A Random Demo

Hello! This is totally not a demo thrown up all today.

Now, this is not actually called "A Random Hack". It's just a title I came up with because I wasn't too focused on anything but the levels themselves.

I started this hack last year and so far I have only made the grand total of five levels. But I've given the utmost care to all these five, and by that, I mean redesigned them multiple times, testing them simply too many times, fixed anything that there was to fix and even tried learning some ASM whil I was at it. I really hope you enjoy this demo!

Here are some screenshots:



And this is the download:

Download

It's cool to se ya here. I recall your name since your "grassy grotto" Level from the VLDC9 Collab. I really liked its design and from your screenshots it looks like i'd really dig this hack of yours, too

It seems relatively simple, yet it adds enough custom stuff to stand out from the "average vanilla hacks". Really good job and even if it takes a long time to create good levels sometimes (i know this from my own hack, too), keep working on it and one day you'll release an excellent hack!

I'm just afraid not many people know your name, but maybe i can mention your thread in the rope box nomination-thread, so it gets at least a bit more attention?

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God these levels all look wonderful from just a mere glance. Some beautiful palette choices for each and every one. Solid levels throughout, I unfortunately don't remember seeing anything from you before but I hope to see more from you now


Rope box nomination would definitely do this some justice.

Who man, those levels surely look really good! I will try to give some feedback later! The combo of vanilla+custom assets, which is what I'm also going for in my hack, is what appeals me the most.

I finished the two first, almost finished the mountain, had a look-see at the sky level before getting stuck and just a little glance at the castle.

This is the closest to the VLDC experience I remember having in a good while. The levels look fantastic and the setup creativity is over-the-top while giving next to no consideration to the player's experience.

Super ruthless design all over the place, either for being really difficult/awkward to pull off with very harsh punishment or for being very easy to screw up permanently by despawning or killing crucial enemies (an even better example is the blue koopas in the rope level). Not to mention the unpredictable and finicky nature of many, many setups (I had a hard time dealing with the offscreen bats in the cave for instance).
The stages feel just a tiny bit too long, but that's enough for it to be worth considering cutting off some content or using multiple midpoints in my opinion.

You need some extensive testing and I'm sure this can go very far. There's lots of potential.
Good luck!

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It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?

I'm glad you liked my old VLDC9 level, although, to be honest, I don't exactly consider it that good. I was mostly learning my way through Lunar magic back then.
Also, yeah, this hack is really vanilla only in style. I'm thinking of adding a lot more custom stuff along the way.


Well, of course you don't remember anything from me, I barely made anything before in the first place. Also, thanks for the nomination!


I'll be happy to wait for your feedback!


Well, first, thanks for playing and giving some feedback. During development, I've always felt that these levels might be a little too difficult to begin with, and I was never good at predicting the actual difficulty of a level. I'll try making them much easier next time.
By the way, you were supposed to hit the chuck to enter the yoshi coin area... but I forgot to close the upper boundary so you can access it that way and get stuck. Also, remember you can always exit a level, they're all open.

Whoa, this is something I didn't have on my radar! The visuals are excellent, and they remind me a lot of the recent VLDCs.

Is is just me, or are some of the jumps blind and/or requiring really strict timing?

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Now that my demo is all finished up I can begin my 'what to play' list and it looks like this wil be first! I love the visuals here. Palette is great, graphics are wonderful (Yoshi's Island is of my favourite thing), and frankly you're using the name 'a random hack' and actually making something cool.

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   ---> Magic: The Gathering Legends <---   
                                                                                                                
         

At the start of the cave level, it's exceedingly easy to just climb up the walls and go over the ceiling:


I don't really know what else to say besides that the visuals were nice (besides the munchers, which I think are just ugly) and that the level design was almost annoyingly difficult/strict for me. I agree with pretty much everything Koopster said.

I agree with the majority opinion here. The graphics are really nice, with good palette choices, but the levels drag on and have some fairly demanding sections which sometimes feel unfair. Depending on which difficulty you're going for, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you should nevertheless keep in mind that your levels wouldn't be accessible to all people. In fact, in the Sky level, testing if I could break the line mechanisms was more fun than actually playing the level. I'll also add to kyasarintsu's screenshot and say that you can easily clip through the steep slopes on the left - hold X and Left as you enter the level.

I'll point out two other things the others didn't. First off, the title screen is quite unimpressive and the player eventually dies, which doesn't make a good first impression at all. I also think your levels could really benefit from custom music because Super Mario World's short tunes get really irritating after listening to them for a while in your long levels. Additionally, the themes of the levels don't work well with any of Super Mario World's tracks, so it ends up becoming even more unnatural.

Nice hack! The cloud GFX in screen nr. 4 look good. I know it's from YI.

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