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[REMOVED] "Mario: Journey to the Mushroom Kingdom: King Boo's Revenge Episode 1" by HackerOfTheLegend and MercuryPenny

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ATTENTION PLAYERS: A REVISION HAS BEEN UPLOADED TO MEDIA.SMWCENTRAL.NET AT 15:24 EST.

A SECOND REVISION HAS BEEN UPLOADED TO MEDIA.SMWCENTRAL.NET AT 16:02 EST. PLEASE BASE YOUR REVIEW ON THIS VERSION. THANK YOU. CRUISE CONTROL 4 LYFE.
Quote
File Name: Mario - JTTMK2 - King Boo's Revenge Episode 1 - Demo
Submitted: 2014.01.03 ~ 12:49:29 by HackerOfTheLegend
Claimed: 2014.01.03 ~ 13:20:34 by Counterfeit
Rating: Banana
Authors: HackerOfTheLegend, MercuryPenny
Demo: Yes
Length: 10 levels
Difficulty: Normal
Description: This is the official demo of Journey to the Mushroom Kingdom 2 - King Boo's Revenge. Unlike its predecessor, which focused way more on patches, graphics, music, etc, instead of level design, this hack does have all of that, but with a ton more focus on the level design. Keep in mind that since this is a demo, the levels, cutscenes, story, and the overworld are subject to change. And lastly, PLEASE be sure to read the included "READ THIS!", for some very important information. Also, please be sure to take note of any possible bugs. This is my first attempt at using minor forms of HDMA, so I want to make sure that turns out well. Well, with that said, enjoy the demo!
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Download: Download - 538.22 KiB
6 downloads
Submission Notes: The big thing in the "READ THIS!" is that I put a "mature" content warning in there, so I wanted people to read it, just in case. Like the submission page said, you don't want younger users exposed to that. However, I don't think it should be that big of a deal, since it's just one word; "
dammit
". But that's just me.
Before the title screen, there is a red HDMA gradient which flickers a lot on snes9x and it takes a while to get past it. The title screen features a level that Mario plays front to end, problem-free. New things, such as cookies, screen-scrolling pipes, and custom music have been added. The intro level shows Peach's castle and a brand new style of message which reads the story exposition.

The first submap is a bright green, tree-filled valley between high mountains. Perspectives seem to be correct. The coastline is very straight. A different HDMA effect from the normal one takes place when entering levels.

Yoshi's House, the starting point, is virtually untouched, apart from the message appearing in the modernized box. Nothing wrong here.

Rabid Red Rampage is a short level with a new type of Rex, which stops briefly then charges onward. Yoshi makes an appearance. The level ends in a Star run. The level isn't remarkable, terrain-wise, but it gets the job done of easing the player into the game.

Toad Town is exactly what it says on the tin. More plot stuff happens here. In Toad and Mario's exchange, though, I think that the layout is kind of confusing because the speaker changes mid-line. There was a rogue 0 left at the end of a sentence in the first copy I played; I admitably didn't watch the text in the next two revisions. Every Toad I talk to also says, "This is a ghost house. Can you find the exit? Hee, hee, hee... don't get lost!"

Short But Beachy takes a drastic change in visual style from the previous levels. I managed to walk through the top left corner of the ground in the first "staircase" and die, and the tile looks exactly the same as the solid ones, so I'm guessing this was a mistake. Most of the Hammer Brothers were placed effectively, but a couple were way out of the way.

Spiritual Forest has potential to be an interesting level focused on Zinger use, but is awfully short-lived. The area where you're required to spin-jump across Zingers over a pit is the highlight of the level's creativity. The rest didn't shine so much.

#1 Grezz's Fortress has Tower of Bab-Il music, which is impeccably catchy, BUT there is no silence at the start of the song to let the echo buffer clear out so you have a scratchy noise at the beginning. #ab{:[} The message doesn't let you read all it has to say. You should probably add in a few seconds of delay when the message box is full so the player has the chance to read it all. The design seemed playable, but the level didn't know what it wanted to be. Nice boss.

Treetop Transversing reminds me of the first level in that it makes use of the Rexes. The layout itself and the sprite distribution is fine, however, there's no sense of progression.

Broccoli Pastures did give me a sense that I was going somewhere. It felt decently varied in structure and visuals. The Broccoli Charlies are funny. That said, you missed a few frames. #ab{:S}

Gimmicky Grasslands has guns popping out of pipes. One of them hit my head and pushed me down a hole. I know the old saying "guns kill people" but I always thought they did it with bullets. #ab{<_<} Anyways, this level changed things up a lot, switching from Bullet Bill shooters and climbing to wall triangles and Bullet Bill throwers. It had a lot of concepts going on, but so far, was the most fun level in the hack.

