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Posts by GeminiSunfall

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As long as you are presenting a summer theme, it's fine. You can use another game's aesthetics if you think it will help you achieve that goal.
@Eminus: The original plan was that I was going to judge these levels alone, primarily because I know I will be going through your levels and will be making it a priority to play through and score your levels in a timely manner once the deadline has been reached. Including more judges to evaluate your levels has almost always slowed down the scoring process in these contests, but since this isn't VLDC or another major site contest where the userbase demands multiple perspectives on level judging, just having me as a judge for this one should be fine. If your fear is that I might be biased, just know that I barely know most of you folks, those I do know I show no favoritism for, and I don't care how famous you are within the community. When I judge and critique levels, nothing matters except what I'm presented with.

@Undertaker: That is up to the staff to decide.

@IronFoxGaming: As I said in the rules, you will be submitting only one level. It wouldn't be fair if I allowed a dual-submission like you have, even if the level design is virtually identical outside of the visuals--which by the way, do play a part in the scoring of this contest.
It can be achieved with EffectTool.
EffectTool is officially hosted here.
So yes, you may use parallax scrolling.
It largely depends on how you are designing your hack in the first place. Obviously, a typical hack that follows conventions similar to other 2D Mario platformers should be designed with similar level length, as too short could be rather unsatisfying while too long could really push the player's patience, especially if you are expecting the player to avoid making mistakes.

If you are making a hack that doesn't follow SMW conventions, you can probably get away with larger levels. For example, a hack with a health system that affords more mistakes for the player can in turn make longer levels more tolerable, as will the use of the Multi-Midway Points patch--though one would need to make sure these levels have enough substance to their themes to maintain the player's interest. Similarly, a hack that is designed more around exploration could also stand to use larger levels.
@WarFlame: No, there won't be a seperate place to show off levels. If you really want to show off your creation, the Screenshots and Videos thread over in the WIP forum would probably be the best place to do so.
@Darkbones: Obviously, those examples you stated (such as taking a disassembly and turning it into a Mode 7 boss) would require such a level of ASM wizardry that you may as well have just coded that sprite on your own, and it would not be allowed.

When I say tweaks, I usually mean small things like say, changing the tilemapping of a sprite make it more compatible with other sprite graphics, adjusting its behaviors (making an enemy move faster, jump higher, use different projectiles)... things that would not require a lot of ASM know-how to accomplish.
I understand that there is definitely a gray area when it comes to tweaking sprites and patches the more you try to do with them, but the main reason that rule was included was because I didn't want this contest to be the kind where the winner is decided by who has ASM talent. Rather, that should be decided by whoever has a creative mind and knows how to use the vast wealth of resources available to put together something that can perfectly capture the theme of this contest.
Yes, that is allowed. Not that I would really consider something like that to be contributing much to the level design in the first place, but go ahead.
Depends on the content. If it's graphics or music, it's free game.

For anything else: Is it going through the moderation process (or has undergone it)? If the answer is no, then it cannot be used.
For the record, I will allow the graphics that are being made here to be used in my contest. So if anyone feels like using their ExGFX submission in my contest because they think it will fit the theme I am looking for, go ahead.

Just be respectful of the works of others and do not use ExGFX submissions without the permission of the artist.
Nothing wrong with using levels you made for a contest in your own work; it is actually something many hackers in the past have done (see: AxemJinx's Tunnel Trouble, which was originally a VLDC entry before it was incorporated into Rise to the Challenge) whenever they have created something they didn't want to go to waste and be forgotten.
First one: No. While some UberASM codes have equivalents officially hosted in the Patches section, Layer 4 isn't one of those.
Second one: Yes, it can be found easily if you just look in the Sprites section of this site. I mentioned in my previous post that stuff undergoing moderation is fair game.

And since this has been brought up to me in prviate, I'm going to set the record straight on one thing.

You may request graphics or music for your contest entry. So long as the artist or composer is not directly involved in the creation of your level, it is okay to make contest-related requests and will not be treated as collaboration. Do not, however, take this as a sign that I am encouraging it, as they have every right to decline your request if they are being swamped with them. Given the number of contests that are taking place this season, I would strongly recommend showing some consideration towards the artists of this community before you feel the need to make a request.
Read the rules.

