A2XT: It's Over

[strongbadman]

The best part about the world 3 cutscene for me was that I had never seen the wart replacement. So hearing King Frog Bandito start quacking just made me giggle.

[Ometeotl]

These cutscenes have all been pretty damn good so far.

[Tenlade]

Fun fact: you can fly over the trigger for the "mirage" to vanish and walk straight up to it from the other side, sadly the npc in the mirage doesn't say anything, which is a bit disappointing when I found some other levels actually had some neat acknowledgements for script-breaking.

[Ozzy Ment]

Did it occur to anyone else to wonder where the Triforce mark appears on Demo since she doesn't have arms?

[tigermoon]

Oh man, raocow made me feel really bad about dying so much on those first two levels, then made me feel a little better by dying a lot more on the third. Great levels, though! :D

[jayScribble]

Deeper into the desert/ruins, but same result: more secret exits.

"Cinder Canyon" is one level that the player must keep moving to avoid failure due to the nature of the platforms. That secret exit really demands timing, precision, and control, but an interesting one nonetheless.

"Forgotten World We Just Remembered" is a level of bombs, bricks, and destructible bricks, and one certainly demanding of the player's skill to progress, especially at that wall. I notice that there is a lower path underneath the main exit more dangerous than the main one.

Speaking of destructible bricks, "Load Bearing Bricks" is one nearly made out of them, but adds a twist to their nature as the level gimmick. The most dangerous enemies are certainly the kicking blue goopas. The second half's fire flower is a double-edged sword: you can dispose the enemies with ease, but you're also at risk causing what you're avoiding with a lack of self control in terms of jump height.

[Voltgloss]

In my opinion, the best way to tackle Load Bearing Bricks is

to use Sheath. She doesn't break bricks with her head when jumping - she only breaks them if you upstab. Meaning you can get powerups without having to worry. And she's best-equipped to deal with enemies without having to jump, as well as stop the errant blue shells with a quick stab.

[SpoonyBardOL]

The third level in today's video had a super neat gimmick, that was a clever idea.

The second level did something interesting too with the layer attached to the moving platform. I would have liked to see more done with that, but I guess I can see why that would be hard to keep fair since SMBX lacks a way to reset the level's state.

[Willhart]

It probably makes more sense for the team to investigate all the ruins and dangerous places first in case there are anything important hidden in them. I too had some trouble with Load Bearing Bricks, but still think the gimmick is awesome.

I remember that the Cinder Canyon had originally more lava frogs and Forgotten World That We Just Remembered is good for showing how to handle the bombs. It's not that deathly if the player practices some strategy and patience.

[Validon98]

How many videos before raocow listens more to the world theme? Who knows!

Cinder Canyon is a nice, short little lava level. I thought the secret exit was creative and everything, but I remember the level giving me a bit of trouble. This was also before I knew the life farming thing at the hub existed (I didn't ever use it until right before World 4), so that may have compounded my problems. Ah well, it was a nice level.
Forgotten World that we Just Remembered, in terms of aesthetic, is amazing. In terms of gameplay, it's also not that shabby. Bomb manipulation is a bit of a hassle (especially coming from Mothra), but overall it was pretty cool.
I forgot Load Bearing Bricks existed, but yeah, that level is pretty tricky if you don't know what you're doing! I like the gimmick though. It's one of those "take something you take for granted and make you pay attention to it" types of levels, kind of like aesthetic runs, and it's a neat concept.

[Voltgloss]

For those curious, the pipe at the midpoint in Cinder Canyon - the one raocow tried to enter but couldn't - is the exit pipe from the area with the secret exit (if you enter the pipe behind the Toaster Cannon).

[Sebby19]

raocow made blowing up the wall way more difficult. Just simply grab and throw when you're on the last platform.

Trying to place it will get you blown up, which is what happened.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Suddenly, the western takes a pit stop at Indiana Jones's house.

Cinder Canyon (Alpherio): Cinder Canyon was a pretty good romp through lava craters, though my playthrough was marred badly by computer lag. However, that secret exit was very cumbersome to pull off, and that's not counting the times I died when I touched lava at the very edge of the left-most falling platform before the toaster cannon. And I was playing Kood at the time! It's pretty good otherwise.

Forgotten World That We Just Remembered (Cjn14): This place feels so downtrodden. I know it's supposed to be since it's in ruins, but the music especially sells it to me that it had seen better days. Anyway, the block barrier before the door to the second half was difficult to blow up since there's a lot in the way (such as the extra blocks on top, the Swoopers, the fact that other bombs might blow up near your face). After the midpoint, however, Mothra leaves us alone, so I don't have to worry about having to dodge bombs at random and should now consider dodging Disco Dans and bombs that stay in place until you pick them up. Honestly though, I feel the second half was easier to go through than the first, even considering the secret exit.

Load Bearing Bricks (Weston Smith): A gimmicky level with china-shop bricks and clumsy/belligerent Goopas, but if you know what you're doing it ends up very fun. (Of course, I really didn't feel that ballsy, so I played it safe with the jumping cheat.) The last dash towards the goal is quite frantic if you've screwed up somewhere, especially early on when you're so far away and so will have to hurry up to jump on the springboard at the end. Still, it's a fun level to maneuver your way through. Now, I'm looking forward to seeing raocow go through the level designer's last level, if only to see how he handles its gimmick.

Oh man, he's only gone through half the world and already the end level is unlocked! Too bad it'll have to wait; there's always that other half to run through.

[YelseyKing]

Wow. raocow found the secret exit in Forgotten World immediately... when I played that stage, I somehow overlooked that for a long time, trying to use the bombs throughout the second half to break every brick, figuring the key *had* to be in one of them. I'm ashamed to admit it, but after losing a dozen lives there, I had to check the stage in the editor to find out where the key was. On the other hand, raocow seemed to have a lot more trouble breaking that wall midway through the first half, so I guess that evens things out.

Load Bearing Bricks was neat, and a really clever idea. It's indeed hard, but I enjoyed figuring out how to deal with the various obstacles. One oddity, though, that raocow didn't encounter... for whatever reason, it seems like as you pass through the structures, previous ones get deleted. I noticed this when I tried to deal with the second kicking goopa by taking a red shell from the previous area... only for it to spontaneously vanish. That was rather frustrating.

On the whole, world 3 was probably my favorite one so far. Lots of really neat stages there.

[WestonSmith]

Glad folks enjoyed LBB and super pleased to see different approaches by different folks. Cya again in World 8.

[sedron]

Live, from Philadelphia! It's time to talk about level design again!

Cinder Canyon- I have some gripes with this level, but it really grew on me as I played it. World 3 is a bit of an early game difficulty spike in itself, and Cinder Canyon certainly contributes. It kind of wants you to rush, but at the same time that's likely to get you killed, and you don't necessarily have much reaction time to enemies doing things like kicking shells or flying into the lava. The secret exit is probably the hardest thing up to this point. The weird thing is that I kind of like that this level amps up the difficulty. Going fast enough to survive while not rushing too much is unintuitive, but when you get it right it's pretty satisfying. The secret exit is pretty fun, especially if you get everything in one go. I'm a bit torn on the music, as Hill Top Zone wouldn't be my first pick for music, but I think it works pretty well. All things considered, this is a pretty good level, and I definitely enjoyed it a lot.

Forgotten World That We Just Remembered- Another great level. The atmosphere is pretty superb, with that background really standing out. My only real complaints lay with the enemy choices. Respawning bats are, in my opinion, iffy to start with because there's no way to really deal with them in the long term. Longer spawn times may help with that. The Disco Dans interact strangely with the bombs (they intuitively shouldn't interact with them at all, since they interact with nearly nothing else,) so maybe another enemy would have better suited those sections. The level design otherwise is pretty freaking good, though.

