SMB2 Practice Mod v1.1.0

This is a large release, with tons of new features and various improvements throughout. I really hope you enjoy!

@rehtrop was directly behind a huge portion of this release, so be sure to say thank you!

Download Link

Wii Install Guide

Dolphin Install Guide

Press L+R at the same time on your controller to toggle the in-game menu.

Changelog

Savestates

• Auto Save Slot: Added option to automatically save new states to the next empty slot, as well as whether to overwrite the oldest state if all slots are full (@ComplexPlane)
• Clear Binds: Added ability to set a controller binding to clear the current savestate (@rehtropsmb), as well as a binding to clear all savestates (@ComplexPlane)
• Jamabars are now savestated correctly (@rehtropsmb)

Input Display

• RGB Support: Added ability to set a custom RGB color for the input display. (@rehtropsmb)
• Gradient Support: Added ability to set a color gradient for the input display based on two RGB colors and rotation angle. (@ComplexPlane)

Custom Timer Types

(@rehtropsmb)

• Added two new modes: Freeze at 0.00 and Count Up from 0.00

Physics Editor

(@rehtropsmb)

• Added 6 new physics presets
• Moon Gravity was renamed to Light Ball (to match Heavy Ball)
• A toggleable text display will appear on screen when custom physics are being used

Jump Mod

(@rehtropsmb)

Completely revamped jump controls as a new "Standard" jump profile.

• Jumping on a sloped surface or a wall will slightly push you away from that surface, allowing for massive speed boosts while traveling downhill, but increased difficulty when jumping uphill
• Jump count can be increased from one to two, and there's even an infinite jumpcount option!
• Walljumps can be disabled completely
• Jump-Mod has always changed physics slightly to make jumping more comfortable, but these physics changes can now be disabled to play Jump-Mod with vanilla physics
• Moved old Jump-Mod to "Classic" jump profile (so you can still play with the old version if you like the cheese)

Camera

(@rehtropsmb)

• Added options to use SMB2 or SMB1 camera in any pack. These options will "force" the camera and disable camera-toggles in any pack that has them

Disable Fallouts

(@rehtropsmb)

• Added options for a disabled fallout plane, and for a bouncy fallout plane
• Added options to disable fallout volumes

Timers

(@rehtropsmb)

• Framesave Calculation, Subtick Timer, and Unrounded Timers

Customization

(@rehtropsmb)

• Added RGB selector, rainbow mode, and random mode to ball color options
• Added random mode to clothing color options
• Added option to change monkey selection

IL Battle / IL Session Tracker

(@rehtropsmb)

• Endless timer now shows hour count
• Ready button is now a controller bind that can be changed
• Time/Score displays can now be disabled individually
• There's now a Minimal version of the Score Breakdown display
• Added a tie counter
• Added an attempt counter
• Buzzer beaters now make the relevant time/score text rainbow
• Buzzer beater score attempts now have post-goal support
• Added a toggle for the "Epic Buzzer Beater B)" text
• Pausing on the goal-tape break frame (or the next frame) will no longer incorrectly invalidate an attempt

IL Validation Mark

(@rehtropsmb)

• Pausing on the goal-tape break frame (or the next frame) will no longer incorrectly invalidate an attempt
• Added a button to disable all IL-Invalidating mods
• All new game-modifying mods will invalidate the mark

Menus

(@rehtropsmb)

• The menu has been completely reorganized, from the top-level menu down to per-mod menus
• An informative binding infobar has been added at the bottom

Rust Rewrite

(@ComplexPlane)

Oh yeah, so... the entire codebase was rewritten in Rust, including most build tooling. There's a lot I could say about this journey, but overall it was a pretty insightful and rewarding experience porting something so unusual.

I'd say the codebase is markedly better than the C++ version at this point!

v1.0.2

This release bundles support for:

• Super Monkey Ball Invasion by scrap651
• Kaizo Monkey Ball - GDQ Edition by Eucalyptus (original pack by Twilight).

v1.0.1

This fixes a crash when using Marathon Mode on console.

This release is a hotfix for v1.0.0, see the v1.0.0 release notes for all of the new goodies.

v1.0.0

I'm happy to announce the release of SMB2 Practice Mod v1.0.0! This release includes a bunch of new features as well as a number of bug fixes. Hope that you enjoy!

Many of the new features were implemented by @Nambo0, thanks very much for the awesome contributions! Thanks also to Nambo, Callum, and Eddy for beta testing.

As a reminder, here's the installation instructions for Wii and Dolphin.

