[REMOVED] Islands of Dragons - Averagejoebob

Islands of Dragons
- 8 Exits
- Download Hack => Link

Description:
After playing this one from beginning to the end, the hack is okay, it plays okay and doesn't crash the game or exit to level 0. The secret exit in the Castle level doesn't work though.

However, the hack is a mess graphically and design is boring in ways. There's all kinds of glitchy or cutoff things everywhere in the new sprites. If you duck while you're in Fire mode, you actually look like you're the Small Dragon even though you're big. Also some of the shells look like they're a bunch of graphical garbage, cutoff edges, and/or things that don't resemble anything. Also for the OW, there's a lot of glitchiness happening and event tiles that activate when they are not suppose to happen.

Level design is okay, but at times look like blatant edits of the original as they are styled in the same way as them. It would be better if you modified the levels by deleting all of the objects Ctrl + Delete and start over and tried to make the levels different from that of the original. Also you have way too many sprites in small areas of the level. Too many sprites can cause them to disappear, have sprite memory problems, and/or reappear just randomly.

A lot more work has to be put in before this hack can be accepted. Only 1-2 more reviews will be accepted for this one. Rejected for now.

I...I don't get it. I cannot start reviewing the levels just now cause most of the issues are in all levels.

Anyway, there is a precise pixel jump in Jump Accuraccy Test. I had made a savestate in case I die but somehow I dodged it in my first try...lucky me!

Now to the global issues.

As cstutor says, Ducking while in Fire Mode makes you look like Small Dragon.

Bad blatant edits hits the spot! With a bonus of moving freely in almost all of the levels in the OW.

Some levels were unnamed but I didn't bother entering them.

Yet garbage shells hit the spot too.

Verdict: REJECTED REJECTED REJECTED REJECTED

Sorry I had to put REJECTED 4 times, is just that this hack is not as good as it sounded when I first played it.

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"We want a butter! Not a broken ladder! Hahahahahaha!"

Wow. This hack seemed to be slightly out of hand in some situations. There are several notable things about this hack including graphical errors and bad level design overall.

Starting off with the levels, I noticed that a lot of them seemed to be bland and also it was slightly obvious you edited the original levels instead of erasing them and giving them a fresh look. I must say that is slightly disappointing as it can really hurt the hack in terms of how good it is. Some advice that you must take into account involves completely erasing the levels which can be done by pressing CTRL+Delete on your keyboard. Changing other elements such as the background would add a nice touch to the distinctiveness as well.

On the graphics and glitches, I came across a lot of them in some levels. One of the most obvious I have encountered involves ducking while small which creates a small dragon version of the player. Consistency is important when designing graphics like this so this is one of the elements that must be fixed. Glitched and cutoff tiles are presents in certain areas of the hack and also on the overworld. It is really a mess when all of this is looked from above.

My advice would be to reject it and start over with a cleaner base which involves better level design. Those are the type of good hacks that are accepted here.

+1

I'm honestly not impressed by this hack. From a first look, it feels like a small edit of the original SMW, but I'l going to be more detailed.
The two biggest issues of this hack are the graphics and the level design.
For the graphics, well, while I appreciated that you tried to have new enemy GFX and a new player, they look very bad. The player's skin, for example, is just with one color, without shading or anything (I don't know if you got the idea, but in other words the GFX work seem very superficial and poorly made).
As for level design, I guess you just edited the original instead of starting from scratch and making totally new levels. You shouldn't do this, because if editing already existing ones, it will end up with flat and boring level design. Not mentioning the glitchy GFX here and there.
Last but least, the overworld: the player is totally free to go trough all the levels without clearing them, and this is bad. Even if this is a demo, the OW should have proper events and so on. In terms of aesthetics it wasn't this good either, some extra work on it would be really appreciated.
In conclusion, I would reject this hack.

