Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comments

[AUS]

AUS: Also, everyone seems to be commenting on how your ExAnimation is off or something. No one bothered mentioning the fact that there is an invisible coin block in the beginning that can be a dick move.

It can't really be a dick move where it's placed. It's even less a dick move when you realize that it's the path to the first dragon coin, as pointed out by the platforms under it, which form an arrow. ;)

AUS:
I honestly wasn't able to make it past here. Also, that diamond Map16 shape. I assumed you can jump on all four of those platforms. Sadly, it wasn't and I killed myself earlier in the stage with it.

Um? I made those go-through specifically because of this:

Also, I'm not sure if I like the look of the ledges that are turned upside down, as they look like you can pass through them, unless you can, and that's the point?

Which makes me think it should have been more obvious than you make it out to be? I don't know, talk to someome else about that, I'm not a big romhack player.
Although, your comments are very helpful, thank you. :)

[Leifytwig123]

Update September 15th
Here's what I have so far on my second sub-level:

[TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

TELL ME I'M NOT TOO LATE!
I restarted work on my level, these screenshots are from earlier in that development period.

This doesn't look suspicious at all...


OH MAN DEMO'S EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH!

Anyways, here we have my first attempt at the level which I've deemed complete udder garbage and I'm hereby redoing the entire layout and fixing many issues I was having in the original rom.

old smelly crappy level
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14987784/Level006original.png

This is the most I've got for now but I figure criticism would be nice.

new fresh still kind of crappy level
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14987784/Level006.png

I did not restart working on my level and do a bunch of stuff to lose my slot! I may be about an hour late just I fell asleep by mistake so I'm here to redeem myself.

[AUS]

AUS: Also, everyone seems to be commenting on how your ExAnimation is off or something. No one bothered mentioning the fact that there is an invisible coin block in the beginning that can be a dick move.

It can't really be a dick move where it's placed. It's even less a dick move when you realize that it's the path to the first dragon coin, as pointed out by the platforms under it, which form an arrow. ;)

AUS:
I honestly wasn't able to make it past here. Also, that diamond Map16 shape. I assumed you can jump on all four of those platforms. Sadly, it wasn't and I killed myself earlier in the stage with it.

Um? I made those go-through specifically because of this:

Also, I'm not sure if I like the look of the ledges that are turned upside down, as they look like you can pass through them, unless you can, and that's the point?

Which makes me think it should have been more obvious than you make it out to be? I don't know, talk to someome else about that, I'm not a big romhack player.
Although, your comments are very helpful, thank you. :)

^ contains entire last post.
I have listened to your comments and I have a new IPS with a few changes:
http://www.box.net/shared/fu7a2xlx6hgaclmxt0c7

Again, if global animations got turned off (somehow?) I apologize(?)

[keckcellent]

http://bin.smwcentral.net/u/9440/216%2Bpatch.ips

Here's my level for testing, about a day late but I put up some images yesterday for insurance. Still need some graphic swaps and I haven't copied over the message box texts because my next version will use 2.17.

I will try to test more levels this week but today is kind of my Monday and I'll be working the next few overnights. They kind of disrupt my routine. If anything, I will definitely post by Thursday night, getting the earlier IPSes then the more recently posted ones. In the meantime, if you're waiting for some feedback on your level, don't be afraid to test other levels too. Cup's level, while I haven't played the most recent iteration, is pretty amazing by the way. See you around.

[raocow]

The deadline is secretly until the next milestop date is set so you're on time.

[GanonTEK]

GanonTek:

Since you forgot to move the message box texts over when you upgraded the Base Rom, I forgot what to do at the end with the hopping statues from the first LTTP dungeon. Other than that, I only have minor issues to raise. The first Parrot Coin that requires you to jump through the broken wall has a column of brown blocks followed by a column of coins. I see no reason for the column of coins. You're just forcing the player to wait there until the P-Switch runs out. The other issue was a tricky area to get into when Demo is big. It was right before a door. There's some minor cutoff as well with the green/red blocks. The one thing I would change would be the vines. I think if you used chain ExGFX, it would be more fitting for the level. But I think you're pretty close to clearing so congrats. Its a good level. One last thing - your chest talks about the rare Cucko who was the only one who left Hyrule. This may sound like a very stupid point to bring up but the Rip Van Fish were replaced by Cuckoos in ASMT.

