Testing and Development: Deadline-one week after comments

[limepie20]

When IS that fabled new version is supposed to emerge, anyway.

It's Systemkrash's job, not mine. It should be up to date; I just don't think it has been released.

[Diortem]

F9 - SyStemkraSh5642:

Ah, I see. I'll block it off with a wall then. Thank you for your feedback.

I didn't seem to have problems with that cause I saw the colored platform on the right. Other than blocking it off you could also have the flames appear from the other direction, or place it further to the left so the screen won't scroll any farther. That way the player knows there's nothing there.

I like the Mondriaan style you applied to this level. For some reason I was missing out on green considering this is a switch palace.:) But that might break the style.

One technical note: you can reduce the level size quite a lot by placing the map16 tiles in larger blocks and have one big white background tile that covers all gaps. It should save you quite a lot.


F8 - Pheonix:
I have to agree with Limepie here, that along with the music. I think the level can be more interesting, but this kind of stuff has been done more often. There was one section at screen 0A where a grinder constantly despawned. One thing you could do is also making the layer 2 move horizontally or diagonally it would become more interesting, but that again will require more complex asm coding.

[Fireyblaze]

This is embarassing.

Well, I originally intended to finish my level a little after school was over, but my harddrive started to die on me. Long story short, I saved the hard drive and took a while to get around to spending money on getting the data recovered.

Almost nothing significant has changed about my level. I've tweaked a few places to be less dickish, added coin trails to blind jumps, and made the chest harder to get to. Fixed some glitches and stuff as well.

Hard criticism is needed. I am hard headed and will argue that my level is done, but you need to tell me what is wrong with it.

[Jesuiscontent]

My level is called "Extraordinary Flip Notes!"

Thanks to Paralars for the name. It fits the tone of the hack in general. Reasoning behind the name (absolutely massive spoilers):

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/8562/lvlname.png

Genius name (not even kidding)

[Jesuiscontent]

fireyblaze :

I recorded my quick playthrough of your level , (here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYBKbflh ... e=youtu.be)
I figured it might be useful if you want to get some possible "first reactions" from a player. However there is one major issue that cut my recording a bit short : there is a pretty annoying hitbox glitch with the boomerang bro and the fire bro (and possibly other stuff as well). Basically I died twice at points where I shouldn't have (see video). My guess is that it has something to do with the slowing gimmick but I'm really not sure.

Another thing : why are there so many coins that force you to wait around for P-switches to end? A lot of them seem unecessary and are likely to just annoy the player.

Stuff I found after a few more tries :

invi.jpg (70.34 KiB) Viewed 5634 times

Remove the coin just above this block : if you hit it without collecting the coin first it creates an invisible block like shown in the picture

break.jpg (62.33 KiB) Viewed 5634 times

You can easily get to here with the springboard and bypass what is expected from you.

Also there is a minor graphical glitch when you bounce off the tofumen (see video)



About the level design itself, to me the slowing gimmick is a bit under-utilized, so-to-speak. I think it would allow some enemies that are usually forgettable to become pretty dangerous and interesting if placed at strategic places, because of the slowing gimmick. What I had in mind was a paragoomba, placed near the end, would actually be quite tough to deal with with reduced speed and jump height. Just my 2 cents !

[Fireyblaze]

fireyblaze :

I recorded my quick playthrough of your level , (here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYBKbflh ... e=youtu.be)
I figured it might be useful if you want to get some possible "first reactions" from a player. However there is one major issue that cut my recording a bit short : there is a pretty annoying hitbox glitch with the boomerang bro and the fire bro (and possibly other stuff as well). Basically I died twice at points where I shouldn't have (see video). My guess is that it has something to do with the slowing gimmick but I'm really not sure.

Another thing : why are there so many coins that force you to wait around for P-switches to end? A lot of them seem unecessary and are likely to just annoy the player.

Stuff I found after a few more tries :

invi.jpg

Remove the coin just above this block : if you hit it without collecting the coin first it creates an invisible block like shown in the picture

break.jpg

You can easily get to here with the springboard and bypass what is expected from you.

Also there is a minor graphical glitch when you bounce off the tofumen (see video)



About the level design itself, to me the slowing gimmick is a bit under-utilized, so-to-speak. I think it would allow some enemies that are usually forgettable to become pretty dangerous and interesting if placed at strategic places, because of the slowing gimmick. What I had in mind was a paragoomba, placed near the end, would actually be quite tough to deal with with reduced speed and jump height. Just my 2 cents !

Well, the hitboxs on fire bros and boomerang bros have always been bigger than normal. And I didn't edit ANY graphics in this level. The Tofumen might just be a problem with my version.

The reason I that the coins make you wait on the third coin is because the vine block would become a coin as well and cause cutoff from the vine if you were to collect it. The waiting from the chest is not intended, but I can't really do much without ruining a part of the puzzle.

