119: Radiatus Ruins - Ludus

Here the graphics in action :3

(BG is not Final)

This part of the level takes place inside a huge piece of a floating land, and will be made of various small rooms (about 9), from 1 to 5 Screens each, Each one have simple tasks, just 3 rooms will have a kind of puzzle, that will need a small ASM help, but i can work around that until i have the asm (That i still didn't requested) - The puzzle will be made of On/Off block, P-switches, and springboards, but they will be used right after you get them. the new thing is, those itens will be behind a block that can only vanish with a bomb, and when the player get the bomb, he will need to fuse it using fire (Fire Flower will not work). Those rooms will be short, and there is a midpoint right at the start of this part, will talk more about it later.

I'm going to be honest. This level is great! I could definitely feel some aspects of your level design were similar to the Cave of Lost Pride from SMWCP1... except you trimmed out everything that was bad about that level; a very good thing in my opinion. There were a lot of paths to explore in this level and overall, it felt very detailed and well-designed.

However, I do have my nitpicks with this level.



Maybe it's just me, but whenever I see foreground objects sticking out from the lower end of my screen like this, I assume there is ground there... which there wasn't in this case, because I fell to my death. Considering you use these pillars on the land throughout your level, I think this usage of pillars might send the wrong message to players.



I think a ceiling generator would deter players from trying to jump over this wall and off the screen with the springboard (leading to a blind drop afterwards).



What if I wanted to get back up because I didn't take the springboard? It's quite tricky to get the momentum needed to climb back up there. That or I have to wait for a Spiny to drop down (assuming the Lakitu is still alive).

I wasn't sure what to think of this level, having not seen much of it since you claimed it months ago. It was definitely worth the wait though!

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I quite enjoyed this level, however, there are two things that rather irk me design-wise.

First, your tile's acts like settings:

I know this isn't the best screenshot to showcase what I mean, but I noticed that you typically have two types of ceilings: y-flipped ground tiles (Mario's left) and then the floating isle rounded ground (above Mario). To me, it felt very weird, and more importantly, very constricting that the rounded ground acts like tile 130. The entire level, I kept expecting it to act like tile 25 with the ground ledge acting like 100, thus being able to jump through those types of tiles, while you would use the y-flipped ground ledge as type 130 ceilings. Given how narrow some of the corridors are, it really bothered me that I continually bonked my head on what I imagined would be...well, ceiling-less. I know to change such a thing would be a pretty heavy undertaking and quite possibly distort much of your architecture, so likely it's not worth looking into if time is of the essence. But at the same time, I can't help but feel that the graphics are highly misleading regarding the acts like setting. And really, it's probably just me since neither Axem, SNN nor GeminiRage were bothered by this.

My other gripe is over the "water" clouds. While I like the "quicksand" clouds, the "water" clouds feel...unnatural? I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. There was just something about swimming in said objects that felt a bit off. But again, hasn't really been a big concern among others and I know any changes would equate to some possibly heavy overhauling in spots, so take my concerns with a grain of salt.

Otherwise, as I said, I really like this level and just love the graphics. But then, your graphics have always astounded. And not only that, but you've managed to pull off the complexity or at least feeling of multiple paths even when there isn't multiple paths. The level has this real exploratory factor throughout and is done very well.

I'm confused as to why people are iffy on the water/quicksand clouds. I think they're a relatively nice touch, honestly - they don't seem that off to me.

Also, I checked Lunar Magic and I couldn't find anything that could be causing that sprite to appear in the top left corner. My suggestion at this point would be to simply cover the top left side of that screen with some of your foreground tiles. At the very least, it'll cover up the sprite so it can't be seen in-game.

Other than that, it looks like everything else has been addressed. The only issue I noticed is that the flashing shell once again refused to spawn for me the first time. I'm not really sure what to tell you, honestly, but I know I'm not the only one who has run into this issue. Perhaps you could try relocating it a bit .. or something?

There are three other things I need to know here:

-A level name. I didn't see you post one in the thread, but now would be a good time to come up with one. I would assume you'd want to incorporate the world "Isles" or "Ruins" into it, or something. Don't forget the alliteration and/or rhyme as well.
-Which music you'll be using for the level. Given the nature of the level, I'd recommend this for the main two areas and this this for the secret area. Of course, you can pick whatever you want, but these are my two personal recommendations.
-Also, a background. Do you plan on drawing one? I know you did for your other level in SMWCP, so I'm assuming you might here as well. A simple background with clouds would work, but if you want to get "fancy", by all means go ahead.

I think for me it was another case of the graphics and acts like settings don't quite fit hand in glove. I think if the clouds were more "billowy," enough to fully envelope big Mario's body, I'd likely find no issue with it.

"Radiatus Ruins" is actually really good. If you like it, I think it would certainly fit.

As for the song .. yeah, you can pick it whenever you're done. It's not really important at the moment. You can send your level and stuff tomorrow (or at any point before the deadline).

Okay, so I'm going to mark this one as completed. I'm also going to assume you're sticking with the name "Radiatus Ruins" (though let me know if this changes). Furthermore, I'll be throwing a placeholder track into your level until you send me a background, and then you can change it to whatever. Any further updates from you can be posted in the S and V thread.

Thanks!

Seriously someone needs to fix this up and give it a background.

"hey blind when will you stop flooding smwcp2 forums?"
Maybe when we release the hack? lol

Alright. So, this level was fine for the most part, but for some reason, in the old base ROM, the secret exit sublevel was inaccessible. After discussing whether or not we should keep the secret exit, we agreed we should keep, so I made it accessible again. Apart from that, it's got a new BG, which is the same one I drew for Aerotastic Assault and the outside portion of Dangling Danger.

Well, have some pics, and a gif showing how to get to the secret exit area.

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