SMB: The Mushroom Hero 11 is finally up! Check it out: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/604039

Sorry it's been taking so long, I'm just about finished. I haven't been able to work on it as much since school started back up again. It's my senior year and I've been busy thinking about college and trying to get a job. But hopefully I'll have it done by late September/early October.

I'd say that Mace is probably gonna be the star of this episode, so you'll get to find out what's up with him if you've been wondering. Episode 11 will wrap up the whole starship arc of the series and the next few after that will likely be enough to finish the Lord Shade season as a whole. From there I have about 2 more seasons planned with an increasingly darkening plot. I've been going at such a slow rate though. I wish I could animate faster. =P

Oh, and I remember saying a while back that while Link would not be returning as a central character, there would eventually be someone badass enough to take his place. I won't say much, but that character will be coming into the spotlight very soon.

If you haven't already, check it out: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
585049

Hello, I hope everyone had a nice holiday season. SMB2: The Arrival 8 is coming along swimmingly. It could be released quite soon, but it would be a shorter episode with more plot than action. I'm most likely going to try to add another fight and release it sometime later next month, but we'll see.

Anyway, my main reason for posting this is, do you think my series should have a single, universal title? Under my current system, episodes are titled SMBX: (with X being the arc number), followed by the title of the arc, followed by the overall episode number. I've been thinking that it would be much easier to just give the series one name. For example, episodes would be titled Tales of the MK: EP 01, etc. I just don't know what to call the series.

My only problem with this is that it might confuse people who know the series as SMB: Prelude to Terror or SMB2: The Arrival. On the other hand, it would make things less complicated for newer fans. Plus there's the problem of coming up with an original, non-lame title that isn't too long (there's a character limit for flash submissions).

Please give me your opinion on the matter, and if possible, suggest a name for the series. I was thinking maybe Tales or Legends of the MK. What do you think?

Finally.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
552304

Yes, I'm still working on SMB2: The Arrival 7. My laptop nearly broke, but luckily it was fixed without any data loss. *wipes sweat from forehead* So yeah, that's why I've been gone for so long. The episode should be done by the end of the month at the latest.

Just needed an excuse to make an announcement. =P

Anyway, the more and more I think about it, the more practical the whole "press space bar to advance dialogue" thing seems to be. It's more convenient, and the only downside is that you have to press a button. If you're too lazy to do that, then I'm sorry. But you can't please everyone. At least this will help make the series much more bearable for people who can read really quickly or just want to skip the dialogue (though they'll miss out on the plot, so I wouldn't recommend it).

Progress on the episode itself? Hmm... To put it fraction-wise, I'd say it's about 2/3 of the way done, but I'm still trying to think of ways to make that final, most important, 'actiony' third as enjoyable as possible. I'm looking at the most recent episode's score and scratching my head, wondering what I could do to prevent that from happening again. That's one reason why I decided to change the text back to the old way. Looking back on it, the unskippable dialogue probably turned a lot of people off.

So yeah, that's it for now. It's been a busy summer, but I hope to finish SMB2: The Arrival 7 within the next month and a half. I'm not too fond of this arc as a whole, but I love the direction the series will take starting with SMB3. By the way, did I happen to mention that this arc will likely consist of only four episodes total? It might drag on into a fifth, but again, changing the text system will help me pack a lot more into each episode since I only need to use one frame instead of several for each bit of text.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Hopefully you're looking forward to the future of this series as much as I am!

I've found some nice battle sprites for Waluigi. The ones that are done by Starpower are good and all, but not really too useful for a fight scene. I recolored them to look like they're M&L styled, so he won't look out of place. So you can expect to see him in the next saga after the next four episodes or so.

Why am I telling you this? Because Waluigi probably won't make an actual appearance for another year. And if the next episode of SMBZ mysteriously included these Waluigi sprites (which are more fit for battle), I'd be swarmed by many ignorant SMBZ fans.

(Note how I said ignorant SMBZ fans, and not all of them. Not all SMBZ fans are retarded, just some of them. This includes people that compare EVERYTHING to SMBZ and flame anything that even slightly resembles it.)

Yup. The title pretty much sums everything up. Watch it here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
535013

Well, I technically accomplished my goal of finishing episode 6, since I've just finished animating it. I just have to add the finishing touches (menu, credits) and check it over to make sure everything looks the way I want it to be. So expect it to be released on newgrounds sometime next week.

As for the episode itself, I'm pretty satisfied with the way it came out. There won't be nearly as much action as episode 5, but I did about as much as I could considering it's the first episode of a new saga. There's a decent amount of plot and the story will cover Mario's journey in the afterlife along with a battle in the Mushroom Kingdom.

I think I did pretty well considering I couldn't start working on this untl March due to winter sports. So look out for SMB2: The Arrival 6 sometime next week.

...And my birthday's coming the 27th. Yay?