The 'Shroom:Issue 174/Palette Swap

Director's Notes
Written by:

Hi, everybody! Welcome to the September Swap!

Things are pretty quiet in my neck of the woods. I've stacked my weekend time with activities and I'm looking forward to the fall weather- sweaters and leggings, apple cider, donuts, and of course, the nice fall colors. Michigan is great in that we have beautiful fall colors on our trees, and I'm excited to see some orange this year!

We have three new sections for you this month! strikes again, this time with a regular comic strip starring... well, Waluigi Time! Next, we have a new section from : Shy Guy's Cool and Hot Jams! SGoW will be talking about various pieces of music monthly, starting off by looking at some famed SEGA composers. And finally, a pixel art section from showcasing their personal art! Be sure to check out all three of these great sections and let us know what you think!

Happy reading!

~FunkyK38

Section of the Month A lot of our regular writers were absent last month, but it looks like you all enjoyed the sections that were present! Coming in first, we have with a new chapter of Shmaluigi, Private Investigator where our resident detective checked out a few leads on the Killing Game. In second is Booguette, with the first chapter of Koopamon where we saw Mario get his first Koopamon! Up next is What's on the Box?, where discussed the boxart of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. After that is a new chapter of 's World of Plight, where an amnesiac Luigi returned to our heroes! Finally, we have 's first chapter of GoldenMario 007, where our hero Mario received his mission and a set of gadgets! A big thank you to everyone who voted, and please keep it up for this month, too!

What's on the Box?
Written by:



Hello readers, and welcome back to What's on the Box.

I do feel that video game boxarts go through phases, where for a while every single one is just momentously boring, and then every single one strikes gold, and it's safe to say that when Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble was introduced, we were in a golden era for video games boxarts. Also, in all the years I've been doing this section, how have I never covered a Donkey Kong Country game?

It seems only fitting to not be covering the first game in the series, but for us to make our entry point in the third game, which barely featured Donkey Kong, instead focusing on Diddy Kong's girlfriend, Dixie Kong, and her baby cousin, Kiddy Kong to rescue both Donkey and Diddy from King K., sorry I mean KAOS.

The game gave a fairly explorable world map, and the boxart makes full note of this by prominently featuring the hovercraft that Dixie and Kiddy use to jet around the waters of Lake Orangatunga, and it even throws in a Bounty Bass, a Nibbla, Krumple and a Banana Bird for good measure. And who's take peeking out from the door of his store? Why, it's Funky Kong, who sells the hovercraft to the monkeys for their adventure.

And Lake Orangatunga provides a beautiful backdrop for the boxart, not only with the serene waters, but also the peaceful forest and mountains that lie behind it; top it off with the Brothers Bear's cabin, and it makes for one of the most eye-catching boxarts out there, if it wasn't for the somewhat muted colours. And Sega fans, I'm afraid this game isn't for you, as the boxart clearly states, it's for Nintendo consoles only. Checkmate.

We've been having some good boxarts over the past few months, and I can say that this one is no exception to that. Perhaps it would have benefited from some brighter colours, but on the whole, I really can't complain about this. Featuring KAOS on the boxart may give the game away that it's another of King K. Rool's disguises, whereas now his identity is shrouded in secret. My only complaint that I can come up with, is that it should have featured Donkey and Diddy somewhere, as unless you're recognising Dixie, you might think this was a whole different series.

Drawn and Pressed
Written by:

Jim Davis is well-known in creating Garfield, which is one of the most well-known comic strips in the world and is the most widely syndicated one. To celebrate his belated birthday (this was planned for last month but certain events got in the way), the article is instead about the comic strips that he worked on, as well as a bonus comic strip at the end that is related. Each of the comic strips are much more brief compared to the past articles, because after all, writing about six different strips is more work so please forgive the more brief snippets. Without further ado, we'll be covering not one, not two, but five (six if you count the bonus) different comic strips.

Tumbleweeds Before Jim Davis set off on his own, he worked as one of the assistant for an old comic strip Tumbleweeds, which is set in the Wild West and features cowboys and Native Americans. The author, Tom K. Ryan, went to run this comic strip for about 42 years from September 1965 to December 2007, and in an unusual move for comic strips, he ended it when he retired, making it so that nobody succeeded this creative work, like how Charles Schulz ended Peanuts (though he didn't pass away so soon after ending it). Perhaps some of Garfield's traits could be traced back to this comic strip, such as its use of a three-panel layout. Tom K. Ryan himself also took an education in business (though he dropped out) and took up a job on cartoon advertising later in his life, so he basically had experience in comics and business. I suppose that in this way, Jim Davis has something in common with him due to studying art and business, so I suppose he's learned quite well from his mentor.

