Super Mario Kart: Super Mario Kart Alternate Tracks

I've been a fan of Super Mario Kart since I first played it in the early/mid nineties. Late last year I
happened upon a romhack called Super Mario Kart: Pro Edition and was very impressed at the quality (though
I was humbled by its difficulty). It inspired me to start my own hack of the tracks, with a focus on
maintaining the feel of the original game.

Every track has been replaced by one I've created completely myself, including the Battle Mode courses.
I've tried to avoid putting in overly complicated or silly courses like some hacks of this game have, but
at the same time I've snuck in a couple of new ideas.

The AI works in all courses, and offers a challenge, but is far from unbeatable.

****Super Mario Kart Alternate Tracks:****

I've been a fan of Super Mario Kart since I first played it in the early/mid nineties. Late last year I
happened upon a romhack called Super Mario Kart: Pro Edition and was very impressed at the quality (though
I was humbled by its difficulty). It inspired me to start my own hack of the tracks, with a focus on
maintaining the feel of the original game.

Every track has been replaced by one I've created completely myself, including the Battle Mode courses.
I've tried to avoid putting in overly complicated or silly courses like some hacks of this game have, but
at the same time I've snuck in a couple of new ideas.

The AI works in all courses, and offers a challenge, but is far from unbeatable.

****IPS Application****

This IPS patch is meant to be applied to an unaltered, unheadered Super Mario Kart NTSC-U rom. Applying
this patch to anything else will not be likely to work. Most commonly the file will be titled
"Super Mario Kart (U) [!].smc"

If you are not familiar, or having troubles with applying an IPS patch see romhacking.net for help/IPS
patchers.

****Utilities****

I used the following utilities to create this hack, all of which are available from romhacking.net.

MAKE - For all your custom track making needs. I used version 0.10 (the Japanese build as the English build
crashes each time I save).

MKItems - in order to edit the frequency of certain items appearing, for balance.

TileLayer Pro - Just to edit the opening screen, changing "Nintendo" to "Elricorico".

****Changelog****

Mostly for my own records, but just in case anyone is interested in the process and time I took.

VERSION DATE CHANGES

1.0 February 17, 2010 Very minor touch ups, and prepared readme file. Official Release

RC1 February 9, 2010 Cosmetic touch ups, bug fixes to MC3 (finish line bug/positioning
bug), altered item probabilities, final 2 Battle Mode tracks in.
Simple graphic hack of opening screen added.
beta 1 February 3, 2010 All cups complete, still 2 Battle Mode tracks not in, but it was
time to send it to a tester. In its current condition it is quite
fun (in my opinion).
none February 2, 2010 Progressing still, with only 2 Special Cup tracks and 2 Battle Mode
tracks remaining before I could call it a "beta" version. First Mario
Circuit 1 was entirely replaced in the meantime.
alpha 3 January 22, 2010 Completed courses for Star Cup, plus some touch-ups and bug fixes for
all previous tracks. Now have a better understanding of the AI zones
and the effects they have on keeping track of the player's position.
alpha 2 January 11, 2010 Flower Cup courses completed and ready for testing. Had some
difficulties with laps being missed on 2 of the courses, but it
should be hashed out now.
alpha 1 January 9, 2010 Mushroom Cup courses completed and ready for testing. Should not
hange much except for fine tuning.

****Credits****

karterfreak for the inspiration, make sure you check out Super Mario Kart: Pro Edition if you haven't already.
tiohector for his youtube videos on using MAKE, I would never have gotten anywhere without them.
Puresabe and Dirtbag for their work on MAKE.
smkdan for MK Items.
SnowBro for Tile Layer Pro.

****Contact****

If you have any comments/questions/suggestions feel free to shoot an email to smkalttracks@gmail.com

Super Mario Kart (U) [!].smc - GOODSNES 2.04
CRC32: CD80DB86
MD5: 7F25CE5A283D902694C52FB1152FA61A
SHA-1: 47E103D8398CF5B7CBB42B95DF3A3C270691163B
SHA-256: 2ADA8919688087BE60A6A48CACE8F877ADD60C45D2E5D09E2442FAA55BE62A49