What the Hell? (public release like it was no thing)

[FroggerbobT]

Great hack from what I've seen so far raocow!

This hack is pretty fun to play, once you get past realizing that sand forest theater is gonna take some time. I'm currently sitting at over a thousand deaths while using savestates, but it's really improving my SMW playing skills.

Though some levels make Kaizo look easy.

[cozyduck]

Unlike what the other responses told you, this jump is clearable with the mole alone.

but really, the random nature of the koopas always screws me over. It's incredibly frustrating.

thats what makes this jump harder than its supposed to be, if its just the moles alone then its possible, but you need to rely on whether or not the flying koopas arent spawning at a terrible position that gets in the way of your jump, since contact with the flying koopas will be instant death.
there is no way for you to respawn the mole unless you redo the whole 'get shell and go through wall' thing.

i said that the jump is possible, it obviously is, but having the random generator causes problems with it

Oh you're right. The flying koopas are by far the worst part of this level. So far, I've worked out on how to reach that part with my flower intact, altough I can only pull it of in about one out of four tries, altough I am getting more consistent. The jump itself is pretty much a 50/50 situation as of now. I usually try to clear the jump asap, and basically hope for the koopas not to spawn in my way, which as you can imagine is not exactly a reliable strategy, but if I have an extra hit it isn't too tragic.
And yeah, I'm still trying to beat it. Maybe tomorrow is the day, I'm certainly getting closer. But really, sometimes I curse my stubbornness.

[atruong18]

stubbornness is great, though.
makes it more rewarding when you finally beat it.

most of the occasions i played the level, the flying koopa is ALWAYS in the way, but since i didnt really have the time to continue staying at one spot and figuring it out, i had to start savestates for my videos in order to finish them on time.

though i may or may not make a savestateless version of my runs (past 1-3) depending on my situation at school and other things im working with

[cozyduck]

stubbornness is great, though.
makes it more rewarding when you finally beat it.

most of the occasions i played the level, the flying koopa is ALWAYS in the way, but since i didnt really have the time to continue staying at one spot and figuring it out, i had to start savestates for my videos in order to finish them on time.

though i may or may not make a savestateless version of my runs (past 1-3) depending on my situation at school and other things im working with

Yeah, you really can't be on a schedule if you want to play like that. I remember the final level of Luigi's adventure taking me over a month (altough I didn't play daily).

[kilon]

I remember the final level of Luigi's adventure taking me over a month (altough I didn't play daily).

Wow, now that is stubbornness.

[iDelanex]

I'm savestating it up like it was no thing. Closed Quarters Mario :d
I prefer gimmick hacks to be honest. A hack like EVW, at least in my opinion, looks much better compared to some kaizo-ish hard hacks. At least I havent find any muncher corridor yet :)

[cozyduck]

At least I havent find any muncher corridor yet :)

Yeah, the moment this game pulls one of those is the moment I start save-scumming.
Seriously, I can't stand that type of difficulty at all. I mean, it's nice and dandy if you have a couple of rather precise jumps between spikes/munchers from time to time, but when your level consists of 90%+ of damage tiles, there really is no more fun to be had, even if you are a masochist. This is honestly what renders most kaizo hacks unplayable to me (besides invisible coin block traps, of course). As far as I played, while WTH's difficulty easily rivals "kaizo difficulty" (well, at least easier kaizo, it's certainly no CoC), it's at least a bit less badly designed.

A suggestion for raocow (pardom me if I am too harsh): You really oughta replay RttC and compare the hardest levels there to your game. So far, I really think you have the potential to create some genuinely challenging and fun levels, but the line between challenging and unfair is thin, and while you certainly try to stay away from blatantly kaizo-ish level design, you're not quite managing yet imo. One of the biggest problem is that you, as the creator, don't have to memorize anything, but new players do. Your levels are for the most part only manageable if you know exactly what's coming, and already have worked out the best path. Now, a bit of memorization and trial and error is alright. But your hack is way too extreme in this regard. I would suggest that you get more testers next time (and that you actually listen to them). This would also help with the sprite limitation issues, which you must have known about, but simply chose to ignore it seems.

[atruong18]

I mean, it's nice and dandy if you have a couple of rather precise jumps between spikes/munchers from time to time, but when your level consists of 90%+ of damage tiles, there really is no more fun to be had, even if you are a masochist.

why did I suddenly remember about mario's masochistic mission, level 'abyss of pain'?

Now, a bit of memorization and trial and error is alright. But your hack is way too extreme in this regard. I would suggest that you get more testers next time (and that you actually listen to them). This would also help with the sprite limitation issues, which you must have known about, but simply chose to ignore it seems.

keep in mind though, that this is an experimental hack. so it was expected to have a lot of problems. which is why raocow wanted to create a WtH2 that "will be better than WtH1," in terms of difficulty and gimmicks.

but yea, need to take in consideration the players themselves when making a level. what is possible for one person may be extremely difficult for others (like for say.. Tls4 not knowing holding the jump button lets you run through small gaps)

[iDelanex]

I agree with the guy above me completely, RttC is what people should look as a fair difficulty or maybe even the VIP series (3rd and 4th are better examples). Anything that surpasses those should be considered a savestate game and Super Mario World would never require you to savestate.

I just finished WtH with savestates, it wasnt that hard but I'm way above the average player as I'm able to play devil hacks like pit of doom, Moltov Mario world and so many ahole hacks. I cant imagine how hard it would be for casual players who just tried to play your hack cause they like you so much.

The same way raocow cant play metroid advanced hacks cause he cant perform advanced moves like bomb jump, I believe most of your community cant play WtH and that's a shame :( So much potential.

[FroggerbobT]

But this hack, and wth2 are supposed to be hard.

