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Downland for TRS-80 CoCo recreated on Nintendo Switch in Super Mario Maker 2


Downland1983

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I don't know if any Tandy CoCo enthusiasts here have a Nintendo Switch or Super Mario Maker 2 for it.  But I do, and Downland published in 1983 for the TRS-80 Color Computer remains one of my all-time favorite games.  And so, I have lovingly recreated it as a course in Super Mario Maker 2.  I had to take some liberties and use of imagination of course, but I consider it a decent and somewhat faithful recreation.  One of the biggest alterations was stretching each chamber to fill 2 vertical screens so that Mario's jumping mechanic wouldn't render the course to easy to breeze through.  I wanted to make it challenging in a way that would be a fitting homage to the original.  So far, only 1 person out of 29 has completed the course in 60 tries.  Here is the Course ID for anyone who has the Switch and SMM2 and would like to try it:

Course ID:  YQD-723-X5G

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Sorry for the delay.  I snapped screenshots from the title screen, first 5 chambers, and a 30 second video of the first chamber yesterday afternoon.  I want to edit the top and bottom screenshots of each chamber into a single picture before I upload them.  Brought my microSD card adapter to work before I saw that the new (refurbished) PC they replaced my old one with a few weeks ago is a Dell OptiPlex 3010 that has no SD Card Reader (my old office PC did).  Anyway, I'll just do it on my Acer at home tonight.  

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My 80's collection included Downland, Dungeons of Daggorath, Demon Attack, Dragon Fire, Pinball, Color Baseball, Tetris, Chess, Canyon Climber, Stellar Life Line, Monster Maze, and Pooyan (my only cassette game).  The CoCo2 got my older brother and I through the mid-80's after the North American Video Game Crash ended Coleco's support for the Colecovision up until we got an NES in 88'.  Even then, I remained fond of it and kept playing those games into the early 90's until it stopped working.  Years later when I had my own income, I re-bought a CoCo2 and CoCo3 from ebay to enjoy them again from time to time even now.

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Okay, I finally edited the top and bottom screens of all 10 chambers into single screenshots.  Here are the Title Screen and the 10 Chambers of Downland that I recreated in Super Mario Maker 2 on Nintendo Switch.  Enjoy!  By the way, there is a final chamber in the course that has the Flagpole Exit.  I didn't snap a screenshot of it since it's not from the original Downland, and also there is a "true ending" in that chamber.

2020030219304700-BF19FBEA37724338D87F26F17A3B97B2.jpg

Chamber 1.jpg

Chamber 2.jpg

Chamber 3.jpg

Chamber 4.jpg

Chamber 5.jpg

Chamber 6.jpg

Chamber 7.jpg

Chamber 8.jpg

Chamber 9.jpg

Chamber 10.jpg

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15 minutes ago, thanatos said:

 

But the prices never change for Nintendo gear, so my cheapness is still holding me back.  :)

Same.  I was waiting for a price drop or a Pro model.  Neither of which are happening this year it would seem so once I get through all the Kingdom Hearts series on my PS4 (my current backlog) I might look into getting one.  

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2 hours ago, thanatos said:

Wow, that looks amazing.  How much time did making that take you?  Looks like a ton of work!

I may have to buy a Switch...

I'm not certain how much time I put into it to be honest.  From my uploads I can tell that I uploaded the course on January 20th.  I have pics on my phone from January 19th from when I texted my older brother (who I used to play Downland with on our CoCo2) that I had recreated the game we used to play so often.  And, the last course that I previously finished had been uploaded on January 5th.  So I definitely worked on it at some point during that 2 week span, but I doubt that I worked on it for the whole 2 weeks.  From my recollection, I spent a little time the first night crafting the title screen when I was first inspired to do it.  The next night I pulled up a playthrough of Downland from YouTube on my Wii U Gamepad to be able to look at screens from the original while recreating the game on the Switch.  I think I did a few chambers per day from there (including some work on lunch break in my car with the playthrough vid pulled up on my phone for reference).  So, it was more than likely an hour or so per day over maybe a 5 day stretch?

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  • 2 months later...

I was recently encouraged to start a Super Mario Maker 2 course sharing thread in the Nintendo Switch Forum.  While adding screenshots to my courses, I edited all of the Downland Chamber screens into a single map.  So, I figured I would update that here as well along with the vintage Downland map found on CoCopedia (http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Map_of_Downland) for comparison.

 

1796912042_DownlandCompleteMap.thumb.jpg.5a6049a551e3022bbb4ef8ac2d7c2bc0.jpg851445125_DownlandMapfromCoCopedia.thumb.jpg.ad07e9da233de19e5fea0bfb3d372443.jpg

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On 2/28/2020 at 2:09 PM, Downland1983 said:

I don't know if any Tandy CoCo enthusiasts here have a Nintendo Switch or Super Mario Maker 2 for it.  But I do, and Downland published in 1983 for the TRS-80 Color Computer remains one of my all-time favorite games.  And so, I have lovingly recreated it as a course in Super Mario Maker 2.  I had to take some liberties and use of imagination of course, but I consider it a decent and somewhat faithful recreation.  One of the biggest alterations was stretching each chamber to fill 2 vertical screens so that Mario's jumping mechanic wouldn't render the course to easy to breeze through.  I wanted to make it challenging in a way that would be a fitting homage to the original.  So far, only 1 person out of 29 has completed the course in 60 tries.  Here is the Course ID for anyone who has the Switch and SMM2 and would like to try it:

Course ID:  YQD-723-X5G

Miss typed the Course ID in OP.  Correct ID is:   YDQ-723-X5G

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  • 2 weeks later...

We're playing Downland as our weekly game challenge on cocotalk if anyone wants to join just take a photo of your score / game and you can enter before friday 22 may 2020 

I will remind people of your awesome mario version again..lol

Edited by MrDave
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