A while ago I reviewed Astyanax Remix.  Most people who played it probably remember it mainly as "that game with all the pits".  I was able to track down it's author, Googie, and ask him all the tough questions. 

 

 

BHDN: You've made many hacks, some of them are
clearly BadHacks.net material, others are more main-
stream. Do you worry that your Badhacks will cause the
general ROM-hacking community to look down on your more
main-stream efforts?

Googie: Nah I'm not worried, different strokes for different folks I always say.

 

BHDN: How long have you been making ROM-hacks?

Googie: I started ROM Hacking in 2003 but didn't start releasing my work until 2004.

 

BHDN: Out of your own ROM-hacks, which is your
personal favorite?

Googie: My SMB hack Luigi's Chronicles, that's the hardest SMB hack I ever made but regardless it's mentioned on other message boards & hosted on other sites.

 

BHDN: Which ROM-hacks besides your own are your
favorites?

Googie: Little Remo, Mario Adventure, and Legend of the Blob Bros. 2

 

BHDN: What is your opinion of Wilford Brimley?

Googie: He looks funny to me, like that old funny Grandpa feeling.

 

BHDN: Do you think that if it came down to it
you could physically over-power Wilford Brimley, should
he lash out at the ROM-hack community in general using
his sharp teeth and pudgy fists?

Googie: Nah, people make funna people all the time in this world and I'm sure he knows it.

 

BHDN: Anyway, getting down to this Astyanax
Remix hack, how did you select Astyanax as a game to
hack?

Googie: I'm the type of person that likes to try to hack a game that I know nobody wouldn't touch. When the editor was released in 2004, I knew it was my calling to hack the game, regardless that I worked on it for almost 2 years.

 

BHDN: Has anyone ever complained to you about
the content of this hack, having downloaded it without
realizing it has a racy storyline?

Googie: Only one person on the Acmlm forum complained about misspellings, other people e-mailed me about how funny the story was, one person told me that she found the story hilarious.

 

BHDN: The most burning question we have about
this hack is what was meant by the line “They try to
hold me to decapitate me”. What did Astyanax mean by
that?

Googie: He meant that he didn't wanna get ambushed by women by holding him down to cut his head off.

 

BHDN: Have you or anyone you known actually beat
this game without cheating?

Googie: One guy e-mailed me saying he was halfway through, he only save stated before a level started or he was near a boss. I used a few save states myself. but no Game Genie codes at all.

 

BHDN: I have to ask, what is up with all the
pits?

Googie: It's the editor, it has no enemy/item support so I hadda edit the levels around the original enemy & item format.

 

BHDN: The Cliff stage has no pits in it. What
happened?

Googie: Yeah, that was the only level I edited that took 1 hour to finish. I also wanted to give a person a break too.

 

BHDN: When you were a young child, did you by
any chance fall into a pit? A well maybe?

Googie: I used to go garage climbing when I was a kid with my friends, I missed a few jumps and got injured really bad.

 

BHDN: What is your stance on pot smoking-
corpses? Should marijuana still be illegal if the
smoker is already dead?

Googie: Nah sometimes old habits are hard to break lol

 

BHDN: Cutie is a fairy, and Astyanax is a human.
Would you say you are in favor inter-species couples?

Googie: Yeah, Star Trek programmed that in my mind when I was a kid.

 

BHDN: The ending to Astyanax Remix is one of the
all-time great ROM-hack surprise endings. Have you ever
had a girl want to use sex toys on you? What I'm asking
is if it's based on a 1st hand-experience.

Googie: I went to a chick's house years ago that was into that kinda stuff, when I saw what she had I left as soon as possible. I hadda been in my mid 20's at the time.

 

BHDN: In the time since it's release have you
got much feed-back on Astyanax Remix? And how has it
generally been received?

Googie: I got decent feedback on it, there's alotta people out there who love the game, so to them my hack was a blessing to them.

 

BHDN: If you were making this hack over again,
is there anything you would do differently, and if so
what?

Googie: Yeah, change where enemies/items can go and I would add a more disturbing story

 

BHDN: Is there anything I over-looked in my
review? Any secrets in the hack?

Googie: No secrets, you were right on the money with the review.

 

BHDN: Do you have anything special in the works
you'd like to mention?

Googie: There's 2 hacks that the public is waiting for, a mega man hack that has graphics from Darkwing Duck and a SMB3 hack called "Time Flies" people e-mail me asking about those hacks more than any of the other hacks in progress I posted on You Tube. :)

 

 

 

Hey, why not check out Googie's site?