The Great Empire

The Great Empire (2010) is perhaps Knuckles96's best known SMBX episode to date. The episode was first announced in Feburary 2010 and was released in October the same year.

This was one of the few SMBX episodes that was promoted on the splash screen.

Development
When the project started, little was known on how it would turn out. However, various ideas were revealed that never appeared in the final version of the episode.

Knuckles planned on having two new items (An acid flower and a bomb mushroom). The acid flower would have the exact same abilities as the fire flower, except the NPC effects would be changed to their bone versions using custom graphics. At the time, this was looked at as a difficult task to pull off and the item idea was abandonded. An orange Yoshi would have the same concept as the acid flower.

Originally, a nine world episode was the plan. Ranging with over 80 levels.

Several worlds were planned such as an icy jungle themed world, Sammer's Kingdom and even an entire world based around Bowser's Castle.

The Great Empire was almost cancelled sometime after Redigit's SMBX forums were closed down. The Great Empire forum (which would later turn into a generic SMBX board) was possibly the only reason the episode wasn't cancelled.

Development then continued, giving members the chance to see the latest sneak previews.

Magibowser provided several of the episode's levels.

Eventually, after a long haul, the episode was released around late October and was featured on the splash screen for 1.3's release.

Worlds

 * 1) Grass Lands
 * 2) Yoshi's Island
 * 3) Seaside World
 * 4) Dry Dry Desert/Underground Caverns
 * 5) Sky World
 * 6) Ice World
 * 7) Dark Land
 * 8) Special World 1
 * 9) Special World 2

Trivia

 * In 'The Village', the British Television Series Doctor Who is refrenced. (The crack on the wall)
 * The Great Empire was planned to be a 6-part series. This never happened.
 * Some consider this episode to be rushed, whilst some regard it as one of the best SMBX episodes of all time. At the time of release, it recieved a lot of negative criticism.
 * It's possible to play the episode backwards by accessing the secret bonus world first and then back-tracking from there.
 * Two versions of the episode exist, the original version featured a boss fight with Bonechill from Super Paper Mario, which was later replaced by Mouser. (Mainly due to a glitch with the boss fight itself)