New Features

• Ball and Ape Color: You can now choose a custom ball color and monkey clothing color from the list of built-in game colors. Feature by @Nambo0.
• Freecam: Smooth and intuitive freecam for looking around levels. See the Help menu for controls.
• IL Battle Display: Track your best time and score on a level within a fixed amount of time (or unlimited time), similar to how it's done in the IL tournaments. Feature by @Nambo0.
• Raw Input Display: The input display now has an option to show stick input numbers, including raw stick inputs and filtered inputs actually seen by the game.
• IL Validation Mark: As the practice mod has increasingly been used for individual-level speedruns, there's been concern over making sure that no gameplay-altering features are used in ILs which are submitted to the official leaderboards. Starting in this release, by default a small version number will be shown in the bottom-right corner post-goal, colored green if no gameplay-altering mods were used and red otherwise. As I understand, you will be required to show this for IL leaderboard submissions for vanilla SMB2 if you are using the practice mod. Visual mods such as raw input display may also be disallowed for the IL leaderboards and aren't accounted for by the IL validation mark.
• Progress Unlock Control: Unlocking all progress (levels, lives, play points, etc.) is convenient but not always desired for the first playthrough of a romhack. Now, all progress will be unlocked for vanilla SMB2 but not for romhacks (by default). There's also a button to unlock progress temporarily for the current play session - save your game to make this persistent.
• Moon Gravity: It plays just like it sounds like. Feature by @Nambo0.
• Marathon Mode: Gameplay mod where your velocity entering the goal is carried over to the next level. Feature by @Nambo0.
• Menu: Mod settings have been reorganized into Tools, Displays, and Gameplay Mods submenus to reduce clutter. In addition, the Help submenu was expanded to cover new features.
• Default Preferences: In the menu, you can now press X on a preference to load its default value. You can now also reset all preferences to defaults under the new "Practice Mod Settings" submenu.
• Hide Elements: Preferences were added to hide game HUD, ball, stage, background, effects, and more.
• ApeSphere-Custom Compatibility: SMB2 Practice Mod can now be loaded in romhacks which use the latest master version of the ApeSphere-Custom modding framework. This includes the hot new release SMB: Launch!.

Bug Fixes

• Savestates: Fixed issue where saving a state within the first ~1s of gameplay on some levels could produce incorrect behavior when loaded. Please let me know if you still run into any similar issues.
• Savestates: Prevented sound effects from playing repeatedly when loading states on certain frames, including the timer ding.
• Savestates: Fix minimap not showing if a state is loaded during the first stage spin-in animation.
• Savestates: Prevent loading states during Exit Game sequences as this could produce buggy behavior.
• Preferences: Fixed issue where default values were not set for preferences introduced in new practice mod versions, if the default value was non-zero and a preferences file already existed.
• Menu: Prevented directional inputs from repeating immediately upon opening the menu if they were held down before doing so.
• UI: Prevented UI elements from being captured by the pause menu screenshot and effectively being shown twice.

Before:

After:

• Card I/O: Fixed bug which could cause savefiles and replays to be saved with a gamecode of all zeroes. This also revealed another bug in the REL loader Gecko code which could cause savefiles/replays to use the vanilla gamecode instead of correctly using a romhack's gamecode.
• Pause Menu: Fix issue where the pause menu would become dimmed if you used Go To Story Mode or started a Challenge Mode segment during an Exit Game sequence.
• Unlock: Unlocking progress now also unlocks Staff Credits Game as it should.

v0.5.1

New audio mods:

• Mute background audio (requires console reset)
• Mute timer dings

v0.5.0

New features:

• Automatic settings saving
• Freeze Timer mod
• D-pad controls mod

Thanks Namb0 for requesting the settings saving and freeze timer features, and Helix for requesting the d-pad controls feature!

v0.4.0

This release includes:

• New Challenge Mode individual segment practice feature! Find it in the menu (L+R)
• "Go To Story Mode" menu shortcut
• General menu redesign
• 9999 Banana Counter mod

Also check out the input display (originally released in v0.3.0) if you haven't yet.

Enjoy!

v0.3.0

This release adds an input display, toggle-able in the menu (L+R). Thanks to Nambo for the feature suggestion and helpful feedback on early prototypes!

v0.2.2

• Allow turning rumble on/off directly from the ApeSphere menu (L+R)
• Fix bug where rumble would stop working when loading a state during the post-goal replay

v0.2.1

• Fix bug where loading a state during fallout/post-goal replay blocked control stick inputs
• Allow loading states during the retry animation as well