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Level Finalization/QA List (Tweaking of Inserted Levels)

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Septentrion Pleiades
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Level Finalization/QA List (Tweaking of Inserted Levels)

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Hello everyone. I have commandeered this OP. I assure you this is proper use of eminent domain. All the suggested changes for every level will go in this post. They will be reorganized for optimal comprehension.

Original OP in spoiler
It's been brought to my attention that, while alot of levels have already been inserted, things might still be abit wonky with them. This thread is for discussion, and overall

bringing to attention, any glitches, unfair parts, or anything else that might have been missed from the clearing and inserting process.
If you have free time, and where just playing through the already inserted levels that we have on the baserom, and notice something's abit off, unfair, ugly, or whatever, then

please, come and post it in this thread. As most of these inserted levels SHOULD be glitch free, they might not be.

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When posting:
-Please, if you could, for accuracy, use screen shots of what you're talking about.
-If the problem isn't something that can be captured with a screen shot, then please describe as much as you can, so we understand what you're talking about.
-Propose a solution along with your criticism.
-While testing, DO NOT USE TOOLS. That would defeat the entire purpose of the testing process. We need to know if the level difficulty is realistic without tools.

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Just as a general legend, anything with a :!: mark, has been edited to correspond with the suggestions in this thread. They are effectively done, unless someone finds

something else to go along with the other suggestions, or something we've over looked.
Color code for levels
Broken and unacceptable (Red)
Questionable (black)
Passing (Mossy Green)
All good (Blue)
Special case/undefined (Other)

Code for fixes
-critical (Red)
-discretionary (Orange or Black)
-dismissed (Mossy Green)
-Creative suggestion (Cyan)
-might be antiquated suggestion (Purple)

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001 Further over there
-midpiont plz
-Postpostgame level.
- sprite Ropes should look different from normal ropes.


002 Castle in the sky
-Multiple midpoints(very long level
- Needs parrot coin graphics


003 Skyway to Wonderland
-you can skip at least one of the pipe mazes by walking on the top row of tiles after bouncing off an enemy
004 The great pit
-I don't like the nondirectional saws
005 Block Fort
-Uses smw music for final room and victory.
006 Punctuated time
-Can not Jesus while time is stopped. Level unplayible due to that.
- Fill in the entire bottom row where dirt should be with... dirt. It's producing some minor, but noticable cuttoff currently.
- Use the slopefix block for the tile where the slope and the wall (above the pipe) connect. It's possible to get into the dirt that way, though you won't be getting anywhere.
- Blank message box.

- -Level is virtually unbeatable in its current form (screen 0B-0C). I'll be coming back here.(MDP)

-Not a fan of the Ambush Thwomp here.
- The bottom tile of the first bullet cannon (screen 04) is not there.
- The fan blocks don't want to work. Are their respective ASM files inserted and these simply haven't been assigned yet?
007 Flooded Village
-A 1-up for hauling a p-switch backwards through half the level? Really? (Wyatt)
-With full momentum and a bit of luck, you can jump over the wall near the end and either die or skip over a bunch of the level (Wyatt)
008 Land of Illusion
-Demo slips of layer 2 boat

-slow intro
009 the level of slipery floors and ghost
-A pirana plant jumps into a ceiling at the glitch sublevel (author requests that we move pipe and piranha plant down a bit)
00A Ye old spookhouse
00B Violet velocity
- Saw didn't appear for me?
00C Super Vehicle 00C Onwards to Moscow
- Boss is graphically broken.
-Boss may float off scene leaving the player alone forever
00D demo kong country
- I'm sure the Mini-Necky's nuts moved much quicker than these.
- Mini-Necky falls for a second after being defeated then just disappears. I guess it's not a Dynamics sprite unless it has some noticeable technical error.
- Goopa on level 0D screen 06 bottom is an EEE.
- Horizontal Zingers move much quicker to the left than they do to the right.
- Vertictal Zingers move much quicker up than they do down.
- Broken music in the bonus rooms because of the lack of samples. Just replace the song with another bonus track. Maybe that Japanese one that's seen in those types of hacks perhaps? After fixing it to be AM4 friendly, of course.
- Power-up on level 0D screen 0F appears behind the foliage for a brief moment.
- ROM crashes on screen 03 of level 186. This level is currently unbeatable.
- Screen exit 05 of level 185 sends Demo to Land of Illusions.
- Mini-Necky on level D screen 14 is too high to be any plausible threat.
00E Time will hide your way
-Whoever place the dragon coins in the secret exit is a complete asshole
00F Chilly Ice Cave
- The bottom and left halves of the lava streams are safe to the touch.
- When doing the return trip with the Blue P-Switch, it'd be nice if the player knew that they'd need to activate the Silver P-Switch again. (level AE, screen 01) Currently they're in for a pleasant surprise when they drop down.
- Why am I forced to wait out the P-Switch? (level AE, screen 03-04)
- The Monty Mole on level B0 screen 05 is not a threat at all.
- The Bunny Rex on level AE screen 06 poses no threat.
- Pointless Yoshi that treats him like a disposable object. ...Yeah I'm not even gonna waste my time trying to discuss that here.
- Timer's pretty low (the hurry up sfx played for me when I wasn't even dicking around.
010 fireyblaze pending
-lot of sprites creating slowdown/makes gimmick confusing at first
-somewhat short and inconsistent with level design.
-One solution past the last part is to despawn the hammer bro
011 betrayal rock
-With the updated HDMA, certain parts of this level (e.g. bottom half of the first sublevel) are barely visible. (Wyatt)
=This level should be an easy multiple midpoints candidate.
- Difficult to see the bottom on-screen row of level 2F because of the gradient.
- Palette 2 in general is just sloppy and looks really bad on the wooden crates and blocks. The pipe on screen 06, level 11 is poor as well.
- Level 4A just reaffirms my stance on utilizing the directional hurt blocks more.
012 Down to green
-Very hard to find chest. (Wyatt)
-Music for the second sublevel breaks bsnes. (Wyatt)
-First couple parrot coins are glitchy. (This problem has been reported elsewhere and should fix itself)

