What's new in the game?

New stage: The hunt

This fourth stage is based on a very simple and enjoyable layout. It is super friendly, it is relaxing to play on it... until the orb appears!

The player that succeed to hit the orb gains power. How much power? Something like “NO WAY! GO AWAY FROM MY ORB!!!” power.

Improved menu graphics

Adding borders to interface elements definitely make the menus feel more... finished.

Also, the configuration screen was the first menu of the game and its design shown its age. Completely revamped, it is now the prettiest menu in existence!

What's new under the hood?

Steering behaviors

In the new level, the orb floats in the air. It seems so natural that we do not think of it, but NES games generally don't feature such organic movements. Actually, the orb uses an approach that was not yet discovered on Super Mario Bros' release year: steering behaviors.

The idea is pretty simple and gives great results. Each frame: draw a vector for each goal of the orb, sum up these vectors, it is the new velocity of the orb. Bellow illustrated for the three following goals: Go between players, avoid player one and keep the same velocity.