Even if this is a pretty old comic strip, one of the things that I find fascinating is how big of a cast it has, possibly more than the amount of characters Peanuts have. Tumbleweeds the cowboy and his horse Blossom are joined by three groups of characters found in the Grimy Gulch (the townsfolk), The 6 7/8 Cavalry (the outpost), and the Poohawks (the Native Americans). Despite the large cast, there are very few female characters, where there are only three regular ones. Despite the generally dangerous setting of the Old West, the characters are portrayed as relatively harmless where not much action goes on. This is somewhat similar to how B.C. makes light of the prehistoric era, where it's not portrayed as dangerous as what it would be in reality, but instead as something to laugh at and to relate to.

I listened to a podcast about Garfield on Unjustly Maligned, and one of the things mentioned on the podcast is on the topic on apprenticeship in the comic strip industry. We don't really see this nowadays, and it would seem that most comic strip artists prefer to go all-in on their own, sometimes with a second person. In fact, Jim Davis eventually became a sort of mentor himself where a number of artists worked under him and eventually got to do a comic strip of their own. There is one particular artist who notably worked with Davis, who we'll get to later. Another point that is brought up on the podcast is how there is a sort of bias for comic strips where multiple people working on it, yet the stigma does not exist for other forms of comics. This comic strip is one of an earlier instances of multiple people working on it, so it's not like it's exclusive to Jim Davis' works. In fact, I kind of think that Jim Davis learned to do this from his mentor, since he too, had assistants working on his comic strip alongside himself. I do think the notion that something that is worked on by multiple artists becomes less valid is ridiculous, because it is a way for less-experienced folks to get some experience in the business, which is a good thing.

Being related to Garfield's origins, I can't help but take a slight interest in this comic strip, but I do not think I can reach far. Despite having some form of importance as a comic strip, the fact that it was syndicated by King Features (who acquired the original syndicate) meant that the archives of this comic strip are not very easily available. It does have a website dedicated to it, though. https://tumbleweeds.com/

Thank you for reading.

Site Seeing
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Hello dear readers and welcome to Site Seeing, in which I'll go over some of the websites Nintendo releases to inform the public about their games and series! Today's episode could be considered pretty flat: it's the site for Paper Mario: The Origami King!

Overview


This site generally has a structure we've seen several times in the past: a home page that functions as an overview, and a few other pages detailing those things.

We start off with an animated banner version of the main box art, followed by a call to action to purchase the game or watch the trailer. Scrolling down, we encounter a shortened montage of an in-game cutscene that takes place early in the story, showing the moment King Olly's streamers take over Peach's castle, and Mario and co. escaping in a Koopa Clown Car. What follows then are three sections that, as usual, give an idea of the contents of the other pages. The first one gives a brief introduction to the game's story. It introduces Olivia and King Olly, and allies such as Bowser, and starts Mario, Olivia, and King Olly in short animations around the box. The second section introduces gameplay, featuring a short clip of Mario jumping on a row of Goomba's, and also starring an animated Swoop next to that. The last section again calls towards purchasing the game. It features the North-American box art, Luigi in a presenting pose, and a mushroom at the bottom.

The first subpage is Story. The first thing you see on this page is a video montage that shows the five streamers in the regions they are respectively located in. Following that is a card with a longer introduction to the game's story, as well as an animated King Olly and an origami Princess Peach, who are introduced in the story.

Further down, another video montage is shown, this time showing a number of allies, and then an interactive gallery of characters, among which Mario, his partners, and a few NPC's you run into often during the story. This gallery is topped off with animated art of Mario, Bob-omb, and Olivia. Onwards, the various locations in the game are shown, with a small video montage, blurb, and an interactive gallery containing videos and blurbs for seven areas. The page ends with a red Toad smelling a red flower, and a button to go to the next page.

The next page is Gameplay, and shows more video footage, this time of the ring battle system in action. After that, some gameplay features are introduced, among which are the ring battles, enemies, and Mario's origami abilities. Then, more specific info is given about ring battles with video footage. Below that are the bosses, including the Legion of Stationary, of which three members are shown in an interactive gallery. Vellumental bosses are also introduced, showing off the Fire Vellumental.

Further down, the 1,000-Fold Arms and its abilities are shown off, the Toad rescue missions, and a montage of fixing holes in the environment with confetti. This page also ends with a Toad and a button. This time, it's a yellow Toad next to a yellow cat.

The last page is the Buy page. This one shows the animated box art again, followed by information about the price, eShop, and places to buy the physical version (in North America). The boxes are decorated with an origami and a regular Goomba, and an origami Fire Flower and Star.

Design
Of course, the game being all about paper, this website follows a paper motive for pretty much all aspects. The background is based on the walls of Peach's castle, and section backgrounds use crumpled paper of various colours. There is no single colour scheme, although most buttons and frames use orange-yellow, not unsimilar to Olivia's dress and crown. The crumpled paper sections have messy edges, as if cut very fast and uncarefully. Narrow sections, serving as banners, also made of crumpled paper, have straight jigsaw edges, showing more careful cutting with jigsaw scissors. On two occasions, straight streamers are used instead.

