Episode 2 Level Review and Testing Discussion

[SAJewers]

Dark Prince by Willhart (1) (2) [Rejected]
Jumping Castle by Willhart [Approved]
The Second Longest Tree by Willhart [Approved]
Flip Blocks by cramps-man [Approved]

Disregard what I said in cramps-man's level, I see they fixed my complaint already and I had an outdated version. Whoops!

You forgot your review on Monoland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_65VWfbP2o

Mikkoifier: mentioned in Skype, but if you could, grab raocoin_taken.png from the world folder, invert the colours, and toss it in your level assets folder. That'll fix the raocoin outline thing so it'll actually show up against the black background.

[pholtos]

Lv27MarkerMan's Tag Team Puzzle gets neither an approve nor a disapprove but a holy cow. That was somewhat a major effort to figure out but when I did, yeesh. Video will be up sometime tonight I think.

[cramps-man]

In response to Pyro's review about sound effect, I'll see what I can do about adding it in when the blocks switch. I'll have to decide if there's two separate sounds for the normal and spinjump switching, but other than that, just need to find a good sound effect or two.

[Willhart]

Again, I'll hopefully have time/energy to fix dark prince like next week or so. It should not be too big of a deal to fix, but I'm still having problems with the music tags, which I need to fix too, and that is considerably less fun to do.

[pholtos]

5 - Lv27MarkerMan's Tag Team Puzzle - Honestly, I dunno about this one.

[kitikami]

I remember taking a while to figure out Tag Team Puzzle too, but working out all the parts felt really good, and nothing was particularly demanding once you've solved it, which I think makes for a good puzzle level.

The things I remember being kind of annoying, which pholtos' video reminded me of, were

-The Iris jump to the second level of doors in the hub room is a little silly, to the point that it's possible to think that is a flight/double-jump barrier. Giving some more space to get a running start, which shouldn't be an issue since there are only two doors up there, and possibly not having the sign in the space you need to build up your run, could go a long way to reducing frustration, especially if the player tries the jump a few times with Iris and then wastes a lot of time looking for another solution before realizing that jump is doable.

-Building the tower of jars to get to the Kood block is unnecessarily tedious, and is not something you want to have to keep repeating as you are trying to figure out the steps of the puzzle. Instead of a jar generator, putting a springboard under the Demo-only blocks would help a lot, especially since stacking the jars doesn't really have anything to do with the puzzle.

-Is there a reason to give raocow the ice flower? I remember getting stuck in the same mindset as pholtos where I felt like I had to use the resources given, especially a second-tier power-up like ice, so when I got to the alien-bridge to the blue switch, my instinct was to use ice to freeze the enemies into a bridge. That is probably the most annoying part of the level to actually execute...except there is no need to do it at all since you can just ride the alien across. Initially giving raocow just a beet power-up for an extra hit instead of an ice flower would make it much more obvious to do that the correct way. Red herrings can have their place in a puzzle level, but probably not if it just induces the player to try to do something really un-fun and tedious in an already long level. If there is a reason to give raocow ice that I'm forgetting, the ice flower could be better placed where that blue switch is, so you can only get it after riding an alien across the bridge.

(Now that I think about it, that is probably meant as a filter to make sure raocow doesn't already have fire when you first get him. This should be easily fixable by putting a lunalua filter in the opening room since you have to make an appearance as raocow there anyway, which would let you remove the ice flower by the raocow character block.)

Other than that, I really like that level and would like to see it in the game.

[pholtos]

As a note, I cut out a lot of time in a couple areas, like when I couldn't make the jump with Iris, the purple furba bit and once I finally got access to Sheath.

[Hoeloe]

This code for lunaworld, coupled with raocoin2 v2.0.8, should fix the issues with grass, bubbles, eggs, etc. Blocks are more awkward and still being looked into. http://pastebin.com/pj6apq5W

I made a lunaworld package containing stuff I know works, since I know Pyro was having issues. Pyro and Pholtos should download this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/308 ... dStuff.zip

Don't worry about the HUD. I'm waiting on a new feature of LunaLua, and then I can get to work on the HUD layout properly.

