Need ideas for a Mario-like game

I'm going to start a simple MMC1 game (not MMC5 because it'd be too complicated).
It will have WRAM for only saving the same. The objects and level will be stored as explained in this post: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12457&start=30#p144766
It will be like Mario, but with different entity sprites and enemy sprites. Meaning no mushroom, but for example pizza or spinach (Popeye reference XD).
The reason is that there are no homebrew Mario games except for hacks which for me aren't homebrew.
I can do the game engine, but I have no idea what kind of sprites should I use or a story or anything.
Can you give me ideas for the look of these objects?:

• Mushroom (health supply)
• Fire flower (for fire powers)
• Ice flower (for ice powers)
• Leaf (for raccoon tail and ears or fox double-tail and ears)
• Star (for invincibility and infinite power)
• Goombas (I need somethings to stomp!)
• Koopas & shells (something kickable. SuperTux got ice block enemies for kicking because ice is slippery)
• Spiny (an enemy you have to deal with with fire)
• Buzzy Beetle (Shell like enemy, but you can't get rid of them by stomping or fire. Except by a pit or another shell)

Also, do you have any idea of what could the player's character be? Could it be a kid, a teen, an engineer, what? What kind of a world is the place in which he/she is? Is it just Earth with wild machines? What would be the story?

Don't waste your time with the enemies because chances are you won't end up recreating them as originally designed (except maybe the goomba), so forget that part. Just come up with them as ideas come in. Also, you forgot to toss in coins into that list :v

Maybe just take this old idea and go with it? (oh god pre-canvas HTML games) The plot is basically "you're a cat superhero".

Wouldn't that just result in Cat Mario? "Prece Enter Key".

Your ideas sounds more like a 1:1 mario clone than a "Mario-like game".

I'm with Bregalad here. Why not just get a rom of SMB and change the graphics? It will end up being the same thing.

Because this

They took the time to write a whole webpage? I'm sorry Nintendo, but unless I can buy a new copy of Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt at the store, I don't see the problem.

You certainly can buy both of those at the Nintendo store:

Super Mario Bros.: http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/tIgYKl98KyjQA4LsY-XEiL2zu_xzk7JY
Duck Hunt: http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/yEiAzhU2eQI1KZ7wOHhngFoAHc1FpHwj

Yeah, I guess... I still think they should be in physical form. Hey just thinking, because they weren't selling copies at the store, but there was no "Nintendo Store" either, It doesn't seem like there'd be anything wrong with you getting an emulator and playing games in the Game Cube era.

He won't learn as much about game programming. At school, teachers ask you to do things that have been done countless times before, but you do it anyway because it's not the final product that matters, but the knowledge you acquire while making it.

Granted, you could learn just as much, if not more, by making something that's not a 1:1 replica of something else, but creativity isn't everyone's strong suit.

If it's just about programming something, why does he need a story and whatnot?

During the "GameCube Era", Nintendo was selling "Super Mario Bros. Deluxe" for the Game Boy Color, and again later as part of the "Classic NES" series for the Game Boy Advance actually, but I was just being pedantic. Are you trying to argue that if you don't like the format it's currently sold in, it should be legal to pirate?

Well, they couldn't have been reselling every NES game.


I'm saying that if it isn't currently sold in any format, then yeah.

Just for fashion.

And for some reason, I have a feeling that my game, if original in code, but not original in graphics, will have the same fate as SMBX.

You can't buy most Steam games "in physical form" either, but does that give you the right to infringe copyright?

Unlike Steam games, NES games actually were "in physical form" at one point. We're talking about rereleasing games here, which Steam games haven't been. Just forget what I said earlier so this topic doesn't get derailed too badly.

Anyways, I'm starting the game from scratch. ...or maybe with a little forkout from SMB3 disassembly to mimic physics. Do you have any idea what enemies do I need? Clone or not clone, I need new graphics ideas.

I suggest that you take a look at The Great Giana Sisters, or the "unofficial" sequel Hard N' Heavy, as those games take the Mario formula, and at least artistically, make it "not mario".

Here's one of my WIP canvases, as an example:

This really sounds more like "Mario clone" than "Mario-like game". Perhaps you could call it the Super Johnson Siblings*.

Even with just the physical releases it's not like it's ever been out of print for long.
NES(1985/6-9)
FDS (1986)
NEC PC-8801 and Sharp X1 (1986)
SNES (1993)
GBC (1999-2000)
GBA (2004)
Wii (2010) (yes, as a disc)

[ppe: *aaand I've been beaten to making a Giana Sisters reference/joke thanks to slow typing. Alp.]

Um, no? Especially since that game was designed to troll the player (and the main character is cat because that's what Japanese emoticons tend to be when they're taller than a line - all characters look like emoticons, actually)

You should know by know that he likes to make cheesy jokes.

（・＿・）

Ha ha ha...

It's true that there are many SMB game releases and SMB clones. However, not much is SMB3 or SMASB3 or even the awesome SMA4B3 where you can fly and be a bear with a raccoon tail and throw blocks at enemies.
The point of my project is to learn how to make a Mario engine (which means tile-based collisions, entity collision, game physics for all entities), enjoy the retro style of it (some retro taste in graphics, some cool tail-wagging fire-spitting brick-smashing block-punching pipe-oink-oink-oinking action with my name on it and effort in it), but with different graphics and other tangible expressions.

Some significant things I want to do is that the enemies aren't just stupid "Goombas", but when they see the player, they run towards him like Goombas do in the new topview Mario game for Wii U (I don't know how it's called). Tailwagging a shell can cause the shell to stomp a "Goomba". A "Goomba" can kick a shell by accident. "Mario" can switch weapons and superpowers during the action scene. Using only 2KB of RAM for the game's active objects and game state, ROM for levels and WRAM for saving the game. The player shape and colors will be customizable; yes, I like character generators. Probably I'll make a level editor too just like Battle City has one. I have experience of these things in game development from the past years in the Multimedia Fusion series and Game Maker series, but the programs were limited and it was impossible to implement that stuff and it also caused me to learn wrong stuff about programming. Now it's the time for me to do this in the most optimized way possible.