Section boxes are made to emulate signs screwed onto the background, but made of paper. Videos and screenshots accompanying these boxes are embedded in orange frames with the corners cut off. The bigger interactive galleries use the same frame style, but have them overlap with other items in the gallery that switch around as the arrows are clicked.

Buttons and the main menu also use the yellow-orange colour. The menu is white with the yellow for the border, buttons are the other way around, with ones on a white background using a black border instead. The interesting thing however, is the effect when hovering over them with the cursor: they tear open and reveal the opposite colour underneath as the paper dangles. Fairly simple effect, but it adds a lot of life.

The main attraction is the animated artworks that are scattered around. It's immediately apparent for the hero box art banner at the top of the home page, as well as individual artworks of Mario with Olivia and Bobby, King Olly, a Swoop, a Goomba, Mario with the fold arms or confetti, and three cases of Toads with their folded counterparts. Seeing a lot of sites usually use static artwork, sometimes rotating or scaling, these are a lot more lively and add personality, which is very neat.

Tech
This part may not be of interest to everyone, or may you even understand any of it. But it can be interesting to some people who are curious about some of the technology used to create this site.

Summarised: this site is a single page application built with Vue.js, uses Create.js for animations, and is hosted on Amazon Web Services.

Vue.js is a popular framework to build s (SPA) with. A SPA makes sure you only load a site once, and no new pages need to be loaded when you click on a button or link. As the site or app is already fully loaded and interactive, only the visual content needs to be replaced when you click on a link. At the same time, the URL that appears in the address bar is still updated (using the History API), so it is still possible to link to these virtual pages. As for Vue.js itself, it allows the developer to easily write interactive applications. Simply by updating the app's 'state', the framework will update the page as needed, without the dev having to worry about that too much. It also allows the dev to build reusable components that can each maintain their own state. This site also uses Nuxt.js in the background, a static site generator. This can prerender a site, so it can be displayed before the SPA has fully loaded, or even work when JavaScript is not enabled by the user. The latter point, however, is not applicable to the TOK website, it requires JS to function.

I have talked about the Create.js suite a few times before; it seems like it is popular among Nintendo's microsite developers. To summarise, it is a collection of libraries that abstract away the handling of more advanced graphics and sound in JavaScript to make it more easily manageable, as well as making it possible to easily create animated content. In our case, it uses EaselJS and TweenJS, used respectively for drawing on the canvas and creating smooth animations with keyframes. I have talked more about these last December.

It goes without saying, now I've talked about this suite, that these are used for the various animated artworks throughout the site. It also goes without saying that creating all of those with just JavaScript code is very cumbersome. Luckily, they had help: the animations have been created with Adobe Animate. Animate is able to export animations as HTML files, which very likely is what generated the Create.js code. Iframes are used to embed the animations into the site itself. In other words, while I talked about Create.js above, it is very possible the developers of this website didn't even think about it!

Finally two small details: the ripped and crumpled paper uses an SVG clip-path to create the roughly cut edge. On the other hand, the saw-tooth edges are created using a canvas. Why this difference? We shall never know.

Conclusion
A very lively site for a very lively game. All the little animated details and the videos make this site very interesting, both to visit and to dissect functionally. I like this site a lot! There's not one thing I don't like.

And that marks the end of this month's Site Seeing! I'll be back on schedule next month, and as it's October, it's bound to be spooky. See you then!

Pixel Perfect
Written by:

Hey everyone! I'm the new owner of this nook of the 'Shroom. I shall be making and presenting various pixel art characters for your enjoyment!

Assorted Spritework First, I thought I may as well share this, um... rather simple sprite. It's Mario's SMB2 sprite, freshened up with a modern look!

Next up there's a non Mario-related thing that I'm rather proud of. These are NES-style sprites of characters from a D&D campaign I'm currently running. I made them by creating sprites in the universal LPC sprite maker, then editing them and recoloring them to give them that retro flair.

I also made these Undertale sprites for... some reason. Mostly just practice, but I like how they turned out!

Finally, there's this. It's the interior of an underground tavern, complete with various Mario characters. Do you recognize anyone here? :)

Craving more? Don't fret, I plan on returning to the 'Shroom in November, so look forward to that! Until then, stay super!

Waluigi Time Comic
Drawn and written by:



World of Plight
Written by:

(Special thanks to Arteeist, Hooded Pitohui, Roserade, and Booguette for helping with these entries!)

Sonic Louie is back! Luigi is back! (Apparently his name is Lui-gi and not Louie G. Who knew?) Gotta admit, he gave us all a real scare when he showed up in the Main Menu Mess Hall. And he seems to have lost his memory, which I guess isn’t good. I can’t even imagine what that would be like! Imagine looking in a mirror and having a total stranger looking back at you!

