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UNORIGINAL - Discussion Thread

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Now it's done. I'm probably going to change the music over time, but I really want to move on to another level, so here's the final product.



Also, the Winter C3 is coming up soon, and do I have anything planned for it? I don't know. We'll see! ;)
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Merry Christmas! Here's a look at a new level! Cheers! :)


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On Level two, the checkpoint doesnt set the level to underwater, and so makes it impossible to complete if you pass the checkpoint. Loving the hack so far, other than that.
Originally posted by Crazyclay
On Level two, the checkpoint doesnt set the level to underwater, and so makes it impossible to complete if you pass the checkpoint. Loving the hack so far, other than that.


Thanks for the feedback! I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that checkpoint, because I don't remember a level in the demo that takes place underwater. I'll have to go back and play through it to see what you're talking about. It has been months since I last played that demo, so maybe I've already addressed it?
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Housekeeping

Alright, so it has been two months since I last updated you on anything about this game. That was around the same time C3 was a thing. There's a good reason for that... two actually.

The first is the obvious: School and work getting in the way. Not much to say there.

The second is a little more deeper, but the jist of it is that I've lost my direction in the project.

I was originally so pumped about going back to the roots of SMW hacking and what not, trying to go for a vibe similar to the original SMW, but in doing so, it hampered my abilities and ideas on what I should and shouldn't do. You could kind of see that with some of my levels, especially Net Neutrality, I was trying to go for ideas that were either too complex for SMW or they would require some patches and stuff. While my intent was not to go for that, I easily became bored, and when you become bored of a project, you tend not to work on it for awhile. Even when I came back in December and said I was pumped about the project, that was only for a short time. It didn't help that I went through a major phase of depression after my father came down with COVID-19 and it severely affected his health.

So after my desperate attempt to advertise the thing at the Winter C3 and getting barely any attention (in my opinion) while looking like a jackass, I continued my hiatus on the project. I seriously don't want to quit this one, because my goal is to make a full hack of some sort. Now that things have sort of slowed down with me just waiting on my data collection for my final study and what not, I can grasp a new direction on where I want to go for this project... and I think I have it.

A New Direction

So my idea is this:

There will be eight levels. Yes. Eight levels.

Now you might be asking, "Eight levels? That's incredibly short." Well, there's a reason for that.

I was sort of inspired by that AVGN Adventures game in how its level design was laid out. You know, you have the incredibly tedious but well-thought-out level design that is meant to test your patience, then you have a tedious boss at the end of the level. While I don't want to go into Kaizo territory, I've been toying around with the idea of the game just being difficult from the start, because I've found that I have not been that great at progression-based difficulty. It's not that I can't do it, but when you want to make a hack that's 60 levels long, you focus more on the difficulty than the gameplay. With the hack being based on eight levels, I can properly focus on both the difficulty and gameplay to have that proper balance. Plus, with the harder hacks being more appealing to fans of SMW, I thought the change would be necessary.

The game would be laid out as follows:

There is a single map with all eight levels. In the middle is Bowser's Castle, which can only be accessed by beating the other seven fortresses led by each of the Koopa Kids. I'll need to figure out how to do all that with patches, presuming there's already a way to do that.

Each level would have a gimmick related to the personality of the Koopaling it is led by. For example, Wendy Koopa's level would be based on lava, as she is considered to have a quick temper, where as Ludwig would be based around magic and ghosts, given the fact he has a magic wand and having sort of a mad scientist persona. Now, I know that's all stretching a bit, but I feel going in this direction for the levels would make them each memorable and fun to play. Plus it would make the game seem to have more personality than just being a bland stack of SMW-inspired levels.

So that's sort of the basic idea I'm going for at the moment. I think it would help boost the creativity in me and make the experience altogether much more fun. Tell me what you think. My apologies to those who were a fan of the old concept, but in my opinion, if you aren't having fun making the game, then people aren't going to have fun either. Thanks!
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Originally posted by Lotica
My apologies to those who were a fan of the old concept, but in my opinion, if you aren't having fun making the game, then people aren't going to have fun either.

I cannot agree with this statement enough. Do make your hack at your own pace, and try not to set yourself a deadline if you feel like you can't make it. This is a hobby, not a job. If you need to dumb down the level quantity to eight for some reason, that's alright, as you are the creator after all.

Also, don't overload yourself with trying to deviate from this hack's intention. Your ideas will just wear out gradually, and I speak that from experience.

All the best!
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Originally posted by Katerpie
Originally posted by Lotica
My apologies to those who were a fan of the old concept, but in my opinion, if you aren't having fun making the game, then people aren't going to have fun either.

