"Vice Principal Luna? Can I talk to you?" The pink skinned girl asks as she enters Luna's empty office. "Huh, I guess she went to restroom." She says as she moves to take a seat before noticing a faint melodic noise emanating from a set of headphones sitting on Luna's desk. She walks over and puts them on, hearing a familiar song.
"Super Mario World?" She asks as she moves to look at the computer screen, seeing Mario moving around on a flat landscape with a title overhead and copyright info at the bottom of the screen, reminiscent of the original title screen. However that's where the similarities ended. The background was bluish black overlay-ed with white pinpricks in various locations, making it resemble the night sky. The ground beneath his feet was a light brown with a green grass-like surface. The title said that the game wasn't Super Mario World, instead calling it Luna Magic. The copyright year was 2016, and it said it was made by TheRealNinjaGirl instead of Nintendo.
"Huh, why does Vice Principal Luna have a ROM hack up?" Pinkie asks herself as she sits down, looks at the bottom of the screen, and pulls the keyboard closer to her. "She's using ZMZ," Pinkie says as she looks toward the door. "I guess I could play this while I wait." Pinkie presses the Escape key and heads to the INPUT section. "Default controls for Player 1," She says as she clicks on a box that says "ALLOW U+D/L+R" before clicking on a tab that said "#2", seeing that there is no input available.
"She doesn't have Player 2's controls set up." Pinkie says as she clicks on a spot that says "KEYBOARD/GAMEPAD" and proceeds to set Player 2's controls to be identical to Player 1's. She then presses Escape until the game resumes, with Mario moving around the title screen again. Pinkie presses the Start key, selects "MARIO A", and chooses "2 PLAYER GAME".
The game starts with Mario on a flat piece of land and a short song starts to play. A text box appears.
"Welcome to Luna Magic! This is a short one-world hack with five levels.
-TheRealNinjaGirl"
Pinkie reads the message while she waits for the music to finish playing. Once it does, Pinkie presses the 'B' button, which takes her to a screen where Mario is walking up to Luigi, who is standing on an icon that looks like a house. Next to it is a line of four yellow icons, which Pinkie knew indicated that those levels only have one exit, with a castle at the end of the pathway. Pinkie also recognizes the map's background as the same one used for the Special World from the original Super Mario World, except the stars made an image that looked like a moon in the center of the screen, and the Super Famicom icon was noticeably absent.
"The World Map looks pretty good," Pinkie says as she presses 'A' to enter the level icon that Mario and Luigi were on, which was called "Mario's House". It was a simple level that looked like the inside of a house, with a lone Message Block in the center. The Message Block stated that TheRealNinjaGirl made and beta tested the hack. Seeing as how there was nothing else to do, Pinkie used the side exit on the right to exit the level, then moved Mario over to the first official level of the hack, called "Mushroom Plains". It was a simple, yet well made level featuring several enemies, including a Charging Chuck, several Koopa Troopas of various colors, and a few Galoombas, and a couple blocks containing power up. The ground was composed of several elongated Mushrooms. It wasn't too hard for Pinkie. She made it past the level without much trouble. The next level was called "Underground Mozart", and featured the generic lava filled cave setting, complete with Buzzy Beatles, Blarggs, and Swoopers joining the fray. It even had a Skull Raft that Pinkie had to ride on to pass over a large patch of lava. Pinkie quickly beats it and moves onto the next level, called "Haunted Seas". It started out as an ordinary underwater level, complete with Blurps, Cheep Cheeps, Urchins, and Rip Van Fish. She eventually encountered a Whistling Chuck, which woke up all of the Rip Van Fish in the area. It was a nuisance, and Pinkie even got hurt once, causing her to press the Backspace key, which was encoded as her REWIND button. She continued to deal with the aquatic enemies until she reached a pipe that she was forced to enter, which brought her to the haunted portion of the level, which featured Boo Buddies, a Boo Buddy Snake, Eeries, some Circling Boo Buddies, and, after she reached a certain point, Disappearing Boo Buddies.
"I like the placement of the Disappearing Boo Buddies," Pinkie says as she sees a Warp Pipe ahead of Mario. "Those things work better underwater than they do above ground. If the player manages to travel the distance of one screen or more after they appear, then they lose their hit boxes until they despawn. The slower movement speed of Mario or Luigi underwater allows the Boos enough time to despawn without losing they're ability to hurt the player." She says to no one in particular as she enters the pipe, reaching the end of the level.
After she breaks the Goal Tape, the pathway to the next level, named "Bullet Storm", was opened. This level featured Bullet Bills and Banzai Bills, along side the usual Koopas and Galoombas, with several gaps in the ground. Pinkie beat it quickly and moved onto the final stage, called "Reznors' Castle". This castle had several areas to it, each one connected by door. There were Dry Bones, Thwomps, Thwimps, Bony Beatles, Hotheads, Lil' Sparkies, Lava Bubbles, various types of Bowser Statues, and even Fishbones when she reached an underwater portion of the level. There were Spikes on most of the ceiling, some of which would fall when Mario got close to them. Eventually Pinkie made it to the end and found the boss. They were four Reznor sitting on a rotating set of platforms with Pinkie standing on a bridge under them. She had to knock them off by hitting the platforms from underneath. After two were defeated, the bridge started to fall apart, forcing Pinkie to have to jump to the rotating platforms.
After killing all four Reznor, the level was finished, and another pathway appeared above the castle leading to another yellow level icon. This level stated its name was "THANK YOU!". The level was a side exit enabled level with a pipe that would lead to a place where Pinkie could get to choose a color of Yoshi by using one of several other pipes. In the main portion was a place where Pinkie could obtain power-ups, including the Cape Feather, an item that Pinkie had not seen yet. There were two Message Blocks there as well. They thanked the player for playing the hack and explained what the level was meant to be used for.
"You're welcome, Ninja Girl!" Pinkie says as someone forcefully closes the laptop.
"How much did you see?!"
"Vice Principal Luna!"
"I asked you a question. How much did you see?"
"All I saw was the ROM hack you had up."
Luna sighs. "How much of it did you play?"
Pinkie giggles, "Well, you were gone for a long time. I managed to play all of it."
"That's what I feared," Luna walks around the desk and stands next to Pinkie. "How was it?"
"How was what?"
"The hack."
"It was great! It played smoothly, no slowdown or glitching. And the Disappearing Boos placement was wonderful, seeing as how they glitch out if you move to fast."
"I know. That's why I put them there."
"Wait, YOU'RE Ninja Girl!"
Luna sighs. "Yes, I'm Ninja Girl."
Pinkie pulls out a flash drive. "I have "Not a Hard Hack" on this USB drive," Pinkie says pocketing the drive. "To think my vice principal made one of my favorite hacks," Pinkie says, giddily. "So are you going to post it to Super Mario World Central?"
"I will after one slight change." Luna opens the laptop, closes ZMZ, and opens her hack with Lunar Magic. She opens the Overworld Editor and clicks on the icon of a Message Block. She scrolls down until she sees the message where it says who did the beta testing, and changes it. She then opens her internet browser and loads the website for Super Mario World Central, then uploads the hack.