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Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 17:38
by Saturn Moriya
alex2 wrote:Dunno about the rest of you, but I'm real sick of the "tails landmasses" by now. Seems like an excuse to add "aesthetic" to your level without actually being creative at all.
Yeah...the problem is that on an aesthetic level pretty much everything has been done (unless you make custom graphics of whatever object you can think of). Level design needs to be the thing that shines through. Really doesn't happen in today's video's levels.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 17:45
by Sniggerb0bble
Peeps who still follow smw hacking closely: Are Tails155 landmasses still much of a thing nowadays? I'm curious to know whether or not that whole aesthetic idea was more just of a passing trend that was still in during A2MT development, or whether it's still a common thing.

If it was just a trend thing then I guess design-wise that's less of a sin in my eyes because people tend to follow what's popular... even if it doesn't deserve it. Still doesn't excuse the bad aesthetic decision, but I'm just curious.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 17:46
by S.N.N.
Agreeing with alex2 in that the "Tails_155" style of landmasses has really ruined a lot of potential that hacks had (not because the style itself is a bad idea, but because he and several others insist on over-decorating to the point where the level is a badly designed clusterfuck).

Sniggerb0bble: Substantially less nowadays. I just finished playing the entries for the VLDC on SMWC, and it's one of the best years yet in terms of actual good design over a bunch of shitty disgusting landmasses.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 17:48
by sedron
The first three levels of the hack all use those Tails landmasses? They kind of cease to look as interesting when they're constantly in your face, and Intertwined Plains goes possibly way too far with them.

Intertwined Plains seems like kind of a poor level for a few reasons. Obviously the gimmick is very slapped-on, and arguably not very fun to begin with. Calm strolling-Mario could be a nice early-game gimmick in a level that's actually built for it, but what we see here is a wide-open, huge expanse of land that's perfect for running and jumping. If the level were more focused and were aesthetically designed to be calmer as well (YI athletic is NOT calm walking music,) the gimmick could have been something. Add on to that the absence of a midpoint, a semi-blind jump for the last Parrot coin, only getting one shot at said coin before having to repeat the entire stage, nonsense walk-through land masses, a stupidly punishing reset door for a dumb "puzzle," and overall bland stage design and you get a stage that sadly doesn't amount to all that much.

A Stroll Beneath The Stars is honestly kind of dull, in more ways than one. The entire stage is comprised of really lifeless colors, and the cave interior especially is just so boring looking. In terms of level design, it fails to do anything the previous levels did, which is kind of problematic when they didn't really do much to begin with. It's lower in difficulty than both preceding levels, so that's a thing too (though not one that would really be Tails' fault, most likely.) The cave background with the forest background trick is neat, but there really isn't much here otherwise. The level lacks substance, I guess.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 18:03
by MonkeyShrapnel
I know that A Stroll Beneath The Stars was fairly average in terms of level design but man did it look pretty, at least I think so.

but what do i know gosh

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 18:03
by Saturn Moriya
alex2 wrote:
sedron wrote:words
this is how you give criticism, guys
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

I JUST

WANT TO BE POINTFUL FOR SOMETHING

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 18:29
by Eathanu
alex2 wrote:
sedron wrote:words
this is how you give criticism, guys
No, it's way too polite and to the point.

Also, I don't really see Tails155's own style in his levels? They look nice aesthetically, but mostly they're just terrain bits mixing in interesting ways, not so much detailed background designs.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 19:04
by memnarch
Hehe, raocow named the episode zombie a2mt. I like that.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 19:17
by YelseyKing
...hmm. When I talked about A2MT being "the best SMW hack ever", I... was not informed of this manager who insisted every level needed some kind of ASM gimmick. Almost every control-altering gimmick I've seen in SMW hacks have been woefully unfun, even if the stage is *designed* with them in mind, let alone tacked on at the end for the sake of making a level "memorable"... which it *does*, but in all the wrong ways.

