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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Super Mario Bros. X
39
66%
Lunar Magic
20
34%
 
Total votes: 59

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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ivy »

SAJewers wrote: 7 years ago Things SMBX Does Better:
- More stuff out of the box (like custom layers)
- You can use any music you want
- LUA is easier to learn than 65816 Assembly
- Easier to make collabs/combine levels into an episode

Things SMW Hacking does better:
- Screen size (I much prefer SMW's smaller screensize)
- Camera
- SMWC's Asset database is miles better than SMBX's forums
- Almost everything in Lunar Magic is a sizeable, whereas most SMBX objects are tile-by-tile
yes yes yes the screen size is the biggest one for me here. and on the smbx front, not dropping the reserve power-up on hit is extremely good. they each possess one irrefutably nice aspect
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by YelseyKing »

The screen size is kind of a subjective thing. I've never minded SMBX's larger view, myself. But I totally agree with Ivy about the reserve item not auto-dropping when you get hit in SMBX. That's one thing I've *always* hated about SMW, because half the time, you can't even *get* the falling item. Either you're in a "hurry up" situation and the thing falls into an area you really can't return to, or it falls in a wall. It's probably meant to be helpful, but it's really anything *but*.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by ano0maly »

What I originally posted in the LCJ thread with some edits:
Ashan wrote: 6 years ago
ano0maly wrote: 6 years ago Ashan, we went over this before. An editor having more features or being easier to use is not a bad thing
It is when someone with bad ideas is trying to implement them in both. Sometimes less is more, ya know?
No, it is not. If a tool is more capable/advanced and more accessible in a make-sense-of-these-functions way, it's a more powerful and better built tool, simple as that. Whether or not a community is not competent enough to make good products with it is another matter. That's the fault of that community, not the tool that just happened to be misused.

And that haiku analogy just doesn't do favors to your argument about SMBX. For one thing, the respective positions of SMBX tools and SMW tools on the "which is more accessible, which is more advanced" changed over time. I've stated that the same thing you're arguing was argued back then in favor of SMBX. And the point is same, then and now: blaming the capable engine for levels misuing those capabilities won't fly.

Anyone that used the PGE editor would be able to vouch for what I've said about it previously. The clunky vanilla SMBX editor has arguably a higher entry barrier. Does that make the vanilla editor itself better? Of course not.
Last edited by ano0maly 6 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Money »

Let me say in regards to my comments in the Level Contest Japan thread that I neither really have a horse in this race nor strong opinions one way or another. I was just trying to point out that I found the reasons given for disliking SMBX to be weak, biased and unfair.

My experience in the two engines is as follows:

For SMW I made a really basic vanilla level for A2MT years ago and then tried to make a level for Vanilla Contest 10 and got frustrated like a screen in because I couldn't reasonably do what I wanted to because no tileset supported all the elements I wanted to put together.

For SMBX I've never posted anything but years back I looked around the editor, couldnt figure out events, and then dropped it and never picked it back up

Just letting you know to not put too much weight in my opinion
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Omega Metroid »

Hmm... to sum up my opinion as shortly as possible...
  • SMBX is better, because it has less limitations (especially in terms of storage space, runtime memory, and active sprites). Pretty much anything you can do in SMWcan be done in SMBX if you're willing to take the time (especially when it comes to adding arbitrary code, since SMW has a much larger ASM library available than SMBX's Lua library, to my knowledge; you'll likely have to rewrite at least half the ASM patches you want to add yourself, especially if they're uncommonly used ones that don't have equivalent Lua scripts yet), but not everything you can do in SMBX can be done in SMW (no matter how good a programmer you are, you can't exactly rewrite hardware limitations and still be SNES- or emulator-compatible). The biggest flaw would be the editor itself being clunky.
  • SMW hacking is worse, per se, but still a very viable option because a lot more of the game's potential has been realised so far. For almost anything you can think of, there's probably already an ASM patch for it, if not more than one. It also has a better editor than SMBX, in Lunar Magic. The biggest flaws are that LM isn't as inclusive as SMBX's editor, and you need to use a lot of auxiliary tools for things like adding resources, and that it's still bound by the SNES' hardware limitations.
I may be wrong, I don't have that much experience with either of them, but that's just what I see.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ashan »

I haven't read this thread yet so I'm might be retreading on what was already said, but anomaly wasn't happy with my criticism of SMBX in the LCJ thread so I'm just gonna throw some thoughts down here.

