Frivolous Journey (Level Sampler)

Hi! It's been a while since I've last made a C3 thread so idk how to write intros anymore lol.




I have prepared a 3 1/2 level sampler for the hack I'm currently working on, Frivolous Journey. I likely won't plan out an actual overworld until the hack is nearing completion, so I've quickly put up a linear map where you can access the levels in any order you want.

As a quick note, Featherweight Fort is only halfway done at the moment. I'll be working on the rest of the level later, as I'm not too sure on which direction to go with it yet (the second half for each castle/fortress will likely involve some sort of callback to previous levels on the same world).

DOWNLOAD

Hope you enjoy it!

Huge thanks to  bebn legg,  Koopster and  Heraga for playtesting and offering some really helpful feedback.

I will definitely get to playing this when I have a chance but I will say right now it looks beautiful!

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This hack was super fun from what I played, and your wonderful taste in aesthetics only add to how enjoyable the overall experience is. Each level's gimmick is used really creatively too; I'm especially thinking of the quicksand level and how you need to pass through certain obstacles from below.

I'm really looking forward to the final thing!

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I remember watching this in the Discord's voice channel. This is one of my favorite hacks aesthetically; the palettes here are all great.

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Check out my WIP romhack!

Quite happy to see this and be able to give some of the levels a try.
You really have a solid knack for mixing together various graphics be it from SMW or not and still making everything look consistently good.

Great Work Aeon!

The backgrounds you chose for these levels looks so so good with these delicious palettes, and they mix really well with the vanilla foreground tilesets.

This was a fun little sampler! I'd love to try the full version when you get it finished. Here are a few thoughts on the hack:

GENERAL THOUGHTS: The level designs trend towards being smooth and graceful to play through. You generally get a lot of room to maneuver around the obstacles, which encouraged me to run through the levels at a brisk pace. I also noticed that all the levels have a warm-toned palette. They're all nice on the eyes!

FUZZY HEIGHTS: Somehow I died 3 times in this one. Two times from missing my spinjump on a Fuzzy, and one death from the endless falling platforms. I never died in the other levels.

It was cool to thread the needle between the Fuzzy enemies. I was surprised to realize that the Fuzzies were the only enemies in the entire level. I guess they're all you need! I also like that the player isn't locked out of getting all the Big Coins if they miss one of them, but instead it'll be harder to reach. An example would be the setup where the player has to jump high off of an endlessly falling platform. You can still get up there with a riskier Fuzzy spinjump.

SLOW AND STEADY: This one is cool too! I am not the biggest fan of autoscrollers, but it was satisfying to dodge around the lightning bolts and Super Koopas. The aesthetic of the dark, reddish forest background looks super good too.

This is going to sound nitpicky, but the level title feels unfitting, because playing this level slow and steady means you'll make things harder for yourself. The Sumo Bro. lightning is more difficult to dodge if you try to hang back, and it's better to get ahead of it.

SINKING SAND SEA: I think this was my favorite out of all the levels. The quicksand acts as a nice kick-in-the-butt to force the player to act quickly. The final run to the goal was really cool with the big chain of jumping sharks!

I thought the tiny floating jellyfish enemies were safe to jump on, but they'll hurt you unless you spinjump off of them, which confused me. I think their graphic should look spiky or something.

FEATHERWEIGHT FORT: I said "aw man!" when the level ended early. I want more! I did notice that slow-moving Thwomps are noticeably less threatening than the typical fast-falling Thwomp.

These have been some of the most fun standard levels I've played recently, and I played quite a few just this year. You have a mastery for level design that very few people in the community do, along with an eye for aesthetics that makes your levels really, really stand out. I'm so happy to see you back at this and I'm very excited to see it out, it's gonna be a big thing for sure. Good luck, and count on me to test your stuff whenever needed!

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Fantastic flow in the levels, there's never a boring moment. The aesthetics choices are on point. I felt unsatisfied...Because I want way more and your content is so amazingly well done, finishing it so fast made me wish for more. Keep up the good work.

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Thanks for the nice comments y'all! I'll be looking into how to better convey that the jellyfish can't be jumped on, as well as a more fitting name for the autoscroller level.

I'll likely have another showoff thread up next C3, and possibly another small 2-3 level sampler as well (still figuring out how much to show before the final release without spoiling too much lol), so see you there!