A2XT: It's Over

[Joseph Staleknight]

Actually, the latter is canon. The clue is intended for Superhigh Skyway. "Super high /amidst the skies" is to taken literally.

Nice and Easy doesn't have an entry in the Library because I felt its secret was already sufficiently clued within the level itself.

Ah, right. Screwed that up somehow.

Man, now I'm curious how raocow's handling World 8 so far. Especially with a certain stage after the intro to kick things off....

[Sturg]

World 7 probably has some of my my favorite music in the game, especially for today's levels, but more specifically for Superhigh Skyway.

It's a shame that the Ambiguously Cannon didn't work, I think that kind sets a really cool tone for the level when you get launched with it. The mood set in that level is amazing.

Also this is the 1st time after playing Superhigh Skyway that I realized 'spiral' 'JUMP' meant spin jump, I would always ignore the spiral and jump like a moron.

[docopoper]

633 attempts later and I have finally managed to make a video of me speedrunning my upcoming level without powerups and without getting hit. It's really hard to rush that level without taking a hit.

I will put up the video tomorrow after raocow's video of it comes out.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

I was actually the one who suggested end of world cutscenes specifying parodies of SMB3 and SMW. I didn't do any of the work; I was the the idea guy. Ideaw with SMW hacks are sort of knives being stuck into someone's chest at random, and then everyone tries to do a heart transplant. Ideas are pretty easy to implement, experiment, and abort in SMBX. The end of World 6 cutscene happened on a relative whim. It's been so much fun working on this project than A2MT because ideas spring to life so readily.

[Tenlade]

It's a shame that the Ambiguously Cannon didn't work, I think that kind sets a really cool tone for the level when you get launched with it. The mood set in that level is amazing.

it not working means its clearly not can(n)on, duh.

this world was probably one of my favorites, mishi fight aside. lots of neat levels in it.

[Doctor Shemp]

So, favourite and least favourite, best and worst, etc.

Highest Cloud
Wooden Platforms Hang in the Sky. This is pure platforming and quite well done too. It's what I would have contributed to Episode 1 if I could have made levels that good then and was confident enough to work in pure design. Also, with my limited skills and ability, this level beat me up, but I never wanted to stop trying it and give up. I really like it.

Lowest Cloud
Three-way tie!
Item Babysitting for having many, many flaws, as already mentioned.
Curtain Tortoise for touhou.
Blue Sacktice for obviously being done in 10 minutes out of a sense of obligation.

[sedron]

So, favourite and least favourite, best and worst, etc.

Oh yeah, I forgot to do that for this world.

Favorites and nots!

Favorite- Fruitcat Clouds. This was kind of easy. Unfortunately that's because a lot of World 7 is, in my opinion, average to bad. There were a few other good ones, but not quite so much as this one.

Unfavorites- Um... Item Babysitting and Super Happy Bonus Bonanza, probably. This is harder than it should be, as a lot of World 7 wasn't really my thing.

[Voltgloss]

My most and least favorites for Worlds 6 and 7:

World 6

Most Favorite: This is a hard choice between A Short Stroll and Static Life. I love creepy levels when done right, and as Shemp explained, these two levels represent different takes on "creepy": visceral creepy (Shemp's level) and unsettling creepy (Willhart's level). And I think they both work and work well. Looking for a tiebreaker, I have to note that Static Life, while oozing with atmosphere, is on the easy side for Worlds 5-6-7; while A Short Stroll has stronger (while not unfair) difficulty that actually enhances its atmosphere (you're trying to get out as quickly as possible because it's not only disgusting, but also flat out dangerous). With that in mind, I have to give the edge - barely - to A Short Stroll. Nicely done, Shemp.

Least Favorite: I expect most will list Take It What Now or Qraestolia Caverns here, and I recognize those levels have flaws - but despite those flaws I still looked forward to playing them each time through the world. So I'm going to have to pick Slide Like You Mean It, as the sliding auto-level gimmick is better done by Shoe Zone 2, and aside that the level just doesn't have much to offer.