- Level 12 feel very empty, unthreatening and most of the enemies can be avoided with relative ease. Granted, this most likely will be an early-game level, but even then, some more threatening (but still easy) setups could help the level out a good amount. No real complaints for level AC, though.
013 Sky Castle West
- Magic Bro on level 36, screen 00 can hilariously jump into the ground.
- If the level's going to have time, then add at least 50-100 to it. I never failed through time-up, though I'm arguably a better player than many people that play these hacks. Regardless, in both of my play-throughs of this level I had the Hurry Up SFX to play, and I wasn't even dicking around!
- Having Ice and Magic Bros (they share the same palette) in the same sublevel is non-intuitive.
014 Calm Forest
015 P.key's mansion
- Boo "Laser" and Eerie are miscolored.
- "ruins," not "ruins."
- Spikes in underwater section are also miscolored.
- FG entrance to level 85 is too low.
- Status bar's palette in level 84 is inconsistent compared to the rest of the level.
- Does this level even have a normal exit?
016 no secret exit here
-Some water has solid tiles interfering with it.
017 hey there sewage castle
-This map16 trap happened
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018 Aerial Athletics
- If I recall correctly, bring an item from a secret area makes it so a platform doesn't spawn
019 P-Switch Beach
- Player dies upon entry to level 46.
01A capefeather pending
01B Where am I?
- Swoopers on screens 0B and 0F-11 (bottom) are too low to be any plausible threat.
- Ambush Thwomp on level A8, screen 02. The setup made here doesn't exactly tip players off to the coins being the indicator. A setup that has the player free from harm should work better here.
- Furthermore, the formation you have on screen 09, top left, doesn't help matters at all.
Replace the ledges on level A8 screens 00-02 with lighter colored ones. The currents ones can be mistaken for scenery easily.
- Power-up generosity. You provide a Flower on level 1B screen 0F (the exit to the next area is on screen 10) and the next power-up is on screen 01 of level A8! This is followed up with another one on screen 04 and the final power-up is on screen 0A!
- Not a fan of these types of secret exit paths. (read: the ones there you have to basically play through most of the level twice, but with a detour.)
01C Intertwined Plains
--Blind fall onto a splitting chuck (Wyatt)
-needs midpoint (Wyatt)
-Cutoff because some dirt has layer priority over demo.
01D A Stroll Under The Stars
- Why is this ledge/vine tile solid? (Tile 1301 and 1340) There's a cutsom block for setups like those.
- Time limit's a little too low for a first timer to this level. An extra 100 seconds should do.
01E Thwomp Ahoy!
-uses old Yoshi coins
01F
Moonlit Mountain
-a good candidate for needing a midpoint
020 Running Like Clockwork
-A couple coin trails lead into death if you don't have a running start. The level should warn you about this somehow. Maybe a few coin arrows? (Wyatt)
021 Something to do with layer 2
- Level 1C3, screen 0C-0D. Just how is the player supposed to make that jump?(MDP) Bring the springboard -SP
- What's with the random change in setting/theme for level 1C4? It would be more beneficial to keep the forest theme to continue going on with this level (especially with level 1BF being right back in a forest) instead of going "Russian Rickroll" on the player.
- The timing (and player's form) to get the Parrot coin on level 1C4 screen 07 is so percise that you'd need to know about it beforehand to stand any chance of getting it.
- The second half of the level is (a lot) easier than the first.
- Two different palettes of muchers exist together for no reason in level 6
023 Demo's Hydrophobia
-The only thing I have a problem with is the small ground colored spikes. I bearly saw them to even avoid them most of the time. (Deme.)
- Possible to make the Jumping Statue on screen 01 to jump into the ceiling.
- The coins on screens 01-02, left, are not intuitive enough that they lead to a spike.
- Music in levels FC-FD break on accurate emulators.
024 Air Arena(open to drudging)
-quite boring and empty
101 A Menagerie in Glass
-Due to the "switch icy level setting" blocks acting solid rather than walkthrough, one of the dragon coins is impossible to get. (YCZ)
- Level 155 (i wonder what the reference is!!!1!)'s pipe exits aren't exactly intuitive enough to indicate that they exit the area.
102 Sodium Fortrate
- are homing bullets supposed to be immuned to shells?
104 Parrot's Pad Planning Phase
106 A.D.D.
- The level as a whole just feels very weak, and I'm not talking about the random change in themes either. A majority of the enemies can be dispatched easily by sliding into them or ignoring them altogether.
- Lopsidedish midpoint. Either move the current one somewhere in the water segment or add a second one at the start of the Ghost House portion.
-Running really fast into the bonus/water transition crumbling blocks can easily kill you for no reason
107 Sagan Leagues above the Surface
-Graphics in the first part are messed up(fireballs, score, bullet smoke, power ups)
-The ground is raised for no reason.
108 Smouldering Stones
- gimmick is not well explained
-Consider adjusting gimmick indication
109 Verdant Varmit
10A The Meaning of Sharp
10B Mail Delivery
-Invisible coin block ceiling feels low in places, a sprite ceiling would work better (Wyatt)
-Map16 is screwed up in places with invisible solid, and other anomalies..
10C Undermoore Passage
-Smasher generator could be moved a tile or two to the left (Wyatt)
- The level as a whole can wear you out due to the sheer length and slowish pacing of it. That may be me doing the level at 3:15am and wanting to go to sleep, though.
- Not a fan of the water section being Big Demo Discrimination (BDD); the layer 3 plunger doesn't help matters either.
- The BG in the swamp areas is in a fixed position and scrolling.
- Palette in the underwater portion could use a more swampy color scheme to be more consistent with the dry segments.
10D Cumulonimbastille
-Some people and I messed up map16 by making some things solid during optimization(sep)
-Speaking of map16, the yellow clouds thin parts are harmless, while the thick parts are surprise munchers.
-Golden bowsers statues graphics glitch when you slide into them.
-green clouds are odd
- First pencil can kill you before you see it(definately a "what killed me?" moment)
10E Mad Science Laboratory
- It is impossible to outrun the thwomp in a section, making this level unbeatable
10F I Need a P
-Still slight cutoff near the intro part.
110 Painting the Treehouse
111 Unpleasant Intruder
-? blocks on the left side of the boss room are hard to get
112 The happy lake
113 La joie de glisser
- On screen 9, the winged goomba below was removed
- On the secret path, holes in the ceiling's landforms were covered
114 Skythorne Valley
115 ]Dancing with shells
-There was some dirt in the chest room that didn't transition well
116 A Gelatin Factory
117 Demo's Wondrous Pitfall!
-I'm not sure but I think the map16 in the second part is messed up. I don't think it's possible to pass a big.
Bullet hide behind things
Music in the bonus section would be nice.
118 Forest of Realism
-The layer priority on the branches and tree trunk don't match up, and I rather question the trees being solid in the first place. (YCZ)
-Getting above and through the level. (YCZ)
-Fire bar is in question. (YCZ)

