*X3 WINNER CONGRATS TO ENJL* the one with the seasonal allergies

[FrozenQuills]

I'm glad raocow made a take 2 not just to give a better perspective, but to showoff the rest of the secrets of the level. Though, I wished the math platform was utilized more as a required seed lol; there's so much potential with that, and it's way easier to use than the nipper or ptooies.

I still had a pretty decent time with the level regardless, but yeah it's very Zygl oriented.

[Ditocoaf]

Both videos were up by the time I got off work this evening, and I have to say: I'm glad we got both!

Take 2 is a better video and a better showcase of "what is this level like", but I have a personal interest in the way videogames teach themselves to players, in watching the process of figuring stuff out. It was great to see how the later parts of the level made you reconsider the approach you developed in the early parts of the level.

That's just my niche interest, though!

[Zygl]

So my level happened! Twice! >.>

As far as dev commentary's concerned:

The one big, big, big thing to note is the level was rushed as hell. I went through like three different other (less good) concepts before settling on this one and building on the existing code from those to make this. That honestly informs like... a lot more factors of the level than I remembered at first <.<;;
The barebones tech-demo-y design? Slapped together at the last minute.
The fact that dirt's consumable? Something misbehaved when I tried to make it reusable, I don't remember what anymore, and I didn't have time to fix it.
The fact that you never see the big Panpor? Didn't have time to make a cutscene.
Pharaoh Man blocks in the temple area? I needed a tileset and had my X2 level sitting around :v
There was also gonna be a Fire Flower, a Panser and a normal-size Panpor, there was gonna be this "cool" section where it's an ice cave and you have to melt stuff but you can't water plants with fire power so you have to balance stuff, but I barely had time to put together the existing sections as it is so it all got cut. Probably for the best, frankly :?

There was a discussion in spotzone about whether it's meant to be a metroidvania, a puzzle level or both. Definitely both; you're meant to go around and grab as many plants as you feel comfortable getting around with, but you only need the Nipper and the Panpor (see: Adjective: redundant). The solution for everything is basically "whatever works, my dude"; that admittedly can cause a bit of conveyance issues for normal players, but that's kinda how I approach everything I play in SMBX, so :b Bit of creator bias there, for sure, albeit not the same "I know the puzzles" kind as usual.

All three songs in the level are from Sutte Hakkun, a puzzle-platformer on the SNES. I forget if I made a puzzle level as an excuse to use its music or used its music because I was making a puzzle level, I believe it was somewhere in-between but it's been like two years and I don't remember the whole process anymore. I was pretty proud of the music transition once you get the Panpor seed though.

Ultimately, rushed as my level is, it's where it belongs. And as long as people liked the tech I'm satisfied - that being basically the whole substance of the level, after all <.<

Also raocow thanks for giving the level another go, not for my sake or its sake but just because you seemed to have a lot more fun with it the second time around >~> It was a good watch.

[Chirei]

but I honestly was impressed how quickly raocow turned to full dismissal, and I think that has happened more than once in this playthrough and I'm not sure why MaGL X3 is having this effect but it's been noticeable in some videos in a way that X1 and X2 didn't really have.

I figure it's because with this contest being in limbo for 2-ish years and those two years being some of the worst in certain parts of the world, the anticipation for this production was high, and when it runs smack dab into the bottom end of the contest first people will inevitably be struck with inflated amounts of disappointment and negativity.

I am glad people like raocow exist to subvert that of his own and others because we don't need any more of that, frankly.

[FourteenthOrder]

I'm glad raocow had a better time in the second video. The level looked like a lot of fun, jank aside, and the first one made me a lil sad with how quickly he wrote it off. :c

[PSI Ninja]

Just before bedtime I noticed that the HD remaster of Zygl's level got posted. So I staved off sleep a little while longer to go watch it instead. Super nice of raocow to give this level a fair shake and to 100% it too. Given its nonlinearity, and knowing that you only need 2/9 plants to beat the level, it really does approach what I'd call a "true" Metroidvania, which I can appreciate. A bit off-tangent here, but I just think that the term "Metroidvania" gets thrown around a lot nowadays. Lots of games are marketed like that and I don't agree most of the time (like Iconoclasts and Gato Roboto - both good games I liked, but progression seems a bit linear to me). Anyway, what happens if you die during the "run away" segment? Do you load into a still-shaking state? It would make sense, but I think I'd find that amusing.

Also, if your health is low or if you're stuck, why not restart the level instead of taking a death? I find it's a bit quicker, although it's not as funny or entertaining. Sorry if it's backseating, I've just been wondering throughout the LP.

