SMWCX - Credits

[SAJewers]

That was a bit hard to watch.

[Alice]

Can't say I ever expected to see SMBX's collision quirks to be used for an entire level like that.

[Mandew]

Neat level, basing itself entirely on one of SMBX' weird engine quirks and thinking outside the box.

Part of me wishes that there was more ideas included with that, but the quirk that the gimmick is based on doesn't really lend itself to much more than what was presented, now does it?

If only moving blocks didn't kill the player, then there would be so much more to do with this idea.

[Arctangent]

I think my main problem with the level is that I don't think I'd actually be able to see if the moving layers were moving or not, because I certainly couldn't on the video - I had to go on faith that raocow wasn't going too early.

Actually, no, my main problem with the level is definitely the end. In a level that's basically entire a gimmick based on an alternate control scheme and the one other instance of the control scheme normalizing having an easy way back into the blocks, why does the level make you do a pretty precise jump that can easily be screwed up by brushing against the other direction when the entire rest of the level did no set up for that kind of game play at all. Seriously, that's so out of the left field and non-inconsequential that no doubt basically every player is going to die once at the end, likely several times, forcing them to play the second half over and over again until this random-as-hell jump finally clicks with them. Which they have to, y'know, beat the second half to practice, since it's literally the only thing in the level like that.

Honestly, I can't help but feel that that was only added to be an utter dick to the player. I just can't think of any other reason why the level ends like that instead of just forcing you to do a tricky, precise exit out of the blocks on an elevator ala the mid-point, but harder, so that a concept introduced earlier in the level is actually used. If it even needed to do anything other than make the last bit, say, a gauntlet of precise challenges with the level's gimmick, anyway.

[Willhart]

The moving layers being barely noticeable did make for a very trippy effect. Good thing the eye is very good at noticing movement. I think it worked overall really well, especially with the music. As raocow did say though, every playrough was pretty much the same, but that did make it good to learn. Also nice for it to have most of the hard parts near the start.

[TaviTurnip]

Echoing sentiment about visibility. The tileset was fine and I could tell when the pillars were moving... I just couldn't tell when they weren't moving (as long as the player is moving), but the fact that raocow could tell when they stopped mostly gives me reason to assume it's okay to play. I would have made stopped pillars red or moving pillars red or something probably on principle, but other than that, that level was cool xD I've never thought about using collision that strongly for an idea before. I dig it.

[Mandew]

Honestly, because of the constant movement of everything, it might be that the video quality was affected in a way that makes it less telling.

[AuraLancer]

Yeah, I'm willing to bet it was the video quality. Having them change to another color or texture when stopped isn't a bad idea though.

[Sebby19]

Or just have the ends of the moving wall a different colour.

[ztarwuff]

Oh gosh. I remember play-testing a level for the A2XT project which had a similar gimmick, except you were dodging things that fell from the sky. Super Flatagon, I believe it was. I asked the author to keep everything on one screen so players could see what it was they were dodging, but then I never got round to playtesting the revised version.

This level has a simialr visual problem but this one's related to the blocks that move up and down. I couldn't tell whether they were moving or not, except for the ones that clearly didn't take up the entire height of the screen.

[SAJewers]

Oh gosh. I remember play-testing a level for the A2XT project which had a similar gimmick, except you were dodging things that fell from the sky. Super Flatagon, I believe it was. I asked the author to keep everything on one screen so players could see what it was they were dodging, but then I never got round to playtesting the revised version.

This level has a simialr visual problem but this one's related to the blocks that move up and down. I couldn't tell whether they were moving or not, except for the ones that clearly didn't take up the entire height of the screen.

Unfortunately, the D/L link for that appears to be dead, and I don't have a copy, so that level is probably never gonna be seen. :/

[alleightbits]

I knew I recognized that painting from before!
Haha, jeez. At least it was on the short side.

[ft029]

I can't agree with this. Not wanting your well-designed level that was tested to be a proper difficulty level to be completely broken by an overpowered cape or a Kuribo's Shoe is perfectly valid.

You do realize that the entire point of a game is for the player to enjoy it, right? The designer may intend one thing but letting the player play how they want will always trump it since the player is generally playing games to have fun. Forcefully limiting them is just bad design.

Does that mean all kaizo levels are bad design because they don't give you an easy way out and always force you to go through certain paths? No. Sometimes the designer forces you to do certain things because it isn't as fun to fly over all of the challenges. Many people get an extreme sense of satisfaction after beating a kaizo level, and the designer must let the player beat the level legitly before that.

[Arctangent]

Does that mean all kaizo levels are bad design because they don't give you an easy way out and always force you to go through certain paths? No. Sometimes the designer forces you to do certain things because it isn't as fun to fly over all of the challenges. Many people get an extreme sense of satisfaction after beating a kaizo level, and the designer must let the player beat the level legitly before that.

I'd definitely say they're full of bad design by nature. There's a reason why there are things called kaizo traps, and honestly design decisions like those are probably the main reason why they're niche, not the fact that they're difficult.

