Infinite Points in SMBX

Talking Time is making a bunch of Mario levels using Super Mario Bros. X, a popular Mario level editor. The editor is pretty easy to use, and you can make great things with it, but it was obviously designed by people who don’t possess a very finely tuned… “Mario sense”. Certain elements of their engine are too cruel or too esoteric to really be of use in a Mario game, like the item that shoots Bullet Bills at monsters for as long as you hold on to it. Fun, but kind of stupid at the same time, you know? You can’t really do anything good with it; it’s just there so the designers can show off what they thinks is awesome.

Other aspects of the engine come directly from Mario games, but are implemented poorly, such as the SMB3-style Lakitu. Lakitu is the monster who rides around in clouds throwing spiny eggs at Mario, or floats around behind him carrying a camera on a fishing line in Mario 64. His SMBX appearance is absolutely terrifying, on account of his ability to reach infinite speed, flinging lightning-fast spiny eggs at an alarming rate, each of which move as fast as Mario running full tilt, and can change direction on a dime.

One of the “rules” of the TT Mario levels is that you don’t use SMB3-style Lakitu. So of course someone made a level that was just fifty of them. And just to spice things up, the Lakitus don’t just throw spiny eggs; some throw boss monsters, and some throw other Lakitus. The level is five screens long and you will survive it if you just run to the end. It’s a gag more than anything. The level is called “Horrifying Lakitu Thunderdome”.

I had a pretty crappy morning at work today, so when I came home I decided to play Horrifying Lakitu Thunderdome with the God Mode flag turned on in SMBX. I figured murdering hundreds of spinies, Bowsers and Lakitus would be theraputic — and it was. That looked a little like this:

Since my point counter was going up so fast, I figured I’d just play until I hit the max points. I had no idea how much that was, but I figured I’d hit it in a couple minutes.

Well, unfortunately, I ended up hitting the max NPC limit first. The game freezes solid once it has more than 800 NPC sprits on screen, and since some of the Lakitus up there throw other Lakitus, Hammerman Mario can’t do anything to stem the tide forever.

The freeze is just graphical, though, so I sat there hammering the button for what seemed like way, way more time than it’d take to reach the max score. Then I grabbed the star, which cleared the level.

I had just over four million points. Clearly my technique needed refinement.

So I modified the level a little. I built him a tower on the very edge of the screen (so it’d be easy to navigate to, even when I was frozen up), so he could reach the Lakitus with his hammers. My plan was to play until I was frozen, then head for the tower and clear out some Lakitus. That looked a bit like this:

“B-but… where are the Lakitus!?”

Well, there’s a flaw in this plan: Mario’s hammers don’t discriminate between the Lakitus I want to kill (the SMB3-style ones that throw green spiny eggs) and the ones I want to leave alive (the SMW-style ones that throw SMB3-style ones). See, the SMB3 Lakitus only throw spiny eggs — they’re the ones that are lightning fast and turn any level they occupy into a torture chamber. The SMW-style Lakitus are much tamer; they’re slower, throw less frequently, and can be flagged to throw any other NPC object in the game.

The way Horrifying Lakitu Thunderdome works is to create an infinite Lakitu chain by having SMW-style Lakitus generate more SMB3-style Lakitus. They cannot, however, generate more of themselves. So after a few applications of my tower plan, the SMW Lakitus would all be dead, which means no more monsters would be generated, which means my point acquisition would plateau.

That wasn’t the big problem, though. The big problem was, with the tower onscreen. all those Bowsers could gain enough height to kill the Lakitus with their butt-stomps. This was way less than idea!

Clearly, the idea needed more refinement:

  • I needed an endless supply of enemies.
  • I needed each of those enemies to be able to provide an endless supply of enemies.
  • I needed an easy way to clear the screen, so as to check my progress.
  • Ideally, I needed something that could be played outside of God Mode, so it could just be plugged in for laffs.

That looked something like this:

I was definitely on the right track. The sky continuously generated SMB3-style Lakitus, which each in turn threw spiny eggs forever. This generates a ridiculous amount of new NPCs every second, which I imagine would just increase exponentially until your machine starts smoking. Mario is boxed in, which means he’s invincible, but his hammers travel through blocks, which means he can eliminate hundreds of spinies per throw. Plus, if he jumps and throws hammers upwards, he can eliminate Lakitus as well, so clearing the screen to check your score is trivial. And the Pachinko-style design causes spiny eggs to accumulate at every level, so each hammer dishes out maximum pwnage.

This was pretty fun, and I was sure I’d hit the max score in just a few minutes.

I didn’t. I cleared a million, which meant the max score was at least just shy of a ten million, but it would take forever to get there. And what if it rolled over again? Billions would be tedious.

The problem is, Mario doesn’t accumulate points when he kills tons of monsters, he accumulates lives. Each hammer would go through the standard eight-tier point progression (100 -> 200 -> 400 -> 800 -> 1000 -> 2000 -> 4000 -> 8000) and then start earning 1ups. 1ups are cool, but they aren’t worth any points.

It didn’t matter if a hammer was killing eight spinies or eight hundred; each one was only worth 16500 points. Clearly the concept needed some refinement:

  • I didn’t need to just kill lots of monsters; I needed to kill the most valuable monster, over and over again.
  • I needed a method of killing that monster that didn’t go through the point progression.
  • I needed to automate the process, just in case the max score was umpteen-trillion and I needed to just let it run for hours.

That looked something like this:

This room hits the max score of 9,999,990 in about four seconds.

Here’s the level, if you want to try it. You need the newest version of SMBX to play it; you can get that here.

I went ahead and submitted the level to RMN Bros. 2. For lulz.

3 comments to Infinite Points in SMBX

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