The Sagan Saga by SkyeHomes - Hacks

File Name:	The Sagan Saga
Submitted:	2019-10-29 07:11:47 AM by SkyeHomes
Authors:	SkyeHomes
Demo:	No
Featured:	No
Length:	1 exit(s)
Type:	Misc.: Troll
Description:	Hello! This is my short-ish (30 minutes or so) level with fast paced trolls and platforming. All custom graphics are by me, asm by the SMWCentral FAQ. Thanks guys!
Screenshots:

I think this level has some creative ideas, spoiled a bit by the tightness of the platforming. Let's go over some examples:

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The jump leading up to this position is a bit tighter than I’d expect for so early in the level – especially since if you don’t read the not-completely-intuitive graphics properly and don't see that the green hill is solid and doesn’t kill you, you’re likely going to try to make this jump a lot harder for yourself by jumping from the kaizo blocks over on the ground. The rule of trolls is that if a blind player discovers a way that’ll work, they assume that’s the intended solution and not look for other solutions. Keep that in mind for later.

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This jump is overly tight. It’s very easy to either bonk your head on the spike vine or land on the left note block by accident even once you know what you need to do. This caused a lot of frustration, especially when followed up by...

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This jump has a bunch of things going against it. The indicator arrow is half-covered by the status bar, which makes it hard to see clearly, and it’s easy to accidentally kinda-sorta get it by throwing the shell instead of no-grabbing - remember, if someone finds one way to get past an obstacle, that becomes the canonical way, even if that messes things up later down the line – like one attempt that killed a necessary part of the path forward:

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I do have to credit this jump, and every jump after it until nearly the end – I legitimately enjoyed this section. The platforming segment before it had some good things but overall felt very vanilla, like I was mostly just doing the platforming without any trolls in sight. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though - that's my personal preferences talking.

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This mole is pretty easy to accidentally avoid, due to its slow speed and SMW having given it an overly generous hitbox - I can stay still in this position and be fine despite being at nearly the bottom of the vine. If you're fine with that, no changes necessary, but my personal preferences would be to raise the mole up a bit so that he hits the player more often on that first run through.

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This particular jump is the most frustrating part of the level by far, especially considering that it’s right at the end. I can’t think of any way that someone would happen upon the solution to this within a few tries except by freak accident – I had to eventually open the hack in Lunar Magic in order to figure out what I was doing here.

That last jump, since it makes the level rather unfair, is the biggest reason why I’m rejecting this hack for now – overall, the level has potential but that one giant rough patch right at the end makes the entire second CP section feel frustrating and annoying, souring all the good things you had earlier in that section. I don't know exactly how it's possible to fix this obstacle other than by completely reworking it, but I'd recommend getting a couple of blind playtesters for the next end troll before you resubmit this.

In general, loosening up some of the jumps will help make the experience more fun, but isn't strictly necessary.

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