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138: Honeydew Hills - Magi

Complete

Well, thanks S.N.N, the lack of difficulty was to avoid excessive slowdown and unfairness. Also, you can enter the pipe that Venus Fire Trap is hiding in.

Still waiting for more feedback.

EDIT:
Slight update:
awesomest file bin ever

This one is mostly showing the BG, I also added more enemies. Due to sprite number limitations, most bells have an item block next to them. Also, the sky color is like that to make the stars look less weird (I think they won't look much weird with the gradient added in).


Dur let's jump to where that arrow points to!

Bawwww



I thought this wall would be walk-through because it's darker and felt like it would be, but it isn't, and it's great that I learned that above a pair of munchers.



ok wat
why is there a podoboo in the water



Dur there's a SMWC Coin!

ono


The whole level was ridden with sprite lag, which made several parts of it impossibly hard (for me at least), and some rather random (which kind of fits the level I guess) enemies like the Podoboo and the sudden Frostees (which I could have expected on the ice I guess) were a real pain in the ass with all the slowdown.

Am adoring the aesthetics, especially the background (some of the stars in the clouds have a different shade of grey, though, you might want to fix that), and the general level design looks solid enough (even though I died a lot, but that may just be because the bells don't work yet and I'm a horrible player), although you really could cut down on the muncher usage (and the three or so cement blocks made me sad, too, I'm sure you can find an alternative for those).
Your layout has been removed.
This level's riddled with blind jumps, Big Mario Discrimination, and munchers. It's certainly difficult in places, but for all the wrong reasons.

First off, where left/right ledges are concerned, solid ones continue the surface pattern and nonsolid ones just have a black outline. Your level doesn't do that, and it should. And as leod mentioned, the price of discovering that inconsistency shouldn't be getting hit or dying.

Second, do you really expect players to memorize everything in that message box? It'd probably be better to introduce the bells organically, and early on. Not to mention your choice of color for fire flowers and capes doesn't seem right...

Third, while I really like the visual style here, some of the facial expressions push things a bit far for me in that it leaves the realm of a Mario game. The "O" in the "GO AHEAD" sign comes to mind, but also the open-mouthed grins on the green FG hills and the smiles on the blue ones.

Fourth, every last one of those stationary hammer bros. discriminates against Big Mario. Not to mention their hammers despawn if the screen's too low.



Screen by screen:

138

0: Blind drop #1. The only safe method is to predict where the goomba will be, and if players jump forward they might land on that muncher. Not a great way to start the stage.

1: Not very fond of needing to find an invisible block here, though I guess that's just me.

2: Nintendo put these guys on platforms for a reason. There's no avenue of attack here without a shell or fire flower, and as Big Mario you're bound to get hit. Not to mention as soon as you jump past it there's blind drop #2 waiting for you.

3: Why place a message box exactly where players might jump to avoid enemies? Hitting it unwittingly could cause death from below thanks to the delay.

4: You're introducing the bounce cloud over a pit?

7: What is this muncher doing here?

8: Adding to what leod pointed out, this jump is ridiculous even if you know it's there, and yes, that arrow should not shepherd players to their doom. It's basically blind drop #3.

9: Players will have no idea what to expect here the first time around, since they'll be focused on bouncing on the koopa and moving forward at full speed to reach the next platform, which might unwittingly make them get hit by the piranha plant...so I find this setup questionable.

C, bottom: You can still reach the smwcoin without Yoshi.

D: Blind drop #4, especially because of the spiny.

D/E: The fireballs make it completely unclear where it's safe to go.

F: Getting the midpoint involves dropping into a pit of enemies. Why?

11/12: This setup is patently ridiculous. There's too much going on, and players won't be used to such precision on bounce clouds of all things. The ceiling munchers make things even worse.

12-13: Kind of a weak lull compared to other parts of the level. Pretty much no threats apart from the bullet generator. 14 isn't much better.

15: No incentive to get that coin.

15/16: Kind of blind.


1CA
Not sure how I feel about making players bounce on the bullet bill to continue after all the work involved in feeding the baby Yoshi.

1C6 (Took a look at this in Lunar Magic)
1: The hammer bro. setup looks ridiculous.

3: The second smwcoin to require Yoshi (and another blind drop). I hope the third one is different.