I cannot agree with this statement enough. Do make your hack at your own pace, and try not to set yourself a deadline if you feel like you can't make it. This is a hobby, not a job. If you need to dumb down the level quantity to eight for some reason, that's alright, as you are the creator after all.

Also, don't overload yourself with trying to deviate from this hack's intention. Your ideas will just wear out gradually, and I speak that from experience.

All the best!


Yeah, that's the main idea. I always try to go bigger than I can handle, and that's why I always can projects every time. I tend to have a lot more potential with smaller projects because like you said, this is a hobby, not a job. I mean it has been awesome that I've been able to gather some sort of following because of what I've had so far, but you have to have a balance on who you make happy. Either you feel too happy and you piss everyone off, and vice versa. I think with this approach, I'll be able to get the right balance, then I can build off of what I have if I decide to make a sequel of some sort.
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Well, time for another edition of "Lotica can't make up his mind and wants to change the direction of a project again".

Yeah, I quickly found out that the direction I was set on doing as detailed in the last major post I made was a bit too... well, it got tedious really fast. For starters, I'm not a guy who is the most hardcore player when it comes to SMW, especially in the Kaizo scene. That meant it was much more frustrating to test levels just because of all the tedious jumps and stuff I had to put in. Not only that, I was designing levels with solutions that were... let's say, they offered no variety. That's one of the reasons I tend to be turned off of Kaizo hacks: Some just don't offer a lot of strategy other than "Make precise jump you can't make in a million years normally". That's what it was boiling down to in my project, and while it's fun to watch, playing it is a different story, and I want the project to be fun for everyone.

So we'll be going back to the original (or in this case, unoriginal durhur) plan of doing basic SMW levels with some interesting gimmicks thrown, here and there. Apologies for changing my mind on this so many times, it has been some rough times in my life and I wanted to find a reason to work on this again and not give up on it.

Also, the Summer C3 is coming up, and I'm (hopefully) planning on releasing a new demo with many of the levels I teased before finally finished. That will be an additional five to six levels, which includes the revamp of Seeing Some Saws, a version that seems to be a lot more appreciated compared to the original. I want to make sure that not only you guys are happy, but I'm happy with this project.

Please be patient with me and we'll get something soon! I'll be hoping to have some further details on specifics regarding the hack at the C3 event as well.

Thanks for reading!
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While I'm glad you made the decision to switch back to the original plan, just make sure you are having fun and don't rush. However, I'm sure that my "advice" is nothing but familiar platitudes by now. Regardless, I'm excited to see further progress on this hack. Good luck!
Wow! It has been quite awhile since the last showing of a level to be very honest. I've been at a halt with the project, as I've been dealing with severe financial and mental issues as of late. Things are getting better, so I've been getting more of an urge to work on UNORIGINAL. With that being said, here's the level... or quite honestly, it's more of a concept than level. This is called Tip of the Iceberg:



As you can tell, this is another ice level that is meant to take advantage of Mario World's janky-as-hell ice physics with immense difficulty. Whereas Glimmering Tundra (now called A Cold, Cold Ride!) was challenging, this one will be a bit sadistic... or at least as sadistic to the point that it can still be fun. I just wanted to show that I am still working on the project, but my output is not what it used to be.

Stay tuned for the next update in 2024! :)
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I jokingly said my next update was going to be in 2024, but it's 2022, so hah! Take that, past me. :)

Anyways, you might be wondering what the hell is happening with UNORIGINAL, and why all the videos on the project have been taken off my YouTube channel. Am I quitting another project?

No, I'm not actually.

Truth be told, this happens with a lot of projects that I do in my spare time. I tend to go like clockwork a lot in my life, whether that's due to just a mental thing or I don't know how to get out of a strut. I'm not going to go on like a therapy session or anything, but I do want to make it clear that I still want to make this project. I've always wanted to complete a hack for one of my favorite games of all time, and I intend to do that with what limited time I have.

Unfortunately, a discovery I made today revealed that, for some reason, the files I had for the project as recently as August of 2021 have gone missing, meaning the last files I have are from when I briefly went in a different direction with the semi-kaizo stuff. That was March of 2021. I don't know how it happened, but that mean the work I did off and on again for a year (which granted, wasn't much) is gone. That's not to say everything is lost. I still have a majority of the project backed up, but it's a shame some of the improvements, such as what I did with Seeing Some Saws, is now gone.

Either way, I still have this project in the back of my mind and I plan to revisit it sometime in the future when I finally get some time. I'm hoping that will be next year, but we'll see what happens.

Thanks for many of you who have been patient over the past two years, and I hope to speak to you again very soon.
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