Okay so, the topic name is a bit facetious; the real reason I’m quitting judging is because of the double whammy of my laptop breaking and losing the judging comments for all the entries I’ve already judged (about 40) and having to prepare for final exams, projects and papers. This has killed all motivation for judging the contest, and I would rather have the entrants get the results at a reasonable time than wait for me to catch up, considering I also have an internship to go to in a month. However, after having played Swissotel (in about 2 hours with roughly 100 tries and minimal save state usage) the problems I have had with several entries in this contest has finally tipped over, and I need to do a full dissection of this level. I don’t mean to pick on this level, and if I were still judging I would give it a middling score, but I feel that of the entries I have played, it is the prime example of the issues I have with these levels, issues that I could only express in judge comments. I will not just go through each section of the level, but also go through general themes that are applicable to vanilla contests and SMW design in general. These are my own design philosophies, and I know people will enjoy this level (I know other judges already have), so take them with a grain of salt if you must.
1. Good Level Design Is Not Good Mario Level Design
While the gimmick of the level changes over time, a point I will get to later, the tone of the entire level is set up by the very first screen: Mario spawns on top of a P-Balloon, is trapped in a cramped area, and Grinders are positioning to fall onto Mario if he doesn’t move out of the way. Right away I can tell that the author has no intention of capturing the type of level design found in a typical Mario game. Mario games have general design rules, two of which are almost immediately broken:
1) Mario moves right, or sometimes up, in a linear but open level. While there are certainly levels where Mario is in a cramped, Mario levels tend to have a clear direction to the goal but also has enough room to jump around and collect coins or find secrets.
2) Mario jumps on enemies and collects power-ups. Everybody on the planet associates these traits with the Mario games. You could even argue that without these traits, the level ceases being a Mario level and instead becomes its own thing.
3) The level has easy or (at most) reasonably challenging difficulty, and a short or (at most) decent length that requires only one midpoint. I will get into these topics later.
4) Mario starts with five lives, dies in one hit or loses his power-up, and spawns either at the beginning of the level or a midpoint. Again, these will come up later.
I like to think that I give credit where credit is due. There is some genuinely good design here with fair difficulty; going back to that first screen, the Grinders are placed so that they climb up the line guide, and the player can clearly see the pattern to avoid the hazards. Generally, obstacles are telegraphed well enough that the player knows what to do, and on its own terms the level design is solid and, at times, very creative. But in terms of Mario design, it goes against all these foundations. Now that brings up the question “Why does this all matter?”
2. The “Vanilla” Discussion
One of the topics that comes up every time VLDC is in session is “What does “Vanilla” mean anymore?” The usual conclusion is that Vanilla levels are those that use as little custom anything as possible, whether it’s graphics, music, sprites, ASM patches, and so on. Over the years (not counting VLDC6) these guidelines have been loosened to allow more customization, which has obviously brought detractors. There was even talk of a separate contest that would take a “pure vanilla” approach, though what that entailed didn’t really seem clear to me.
First, let’s make this clear: the real reason people like Vanilla guidelines is because it evens out the competition. With no restrictions, people that can’t make custom graphics or don’t know how to code would be at a serious disadvantage to those who do, especially from a creative and aesthetic standpoint. Just look at the overworld contest from last VLDC for an example; the combination of talent from different areas in the design process created what might be the best overworld in any SMW hack. Now obviously, the contest wouldn’t allow a collaboration of that size, but even the combination of a person talented in design and another in custom content would be enough to stay ahead of much of the competition. The current rules prevent those types of situations by forcing everyone to use the same tools, making for a much fairer contest.
However, this does not fit what I consider to be a “Vanilla” level, because it does not address the most important part: the design of the level. Like I said, Mario levels have a certain structure to them, and the given rules of Vanilla allow that structure to be totally ignored. A Vanilla SMW level should be a level built around the principles of SMW’s level design, regardless of custom content. Someone could make their own custom enemies, but if they looked and played like they would in SMW it would still be considered Vanilla.
There are clearly setbacks to this idea, and it would take a while for it to be properly integrated in VLDC. It would only be fair to have an official contest revolving around using as little custom content as possible to create the most interesting and outlandish levels in the SMW engine. And this redefinition would require a new “Authenticity” criteria in judging, which unfortunately tends to be at odds with the Creativity category. And the rules would still need to balance what tools people could use to make their level. I personally think it’s possible to work around both issues, and I would like to hear what people think about this interpretation.
