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Level Testing and Reviews
If you lost something come look for it here
S1eth
Re: Level Testing and Reviews
Postby S1eth » 4 years ago
dr_kraid wrote:
S1eth wrote: Mata Hari - A Calm Cave in Vast Space (1.4)
Here are some spots where the player can glitch into the walls and get stuck: https://imgur.com/zUYGZDH
The yellow mark is a wrongly used block.
I wouldn't consider most of those to be an issue because the player would have to be going out of their way to glitch through them. The one at the midpoint is enough of a problem for me to fix. And the wrong block. The Galoomba one is fine because it can't get you stuck and again it's fiddly enough for you to have to know what you're doing.
S1eth wrote:
And this can happen: http://imgur.com/6AxjrWJ
The vine even prevents more koopas from spawning, so the level can not be completed.
Yeah, that's a little weird. I don't like that section much anyway so I think I'll just change it entirely (getting rid of the glitchy niche too!).
How do you get to the secret star without leaf/tanooki? There is no indication in the small room that there would be anything at the top of the waterfall, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get up there.
You're not supposed to get up there without a powerup. You are given a leaf in the first half. The fact someone else also had trouble finding it seems to indicate it's too obscure, so I'll have to put some kind of indicator there. I want it to be more subtle than coins though.
In the secret area, if you fly to the left using your tanooki suit, you'll see the top of the waterfall graphics, or where they cut off and come out from nothing.
I didn't expect anyone to be able to get up that far, but I guess they can, so I'll fix that.
I origingally thought the slide was there so you should use it to jump all the way to the left, but that just leads to your death.
That is what you do. You slide from the top and the momentum throws you off at the bottom. Actually jumping would kill you because it kills your momentum. What were you doing?
I got to the other part by using the tanooki glide starting from up where the NPC stands.
I didn't make it from sliding alone, are you supposed to slide, and then glide all the way once you're in the air?
Joined: 10 years ago
Postby Mata Hari » 4 years ago
No, you can make it by sliding alone if you start from the top. I'm not sure what issue you've been experiencing.
It works if you're big Luigi. It doesn't work as big Mario the first time you do it, he bumps into the invisible coin block above him. It doesn't work on small Mario/Luigi as they just fly over the ramp that's supposed to propel you upwards.
OK, either you're hitting the jump button at some point or there's something seriously funky going on, because for me it works perfectly with all variations of bro-ness or bigitity.
If it's the latter, does anyone know why SMBX might be shitting itself?
No jumping. Go to the top of the slide. Press and hold down. It happens every time.
Le Neveu de Rameau
The Judith Butler of bad puns
First name: Rameau's Nephew
Location: Rubbish bin, hands comically perched on the rim.
Re: Level Submissions
Postby Le Neveu de Rameau » 4 years ago
Come on, people, test and test alike!
Note the Spikes, but Don't Forget to Bang Customarily
I'll be honest--this level needs a lot of work. It's too long (with an unbalanced midpoint to boot), but its length isn't really justified gameplay-wise--the only reason it seems to have so many sections is to show off tilesets from the original game, but most of the tilesets aren't really distinct enough to merit their own section. Everything after the (lopsided) midpoint is workable, but the first half of the level seems to consist of a combination of relatively flat and uninteresting terrain with enemies marching along followed an rather hastily thrown-together sections which feel either tedious or difficult in an insufficiently tested sort of way. The majority of times I died here, it was due to elements I simple couldn't predict beforehand.
Some specific points:
- The 8-bit graphics and music are fun, but this really needs more 8-bit backgrounds to match! Also, I think some of the graphics (like the Bullet Bill replacements) are improperly scaled...? It looks a touch odd when most elements have 2-pixel-thick outlines, yet certain isolated enemies half 1-pixel wide outlines.
- I find some of the enemies have unexpected behavior from the graphics. The propeller things with the dopey facial expressions look like you should be able to jump on them, but you can't. The horned guy looks like you might not be able to jump on him, but you can. The latter's less of a problem that the former, obviously, but I imagine most players will get hit by the propeller
- That the water is just for show in the early sections is not immediately obvious until you try to take a dive, and end up going for a plunge instead. More confusingly still, water later acts like water. Admittedly, it's a different style of water from the first, but you use nearly -every- style of water (Why? And why not some water tiles from the game itself, or if it doesn't have any, something in its general style), and only certain types are actually swimmable, with no indication of which is safe and which is not.
