Many of us, yes, myself absolutely included, grew up playing Super Mario Bros on the NES. An absolute blast of a game that introduced many to the platform genre.
The video embedded above details a technical project by a Inkbox to hack the game. The objective was to merge all 32 levels into a single, continuous level. The key constraint of this project, which Inkbox calls “Smooth Mario Bros,” is that if the player dies at any point, they are sent back to the very beginning of the game. haha, so definitely not for the light hearted.
The video outlines the specific technical challenges and the solutions implemented:
Data and ROM Limitations: The game’s ROM space was nearly full. Inkbox solved this by removing the underground and water themes from the game to free up the necessary space for the new, combined level data.
Palette and Scenery: Added was some custom code to allow for changes to the color palette and background scenery in the middle of a level, a feature not present in the original game.
Enemy Synchronization: To ensure enemies appeared at the correct locations in the new level structure, Inkbox added “buffer” enemies.
Page Limits: The original game had limits on the number of pages for levels (64) and the entire game (256). These limits were removed in the assembly code to accommodate the length of the new level.
Gameplay Modifications: The hack removed all level transition elements, such as flagpoles and pipes, to create a seamless experience. The game’s timer was modified to be infinite, and power-ups, including mushrooms and fire flowers, were removed to increase the difficulty. Additionally, the maze sections were eliminated, and a new final level was created by combining elements from the original Super Mario Bros. and the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (lost levels).
The video is a fascinating watch, which after explaining the process shows off gameplay of the ROM hack. It really is mind-blowing stuff, for someone that’s been playing SMB their whole life, it’ll definitely take some getting used to. I’m particularly fond of the speed transition into the water levels.
You can download the ROM hacks patch files from here.
We came across this ROM hack via this X post by Romhack.ing. Thanks for sharing.