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(Discussion) 5th Annual SMWCentral Level Design Competition

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VLDCDiscussion

Originally posted by MrDeePay
Ideally, you should never need to come close to hitting the 75 screen limit in the confines of this contest.

You should if your level idea requires 8 copies of some sublevels.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Originally posted by imamelia
Originally posted by MrDeePay
Ideally, you should never need to come close to hitting the 75 screen limit in the confines of this contest.

You should if your level idea requires 8 copies of some sublevels.

I think MrDeePay's hidden subtext is you shouldn't ideally need a level with 8 copies of itself.

Could be wrong though.

As for the ExAnimation question, can't you load in GFX00-33 into the AN2 slot? I honestly don't know if you can or not.
You have to extract them and reinsert them in order to not have them all garbeled up...
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Originally posted by xlk
You have to extract them and reinsert them in order to not have them all garbeled up...

^. I don't think that really would be using ExGFX because ExGFX appears nowhere in my level, and the AN2 slot uses a GFX file between 00 and 33.
Originally posted by Alcaro
Originally posted by bbk61
Can I patch the Piranha plant stem?

Which part of "use of external, 3rd-party tools will result in immediate disqualification from the contest" did you skim over?

The only thing it does is turning the upside down piranha plant upside down... What a weird sentence but anyway is there a way that i can fix it in lunar magic?
Originally posted by bbk61
Originally posted by Alcaro
Originally posted by bbk61
Can I patch the Piranha plant stem?

Which part of "use of external, 3rd-party tools will result in immediate disqualification from the contest" did you skim over?

The only thing it does is turning the upside down piranha plant upside down... What a weird sentence but anyway is there a way that i can fix it in lunar magic?


Try this.

IGNORE! Uses 8x8 Editor.
Originally posted by MarioFan22
Originally posted by bbk61

The only thing it does is turning the upside down piranha plant upside down... What a weird sentence but anyway is there a way that i can fix it in lunar magic?


Try this.


No don't.

1) Using the graphic editing capabilities of the 8x8 editor is strictly against the rules of the contest, and
2) That doesn't fix the problem the patch fixes anyway
I don't think there is any other way you can fix the stem (apart from ExAnimation, but I'm not sure if that's allowed) so either forgo using it or use a jumping piranha instead.
What about this Tutorial?

It doesn't use the 8x8 Editor at all.
Originally posted by Iceguy
(apart from ExAnimation, but I'm not sure if that's allowed)

Why wouldn't it be allowed? It's somewhat of a loophole, all right, but I don't see why use of ExAnimation should be banned from the contest.
aran - Graces of Heaven
Originally posted by GN
Originally posted by Iceguy
(apart from ExAnimation, but I'm not sure if that's allowed)

Why wouldn't it be allowed? It's somewhat of a loophole, all right, but I don't see why use of ExAnimation should be banned from the contest.

I totally agree with that. The method using ExAnimation to fix the stem doesn't use anything besides LM, and, for the meaning of the entire ExAnimation usage, it is a different way to use original graphics more creative, which therefore can improve levels by more aesthetics (Or even level design in case they use a different tile for better understandance).
Now guys, just because you're allowed to make extremely long levels, that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Levels that are too long usually don't work, when they get redundant or are too difficult.
Violators will be prosecutedt to the full extent of the jam.
I suddely felt like giving the submitions for this competition some constructive feedbacks. I've submited my entry and got nothing to do on this boring sunday, so I'll start out with the 6 first submitions from FirePhoenix list.

Patgangster: Funkytown Survival


First impression was that this was gonna be quite hard, knowing you from TAS'es and Kaizos. The palette of this level is for me quite ironic, and its ok, but overall not that nice. This is also a autoscrolling level, and thats gonna cause many problems for this tight hallway.


Here is a functional issue. The thwimp got a non-linear pattern to jump in and he'll just find new random places to jump to. This isn't causing any huge problems, but it cause randomness and the player can't really trust it moves on other thwimps.


If I get this mushroom and go up in the 1-tile high space between the ?-blocks and the celling, glitches may happen.


Just a little nitpick. If you look at this pic you'll see it soon enough.

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Glitch.Mr: The Hack 3


This level was quite good. No real issues. The level design was quite decent and there wasn'tmuch puzzles and thinking. For me it felt like a 103 remix, and thats cool. The palettes was slightly changed, and that together with the land structure brought the 103 vibe in there.
Good level but nothing that really made me impressed.

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Mariosyoshishade: Luigi's Revenge


The first impression when I entered this level was the palettes. They were really depressing. Slightly color on some things and other were brown and grey. For this picture I'm gonna tell my oppinion on faces or other things made my land masses. So first, its quite creative and all, but the thing is, they really don't fit in any level (IMO). They just seem to bring this unseriousness into the hack, like the creator went bored and made some sculptures. If you want to include these, put them in a bonus room or somthing, thats my advice, bucause you got plenty of them in this level.


Just a little suggestion, never put a pipe like that under a passable ground tile. It just seems strange that mario can't pass it. If you wanna do this anyway, put a pipe-end tile on the botton too.