Oh that's right.. they were cuccos.. I forgot that. Ugh, I spent ages looking through a .bin which contained every sprite in ALttP XD I'll see what to do. I spent a while inputting the palette for it too :/ . Are there cuccos for rip van fish in a2mt? I'll look into the rest. Some good feedback there. Thanks :)

edit: not chickens for fish this time. i checked :) I think i'll just change the message to something else. That's the handiest thing

[VideoGuy]

I forget if I've posted a status update or not, but in case I haven't I promise I will have something to show in a few days, the last two weeks have been quite busy because of the start of school. If I've already posted something then never mind.

[ProfessorDemetri]

Guys, please read this.
Thanks in advance.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1570&p=111228#p111228

[Paralars]

AUS:

not much to say about it, still everything I mentioned before.
I just noticed something weird:

watupwithdat.PNG

I will be able to tell you more when you have more to show

CMBHQ:

Wow, I REALLY dig the atmosphere of your level, the music and the palette are so nice, and I love the entrance to the level.
I'd say it's the prime example of a fun and quality vanilla level.
If you aren't planning on adding much more, I'd say you are as good as ready for clearing.
Now some more detailled things:
- The purple palette gives a really ncie touch, but the other palettes are a bit weird.
The parrot coins and cement blocks palettes need to be less "cut-off", as they look really messy.
- Speaking of parrot coins, one of them is cut in half and only shows the upper half
- There is some cutoff with different colored mushroom platforms, especially near the midpoint.
I'd say it's enough to consider fixing
-

dundundun.PNG

I highly suggest making the mushroom stem that breaks through the ground layer priority enabled and let the player walk as if there was still ground behind it, because it looks like the stem is just in front of the ground. When you just fall though it, you get the impression the ground is cut off there in a weird way
- The secret exit room is nice and nicely hidden, but I think there are two problems:
If you fall down from the moving platform the secret is given away even if you don't notice the coins.
As soon as I entered the vertical room, I tried to orient myself, but I fell on a muncher before I even noticed what was going on.
=> To fix both things, I suggest replacing the pipe/key platform in the main level with an invisible teleporter exit on the lowest tile row, so you don't find the exit until you actually know where to fall.
In the vertical level, make Demo enter on a little platform that holds the key, so you can see what's awaiting down there before you actually jump.
- The disco shell guy doesn't seem to do much because he usually falls off before coming near me, just a little thing
- I suggest putting more of these fish in, they are hilarious when they just come flying from nowhere
- Is the bullet generator supposed to continue after the rail part until the end of the level?

[Cmbheadquarters]

How would I make the Parrot Coin flash darker?

[Paralars]

you make a palette exanimation to color 6,4.
Just make sure their look doesn't clash with the rest of the level

[Cmbheadquarters]

I've set the destination to 64 but It won't override it. It will with others, but not that.

[Ometeotl]

You have to turn off Enable the Original Game's Palette Animation under the Coin menubutton.

[raocow]

Question for you, pieman: on the manager site, when you give a percentage of levels cleared/inserted, is it going on the assumption that one level is one percent, or what?

[AUS]

AUS:
I will be able to tell you more when you have more to show

No offense, but do you understand how little help that is?

[yogui]

Oh hi there!
So I played all the games on the last 2 pages of this thread. I'm not too good with critics and reviews, but I'm good at finding glitches and oddities.
And sorry if I point out a glitch that someone else already find.
My review have two categories: GLITCH when it's a glitch that must be fixed, OPINION when it's just my personal opinion about things so you can keep them as they are if you want.

AUS :

It was a good level with nice tricks with layer 2 and sort of visual illusion with the ground. I liked it.
GLITCH

I know you are aware of that, but don't forget to fix the glitch with the graphics that use the global game animation because they are ugly. And the duck goal too.