- Sign on level 118 screen 09 is glitched.
- Cave music still breaks on accurate emulators.
119 Forest Fever
- Exit in level 1CB leads to a completely irrelevant level that cannot be cleared.(it now lead to 46 level exits seem entirely random in this level)
11A Dodge that beefsteak
-were actually beefsteak graphics ever used at this level?
11B Woodchuck woods(not on OW)
-Map16 is all solid!
11C Magical Lava Zone
- Where's the chest in this one?(MDP)
11D Starlight Resort
11E Farenheit Something
- The level as a whole is wasted potential to the fire/ice concept and is fitting for "first half of the game" status (It's basically two completely different mini-levels meshed to share one OW level. There are plenty of things that could be done with it from the basic stuff seen in the Galaxy games to managing the temeperature of the environment.
- The Ice section is the worst of the two. Most of the enemies can be dispatched from afar thanks to fireballs or sliding into them. The only real trouble that the player will encounter is not slipping off of the timed or diagonal platforms.
- The Fire section is better, but not by too much. Most of it is waiting for hazards to pass by before continuing on.
11F Tangled Grounds
-Can see feet below bushes. Make bushes not have layer priority over demo.
-at the part where you jump on many tofu spring blocks, there is a single coin that looks like it indicates a block, judging by the surroundings, but there is none underneath
120 Mansion of Onoffness
-Over all difficulty. (YCZ)