[SAJewers]

That level still feels way too complicated.

[Darkonius64]

Has anyone re-reviewed my awful level yet?

[pholtos]

6 - Mikkofier's raocow Workday

[SAJewers]

Desert Dash, Goopa Brigade

So, I replayed this level, and the level seemed better the second time around. However, there are 2 spots where you can currently get crushed by the autoscrool if you mess up a jump, and I feel as if those should be changed:

[attachment=0]2015-11-22_09_55_40.png[/attachment]
[attachment=1]2015-11-22_09_55_20.png[/attachment]

For the first one, either remove the goopa jump entirely, or remove some of the quicksand to make the goopas stand out more. Second one can be easily fixed by either dropping the platforms down 1, or brining the quicksand up 1.

Also, you still need a lunadll filter. Not approving any levels that don't use them when needed.

[ztarwuff]

Has anyone re-reviewed my awful level yet?

Please don't say things like that. Your level is solidly constructed apart from a few minor oversights, which you have corrected. I still think the level is playable as all the characters, but I'm okay with you restricting it to Demo and Iris.

I'm retracting my rejection. This level is approved with one minor caveat.

I got this message when I hit the switch before the boss:

boss-switch.PNG (16.63 KiB) Viewed 3600 times

Could somebody who knows LunaLua please look into this? Nothing bad happened after it. I just pressed OK and the level continued as normal. However, it would be nice to know whether it's something to do with the LunaLua script or just my computer.

[Hoeloe]

boss-switch.PNG

Could somebody who knows LunaLua please look into this? Nothing bad happened after it. I just pressed OK and the level continued as normal. However, it would be nice to know whether it's something to do with the LunaLua script or just my computer.

I believe it's because the devkit has an outdated multipoints version. Download the newest version from the wiki.

[SAJewers]

It should be up to date.

[Hoeloe]

It should be up to date.

Possible that the version of the devkit that was downloaded hasn't been updated recently. That's definitely a multipoints bug that has been fixed.

[snoruntpyro]

First round of reviews for today. As usual, if I pinged you, watch the video because there's advice and stuff.

ping

ping

Sky Fleet by PikkaRose [Rejected]
raocow's Workday by Mikkofier [Approved]
Way Too Highrise by Isrieri [Approved]
Awesome Moonlight Oasis Vinesaw Pool Party by FrozenQuills [Approved]
Sunrise by Holy [Approved]

[WestonSmith]

Resilient Nature - Rejected

I was going to go line by line with what bugged me, but it was getting to be too big of a list. So I'll be short and sweet instead: this feels very much like someone learning the editor as they went along, trying out everything once to see what works, then figuring that was good enough and shipping it in. There are some good parts, such as the music and the tree graphics, but the level lacks cohesion in its design, and occasionally just feels cruel in terms of enemy placement (WHY IS THE FIREBAR RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR!). Nevermind that the final segment features a jump that I believe to be impossible without propelling off of an enemy, except that enemy triggers rising lava, so if you screw it up, UNEXPECTED INSTANT DEATH (screwing it up includes shooting a Fire Ball at it.... yay).

There is potential here, but it would require almost a complete retool to bring it about. My suggestion is to start over, focus on the "inside a tree" aspect (even combining it with lava if you want, though I'd suggest NOT in a castle setting) and cut your enemy usage down to Spike Tops, Caterpillars, Sawblades, and Goopas. Build from there and see what you get.

Starlight Resort - Approved

It's worth noting that I actually dislike this level. I despise Raocoin hunts, backtracking, P-Switch babysitting, Sonic graphics in SMBX, and an overabundance of friendly NPCs with inane dialogue. Having said that, I know other people enjoy all of those things, and this level handles them all well enough while featuring some neat platforming sections. Seeing as others have no qualms about its design, I won't harp on it either, so I'll just sum up a few things that crossed my mind while playing:

-The death effect on the Bully Replacement needs to be updated (still shows the Sand enemy)
-The background and foreground graphics could be a touch confusing, especially in the section with the vine climb.
-May I suggest replacing the first P-Switch with a detonator NPC. It accomplishes the exact same effect (forcing the player back to the start) but without the annoyance of sitting around for the P-Switch to stop before grabbing the Parrot Coin.
-Assuming they can get it working, this level would benefit tremendously from a Parrot Coin tracker. Redoing the first half of the level after the midpoint is super annoying,

[snoruntpyro]

WestonSmith - the new devkit makes it so every level has an in-level raocoin counter, so you don't have to worry about that.

