powerups got some reworks, and a few new ones are planned which we won’t spoil just yet. Perhaps even expect some super insane groundbreaking never before seen new ideas!

@linktober: Well, we have the Rainbow Star in the game currently, which is a powerup that causes mario to run constantly and gives him invincibility for the most part and a powerful wall jump. There are also some new power ups being thought of like above, but they won’t be spoiled.

@antonio444: The star power in sm127 is pretty frenetic to tell the truth.

@skeletontourguide: FLUDD is probably the coolest powerup in my opinion!

What’s the deal with Darius the Mailman?

@ariejuice: Dad, He came back with the milk from 7/11

@retroreboot: This joke has gone too far and was never funny. Reminds me of the kind of humour I had in middle school. That is all.

@charpurrr: RetroReboot should wake up

@mama.luigi: God!! He’s God!! Me personally I just think he has a cool design so I like putting him in stuff and the server lore surrounding him is real neat. Charlotte’s right btw

@linktober: he’s a character made by Rovert, a Super Mario 64 romhacker. It became a bit on the 127 server after Darius Maker was announced during F3 and the original lead found it very funny as far as I know. I think the bit is alright, but I do find the actual characters of Darius and Dmitri very cool, especially with Dmitri basically being the people’s character. Dmitri has only been featured in fanart and fangames, and his character of being an agent has made some pretty cool games by some members of the 127 team like Agent Dmitri Cleanup Crew.

@rudy12345mc: He’s awesome. He inspires me every day to be awesome like he is. Who knew a hard-working mailman could get so far?

Anyways we’re burning RetroRobot at the stake tonight 🙂

@retroreboot: ^That’s not my name

@am43210: Darious

@.dignity.: DARIUS. But in all seriousness, he was character made by Rovert for a fangame that we basically idolized. Charlotte’s right btw

@plugandplaystation: he’s basically the community’s mascot. We kidnap borrow him from time to time to help us get inspiration for game jams the team joins every now and then.

@snugglybun_scsp: Darius is a video game that exists.

@antonio444: It is rude to talk about someone when they are listening to you (they are always present…)

@chriti03: oh no no, Darius doesn’t make deals, you’re probably referring to his brother Dimitri.

@skeletontourguide: He’s a great character that should be made official by Nintendo.

@met3o: We love Darius

Regardless, let’s talk about the level editor now. What are some of the big improvements compared to 63 here?

@charpurrr: currently, the LD (as of public release 7.2) is soo much more powerful than the 63 one not only in terms of customisability, but content and power. We even have an entire level hosting website called Level Share Square, which also hosts other Mario fangames with some familiar faces from our team :3

@rudy12345mc: Honestly autotiling makes such a big difference more editors need that. Foreground and Background tiling, alongside the block palettes, and custom music also make a huge difference for level theming, alongside every level that isn’t 2 seconds long running at a framerate better than 2fps. Star Coins are also great to add in levels, alongside being to name your shines and be able to choose to make them non-kickout. More tools coming soon will streamline level building even further.

@linktober: I have heard some horror stories about the 63 level editor, like weird moving platforms, manual tiling, several objects in the campaign not present in game, no custom music, and a lot more. I have some problems with the 127 level editor, especially with some weird stuff, but compared to the original the editor is way more powerful.

I also really enjoy making tools and discovering cool interactions for the editor. There’s also a subsection of the level editing community that I’m a part of which involves some advanced tricks found and developed by the community. Code editing is something done by the 127 community which I have made a document all about. It lets us use experimental features and unused objects that have not been implemented like multidirectional platforms, gravity strength changing, and F.L.U.D.D. nozzles outside of boxes. The community also makes programs that generate object code for 127 that can streamline some otherwise tedious processes. Programs that let us generate grids and clusters of objects, and a tool that makes creating custom pixel art and multidirectional platforms a breeze.

In other words, the level editor is very cool and the level editing community is also very cool 🙂

@am43210: Super Mario 63 did its best in a world before Super Mario Maker, but its Level Designer is tough to put up with these days. Immediately we have a much better baseline for user interface design, and more screen space to let it breathe. We’re also planning features to make terraforming even easier than with our current autotiling system.

@antonio444: The personalized music, my god, it was the best thing in the world.

@skeletontourguide: The multiplayer co-op feature opens up a lot of possibilities for creative and unique levels!

