JUMP - Let's meet again at JUMP½

[Alice]

It was decent, with only a few messy timed jumps.

It'd probably be less messily timed if the player used the key they're holding to fix the timing rather than holding on to it constantly and hoping for the best.

[Jeran]

i wonder if this style of design would work better if it was either convoluted puzzling, or difficult timed executions, not a combination of the two.

[worldpeace125]

This gsp is another level which had used to be (relatively) simple but some extra parts were added, making the level too long or possibly tiring. Originally there weren't the puzzle part in the second half. Instead, there were on/off alternating obstacles, key flying and etc. which were certainly shorter and easier. There wasn't a midway but that wouldn't be a big deal compared to this.

In his other levels, things were updated to be (gradually) harder than previous. I'm making a list of them that I remember. Parts that were entirely changed are not included here.

• Perilous Pier: added some more subscreens (that finicky jump on the water surface w/o touching fishes and on/off switch trick)
• Manky Bridge: the second to the last obstacle in the vertical level was added (the part with the bowser statue and grey platform) + throwing a block between bowser statues
• House of the Holy: harder boss fight in the normal path, some more obstacles in the reversed big boo battle
• Shouldering On: harder boss fight
• The Green Switch: about 2-3 obstales were added in the first half, for the removal of on/off and flying part I believe. And that puzzle was added too.

I tested almost every version of his levels. Whenever they became gradually harder for each update, I feel I took a great advantage of knowing previous stuffs, so I had much less trouble or fatigue unlike most of others. Even Virus610 who is better at SMW than me had complaints about these levels, then what else to say?
It's regrettable that we didn't have testers from various places. They could've prevent these from going further.

edit: not saying all of those updates are wrong. I just wanted to show how his levels progressively got harder.

[Maiku Wotaharu]

For those who don't understand the reference in the cutscene, here.

[Mata Hari]

Return of the YEAARGGH-di

[mellonpizza]

I guess shell shrine was updated after the release or something or I didn't find the new level stuff because that entire worldpeace part was new to me (Though I did see a screenshot of the sacrifice room).

The original level is quite interesting; the first half in the version raocow played was the original second half, and it seems mostly unchanged. The first half was... not that hard but was SUPER jank, like probably more jank than anything else in the hack. Again I think it's a relic of the beginning of development.

[Grounder]

I was half-expecting Mario to actually die when he hit the lava.

[Ashan]

I was half-expecting Mario to actually die when he hit the lava.

Same
raocow's faith is much stronger than ours.

[AuraLancer]

My only problem with this hack so far is just the end of the GSP. Make things as hard as you want, sure, but there's a difference between a harshly difficult level and a long, confusing, convoluted puzzle that isn't in any way obvious.

[Ryrir]

"THE TREES ARE DEAD" is a nice little breather level in between the yogui stages and the final castle. I guess it's one of the easier world six stages, but it's not like you can breeze through it either, especially the very last section with the jumps in between the trees. To get the second dragon coin you're supposed to jump on the fireballs of the bowser statue further to the right. The stage reminded me a lot of Rise to the Challenge actually, especially the way you had to spinjump on the sparkies/hot heads (although that might just be because I just replayed that hack).

There is somewhat of a history behind "Shell Shrine": In the original baserom version of the hack, the autoscrolling section was the second half of the level, while there was a completely different first half made by aterraformer. That first half was scrapped in the end because of my personal super negative review of the level, and in turn worldpeace made another section instead. In retrospect I feel kind of bad for bashing on the first half so badly, but to be fair it was really, really janky (even worse than Wigglertuff in that regard). At least worldpeace made a super awesome thing in the end that he probably wouldn't have done otherwise? You can still check out the old version in some of the original baseroms, hopefully someone can record a video or something so you can see what I'm talking about.
I think the castle really ends up being kind of an iconic stage for the game itself, it combines vanilla design with crazy ASM with stupid jokes, so it's pretty much what JUMP is all about.
Who made what:
First half - lolyoshi
Second half - worldpeace (I know right who would have thought)
Boss & Castle End Text - aterraformer
The "Chuck Magnet" reference was my personal contribution to the level, glad that people thought it was cool

World seven is (apart from maybe two levels and Bowser's Castle) easier than world six, or at least there is not much of a difficulty spike in between these two worlds. I actually think that raocow will be fine until some of the special world levels.

[aterraformer]

Just so it is here too: so the boss and text to Shell Shine is actually a dual layer reference. Pretty much when Virus610 (see my signature, the guy imitating warp whistle Mario) was playing TSRPR, I believe he glitched a shell (this is a typical thing for him) in the Wendy fight in that pyramid level with the layer 2 crusher and all. Well he tried killing Wendy with the shell and got himself stuck, having to wait out the timer. If I'm not mistaken, he did it twice by accent or something really silly. He sung the song replacing Baby with Wendy and thus it had to be immortalized somewhere. I'm so glad this level is more iconic now. My first half was absolute trash. Don't feel bad Ryrir, you did JUMP a wonderful service that, at least in hindsight, is very appreciated. Past, not so much. I still have no intention of making 1-1 less trolly though. Too iconic.

[alleightbits]

they're obviously dead: That was a strange little romp. Timing fireball jumps is kind of tedious.
the kind of level i really like: That was all over the place. The first section was kind of hectic, but yeah. And there's a reference to that song!

