Back in 1990, the guys from id software (before id software existed) started making a PC port of SMB3, in the hopes that Nintendo would license it. The game engine eventually became Commander Keen. I've always wondered what the demo looked like. Now John Romero has uploaded a video, and we can see it. It only has the first level of the game, but it's pretty good for PC game of the time.
https://vimeo.com/148909578
Mario has gained some serious weight!
Hey, that second level is way taller than 27 metatiles. Perhaps it was an early prototype of SMW vertical levels, which are 32 metatiles wide.
And apparently the Super Leaf follows cartoon rules, acting like a P-Wing.
Has somebody tried rebuilding these levels in Super Mario Maker yet?
I'm sure everyone here knows the story already, but the even earlier version of the game was called "Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement".
No enemies, and background obstacles were either completely solid, or not obstacles at all. Question blocks and bricks were not interactive, but you could still collect coins.
To add a little bit to that story:
Dangerous Dave was an earlier game, made by John Romero. It was another PC platformer, but with static screens, no scrolling.
Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement was another iteration of this demo, taking the Dangerous Dave character and otherwise imitating Super Mario Bros. 3, as John Carmack and Tom Hall were
working out the technology for scrolling on EGA video. They briefly ditched the Dangerous Dave character for Mario because they decided to pitch it as an SMB3 port to Nintendo. When Nintendo declined, they eventually went on to found ID software and make
Commander Keen out of it.
Masters of Doom is a pretty good read that tells the story of id, including that, yeah.
Fascinating to see actual footage, with sprites showing the troubles of cribbing them from a running CRT rather than ripping.
tepples wrote:
Hey, that second level is way taller than 27 metatiles. Perhaps it was an early prototype of SMW vertical levels, which are 32 metatiles wide.
Most likely, just the fact that their engine didn't have the same limits as Nintendo's?
I think it's funny how tepples is always looking for alternate, obscure justifications for things, even though he most likely knows that the real reasons are much more straightforward. Maybe this is a "what if" thing, I don't know.
More likely a case of "I always miss the jokes" x_x
tokumaru wrote:
I think it's funny how tepples is always looking for alternate, obscure justifications for things, even though he most likely knows that the real reasons are much more straightforward. Maybe this is a "what if" thing, I don't know.
It's part jokes and part "what if". For example, one of the races depicted in
RHDE is based on speculation I had back in 1996 about "what if" Hasbro's Weebles toys were based on a race of people.
My only thought here is that someone should make a proof of concept demo of Commander Keen on the NES so that things could come full circle.
Id's parent company has been DMCA-happy in the past, such as with that Emscripten port of Doom.
Well, hacking Keen character sprites and levels into SMB3 should be relatively easy to do, and would satisfy all of tepples' DMCA aspirations at the same time.
Dangerous Keen in Copyright Infringement?