World 7

Most Favorite: I'm actually going to go with Castle of the World, which I think also earns the title of "Level Most Improved During Beta Testing." We worked so hard on this level as a team to groom Moosh's original work into a fitting cap for World 7, and given raocow's and the public's reactions, I think we all succeeded. As for playing it myself, I enjoy the epic nature of the level, the use of all the characters, the pumping music, and the ridiculous but so satisfying boss fight.

Least Favorite: I have to go with Item Babysitting. Maybe it's just me, but the precision jumping off of downward slopes being called for here - in conjunction with the Pauleen gimmick, the difficult enemy placement, and the long falls to your doom - all combine into one of the few levels I actively did not look forward to on my repeat plays. I agree the gimmick is a great idea and I'm looking forward to it returning, with more Luna.dll support, in a future episode level with stronger execution.

[YelseyKing]

Yes it's that time it's time for

WORLD 7 FAVORITES!

*A GenericCAW raocow song starts playing for absolutely no discernible reason*

Favorite: Castle of the World. I had a bit of trouble with this one initially (mostly, it glitched in the same way it did when raocow played it, except that bridge below the canon cannon *wasn't* there), but once I did... I loved it. A fun way to use all the characters, a hilarious battle with The World (The Brain will not be pleased that the world he was trying to take over was so callously destroyed, I should add), and the billy gun rampage as raocow was just... well. Yeah. I loved this stage.

Runner-up: Curtain Tortoise. A Touhou level I *enjoyed*! I admit, I like "rampage" stages, and I just... had a lot of fun with the stage, really.

Least Favorite: Spooky Surprise Ghost House. Yup. The same person made my favorite and least favorite stages. This one was just a mess. It had at least three gimmicks going on at once (moving layers, which are always horrible due to SMBX's glitchiness, warp coins, and security eyes), all of which were promptly abandoned in the second half in favor of... more moving layers, spikes, and a lot of very out of place IWBTG-lite platforming. That useless P-switch was a dick move, lampshaded at the end or not. The secret leek was annoying, but nowhere near as obnoxious in the end as the *main* path. Urgh. This stage also gave me the most demos outside of world 9, and the third most overall, behind

The Floor is Lava

and

Family Reunion

. No sir, I don't like it.

[Crow]

World 7 Favoritests and Nots!

Favoritests: I'll give it to Castle of the World for being pretty fantastic all-around, challenging but fair, silly premise, fun gameplay, the work. Fruitcat Clouds gets a mention mostly because Rayman 1.

Nots: Well, plot twist, I still find Ghosts in Space insufferably dull. Aside from that, Bronze Fortress suffers from a continuous string of bad design choices and in a world where I wasn't easily bored by tedious level design it'd easily take the prize for worst in the world.

I am HYPED for world 8 because world 8's probably the best overall in the game, including my personal favorite level among other things.

Also death count and thing

Ghosts in Space - 1
In Flandre's Skies - 1
Curtain Tortoise - 3
Spin! Pierce the Heavens! - 4
SuperHigh Skyway - 7
Item Babysitting - 9
Castle of the World - 12
Michigan Test - 13
Wooden Platforms Hanging in the Sky - 14
Island Place That Somehow Floats - 17
Bronze Fortress - 21
Spooky Surprise Ghost House - 42

[Lunikyuu]

I got lazy and didn't do favorites for World 6, so I'll do those now

World 6 Favorite(s)

The Descent- I thought this level was pretty good overall. There weren't any mind blowing gameplay gimmicks, but I felt like the level design was pretty solid. I also really liked McGuffin and the narrative revolving around him, especially the "but thou must" situation that occured when you ignored him. I think his inclusion made the level a lot more memorable and enjoyable.
Static Life- I really liked the atmosphere as a whole in this one. It felt very surreal and mysterious, like some sort of twisted alternate reality that a villain (or brainwashed sibling) would construct to trap the protagonists. I also really like the way the static was used to transition between the normal world and the surreal zone, those types of effects are pretty neat.