Originally posted by GeminiSunfall

-For graphics, you may use the ones readily available in SMWCentral's Graphics section or create your own.


Falls under making your own graphics, so go ahead. Honestly, I felt it would have been obvious at this point that there are almost zero restrictions in terms of what graphics you use in this contest, the only factor preventing *anything* from being used is the need to adhere to a theme.
Just a friendly reminder to everyone participating or thinking of entering the contest, you only have a week to get your submission ready!

And before anyone asks, no. I will not be offering any deadline extensions, I have given everyone more than enough time to create something. If you have been waiting on graphics requests prior to starting on this contest, you might as well give up on the idea because you probably aren't going to have the time to produce anything impressive at this point if you must wait any longer.
You've still got a few minutes as of this post, it's not over just yet!

(This website's clock is apparently off a bit--it's not quite midnight for me yet)

EDIT: It's closed now. I shall now begin downloading and evaluating the entries.
Okay, just posting here to inform everyone that I have played through and evaluated all of your levels. However, it would appear that the first place spot has a three-way tie that needs to be broken, so the results will be postponed until I reevaluate those levels and decide which of them is the best.

I'm also going to take this moment to say that a number of you seemed to miss the goal of this contest. Some of you just failed to impress me in every regard, but I have also received quite a few levels that, while they were very good from a design standpoint, failed to deliver on a good summer theme. This especially holds true for the folks that went with Vanilla graphics, which I felt one could have delivered something really good with those had they just taken the extra lengths to do some tileset mixing.

Some of you were also playing it really safe too; a number of the submissions I played through felt a tad too generic. While this doesn't mean those levels were bad, it's just that the top scoring entries of this contest are the ones which did creative things with the contest theme in mind and executed them well. I would have liked to see more of those instead of just running through some generic, gimmickless beach or grassland.
It's been quite a fun summer vacation, but now we've all got to start going back to work and school soon. But before that, I have finished playing through all of the levels that were submitted for the Summer Level Contest, and after evaluating each and every one of them, I have reached a final verdict on who submitted the best summer levels in this contest. So without further ado, here are the results!


1st Place goes to: Eminus, who scored 43.5 points out of 50!

In this entry, Mario meets a thirsty toad and is tasked with acquiring a cool, refreshing can of Shroom Cola to quench the thirst. What ensues is a run through a hot desert where he must seek shade from the hot summer sun to avoid heatstroke. While this level wasn't exactly the most summer-y entry in the contest, there was simply no denying the creativity in this level's design and it really delivers in the visuals department too with the use of HDMA effects and Layer 2 shenanigans to produce some great effects later on in the level. But after all of that running under the hot sun, don't you think you deserve a drink?

Eminus will be receiving his prize of $20 worth in Steam cash as soon as possible.

2nd Place: StrikeForcer (43/50)

StrikeForcer presents us with an extravagant summer party at the beach, and his graphics really do the job here. While this party might go sour after a while, there is no mistaking the level of effort that has been put forth in the development of this level.

StrikeForcer will be gifted a Steam game worth up to $5 if he so chooses.

3rd Place: levelengine (42.5/50)

It's all fun and games until a volcanic eruption begins to ruin your day. levelengine may be notorious for making crazy-tough levels, but this summer level shouldn't be passed up. LE delivers a good summer theme, combined with a focus on varied gimmicks that are challenging yet still enjoyable to play through.


And now for the rest of the participants rankings.

