Jario!
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: N/A (begun December 1994)
Levels: 1
Author: Don'Pan Software
Related games: Luigi's Heroic Debut!, Super Mario 5
A quickly aborted attempt at a Super Mario Bros. clone.
Contents
Instructions
On the numerical keypad:
4, 6: Walk left, right
7, 8, 9: Jump left, up, and right
Credits
Design, graphics, sound: Aderack
Testing: M.O.S.H.
Game engine: Recreational Software Designs
Q&A
When does Jario appear in your G-M usage timeline?
Somewhere around 1995 or 1996. It was after Ricci's Cow Hunt, and mostly inspired by a bonus level I threw in there for a whim. I was already pretty much done with Game-Maker, but I continued to tinker half-heartedly with small projects. This was something without ego attachment that captured my attention momentarily. I soon realized it wasn't worth expanding.
The graphics of Jario looks very similar, if not undistinguishable from SMB, which is esp. impressive for a scanner-less era. How did you proceed?
Back in the early '90s, game magazines were full of huge, pixelly photographs of game screens. I just dug up some photographs and started transferring, dot-for-dot. Different tile sizes required a bit of adaptation, but it was fairly straightforward.
Jario shows clearly that most of SMB core mechanics can only be poorly emulated by G-M. Have you learnt interesting lessons in that attempt ?
I think I was beyond the point of huge lessons. It was more a waning bit of curiosity, to see how well I could bend the engine. As it turns out, not well at all. Didn't even bother to animate the character.
Why has Jario been discontinued ?
I guess at that point I just wasn't willing to put the effort in to adapt it into something that did work. If I'd hit on the idea a couple of years earlier I might have come up with something half-interesting. By 1996 I was basically burned out.
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