I was enjoying my daily lunch-chili-dogs when Sakurai walked in wearing a smile I hadn't seen on his face in a while. He cleared his throat and said, "Everyone I have an announcement! We've had a break in our missing person's case!" He paused for a second. "Luigi has returned!" My jaw just about hit the floor when Luigi walked in. Everybody instantly roared in shock and several people stood up to greet him. Before anyone reached him, I dashed over and swung him up on a table, holding him over my head. "Louie's BACK people!" Everyone cheered and a chant of "Lu-i-gi! Lu-i-gi!" started. "Mamma mia!" Luigi exclaimed. "Can I get down now?" "Come on dude!" I replied. "You're gonna be treated like a king! Enjoy it while it lasts!" I dropped him onto the bench and hopped down next to him. "So? Where'd you go?" I asked before I took a bite out of my chili-dog. "I... don't remember." "What?!" "I have-a amnesia." "'You have a magnesia?' What's a magnesia?" "Amnesia," Sakurai said as he walked over. "Is a trauma-induced lapse of memory, in this case, Luigi has lost his memory of everything from the Halloween party to now." "Woah, that's awful. Wait, does this mean you don't remember ANYTHING about where you went?" "Not a thing." "And while I'm sure he appreciates the company, I think it would be better for him to sit with those closest to him," Sakurai said as Luigi stood up. "They may be able to stimulate some memories." I stared at him for a second. "...Makes sense. See you Louie!" As they walked away, I leaned over to Snake and whispered, "Something is definitely up here. I'm gonna contact Vector and see what he thinks about this."

Mewtwo Self-imposed isolation is truly a fickle situation. There are days I long for contact with others beyond the occasional wild Rowlett, but I must keep my power from those who would harness it for evil intent. At least the facilities at Smash are more tailored to me and not merely a stone hole in a wall like Cerulean Cave.

It truly was a comfort to know that there is a place such as Smash where I could be without fear of others coming after me. But now, I have my suspicions about what may truly be going on behind the scenes of these heinous crimes. I fear that someone may be

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A word of advice: Banging your head on a keyboard is not a way to solve any situation.

It's Mags, unfortunately. Mewtwo has gone missing! He didn't come to lunch or dinner yesterday and when he didn't show up for breakfast this morning, his room was checked and he was gone! There was evidence of a struggle in his room, but no fingerprints or anything of the sort. And he was about to give his input on the situation too! Whoever is behind this is really upping the game and the stakes. I have this nagging feeling that we're almost on top of it, that something is about to happen, but I can't put my finger on it.

For now, all we can do is search and wait.

Hey guys! Thanks for reading World of Plight this month! If you have any leads for me to follow, (PLEASE!) contact me on the Mario Boards. Eating chili dogs, Magolor04726, Master Magician.

Shmaluigi, Private Investigator
Written by:

Hidden Mansion: Part 3

My search for answers about the Killing Games brought me to the Despair Pub, a seedy establishment in downtown New Wikisburg with plenty of information to go around. After talking to the bartender, I was directed to a suspicious character named Pokerface who claims to have the information I need. Hopefully this isn't yet another dead end.

"So you can tell Shmaluigi when the next Killing Game will happen?" I asked him.

"Eh, not exactly. I know a guy who knows a guy who has that info," he told me.

"Oh, well then can you tell Shmaluigi where to find them?"

He smirked in response. "That's not how this works. You don't contact them, they contact you. Gotta keep this kinda stuff on the down low when it comes to business like this. I thought an 'ace detective' like you would know this."

"Alright, what does Shmaluigi have to do?"

"Give me your number and I'll get it to my guy who can get it to their guy. They'll call you with instructions when they're ready. Be sure you answer the first time."

I wrote down my phone number on a piece of paper and slid it across the table to him.

"Cool. We're done here," he said.

That was it? There was no way I was getting this for free, right? "No catch?" I asked.

"Nah, no catch."

Well, I certainly wasn't going to complain about that. I left the pub and started walking back to my office. Nothing I could do now but wait.

Several days passed with no contact from this mysterious person. I was beginning to wonder if they were even going to call at all. Maybe I was just being impatient. Maybe I was being paranoid and overthinking this, even. But this was my last lead, and if this didn't pan out, I'd probably have to drop the whole thing. I wondered how much longer I should keep waiting... I went to bed, hoping once again that tomorrow would finally be the day something would happen.

I was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of my phone ringing on the nightstand. Wondering what time it was, I took a moment to look at my alarm clock. 2:01 in the morning? Seriously? I answered anyway, hoping that this was the mysterious contact at long last.

"Shmaluigi, private investigator," I mumbled, still trying to wake up.

A garbled voice came through the phone. "Boo Woods. Tuesday. 9:00 pm. Be there if you want to see the Killing Game."

With that, the mysterious voice immediately hung up. I quickly grabbed my notebook and wrote down the details. I was too tired to give it much thought at the time and quickly went back to sleep.