I put these sections first because I want you guys to know what my viewpoints are on level design in the Vanilla sense. Aside from the (more major) technical and timing issues, it’s why I feel I might not be fit to judge this contest. I don’t really agree with the terms and I’ve found that my feelings for levels do not match the scores that I give them, since I would not rig the scores just to fit my opinion. For the rest of this post, though, I will look at the specific design problems in Swissotel.
3. Memorization Is Not a Skill
The appeal of platformers is that they are based on skill, particularly in timing and quick-thinking. Hard levels, even in a contest where you can’t gradually build difficulty through all levels, good design gives enough room for players to observe obstacles to figure out how to beat them, and rewards players that can overcome them on the fly. Swissotel, on the other hand, uses the cheaper tactic of memory-based design. Three of the first four segments of this level share the same level theme: medium-fast vertical autoscrollers with gratuitous usage of cramped spaces, sharp objects, and 1F0 tiles. While not unfair, as well as being the best part of the level, the problem lies in the lack of control the player has in the situation.
Autoscrollers are not bad on their own, but it becomes a problem when they restrict the player’s movement, usually when they are moving at a fast pace. Probably the most infamous example of this is stage 3 of Battletoads, where the player must react to the incoming obstacles in the exact right order with no room for error. While not as extreme, these first segments suffer from the same issue: Mario must go through the level in a specific pattern to stay alive, aside from a couple Mushrooms as forgiveness. In other words, the player must memorize every obstacle and path to avoid it if they want to beat the level.
The key issue with memorization is that it is not a good way to learn; just look at all the controversy surrounding standardized tests. If a player goes through a level several times and memorizes all the obstacles, then they can beat it with no problem. But go back to that level a month later, and all that information is long gone. That’s what makes beating hard levels that don’t rely on memorization even more satisfying; you’re using skills you’ve already built up from easier levels, and then making them even stronger by applying them to overcome a greater challenge. Memorizing a level in and out isn’t fun and is only a short-term victory for the player, and it hurts this level a lot.
4. Section 5 Is Bad
Before this point in the level, everything was going fine. Despite the heavy focus on memorization and the lack of Mario-esque design, there were some creative ideas and for what the design was trying to be, it was solid enough. But then section five comes along and throws a total spitball: Mario must blindly guide a Coin Guide all the way up to form a platform to reach a door. On Mario’s side, he must avoid some Grinder set-ups, which were a breath of fresh air since you could finally do some actual platforming. However, the Coin Guide moves based on D-Pad inputs, so the player must blindly determine the correct spot (a single line, I might add) or else reset the section.
This is the worst kind of memorization; whereas the pits before at least let you memorize while playing through the sections, here you need to guess when to turn the coin guide based on nothing (even if you go up to the top beforehand you only get a vague idea of what to do). Then you must memorize the timing of when to do it. It’s incredibly boring since the player is doing nothing but waiting, wastes valuable in-game time considering the length of the level, and contrasts completely with the rest of the level in terms of design and quality, except for the very short section right after it. Speaking of which:
5. Consistency Is Key
The first sign that something was amiss was the third section with the Chuck and Fire Flower. It was at odds with the pacing of the level thus far, and was much easier too. I gave it a pass because it was right next to the midway point and figured it was supposed to be a type of miniboss, and sure enough the fourth section was a lot more like the first two. However, by the fifth section, I realized that the designer had no intention of working with a single level design.
I consider Donkey Kong Country to be the greatest 2D Platformer ever made, and I use its level design as the defining example of how game designers should make their levels. Each level would introduce a new object or obstacle, maybe with a new enemy alongside it, showing the player how the object works or how they need to overcome the obstacle. Then, the level would get more difficult, whether combining it with other elements or creating tricky designs that required some strategy to bypass. This is Game Design 101, and mastering this concept is what it takes to make a great game.
Now, let’s set aside the fact that the level doesn’t introduce the initial concept in the best way, even if the first obstacle gives the most reaction time to the player. You have a clear level theme and a gradual increase in difficulty as the pace of the sections gets faster. You have that Chuck bit, but again that’s easily ignorable. But then the fifth and sixth sections are about Coin Guide puzzles, the seventh section is a vertical spinjumping segment, and the eighth section is the opposite of that: you die when you spinjump. While the latter two segments are much better designed than the fifth and sixth ones, and the eighth segment would’ve been a great concept on its own (I’m genuinely curious how you got that to work), these segments are at odds with the design of the first few segments.
I see the thematic design of the level you were going for, and I can appreciate the verticality of most of the level. But for a level to have a strong design, it needs a strong, sole gimmick behind it. Using multiple level styles causes the level to feel uneven in terms of difficulty, pacing, and overall quality. Granted, it may be more SMW-like to have these separate styles, since all its castle levels shared this quality – Bowser’s Castle most of all – I think a sole gimmick makes for a much better level overall. Not everything in SMW is perfect, after all.
