World Map Organization - Public side

[Luckwaive]

We could give all the other signs a 2, the final world a 3, and possibly a 4 for the postgame. Or we could just give each of the main worlds all five signs between 2 and 6, cluttering up every map.

Or we could have one sign that has "2/3/4/5/6" crammed on it for every castle. But that would probably be barely legible.
Alternatively we could go the complete chaos route and give one castle another 1 sign, one castle can have a ridiculous number like 27, another castle can have a drawing on the sign, etc.

"Use Of A Goal Posts" would be too hard for the early game. I would suggest having "Fungus Forest Flow" as the first level on the main overworld. It's relatively easy, it has two exits which offers the player a choice of paths right away, and it could be placed on the river like Catabo was talking about.

I don't know why, but for some reason I thought I had read that this level was set in stone for the first level in the ow. Must be my brain playing tricks on me, I went back through the thread and I don't think that was ever said lmao.

Anyway, yeah I agree. Throwing a three secret exit level at the player that early would perhaps be a bit overwhelming too.

It also looks like there's a perspective issue with the overhang that "Super Easy Going" is situated on. Note that the intro level leaves Demo off at a shoreline, so that probably should be kept in mind.

I was aware of the overhang perspective issue and already addressed it, just didn't get around to sharing the update. This is what the world 1 submap looks like as of this moment:

Screenshot_20230406-084448_1.png (681.01 KiB) Viewed 2255 times

Regarding the shoreline thing, I'm not really sure how I'd implement that. I saw Scarfley seemed to propose something but I'll get to that in a minute here.

I sketched out a possible main overworld with a level order, level connections, etc. while trying to incorporate the ideas that the others have presented so far.

The switch palaces (except for the yellow one) are all accessible through secret exits in submaps which lead back into the main overworld.
Every world (except for abstract and the postgame) puts the player back somewhere into the main overworld to avoid dead ends.
The cave world has two entrances through the main overworld (3 entrances when including the one from urban/mountain world).
The final level of both the mountain and cave world lead the player back to "The Cave of Monsters" which allows them to choose the other world after beating one of them.
I didn't know how we will handle the postgame yet so I put it in the bottom right corner for now, requiring beating "THE OBSTACLE", "The Beginning of Spring", the most difficult exit of "Use Of A Goal Posts" and the secret exit of "Bad Day at the Garden" to reach it plus whatever other unlock condition we can think of.
The rainbow leads to sky/space world but can lead to abstract world as well once it has been unlocked.

A lot of things could probably be done much better (and I think I forgot Sui Glide) but this sketch hopefully gives people some more ideas.

This is awesome! I haven't had the chance to actually play many of the levels in the hack yet so I don't have strong opinions regarding the specific level placements and orders, but I really like how you've laid everything out here.

You said the mountain world is currently set up to lead back to cave of monsters, what if instead the castle (or alternatively one of the secret exits) lead up to the cloud world instead? Perhaps a particularly tall mountain or sky scraper could poke through the clouds that can be climbed up.

As I alluded to before, I saw you placed super easy going on a shoreline instead. While this addresses that issue, it kind of implies the level is mostly a beach level, or at least that it starts as a beach level rather than ending as one. So I think it makes more sense to leave the overhang personally. Perhaps using exgfx or something we could do something like this that transitions the grass to sand / rock? This doesn't address any water associated with the shore though so maybe I could try to shoehorn a body of water in too. I also came up with an alternate proposal so I'll post that too.

Screenshot_20230406-084448_1~2.png (668.29 KiB) Viewed 2255 times

Screenshot_20230406-084448_1~3.png (602.61 KiB) Viewed 2255 times

(Sorry for how crude this markup is, I have very limited resources to do this rn lol)

[KobaBeach]

I'd go with the latter.

[Catabo]

Every world (except for abstract and the postgame) puts the player back somewhere into the main overworld to avoid dead ends.

Love your sketch! I have an idea for the end of the abstract world leading somewhere instead of being a dead end. So it's an abstract world that you access through a portal in the first place, yeah? Well, there should be some weird object on the overworld that the player would see at some point before the abstract world and notice how weird it is, and this object serves as the exit/entrance to the end of abstract world. Maybe an orb that ends up broken to reveal a portal into abstract world once you unlock the exit, or could be a riff on pipes because that's what it would be functionally. A vase? (thinking about SMB2 (not lost levels) that takes place in a dream and uses vases as pipes)

You know, are pipes planned to be changed at all? Now that i think of them, they strike me as an obvious leftover Mario thing. A leftover Super Mario Thing, one might say.