...is it just me, or is there a lack of powerups in this level too? Not that a mushroom would be of much use beyond bribing the hammer bros.
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First to respond: Leod:
Originally posted by leod
Dur let's jump to where that arrow points to!

Sorry, already fixed that.
Originally posted by leod
I thought this wall would be walk-through because it's darker and felt like it would be, but it isn't, and it's great that I learned that above a pair of munchers.

Kind of obvious that wall isn't pass through, I won't do anything about that, sorry.
Originally posted by leod
ok wat
why is there a podoboo in the water

Dude, it's an SMWC MARIO game/hack, in an ABSTRACT world, and a level made by ME, nonsense should be considered the most natural thing here, seriously.
Originally posted by leod
Dur there's a SMWC Coin!

That wasn't really supposed to happen, but I fixed that already.

Now AxemJinx:

Originally posted by axem
This level's riddled with blind jumps

nope.
Originally posted by axem
Big Mario Discrimination

nope, really.
Originally posted by axem
and munchers

yeah quite.
Originally posted by axem
First off, where left/right ledges are concerned, solid ones continue the surface pattern and nonsolid ones just have a black outline. Your level doesn't do that, and it should. And as leod mentioned, the price of discovering that inconsistency shouldn't be getting hit or dying.

wait, what? My level doesn't do that and it SHOULDN'T.
Originally posted by axem
some of the facial expressions push things a bit far for me in that it leaves the realm of a Mario game. The "O" in the "GO AHEAD" sign comes to mind, but also the open-mouthed grins on the green FG hills and the smiles on the blue ones.

Nope.avi this complaint is just pointless.
Originally posted by axem
Fourth, every last one of those stationary hammer bros. discriminates against Big Mario. Not to mention their hammers despawn if the screen's too low.

Removed.

Originally posted by axem
Blind drop #1 blah blah blah

Fixed.
Originally posted by axem
1: Not very fond of needing to find an invisible block here, though I guess that's just me.

Fixed
Originally posted by axem
2: Nintendo put these guys on platforms for a reason. There's no avenue of attack here without a shell or fire flower, and as Big Mario you're bound to get hit. Not to mention as soon as you jump past it there's blind drop #2 waiting for you.

Then why are them in the ROM anyway? This is just pointless. And they aren't supposed to be easy to pass through. Blind drop #2 fixed anyway.
Originally posted by axem
Why place a message box exactly where players might jump to avoid enemies? Hitting it unwittingly could cause death from below thanks to the delay.

Fixed(?)
Originally posted by axem
You're introducing the bounce cloud over a pit?

Oh, so you want me to put the clouds right above the ground?(And there's no other way to introduce them).
Originally posted by axem
8: blah

Fixed.
Originally posted by axem
Players will have no idea what to expect here the first time around, since they'll be focused on bouncing on the koopa and moving forward at full speed to reach the next platform, which might unwittingly make them get hit by the piranha plant...so I find this setup questionable.

World 9 = hard, and the player might have a lot more skill after having to get EVERY SMWC coin to access World 9 anyway.
Originally posted by axem
C, bottom: You can still reach the smwcoin without Yoshi.

As I said earlier and you clearly paid no attention, Yoshi is supposed to make it !!!EASIER!!!
Originally posted by axem
Blind drop #4, especially because of the spiny.

Not likely to be fixed.
Originally posted by axem
Getting the midpoint involves dropping into a pit of enemies. Why?

Because that's screen 0xF and it's the farest[?] midway entrances can go. Then again, it's world 9.
Originally posted by axem
11/12: This setup is patently ridiculous. There's too much going on, and players won't be used to such precision on bounce clouds of all things. The ceiling munchers make things even worse.

World 9 = it's hard but the player will enough skill to pass this part at this point.
Originally posted by axem
12-13: Kind of a weak lull compared to other parts of the level. Pretty much no threats apart from the bullet generator. 14 isn't much better.

Fine, first you say there's a bunch of things, and now you say it needs more... please, make up your mind. Also, the 84 sprite limit is to be blamed.
Originally posted by axem
15: No incentive to get that coin.

Because there isn't any.
Originally posted by axem
15/16: Kind of blind.

not quite
Originally posted by axem
Not sure how I feel about making players bounce on the bullet bill to continue after all the work involved in feeding the baby Yoshi.