@met3o: Proper programming-type logic for your editor functions, comparable to Scratch (it’s still in the works though). You will also be able to have different subareas within the same level, with different music and tilesets!

Are there interesting new themes not present in the original?

@linktober: Yes, especially considering the tile palette system. Nearly every tile and object has the ability to choose from premade or custom colours to make a myriad of themes that were impossible in Super Mario 63. Some other tiles that aren’t in 63 are also planned for or are in the game already like the bonus bricks.

@Doram: The new color choices for everything give a lot of new options all by themselves. You want a level all in shades of red, orange, and brown to make it set it in the fall, you can do that. Pastel colours for springtime, we got that too. Want to make a level with the same landmasses, but the colours change with the “seasons”, and you can easily bring time as an element, which is something that was pretty impossible with SM63. New mechanics will also present new opportunities to make the best use of the powers through the level design.

Are all added features here going to be used in the main campaign or are there level editor exclusives too?

@linktober: All things in the campaign will be in the editor, but not all things in the editor will be used in the campaign. For example one-ups and ? blocks might be in the editor for use in player made levels or campaigns but will not be used for the 127 campaign as that is not the direction we want to head for it. Objects may also be made that the level editors might not choose to use, but I doubt that would be the case.

How are users able to share them? Is there going to be a Course World equivalent, or specific site for posting levels? Or is this all Discord focused?

@linktober: Users are able to share their levels through Level Share Square! They have a discord bot and a website where you can post your levels and browse them easily. We even plan to integrate a LSS browser into 127 so that you can find levels easily. Level Share Square also supports a few other close mario fan games making Level Share Square a very solid place for the Mario fangame level designing community.

@.dignity.: By plan he means we already implemented it it’ll be in the next update join the server to get previews of it!

@skeletontourguide: People can share their levels using Level Share Square or Discord!

Do you plan to make the game playable on mobile or as a web app too?

@linktober: nothing is planned, but it is being considered. A port to Android and web would not be a big problem if not a little annoying to develop. Though not asked about, for iOS and Mac that’s considerably more challenging to port to and probably won’t be done in the future.

@charpurrr: If the demand for said platforms is high enough

@rudy12345mc: We could be the main competition to Subway Surfers

@.dignity.: Don’t listen to link, both are planned for the rewrite once we finish it up completely. mobile was running well when we built it with the current codebase so all we really need for a mobile port are controls.

@plugandplaystation: What dignity said. We’ve also thrown around making a lite version for the web, since that’s about the only way someone can access the game from a school or library. It wouldn’t have some of the more complicated or processor-intensive features of the base version, like mods or custom campaigns (oh yeah did we mention custom campaigns yet? Surprise!), but you’d still be able to play both the 63 and 127 campaigns and play levels from Level Share Square. We’re still not sure if it would be worth the extra effort, so it’s definitely something we’d like to get some feedback from the community on!

@skeletontourguide: I’m not sure, but a web browser version would be awesome!

One interesting thing I saw in the FAQ was talk about the main 63 campaign getting remade in this title as well. How is it going to be different from Super Mario 63 Redux here?

@linktober: where Redux aims to be true to the original, Mario 127’s 63 campaign will adapt the 63 campaign to be suited for its controls and playstyle.

@charpurrr: you could consider 127’s 63 campaign a reimagining of the original game, as where Redux is moreso an improved replica if that makes any sense.

@rudy12345mc: We’re also planning to add additional levels and Shine Sprites to the 63 campaign, making versions of 64 levels that weren’t in 63 like Cool Cool Mountain.

And how do you plan to differentiate this from 63 Redux overall? The new campaign seems like a big difference, but both have a lot of similarities in other areas…

@retroreboot: as far as I know, a lot of what makes this different from redux is the way we’re pushing the project in a different direction. Redux seems to be a faithful and beautiful remake of 63, while what we’re doing is expanding on what 63 did and rethinking many aspects of it, turning it into a brand-new experience.

@charpurrr: It’s safe to assume no level from the original game is going to have a 1:1 recreation present in 127 as opposed to our friends at the inferior fangame /pos

@rudy12345mc: Redux focuses on recapturing the magic of the original game, 127 hopes to expand on it and be something new.

