Hi there! I’m Ryrir and on this website I want to share one of my hobbies which has stuck with me for more than a decade now - Playing romhacks of Super Mario World! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. A romhack is basically a hijack of an already existing commercial game. Using specially made programs, anyone can change the game's level geometry, enemies, music, and a whole lot more. The results range from the charmingly amateur to the impressivly sophisticated, but at heart I think they're just a really interesting window into the author's design dispositions. Compared to an officially sanctioned level editor like say, Super Mario Maker, the beauty of romhacking is that there are no limits to what you can do, aside from the technical limitations of the SNES hardware itself. You can port graphics, sprites, and music from other games, come up with entirely unique gimmicks and off-the-wall level ideas, and even code your own elaborate custom bosses. I think this is one of the biggest reasons I stayed with this particular hobby for such a long time: In romhacking, the only thing limiting you is your own creativity (or your assembly coding skills I suppose), and I keep getting surprised and delighted by what other people put out there.
On this site, I would like to put down my thoughts on the romhacks I’ve played. What I liked and disliked about them, how I felt playing them, and whether or not I could ever see myself coming back to them. I’m hesitant to call them reviews, since I’m sure they’ll be rambly and unorganized, but I essentially want to create a sort of diary to look back on the hacks I’ve beaten. If you’d like to check out what I've written, you can find these write-ups in the hacks section above. If you’re interested in trying out some SMW hacks yourself, you can take a look at the beginner’s guide, where I tried my best to explain how to get started.