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Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comments

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limepie20
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by limepie20 »

Well as you suggested, I had actually only watched the video because didn't have time for the level. I will play it as soon as I can and provide more specific suggestions.
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Lv27MarkerMMan
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Lv27MarkerMMan »

@ Cup
I played your boss room. The only thing I have to say about it is that some people (like myself) may think the pit before the wall at the end is the way you're supposed to go before they think to spin jump to an area that they cannot see. Even in games where most pits are death, a pit at the end of the road is often the way forward. Here it is just death. I'm not saying whether or not it is good or bad, but that some people may be deceived to death here (only once of course).
Don't be afraid to check out my Youtube channel.
I am making let's plays now!
limepie20
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by limepie20 »

Cup:
I still honestly felt that the level was rather easy.
Cup wrote:And just an idea clarification here, I think where we're not mesh vision wise, is I was actually thinking "boss levels" sort of things! Literally! Something that was boss fight in name, but played like a level, because it's different and while not totally original, it leans towards slightly unique. I feel that making the level you two would want would start reaching into the sprite spammy difficulty of S Mario's sprite spammy levels. While I love S Mario, it's not the kind of game I can play without save states. I'm not disagreeing however! The level I had in my mind was slightly more difficult that this, but sprite limits forced me to rethink some things.
See, now I really like this idea and think it is a good one. I just imagined a more sprite-spammy version that was shorter to compensate. But I agree that sprite-spammy can be a bad thing, and I am not necessarily asking for sprite spam, but I do believe there needs to be more sprites than what there is now.

I don't have specific suggestions for the level because the level is pretty consistent throughout and works well for its style. Although this is true, I feel that the level's style as a whole needs some reworking.

Currently every screen has about 1-2 sprites. There are a few places where you can find three sprites. This way, you are usually only dealing with one enemy at a time or sometimes two. Everyone is very familiar with the smw sprites, so this kind of gameplay is the same. If you crank up the sprite density like maybe 3-4 per screen, you can create new and original sprite combinations, which may fill the gap that you feel your level has.

When gameplay feels a bit boring, my primary suggestion is usually to have more than one enemy function as an obstacle at a time because everyone knows how to jump over a koopa, but a koopa accompanied by a boo or something can be different.

I hope you know what I mean when I am saying this. When I say the level was easy, it is because I am used to what the level has to offer. I felt the most creative part was right at the end when you had to use the always-moving boo to get to the thwomp and jump up. But even then, imagine the difference if there was some other enemy you had to navigate around before you could get to the thwomp. It completely spices up the gameplay and creates something more original than before.
Cup
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Cup »

Wait, the thwomp spawned for you? Can you do me a favor and try loading those last few screens up with sprites and seeing how many spawn? What emulator are you playing on? As I said earlier, my initial idea for the level had quite a bit more sprite interaction than it does now, but due to sprite limit problems I had to cut back.

My original idea for that boo climbing part was something more like this
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But I obviously never got it to work.
limepie20
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by limepie20 »

I just had the highest thwomp and the boo, and I am using zsnes.

What is causing the sprite limitations?
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Fireyblaze
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Fireyblaze »

Putting up one more version of my level before I go to clearing. I made it less puzzle based, but I need to add more uses for the gimmick. Also, I think that I need to lower the time limit a little.
Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

@fiery

The only thing I don't get is why the muncher saws are blue. Can't complain about anything else.
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Jesuiscontent
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Jesuiscontent »

@fireyblaze
I like this version of your level, the last few screens and the way to the chest in particular are really well done and use the slowing gimmick pretty well, good job on that. Still a few things I noticed :
Sans titre.jpg
For some reason this podoboo stops jumping out of the lava after one hop, unless you leave the screen and come back. I.. really don't know why it's doing that.
Sans titree.jpg
If the player goes above the level to the right (instead of going left to the chest), he'll not only find out there's nothing over here but will also be slowed down to oblivion and will probably hit the time limit. You should block this path. Speaking of the time limit, during my run where I collected all the parrot coins and the chest I had like 40 seconds left. I'm saying that because you mentioned lowering it ; to me it's just right as of now if you want to get everything, and plenty enough if you just go for the exit.
Sans titreee.png
Now this is arguable, but considering a lot of the obstacles in this level are susceptible to fireballs and it really makes quite a difference if you have a flower or not, I suggest removing one of the two powerups I circled, especially since they are pretty close together.


Once you have considered these "issues", I think your level will be fine for clearing.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

I've got the next 5 days completely free, so expect everything in my level to be finished and tested within those 5 days.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Now I still have more things I want to test on the Lunatic area, since I changed a lot of things recently.

