Posts by Galaer

Level

This is my very first level created in Lunar Magic. And also my very first post on this website.

Story: Dolphins has flooded Mushroom Kingdom and saved the whole world from Bowser existance. They caught all koopas who servived Great Flood and put them into cages.
Now that peace has been restored, Dolphins challenge You! Will You manage to get all 5 YOSHI coins and bring them to Dolphin's Castle? Dolphins aren't vile creatures. They will help how they can. But They are unable to make miracles.

Dolphins: Since many of You could have problem with answering this problematic question, we will help. The correct answer is:
Of course not!!!

Notes: Since this is pretty much my very first make profile thing, I have encountered very embarassing proble. So I have uploaded file to My Files, but I have no idea how to put download in the post. HELP?!

Thanks for the help, Mr. Pixelator. It finally works.

DOLPHIN'S BET

That's my very first level. It has: 1exit and 5 YOSHI coins.

Oh, so I need to submit the level. Thanks.

This is the review of the level from perspective of bad player and even worser designer.
I really like your level and graphical choices. But I have a really big issue. Other than first area there is no music. I have checked on 2 emulators (zsnesw and snes9x) but from midpoint section there is only silence.
Next will be little designing issues (mostly whining - so don't mind).

Level 105: Screen 0F: the camera doesn't scroll down enough so it's hard to tell if there is a ground (and there is with invisible mushroom). So could you indicate ground with a coin?
Screens 0F and 11: lying bamboo feels like it should be standable.

Level 4C: japanese gate and bricks on the house roof feels like they should be standable.

Level E3: Screen 08: I think main entrance to the shrine should be door instead of pipe (who enters to the shrines via pipes) and entrance should be more decorated (right now it feels like entrance to another part of bamboo forest).
Screen 0F: You should lower block of the right of chasm. If player (somehow) screw out with shell while being small he has no way to come back. Then again, knowing how far is nearby pipe, this unfortunate player would wish to commit harakiri on the nearby spikes.

Level 1CB: Screen 00: Amber Coin location - it's a little annoying to get out of this when you are big. Solution: move higher muncher row 1 tile up and place muncher on 2 cement blocks.
Screens 02 and 03: that's my personal problem. For some reason I always think that behind gray pillars standing on purple platforms the path of purple platform above continue. Actually it's a hole but I always mistaking it.
Screen 04: Like I told earlier: Main Entrance = Door.
Screen 06: yours invisible coin blocks that leads to the shell aren't indicated at all. Put a coin under both of them.
Screen 0B: 2 tiles to the left from the exit pipe there is a passage going up. You can bounce there via Big Boo. There is a pyramid shape structure and ... that's all. What's the point of this passage if there is no reward?

So that's it. You have created really good level and I hope you will fix the issues with music

I know it's a little too late to say that, but your .bps file from newest link that you put in your submission doesn't work. I always get message "This patch is not intended for this ROM.". Luckily your DROPBOX version from first link works. So if it's still possible, send working .bps to Vitor Vilela.

Don't worry, werd. I really liked your level. Sure it's glitchy looking and the first screen looks a little like kaizo, but I had no problem with that. The level is much easier. I liked dodging green water and area with 3 yellow shells has like 2 intended solutions. The secret entrance is also creative. The Big Boo boss has, if I remember correctly, Fishing boo and using it correctly is very hard. But you make it.

If I would be judge then I would give you 75/100 score, because design is really good. But I'm not a judge and your level will probably be disqualified. This level though will be forever one of my favorites (along with Aeon's and Dr. Tapeworm entries) in this contest. You have at least 1 fan.

Well, I said about disqualification. You didn't bother to play 2 entries (002 and 045). At least you didn't show that.
So I assumed that you are going to disqualify them.

For me 2 weaks deadline is a little too small. I am slow designer and not really good. For the VLDCX I needed 1 week for just thinking what to do in my level and 1,5 week to make it and do some corrections. So it will be a real trainwreak for me. I would like to suggest 1 full month deadline. That would help beginners to finish their levels and the people that doesn't frequently visit this forum would have a chance to enter competition.

PRESENTATION - it is 100% the must. Otherwise you need to expect levels with glitchy looking tiles and sprites and sea of cut-offs. And because it's much harder to make WOW! factor in vanilla I would awarded this with 20 points.

GLITCHES - is a big no no. I think designing level without usage of glitches and MAP 16 will be a very good challenge for some people.

AUTHENTICITY - if you are talking about creativity from VLDC then I don't mind.

There are also 2 thing that I wanted to suggest:

1. For judging purposes - make a rule that if you make long and hard level then you need to include life farm in your rom.

2. THEME factor - level creators will need to write the gimmick of their level. How well they used their gimmick and if level was focused towards it - that's what will be judged. And the reward for that will be 20 points.

OLDC - Oldschool Level Design Contest.

Is there any limit of sublevels inside 1 level?

So I have played some entries. I don't know where to put a feedback because there is no level threads like in VLDC. That's why I put it here.

Luansilva12 entry: midpoint doesn't work. On the other hand level is short and easy so it doesn't need any midpoint.

LOLIPOP1136 entry: your link in Rules and Submissions doesn't work. I downloaded it directly from your Profile Bin. Also I get "The patch is not intended for this ROM" info when I try to use your bps.

AbuseFreakHacker entry: The very first lightning is a really dick move.

