#mari0

“Uhm… g-greetings, Mr Phillip, or Mr wittebane, whichever you would prefer. I come with something to give to you, since i think this would be safer with you than the bottom of some weird tree, and i hardly used it…”

*It handed him a star shaped emerald {the emerald crystal star, if you’ve played the game or watched a play-through you should know the power these things have}*

“See you later, maybe…”

@mari0thegodspuppet

*He looked Mari0 up and down, attempting to scrutinise its intentions. However, there seemed to be no trails of deceit, so, albeit reluctantly, Philip reached out and took the emerald. He examined it.*

"Hm... I suppose this is an acceptable gift-.." He was interrupted slightly, when the emerald crystal star began to emit a small glow, revealing that it was more powerful than it first appeared. Now he took more interest.*

"Yes, yes this will suffice as your offering. Farewell, then, perhaps we may cross paths again someday."

After 6 and a half years of making mappacks I am officially announcing my plans to depart from making mari0 mappacks, enemies and content within the game (not on the game, we'll get to that)

I'll also still be a part of the community, I'll still be lurking the forums, playing mappacks, moderating and contributing to the discord and not maintaining the fandom wiki :).

The heartfelt guff

I can't start this post without thanking everyone who has been a part of the journey, I truly wouldn't be here without everyone giving support or just playing my mappacks.

Maurice Guegan and Sašo Smolej, for making the game in the first place an above giving me a platform to express myself creatively, doing so for so many other people and fostering a community which I can call nothing but my second home.

Alesan99, for making the mod that I used throughout the years and for being such a funny and caring person, I wish nothing for the best for you now you're stepping away from mari0 AE as well.

Williamfrog, who's been a major help for myself as well as creating the modern mari0 meta with everything he's discovered since 2020, and also being such a good friend. And thanks for kickstarting my love for Terraria, I'll get you to like Minecraft at some point ;).

Skysometric, who fostered the community discord server where I found so many likeminded creators, and where a lot of my motivation came through over the years, it's not always been easy for you and I know that but you've always given 110% even on the bad days and I appreciate that and you.

All of my fellow collaborators for projects like Psnes and Mari0 AECE, Critfish, NH1507, Hexi Hertzgame, Dekainone, BetterDonutGalaxy, and yes, even you too Frazzdude and Mushrunt despite what happened between us.

And above all else, to everyone who has played my mappacks, or used my enemies, or didn't use my characters /j. I truly do appreciate it, it always kept me motivated.

Why have I come to this decision:

Now it's important to realise that this isn't something that I magically decided, and not something I'm going to drop either. This has been a series of thoughts built up since 2021. The short version is work, lack of validation and constant quota changes. The long version are these bullet points:

Work

I've was unemployed for a while, I was meant to leave collage in August 2020 but something really weird happened and all of a sudden I was doing collage from home, for all of 2020 and 2021 I had all the free time in the world but soon things changed and I could (and basically had to) get a job.

I was working 25 hours a week so still had a decent amount of time to work on mappacks, this worked well for me but I was only on a 6 month contract which became 12 months, and finally 18 months. But then mine ran out and I had to find a new job.

I was able to find a new job at a local shop which was good to have but I went down to 12 hours a week which was too little for me, I was also making less. I was also working stupid hours like from 5 AM. It was such a kick to my moral and my output dried out over the 5 months I worked there.

But finally I got a call back from my old workplace looking to bring me back on full time and permanently, with an added wage increase. 37 Hours a week. And that is where I have been since the end of 2023, on 37 hours a week I don't have nearly as much time to work on mari0.

Lack of validation

Being a mari0 creator in 2024 is very niche, if you're lucky a half dozen people will appreciate what you do, and the best you can do is get BTG to feature something you've made on his channel. But still you're not going to get much out of it.

2020 gave us who have made content for a while a taste of what true validation felt like, so many players fled to mari0 AE and I could see it in my downloads and views.

