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Recruiting playtester for a moderately difficult kaizo light hack (wall jumps / mad dash)

Looking for one more play tester (currently have 2 testers and looking for a third) for a moderately difficult kaizo light hack.

The hack has 12 exits, and the theme of the hack revolves around wall jumping (asm by MarioE) and mad dashing (asm by CoMPMStR).

Other notes:
No overworld (asm by Brolencho)
Instant retry (asm by lx5, worldpeace)
Custom music but most of it is still WIP (current tracks are mainly filler, and some are still vanilla)

Link to the BPS:
https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/45540/Streak%2Bof%2BTigers%2B%2528test3%2529.bps

Thanks in advance for your help and support with this project.

Screen shots:






URL showing a spliced run that demonstrates intended strats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVIikMHwgFg
I can help with testing. I've already pulled the bps file, and I'm playing some levels
Originally posted by MassPunishment
I can help with testing. I've already pulled the bps file, and I'm playing some levels


Thank you for helping out!

I've seen your detailed reports after play testing other hacks so I'm glad to have your help#smrpg{y}
Overall

>There's a weird issue with the dash mechanic where if you dash when you die you will re-enter the level dashing. It will be obvious that it happens if you hear the dash noice as you're dying. I put a comment on the patch page showing that this happens, but here's a link to a video of it happening to me
https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/41613/Mad%2BDashing.mp4

>For every level I would suggest not having the death blocks and normal blocks close to the same color. The player wont always know what's safe to wall jump on and what isn't

>Even though there's no visible timer I still died to the level timer

>Players will generally not like this version of the wall kick patch, b/c you can only bounce off the wall once and you have to bounce to the other wall before you can bounce again. I looked at the wall kick asm that's used in this hack, and version 1.1 allows for consecutive kicks from the same wall. Even in the description it mentions why it was changed.

>After playing through the hack I went back to watch your clear video. What I could tell from your clears was that you were able to complete obstacles because you have the builder's knowledge of the upcoming sections. Multiple jumps through out the whole game is blind, and most players will fail multiple times before understanding the obstacles. I don't think there needs to be an over abundance of indicators, but rather minimize the amount of blind jumps throughout the game.

Level 1

>When the player enters the level it's unclear where they have to go. Once you do the first wall jump the only thing in view is the top right pipe and platform. The player is forced to do a blind dash to the right, and hope they can progress. Look at Level 1 Intro.PNG and Level 1 intro 1st jump.PNG

>Since the first dash to the flying koopa is blind I would have a coin indicator to help line the player up for the dash. Most of my deaths pre-checkpoint was because I didn't know where to line myself up

>There's also a spawn issue with the red koopa at the beginning. As soon as the player enters the level the red koopa is already spawned, and is flying. If the player waits too long at the start the koopa wont be at it's proper position to make the jump to the kicking koopa

>There's a spawn issue with the kicking koopa and coinblock section. If the player wall slides in the top section after the first gray platform for too long the kicking koopa will start walking, and by the time you get to the coinblock the kicking koopa will be too close to the coinblock which will kill it when the player hits it. Look at Level 1 Kicking Koopa Spawn Issue for the location to create the spawning issue

>You can also bypass the whole kicking koopa coinblock section. I just landed on the gray platform, and rode it down. Once I got to a correct height I just dashed right, and wall jumped the whole section to the midway.

>In the second section there's a spawn issue with the kicking koopa where there is always a risk of throwing the shell at the koopa

>Because the turnblock under the mushroom is about 1 tile too low I can bypass getting the shell, and just spin jump off of the pirhana to hit the turnblock to get the mushroom

Level 2

>After the midway you can change Mario's direction to face left since that's where the movement takes the player

>After the midway the two saws that are meant for hitting the shell block and the coin blocks are already spawned at the midway. If the player doesn't immediately go after the midway the saws won't be in the right spot when you get to them

>There was multiple times that the final saw wouldn't spawn at all. Look at Level 2 final saw.PNG

