Mega Mash

Mega Mash is an NES main game released on September 30, 2011. The game is unique in the fact that each level is a combination of several levels all with a different theme and gameplay.

This game was one of the launch titles for the iPhone Nitrome Touchy, released on October 31st 2012 for iPhone and November 21st 2012 for Android.

Carrot Story
left right Left and right arrow keys - Move

up Up arrow key - Jump

Spacebar Space bar - Pick up or drop off a crate

Balloon
left right Left and right arrow keys - Move

up Up arrow key - Tap to ascend

Ninja
left right Left and right arrow keys - Move

up Up arrow key - Jump

Spacebar Space - Fire ninja star
 * Hold space and tap an arrow key to move in that direction on a ninja rope

Nitrometris
left right Left and right arrow keys - Move

down Down arrow key - Speed up

Spacebar/up Space/Up - Rotate

Smash
left right Left and right arrow keys - Move

space Space - Shoot

Blast Man Joe
left right up down Arrow keys - Move

Spacebar Space bar - Plant a bomb

Xolstar 3
left right up down Arrow keys - Move

Spacebar Space bar - Shoot bullets

Nitrome Touchy
In the Nitrome Touchy version of Mega Mash, the player's controler is a simple controller with a d-pad on the left side, and two orange buttons on the right side - the same setup as Double Edged's Nitrome Touchy controller. This controller remains the same for all games, except that the art in the background changes when the player enters a game.

Descriptive
Buttons: D-pad, button one, button two

Usage: As Mega Mash has different controls for each game, it is possible that some buttons for some games will not be used. Regardless, controls will be different for each game. Below is the possible control setup for each game:
 * Carrot Story: The left and right arm of the D-pad will likely be used for movement, while it is possible that the upper arm of the D-pad will cause Fluffykins to jump. As only one arm of the D-pad can be pressed at a time, pressing to the upper arm to jump will be impractical as it prevents the level from moving while jumping (most of the time). Because of this, likely one of the two buttons will be used for jumping, while another button will be used for firing fireballs in Super Mode. The art for the each controller will change depending on the game entered.
 * Xolstar 3: It is probably the d-pad will be used for movement of the Xolstar, each arm of the d-pad when pressed moving the ship in that direction, while one of the two buttons will be used for firing the laser.
 * Blast-Man Joe: The d-pad will probably be the control selected for movement, each arm when pressed moving the player in that direction. One of the two buttons when pressed will cause the player to place a bomb, if this setup is picked.
 * Smash: The d-pad will likely be used for movement, the left and right arm using the d-pad in the picked direction. One of the two buttons will probably be picked to fire the lasers of Smash when it is in super mode.
 * Nitrometris: Either pressing a left or right arm of the d-pad will flip the Nitrometris in the picked direction. Otherwise, one of the buttons will probably move the Nitrometris one way and the other button the other way, possibly. It is also possible pressing any button will move the Nitrometris clockwise or counter-clockwise, and there will be no other choice.
 * Balloon: Similar to Carrot Story, the left and right arms of the d-pad will likely be used for movement, while either one of the circle buttons or the upper arm of the d-pad will cause the Balloon to move up.
 * Ninja: The d-pad's left and right arms will probably move Takeshi left and right, respectively. Either the upper arm of the d-pad or one of the circle buttons will be used for jumping. One of the circle buttons will also probably used to fire a ninja star, holding on to the button causing a ninja rope to possibly be made.

Condensed
In the Nitrome Touchy version of Mega Mash, the player's smartphone is a simple controller with a d-pad on the left side, and two orange buttons on the right side - the same setup as Double Edged's Nitrome Touchy controller. This controller remains the same for all games, except that the art in the background changes when the player enters a game.

Smash
 * D-pad left/right - move paddle
 * Circle button 1 - fire lasers (super mode)

Xolstar 3
 * D-pad up/down/left/right - move
 * Circle button 1 or 2 - fire

Blast-Man Joe
 * D-pad up/down/left/right - move
 * Circle button 1 or 2 - drop bomb

Nitrometris
 * D-pad down/left/right - move around
 * Circle button 1 - rotate



Carrot Story
 * D-pad left/right - move
 * D-pad up - jump
 * Circle button 1 - pick up or drop boxes
 * Circle button 2 - shoot fireball (super mode), jump

Balloon
 * D-pad left/right/down - move
 * D-pad up - move up

Ninja
 * D-pad left/right - move, jump off walls
 * Circle button 1 - fire ninja star or rope
 * Circle button 2 - jump
 * D-pad up - move up ninja rope



Levels
Mega Mash has 20 levels. When on the menu, players can pick between 7 games to play, although each game leads to the same level select and to the same levels. In each level of Mega Mash, the player has to reach the goal in the level, which will allow them to progress to the next level. Throughout the levels, the player will be able to pass through corruption rifts in the damaged level that connect different games. Objects that pass through these rifts will usually be reconfigured into their counterpart in the other game.