- I honestly could not make sense of what Skelly Joe was talking about in the first section...Much later he talks about counting groups of spikes, but by this point it was already too late to realize I was supposed to be keeping track of this. I've got to say this is a bit of an...unusual way to work in the title, and feels double odd as spikes coming out of the ground is, despite Mr. Skellington's claims, fairly normal in video games, and certainly less weird than the robot pig things that make up the majority of spike-like obstacles in the game.
- As noted, the first section is a little flat and uninteresting design wise. It helps to give players a less dangerous place to learn enemy behavior, but it's possible to do this in a more interesting manner. The transition from the first to second are is jarring, as you walk off the right side of the screen and appear on the same side again, heading in the other direction. Similar things happen again in later sections. Why not just use a door here instead of an instant warp?
- This is a bit goofy if you're big.
- Ehh...somehow I don't see your fitness regime meeting great commercial success.
- Throwing Dino Jim into the mix here doesn't really do much besides turn this into Adventures in Waiting Around--especially since he tends to get stuck between the enemies at the bottom, who only very occasionally decide to arrange themselves in such a way where it's just barely possible to slip through (unless you have fire, in which case you can just torch the lot...but that's not something you should absolutely count on, even with the powerups above, as the player could still conceivably call up two mushrooms instead, get hit, etc.)
- Coin trails should lead to safety, not death. This is doubly problematic as pretty much every player's urge will be to jump down there, as trying to climb down the vines with the boo replacements next door is sort of annoying.
- Speaking of annoying, the Roto-disc-pig + falling platform section immediately following this is disproportionately difficult, and this at the point where the player is most exhausted. I usually just ended up tanking this, as trying to dodge multiple Roto-discs on single tile, falling platforms they directly pass through is just too much of a pain to be worth it.
- Sure, there's a coin trail here, but there's no time to react to the unexpected obstacles. If you don't know they're coming ahead of time--and maybe not even then, given how short and narrow the passage is.
- The ceiling in the cave section is not immediately obvious, which can be deadly, especially as you'll be jumping immediately it at several key points, the first time over a very wide pit which you can just barely pass thanks to it--and probably not at all if you don't realize the ceiling's there in the first place.
- I admit, the first time this happens, it's sort of funny (and if you ignore this area entirely and the robot pig thing hits it instead for the first time it's probably absolutely hilarious), but I think there are probably better ways to actually stop the playing from heading up this way, no? Do leave one in for the boo pig to hit, though--that's good stuff.
- I also laughed at the fact that the level ends with Beardo transformed into some sort of ape who throws peanuts at you.
On the whole, I'd suggest scrapping everything before the midpoint and making one or two new sections for the first half which togehter are about equal in length to the cave section. The cave, as noted, is much more viable though it could still stand to be cleaned up a bit, and have the ceiling be more clearly indicated. Try to have a clear central concept--not just æsthetically, but in terms of gameplay--for each half of the level, and build your design around that. And once you've explored the concept enough, don't try to stretch it any further.
Don't be discouraged by the above--it's all meant as advice for improving things. Your level has a fun concept at its core, but the execution needs some refining, especially in the first half. It looks like you took on a lot of levels for this project, and it can be easy to lose focus that way, but it's important to remember that quality is more important than quantity. This is true for both individual levels as well as one's output as a whole.
A Vast Calm Cave in Space:
As the name promises, a pleasant, easy level. The Goomba and Koopa Troopa graphics are amusing--who'd have guessed a snorkel would make an acceptable substitute for a space helmet? The æsthetics of the exterior section are very nice, although the cave itself, though by no means bad looking on its own merits, feels a touch unremarkable after the more compelling atmosphere outside. Perhaps something could be done to give it a bit more of a distinct flavor so it can better compete atmospherically with the first half of the level?
Design-wise, my only criticisms are a few blind and semi-blind drops:
Here you have to aim remarkably precisely for this barely visible coin on the edge of the screen, or else yer gonna get munched. Seems a bit discordant with the otherwise very forgiving difficulty in the level. I'd recommend both widening the landing platform by a tile on the left side as well as making the coin trail a touch longer and more visible from above.