I'm beginning to get a clear picture now of why this project was eventually cancelled. The project definitely had potential, but it seems like a lot of bad ideas made earlier in development really messed up the whole thing. It's kind of inevitable when you're dealing with several different types of mindsets over what makes a game good that things are going to go down the drain quickly. I don't blame Alex; it seems like he inherited the project after a lot of these bad ideas were already shoehorned in, and did his best to deal with the crap hand he was dealt.

On the positive side, though, I don't feel like this was a wasted effort. If nothing else, it provided hacking and level-building experience for those involved, which can potentially lead to superior hacks/games down the road.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 19:31
by Kil
Boy that sure is a lot of shit going on in the background that is massively improving my game experience

This is like proto SMBX palm tree spam

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 19:36
by Menshay
Quick someone stick those landmasses in the hole at the bottom of the ocean.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 19:58
by KobaBeach
Where is Aslanmarill, did his copy of FFX/X-2 eat him whole or something
Menshay wrote:Quick someone stick those landmasses in the hole at the bottom of the ocean.
Which of them, Sniggerb0bble's or Pichu's?

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:03
by limepie20
Jesuiscontent wrote:Cute level ASH AND MARILL

Also was condortalon seriously leader at some point???
No condortalon never had anything to do with the hack. I think the person raocow was referring to was either Tails_155 or flameofdoubt. I may have been the one to actually suggest the no walking gimmick, I don't really remember. But I do know the "every memorable level" philosophy was one of theirs. I think it was Tails, but I do remember flameofdoubt wanting people to shoehorn stuff like that in during clearing. Like my level "A Beach" has a boss at the end just because he said he thought it needed a more conclusive ending or something.
yoshicookiezeus wrote:
Bwarch wrote:No. The overworld and the levels are incompatible at this time..
Wasn't that just an issue of the OW and some levels using the same ExGFX files, though? Because that should be easily fixed by just changing the numbers around.
Yeah, that's right. It's just that it's very tedious, and we were too burnt out to actually get it done once it came around.
KobaBeach wrote:Where is Aslanmarill, did his copy of FFX/X-2 eat him whole or something
I don't think he's even aware of this LP.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:17
by KobaBeach
limepie20 wrote:(...) I do remember flameofdoubt wanting people to shoehorn stuff like that in during clearing. Like my level "A Beach" has a boss at the end just because he said he thought it needed a more conclusive ending or something.
That is the dumbest excuse ever
limepie20 wrote:
KobaBeach wrote:Where is Aslanmarill, did his copy of FFX/X-2 eat him whole or something
I don't think he's even aware of this LP.
I'm not PMing him

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:19
by limepie20
KobaBeach wrote: I'm not PMing him
Me neither.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:20
by Bwarch
I mean his last post was just yesterday so it's not like he isn't active.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:33
by Septentrion Pleiades
limepie20 wrote:But I do know the "every memorable level" philosophy was one of theirs.
This isn't a bad idea, but ASM every level is. Maybe we should have an official list of bad ideas that went into this game in the OP.
  • Thwomps Everywhere
  • requiring ASM
  • Tails existing

    (land masses as decoration)

  • Too many managers
  • Overconfidence in peoples abilities to make bosses using assembly coding in their free time.
  • Powerup Filter
  • Stingy powerups
  • Not enough boob foxes
  • Unstrict with deadlines
  • "Once it's in, it's in" policy

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:35
by S.N.N.
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:[*]Tails existing

(land masses as decoration)

This didn't just ruin A2MT, but also 90% of SMW hacks.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 20:38
by KobaBeach
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:Maybe we should have an official list of bad ideas that went into this game in the OP.
  • (...)
  • Not enough boob foxes bara lions
Fix'd 8-) 8-) 8-)

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 21:00
by Unaniem
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
  • Not enough boob foxes
Stay classy, Sept.
That was just a joke not trying to insult you I swear

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 21:28
by Ashan
Oh, hey guys!
Yeah I got eaten by a Final Fantasy so I didn't see the video until Alex and Sentence Polarity messaged me.