Finally, the day was here. After making the necessary preparations and travel arrangements, I arrived at Boo Woods around 8:00. Waiting around for an hour may not be a lot of people's idea of fun, but hey, better that than being late and missing out on the whole thing. I was pretty nervous about the investigation, but excited to get to business, kind of like how I feel whenever I'm on my way to a mafia investigation. As I walked through the forest, keeping an eye out for anything that looked odd, my mind started wandering.

Thinking back on what led me up to this point, I couldn't help but feel that it just seemed too easy. Actually getting to this point took a lot of research and investigation, sure, but once I got to the Despair Pub, everything was smooth sailing. I talk to a guy, and he gives me the information I'm looking for. No payment, no catch, nothing. It was almost as if someone wanted me to be here, and frankly, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

As I walked into a clearing in the woods, I suddenly felt something hit the back of my head and everything went black.

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair in a dark room, lit only by a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. As I looked around for any clue about my surroundings or possibly something I could use to escape, a dapper Monty Mole walked into the light. We had never met personally, but I recognized him immediately. My greatest enemy, Monty Brando.

With every part of me that hated Mr. Morris, I despised this guy probably ten times as much. He was the boss of one of the most powerful mafia in the Mushroom Kingdom, but that's not exactly why I considered him to be my greatest enemy. Oh no, it was far more personal than that. Years ago, I lost what I loved most, all thanks to this scum. From that day on, I swore I would dismantle his organization and every other lousy mafia that popped up.

"Shmaluigi, we meet at last," Brando said in the usual calm demeanor he was always noted for.

"Monty Brando..." I snarled at him.

"Ah, good, so you do recognize me. I thought IG may have hit you on the head too hard when he brought you here. I was hoping we could have a chat before getting down to business."

"Shmaluigi doesn't have time to deal with the likes of you right now! He's on his way to investigate the Killing Game!"

He chuckled. "Shmaluigi, Shmaluigi... How can someone be so intelligent, yet so dull? How amusing."

I was confused. "Wh- what are you talking about?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you, detective? There is no Killing Game. There never was any Killing Game. I have eyes and ears everywhere, Shmaluigi. I knew exactly what you were up to, and I knew if I had false information planted in the right places, you would walk right into my trap. And here you are..."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and yet, it made perfect sense. Everything I had thought about was right. Someone indeed wanted me to be here, but it was more nefarious than I ever could have imagined.

"Here's the deal, Shmaluigi. I know you've been trying to destroy my organization since you joined the NWPD. I didn't pay it too much mind at the time. You weren't the first overzealous rookie to try something like that, and I have no reason to believe you'll be the last. Nothing ever came of it, of course, and I assumed you were just another two-bit detective. But that all changed a few months ago. You ran off to Rogueport, studied under that Fulbright character, and helped to dismantle that prosecutor's mafia in the span of less than a week. That's when I realized you just might be a problem after all. I thought when I heard of your demise at the sheep pasture that it was the end of you, but then you came back... So this time, I'm going to make sure you're taken care of. Permanently."

Brando motioned and a spindly looking robot with mismatched parts stepped into the light, its feet clanking loudly on the floor. "IG?"

"Ready and awaiting orders," the robot droned.

"Terminate him."

"Proceeding."

My life flashed before my eyes as the robot raised its gun at me. Suddenly, a bucket fell on its head from the ceiling.

"Error. Vision obstructed," the robot said, putting away its weapon to try and remove the bucket.

As I looked around for where it could have came from, a familiar avian landed on the robot's shoulders.

"HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK! (I APPROACH THEE IN ORDER TO ENGAGE THEE IN BATTLE FORTHWITH!)" exclaimed the goose as he shoved the pointy end of his signature pipe into the robot's mechanical chest.

"Manufacturer's protocol dictates I cannot be captuuuuuuured..." the robot said as it deactivated and fell to the ground in a pile of scrap.

"Mr. Goose?!" I exclaimed.

"Honk honk honk honko honoko hoonk. (My warmest salutations and greetings, my most esteemed compatriot, but an inkling has chanced upon mine attention that there exist dark schemings against your person.)" Mr. Goose said before cutting the ropes with a single bite of his bill. "Honk honnnk. Honk honk! Honk honk. (Come, we have not time to dawdle and make acquaintance. It behooves us to fly, at once! Ah, 'tis a mere figure of speech for yourself.)"

"Wait, where's Brando?" I wondered aloud, just before a red bolt of light shot out of the darkness straight towards me.

"Time to take matters into my own hands," Brando said as he stepped into the light, holding IG-11's gun. That was no gun, that was some sort of sci-fi laser blaster! "Goodbye, Shmaluigi."

I skillfully dodged every single one of Brando's laser shots across the room. Okay, actually, I probably looked more like a Cheep Cheep flopping around out of water, and at one point I tripped over something, but the important thing is that I didn't get hit by any of the lasers. Luckily, I was eventually able to take cover.