While both the Koopa Troopa and Munchers are visible from a standing position, they suddenly go off-screen when the play jumps, making the landing unexpectedly difficult to hit. Easily fixed by moving the munchers up a touch, which the step-style platform readily allows for.
This is the big one here:
There's no indication where you need to land here, and most places they player might drop to simply lead into the abyss (or a ledge at the bottom so isolated the player has no other option but to hurl themselves into the abyss). Contrails and.or a wider landing platform would help here. More perplexingly, the only visible landmark, the torch, is actually the opposite of a useful signpost--it's a trickier jump to make than it looks, and if you don't succeed in going the full distance, you'll find yourself oarlessly floating down Feces Brook. Come to think of it, why does this ledge with the torch and two Goombas exist in the first place? Everything about it shouts that something is hidden here, but then you get there, and nothing actually is. It's sole purpose seems to be to mess up the player in the manner described above.
On the whole though, these are all easy fixes, and the level is a solid early-game stage.
Energetic Spikes in the Scarlet Devil Lake
I'll admit, my first thought was "Lordy, not another one of these levels." Turns out it was perfectly reasonable and pretty fun, though! The æsthetics were nice, and a refreshing contrast from the "everything is red in this word" color scheme you tend to see in these levels (though I admit I'm starting to get a little tired of that song by this point). There were ample checkpoints and powerups, challenges were varied (i.e. not just "dodge a million rinkas") and kept short enough not to get exhausting, the projectile patterns were quite neat-looking (an aspect which often gets overlooked in attempts to create danmaku style levels in the Marios), and doing things like using water to prevent spin-jumping on the grinders was a nice touch. The only element which really felt a touch questionable were the powerups atop the moving hill after the second midpoint, which felt a bit silly--it's funny the first time, but becomes a slight touch tedious if you die and need to power up again multiple times. That's a fairly minor point, though.
My only real concern is whether this level genuinely needs a second half, especially if it's only going to be one star. It honestly felt like a pretty good length as is!
Dragon Fogel
Master of Pointlessness
Postby Dragon Fogel » 4 years ago
Le Neveu de Rameau wrote: ping
You posted your reviews in the level submissions thread instead of this one, I moved it. Just notifying you so you can remember to use this thread in the future.
Click that banner if you like reading words.
Make levels from unused MAGL X names!
Whoopsie! I guess I got a bit confused between the source and destination there for a moment!
I must say: I'm not impressed.
I looked through your code, and see all the effort that you put into the level, but it just doesn't show!
In the end, it's still Rinka shooters, hammer throwing pentagrams and the firebar spawner from luigifan's Flandre boss.
It's all stuff we've already seen in bossedit's / mechdragon's / luigifan's levels reused.
If you want to have actual danmaku in your game, I suggest you look into drawing actual bullets (not Rinkas) on screen with lua.
Create scripts that make pretty patterns with custom graphics.
And why that song? It doesn't really fit your level.
Very heavy on bullet spam. Rinkas and sniffit shots from off screen can accumulate and block your path very easily.
I don't like how you're instantly attacked on the first screen when you're just trying to get the power ups.
The rightmost platform above your "lake" water thing next to the moving spike platform: it's a really awkward jump if you try to get out of the water from there. It's possible, but most of the time, you won't make it up there.
The first section already has 4 power ups in it, so I'm pretty sure you are aware of the bullet spam you've created.
I'd try to make the section more reasonable, so you don't need 4 power ups.
I don't know if it broke on my client, or if it's intended: The spirally firebar spawner only goes as far as the bottom left (from the top right).
In other words, it's completely irrelevant to the challenge. There's no way the fire could hurt you. All it does is make the room a little smaller.
And dodging a single Rinka shooter is not that interesting.
Why are there hazards in the midpoint room again?
It's very easy to accidentally have the mushrooms fall off the screen if you're not used to the SMB3 way of mushroom movement.
That section is fine.
Setion 5:
The quickly moving layer can glitch kill you. It's rare, but it happened to me in your level.
I don't really understand why that thing is there to begin with.
the "boss1":
first attack: spike wall: Why spikes and not bullets? Why not make rows of bullets, or circles of bullets, with holes in them. And repeat the pattern a few times? From different directions?
second attack: lava lotus spawner: This attack will never hit you. All it does is make the room smaller, for the rinka shooter after it. Not really exciting.
third attack: 2 rinkas at a time. Looks like you want to imitate "streaming". But 2 bullets don't make a pattern.
