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

[Mandew]

Because how else will you make waAaAacky jokes?

The wacky text is what actually makes a good SMBX level.

SMBX NPC's are to Fun Factor what SMW's Generators (eeries, bullets, baseball chucks and volcano lotusses) are to Difficulty
Additives that are very easy to use and abuse.

You know, there's probably something to be said about how the incredible ease with which you can just throw down talking npc everywhere in SMBX, as opposed to the two message boxes ONLY you get in SMW (per room), kind of devalues comedy.

Of course, I've mentioned how I really dislike SMBX in comparison to Lunar Magic, so that's probably just that resentment of popularity and accessibility coming through.

I mean, the fact that it is the obvious option to add comedy to anything will do that. There's nothing inherently wrong with it - the only thing wrong with it is that it's pretty much everywhere and encourages people to overlook other ways to create comedy. See:



(Not part of my MaGL3 entry)

[SAJewers]

I've never really thought about it, but stopping to talk to random NPCs that don't really have a reason to be there is an incredibly SMBX thing and it feels kind of surreal for it to happen in a regular ol' SMW level.

You know, there's probably something to be said about how the incredible ease with which you can just throw down talking npc everywhere in SMBX, as opposed to the two message boxes ONLY you get in SMW (per room), kind of devalues comedy. Any rando can put a funny talkhaus-approved joke in an X level, but if you really want a jokey World level to shine through with charm and humor, you gotta integrate it into the assets in a way that communicates intrinsically more obscurely than simple text, and that makes the funny levels just that much more impressive.

Of course, I've mentioned how I really dislike SMBX in comparison to Lunar Magic, so that's probably just that resentment of popularity and accessibility coming through.

Because how else will you make waAaAacky jokes?

The wacky text is what actually makes a good SMBX level.

SMBX NPC's are to Fun Factor what SMW's Generators (eeries, bullets, baseball chucks and lava lotusses) are to Challenge
Additives that are very easy to use and abuse.

I'd agree with you both.

[snoruntpyro]

Everyone's talking about how talkhaus prefers flavor but I think that impression just came out of how much Horikawa judges based on it ;p

I hated Parma's, it just felt really poorly designed to me because random garbage was spammed everywhere.

I initially liked Willhart's but as time gone by I liked it less and less. It's not a very good level and I think it deserved what place it got.

[ztarwuff]

A Level with a Bullet: That was some pretty weird cutoff at the beginning there. The ground was about a line or so of pixels above the bottom of the screen. Is that a quirk of SMW hacking or something?

[Alice]

A Level with a Bullet: That was some pretty weird cutoff at the beginning there. The ground was about a line or so of pixels above the bottom of the screen. Is that a quirk of SMW hacking or something?

The issue is that the ground wasn't placed as far down as it could be. There's a bottom row of blocks in SMW that's only partially visible when you're actually playing.

[FPzero]

Willhart, just a piece of advice for you, because I have a feeling this is a reason why your entry is lowly placed.

Carry-able springboards are persistent sprites (which means that they still count as sprites even when you leave the area near them). This matters, because Super Mario World is an old game, and it cannot process more than 10 sprites at once. I'm pretty sure your level design was heavily limited by being able to have only three sprites at once (I counted sprites in a video, after I saw casually using three carry-able springboards).

It's possible to have non-persistent springboards by using Tweaker (included with Sprite Tool). I'm pretty sure there may be springboard custom blocks too, but ah well.

That said, neat first level :).

Ah interesting. I did have trouble with a lot of npc not spawning too, which is why there aren't that many enemies on the level.

Yeah, sprite limits are one of the biggest challenges of designing SMW levels. Transitioning from SMBX's infinite sprite placement to hardware limitations is a big challenge. (Of course for me having come from SMW, the infinite sprite/npc capabilities of SMBX seemed like the coolest thing in the world when I first learned of the engine's existence).

[ft029]

You can actually have more than two messages by stacking lots of Display Level Message 1's on top of each other. Someguy712x did this in his VLDC9 entry.

[S.N.N.]

JUDGES' COMMENTS AND SCORES FOR 59th - 57th:

59th: Sanct

-FROZENQUILLS-
FUN: 11/30
DIFFICULTY: 5/5
CREATIVITY: 3/10
AESTHETICS: 5/10 (2/5 GFX + 3/5 MUS)
FUNCTIONALITY: 5/5

TOTAL: 29/60

COMMENTS:
A level that sort of happened, but had a few ideas.