"You're quite the tenacious one, detective, but don't think you can outsmart me," Brando said, pausing between blaster shots. Just then, I heard a familiar honk followed by the sounds of a struggle. "What the- Let go of that, you bothersome waterfowl!"

"Mr. Goose?" I said, peeking up from the object I was hiding behind, not that I could see much in the darkness of the room.

"Honk Honk honoka! Honk honkella! (Let not your mind be troubled, my dear Sir Shmaluigi! I have taken the liberty of seizing the foul trickster's armaments!)"

Relieved, I came out from behind the cover and went over to Mr. Goose and Monty Brando. I had waited for this moment for years.

"You're finished, Brando. Prepare to face justice!"

"Such hubris... Until we meet again, detective," he said, and before we knew it, he had burrowed down into the dirt floor and tunneled away.

"Honk! Honk honkuso he-onk! (Fie! The dastardly fiend has thusly absconded!)"

"Slippery little mole... Well, at least we both got out of that unharmed. Thanks for the help, Mr. Goose. Shmaluigi owes you one."

"Honk honk hoonk henk. (Be cordially assured, my friend, the pleasure resides in entirety with myself.)"

"Alright, let's get out of here. Uh, help Shmaluigi find the door."

I walked into the Sipping Time Cafe, and as usual, I was greeted by the Shy Guy working the counter. "Shmaluigi! How's my favorite customer?"

"Doing good today," I replied.

"Glad to hear it! The usual?"

"You know it."

"Hey, how did that 'Killing Game' thing turn out? You ever get to the bottom of that?"

"Ehh, it's a long and complicated story."

"Maybe you should write about it sometime. Ooh, or maybe you could have some kind of non-fiction TV show! Anyway, one Shmaluigi Special to-go."

"Thanks."

Just the way I like it. My favorite coffee back at a semi-reasonable price. As I walked back to my office, I started to think about things. Even though the whole Killing Game investigation turned out to be a dud, somehow, I felt better. Even that JojaMart construction site didn't bother me anymore. Well, not that much, anyway. Someday I would redeem myself for the blunder at Fred Pasture, but honestly, I didn't really feel like I had to anymore.

More importantly, someday I'll honor Ms. Skye's legacy and finish what she started. Someday...

The End

Thanks for reading the conclusion of the Hidden Mansion arc! I hope you enjoyed it. Shmaluigi may not be investigating any haunted mansions anytime soon, but check back next month for a spooky Halloween edition of Shmaluigi, Private Investigator! Special thanks to Luigi 64DD for writing the dialogue for the goose, it was great to have him on board.

Interested in an audio version of this story? Check out Magolor04726's Shmaluigi, Private Investigator YouTube channel! New videos are uploaded shortly after the release of each issue of The 'Shroom, and you can also catch up on all the other stories so far.

GoldenMario 007
Written by:

It was cold in Russia. Not that it’d be a problem for Mario. The adrenaline pumping through his veins warmed him up as he rushed through the facility. He was careful not to be noticed, though. If Mario did his job right, then the majority of people shouldn’t know he exists. Unfortunately for him, he was the world’s most famous secret agent. That means a lot of people knew he existed. Given his job as a secret agent...that wasn’t a good thing. He had to be extra careful sneaking around the dam. If so much as one person saw him there, he was guaranteed to die.

He peeked around a corner to see two guards talking to each other.

“Hey, Jeff?”

“What’s up, Dale?”

“Do you think blimps are a bad investment?”

Get a load of these idiots, Mario thought to himself as he shot them with his silenced pistol.

Mario walked past their bodies and up to the satellite. He took the covert modem out of his vest pocket and hooked it up.

That oughta do it.

Mario hopped off of the platform and made a beeline for the middle of the dam.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!”

Gulp. Mario turned around and found himself face to face with what seemed to be the operator of the dam.

Goddammit.

Mario quickly shot him and made his way to the middle of the dam, attaching his bungee cord. He shot a glance down. It was a long way, but regardless…

Mario made the jump.

Koopamon
Written by: Booguette

File 2: Beyond Power-up Town
''Last time, Mario and Luigi got their very own Koopamon from Professor E. Gadd. Luigi asked Mario if he wanted to battle to test their new Koopamon, and Mario agreed.''

Professor E. Gadd asked, "You boys know how to do battle with your Koopamon, correct? Because if you don-" “Yes, Gramps, we know how to battle with Koopamon. No need to tell us. Now go, Beach Koopa!”

“Go, Fire Bro!” And the battle began.

Fire Bro had the higher speed, so he went first. “Fire Bro, use Scratch!” Mario called out. Fire Bro ran to Beach Koopa and slashed at him with his pointy fingers.

“Beach Koopa, use Tackle!” said Luigi. Beach Koopa tackled Fire Bro and sent him tumbling backwards.

“Fire Bro!” called Mario. Fire Bro got up and gave its trainer a determined smile. “You’re okay? Good. Now use Growl!”

