Sedmario: NES Super Mario Bros level 1 written in pure sed (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Sedmario: NES Super Mario Bros level 1 written in pure sed (2015)

github.com

221 pointsthunderbong38 comments

Explanation how this actually works:

https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/15k3txt/nes_su...

Here's also a little bit more detailed write-up with the video of how it works under the hood: https://ichebykin.hashnode.dev/writing-mario-in-sed

For my lazy self it would be nice to have a gif of how it looks without having to run it on my machine.

or people not wanting to run some random script on their machine

do you think of that when you type npm install? :)

Yes. Everything like that now that can just run whatever it wants I run in Docker. May not be perfect but it'll defend against most of what I've seen.

Also a decent solution to this problem, it turns out.

I'm of a similar mindset... Docker dev environments are only slightly inconvenient, but much like a full VM, having exactly what you need, and the versions is kind of nice sometimes... especially working on differing projects.

Aside: it's a blessing and a curse how many projects don't get curated/groomed regularly for updates/upgrades. I think it should be a day or two a month to update dependencies and runtimes to current. I've now been on a handful of projects in the past year with versions of resources pinned from 3+ years ago. It's disturbing.

> I think it should be a day or two a month to update dependencies and runtimes to current.

And how long to validate the updated dependencies don't break anything?

Usually have pretty good test coverage, I've tended to suggest setting aside one day a month to update all project(s) and dependencies, much like Systems Admins will often do the same (more) for system updates.

Most of the time, the updates don't require code changes, so it's maybe an hour, then tests, smoke tests, test/uat pass and release, like any other more significant frequent release ci/cd cycle. About twice a year, it may be deferred for a couple days, if there's a major library update with breaking changes. In those cases, new story(ies) go into the top of the backlog to handle it as a higher pointed change.

Not every environment will follow the above... which is how you see projects with multi-year old dependencies, sometimes 2+ major releases behind. IMO, it should be considered the same as ceremonies and planning, it's just part of the lifecycle. That it doesn't get treated as such is the issue.

yes, which is why i never type npm install

Just create a test user.

Well I am horrible at playing this, but here you can see how it basically looks: https://github.com/francisduvivier/sedmario_with_gif/blob/ma...

That's surprisingly viewable.

Better graphics than the original dwarf fortress lol.

This is a common problem with GitHub projects.

Screen2gif is free and open source, people should use it.

This is absolutely perverse and messed up... but I sort of love it. Amazing, and fun, piece of work.

Ivan, I think you may be the sedmaster. I haven't had to use it seriously in more than 20 years but back then I did remember use it for modifying install scripts on the fly for an application installer on Solaris. There was a fair amount of headscratching involved. Practice makes perfect, I'm sure, but this project must have taken ages.

Thank you for sharing!

There’s this meme where people make variations of 1-1. “1-1 except that…”

And I find it to be the most interesting thing in gaming in a While. It demonstrates such creativity.

Here’s a bunch of them in Mario Maker, but there’s 1-1s made everywhere, in other games and even in real life.

https://youtu.be/PhyG0s9tJaM

Thanks for killing all chance at productivity before lunch.. ;-)

Please remain where you are. Nintendo's lawyers will arrive in their black helicopters shortly.

I don't understand why people put so much effort in reproducing the products of a company that's always hostile to their fans.

The trouble is, 'Super Mario Bros' is literally the hook here. It would be a fun project if it was just 'a platformer using SED', but it would get nowhere near the attention. We should probably agree on a common way of labelling 'super mario bros' clones without trademark violations. E.g. this could probably safely be renamed 'Sed SMB'.

>I don't understand why people put so much effort in reproducing the products of a company that's always hostile to their fans.

I have realized I have a mental illness in favor of Nintendo, specifically Zelda. Its probably from being relentlessly marketed to as a child, before I was aware of corporate mascots.

I must play all Zelda games. I don't even like them, I can't even say I was happy about playing Zelda since Wind Waker(and really MM/OOT + 2Ds were the genuinely good ones).

Despite me hating Nintendo for exploiting my psychology as a child, I still beat all Zelda games. According to my therapist, this is most likely some sort of FOMO or a hope that I could relive those nostalgic moments.

Whatever the case. You should know its not necessarily under our control. Our brains are compulsive and things that happen to us as children have long term impacts.

Yeah I'm "lucky" to be an Eastern European and have grown up with ZX Spectrum clones not any game consoles. None of my great games seem to have endured as brands. Although I do keep some remakes and emulator images.

Nintendo... I bought the mini SNES when they put it out. It was my first Nintendo product. Tried the games. Decided I'm too old for it. Although it's probably that I can't get used to that controller. Finished Bloodstained Ritual of the Night - which is a metroidvania - just fine on a PS4 controller with joysticks.

To drift further off topic, this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumo_(video_game) is a modern game done in the spirit of the great Spectrum isometric games.

I was going to argue with you, then realized I already have argued with you about this very subject. Instead, I'll suggest you try some different games. For me, Dark Souls replicated that Ocarina of Time feeling for me as an adult, which is about the highest praise I can give a game. There are also indie games (Tunic comes to mind) that revive the old Zelda style but put interesting twists on it.

> For me, Dark Souls replicated that Ocarina of Time feeling for me as an adult, which is about the highest praise I can give a game.

Heh, so I'm a Zelda fan without having ever played one? Did all Soulsbornes. Some multiple times.

I mean, there are obvious differences. Zelda is more geared toward kids. But they're all the spectrum of action/adventure/rpg with focuses on exploration and combat, big interesting bosses, cryptic/nefarious NPC's, puzzles and traps, etc.

It's also fun to see the back-and-forth of these games influencing each other. There may be some speculation, but I definitely see a path from Old Zelda->Dark Souls->Breath of the Wild->Elden Ring.

> I can't even say I was happy about playing Zelda since Wind Waker(and really MM/OOT + 2Ds were the genuinely good ones).

I really enjoyed playing Wind Waker (especially with the additional content from the Tingle Tuner). I played through Twilight Princess and, while it was a good game, I didn't enjoy it as much. I never completed Skyward Sword because I lost interest in the game. It was the same with Breath of the Wild at first, but then I started playing again after a several month hiatus and really enjoyed that game as well.

This was made (and likely widely shared) in 2015, it would seem the black helicopters have passed over this house.

I just tried it, I have a pretty hard time seeing Nintendo get upset over it lol. It's interesting that it's written in sed, but it's hardly a replacement for the real game.

I believe they come via paraglider. Helicopters take too many Zonai parts.

Pretty cool. The actual sed file is surprisingly short https://github.com/chebykinn/sedmario/blob/master/mario.sed

And it works surprisingly well. The main issue is timing of actions seems inconsistent so its hard to get the rhythm down.

See also: Sokoban game implemented in sed https://github.com/aureliojargas/sokoban.sed

And also, by the same author, SedArkanoid https://aurelio.net/projects/sedarkanoid/

To run on Ubuntu 20.04, I had to change the last line of "mario.sh" to:

done) | sed -Enf ./mario.sed

Who would have predicted back in the 80s we'd have self driving cars, and we'd still be playing a version of super Mario Bros that wouldn't have taxed the 2600 (apart from the scrolling??)

Someone made a homebrew of Super Mario Bros for the Atari 2600:

- https://forums.atariage.com/topic/201426-super-mario-clone-w...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSO-UTdCI8

Impressive! But slow.

You can make it slightly more tolerable by changing the line 15 to `read -s -n 1 -t 0.16 TMP`

Would watch Pewdiepie play this

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