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A2XT: It's Over

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ano0maly
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by ano0maly »

So that's the famed level people have been talking about in 2013 Mosts.

I find it odd that you don't really have boss fights at the end of these worlds. I was expecting that you fight that Lakitu or someone else in this level.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Xirix »

Pretty neat cutscene at the end of World 4, I don't think any of them has failed to make me laugh so far. :)
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Axon »

Well, I'm glad y'all liked my level!

FunTrivial trivia:
- "Johnson McCain and the X" is really just a random phrase that raocow used to say once in a while in some of his older videos.
- I pretty much built the level as I went along. The green P-switch ended up being much more useful than I had first anticipated; this made me appreciate how giving the player choices in the way he can go through parts of the level is a fundamental part of what makes Mario games fun.
- I actually didn't remember the Nitroid thing when I made the sinking structure switch thing. Just a coincidence I guess.
- About the music, the first part originally had Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 (from his Suite for Variety Orchestra), and the KGB building had an excerpt from Shostakovich's Sonata for viola and piano. Unfortunately, Youtube's ContentID thing is absolutely evil and only the Cheryomushki excerpt (in the boss room) survived.
- As everyone probably noticed, the castle and the enemies inside are themed after the color red (the color of communism).
- At the time, I was messing with attaching layers to lakitu; that's how Lakituvitch was born.
- Also, his name was originally written Lakitovich, but people making the story and whatnot preferred Lakituvitch.
- The siblings near the end of the boss room were originally just a very random shout-out to A2MT, but I'm glad they were incorporated in the story.
- This is my very first SMBX level.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by raocow »

you guys weren't kidding about the new tiers of world being harder, wow
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Validon98 »

And so Communism meets its end forever, hurray!

Snowboarding is a nice little level with a nice little gimmick. I don't think there are really any levels with this sort of gimmick, so I think it stands out a bit. A nice little interlude before...
Johnson McCain and the Communists. Oh boy. This one had my fifth highest death total in the entire game. It DEFINITELY has a nice aesthetic to it, but god, that first section... I really don't get how raocow got past it his first try. Oh well I guess? I don't hate the level, but it was the first level to really make me rage, and it's not the last. :D

Time for World 5 I guess now? This might be interesting. ^^;
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by raocow »

8flight wrote:
raocow wrote:you guys weren't kidding about the new tiers of world being harder, wow
which world did you choose?
the one with all the squares on it on the hub
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Crow »

raocow wrote:you guys weren't kidding about the new tiers of world being harder, wow
so you went to world 5 first, okay

spoiler-ish I guess:
Dyin' For An Electrifyin' is just about the hardest level outside of the postgame, in my personal opinion. Why the hell is it the first level of world 5? xD
Also my top 10 demo counts, just because??!!?!
Out of Season - 25
The Subterranean Base - 25
Family Reunion - 30
Cinder Canyon - 33
Spooky Surprise Ghost House - 42
Action.rar - 44
The Floor Is Lava - 51
The Tower of Dr. Zalost - 51
Relay - 52
Unseen And Mysterious Future - 56
This might make my dislike towards Out of Season even more apparent, lol. I didn't think I died quite so much on

Zalost

though, huh.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Clamestarebla »

*plot intensifies*
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Isrieri »

I am very sad that Johnson McCain didn't get his proper music. It fit so well.

That level is the one that made me go "Okay this A2XT thing may might be crazy enough to work." I didn't know that was your first level Axon - it definitely wasn't perfect (I'm glad a lot of the changes I suggested were made), but you've got some fantastic ideas and I love to see your submissions.

If I remember correctly, I said that World 5 was the best world when playtesting. I don't know if it still is, we'll see.


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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Money »

I really like how gradually the siblings have been built up to this point. Like, you know something's up, but it's just outside your field of vision. Their formal introduction is really effective, in this way.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Sebby19 »

raocow wrote:
8flight wrote:
raocow wrote:you guys weren't kidding about the new tiers of world being harder, wow
which world did you choose?
the one with all the squares on it on the hub
DANGIT!

Oh well, you'll all see that I was right when world 6 is finished.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Axon »

Sebby19 wrote: Oh well, you'll all see that I was right when world 6 is finished.
The world 6 eow cutscene is still going to be good regardless of how soon raocow sees it.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by sedron »

Man, I forgot how neat the end of World 4 was. It's been a while since I've played it.

Level thoughts!
Snowboardin'- I'm not a fan of this one, myself. The technology is pretty neat, but SMBX just doesn't handle this kind of thing well. The snowboarding sprite really needs some animation. Watching raocow just stand there is really odd. The board is always at the same angle no matter what. I don't know how one could fix that in this engine, but it really affects the level in a bad way. Dying whenever you're brought down to one hit is unintuitive and can make the player feel cheated when they die. While a lot of the obstacles are generous in how much time you have to react, there are some (particularly right after upwards slopes,) that are much more difficult. Really, you probably shouldn't be able to snowboard up slopes Sonic '06 style in the first place. At the end of the day, I think this level's biggest problem is just that it's kind of boring to play. It's just reactionary jumping, and nothing more. When you look at stuff like Megaman 8's Jump Jump Slide Slide sections, there are more options available to the player. Not only do you have to react, but it needs to be a correct reaction. You can even find some collectibles by reacting differently than the game asks of you. Snowboardin' offers none of that.