You need more. Spawn a whole lot and let the player stream. Then pause, and spawn more so the player can stream in the other direction, or something.
The respawn point is dangerously placed. I restarted the level and immediately fell down because I was moving right.
Again, it's very easy to have the power ups move off screen of fall into the abyss.
The P-switch section is pretty difficult to do on the first try. I pressed the switch exptecting something to happen, but it didn't. After that, I saw the blocks scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. So then I tried to jump on them, knowing that's it's probably already to late because either they'll go down again or the p switch will run out.
Warp #8 is halve a block to high. So entering the pipe as big mario looks like his head cuts off.
Another midpoint room? At this point you have to wonder, how did you design your level to require so many midpoints so close together? And should you change the sections to requrie fewer midpoints?
bullets, hammers, rinkas.
The saw spawned directly inside me, so that was pretty cheap.
The fight starts with static bullets, which are far too easy to dodge.
And ends with random (?) bullets which are more spam than pretty.
So, I'd like you to design and script actual patterns with bullet graphics as mentioned above. Not just spawn a whole lot of NPCs. Make it pretty!
End: You sure you want to add a second half? This level is already pretty long.
EDIT: Also, ask yourself: What is the theme? Why exactly are you being attacked? What kind of enemy? What kind of patterns/elements/attack types would they use? This is missing from your level.
Currently, you are moving throw some grass + lake + underground lake area, which has hazards, and rinkas appearing. But there's no story, no reason to be there, no reason as to why there are rinka defensive systems or something attacking you.
KayhemMaus
I keep breaking my face on SMBX
First name: KM
Postby KayhemMaus » 4 years ago
Le Neveu de Rameau wrote: Come on, people, test and test alike!
1) I'll be honest--this level needs a lot of work. It's too long (with an unbalanced midpoint to boot), but its length isn't really justified gameplay-wise--the only reason it seems to have so many sections is to show off tilesets from the original game, but most of the tilesets aren't really distinct enough to merit their own section. Everything after the (lopsided) midpoint is workable, but the first half of the level seems to consist of a combination of relatively flat and uninteresting terrain with enemies marching along followed an rather hastily thrown-together sections which feel either tedious or difficult in an insufficiently tested sort of way. The majority of times I died here, it was due to elements I simple couldn't predict beforehand.
2) - The 8-bit graphics and music are fun, but this really needs more 8-bit backgrounds to match! Also, I think some of the graphics (like the Bullet Bill replacements) are improperly scaled...? It looks a touch odd when most elements have 2-pixel-thick outlines, yet certain isolated enemies half 1-pixel wide outlines.
3) - I find some of the enemies have unexpected behavior from the graphics. The propeller things with the dopey facial expressions look like you should be able to jump on them, but you can't. The horned guy looks like you might not be able to jump on him, but you can. The latter's less of a problem that the former, obviously, but I imagine most players will get hit by the propeller
4) - That the water is just for show in the early sections is not immediately obvious until you try to take a dive, and end up going for a plunge instead. More confusingly still, water later acts like water. Admittedly, it's a different style of water from the first, but you use nearly -every- style of water (Why? And why not some water tiles from the game itself, or if it doesn't have any, something in its general style), and only certain types are actually swimmable, with no indication of which is safe and which is not.
5) - I honestly could not make sense of what Skelly Joe was talking about in the first section...Much later he talks about counting groups of spikes, but by this point it was already too late to realize I was supposed to be keeping track of this. I've got to say this is a bit of an...unusual way to work in the title, and feels double odd as spikes coming out of the ground is, despite Mr. Skellington's claims, fairly normal in video games, and certainly less weird than the robot pig things that make up the majority of spike-like obstacles in the game.
6) - As noted, the first section is a little flat and uninteresting design wise. It helps to give players a less dangerous place to learn enemy behavior, but it's possible to do this in a more interesting manner. The transition from the first to second are is jarring, as you walk off the right side of the screen and appear on the same side again, heading in the other direction. Similar things happen again in later sections. Why not just use a door here instead of an instant warp?