Feel indifferent, and feed a baby Yoshi isn't that much of work.
Originally posted by axem
1: The hammer bro. setup looks ridiculous.

[spartan says] THIS. IS. WORLD 9!
Originally posted by axem
The second smwcoin to require Yoshi (and another blind drop).

No, it's the firs and only SMWC coin to require Yoshi because as I already said, Yoshi is supposed to make the 2nd SMWC coin EASIER. And that wasn't supposed to be a blind drop (damn camera), but I fixed it regardless.
Originally posted by axem
lack of powerups

This is what the bells are for, smartass, but they don't work yet (read: leod's post).

Phew, tired of quoting posts, anyway, I'll upload an IPS soon, but first, I'll make "Euphoric Eminence ~AxemJinx Special Edition~".

Wow, what's with the assholeish response there Magiluigi? What a shitty attitude, especially calling him a "smartass" in response. He offered some genuine criticism, and a lot of it is quite valid. Come to think of it, the only thing I really disagree with is the Hammer Bros. being discriminating against Big Mario (since I had no issue dodging them).

You gotta be prepared to accept criticism. It'll benefit the level and everyone who plays it in the end, so don't take it personally (which it seems like you did).

(and technically, you can't say something "isn't really blind". It's your level - none of it is blind to you. Come on now.)
Yeah, sorry, it's mostly because most (in my opinion) of his complaints were... pointless.

Anyway, new IPS.
link
yay (isn't capsed because I'm not in the mood, as such, I'm typing with onli one hand) *sigh*

EDIT: Yoshi's interaction with the balloons is pretty messy, someone might want to fix that.

Alright, now I'm starting to agree with AxemJinx on the Hammer Bros. after all. They're used fine in the main portion, but in that last cave part, things kind of go downhill.


Move the platform Mario (and his starting position) is on up one tile to prevent that minor camera jerk at the start.


Now this is a blind jump. It can be easily fixed by raising the platform below by a bit so the player can see what is going on down there.


Above is another blind spot that I mentioned before. This can once again be fixed by having the player spring up to a safe ledge and THEN have them jump up to the ledge with enemies.


This is by far the most aggravating jump in this level. Don't use the argument "but it's world 9" here. It's supposed to be hard, sure, but not completely ridiculous.

In fact, on a small side note, it might be interesting if you made the player have to swim under the falling hammers in certain parts here. At the very least, it would be a different take on the Hammer Bros. themselves.

Other than that, I still think this is an enjoyable level once you sort some stuff out.
Done what you said, S.N.N. just download it from the link in my previous post.


So I, like, die when hitting this fish here, right.

However the chap right to its side departs whilst descending my buttocks upon its fishy skull!



Hi I'm a Lakitu and as soon as my garden is full of Spinies, I throw thin air and slow the whole game down!
This could be fixed by putting a little whole where the Spinies can run off to and die somewhere there.



Is this Muncher here really necessary?
It makes this whole thing to a precision jumping act, especially when I don't kill the Hammer Bro beforehand.



I laughed a little at how you gave it a stationary platform, but as SNN said, the jump itself is absolutely horrific.



I don't know if you need to worry about this, but a part of the colours doesn't fade away and the Mario palette is all ew ew.



Oh no, the Yoshi fell through the slope! (Global problem, I know, but it happened to me a lot in here.)


Originally posted by Magiluigi
Kind of obvious that wall isn't pass through, I won't do anything about that, sorry.

As you may have seen, it's not obvious at all, and is removing those munchers really a big deal for you?

Originally posted by Magiluigi
Oh, so you want me to put the clouds right above the ground?(And there's no other way to introduce them).

Yes, exactly.
Your layout has been removed.
Removed random fishy, and muncher(s). I'm also putting a little hole where that Lakitu is (right at the left side of his pipe).

As a random side note:
Originally posted by leod
Hi I'm a Lakitu and as soon as my garden is full of Spinies, I throw thin air and slow the whole game down!

I lol'd.

EDIT: New ver.
bin-ny file bin.
The jump on the first bouncy cloud is now safer (too).


The blocks there look funky, but there's not much you can do I suppose.



Yoshi doesn't agree with these balloons at all, he spazzes around quite a lot, although it seems to be purely graphical, so I don't know what to do.


