Oh hey: here’s something.
Basically as soon as the Mario vs. Airman Hack came out, I put it on my PSP emulator, stayed home from all my college classes that day, and kept playing until I had muscle-memorized how to beat it without save states.
I was pretty proud of this, because at the time, the only videos online of people beating it involved completely abusing save states; and I only used one in the entire process of learning the game. After that, I would pull it out when I had a minute or two and enjoy the flow state of beating it. I even discovered that as you beat it successively it seems to turn the clock speed up or something? Enemies move faster, so the MegaMan flying things tend to pile up, and you have to vary your jump pattern to land on the floating platforms. By the sixth play-through, you have to make some leaps of faith.
To this day, Mario vs. Airman Hack is one of my favorite games, and it inspired a fascination with the idea of something that I’m going to call “counter-design.” I really like the idea of designing a game so that the player character’s skill set is not perfectly matched to the situation. Instead of their jumps perfectly clearing a gorge, they tend to go a little too high and a little too long. There gun is stuck on spread shot, but the enemies never attack in that pattern, forcing you to do weird things to line up the shot. You have a grappling hook, but there aren’t any platforms that are particularly high. Basically, I think it would be cool to play a game where you’re stranded on an alien world that is not designed for you to traverse it. That’s what makes it alien. You’d incorporate “bad” design tropes, but employ them in such a way that they could only be intentional–Thelonious Monk style.
Anyway.
Yeah.