JUMP - Let's meet again at JUMP½

[alleightbits]

raocow, you missed the black outline/door in the storehouse!
a hard one, first half: Yeah, this just seems like all kinds of problematic, for pretty obvious reasons.

[LHB]

If repetition is such an issue for yall, stop whining and use savestates.

[FrozenQuills]

eh it just needs more coin guides for that muncher pit obviously



and maybe everything else

[Alice]

Why would you give the gimmick blocks a time limit?

Why not?

It only serves to make some reasonably tricky jumps with a gimmick you're not terribly well adapted to more tedious to deal with. As raocow repeatedly illustrated it's fairly difficult to line up quite a few of the jumps before having the block dissipate dictating you go back and try it again if that doesn't get you killed in the process.

[cozyduck]

Why would you give the gimmick blocks a time limit?

Why not?

It only serves to make some reasonably tricky jumps with a gimmick you're not terribly well adapted to more tedious to deal with. As raocow repeatedly illustrated it's fairly difficult to line up quite a few of the jumps before having the block dissipate dictating you go back and try it again if that doesn't get you killed in the process.

Yes, having to learn how to chain multiple actions quickly is the whole point of the obstacle. I see no issue whatsoever with it.

[SAJewers]

Why would you put the explanation block after a required usage of the unintuitive gimmick?

Can you not activate the message block with a throw block?

[cozyduck]

Why would you put the explanation block after a required usage of the unintuitive gimmick?

Can you not activate the message block with a throw block?

No, sprites don't interact with the message block.

[Zach808]

Other than that blind muncher pit, I think this level was pretty well designed. Once you learn the gimmick, the level is still difficult to pull off, but it's possible to do on a blind read. I mean, sure, the execution's still a thing, but the level didn't feel cheap. Sure, the level kind of gets on the verge of checkpoint starvation, but I've seen a LOT worse. And the dragon coins have their own little obstacle course, which is nice. Even though the level's one of the hardest in the main game, I had a lot of fun with it.

Also, I don't get the complaints of the gimmick being unintuitive. It's a really simple gimmick (just jump while holding a throw block), and the level gives you plenty of time to practice with it. The precise parts don't come until later on anyways, and by then you should be a bit more used to hurrying with the blocks a little bit.

[Jolpengammler]

I like Manky bridge. It's a fun and challenging level.
And i think with the "blind" muncher pit you are just supposed to hold a block still so you fall slower and just react to it
maybe, maybe not
The only thing that could've been different maybe is indeed making the blocks last longer

[morsel/morceau]

The gimmick is explained late as a joke. It's the same joke as this one

JUMP_00001.png (6.92 KiB) Viewed 3758 times

The throw blocks have a time limit because they are smw throw blocks. The alternative reason is that if they didn't have a time limit there would have had to be lots of things which destroyed them.

This level does not look very fun to play, I'm sorry, M/M...

I don't consider criticism of a level to be a personal affront so there's no need to apologise for anything you say. Having said that, the level is based on my experience of things which are verging on frustrating being enormous fun (like VIP 2), and obviously some people will be repelled by this.

I don't know if the blind pit is actually unfair because you can see the safe ground (the top of the radish). The first falling statue is more debatable to me (and raocow did this first try!).

The final dragon coin challenge was added to abuse the fact that the double spin jump glitch was fixed (originally, this dragon coin occupied a traditional position, that is one over a pit).

[Ometeotl]

Also, I don't get the complaints of the gimmick being unintuitive.

So you're saying that the first time you picked up a throw block from the generator, your immediate response was "holding this throw block obviously makes me jump higher" despite that never being the case before?

[Validon98]

I ended up having to multitask on some work while watching this so I didn't see a whole lot of this level persay. The bit I did see looked... uh... rather tricky in execution. I'll save proper words and stuff after tomorrow's video once I see the remaining obstacles, although... I have the feeling they won't be kind words. :'D

In any case, the "holding the block thing makes you jump higher" gimmick is just a little unintuitive, yeah. The reason being that, well, there is no evidence that jumping with a block makes you jump higher unless you try, and while granted, you can just experiment and figure that out on your own, it's not really an obvious thing either. I dunno, it seems silly to me but that's the only criticism I'm able to give since that was the only part of the video I watched with my undivided attention. It's not a major thing since it's literally only the very beginning of the level this affects.