[Zygl]

Anyway, what happens if you die during the "run away" segment? Do you load into a still-shaking state? It would make sense, but I think I'd find that amusing.

So I don't actually remember, and I was deathly afraid of raocow finding out both times <___<;; I don't remember saving the ending state with Lua so I think you'd spawn in at the last checkpoint with the Panpor not planted. Definitely another thing I'd have changed given more time.

[ano0maly]

Well others have already said enough about the level, so I'll just say

1st verse I hate the princess and bouncing
2nd verse There has to be something I'm missing

More verses soon to be announced

Also, can't you use the tester in the editor to load individual levels to play them in reset state? If that still doesn't work then maybe do that in a new directory? Maybe that might be overkill.

[Emral]

Looking at the video from years ago, I see two things of note:
1) The plants didn't seem to have any problem walking between blocks on the same level, so that's a problem that came about during the SMBX2 update cycle.

Eh? If this was really something that changed, that'd be huge news across all levels. Can you give me a timestamp on what you're talking about for comparison between the videos?
If you mean Nippers and Ptooies turning around, that's because those are patrolling NPCs, sticking to a certain horizontal range.

[EternalFireseal]

What I meant was, it seemed like some plants had trouble walking between different types of blocks, mainly ground and spikes. If you look at 7:36 to 7:45 in raocow's video, you can see a nipper struggling to leave that one dirt block, while at around 3:58:08 to 3:58:35ish in the Zygl gameplay you can see as many as two nippers not having any such issues. Though, now that I've looked back through raocow's video, it didn't happen nearly as often as it felt like it did. And I guess it was just the nippers? Hooray for confirmation bias!
[videos]

[Emral]

Thanks for elaborating!
Like I mentioned earlier, Nippers are a type of patrolling NPC. The key difference between these clips is the dirt patch from which they were unearthed. While Zygl tossed the seed onto the patch on which raocow's Nipper gets stuck on, raocow grows the plant on a block several seeds further left, making it so that Zygl's patch of arable land happens to align with the edge of the rao-Nipper's patrolling area.
The reason why rao's Nipper on the slope on the previous screen kept walking so far to the right is because the Nipper AI is not all that 'I' when it comes to slopes, instead opting to gently slide down until they touch solid ground again.


As for today's video: It seems we're becoming acquaintanced with the concept of a 'workers rights level'.

[FrozenQuills]

so I invited my friend KaiClavier to participate in this contest and their level got exactly 100th. Their goal was to be in the top 100 so that was rad

The theater aspect was supposed to be because it's a play with 3 acts, but it's obvious that wasn't conveyed the best with vanilla graphics lol

and I also had issues with the homing bubbles in the dreamscape level, but it had some interesting boo maneuvers.

Anyway congrats to all those who got top 100! I actually have the alphabetical list of those who made it in this spoiler for those who want to see what's coming up and speculate on placements:

7TC7
acrowdofpeople
agargara
AirShip
AndrewPixel
Antiginger
Aqualakitu
artifishal intunagence
Avataro
Benial
bubbyboytoo
Catabo
Cato
Chiko
Chirei
Chongas
chridd
Cloth Pocket
Core
Cuboid
Darkonius Mavakar
Davvic
Doctor Block
Dog In Da Grass
Draex
Duker
Enjl
FirestarPlays
FlatKiwi
FluffyMeatloaf
FourteenthOrder
FrozenQuills
gameguy888
Genolandia
Helucard
hennyburgr
IAmPlayer
Ignoritus
Irenaiad
JayFamTWH
Joseph Staleknight
KaiClavier
Kapus
Kayhem Maus
Kerkec
Kerocola
kingsaver44
Kleetus
kumuhmuh
Lejes
Lockirby2
LolzLolzFTW
LunarNeedle
Lunikyuu
MECHDRAGON777
Melko
Mild Euphoria
milesman34
MonkeyShrapnel
Mosaic
MrCaves
Nast
Natsu
Nimono
palrumia
Petraheim
Philos555
Phoba
PROX
Quantix
Radiance
Rhodo
Rosiedilly
RoyKirbs
SAJewers
Sam Deluxe
Shinbison
SirSins
SkaarjWarrior
Slimeman01
Sniggerb0bble
Snowy_Desert
Spade_Magnes
SpoonyBardOL
StarKnight
Super Llama
TaviTurnip
TLtimelord
Trotim
vitzie629
WestonSmith
WhimsiKarren
WhimWidget
Windslash
Wookywok
Zaexides
zettatoad
Zeus guy
Zipper
zspecter

[7TC7]

I feel like today's first level really missed the mark by not making the gas bubbles pink.