Fire Bro made a distinctive “He-ah!” growl at Beach Koopa.

“Trying to lower our attack’s power, eh? WELL, TOO BAD! LUIGI TIME! Beach Koopa! Use Tail Whip!” Beach Koopa turned around and waved his little tail around, lowering Fire Bro’s defenses.

“Fire Bro, finish it with Headbutt!” said Mario. Fire Bro ran up and leapt right into Beach Koopa. Beach Koopa and Fire Bro tumbled across the floor, and when Fire Bro got up, and Beach Koopa was on the ground looking dazed, it was obvious that Fire Bro had won.

Shy Guy's Cool and Hot Jams
Written by:

Hello! Hi! Greetings! Bonjour! コンニチハ！Welcome to my new and improved Shroom section! So improved it literally has nothing to do with the old one. The purpose of this section is to talk about music without infringing on the rights of my other child, the Daily VGM Thread. Sometimes this could be a more in depth look at something that I've already brought up in the aforementioned thread, but don't really have the chance to expand on without another place to showcase it. Other times this could be things I would never be able to cover in the thread, such as arrangement albums, or music unrelated to game entirely. It doesn't even have to be about an album or a game soundtrack, it could be a broad as talking about the history of a game composer, or games that use the Konami SCC. Essentially you'll be getting whatever's on my mind, that's related to music, once a month. Expect a lot of SEGA as well. I just really like the music in SEGA games. Of course, there should be no better way to start of a section that will talk about SEGA a lot, then by talking about SEGA. In this case, the soundtrack for Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax.

Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax
Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax is actually a crossover game, but not between SEGA games like you might expect, rather between series released by the manga publisher Dengeki Bunko. Though, that's only half true, as while all the characters are from those series, the stages are actually based on SEGA games, and this is what makes the soundtrack of this game so cool. As each stage is based on a SEGA series, the music that plays on it is also based on that series, and considering this game itself is published by the company that owns those series and has the sound team that did the music for those series... I hope you can see where this is going. Indeed, many of the original composers reprise their roles doing the stage music for this game, and they do not disappoint.

A good example that most people should be able to understand is Jun Senoue's Seaside B-field, the music for the Sonic Stage. I'd say it's fair to argue that Jun Senoue's style is synonymous with the Sonic series at this point, with him having taken the lead for four main series games (Adventure (2), Heroes, and Generations) and three side games (Shadow, Black Knight, and Team Sonic Racing), so it should be no surprise that he did the music for the Sonic Stage. Of course, with a name like Seaside B-field, you might be expecting something along the lines of Sea Gate, an alternate take on the original Seaside Hill, but you couldn't be more wrong. Jun Senoue makes Seaside Hill's B-side into a song unlike the original in every way. Rather then an easily listenable song from first stage of the game that also happens to be a beach, Seaside B-field is prime material for fighting, with emphasis placed on synths rather then live instruments. I also think this helps Jun Senoue to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb when compared to the rest of the music, considering the only other songs with real instruments are two other songs where he contributed his guitars, and the main theme.

Cyphernetic Tornado, the song for the Phantasy Star Online 2, is by Hideaki Kobayashi, who did a lot of music for every episode of, not only Phantasy Star Online 2, but the original game as well, and it absolutely sounds like it was ripped straight out of PSO2, using many of the synths you can find in the soundtrack for that game. Naofumi Hataya contributes Higher Higher, the song for the NiGHTs stage. In all honesty I'm not super familiar with the music for NiGHTs, I'm just here for some Hataya bangers, and this song is absolutely Hataya in every way, with it's fast paced, upbeat nature, and frequent usage of high notes during the section at 0:43. A banger this is indeed, and my personal favourite from the soundtrack as a whole.

Not every composer was able to make a return for this games soundtrack however, primarily related to composers who don't work at SEGA anymore, or never did in the first place. As an example the music for Cyber Troopers Virtual-On was done by Kentaro Koyama who now works at XFLAG, so Mitsuharu Fukuyama takes the reigns for the stage based on the series, with Stand on the Edge. Cyber Troopers spiritual successor, Border Break, also has a stage, with it's music, Frontline, being done by Tadashi Kinukawa rather then any member of AM2 Sound Team. It's fantastic, taking a bunch ideas presented by the music of the series and turning into something new. It feels distinctly like a song from Border Break, despite the fact Kinukawa has never actually done anything for the game, before, or since. Finally we have the music for the 7th Dragon stage, 7th Crisis. The music for 7th Dragon was by Yuzo Koshiro, a freelance composer, so Tomonori Sawada does the music here. In a weird way, I'd actually say it reminds of Jun Ishikawa's work, with a retro game feel combined with techniques featured in modern electronic music, there's even a bit of wobble bass at 1:15. Like NiGHTs, I'm not familiar with the music of the 7th Dragon, but this is absolutely the kind of music I would expect from a more recent work of Sawada. It's a shame a lot of he mostly gets credited for sound effects rather then music, because I'd absolutely love to here more stuff like this.