[Zach808]

Also, I don't get the complaints of the gimmick being unintuitive.

So you're saying that the first time you picked up a throw block from the generator, your immediate response was "holding this throw block obviously makes me jump higher" despite that never being the case before?

Maybe not that thought process instantly (I can't even remember since it was about a month ago), but it's easy to figure it out in the first second or two. The block already has a propeller on top of it, and just jumping while holding it (which is something that's nearly impossible to not do considering the obstacle immediately to the right) reveals the gimmick. The fact that it leaves you in a seemingly impossible position with just these weird blocks is enough to trigger something. Maybe my thought process is a little different, since I thought "Propeller + high wall = fly" or something.

[Arctangent]

... I thought the spinning block was an indication that the walls were being "reloaded', y'know, to explain why they're infinite.

I mean, the blocks that don't have that thing aren't infinite, so ...

[Sebby19]

Why is there a time limit? It doesn't really serve a purpose in this level.

[raocow]

yeah they don't actually have a propeller, it's just a spinning block. haha, that's a happy misinterpretation!

a big source of trouble I had is that I kept expecting the blocks to also slow your descent, which they obviously don't. This is because of the propeller blocks in smbx though and is no fault of m/m !

[Ometeotl]

yeah they don't actually have a propeller, it's just a spinning block. haha, that's a happy misinterpretation!

a big source of trouble I had is that I kept expecting the blocks to also slow your descent, which they obviously don't. This is because of the propeller blocks in smbx though and is no fault of m/m !

Yeah but that's also how the propeller blocks in NSMB work, too, so most people would expect that.

[nathanisbored]

Yeah but that's also how the propeller blocks in NSMB work, too, so most people would expect that.

That was probably the idea, but I don't think most people did expect it unfortunately. Then again, there's no opportunity to die and it's like maybe 10 seconds of your life wasted to figure it out, I don't think it's as big a deal as people are making it out to be. There's a lot more to complain about the level in terms of length, clarity, awkward precision that makes it unclear if you are even doing things the correct way, etc.

I don't think the blocks being timed is a problem (they're throw blocks...??), but man did m/m really milk this gimmick for everything he could think of. It leads to some cool ideas, but also a lot of unnecessary ones that don't always make the level fun to play again. The bullet patterns are different every time, and while you can adapt, it's hard not to rush that part once you've done it a couple dozen times, and suddenly an unexpected bullet costs you a hit or death, and it just wears you out. There's some stuff later in the level I didn't like, but I'll save that for now. In general I think the level overstays its welcome quite a bit (common theme with m/m levels). I'm also not a big fan when midpoints are used as level section dividers rather than blending in, since at that point you are basically just tacking on an extra level at each midpoint. At least the sections share a common gimmick/theme, but again, it just goes on too long.

What I did like about this level is the use of gravity control, namely the part with the grinders and muncher ceiling that raocow had trouble with in the video, where you have to sorta tap the jump button and hold it again on the way down, rather than just hold it all the way. Stuff like that is fun for me because it's subtle and counterintuitive to a new player, but something that experienced players have a good feel for, and still takes a bit of dexterity to pull off. If you're gonna have a level with a gravity gimmick, it's gotta make use of some of that mid-air physics manipulation imo

[SAJewers]

I honestly don't think that it would that hard to suss out the gimmick if the throw block had been re-sprited.

[aterraformer]

Why would you put the explanation block after a required usage of the unintuitive gimmick?

The gimmick is explained late as a joke.

Dammit, beat me to it.

use savestates.

This is not okay.

[morsel/morceau]

I will have to add 'using something which has the potential to be confused with a completely different thing in smbx' to the list 'What Not to Do (unless it's on purpose)' that I made in my level design workbook.