6. Glitch Abuse
There are two types of glitch abuse in levels: one where the player is required to abuse glitches in the game to complete levels, and another where the designer uses glitches to create set-ups not intended by the game. Fortunately, Swissotel goes with the latter, but even that choice has its caveats. And once again, it’s the Coin Guide sections that suffer this the worst. In section five, once you manage to guide the coins to the right spot, you have to then hit a ? Block to make an invisible block that allows you to enter a door. In the next section, you need to guide four coin guides to erase some line guides and allow a moving platform to jump high enough that Mario can reach the exit.
Because these are glitches, and thus not intended by the game to occur, they lead to bad presentation and confusing intentions, as in what the designer wants the player to do. Suppose the player didn’t know about the invisible block trick; if they collected the coin above the block, then they would have to reset the whole segment again, and not understand what their goal is. The sixth section doesn’t even work properly, or at least doesn’t appear to; every time I’ve played the level I’ve had to enter the reset door for the Coin Guides to appear. And aside from that, the design just feels awkward because there’s no clear reason why coins would be able to erase blocks.
In other instances, glitches don’t have problems communicating the designer’s intentions, but are still presented poorly. Based on the sound effects it seems like most of the trickery going on is based on exploiting (invisible) Yoshi’s behavior. In the first and fourth segments, they are used just as means to an end: to help the player get to the exit. The player doesn’t really question them, but the Yoshi sound effect is out of place and the events as they transpire feel awkward. It’s easier to describe in the eighth section, when Mario’s spin-jump causes him to die. A great gameplay gimmick, and the Message Block makes it absolutely clear what’s going on, but in presentation the gimmick doesn’t really make sense. What’s killing Mario? Wouldn’t it make more sense if Mario’s spinjump was just disabled? These may seem like unimportant questions to ask, but I feel it goes a long way in justifying the designs and how the work, rather than just making up arbitrary rules for the segment. And while we’re on the topic of presentation…
7. Aesthetics Are Important
Even if you like this level, you would agree with me that this level looks bad. The palette is ugly, there’s no interesting decorations, very repetitive block usage, and constant use of cutoff tiles or glitchy Note Blocks. It looks sloppy and effortless, which makes me believe the author had no intentions of working on presentation at all. Now because I was a judge, I hadn’t been keeping up with the individual threads, the screenshots thread, or any of the fan judge threads. But I did look at the meme thread, and from what I saw it is clear people find the “aesthetic doesn’t matter” approach to be stupid. This kind of thinking is unique to gaming, and probably came about during the graphics wars of the 90s. Graphics are a big selling point to gamers, but nowadays people have gotten wiser and know that graphics aren’t everything.
So yes, aesthetics isn’t the most important part of your level; you could have the prettiest level in the world, but it wouldn’t mean anything if it was just flat design with no challenges. However, good presentation goes a long way, and the aesthetics category shouldn’t just be dismissed. A good-looking level doesn’t just help it stand out in the contest, but it helps stand out in our memory. All the levels that work with just vanilla tiles and custom palettes may blend in the back of our minds, but we’ll remember that one level that did something different. And the experience itself is more enjoyable; from a creativity standpoint, it’s interesting to see what people can do with vanilla tiles to make something that looks completely custom, and as a player you want to see some good eye-candy, whether it’s a strong style, unique environments, or just well-crafted visuals.
In Swissotel the only interesting and creative part of the visuals is the yellow-and-black striped platform Mario is trapped in in the second segment. Everything else is flatly designed, uses the same drab color palette, and looks like the skeleton of a level before a designer would add a fresh coat of paint. I know nowadays it’s easy to make fun of the times when cutoff was a major crime in SMW Hacking, but it is a strike on visuals, and it’s an unfortunate drawback to exploiting objects used in ways not originally intended. I understand the criteria of the contest makes it difficult to polish up these tiles, but it’s the cost of taking liberties with the original game; going back to my definition, it would be more Vanilla to polish it up, since SMW is a very polished game.
I should also address that using the original graphics is not a blight against any of the entrants. SMW isn’t the prettiest game on the SNES, even for those launch days, but it still looks nice; off the judging criteria I would give it a 12/20 in aesthetics. But note that aesthetics also relies on palette choices and how the design itself is presented; why use a Cement Block wall when you could rearrange some ground tiles instead? It’s the poor quality in both that I’m judging harshly in Swissotel, not the use of Vanilla graphics on its own.