Say the name out loud and you'll find out why.

[raocow]

LIke I said in GVirusG's thread, I think I should stick to playing, and leave the hacking to people with some common sense!

[atruong18]

well everyone has to start somewhere, its just that you are taking the reverse approach. instead of something simple and working towards good, you are going with complex and working backwards. and from experience, you learn how levels are created and what makes all the pieces connect together to make a good hack (proof of this is the very thought of WtH2 to improve 1).

of course, this doesnt have to be immediate, id say an effective way to learn more, since you already understand how hacks are made, to play more 'good' mario romhacks as usual, but you will consciously or subconsciously learn from them and have a broader understanding.

it takes time, dont know how many times i heard or seen people give up very early on something before improving

[cozyduck]

LIke I said in GVirusG's thread, I think I should stick to playing, and leave the hacking to people with some common sense!

Hey now, when we criticize you, it's because we care. Criticism should never be a reason to give up. It just means that you have to try harder.

As a matter of fact, your levels are indeed very creative. We shouldn't forget that the majority of hacks out there is not good at all (and that's putting it nicely). You already have a solid basis in terms of ideas, you just need to do way more fine tuning. You have to revise, revise and revise again, until you get to the point where the original level becomes hardly recognisable.
If you're not willing to do that, then I'm araid you'll never be able to reach the heights of hacks like RttC, TSRPR/2, etc. But you do have the potential, because unlike most hackers out there you do have creativity, and that is something which you can't simply learn, unlike the technical aspects of producing a quality hack.

[wellington-lxiv]

Playing the level "Shockhaus 5000," I got to the end and there was no goal in the posts... Multiple times ;.;

Screen cap:

The yellow pipe returns to the green pipe, but the goal still doesn't appear.
Going backwards enough just restarts the last autoscrolling portion.

I even watched the TLs4 LP to make sure there wasn't some trick being played.

Did I break something?

[raocow]

.. wow. And going through the pipe DOESN'T make it appear?

How... how does that even work ?! (in the malfunctioning sense)

[tatanga]

The only thing I can think of that might cause this is sprite limits.

[atruong18]

the pipe was to get rid of the extra 'unnecessary' sprites on the screen to have the goalpost appear if it wasnt there.

but for it to not appear even then, multiple times, thats weird indeed.

i would try to scroll the screen left and right until it reappears, but still, a weird malfunction

[MarthX]

I like your hack.

Nice custom sprites, lots of level creativity and the good kind of challenge. Opposed to the bad spam munchers everywhere kind. I find hard hacks more interesting than easy and in my experience, making hard hacks without relying on muncher spam is more difficult to create than an easy hack where the player breezes through it. It's easy to make easy (power ups everywhere and not many enemies) and easy to make very hard (No power ups and pixel perfect jumps) but difficult to make hard. Too many people treat SMWC guidelines as gospel. Their guidelines are good but not for everyone. Follow them too closely and your hack will be too easy. A problem most SMWC hacks suffer from.

[wellington-lxiv]

.. wow. And going through the pipe DOESN'T make it appear?

How... how does that even work ?! (in the malfunctioning sense)

The only thing I can think of that might cause this is sprite limits.

I figured that it was a sprite limit thing... And I agree its very strange - scrolling and using the pipe to reset both did nothing.
After toying with it some more, the only thing left that makes any sense is that I somehow broke the rom file (zsnes did crash while I was playing at one point). I guess the next time I get a chance, I'll have to download the ips again and play from the beginning.

[yoshicookiezeus]

So I just finished this, and I have to say that apart from a few rooms (mostly the Magikoopa corridor in shockhaus 5000, the swimming room with autoscroll and giant layer 2 spikes with odd scrolling in the next-to-last level, and the falling segment with the layer 2 scrolling that kept killing you in the final castle), it was a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed that one puzzle level in world 1; the one where you kept changing if the level was underwater or not (though I think you kind of used the wrong empty tiles for those custom blocks, since they turn into doors when you press a p-switch...). I am very much looking forward to the sequel.

(also, in response to something you mentioned in today's 101 video: Spritetool isn't hard at all. In fact, it works just about exactly the same as Addmusic, which I assume you know how to use given all the custom music you put into this hack.)

[LF Ent]

In the Happy Winter Level place thing, there's the one part where you climb the moving grey ropes and dodge falling lakitu projectiles, right? Like, when I jump through the rope, it pulls me into the wall and I get crushed and die. Is that supposed to happen, or am I just ignorant?

Screenshot:

Definitely enjoying this, though. Ha ha ha, some of the sprite swaps are perfect.

[raocow]

It's totally a 'feature'

*cough*

*cough cough*

[LF Ent]

It's totally a 'feature'

*cough*

*cough cough*

Yeeeaaahhh... :P

Never mind, though. I just started the level over, which I didn't mind at all because WtH has, in my opinion, really good level design. I mean, I haven't gotten far in the game, but so far I think you've done a really good job. It manages to be difficult without being frustrating -- and I rarely see that in games.

[SpikyRat]

Ugh... You know a hack is hard when you screw yourself over when you're using REWINDS. Damn Sand Forest Theater to hell.

Edit: YES! YEEEEEES! MAY YOU GO BURN IN A PIT UNTIL THE END OF ETERNITY, SAND FOREST THEATER! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH!

tl;dr-Got past Sand Forest Theater. :D

Edit 2: Sand Forest Feature? XD

[Delmaru]

Wow, while randomly searching, I see you've used my Mario Golf: Title Screen Port for your hack. I'm definately going to have to play this now. I just get all excited when I see something I've made in another hack. I may not like Kaizo hacks, but this actually looks good. I'll take a look in the next few days.