Adventures in game development
Play Super Mario Bros. Crossover as if it was on Atari.
The old version of Super Mario Bros. Crossover was too complicated with its fancy graphics and sound, so we ported it to Atari. Since Atari has less memory than Nintendo, we took out some of the characters. I think you’ll like this new version of SMBC much better. I know I do.
Edit: This was an April Fools joke. You can play with the atari skin in the current version of Super Mario Bros. Crossover.
Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 is released. Play it now!
The day has finally come. Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 is now playable. We’ve been working on this update for over a year, and there are a lot of changes. The two big things added are skinnable graphics and a new power up system. There are about 800 tracks of music in the game now. We also added Luigi and Bass as playable characters, and because of the skinning system, it seems as if there are many more characters. For a full list of changes, see the version history.
Although I still did all of the programming, I had some help for this version. Zach Robinson did all of the custom graphics in the game and helped design the skinning system. Him and I are a team now and we’ll be working together on many future games. We also have custom music made by Mathew Valente. He’s been making Super Nintendo versions of the Blaster Master music. He’s not completely done, but you can hear a few of them in the game if you play as 16-bit SOPHIA. I’ll add the rest of the songs as he finishes them. He also made nsf versions of the Mega Man 9 and 10 soundtracks which we use in the game.
Sadly, there are a few problems in the game that I can’t do anything about at this current time because of the Flash platform. The music emulation will slow down the game for some people, especially Super Nintendo music. If this is the case for you, you can change the music console in the options menu. Adobe is releasing an update at some unknown time in the future that should address this. As soon as they release it, I’ll update the game.
The other small problem is that there is a delay when the game loads at the beginning because it is very heavily compressed. It may appear that the game is not working, but it will continue on after a few seconds. I apologize for that, but there doesn’t appear to be anything that can be done about it at this current time. This is what we get for cramming so much awesomeness into a flash game.
I’ve been working on this game for almost 3 years now. When I started, I knew nothing about making games or programming. With all of the experience I got from working on this, I now feel I’m ready to make my own game. Exploding Rabbit will now be shifting focus away from Super Mario Bros. Crossover to work on an original game, which we feel will be awesome. We’ll still update this game a few times a year with more skins, and I’ve mentioned before that we’ll add the Lost Levels in the next update. So we’ll still be updating this game, but it won’t have our full attention like it has in the past.
I expect that there will be bugs that were missed by the testers. Please report them in the bugs forum. I’m not going to fix every bug because the game is free and I could spend my whole life doing that, but I’ll be sure to get the important ones.
I am very happy this day has finally come. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it to see it all come together. We hope you’ll enjoy playing Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0. We’re very excited to finally release it, and even more excited to start working on our awesome original game. Exploding Rabbit will entertain you for many years to come!
See all the new stuff coming in Super Mario Bros. Crossover version 2.0.
You can finally see what we’ve been working on the for last year. The update is coming sometime during the first quarter of this year. Enjoy.
Note that there aren’t currently any new levels, only different graphics. The player will get to choose the graphics they want to play with, and they can even be mixed and matched. There is also Super Nintendo and Gameboy music being added for all characters.
We also uploaded our skinning files so people can begin experimenting with creating different graphics for the game. Note that skins cannot be uploaded into the game, but if we see something cool, we can put it in when we update the game.
The incoherent ramblings continue after a long break.
I finally made another video. And I’m sick, so I sound extra spacey. Good times.
One year has passed since Super Mario Bros. Crossover was released and Exploding Rabbit was created.
One year ago today, at about 7pm central time, I posted a little game called Super Mario Bros. Crossover on Newgrounds. Just days before that, I launched the Exploding Rabbit website, although I consider today to be the anniversary of Exploding Rabbit as well. As everyone knows, the game was an instant success all around the world. I remember waking up the next day and practically having a heart attack when I saw how full my inbox was. Looking back, I can see how much I’ve grown as a person, and how much Exploding Rabbit has grown as a company/community. Back then, this website was nothing more than 3 or 4 pages. Now it’s huge and has a friendly community. The success of Super Mario Bros. Crossover brought many people with similar passions together, and I’m excited to see how things continue to expand.
Back then, Super Mario Bros. Crossover was only at version 1.0, and it lacked Ryu, SOPHIA III, difficulty levels, cheats, and many other features. Today, it’s at version 1.2, and the version I’m working on is much further along, although not ready to be released yet.
It’s pretty amazing thinking of how far everything has come in one year. It makes me wonder… if we could come this far in one year, just imagine where we will be next year, or in 5 years, or even 10 years. It will be amazing.
I know things have been pretty quiet lately. I’ve mainly been improving some stuff in my personal life and working on SMB Crossover for a few hours each day. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it is looking absolutely awesome. I’m looking forward to the day everyone will be able to see the skins in action, because they’re badass.
Anyway, happy anniversary Super Mario Bros. Crossover and Exploding Rabbit, and thanks everyone for your support. I will continue to operate at maximum downward thrust.
Jay was interviewed by Fist Full of Potions, and it’s a real fucktasm! (That’s a good thing) Enjoy!
0:00-0:47 Introduction
0:48-1:52 Jay proves once and for all that he is not Christopher Walken.
1:53-2:10 The Super-Secret Pants-Off Dance-Off is planned, unbeknownst to all involved parties.
2:11-3:18 Jay explains how he became so cool.
3:18-3:59 Jay talks about how you could someday be as cool as he is.
4:00-5:02 Jay adds a new word to the English language.
5:03- 8:43 Jay reviews the skin update for 2.0, and discusses the versatility of the skins.