8. I Don’t Have Time for This
Once you figure out the puzzle in the sixth section, you hop up on the platform and collect a 1-Up. This turns out to be the second Midway Point, something I have found out by the several levels in this contest that use double Midway Points. All these levels are way too long, and combined with the high difficulty that these levels also tend to have, it makes them a chore to play through, especially if you opt out of using tools.
Way back in the beginning when I mentioned there was “minimal save state usage”, I meant that after dying several times, I made a save point at the beginning of the seventh section because I didn’t want to have to redo the first sixth all over again. Keep in mind that while the compilation rom itself will patch out the live system, I was still going off the original SMW system; 5 deaths (6 with the 1-Up) and it was all the way back to the beginning. Given that the system is patched out anyway, I don’t find it totally unfair that I used savestates just to avoid more wasted time (by that point I was speeding through all those sections anyway). But I think that necessity shows how unbearable the level could be when forced to play on SMW’s terms.
Let’s do some math here. From what I tested 10 SMW seconds is 7 real-time seconds. With that in mind, a typical SMW level gives you 300 or 400 seconds to complete it, or 210 or 280 seconds, respectively. However, you never need all that time, and the level could usually be completed in about half that. Therefore, a typical SMW level should take between 105-140 seconds, two minutes on average, to complete. This level gives you 600 seconds (seven minutes) to complete, and takes almost five minutes to complete it, given that you’ve only made a few mistakes throughout. Those first four sections could’ve been its own level, and probably would’ve been a better level on its own. But instead, like plenty of other levels in the contest, it goes for the long haul instead, combining two or three levels into one, and leads to the many trappings that long levels bring.
Remember how I mentioned that this level required memorization a lot? Well, anyone that’s practiced flash card studying can tell you you’re not going to remember everything by test time. So even if you’ve completed the first few sections several times and can breeze through them quickly, the player’s own margin for error can cause them to make mistakes, especially with design that requires precise movement. This makes the length of the level even more frustrating, and why I eventually just resorted to not restarting all over again at a point. The player doesn’t want to go through the part they already completed all over again; they want to get straight back to the section that they still need to beat. That’s why games like VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy give you infinite lives, respawn you at the same screen/section you died in, and have quick respawn times to let you get back in the action faster. None of those features are in the original SMW (and only one of those in the compilation ROM) and that’s what makes this combination of difficulty, length and memorization such an enjoyment killer.
Another drawback to this is that on repeated playthroughs, the player starts noticing the cracks in the walls. Glitches that might have been ignored or not even seen start to appear more noticeably as the player retreads through areas so often. In the third section, with the Chuck, it’s very easy for the player to glitch through the Throw Block wall as Big Mario into the ground below it. In the succeeding section, the very first Grinder may decide not to reappear after it falls, forcing the player to kill themselves (if the jump is doable without it then please correct me; I forgot to test this). In the same section, after falling off the rising platform, you may accidentally jump on it and then get a cheap death by being slammed into a wall. Whether these are minor issues or not, the point is that I didn’t notice them at all the first time through, but because I ended up having to replay the segments again and again, they became a lot more noticeable.
If there is one thing that I want you all to get out of this, it’s that you cannot put all your designs into one long level. Mario levels are designed to be quick, fun romps that take a couple minutes to beat – not massive gauntlets that are endurance tests for the player. I would much rather people cut up their level into one with the best segments, and maybe put the rest on the side, like a bonus kind of thing for people to play. It’d make a lot of these levels much more enjoyable to play, since Swissotel is far from the only culprit.
9. Odds and Ends
This section is just for a few minor design choices I didn’t really understand. None of these are major issues, but they’re things I want to discuss that don’t really fit into any of the other sections.
At the end of the first section, there’s a Shell-less Koopa that falls down the pit and a Yoshi text box that appears, and I don’t think I ever figured out the point of it. Was it just a cheap shot, since the player can’t navigate while the Koopa falls during the text box? Was it needed for Mario to land at the door properly?
What’s with the first Midway Point? Why is it placed behind the Throw Block Barrier when Mario needs to be small? Why does Mario even need to be small, other than to increase the difficulty?
How come there’s a Snake Block that just appears once in the level? It played fine but it felt a bit unfitting since it never appears again. Was it a joke since Snake Blocks are considered a big VLDC meme?
