And here are the current rules issues, with minor spoilers. Please correct me if I've made a mistake about any information, as I haven't yet played the game myself.
(1) We have the standard three choices concerning powerups. Do we: (a) Allow starting with powerups? (b) Say you have to start each level small? (c) Have separate charts for both ways of playing?
So far the Mario Center precedent has been (b), but compared to most other Mario platformers up to this point, NSMB-Wii is fairly friendly towards starting level speedruns with powerups:
- Like in SMB3, you have a storage of powerups (including stars), and you can use a powerup on the map screen in order to start the next level with that powerup activated.
- Unlike SMB3, though, your powerups storage is large (double-digit counts for each kind of powerup), and you can obtain powerups quickly from sources such as Toad houses.
- If you enter a level with a powerup, and you lose it during the level, you can select 'exit course' from the pause menu and you will gain back your powerup.
(2) As Miles pointed out, there is one level that has two entrances, one of which lets you start a short distance before the boss. Should we have separate charts, or just one? If just one, do we allow the before-the-boss entrance?
(There is no precedent for this. In Super Mario World, we didn't add Front Door and Back Door because the timer disappears at the boss fight.)
(3) Allowed autoscrollers: there are regular levels that autoscroll, and there is at least one fortress/castle level that autoscrolls up until the boss. We can just use the NSMB-DS precedent of allowing only the autoscroll+boss case, but does anyone think this should be changed?