- Level 170, screens 00-01 are a complete pain in the ass to make it through; though I shouldn't expect any different from the noseman999. Timed segment, zero room for error, and you'll have to redo about 2-3 minutes of level every time you fail this segment. Screen 02 is kind of pushing it, but the last jump before the door and knowing when/where/how to hit the switch and make it to safe ground is an exercise in frustration.
- Why the hell do I have to redo screens 00-01 of level 171 if something on screens 03-04 goes wrong?
- Level 172 can be best described as padding and artificial difficulty. Searching for On/Off switches while contending with solid objects in the dark? Come on now.
- In the baseROM version, the first two switches in 170 are one block higher, so as soon as you hit those, you are usually dipped into the on/off block by just a bit, and when they turn solid, you slip completely through. I'd recommend lowering those two switches again, the current state is unreasonable and this really makes it a lot better(para)
122 Phase Out
124 Nezumi's Farmville(why is it not on the OW?)
-music breaks the level
125 Coin Town USA
- cutoff where steps meet diagonal background terrain.
126 Deja Vu
- Miscolored sawblades in level 126.
- Initial FG position to level 149 (second half) is too low.
- If the Yellow Switch is active, the player can cirumvent most of the level from level 148 screen 00.
- This level has 11 painstakingly easy lives to get. Two of those are only available if you have the Yellow/Green Switch, however, but still.
- Level 148 has no buoyancy.
127 Adamantium Castle
- Old yoshi coins
-Crashes on final warp

If key hits top have of lock, it glithces
128 A Beach
-Birdo egg jump is sorta unfair, requires scrolling manipulation which isn't obvious (Wyatt)
-Boss room's music breaks bsnes (Wyatt)

- Crossfire Bills have inconsistent graphics.
- Surely these side rooms (level 128, screens 07-08) can be decorated more so these doors don't seem like they're just out in the middle of nowhere.
- I'm nore sure what's the intended solution with making it to the top of screens 03-04. I just spun jumped off the Phantos while hugging the right wall.
- I'll be coming back to this level, I'm sure.(MDP)
12A Light and Darkness
- Level could really use a checkpoint at the start of the auto-scroll. The sublevel goes on for quite a bit.
- Boss is a pain in the ass for what I suppose would be obvious reasons.
12B shdwdrgnix Pending

12C Alex Extraordinary Flip Notes! pending sorta
12D Crazed Crayon Combat
The part with the P switch is mean spirited. It should be change to allow the player to back up, or the level needs a reset door for that. I'm leaning towards reset door.
12E A layer2 Romp
12F Lakitrouble in the Lakitundra
130 Wrathful Romp
-I think I stuck myself in this one. didn't continue testing after being stuck.(sep)
131 The Deadly Ninja Assassin Squad
-Time limit should probably be 0 (Wyatt)
132 Multi-Tier Hillside
Jump at the top of level 132, screen 07-08 is an End of Jump Enemy Encounter, which is basically a forced hit.
- Checkpoint is very easy to miss if you stick to the top.
- Very small amount of glitched graphics (look at the right ledge) at the bottom of screen 0D.
133 Goofy Grotto
- The Blurp only has one frame of animation.
- The Collected Parrot Coin outline are glitched graphics.
- Poor Item Memory Index. Collecting certain coins in levels 6B-6C makes getting the chest in level 133 impossible, assuming the player doesn't die. Since none of the areas in the level are ever revisited, you can safely set the Item Memory Index to each of these levels to 3.
- The Note Blocks display glitched graphics when bounced on.
I think It uses some old parrot coins
-Underwater cutoff around some corners
134 THUMP
-"Solid only to demo" block should be changed to the global graphics (Wyatt)(Sep Agrees)
-MAP16 is hard to understand with no tutorial at the first sublevel
-Key doors should have solid ground(not death pit) for fairness
The was some messed up graphic in the last room. It looked like a tree and off switch.
Map16 needs some thought.
136 So close, yet so...
-Remove time limit?
137 Thwomp Garden
quite a boring level...
138 LBS
139 Dairy Disaster
-Fish swim out of the cheese in front of FG layer, in the "low density" area
13A Dark Side of the Moon
13B Irritating...
-Far too much red makes this level rather, uh, irritating to look it. It's similar to An Echoing Call in that regard (though for different reasons) and I assume the level author intended to do this with the level, designer intention and application aren't necessarily the same. A more subdued palette that includes browns, greys, an various heat-tinted colors should work out better here while still maintaining the heat theme. The stone blocks with the current palette look especially ugly.
- Replace every instance of tile 2C ("purple" coin) with 2B (normal coin). 2C still behaves like a coin even when the Blue P-Switch is active.
- The Mushroom on screen 08 seems pointless since there's another on two screens later.
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-Message blocks are broken throughout the hack
The no yoshi intro should be removed, also applies to a lot of other levels.


Special/switch palaces.

- Switch blocks are used in few levels. May need a stance on switch block useage. Some levels are:
Irriiating, sky castle west, I need a P

org $00F619 ; Prevents screen from scrolling when Mario loses a life. (MDP)
db $12,$14 ; Would prevent certain things from being "spoilered" because the player saw
;something they "should not have after dying. (MDP)
- Edit item goal reward to not give useless powerups(SP)
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Post edit notes (for internal use):
Last edited by Septentrion Pleiades 10 years ago, edited 62 times in total.
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raocow
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by raocow »

Also, peeps, be aware that once a level is accepted, it's 'in', even if the level's author isn't around. This means that we might have to do some changes without their consent. We want to avoid that, but if it comes to it we will. In a perfect world, any changes that happen at this point should be minimal and easy enough to 'patch', but, well we'll see.
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yoshicookiezeus
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

Mansion of Onoffness
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I severely question the judgement of whoever approved this level; the best adjective I can find to describe the difficulty in the second room is "Kaizo-esque". I have not even been able to complete the first jump of the room without tool-assistance, and it's pretty damn difficult even when spamming rewinds to former hell and back.

