Let me establish the premise of Super Mario Paralax World. First of all, it SHOULD be titled Super Mario Parallax World, with 2 'l's, but alas... it was 2004, we really didn't understand how to type back then. Or at least, Yoshiguy didn't. That's more plausible, seeing as Yoshiguy doesn't seem to understand a lot of things. More on that in a moment.

Okay, so why the name? The concept of parallax is simple: in laymen's terms, it is the depth of a background or object that causes a 3D effect when you move. You can witness natural parallax by looking out your car window to your side while driving and viewing the horizon as it stays stationary while various roads and buildings move at varying speeds depending on how close they are to you.

What is the significance here? Usually, parallax in video games is achieved via multiple layer systems. You simply apply your background images to a different layer and have them scroll at a fraction multiple of the main action. For instance, to have the background scroll at half the rate of the foreground, you would set it to scroll at 0.5 the rate. This is how it's achieved in Clickteam, and it's probably not too different in Game Maker - however, it probably requires you know how to code basic stuff in GML and all that rather than a specific layer setting.

So what's the big deal then? Why is this special? If it's so simple to do, then why make a game showing off this "incredible" concept? Well... back in the day, amateur game making programs such as The Game's Factory (which is what is used here) simply didn't have any native way of creating parallax. It wasn't really something you could just set and be done with. So... you had to cheat. Active Background Object was a common one in the MMF 1.5 days, but what if you don't even have that? What if the program you're using is so archaic... and so simplistic... that you couldn't make a backdrop move at a fixed rate unless you made it an active sprite object. But that would mean... making EVERYTHING an active sprite object.

Welcome to Super Mario Paralax World. An atrocious experiment in trying to squeeze the most out of a program that just couldn't. This isn't your typical demoscene magic, this is just... sloppy. Inconceivably sloppy.