Beating the last level of postgame and entering the resulting portal could just make like SMW special world dropping you at Yoshi's House and put the player in the most centrally located rest area of the overworld. Might be annoying for people checking to see where it goes who intend on going back to the last postgame level to get dragon coins, but it's a nice obvious way to tie things up.

Or we could have one sign that has "2/3/4/5/6" crammed on it for every castle. But that would probably be barely legible.
Alternatively we could go the complete chaos route and give one castle another 1 sign, one castle can have a ridiculous number like 27, another castle can have a drawing on the sign, etc.

I've got a sign concept for Castle of Serious Business:

serious signage.png (8.13 KiB) Viewed 2238 times

(ignore everything being blue; my base rom's a bit outdated)

[PSI Ninja]

I sketched out a possible main overworld with a level order, level connections, etc. while trying to incorporate the ideas that the others have presented so far.

Good work getting all of this together! Your overworld sketch is a nice starting point. But after staring at it for a while, I see some potential issues:

• The regular entrance to sky/space world is guarded by 119 ("Jumpers Are All Winners"), which I think is one of the hardest levels in the game. Would be jarring to play the much easier intro levels of sky world afterwards. Having Level 1E ("Aileron Moonbounce") be the gate to sky world instead is probably sufficient. As for 119, maybe if it just blocked off the entrance to the abstract/final world, it would make more sense.
• Level 13A ("Use Of A Goal Posts") does have three exits, but one of those exits is a failure state. Now, do we have this failure state unlock a path towards progression, or should it just loop back on itself, like "Chocolate Island 3"? I remember SAJewers bringing this up a while ago.
• Level 12D ("watch out! bad word ahead") is on the main overworld. Since we're now considering this to be the Rest Area for the Fishmarket, it should go into that submap instead. This would also avoid the issue of having two Rest Areas being too close together on the main overworld (currently, 132 is the sole level that stands in between 12D and the other Rest Area).
• Level 1 ("baby catnips get tragic concussions") has two exits, but it only has one exit in your sketch.
• If I'm seeing this correctly, both the cave and mountain submaps have a shared exit? I kind of agree with Luckwaive that one of the skyscrapers, most likely Level 6 ("Thwompire State Building"), could offer another path up to the sky world instead. However, that would result in three separate paths into the sky, which is more than any other world.
• There's a five-way junction at Level 132 ("The Cave of Monsters"), which is wild, but I'm pretty sure that's not possible in SMW (only four directions on the D-pad).

And a couple of suggestions:

• I think I'd put Level 3 ("Demo in the Sky (No Diamonds)") as the start of the sky world, in front of 103 ("James Turner (temp name, may keep it)"). I feel it's a bit more of a friendly introduction. Plus, it has rainbows in the background.
• Level 10F ("Sui Glide"), which is missing from your design, could probably go somewhere near the urban area, because of its cyber theme.

[Luckwaive]

I'd go with the latter.

I'll try to get working on this soon. I did want to ask though - should world 1 have both a warp and a rest area? If so I was thinking the rest area could maybe be placed on the shoreline after super easy going, and then lead to the climb to pipe town. Or would that be too early in the world? As for the warp it would be to the right of level 007.

You know, are pipes planned to be changed at all? Now that i think of them, they strike me as an obvious leftover Mario thing. A leftover Super Mario Thing, one might say.

I don't see a reason why they should be changed honestly. Changing pipes then opens the door to changing coins and question blocks and such, in the name of wiping anything "Mario" away. At a certain point it starts to feel like we're trying to hide the fact that it's a Mario hack, which it is. I don't think there's really a reason to significantly change the general basic stuff like that, personally.

[SAJewers]

The regular entrance to sky/space world is guarded by 119 ("Jumpers Are All Winners"), which I think is one of the hardest levels in the game. Would be jarring to play the much easier intro levels of sky world afterwards. Having Level 1E ("Aileron Moonbounce") be the gate to sky world instead is probably sufficient. As for 119, maybe if it just blocked off the entrance to the abstract/final world, it would make more sense.

It might be a good idea for one or more people to look at 119/112/004/12C and see which one is best suited for being part of the main game, while the other ones can go in the postgame.

I guess this also sorts hinges on SPECIAL getting completed, as otherwise we can put them all in the OW and have an empty level slot for something else (I hope we can get it done though).