0/10

[KaiClavier]

Yeah, thanks for inviting me, Quills! I remember watching the MaGLX2 playthru and I'm glad you pushed me to participate in this one. I really did want top 100 so... I'm satisfied! I left a bit of a developer's commentary on the youtube vid, I might have gotten a bit carried away...

[King of GETs]

I feel like today's first level really missed the mark by not making the gas bubbles pink.

My thoughts exactly. They could have been different shades of pink to show which bubbles were going to do what, although if they were sharing graphics, it might not have been possible without more coding.

[Crow]

101 is objectively the worst spot to be in tbh, especially on the basis of a tiebreaker lol

You can't say you made the top 100 but you also made too good of a level to be memorably bad

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

Oh, I can definitely think of worse places to be than 101st place. There's a lot of just... fine levels all over the place here. You can make a level that's memorable that's just shy of top 100. In fact, we've already proven that...

101st - Deserted Dreamscape: The background here's pretty cool. The moon jumps were pretty neat, but the level design doesn't quite do enough to explore it, being made of corridors, and not too much else. It's rare, but I think more verticality would have helped out this level a great deal. But what's there is inoffensive, and kind of neat, anyways. The moon at the end's pretty nice, too.

100th - The Abandoned Factory: I like the story beats here, though it's not quite enough to be "theatric". This is a nice and condensed, if kind of wonky puzzle level. The second one in particular has odd stuff going on. It would benefit a little from reset doors, but it's not a big deal, given the way you did it works well enough. The ending here is pretty great; I didn't expect that twist, and it's nigh-flawless execution. (a bit dark, but I like that sort of humor, too)

[King of GETs]

101 is objectively the worst spot to be in tbh, especially on the basis of a tiebreaker lol

You can't say you made the top 100 but you also made too good of a level to be memorably bad

I'm not sure if I missed the explanation, but do we know what the rule was for tiebreakers?

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

I'm not sure if I missed the explanation, but do we know what the rule was for tiebreakers?

As in previous MaGLX competitions, the earlier-submitted level wins ties.

[MonkeyShrapnel]

Getting better than 100th was my goal so I’m satisfied.

I feel like today's first level really missed the mark by not making the gas bubbles pink.

Those bubbles would be cuter if they were a light shade of pink

[Duker]

Hot take: The gimmick score should've been the primary tiebreaker, submit-time at best secondary.

[PSI Ninja]

1st verse I hate the princess and bouncing
2nd verse There has to be something I'm missing

3rd verse No regrets

My main issue with Deserted Dreamscape was how easy it was to get boxed in by the Big Boos and the Green Bubbles, due to the ratchet scrolling. I ended up going through the latter half of the level by edging myself along slowly to have more time to react to the enemies. Also, there's not enough space to escape or herd the homing bubbles in the very last part. The bubbles always seemed to pause at the most inconvenient places, too. For some reason, the different behaviors of the bubbles didn't really bother me in this level, but in general, things that have the same graphics but behave differently or do different things is not something I really like in video games. The red magic circles in Terrifying Orb in the Night Sky being one example.

[Ditocoaf]

Hot take: The gimmick score should've been the primary tiebreaker, submit-time at best secondary.

I don't think I like the idea of putting even more of an emphasis on the precise number of the gimmick score, since it's a weird thing to rate numerically. An author can make a level that's 100% inspired by the terms in a way that makes total sense to them but feels like a stretch to the judges.

(TBH If I were designing a contest like this, I'd make the gimmick score a pass/fail: "does this level use the gimmicks enough that I believe it wasn't premade?". 20 points if yes, 0 points if no. Separate out those points from the rest of the score and keep the judging anonymous so 13.33 points means "only one judge doubted that this level was inspired by the gimmicks".)

Submit time is a perfectly fine tiebreaker, considering (1) the difference between 97th place and 98th place or whatever isn't that big, and (2) it probably helped make sure that not all the levels were submitted in a huge dump at the very last second, which sounds like a nightmare for the showrunners.

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

Oh man it's my level! With how often I find myself agreeing with Sturg it would seem that I have similar tastes in Mario levels, and so I suppose it makes sense that I'd make something that he would like (I think this might be the highest score he's given a level so far).

I have quite a bit to say about my level, so the developer commentary is in these spoilers. The first one covers the prep work I did and the lua coding, and the second one covers the actual level.