Level 3

>Since it's almost impossible to know how to do the dash throwblock section it wouldn't hurt to have a message box

>In the lava lotus section I never spin jumped off of the lava lotus, I just dashed from one wall to the wall with the shell. My next comment is based upon the fact that I wasn't spinning off the lotus

>In the shell section after the lava lotus it's unclear if the player needs to grab the shell or not. It would help the player understand that they need to spin if there was blue coins instead of the yellow coins

Level 4

>It's slightly unclear where the player needs to activate the p-switch, so I would suggest a p-switch indicator so the player knows where to activate it

Level 5

>Both the background and the foreground is too dark, so it makes it pretty hard to see the munchers. Look at Level 5 Background

Level 6

>The player could always dash to the second goomba, and not know they wasted a dash until they get to the spiny section

>After the midway it's unclear at first if the player needs to go down or to the right

>For the last dash before the pipe a coin to help the player line up the dash would help out

Level 7

>Both the background and the foreground is too dark, so it makes it pretty hard to see the munchers. Look at Level 7 Background

>Even though bouncing on the fuzzy 3 times is a good trick the coin indicators wont really tell the player what's going on. This is also an issue because the line guide blends into the background too much

Level 8

>I would make the death blocks a darker color than the normal blocks. They're a little too close in color that might confuse players

Level 9

>After the midway I would have a blue coin to let the player know they need to spin off of the shell instead of grabbing it.

Level 10

>After the midway it's pretty blind to dash to the noteblocks. I would suggest a coin to help line the player up

Level 11

>On the vine section it's unclear weather nor not if the player needs to jump to the right over the vine or if they need to go left

Level 12

> In room 1 a lot of the jumps become blind because the camera scrolls. I would either lock the camera, or make this section only in 1 subscreen boundary to prevent this

I uploaded a zip file with all the screen shots that I took
https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/41613/Streak%2Bof%2BTigers.zip
Thank you for all of your comments and suggestions.

I will go through all of them and let you know which ones I addressed and how I handled them, and then give you an updated BPS when the changes are finished. Unfortunately, it's going to be about a month until I'm free to work on this again, so no worries if you're not available to test at that time.

Thanks again for your help and hope you got some enjoyment out of the hack#smrpg{y}
i'll retest it when you're ready
I've applied most of your changes to the following patch:

https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/45540/Streak%2Bof%2BTigers%2B%2528test6%2529.bps

Also, here is a log of the changes:
Note: Some of the suggested changes were by other play testers.

Global:

Wallkicking can now be achieved off the same wall in succession (except for a few rooms that use the off-screen indicator uberasm because I couldn't get them to work simultaneously).
All timers are now set to 0.
All death blocks are now black.
Added more coin indicators.

Note: Unfortunately, I was unable to fix the glitch in which the player dashes automatically if they dash the same frame they die.
Note: The current music is still just temporary filler (other than the title screen).
Note: There was a suggestion to make the backgrounds less similar to the vanilla game because the game is based on chocolate elements, but I currently have no plans to do so.

Level 1 changes:

Changed the upwards flying koopa to a death block with a naked red koopa to avoid an issue in which the flying koopa would not be in the correct position unless the player moved fast.
Got rid of the naked blue koopa shell trick in the beginning because there were potential spawn issues and cheese to avoid the intended strat.
Raised the obstacle with the mushroom to prevent the player from just reaching it by bouncing of the piranha. I also added a wall of death blocks to prevent wall jumping to reach mushroom.

Note: Did not change the trick after the midway because giving the player another tile of leeway enables the obstacle to be cheesed by simply doing a normal jump and not dashing. However, I did add a wall of death blocks to eliminate the unintended alternate strat of wall jumping off the pipe to catch the shell.
Note: Regarding the comment "In the second section there's a spawn issue with the kicking koopa where there is always a risk of throwing the shell at the koopa", I did not change this because I feel it's clear that the player has to go fast to prevent this, and always can.

