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Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

do you like them video games? what about those there romhacks? well pop on in here and talk about them then! what are you waiting for?!
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Ignoritus
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Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ignoritus »




So this is a thing apparently? Before you get too excited, let's talk about the problems:

1. Installation appears to be a massive pain in the ass.
2. Since this seems to be a rewrite, there are minor differences and certain bugs not present in the original.
3. The new content does not blend seamlessly. Note for example how the new powerups don't actually play the powerup sound.
4. No compatibility with LunaXXX.
5. You have to set your system language into chinese every time you want to launch the game.

Fortunately however for issues 2-4, Wohlstand and a few others have been attempting to contact the creator in order to see if he's willing to share the source. If he were, all of these issues could be resolved.

In either case, what do you all think? Is this a new platform to move onto? Does it stand out among all the other SMBX clones in progress, notably PGE? Or do its problems outweigh its strengths?

Personally it depends for me on whether or not the language issue can be fixed. To me it's very crippling to have to change my system language every time I want to play a game. If it could be fixed however, assuming no bug proves too severe I could see it replacing 1.3. Almost definitely if it received some sort of LunaLUA equivalent.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ivy »

no
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by snoruntpyro »

It looks super neat, but it's gonna take fixing of the issues you mentioned for anybody to even consider using this.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by TaviTurnip »

Not to impede progress, but "if it's not broken, don't fix it" is why I use the vanilla SMBx editor and not PGE Image

I doubt I'd ever move to a new SMBx 1.4 for any reason, unless it becomes absolutely required with no exception. It's cool that new stuff is being done though, at least.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Willhart »

If they were able to add all these neat things to the engine, it would probably be possible for them to add other things too. I wonder how they were able to do it though? Being able to write more tools and content to the base editor/engine itself does sound pretty great. It would need some kind of direction to be anyway useful though. Just cramming random stuff into the engine is not sustainable, unless we start to think the additions more as mods or something.

Edit: I have no idea how adding mod support to a game would work. Like modules that can be turned on and off?
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ignoritus »

8flight wrote: 1. No
2. Does that mean some glitches don't exist? If that's the case that's terrible for the KCX's
3. No
4. No
5. I'm Chinese, so it's okay
Errrr..... Those weren't questions? :|
Not really sure what a yes or no means in this context.

RenaTurnip wrote:Not to impede progress, but "if it's not broken, don't fix it" is why I use the vanilla SMBx editor and not PGE Image

I doubt I'd ever move to a new SMBx 1.4 for any reason, unless it becomes absolutely required with no exception. It's cool that new stuff is being done though, at least.
Personally the only reason I don't use PGE is because I'm just really used to the standard SMBX editor. Since at the moment PGE doesn't provide any real advantages in what you're capable of, I really gain nothing from transitioning. As soon as PGE starts being able to do things that SMBX can't I'll probably swap over.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Willhart »

Ignoritus wrote:As soon as PGE starts being able to do things that SMBX can't I'll probably swap over.
It can make the smoke effect not happen when layer disappears on case by case basis. The events handling is also quite a lot easier, and you can even order them by simply dragging them around. Also the drag and drop thing is quite useful in certain situations, and can save a lot of time, as well as the undo function.

Edit: You can also modify the aspects of multiple npcs/blocks at the time.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ignoritus »

Willhart wrote:
Ignoritus wrote:As soon as PGE starts being able to do things that SMBX can't I'll probably swap over.
It can make the smoke effect not happen when layer disappears on case by case basis. The events handling is also quite a lot easier, and you can even order them by simply dragging them around. Also the drag and drop thing is quite useful in certain situations, and can save a lot of time, as well as the undo function.
The smoke effect, unless I'm misunderstanding you, is already possible in vanilla SMBX. Everything else, while you're 100% correct is much easier on someone new to the program, I've used SMBX enough that I'm used to not having those features.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Willhart »

Ignoritus wrote:
Willhart wrote:
Ignoritus wrote:As soon as PGE starts being able to do things that SMBX can't I'll probably swap over.
It can make the smoke effect not happen when layer disappears on case by case basis. The events handling is also quite a lot easier, and you can even order them by simply dragging them around. Also the drag and drop thing is quite useful in certain situations, and can save a lot of time, as well as the undo function.
The smoke effect, unless I'm misunderstanding you, is already possible in vanilla SMBX. Everything else, while you're 100% correct is much easier on someone new to the program, I've used SMBX enough that I'm used to not having those features.
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Edit: I've been using it for almost an year now, and going back would be fairly difficult for me.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by raocow »

like 1 and 5 are super deal breakers, and honestly after playing maglx2 for a while the lack of lua connection seems like it would be a real shame, haha

honestly it would probably be way more hype if their added stuff was also intergrated to the pge, but I don't know how realistic that is.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ignoritus »

raocow wrote: honestly it would probably be way more hype if their added stuff was also intergrated to the pge, but I don't know how realistic that is.
I believe Wohl has intentions of integrating most of this stuff into PGE anyways, but PGE is also years from completion still all the same.