Also the shell don't fall here, it move on the dirt. You need to make all the dirt tile act like 25. For exemple in this screenshot, the dirt tiles number 368 and 369 act like 1E4 and 1E2 so sprites can "walk" in (except Demo). Fix that please.

Cmbheadquarters :

Nice level. I like the calm night atmosphere. The main level is easy and very good. The sublevel however is different in term of atmosphere and difficulty but such a contrast make this really good.
GLITCH

Don't know why but the block is cut-off here. It's the fault of the block, not yours so it will probably be fixed when inserting. Edit: I think I know, it's because the coin is between two sub-screen boundaries. So you should move the coin one block up or down.
And I think you can disable sprite buoyancy because it create a small glitch when you throw up a shell off screen.
_
cut-off
_
bad palette for the fuzzy. And the enemies should be in the small circle but he appear on the line. I also saw a chainsaw falling. You should move your sprite and test your level to see if all the sprite are placed correctly when playing (line guided sprites are annoying and need a lot of test).
Why is there vine at the bottom of level 72?
And no goal point?
OPINION

And the flashing color of the parrot coin doesn't fit well with the brown color. You should probablychange that (you have to disable the original games palette animation).

And the color of the midway bar have bad palette.

Not important, but I find a little strange that with the bush on priority enable, you can sort of be cut-off if you pass from underneath. It's just a personnal esthetical opinion.

Cup :

Whoua! This level is amazing. I love it.
GLITCH

If you jump on the left, you can go on the invisible wall (and sometimes you die) . So make the wall higher and/or put a ceiling.
OPINION
Also if you want, you can fix the glitch when Mario scroll to the left on layer 2 tile by using a custom scrolling right block. But it's fine like it is, it's just if you want.

Gwaur :

It's a good level, level design is nice. Diggin the music.
GLITCH

You can walk inside the slope.
OPINION

The plant go behind the grass (but maybe it was on purpose).

This place is a little unfair because ennemies fall on you before you can react and dodge them.
_
You can avoid a part of the level by going up there.

Isocitration :

This level remind me of Rupture in reality, but it is easier, so I like it.
GLITCH
_
When you throw fireball while jumping or punch the fence, this happen. Look in the ExGFX in SP1, maybe you overwritten some graphics used by Demo.

keckcellent :

The level is not finished, but for what I have played, it is very good. I didn't find any glitch or problems. Don't give up, end your level!

Leifytwig123:

Heh? Your zip have a bitmap? I was exepting a ips. Whatever. Looking at the pictures... it look bad. There is nothing. You probably just started your level but... Well, I will be waiting for you to finish your level so I can play it and test it. ;)

Lv27MarkerMMan :

That level is... weird. But that's not bad. Just unexpected.
OPINION
This is very easy to farm life with the disco shell.
And the is some invisible power-up.
AND SILENT BULLET !!!!!11!11
Also the level is too linear, you just run forward. And linear level, especially with a autoscroll, can be boring.

Ometeotl :

It's a good level.The FG/BG clash a little, but the BG is awesome so that's okay. Doing a entire castle level just for one dragon coin seem a bit too much. And 4 times. It seem that they are new levels inside a level, so in the end the entire level is super long. It's not bad but if you die you have to return to the level and reclimb the tower everytime.
GLITCH

Bad palette for the radish (and the clood?).

The graphics of the ? block didn't showed this time.

Here, the jumping plant get stuck in the celling.
_
Some dirt tile are layer enable and some aren't. Choose one (I think disable would be better). And the D look cut-off.

The inside of the message box is green. Also no text.

Thwomp is missing some tiles when the Ball 'n' Chain is on screen. Are you using the no sprite tile limit thing?
OPINION

I know it's the original ground, but those black lines are not really beautiful.

Farming lives yay!

Demo eyes colors have bad palette.

What is that? Is this the normal graphics for the rotodisc? I find it weird, but whatever...

