Posts by raocow

This is what I thought when I made a level recruitement video for a2mt.

why can't coins just get us lives dang it

Also it's a collaborative project, people shouldn't be afraid to ask for help from the other users.

I can only use the one example I know, but that's how things are going on in a2mt. Every level basically has two levels it goes through - a general testing thread where everyone can give feedback, and once it has been tested and 'approved' by the community it goes into 'clearing', where designed people thouroughly test the level. The average level gets rejected two or three times in order to become better and more 'finished', and although it slowed down the overall process quite a lot, the end result is much, much higher quality standards for individual levels. I mean, yeah, we even got some peeps quite over this, but we got 'our vip', now we want to go beyond.

The way I see it, it's understood when you enter the project. If you're going to make a level for this hack, for smwcp2, it's implied you're ready to go above and beyond, and you understand that any criticism you get is not personal, but to make the project as a whole better.

Man, getting huge deja-vu vibes here~

Kinda happy the B route won... I mean, I dunno, considering the overlap, I'm surprised nobody pointed out that A route is essentially the way how things are planned for a2mt! It's kind of funny how the first game of the two communities where sort of 'destined' to be compared, but this is getting true for the second one too. It's pretty funny.

I still think it's simpler to see what levels people actually make and organise the overworlds in consequence to that :/

Yeah, expect the order itself to be very maleable. You just know that once an order is established, everyone who does a swamp level will end up doing world 6 ranked difficulty stuff, or something like that, hahaha~

Huh, so that's what you guys are doing.

You do realise this is going to make adjusting level order for difficulty a lot harder right? You know, the first hack's prime complain by the most amount of people? That is, unless you're expecting and willing that the 'map skeleton' to change DRASTICALY over time from project beginning to end.

I'm not saying this and repeating this all over the place to be an ass here. That's just the reality of what is going to happen, and I want to avoid the most hardships in the future.

the updraft thing is pretty bullshit though, since the only time you experience it is over a pit. That's litteraly the only place, and it's super nonintuitive what you're expected to do.

But you should NOT accept difficulty spikes. That's the whole problem!
And that's why deciding the order of the levels after they are done solves that problem, but everyone here for some reason are saying that's not going to be an issue.

I mean, come on, do you really want a repeat of smwcp1? Are y'all that scared of trying something different?

Oh boy, can't wait to be a world 8 level designer that has to wait six monthes after the project starts to be able to start working on my level.

Commercial games also typicaly start with the end, then the beginning, then the middle. 'sides, this project is supposed to be made for fun, I reckon, no? Yeah, it'll require work, but that's not an excuse to turn it into a job either. Some people may take monthes to make their level, which is their right, especially if it's to make something that much greater.

What saying is that it SUCKS to have a level then have to sit on it. Think about it. Like, honestly here.

And it would be terrible to neuter a very awesome level because 'nope, sorry, you gotta remove these segments because of a theoretical curve'.

Let's use a real example here. Let's say this was applied to smwcp1. You receive for testing football canyon. What makes more sense - putting it later in the game, or somehow completely dismantling the level until it's unrecognisable, removing most of the features that make it unique, for the sake of placing it in world 2 like it 'should' ?

The 'big deal' is that I want to make sure people are aware that the game's actual overworld will be completely unlike the planned actual overworld, with that in mind. I want people to realise that and to be ready for it, not to get 'too attached', so to speak.

But what if a level isn't THAT hard, what if a world 2 level is only world 5 hard, like my previous example of football canyon. What if something of the sort happens for, say, a third of the total levels, which isn't that unbelievable at all?

All I'm saying is keep the planned overworld structure very loose!

So your solution is 'more bureaucracy'. Huh. Curious to see how that turns out!

You can totally make a level without knowing where it is on a map. That's... huh? I mean, if anything it frees you up even more. If you want to make a forest level that has lots of boulders in it, you can! You can have a castle that's cut in half with a big lake of fire, you can have a crashed flying ship in the woods - most original level ideas would benefit from not being LIMITED by where they stand on an overworld.

Fair enough, fair enough.

I've had lunch, and I've come to realise we're essentially espousing two very different solutions, which both have very different consequences and difficulty one has to fend with.

I still believe that sheer variety is a plus over a minus, but I suppose our ideal visions are just very different, and, well, alright then, haha!

It's pretty obvious my view aren't that popular on this particular aspect, so I won't press the issue. At least I was heard, but okay, so be it.

That's a pretty bad reference as i'm pretty sure world 2 of of swmcp is about on part with world 7 of the original game, and everyone is mostly cool with that.

The reason it's difficult is because you got things that can hurt you that have the same colour as the background, and half the enemies are the 'surprise!' sort of enemies.

edit: also for some reason the midpoint is at the 5/6th mark of the level, which makes no sense.