A Menagerie in Glass
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Due to the "switch icy level setting" blocks acting solid rather than walkthrough, one of the dragon coins is impossible to get.

Forest of Realism
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The layer priority on the branches and tree trunk don't match up, and I rather question the trees being solid in the first place.
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The whole level is absolutely riddled with this kind of errors. Also, sprite memory issues and a really ugly-looking firebar in the second screenshot.


More to come later...
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Chdata
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Chdata »

Suggestion for testers: Pay attention to how many tries it takes you to beat a level without savestates.
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Trouble with a capital COW.

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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Wyatt »

I have a suggestion: we should rate levels in difficulty using a 5 star system (with half-stars) like the VIPs do, for the sake of organizing them in the overworld when that time comes. I know that's not what this thread was made for, but since this will probably become the general discussion thread for inserted levels, it's probably the best place to mention it.

EDIT: For reference, examples of different difficulties by VIP's standards:
1 2
★★ 1 2
★★★ 1 2
★★★★ 1 2
★★★★☆ 1 2
★★★★★ 1 2

To compare to the original SMW, outrageous (probably the hardest level in the game) is about ★★☆.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by S.N.N. »

The thing I'm worried about with giving that huge amount of freedom to people (that is, letting them design any kind of level they want with any kind of difficulty level) is that you may end up with too much of one thing. Like, if everyone designs a hard level because they take on the mindset that "maybe other people in the hack will design an easy level", you'd end up with a very .. well, WEIRD difficulty curve. I'm interested in seeing how that plays out, I suppose.

Anyway, I have a few gripes about some cleared levels thus far. I'll try and get a post up by tomorrow since I'm pulling the night shift at work tonight (going to need a bit of sleep).
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Wyatt »

Well, that's how the VIPs did it, and it's been working for us so far, our levels are pretty spread out in terms of difficulty. I don't think it's worth worrying about now; if we get like 70 levels inserted and they're generally hard, we can get people to only make easy levels from then on to compensate.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

Forest of Realism (because I forgot some stuff)

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There is exactly one of these spike things in the entire level. As such, since you aren't expecting it, it is rather easy to mistake it for one of the normal rock decorations; I didn't even notice it until I had run into it and gotten hurt. Since it ultimately is rather pointless, I would recommend just removing it.

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More Map16 errors.


Sky Castle West

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There are three points in the first part of the level with a Boomerang Bro placed right next to a rather wide pit. Even knowing that they are there, getting past them without getting hurt is rather difficult, and they are pretty much guaranteed to hit you when you first encounter them. Perhaps move them back a couple of tiles, to give you enough space to land?

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This Magic Bro is rather fond of getting himself stuck in the ground. Suggestion: make the various Bro sprites just do small jumps without changing level if the extra bit is set.

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The bombs change colour when they are thrown, and the explosion stars appear to be missing from the graphics file.


betrayal rock

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These "solid to sprites" blocks could use some better graphics. Didn't someone draw some earlier?

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The coins that were next to Demo would be better placed out of Direct Map16, since otherwise you only have to wait for the P-Switch to run out the very first time you get to this part.

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...invisible coin block traps? Seriously?

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I'm not a big fan of this particular setup; getting through it feels almost luckbased, and if you don't, you get crushed and have to start the first two rooms all over again. Also, according to Lunar Magic there's supposed to be a Dragon Coin in the top middle here; it never showed up, most likely due to bad item memory settings.

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It would feel rather more intuitive for these branches to act like ledges rather than cement blocks. Also, there doesn't seem to be any point to that earthquake Thwomp other than for it to be obnoxiously annoying; it doesn't really increase the chance of you getting hit by a powerup.

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This part feels rather ridiculous, especially at the very end of a long and annoying room. It would probably be fine without the earthquake Thwomp, though.

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I really, really don't like how dying anywhere in this room has you redo the previous one every time, giving a) how easy it is to die and b) how annoying the previous room is. Suggestion: swap this room with the one before it.

[no picture, because I didn't realize this until after I played the level]

The door at the top left of the room in the above screenshot could use some indication that it leads forward in the level. With a powerup next to it and those turn blocks at the bottom of the room, I took it for a reset door, and didn't realize that there was a path other than the one leading to the chest until I took a look at the level in Lunar Magic.

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This part also feels rather ridiculous: since you can't see the floor when you trigger the turnips, getting them in a formation that allows you to get to the P-Switch safely requires either an amazing sense of timing or quite a bit of luck.

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Going in the final pipe as big Demo takes you back to the start, with no way to progress other than starting the level over completely or dying.

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And finally, I question if having to find an invisible coin block (with the penalty for trying to make the jump normally being starting the level over) really is necessary after all that.