But I have a version that has everything that was mentionned being fixed with several areas that are changed quite a bit.


Havent imported the lunatic sublevel yet so its innacessible.

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Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

shdwdrgnix wrote:Now I still have more things I want to test on the Lunatic area, since I changed a lot of things recently.

But I have a version that has everything that was mentionned being fixed with several areas that are changed quite a bit.


Havent imported the lunatic sublevel yet so its innacessible.

Yatagarasu
Easier fixes:

-There are dark blocks that are hard to see which like odd. One of the four 8x8 tile areas are invisible
Easy map16 fix
Easy map16 fix
threequarters.png (4.43 KiB) Viewed 4591 times
-Easy mode seems more lazy than a joke. May I suggest the Skull Raft Ride of Shame

-Color code the difficulty of the pipes.

Harder things:

-Dry bones and floating(why?) sparkies are inconsequential for the most part. Rethink enemy options

-Flight area is too hard. Can't see how it would be fun even if I could pass it. Reset door is kind of a punishment for getting those lives.

-How are midpoints suppose to work? Hard midpoint brought me to easy.

-Lava actually has nothing to do with nuclear fusion. Seeing a sun like harasser(like phanto, lakitu with sun graphics) at some point in hard/lunatic would fit in well. Or you could just make Sun related normal enemies(like the mace).
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Easier fixes:

-There are dark blocks that are hard to see which like odd. One of the four 8x8 tile areas are invisible

Will fix that

-Easy mode seems more lazy than a joke. May I suggest the Skull Raft Ride of Shame

Its the secret exit, if I make something too easy, it would end up in an early world but wont work too well since the other difficulties are much more harder.

-Color code the difficulty of the pipes.

That is quite hard to fix because the palette messes up for the pipes on almost every subscreen.
I could however use koopa shells to color code them


Harder things:

-Dry bones and floating(why?) sparkies are inconsequential for the most part. Rethink enemy options

Not too sure what else I could place instead

-Flight area is too hard. Can't see how it would be fun even if I could pass it. Reset door is kind of a punishment for getting those lives.

I' ll make it more suited for practicing since lunatic uses some flight tricks.

-How are midpoints suppose to work? Hard midpoint brought me to easy.

They work with the multiple midway patch I'm unable to do that sadly

-Lava actually has nothing to do with nuclear fusion. Seeing a sun like harasser(like phanto, lakitu with sun graphics) at some point in hard/lunatic would fit in well. Or you could just make Sun related normal enemies(like the mace).

I could if someone is willing to redraw the graphics afterwards.
Nuclear fusion is only for lunatic anyways.

Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

shdwdrgnix wrote:
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Easier fixes:
-Easy mode seems more lazy than a joke. May I suggest the Skull Raft Ride of Shame

Its the secret exit, if I make something too easy, it would end up in an early world but wont work too well since the other difficulties are much more harder.

I mean that the easy room had no content whatsoever. The skull ride with no danger would get the EASY MODO across better.


-Color code the difficulty of the pipes.

That is quite hard to fix because the palette messes up for the pipes on almost every subscreen.
I could however use koopa shells to color code them


Looks like a job for map16. Pipes like that may already exist in the rom, but I'm not sure.

Harder things:

-Dry bones and floating(why?) sparkies are inconsequential for the most part. Rethink enemy options

Not too sure what else I could place instead

It's not like you have to ask permission to use different enemies. You could even splice enemy sets

-Lava actually has nothing to do with nuclear fusion. Seeing a sun like harasser(like phanto, lakitu with sun graphics) at some point in hard/lunatic would fit in well. Or you could just make Sun related normal enemies(like the mace).

I could if someone is willing to redraw the graphics afterwards.
Nuclear fusion is only for lunatic anyways.


Maces are the most prominent enemy and could like be made into glowing yellow/white spheres.
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Ometeotl
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Ometeotl »

alex2 wrote:Nesting replies like that is fucking confusing. Avoid doing that.

Nah.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Applied the previous fixes to my level so now I will put more work into the last part of lunatic.
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swirlybomb
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by swirlybomb »

Based on a suggestion from the Checklist thread, I put in 'a cryptic, meaningless poem' for the first room's text. I just used what Limepie/raocow had already written, because I'm not so good with The Writing. Just tossing this up here to see if the text and text placement 'works'.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14760273/Talkha ... ntroV2.ips
anonymousbl00dlust wrote:All the obstacles in my level can be beaten on the players first attempt without any 'future predicting'.
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Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

swirlybomb wrote:Based on a suggestion from the Checklist thread, I put in 'a cryptic, meaningless poem' for the first room's text. I just used what Limepie/raocow had already written, because I'm not so good with The Writing. Just tossing this up here to see if the text and text placement 'works'.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14760273/Talkha ... ntroV2.ips
Before the part where you go over the level, You can see text before you're suppose to. Also, there was a eye slit during a dark part in a previous version, and I liked that.

in the second room, the player may turn around at the end escaping the "trap". Invisible one way block might work there.