So, the checkpoint brings you all over the world when you die. This is just a nitpick, but it can be confusing for some players. No need to change tought since midway points is a pain to create. ALSO; Slowdown in the first pic with the chucks.


If I take the mushromm and jump inbetween the space by the celling and the ? blocks, I can glitch trought the wall. Always get 2 tiles of space between blocks and the celling to prevent this glitch.

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Roberto zampari: Orange Forest


Overall a decent level. The palettes was like the name of the level said and the level design was ok. Now in this pic, I'm nitpicking ALOT, but the midway point enterance after I died was so close to the midway point object, could you try to make it so mario start in the object instead of 3-4 tiles to the left, it'll look a lot more complete.


Now, this is also a nitpick, but the coins you've places here just seem so random, but that I mean the coin structure. I would go with lines or pattern of coins instead of something that looks like a H.


Here I tried to reach the top of the pipe by running for a long time, and it did work some times but the koopa killed my every time. Then I suddenly found this hidden ?-block. I mean, try to indicate that this block exsists, maybe by putting some coins around it.

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sunwarrior25: PMP Micro Mini GO


Cool OW bro. (Edit) Yea I know it doesn't count in the score, but I just tought it was worth mentioning


The level has been decent until this part. Here you place two ballons that the player need to get to progress in the level. one suggestion: Never place items that the player need in order to progress UNLESS you got a reset door. Here I could have missed both ballons and then I would need to fuck it up that turn.


This empty area of water was so unessesary just to get this 1 coin, at least thats the only thing I found.


Just reminding you that waterlevels shouldn't have a pit in the bottom, you can swim under it.

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Sokobansolver: Punishing Pothole


Got to say first that I like the gimmick of this level. That sprites can go trought these yellow bricks, but mario can't. I honestly don't know how you do that vanilla wise, I would like to know. Also, fair enough palettes.


When I come out of the bonus room I noticed that the yellow bricks where moved upwards like 2 pixels, and it stayed like that. Strange.


Slow down, remove some sprites.


Kinda tight just for big mario, make the thunnel more open.


This was just bloody hard. Make it more easy, maybe be removing a thwomp and make the thunnels more open.


This just reminds me of a kaizo trap altought its easy to acomplish.


Too tight again. I need to jump perfectly at that climbing koopa in order to progress and don't die.


Here is were I stopped playing. Its just too hard. You need to make it easier in this part of the level!

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So yea, I'll post more feedbacks when I get the time, I hope this helped some=)

Extras



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

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The Overworld does not factor into the scores of the entrants, so nitpicking that is a waste of time.

To me, it almost seems like cheating to me to receive feedback from users on contest levels before the judging period, but maybe not. ¯\(°_o)/¯
2nd screen (of my level): I noticed that too, but I thought 'oh well.'
3rd screen: Don't care
4th screen: You can run across those one tile wide gaps, so it is not too tight for big Mario, but where the pipe is, it might be.
5th: You must be playing the first version of the level (why do I still have that in my filebin?) and in the new version there is only one Thwomp there, so that part is taken care of.
6th: It is.
8th: I guess I could remove that statue at the very tippy top.
I'm not too sure about backseat judging.
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I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

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Originally posted by Sokobansolver

3rd screen: Don't care


What a wonderful thing to say in response to someone saying you have slowdown in your level.

Just wanted to say that Funkytown Survival was one of the most fun SMW levels I have played in a long time; the difficulty was just perfectly in the middle of that zone where it's hard enough to take a while to beat but not hard enough to be frustrating, and felt evenly distributed over the entire level (as opposed to being focused on just a few obstacles, which often tends to be the case). And good job on making a level using the slow autoscroll feel frantic :V

EDIT: Beat Punishing Pothole normal on my second attempt. :D Also a very fun level (and creative; I never thought of using layer 2 with sprite interaction disabled as solid-to-Mario blocks, and those little survival rooms are genius), although the slowdown in the first part is kind of crippling.
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I'm sorry, but I felt that Patganster's level is just hard and it certainly was not fun to me. Yours however was really enjoyable, ycz.
Originally posted by Sokobansolver
I'm not too sure about backseat judging.

Do you think I'm trying to bring your level down? I ain't judging the levels, I'm just giving you suggestions based on my view of level design.

But its ok, I can stop here talking about the levels if people want to... I just tought thats what people wanted, feedback.
No, I didn't think anyone was bringing me down. I just had some kind of feeling of discomfort that reminded me of backseat.
It's almost disorienting when two people with opposing viewpoints on my levels offer opposing points of criticism (I've been told that Punishing Pothole was frustrating and unfair, while I've had other people tell me it was fun and not that unfair.) This feeling of mixed messages is quite annoying, and I know I can't please everyone. Maybe something like this is why I kept the original in my filebin. Does that make things confusing if I have two versions of the same hack in my filebin?
If the slowdown is crippling, I guess it's easy enough to fix. I just wanted there to be eight Buzzy Beetles so you could have a free life, SMB1 style, but apparently it's better to get rid of at least one and rely on a glitch to get that life than to live with a little slowdown. Either that or maybe I could use FastROM? I think permission was given to use that.
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VLDCDiscussion

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