Stay tuned for even more...
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

Where Am I?

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While the floor already has it, the ceiling could use some layer priority as well; Demo's hair sticking out between the ceiling and the wall just looks awkward.

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With the Koopa walking through the wall in plain sight, the secret passage leading to the chest is ridiculously easy to find.

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The P-Switch music sounds off in this room, probably due to samples. (although this might be a non-issue if we're using the ticking patch again)

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What are these sparkle things supposed to be? They are all over the level, and just look generally weird.

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That's not the correct goal post, is it?


Intertwined Plains

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*Gee
Also, the "TRANSLATION" part seems kind of unnecessary, and just seems to call attention to how the gimmick doesn't really have anything to do with the level.

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Putting enemies below blind falls is not a very nice trick at all.

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...is a reset door really necessary here? (and speaking of which, those reset door graphics look incredibly out of place; we seriously need better global ones)

[not pictured]

Such a slow-paced and long level really could use a midpoint, even if it's rather easy.

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Again with the "blind fall into enemy" setup.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by raocow »

Alright, here are my suggested fixes to limepie, as the way I see it for most of these it would be a lot less work to just fix it directly in the master rom, since it's a lot of relatively small things. My suggestions and what notwill be in bold.
yoshicookiezeus wrote: betrayal rock

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These "solid to sprites" blocks could use some better graphics. Didn't someone draw some earlier?
Go ahead and switch them for the 'base' blocks. Those honestly, these common images for these special blocks really should be in the game by now, available to be used by everyone. Somewhere in the common map16 pages.

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The coins that were next to Demo would be better placed out of Direct Map16, since otherwise you only have to wait for the P-Switch to run out the very first time you get to this part.

I had no idea that was possible! I suppose it should be pretty easy to fix?

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...invisible coin block traps? Seriously?
Hmm, there are solid blocks 'under' where each of the blocks are, in the crate you are standing on, which are supposed to clue you in. If people thing it's too unintuitive, go ahead and remove all the invisible coins then.

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I'm not a big fan of this particular setup; getting through it feels almost luckbased, and if you don't, you get crushed and have to start the first two rooms all over again. Also, according to Lunar Magic there's supposed to be a Dragon Coin in the top middle here; it never showed up, most likely due to bad item memory settings.

Fair enough. Remove the springy things, and lower one of the clear blocks one block down, so it's easier to jump in. About the 'item memory setting' thing, though, I have NO IDEA what that means.

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It would feel rather more intuitive for these branches to act like ledges rather than cement blocks. Also, there doesn't seem to be any point to that earthquake Thwomp other than for it to be obnoxiously annoying; it doesn't really increase the chance of you getting hit by a powerup.

switching how the map16'thd branch behaviours is pretty quick and easy. And technicaly, the earthquake thwomp DOES work with the underwater yoshi retrieval part. I want to insist there, though I suppose I can be convinced otherwise.

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This part feels rather ridiculous, especially at the very end of a long and annoying room. It would probably be fine without the earthquake Thwomp, though.

Fair enough, also we could replace the square blocks there by a landmass instead, and it would look nicer.

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I really, really don't like how dying anywhere in this room has you redo the previous one every time, giving a) how easy it is to die and b) how annoying the previous room is. Suggestion: swap this room with the one before it.

Can you do that, limepie? It's another fairly simple thing.

[no picture, because I didn't realize this until after I played the level]

The door at the top left of the room in the above screenshot could use some indication that it leads forward in the level. With a powerup next to it and those turn blocks at the bottom of the room, I took it for a reset door, and didn't realize that there was a path other than the one leading to the chest until I took a look at the level in Lunar Magic.

Would changing the door to a small door sufficient?

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This part also feels rather ridiculous: since you can't see the floor when you trigger the turnips, getting them in a formation that allows you to get to the P-Switch safely requires either an amazing sense of timing or quite a bit of luck.

By my own playtesting, removing the 'swamping turnip' and only leave two would make it a lot more manageable. Anyone would do.

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Going in the final pipe as big Demo takes you back to the start, with no way to progress other than starting the level over completely or dying.

I honestly can't believe this ever turned out. Are there any 'only passable when small' blocks we could put in front of the pipe? Otherwise we'd have to replace it with a small door, I suppose.

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And finally, I question if having to find an invisible coin block (with the penalty for trying to make the jump normally being starting the level over) really is necessary after all that.

I'll have to agree with you there, and just replacing the invisible block by a visible one.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

Calm Forest

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The level utilizes these spinjumpable tree trunks absolutely terribly: they appear in exactly three locations, two of which being utterly pointless.

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So what would be the best way to tell the player that the tree trunk parts with holes in them aren't solid? I'm not entirely sure, although I am certain that putting the first one on a log over a bottomless pit that Mario has to cross most definitely isn't it. (And why are they nonsolid in the first place? Does Demo fall through that tiny hole or something?)

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Question: why the hell is a P-Switch used to deactivate ON/OFF switch blocks? If that isn't unintuitive, I don't know what is. (Also, you could theoretically get stuck inside the parrot coin area and have to reset the game.)

