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are you familiar with mario maker? amazing and wonderful things happen when nintendo gives their audience access to their tools

the kaizo and puzzle communities are remarkable.. both in consistently high quality levels and the people are warm and welcoming

both kaizo and world record attempts at puzzles are exercises in optimisation

and the puzzles(o) feel like spaces for interacting with algorithms and data structures

(o) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08vhGZZ1FEY#t=17m30s

> kaizo

You made me remember this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua6pbz3ROvQ

Which I still consider the funniest Let's Play of an abusive game I have ever seen

Ha, yeah

your video is an example of a blind race.. where the people playing are completely unaware of what the level will entail

One of my favourite videogame videos is this blind race(o)

it is such a cool format.. some players create levels for others to race blind in teams of four, switching every death it creates opportunity for so many great moments

i love how the level designers are there to comment, then afterward they race some of the hardest levels in mario maker(i)

your link is of one of the original hacks which was designed to be just totally brutal, but Mario maker has a more inviting difficulty curve

what's really fascinating is the history(o) of this subculture and how it was already fully formed long before mario maker

it almost feels like mario maker was released specifically for this group of super fans, or in response to them

it all started in the mid aughties when a person hacked a ROM so thae could make thaer own levels to torture thaer friends with

More and more people got exposed to this insane idea of hard, though beatable, mario as people kept passing around the hacked rom

it eventual gained legend status and a following

10 years later it basically defines mario maker

that, to me, is remarkable

(o) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uskPV4KCjn8

(i) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OmwL6CyNReI

(ii) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizo_Mario_World

> I can't help but hope that it'll get hacked and that a thriving homebrew community will sprout up.

I'm hoping for the same! Set up a wiki to track everything we know about the device, and we also have a Discord chat set up to discuss the process and work on things together. By default the secret parts of the wiki and chat (where we'll be discussing the details of specific findings, exploitation, etc) are hidden; if you want to be involved directly, message me on the Discord and I'll get you set up.

Wiki: http://reswitched.tech/ Chat: https://discord.gg/hSMpnuG

Why hidden? Has it occurred to you that a Nintendo employee could just message you on discord for access?

Hidden just to keep the details of findings slightly lower key until we're ready to do something with them. Nintendo folks could certainly message for access, but I'm not too terribly worried about that; if they patch our bugs in the next version, at least we'll have a toehold.

Edit: Also, the whole reason I decided to get back into this was to have a nice challenge, and to turn the Switch into the ultimate portable emulation console. What's the fun of it without the challenge? I look forward to the cat-and-mouse game.

Good luck. Most of these efforts get swamped with non-technical fanboys and nothing gets done / everything gets leaked. Will be interesting to see if you make progress.

Thanks. That swamping effect is why we have the private channel for people actively working on things. Once things get rolling, I'm likely just going to disable notifications for the general channel and focus entirely on the private one(s). My goal is to keep the SNR as high as possible in there.

> When the PSP was around and kicking that was the main thing that got me engaged in the community, and I still remember those years with fondness.

I found my dev calling with PSP hacking and homebrew development. Those were good times.

Playing StarFox 64 and Advance Wars on my PSP in class was a high point for sure.

Did daedalus really get far enough to run Lylat Wars at a playable framerate? Before I left the PSP scene it was barely getting double digits in the most basic of games.

Same for me. Developing games for the NeoFlash and Qj.net competitions for PSP was what got me into programming.

Remember IRshell? Or that R type clone. I loved my PSP and hacking it was so cool because it let you run your games from the memory stick and compress them.

Same for me :) The PSP irc channels were the first that I really joined 24/7. I can remember lots of good long nights working on PSP homebrew; I haven't really had that same sense of community anywhere else since.

Personally I hope it's not hacked. Indie developers now have a affordable, interesting platform with relatively open tools.

There needs to be a commercial incentive for them to develop games.

Nintendo put all their eggs in the Switch basket and if it fails they likely will never recover from it.

I don't think your last statement is true at all. Just look at what their share price did as a result of pokemon go and mario run. Nintendo is worth 50% more than it was just under a year ago, no switch required.

Stocks prices though are not necessarily a good representation of reality.

Nintendo has enough cash in reserve to basically last until the heat death of the universe. If the Switch fails they'll move on to the next thing.

Which is good, because my money is on the Switch failing, at least in V1. Great core premise, too many compromises (especially with regard to controller size).

Why would the Switch fail in V1? Nobody's complained about the controllers who's used them that I know of, the hardware is good, Nintendo's working to have a lot of third parties interested in it along with indie devs, it has the great launch title of Breath of the Wild, and other things - I don't see the impending failure.

What happens if the Wii U version of BotW is better than the Switch version?

Why would that be the case?

Because it may have initially been optimized for Wii U and hastily adapted to Switch. Something like this happened to Twilight Princess, for which the GameCube version is widely considered superior. Nintendo didn't even bother having a "Wii mode" for the HD remake on Wii U.

Rodea the Sky Soldier is another example: Yuji Naka specifically recommended on Twitter to play the Wii version rather than the Wii U version, and accordingly the first run of the US release comes with both discs and a reversible cover insert with Wii layout/iconography.

Nintendo generally prices their hardware to make a profit. It getting hacked won't hurt them.

They've got an '80s mentality where the most important thing is making sure there are no bad games published in their name - the whole "Nintendo Seal of Quality" thing. It's not about the money, it's about control.

>They've got an '80s mentality where the most important thing is making sure there are no bad games published in their name - the whole "Nintendo Seal of Quality" thing. It's not about the money, it's about control.

That's a pretty big lie, given the wii's massive library of shovelware shitshows.

It would hurt the platform as an indie game target, as indie developers would less likely target it, as they could expect less revenue.

>Indie developers now have a affordable, interesting platform with relatively open tools.

You mean PC? That they've had for years? And is still the primary platform for indie releases?

If dev units are affordable, why does it need to be hacked to have a homebrew community?

You can't actually get a dev unit without being approved by the company, is how it works. It's not as if you could get a PS4 devkit if only you could afford it - you need to prove that either you've shipped games in the past, or you have an interesting game in development that you've already put serious effort into.

I share your sentiments - the Wii U has an excellent, albeit small lineup of software. I've seen it as a companion to the PS4 / Xbox rather than a competitor.

Just finished the new Paper Mario game. Thoroughly enjoyed it.