@skeletontourguide: I believe Redux is supposed to be a remake/remaster of the original, while 127 is supposed to be a sequel with new features. I think the biggest difference so far is that 127 has co-op play!

Either way, people are very excited for the game and it’s doing well online. How does it feel knowing so many people are interested in the project?

@linktober: It actually feels very cool, especially in the surprisingly large level designing community. There are plenty of high-quality levels to be played in the level sharing channel, Level Share Square, and contest submissions.

@retroreboot: I mean this is the first project I’ve worked on with this level of notoriety. Everything before has been very dead Danganronpa fan projects that I’m not even partially interested in anymore, so joining a game that is even in a playable state is already cool, let alone one that a relatively large audience is actively playing. So cool.

@plugandplaystation: Honestly, I’m a little nervous. I’ve been tangentially related to the dev teams on a few projects with very large communities, but the feeling’s definitely different when the community is looking to you for more content. Having a lot more eyes on the project is a good thing as far as generating hype – I mean we’re just as excited about making the game as the community is to play it! But realistically I’m also getting older, and my free time is becoming a lot more valuable than it once was. I’m not sure how much motivation I’ll have left in me in a year from now, or if I’ll be able to see the project through to the end. Who knows, maybe things will change between now and then? I sure hope they do.

@goatsoup.mp3: I really wasn’t aware of how known this project was until after I got on.
I only knew of it from my music partner Arie who always spoke to me about how it was going and what he was planning while I was working on other smaller indie and fan projects at the time.
This is his first time directing others and really being the sound lead– so I gave him fair tips on how to handle things, before being brought on to assist with the sound direction and coordination myself, along with providing music.

Admittedly, it definitely adds pressure now! Haha, but I am pretty confident in our team and our vision.

@rudy12345mc: It warms my heart to hear that more people will be interested in the game. It feels crazy that I’ve been in the community for 127 for almost 3 years. This game is awesome and I want more people to play it (like CrossCode go play that everyone thinks I’m crazy for liking peak).

@mama.luigi: He’s crazy CrossCode is NOT peak don’t listen to him

@snugglybun_scsp: I’ve been lurking on the SM127 server for years now, and I’ve played the 0.7.x demo a long while back. One of the things that really concerns me is this project’s future. I’m worried that some big controversy in our dev team and/or Nintendo inevitably striking a bolt against us will stop this dream from becoming true.

Anyway, sorry for worrying about nothing. I’m really glad that people care about this project and are giving it the attention it deserves, i hope that it continues to grow and become something really beautiful.

@charpurrr: Man I’m so happy people actually like it. It’s been such a pain to develop and has been taking us so much longer than we could’ve ever imagined, but I’ve had so much fun here. The community seems to tight knit like we’re all just friends that hang out after a long day’s work yknow !!

@antonio444: I like to know that the fangame has a good reception, however I feel that it is not known at all in the Hispanic community, even though sm63 was at the time, many are not aware of the sequel and it is something that I try to improve

@chriti03: I love watching people play the game on YouTube, even if they are not that great at first. I can’t wait to see how many people will be reached by the project and start making full gameplays of the game.

@skeletontourguide: It feels great to help out with such a beloved project!

We hate to ask this, but what’s your plan if you get a cease-and-desist order, or another sort of legal takedown from Nintendo?

@linktober: cry 🙁 more accurately probably rebrand the game to not be mario related like what happened to the No Mario’s Sky to DMCA’s Sky, but much of the game’s identity and appeal would be taken away.

@goatsoup.mp3: Yeah, and a fair bit of music rendered unusable too if we go that route.
Unfortunately, that’s just the risk that comes with any fan project. Most of us are adults who have our own lives, work and stuff outside of this– so this is purely a passion project for everyone.

But we are all prepared to do what we can in the events of a DMCA.

@retroreboot: from what I understand, we’re in a relatively safe spot, but I’d certainly be upset. That said, we all know what we’re getting into here. If the project dies, I’d hope to work with some of these people again on a more original project in the future. There’s some real skill and passion here that I quite like, and I’d love to create something cool with these guys, Mario or not. I’d also be very down to repurpose the engine and all that entirely for a totally original platformer, even if it’d take a lot of new creative work we weren’t expecting.

@rudy12345mc: If Nintendo comes after us, we’re armed and ready. Ooooooh get scared Mr. Nintendo we’ve got hands. But yea afaik we’re pretty safe with this, this is pretty far out from whatever Nintendo is doing (hopefully they don’t decide to troll us last second).

