In middle school, I started Super Note Aventure, my first long-term game project. It is itself based on the world of the Notes, my first worldbuilding project in a way. Not sure when it started, do you count preschool drawings as worldbuilding? Anyway, the game.
In November 2012, I added a bonus level available on two conditions:
- You completed Level 1.
- It is Sunday.
In the game, there were many more important features missing, that I would eventually do in the next months:
- Build level 3. Oh, nothing, just the actual boss fortress we're supposed to storm since the beginning.
- Add real attacks to enemies, that were still glorified Goombas.
- Put to use all the coins you collect to a shop or something.
- Make original music.
- Add an actual save/load system.
But for some reason I still decided to focus on adding a dominical bonus room. It was a single screen, teeming with coins, a few inoffensive enemies, and a NPC that uses the newly added dialogue feature to wonder what the fuck he's doing in here.
In other words, a full display of maximalism only a middle-school level designer could come up with. Behold:
This is what it looks like in GameMaker 8.1's room editor.
- Red (invisible) squares tell enemies where to turn around. See where I planned to add an enemy on the top left? Well, I guess it never appeared! With current movesets, it would be completely harmless anyway.
- The coin with the white outline blinks very rapidly in-game. It's small so I guess there's low risk of seizure. It's actually a key that makes all the note blocks disappear.
- The potions and blue coins on the top are unreachable. They're just here for decoration. This was very common in my early levels.
- The potions left of the key are unreachable too. This time it's for trolling. You have no choice to take the key, and the platform which was your only way to the potions disappears.
- The big flag behind note blocks will be revealed on catching the "key". Clicking on it ends the level. Yes, you can click on it before getting the key if you know where it is or if you're shooting an enemy but very (un)lucky.
- The visor is here so you can shoot, but the HUD is absent from the top of the window so you have no idea if you're at low health or not. It shouldn't be a problem because this game was ridiculously easy, except for falling into a pit for which you don't need a HUD to anticipate anyway.
- The red-yellow coins fall down with a futuristic bouncing sound. They heal a bit on contact.
Most suprising of all is that I didn't play New Super Mario Bros 2 for the 3DS at the time. It's the one with millions of coins.
Other peculiarities & random trivia
The exposition text in the tutorial is inconsistent with the exposition in the help screen, which is inconsistent with the exposition in the planned pause menu, which is inconsistent with the story I did in the following months.
Player 1 can be controlled with either ZQSD (WASD equivalent) or the arrow keys, because my first laptop had a broken left key. Player 2 is controlled with IJKL. Players share the mouse: left click to shoot, right click to switch shooting players, and…
A completely undocumented attack can be triggered by middle-clicking. The shooting player throws a heavy diamond that doesn't go very far at all and then he has to wait a LOT of time before shooting agaim. But that diamond freezes the enemy forever, which can then be shattered in one shot with an EXPLOSION SOUND!!!
On the level select screen, there is a speed/difficulty setting. You can go from 25 to 40 FPS (30 is the default). Whether this is to match your skill or your PC's performance is up to you.
Enemies have invincibility frames… almost. Only their feet are vulnerable. That's because the hitbox IS the ground collider, so that they don't fall off the ground after jumping in pain. That means you can combo them if you aim for the feet, which sounds really silly.
Early distribution of Super Note Aventure was to middle-school friends through a newsletter in which I attached the unzipped .exe file to the email! :D We also played it in class thanks to my first USB key. The game folder had a yellow star icon.
Why on Sundays though?
Weekends is when almost everyone has more free time than usual. Sundays also feel special. It's like, the supermarket is closed, oh well I guess we'll have to play a bit of Super Note Aventure instead!
Really though, there was no reason other than to make this level special.
SNA 1.2 is still in my old builds, running on Linux via Wine. It has been roughly 700 Sundays since this bonus level was built. I probably spent less than 10 of them (probably the most boring Sundays) playing the level, and it rarely took me more than 2 minutes to "finish" it.
But every time, I think this is a completely useless activity, and I smile.