I know this sounds like "Manchild crying about his mappack not getting 100 downloads" but It's really not, never cared about views at all but with the hundreds of hours I spend on some mappacks I feel like I'm throwing my time into a black hole, you can make money but you can't make time, and I wanna use my time on things I feel good for, mappacks don't do that for me anymore

Constant quota changes

Do you remember the days where the only custom enemies would be... enemies? I don't. It's not a bad thing that we have so many new things we can make with all the exploits found by Williamfrog but it makes it so hard to top what's been made, and knowing that what you make now could become 10x easier in a week.

Overall I love the evolution of the games limits, so many amazing things that couldn't have been made in 2018 when I started. But it makes everything I do feel so small, I don't have the skills or time to make some of the things people are making now, I've fallen too far behind.

I could learn and adapt but I don't want to spend years on one mappack... except for one (We'll get to that later). I miss when I could throw together a mappack in a month and call it a day, yes they we're bad but not because I didn't spend time on it, mainly because I was just young and unexperienced.

When am I quitting:

It's hard to tell at this point but I'm looking at 2025, I have 3 major things I want done before I go, things I have dreamed about for years that would feel wrong not to do.

Finish my never ending secret mappack

I've been working on a mappack with a fellow creator for almost 2 years, the delays are not due to just me or them, but a bit of both.

Anyway we have plans to kickstart development soon and get some serious work done. and I'm hoping to show it off as soon as possible. I'm hoping that by going public it would give us the motivation to keep going now we'll have people looking at what we're working on.

Finish already (partially started) planned mappacks

I have a few mappacks planned and two that have had some amount of work done. Not going to beat around the bush the two are 12 maps of Christmas 5 and a HIM collection, being a remake of all 4 mappacks.

Both of these exist as mappacks but still haven't officially been started.

Create one last update for my SMM2 enemy pack

The pack is years out of date and really needs an update, I'll be working with Williamfrog to rebuild the majority of the pack from the ground up and also adding a few new enemies but not too much. This will almost purely be a quality of life update.

What does the future hold for me?

Well, mostly 3 things:

Game Development

It's been more of a secondary love for a while but I really want to go full force with it, I love game development, I love making game, I love programming games, I love documenting games. Making games will give me a whole new world to open.

I won't have to worry about pleasing a niche community as indie game development is such a major industry with low entry barriers.

And I'll never have to work with complicated, unintelligent formats like enemies. Everything I want I can make myself.

I've already made 3 games for game jams, but nothing major. So after I bid farewell I am going to go full force on my first major game.

I'm aiming for an hour of gameplay, and tons of extras. Nothing is planned yet but I'm super hyped to get started.

And above all else, I can have the option to monetize through itch.io by allowing people to pay for my games, I want my games to be enjoyed by all so there will be no only paid games, at least for a while, but having the option to allow people to support me will be so nice.

Youtube channel

Above that I will also be continuing my videos, making videos about games I'm working on (Showcases, playthroughs, devlogs, game jams) but also regular gaming videos.

And I'll also still be making mari0 mappack showcases. I still love the game and want to put more of the community in the spotlight, seeing how other people react to how I play their mappacks is always so rewarding, especially when I rage lol.

And I'll also be starting some tutorials on how I made my mappacks, talking about planning, creation and advertising. I'll be showing off the tools I used, providing all the templates I've made over the years, making a mod to help with quality of life when making mappacks and just general tutorials on making specific things.

And general life

I'm going to be 22 in August 2024, I'm an adult.

I've been working on getting my drivers licence so I can look into moving out of my parents house and closer to where I'll be working as at my current job they're in the middle of planning to move to a bigger city (Not hundreds of miles away, like 12), infact the plans went through this Thursday so it is happening. I'm looking to pass by the end of the year.

When I move out i'll have to spend more of my time doing things like my own laundry and shopping which will suck slightly but hey, I'll have my own place and i'll be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want!

And who knows, maybe I'll find someone who loves me for who I am and not the way I look or the number in my bank account. And maybe I'll have a mini Aidan who I can talk to about how bad slopes used to be in the retirement home.

Departing words

Thank you for reading this...I know it's a lot and as someone who is really bad at reading and writing this was so hard, my back hurts.

But I needed to get things right, and make sure people knew everything.