Other than that, the level is pretty much perfect now in my opinion, other than little bits of sprite lag everywhere that FastROM hopefully will be able to fix for the most part.
Your layout has been removed.

Extras



I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

Advertising Space

Originally posted by Magiluigi
*response to Axem*




This is a person who has posted far more useful, reliable, detailed, and just plain informative feedback to countless levels (both passed and failed) for at least four months and that's how you respond to him? If anyone, I think you should be taking Axem's feedback the most seriously; yes, I'd even go out and say even more than SNN's. Blowing his so-called "pointless" comments off like that was not cool and I honestly have the nerve to refuse to playtest your level version because of it.

Yeah, I think he gets it now (or at least, I hope so). No sense in beating the dead horse at this point.

I have two more complaints that I found this time around:


I just realized this now because my monitor sort of sucks, but .. look at the red and green (and perhaps other) stars in the background. Notice how there is a square of white behind them that is a different shade than the rest of the cloud?


This is directly after the second SMWC coin, and it is also a blind jump. Unless you put some coins leading downwards or something, the player will have no idea what is down there.
Originally posted by leod
complaints
Yeah... unfortunately, I can't do much about those :/

Originally posted by S.N.N.
complaint #1

Fixed (I think).
Originally posted by S.N.N.
complaint #2

Fixed.

Originally posted by MrDeePay
thingies

*sighs deeply in order to "talk" calmly*
Fine, sorry, what annoyed me was that some of his appointments (again, in my opinion) didn't make sense, BUT, if you look at that post again, I fixed some of the issues he mentioned without complaints, so... yeah...

Originally posted by MrDeePay
I honestly have the nerve to refuse to playtest your level version because of it.


I'm pretty fine with that, to the point that I don't really mind about it '-'.

To clarify, the way SMW normally differentiates between solid and nonsolid edges is by having a black outline for nonsolid ones and a border pattern for solid ones. Your level breaks that trend, and it seemed inconsistent to me, is all. Considering that both leod and I died right after discovering that an edge we expected to be nonsolid was actually solid, I thought it might be something worth looking into.

I guess I skipped over your comment about Yoshi just making things easier for the first smwcoin while I was skimming through earlier posts- sorry about that.

I know the bells are supposed to replace powerups- I was wondering whether there should be more of them, is all. Especially the coin ones- it might just be me, but they seemed rather sparse.

Hope that clears things up a bit.


Anyway, is there a reason the level starts such that Mario can't see what's ahead? Personally, I'd rather have the camera (and Mario) start lower, but maybe that's just me.

Also, did you make the first hammer bro encounter harder? I don't remember seeing that muncher or winged goomba before, and feel like you should save stuff like that for later on and keep the first hammer bro setup simple.

Speaking of the hammer bros., is there some sort of trick to dealing with them as Big Mario that I'm missing? I can't seem to wrap my head around that, and S.N.N.'s comment that he had no trouble with them left me wondering...


Anyway, Magluigi, keep in mind that I'm just trying to help. I don't expect you to worship my feedback, but it would be considerate of you to at least think about the comments I make and why I make them rather than passing them off as the ravings of a lunatic. Also:

Originally posted by Magiluigi
I'm pretty fine with that, to the point that I don't really mind about it '-'.

I think you should mind, again because playtesters are only trying to help you improve.

Anyway, that's as much as I'll say on the subject- good luck while you polish the level.
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Originally posted by axem
I know the bells are supposed to replace powerups- I was wondering whether there should be more of them, is all. Especially the coin ones- it might just be me, but they seemed rather sparse.


I now added 1 more mushroom bell, and I dind't put too much coin bells because they're [supposed to be] worth 5 coins...

Originally posted by axem
Anyway, is there a reason the level starts such that Mario can't see what's ahead? Personally, I'd rather have the camera (and Mario) start lower, but maybe that's just me.

It's because of the midway point (the position Mario starts at the midway entrance is the same as the level entrance), I don't really like that too but...

Originally posted by axem
Also, did you make the first hammer bro encounter harder? I don't remember seeing that muncher or winged goomba before, and feel like you should save stuff like that for later on and keep the first hammer bro setup simple.

