Super Mario Bros. 3 two player (simultaneously)

[ErikHK]

Hello!
I don't know if someone has done something similar before, but here's a mod that let's you play smb3 as two players simultaneously. If you choose 1 player game, player 1 always controls Mario, and player 2 controls Betty (an Orange Cheep Cheep). If you choose 2 player game, the non-main player controls Betty, i.e. if Luigi is playing, then Mario controls Betty and vice versa.

For now, Betty is mainly a liability for the main player, as she can't really do anything, she just has to run along. I suspect that making her interact with enemies would be too resource intensive on the poor NES, but I've been thinking of making her be in charge of collecting coins and maybe even bumping "?" blocks for Mario/Luigi. Or maybe she should be able to shoot fire balls?

There are a lot of bugs to fix, but it's pretty much playable as it is now, but only on maybe half of the levels, for various reasons, mainly because she has not learned how to swim (ironically) or jump on platforms.

Github: https://github.com/ErikHK/smb32p

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ7hFGclcX0

[IAmCaptPlanet]

you could make the fish into Cappy? and make Cappy pick up coins and make main player unable to get coins.

i was really hoping for something similar to this

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4180/

but that is probably nod do-able.

maybe make the Betty have to not touch enemies? even if she cant kill them they could still kill her?

could she shoot fireballs?

this is very promising, reminds me of the player 2 character in Jet Force Gemini

[ErikHK]

I will probably try implementing the different possibilities, but I suspect that it would fast become very laggy,  since smb3 seems to be very resource intensive as it is. I have already had to remove some enemies because of lag. But if, as you say, I'd remove the ability from Mario/Luigi, it would probably not be a problem!

Anyway, she has now learned to swim and will hopefully be able to jump onto platforms soon.. I'll add an ips file on the github page soon if anyone would like to try it out.

Cheers!

[pleasejust]

Hi, just saw this post. Yes, I was hoping for something similar to SMB1 co-op hack. Can't you include a patch to convert SMB3 to a higher MMC version and have it use more memory? Would that work?

[PowerPanda]

This would be awesome for me. I could use it to play with my kids, showing them where to go and what to do, but still making them actually do it. Essentially, I could be their guide. For my younger kid, I could play as Mario and just let him mess around on the screen.

Could I request that Betty permanently have the "racoon tail" or "P-wing" ability though?

Also, if you're looking to make Betty a different graphic, Nabbit would be a good choice. There are some unused map sprites of Mario walking that could possibly give enough space to animate a basic walk/jump. Here's the entry on Cutting Room Floor:
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_Bros._3/Unused_graphics