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a2mt: where are we at?

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a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

I reckon it's about time we had one of these.

I'm terrible at expressing myself through writing so have a video. I go over the major point of the tentative game structure, and I suggest a few ideas in order to take into consideration different concerns and wishes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpVssN6DGwg

If someone can sum up my video in writing for the thread that would be great, haha!

Have a picture:
a2mt.jpg
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Tails_155 »

Really? A junk response as the first YT post to a topic like this? ._.

Shouldn't be surprised.

I think that'd be entertaining, but now you already would know about it...

ALSO: Thanks for the Dog Ending thing... that was hilarious.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by kilon »

Reasonable. The question remains how expensive each of these parrot levels would be, and the difficulty of them.
A parrot level in the inner circle is that one harder than a level in the outer circle?
And the first parrot level you encounter, might be too expensive because you haven't beaten that many levels yet, but later on you should have gathered quite a few parrot coins in a natural way of simply playing the levels. (not in every level is every parrot coin extremely hidden and/or out of the way)
I guess there is where the final parrot level comes into play? Where you really need to go out of your way to get all parrot coins?

I do think that the unlocking of different worlds with the parrot levels is a good idea. Although you can potentially skip a lot of levels, so that's why the cost of these levels should be balanced out in some way.

As for the final final level, I always like these kind of things, but we have to make sure that it isn't anticlimactic like the void world in asmt. Okay, that was an entire world of gimmicks, but you know that the final final level might very well be a collection of rooms from various creators as well.
As for the anticlimactic boss. We did that with Black Plague and while that kinda worked, it was pretty lame when you think about it.
And at that point the plot is finished, so it's really just a random level. Not that this matters, but you have to keep it in mind when making it.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

The game kind of has a sideplot with the parrot, so I figured it'd work in that way.

And I think the relative cost and difficulty of each parrot levels would be, essentially, balanced out by how much content you can theoreticaly skip. So it's something that would have to be measured during the overworld design part.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Alex-R »

So basically:
raocow wrote:- Hub (world 0) -> Inner circle (world 1-4) -> Outer circle (world 5-8) -> Switch Palaces -> World 9

- Dragon coins allows the player to jump between worlds (even worlds you haven't unlocked yet) or skip levels.

- The "last" level (not the final castle) is unlocked in world 0 once every dragon coin is collected, with an alternate "joke" ending (this level is pretty much unrelated to the main plot).
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

Essentially, yeah.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Chdata »

as said on yt:

wow only 12 levels so far... hmm. I've been getting more inspired to try working on that one level again but I still don't think it'd be any better than "oh look at these cool sprites and changed gfx" with poor level design itself.

Also, there's been serious work on Pily, I've started taking her up again. I've also been starting ideas for Mishi but that's for after Pily is done. I wanna try to get Sonikku to make us a boss too.

chdata 1 second ago

As for Pily, work on her is still slow as I'm in the nearly-finished stage where I need to get her transitions between attacks smooth and such, etc etc boss making can be a long process etc etc also 5 months of not working on it is. it is.

Also final boss idea: Drunken Parrot who just waddles at you like a penguin, maybe some bubbles that float upwards (easily doable I'd say), that's as easy to kill as the waddle dee from KSS.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Yonowaaru »

So, uh, what's the parrot gonna be like?
Is he gonna be like Con in ASMT, just helping you along?
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by limepie20 »

Honestly, I think the whole parrot shop business would be better if you unlocked it after you beat the final castle.
It makes the parrot levels more like special world levels which is essentially what they are. Also, I think having them bring you to different worlds is a bad idea. The world don't have themes and they aren't numbered. This just adds on to the confusion. Some people may like games like that but some people hate it, too.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Chdata »

Iirc, he's going to be just at his house or something and you can go there to unlock things after collecting XX parrot coins (you don't lose parrot coins from buying this) and won't let you pass certain places without certain amount of coins.

I was thinking, that since Demo is still working for The Master, he or his workers will contact Demo via radio for some help during missions, just like in Megaman Zero with Ciel sort of.

I'm considering usage of the new VWF Dialogue but I have yet to try it out.


Anyways I was thinking we do something like this:

At 10 yoshi coins: One life awarded (you still have 10 coins after this and you cannot get this free life again)

At 25 coins: some level unlocked

At 50: Another life awarded (only obtainable once)

At 75: some other level unlocked

100: next world unlocked (ok, at 3-4 levels it'd really just be about 20 coins or less...)

etc, and also those prices are not final I just now made them up.

All coins: final level and a one time only 3-up.

This is mainly to show how the shop may work I guess, it'll sort of be like in SM64 with stars and doors. However whether or not you unlock other world paths or levels is still under debate. But the lifes idea I kinda like. Instead of getting a life as soon as you get them you get the occasionally at the shop. (And that with or without getting all 5 in a row during a level I'm not sure. I guess it may be ok to have both).
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

But in mario world you can go to the special world without beating the game. I think it's a mistake to go 'you can only go to the special world after beating the game', that's not really 'special', it's 'final final world', which is not explicitely what we want. I think making that distinction is important. Remember how the special world in asmt kind of robbed charles' castle of all its impact? THAT is exactly what I want to avoid.

