-Demo release date: 02/17/2024


-music composed by wolfram (https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=profile&id=39983) & Segment1Zone2 (https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=profile&id=46677)
-ported by Segment1Zone2


-"Cavern Collectathon" was an entry for the first Questionable HackJam contest held in January 2024.
The hack was produced by MegaMarioMan9, Runic, MarioFanGamer, wolfram and Segment1Zone2.
A major rule for the contest was that each entry was a team effort with 2 ~ 5 members.
That aside, the resulting hack should consist of "standart"-levels (meaning "no Kaizo") with a reasonable difficulty setting,
but aside from that... the goal was to cook up something creative and unique.
The attempt with this one was to provide a "Metroidvania"-like experience.
Mario starts his quest with zero abilities (except walking) and the goal is to discover several power-up items to improve his skills and make progress.
The hack wasn't completed before the deadline (and ultimately canceled) and was excluded from the user voting round and not part of the judging deliberation.
The participants received a participation trophy.


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-Here's a rough breakdown of the tracks, in wolfram's own words:

The Main Tracks
"JamCatz Presents..." - Replaces the Nintendo Presents jingle
"Cavern Collectathon (Title Screen)" - A boss track composed by Segment1Zone2.
We knew we had to include this track somewhere when he showed it to us.
"Cave ~ Area 1" - A funky little 5/4 track, with one 6/4 measure thrown in for fun. Bonus points if you can point out where.
"Save Room" - A shorter loop for use in the collection/travel hub room.
"Ice ~ Area 2" - An upbeat, wintery track. Yes it's using a glockenspiel like almost every mario ice level since 1996.
We did get fairly experimental with sampling a Celeste from an orchestra library though.
"Factory ~ Area 3" - Inspired by good old beat-em ups.
"Sky ~ Area 4 (Exterior)" - The happy, breezy counterpart to the sky interior. Set in the clouds.
"Sky ~ Area 4 (Interior)" - The empty, echoey counterpart to the sky exterior. Set inside of an abandoned tower.
"Space ~ Area 5" - I tried to have this one feel like like a solid, adventurous "final level" track.
Somehow it ended up more "Rainbow Road" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Mysterious" - A heavily Metroid-inspired track. I mean, we couldn't make a metroidvania-style hack without at least one of these.
"Ending & Credits (Quartet)" - Mario games never have a sad ending theme. UNTIL NOW.

The Boss Tracks
These are all associated with the boss that Runic developed.
"Intimidation" - A short, foreboding boss intro theme. It's used as the leadup to each fight while dialogue is going on.
The other five tracks all build up to "Once And For All!", so you can consider that the full track.
"A Mighty Encounter!" - Just the drums and bass.
"Rivalry Forming..." - Adds in the synth pads
"Cause of Frustration..." - Adds in some sawtooth stabs
"Penultimate Showdown!" - Doubles the sawtooth stabs one octave up.
"Once And For All!" - The fully developed boss theme, which finally adds in the lead synth.

Miscellaneous Tracks
The following tracks were also written during the development process, but didn't end up being used (at least not yet).
"Ending & Credits (Piano)" - The original version of the ending theme before we decided to turn it into more of a jazz quartet.
"Boss (Beta)" - The basic idea for the boss room, composed by Segment1Zone2
"Save Room (Beta)" - The basic idea for the save room, composed by Segment1Zone2
"Intro (Unused)" - A short, happy intro loop composed by Segment1Zone2
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-Several of these tracks include references to other themes from the Mario-universe.
"Cave ~ Area 1" makes use of "Underground BGM" from "Super Mario Bros.", composed by Koji Kondo.
"Factory ~ Area 3" incorporates a quote of "Factory" from "Super Mario Bros. Wonder". The soundtrack to this game was composed by Shiho Fujii, Sayako Doi, Chisaki Shimazu & Koji Kondo.
"Sky ~ Area 4 (Interior)" incorporates a snippet of "The Evil King Koopa" from "Super Mario Bros. 3", composed by Koji Kondo.
Both ending themes end with a tiny quote of "Overworld BGM" from "Super Mario Bros.", composed by Koji Kondo.

Not Mario, but "Mysterious" is inspired by "Brinstar: Red-Soil Area" from "Super Metroid", composed by Kenji Yamamoto.

"Intro (Unused)" takes inspiration from the tracks "Toy Land" & "Here Goes Jelly" from "Jelly Boy", composed by Steve Collett & Nick Stroud.
(I wouldn't be too surprised to hear that they got inspired by Super Mario Bros. 3's "World 1 Map", though... ;) )
The track is planned to be included in "Super Mario World PLUS+", a romhack by Segment1Zone2, which is currently in the works.
