A2XT Gaiden 2

A 2nd X Thing Gaiden 2: New Pily Mode: The Argh Adventure Zone: Re: Turbo and Pily: Featuring Pily from the A Super Mario Thing Series: Bottom Text, shortened to A 2nd X Thing Gaiden 2 or A2XT Gaiden 2, is the main game portion of the seventh Advent Christmas event run by the Talkhaus. The game is a sequel to SANICS: A2XT Gaiden and stars Pily, who must take down an organization known as "The Government" that is attempting a hostile takeover of Christmas and kidnapping people in the process.

Development
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, raocow stated he felt uncomfortable obtaining physical gifts for the 2021 Advent, so like with the previous year an SMBX collab game was organized with RedMageSusie, SAJewers, Enjl and Rixithechao all returning as organizers. raocow further stated that, unlike in 2020, he was dedicating a full LP slot to the event so that recording time wouldn't be as much of a concern and people could contribute longer and more difficult levels.

From the outset, the organizers wanted to put emphasis on gameplay over story and create a more customized playstyle than Calleoca had in SANICS, being a resprite of Mario like Demo. Rixi and Enjl worked together to develop a Pily player character with the persistent abilities to shoot fireballs and perform a cannonball bounce move, and the team decided that instead of a long cutscene, they would make the prologue a tutorial level to introduce the player to this new moveset.

While the organizers initially wanted to keep the game's story simple, it gradually ballooned in scope after discussion on the forum turned toward the premise of Pily defeating a group of villains from raocow's LPs threatening Christmas instead of delivering gifts to heroes. "The Government" was decided on as the antagonistic group and the identity of its pseudonymous leader, "John Government", became a driving factor for designing mid- and late-game content.

The first devkit was released on -I don't remember-, with -an update/updates- on -date(s) I'll need to refresh myself on-. The team also announced a relay for the Christmas Eve level on -another date-, which ended with 10 separate entries plus two sections made by the organizers themselves.

___more stuff___

As of December 30th the game has not been released to the public yet; the organizers have stated they are taking time to polish the game and fix bugs and have given a projected release of mid- to late-January.

Game Content
Like SANICS, the game is structured like an advent calendar, with 27 separate stages (the usual 25 days, plus a November 30th prologue and December 26th epilogue) playable from a calendar screen. Each stage was locked until its corresponding calendar day and contained either a cutscene or a full playable level that has Pily interacting with "guest star" characters, usually defeating one or more villains serving as (or mistaken for) "Government Agents" and/or rescuing captive heroes from Government cages or other peril.