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| (Discussion) 5th Annual SMWCentral Level Design Competition |
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Forum Index - Archive - Old Contests & Events - (Discussion) 5th Annual SMWCentral Level Design Competition |
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 12:46:11 PM |
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Originally posted by imamelia
I always just did a Yoshi sacrifice
How'd you do that? I always needed a cape and a yoshi. [/offtopic]
Now, for real, I do agree with that spinjump-discussion. I also may have created situations in the past where you literally had to spinjump-off enemies, such as Spiny's or Pokey's, but today I can't seem to find anything which is for spinjump-requiring clusters in levels. I can't even find a single place where it was required to spinjump in SMW, but of course, it would give a positive effect as of every other of Mario's special moves.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 01:28:09 PM |
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There are certainly cases where spinjumping on enemies and cape flight and other things are taken too far with or without a proper introduction, but at the same time, there's nothing inherently wrong with using what the game gives you, even if the original levels didn't use all of it. There's also nothing inherently wrong with limiting your audience to people who have played SMW before- after all, why else would (most) people come here if not to play more SMW levels? If you want to design for a broader audience than that, that's fine, but it can also serve as a limitation if you take it to the extreme. It's like delivering a speech to an audience: if they already know x and y, explicitly explaining x and y will make the speech very boring to them, but for a more general audience, such explanation is probably a good idea.
Mind you, when designers assume you know how Cave Story enemies behave without introducing them, for example, I cry foul. Still, are hacks that target the most broad audience inherently better, all else equal? I don't think so, personally. There's a difference between assuming people know how to do something and explicitly designing something for people that know how to do something. Moreover, if we only did what the original game did, most of the hacks here would be pretty boring. Should we never mix sprite tilesets, for instance, because the original game never did? Should we never find new uses for sprites that the original game used in only one or two levels, simply because the original game only used them in one or two levels? Should we never pursue our own aesthetic styles, just because the original game looked a certain way? There's a lot more gray area here than you might think.
Look at Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments in comparison. Would you ban L-canceling, wavedashing, crouch-canceling, SHFFLing, double jump cancels, and all of the other techniques that were discovered as the metagame evolved, just because people who don't go to tournaments aren't familiar with such tactics? More extensive use of spinjumping in particular is now part of the SMW metagame, so at this point hacks have to make a decision as to whether or not they should introduce it based on what audience they're targeting. It's not necessarily a matter of making bad assumptions. Would it be safer to introduce everything gradually? Sure. Still, that doesn't mean your audience necessarily wants to be introduced to something they already know.
Essentially, the audience is key here, and there's nothing inherently wrong with designing for a niche audience. As far as this contest is concerned, of course, a certain degree of restraint and moderation is generally smiled upon.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 01:51:50 PM |
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Hold on, let me get something straight here. I had to wipe my eyes a few times to make sure I didn't imagine what I just read:
Originally posted by imameliaReading is one of the few people I've seen explicitly try to avoid this: he was designing his hack so that everyone would be able to handle it, even people who have never played a video game before. And if you ask me, he darn well had the right idea.
You're .. trolling, right? Two weeks ago you gave up on a very reasonable Yoshi's Island hack after 1-3 or whatever low level it was, and you're now praising a hack which has some of the ugliest palettes, most irritating design, and most drawn out levels in the history of SMW hacks (and is literally infamous for this)? Let's also not forget that the difficulty is through the roof, so by your typical gameplay logic, you should have given up by the time you hit the title screen .. but you're praising this?
I .. just .. I .. WHAT?
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| Last edited on 2012-03-16 01:52:44 PM by S.N.N.. |
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 02:02:18 PM |
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Originally posted by imameliaOriginally posted by TeylaWhile this is very, very true, there's a problem when people start to assume players know how to do stuff that's barely used in SMW, but abused to hell and back in hacks.
Big one? Spin jumping off stuff.
Sure, it was there in SMW, but it was never actually required. You were required to spinjump at some points, yes, but that was to break yellow bricks.
It was never ever used to jump off of enemies.
THANK YOU. I never even bothered spin-jumping off enemies in the original SMW, because I never needed to. It kind of gets on my nerves when it is required in hacks (although I've seen much worse things be required in hacks...).
Also, why does everyone design levels—and hacks in general—assuming that everyone who would play them has already played the original SMW and probably a good number of other platform games? That may be the case for most people who would play a ROM hack, but would Nintendo do the same? Reading is one of the few people I've seen explicitly try to avoid this: he was designing his hack so that everyone would be able to handle it, even people who have never played a video game before. And if you ask me, he darn well had the right idea.
