SMBX Episodes
Plans for Tamara’s Quest- Remastered Edition
1. The Original Tamara’s Quest
The original Tamara’s Quest was developed by KingBowser24 in the Summer of 2012, when KB was 14. An initial version was started earlier the same year, but was lost when KB24’s old computer crashed. So, when he acquired a new PC in July, he began his work on Tamara’s Quest. This “new” version was developed quickly, especially after KB finally made a custom Tamara playable. (The initial version just used Link, with all of the NPC’s referring to the player as Tamara). This new Tamara playable was choppy and cheesy, obviously a product of someone still figuring out SMBX and its graphics. However, it was KB’s first custom playable, and he was quite proud of it.
Tamara’s Quest was developed surprisingly quickly, being nearly finished in a matter of weeks. Admittedly, many of the levels were rushed in the process. There were not very many custom graphics, and most of the custom graphics that were added were also choppy and clearly the work of a newbie. Nevertheless, KB was proud of the work he put into it, even showing it off to his friends.
Eventually, for whatever reason, KB changed the playable character to a character named Stephanie. He improved the original playable, making it look a little less cheesy, and he changed her appearance so she would look like this “Stephanie” he came up with. But by this time, most of the levels of the game were already complete, so this also required KB to go back through everything and change every dialogue message and gimmick that says “Tamara” to “Stephanie”. He did miss a couple of these somehow, so when playing the original game, one might come across one or two dialogue boxes that say “Tamara” rather than Stephanie.
KB eventually finished the episode, and was quite proud of it. However, once again, in 2013, his computer crashed (This PC and his previous one were both very old, both running Windows XP). However, by this period, KB had backed up all of his files, so when he moved everything to a new PC, he thought everything would be okay. However, somehow, either when KB was backing up the files or when he moved them to the new PC, a couple files from Tamara’s Quest, specifically the last two levels of the game, somehow were lost in the process. This frustrated KB, as these last two levels were two of the most elaborate levels he had ever made, with them being part of the climactic ending of the game. “7-5- Bullet Heights” and “7-6- The Final Showdown” were now gone forever, and admittedly, this discouraged KB from doing further work on the episode.
After years of doing little work on Tamara’s Quest, and really little work in SMBX in general, KB eventually wanted to return to work on SMBX, specifically Tamara’s Quest. In early 2016, KB asked the SMBX community if he should upload the episode, even though it is rather choppy and incomplete. He also brought up the idea of going over and redoing the whole Episode, fixing bugs and making various improvements. He played through and tested the episode on many occasions, so it is definitely playable.
He eventually decided to upload the episode in 2017, and with the upload he announced a new project. Instead of going through and “fixing” the old version of the game, KB decided he would begin work on rebuilding the episode from scratch. It was mentioned earlier the much of the original game was rushed, so it most definitely was not the result of KB’s potential skill in SMBX. It definitely possessed some creative gimmicks, but it was not as good as it could have been. KB announced, along with the upload of the old game, that a new SMBX game, “Tamara’s Quest: Remastered Edition” was now in development. TQRE is planned to have the same general plot and layout as the old version, but KB made it a goal to make this new version a huge improvement over the old, in every aspect including aesthetics, gameplay, and level design. He also wants to make it more plot driven, adding bits of Lore throughout the levels of the game. This new version of his old game will most definitely put KB’s SMBX skills to the test, and he views it as a challenge to make the best SMBX game he can make.
2. Using Old Concepts for a New Game
KB has big plans for TQRE. His main reason for uploading his old version was so that he could get people to point out flaws and issues with it, and receive feedback that will likely help him greatly in the development of TQRE. Here are some of his plans for his new game:
-First and foremost, as the title of the game suggests, KB is changing the main character back to Tamara, as that is how the original game was created.
-Graphics
Admittedly, KB is not very savvy with custom graphics. Most of the graphics will consist of recolored vanilla graphics, because KB wants to minimize clashing in the games scenery. He is also planning on utilizing Graphics Packs acquired from the SMBX community in order to improve his game’s aesthetics.
-The antagonist of the game, known only as “the Monster” is a recolored SMB3 Bowser sprite, with a much darker color scheme. His henchmen will follow the same rule, being vanilla sprites recolored using a darker color scheme. These color schemes will primarily consist of darkness themed colors like dark blue, grey, dark purple, red, and black, because the Monster is supposed to be a Dark Lord of sorts. In the old game, these sprites were just non-recolored vanilla graphics.
-The Fully custom graphics will consist of Tamara, her friend Jackson, and her sister, and possibly other miscellaneous human characters.
-KB is also considering using different outfits rather than recolored versions of her normal outfit for each of Tamara’s power up forms. This will not be present in an early version of the game, however.
-Some of the background scenery will be custom, as in two of the levels KB has made already, the background was made using bits and pieces of existing vanilla sprites.
-Some graphics may be saturated or darkened for specific levels, such as for levels that take place in dark caves, KB may darken the Tamara playable and NPC sprites for those specific levels, to make things look more believable. However, this could possibly be an issue for levels with multiple sections.
-Gameplay & Levels
-The Levels in TQRE are definitely going to be more complex, and in some cases longer than the levels of the original game. TQRE is intended to be significantly more challenging than its predecessor.
-Enemy NPC placement will be more consistent and organized. In the old game, many enemies were randomly placed, and in some cases massed together.
-Adding more secrets and alternate paths to some levels is a must, as this was nearly never done in the original.
-World Map will be more detailed.
-As for soundtrack, KB is already utilizing much of the same music used in the old game, however some new tracks have been added to replace some of the old ones. Most of the tracks are also extended versions to prevent a long pause when the track ends during gameplay.
This is only some of the things KB has planned for TQRE, and more may come up as he continues to build his project. KB hopes that TQRE will turn out well, and that many people will enjoy it when it is complete.