[Leet]

Does that mean all kaizo levels are bad design because they don't give you an easy way out and always force you to go through certain paths? No. Sometimes the designer forces you to do certain things because it isn't as fun to fly over all of the challenges. Many people get an extreme sense of satisfaction after beating a kaizo level, and the designer must let the player beat the level legitly before that.

I'd definitely say they're full of bad design by nature. There's a reason why there are things called kaizo traps, and honestly design decisions like those are probably the main reason why they're niche, not the fact that they're difficult.

Go look at the levels in the actual Kaizo games, they aren't that bad. I can't think of anything I'd call a "bad design decision" in them. Kaizo =/= IWBTG (which isn't bad design either given that that was a comedy game) and isn't really that reliant on traps or jokes.

"This isn't something I want to play" doesn't mean "bad design" either. Sometimes a game is about giving the player freedom, sometimes it's about challenging them. As long as a game accomplishes its intention or does something interesting, it is a success.

[Alice]

Does that mean all kaizo levels are bad design because they don't give you an easy way out and always force you to go through certain paths? No. Sometimes the designer forces you to do certain things because it isn't as fun to fly over all of the challenges. Many people get an extreme sense of satisfaction after beating a kaizo level, and the designer must let the player beat the level legitly before that.

There's a difference between playing a difficult game fully prepared for it to be difficult or even unfair and one level in a game being absurdly difficult compared to other levels in the game.

[Arctangent]

As long as a game accomplishes its intention or does something interesting, it is a success.

At that point, basically every game's a success. You can't really create a concept that literally appeal to no one; the point of distinguishing between "good" and "bad" design is to distinguish elements that either enhance or take away from the experience for most players - and not "most players" in the sense of the lowest common denominator, either.

Like, there are a bunch of NES games that are remembered fondly by certain groups despite cheap death traps and expecting you to do everything to anything in hopes of finding a secret - like, say, Milon's Secret Castle. But even if a niche likes games like that, it doesn't mean it's suddenly not poor design to expect your player to toss bubbles at every single block in a room.

As much as a lot of the original Kaizo hacks are artfully done, they still pull tricks a bad design like hiding information from a player that leads to them dying due to factors that had no way of seeing coming ( like the classic invisible ? block stopping your jump and dumping you into a pit ), requiring items from early in the level to complete it, and requiring the players to do finicky maneuvers that can easily go awry and leave the player unable to do complete the level ( juggling the baby Yoshi and the shell on a moving platform, anyone? ).

And, maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't Kaizo have one of those innocuous-looking areas surrounded by two walls that you could easily jump on top of, but when you do you hit an invisible coin block ... no matter where you jump from, leaving you literally unable to even die aside from through time out?

Like sure, those things are well designed for causing your player frustration ... but trying to break the player is one of the worst things you can do. Stuff like that doesn't really belong anywhere outside of its niche for players that like have a pile of their own hair sitting besides them and a bloody scalp.

[Leet]

As long as a game accomplishes its intention or does something interesting, it is a success.

At that point, basically every game's a success. You can't really create a concept that literally appeal to no one

Not really, because so many games don't actually have concepts. Big Fish Legend, most of Call of Duty, etc. They don't actually reach to anything. And most people are content to enjoy things without considering if they are interesting, so interesting is more nuanced than "did at least 1 person like it". Poor design is entirely relative to the ideal in question. And masocore is an entirely legitimate ideal. Even if that masocore exists in an endgame or postgame that goes over the top, I like finales that are a bit too grand, even if I'm unlikely to have the patience to beat them myself.

I can't really think of a single thing that I could call a consistently bad design decision. Everything has its place.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

This might be the one time where even though raocow liked a level, there was still outrage in the comments.

For clarification: if you're playing the level in SMBX (as opposed to watching a blurry YouTube video), you can see the pillars moving just fine, especially since you can anticipate your own back-and-forth movement.

[TaviTurnip]

With respect to raocow, if even he can time something consistently and operate within the danger zones, it is probably something that is conveyed easily to the player. That's why I gave it the benefit of the doubt as far as when the pillars stopped moving.

[Arctangent]

This sure is an anti-LP game that raocow's LPing.

[Money]

Man this level just straight up doesn't look fun at all, I'm sorry. I could feel myself getting frustrated at the design just watching it (that lava jump has no fucking excuse for itself, it's just "let's sap the player's lives because they didn't press the jump button on JUST the right frame, and let's have them fight against a hill in their lead up to the jump.") So many of the challenges look like they're just the player fighting the engine, rather than any actual intentional design, and many of the bits that seemed intentionally designed just seemed like they were created for the sole purpose of being unfair to the player. Ugh.

Also I'm sorry, and this is gonna sound super dickish, but there's no real way to describe the request for someone to not play a level on camera because you want it to be a ~reward~ but "masturbatory." Pretty much everything about this video has greatly bittered me on this game.

[tirakai]

Of course it's Central doing this crap. Of course.

[Money]

It's good to know our last impressions of this game are going to be a boring, uninspired, frustratingly designed, over-long grind of a level instead of something that actually feels like a good ending (maybe? I mean I guess I'll never know.)

[Ometeotl]

You know what's better than a convoluted password system? Just make a few levels and use midpoints.

Not to mention the audacity of asking people not to show off the final level and making them do more work to avoid showing off the password.