7) - This is a bit goofy if you're big.
8) - Ehh...somehow I don't see your fitness regime meeting great commercial success.
9) - Throwing Dino Jim into the mix here doesn't really do much besides turn this into Adventures in Waiting Around--especially since he tends to get stuck between the enemies at the bottom, who only very occasionally decide to arrange themselves in such a way where it's just barely possible to slip through (unless you have fire, in which case you can just torch the lot...but that's not something you should absolutely count on, even with the powerups above, as the player could still conceivably call up two mushrooms instead, get hit, etc.)
10) - Coin trails should lead to safety, not death. This is doubly problematic as pretty much every player's urge will be to jump down there, as trying to climb down the vines with the boo replacements next door is sort of annoying.
11) - Speaking of annoying, the Roto-disc-pig + falling platform section immediately following this is disproportionately difficult, and this at the point where the player is most exhausted. I usually just ended up tanking this, as trying to dodge multiple Roto-discs on single tile, falling platforms they directly pass through is just too much of a pain to be worth it.
12) - Sure, there's a coin trail here, but there's no time to react to the unexpected obstacles. If you don't know they're coming ahead of time--and maybe not even then, given how short and narrow the passage is.
13) - The ceiling in the cave section is not immediately obvious, which can be deadly, especially as you'll be jumping immediately it at several key points, the first time over a very wide pit which you can just barely pass thanks to it--and probably not at all if you don't realize the ceiling's there in the first place.
14) - I admit, the first time this happens, it's sort of funny (and if you ignore this area entirely and the robot pig thing hits it instead for the first time it's probably absolutely hilarious), but I think there are probably better ways to actually stop the playing from heading up this way, no? Do leave one in for the boo pig to hit, though--that's good stuff.
15) On the whole, I'd suggest scrapping everything before the midpoint and making one or two new sections for the first half which togehter are about equal in length to the cave section. The cave, as noted, is much more viable though it could still stand to be cleaned up a bit, and have the ceiling be more clearly indicated. Try to have a clear central concept--not just æsthetically, but in terms of gameplay--for each half of the level, and build your design around that. And once you've explored the concept enough, don't try to stretch it any further.
I've numbered each point to explain my choices behind them because I think it's worth addressing these issues.
No, that's not the reason the level is so long - each section is a homage to a particular section of Clash At Demonhead - itself split into 30 screens not unlike this and to properly create the feeling each section also takes direct design influence. Being of the NES era, is also hard as nuts and I did test each section for the ability to complete it without much trouble.
The original backgrounds for the overground sections were blank colours - I replicated them in SMBX and it looked TERRIBLE. So I just used similar backgrounds from the engine itself so not to take away from the stages. As for the sprites, I had a lot of issues in the scaling because of the size difference of some of the enemies creating issues - especially the Rex soldiers who originally were completely broken and I needed to redo from the ground up. I thought I had cleaned up most of the border issues but obviously not.
Why... would you jump on something with a spinning propeller on its head...? o.o I mean, clearly, spinning propellers underfoot would be a bad thing? Is that just me? As for the horned demon, their flat heads and stompy attitude makes them a nuisance more than anything else.
The swimmable water is the same style as one another, or at least should be I'll check that later. The reason I didn't use the water from Clash is simply because it looked GARBAGE and was also foreground layer. Unusable really. I didn't realise I used different water styles for the still water, that might have been me not paying attention to what I'd been using previously, that happens sometimes.
There are no spikes in Clash at Demonhead. Simple as that. Dangers from lava, drowning, pelted with bullets from the enemies, but no spikes. As far as Tom Guycot is concerned, that's weird.
6) See point 1 about the design. Also,
the instant warp is also part of Clash - you chose your path, jumping from area to area, and sometimes you would start on the right side of a level when coming into it over the left. It's all part of the authentic Clash I'm trying to emulate as best as possible.
You can crawl in Clash, this is another 'direct from source' area.
8) A little bit of a Borderlands reference.
I never realised that was an issue with the dino, I'll remove him from the equation. I usually just rushed past him.
That's supposed to be encouragement to jump from vine to vine to try and make the boos behave themselves. But my instincts clearly aren't the same as other people's, as I've previously had pointed out to me before. I'll get rid of them.