#2 Remom's Fortress had* a game-breaking bug, which was addressed in REV02. If I die any time after the text "Watching him run is making me hungry..." appears, I get stuck somewhere in the first submap on the overworld and I'm unable to do anything without resetting the game. After beating the level, the same thing happens. I believe something about this specific message triggers it because it didn't happen in the other fortress.

Unable to continue, I have to say that a lot of the levels were very short and rather simple. I enjoyed a few of them, but felt bored by others. The story presentation is a neat factor of this game, although it could use a bit more polish.

*Update: Revision 2 has fixed the bugs in Toad Town and #2 Remom's Fortress.

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
A nice hack with a lot of effort put into the plot. I'd like to see some more of the effort invested in the level design, though. Most of the hack was rather dull to play, in my honest opinion. Level's go by quickly, with nothing really to remember about them. Levels consisted mostly of the same enemies placed on long stretches of land. This is rather repetitive, for all I had to do to beat most levels was hold right and jump. You want to give the player more to do, so do that by adding more obstacles that cause the player to think. Add more ledges to jump on, more coins to grab, more stuff to do. Have more variety in what sprites you use. Most levels contained mostly of the same sprites over and over again, I found.

There were a couple of bugs in here, too. There's one that would pretty much be a removal reason on it's own: Entering the screenscrolling pipe in the first level with a Yoshi killed me for whatever reason. The Screen kept scrolling in spiritual forest, which caused cutoff with the ground. I can't continue hornet hole for whatever reason. I though it was just an incomplete level at the end of the demo, but looking in lunar magic proves me otherwise. You must have forgotten to insert teleport blocks there. I stopped at that point in the hack, naturally.

Something rather minor: The bosses felt a little anti-climatic. All Grezz did was walk forward, he didn't attack me or whatever. Maybe I defeated him too quickly for him to do anything, I don't know.

I think this hack could use a little work before being accepted. Mainly the level design could use work. Don't give up on this, though, with a little more tlc, it could a great hack.

My verdict here is: Rejected.

(+1 by Counterfeit)
When I tested the hack myself on different emulators as I usually do, none of the screen scrolling pipes ever killed me when I was on Yoshi. As for Hornet Hole, it seems like somehow my teleport blocks got messed up. I guess I could re-submit it now that I've fixed that but it feels like I've submitted the hack too much already!
As Cou reported, there's some HDMA oddness going on the "Nintendo Presents" (?) screen. You may want to fix that, since it's a bit boring to have to wait for it to go away.

The title screen gave me a good impression of the hack graphically-wise. The only aesthetical issue I can really see is the way the mushrooms come out of the question blocks - I know that's caused by the HDMA bug fixes patch, but generally setting priority to that block (and any other blocks that spawn things/pipes) would make it look better.
The level feels kinda empty for me though; we only have a few cookies rolling/jumping around as enemies. If I were you I'd add more of them, or better yet, add a bigger enemy variation (unless that's inconsistent to the storyline or something). I also found the way you fall before the goal in your first attempt to reach the land a bit weird; not a big deal, but I think it feels better if you play the title screen as profesionally as you can.

Really minor thing, but on the intro message, I think you could separate Peach's letter from the text maybe using quotes, for the sake of organization.

Nice map, but I can spot perspective errors in the mountains on the east/west. Better show you a picture:



Red shows the places that are inconsistent with their top. This should be pretty easy to fix.

In the first level, I noticed that you haven't changed one of the frames of the sheless koopa after you throw it out of its shell; there's a redrawn frame and an SMW frame.
After I get yoshi, I'll find a pipe, which like Xinn reported, kills me if I enter it while riding him (that doesn't seem to happen if I enter pressing Y though); and apparently I can reenter them from the exit, but if I do it the pipes will spit me out to the top of the screen. Yeah they're pretty bugged. ?_?
Also what's the point of having a (somewhat) hidden way below that pipe, if taking the pipe is better anyway (the midway is there)? By the way, that midway seems rather too early for me.
Also that starman run is a bit too boring after I get past the sharp pencil-thingies part. There are only a few remote rexes and no decorations at all (actually the level doesn't have decorations at all, but that part is the one in which I missed them the most).