A few interesting things I found that I could note are the
noteblocks + parakoopa setup at the beginning and some
okay usage of the math platforms and bullets.

So yeah, only decent overall, since not too much else was
fun and it's really easy and short.

TLDR:
+ Had some interesting setups
- Could do more across the board

OTHER:
it costs 400 thousand dollars to fire this level, for 12 seconds


-PYRO-
Fun: 5/30
Difficulty: 1/5
Creativity: 2/10
Aesthetics: 5/10
Functionality: 5/5
Total: 18/60
Comment: Wow! You did it! You made a level! Wow! Congratulations!
Possible Baserom Notes: its 105


-KOOPSTER-
FUN: 17/30
DIFFICULTY: 5/5
CREATIVITY: 3/10
AESTHETICS: 5/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 35/60

For a first level, this is pretty decent! Looks a bit like 105 and it lacks coherence in ideas, but it's still a nice little romp to play.


-S.N.N.-
FUN: 12/30
DIFFICULTY: 4/5
CREATIVITY: 4/10
AESTHETICS: 4/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 4/5

TOTAL: 28/60

COMMENTS: This felt like an experiment more than anything. It seems that the design of the level lacked cohesion, and there were a lot of sprites that were thrown wherever (wall springboards, carrot lifts, etc). I would have focused on coming up with more of a central theme for your level that you could have built ideas around rather than the layout you currently have.

58th: ParmaJon

-FROZENQUILLS-
FUN: 7/30
DIFFICULTY: 2/5
CREATIVITY: 6/10
AESTHETICS: 7/10 (4/5 GFX + 3/5 MUS)
FUNCTIONALITY: 5/5

TOTAL: 27/60

COMMENTS:
This level was bizarre.

I thought it was doing a cape level right by using some
interesting obstacles (turn block bridges) and coin guides,
but then it abandoned that entirely once the level stopped
giving you money. Without the coin guides it felt like luck
if I got past the flying blocks, hammer bro, chuck, koopas,
and bullets until the midpoint. There was simply too little time
to react.

Then it abandoned the cape entirely and went through this neat
section where you have to land on the triangle blocks which was
really weird but cool? Then it has this pretty typical
p-balloon section and a p-switch run to the end.

Yeah, it really feels like the creator threw a whole ton of
different ideas at the wall of good level design but only like
1 or 2 them stuck. That's the best way to put it.

TLDR:
+ Had some interesting ideas if extremely fleeting
- Bizarrely unfocused

OTHER:
it went from interesting design to spam and floating munchers in
like 5 seconds and i was like ?????????????????


-PYRO-
Fun: 4/30
Difficulty: 4/5
Creativity: 2/10
Aesthetics: 5/10
Functionality: 5/5
Total: 20/60
Comment: It's a bad level. First half is utter garbage, it's just random stuff thrown everywhere and an idea for a level that just does NOT work. The cape flight is waaay too weird to work around obstacles with. Second half is slighty better I guess but it's just over way faster, still is just a mess of level design, and it just kinda happens, and the wall triangles are kinda finicky to work around. It overall just makes for a bleeeh experience.


-KOOPSTER-
FUN: 16/30
DIFFICULTY: 3/5
CREATIVITY: 6/10
AESTHETICS: 6/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 36/60

The third flight is a bit unfair. Otherwise, this is really not bad for a flight level @ first half. The second half implemented a different kind of "flight" (the balloon) which I actually found interesting. Not even sure if that was intentional lol. Sorta rompy, short and over the place otherwise, but still quite enjoyable!


-S.N.N.-
FUN: 15/30
DIFFICULTY: 2/5
CREATIVITY: 5/10
AESTHETICS: 4/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 3/5

TOTAL: 29/60

COMMENTS: Wasn't a fan of this one. I feel like it pulled some inspiration from that one ASMT flying level, but after about 2 flights you took away the coin guides and it became a guessing game, which made the flight right before the midpoint unfair. The second half just didn't do it for me either - it felt entirely different from the first half, and trying to control the player on the floating purple triangles was rather obnoxious. I liked a few of your set-ups, but ultimately it just wasn't that fun.

57th: Willhart

-FROZENQUILLS-
FUN: 4/30
DIFFICULTY: 3/5
CREATIVITY: 2/10
AESTHETICS: 4/10 (1/5 GFX + 3/5 MUS)
FUNCTIONALITY: 4/5

TOTAL: 17/60

COMMENTS:
what

This feels like a joke level. The level is super bare and
the only unique thing about it are the little... cat...
trampolines? That I can take somehow? I dunno, this level is
just super awkward, and it feels like an edit of level 106.

There were a few springy jumps that were a little bit cool to
figure out, but that's pretty much all the fun I can get out of
this level.

TLDR:
- Really bare and uninteresting level
+ Cats are cute

OTHER:
if there was effort on Willhart's part i am so sorry lol
but it's ok for a first dive into lunar magic!


-PYRO-
Fun: 10/30
Difficulty: 1/5
Creativity: 4/10
Aesthetics: 9/10
Functionality: 5/5
Total: 29/60
Comment: This was a nice, cute rompy level! I kinda wish more was done with the kittens and wall springboards though. There were some neat things in there, like the part where you had to weave around the pipe with the wall springboard. Other than that it's just a rompy cute level that has some good aesthetics. Not much else to say. Solid overall.


-KOOPSTER-
FUN: 17/30
DIFFICULTY: 5/5
CREATIVITY: 6/10
AESTHETICS: 8/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 41/60

This is pretty cute lol. Really wide stage, not much going on in it, and it also hella resembles original 106 in some parts, but it executes the gimmick rather well, even if, again, in a really simple manner.


-S.N.N.-
FUN: 12/30
DIFFICULTY: 3/5
CREATIVITY: 5/10
AESTHETICS: 3/10
FUNCTIONALITY: 4/5

TOTAL: 27/60

COMMENTS: This is the first time in the history of ever that I've felt genuinely sad for how badly a tile (the regular ground top) has been graphically botched. That aside, it's a kinda okay-ish level, but feels like a blatant 106 edit with some cat graphics thrown in. Some of your set-ups are neat, such as the springboard right after the midpoint, but ultimately the level design just feels barren and uninteresting. I probably missed some kind of joke, and if that's the case, please disregard this entire stretch of sentences.

[ft029]

inb4 Pyro's highest score is a 30/60

[FPzero]

Koopster's scoring reminds me of when I judged the first SMWC Vanilla contest. My scores were inflated so much higher than the other judges; I was really bad at it that year.

[snoruntpyro]

inb4 Pyro's highest score is a 30/60

That may or may not be somewhat accurate.

[nothobz]

Koopster's scoring reminds me of when I judged the first SMWC Vanilla contest. [...] I was really bad at it that year.

D A M  S O N

[FPzero]

Whoops I realize that sounds real mean when put like that! For the record, I was so much worse, like I was using 8 as average because video game reviews or something. This was also like, ten years ago so I was dumb back then. Koopster's scores are high, but nowhere as bad as mine were. They're also consistently high, which means the averages across all judges shouldn't have been affected that much.

[ft029]

They're also consistently high, which means the averages across all judges shouldn't have been affected that much.

It still tends to give stricter judges the advantage though. I will make another reference to VLDC9-- ninja boy gave low scores to almost everyone, with a 37 for SNN and a low 40s to NGB. This brought them down to 3rd and 4th place. The other levels in the top tier also got around 40 from ninja boy while the other judges gave 50s. However, the levels he really liked, TRS/Impetus and Agent Q's, got 1st and 2nd. Basically, a level that a strict judge likes gives that strict judge weigh way more weight.

[leod]

That's a case of not being consistent, not anything else.

[Alice]

It still tends to give stricter judges the advantage though. I will make another reference to VLDC9-- ninja boy gave low scores to almost everyone, with a 37 for SNN and a low 40s to NGB. This brought them down to 3rd and 4th place. The other levels in the top tier also got around 40 from ninja boy while the other judges gave 50s. However, the levels he really liked, TRS/Impetus and Agent Q's, got 1st and 2nd. Basically, a level that a strict judge likes gives that strict judge weigh way more weight.

The real issue isn't that one judge is strict and the other isn't. It's a similar issue to MaGLx1 where one judge wasn't making full use of the available range of scores. When one judge uses the entire range of, say, 0-100 that gives their judgments a lot more weight than a judge who, for example, uses only the 50-100 range.

[ft029]

The real issue isn't that one judge is strict and the other isn't. It's a similar issue to MaGLx1 where one judge wasn't making full use of the available range of scores. When one judge uses the entire range of, say, 0-100 that gives their judgments a lot more weight than a judge who, for example, uses only the 50-100 range.

Yeah, that's a better way of explaining what I meant.

[snoruntpyro]

I mean...I'd LIKE to think I made use of the full range of scores, though I won't deny that I was the lowest scorer here. Though I do seem to be consistently lower than the other three frequently so idk?? I just ended up being a suuuuuper harsh judge for this contest because I don't really enjoy rompy levels that often.

Also I haven't updated my remaining people list in a while.

7TC7
a guy
Big Brawler
Blue Podoboo
cheez8
Cloaytonem2
Coryman
CrappyBlueLuigi
Diggertron
Divemissile
Enjl
EvilMariobot
Fausthieb
ft029
GalaxyOfJ
gameguy888
Goomba98
Griflion
HatKid
idol
Kerkec
Kincyr
King of GETS
KirbyComment
koplje
Kowkarot
kuposan3
Lazy
Le Neveu De Rameau
Leet
lolyoshi
LunarNeedle
LunarRainbowShyGuy
Mandew
MaxMaxMaxVidya
MECHDRAGON777
MiracleWater
morsel/morceau (aka rUdEbOi4000)
Ninja Steve
nothobz
Reecer6
RoboSlim
Roykirbs
Ryrir
SAJewers
Sasquatch
ShadowAuraKnight
Skulldug13
Slimeman01
SMCslevelengine
StrikeForcer & Kixune
Sturg
TaviTurnip
Tobi555
Tyty & FPZero
waffledoctor87
Zatsupachi
Zyglrox Odyssey

[Realzameer]

I couldn't really get multiple message blocks working, and I had my Dagadon Coins glitching out.

addmusick: There is a readme.html that is super useful. It's really easy to follow, and the music will be in the level in no time.

multiple messages: In level 104, both messages display the same text. I'm not completely certain, but I think if you go to the overworld editor, go to extra options, then go to "special messages", then change the Yoshi's house to a different level. Then the messages in 104 should have different contents. Again, not compeltely sure if this works.

Yoshi coins: Press F2 on your keyboard while in Lunar Magic. Any Yoshi Coin on a subscreen boundary will get glitched when Mario collects it.

Thanks! I'll make sure to keep this in mind for next time!

[TaviTurnip]

^w^Hello person quoting this comment, you get to see this hidden message! The one I am not going to use to speak my true feelings.

On the topic of judge scores, though...

[FrozenQuills]

So yeah, this is the level I rated lower than Truckeeben's (sorry Leet)
I gave it an 11 while the other judges rated it above 30

I found it WAY too unforgiving, misleading, and inconsistent. The blue koopa + tap-tap setup kept not working, and it took me a super long time to find out that the last obstacle can be done with one shell due to the little hop tap-taps can do when they get up. In fact, I thought I had to bring two shells over there somehow by shell juggling across the flying platform.

[tirakai]

Today's level felt like probably the worst designed so far in terms of difficulty (aside from the maths level that got a question wrong of course), the player should never be left stuck with no way to progress. It really should've had a couple reset doors, especially with how iffy the tap tap's are.

[Arctangent]

Today's level was basically a thesis on why reset doors are important and not much else. Neat idea with the sprites and all, but the level's design highlights how they weren't meant to be used this way.

[nothobz]

reset doors are severely over rated

the funny thing is that no, they're not.

e: god, that level was super neat too. i loved the centralized focus on one specific gimmick that not many people would think to use. Could've used a stronger ending (and more creative middle section), but i honestly could've seen it placing top 20 or 30 if it just used reset doors.
unless the following 56 levels are more creative then that!

[Zygl]

I do like this level's ideas, and the like, 'focused' design? But there's a lot more potential to the concept at hand here than was actually realised in the level, and uh, yeah it really needed some reset doors - I get if she like didn't know how to make that many of them or something but if that's the case she really should've asked for help with that instead of being all 'psh, who needs reset doors?' Because uh, turns out she does. :p