Level 1
Level 1 starts off with Carrot Story as it jumps from platform to platform. Then the player goes off to Xolstar 3 then you back to Carrot Story to win.

Level 2
Level 2 goes from Carrot Story to Xolstar then adds Blastman Joe to the mix.

Reviews
Game Reviews by Fupa

Fupa Games have reviewed Mega Mash,praising it as one of the most creative games from Nitronome along with SkyWire and Swindler. It impressively captures the retro environment and is presented in a very engaging way. Read the Full Review here.

 JayisGames 

JayisGames reviewed Nitrome's Mega Mash, and called it eight games. They talked about its uniqueness, and told about the beginning of the game. In the end, they said is was creative, good-looking, and retro. Read the full review here.

Games
In Mega Mash, all seven games are mixed into a single, 20 level game. The reason for this is mostly unknown, but seems to result from damage to the game cartridge.


 * Carrot Story - Help Fluffykins cross the Land of Carrots and defeat the Moo King!
 * Balloon - Join Balloon on this journey across the World of Air.
 * Ninja - Join Ninja as he tries to destroy Oni Yazuka!
 * Nitrometris
 * Smash
 * Blast-Man Joe
 * Xolstar 3

Enemies
All enemies damage the main character on contact or by shooting hazards. Ghosts, missiles, venus fly traps and red birds are in Carrot Story. Simian units and mines are in Ninja. Space mosquitoes, space jellyfish, and UFOs are in Xolstar 3. Blast-Man Joe is pursued by fire enemies.

Hazards
As the ninja there are Lasers which damage on touch and Turrets that follow him, firing as they go. As Fluffykins there is Quicksand which also damages on touch. extending beyond the top of any given nitrometris game which your piece resets the Nitrometris part of the game and detracts a life. Crusher Blocks descend and rise in Blast-Man Joe, Carrot Story, and Balloon. Hitting Joe with his own explosion in Blast-Man Joe hurts the player.

Pick ups

 * Main article: Pick ups (Mega Mash)

Pick Ups that grant points appear often in level. Super pick ups in the game add a different power to several of the different game aspects. Fluffykins can shoot fireballs, the Xolstar can fire five lasers at once and gains a shield, and Smash gains guns on the paddle.

Characters

 * Main article: Characters (Mega Mash)

The characters in the game transform as the player moves between worlds, so they are essentially the same character throughout, albeit in different forms. There is Fluffykins (in Carrot Story), Takeshi (in ninja), Smash & Faceball in the game Smash, Nitrometris in the game Nitrometris, the Balloon in the game Balloon, the Xolstar (in Xolstar 3), and Blast-Man Joe in the game Blast-Man Joe.

Interactive objects
Objects like Blocks and Spring Blocks can be interacted with the player, and used to navigate through levels. There are several helpful objects throughout the game.

Bosses

 * Main article: Bosses (Mega Mash)

There are two bosses, one encountered halfway through the game and the one more encountered on the final level. They act like enemies, only being bigger, harder to destroy, and having to be destroyed to progress through the game.

Glitches
Mega Mash is known for the notorious amount of glitches in it. In the blog post announcing Mega Mash had been released, Nitrome said several glitches were still intact. Below are some of them.

Lost in cartridge glitch
On level three, when the player turns into the ninja for the first time, the top game will disappear, but the player can wall jump up there. The player can't get back into Blast-Man Joe, but they can run around in the black cartridge glitch. The player cannot see him/herself either. Strangely, since there's no game within that area, the controls act as if the game within that area is a platform game.

Spring glitch
In Carrot Story, if two boxes are put on top of each other on springs, the springs will glitch. This was fixed.

Push glitch
In some parts of Carrot Story, the player may be pushed suddenly in one direction. This "push" happens suddenly and cannot be moved against. The player can avoid the glitch by staying completely still.

Incompleteable level
In some cases, the player will be forced to kill him/herself in order to complete the level, as some parts of some level cannot be completed if the player goes to a certain spot and has to go back, but can't, or cannot progress any further. This bug has been fixed.

Immediate game over
Sometimes when the player completes level three, there will come level failed-screen. This also may happen three seconds into level four. Also, this may happen on other stages.

Super power up glitch
A variation of the uncompleteable level glitch. In some parts of the level, the player may need a super power up to progress further in the level. However, if they die past a certain spot, they will respawn in a certain area, but without being in the super power up state. At this point, the super power up cannot be obtained. In some cases, the level is impossible to complete, as the player needs the super power up, and so the player is forced to restart the level completely. This was fixed.

Level 18 glitch
This glitch caused Mega Mash to be uncompleteable. On level 18, the flagpole was not positioned over a stable platform. The flagpole is instead positioned over the orange sky in the Ninja area. Because the flagpole was not on a stable platform, it could not be activated. Also, if the player stood directly on the brown block, they would eventually fall through the block into a void below.