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Down a random unmarked pit is not a good place to hide a secret, and even if it was, putting a spike at the bottom of it is just mean.

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Whoever is in charge of the base ROM should probably change the switch palace levels to level 0 in the overworld settings until we know which levels are going to be used for them.

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If you are going to put a spike there, at least give it a palette so that you can notice it before you hit it and die.

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Is there any point whatsoever in having SMB1-style scrolling in this one room? It's inconsistent with the rest of the level and just plain out strange.

[not pictured]

The level only has four parrot coins. Unless the fifth one is so well hidden that even looking in Lunar Magic won't reveal it.


Super Vehicle 00C - Onward to Moscow

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The behaviour of the missiles isn't exactly the most intuitive thing ever; having one appear just above Demo's head when she's inside the train is rather odd. Why not just have them always appear at the very top of the level instead?

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After landing a few hits on the boss, she fired this at me; what exactly is it supposed to be, and is it something that should be there? Also some glitched tiles appeared at the top right.

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It seems that the turnips won't actually fall off the side of the level if I miss them, which means that they start piling up and making other things not spawn (most notably the 5-bullet attack; at the end of the battle, it was reduced to a single one) after a while.


raocow wrote:Hmm, there are solid blocks 'under' where each of the blocks are, in the crate you are standing on, which are supposed to clue you in. If people thing it's too unintuitive, go ahead and remove all the invisible coins then.
...I didn't even notice those, due to the HDMA effect. Still, I don't think those blocks will prevent anyone from getting caught by the trap the first one through, and on the second time people will have already checked the area to find the ones they might have missed, so it ultimately doesn't do anything other than making you replay the room one extra time.
raocow wrote:About the 'item memory setting' thing, though, I have NO IDEA what that means.
The item memory keeps track of which collectables (coins, dragon coins, and invisible 1-up blocks are the most important ones) have been collected in a level; there are three different indexes you can use and if two items are the same relative position in two levels that use the same index, one of them won't show up if you collect the other. It's the bottom right option under the Mario head button.
raocow wrote:And technicaly, the earthquake thwomp DOES work with the underwater yoshi retrieval part.
Only under very specific circumstances that are very easy to avoid: you need to be standing on the bottom of the pool while the Thwomp hits the ground after having triggered the turnip in the corner. At all other times, it is nothing more than an annoyance.
raocow wrote:Would changing the door to a small door sufficient?
It is already a small door. :V Perhaps you could put a coin arrow over it or something?
raocow wrote:Are there any 'only passable when small' blocks we could put in front of the pipe?
Indeed there are, although I'm not sure if we have any good graphics for them yet.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by cozyduck »

Wyatt wrote: Further over there ★★★★★★★

Level's fully functional but humanly unbeatable.

Sorry, but that's simply not true.

I went ahead and played the first half. Took me about 2 hours to beat toolless and I'm pretty rusty at the moment.
I'm sure raocow can beat this toolless (well, he should be able to, as it's his level).

What you should be asking is whether you want a level in the hack that only very few people will even consider beating legit. But ASMT had a few of those too.

That being said, here's what I have to say about the level up to the midpoint:

The very first 2 screen are really obnoxious. The worst offender is the fire flower at the part where you have to drop down for the first time. It's seriously positioned in a horrifying way. Admittedly, one does have the option to bring a powerup to the level, but I'm not a fan of such a tough section before the first power up of the level.

In the second section though it's all memorization, because if you don't manipulate all enemies and level states properly, you will always end up in near unwinnable situations.
Also, I couldn't find a good way to deal with the section where you have the very last big boo plus boos and fireflowers, so I ended up tanking it. Now I understand you want part as a way to protect the other pipe, but I think this section could be a bit easier, especially because it's at the very end.

Finally, the beginning of the second section is kinda bad when you're big, because the duck jump onto the up/down blocks is seriously difficult, and the big boo after that can very easily become undodgeable.

And raocow, don't you think it's a bit of a **** move to put feathers that kill you in powerup boxes? I mean, come on...
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Wyatt »

cozyduck wrote:
Wyatt wrote: Further over there ★★★★★★★

Level's fully functional but humanly unbeatable.
Sorry, but that's simply not true.

I went ahead and played the first half. Took me about 2 hours to beat toolless and I'm pretty rusty at the moment.
Took me about the same amount of time, I remember really liking the level at that point. Then the first room after the midpoint is actually super fun, and the one after it is stressful but beatable. Pretty sure I got through this all without using tools.

That said, if you're committed to beating the level legit, good luck on the room after those!

raocow, if you're reading this, I remember you once mentioning that you wanted this level removed; you should know that the level's totally fine other than that last room. Not sure what exactly should be done to fix it, but I don't think an extra midpoint would be enough, and also it'd sorta break the flow of the level. You could always just nerf the last room a bunch, but that'd probably take away from the whole point of the level. My suggestion would be to completely remove all danger in the second last sublevel (the second "over there" segment) and nerf the final sublevel just a bit. That's just a suggestion though, if you can find another way to make the level beatable savestateless then go ahead!