Final Theory entry: this level is a mess. It's hard to tell what's solid and what's not. Also sea of cut-offs.

Also did anybody noticed that this contest's overworld in short will be called OLD COW?

Another portion of pointless feedback.

Minuy600 entry - overall very good level. Coins row in the cave looks like there is a secret meaning behind it (like being blockade or platform for secret door, but there is nothing there). Also unlike cannons and chucks placement of Banzai Bills is uninteresting. They are all too easy to avoid.

MarioFan22 entry - secret exit cries for another section with guide lines, platforms and saws. Like it is is quite dissapointing.

Celestial Seraph entry- after getting midpoint I can jump over wall to the right and die. And I did that.

Gloomy entry- didn't you write in your txt that your secret exit isn't shitty? Well, you lied.

NeXuS15 entry - your link in Rules and Submissions doesn't work.

Luks entry - level could be really enjoyable if your gimmick haven't broken. By gimmick I mean throwing blue blocks into thwomps. At the beginning it works and after a while blue blocks going through thwomps without killing them. I tried every possible angle. I even tried second emulator - zsnesw. 1st run goes like dream and every thwomp died, but at 2nd run it went back to not working stuff. I even tried pacifist run with no success. Luckily killing thwomps isn't nessesery for beating the level. But if you are going after dragon coins then 3rd dragon coin is protected by thwomp and throwing blue blocks most of the time doesn't work at that moment. The only other way is to tank it. The only powerup is at the beginning of the stage so you need to do perfect run. But it's not that hard. If you are small then you still have a very small chance. Mad dash to the midpoint, avoid the thwimps and another mad dash for dragon coin, tank it and if you were fast enough you can barely avoid death trap. It's very hard to do but it's possible. Other than that is good level.

Both link and patch works correctly.

My problem with the secret exits is that they look like Nintendo's but they don't feel like Nintendo's secret exits.
In MarioFan22 entry secret exit
In Gloomy entry Nintendo is better with hiding keys.
Also there levels will not be judged on their authenticity (yeah, finally figured out what it means). I'm just worried that they will get penalized for their secret exits.

I apologize for not using spoilers. As for my SMW secret exits - I beat SMW more than 10 years ago and just recently started replaying it. All I can say that I had a lot of fun with them.

Feedback time (I hope it doesn't need any spoilers).

Wii2 entry - maybe it's just me but secret exit even with a hint felt a bit unfair. And putting there dragon coin felt even more unfair.

Gloomy entry - it's surprising how little update can change the feeling of the level. The secret exit feel better.

Also I wanted to say that this feedback is just my and only my opinion. So you are free to ignore everything what I write here.

A lot good levels lately. Anyway - feed back:

Agent Q entry - for some reason 4th dragon coin doesn't appear for me in snes9x. On the other hand it works fine in zsnesw.

Hobz entry - don't forget to put level files into your submission.

Oh, so there is another person with the same idea. I'm struggling with it the 2nd week. So I wish you good luck.

Feedback:

a hick entry - is there any way to get 2nd dragon coin without dying? I can get it as the last one but then I fall to my doom.

Cobsters entry - 4th dragon coin vanish and reappear only when starting level from midpoint. Checked on snes9x and zsnesw with the same result.

SMW_Physicist entry - when patching I get "Unknown patch format." info.

Shiny Ninetales entry - 1st dragon coin is unfair. Without Lunar Magic I would never find it. Also midpoint is a little too high. I was jumping for 5 minutes to get it before I gave up.

DOLPHIN PARADISE

1 SECRET EXIT
5 YOSHI COINS
1 MOON

I wanted to brought you into a journey to the world full of negativity and problems. Because that was my level creation process.

I started very positively. After experience with VLDCX I was determined to do level with dolphins. I thought about idea 3 full days. I chosed vertical level with dolphins. Never saw that before and also never did any vertical level before. But it can't be hard, right?

Things have complicated very fast. Dolphin tails were glitching weirdly, sprites did not load or the weirdest thing - some dolphins from generator were vanishing on my own eyes (I could ride invisible dolphin).

Another thing that really hit me hard was background glitching here and there on the right side of level. So I needed to cover this places. If you see some decorations on the right side then know their purpose is to hide glitches not to make level more beautiful. And because I was too stubborn and didn't want to change design, it maked cut-offs.

There are different kinds of cut-offs in my level:
1. to hide glitched background.
2. for design purposes.
3. some things that I didn't realized before (like cement blocks + water).

Secret exit area. With this place I had another problems. Not only background is glitching in different way. Also gimmick that I planned (dolphins bouncing on lava) didn't work. All these years I thought dolphins can jump on lava. Heck, I even used that in my VLDCX entry. I was wrong. They can jump only on water and... bottom of the screen. This discovery was really painful for me and I entered "I don't care" state. I started to use glitched sprites and forced the gimmick by making very weird combination of tiles which led to another cut-offs.

But that's still not over. During process of creation my USB keyboard and mouse both stopped functioning. And working just on laptop keyboard and mouse (or whatever it is called) was shitty.

Overall this level was too ambitious for me. Level is preety chaotic (just like this text) because I was designing it from my head. I know, I should write my ideas on piece of paper and organize them. But I kept forgetting about that.

Now the level is finally done. After 18 hours of designing and testing. Sigh, I feel so damn tired...