Actually, I can't remember what resulted in this gimmick; perhaps it was the propellor block. There is a more sensible variant of this gimmick in an excellent level in the generally excellent collab hack ASPE world

holding an item results in a restricted jump; this is obviously more relatable to reality, particularly when you can still throw items ten times your natural height.

[worldpeace125]

Though it doesn't seems a good idea to make challenges mandatory for all players, I really liked Manky Bridge and it's one of my top 3-5 tied favorite levels in this hack. It's likely that beating this blind requires like an hour(s). Unlikely some oldschool hard levels containing randomized generators or craps, however, there are consistent strategies for this level that let you handle obstacles without relying on luck (and this is why I consider harder levels in JUMP are easier in general than a level with homing bullet spam for instance). Beating this level continuously w/o dying is really a satisfying experience, and I found how well/elaborately each section was designed especially in the 2nd half.

I think this kind of levels gives a better impression when you revisit and play them again. The poison gas level in VIP2 would be a good evidence. Just tossing my feelings.

[Sugar]

Though it doesn't seems a good idea to make challenges mandatory for all players

Well, technically it's not mandatory, you can skip this level if you like by going to Mushroom Tripper. Just like you can skip all of Morsel's levels actually, and you would not even skip that much (The Cave of Layer2, Bridge Engineering, Red Switch Palace,

Old Fogey Skie

, and three of those levels are from the easiest morsel's level (-CHARGE- or -FIRE-?)).

Actually, I assumed it was intentional to have a Morsel's sidepath in World 6 for purpose of letting people skip Morsel's levels if they don't want to play them.

[Ryrir]

So yeah, I think there's not much else to say about "Manky Bridge" other than what has already been said. I think I like the second half more than the first half, though the problem is that when you play the two halves right after another you're so burned out that you can't really appreciate it.

Like, if you look at every single obstacle in the level individually each one would be super clever and well designed on its own, but having all of them one after another like that just burns the player out really quickly. I suppose I like the level in terms of creativity, but I feel like there was just way too much crammed into it, and not enough "breathing space" between the individual parts (I get that that's the whole premise of the level, it wants to be a gauntlet of super hard setups right after one another - and that kind of thing can work, but it's just too much in this case).
I think that all in all I don't dislike the level because it has bad design, I don't like it because it's just too much precision without giving the player some time to recover and the cost of dying is way too high.
I don't think there is much to say in terms of "level history", the two puzzles for the last two dragoncoins were added in an update to the original level (I think they used to be somewhere in the second half), but m/m didn't want to either up the time limit or add any additional midpoints to his level, so other than that it's exactly the same.

Also let me warn you raocow, "Gourmet Hindrance" is harder than "Manky Bridge"! It's also a lot more fun and the two levels don't have much in common, but it's still harder! (Well, after looking at the level list they are on the same level of difficulty, but still... Also if anyone is wondering, according to the level list the hardest level of JUMP is 8x harder than "Manky Bridge"! Fun times up ahead!)

[morsel/morceau]

There is a little more level history. Manky Bridge was originally a completely different level (although with the same gimmick), which worldpeace kindly made a video of in testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm9bBEGKDDQ. The level was changed because I didn't think it made very effective use of the gimmick and there was too much discrepancy in difficulty between either half (in addition, the second half was too hastily constructed and I thought it might be less effort to build a new level than polish an old one).

The new level was inspired by Bridge Engineering. In his video for this level, raocow said something like 'you have work it out but you have to do it too', and this 'semi-puzzle' feeling is what animated me. Clearly, anyone who aspires to worldpeace is going to come up short, hence this is less a manky bridge than a 'Bridge' manqué.

The spike is bit mean (it's a haimari 'reference', which is the word we hackers use for a thing we have stolen), although I think it should be possible for the ideal player to guess what the net beside the vine is for. I did authorise an increase in the time limit even if it has been left as it was but I still think it's funny to see people run out of time trying to jump on and off the statue.

If you play the star world level, you should look forward to the best level in the game (yes, very hard, but the best kind of hard).