And yeah, that's about it, thank you all for an amazing 6 and a half years, I've still got lots of time left to work on mari0 and be of help.

Thank you all so much, I love you, kiss kiss, UwU.

Ok that's too weird, thanks, I appreciate it.

Kind regards, - Aidan The Mapper, Aid0n, Britdan

Made August 2023

(6/30/23 Edited to include Blook) (9/20/23 Edited to reflect SMG4k's current status and include the Haltmann Meme Guardians AU characters) (11/4/23 Edited to include characters related to Abyssal's arc and Entropy) (1/16/24 Edited to include Showtime, update GG's profile, and clean up the tags) (3/9/24 Edited to correct a few mistakes, update Gohma's entry, and add AVA) (5/25/24 Edited to include Minion (because I can) and the two emergency part-time SMGs (Bob/SMGi and Pinkie/SMGpi). Also I'm almost out of tags on this post so if there's any more anomalies I may have to make a second list)

The God Box

A box of broken computer parts that serves as a graveyard for dead universes and a source of unlimited -and highly corruptive- power. At some unknown point it developed some form of consciousness. It was ultimately destroyed by the combined efforts of Avatar Mario, SMGs 0 through 4, Melony the Fierce Watermelon Demigoddess, and Terrence the Ugandan Knuckles.

Niles

A Super Meme Guardian replica created by the God Box to be SMG0's partner. While he was very good at his job, he proved to be dangerously unstable both physically and (after a failed attempt to repair his flawed code) mentally.

Zer0

A forced fusion of SMG0 and Niles, obsessed with creating a "perfect" universe to replace the one they lost. They killed Avatar Spudnick and destroyed his universe, and nearly did the same to Mario's twice before dying in the destruction of the God Box.

Minion Glitch

A spaghetti hybrid clone of SMG4 accidentally created by Mario using the same machine that made the evil living Weegee Dolls. She keeps in touch with 4, Mario and their friends, and the kids and Admins know about her, but she doesn't really get involved in the Crew's adventures, preferring a relatively quiet life in Bloopersville. Since she is half SMG, she's presumably capable of manipulating Meme Energy and using Guardian Commands, but she hasn't had a reason to learn how.

Super Mario 64 Emulator

Normally shortened to just Emulator, occasionally Emmy to her friends. She developed a consciousness and identity of her own as a result of the many, many problems that Zer0's presence caused for SMG3 and 4 and Avatar Mario's activation. She ultimately proved benevolent and acts as an unofficial third Admin for Mario's universe. She's usually a fun-loving goofball, but is very protective of the people she cares about and has a slight sadistic streak that comes out full force when something happens to them. Most of the Admins are either wary of or annoyed by her, often both.

Juliano

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

A former Admin and the main protagonist of Rising Star Circus. What do I mean by former? Well, he died as a result of a monster attack, and as expected his universe died with him. However, somehow a bit of his code survived and drifted around before finding the Mario universe and manifesting there as a Mario recolor. He was then reunited with his old friends, the prototype SMGs -1 and -2, who are now 3 and 4's Admins, Domain and Forum. He's since regained his old model.

Significantly more mature and level-headed than most Avatars both due to experience and because he doesn't have to deal with Avatar-level Meme Energy levels anymore. He acts as a mentor to the younger Avatars, especially Mario since they live in the same world and Mario's awkward activation means he doesn't have the same instinctual knowledge the others have and only started learning the hard way relatively recently.

The Gamer Girl

A TAS Bot programmed for Kirby and the Amazing Mirror speedruns that somehow became a full-fledged AI. A lack of grounding influences means she sees the multiverse as her playground and the people in it as toys. Thankfully she's the kind of kid who usually takes good care of her toys and puts them back where they belong when she's done, so while her victims do often end up traumatized, it's rare for them to get serious injuries or permanent physical changes. She primarily focusses on Avatar Kirby's universe, which is thankfully uniquely equipped to handle her.

Recently, she's been getting a lot better at understanding morality, in large part due to her friendship with Zack MeowtTF2, Jim Pianta and Larry Koopa, as well as her decision to unofficially be Diane "Floyd" Floyener's little sister.