First of all, I've only finished like 1 or 2 series from raocow where he played SMBX because I just don't find it fun to watch. I believe when he started playing SMBX games almost exclusively was when I just stopped watching althogether because it was so uninteresting to me.

I just think the barrier to entry is too low and allows for too much mediocrity. That level near the end of LCJ where you fight "Dark Yoshi" 6 times in a row and then like 20 Mouser clones is a prime example. The author was probably like 13, and if they were to make an SMW level it probably would have been a YouTube hack and either not even accepted into the game, or put in a "garbage tier" world like the one contest hack, I think an SMWC one?

As for custom music, despite that I think I used the term "copyrighted" when I mentioned it in the LCJ thread, my issue with it is less about the copyright (because, as pointed out, Nintendo music is copyrighted) and more an extension of my point that it allows for bad ideas. Having full on studio songs in a Mario game is so out of place and bad. Even though I actually didn't mind the songs used in that IWBTG level as songs, it makes no sense for the author to have put them there, and if they didn't have the option to do it, we wouldn't have to worry about those bad choices. I also just like the medium as an art form of people translating outside tracks into proper SNES tunes with SMW instruments (if no sound font was used). Sometimes you'll hear multiple versions of the same song since more than 1 person had a go at it

I won't say SMBX is objectively worse in every way. I think there were some great levels in LCJ that would have never been possible in SMW. But the easier it is to make a level, the more people you have to worry about, and the more garbage you have to sift through. I know I've already been called a mean person for saying I don't like more people making levels, but I just don't think most people are good at it.

I might be talking out of my ass on some stuff since I've always been more of a player of the levels than a maker; I've made like 2 mediocre-to-bad SMW levels in my life, but the long and short of it is I don't enjoy SMBX as much.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by underFlo »

Ashan wrote: 6 years agoI just think the barrier to entry is too low and allows for too much mediocrity. That level near the end of LCJ where you fight "Dark Yoshi" 6 times in a row and then like 20 Mouser clones is a prime example. The author was probably like 13, and if they were to make an SMW level it probably would have been a YouTube hack and either not even accepted into the game, or put in a "garbage tier" world like the one contest hack, I think an SMWC one?
This is not an engine complaint, it's a complaint with how the contest was run.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ignoritus »

Pretty much all of your criticisms have nothing to do with the engine so much as the people using it.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Mata Hari »

I like SMBX and look forward to continued expansions and improvements but SMW is like way less janky ultimately. Obviously you can create jank in it but the baseline engine in terms of physics and shit is way less janky.

What I would really be down for is a totally rebuilt from-the-ground-up platformer engine that's as easy to use as SMBX but... way less janky. Are people working on such a thing? I can't imagine nobody is.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Emral »

Mata Hari wrote: 6 years ago I like SMBX and look forward to continued expansions and improvements but SMW is like way less janky ultimately. Obviously you can create jank in it but the baseline engine in terms of physics and shit is way less janky.

What I would really be down for is a totally rebuilt from-the-ground-up platformer engine that's as easy to use as SMBX but... way less janky. Are people working on such a thing? I can't imagine nobody is.
Wohlstand is working on remaking SMBX and fixing the bad decisions for the PGE Engine. SMBX2 will likely switch over to it sometime after the engine is finished, though that's not happening anytime soon.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Alice »

Enjl wrote: 6 years agoWohlstand is working on remaking SMBX and fixing the bad decisions for the PGE Engine. SMBX2 will likely switch over to it sometime after the engine is finished, though that's not happening anytime soon.
How far along is that? Wohlstand used to post updates here but that hasn't happened in at least a few months.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ashan »

The swimming physics need a lot of work.
There's an instance in nearly every swimming section raocow plays where he bonks his head on something because he's swimming up, and once you get started, you can't stop. In SMW you can press down and up to control your vertical speed, and if that's a thing in SMBX it's very badly implemented.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by SAJewers »

If we're talking things we'd like changed in PGE from SMBX, then definitely add using SMW camera logic to that list



Also, not having such huge real estate would probably be good too.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

There's a work-in-progress SMW camera movement API, but so far I've heard it doesn't work as intended (not familiar with SMW's camera, so can't comment on that). However, there has been discussion for a better camera movement API which will not only provide accurate movement but also shrink the screen to 640x480, like the SNES.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Emral »