While I'm here, gonna call attention to (?) Sky Castle. It's seriously hard to differentiate the background from the foreground in this level. That needs to be fixed. There's also a part with 5 pencils where it's incredibly likely that you'll spawn them such that you must tank a hit to get past. And at that dark blue cloud with the lakitu cloud inside it, the cloud can easily just fall down through the blue and out of your reach.
On a more subjective note, the stairs section was really repetitive. The level's not unfun, but I'm honestly surprised it got cleared considering all the problems it has.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by cozyduck »

-Further over there, after the midpoint

Well, the boo cloud section is creative, but in the end most stuff is virtually undodgeable, so it becomes all about knowing where the mushrooms spawn and abusing your invincibility frames. Regardless, it's pretty good. I would recommend removing some of the fireflowers. Especially the first one is almost impossible not to tank, and I really hate the one right after the P-switch cage too.

The second section is surprisingly easy, except for the very last smasher, which is a pain. Also, you can get sprite issues here if too many ghosts follow demo.

The third section is atrocious and you should feel ashamed of yourself raocow. Bad visibility, extremely unclearly defined block movements, tons of traps where if you swim ahead at the wrong moment you'll die and there's no way to tell beforehand, slowdown, sprite despawn, and you can get stuck at the very end in the top right corner. My suggestion is to cut it or redo the whole thing.

As far as difficulty is concerned, I only did the second half of the level toolless up to that final section. It seems tough but fine as is up to the last room.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Terry von Feleday »

yoshicookiezeus wrote:super vehicle 00C
Yeah, I know about the missiles, but I was unable to fix the problem without creating new and worse ones (making them spawn all over the place or hanging in the air or slowing the game down). I'm not sure why, I guess that just comes with being a shoddy programmer.

The other two things are news to me though and never happened in any of my test runs. °-° How does the first thing behave? What happens when you touch it? I want to know if it's just a glitched graphic or the boss trying to spawn something it shouldn't.

Also for the radish glitch: How does this happen? Shouldn't the radish scroll off the screen and disappear? There's no wall or anything on that side of the screen. Maybe extending the ground beyond the screen's edge would help?
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Karatekid5 »

I just noticed something. There are 26 levels inserted in the current baseROM (judging from the map), but there are only 25 on the list in the first post. Should I look for the missing one?
Terry von Feleday wrote:Also for the radish glitch: How does this happen? Shouldn't the radish scroll off the screen and disappear? There's no wall or anything on that side of the screen. Maybe extending the ground beyond the screen's edge would help?
Depends on what kind of scrolling you have. If it's being locked onto one screen, then make sure there's no horizontal scroll if you want to extend the ground. Because if there is horizontal scroll and you extend the ground, the autoscroll or whatever is simulating the moving during the boss fight, will continue to the screen you extended the ground to, causing cutoff. If you're using layer 2 (like on most of the level), then you should be fine extending it, as long as you don't scroll the screen to the extended land (if you didn't extend it a full screen, then again, they're would be cutoff land tiles)
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by ProfessorDemetri »

Karate: Sure, if you'd be so kind.

Also, I'll be making changes to these levels unless the original designers come here to say other wise.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Slit08 »

Hmm stupid question: Where do I get the Base-ROM with all the levels inserted? Cause I would be glad to beta test these stages (as I do for other games as well).
What about inserting a link in the forst post Demetri?
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by limepie20 »

There is a download link in the OP of the testing thread and the baserom inclusions thread.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Tails_155 »

I offer to touch up palettes when all is said and done, still.


Also, since when are the icy level settings solid? They weren't when I added them o_o; that makes them less functional...
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by raocow »

to be fair, that takes like three seconds to fix.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Karatekid5 »

ProfessorDemetri wrote:Karate: Sure, if you'd be so kind.
Compared the BaseROM to the list. The inserted level missing from the first post list is Starlight Resort (It's my own level, how did I not notice that it was missing at first >.<). Just wanted to make sure every level got checked.
Though, are levels that were recently submitted going to me added to the list once they're inserted?

Also, another suggestion for Super Vehicle 00C. Even though it's not really a problem, I just noticed since that you're using layer 2, the background looks very empty. If we're using the STIM Uploader patch + Layer 3 ExGFX, a scrolling layer 3 would also bring more feel to the level, perhaps a scrolling desert background.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by limepie20 »

Yes as the levels are submitted they should be added. I keep the wiki up to date with what's inserted and what isn't. That's probably the best source.
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by Tails_155 »

@raocow -- yes it does, but I'm confused why it and others are acting like 130 again... a lot of them are pointless as solid blocks...
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Re: Final Tweeking of Inserted Levels

Post by ProfessorDemetri »

Sorry I haven't been on for like a day. The internet has been, welp, broken.
It's fixed now.

Karate: Yeah, as more levels are inserted, they'll also be added to this list, and people will be able about them also!

As I do the minor tweaks, I'll be changing the descriptions for those levels from what they are now, to something like 'all clear' or something along those lines.
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