And yes, the slowing gimmick is underutilized, but that is because I didn't want the level to be extremely dickish. If I made this level how I wanted to, everyone would hate me for it. And I did try to make some enemies become more dangerous when you slowed, particularly the venus fire traps and fire bars. I enjoy your suggestion for the paragoombas. I might find a way to work them in, but I am limited by the large amounts of sprites already on screen in most places. Plus, I find enemies such as shell brothers, hammer brothers and such to be more dangerous since the best approach to killing them is to just rush them before they even start throwing. If you are slow, you can't do that.

Well, I've just added a little more to it. Extended the ending of the level a little by adding a hammer brother, boomerang brother and a firebar.

I will post another version after some more comments have been made.

[Slit08]

I think you overfocused your level on items, really. Try and orient the level less on puzzle-esque 'trials' and moreso around the gimmick.

I have to agree with Alex. Be a bit more creative and imaginative. ;)

[tenta]

Sorry guys..had to do stuff again for some days. Can anyone of you remind me of what i have to fix please? (The name is - La joie de glisser)

[Septentrion Pleiades]

Sorry guys..had to do stuff again for some days. Can anyone of you remind me of what i have to fix please? (The name is - La joie de glisser)

I think black as the color of the dotted line was the main change we expected. You should really keep notes if you can't remember.

[tenta]

Sorry guys..had to do stuff again for some days. Can anyone of you remind me of what i have to fix please? (The name is - La joie de glisser)

I think black as the color of the dotted line was the main change we expected. You should really keep notes if you can't remember.

Yeah i will do that. Nice name btw. lol

[Septentrion Pleiades]

Also, I checked the clearing thread and many of the recent posts were about your level. Another issue was that you had 6 parrot coins. The last two in your level were A2 on screens C and 12. just delete one of them. Atfer that, If you want to put a parrot coin where it was, just move them about your level(try to keep them in order). I don't think the one on screen 0 adds anything, really.

[shdwdrgnix]

I've been quite sick lately, so all I've been able to do is fix what was mentioned before I will try to get everything finished very soon.

[swirlybomb]

First 'real' version of the intro level (or at least, one of the concepts for the intro).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14760273/Talkhaus/A2MTintro.ips

There are some things that'll need to be done still, but this is basically the gist of it so far.

[limepie20]

I've been quite sick lately, so all I've been able to do is fix what was mentioned before I will try to get everything finished very soon.

Oh, thanks for telling us. I hope you can get something ready soon!

[Jesuiscontent]

First 'real' version of the intro level (or at least, one of the concepts for the intro).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14760273/Talkhaus/A2MTintro.ips

There are some things that'll need to be done still, but this is basically the gist of it so far.

Haha, that was pretty funny. I'm assuming the leek at the beginning of the 2nd sublevel is temporary because you don't have a code to make the enemies die on contact without being invincible? It probably shouldn't be that hard to make if so.

[swirlybomb]

......

Wow, I completely forgot to mention that in the previous post, but you are correct, it's a placeholder for now, because I wouldn't know how to do the enemy thing (or at least, not yet).

Removing the HUD is also something I'd like to do, but I also don't know how to do that (yet).

The text is also obvious placeholder for now, because what the text should be isn't finalized and I wouldn't want to have to remake all the tiles.

[Pheonix]

Putting this here, if only because I haven't got any comments on this iteration and I really want this thing to be done and done.

[Cup]

Alright, here's my idea for mishi!

http://www.mediafire.com/?5391s6nu6moal93

If you'd rather just watch a video, I have that too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3blNzA1 ... e=youtu.be

But yeah, just tossing ideas out there. Of course it's meant to be an à la carte boss, so it doesn't need to go with that ghost house. I just threw it there because it shared a color scheme. I still don't know what I want to do with the foreground. What I have was meant as filler, but I don't know what I can do that would improve it. Suggestions are very welcome.

How are we approaching the music for sibling fights? Are we using Wyatt's SMarisaW port or is someone still planing to make something custom (another lullaby mix?)? What I have playing is filler as well since I'm not sure what the plan is.

If someone knows a lot about sprite limitations, I was running into a rather large problem in those last few screens, and even with only one sprite over 3 or 4 screens I couldn't get them to spawn. I don't know why it was only causing a problem towards the end. I have sprite memory set to 10 since that's the best I found for the sprite I chose to work with. It makes the ending rather bland, so I don't really know how to end things. Again suggestions welcome.

The transitions are fill as well, since I imagine people are going to want to use cutscenes.

Let me know what you think of this direction. I think it needs some work, but I also think it has potential. Something's missing though. It feels a little too barren! Help me put a finger on what it is...