Alice wrote: 6 years ago
Enjl wrote: 6 years agoWohlstand is working on remaking SMBX and fixing the bad decisions for the PGE Engine. SMBX2 will likely switch over to it sometime after the engine is finished, though that's not happening anytime soon.
How far along is that? Wohlstand used to post updates here but that hasn't happened in at least a few months.
dunno. i wouldn't expect it before 2019-2020 but wel'll see.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by SAJewers »

Zha Hong Lang wrote: 6 years ago There's a work-in-progress SMW camera movement API, but so far I've heard it doesn't work as intended (not familiar with SMW's camera, so can't comment on that). However, there has been discussion for a better camera movement API which will not only provide accurate movement but also shrink the screen to 640x480, like the SNES.
Oh, good. That covers 2 of my 3 biggest complaints about SMBX (the 3rd being that there's no analog to SMWC's online searchable asset database)
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Emral »

Zha Hong Lang wrote: 6 years ago There's a work-in-progress SMW camera movement API, but so far I've heard it doesn't work as intended (not familiar with SMW's camera, so can't comment on that). However, there has been discussion for a better camera movement API which will not only provide accurate movement but also shrink the screen to 640x480, like the SNES.
That screenshot is of a very old api that hasn't been touched in years. Nobody is currently working on one that promises what you say, though I recall Hoeloe mentioned he wanted to give it a shot.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ashan »

I have a question for people in the know about SMBX - is the engine built in a way that makes it difficult for some reason to freeze the world when Mario gets hit or gets a power up? For some reason when either of those things happen, Mario freezes but everything else keeps on moving. And also Mario gets an invincibility period for a few seconds after getting a power up, likely to counteract how unfair it would be if you got a power up and then an enemy moved into you (which is why the game freezes in official Mario games). And I think this kinda ruins some of the strategy/risk involved with power ups.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Emral »

Ashan wrote: 6 years ago I have a question for people in the know about SMBX - is the engine built in a way that makes it difficult for some reason to freeze the world when Mario gets hit or gets a power up? For some reason when either of those things happen, Mario freezes but everything else keeps on moving. And also Mario gets an invincibility period for a few seconds after getting a power up, likely to counteract how unfair it would be if you got a power up and then an enemy moved into you (which is why the game freezes in official Mario games). And I think this kinda ruins some of the strategy/risk involved with power ups.
Someone once made an API for it: http://wohlsoft.ru/pgewiki/PowerUDFreeze.lua
The download appears to be gone from the wiki, but I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to recreate.
I personally prefer the way official Mario games handle it, too, but I doubt this change will be made while we're on Redigit's engine, as it will certainly break levels that relied on these quirks (on engine switch everything breaks anyway so that's a good opportunity).
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Rixithechao »

Didn't salmon or someone else from the talkhaus make an SMW camera API? Or is that the one folks are referring to?

I recently wrote a more general-purpose camera API for dynamic angles and stuff.


It lets you specify the tracking target, so one could probably script an SMW-style camera fairly easily with some target abstraction -- instead of having the player be tracked directly, plug in a table that updates its coordinates based on the player's position and movement relative to the camera.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by ano0maly »

@Ashan:

The gripe I had with your line of argument was that you were looking only at the potential for bad results with those aspects where SMBX gave more options. And in turn, that was used as an opportunity to flatter SMW by looking at only the good consequences of those aspects where SMW was more restricted and had a higher entry barrier. But more options can allow better ability to make good results, and conversely, more restrictions can make it harder for people to arrive at those good results, and can cause amateurs to make things that simply don't function as MoneyMan said in the LCJ thread.

But these are just about abuses and misuses of the engines and not the merits of the tools. Basically:
MrDeePay wrote: 9 years ago
Doctor Shemp wrote: 9 years agoI am saying that the nature of SMW hacking and ROM playing exacerbates bad design.
Not really.
Replace SMW/ROM with SMBX and that's what I thought of.
SAJewers wrote: 6 years ago Also, not having such huge real estate would probably be good too.
Is the larger screen size really that much of a problem? Personally I like being able to see a large scope around me because it makes me feel safer from threats that are waiting outside the screen, and I'm better prepared for obstacles ahead.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Ivy »

Larger screen size makes level design lean towards the sprawly. Even with a linear level, ceilings are extremely high and rooms tend to feel very empty.
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