Incoming big answer:
You know what? That's pretty much what I realised recently: the original game asks you to jump and go right to progress through the game, and enemies, in all the way they are, are just "obstacles" to stop Mario's progression, there are not required to go in higher places, for example, in the game, you don't have to spin jump on a boo to get higher, there are spingboards for this, and even, if you don't use them you can still continue...I just remember you had to jump on a flying koopa in an atlhelic level, but I don't have a good memory so...well, I understand know...so a thing like spinjumping should be introduced in a tutorial-like level if you ever want to make use of it in some ways in a hack? Because now I notice that my level is really not clear in that way and has nothing to do with the original gameplay of SMW, I created it like a final level in which you already learned everything before coming to it, and proposed some hard challenges, no, I am not using this as an excuse for my level design, I just saw it like this, but it seems I was wrong according to the theme of this contest, which was doing a level SMWorldish...or something like that. Haha, well, I didn't have any other idea which was motivating me anyway, and I would have done something else more badly then I think. But I'm happy because I'm aware now and I see what to do.
No, I didn't read that article on the level design of SMB, I just read it after I wrote this message, there are some similarities with what I said.
A last thing, believe it or not, the first time I played SMW was in a vanilla contest level hack, Deja-vu Tower, by yoshicookiezeus, I remembered I got lost after two minutes and I gave up, it took time for me to notice you had to spinjump on the ball'n'chains and solving a puzzle for a P-switch.  (Yes, I never had a SNES or a computer before I reached the university, and I procrastinated on playing games.)
PS: Judges, don't spoil me anything before the results.
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| Last edited on 2012-03-16 02:12:44 PM by neosaver. |
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 02:34:38 PM |
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Originally posted by AxemJinxThere are certainly cases where spinjumping on enemies and cape flight and other things are taken too far with or without a proper introduction, but at the same time, there's nothing inherently wrong with using what the game gives you, even if the original levels didn't use all of it.
Yeah, but since when as anyone ever used spinjumping in a way that isn't bounce up on a thwomp to continue, or bounce along a chain of spike-tops to continue?
I mean, I'd be fine with it, if it happened once, for the secret exit, and wasn't explicitly required. That works well, but NOBODY ever does that, and that's why I'm complaining. It's always required, and it's always for really long amounts of time. Hell, it's never even just thought of as an extra way to proceed, always as the ONLY way.
And the cape, people don't even give you the cape in levels anymore, and when they do, flight is usually disabled. If not? Then it's ONLY in levels where you can ONLY fly, or it's explicitly required.
It wasn't annoying in SMW because there was a lot of buildup to teach you to fly. I don't mind having to fly to get the secret exit, or even having it forced, but the problem again comes from abuse ("ONLY FLY LOL") which is the only way I ever see it used.
You shouldn't make single levels for a contest assuming the player hasn't played the game before, but you should at least expect them to be used to what the original game threw at them, not stuff that hack#34 did. If you're going to do something new, explain it before throwing it at the player in some way, and don't abuse it or make it annoying.
For example, there are two levels in this contest with decorative vines that I've seen so far. One, uses purely decorative vines throughout the whole level, and then throws a non decorative one at you that's a lighter shade of the same color. Only a player who plays a lot of hacks would guess it's climbable, because they're all foreground vines.
My level, right at the start, there's a climbable bright green one, and a brown dead unclimbable decorative one. The player IMMEDIATELY gets to see the gimmick with the vines and play around with it in a safe environment, before it's actually used in the level later.
It's not "Don't use spinjump bouncing" more, "don't abuse spinjump bouncing"
Not everyone who's played SMW before even knows you can spinjump off of certain enemies, you gotta show them somehow. Hell, I played SMW and until I was making my level for SMWCP2, I didn't know you could kill porcupuffer with fireballs.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 03:11:42 PM |
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I'm not disagreeing that many levels abuse spinjumping; I'm merely saying it's not inherently wrong to encourage players to use it. I'm not talking about forcing players to use it to bounce across chains of enemies; I'm referring to creating situations where it's perhaps more advantageous to use the shorter but more powerful jump that is explicitly described in the original game's manual. Yes, the manual doesn't say that you can bounce off of certain enemies, but nowadays that's common knowledge in this community (and besides, what ever happened to discovery through experimentation?). In fact, if you spinjump on the rexes in the first level of the game, you bounce higher, whereas you don't bounce at all for other enemies. Do you think that was an accident? If hacks are designed to have appeal outside of this site, then yes, maybe they should find a way of teaching the advantages of spinjumping to players. However, if hacks target this community- and there's nothing inherently wrong with that- such an introduction might not be necessary. What matters is if the concept is new to the intended audience.
The impression I'm getting from you is that all hacks should target the broadest audience possible, and I'm not sure I agree with that.