I never had a problem with this section. o.o It was normally timed fairly good when I got there... I should have guessed that not everyone would be so lucky though, that's probably a failing on my part.
Had you not kept tanking the rotopig, there's a leaf in the box at the end that makes the lower part simple. And, unless you play super bad, there's more than enough room to avoid the enemies in that area if you don't try and rush it. I was trying to switch up things from comments previously about expecting players to rush by taking the pace down a notch, I don't know how to please everyone here. :/
13) I dunno, the roof looks pretty roof like to me :/
I prefer the trap-quality of the invisible blocks. The humour was unintentional, I just simply didn't want a player going up v'ia the bullet bill. Simple as that. I didn't even know Ghostpig could trigger the block. And look again, those are medallions the Sasquatch-Birdo emits from her hair. ;P
Honestly? No. I'm not scrapping the first half. Rearranging the areas to make the midpoint earlier, maybe, but the whole point was to emulate Clash and I did a damn good job at it. I had the concept, design AND gameplay wise, and that's what I put out there. I perhaps do still have some tweaking to be done still on my other levels, but I have never lost sight of concept or gameplay cohesion in any level I've attempted to make.
cutest girl 2023
Contact Pyro
Postby Pyro » 4 years ago
S1eth wrote: Lots of stuff
Hmm, alright. I was going to add a second half for the whole "EVERY WORLD 4 NEEDS A LEVEL WITH TWO LEVEL FILES" thing but maybe this isn't the best level to do it in after all. It was intended for World 4 so I didn't try to go too crazy with everything. I'm trying not to hide behind that as an excuse, though, since your criticisms are all valid. I'll definitely move the saws to give you more warning in the final half. Also I know almost nothing about Touhou sooo :B. I have no idea what streaming is. I was going to go crazy in the second half with Cinematx and death lasers and stuff, but the level is longer than I thought it was. I didn't want the level to be too terribly hard, so I put a lot of midpoints to minimize frustration. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the story thing. I wanted to imitate (and parody, kind of. I'm aware that gets used as an excuse a lot, sorry!!) the Touhou levels from MaGLX1 while still making it fun (as lame as that sounds), and all three of those don't really have anything resembling that besides Koopa Devil mansion maybe. The song choice was also because of that. I don't want to sound like I'm hiding behind that as an excuse, but I'm not sure what you're really talking about. The hazard in the midpoint room was meant to introduce you to the splitting Rinkas for later on, but I'm not sure if I'm going to do a second half any more. The firebar cannon in the second section worked as intended, and in retrospect I should have made that an actual threat. Also, on the P-Switch part, I'll just remove that and expand the section to make the midpoint right before the boss of the level more...well-placed, I guess? I'll definitely work on the bosses though. Thanks for all the critiscm. Also sorry that this whole text block is kind of a mess!!
Pyro wrote:
Streaming: technique to easily avoid aimed bullets.
You have a room that spawns 2 rinkas at a time, which then aim at the player's current position.
Now imagine you drastically increased the spawn rate so that there is a single "stream" of bullets coming at the player's current position.
Streaming means to start at the right (or left) side of the screen, and very slowly move towards the other side of the screen, which means that every single aimed bullet will miss.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDaSw4E ... u.be&t=14s
first, streaming left to right, then streaming right to left
Le Neveu de Rameau wrote: feedback from my boy the shark-man
Sorry I didn't notice this until today, but thank you for your critique! I will happily edit the areas you consider troublesome.
ohmato
hey idiot
Contact ohmato
Postby ohmato » 4 years ago
arabsalmon - Offbeat Manner (test)
Note to testers:
I've found that most graphical/audio problems encountered are a result of the glory that is the SMBX editor. For example, the beginning of the level should have a pitch black background (i.e. none) and be completely silent, so if a background loads in just Esc and F5 the level. The music will start afterwards, but if you load at the midpoint and there's no music, F5 that shit again. It should work for all characters, but you might want someone quite mobile, like the brothers.
Rameaus Nephew - Ewww! the Torpedo Ted are all Covered in Pizza!
The aesthetic looks great. I especially like the mushroom and pepperoni foreground objects in the wallls.
For the longest time, I didn't know if I could jump onto the green chasing eyeballs, because they behave like spike eggs.
