Super Mario Epic 3

From Mario Fan Games Galaxy Wiki
 Custom redblock.png This article is about a fangame that has ceased production.

No further work is being done on this project, and a release is not likely.

Super Mario Epic 3 (working title)
Sme3.gif
Developer(s) Jeff Silvers
Announce Date January 2nd, 2005
Release Date Canceled
Genre Platform
Players 1
Input Standard keyboard
Medium Multimedia Fusion Express, Multimedia Fusion 1.5
Platform Windows
Status Canceled

Super Mario Epic 3 is a cancelled fangame that was in production by Jeff Silvers. It was set to be the final installment of the Super Mario Epic trilogy.

History

On September 11th, 2004, Jeff Silvers released Super Mario Epic 2: Dream Machine to mostly positive reviews. He immediately began to consider doing a third Epic. After attempting a couple of projects that never left the ground, Silvers officially decided in late 2004 that his next project would be SME3.

Production begins

Production officially began on January 2nd, 2005. The project originated in Multimedia Fusion, a program similar to The Games Factory. Rather than use the built-in platform movement that had been implemented in the two previous Epics, Silvers used a static engine by a person who called himself Chancey. He built many aspects of the engine from the ground up, while others were copied directly from SME2. For instance, Rage's veggie engine from SME2 was copied into SME3, while an entirely new engine for killing enemies was devised. One the more notable improvements was that Shyguys could now be riden as they are in SMB2, and even picked up to be thrown at other enemies. Veggies and Shyguys that are thrown as weapons could bounce off enemies when they hit them, allowing for combos. Silvers also introduced a power-up that hadn't been seen in the first two games: the Power Carrot from Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins.

Anticipation begins

For days, Silvers had been quietly promoting what he described as a "top secret uber project." On January 10th, 2005, he revealed that the project was actually Super Mario Epic 3. Immediately, MFGGers displayed interest in the game, with several offering assistance. A topic was created by Silvers wherein he provided updates on the game's status.

Cancellation

Despite the growing anticipation, the project was cancelled sometime around February 2005. Silvers cited problems with Chancey's static engine as the cause of the cancellation (namely problems involving Mario interacting with other active objects). Silvers never ruled out the possibility that the game would be revived, vaguely insisting that the project was "cancelled until the future." In the meantime, he began work on his next fangaming project, The Legend of Zelda: Gates of Elysium. The project got off to a good start, with most of the game mapped out in pre-production, a detailed story written, and a semi-functioning engine created in MMFE. However, as Silvers' interest in Gates of Elysium began to wane, he started to ponder the fate of SME3.

Gates of Elysium was eventually put on hiatus, and Silvers began to quietly contemplate resurrecting the Epic 3 project. He knew, however, that attempting the game with Chancey's engine simply would not suffice. In fact, he knew that the limits imposed by MMFE would be too restricting for him to create what he envisioned for the final game in his trilogy.

Quiet ressurection

In the summer of 2005, Silvers obtained a working copy of Multimedia Fusion 1.5, the much more powerful follow-up to The Games Factory. He also obtained the Platform Movement Extension, a powerful object that would allow him to create an engine more playable than most "homemade" static engines. In August 2005, Super Mario Epic 3 secretly re-entered production.

Silvers built the engine from the ground up, centered around the platform movement extension. Some aspects were taken from SME3's original engine (Shyguys, Koopa Troopa's shells), but these were edited and improved upon. Within weeks, Silvers had a workable engine, and work began on the first level, Sunset Acres.

Public announcement

On September 11th, 2005, one year after the release of Super Mario Epic 2, and after a week of PPP topics counting down the days (without giving any further details why), Silvers made a new topic in Fangame Discussion revealing that SME3 had gone back into production. As with the first unveiling, this was met with much enthusiasm. Silvers continued to tweak the engine, adding new features and then later posting about them in the topic. He also released a video on Christmas Eve of that year which showed Mario playing through an early version of Sunset Acres. The video was also met with enthusiasm.

Demo

The first public demo of SME3 was released on July 18th, 2006. Silvers posted a topic in the Pointless Post Palace called "I have a public demo of SME3 ready" and stated that he would only release the demo if the topic reached ten pages in less than an hour. After ten pages of spam and embeds (which ShadowMan had temporarily enabled for that topic), the demo was released to a mostly positive response. The demo would go on to win a 2006 MFGG Award for Best Demo (and was nominated for Best Engine, Most Anticipated, and Best Usage of Site Resources).

April Fools' 2007 Demo

On April 1st, 2007, Jeff Silvers released another three level demo ("April Fool's 2007 Demo") to the public.

Silvers had originally posted the demo in a stickied topic in the PPP called "Countdown to SME3 demo!" As the topic was posted on April Fool's Day, many believed this to be a joke on Silvers' part. This was actually his intention; he purposely made his posts seems suspicious, with the "joke" being that the demo was actually real. To this end, he even made the icon of the demo look like a Windows Notepad .txt file icon and gave it the filename HA YOU FEEL FOR IT. His efforts were mostly successful, though they had an unpredicted side effect: most people seemed to not bother to download the file. Silvers eventually let the joke out, replaced the file with one featuring the proper file icon, and unstickied the topic. He later submitted the new demo to MFGG's website.

Along with the first level (which appeared in the July 2006 demo), it also included Block Valley and Kalamari Desert.

However, this version still had the glitch where Mario can't die and many users have experienced glitches that Jeff himself had never experienced.

Current status

The game production was restarted at October 2007. As of April 2006, Super Mario Epic 3 has been in production longer than it's predecessor (if one includes the various times at which the game was on hiatus).

In late December 2006, Silvers released a new SME3 video. Unlike the first video, which was just a brief runthrough of the first level, this new video was more like a full trailer, with clips from various levels set to the Von Bondies' C'mon C'mon.

On March 29, 2010, Captain Jeff Silvers suddenly appeared in a topic called the "where did they go" topic (dead link) after being gone for a long time. He said "I'm busy working on SME3.

(Not really. Does anybody even remember that?)" thus implying that the game is canceled.

Captain Jeff Silvers hasn't been heard from in many moons.

Trivia

  • This game marks the first time in the Epic series that the player can choose between playing as Mario or Luigi. The two previous games featured only Mario. Luigi's movement is roughly similar to his movement in Lost Levels, SMB2, and SMA2: namely, he has a higher jump than Mario, but poorer traction.
  • Originally, there was no plan to add Luigi as a playable character. He was added more than a year into production after some people expressed a desire for him to be included.
  • Super Mario Epic 3 is slated to include Kalimari Desert and Cheese Mountain, two levels which appeared in both of the original Epic games (in different forms). This will make them the only two levels to appear in every game of the SME trilogy.
  • A working subtitle for Super Mario Epic 3 was Wario Ransom. The game currently lacks a subtitle or a plot.

External links