Cool update :D
but you are planned adding custom pipe color?
ex. in World 6-1 or 5-1 Gray pipes in day time or Green pipes in night day
or warp zones pipes green not only red.

No, I'm okay with small differences like that between my program and the original, because allowing custom pipe colors would make changing pipe colors difficult as they are made of sections. I'm not sure how I would make changing multiple pipe component colors at once easy and intuitive, and nobody wants to replace every pipe part in a level by hand. My principle concern is simplicity. I don't want this program to have a learning curve.

or even add Above Ground Nighttime (Like World 6-1)
Or Ground Daytime (World 5-1)

Thanks for the update. :)

Problem with the classic game though. After I played it, it stopped after I completed world 1-1.

Thanks for the update. :)

Problem with the classic game though. After I played it, it stopped after I completed world 1-1.

This looks nice and all, but the thing I hate is:
When I try spawning something, it won't work.


Fix this or die.

Hi there,

I just want to say that I would still be very interested in this if you released the source code under a free software license, such as the GNU GPL.

Make no mistake: if you release the source code under a copyleft license such as the GNU GPL, you don't "lose" or "give away" this game; people are forbidden from publishing a program under the GNU GPL without providing the source code (either with the program or on request), so you will always get this source code back from anyone who modifies your source code. At the same time, you are under no obligation to include anyone else's changes into your version; if someone changes Mario to Pikachu, your version will still have Mario (unless you decide you like that change, that is).

In short, you will not be hurt at all if you release the program as free software, and neither will the program. On the contrary, releasing a program as free software is the only way you can make said program immortal; proprietary code is bound to get lost at some point, but free software code is rarely lost, especially if every copy of the binary also comes with a copy of the source. As an example, Super Mario War's development ceased years ago, and its original author is dead, but the code is still not lost. In fact, I have a copy of Super Mario War's source code sitting on my hard drive.

I hope you will consider releasing this as free software. If you do, I look forward to trying it out at that time. :)

People are "forbidden"? Don't you really just mean they aren't supposed to? The GNU police don't exist. It seems to me that it's strictly the honor system. It's not like I would take legal action as I don't own the rights to Mario anyway.

No, I mean forbidden. The GNU GPL isn't a request, it's a legal document. Violating the license would be copyright infringement, just like with any other software license.[1] Your code doesn't cease to be copyrighted just because you are distributing other copyrighted works with it that you probably aren't allowed to use.

If you're worried about it not holding up in court because you're infringing copyright yourself, you can always segregate the software from the Mario assets; distribute the source code without the assets that include copyright infringement on your part, and have the infringing assets as a separate download with instructions to combine it with your source code. I don't know if this is necessary for a lawsuit from you to someone infringing your copyright to hold up (I don't think it is), but in any case, it will make it certain that you have the full ability to sue anyone who violates the GNU GPL (and win).

Just to be clear, this isn't just theoretical. People have been successfully sued violators of the GNU GPL in the past, and courts have explicitly mentioned that the GPL is indeed legally enforceable.[2]

If you feel that you just wouldn't be able to sue, that's why the Software Freedom Law Center[3] exists; they provide legal services "pro bono" to not-for-profit developers of free software. In the past, they have (successfully) taken legal action on behalf of the BusyBox developers. The Software Freedom Conservancy[4] has also helped ensure GPL compliance for some projects. In short, you're not alone. What this means in practice is that no one is stupid enough to violate the GNU GPL in the first place; if someone does so by accident, a simple request corrects it.

[1] Actually, the world of software licenses is a little bit more complicated, because proprietary software developers often make their "licenses" (which they call "EULAs", or "End-User License Agreements") legally "contracts", so that they can add restrictions that don't exist within the normal scope of copyright (forbidding reverse-engineering, for example), so technically violating many proprietary software "licenses" is breach of contract rather than copyright infringement. However, this is only a technical difference; you can sue for copyright infringement as well. You just can't arbitrarily forbid things that copyright doesn't normally forbid (such as reverse-engineering or "fair use" exceptions to copyright).

[2] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...se#Legal_status[/url]

[3] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...edom_Law_Center[/url]

[4] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...dom_Conservancy[/url]

What I really mean is that I would never actually go through the trouble of entering a legal battle. I've experienced court proceedings on the plaintiff side before. They're long and awful, and I certainly wouldn't do so for a game I made as a fun project. That being said, I don't see how my source would be protected. I'm not worried about someone making money off of it. I just don't want the whole thing exposed for modification. The program behaves how I want it to behave, just like a director doesn't want someone editing and re-releasing their movie.

Again, it's not that I wouldn't be able to sue, it's that I never in a million years would. It's not like my secret code is just so valuable; I just selfishly want it to be my program, and not some project I started that other people made good. I appreciate open-source code and use it all the time. If this were an efficient algorithm that I was proud of, I would be much more inclined to release it. As it stands, it's a game that I made as I wanted it to be. I don't see it as a collaborative effort and thus see no reason to expose

So, you think that your code is art that you don't want people to "tamper with"?