I played this after a long time of no Mario, so I died a few times in section 1 and had to rewatch the pizza cinematic again and again. So I t hought that this level would benefit from using multipoints, so that if you die, you restart right at the start of section 1 under warp 5.
The part with the first dragon coin felt a bit cluttered, with some overload of things to parse. I didn't know what was foreground and background by that time, and the area at the bottom with the dragon coin had a whole lot red yellow slopes that could be background. And the coins contributed to the clutter, which made me just avoid the dragon coin at the start. In general, the checkered blocks really look like they would make better background objects than blocks.
Door "puzzle" and red switch. You probably intended the player to fall down after pressing the switch and have the saw kill all the teds. I hit the switch and landed on the platform to the left. From there, I waited for the saw to fall and the sound of the saw to disappear, then I jumped after it. Doing it this way makes you land below the red block before the Teds start spawning. An alternate solution, I guess.
Warp 10 leads to directly below the red switch blocks. So if you haven't pressed it already, which is likely the case, you have to climb back up again. I suggest moving warp 10 to make you exit at the top of that pizza formation.
This has some tricky jumps. I died twice here.
Once, I looked at the moon appearing and was surprise killed by the rinka shooter.
The other time, I died at the diamond shaped platform, because jumping from a downward slope sucks, and so Mario didn't jump and fell right into the lava.
At that time, I thought that there should be another checkpoint at the start of this section, but it turned out to be the end of the level.
So yeah, I don't know if you want to have the player die right at the end. Slopes are evil.
Penguinator44
Long time listener, first time caller
Postby Penguinator44 » 4 years ago
Edit: Sorry I thought this was where levels still in the testing process were meant to be posted
Last edited by Penguinator44 on 30 Aug 2015, 14:05, edited 2 times in total.
arabsalmon wrote:
Penguinator44 wrote:
Please use the level submission thread for this. A mod can move these posts.
Also, put all your level specific files (indlucing the music) inside the level folder, not outside.
Last edited by S1eth on 02 Sep 2015, 20:14, edited 1 time in total.
S1eth wrote: Please use the level submission thread for this. A mod can move these posts.
Will do. But if this is the case, the title "Level Testing" is extremely misleading since I am not formally submitting the level yet.
CloudyCloud
Postby CloudyCloud » 4 years ago
Pyro-MyOwnTakeOnTheBlueSwitchPalace
Level name adherence - 10/10 --- From me. Ahem, Just joking.
Anyway, the gravity concept is nice, the execution is fine.
When I was in the boss room(like the room with 4 rinkas and when my gravity comes back again), I thought I am in unwinnable situation. But seemingly even in that case, the gravity will disappear later.
This level seems okay.
(But light blue might hurt eye little for its brightness.)
[attachment=0]....PNG[/attachment]
The plant is enough, but you could use some generators to make sure that the player won't stuck in unwinnable situation.
Pyro-EnergeticSpikesInTheScarletDevilLake
[attachment=1]the plant is enough, but could use generator.PNG[/attachment]
So, yeah.
....PNG (59.7 KiB) Viewed 4777 times
the plant is enough, but could use generator.PNG (51.79 KiB) Viewed 4777 times
S1eth wrote: Rameaus Nephew - Ewww! the Torpedo Ted are all Covered in Pizza!
Yay, backfeeding! Remarks on the elements noted:
I agree that it would be a good idea to add an extra midpoint to allow the player to skip the opening after the first time, but I was afeared to attempt to put it into practice. This is actually my first time using SMBX itself at all, and while I didn't let that stop me from going all out, trying to grapple with Luna Lua on top of that felt a bit too intimidating. That said, considering there will be a cutscene I definitely want to allow the player to skip in my second level (it's even goofier than this one), I suppose now's the time to learn, eh?
I'll admit: the first thing I thought upon seeing the checkered blocks in-level was that they were a bit too dark/desaturated, indeed in the way one would expect from background blocks (which is one reason the player starts the first main section on them, to make it clear what they are), but the tedium of trying to recolor tilesets in SMBX held me back from trying to modify things. However, this is confirmation that it would definitely be a thing worth fixing. Perhaps I'll see if I can give the diagonal pieces a bit of a harder edge as well, as I agree some of the thinner structures with those can looks of questionable solidity as well.