4th: MaiK (41.5/50)
5th: Lazy (40.5/50)
6th: MarkD (40/50)
7th: Pseudogon (39.5/50)
8th: G.D. (37.5/50)
9th: Centipede (37/50)
9th: Gamma V (37/50)
11th: UpBForVictory (33.5/50)
12th: Carld923 (33/50)
13th: ThePat545 (32.5/50)
14th: Sockbat Replica (32/50)
15th: slakkmichael (31/50)
16th: snoruntpyro (30.5/50)
17th: TheInsanity115 (29/50)
18th: RussianMan (26/50)
19th: OmegaYoshi (25.5/50)
20th: ft029 (21/50)
20th: Wind Fish (21/50)
22nd: IronFoxGaming (18/50)
23rd: Final Theory (12/50)
24th: PMH (9/50)

Here are my evaluations if you are curious about how your scores were tallied up and would like to read some of my feedback.


Overall, I was impressed with the turnout I witnessed for this contest, especially considering this was not your usual official contest. With that said, I was hoping to see a bit more creativity out of the level entries, given the theme, but oh well. Maybe if I ever do something like this again, people will have a better idea of what I'm looking for and put in a greater effort to impress me. With that said, I hope everyone enjoyed making a level for the contest, and I'll see you next time!
Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
Okay serious post time. I think that a summer-y theme is truly only possible with exgfx, as you mentioned. The contest does kinda bias against vanilla-only levels, but I guess that is to be expected. I think your level would have done much better in, say, the vldc. But these levels had to stick to a summer theme, which is much easier to achieve with custom graphics. I guess a beach level is still possible with vanilla, but like you said, it would almost certainly require yy-chr.


In all honesty, I set this contest up in a way similar to the Chocolate Level Contest, with more of an emphasis on presenting a theme than being a platform for the ASM wizards to show off their stuff. I had very little expectation for a Vanilla entry to be the winner for this contest--not without pulling all the stops and delivering something very extravagant and clever at least. The best of the "vanilla" entries would be Centipede's level, and his idea had a lot of unexplored potential that he never realized.

And that was ultimately the disappointment I found in several entries. Many of them felt like half-hearted attempts that weren't serious in attempting to impress me. I often found myself thinking "if this level had just done something out of the ordinary, given the theme of this contest, it might have been a contender among the top-ranked levels." And it's not like this contest was extremely limiting either; there was a whole lot that could be done using the available resources on this website. Eminus, levelengine and Lazy showed that you don't need to be an ASM wizard to do well at this contest. You just need good ideas and the right tools to pull them off.
Personally, I'm not that fond of the mentality of powerups being a reward for the player being good, because it just means that good players will have an even easier time with your levels while the novices will struggle to clear your stages. Think about it for a moment, if the novice player is never going to see anything better than a mushroom while the skilled player can often expect to have a cape or flower on hand, do you really think the latter even needs those powerups in the first place?

Another idea is to create a dichotomy between "health" powerups and "ability" powerups; that is I like the idea that some hacks have, particularly in ones that use health systems, where there is an established difference between powerups that only exist to give you health and others which give you the ability to use projectiles or slow your descent, and the purposes each serve is mutually exclusive. Abtility powerups won't give you health, for example, so you can't rely on them to take another hit, but they might make up for that in other ways.
Originally posted by ft029
Everything is big mario discrimination because his hitbox is bigger.

Honestly I don't give a crap about it. If a section is easier as small Mario, well I'll intentionally hurt myself and go through the section small. No "big" deal (no pun intended).


That's a very misguided way of looking at big Mario discrimination. The idea behind it is that you are creating scenarios where it is significantly more detrimental for the player to have a powerup--which is something that should actually help the player--as opposed to not having one.

A good example of this I see very often is an area with low ceilings and bottomless pits/lava. If the player is big, they have to constantly crouch-jump to avoid hitting the ceiling and having their jumps cut short, resulting in death. Small Mario not only has a smaller hitbox to avoid hitting the ceiling so easily but can also move around more freely too since he does not need to be crouching.

Other examples could be say, P-switch runs that involve having to go under several 1-tile gaps. Small Mario doesn't have to slow down, but Big Mario has to keep crouching under these, slowing him down much more by comparison.

I could go on, but you should get the picture by now; it's not just having a big hitbox that makes it discrimination, but when the level design is punishing the player for having a powerup.
I've had the idea of making a floating sky castle the final world of my hack. I'm honestly surprised sky worlds aren't used more often as final areas in hacks.
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