@.dignity.: we’ve taken steps to assure ourselves that Nintendo won’t attack us by following some advice from MFGG, who dealt with many of these cases before and know how to avoid a DMCA. if it does happen, though, then oh well. SM63 actually got a C&D back in 2013, but the executable file for the game was shared a bit before it so that people could still enjoy it.

@plugandplaystation: In the event a DMCA does happen, we’ll likely cease work on the project. But that might also mean some brave community members with a death wish kindred spirit might reboot the project with another team, like the Super Mario Bros X community did.

@snugglybun_scsp: Well, that’s the fate of many projects like this one. I just hope that the spirit of this project continues on despite that and that we can work to make something as magical as this game is.

@charpurrr: it’s open source what are they gonna do

@antonio444: Continue for the rest of my life creating the game in an abandoned mine in Pakistan, until finally publishing it on the deep web

@skeletontourguide: It would probably need to be taken down if legal action was threatened, but I would save a backup copy to play with my family and friends!

Do you have any plans for other fan games or projects if this one gets finished?

@linktober: currently some of the developers actually do game jams on the side through Mario Fan Games Galaxy, typically themed after the well renowned Darius the Mailman. It’s possible some of the team would still work to do that. Some of the developers and community members would certainly expand on the game through the planned modding scene and campaign creators. It’s possible even that the 127 Team could make other campaigns outside of the main one, but that’s less likely.

@goatsoup.mp3: I’m not aware of what’s beyond us finishing but I’d like to work with this team again on another project. There’s so much talent here and synergy between a lot of us. and I really think we make a good remote team and have good systems in place.
Some of us having worked together before even this project, and probably will again!

@charpurrr: Yeah, some of the other members and me have done some gamejams and other fangames during the development process of 127. Some of us are even starting to develop entire indie projects with the knowledge we’ve gained from working on this. Which i think is pretty neaat :333

@rudy12345mc: Once we finish this game I’ll have enough knowledge to make the biggest indie game on the market and I’ll rake in millions of dollars, I’ll be making Undertale 3 trust (Undertale II already exists and it’s wild go play that).

@.dignity.: Me and Charlotte have been cooking a bunch of stuff on our own + the game jams we’ve made in downtime. for the team as a whole, we don’t really have anything planned after 127 releases other than updates to the game.

@plugandplaystation: I’m not sure! I have a few ideas floating around, particularly involving a certain game with falling beans and a certain game with submarines. 🙂

@snugglybun_scsp: I’m planning to work in other games and also focusing on being a musician in my own right. I also want to learn how to code so I can make my own games someday.

@antonio444: Finally, I rest and watch the sun rise in a grateful universe

@skeletontourguide: I don’t have any specific plans, but I would be glad to work with this team for other projects in the future!

Finally, what advice would you give people wanting to get started with fan game development, or game development as a whole?

@charpurrr: Don’t get over ambitious. We did – and it took us literal years to recover from development hell. Start very carefully but also keep it chill. Don’t burn yourself out in the first couple of months – and don’t forget to enjoy the process.

@linktober: do it! Your first project doesn’t need to be some big perfect project, it can just be a simple fun one to learn and find out if you enjoy development.

@goatsoup.mp3: If you’re working with a big team though… communication is important!
Be loud, and not afraid to share ideas even if others may disagree (that can be sorted and heard out)! Everyone needs to be in the know of how things are going.

On a fan project like this, there are no deadlines or “budget” but that also can be a fault to planning and management. Being able to express words, and having organized places and times for planning– I really can’t stress how important that is with a team of this size.

@rudy12345mc: Everything is awesome. Everything is cool if you work as a team. But yea honestly just being able to talk to other people about your work makes it way more fun, getting feedback and such on what you’re doing. Gamedev alone is a lonely process, and from working on this and other projects, I’ve found that interacting with others while making your content is a really good thing to motivate making it.