I don't know if the parrot levels making you change worlds is that confusing. If anything maybe they'd just see them as shortcuts or alternate paths, which is basically what they -are-.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by limepie20 »

If someone wants to go out of there way to get all the parrot coins they probably don't want the game to be easier for them. The parrot levels should just be there and not unlock anything (except the final final level by collecting all the parrot coins).
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

If they want to get the parrot coins for completion they don't NEED to use the shortcuts. They are there for people who might not want to get 100% of everything - it gives them an alternate option to go through the worlds.

It only makes the game easier for them if they decide to not stay in the main line, that's entirely the player's decision to do: and it's a lot less intrusive as any other sort of 'advantage' that could be rewarded.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Tails_155 »

raocow wrote:If they want to get the parrot coins for completion they don't NEED to use the shortcuts. They are there for people who might not want to get 100% of everything - it gives them an alternate option to go through the worlds.

It only makes the game easier for them if they decide to not stay in the main line, that's entirely the player's decision to do: and it's a lot less intrusive as any other sort of 'advantage' that could be rewarded.
It helps TASers, but not 100%ers, it's just kind of like Star Road - makes sense.

I really don't like the idea of "beat everything then another world" here, it just seems too... generic, too.

Do we have a trigger set up to unlock levels like this? Is anyone working on it? (The "buy a level" thing)

I think that there should be some way to choose the levels you unlock, if at all possible, not just "unlock a level at 10 coins" or whatever, that way you can, if you choose, unlock a level in the world you're on, at least, if you go back...

Life bonuses from the parrot don't seem so meaningful...
If the costumes come into this at all, they seem like better rewards.
There's still a lot to work out, though.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by limepie20 »

I think we should have the parrot shop just casually sitting in a world and once you find it you can buy levels. And like 10 coins for an inner ring level and 20 for an outer ring level (random numbers) or something.
And then you can buy costumes also if you want
, but you can only buy the last level after you've bought everything else and it costs like 40 coins so that's 5 for every other level you buy so at the end you need all the parrot coins to buy everything.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

chdata wrote: wow only 12 levels so far... hmm. I've been getting more inspired to try working on that one level again but I still don't think it'd be any better than "oh look at these cool sprites and changed gfx" with poor level design itself.

By the way, I wanted to adress this: you're allowed to ask for help in regards to level design, you know! It's a collab - yeah, someone can just make their level and then dump it in, but you are encouraged to ask for help in any aspect of your level, which does include level design. If you have an idea, that shouldn't hopefully stop you!
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by AUS »

Watching the video, good idea. But for the final final level, it would have to like...Not have parrotcoins in it.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by TaviTurnip »

I like the idea of the shortcuts to other worlds, honestly. It wouldn't be all that confusing to me, and it seems like a neat way to deviate from the path you're already taking. I dunno.

As for my level, I think I have a good idea of what I'm going to do with it. I'm sorry that I've been almost a month without anything, but yeah, that happens... :<
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Paralars »

Let me say that I think that our game would really benefit from raocow's solution and let me say that this is a good comprimise for all the suggestions and problems we've had about the special world.
As raocow said, in SMW you don't have to get to Bowser's castle to get to the special world AND you can use the star world as shortcut.
Basically, this one solution would have those concepts both combined.
If anyone says that this takes the final-finallyness out of the special world, we'd still have the level for ALL parrot coins. (I think this should be the hardest level with the ridiculosly easy drunken parrot fight who wants you to collect more parrot coins)
I am totally for this solution and I am optimistic that it would solve all the special world problems and add a nice secret to the sidequest.

The only problem I see again, is that I have no idea how we will decide on that, as there are so many little different opinions and everyone has his own suggestions.
So please, someone find a way to agree on stuff like this, I am always ready to concede.
I just hate that we keep discussing stuff like this for weeks and months and we don't get to any final, official decisions...
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by xjC0n »

Well then.. I like raocows idea with the unlocking of levels/connecting worlds with parrot coins. A small issue this might cause though (or at least I think it might), is that some people maybe want their level to be in the "main line" and not be kind of hidden like that. And the life-awards chdata suggested seems rather pointless, there's probably gonna be a level where you can get to 99 lives really fast anyways. (Unless there's plans on removing the 1-ups from bouncing on or star-killing enemies etc..) I think the shop should be accessible in the first world though, it would really suck if you find it at the end and not knowing collecting parrot coins was a thing.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by limepie20 »

I don't think people not wanting their level not to be mainline will be a problem.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Tails_155 »

limepie20 wrote:I don't think people not wanting their level not to be mainline will be a problem.
Agreed.

So far, raocow's idea seems the best, I haven't heard an argument I really consider worth addressing, since they're, so far, relatively subjective, and don't seem to have a giant pull.
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by Paralars »

ok so can someone activate his super decision-making powers and settle it?
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by raocow »

~fart~

there, done
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Re: a2mt: where are we at?

Post by AUS »

I suggest the boss, if there is one, and if it's a joke boss, should be a parrot coin itself, jumping and throwing bombs and disco shells and all kinds of things, with cartoony looking hands and legs but a normal parrot coin body. And to beat it you touch it, and it would be the 5th parrot coin in the level.

Then again, that might be much too silly for A2MT...oh wait.
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