[PSI Ninja]

From least to most difficult, I would say: 112 < 12C < 119 < 4. I actually would suggest moving out Level 130 instead, and replace it with 119. Then have PREHISTORIC DOOM CASTLE be the midboss of the postgame, and cap off the postgame with SPECIAL. Level 130 could then go somewhere on the open overworld, and maybe give the boss a quick retry option for QoL. In that case, my suggested level order for the postgame would be:

• Idiom Factory II
• Good ol' days
• Locus of Control
• PREHISTORIC DOOM CASTLE
• Can't Go Back
• Jumpers Are All Winners
• R.A.O.C.O.W.
• SPECIAL

The best chance of finishing up SPECIAL is to open it up as a multiperson collab, so it's not too much for one person to complete. If it becomes a collab, I would be available to do one of the remixes of SMW's Special World levels.

[SAJewers]

Thinking about it now, I almost wonder if SPECIAL should be run like the relay level in A2XT1 where each part is done by a different person. Depending on how many people we can get to make a section though, we may have to expand it to be more than just the smw special world. A relay level might be neat, but taking up a precious level slot in favour of filling in the rest areas and having more levels in the open ow might not be the best idea.

I actually would suggest moving out Level 130 instead, and replace it with 119. Then have PREHISTORIC DOOM CASTLE be the midboss of the postgame, and cap off the postgame with SPECIAL. Level 130 could then go somewhere on the open overworld, and maybe give the boss a quick retry option for QoL.

While I agree Snake Block Fortress is probably the easiest, I'm not fond of the idea of having a level with a boss in the main OW, especially if it's the only one. If we must remove it from the postgame, I'd rather move it to be the mid-world fortress level of the Fishmarket, and moving Weird Teal House into the main OW. It's tough because I like the idea of splitting up the water levels from the cold levels evenly in the Fishmarket, but also 11C and 10E are the only levels that currently occupy mid-world fortress or final-level castle slots that don't really have bosses (though 10E implies there was supposed to be one, so maybe that's fine?).

Also, I almost feel like SPECIAL would need a boss if it's the end level for the postgame

I guess we could also make the postgame 1 level longer as well, and don't move any levels out.

Do still think we could use more opinions than just the 2 of us for figuring out the difficulty of these levels though

[PSI Ninja]

Thinking about it now, I almost wonder if SPECIAL should be run like the relay level in A2XT1 where each part is done by a different person. Depending on how many people we can get to make a section though, we may have to expand it to be more than just the smw special world. A relay level might be neat, but taking up a precious level slot in favour of filling in the rest areas and having more levels in the open ow might not be the best idea.

Gnarly and Tubular are both finished, correct? How about this: we expand SPECIAL to encompass all of the other SNES Demo games. So we have two sections each of SMW, WtH, ASMT, and A2MT. The first two sections of this level will lead the player to believe it's all about SMW, but then it's subverted. Would need at least six more people to pull this off, though. But I'd be willing to participate and help push things forward.

While I agree Snake Block Fortress is probably the easiest, I'm not fond of the idea of having a level with a boss in the main OW, especially if it's the only one. If we must remove it from the postgame, I'd rather move it to be the mid-world fortress level of the Fishmarket, and moving Weird Teal House into the main OW. It's tough because I like the idea of splitting up the water levels from the cold levels evenly in the Fishmarket, but also 11C and 10E are the only levels that currently occupy mid-world fortress or final-level castle slots that don't really have bosses (though 10E implies there was supposed to be one, so maybe that's fine?).

Also, I almost feel like SPECIAL would need a boss if it's the end level for the postgame

I guess we could also make the postgame 1 level longer as well, and don't move any levels out.

That's understandable. I think I'd rather expand the postgame to include one more level than shift everything around outside. Then, how about this lineup?

• Idiom Factory II
• Good ol' days
• Assault on Snake Block Fortress
• Locus of Control
• Jumpers Are All Winners
• PREHISTORIC DOOM CASTLE
• Can't Go Back
• R.A.O.C.O.W.
• SPECIAL

The boss levels are spaced out evenly in thirds. The reason I'm suggesting that SPECIAL be last is because there would be a sense of finality to it (e.g., epic length, participation from multiple people, a celebration of all the past games). I'm sure we can come up with something climactic to finish the level off. These are all hypotheticals, though. PREHISTORIC DOOM CASTLE as the final stage in the postgame doesn't really feel satisfying, just having the Reznor fight like that.

Do still think we could use more opinions than just the 2 of us for figuring out the difficulty of these levels though

Same here, but I think we're the only ones with knowledge of all the levels in AAT. So it's pretty much just your word versus mine.