Runner Up
A Short Stroll- Really like how the level's name and beginning decieve the player about the level's true atmosphere. It's a really bizarre and unsettling experience that comes out of nowhere and leaves with no explanation, which I think is the best way to do this sort of thing. I also like how the pipe names on the overworld reflected on this.

World 7 Favorites

Castle of the World- Really liked how the level made you switch between all of the characters, and I also really liked the humor and story behind it. I'd been waiting a long time for this stage just so I could hear raocow's reaction to the boss
Wooden Platforms Hang in the Sky- A pretty neat and fun pure-platforming level. I usually find these types of challenges enjoyable despite me being really bad at them. The only issue I had with it was the goopa hopping segment after the midpoint, because I often found it hard to get enough momentum to land on the banzai bill afterward, but it wasn't too bad since it was right after the midpoint.
Fruitcat Clouds- A nice breather level with an atmosphere I really liked and made me nostalgic for the days that I still had Rayman on the PS1. I think relaxing atmospheric breather levels are really nice every once in a while

World 7 Least Favorite

Spooky Surprise Ghost House- I just sort of had an unplesent experience with this... The blue coins in the first half didn't feel like they were really implemented that well and felt like a random thing thrown into the rest of the level. The stealth segment was a problem for me at first because either the shortcut wasn't implemented yet, or I didn't know about it, so I had to redo the whole first part every time I made a mistake, which made the task feel more demanding than it should have due to the mental fatigue. The second section was hard because I insisted on getting the leek first, so my mental fatigue from that carried over, and it also gave me a feeling of way too much to avoid at once, especially the part with the love frogs and the moving blocks underneath, thankfully the red goopa can be used to kill the love frogs.

World 6 Demos (finally a world I feel like I was decent at)

Lethal Lava Cave Land- 0
Take it What Now?- 5
Slide Like You Mean It- 3
Xelenet Village- 2
Magma's Cove- 23
Boxing Day- 2
Fun With a Key- 2
Qraestolia Caverns- 8
The Descent- 43
The Subterranian Base- 7
A Short Stroll- 8
Shoe Zone 2- 0
Static Life- 0

World 7 Demos (aaaaand back to sucking)

Technically Atmospheric- 0
Spin! Pierce The Heavens!- 30
Island Place That Somehow Floats- 22 (mostly on looking for that secret exit, because my brain was all like "nah, that golden tooth in that one-block high crevice couldn't possibly be indicating something")
Michigan Test- 0! somehow!
Wooden Platforms Hang in the Sky- 39
Archwing Skyperch- 0
Bronze Fortress- 63
Fruitcat Clouds- 0
Curtain Tortoise- 10
In Flandre's Skies- 9
Blue Sacktice- 0 (didn't exist when I was playing)
Item Babysitting- 33
Ghosts in Space- 4
Spooky Surprise Ghost House- 73
SuperHigh Skyway- 43
Castle of the World- 22

I decided to stop doing least favorites unless I have a specific issue with them. I don't like how some of my past "least favorites" were basically me choosing a level because I felt like I had to have a least favorite.

Also, I'm noticing a pattern with a couple of level designers in regards to my favorite and runner up levels.

[BobisOnlyBob]

Does anyone have the luna.dll with the democount code? Or is a different A2XT exe? I've tried several and searching the forum, no luck.

[Kil]

http://www.gamearchaeology.com/LunaDll.dll

[docopoper]

Man. Putting all my levels in the end/postgame made them seem indefinitely far away during the early game. At least they're finally here. :D

In response I spent the entire night last night up to 2am making a no damage powerupless speedrun of the Calleoca fight.