Toad Town kinda discriminates yoshi: his tongue doesn't appear and after I talk to Toad I can't take him with me through that door. D:
By the way, even if it's a demo, it'd be good if you put actual messages in every character before you release it.

In the third level, there's some oddness going on with the hammer brothers: if I get past them and then come back, they will disappear.
This level felt really bland and empty in general, in therms of challenge (especially due to the lack of enemies) and aesthetics (again, no decoration).

The forest is another really bland level. All I can see there is zingers which are almost not challenging at all (except probably for the spin jumping part). There are some screens in which there's literally nothing other than walking forward.
Oh, and if I run past the goal sphere I'll find cutoff. You don't have to extend the ground for tons of screens just because of a goal sphere, Mario barely walks more than one screen after he gets it. Also press F1 so you'll know up to where you'll need to extend it so the player won't be able to see (hint: finish it in the end of a screen).

As for the castle... Uh, where to start from.
First of all both VWF messages there are bugged, I can't even read them, they'll disappear as soon as they are done "writing themselves".
That ball 'n' chains part is pretty tricky IMO. After that there's a blind jump there. Yeah, it's obvious that I have to jump from there, the thing is that in the bottom there are enemies which can hit me as soon as I fall (and since I can't see where they are...).
The magikoopa can appear inside the ceiling. You can fix that by replacing the empty tiles up there by solid ones (I think).
The level has a pretty bland design overall, too. The segments there are pretty boring and not very challenging for the most part. I suggest redoing that level from scratch.

The first boss could be improved. It doesn't even play sound effects when I hit it, and the way it can be beaten so fast doesn't even make it feel like a boss. Also, I'll walk against the walls when I beat it; if you're using the level ender sprite, be sure to use the no walk variation.

The main map lacks deco, maybe you're going to add it later, but I reccomend putting at least some placeholder trees or something for your demo release, as it looks really bland. The outlines there also look a bit weird and somewhat inconsistent (I assume those are the redrawn palettes?).

In the broccoli level the chuck's graphics weren't replaced entirely, just like it's the case for the sheless koopas:



The clapping ones also need to be replaced, by the way.

In the second castle, there's that part with the cement blocks surrounded by three spikes. That's an example of fake difficulty: that's a hard section, but not in a fun way. Going over and over in the same trap (which can be very annoying if you're not a good player) gets really boring.

The second boss is slighty more interesting than the first one, but the same issues there apply here: too easy to beat, no sound effects... Walking against the wall. #smw{x_x}

In Hornet Hole, spin-jumping while big in the place where I start is really stupid creates some cutoff there. That's not too major, but that can be fixed by simply replacing those turn blocks by solid blocks or tweaking the background tiles a bit.
This level felt less bland in general, but you still could add more enemies, other than only zingers. That'd make that level more interesting.
That level also has a score issue when I hit a coin block. Use dis patch to fix it.


Well... In general, the level design could've been improved a lot. All of your levels were very short and empty in various areas. I suggest that you play some good hacks so you'll get some inspiration on how you should design your levels. Some of them maybe you should redo, some though, may go with just a bit of tweaking.
This hack has potential in the storyline definitely, and your graphical choices weren't that bad either, although you should consider adding decoration in your levels.


For now, I'd say this hack should be rejected. The level design needs more polishing and some stuff still need to be fixed. Good luck with it!

(+1 by Counterfeit)
Rabid Rex Rampage
This level was very short. I could beat it very easily, even when I JUST tried connecting my controller to my computer and I play with it very badly. The level felt like it had forced gimmicks, and just wasn’t very fun at all. There were probably only 4 rex’s in the whole level that was named after it. What I would suggest is to make the level a bit longer, and add more rex’s in. There was also a patch of land that was flat for over a screen. I recommend that you don’t have these, even if they are ideal for a level named after them.
I would also recommend that you add more time. Ideally, you want to have the finishing time to be what it is when YOU personally finish the level +100. Also the screen scrolling pipes are cool and all, but maybe you should speed up the time you go through them or make it a straight line rather than curving. It felt like another forced thing.

Toad Town
I can’t tell if the Boo message was on purpose or not after the little cutscene. I found that your little cutscene is a little bit weird. I read faster than it scrolls, and it annoys me that I can’t just press A to get the scene done faster. I’d recommend that you allow this, so the player doesn’t have to wait.

Short But Beachy
This level was too short. Easier than the first one in a way. More time is needed in this one as well. There wasn’t really a gimmick to this one either. Apologies if this sounds rude, but you can’t just make a filler level and call it short in the level name to excuse it being short.