[SAJewers]

Yeah, that can work. Do we want a Rest Area in the postgame, btw?

[KobaBeach]

Also, I almost feel like SPECIAL would need a boss if it's the end level for the postgame

If I feel strong enough to warrant brainstorming boss design with Lord Ruby and delaying the release a few months further... I don't think Ruby can partially code two endbosses in one project, though, I don't want to make him help me that much.

We'd just have to keep in mind that two bosses a project is not to be a habit. It's only if we feel capable enough mentally (I'm usually fine, I only need a week or so to rest, but). This sort of thing kills projects, so I'd like for us to be careful with it.

Even so, VIP3 only had one actual boss (Daddy Cool riding Gamma does not count that shit had 1 HP), while VIP2 had Giko in a Bowser fursuit and the very bad, but simple to code Neo VIPdeath. VIP3's final level was so absurd that it felt enough in terms of finality to warrant not having one. At least that's how I see it, I don't know how the ex-2ch folk felt back in 2006-07.

Yeah, that can work. Do we want a Rest Area in the postgame, btw?

For convenience's sake, maybe?

[SAJewers]

Also, I almost feel like SPECIAL would need a boss if it's the end level for the postgame

If I feel strong enough to warrant brainstorming boss design with Lord Ruby and delaying the release a few months further... I don't think Ruby can partially code two endbosses in one project, though, I don't want to make him help me that much.

We'd just have to keep in mind that two bosses a project is not to be a habit. It's only if we feel capable enough mentally (I'm usually fine, I only need a week or so to rest, but). This sort of thing kills projects, so I'd like for us to be careful with it.

Even so, VIP3 only had one actual boss (Daddy Cool riding Gamma does not count that shit had 1 HP), while VIP2 had Giko in a Bowser fursuit and the very bad, but simple to code Neo VIPdeath. VIP3's final level was so absurd that it felt enough in terms of finality to warrant not having one. At least that's how I see it, I don't know how the ex-2ch folk felt back in 2006-07.

Considering what SPECIAL is supposed to be, any boss (if we do one) should probably just be a boss from a previous thing that's remixed. Considering ASMT and A2MT's "final boss"es were joke bosses, no reason we can't do something similarly joke-y and simple

[KobaBeach]

parrot black plague

[Luckwaive]

Postgame final boss should be ChatGPT Demo

demo-1.png (47.91 KiB) Viewed 2132 times

[SAJewers]

parrot black plague

I'm game, but we'll need a custom Big Boo, Parrot guy is too big for regular big boo

[KobaBeach]

I'm game, but we'll need a custom Big Boo, Parrot guy is too big for regular big boo

just make a custom black plague sprite that still looks like Hot Ass but make it like. have a parrot face. done

doesn't need to be digitized like anon's original

[SAJewers]

a quick and dirty rezise, plus some asm messing with later:

my_hack-069.png (8.54 KiB) Viewed 2063 times

[camwoodstock]

a quick and dirty rezise, plus some asm messing with later:

my_hack-069.png

Art. fart buttoned for its magnificence

[Catabo]

parrot black plague

I'm game, but we'll need a custom Big Boo, Parrot guy is too big for regular big boo

It took this image for me to realise that this guy has a parrot head/beak and not a fish head with a green beret and a triangle-shaped gaping mouth locked in an eternal scream.

[KobaBeach]

a quick and dirty rezise, plus some asm messing with later:

my_hack-069.png

Art. fart buttoned for its magnificence

[SAJewers]

For those not in discord, we had a short discussion, and are removing the cave subworld.

[camwoodstock]

For those not in discord, we had a short discussion, and are removing the cave subworld.

extremely dumb but mildly amusing idea we had: what if near the first cave level the player encounters, one of those "mountains" (read: the weird rectangular prism ones near donut secret house in vanilla smw) nearby the level dot, as if the cave subworld got deleted so bad it ended up manifesting in the total opposite way,

[Nao]

I made a thing (with some feedback from discord)

[KobaBeach]

This owns, you people are super good at this. Remind me to come to y'all if I ever need feedback on designing an OW. Will use this diagram when I get around to testing levels, just give me a bit more time <3

[Nao]

Small update. Switched two switch palaces (for multiple reasons - yellow switch blocks being frequently used in Forest World, as well as this makes it even less likely someone will find the yellow switch before THE OBSTACLE) and moved Sweet Paradise into Sky World.