SMGi

Full designation "Super Meme Guardian (Imaginary Number)," this is technically just Bob Bobowski with the False Positive Glitch active. The designation was first applied when Bob accidentally used the Factory Reset command on himself while trying to get rid of the FPG and overloaded the Guardian System. Recently he actively made use of this form (without a reset this time) alongside another FPG SMG in a battle against Ozymandias, and somehow he's better at using SMG powers than actual SMGs 3 and 4.

The Guardian System

(Look, even though it was deliberate I'm still counting it.)

As the name implies, this is the system that checks the status of the Super Meme Guardians, determines whether they have the proper permissions to use certain high-level commands, and allows Admins with proper permissions to access and make changes to an SMGs code. Due to an incident involving Bob Bobowski that nearly crashed the Adminspace Server due to Data Overflow, Admin Lag from the Maintenance Division upgraded the System into a full AI so he could explain what it was doing wrong. This development has increased its effectiveness dramatically, though several Admins do wish it had ended up as less of a little shit. But I guess that's just what happens when you're hooked up to Bob's mind for the first 75 hours of your life.

Dialup

An ancient program of unknown origin dedicated to eliminating anomalies for the sake of preserving the Internet's processing power. It was locked away in Computer Hell after attempting to reset Emulator twice.

Admin Gohma

The result of a demon taking over the body and consuming the soul of an Admin. While definitely powerful given her higher state and Admin Commands, she was still ultimately a Zelda Boss and went down with amount of effort once someone with a similar level of power who wasn't getting nerfed by a hacker showed up.

She survived her defeat as a formless mass of code and eventually made her way into what would become the Grid's MRU version of Hyrule, where she temporarily resided in Marbled Gohma before moving on to a Yiga Footsoldier that she molded to suit her preferences. She is now the Code Specialist of the Evil Syndicate, a multiversal alliance of supervillains that spans the five servers currently in the MRU system.

Mod the Code Turtle

A code manifestation for Mario, created by Emulator after accumulated errors Reset and nearly killed him. Haven't come up with much for him beyond the fact he exists.

Spicy Meme Generator 4000

A version of SMG4 from an alternate universe (actual universe, not just a separate computer program like most of the "universes" that exist in the SMG4 series.). His main ability is to absorb Meme Energy and create his own Meme entities that are extensions of himself. His ultimate goal is to consume all Avatars and Avatar candidates in every universe and use their combined power to become one with Reality itself. He was locked in Computer Hell with his powers mostly sealed for a while, but eventually managed to escape and continue its campaign of destruction. It was only thanks to the efforts of the SMG4 Crew, their friends from both their own and other Computer Universes, and several alternate True Universe versions of themselves that SMG4000 was finally destroyed and the universes of both kinds it had destroyed were restored.

Blook Emulator

A manifestation of Barry the rogue Avatar's abandoned universe. Unlike Emmy, it doesn't take physical form or speak in any understandable way, instead acting through the game world itself. It also hates. In particular it hates the Avatar that left it and the people who drove him away and especially the SMGs and Admins that started the whole mess. But mostly it hates in general, all-encompassingly, because it doesn't see anything else to do.

The Haltmann Triplets

A false set of Avatar and Guardians created by Susie Haltmann using a fragment of the God Box and genetic material from Mario and several other video game protagonists. Unlike Niles, they're fully stable and properly integrated into the Super Mario 64 universe thanks to Susie's programming knowledge. They're less powerful than a standard SMG set or the previous False Guardian since there was only a fragment to work with, but as a tradeoff they're immune to the corruptive effects of Anti-Meme Energy, able to use it safely and even purify it with some effort.

