MaGL 3 results: moral of the story: laziness always prevails

[FPzero]

This level was unfortunate. Putting aside the math error, the rest of it looked really unfocused, boring and glitchy. There was no central theme to the enemies; Thwomps were just kind of placed everywhere with little thought or challenge to them, not to mention that's really weird that the stun thwomps can stun you in midair. The level itself started out looking a little interesting with the maze but then the maze died off and all that was left was a few screens of relatively flat land with more thwomp varieties to bother you. The math gimmick exists in a complete vacuum from the rest of the level, not to mention ruins the pacing. Then again, I don't think you could add any math gimmick that wouldn't ruin the pacing by simple virtue of the player having to stop and solve math.

I didn't play it to form my opinions, but I don't think I have to in this case. I'm pretty sure I saw everything I had to.

[Divemissile]

i think it's kinda silly how the math level has incorrect math, but it's more sad than funny really

i'm not entirely sure if i could say this level was fine otherwise with a good conscious, the "maze" was really just short straight forward thwomp corridors separated by math, and super basic math at that. come back to magl 4 with some super mario world calculus

[Alice]

In this exciting edition of raocow and friends, we learn raocow apparently never took 6th grade algebra

Some people are really just not very good at math. My group of friends in highschool were so bad at math in comparison to me that they never advanced to the math class I took my freshman year, let alone past it.

Like this level, either you don't know how to do the maths and you're screwed, or you do and it's boring because who wants to do maths, I mean come on.

Plenty of people (ie: mathematicians) actually enjoy doing math. Personally I generally find it pretty fun. Unless it's calculus. I took precalculus my senior year of highschool and despite being one of like three people who managed to pass the class I still had literally no freaking idea what the hell I was doing. (Which ended up giving me the false impression that if I got into college I was screwed when it came to math. Though that's a moot point since I applied for financial aid on three separate occasions and they managed to lose my paperwork each and every time, something I'd only find out months later when I called them asking for an update.)

[Ryrir]

seems like raocow could have done with a few more rounds of Puzzle Pics Addition in his time

[raocow]

being a creative type surrounded by nerds is suffering

[Arctangent]

if my memory holds out your suffering will be cubed

eventually

[ano0maly]

Like this level, either you don't know how to do the maths and you're screwed, or you do and it's boring because who wants to do maths, I mean come on.

So either you don't like math because you're not good at it, or you're good at it and still don't like it? I find that misleading and not nice to say. Given that a lot of programming used in ongoing projects involves mathematical thinking.

[Divemissile]

being a creative type surrounded by nerds is suffering

NERDS

[Coryman]

No offence, but I think I see why my level hasn't shown up yet.
I mean if it weren't for the math error it wouldn't be tooo bad, but...
Then again I am more of a math-person I guess

[ztarwuff]

Whoa, whoa! Let me get this straight. The author emails raocow about how one of the equations is incorrect but fails to tell raocow the answer to that incorrect question, thus rendering the level completely unplayable. Furthermore, the level requires a player to stop playing, take their eyes off the screen and do maths on a piece of paper, Excel spreadsheet, calculator program on the PC etc.

I'm having flashbacks to that awful coin puzzle in Puzzle Agent 2 where none of the coins were labelled and were all US change. I had to minimise the game and look up US coins on Wikipedia in order to solve the puzzle. Would it have killed them to have labelled the coins with their monetary values?

EDIT: also, what was the music in the video? I couldn't hear it at all.

[Leet]

this math really wasn't that hard you babies

[The Doctor]

Okay class, listen up. Professor Doctor is here to teach a very important video game skill. That's right, algebra.


THE ONE RULE

When it comes to algebra there's one simple rule that's key to solving almost any problem. Here is that rule:

"You can do anything you want on the left side of the equal sign as long as you do the same on the right side"


EXAMPLE

5 = 5

This is true, of course. Now let's add 15 to both sides and see what happens.

5 + 15 = 5 + 15
20 = 20

Still checks out. Now let's divide both sides by 10.

20 / 10 = 20 / 10
2 = 2

Super simple, right? Well like I said this is the key to solving any algebra problem, so if you understand this simple rule then you can solve anything that rom hackers can and will throw at you.


SOLVING FOR X

The trick to solving for X is to follow the rule above to isolate X all by its lonesome on one side of the equal sign and do some basic math to clean up the equation whenever possible. Let's work through this sample problem together.

5x + 1 + 3 = 24

That 1 + 3 is kinda messy, so let's clean it up by adding both numbers together.

5x + 4 = 24

There's nothing else to clean up, so let's work on isolating x. Let's subtract both sides by 4.

5x + 4 - 4 = 24 - 4

And now for some cleaning.

5x = 20

Remember that in algebraic notation 5x is the same as (5 * x), so the next step to isolate x would be to divide both by sides by 5.

5x / 5 = 20 / 5

Now we clean this up.

x = 4

x is isolated and we have our answer


TESTING

We now have x = 4 as our answer, so to make sure that we didn't make a mistake we go back to the original equation and sub in 4 for X.

5x + 1 + 3 = 24
5 * 4 + 1 + 3 = 24
20 + 1 + 3 = 24
24 = 24

And it checks out. Problem successfully solved.


