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SMWCX - Credits

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The Doctor
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Re: SMWCX - Lava Castle

Post by The Doctor »

Oh man, I loved that second level so much. It took me a little longer than raocow to beat it, but it was so intense and incredibly satisfying to beat. I love hard levels like that. Tomorrow's level though? Yeah, that's where I rage quit.
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Money
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Re: SMWCX - Lava Castle

Post by Money »

tfw the trauma center series is dead :(

(BTW the pentagram you picked up that froze time is a reference to the games: you can use your "healing touch" to hyperfocus and slow time, and you do so by drawing a star on the screen in your miiiind)
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Re: SMWCX - Lava Castle

Post by Mandew »

Level seemed a bit overkill with how much it wanted you to "stand around" and occasionally push buttons on its first half two thirds.

Props to raocow for being that patient. I know I wouldn't have endured that so many times.

Like, I feel that otherwise the level is super well designed - it's really just that big amount of wait for every attempt that seems to be a huge mood killer, and I can't imagine that raocow's mood would have shifted as such if that wait weren't a thing.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by QubicTom »

That second level was very well made, and it even had a sense of humor with the Toads saving Mario with their super strength! And videos where raocow has to endure and be super skillful are the best ones, and that was the best performance thus far in this game, I think!
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Stink Terios
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Stink Terios »

Filler Level V2 is some serious garbage. Almost every time you die in this level isn't because you made a mistake, but because you aren't sure what you're supposed to do, especially in the race part. The castles are misleading and make you think the level is already over when it's only halfway.
Just, this level extremely bad at conveying stuff to the player, while the punishment is incredibly harsh. It just becomes tedious, mind-numbing repetition of difficult tasks.
Never mind that the last section comes down to luck, as the podoboos tend to desync and make some jumps impossible.

Tomorrow's level is tame by comparison. It's tiresome and too long but it isn't as frustrating. You learn and make progress with every death as opposed to "wait, wha- I'm dead".
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Sebby19 »

Removing the podaboos would have probably made a huge difference. Sure, that final section would have been trivialized, but that would have been an acceptable 'cooldown' time toward the finish. I'd argue the climax of the stage already happened, when the paintings were being dumped into the lava.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Le Neveu de Rameau »

The law has finally caught up with Zelda: she's been placed under cardiac arrest.
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Stink Terios
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Stink Terios »

I rescind a lot of the good things I said about tomorrow's level.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Mata Hari »

I'm just disappointed that the second Filler level did not also have Rayman music
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Money
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Money »

I think the second level would have worked a lot better if somehow the camera was able to center Mario at the bottom of the screen. Maybe with layers?

Also yeah those podoboos were garbage
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Sebby19 »

MoneyMan wrote:I think the second level would have worked a lot better if somehow the camera was able to center Mario at the bottom of the screen. Maybe with layers?

Also yeah those podoboos were garbage
Shame SMBX doesn't have camera control like that. Elevators and falling down shaft segments would be way more tolerable.
I suppose you could reverse it so the lava layer doesn't move, but everything else moves down. That would change the jump physics a bit though; Mario's jumps would look much higher in the 2nd half.

Autoscroll in SMBX can't go straight up, right? I haven't seen it done yet.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by strongbadman »

Sebby19 wrote:Removing the podaboos would have probably made a huge difference. Sure, that final section would have been trivialized, but that would have been an acceptable 'cooldown' time toward the finish. I'd argue the climax of the stage already happened, when the paintings were being dumped into the lava.
The end part was extremely bullshit after the long, long level that followed. It was too much to just leave the end up to random chance
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by SAJewers »

Sebby19 wrote:Autoscroll in SMBX can't go straight up, right? I haven't seen it done yet.
IIRC the only restriction is that the autoscroll has to occur in section 1.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Lejes »

Stink Terios wrote:Filler Level V2 is some serious garbage. Almost every time you die in this level isn't because you made a mistake, but because you aren't sure what you're supposed to do, especially in the race part. The castles are misleading and make you think the level is already over when it's only halfway.
Just, this level extremely bad at conveying stuff to the player, while the punishment is incredibly harsh. It just becomes tedious, mind-numbing repetition of difficult tasks.
Never mind that the last section comes down to luck, as the podoboos tend to desync and make some jumps impossible.

Tomorrow's level is tame by comparison. It's tiresome and too long but it isn't as frustrating. You learn and make progress with every death as opposed to "wait, wha- I'm dead".
I thought the level was over too at that point. I tried to go into one of the castles. It didn't work. After a while, a level like this just completely stops being exciting. It was 2+ minutes of boring autopilot for me, until the final section with the Podoboos that never have quite the same timing as the previous attempt.

Tomorrow's level should be fun.
To watch.

It's where I finally gave up on this game.

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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by SAJewers »

Levels like today is why I'm glad multi-checkpoints are now a thing.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by TaviTurnip »

Quick nothing about yesterday: Healing Touch was a super clever point that I give tons of props for, and as much as I don't like most of Imaynotbehere4long's levels, I was okay with this one >.>;; It was made well. The Podoboos don't change position and that makes them not a problem. Nothing about them ever changes and therefore they are a consistent, tolerable quantity ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There were just a couple points in the level where the physics (jumping while ascending) were off-putting, but that's the worst it had to offer.

