'Super Mario 64 - Return to Yoshi's Island' mod gets new demo

super mario 64.jpg

A new demo for Super Mario 64 - Return to Yoshi's Island has been released. What is Super Mario 64 - Return to Yoshi's Island, you ask? It is a mod from developers Kaze, biobak and Badup based on Super Mario 64 that lets players experience a new adventure as Mario. It is playable on actual N64 hardware (via flashcarts) and this new demo only features the first level. According to a tweet from Kaze, its purpose is to collect feedback on Mario's movement and the new camera from testers via a survey.

Gameplay footage of the new demo has been shared by YouTube channel Project Longplay, providing a decent look at the progress made by the developers:



:arrow:SOURCE
 

ZeroFX

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Strong entry for “dumbest comment on Temp” today. Tell us more about how you understand nothing about this project or Kaze or the N64 or modding or game design or programming or source code etc
I don't follow youtubers
I'm glad you agree!
Yes, I program for a living... And hobby.
Don't bother, they're infamous for being inflammatory toward anything and everything. Anyone with eyes can tell it's impressive work.
I'm one person, and male. Got eyes.
 
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NinStar

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Yes, I program for a living... And hobby.
Not trying to downplay you, but saying you program is one thing, having the dedication, skill, and knowledge to achieve what he's achieving is another.

And yes, I know, the source code is nothing new, but he clearly put a lot of work into improving it for his projects. The fact that he was able to optimize the game to the point where it currently is and on real hardware is groundbreaking by itself.
 

The Real Jdbye

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I always appreciate new developments from Kaze. I've lost track of all his projects, is Return to Yoshi's Island the "main" one? Like, the one that will have all the big assembly-level changes that'll turn Super Mario 64 into the most sophisticated N64 game ever created by man?

That reminded me to check up on Skelux. I'm not sure how his health is, but he's still working on Super Mario Star World as of November.

Good luck to all the SM64 modders out there.
Yes. This romhack is the reason he started his long optimization project. I'd bet that this demo has most of the optimizations in place already, it looks very smooth.
I always like the stuff Kaze makes, but my issue nowadays is I prefer playing things on the Mario 64 decomp PC Port and would rather play it with the enhancements you get from it versus emulating the rom. I'll still probably check this out, but I find the ease of the PC Port much better.
Understandable. I would also like a PC port of this. If only so I could play it in multiplayer. He did talk about sharing the code improvements he made, if those can be ported to PC porting the entire hack to PC should also be possible, it should just be a matter of extracting/converting the new assets then.
 
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osaka35

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I don't follow youtubers

Yes, I program for a living... And hobby.

I'm one person, and male. Got eyes.
This is not a PC port, this is specifically for the n64. Which as you know as a programmer, is a completely different kind of beast. It is essentially a complete rewrite which will run natively on the N64. Coding to take advantage of every possible tweak specifically for the n64 is not a simple thing. It wouldn't be an understatement to say this game is a contender for the most efficient coding in a native n64 game.
 
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Ko0f

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Return to Yoshi's Island, huh? This hack better feature stuff from the Yoshi's Island games or else it won't live up to its name.
with Kaze working on it i dont think you gotta worry about it not living up to its name
 
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LuigiXHero

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I always like the stuff Kaze makes, but my issue nowadays is I prefer playing things on the Mario 64 decomp PC Port and would rather play it with the enhancements you get from it versus emulating the rom. I'll still probably check this out, but I find the ease of the PC Port much better.
He plans on having a pc port (and potentially an android) release alongside the full game getting help from wiseguy who did the Majora's Mask recomp.
 

Spider_Man

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Rom hack, but likely only playable on emulation with the graphical improvements, I doubt the n64 would handle.

But why do fans with the skills to make fan games waste time doing anything nintendo when it runs a very high risk of getting chased by their legal dogs.

Especially when these fan games look far better than everything nintendo craps out.

If they keep the same gamestyle and gameplay but change the character. They'd have something gold.

Become a game studio because this looks solid gold and great effort.
 

Scarlet

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Rom hack, but likely only playable on emulation with the graphical improvements, I doubt the n64 would handle.

But why do fans with the skills to make fan games waste time doing anything nintendo when it runs a very high risk of getting chased by their legal dogs.

Especially when these fan games look far better than everything nintendo craps out.

If they keep the same gamestyle and gameplay but change the character. They'd have something gold.

Become a game studio because this looks solid gold and great effort.
Nah the guys behind it went to some pretty hefty lengths optimising SM64 to make sure this runs on original hardware. The effort really is impressive. If you look up Kaze Emanuar on YouTube you can see deep dives into various aspects of it.
 

osaka35

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Rom hack, but likely only playable on emulation with the graphical improvements, I doubt the n64 would handle.

But why do fans with the skills to make fan games waste time doing anything nintendo when it runs a very high risk of getting chased by their legal dogs.

Especially when these fan games look far better than everything nintendo craps out.

If they keep the same gamestyle and gameplay but change the character. They'd have something gold.

Become a game studio because this looks solid gold and great effort.
The code tweaks are n64 hardware specific, so he could make it more difficult to run on an emulator than on the n64. Though I think he said he's trying not to do some of the most insane tweaks which would make it incompatible with emulators. Maybe.

Put another way, he's using this as a way to learn absolutely everything there is to know about n64 coding and hardware. If the game is taken down, he'll still know all this insanely specific n64 dev information which most games never implemented.

And people do what makes them happy, as they should. folks don't have to min/max their life to enjoy it.
 

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