raocow's talkhaus

OH SHOOT I forgot to make my level dot red. Oh well.

Also that status bar thing in FrozenQuills' level is definitely a patch on SMWC, I remember seeing it and wanting to modify it for something at some point? idk what anymore though

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:OH SHOOT I forgot to make my level dot red. Oh well.

It's all good, you're not the only one. FrozenQuills made a list of every secret exit, and it has been forwarded to raocow.

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Also that status bar thing in FrozenQuills' level is definitely a patch on SMWC, I remember seeing it and wanting to modify it for something at some point? idk what anymore though

More specifically, it's this one.

FrozenQuills' level is a great example of a good romp - it doesn't have like, super clever gimmicks or anything, it's just a level that uses objects cleverly and brings actually challenging design to the table. Also the palette reminds me of the NES SMW bootleg.

Realzameer's level was the last I played in a string of a bunch of easy rompy levels, so that's why my comment sounds so salty :/

WhimsiKarren's is probably one of my favorite lower tier levels, if only for its idea. I haven't played Dark Souls, btw. ;p

Can I just say that I would love to see a Dark Souls Mario hack.

the first judge level was cute but the palette made me think this world was in the wake of a supernova

idol wrote:the first judge level was cute but the palette made me think this world was in the wake of a supernova

I'm sure it's just a very Advanced æsthetic.

That said, FrozenQuills misspelled "Yerdant Yalley", 0/10

whenever raocow gets to my level he should make sure to use yoshi's house for extra lives

that might be in a while depending on if my patch was good or not

Oh boy, Firelink Shrine gives us our first level that isn't 1. a romp, or 2. incredibly frustrating! It's just a real level with some difficulty and odd design choices! And Megaman music. Good music.

Speaking of music, I very much appreciate the Oregon Trail (1.2, I think? Between the classic Mac one everyone knows and OT2? I never know what to name it) music in the coffee break, which I didn't expect to hear. However, the level itself is a totally effortless 105 edit and gets 1/50 fun.

I am also a big fan of dispersing judges' levels amongst the participants

I'm glad people enjoyed my janky level and I got better than last place! I actually started the 2nd to last day to try and get myself out of a depressive bump and do something creatively challenging and was overwhelmed at first and quit. Then a friend convinced me to try anyway even though I had less than 24 hours left so I decided to go until I made something playable. I actually have a LOT more ideas for this level, just no idea how to implement most of it and well, time. I agree with all the judge comments too.

There was one thing in the level that I utterly failed at though; the part with fire and munchers was supposed to be stupidly hard with the intent that one was supposed to find the little shortcut underneath. At the springboard there is a small space to land on a path underneath the bridge; dark souls had a similar thing for those unfamiliar with that game and I wanted to try to emulate it. I failed 8D but alas, I should have known unless I made it actually impossible and not just a little tricky.

So yeah, I was inspired to try and take DS's design ideas and translate them into something 2D and mario. Whenever the the next SMBX contest happens I intend to try to make the level I actually imagine in my head. Or maybe I'll just fiddle with it and make a silly mario souls romhack in the appropriate forum? At least one person liked the sounds of that so maybe... I dunno. I'm easily inspired and get starry eyed.

EDIT: Also, the secret exit was my attempt at trying to replicate dark souls' infamous skeleton graveyard near the beginning of the game. Clearly I did not succeed =p but yeah, how would one go by trying to emulate a graveyard of skeletons who are all super tough in mario? raocow commented on it as being annoying and the judges felt it was janky enemy spam and I can see that when removing the reference to DS from it. I'm unsure how to solve that problem though even in hindsight.

I'm not an expert on Super Mario World by any means, so I'm really not qualified to give many opinions, especially with my placement, but man, I know like, very little about Dark Souls but that level conveyed its locations pretty well! It looked like it would have been rough on me, but not like, a bad level at all.

Also the judge level was pretty neat too. I like the rolling hills and slopes that make some tricky platforming, but there's enough visuals to warn you/show the way.

WhimsiKarren wrote:Whenever the the next SMBX contest happens I intend to try to make the level I actually imagine in my head.

If I run the next MaGLX, you'll be given music (instead of level names) that you're meant to be inspired from.
So I recommend you make that Dark Souls level now, cause you may not get your chance.

RedMageMike wrote:Great choice of music FrozenQuills. I feel like shooting some goombas now.

Thanks; the port is by Gamma V on smwcentral.
And thanks for the review Zephyr_Dragonlord O:
(Also I never knew that WhimsiKarren's level was a Dark Souls reference since I never played that series, oops)

jayScribble wrote:There are differences between x, x and X, and x and *, despise being functionally the same.
The italic x is the most common one used for, but x and X can be used as well for substitutions for finding an unknown number.
Now in multiplication, "x" the one used for physical mathematics, while "*" is more used in computer based, just like "/" is used for division in computer terms while "÷" is more physical based, mainly due to lack of the division symbol on they keyboard, and using * instead of x to prevent confusion in both glance and programming between x and x.

There is also a functional difference between dot product (*) and cross product (x) in vector math, but I guess that's not really at all relevant here (just that the first sentence of this post reminded me of it and I thought that might be where it was going).

Sebby19 wrote:

WhimsiKarren wrote:Whenever the the next SMBX contest happens I intend to try to make the level I actually imagine in my head.

If I run the next MaGLX, you'll be given music (instead of level names) that you're meant to be inspired from.
So I recommend you make that Dark Souls level now, cause you may not get your chance.

Personally (and hypocritically) this seems like a poor way to structure level distribution. I'd argue that level names give much more flexibility of design, especially when we see creative interpretations on a relatively innocuous name like we saw with more than one level of MaGLX2. Let's give an example of both here.