8:44-11:22 How far SMBC has come, how it’s changed Jay’s life, and his original plans for the game.
11:23-12:15 Jay mentions a movie he hopes to make.
12:16-12:59 Will SMBC ever be truly finished?
13:00-13:12 HOLY SHIT A SECRET GAME HAS BEEN MENTIONED YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GET REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THAT.
13:13-13:39 Jay explains how he intends to budget his time between projects.
13:40-15:59 Why ER has not publicly released films yet, and balancing working on games and other projects at the same time. Site chat is also mentioned!
16:00-16:26 Jay discusses his ideal studio environment.
16:27-18:24 The future of Exploding Rabbit, with more details on the studio and Jay’s ambitions.
18:25-21:24 Keeping abreast of the latest advances in technology, bending it to work in Jay’s favor, and possible platform porting.
21:25-22:09 Jay explains why the game is limited to the web currently, and expresses interest in working on an RPG.
22:10-22:42 The glorious future of ER is once more alluded to.
22:43-24:22 Why Jay would rather stick to flash programming than make stages for Little Big Planet 2.
24:23-25:16 Plans for rewriting the level editor, and what it will be like.
25:17-25:31 Your ER quote of the day. The perfect garnish for your signature!
25:31-26:13 Jay waxes fanboy on some badass features of L.A. Noire.
26:14-26:48 How said features influence Jay’s future development.
26:49-27:01 The nature of challenges.
27:02-27:44-Weighing stress and productivity, and enjoying life.
27:45-29:00 Jay talks about the production of Hero Guy, and the lessons it taught him, most notably the philosophy behind Downward Thrust.
29:01-30:15 Jay discusses a collaboration with a mysteeeeerious stranger from the internet, and why he doesn’t generally collaborate.
30:16-31:00 Why Jay hasn’t accepted hiring offers from gaming companies.
31:01-32:12 Jay fantasizes about a congratulatory message from Shigeru Miyamoto and Sunsoft.
32:13-32:39 Jay and Jason unveil a hypothetical conspiracy.
32:40-33:18 Wrapping up, Jay discusses the scope of his plans.
33:19-34:02 Ryuza appreciation station! 😀
34:03-35:00 TALKIN’ BOUT SSSSSSSSECRETS. :3
35:01-36:00 Closing remarks, Jay thwarts an attempt at comedy. ARE YOU READY FOR MAXIMUM DOWNWARD THRUST?
Make sure to pay a visit to Fist Full Of Potions!
This is a video panel of World’s Fair Use Day 2011 talking about how fair use relates to independent video game projects.
Here’s a video of the panel I was on for World’s Fair Use Day. Also on the panel with me are the moderator, Josephine Dorado from the New School, and David Lloyd and Larry Oji from OC ReMix. We talk about how fair use relates to our video game projects. Obviously, the project I talk about is Super Mario Bros. Crossover.
Overall I was pretty happy with how the panel went. You probably can’t tell, but I was really nervous. I had to concentrate really hard just to drink a glass of water because my hand was shaking. After I said some stupid things and made people laugh, I felt more comfortable. There’s one question I answer near the end about Chrono Ressurection, but for some reason I was thinking of Crimson Echoes, so my answer makes no sense. But my mind went blank while I was talking, so my answer wouldn’t have made sense anyway.
Also, Larry Oji is awesome. I hope I get to hang out with him again sometime.
Awesome! I am pleased to announce that version 1.2 is done! This version took me way longer than I thought it would, but I feel it was worth the wait. There is enough new stuff to make the game feel new again, which is always a requirement for me when I do an update.
Of course, the main attraction is the ability to play as SOPHIA the 3rd, from Blaster Master. She’s in the game fully equipped with hover, wall-climbing, homing missiles, and swimming controls. She was the most difficult thing to add to the update, but I think you’ll agree it was worth it when you see how much fun it is to play as her.
The next main feature I added is a new gameplay mode called “Survival Mode.” In this mode, when a character dies, they become unusable until you revive them with a 1-up mushroom. The catch is that you can only revive characters when you enter a new world (beat Bowser). It’s pretty fun, and it’s the way I originally intended the game to be played, so it’s nice to have it in now. I decided not to put it in at the beginning because I wanted the game to be more approachable, and the original version was sort of a demo anyway.
The other main feature is unlockable cheats. Each cheat has different conditions that must be met before it will be unlocked. Some cheats will be unlocked by killing a certain number of enemies, while others will require you to beat the game on a certain difficulty level. My favorite cheat in the game turns all enemies into Hammer Bros. Also, there is another cheat called “Evil Hammer Bros.” that makes all of the Hammer Bros. chase you. I challenge players to beat the game on Extreme mode with both “All Hammer Bros.” and “Evil Hammer Bros.” cheats enabled. I’ve played it a bit and it’s extremely challenging.
Also, there’s now a manual for the game on the wiki that’s maintained by the Exploding Rabbit community. Soon it will be updated with all the information from version 1.2. There’s also a lot of other stuff on the Super Mario Bros. Crossover wiki page, so feel free to check it out. If you ever want information on the game, that’s the place to find it.
I’ll be taking a break from the game after I fix any major bugs that are reported in this new version. I’m gonna be focusing on updating the website and working on some videos. It’s difficult to say when the next update will come out, but I do promise that it will be awesome just like this one and the previous one. I’d like to thank the amazing community of dedicated fans that helps me out with the game through encouragement and their vast knowledge of video games. I also want to thank anyone that plays the game. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to share Super Mario Bros. Crossover with you.
You can see a list of all changes in version 1.2 on the version history page. And of course, you can play the game here. Have fun!