In the third room, you could try spikes as wall.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Right then, got everything taken care of. I just need to test a few more things and balance the difficulty curve a little. So a fully completed version will be up soon (sunday at most, but expect it to be done earlier)
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swirlybomb
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by swirlybomb »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:Also, there was a eye slit during a dark part in a previous version, and I liked that.
It was honestly not intended to have that there before (it was just because of the text not having black behind it, but I actually could include that if it is preferred. Ideally I'd like to get a second opinion or so before coming to a decision on that.
anonymousbl00dlust wrote:All the obstacles in my level can be beaten on the players first attempt without any 'future predicting'.
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tenta
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by tenta »

I can't work on my level at all if Franky or Limepie doesn't answer me.
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Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

tenta wrote:I can't work on my level at all if Franky or Limepie doesn't answer me.
You were in level clearing, not this thread.

This is the last concrete thing anyone said about your level.
limepie20 wrote:tenta:
One minor error I just picked up on is that the place where you fall to get a parrot coin (next to midpoint entrance) has regular invisible coin blocks instead of the outlined ones. Also, please remove the line of turn blocks at the top of the level; they look weird.
Before I clear you, can you explain how you are supposed to get the treasure chest because I can't figure it out? I think you should change it a bit because I see the solution involves going inside of the dirt, and that doesn't look good. Could you change it up so you don't have to go inside the dirt?
I don't know how limepie is having a problem with the treasure chest. I guess I'll PM him the solution. The dirt place seems like an integral part of the level, and I'm against the idea of scraping it. I would like to have more natural looking platforms in that area.
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Awakenyourmind
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Awakenyourmind »

Tenta: I've been on msn as you requested.

Update: I'm about 75% done with that extension level for my Into the Sky Castle level. So far so good, I'll post a video when done. So you guys can tell me if it's too hard or not. Good thing I chose to remodel this level, there were quite a few graphical problems. Other things needed to be edited as well.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Sadly after testing I had to get rid of the second half of Lunatic because of glitches and it was too hard.
The first half however has been completed.

So I will just give a link to my level like it is without the second room.

The second room would be reachable whenever you were to reach the goal in Lunatic.



If anyone has an idea for the second half, please do tell me, though I can't make bosses so that is out of the question, unless someone is wiling to volunteer of course.


And here it is
Septentrion Pleiades
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Shdwdrgnix:

There are some warning coins on normal at screen 03 without a podabo. Also the palette has some weird blueness. The falling spike don't hurt if they haven't fallen.

I don't like easy. I needs more content, but you don't have to make it remotely dangerous if you don't want to.

Please use map 16 to make the pipe area better.

Lunitic start off quite slow. I do think there might be more options than the giant sparkies. I haven't finish the level, but I think you should look into having a giant phanto.

Edit: looking into lunar magic, the tile placement is quite inefficient. Please avoid using 1x1 tiles to save file size.

edit2: The invs coin block thomp are very cheap, and might even make an unwinnible situation. Also hard doesn't have warning coins for that part while lunitic does.
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shdwdrgnix
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Re: Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comment

Post by shdwdrgnix »

Shdwdrgnix:

There are some warning coins on normal at screen 03 without a podabo. Also the palette has some weird blueness. The falling spike don't hurt if they haven't fallen.
fixed except for the palette.
I don't like easy. I needs more content, but you don't have to make it remotely dangerous if you don't want to.
Its the secret exit for hard, but I can add another goal on 12B for the hard secret exit, but then easy will have a normal exit, and I would rather have the normal exit not progress forward on the map in that case.
Please use map 16 to make the pipe area better.

Do you mean the floor here?

Lunitic start off quite slow. I do think there might be more options than the giant sparkies. I haven't finish the level, but I think you should look into having a giant phanto.
Is it not hard enough? I could barely beat it. Giant phanto would make it much harder.
Edit: looking into lunar magic, the tile placement is quite inefficient. Please avoid using 1x1 tiles to save file size.
I'll do my best to fix this, I do have issues with the lava because of how its made.
edit2: The invs coin block thomp are very cheap, and might even make an unwinnible situation. Also hard doesn't have warning coins for that part while lunitic does.
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