To start with, quite a lot of levels are very similar to the original levels. To name examples, River Ride is an edit of Yoshi's Island 4 and The Adventure Starts is an edit of Yoshi's Island 1. Ideally, you should press CTRL+DEL before starting work on a level to ensure your level does not pose any similarities to the original levels in SMW.

The level design you have made, however, is quite poorly made. From my impressions on playing this hack, I can see it was not tested very much as there are quite obvious issues in this hack such as the Time Up error and the ? blocks in the switch palace using the bonus game mechanic. Some areas seem to be over-populated with sprites causing a few to disappear, while others areas have hardly any enemies or threats to the player. I feel a great cause of this issue is the fact the levels were blatantly edited, as pointed out above. Your more original levels, which include Cliff Climb and Haunted Castle, suffer from poor enemy placement but do offer considerably better level design than the other levels you have to offer. As a suggestion, I would recommend reading APPALLED by AxemJinx for more information on how to design better levels for the player.

Unfortunately, the overworld is not free of errors either. You can access all levels immediately and some levels activate the incorrect event. Despite all this, I must commend you on your efforts in providing new player graphics and graphics for the enemies. They seemed decently done to me.

I feel in conclusion, it is best to Reject this hack.

Island of Dragons by Averagejoebob

Start Screen
     Nothing amazing. Just a normal start. I don't really understand what the koopa shells are supposed to be.

Jump Accuract Test
     Overall unneeded level, really. There was no goal. Maybe adding a 1 up or coins would be more worth it. There is also a 1 tile gap between munchers that is very difficult to land in.

The adventure start
     Rather than focusing on the cutoff and other stuff, I would suggest that you delete the entire level before creating one, rather than cookie cutting.
     I would suggest that you add coins to a jump where you cannot see the bottom. There was also a very easy to get moon. Moons in the original SMW were very hard to find without luck.

Cliff Climb
     Even though you redid a bulk of this level, there are still many parts of the levels that can be seen as a blatant edit.
     The player start position is too high, and the screen start position is too low, making the screen jump a bit during the start of the level.

Switch Puzzle
     That wasn't a very hard level, but it is a bit unfair. There are blind jumps in this level and the player has to trust his or her judgement when to use the P-switch. If the player hits the ? block by the pipe at all, they are basically screwed.

Mazuro Forest 2
     Having pits the player cannot see is unfair. It was difficult to avoid them, and they are generally frowned upon in hacks.
     Another part of this level I disliked was the muncher row with the yoshi coin on top of it. If the player missed the koopa or accidentally killed it, they basically had to take a hit. There is little time to react too.
     There is also a pretty big bug with having more than one hammer brother on screen at a time. It made that part very difficult to pass since the hammer brothers kept disappearing and appearing and hammers appeared out of nowhere.
     The block that I believe held a P balloon also didn't spawn the balloon. All the sprite slots were probably taken up or something.

River Ride
     Nothing really special about this level compared to the others. It was a blatant edit.
     The bonus thing wasn't really a bonus since I could see what the prizes would be and choose whichever I wanted.
     Also I think the message box is sending the wrong message or maybe you meant to do that?

Haunted Castle
     Nothing much to say about this level either.

Overall
     I don't even know if I played all the levels or not. The overworld really wasn't clear on where to go.
     The levels don't cut it. They're all blatant edits of the original SMW. It's highly suggested that you start from scratch and come up with your own unique level design.
     Not only were these levels not that creative, but the most creative part of the hack, the custom sprite graphics, were glitchy most of the time. For example, the koopa shell I don't think you meant for it to look so weird.
     The player graphics are definitely special, but it doesn't really make sense, plus the animation is really weird at times, since some things get cutoff.
     This hack definitely needs a ton of work before it is ready to be accepted into SMWC.

Final verdict: Rejected

+1

The hack was very difficult and had some bad level design.
The hack only has seven levels, which isn't bad for a short hack.
While playing this hack i noticed a lot of unfair situations that require save states to get through.