I removed the muncher, but kept the Paragoomba, because you can use it to hit the Hammer Bro.

Originally posted by axem
Speaking of the hammer bros., is there some sort of trick to dealing with them as Big Mario that I'm missing? I can't seem to wrap my head around that, and S.N.N.'s comment that he had no trouble with them left me wondering...


I mostly always deal with them a different way, most players do find some tricks for themselves to escape of enemies/traps, so you may find your own... I hope so at least :|

Originally posted by axem
Anyway, Magluigi, keep in mind that I'm just trying to help. I don't expect you to worship my feedback, but it would be considerate of you to at least think about the comments I make and why I make them rather than passing them off as the ravings of a lunatic. Also:


Yeah, I know my response sounded harsh... sorry about that.



~Currently polishing the level~

Originally posted by Magiluigi
It's because of the midway point (the position Mario starts at the midway entrance is the same as the level entrance), I don't really like that too but...

You actually don't need to worry about that, the multi midway points patch allows you to place midpoints where ever you want, regardless of the starting position.

Originally posted by Magiluigi
Yeah... unfortunately, I can't do much about those :/

Yeah I know, wanted to point it out anyway, for the sake of being able to say that we catched everything.

Originally posted by S.N.N.
I just realized this now because my monitor sort of sucks, but .. look at the red and green (and perhaps other) stars in the background. Notice how there is a square of white behind them that is a different shade than the rest of the cloud?

I pointed that out earlier :'(

Originally posted by axem
Speaking of the hammer bros., is there some sort of trick to dealing with them as Big Mario that I'm missing? I can't seem to wrap my head around that, and S.N.N.'s comment that he had no trouble with them left me wondering...

Stand right next to them, so that the hammers arch over your head and time your jump, or just throw shit at them (there's plenty around everywhere).
They are really quite easy to deal with, I'd even call them easier than SMW's Hammer Bros that fly around and are impossible to predict.
Your layout has been removed.
Well, new version is up:
can i has file bin?

I tried to fix the funky blocks... but it didn't work quite well, see it by yourself.

Pretty much all our complaints are sorted out now, I think, now all there is left to do is get the hdma in, get someone to code the bells (shouldn't be hard), and get rid of the bigger slowdowns.

Speaking of which:

Removing one of the two elite goombas here should solve the slowdown in this area, and having two of them isn't really necessary, as the second one is really easy to kill by using the bounce after killing the first one (and they are on a lower level anyway).


Removing the shellless blue Koopa in the secret cave would fix the slowdown here too, which occurs if you bring both Frostees here.


The slowdown that CAN occur here when you get the two cannons to shoot Bills and don't kill any Koopa (and get rid of the shell, which is unlikely) should actually be resolvable by FastROM, and I have no idea why I took a screenie for that.


However the area RIGHT next to it is so crippled with slowdown that it becomes nearly unplayable.
Is it really necessary to put a Koopa on nearly every cloud below and TWO breaking blocks?
Removing just two of the sprites in this area seems to do the trick.


This splitting Chuck is causing tons of slowdown, to the point where the third Chuck sometimes doesn't even spawn due to sprite overload, so changing it to a type of Chuck that doesn't produce any sprites would maybe help.

I know removing so much stuff is not really what you want to do, and maybe it's not all necessary once FastROM is in (the fourth and sixth definitely will need a fix from you, though), but it just really bogs the level down.

The issue you're having with the grey block animation stuff can be solved by disabling the game's original animations for that level and re-animating everything you need manually, with ExAnimation (Turnblocks and Munchers basically).
Nice idea for fixing it though.
Your layout has been removed.
I must say, I absolutely love the music and graphics, and both are quite fitting for the level.

As leod said, there aren't many issues with the level anymore, aside from some slowdown. However, one thing I'd like to point out:


This jump gets very ridiculous at times because of the combination of the Spike Tops and the Hammer Bro. The swoopers aren't a major problem, but it take a lot of effort just to get past this area. I highly doubt this is going to be TOO much of a problem, but I just felt I'd point that out.

Other than that and the few things Leod pointed out, the level's perfect. (Although the level fade is a little weird.)
Want to see some of my cool swords? Well, too bad, right now you only get to see one of them, and it's my avatar. Might set up some kind of gallery/portfolio at some point, though.

Complete