Level 2 changes:

Made the wall of death blocks after the saw/shell trick one tile shorter.
Completely changed the obstacle before the pipe because the saw would not spawn in some circumstances.
Added a wall of death blocks and coins after the midway to make the intended strat of dashing more evident.
Removed a saw to prevent double-sprite deaths, and replaced the falling platform / death block obstacle with cloud tiles so the player doesn't have to rely on blind timing to reach the saw.
Added coins to indicate where the necessary kaizo blocks are (though only the rightmost block needs to be hit).
Mario now starts facing left after the checkpoint.

Level 3 changes:

Completely changed the opening trick because many noted it was too cryptic.
Added a death block wall after the check point to make it clear that it was not the direction to go.
Added another flying koopa at the end to give the player a little more room for error.

Level 4:

There was a suggestion to add a "P-switch indicator", but I'm not sure what that is.

Level 5:

Changed the background palettes to make the munchers more visible.

Level 7:

Changed the background palettes to make the munchers more visible.
Changed the color of the line guide to make it more visible.

Note: I haven't changed the final trick yet. I'm waiting to see what other play testers think first.

Levels 8-12:

The only changes to these levels are the global changes (darkened death blocks add coin indicators in particular).

Note: Regarding the comment "In room 1 a lot of the jumps become blind because the camera scrolls. I would either lock the camera, or make this section only in 1 subscreen boundary to prevent this", similar to my note for the final trick in level 7, I'm going to wait for feedback from my other 2 testers before changing this. Hopefully the added coin indicators will be enough.
I'll start testing the updated hack this weekend, and I should have any notes by the end of the weekend.
Thank you MassPunishment#smrpg{y}

Also, after some last minute testing I decided to take your suggestion for disabling vertical scrolling in the first room of the last level. I've re-uploaded the latest patch here:

https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/45540/Streak%2Bof%2BTigers%2B%2528test7%2529.bps

I also nerfed a trick in the second room of the last level, but otherwise there are no other changes from my previous patch.
So I didn't have much problems from the gameplay, but this might be because it's no longer a blind play through for me. The only real things I saw was a few graphic issues, and a comment about the dashing patch. Having the ability to rejump off the same wall helped out with the play through.

>Because this is no longer a blind play through for me I recognize what the indicators mean, but the player might be confused by what each coin means. I would suggest having a different coin indicator for the dashing.

>Since you can't fix the issue with the auto dash after dying I would try to rebuild the sections where Mario starts on the ground so that there's a wall to prevent this. In the original testing I wasn't concerned with this in Level 1, because every time I redashed after death I either slid into the starting wall or the winged platform; so I thought you were aware of this issue. It only became a true issue in levels after that.

>For Level 4 I can provide a graphic that's usually used for p-switch indicators. It's just an outline of a p-switch
https://bin.smwcentral.net/u/41613/Switch.bin

>In the switch palace there's multiple places of cutoff. It was mostly in the areas where a death block was next to a wall. In the first room there cutoff in the pit below the p-switch. This was also in the second room, and there was cutoff above and below the pipe.

>I'm not too concerned with the unlit candles in the final level, but that is something that always gets called out.

>After beating the game I went all the way to the end of the credits, and there's some issues with the palette especially on the final screen. This is most likely because somewhere you didn't click Enable custom palette for this level.

>In the level that has the blue block throw I still kind of wished there was a message box explanation for the intended strats. I kind of guessed, and felt I got lucky with the block throw. I find the tech interesting, and maybe other players would like it too if they're told what is needed from them.

Adding one more thing I forgot to mention, but this is only if you care to address it.

>The Wendy fight can become somewhat free, because there's nothing setting the rng patterns. All the player has to do is die, and they'll get predictable patterns. If you care to address this the easiest way is to use the Better RNG patch.
Thank you for all of your comments! I'll make sure to handle all of these issues before submitting (except for maybe the text box), though that won't be for awhile because it will take time for other testers to get through the game and for music to get finished.