TEST PROBLEM

Try solving this problem on your own.

7x + 3 * 5 = 64

SOLUTION

x = 7

NEXT WEEK PREVIEW

We learn how to solve for two variables. More exciting than ASMT 3.

6x + 20 - 2y = 10

[Mata Hari]

being a creative type surrounded by nerds is suffering

Implying you're not a nerd

[raocow]

well I'm a cool nerd, not a math nerd

[Reecer7]

Okay, putting the aside the issue of COME ON THAT'S AN ASTERISK NOT A PLUS raocow, YOU DON'T NEED A MATH DEGREE TO BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY TWO VERY DIFFERENT TYPOGRAPHICAL SYMBOLS, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,

I think it's somewhat worrying that, despite raocow mentioning the music specifically, I could not hear it in any notable capacity throughout the entire level. I know it wasn't important in the last couple romps, but we are getting to the point where levels do include custom music, and I think it's really important to make sure viewers can hear them. Mostly because the music in my level is like, the bit I'm easily the most proud of in the entire thing, please cater to me. But like, looking back at JUMP specifically, I'm fairly certain it was at least a smidgen louder before. The death animation tune is only barely audible in this game, for example.

[Lespna01]

raocow, did you get my video w/the fixed version? Sorry, I didn't know you would have that much trouble w/it, and yes, you're cool.

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

This math talk is pretty nice, not going to lie.
Looking forward to raocow's opening words on his next recording session, and then all of the English Majors getting on his case!

Cool nerds would have been an oxymoron 20 years ago in popular culture, but now, it's mainstream! Hooray for time travel!
Glad you fixed the level, Lespna. It shows you care. And I didn't doubt that you did.

[ft029]

Do understand copyright stuff, reecer7.

Also, that two variable equation gave me a cruel idea (that I have executed before in a PowerPoint, but never considered in Mario): Give the player two parallel lines using equations, and then tell the player that both of those lines cause death. However, they are invisible. lol just kidding that's such a stupid idea

You guys did miss a few things in the level. There was some level where raocow couldn't jump past that ledge. It's literally invisible coin block bridge building, and if you jump and get startled by one, then you'll fall into a pit with a thwomp waiting to hit you. Yet Lespna says that the coin blocks weren't intended to hurt you. lol.
The second half of the level is a vertical ascent with layer 2 that scrolls SO DAMN SLOW. You have to wait like half a minute just to wait for the next cycle and advance. There's also really stupidly placed invisible note blocks that you have to use to advance as well. Not to mention that the whole room takes about 6 minutes to complete.

I've always loved math and logical puzzles as a kid, and knowing that one math problem had an error, I found the password without using Wolfram Alpha. But expecting other people to do the same is just insane.

[Ivy]

so my parents's warning that my math skills would deprecate over time without practice turns out to be fact

[Alice]

well I'm a cool nerd, not a math nerd

Implying that math, one of the most fundamental pillars of basically all of science and technology, isn't cool. (

It's in fact extremely cool, if very confusing in its more advanced forms.

)

[raocow]

yeah music is low because of all the nintendo copyright shenanigans, but starting tomorrow the volume is higher.

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

I feel like the math problems in this level were poorly implemented. Ignoring the fact that one question doesn't give the answer you need (and the fact that I think math is out of place in a Mario game of all games) the math problems don't really seem to add anything to the level; you could remove them and still have a level.

I think this idea could be better if instead of math problems you were asked about the level itself. For example, you could have a message before the first room saying "count the thwomps", and at the end of that room you would have to say how many thwomps there were.

[Reecer7]

Ah, right, I totally forgot about all the copyright claim-brigading Nintendo's been doing. Hopefully my request isn't too dangerous with regards to that! <:/

(Also, indeed, math IS cool. It's the coolest subject there is.)

[Lespna01]

I feel like the math problems in this level were poorly implemented. Ignoring the fact that one question doesn't give the answer you need (and the fact that I think math is out of place in a Mario game of all games) the math problems don't really seem to add anything to the level; you could remove them and still have a level.

I think this idea could be better if instead of math problems you were asked about the level itself. For example, you could have a message before the first room saying "count the thwomps", and at the end of that room you would have to say how many thwomps there were.

Oh, I never thought of that, but that doesn't seem too interesting. I got the idea of the math problems in a level that someone made a long time ago.

[nothobz]

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH CLASS: THE LEVEL

Except in middle school math class they usually try to make math fun and interesting, or at the very least engaging.

I'm not too sure where the Maze factors into play either. It's not really a maze when there's one path to take that you might have to take several times if your math skills aren't up to par. Either way I'm not sure where the idea for this level even came from. Mazes and math are two things that just aren't fun. So why do either, let alone both of them?
The square root question is the most quizzical inclusion, because it doesn't even require any thought on the player's part, as they're actually supposed to grab a calculator and let it solve the equation for them. That would be like having a puzzle in your level that just required the player to use google translate to translate a phrase into english so they can read it.

Reading these judge's comments also shows a strange disconnect between the scores and the judge's actual opinions. Some of the previous levels had much more positive reviews (still focused on my main man person GalaxyofJ), yet their scores suffered. Sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around all this.

e: the library graphics were very pretty though