...

SO ABOUT TODAY.

There was something raocow said many LPs ago about the mental toll it takes on the player to have a scenario where instant death is always a threat and where you always perceive every little area as a red zone (something I liken to seeing a spider in your room and then losing it) and how utterly stifling and exhausting that is, because it removes the natural flow to all gameplay, and because the threat of death never goes away even if you practice the level for 20+ lives, especially for finicky scenarios like the Clown Car >_> I pretty much agree, and that makes me sad because there's nothing wrong with the concept of this level. But it seems very exhausting and it kinda reminds me of the latest MaGMML from Horikawa :x The level design using something that's known to be a pretty meh, unstable feature and doing very little to accommodate the player's quality of life for it. And yeah, I'm usually the person who tells everyone they're babies about hand holding. See comment about yesterday.

I guess for me the other thing is that I think the best Mario levels feature "Mario gameplay" and that doesn't have to be synonymous with making World 1-1 constantly. Clown Car physics aren't really a natural Mario thing, and that's okay, but if you're gonna center the level around them, making it tight and uncomfortable (especially with SMBx's huge screen size) is kinda... meh? It's not like balloon segments which are more consistent to control and operate fine in tight places. You're big and you can clip into stuff and lose your car and just :1 Not a great feature to play with in the first place. It's uncomfortable.

Checkpoints are cool. If you don't want to add too many for the player's benefit, "early" midbosses are a risky move, duders. Ayyy I rambled about a SMBx level again yaaaay.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Voltgloss »

This level is absurd on several fronts. Just focusing on the sheer length, the level should either use multi-midpoint technology or simply be split into two separate levels.

Even with that issue addressed though, today's "first half" is still too much by itself. I'd have cut the one non-plane segment (this level is about riding the plane, make the whole level actually about riding the plane) and that very last segment. The other segments play fair by recognizing how easy it is to bork the plane and giving the player return pipes/doors to respawn it. The last segment then takes all that work and chucks it out the window, boiling down into "bork the plane once and you die."
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Mandew »

Right, so here's my primary beef with a lot of things.

Repetition. Specifically, marathon repetition. You kind of have to repeat an entire marathon over and over if you want to progress.
Like, I don't know - parts of the levels on their own would be fine if more midpoints were available, but they're really not, so the level should be built around that.

In actuality, though, what would make this intolerable for me is how the vertical sections kind of force you to take your time and be really careful due to manoeuvering something that is not actually precise nor responsive to control. Basically, the fact that it'd be difficult master the level in such a way that each attempts can meet back to the previous ones faster.

It just doesn't seem fun to me.
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Re: SMWCX - Lost in Flames

Post by Alice »

Ridiculously long levels with only a single midpoint centered around one of the glitchiest things in SMBX. That's definitely the recipe for a fantastic level...
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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by Grounder »

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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by Money »

Marathon levels really have the potential to be true tests of the player's abilities, especially when designed around gameplay that is a culmination of everything you've practiced during the game.

Too bad this level doesn't have any of that, and instead opts to go the "finicky gimmick that has the potential to instantly kill you and that you are expected to have complete mastery over with next to no practice, oh did I mention every time you die you have to redo a good five minutes of gameplay just to get back and die in the same spot for the same finicky reason" route.
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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by Zephyr_DragonLord »

I was going to berate raocow for his performance in this level and the previous one, but this final level is way too long for its own good. It should have been: Current first sections > Raphel > midpoint > second sections until modified wall autoscroll > second midpoint > Final boss.
Which is basically the length of what we see here today. This is pretty irritating design, especially when its glitchy nature makes it far more precise than it needs to be.
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Stink Terios
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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by Stink Terios »

How to fix this level in one simple step:
Remove all the plane sections.
Done. Maybe make the plane sections their own level.
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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by FrozenQuills »

I can appreciate the block gimmick in this level but it just doesn't work with the airship piece.
(also it's obviously too long)

To me, the only way the airship piece can actually work in levels is with these guidelines:
- Try to have as few block ceilings as possible
- No cramped spaces (this is the fault of many airship piece levels including today's)
- Don't go full touhou (see: truth story)

But even better is to not use the airship piece and use the clown car or fairy powerup instead, but each of those have their own drawbacks (either huge hitbox or doing everything without taking a hit)
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Re: SMWCX - Mephisto (Section 1)

Post by Voltgloss »

I personally don't have a problem with the vertical plane sections, thanks to the ability to backtrack if you lose your plane. I think the first vertical section would have benefited from having return pipes like the second vertical section has - at least at the top, where you're almost guaranteed to mess up the first time you get there and not keep your plane - but even without those it's not terrible. I get that those two sections are "cramped" - they certainly are, no doubt about that - but for my personal taste, I don't mind a challenge that depends on careful micro-position adjustments to get past predictable obstacles. It's cramped, yes, but it still feels fair to me.

It's the horizontal walls of death at the end that are killer and throw out all of the level's efforts to make a plane level actually work. *Especially* with them coming at the end of a marathon section. An instant-death difficult challenge like that - if it's going to be in the level at all - should be immediately after a checkpoint. Put the hardest challenges right after a checkpoint so the player can practice it repeatedly until they get good at it.
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