Spiritual Forest
I’m just gonna stop commenting on how short these levels are. This level was bland and very easy to beat. Think of a forest. There are more things in a forest than bees and slopes. There are vines. There are wood. Some enemies just looked placed there just to make your hack look cooler and posed no threat whatsoever.

Grezz’s Fortress
This level was a bit better in terms of length, I felt. However, it was pretty anticlimactic. I felt dodging the Magikoopa was harder than Grezz himself, honestly. The text also scrolled too fast for me to read, or at least the second ‘part’ of each text message. Maybe it was because I was holding a button(?). Also I’m not completely sure if this is just me playing (since as I said, I’ve never played with a controller before), but I had a very hard time getting up the spiky balls at the very first part. I tried changing it to my keyboard, and still had a bit of trouble. This is a huge difficulty spike, compared to the other levels.

—This is where I started playing with my keyboard instead of my controller—

Treetop Traversing
This level was the best so far in terms of length. It still felt a bit barren, though. There was a good amount of atmosphere, but it needed a bit more obstacles. I also noticed that the rex sprite didn’t interact with shells, so rather than killing the rex, it just went through the shell and I took a hit. You should probably fix that. Also when I played through the level a first time, the vine in the beginning block failed to spawn.

Broccoli Pastures
This level was better with length too. Though, some things such as the Turn block jumps and floating water felt out of place and forced as a gimmick. Maybe add more enemies than chucks to be reskinned as broccolis in an interesting way. There was also a patch of cement blocks that would have looked nicer if you used the ground instead. Also the Chuck graphics are glitches a bit, you need to reskin more of it.

Gimmicky Grassland
This level was pretty good. Some things you should note though is that some of the bullet bros fall through the ground and pose no threat at all. There are also a few structures that are flat, but it wasn’t really bad, since there were a multitude of enemies that made it interesting. Rather than naming this “gimmicky”, you should name it something with bullets. There really was only 1 gimmick in this level.

Remom’s Fortress
This level was fairly short. Try making it a bit longer, and add more decorations to the outside of the boss room. The boss was easy as well, even chucks take longer to kill. Also after you beat the boss, you should make mario just stop walking rather than having him walk into the wall.

Hornet Hole
If this level is under construction as well, I suggest you put the name “Under Construction” on it, like you did with the Star road level and make it inaccessible to the player.

Overall, this hack was very short. The levels do have potential. Even for a beginning player this is a pretty easy hack. Focus on one gimmick each level, rather than forcing ideas together. Focus on having less flat land and more structures and platforming that the player can have fun with.

I’d say to reject this hack, for the reason that the levels are too short.

(+1 by Counterfeit)
Okay, the "Rabid Rex" sprites (That's what I call them anyways) were made by the creator of SMW YEAH!! and so were the Koopa Elites, so I don't really have a way of changing anything about them. For the NPC Toads they said those messages since I haven't given them actual dialogue yet. And if you read my previous post, I said Hornet Hole is indeed finished, but for some reason the teleport blocks weren't working. I fixed that, among other things, but for now I'll wait until the hack is inevitably rejected to re-submit it.
If you have the sprite files themselves, you could just ask around on #serioushax on the irc. They helped me with a similar issue years ago. I wanted a boss to have more health etc.
Well, I tried, but Sonikku said, and I quote:

"I'd help you but it's a japanese sprite that i'm pretty certain wasn't meant for public release"

Which I guess I can't argue with that, but I can't replace them, since they're essential to the plot of the game, so I guess I'll wait for someone to help me or just have people deal with the easy bosses.
Looks like the majority wanted it removed, so it is removed. I look forward to seeing your longer levels. Also, it's news to me that those sprites were taken from Japanese hackers - please obtain permission to use them before resubmitting your hack.

edit: reopened at trs's request

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
Thanks Counterfeit.

I tested this hack in bsnes v093, and it does not like your custom nintendo presents logo:


(ignore the black border please)

It's visually different each time, but it messes up similar to this using the accuracy and balanced profiles. The glitching is worse in accuracy, but it's noticeable in both. After this, various parts of the title screen, status bar, and overworld border don't show up, and they can all disappear completely.

The custom logo is fine in performance mode (and looks really nice), but there are layer priority issues with powerups coming out of question blocks and mario entering and exiting screen scrolling pipes. And after I got a game over in the second castle, the visual problems listed above started happening again.
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