Posts by Mineyl

Hello! Long time lurker here. I'd like to come out of hiding and contribute Level 130 and Level 45, if that'd be okay.

I'd like secondary exits 55, 56, and 57, if that'd be all right.

I've noticed that some people have multiple "enterable from overworld" levels. If no one else wants them by the time I'm done with 130 and 45, I'd like to take Level 128 and Level 44 as well, if that'd be all right.

EDIT: I've finished 130 and 45, so I'll be taking 128 and 44 as I promised.

*picture removed due to outdatedness*

Whew. Took a few days, but here it is: level 8-A, the "Amethyst Vein" (also known as levels 130 + 45 in the ROM) for your viewing pleasure. Courtesy of me!

Some notes:

- Palette is based on the color of amethyst, which is purple (obviously). The yellow background is inspired by the yellow hue amethyst supposedly becomes when exposed to heat (source: lolwikipedia)...not to mention that yellow is purple's complementary color.

- There are two p-balloon sections, in case you're wondering why there's an inexplicably missing floor in several areas.

- All of the blue pipes are reset pipes in case you screw up the p-balloon parts. In the top section, all blue pipes exit at pipe B. On the bottom, all lead back to C.

- "To A" leads to the keyhole. The player can only get to the key and the exit by having a cape and having cleared the green and red switch palaces (the p-switches needed are placed in otherwise inaccessible locations).

- If you think this looks really hard, then that's because the level is on the optional (as in requiring a secret exit to get to) path in the final world, and I'm not about to make it easy on the player. At all. Difficult levels are my specialty and what I enjoy playing in others' hacks.

- I may have been overly-generous with coins, but I think this is offset by the difficulty of the level and the fact that 100 coins = 1-up is disabled.

I tried my best to get rid of all the cut-offness, but as you can see...the level is huge (probably the biggest one I've ever made, actually) and for stuff like this, sometimes, you just need an extra set of eyes, so if anyone spots any cut tiles that I missed, speak up.

Hope you like the level. I'll be submitting it later if no one has any qualms with it.

It's not *too* hard, I promise. I know you can't see it from my picture, but there are nine power-ups and a hidden extra life in the level. It was actually even harder before I finalized it, but decided I didn't want it to feel like blatant memorization to be able to clear it. I might upload a video of the level later so you can see it in action and judge for yourself.

Edit: Just as I said, here's a video of myself playing the stage. Took a few tries, but cleared as small Mario to prove that it's completely doable. Feel free to turn the annotations off, but I only put 'em there to show where everything I skip is.

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Aww, thanks. This is the first time I've ever made any of my hacking attempts public, so it's very nice for the feedback to be positive. Yup, this is the first level on the secret right-hand path in the final world.

Thanks. Yup, this is my first time posting anything for anyone to see!

And so I'm not completely off-topic, here's a palette preview for the other level I'm submitting: 7-C, "Water-Logged Woods" which is a forest dangerously close to being completely submerged in H2O.



This level features two major sections; one above the flooded forest floor and one at ground level. The ground and trees are a bit more green than the default due to all the nurturing water and fertile soil.



Here's a preview of what the underwater portion will look like. I'm still messing with this palette. I changed the black outlines that I'm normally diehard about using in order to further put off the illusion that the place is under the murky depths, though I'll probably have to keep at it a bit before I can get it to look exactly the way I want it to.

Also, please note that the block placement here is not final and is strictly for show.

Comments? :3

Hey. Since I'm working on a second level for this collaboration, I'd like to have exits 58 and 59 added to the list. Thanks.

Thanks. When I was a kid, I always wanted to design my own levels for pre-existing games as well as create my own. Discovering ROM hacking was like some kind of dream come true, really. I haven't been hacking for very long (started in December 2007, but have not dedicated myself to a full-blown project yet), so I'm not so great at things like scripting ASM yet, but as far as level design, graphics, and customized palettes are concerned...I think I can hold my own.



Thanks! All this positive feedback is very encouraging. xD Yes, I love tinkering with SMW's original graphics and finding new ways to use them. When I came up with the palette for the cave, I not only wanted a color combo that worked, but I wanted people to enter the level and be like, "wow, I've never seen anyone plaster this sort of color in a level before." It makes people remember the level in spite of it being vanilla, and that is important.

Yes, I plan out all my levels on paper beforehand. The first half of Amethyst Vein went through two revisions and the second half went through three. Took me three days to get it all done for just a single level, but I consider level design a form of art and you certainly can't rush an artist.

Messiaen, I love your work. I need to watch all your videos sometime soon. :o

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Just thought I'd post a video of my canceled Mario 3 hack. If there's enough demand, however, I might pick it back up...

Check the video on Youtube itself for tons of commentary in the description, 'cause it's like...pages long. @_@ I yammer on enough as it is.

Oh don't worry. If I continue it, they'll definitely be in. I just happen to be a very evil level designer (wait until you see 1-A), and knowing that, I'd probably place both of those enemies in some extremely bad locations (bad for the player, of course~). Buster beetle was going to appear in world 2, however, and as for fire chomps...I'm not sure, but they'd definitely show up by world 5 much like the original game.

Thanks for the praise, though. Positive feedback is very encouraging.

Mattrizzle: That sounds neat. I've never actually played that game, but I do recall hearing its name (like 15 years ago...harhar). It's interesting when people set out to edit much lesser-known titles.

Just thought I'd leave part 2 of my Mario 3 hack here:

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Final part should be up tomorrow, hopefully.

Well, that's cute.

I think I'm most in agreement with what was said in the last two posts, though I'd rather they simply scroll from bottom to top like in the original ending (and honestly, reading the credits in TSRPR was extremely awkward), but it really doesn't matter to me how the credits are done, just as long as they are done.

Heheh, yeah. I always disliked how in Mario 3 there were so many levels, but you could skip a rather large portion of them...yet completing them yielded little or no reward. I'm trying to rectify this with these lettered stages.

And thanks. I wanted to go on a tirade about how every SMB3 hack I've ever seen except for maybe Mario Adventure looks so completely shoddily put together and generally very kaizo-ish...as if the creators simply sat down in front of the editor and tossed random objects into the already-made levels. I was seeking to rectify that in this hack by not only bringing original level design to the table, but also by switching up the world themes later on so that it eventually feels like a different game altogether...or at least a sort of SMB3-2. :o

Hmm... Would it be okay if I posted a video here in a couple of days to show off a project I was working on a few months ago? Just wanna' make sure before I embed it and it's somehow against the rules. :b

Well, you may be just fine with staying up late a few times and think it's no big deal, but if you make it a habit and go for long periods of time with less than 7-8 hours of sleep, it'll eventually make you more irritable and reduce your ability to concentrate and focus. Believe me, I've learned from experience. :\

Doing this for years can lead to potential health problems as well, I'm told.

Hello everyone. This isn't my first post here (just now stumbled upon this thread, actually), but I've come out of hiding to participate in An SMWC Production as well as the community in general.

So hey. :b Where do you guys keep the root beer?

That's all right. I need to watch what I drink these days, anyways. Maybe he was doing me a favor...in a weird, future-seeing kind of way.

...he can't really do that, can he?

Thanks. It's good to be here!

And I'm remembering how fun it is to actually post on forums instead of just lurking. That's a significant change for me; maybe I'm too subtle, sometimes.