When I saw that two of the locations given to me were "moon" and "dreamscape" I was immediately inspired to make a level based on stage 3 of Touhou 15. The first thing I did was try to think of what kind of appearance would be suitable for a dreamscape. At first I envisioned something with lots of pink fluffy clouds like something from Mario and Luigi: Dream Team... or so I thought, but I couldn't seem to find what I was thinking of from that game. I think at the time I had recently watched some kind of speedrun of Kirby Canvas Curse, and so that's why I thought of using something from that.

After looking at the various levels in Kirby Canvas Curse I came upon the space level, which I felt had a dreamlike quality to it, and it was also fitting with my level having the goal of getting to the moon. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that had the graphics there divided into individual tiles, all I could find were maps of each of the areas in that level. Trying to manually pick out tiles from those maps quickly seemed like a bad idea, and so I spent a day learning python and writing a script to look at the images, pick out each unique tile within those images, and sort them into categories (such as "left wall, lower right corner, and narrow vertical). I'm glad I thought to do that, because I ended up with over 800 tiles (although I think there might have been an issue with my code, because I seem to remember there being some duplicates, although looking at it now a lot of the tiles are pretty similar with only minute differences, so I don't know).

After that I started thinking about actual level design things, and I came up with two ideas. First: since the level involves going to the moon I thought it would be neat to have low gravity, and also to have the gravity gradually change as you get closer to the end of the level, and so after learning how to use lua I got to work on that. It didn't take to long to incorparate a form of low gravity, and after fiddling with the numbers for a while I eventually got to something I was satisfied with (which also didn't have Luigi flying off into space forever, which happened sometimes while I was trying to find the right numbers to use).

The second thing I thought of was to implement different behaviours for the bubbles, since I feel like there's only so much that can be done with their normal behaviour. Although when I made this I used a very "whatever works" coding style (at one point there's even a comment in the code that says "I feel like there's probably a more efficient way to do this but oh well"). Really each type of bubble should be its own NPC (and that way I could make them have different appearances, which in hindsight would probably be a good idea), but what I did instead was to just put code in the main level lua file to negate their movement and put my own custom movement in its place. And worst of all: the way I differentiated between the different types was by hard coding it based on each bubble's initial X position. Also, I seem to remember it being quite an endeavor to figure out how to make the homing bubbles.

At some point I also thought to offset the camera a bit so that the player would have more room to see what's ahead (which I remember having some weird interactions with the one way scrolling at one point before I managed to get things right). With me being the level maker it was hard to know how effective it would be for someone that didn't already know where everything is, so I'm glad Sturg thought it was pretty alright.

First things first: I know that raocow sometimes skips past message boxes accidentally when there's multiple in a row, so I implemented the arrow thing as a countermeasure to that, and it looks like it worked well. Also, the story here is a bit of a sequel to my MaGLX2 level, where Luigi was a shopkeeper of an unsuccessful shop who ended up relocating to the Snifit village. The mention that it's been over three and a half years was accurate to the time that raocow played that level when I was making this, but then judging took a while. Also, the layout of Luigi's shop is actually the same as in my MaGLX2 level, except without the cobweb in the corner, since Luigi's actually running a successful shop now.

This level also features two other characters from my MaGLX2 level: one being the Snifit leader. The book he gives you is mostly me poking fun at myself for explaining every little thing in my MaGLX2 level (at the time I wasn't sure if raocow was familiar with Link's mechanics). Of course then I went on to explain something anyway, but that was because I thought the player might get caught off guard by the gravity change and die because of it, and given that raocow had issues with Luigi's jumps being floatier than usually it seems like I was right. The second returning character is the Toad with the bombs that quotes Zelda 1 every time you talk to him, who's actually a big reason for why this is a sequel in the first place. In my MaGLX2 level I posed the question of where this Toad gets all his bombs, but I never answered that question, and no matter what I write I find myself getting attached to it, and so I couldn't let this plot thread go unresolved.

At first I was thinking of making a boss fight against Doremy Sweet, but I didn't want to make yet another Touhou level with an unreasonable boss, so I settled for making her into an NPC that would warn you about the "unusual" bubbles. Except I didn't even know where to even begin looking for a graphic that wouldn't look out of place standing next to Luigi, so then I just settled for having her be mentioned by the Toad.