There's also a stage based on Valkyria Chronicles, which even gets a night variant. The music of that series was done by Hitoshi Sakimoto of Basiscape, so instead they got the next best thing, one of the seventy sound directors of the game. In this case it was... Teruhiko Nakagawa, who is also the only person to do more then one piece of stage music, instead doing three of them (both Valkyria Chronicles songs, and Shinobi). If there's anyone at SEGA I aggressively do not care for, it's Teruhiko Nakagawa. For reference of who we're dealing with here, this is the man that did the Blazy Mixes in Sonic Rush, which I consider to be absolute butcherings of the original songs. This is the man that did the music for the first Mario & Sonic game, the only game in the series I do not care about the music for. This is the man where the only song by him I care about is a song from a Super 32X game released in 1995, a song that was also a collaboration with Masaru Setsumaru. So yeah, my opinion on his contributions? I don't find them to be very interesting. They're essentially just filler, and I skip filler when listening to game music. Ergo, I skip Teruhiko Nakagawa's songs.

Speaking of filler, cutscene music! The best kind of filler. Thankfully the cutscenes in this game are text based so there's a bit of creativity on display here, but not enough as to where I'll be wanting to listen to any of these, unlike many other songs in the soundtrack. The menu on the other hand? It's great. It should be no surprise really, I love music by Tomoya Ohtani, and the chances of me saying anything bad about his music are virtually non-existent. The main menu music, Emotional Buzz has some powerful bass, alongside a melody that is bound to stick with you. The special menu decreases the bass and puts the focus on a piano, giving it a more introspective feel. There's also the main theme of the game, FIGHTING CLIMAX, it's a rock oriented song by Kenichi Tokoi with vocals by Mie Sonozaki. If you hate good music, there's a "vocal-less version" included in the soundtrack. Neat.

There's are actually a few songs not by SEGA SOUND TEAM, instead these songs are by Tomoyuki Nakazawa and Yui Isshiki. The latter of the two contributes fight related music that isn't for the stage themselves, so the character select theme, and the pre and post battle jingles. Envoy of Hope, the character select theme, is the standout of his songs, combining electronic elements, guitars, and even a siren in the background. Tomoyuki Nakazawa does the music for the Virtua Fighter stage, Fighting Blossom, which ends being okay. It has a trance-y feel to it, but nothing about it ends up seeming that memorable to me.

And that's everything... or at least for the original Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, the game got an updated release in 2015 under the name Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax Ignition, unfortunately the game never got a soundtrack, however two songs from it were included as part of Jun Senoue's The Works II. Both tracks are obviously by Jun Senoue. Unlike what I said about his other contribution to the game, I feel the two songs featured in this album are rather out of place when compared to the rest of the soundtrack. They follow Jun Senoue's usual rock based style, using real guitars (by Jun Senoue), drums (by Act.), bass (by IKUO and Takeshi Taneda). They end up feeling more like songs made specifically for the album then new songs for the game. Not to say they're bad or anything, just that they clash with the rest of the soundtrack. Sparklers, the new main menu theme, is my favourite of the two. It's a little on the short side, but it's a lot fun, and even involves some electronic elements, with some laser-like synths being used to compliment the lead guitar.

Goodbye
And that is actually everything this game has to offer. One interesting thought I had while typing all of this out was "as this is the first part of my new section, and this soundtrack is referencing a bunch of SEGA series, could this be a good introduction into music from SEGA games?" The answer to that, I would say is no. If you're looking for that, I'd recommend the music in Sonic & All-Stars Transformed, which has more dance oriented takes on a bunch of a classic SEGA songs. It directly remixes and arranges many songs from the original game, rather then trying to make something reminiscent of them. This game on the other hand only really takes inspiration from about half as many games. What makes this soundtrack so interesting is knowing about the music for these games and the composers behind them, and hearing music similar to what you would hear in those series. To someone unfamiliar with all of that, this may just seem like a decently coherent game soundtrack. Case in point: Ocean View is an arrangement of Sonic - You Can Do Anything from Sonic CD, and Super Sonic Racing from Sonic R. Seaside B-field references the Sonic series in name only and maybe by the fact it's by Jun Senoue (a person who has done many things that aren't Sonic).

One more thing before I leave though, a while back I made a playlist of all the songs I like from the game, the order differs a fair bit from the official soundtrack. I thought it would be a fairly relevant thing to add here, so you can know not only what I consider to be good music, but also critique my organisation skills. This won't be a common occurrence of the section, but I thought it would be nice to add here as I already had it lying around. If you'd like to know a bit more about the things I didn't discuss here, such as the people behind songs that weren't mentioned, I would recommend checking the info on VGMdb, which is generally a good resource for game soundtracks.

That is all. Goodbye.