Load Bearing Bricks- The third great level in a row. Maybe a better background or song choice could have been made, but otherwise the level is absolutely solid. The premise is fun and executed well, it uses simple enemy choices that never feel unfair while providing a challenge, and it doesn't run too long, leaving the player wanting more instead of being sick of it by the end.

[docopoper]

This guy is currently streaming A2XT and is ahead of raocow for anybody that wants to come along: http://www.twitch.tv/danddjosh2000

EDIT: It's over now. Though obviously you can watch all his past broadcasts.

[YelseyKing]

...I just had the greatest, most ridiculous, most raocow-ian death ever on A2XT...

In the world 6 stage, The Descent. I managed to get to the very end of the stage, though I was small and had no reserve item. There's a "boss" at the end, but all you have to do is pick it up and throw it in the nearby pool of lava.

I managed to walk right into it before the "fight" even started. And died.

...what else can I do but laugh?

[Doctor Shemp]

Some more beta stuff:
Nice and Easy went relatively unchanged as far as I remember. I will point out though that the part about using raocow or Sheath for an extra challenge really isn't kidding. It's really difficult as them.

Sloppy Sands... where to begin? This went through a lot of changes because originally the secret exit was one of the most unpleasant parts of the game to deal with. For starters, none of the switch zones led directly to each other except sometimes as hidden entrances. So not only did you need to beat them all in one go but you had to find them first as well. Secondly, nearly every zone was quite a bit harder than it is now and not in a good way either. Two examples come to mind. Remember how raocow said that without the wieldable drill rose the fish segment would be slow and boring and full of waiting? Well, the drill rose wasn't there originally. The other example burnt into my brain is the "climb the waterfall and jump out" segment. Originally every one of those jumps was one of those "if you stretch you just might make it" jumps, which are a real pain in the arse when barely any levels require those sort of jumps out of water so you probably don't know the physics of them. And, if you screw up even one, you're dead and you have to do all the rooms again, including the one with lots and lots of waiting.

[Voltgloss]

Another change to Sloppy Sands during beta testing was to make the floating Paragoopas respawn in the first and third bonus rooms.

[Willhart]

Dancing raocow for your Internet.

I think it was a good thing that these levels were changed. They work well with the other world 3 levels. It looks to me like this world might take five videos to complete again.

[Sebby19]

Some more beta stuff:
Nice and Easy went relatively unchanged as far as I remember. I will point out though that the part about using raocow or Sheath for an extra challenge really isn't kidding. It's really difficult as them.

I'm not sure why using raocow would be harder, with his double jump, he has the best flight abilities in my opinion. Sheath, yeah, flying with her is a pain, since she has no floating powers with Leaf or Tanooki suit. After you fly with her, she just drops like a brick.
It took me a few demos to realize the only way to get over that pit was to ascend and nothing else. You can't follow the coin trial. And you'll only barely make it.

That said, she is my choice for the secret exit path.

[tigermoon]

And once again, raocow reminds me he's a much better player of the Mario games than I am.

I love how occasionally in collab works, you get people who have similar minds when it comes to level names. I mean, what are the odds there'd be a "Sloppy Sands" and a "Sandy Sands" in the same group? Props to whoever designed this overworld and had those as the first two level levels available, btw! :D

[Mabel]

Extending the blocks to do the waterfall part by 1 block and rearranging the pipes was probably all I remember changing because both of those things were s00pr annoying when I played that level.
then a bunch of other people started nerfing everything else l0l. Also it looks like the music in the secret exit was changed, I dont remember if it was a copyright issue or...

Still dont really like Sloppy Sands and its probably the only level by MS I really felt needed any changing(except cutting the length of Plant Zone in half, putting the plants in pipes kinda ruined the level)

[Mochtroidprime]

I have to wonder if raocow ever finds it weird to say he can play as "himself" while playing a video game.