Now to finally get to the level design. With my chosen adjective being "deserted" I thought ghosts and skeletons would be good enemies to supplement the bubbles. I wanted to save the bubbles with altered behaviours for the second half of the level, and at the very beginning of the level the gradual gravity changing won't be in effect at all, so I decided to start with something simple, thus this running through narrow corridors with enemies blocking the way. Afterwards I made the part that goes up and down to make use of the fact that gravity will be slightly reduced by that point, then another simple obstacle before the midpoint where you have to lure some boos out of the way while safe spots are limited. Also, even though they're completely useless here I gave fire flowers here because I don't like when levels only give mushrooms.

For the second half I started using the bubbles that act differently, starting with the bubbles that stop and aim themselves at you after a moment. I tried to introduce them in a safe way while also trying to start using a lot of verticality in the level design to make use of the reduced gravity. After that I introduced a homing bubble in a section where you have to lure a wall of big boos out of the way, which... I feel like this part could use some improvement; as it is now I feel like it's a rather rough introduction to the homing bubbles.

For the end I wanted to really make use of the low gravity, so I made the final section have the player make big leaping bounds over these spike pillars while being chased by a homing bubble. There's also a bunch of bubbles that stop and aim at you for added challenge, although maybe I went a little overboard with those. I mostly wanted to have something in the way so that the player couldn't just blitz through, forcing them to actually deal with the homing bubble, but perhaps there was a better way to do that. Although as raocow demonstrated you can just tank your way through with powerups, so maybe it's fine-ish? I recall someone mentioning that Touhou levels should give you enough resources to "bomb" your way through everything like you can in actual Touhou games, so perhaps this is a fitting way for things to go.

The intended way to get the moon at the end isn't to throw a vegetable at the bomb block (I don't know if that even works), but to enter the house through the small pipe at the top. At first I intended for the player to stack vegetables to reach it, but I had a feeling that raocow would just throw them all away, so I put some hidden shoes in the house for an alternate way to reach it. Using those shoes I realized that they have a really interesting interaction with the low gravity (when you bounce around while walking, as long as you don't dip below the start of your bounce you can jump in midair), which kind of makes me want to make a level just around that. Maybe that'll be something fun to do some other time.

In hindsight maybe I should have written all this ahead of time (I've known my placement for almost a week now), because that was a lot of things I had to say. And raocow played another level today, so I'm not done yet.

- Level Comments -

101st Deserted Dreamscape: Wow a Touhou level!

100th The Abandoned Factory: I had fun with this level, although the way NPCs zip around when they suddenly end up inside a block as a result of pressing a switch can be a bit awkward (I also ended up with a Goomba entering the area in the second room).

- End of Level Comments -

It looks like I was in a three way tie with the two levels around me, which amusingly isn't the first time I've been in a three way tie.

Also, to respond to some things people have said about my level.

I feel like today's first level really missed the mark by not making the gas bubbles pink.

My thoughts exactly. They could have been different shades of pink to show which bubbles were going to do what, although if they were sharing graphics, it might not have been possible without more coding.

This probably would have been a better way to do things, but as I said in my developer commentary I made some unwise decisions when coding these things. Also, while I didn't think to make the bubbles pink, the gimmick terms I was given specifically called them "Green Bubbles" (although they are referred to as "Gas Bubbles" in the editor), so I feel like at most I would have merely made them different shades of green.

In regards to me being 101st place, I just like that I can say that I was 1st place in some capacity, even if it is "1st place among those that didn't make it to the top 100".

[TaviTurnip]

During MaGL X2 I very specifically asked the judges (moreso for MaFAB actually) "hey if the usage of the terms/cards is abstract is that cool" and everyone was like "yeah of course" and then my MaFAB ended up not getting particularly great scores at all, whereas the bosses that just blatantly printed their cards' graphics into the boss got the highest marks most of the time. I wasn't salty about the top placing bosses but I was like, okay, there was clearly a difference in intent/understanding here, I wish I knew that the judges would not be up for wracking their brains so creatively.

I basically feel the same way about X3's gimmicks. There's like this universal consensus that "negative" terms are always going to score low, but also from the judging itself, simply including everything in your chosen gimmicks, in a functional way, is still not enough to score a 20/20 in certain judging instances, so it's like... what exactly are you rating? Did the author use all of the terms and they all operate correctly? Then they fully used the gimmick, right? Apparently not.

It's a degree of "subjectivity" (the worst word in judging, and something I had a huge disagreement with Horikawa over since she thought it was the best part of it) that just seems to have no consistent rhyme or reason whatsoever. Anyone can judge if a level is straightforward to play, if the graphic usage is above average, et cetera, but the gimmick scoring just seems to be whatever the dice were rolled as sometimes. The more levels we see the more I'm just not sure how healthy that score is, in a lot of cases. It all feels increasingly troublesome.