Johnson McCain and the Communists- Jeez raocow, you were supposed to die a few times in the first half. The level has been noticeably toned down from previous versions, which is definitely a good thing. The Green P Switch gives the player an important choice to make, which is pretty neat. Overall the layout and design is fun and challenging, though I'm not a huge fan of the spawned Banzai Bills. I would have liked to see more done with the moving tunnel segment. Lakituvich is an interesting "boss," though the coolest part is the end with the siblings. I like the current incarnation of this level.
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Favorite- Rainy Day, easily. Yeah, there are a few issues, but it's just such a cool level. Great music, atmosphere, fun boss... what's not to like, really?

Not Favorite- I could see Out Of Season competing out of mediocrity for this spot, but I just really don't like Snowboardin'. It's like it's there for the sake of the gimmick, despite the abundant issues in execution and design. I just can't bring myself to find much I like about it.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Voltgloss »

In retrospect, I do think Snowboardin' runs longer than it should. It's about 2 minutes. After testing several other autoscroll-or-equivalent levels for potential inclusion in Episode 2, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best max length for such levels is a minute and a half.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Crow »

Voltgloss wrote:In retrospect, I do think Snowboardin' runs longer than it should. It's about 2 minutes. After testing several other autoscroll-or-equivalent levels for potential inclusion in Episode 2, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best max length for such levels is a minute and a half.
There's a world 7 level that takes the autoscroll problem and cranks it up to eleven, though, so it *could* be worse, but yeah, it could be shortened a bit.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Axon »

Parama wrote:
There's a world 7 level that takes the autoscroll problem and cranks it up to eleven

Come on man, it's not that bad...

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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by SAJewers »

Voltgloss wrote:In retrospect, I do think Snowboardin' runs longer than it should. It's about 2 minutes. After testing several other autoscroll-or-equivalent levels for potential inclusion in Episode 2, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best max length for such levels is a minute and a half.
I actually never realized how long it was until a few days ago when I replayed The Snowboarding levels in Aero the Acrobat 2.




This is only about a minute long. For some reason, I thought it was way longer.
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Voltgloss
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Voltgloss »

Axon wrote:
Parama wrote:
There's a world 7 level that takes the autoscroll problem and cranks it up to eleven

Come on man, it's not that bad...

It's about 4 minutes 30 seconds.

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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Sebby19 »

Now I see where some of the inspiration of level elements was taken from.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by YelseyKing »

One big problem with auto-scrolling levels in SMBX comes from the engine limitation of it only being possible for a single map, and that mid-points screw with the whole affair. So, they're not *necessarily* too long in and of themselves, it's that you have to do the whole things in one go that makes them feel that way.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Sebby19 »

You could always but everything on a layer and move it, but yeah, then you got physics shenanigans to deal with.
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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Crow »

Voltgloss wrote:
Axon wrote:
Parama wrote:
There's a world 7 level that takes the autoscroll problem and cranks it up to eleven

Come on man, it's not that bad...

It's about 4 minutes 30 seconds.

With no midpoint, if I remember correctly (I could be wrong though, I only died once and it was near the start of the level, but still.

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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Axon »

Voltgloss wrote:

It's about 4 minutes 30 seconds.

It's the length of the music: 4 minutes 3 seconds.


Parama wrote:

With no midpoint, if I remember correctly (I could be wrong though, I only died once and it was near the start of the level, but still.

The level is slow-moving and not particularly demanding, except in 2 or 3 spots. Whether or not a level is too long depends very much on what it asks of the player. For example, fast or hard autoscrolling sections in my episode 2 levels last only about 40 seconds.

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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Ditocoaf »

Axon wrote:

The level is slow-moving and not particularly demanding, except in 2 or 3 spots. Whether or not a level is too long depends very much on what it asks of the player. For example, fast or hard autoscrolling sections in my episode 2 levels last only about 40 seconds.

if it's even remotely possible to die in the second half, 4 minute long autoscrolling is way too long. Nobody wants to sit through a big section of gameplay they already beat -- exactly as it is.

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Re: A2XT: World 4's castle has fallen like the Iron Curtain

Post by Axon »

Ditocoaf wrote:
Axon wrote:

The level is slow-moving and not particularly demanding, except in 2 or 3 spots. Whether or not a level is too long depends very much on what it asks of the player. For example, fast or hard autoscrolling sections in my episode 2 levels last only about 40 seconds.

if it's even remotely possible to die in the second half, 4 minute long autoscrolling is way too long. Nobody wants to sit through a big section of gameplay they already beat -- exactly as it is.

How many times did you die in the second half?

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