Yeah, so. See that date under my username? That's the date that I joined the forum, requested my level slot, and started working on my level!
It went through quite a few revisions which can be found throughout random places on the internet such as TheRealNinjaBoy who played an earlier version of it.

Like raocow mentioned, it went through the "every level needs to be memorable for one reason or another" process like a lot of levels did, and I think it was Limepie that suggested the no running/picking up items gimmick. Not to say it's his fault, cause I didn't have any ideas, it was just kinda like "yeah, sure that will make people remember it."

I'm actually trying to recall more of the process of this level but I barely remember any of it cause it was about 3 years ago now. But I do remember it being FlameOfDoubt in particular that, before the gimmick, basically tore apart my level telling me it was so lacklustre that I literally needed to delete the whole thing and redo it from scratch, so I think the gimmick was basically just added to appease him.

Also, I'd like to point out that a lot of those wrong tiles and weird layer priority issues weren't there when I submitted the level. That seems to be an issue that happened when it was inserted I guess. Like, that part particularly where raocow fell through the ground before the chest wasn't supposed to happen, and I tested the crap out of my level, specifically for the layer priority issues, which mainly involved throwing Demo in front of every block in the level (like, dumb Tails155 knockoff landmasses and whatnot) to make sure it was consistent with surrounding blocks.
I don't blame anyone for not fixing it cause it's not worth the effort when you're just salvaging the hack, but yeah. I guess Zombie A2MT it's living up to the "zombie" part of its name.

Not sure if I'm forgetting anything else.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 21:40
by MrDeePay
Grounder wrote:It's only been like three episodes so far, Alex.

Things are probably just going to continue for the most part.
Going on raw memory here, but there are actually a few more levels in here with the same style of landmasses.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 21:41
by Clamestarebla
MrDeePay wrote:
Grounder wrote:It's only been like three episodes so far, Alex.

Things are probably just going to continue for the most part.
Going on raw memory here, but there are actually a few more levels in here with the same style of landmasses.
Confirmed

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 05 Jun 2014, 21:54
by MrDeePay
YelseyKing wrote:...hmm. When I talked about A2MT being "the best SMW hack ever", I... was not informed of this manager who insisted every level needed some kind of ASM gimmick. Almost every control-altering gimmick I've seen in SMW hacks have been woefully unfun, even if the stage is *designed* with them in mind, let alone tacked on at the end for the sake of making a level "memorable"... which it *does*, but in all the wrong ways.
Spoiler: There is a level later on where the player's max speed will lower the further they progress (or was it based on the timer? I forgot.) It makes some sense in context, but execution left much to be desired.
I'm beginning to get a clear picture now of why this project was eventually cancelled. The project definitely had potential, but it seems like a lot of bad ideas made earlier in development really messed up the whole thing. It's kind of inevitable when you're dealing with several different types of mindsets over what makes a game good that things are going to go down the drain quickly. I don't blame Alex; it seems like he inherited the project after a lot of these bad ideas were already shoehorned in, and did his best to deal with the crap hand he was dealt.
Botched or Wasted Potential: The Game
Yes, Poor leadership was what ultimately did this collab in.

Re: A Second Mario Thing: SNN and alex2's little baby

Posted: 06 Jun 2014, 00:01
by Septentrion Pleiades
Ashan wrote:That seems to be an issue that happened when it was inserted I guess. Like, that part particularly where raocow fell through the ground before the chest wasn't supposed to happen, and I tested the crap out of my level, specifically for the layer priority issues, which mainly involved throwing Demo in front of every block in the level (like, dumb Tails155 knockoff landmasses and whatnot) to make sure it was consistent with surrounding blocks.
I don't blame anyone for not fixing it cause it's not worth the effort when you're just salvaging the hack, but yeah.
It was broken post-insertion. There is a specific person to blame on it being broken in if you're interested. A lot of levels had their tiles redone to save space and your level's size more than halved in terms of kB. We had to do redo levels and when the tiles looked the same, mistakes were made. There was a level I screwed up royally because of identical looking blocks and I had to reoptimized.

We were overzealous with optimizing for data when we should have been lazy and careful about it.