glitch, please
Laying out today's Gamasutra feature reminded me of a two-day hobby I had about a year or so ago: corrupting Super Mario Bros. It's stupidly easy to do, and while you may only get a playable result a fraction of the time, the results are often worth it.



This one was the best I came up with. All I did was open the rom file up in EditPad and copy and paste random chunks of code from one end of the file to the other, and all of a sudden, Super Mario Bros. became a very different game. Check it out, if you like -- FCEUltra gives the best results.

Please don't ever play it if you're at risk for seizures, though. I'd feel really bad if I killed you with a rom hack.



The king of all corrupted Mario hacks is still Proceduralglitch3.nes, though. I don't remember who made it, but I got it off of an old thread at selectbutton.net. It turns Super Mario Bros. into a race against impending and inevitable doom, as levels will gradually become more and more corrupt over time. As the glitches become more severe and the level layouts become less visible, it often becomes a desperate, blind struggle to find a warp pipe or finish a stage before the game crashes. It tests your familiarity with Super Mario Bros. in new and unexpected ways, and never plays the same way twice. I like it a lot.

Also I have a twitter now, for whatever that's worth. I still don't really know what to do with it.