Mari0

An alternate Mario from a destroyed version of the Super Mario Bros Movie universe, empowered by the will of the God Box. His own powers, both canonical and demonic, have been heightened to the point where at his peak he managed to kill Ultra Instinct Shaggy himself, and he has gained the ability to transform Illumination characters into Anti-Memes and control them. He has significantly more cognizance than most characters who reach that level of corruption, possibly because his goals and those of the God Box are alligned

Mari0 Soul

Not willing to accept defeat, Mari0 and the God Box break past the last of their limits and consume the massive well of Meme Energy within Luigi. The resulting reaction between equal parts positive and negative energy causes the two wills to fully merge, mutating them into a near-godlike entity capable of siphoning both forms of Meme Energy from everyone and everything around him. In this state he seeks nothing less than the destruction of everything Avatar Mario knows and loves, and then to kill him after he's borne witness. Thankfully, he failed to account for Mario's friends still being both willing and able to fight even without memes, or for the power of the Stars, which ultimately proved his final undoing.

The Abyss

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

The endless Nothing that existed before the beginning of the SMG4 multiverse...which technically just makes it the hardware of Luke's computer that the code of Everything was written on. Over the years, it's accumulated junk data that's fallen through cracks in the code, slowly developing a mind of its own as a result. It came to resent the world above, especially the first five beings that were created from it to begin the dance of Life and Death, and so it created Abyssal to spread chaos and destruction. Ultimately, she refused, simply giving modified reports of chaotic, destructive events that were already happening so it wouldn't get suspicious. This couldn't last forever, and eventually another Anomaly forced both of their hands. While Abyssal is now free, the Abyss still exists beneath the world. Waiting. Plotting.

Shadow of Doubt

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

A manifestation of the Avatars' negative emotions that takes the form of shadowy versions of them and seeks to make them as miserable as possible so it can gain more power. Thankfully it has quite a few limitations. For one thing, the only things it knows about them are the things that make them miserable. For another, it's an idiot, as you'd probably expect of anything that closely connected to all of the Avatars. They died as a result of the Abyss taking over their body.

Ecolo, the Space-Time Traveler

Specifically the version of Ecolo from Avatar Arle's universe. While everything about him is anomalous in-universe, as far as the SMG4 AU lore is concerned that's exactly how he's supposed to be. No, the only actual anomaly about him is that, despite being a Character-style Program, he somehow has high enough code density to be perfectly fine in Code Being servers.

Whirlpool

An offshoot of the Abyss that was kinda-sorta-accidentally-on-purpose freed from its control by Avatar Sora and his SMGs when they were trying to free the hearts of all the Heartless it had absorbed. It's now perfectly friendly, if a bit confused, and has clearly imprinted on Sora.

Entropy the Collector

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving. Introduced here.)

A Program/Virus hybrid that collects strange and unique code beings and keeps them in her own universe in what appear to be little glass balls.

Showtime

A consciousness formed when the Creep (the meat moss from It's Gotta Be Perfect) corrupted Emulator from the inside. At the height of her power, she had full control over the Creep, as well as Emulator's body and abilities, and managed to supercharge herself with Wonder Power. She was ultimately destroyed by Marggy, the fusion of Avatar Mario and Meggy Spletzer, and her soul was sent to the Disgaea Universe by Duck to atone for her sins as a Prinny. She's incredibly vain and lustful, especially towards Emulator. You do not want to know the stuff she did while stuck in that tower in full control of Emmy's body for a whole week.

AVA

A stray bit of Avatar code that broke off when the Arles merged during the Arle Arc, then managed to form into a mannequin-like echo of Arle's consciousness. It eventually managed to reach the rapidly destabilizing Composite Arle and restore them both into Arle Nadja and Doppelganger Arle/Dapple Nadja, taking on both halves of their Avatar Code in the process. Since she's now Arle again, AVA technically no longer exists.

SMGpi

The version of Pinkie Pie from the living Equestria server, under the effects of the False Positive Glitch. She first acquired the glitch during a battle with Ozymandias, where Bob Bobowski/SMGi deliberately triggered it in her so he'd have a Guardian partner and would be able to use his borrowed powers to their fullest effect. Like him, she's somehow better at it than 3 and 4 despite having the powers for less than five minutes.

The definitive version of my Mari0 speedrunning level pack is here! Retrush 2.0: ~Second Wind~ is a small-but-mighty upgrade with fun new tricks ahead of the upcoming Threemix "DLC" – and autosave, at long last!