That's certainly a unique way to deal with the Ted conga line! I'll see if I can modify things to make folks more likely to fall directly down, but honestly, if someone wants to use an unorthodox method to bypass this obstacle, who am I to stop them?
The last section is indeed meant to be mostly atmospheric; on the other hand, I didn't want it to be completely insubstantial. Due to the position in the stage, I generally applied the principle of "when in doubt, kick down the difficulty" here, but perhaps it still needs a few more boots to the head.
As for the Rinka shooter...flipping Rinkas (mo' like STINKAS, amirite?). It's supposed to just be a joke and not actually a serious threat, but try as I might, I can't seem to arrange the damnable thing in such a way that a) the player still sees what it is, and yet b) it doesn't pose a serious threat; Rinka shooters are just that freaking annoying by nature. I'd hate to get rid of it completely, as I find the idea of a rinka olive absolutely hilarious, but I'll see if I can find a way to make it so that it doesn't ambush the player.
CloudyCloud wrote: Pyro-EnergeticSpikesInTheScarletDevilLake
You probably have an outdated version of LunaLua. It uses the most recent version available.
>:... Okay then.
Maybe in one day, I will update it.
Have some thoughts from someguy who's only made two levels thus far and might not know what he's talking about
CloudyCloud wrote: Have some boom boom
For the most part I enjoyed playing your level, the various fights against the Boom Booms each had something interesting and fun about them and I liked the dialogue of the third strongest Boom Booms.
Most of the things I disliked are minor nitpicks or personal preferences
The second star really didn't add much to the level and I wouldn't have ever found it without the hint to eat the poison mushroom
Doors were a little inconsistent, at the start you go into a metal door and come out a wooden one and maybe flip the pipe upside down at the start of the second section since you're travelling downwards entering it but then travelling upwards at the exit of it.
In the third section I killed the first Dry Bones with a tail spin which made the next jump nearly impossible, maybe have it on a generator since it's on such a small platform
After those five moles spawned to help out I lost my fire flower to a hammer bro, jumped back onto the platform the moles spawned from so I could get my second flower safely and half of the moles despawned on me making the next Boom Boom fight a fair bit harder
Personally I tend to be the kind of player who likes to take things slow and plan out my jumps ahead of time which was quite a difficult thing to do in your level since I felt that there were few safe area from projectiles or enemies. It's not a bad thing per say I just felt a little rushed moving quickly from one thing to another without time to rest especially if a generator was involved and spawning more and more enemies as I waited and planned.
arabsalmon wrote: Offbeat Manner
Maybe it's because I'm completely inexperienced with LunaLua but I had trouble getting your level to run past the first section. It had a great opening hitting the switch and having the world fill with colour and music. Fun times going into pipes and shooting out else ware onto bouncy xylophones, platforms moved in and out very quickly and didn't give much let if your timing was a little off but I didn't really mind since you just had to climb up and try again.
It looked great and the music suited it very well although I noticed that I could see a little bit of the player behind the exit pipes especially if I ducked standing on top of the solid part of them.
Then I entered the pipe to go to the second section and I get an error message and can't experience the rest of the level which sucks because I was really liking it. Probably my fault since I don't think I've tested a level with LunaLua running before.
Read my reply in the quote.
I write them inside (=sample text=)
Penguinator44 wrote: Have some thoughts from someguy who's only made two levels thus far and might not know what he's talking about
(=The dialogue is a reference to Earthbound, not my creation.=)
(=well, I am kinda intentional with the second star setting. Ya see, I play a bit too much of galgame, and there is something called "bad end". It is the effect I want. This poison mushroom is from a galgame that is named "Josou Sanmyaku". I won't recomment you to play though.=)
(=that secret star is more for silly purpose.=)
(=The door thing is undeniable. I find it impossible to put the wooden door on the hole of the castle without looking awkward. But I kinda see your point. As of the pipe, I can consider fixing that.=)
(=Dry bones generator, eh? anyway, actually there are two paths to go: dragon coin path and upper path. Maybe I should set it so that if one accidentally kills the first dry bone, then a helper platform will appear.=)
(=I will consider giving one fire flower in the fight. =)
(=I do feel so in a few parts. At least castle first part does have the need to jump quick without hesitation.=)
Are you sure you're using the up-to-date devkit?
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