10. Conclusion
Swissotel is a mediocre level, one that, if I was still judging, would probably be in the 50s range, about average for me; at worst, it would be in the high 40s. It could have been a much better level if the design was more focused, there was more emphasis on skill than memorization, the length was toned down greatly, and there was more work in the aesthetics department. But, more importantly, this level represents a lot of grievances I have with quite a few entries in this contest, and if I’m not going to be judging anymore, I might as well fit in the wordcount of all my hypothetical judge comments into one post. I haven’t talked about everything I want to talk about, but hopefully you guys have an idea of where I’m coming from. I’m sorry I had to drop out of judging, but hopefully I can find time to make some more posts like these and talk about more levels from the contest.
1. Good Level Design Is Not Good Mario Level Design
While the gimmick of the level changes over time, a point I will get to later, the tone of the entire level is set up by the very first screen: Mario spawns on top of a P-Balloon, is trapped in a cramped area, and Grinders are positioning to fall onto Mario if he doesn’t move out of the way. Right away I can tell that the author has no intention of capturing the type of level design found in a typical Mario game. Mario games have general design rules, two of which are almost immediately broken:
1) Mario moves right, or sometimes up, in a linear but open level. While there are certainly levels where Mario is in a cramped, Mario levels tend to have a clear direction to the goal but also has enough room to jump around and collect coins or find secrets.
2) Mario jumps on enemies and collects power-ups. Everybody on the planet associates these traits with the Mario games. You could even argue that without these traits, the level ceases being a Mario level and instead becomes its own thing.
3) The level has easy or (at most) reasonably challenging difficulty, and a short or (at most) decent length that requires only one midpoint. I will get into these topics later.
4) Mario starts with five lives, dies in one hit or loses his power-up, and spawns either at the beginning of the level or a midpoint. Again, these will come up later.
I like to think that I give credit where credit is due. There is some genuinely good design here with fair difficulty; going back to that first screen, the Grinders are placed so that they climb up the line guide, and the player can clearly see the pattern to avoid the hazards. Generally, obstacles are telegraphed well enough that the player knows what to do, and on its own terms the level design is solid and, at times, very creative. But in terms of Mario design, it goes against all these foundations. Now that brings up the question “Why does this all matter?”
2. The “Vanilla” Discussion
One of the topics that comes up every time VLDC is in session is “What does “Vanilla” mean anymore?” The usual conclusion is that Vanilla levels are those that use as little custom anything as possible, whether it’s graphics, music, sprites, ASM patches, and so on. Over the years (not counting VLDC6) these guidelines have been loosened to allow more customization, which has obviously brought detractors. There was even talk of a separate contest that would take a “pure vanilla” approach, though what that entailed didn’t really seem clear to me.
First, let’s make this clear: the real reason people like Vanilla guidelines is because it evens out the competition. With no restrictions, people that can’t make custom graphics or don’t know how to code would be at a serious disadvantage to those who do, especially from a creative and aesthetic standpoint. Just look at the overworld contest from last VLDC for an example; the combination of talent from different areas in the design process created what might be the best overworld in any SMW hack. Now obviously, the contest wouldn’t allow a collaboration of that size, but even the combination of a person talented in design and another in custom content would be enough to stay ahead of much of the competition. The current rules prevent those types of situations by forcing everyone to use the same tools, making for a much fairer contest.
However, this does not fit what I consider to be a “Vanilla” level, because it does not address the most important part: the design of the level. Like I said, Mario levels have a certain structure to them, and the given rules of Vanilla allow that structure to be totally ignored. A Vanilla SMW level should be a level built around the principles of SMW’s level design, regardless of custom content. Someone could make their own custom enemies, but if they looked and played like they would in SMW it would still be considered Vanilla.
There are clearly setbacks to this idea, and it would take a while for it to be properly integrated in VLDC. It would only be fair to have an official contest revolving around using as little custom content as possible to create the most interesting and outlandish levels in the SMW engine. And this redefinition would require a new “Authenticity” criteria in judging, which unfortunately tends to be at odds with the Creativity category. And the rules would still need to balance what tools people could use to make their level. I personally think it’s possible to work around both issues, and I would like to hear what people think about this interpretation.
I put these sections first because I want you guys to know what my viewpoints are on level design in the Vanilla sense. Aside from the (more major) technical and timing issues, it’s why I feel I might not be fit to judge this contest. I don’t really agree with the terms and I’ve found that my feelings for levels do not match the scores that I give them, since I would not rig the scores just to fit my opinion. For the rest of this post, though, I will look at the specific design problems in Swissotel.