Jump Accuracy Test:This level might be helpful for the newbies/people who have trouble but for the better players it's not really needed.

The Adventure Start:This level seems like a blant edit of level 105.
I did see a lot of weird cut off in this level.
The difficulty was fine and i had no problems with it.

Cliff Climb:This level has a lot of randomly placed sprites, making it difficult to get through the level.
Next time, be aware when placing your sprites.

River Ride:This level is very similar to level 102.
Like the water tides and the forground used.
The secret exit was quite obvious to find but,
The secret exit brang me to a level called "Haunted Castle" And I Couldn't enter the level.

Switch Puzzle 1:To me, this is a P-switch abuse level.
The difficulty was not really fair, but For some strange reason, I love playing tricky puzzles.
The problem is that they will be too hard for the newbies of playing smw hacks.

MAZURO FOREST 2:This level does look like a nice forest level but, it has cut off.
My biggest complaint is that some of the trees cut off the forground and because of that, I can fall through the forground.
So that's it for the demo.
Final verdict:REJECT

EDIT:I have redone my review to make it better and more detailed.

(+1 -Cou)

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Formerly known as nick 139
My YouTube channel

This is slightly better than the last Zack hack, but not by much. Each level was a blatant edit of another level, with huge cement block configurations and easy 3-up moons permeating. The overworld had no barriers on where you could go, causing me to roam around into areas that hadn't been finished. Tiles on the overworld were blatantly cutoff and ugly.

The design itself was spotty. Lots of flat areas, sometimes with enemy spam or barely any sprites at all. Cutoff is everywhere, easy 1-ups, blatant edits, etc. This definitely needs improvement, and I actually suggest you just start a new hack.

Hmmm this hack isn't that bad, some levels have "some" good level design. Sadly, there are few screens that we can find something enjoyable.
The majority of levels aren't well changed, since you can easily know from witch level of the original super mario world the changed level is. The hacker needs to be more creative, try to look at some accepted hacks (such as TSRPR and Mario Gives Up 2) to get some inspiration.
The jumping room reminds me some kaizo hacks, because of that muncher section (witch is ugly, by the way).
The first "castle" (!?) is really good, I liked the puzzle section. The exit room is just funny, all because of that question mark.
What am I missing here?...No custom music, witch is quite sad (the original sound is good, but I'm tired of that, don't give me wrong).
The overworld is good, I could appreciate that.
So...this can be enjoyable (and is, at least in some points), but because of the lack of creativity and some majority bugs (such as rex's sprites, the player's cape issue and some pits in the forest level - died a couple of times because of that unfair section), I vote for reject. I know this is a demo, but needs more work to be accepted, even because the level of acception went high in last months and some better hacks have been rejected recently.
Good luck and see you next time!

Edit: more than a month without a verdict...that's strange.

This hack has been pending for awhile now hmm...

...even the author seems to be inactive now.

Levels don't look original, some levels can be broken with the cape Mario power up, and also the levels are partially filled up, meaning they are empty and there isn't much objects.

I'd recommend fixing the above listed bugs, playing the first level is like playing plain old smw and can easily be noticed its a changed level, and the pipe in river ride should be removed this isn't challenging at all.

This doesn't seem fun to play, bugs, small edits to original levels, so this should be REJECTED

I played this hack, and it's not really bad! However, it does has its flaws:

• The first problem that I see is that the status bar says Mario rather than the characters name, but I don't know.
• The chacter's graphics get all glitchy if I get the cape to fly in some parts.
• The overworld does not have the yellow/red dots that are supposed to be indicating that a level is near.
• I don't know if you didn't finish this or what, but the character in the overworld is green, but in the levels he's blue.
• Some levels are just blatant edits like River Ride and have boring design.
• Cutoff (I should've pointed this out in the beginning).

So for now, I'm afraid that I'll go for rejection.

I've kept this opened way too long. Closing now and rejecting it.