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| Last edited on 2012-03-16 03:18:37 PM by AxemJinx. |
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 03:22:44 PM |
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Originally posted by AxemJinxI'm not disagreeing that many levels abuse spinjumping; I'm merely saying it's not inherently wrong to encourage players to use it. I'm not talking about forcing players to use it to bounce across chains of enemies; I'm referring to creating situations where it's perhaps more advantageous to use the shorter but more powerful jump that is explicitly described in the original game's manual. Yes, the manual doesn't say that you can bounce off of certain enemies, but nowadays that's common knowledge in this community (and besides, what ever happened to discovery through experimentation?). If hacks are designed to have appeal outside of this site, then yes, maybe they should find a way of teaching the advantages of spinjumping to players. However, if hacks target this community- and there's nothing inherently wrong with that- such an introduction might not be necessary. What matters is if the concept is new to the person playing it.
The impression I'm getting from you is that all hacks should target the broadest audience possible, and I'm not sure I agree with that.
Ok...here is my take on it. If the hack is directed at smwc users, then there is no need to inform the player what spinjumping does. But what if a player does not yet know? The first time it is used, a message box telling the player what happens when the spin jump off certain enemies should be useful. The same thing applies to carrying an item on a vine. Most of us already know that if we toss an item up, and begin climing the vine, we can hold the item on the vine. But a player who is not aware of that would require a message box to tell them that. Another thing was swimming controls. Not many people know that pressing up/down increases/decreases vertical speed. It seems like something Nintendo put in, but forgot to really emphasize in the actual game. But in a hack, it would not hurt to tell the player. In fact, the first water level of the hack should have a message box explaining the extended swimming controls. The general player tends to read only the message boxes that are early in the game, since they know that is when they should expect tutorials. Nobody expects to find a tutorial late in the game, so they might also ignore the message boxes. If you explain a gimmick the very first time it can be used, whether it is needed or not in that specific level, a player is most likely to read your message box. Many players who have progressed far in the game want to finish it, so they also tend to skip cutscenes and messages. And although one would say "their fault", I would not really do that. If you have a message box in a later level that you absolutely want a player to read, put it in such a place that it stands out and literally screams "hey read me!". Or you can also use the "display level message" sprite.
Anyway, that is my opinion on it, and I am not saying it is needed to have message boxes explaining things, but that is just how I would make my hack.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 03:32:48 PM |
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I don't know about you guys, but when I'm making levels for SMW, I'm assuming the people that play them know how SMW works. I don't see spin-jumping off an enemy to be any kind of advanced technique; to me it seems about as simple as throwing a shell vertically to hit a block. It's not like you ever needed to throw a shell upwards, but anybody who has at least once spin-jumped on an enemy/thrown a shell should know how it works, and employing an existing technique in new ways, as I see it at least, makes things more interesting for the player. As a hacker that limits himself to resources of the original game, I enjoy finding new uses for previously underutilised objects (see: my VLDC entries from last year and this year). Granted, it'd probably be much more difficult to base a level around throwing things up. Also fairly disgusting.
To put it another way: I don't expect a player to be well-versed in hacks (that'd be hypocritical of me), I instead expect the player to be well-versed in SMW. Taking a known mechanic to a higher level, to me, is a basic part of design. Well, I suppose I also expect the player to take in their surroundings as they play, but that seems to be a fairly niche audience.
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| Last edited on 2012-03-16 03:34:01 PM by Forty2. |
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 03:40:23 PM |
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Originally posted by S.N.N....you're now praising a hack which has some of the ugliest palettes, most irritating design, and most drawn out levels in the history of SMW hacks (and is literally infamous for this)? Let's also not forget that the difficulty is through the roof, so by your typical gameplay logic, you should have given up by the time you hit the title screen .. but you're praising this?
oh my god, that hack is ridiculously annoying IMO. it's a trite pain to sit through. even for it's time, there was much better, so you can't blame it on limitations. i honestly don't know why so many people praise it. but hey, don't wanna hate so, to each his own.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 03:47:12 PM |
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Originally posted by AxemJinxThe impression I'm getting from you is that all hacks should target the broadest audience possible, and I'm not sure I agree with that.
Maybe I'm wording it wrong, I don't know.
I'm not saying broadest, I'm saying broader. Even within hacks, there's all different kinds for difficulty and stuff.
I dunno. Maybe I'm just ranting too much because I dislike being forced to spinjump all the time, and then there's when there's those situations with lots of enemies that are spinjumpable, but turn blocks, to punish something otherwise required
:/
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 04:05:31 PM |
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If you're saying the specific hacks that happen to abuse the stuff we're talking about need to broaden their design philosophies, I agree wholeheartedly. I was never arguing against that.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 04:16:01 PM |
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Originally posted by ShadowFireSteering the thread back on topic, im wondering if a single person, other then the judges, have played my actual contest entry.
Originally posted by TRSBut if you want some feedback, I can play it and give some. Just not right now; I'm bouncing between here and different tasks and just don't have time at the moment.
Yeah, it's the next day. I forgot. But anyway, I played your level, and...