Say you get a level title that says "Boo House." There are many ways to interpret this with a few off the top of my head being ideas such as a classic haunted house level, a level where NPCs are going trick-or-treating at a house, a regular non-haunted house with Boos living in it, or for something really different, a level based around the Noble House of Boo and their troubles as Mario assists them. The level's creativity is only held back by the imagination of the author. I know it was a lot of fun seeing what authors did with their MaGLX2 levels based off the titles alone, especially the 1-word titles.

On the other hand, say you're assigned a piece of music that is obviously meant for a haunted house or at the very least a spooky place. It's slow paced, dissonant, and eerie. You're more limited by what you can do here by the simple fact that a piece of music like this doesn't fit a variety of level settings such as plains, beach, mountain or more unless those places are arbitrarily haunted.

In general, forcing assets on the contestant seems worse for creativity. I don't consider the title to be an asset in this case because it is more a part of the overall theme of the level, not a physical component of the level like a song would be. Not to mention it seems like it would be a lot harder to score a level's adherence to a song's music as opposed to a level's title.

By the way, I say that I'm a hypocrite on this because Tyty and I's submission for this contest was based around one piece of music that he really wanted to use and we created a level based off the song. This worked well enough for us but we were also a pair working on it with a lot of experience making levels between us, plus we chose the song. It's not impossible to base a level off a song, but just because this method worked as a one-off for the two of us in a smaller contest doesn't mean it would necessarily work for a large contest where you can expect hundreds of entries if the previous one is any evidence.

FirePhoenix wrote:You're more limited by what you can do here by the simple fact that a piece of music like this doesn't fit a variety of level settings such as plains, beach, mountain or more unless those places are arbitrarily haunted.

On a tangential note, I'd totally be up for (and down with) more haunted beach levels. I'm always in favor of doing more with coastal areas than the hoary old sun-and-sand cliché.

In FirePhoenix' case I think the fact that you voluntarily made a level based off that music also helps, because a song you like/that inspires you is way more likely to be a good base for a level than something that's given to you.

I think the name restrictions as well as character restriction (especially with 2.0's new characters) are a really great concept and I hope MaGLX3 uses it again.


I think the way the judge levels are thrown in is a nice change of pace and FrozenQuill's level felt like it'd fit right in with the rest of Super Mario World. Blue Coins as a way of signalling Banzai Bills was also cool, although I don't remember if it was consistent in signalling if it is one or two Banzai Bill(s).

Remaking 3D environments in 2D is always kinda hard because 2D is way more linear by definition, and I feel like it may have suffered as a level because of it. I can definitely appreciate the creativity but I think that if you adopt a 3D level, especially one from Dark Souls which doesn't really play like a 2D Mario, you should definitely take some liberties for the level design's sake if you ever plan on making something like that in SMBX.

Leet wrote:whenever raocow gets to my level he should make sure to use yoshi's house for extra lives

that might be in a while depending on if my patch was good or not

He probably won't need it, but I also had a small life farm area in my level (albit Yoshi's Island 2 instead of Yoshi's House.

Firelink Shrine made me really giddy. It was very charming and i loved it (and i have no idea what the level it was supposed to be looked like).

FrozenQuills!!! your coffee break intro was so cute!!! the music and the font and the way it was written and the perfect reveal of the steaming cup of coffee was all so perfect. Your dirt color was a little too bright for my tastes (especially next to the dark shadow dirt beneath the grass) (oddly enough, as the level went on it grew on me) but your blues are gorgeous!
that bonus room is super creative!

Leet wrote:whenever raocow gets to my level he should make sure to use yoshi's house for extra lives

that might be in a while depending on if my patch was good or not

Your level is quite trivial (note: sarcasm, even if I did only use one savestate):

here

Please read the description of the video.

ft029 wrote:

Leet wrote:whenever raocow gets to my level he should make sure to use yoshi's house for extra lives

that might be in a while depending on if my patch was good or not

Your level is quite trivial:

here

Please read the description of the video.

Yeah, sure, if you go out of your way to break it.

It doesn't look too hard regardless, but come on now.

FrozenQuills wrote:And I'm assuming S.N.N. has told raocow about levels with secret exits...?

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:OH SHOOT I forgot to make my level dot red. Oh well.

I remember reading that we weren't judged on the overworld, so for raocow to miss out on a secret exit because we forgot to change a dot from yellow to red would be silly.

ft029 wrote:Your level is quite trivial:

here

Please read the description of the video.

(nobody actually cares about kaizo tricks breaking non-kaizo levels)

FirePhoenix wrote:ping

I don't want to derail this topic, since the LP only just started, but if your interested, you can read a rough draft of what I had in mind in the MaGLX 2 topic, and the discussion around it, from pages 391-393

- My first mention, though only a couple posts reply to it on 391. The meat of the discussion is on 392 and 393.
- My actual rough draft of my idea. The next page and a half has me answer questions, and fill in the blanks in the draft.
- This is the last post on my idea, by ano0maly. Just for reference, so you know where to stop.

I think I updated that rough draft after the discussion, but I don't know where I posted it, if I did at all. You can PM me on any other questions or thoughts you had, though!

Zephyr_DragonLord wrote:Head In The Clouds is pretty nice, though all those rows of enemies lead to the gameplay becoming rompy. It has a decent variety for such a level, though. Too bad it was rushed; I think it could be quite better with some more time.

Thanks for such a polite comment, Zephyr!

Pyro wrote:Realzameer's level was the last I played in a string of a bunch of easy rompy levels, so that's why my comment sounds so salty :/

When I read it, your comment seemed perfectly fine - I'm glad you liked the Mega Man at least! Everyone's feedback was really helpful, so hopefully I can improve for next time. Below is just a copy-and-paste spoiler of my YouTube comment on raocow's video: