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General Planning Thread

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Zygl
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Zygl »

So given the sheer volume of levels we've seen in MaGL X and X2 that were cut off or left unfinished in some fashion, the idea occurred to me that maybe we should have a bonus world of some sort for such levels to be included in all their finished 'hopefully glory?' rather than leave them to maybe be submitted to A2XT maybe if their designers ever bother to finish them and then maybe get into episode 2 or 3 in like 3-5 years. The trouble with that being, of course, that between that, the regular reused level name world, and the MaGL 1/2 zebraspaces, that'd be rather a lot of bonus worlds.
Also where would that even be put, if the regular reused name world is the postgame and the MaGL 1/2 reused name world is the zebraspace. I'm given to understand the technology does exist to check into any MaGL X2 save that may exist in one's SMBX installation and do lua things depending on stuff in it, but then if we did go that route would we want all the reused names in there or just the 'reused' reused names (i.e. not the 'finished-up levels' ones) or what?
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

I feel like that's not an issue until we see how many people we can get who want to finish their levels. If there's just one or two, then it's not that big a deal to just put them in the regular bonus world. If it's more like eight or something, then we look at a bonus world.

If we get significantly more than that, we could look at just a small separate episode with the "finished/refurbished" levels that warrant it.

Also, I don't think I specifically said this, but I've been thinking the best way to handle the Zebraspace levels might be to just hold off on doing anything with them until we have the rest mostly done. Then I'll make a thread with the MAGL 1 and 2 names, people claim them, and we work out which worlds they go in once they're done. Seems easier than trying to guess how many worlds are going to need Zebraspace levels before we know how many levels we're ending up with.
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Zygl
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Zygl »

Dragon Fogel wrote:I feel like that's not an issue until we see how many people we can get who want to finish their levels. If there's just one or two, then it's not that big a deal to just put them in the regular bonus world. If it's more like eight or something, then we look at a bonus world.

If we get significantly more than that, we could look at just a small separate episode with the "finished/refurbished" levels that warrant it.
So uh yeah about this. I kinda had a discussion (read: one-sided rambling session) about the matter in skypehaus, and it occurred to me that what I am proposing is in essence a world of what Sniggerb0bble asked if he could do like four months ago, at which time the consensus was that remakes and redesigns of the original levels didn't really 'belong' in the game since the entire point of the reused names was to reinterpret them into new and different levels from the originals.
I stand by that statement, and thinking about it in that way it does seem decidedly against the spirit of the project. But I still wanna have a space for this sort of thing.
So the idea I came up with - which I may have mentioned as an option in my original post actually it was a while ago and I forget - is, assuming we have enough interested parties, to include the finished/redesigned levels in a save bonus world sort of thing accessible if you have a save from MaGL X2 (and maybe MaGL X1 for those levels if we get the Lua shenanigans working with that). This way the world of remakes comes across as distinctly 'Not Really Part of the Game Per Se' as a neat little bonus zone rather than feeling out-of-place in the actual 'game' game somewhere, we have a lot more freedom with what we can allow in there since we no longer have to worry about if it's new and fresh level content (so Sniggerb0bble could indeed do the tightened-up redesign he wanted to do back then, for instance), and we don't end up having two postgames or something weird like that.
Also, I don't think I specifically said this, but I've been thinking the best way to handle the Zebraspace levels might be to just hold off on doing anything with them until we have the rest mostly done. Then I'll make a thread with the MAGL 1 and 2 names, people claim them, and we work out which worlds they go in once they're done. Seems easier than trying to guess how many worlds are going to need Zebraspace levels before we know how many levels we're ending up with.
That'd probably be the way to go, yeah.
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snoruntpyro
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by snoruntpyro »

So here's some ideas I had for some hub areas.
World Ideas
--------------

- Talkhaus University
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTnZqMpWttY
Description: A college where various classes are taught. You enter the doors to the classes.
Flavor Text: "This class teaches..."
Boss Text: "Inside they are taking a test on..."

- The Observatory
Music: The pm-shivermountain.mp3 file in the a2xt devkit
Description: A big dome thingy where you can observe space. To go in a level, you enter a telescope.
Flavor Text: "Gaze into the stars and observe..."
Boss Text: "You see a bright star named..."

- The Park
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfHbnOPMbCE
Description: A large, flowery park with a large fountain with a statue of Demo in the center. A flower festival is taking place in this area, and you can smell various flowers (press up to enter them).
Flavor Text: "This flower emits a beautiful smell of..."
Boss Text: "This is a particularly rare flower..."

- The Museum
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t0UQrRRTMY
Description: A museum that has interactive exhibits displayed on various floors. The exhibits are actually the levels. Plot twist.
Flavor Text: "This exhibit displays..."
Boss Text: "This is a special exhibit..."

- The Statue of raocow
Music: ???
Description: A massive statue of raocow (do not steal) with a spiraling staircase to the very top. There are evil capitalists trying to sell you the levels on your way up. The boss would preferably be at the top and be the entrance to the souvenir shop.
Flavor Text: "Hey there! Do you want a look at..."
Boss Text: "Oh no! It's a souvenir shop!"

- The Ivory Tower
Music: ???
Description: A tower where all of the executive decisions for the city are made. The levels are proposed bills laying on lecterns. If this was taken as a world, it would probably be the final world and as such not have a normal boss at the end.
Flavor Text: "The proposed bill involves..."
Boss Text: N/A

- The Library
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92T-fDW9xAw
Description: A large library filled with documents and books about many things. You enter parts of the shelves to get to the levels.
Flavor Text: "The book is titled..."
Boss Text: "Someone's tampered with this book -"
I'm not entirely sure about the music I put down. I feel like I'm biased towards specific series.

edit: Also, do you guys think we should include a garbage world? We already have two joke levels (

Mission: Proud Star

and

And Wario Said Unto Them, 'Warm the Education'. And It Was So.

).
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

I'm not inclined to have a garbage world, myself.

Personally, I think we shouldn't have too many pure joke levels and we should place them where the joke will have the most impact. For Mission: Proud Star in particular, I think it works best if we have it partway through World 1, set after a few genuine early-game levels to establish the idea that the game is taking itself seriously as a game. And then you get to that level.
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Zygl
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Zygl »

Hey so I got bored and made a userbar for like promotion and stuff.
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Just drop the contents of this code tag thing here into your sig and it'll be in there and linking to the subforum and everything.

Code: Select all

[url=http://talkhaus.raocow.com/viewforum.php?f=64][img]http://i.imgur.com/C5wzeTI.png[/img][/url]
And KayhemMaus also made a sig thing if you'd like a fancier and slightly larger thing.
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Code: Select all

[url=http://talkhaus.raocow.com/viewforum.php?f=64][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/MisterKM/0a718cd1-8680-4459-a53e-98b6738639c1.png[/img][/url]
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

So, CloudyCloud was asking for help doing a gimmicky thing in a level with six dragon coins, and that has me wondering if it's a good idea to allow that in the first place if we're having dragon coin indicators.

My general inclination for the project as a whole is "let people make their levels and do whatever". But if dragon coins are going to be a completion thing, then I feel like they should be a bit more regulated.

Proposed rules:
-Have either exactly five dragon coins in your level, or none at all.
-Graphic replacements for dragon coins are allowed.

Unreasonably hard dragon coins should be weeded out in testing, so there'd be no formal rule about that.

What are people's thoughts here? I don't really have strong feelings on this myself.
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S1eth
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by S1eth »

Dragon Fogel wrote:So, CloudyCloud was asking for help doing a gimmicky thing in a level with six dragon coins, and that has me wondering if it's a good idea to allow that in the first place if we're having dragon coin indicators.

My general inclination for the project as a whole is "let people make their levels and do whatever". But if dragon coins are going to be a completion thing, then I feel like they should be a bit more regulated.

Proposed rules:
-Have either exactly five dragon coins in your level, or none at all.
-Graphic replacements for dragon coins are allowed.

Unreasonably hard dragon coins should be weeded out in testing, so there'd be no formal rule about that.

What are people's thoughts here? I don't really have strong feelings on this myself.

More than 5 dragon coins can be necessary when a level splits up into 2 separate paths, and you should be able to collect 5 dragon coins no matter which path you take. I think SMW has a level like that.

I think the dragon coin completion is OK when it's only "collect all dragon coins in your path", which does not include any unreachable dragon coins. But there should be exactly 5 reachable dragon coins per level.
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CloudyCloud
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by CloudyCloud »

Dragon Fogel wrote:So, CloudyCloud was asking for help doing a gimmicky thing in a level with six dragon coins, and that has me wondering if it's a good idea to allow that in the first place if we're having dragon coin indicators.

My general inclination for the project as a whole is "let people make their levels and do whatever". But if dragon coins are going to be a completion thing, then I feel like they should be a bit more regulated.

Proposed rules:
-Have either exactly five dragon coins in your level, or none at all.
-Graphic replacements for dragon coins are allowed.

Unreasonably hard dragon coins should be weeded out in testing, so there'd be no formal rule about that.

What are people's thoughts here? I don't really have strong feelings on this myself.
Well, for my level, I intend it to be just a small easter egg for people to discover. It won't affect your completion rate even if you cannot get all 5 dragon coins.(As in, it is not even leading to a secret star, just an easter egg for the perfectionist/secret-finder.)
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Yes, but the plan right now is that the game as a whole will record whether you got all the dragon coins in a level. So a five-out-of-six thing like you're planning would complicate that.

I hadn't thought about branching paths, if you can't do more than one on the same run through a level then it's definitely fine to have dragon coins on both.
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TaviTurnip
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by TaviTurnip »

As a dumb selfish person who's been tied up with work and hasn't checked this subforum in months, is there a general tl;dr on what Lost Levels is doing? Like is it going to be part of the MaGL X2 LP or part of A2XT and is there a creeping time limit coming up? <_> I want to finish the level I started in the spring but I'm a butt and don't want to read through the threads for info.
I regularly stream on Twitch! with other members of the talkhaus. Come watch Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 2PM for blind playthroughs and Pokémon and Touhou and stuff. Come hang out with us!
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Pikabread
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Pikabread »

RenaTurnip wrote:is there a general tl;dr on what Lost Levels is doing? Like is it going to be part of the MaGL X2 LP or part of A2XT and is there a creeping time limit coming up?
the short answer is no

the long answer is nooooooooooooo

the even longer answer is lost levels is an independent project that rao will play upon completion with no current deadline set AFAIK.

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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Yeah, this is its own project, it will be an entirely separate SMBX episode that we'll release when we're ready to say it's finished.

At some point, ideally within the next year, we'll say "OKAY PEOPLE TIME TO FINISH YOUR LEVELS OR ELSE" but we aren't there yet. When we are there, I expect to make it very clear. You won't have to ask because there will be a stickied thread saying "DEADLINE COMING UP" and PMs being sent out to people with claimed names and basically anything else I can do to make it clear that there is a deadline looming.

That said, I do look forward to seeing your finished level when you can find the time.
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TaviTurnip
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by TaviTurnip »

Thanks guys Image

I'll probably get to work on it by the end of the month, then. My level was mostly done but I still had to sort a Lua thing out and I'll need a bit of time to remember what the Lua thing actually was :'D
I regularly stream on Twitch! with other members of the talkhaus. Come watch Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 2PM for blind playthroughs and Pokémon and Touhou and stuff. Come hang out with us!
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Seeing all the activity over on the A2XT project forum has gotten me thinking that maybe we could stand to be a little bit more organized over here.

So far, the level-reviewing process has been very informal. I think I want to make it a bit more formal, but I don't want to lose what I consider essential points of this project.

The main point here for me is that I don't want to reject a level. That feels against the spirit of MAGL X. (Barring an extreme case, like, I don't know, a level that just spells out various slurs with its geography.) If someone makes a level and it's not good enough, I want it to be changed to be good enough. That may take significant changes, but as long as the basic idea of the level is intact, it should be fine. Now, when we eventually start talking deadlines I may get a bit stricter about this, but the point is that this is my general guiding principle.

But, right now there's no real categorization difference between "a level that doesn't need any more changes" and "a level that needs a few changes maybe" and "a level that needs a lot of changes", or even "a level that's posted but unfinished". So I feel like it might be good to formalize that a bit.

So! I'm thinking that reviewers can vote to "finalize" a level. If three people (other than the creator) review a level and agree to put it in the game at its current version, it's in. (This is not to say we won't have one final round of testing to catch bugs and balance issues that got overlooked, but this would let us actually work on putting together a playable version of the full game.)

As always, I welcome everyone's thoughts on this - reasons not to do it, improvements to the idea, relevant suggestions, whatever else comes to mind.
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S1eth
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by S1eth »

It would be nice if we had something centralized to keep track of level versions, change logs, reviews (with version number), level status.

When I look through level submissions, I don't know which levels are already outdated, how many reviews a level has gotten already, if it has been changed since the last review, if the level is unfinished, or if a level doesn't need reviews anymore.