Well, sorry, but I'm going to turn that on its head: It's perfectly legal and possible for me to reverse-engineer your program and write a clone that does the exact same thing, then modify that. The only difference from the case where I actually use your code is that a whole lot of effort and time is needlessly wasted. In fact, that's what you did; this is supposed to clone Super Mario Bros.

You're also not "protecting" your game from modification; only you can modify your copy. You're stopping derived works from existing. Sort of.

Let me make a visual example. Your fear of people tampering with this game, applied to visual art, is like some artist in Nintendo fearing that someone will destroy their creation by editing a Mario sprite. For example, this edit of Mario as a caveman:

http://www.mfgg.net/index.php?act=resdb

The only difference between you being worried about this game being modified and the author of the SMB3 Mario sprites being worried about edits like that one is that there is no technical measure you can use to prevent edits of graphics. Well, actually, that's a lie; the technical measure you are using doesn't actually stop changes from being made. There's reverse-engineering, as I mentioned already, and there's the fact that any binary can be changed; that's what cheating devices do, for example (the "codes" you enter indicate what part of the ROM to change and what value to change it to). All I need to do to modify this game is go in and corrupt what you compiled in such a way that it will still execute. The difference from actually editing the source code is it's more likely a crappy or broken edit if the actual source code wasn't used. In your effort to keep me from drawing mustaches on copies of your painting, you haven't prevented me from turning a part of the picture into garbage.

A real-world application: surely you know of ROM hacks? There are ROM hacks that do some, shall we say, very undignified edits to games like Super Mario Bros 3. No source code was ever needed for this to happen.

I also disagree with the idea that code is art (unless you're talking about the Obfuscated C Contest, for example), but I really don't care what you think is art. The truth, whether you think code is art or not, is that you have an irrational fear of a "problem" that nobody in their right mind tries to solve (because it is impossible to do so) and that, incidentally, is not as big of a deal as you make it out to be.

I want it to be a solo effort

I've seen a lot more cases of undignified edits to things that their authors tried to restrict than to things that were free software/free culture. In fact, I have seen infinitely more of the former, because I have never seen the latter, probably because not many people do that and those that do only do it to very, very popular games.

What on Earth makes you think that withholding the source code makes all attempts to modify this a "solo effort"?

Anyway, I have no idea what it looks like or even whether or not it worked, since this game doesn't run in OpenJDK 7 (which, of course, means your binary distribution would be worthless to me even if I didn't have an ethical problem with it), but this is a file with a corrupted Mario "standing" image:

http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/5aa3a617

I did that by randomly changing some bytes in "stand" with a hex editor and adding the modified "stand" to the Jar archive.

No, I understand your position just fine. But it's futile, and controlling someone else's computer, like you are by deliberately keeping everyone else divided and helpless, is unethical.

But I can see you have strong intent to do this unethical thing; you are not a clueless individual, or failing to release the source code out of neglect, but deliberately attacking everyone else's freedom the same way Microsoft, Nintendo, Oracle, et al do. So I'll treat this game like any other proprietary program and simply reject it (and point out that, because this game doesn't work with OpenJDK, it is an epic failure at a very basic level).

No, I understand your position just fine. But it's futile, and controlling someone else's computer, like you are by deliberately keeping everyone else divided and helpless, is unethical.

But I can see you have strong intent to do this unethical thing; you are not a clueless individual, or failing to release the source code out of neglect, but deliberately attacking everyone else's freedom the same way Microsoft, Nintendo, Oracle, et al do. So I'll treat this game like any other proprietary program and simply reject it (and point out that, because this game doesn't work with OpenJDK, it is an epic failure at a very basic level).

Is it possible to make people don't need to press the "PLAY A GAME" button but the game would start automatically?

No, I understand your position just fine. But it's futile, and controlling someone else's computer, like you are by deliberately keeping everyone else divided and helpless, is unethical.

But I can see you have strong intent to do this unethical thing; you are not a clueless individual, or failing to release the source code out of neglect, but deliberately attacking everyone else's freedom the same way Microsoft, Nintendo, Oracle, et al do. So I'll treat this game like any other proprietary program and simply reject it (and point out that, because this game doesn't work with OpenJDK, it is an epic failure at a very basic level).

There is about zero risk of my program getting reverse engineered. It is simply not worth the effort. In any case, of course it's not secure, but I want it to be a solo effort. That being said, I won't make it easy to modify. People have messaged me saying they were trying to change sprites but couldn't as I encrypted them. Not as irrational as you might think.

You can argue the merits of open source all day. I simply would LIKE my project to remain with me alone.