The player would not die, as they had not lost all their hearts, and the game had not been programmed to count falling into the black void as death. Thus, the player is infinitely falling. They could move horizontally, but not get back up. This glitch is one of the most infamous Nitrome glitches, and was fixed by Nitrome on Monday, October 3rd.



Midair glitch
Like some other games, if you run too fast on the edge of a platform, the player will stay in midair.

Ghosts through a Game barrier glitch
On level 2, if the player is careful enough not to kiil the ghost near the barrier of Carrot Story and Xolstar 3, if the Green Ghost gets through the barrier, no sprite would appear but a red translucent box crawling at th edge.

Wall slide glitches
If the player is wall sliding with Takeshi while in Ninja, and the game changes, a number of things can happen.

Carrot Story
When Takeshi is wall sliding in Ninja, and it changes into Carrot Story, the rabbit will be sliding against the wall.

Blast-Man Joe
If the player is wall sliding and the game changes to Blast-Man Joe while the ninja is where a wall should be, the player will be seen inside the wall, and will immediately die.

Dead space glitch
If the player is where the black empty space should be when the game changes, they will be trapped in it and cannot be seen. The only control that works is jump, and the jumping sound will be heard. Nothing else works (meaning the player has to restart the level).

Ninja star glitch
If the player throws a ninja star while in Ninja and the game changes, the ninja star will still be there.

Bomb glitch
If the player places a bomb while in Blast-Man Joe and the game changes, the bomb will disappear, but the blast will still happen in the normal amount of seconds (still harming the player if they touch it).

Nitrome Touchy version
Mega Mash is included as a Nitrome Touchy game. When the player goes into another game world, the controller's art will change as well. This game was one of the 10 launch titles for the iPhone Nitrome Touchy, this game launched on October 31st 2012 for the app, and November 21st 2012 for Android.

Pre-previews
Images of Ninja and Balloon appeared in the NES Promo Posters. On the first poster, an image of Balloon and Ninja appear. The Ninja image lacks the grating seen in the final game, the Guard also looks different. The Balloon in the Balloon image lacks a face, and Red and Green Pads are present, something not seen in the final release version of Mega Mash. The Pink Platforms are also seen only once in the game. Seen in the NES Skin is a beta version of Nitrometris, which looks very different than the final release version.

Previews
When Mega Mash was released, an image for each game was previewed. All these preview images possibly mean that Mega Mash was originally going to be seven games in one game, each game having a separate set of levels. It is possible that making all the levels would be difficult, and time consuming, which possibly lead to twenty levels being a mix of the seven games.

Almost each preview image of a level seen did not make it into the game. In the Balloon image (see gallery above), Balloon is seen approaching a ball on a chain, which is near a Spike Head. Spike Heads did not make it into the game, also, a Ball on Chain in that area was never encountered. The Blast-Man Joe image had Joe being able to place multiple Bombs at once.

Mosquitoes were also enemies, but cut from the game and possible replaced with mice. The Nitrome Tetris level was also not seen in the game, neither was the Smash level. The Carrot Story, Ninja, and Xolstar 3 levels did however make it into the game. Mega Mash may have went into development in November, when the Nitrome Enjoyment System was revealed.

Post-release
Unused enemy sprites still remain the game. The sprite of the Hot Air mines still remain in the game's coding. Three unused enemies are also present: a white sphere, fat alien, and alien fly; from their appearance it is thought they are from Xolstar 3. A sprite of a snake also exists, though to be from Blast-Man Joe.

The alien fly and fat alien apparently were to help each other, as a .gif exists of the fly rotating around the fat alien.

Awards

 * Flash Gaming Summit
 * 2012
 * The Mochis
 * Best Action Game
 * Nominated - Finalist
 * }

Trivia

 * Several of the games seem to be based on several old games from the 80's and 70's.
 * Carrot Story is based on the Mario series of games, but resembles Super Mario Bros. 2 more.
 * The title and main character also strongly resemble Cave Story
 * Smash is based on Breakout, a Pong like game where the player smashes blocks.
 * The Power-Up resembles Laser capsules from Arkanoid, and the paddle resembles Vaus from the same game.
 * Nitrometris is obviously based off Tetris.
 * Blast-man Joe is based off of Bomberman.
 * Insectica Prime is clearly based on Metroid Prime
 * Other games are based off already existing Nitrome games.
 * Ninja is a reference to Final Ninja.
 * Balloon is a reference to Hot Air.
 * When a level is complete, the player can still move around and the player can still die (Carrot Story).
 * When Fluffykins jumps up and dies, he can land on a enemy and still can kill it.
 * The sound of the lightning bolt impacting the word "Mega Mash" - heard during the opening of Mega Mash and prior the menu coming up - is heard upon collection of the NES in Super Stock Take.
 * The beginning of the second game music sounds a little like "Another Winter" by Anamanaguchi.