3. Memorization Is Not a Skill
The appeal of platformers is that they are based on skill, particularly in timing and quick-thinking. Hard levels, even in a contest where you can’t gradually build difficulty through all levels, good design gives enough room for players to observe obstacles to figure out how to beat them, and rewards players that can overcome them on the fly. Swissotel, on the other hand, uses the cheaper tactic of memory-based design. Three of the first four segments of this level share the same level theme: medium-fast vertical autoscrollers with gratuitous usage of cramped spaces, sharp objects, and 1F0 tiles. While not unfair, as well as being the best part of the level, the problem lies in the lack of control the player has in the situation.
Autoscrollers are not bad on their own, but it becomes a problem when they restrict the player’s movement, usually when they are moving at a fast pace. Probably the most infamous example of this is stage 3 of Battletoads, where the player must react to the incoming obstacles in the exact right order with no room for error. While not as extreme, these first segments suffer from the same issue: Mario must go through the level in a specific pattern to stay alive, aside from a couple Mushrooms as forgiveness. In other words, the player must memorize every obstacle and path to avoid it if they want to beat the level.
The key issue with memorization is that it is not a good way to learn; just look at all the controversy surrounding standardized tests. If a player goes through a level several times and memorizes all the obstacles, then they can beat it with no problem. But go back to that level a month later, and all that information is long gone. That’s what makes beating hard levels that don’t rely on memorization even more satisfying; you’re using skills you’ve already built up from easier levels, and then making them even stronger by applying them to overcome a greater challenge. Memorizing a level in and out isn’t fun and is only a short-term victory for the player, and it hurts this level a lot.
4. Section 5 Is Bad
Before this point in the level, everything was going fine. Despite the heavy focus on memorization and the lack of Mario-esque design, there were some creative ideas and for what the design was trying to be, it was solid enough. But then section five comes along and throws a total spitball: Mario must blindly guide a Coin Guide all the way up to form a platform to reach a door. On Mario’s side, he must avoid some Grinder set-ups, which were a breath of fresh air since you could finally do some actual platforming. However, the Coin Guide moves based on D-Pad inputs, so the player must blindly determine the correct spot (a single line, I might add) or else reset the section.
This is the worst kind of memorization; whereas the pits before at least let you memorize while playing through the sections, here you need to guess when to turn the coin guide based on nothing (even if you go up to the top beforehand you only get a vague idea of what to do). Then you must memorize the timing of when to do it. It’s incredibly boring since the player is doing nothing but waiting, wastes valuable in-game time considering the length of the level, and contrasts completely with the rest of the level in terms of design and quality, except for the very short section right after it. Speaking of which:
5. Consistency Is Key
The first sign that something was amiss was the third section with the Chuck and Fire Flower. It was at odds with the pacing of the level thus far, and was much easier too. I gave it a pass because it was right next to the midway point and figured it was supposed to be a type of miniboss, and sure enough the fourth section was a lot more like the first two. However, by the fifth section, I realized that the designer had no intention of working with a single level design.
I consider Donkey Kong Country to be the greatest 2D Platformer ever made, and I use its level design as the defining example of how game designers should make their levels. Each level would introduce a new object or obstacle, maybe with a new enemy alongside it, showing the player how the object works or how they need to overcome the obstacle. Then, the level would get more difficult, whether combining it with other elements or creating tricky designs that required some strategy to bypass. This is Game Design 101, and mastering this concept is what it takes to make a great game.
Now, let’s set aside the fact that the level doesn’t introduce the initial concept in the best way, even if the first obstacle gives the most reaction time to the player. You have a clear level theme and a gradual increase in difficulty as the pace of the sections gets faster. You have that Chuck bit, but again that’s easily ignorable. But then the fifth and sixth sections are about Coin Guide puzzles, the seventh section is a vertical spinjumping segment, and the eighth section is the opposite of that: you die when you spinjump. While the latter two segments are much better designed than the fifth and sixth ones, and the eighth segment would’ve been a great concept on its own (I’m genuinely curious how you got that to work), these segments are at odds with the design of the first few segments.
I see the thematic design of the level you were going for, and I can appreciate the verticality of most of the level. But for a level to have a strong design, it needs a strong, sole gimmick behind it. Using multiple level styles causes the level to feel uneven in terms of difficulty, pacing, and overall quality. Granted, it may be more SMW-like to have these separate styles, since all its castle levels shared this quality – Bowser’s Castle most of all – I think a sole gimmick makes for a much better level overall. Not everything in SMW is perfect, after all.