The block look like harmless on the top, but it still hurt you. But that's not important.

xjC0n :

Oh boy, this level was hard. And WHY did the no cheat patch was inserted? I wanted to retry the secret exit path (with all those freaking bullets and where I don't know where is the key), but because of that I don't want to play it again. Oh... so, talking about your level, it's good. The graphics are nice and the gravity gimmick is funny. The only thing I don't like is that there is no custom music yet.
GLITCH
_
You can get stuck here.

[Paralars]

AUS:
I will be able to tell you more when you have more to show

No offense, but do you understand how little help that is?

I gave you a fair response to your level the first time you posted something, and you hardly changed anything since then, so what new information am I going to give you?

[VideoGuy]

Question for you, pieman: on the manager site, when you give a percentage of levels cleared/inserted, is it going on the assumption that one level is one percent, or what?

That's calculated based on the number of levels cleared/inserted divided by the number of levels claimed. So it might go up or down based on how many levels are claimed, that's generally how I have it set up.

[AUS]

AUS:
I will be able to tell you more when you have more to show

No offense, but do you understand how little help that is?

I gave you a fair response to your level the first time you posted something, and you hardly changed anything since then, so what new information am I going to give you?

I'm not sure what it is you said other than the global animations are off (which doesn't seem to be my fault??) that's actually helpful? I'm sure there's more to say about my level than that, keckcellent gave me useful feedback.

I know you are aware of that, but don't forget to fix the glitch with the graphics that use the global game animation because they are ugly.

This isn't on me because it doesn't actually happen for me. I don't know what's happening between it being IPS'd and whatever, but if the only problem is ticking on global animations, they're on for me. So I can't fix something that isn't broken on my end? Do you see what I mean? Just go into lunar magic and turn on global animations for now until I find out what's actually going on.

tl;dr: The image malfunctions are purely an IPS problem so fix it on your end, I'm looking for suggestions within criticism so it's actually constructive and I can add to the level instead of take away.
ANOTHEREDIT: Better TL;DR: When it comes to making criticism of anything: Pop culture reference!

OK, back to my hole for now.

[Paralars]

Yo guys!
Imma be on a field trip until next Satur-/Sunday, I will take my laptop with me an continue working, but I don't know if I'll get wlan access or my power cable will work in Italy, so I might be limited to a battery charge timespan of offline work.
That's why I want to show something now already, even if it is still a bit messy.
http://ul.to/25yjqz4m
You need to go one tile down from Yoshi's house.
The actual tileset is only applied to the first few screens yet, as you can see.
The rest is just ugly plain gameplay.
I will add 2 more sublevels and some machinery GFX later.

[Cmbheadquarters]

Oh hi there!
So I played all the games on the last 2 pages of this thread. I'm not too good with critics and reviews, but I'm good at finding glitches and oddities.
And sorry if I point out a glitch that someone else already find.
My review have two categories: GLITCH when it's a glitch that must be fixed, OPINION when it's just my personal opinion about things so you can keep them as they are if you want.

AUS :

It was a good level with nice tricks with layer 2 and sort of visual illusion with the ground. I liked it.
GLITCH

I know you are aware of that, but don't forget to fix the glitch with the graphics that use the global game animation because they are ugly. And the duck goal too.

Also the shell don't fall here, it move on the dirt. You need to make all the dirt tile act like 25. For exemple in this screenshot, the dirt tiles number 368 and 369 act like 1E4 and 1E2 so sprites can "walk" in (except Demo). Fix that please.

Cmbheadquarters :

Nice level. I like the calm night atmosphere. The main level is easy and very good. The sublevel however is different in term of atmosphere and difficulty but such a contrast make this really good.
GLITCH

Don't know why but the block is cut-off here. It's the fault of the block, not yours so it will probably be fixed when inserting. Edit: I think I know, it's because the coin is between two sub-screen boundaries. So you should move the coin one block up or down.
And I think you can disable sprite buoyancy because it create a small glitch when you throw up a shell off screen.
_
cut-off
_
bad palette for the fuzzy. And the enemies should be in the small circle but he appear on the line. I also saw a chainsaw falling. You should move your sprite and test your level to see if all the sprite are placed correctly when playing (line guided sprites are annoying and need a lot of test).
Why is there vine at the bottom of level 72?
And no goal point?
OPINION

And the flashing color of the parrot coin doesn't fit well with the brown color. You should probablychange that (you have to disable the original games palette animation).