It took 633 attempts to make this 54 second video! :D

[Voltgloss]

The quotes in today's half of the library are from raocow's LPs as follows:

First Book of Limes = Mega Man Day in the Limelight
Second Book of Limes = Mega Man Day in the Limelight 2
Second Book of Things (Zombie Edition) = Zombie A2MT
Unlimited Book = Mega Man Unlimited
Untitled Book = An Untitled Story
Book of Rocks = Mega Man Rocks
Book of Dead Bunnies = Bunny Must Die

Also, the chapter and verse indicators give the exact video number and timestamp of the quote in question. For example, the Mega Man Day in the Limelight quote appears in Video 4 at 11:06 to 11:30.

EDIT: Calleoca has some different things to say if you (i) ignore the midpoint, and if you (ii) go back to hit the midpoint after she comments on your ignoring it.

[Willhart]

The music in the library is "Marionette" by BLUnderwood.
https://ia600406.us.archive.org/23/item ... onette.mp3

The first bouncing fire grinder was on a really good synch with the music. Same with the Calleoca part of the cutscene.

Edit: They actually can use custom C++ code now. The level name was not a joke in that sense.

[SAJewers]

The first bouncing fire grinder was on a really good synch with the music.

That actually wasn't even intended at all.

[Unaniem]

I'm actually kind of disappointed with Custom C++ Code's placement in the game.

You start out the world with the cutscene hyping up the fight against Calleoca, a character you've seen throughout the entire game but barely have an idea of what they're truly capable of (seeing how broad the power of shapeshifting is), but instead of leaving that hype to boil around in the mind of the player for a while it's just "BAM here's the fight" literally immediately after the hyping happened.

It's so much lost atmosphere and flavour having the fight immediately after the concept gets introduced. The player could've been given the time to anticipate what the fight was going to be about over the course of World 8 and perhaps encounter it somewhere in the middle, but none of the build up really gets to blossom the way the level placed right now, and is instead killed as it was just born.

The stage itself however is really cool, that's something I won't ever deny.

[Tenlade]

im honestly a bit dissapointed at it because its just the "dodge the flying enemy" like in item babysitting and not an actual boss fight.

Also, when caleoca changes to her final "form", that flat stretch of land at the end is insanely long,
and reaching the end of it requires getting a head start on Caleoca while she transforms, and using the cape to fly over her when she gets close(even then you might not make it). At the end of the path is

an item that gives you 99 lives, made a bit useless being the first full level after the life farmer containing hub.

[Mabel]

hey i still have a vid of the old layout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs92xdybaGM

despite not being an actual fight its still my favorite sibling fight next to whats later on


(note:the insanely high demo count is because I you dont have separate demos from other episodes*Magl X and Magkl x and SDS yay*)

[jayScribble]

A world that is always at night time, or just doesn't have a sun.

The world intro's only real risks are the sky sharks and the bullet snakes. Other than that, an interesting intro level.

"Custom C++ Code, Example #3" has a lot of bullets and moving layers for a boss "fight". The transformations are interesting, but they only attack in a direct way, so avoiding them might be simple enough: the main difficulty of the level is avoiding while navigating the moving terrain until you can reach the end.

[docopoper]

Yeah, the harder layouts were mostly changed to make the level flow better. The part where you had to climb and the previous version of the canons were these weird sudden parts that you had to take slowly to do well in. Also Dr. Shemp complained about the land dipping under the screen which I changed because I agree it looked kind of bad and didn't play all that well either.

In hindsight I really had a big part in making this game easier.

[ano0maly]

Is that homing missile from Worms?

Calleoca should've used Patsy's magic bullet instead

[Isrieri]

I didn't have access to any of the luna code at the time of testing so I never got to experience any of docopopper's stuff. I'll have to take a look at the actual code he/she used when I have some free time.

So that was pretty neat. The level makes a lot more sense when there's a boss chasing you.

I really love the intro to this world. But the intro to world 9 might be my favorite. Maybe.

[Crow]

Custom C++ Code, Example #3 is all about super weird technology being used in interesting ways. The level's kind of difficult but generous with powerups so it balances out and it's a great start to the world as well. Also funny as heck.