6. Glitch Abuse
There are two types of glitch abuse in levels: one where the player is required to abuse glitches in the game to complete levels, and another where the designer uses glitches to create set-ups not intended by the game. Fortunately, Swissotel goes with the latter, but even that choice has its caveats. And once again, it’s the Coin Guide sections that suffer this the worst. In section five, once you manage to guide the coins to the right spot, you have to then hit a ? Block to make an invisible block that allows you to enter a door. In the next section, you need to guide four coin guides to erase some line guides and allow a moving platform to jump high enough that Mario can reach the exit.
Because these are glitches, and thus not intended by the game to occur, they lead to bad presentation and confusing intentions, as in what the designer wants the player to do. Suppose the player didn’t know about the invisible block trick; if they collected the coin above the block, then they would have to reset the whole segment again, and not understand what their goal is. The sixth section doesn’t even work properly, or at least doesn’t appear to; every time I’ve played the level I’ve had to enter the reset door for the Coin Guides to appear. And aside from that, the design just feels awkward because there’s no clear reason why coins would be able to erase blocks.
In other instances, glitches don’t have problems communicating the designer’s intentions, but are still presented poorly. Based on the sound effects it seems like most of the trickery going on is based on exploiting (invisible) Yoshi’s behavior. In the first and fourth segments, they are used just as means to an end: to help the player get to the exit. The player doesn’t really question them, but the Yoshi sound effect is out of place and the events as they transpire feel awkward. It’s easier to describe in the eighth section, when Mario’s spin-jump causes him to die. A great gameplay gimmick, and the Message Block makes it absolutely clear what’s going on, but in presentation the gimmick doesn’t really make sense. What’s killing Mario? Wouldn’t it make more sense if Mario’s spinjump was just disabled? These may seem like unimportant questions to ask, but I feel it goes a long way in justifying the designs and how the work, rather than just making up arbitrary rules for the segment. And while we’re on the topic of presentation…
7. Aesthetics Are Important
Even if you like this level, you would agree with me that this level looks bad. The palette is ugly, there’s no interesting decorations, very repetitive block usage, and constant use of cutoff tiles or glitchy Note Blocks. It looks sloppy and effortless, which makes me believe the author had no intentions of working on presentation at all. Now because I was a judge, I hadn’t been keeping up with the individual threads, the screenshots thread, or any of the fan judge threads. But I did look at the meme thread, and from what I saw it is clear people find the “aesthetic doesn’t matter” approach to be stupid. This kind of thinking is unique to gaming, and probably came about during the graphics wars of the 90s. Graphics are a big selling point to gamers, but nowadays people have gotten wiser and know that graphics aren’t everything.
So yes, aesthetics isn’t the most important part of your level; you could have the prettiest level in the world, but it wouldn’t mean anything if it was just flat design with no challenges. However, good presentation goes a long way, and the aesthetics category shouldn’t just be dismissed. A good-looking level doesn’t just help it stand out in the contest, but it helps stand out in our memory. All the levels that work with just vanilla tiles and custom palettes may blend in the back of our minds, but we’ll remember that one level that did something different. And the experience itself is more enjoyable; from a creativity standpoint, it’s interesting to see what people can do with vanilla tiles to make something that looks completely custom, and as a player you want to see some good eye-candy, whether it’s a strong style, unique environments, or just well-crafted visuals.
In Swissotel the only interesting and creative part of the visuals is the yellow-and-black striped platform Mario is trapped in in the second segment. Everything else is flatly designed, uses the same drab color palette, and looks like the skeleton of a level before a designer would add a fresh coat of paint. I know nowadays it’s easy to make fun of the times when cutoff was a major crime in SMW Hacking, but it is a strike on visuals, and it’s an unfortunate drawback to exploiting objects used in ways not originally intended. I understand the criteria of the contest makes it difficult to polish up these tiles, but it’s the cost of taking liberties with the original game; going back to my definition, it would be more Vanilla to polish it up, since SMW is a very polished game.
I should also address that using the original graphics is not a blight against any of the entrants. SMW isn’t the prettiest game on the SNES, even for those launch days, but it still looks nice; off the judging criteria I would give it a 12/20 in aesthetics. But note that aesthetics also relies on palette choices and how the design itself is presented; why use a Cement Block wall when you could rearrange some ground tiles instead? It’s the poor quality in both that I’m judging harshly in Swissotel, not the use of Vanilla graphics on its own.
8. I Don’t Have Time for This
Once you figure out the puzzle in the sixth section, you hop up on the platform and collect a 1-Up. This turns out to be the second Midway Point, something I have found out by the several levels in this contest that use double Midway Points. All these levels are way too long, and combined with the high difficulty that these levels also tend to have, it makes them a chore to play through, especially if you opt out of using tools.