I agree though that no LUA is a majorly harming factor. This would have been a lot more hype 2 years ago.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by FrozenQuills »

It also does some weird stuff when you play a SMBX 1.3 level. Like it converts all the gifs to pngs and removes all masks, completely changes the level file format, and limits the size on resizables for some reason. Thus, the conversion between the two engines will likely lead to unexpected behavior, although for me no lua is the biggest issue.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by TaviTurnip »

Especially when things like different lua versions between contest and LP have caused issues in MaGL X2, the idea of a new version of the engine itself breaking whole levels sounds to me like a zero-tolerance issue :/ Starting fresh projects with 1.4 would be fine if we found out it's actually amazing, but anything like A2XT, shouldn't be anywhere near it if issues like that can crop up :C Anything unexpected could happen.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Zygl »

Ignoritus wrote:Since at the moment PGE doesn't provide any real advantages in what you're capable of, I really gain nothing from transitioning. As soon as PGE starts being able to do things that SMBX can't I'll probably swap over.
The PGE editor has copy-paste and undo/redo functionalities. I dunno about you but I'd hardly call that "nothing."

e: Also yeah this would be a lot more interesting had we not already done so much work on basically hacking 1.3.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Mata Hari »

PGE makes the vanilla SMBX editor look like dogshit IMO. I mean just completely blows it out of the water.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

What kind of weed was the creator smoking to think that copying Redigit's method of using VB6 was a good idea? I mean, even just the Visual Basic language may make a sliver of sense, (while still not much) but Visual Basic 6? Why would anyone think that using programming software created in 1998 is a good idea?

Anyways, about the actual thing. It seems to have taken great measures to have copied a lot of SMBX's main features, but the end result still feels like it has a layer of plastic coating on it, if not made of plastic entirely. Going from just the video alone, a lot of physics and small objects seem to be off. Some seems to be more faithful to the original mario, like the goombas flipping over when dying, others seem to be just buggy-looking in general, like the chain chomps. There's new powerups, but honestly... do we really need them? Really? Frog Suit? Starman maybe, but is it really that necessary?

However, some aspects of the editor seem to be a bit more cleaned up, even if it's not quite as good as the PGE editor. Nice to see that firebar speed works properly.
Ignoritus wrote:5. You have to set your system language into chinese every time you want to launch the game.
So it's not even a locale issue, which applocale could fix?

All in all, I'm more confident in Platformer Game Engine than I am for this... thing. Platformer Game Engine seems to be moving forward, this seems to be hanging onto the roots of SMBX without letting go, no matter how rotten those roots may be.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by ano0maly »

RenaTurnip wrote:Not to impede progress, but "if it's not broken, don't fix it" is why I use the vanilla SMBx editor and not PGE Image
I find this reasoning to be very flawed.

There are some key advantages to PGE, like copy/paste and undo as Zyglrox Odyssey mentioned, two features that would be considered pretty much essential in any sensible editor. Even if you don't consider the lack of copy & paste and undo as being "broken", it doesn't make sense to me to say that there would be no reason to switch over to the more convenient and functional editor just because the default editor isn't broken.

And there's no real cost to using PGE instead of SMBX default. The only trade-offs I can think of are
  • A slight learning curve to migrate, and
  • needing either a LunaLua configuration to link the PGE editor with SMBX, or just getting used to switching between the two (this would be resolved once a solution is developed in the PGE project)
I also think that this is moving away from the topic at hand, since the "PGE" in this case is the editor, not the engine. I can understand keeping and supporting older versions of a game in order to retain the features of older versions and the compatibility with things made in the older versions (this was an issue I've had with Copy Kitty). But I don't see how this reasoning applies to editors when they're equivalent in what they can do but one is much better than the other.

Now back to SMBX 1.4. So if the makers of this update have the source code, does that mean the Wohl project has been reskinning and hacking SMBX all this time without having the code? All this time, the Wohl project has been about reskinning SMBX and hacking it with external code without actually updating SMBX, so I was surprised at even an unofficial version update.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Ignoritus »

ano0maly wrote:
Now back to SMBX 1.4. So if the makers of this update have the source code, does that mean the Wohl project has been reskinning and hacking SMBX all this time without having the code? All this time, the Wohl project has been about reskinning SMBX and hacking it with external code without actually updating SMBX, so I was surprised at even an unofficial version update.
This isn't a real update, they've only called it that. In reality this is a complete rewrite it seems.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

Ignoritus wrote:This isn't a real update, they've only called it that. In reality this is a complete rewrite it seems.
Paired with the fact that they actually wrote this in Visual Basic 6, this isn't really something to get excited about.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Slimeman01 »

I would really only get it for the updated level editor.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by XerX »

Jayoshi wrote:
Ignoritus wrote:This isn't a real update, they've only called it that. In reality this is a complete rewrite it seems.
Paired with the fact that they actually wrote this in Visual Basic 6, this isn't really something to get excited about.
I find it amazing they even bothered and succeeded to rewrite it all in VB6.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

It kinda makes me wonder what the true skill of these developers are. Do they really have a hold of what they're doing, or are they blindly following in redigit's footsteps? (and redigit was drunk when he wrote smbx's code, for anybody who doesn't know that)
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by XerX »

We won't know unless Wohlstand gets the source from them. My theory is that they did decompile the original game (to the messy binary/vb6 source) and referenced off that as best as they could.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

XerX wrote:binary/vb6 source
ASM/VB6 source. Small difference, but still matters because ASM is definitely not binary.
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Re: Let's Talk SMBX 1.4

Post by XerX »

I didn't quite remember if it was ASM or Binary, so forgive me for that.
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