@.dignity.: Take it slow. point out stuff you’re confused on and ask for help. If you’re in the right communities, no one will make fun of you. and of course, make sure youre having fun with the process. If you’re not then you will get tired very quickly

@plugandplaystation: This might sound counterintuitive, but curb your enthusiasm. If you start thinking too much about your project, you’ll stop thinking about much of anything else, and that’s an extremely psychologically dangerous state to be in; I’ve seen too many projects brought to ruin because their maintainers got burnt out or had a mental break. Even some of my own… You have to remember that you’re doing it to have fun, or to make friends, or whatever your main reason is. Even if that means making people wait a while for something to happen. Not only will it improve the quality of your project, it’ll improve the quality of your life. In other words, make the project revolve around your life; don’t make your life revolve around the project.

And a special word to programmers or people getting into programming: Pursue it! You won’t regret it. But also, be careful. My profile description on Discord has always included “OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT: ‘BEING OBSESSIVE IS NEVER A GOOD THING’ SAYS PROGRAMMER”. It was meant to poke fun at how the personality types that tend to enjoy programming also tend to become fully absorbed or obsessed with their interests. I’ve fallen into that trap before. It’s easy to prevent, but often hard to escape from. Try to set time limits for how much you work on a project each day (maybe each week if necessary!). When your time’s up, do something else away from your computer. Maybe exercise or play some video games. Otherwise, you might be setting yourself up to crash down hard.

@snugglybun_scsp: your first games will suck but that’s okay, everyone has to start from somewhere. My first songs also sucked, but with enough practice, persistence, grinding, etc I eventually made stuff that I’m actually good at. It’s going to take a long time, but you’ll get there eventually. Just don’t give up on your dreams.

@agentogames: As others have stated before, don’t get too ambitious, remember to take some breaks (self-care is pog), but overall, just have fun with it! If you’re not making something you enjoy, then what’s the point?

@chriti03: I personally can’t say much more other than really agreeing with PlugandPlaystation. You really don’t wanna go through that burnout days!

@ariejuice: I have no motives also order a damn pizza

@skeletontourguide: Always experiment! Try out new engines and ideas until you make something you’re proud of!

@met3o: as with any project like this, no need to dilly-dally or delay yourself. If you have a desire to succeed, just GO FOR IT. Watch those tutorials, design those characters, write that story script, compose that music/digital art, script those programming functions, run those game engines. But also importantly, allow yourself healthy rewards and breaks, and don’t pressure yourself harshly to make big progress (or any progress) all of the time. All learning is progress, even tough mistakes, and they will happen, perhaps a little, perhaps a lot, but it’s inevitable. But where there’s a will there’s a way, and the fact that you are embarking on this in the first place is always something to be proud of! Get inspired by others, and don’t be afraid to seek help from the right places if you need it.

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Thanks guys, those are great words of advice there. Especially the ones about overambitousness being a curse.

Because here’s the thing; feature and scope creep is a self-reinforcing cycle. Once your project catches on and you start promising the world, then you end up in a state where delivering anything less than a masterpiece will disappoint everyone around you. So, the cycle continues, the scope keeps increasing, and eventually…

Either you burn out and give up, or the team implodes in a firestorm of anger and controversy. It’s what happened with things like the URA Zelda Restoration Project, what doomed the original version of Mushroom Kingdom Fusion*, and in the professional world, what killed Duke Nukem Forever. The expectations set by their creators were simply too high to reasonably meet, and the pressure drove everyone involved to despair.

So, keep it simple. Don’t plan for a huge game with hundreds of features you don’t have the time nor inclination to create. Don’t get distracted by all the possibilities your ideas bring, or try to revolutionise everything overnight.

Otherwise, there’s a good chance your project will destroy you. Or at least, leave you stuck in the mental anguish of development hell for the next couple of decades.

Still, enough about the game design life lessons, what did you think of the interview? Did you enjoy hearing about Super Mario 127, and how it’ll follow up on Super Mario 63? How does it feel knowing that not one, not two, but three amazing projects are continuing Super Mario 63’s legacy right now?

Leave your thoughts on all these things and more in the comments below, on social media, or on our Discord server today!

Super Mario 127 on Social Media

• Super Mario 127 Official Website
• The Super Mario 127 Discord Server
• The Super Mario 127 Team YouTube Channel
• Follow Super Mario 127 on Twitter
• Super Mario 127 Streams on Twitch
• The Super Mario 127 Wiki

Notes

* Mushroom Kingdom Fusion has continued development, but many of the original ideas the old team had for the game have been scrapped, and fan submissions have been seriously curtailed to avoid it spiralling out of control again.