The Duckpocalypse by Skulldug13, again [Still Rejected]
Sheath's Journey to Sheol by duvi0 [Approved]
Tag Team Puzzle by Lvl27MarkerMan [Rejected]

ping

You renamed the folder, but not the level file, which caused the custom graphics to break. Gotta fix that!

[GenesisJames]

Desert Dash, Goopa Brigade

So, I replayed this level, and the level seemed better the second time around. However, there are 2 spots where you can currently get crushed by the autoscrool if you mess up a jump, and I feel as if those should be changed:

[attachment=0]2015-11-22_09_55_40.png[/attachment]
[attachment=1]2015-11-22_09_55_20.png[/attachment]

For the first one, either remove the goopa jump entirely, or remove some of the quicksand to make the goopas stand out more. Second one can be easily fixed by either dropping the platforms down 1, or brining the quicksand up 1.

Also, you still need a lunadll filter. Not approving any levels that don't use them when needed.

I'll get on that as soon as I can. Would you mind giving me a brief rundown on what I need to do to make the filter (or point me to a guide or something)? I've never used lunaDLL before, so I'm kinda lost on that, haha~

[SAJewers]

Assuming you don't want to filter powerups or sacks:

Code: Select all

function onLoad()
	if (player.isValid) then
		player.character = CHARACTER_TOAD;
	end

end

throw that into a text file called lunadll.lua in your level folder.

[GenesisJames]

Assuming you don't want to filter powerups or sacks:

Code: Select all

function onLoad()
	if (player.isValid) then
		player.character = CHARACTER_TOAD;
	end

end

throw that into a text file called lunadll.lua in your level folder.

Thank you! I'll get that implemented as soon as I can.

[Duvi0]

words that made duvi happy

Alright, Coral Climb and Sheath's Journey to Sheol have been fixed, unless the NIL error is still there, in which case I have no idea how to fix that.

[snoruntpyro]

Alright, Coral Climb and Sheath's Journey to Sheol have been fixed, unless the NIL error is still there, in which case I have no idea how to fix that.

The NIL error is because you don't have music tags for your files. You can set them with Audacity.

Deep Terror by HarmfulGravemind [Rejected]
Night Light Fright by WestonSmith [Approved]
Muffin Bluff by MonkeyShrapnel [Approved]
Abode of the Bunnies by MonkeyShrapnel [Approved]
Coral Climb by Duvi0 [Rejected but the level got updated so I'll change it to approve once I check the update]
Bat an Eye by Oddwrath [Approved]

[WestonSmith]

Way Too Highrise - Approved

Sacks – Should be filtered out with Lua.

Cat Llamas – Should be filtered out with Lua.

Music – Should be OGG format (or another accepted format).

Thoughts – Just about perfect. Might be the best vertical scroll level I’ve seen in SMBX.

Bat An Eye - Approved

Sacks – Could use Lua filtering, but it works as is (pipe filter).

Cat Llamas – Could use Lua filtering, but it works as is (pipe filter).

Music – Should be an OGG file. Needs fixing.

Level Suggestions – You’ve solved pretty much all of my problems that I had with the original. I think my biggest complaint is that the second half now feels easier than the first half, but I wouldn’t actually suggest swapping them.

Thoughts – This was a cool level back when I first played it, and it feels much more polished in its current state. This is a shining example of taking something good and making it great. I think the idea has enough merit that a sequel level could be produced and everything could still feel fresh and new. Great concept and very solid execution.

Sky Fleet - Rejected

Thoughts – Forgettable design, a mess of different tiles used, finicky Goopa jumping, and a spammy, boring second half. It’s your first try at an SMBX level, and it shows. I’d suggest tossing this one aside and starting on a fresh submission. I don’t think there’s anything worth salvaging here.