It's broken. Like, crashing broken. The level uses a music bypass to a custom song slot, but since you don't (and can't) have custom music there, the sound crashes followed by the rest of the game whenever you die or beat the level.
Also both the exit-enabled pipes lead to some of the unedited original levels, one of which is level 103. These are obviously not where these pipes should lead as there are other pipes in the level (that I assume you come out of) that are in parts with yoshi coins and whatnot.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 04:23:15 PM |
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TRS, if I remember correctly, you have to move Mario to the other level tile on that submap for that entry, or else you'll be playing the demo stage.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 04:39:34 PM |
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The other level isn't accessible from the overworld as it is. From what I understand of the rules, that makes the one that is the entry.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 05:20:01 PM |
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Originally posted by TRSThe other level isn't accessible from the overworld as it is. From what I understand of the rules, that makes the one that is the entry.
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/me shoots self
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 06:14:24 PM |
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There is nothing wrong with using techniques that first time players of SMW wouldn't know. What should be done, however, is that you should include a safe place to try the technique out before integrating it into dangerous situations. Spin Jumping off things for instance: A Thwomp on the ground that you need to spin jump off to get higher. This teaches the player that they can spin jump off dangerous enemies to get higher. Now they know this and can use it later. As they get better at it, they can then use it more efficiently in more and more dangerous scenarios.
The same philosophy applies to any sort of game mechanic. You'll find this in most profession games, either in the form of Tutorials, or simply through natural discovery as you play.
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| Posted on 2012-03-16 06:51:34 PM |
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Originally posted by TRSThe other level isn't accessible from the overworld as it is. From what I understand of the rules, that makes the one that is the entry.
We chose to show ShadowFire some mercy and played the "correct" level.
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| Posted on 2012-03-17 01:11:15 AM |
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Originally posted by TeylaYeah, but since when as anyone ever used spinjumping in a way that isn't bounce up on a thwomp to continue, or bounce along a chain of spike-tops to continue?
I mean, I'd be fine with it, if it happened once, for the secret exit, and wasn't explicitly required. That works well, but NOBODY ever does that, and that's why I'm complaining. It's always required, and it's always for really long amounts of time. Hell, it's never even just thought of as an extra way to proceed, always as the ONLY way.
I'm of the opinion that the main path to the goal in any given level should be 100% playable with most sprites and usable objects removed (barring static sprites like floating platforms and green leaf springs). Crazy spin-jumping maneuvers across hordes of enemies, shell/throw block puzzles, "item babysitting" and the like should really be reserved for alternate paths and secret exits. I'm pretty sure most--if not all--of SMW's original levels are like this, probably due to the risk of sprite overload erasing an important sprite.
(Speaking of throw block/item babysitting puzzles, if you're going to do those, you should at the very least provide a method of resetting everything in case the player messes up, such as a pipe that leads to a small bonus area. Nobody likes having to kill themselves--or worse, wait for time to run out--because they dropped their only springboard in a hole, or killed an enemy with a shell/throw block that was supposed to be tossed at a turn block wall.)
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| Posted on 2012-03-17 04:09:12 AM |
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Originally posted by MrDeePayOriginally posted by TRSThe other level isn't accessible from the overworld as it is. From what I understand of the rules, that makes the one that is the entry.
We chose to show ShadowFire some mercy and played the "correct" level.
The same you should do with feretty111's level: Autumn Dragon. For mistake he used the title screen level copy isntead of the original level: i think the correct level number in the OW is 11E.
Quote(Speaking of throw block/item babysitting puzzles, if you're going to do those, you should at the very least provide a method of resetting everything in case the player messes up, such as a pipe that leads to a small bonus area. Nobody likes having to kill themselves--or worse, wait for time to run out--because they dropped their only springboard in a hole, or killed an enemy with a shell/throw block that was supposed to be tossed at a turn block wall.)]
You can do it without reset door... unless you are not required to.
About this reset doors, since i find them silly, i replaced them with entering a room with some items, them, going back to the normal path, with all things resetted.
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| Last edited on 2012-03-17 04:11:55 AM by Alessio. |
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| Posted on 2012-03-17 10:53:59 AM |
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The best way of designing a hack would be to add in sections introducing certain gameplay mechanics, but if one already knows about it, it doesn't feel like an introduction anymore. Like in lots of modern games, where tutorials are so annoying since you've played the game before, but it's unskippable. The same goes for silent tutorials in simple platformers.
A message box describing a new gameplay mechanic usually annoys me. It takes some time to read, and you usually still have to go through trial and error before you really understand it.
edit: wow, this has nothing to do with the contest.
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| Last edited on 2012-03-17 10:56:30 AM by agie777. |
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Forum Index - Archive - Old Contests & Events - (Discussion) 5th Annual SMWCentral Level Design Competition |
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