[limepie20]

I think we are planning on using Wyatt's port.

So, all the ideas you have for the level are very good! All the components seem to be constructed. The level should be redesigned, though. What the level is missing is difficulty and challenge. You have created a nice range of sprites to work with; you just need to design the room to be fun and challenging.
I also feel it should be shorter than that. I think it should feel more like a boss platfprming section and not a third part of the level.

[raocow]

Honestly I dig the forground, everyone would need a pretty 'simple' forground of that type to make it as unobstrusive as possible.

[Cup]

Did you already play it or is that from the video? Cause I gotta say, that's very hard for me! haha I mean yeah, I can make it a lot harder if you'd like me too, but it took me quite a few tries to get that recorded in one take. Probably 15+ lives. It's easily as hard as my ninja level. I do some pretty specific stuff to make emeies line up like that, and with a whole new mapping, you have to remember people will be rather unsure of what everything does. So if I bump it up too much, there will be a lot of cheap deaths while people figure out what acts like what.

If you haven't played it, I suggest it though! The gameplay is actually something I consider to be one of the stronger points at the moment. But it comes at the loss of not having much on screen. Some more specific suggestions might get me more in tune with your vision, because I have a hard time seeing what you suggest.

(and as much as I love Super Marisa World, and Wyatt's port, it's very hard to make it go with this kind of boss! So I'm a bit worried!)

[Septentrion Pleiades]

Putting this here, if only because I haven't got any comments on this iteration and I really want this thing to be done and done.

Is there anyway you can add rotodiscs or firebars? It seems like they would be at home in the level.

I kept thinking many things were hard because of the low ceiling when there where no difficulty otherwise. Try to think of more creatively designed obstacles.

EDIT PREBOSS ROOM

A cabinet doesn't seem like something you should spin jump off of, even if it make sense to us hackers.

[Jesuiscontent]

@Pheonix

First of all I want to let you know that what you (probably) expect for the winged blocks parts is not really intuitive. I died a LOT of times at this place (see spoilered pic below) because I wasn't sure if the timing of the blocks was screwed up or if I was supposed to do something else to get through.

I eventually figured that you had to jump here so that you land back on the 2nd winged blocks but it wasn't obvious at all (to me at least).
The rest of the level (aside from the winged blocks parts) was fine to me, challenging but doable, so good job on that. As Sept said though, you might want to add some more variety in the obstacles.

Also I think getting hurt because of this (see pic) is wrong/misleading, so I suggest you delete one column of tiles of either the layer 2 spikes or either the layer 1 wall.

@Cup

You know, I think a big part of a traditional boss fight is that you are never safe and you always have to do something if you want to survive. To me your level would feel more boss-like if there were less safe spots and Mishi attacked you with more stuff like bullet bills (NOT a generator though) at places where you currently don't have to do anything.

About the difficulty, well.. I basically one-shot the level without ever getting hit (okay I watched the video before but still), so I agree with limepie, you should make it a bit harder. Your ninja level and your MaGL level were a lot harder to me, for instance.

The sprite issues you're talking about are almost definitely due to byuoancy (sp?). You don't need it in this level (I think) so turn it off.

Also I really like the graphics. Just putting that out there!

[swirlybomb]

I can't really provide in-depth critique like others, but that Mishi thing is pretty kickin' rad.

[Cup]

Sprite boyancy is a good suggestion, but unfortunately, that's not the solution! That was just me playing with stuff and trying to break things. When I run into something that doesn't work and I don't know why, I normally just throw the room at it until something breaks and that helps me identify what is causing the problem. I turned that one a few tests ago, and it caused no improvement or detriment so the nature of the problem lays elsewhere. This does mean I might be able to add some podoboo's though! which has been on my mind for a while.

Bullet bills have been on my mind for a while as well, and were in the original plans, but for almost every sprite I placed in that level, I had to battle sprite limit problems. I may just be me needing to research what causes such problem and how the slots get filled. If so bullet bills are something I'd like to add.

And just an idea clarification here, I think where we're not mesh vision wise, is I was actually thinking "boss levels" sort of things! Literally! Something that was boss fight in name, but played like a level, because it's different and while not totally original, it leans towards slightly unique. I feel that making the level you two would want would start reaching into the sprite spammy difficulty of S Mario's sprite spammy levels. While I love S Mario, it's not the kind of game I can play without save states. I'm not disagreeing however! The level I had in my mind was slightly more difficult that this, but sprite limits forced me to rethink some things.

So far I've gotten 4 people's feedback on the level design, two have said they want it more difficult, and two have said they found it pretty fun as is (for what it's worth, those two played without seeing the video). I'm still working on sprite limits, so a newer version will almost certainty be a bit harder, but if you want to offer a few specific suggestions as well, like JeSuis did limepie, I can test those out as well.