Originally posted by NTI ProductionsI presents the Kaizo hack of my friend, Pudim de Baunilha:
Random's Retarded Quest
The Kaizo use GFX of the hack Vip and Wall Mix 4, but my friend not found the email of Vipper to ask permission to use this GFX, so I ask if anyone has his mail (Vipper), send me a PM to I have send to the Pudim de Baunilha. thanks since already. ^^
I'm currently playing it and I've gotta say the levels are really good! So far I have only 2 comment, of which one is a very major error in the ROM:
1) (minor) In "Move Faster Pokey" you can force the player to keep the green sheel all the way to the end by placing the Blue Pow in a block rather than just laying it on the ground. I kept the shell and was pretty disappointed that it served no purpose
2) SOME LEVELS ARE REALLY REPETITIVE! Your level ideas are nice but 10 screens of spinjumping off of thwomps and stationary magic just isn't fun! Also 4 Pokey spinjump areas are not fun to go through, make that 1 only! Anybody can spinjump, it's just plain annoying.
Since I haven't finished the hack yet I do not have a full review in store for you, but this is my first impression. Also I removed the lock from your ROM just because I can, it's never a good idea to lock a ROM.
Edit: Fortress Number #1 seems to be impossible, I assume the grey cement blocks on screen 06 (with the blue map16 looks) need to be something else. Also some of your levels can be broken, so far I managed to skip areas in Spider Mario!!! and Fortress Number #1.
And about Spider Mario!!!, the death blocks on screen 05 have something odd about them. The very edge pixel doesn't kill you. I cheated and landed on that pixel quite often, you might want to fix this. Unless it was intended of course.
I've looked at some other levels in LM only to find more repetitivety, don't do this. Your ideas are really good, the first two levels really were a delight to play. But e.g. Castle Number #1 looks like hell, every screen from 0D to 1F is precision jumping! That's
16 screens(!!!!!!) of precision jumps! There is some variation in the jump but 2 screens will suffice to test the players' jumping skills really...
Edit2: I've changed your ROM a little so it is possible, at the point where I gor stuck I had a Blue Pow, Silver Pow, Shell and 2 mushrooms so I could basically pass any obstacle of only 1 tile with. I started on the next level but I quit and gave up on your hack because of the sheer repetition you used. I'd like to ask you if you playtested through everything, and not just one series of obstacles to check if it's possible but did you playtest through
everything in the hack before you submitted it?
Don't get me wrong, the ideas are quite good. Your levels are just too long, try cutting away about 70% (Whoa?!?! That much?!?!? Yes. That much. You don't need 4 pokey jumps, 1 will suffice. You don't need 16 screens of precision jumps, 3 is the very maximum. You don't need 7 jumps where you need to build a bridge while landing dead center in between chompers, 1 is enough.) Actually, try cutting away 80% rather than 70%. Your ideas are of great quality but you used them too often, as well as directly in a row.
If you need help on deciding what to cut out I can help you with that, I'd like to play this hack after you made some changes.
Also: the ghost house. It has some good points and makes a quality ghost house but at places where you use map16 to confuse the player you defenitely need to give some clues. It's Kaizo and it's a ghost house but you could do something like place a coin or use a message block.
Message blocks: try to read through those yourself. You're insulting players as well as making some typing mistakes.
Despite all this the hack is still quite good, but you're defenitely going to have to make some changes. Looking forward to the end result!
Edit3: I decided to give this hack another chance and I've beaten some levels with horrible repetition of simple jumps and the likes. Currently I'm stuck at another impossible level where it just once again proves that the creator did not playtest his hack. The level I'm talking about is Hell's Cave.
In this level you need to access the secret exit to continue, somewhere in the level an offscreen keyhole is hidden (mostly below view) and at some point in the hack a key is hidden. Getting to the normal exit will only send you back on the overworld, this has been abused for the past 6 levels.
Luckily I am a bastard so I opened the ROM in LM and found the keyholes. This worked fine for the past few levels, but then we get to Hell's Cave. Here Sprite buoyancy is enabled at the cost of the number of sprites per screen. Also the sprite memory range is not suitable for the level.
BUT the creator still filled lots of screens with sprites, causing several to not appear. Unfortunately for the player the sprites that do not appear are the keyhole and the spring required to get to the normal exit. This bug would obviously have been noted if you playtest the level, so we can conclude that the creator didn't bother to test his level. That along with the fact that the creator thinks that offscreen keyholes make a good hack and the fact that this level contains tons of precision landings in between chompers which I'm not in the mood for to do all over again are going to get me to abandon this hack for now.
That concludes this hack for now, it is a fun hack with too much repetition, hundreds of precision jumps, loads of shelljumps (thank god I can do those without slowdown), some keyjumps (I wish to thank the creator of this hack, thanks to this hack I can now keyjump without needing slowdown) and endless boring obstacles. No playtesting was involved in making this hack.
Of course you should fight fire with fire, you should fight everything with fire.
Oooh look at my userbar!
Sadistic Designer - testing Pit without tools.