And the color of the midway bar have bad palette.

Not important, but I find a little strange that with the bush on priority enable, you can sort of be cut-off if you pass from underneath. It's just a personnal esthetical opinion.

Cup :

Whoua! This level is amazing. I love it.
GLITCH

If you jump on the left, you can go on the invisible wall (and sometimes you die) . So make the wall higher and/or put a ceiling.
OPINION
Also if you want, you can fix the glitch when Mario scroll to the left on layer 2 tile by using a custom scrolling right block. But it's fine like it is, it's just if you want.

Gwaur :

It's a good level, level design is nice. Diggin the music.
GLITCH

You can walk inside the slope.
OPINION

The plant go behind the grass (but maybe it was on purpose).

This place is a little unfair because ennemies fall on you before you can react and dodge them.
_
You can avoid a part of the level by going up there.

Isocitration :

This level remind me of Rupture in reality, but it is easier, so I like it.
GLITCH
_
When you throw fireball while jumping or punch the fence, this happen. Look in the ExGFX in SP1, maybe you overwritten some graphics used by Demo.

keckcellent :

The level is not finished, but for what I have played, it is very good. I didn't find any glitch or problems. Don't give up, end your level!

Leifytwig123:

Heh? Your zip have a bitmap? I was exepting a ips. Whatever. Looking at the pictures... it look bad. There is nothing. You probably just started your level but... Well, I will be waiting for you to finish your level so I can play it and test it. ;)

Lv27MarkerMMan :

That level is... weird. But that's not bad. Just unexpected.
OPINION
This is very easy to farm life with the disco shell.
And the is some invisible power-up.
AND SILENT BULLET !!!!!11!11
Also the level is too linear, you just run forward. And linear level, especially with a autoscroll, can be boring.

Ometeotl :

It's a good level.The FG/BG clash a little, but the BG is awesome so that's okay. Doing a entire castle level just for one dragon coin seem a bit too much. And 4 times. It seem that they are new levels inside a level, so in the end the entire level is super long. It's not bad but if you die you have to return to the level and reclimb the tower everytime.
GLITCH

Bad palette for the radish (and the clood?).

The graphics of the ? block didn't showed this time.

Here, the jumping plant get stuck in the celling.
_
Some dirt tile are layer enable and some aren't. Choose one (I think disable would be better). And the D look cut-off.

The inside of the message box is green. Also no text.

Thwomp is missing some tiles when the Ball 'n' Chain is on screen. Are you using the no sprite tile limit thing?
OPINION

I know it's the original ground, but those black lines are not really beautiful.

Farming lives yay!

Demo eyes colors have bad palette.

What is that? Is this the normal graphics for the rotodisc? I find it weird, but whatever...

The block look like harmless on the top, but it still hurt you. But that's not important.

xjC0n :

Oh boy, this level was hard. And WHY did the no cheat patch was inserted? I wanted to retry the secret exit path (with all those freaking bullets and where I don't know where is the key), but because of that I don't want to play it again. Oh... so, talking about your level, it's good. The graphics are nice and the gravity gimmick is funny. The only thing I don't like is that there is no custom music yet.
GLITCH
_
You can get stuck here.

The vine is there, simopply to make the screen scroll down. All though i should remove now, becvause the level is complete.

[AUS]

New IPS: A Layer 2 Romp.

[Cmbheadquarters]

@AUS:

Why can i step on the lower ledge but not the higher one?



the mushroom goes behind the background, make sure the layer priority for the bg is behind.



the whole FG in bg thing is bad. I can walk on the background, and the scale is off.
I also saw a transulsent block in the bg earlier on.

For example:



Good concept, needs alot of work (mainly astheticly.)

[Ometeotl]

I know it's the original ground, but those black lines are not really beautiful.

Working on the other things now, but yeah, that won't be an issue in the final level. Just placeholder for now.