Way back in the beginning when I mentioned there was “minimal save state usage”, I meant that after dying several times, I made a save point at the beginning of the seventh section because I didn’t want to have to redo the first sixth all over again. Keep in mind that while the compilation rom itself will patch out the live system, I was still going off the original SMW system; 5 deaths (6 with the 1-Up) and it was all the way back to the beginning. Given that the system is patched out anyway, I don’t find it totally unfair that I used savestates just to avoid more wasted time (by that point I was speeding through all those sections anyway). But I think that necessity shows how unbearable the level could be when forced to play on SMW’s terms.
Let’s do some math here. From what I tested 10 SMW seconds is 7 real-time seconds. With that in mind, a typical SMW level gives you 300 or 400 seconds to complete it, or 210 or 280 seconds, respectively. However, you never need all that time, and the level could usually be completed in about half that. Therefore, a typical SMW level should take between 105-140 seconds, two minutes on average, to complete. This level gives you 600 seconds (seven minutes) to complete, and takes almost five minutes to complete it, given that you’ve only made a few mistakes throughout. Those first four sections could’ve been its own level, and probably would’ve been a better level on its own. But instead, like plenty of other levels in the contest, it goes for the long haul instead, combining two or three levels into one, and leads to the many trappings that long levels bring.
Remember how I mentioned that this level required memorization a lot? Well, anyone that’s practiced flash card studying can tell you you’re not going to remember everything by test time. So even if you’ve completed the first few sections several times and can breeze through them quickly, the player’s own margin for error can cause them to make mistakes, especially with design that requires precise movement. This makes the length of the level even more frustrating, and why I eventually just resorted to not restarting all over again at a point. The player doesn’t want to go through the part they already completed all over again; they want to get straight back to the section that they still need to beat. That’s why games like VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy give you infinite lives, respawn you at the same screen/section you died in, and have quick respawn times to let you get back in the action faster. None of those features are in the original SMW (and only one of those in the compilation ROM) and that’s what makes this combination of difficulty, length and memorization such an enjoyment killer.
Another drawback to this is that on repeated playthroughs, the player starts noticing the cracks in the walls. Glitches that might have been ignored or not even seen start to appear more noticeably as the player retreads through areas so often. In the third section, with the Chuck, it’s very easy for the player to glitch through the Throw Block wall as Big Mario into the ground below it. In the succeeding section, the very first Grinder may decide not to reappear after it falls, forcing the player to kill themselves (if the jump is doable without it then please correct me; I forgot to test this). In the same section, after falling off the rising platform, you may accidentally jump on it and then get a cheap death by being slammed into a wall. Whether these are minor issues or not, the point is that I didn’t notice them at all the first time through, but because I ended up having to replay the segments again and again, they became a lot more noticeable.
If there is one thing that I want you all to get out of this, it’s that you cannot put all your designs into one long level. Mario levels are designed to be quick, fun romps that take a couple minutes to beat – not massive gauntlets that are endurance tests for the player. I would much rather people cut up their level into one with the best segments, and maybe put the rest on the side, like a bonus kind of thing for people to play. It’d make a lot of these levels much more enjoyable to play, since Swissotel is far from the only culprit.
9. Odds and Ends
This section is just for a few minor design choices I didn’t really understand. None of these are major issues, but they’re things I want to discuss that don’t really fit into any of the other sections.
At the end of the first section, there’s a Shell-less Koopa that falls down the pit and a Yoshi text box that appears, and I don’t think I ever figured out the point of it. Was it just a cheap shot, since the player can’t navigate while the Koopa falls during the text box? Was it needed for Mario to land at the door properly?
What’s with the first Midway Point? Why is it placed behind the Throw Block Barrier when Mario needs to be small? Why does Mario even need to be small, other than to increase the difficulty?
How come there’s a Snake Block that just appears once in the level? It played fine but it felt a bit unfitting since it never appears again. Was it a joke since Snake Blocks are considered a big VLDC meme?
10. Conclusion
Swissotel is a mediocre level, one that, if I was still judging, would probably be in the 50s range, about average for me; at worst, it would be in the high 40s. It could have been a much better level if the design was more focused, there was more emphasis on skill than memorization, the length was toned down greatly, and there was more work in the aesthetics department. But, more importantly, this level represents a lot of grievances I have with quite a few entries in this contest, and if I’m not going to be judging anymore, I might as well fit in the wordcount of all my hypothetical judge comments into one post. I haven’t talked about everything I want to talk about, but hopefully you guys have an idea of where I’m coming from. I’m sorry I had to drop out of judging, but hopefully I can find time to make some more posts like these and talk about more levels from the contest.