[ravegg]

Woot world 7! The World 7 submap was the only submap that was totally redesigned out of all of them. The first draft had perspective errors and was kinda bad, not much else to say about it. The gears and other graphics turned out ok for me being a terrible artist. I planned to give the final level a custom graphic too, but I never got around to it. So world 7 just has two castles.

THE TREES ARE DEAD was my first crack at a real smw level (besides an automatic level I made for a contest but that doesn't really count). It was also made early in development and was put in world 6 back when world 6 was way easier. It feels out of place now, but it fit the theme of the world so well that I just kept it. Plus it's nice to have easy breaks here and there. I really enjoy hard levels but sometimes doing a bunch in a row gets tiring.

[Sebby19]

Hmm, wouldn't it have been possible to have a second path leading to the red level below the castle? I think I've seen one exit open two paths at the same time. The only point to this would be making the world map a little more streamlined.

[Virus610]

Even Virus610 who is better at SMW than me

[Jolpengammler]

my level today is bleh. It's just there and existing. Nothing special at ALL. (I already made levels for this when it still was the "make a vip style game" thing)

[The Doctor]

my level today is bleh. It's just there and existing. Nothing special at ALL. (I already made levels for this when it still was the "make a vip style game" thing)

I enjoyed playing your level. The only real problem that I had with it was the extreme difficulty whiplash. The first half is super fun rompy time while the second half goes right for the jugular. The first half doesn't prepare you for what's to come.

[alleightbits]

probably gonna cry a little bit: This was alright, but of course, there was the despawning issue. And the secret exit's kind of hectic.

[Ryrir]

It's really weird how a lot of sprites didn't seem to spawn when raocow played through the level. That never happened to me!
As was already mentioned, the contrast between the two halves is really quite big: The first half and the secret exit are super simple, quite easy sections where you basically just move forward. Some jumps are kind of blind though, especially when you need to hurry for the secret exit you tend to jump off a chuck's head, fly through the sky and suddenly you're not sure anymore where the ground is.
During the second half of the level you basically need to hurry while keeping your raft on screen at the same time. I think I like this idea, because it's not just a simple "got-to-hurry" gimmick but you need to keep your eyes on the bottom of the screen as well and basically find exactly the right pace. It's an interesting concept, but it's kind of too bad that it's tied to the really finicky despawn point of the raft. At least it's not that long (the gimmick could be expanded on for a lot more obstacles if you think about it, but luckily Jolpe really knew when to stop).
It may not be the most interesting or memorable world seven level, but I feel like it didn't do anything wrong either. It's just a nice, relatively simple vanilla level.

[Sugar]

It's really weird how a lot of sprites didn't seem to spawn when raocow played through the level. That never happened to me!

Did you press a P-Switch? P-Switches, key, and keyhole (for some weird reason) are all persistent sprites.

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

Persnickety, too.

[aterraformer]

@raocow viewtopic.php?f=38&t=16111&p=360900#p360759

[Sebby19]

It's really weird how a lot of sprites didn't seem to spawn when raocow played through the level. That never happened to me!

Did you press a P-Switch? P-Switches, key, and keyhole (for some weird reason) are all persistent sprites.

I don't think the keyhole spawned, the first time raocow went by its area.

[Ryrir]

Honestly, part of it was that raocow just completely misunderstood what the level was asking of the player.

No, you don't have to do the screen transitioning glitch with the green springy thing, just jump off the falling brown platform.
No, you're not supposed to keep riding the torpedo ted, you need to jump off at the part with the green switch blocks and get to the switch ceiling from there - there are all these cool little timing puzzles about how to make the chucks fall that you completely skipped.
No, you can't just jump off one parakoopa in order for the two podobos to fall down, you have to jump on all three of them.
No, you don't need to hectically jump on the springboard over and over again - you don't have a time limit, so just jump off it and wait for the podobo to line up correctly before jumping.
No, you're not supposed to make the next jump directly from the green springy thing, just jump to the rope and spinjump on the fuzzies to the pipe.

I just kept shaking my head while I was watching the video haha

It's just really too bad that instead of changing his strategy when things don't work out, he just keeps on doing the same things over and over (even when it's clear that they don't work half the time) and getting really frustrated as a result, when in reality there is always another method (at least in this level) that would have worked out a lot more smoothly.

I really, really like the level, it's one of my favorites of the whole hack and I know that other players feel the same. I guess it just relies on some signs or expectations which are not the same for every player out there - if you get the level, you're having a blast while playing through it, if you do whatever it was raocow was doing, well...

Is the level hard? Yes, absolutely.
Is it as hard as raocow made it out to be? Absolutely not.

And so let's get ready for yet another youtube comment section full of disdain for the hack

Edit: Maybe I was too harsh. I guess it's just really frustrating when you wait for your favorite level to come up and then something like that happens. Not really the fault of anyone though, of course you're free to think whatever you want about the level / the game

[Sugar]

It's just really too bad that instead of changing his strategy when things don't work out, he just keeps on doing the same things over and over (even when it's clear that they don't work half the time) and getting really frustrated as a result, when in reality there is always another method (at least in this level) that would have worked out a lot more smoothly.

Miscellaneous Monument

is going to be bad, I can already tell from this, considering it has multiple ways of doing things, and most of those are much, much harder than intended solution :).

But yes, I'm somewhat disappointed this was an angrycow video, especially because it was after Morsel's levels. The level is hard, but it's not that hard.

(Disclaimer: Burnt Mountain Tango is my favorite JUMP level.)