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Overworlds

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How important is an OW to you? Due to the no OW patch, we can easily drop the OW from our hacks. Is that good or bad? Is designing an OW fun for you, or is it the worst part of hacking?

I'm just thinking of all of the guides on how to make levels and the like, we often forget the challenge of making a OW. I figured I'd ask the community for their opinion on whether it's a necessity or not.
Overworlds are a nice touch to every SMW hack that's more of a regular gameplay style rather than something totally different... a game with a different purpose.

Removing the OW is something extremely cool when used wisely. The problem is when, for example, a hacker make regular levels with the plain same SMW gameplay experience with nothing special about it. It totally breaks the expectations of any player.

So yeah. Really depends on the case. I'd say, go for it and banish overworlds if you're wanting to make something a la Super Metroid. But if you're going to do plain regular levels, I'd definitely suggest trying to make OWs.
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User: Hinalyte / ID: 1553 ~ loading kotori.css
Overworlds are important on SMW Hacks. Designing an overworld is fun and challenging, and it needs good practice to make a nice-looking overworld.

Overworlds are necessary on a Mario game, as it plays a good role, specially when your hack is RPG-like (roaming somewhere/finding something).
Designing overworlds has always been a tedious and unenjoyable process for me. Setting up all the correct perspectives and making it look pretty can be challenging, but my overworlds always end up looking like ass. For me, it just takes too much time away from what I really want to be doing, which is designing levels. That's why I've typically had others design the overworlds for me.

As for how important it is to me when playing hacks, I don't care about it that much, but if it looks shitty, it makes the hack look less professional.
I've always had tons of fun with the OW and I've considered it important enough for the surroundings of a level in the map to match the level's atmosphere as good as possible. Also good OWs are really pleasant to look at.


Though the OW of my current hack needs some touchs to be redone...
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I love making OWs, it is so fun to do! Sometimes, if I am bored with making levels, I will go and make a couple of random Overworlds just for fun. The funny thing is, for my 5th(or so) re-try of a hack, I am using my very first OW haha, but of course it has been touched up to rid of mistakes.

But yeah, I wouldn't say that Overworlds are important exactly, because of like Egadd said, the no OW Patch. But still, it is what gives me inspiration to keep making levels, to fill up the OW with complete levels! #w{=D}

At most I can make a decent overworld, not really anything wow status so it is kind of frustrating for me. It is sort of fun though, to place the levels and design the overworld around the levels I've created but that's the only fun part about it for me. Constantly question myself rather it looks good or not and starting over isn't very fun for me. I would take out the overworld if there was an option to revisit already passed levels and unlock levels by finding secret exits. (Never disabled the overworld so I wouldn't know.) But without the overworld, it kind of takes the exploring away, which would be bad for my current hack since there's quite a lot to explore.

As for how important do I think an overworld is? I personally don't find it that important but that doesn't mean people shouldn't at least put effort into making one. Rather it's great or decent I can at least appreciate effort. If the overworld served more purpose other then just traveling from level to level (Like RPG Overworlds.) then I'd consider them more important but you probably don't even spend a minute on the overworld. (At least I don't.)
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Overworlds are Really Important to me, actually I'm not the best (too obviously) but everytime I try to do one decent, is a bit frustrating, but is cool, and sometimes I judge the hack for the Overworld, if the overworld have a great design, I guess the level design of the levels are great, and I'm not a fan of hacks without OWs (expect if the hack is a remake of some Nintendo Game without OW). Anyway, is that my opinion.
I'm actually terrible at making OWs, but I know it's so important to me in a SMW hack because it adds a final touch to it.
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Overworlds are a great feature to have since it'd be more than just a text-based level selection screen. However, the construction of it, especially with mapping out the perspectives, making events, and linking levels to the goals, Lunar Magic could be able to make the process more automated. But still, I've always respected the overworlds in Mario games.
Sketching out overworlds is usually one of the first things I do when I create a hack. I love designing them! My concepts look great; it's getting the real thing to look like them that's such a tall order.
I'll be honest--I've put off learning OW design as long as I can and focused on levels. Sooner or later though, I'd better get off my duff and make some OWs...
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An overworld is nice, especially if it's well designed, and the hack has secret exits. If the game is going to be something like, say, a mini hack, which has no real reason to have secret exits, then I don't mind whether there is no overworld or not.

- BlackMageMario
Fuck Mario World's OW. Mario moves at the speed of a turtle, every time you die you get booted back to it so the level reloads and AAARRRRGGGHHHH

I think it'd be cool to have a level select menu, etc. Yoshi's Island, but I don't know how plausable that is.
The speed can be changed, you know.

Also, yeah, overworlds are nice to have. The provide useful info on a level's environment and contribute to the atmosphere it gives off.


 
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg


True, but...um...I have no come back.

Another thing I despise is quicker navagation being a "reward". A great example is the Super Mario World star road. It's really stupid.
Originally posted by Error 52
Another thing I despise is quicker navagation being a "reward". A great example is the Super Mario World star road. It's really stupid.


Wait... what? Mario only moves faster in the star world, due to only (well mostly) diagonal pathways. For some reason he moves faster on diagonal paths??

I think he means when it's easier to visit other worlds (which is what Star World provides), rather than go level-to-level, as a reward.
Originally posted by Ladida
I think he means when it's easier to visit other worlds (which is what Star World provides), rather than go level-to-level, as a reward.


Ahh, I see. Teleporting to different worlds and such. Hah, way for me to read something wrong #w{=D}

In my opinion, the overworld was a well made illusion to make the player feel more immersed in the game, to make them admire the size of the real world the game had to offer despite it's limited resources. But don't think I'm bashing overworlds however; overworlds are a hell of an illusion, but they're most innovative for the interesting aspects of exploration they offer, aspects that which I myself enjoy exploring the boundaries of.

Heading straight from level to level would be too synthetic and utilitarian; like a conveyor belt. A level select screen is slightly better but still omits the level of creativity desired in a Mario game. So the overworld is a healthier alternative; not only is it organized and simple, but it offers an organic sense of exploration and abstractness and assymetry to the game that can be bent flexibly to the player's desired paths and decisions. That and it's genuineness of exploration intensifies the experience as a whole, including the individual levels.

Think about it, wouldn't you be more inclined to search for a secret exit if you had an entire overworld to explore, as opposed to if you simply unlocked an extra name to pick on a level select screen?

Something innovative I haven't seen done too often is taking the exploration of the overworld to an even less linear extent by taking out secret exits entirely, but without omitting extra exits. If in every other level you had two paths of equal difficulty but with somewhat different gimmicks and drastically different layouts, each leading to a different exit on the overworld, that would give the player much more room to inquire on which direction from there they want to take. But one path would not be any more beneficial than the other, so the decision is made on the player's part from the very start, as to not be limited or biased by the game developers' discretion.

Some people just see the overworld as a compass, a guide for the player and nothing more, nothing less, which is a shame considering how creative and architectural one can become when dreaming the world and designing the intertwining, sideways, slantways, longways backways, squareways and front ways paths to go along with it.
Hmm. . . not sure what to say so I'll just stop talking. . .

I am quite the oppisite of it's story. I don't like making levels that much instead I prever to just make overworlds. If I every get the chance to be part of a team hack I would love to create a sub-map/overworld. I seem to do not have talent for levels that much. Still, an overworld gives you an idea of what is coming next, so I personaly think it's importnant.

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