There's only the google doc currently, which only shows a long list of names, and "completed". But what levels count as completed?
I also noticed, at least for my level: The download link on "Unused Names" links to my current version, and the link on "Completed Levels" links to an outdated version.
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

All right. Things have been slow here, but I think it's the sort of thing where we just need to get enough activity to keep people's interest up so they're more motivated to work on this.

One immediate thought that comes to mind is video reviews of submitted levels. Is anyone up for doing those? I think they would be a big help, both in terms of providing feedback to level makers and in giving us more to talk about, because even non-reviewers could take a look at the levels in progress.

Obviously the big things that need to be done are making and testing levels, but if people have ideas for other little things that can be done to keep things moving around here, feel free to share them.
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by romajiQuadhash »

Dragon Fogel wrote:All right. Things have been slow here, but I think it's the sort of thing where we just need to get enough activity to keep people's interest up so they're more motivated to work on this.

One immediate thought that comes to mind is video reviews of submitted levels. Is anyone up for doing those? I think they would be a big help, both in terms of providing feedback to level makers and in giving us more to talk about, because even non-reviewers could take a look at the levels in progress.

Obviously the big things that need to be done are making and testing levels, but if people have ideas for other little things that can be done to keep things moving around here, feel free to share them.
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Quman
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Quman »

S1eth wrote:It would be nice if we had something centralized to keep track of level versions, change logs, reviews (with version number), level status.
I just spent several hours setting up a wiki for the project only to realize that the service I used is for private wikis. Nobody can even look at the wiki unless I send an invite to their email address. I'm trying to decide whether it would be a bigger hassle to do all my work again with a different wiki, or to stick with a wiki that can only be viewed by invited members.
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Dragon Fogel
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Quman wrote:
S1eth wrote:It would be nice if we had something centralized to keep track of level versions, change logs, reviews (with version number), level status.
I just spent several hours setting up a wiki for the project only to realize that the service I used is for private wikis. Nobody can even look at the wiki unless I send an invite to their email address. I'm trying to decide whether it would be a bigger hassle to do all my work again with a different wiki, or to stick with a wiki that can only be viewed by invited members.
I would definitely prefer a public one for general convenience, but you can always invite volunteers to the private one to transfer over information to the public one. Maybe we could even set up a throwaway e-mail address so you can just invite that one and everyone who wants to help can be given the account information.
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Quman
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Quman »

Dragon Fogel wrote:
Quman wrote:
S1eth wrote:It would be nice if we had something centralized to keep track of level versions, change logs, reviews (with version number), level status.
I just spent several hours setting up a wiki for the project only to realize that the service I used is for private wikis. Nobody can even look at the wiki unless I send an invite to their email address. I'm trying to decide whether it would be a bigger hassle to do all my work again with a different wiki, or to stick with a wiki that can only be viewed by invited members.
I would definitely prefer a public one for general convenience, but you can always invite volunteers to the private one to transfer over information to the public one. Maybe we could even set up a throwaway e-mail address so you can just invite that one and everyone who wants to help can be given the account information.
The problem isn't the information. The problem is the formatting. Oh well, I'm going to set up a new public wiki. I have finals coming up next week, so I probably shouldn't dedicate too much time to it until they're over, but I should have something up and running in the next couple of weeks.
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Quman »

I had some extra time today, and the wiki didn't take as long as I thought it would. It's still not "complete," of course, but it's ready for use. I've posted a new thread for it.
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Zygl »

SO. We've decided it's probably about time to actually check who of you guys with claimed names even still exist.
TaviTurnip wrote:
Dog In Da Grass wrote:
Sinc-X wrote:
QuietProtag wrote:
CapedLuigisYoshi wrote:
Skully wrote:
cheez8 wrote:
Mabel wrote:
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Nin wrote:
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No Lynch wrote:
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[/spoiler]
WHEW that's a lot of ping.
Anyway you've got two weeks to check in and confirm you're still alive and up for making your things, after that I'm gonna have to start hunting peeps down and we'll see where things stand from there.

Additionally, once I figure out how the heck that whole Discord thing works and if it'd be a better choice than a Skype group or IRC channel we're gonna make a dedicated Lost Levels chat of some sort since the A2XT one's apparently been working out great.
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No Lynch
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by No Lynch »

had intentions to make levels
don't anymore
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Dog In Da Grass
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Re: General Planning Thread

Post by Dog In Da Grass »

maybe I could at least try to finish one of the levels I started but it's really far too overzealous than I care to work on at the moment.
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