An SMWCentral Production: A game about some eggs

[Ranylyn]

I didn't want to make an ass of myself again, so I avoided posting on Youtube today. But I do have some comments.

Blind. Jumping. No really. Not only can you not really see the first jump of the level, but I'll bring up the Layer 2 part. The parts that had coins were occasionally less than helpful (leading to the very edge of the safe spot as opposed to the middle, which caused deaths) and it looked like its intent was for you to die to scout on ahead, because there really wasn't any warning as to where was safe with those munchers, and when on a moving platform like that, you don't have time to look around. And you need to get past that part to get the midpoint.


I realize that this is the postgame, but I have my take on varying difficulty levels:


Legitimate Difficulty Grades:

Too easy:
The first half of Vanilla SMW falls into this category. Basically... there's no real danger. Minus some input errors, there's no way to die. Every jump is easy enough, and there's enough powerups to keep you perma-big due to not getting hit.

Easy: Most of the rest of SMW. You can die but it's not engineered to kill you.

Medium: The harder parts of SMW's main game. That megaspike fort is a prime example. A tad tricky at times but you can do it in one shot without dying with a little caution and observation.

Hard: Difficult to clear without dying if you've never seen the level before, but realistically possible. Some parts of Bowser's castle and world 7 come to mind immediately.

Very Hard: Calling Tubular a legitimate difficulty is a long stretch in my books as it violates some "do not's" of difficulty, but it's the only Vanilla example I can think of at the moment. A Very Hard level is designed to kill the player. Odds are, you'll need some luck to clear it without dying, but once you know where everything is, you'll be able to clear it every time affterwards.

What disqualifies levels from the above difficulty. Any romhacker who does these as a parody, I can forgive (YCZ is a wonderful example) but anyone who does these otherwise needs a kick in the shins.

- Blind Jumps. SMw did have some, true, such as the first level of the special world (right hand side of screen 1) but the difference is how they're used. A blind jump needs to fulfill 2 critera to not be classified a dick move. There shouldn't be anywhere to land BUT land (or water) and there should be no enemies to land on/beside. One of the Void levels, I forget which, had a perfect example of "there's nowhere to land but land, but you land right next to an enemy and need to rely on luck to not land where it'll kill you."

- Reliance on luck. See last part of Blind Jumps for an example. Basically, the player should never be forced into a situation where their fate is determined by chance. Examples are blind jumps near enemies or other obstacles, enemies not spawning (Koopa hopping with an absentee koopa has killed many an LPer) Or placement-on-arrival (such as the moving floors in a ghost house; I've seen levels where you arrive by blind jumping to a spot where the hole can move below you, and you have no way of knowing where it is.) This last one can be fixed by having all transitions (Not just screens/rooms/checkpoints, but also any major jumps that basically start a new section of the level) safe spots to rest at. Invisible enemies are another example, but they get their own section. As well, you have to factor in moves like Albatoss bombing (When you have nowhere to stand but one tiny platform, a single albatoss can spell doom due to how long the bombs last) and podoboos phasing through the floor.

- Reliance on glitches. P-Switch Cloning, Spinjumping under a block when big, you name it. This was a problem I even had with ASMT, but no one would hear me out back then, either. Point being, a "glitch" means "an unintended consequence of the programming." Glitches aren't legit, for good or for bad.

- "Cheap Death Generators" basically, this applies to basically anything specifically engineered to be as precise and murderous as possible. Muncher mazes with a 1 block high gap are a good example. Perhaps physically possible, but lacking in any fun. You may be asking "why is this not a legit difficulty?" Quite frankly, because even experienced players don't want to play it. It's simply not fun in the slightest. Other Cheap Death Generators examples include invisible enemies. See also Reliance on Luck.

- Powerup Filtration. Forcing a player to be small to enter a door or robbing them of their powerups upon entering a level? It's just saying "I was too lazy to make a legit level so here, have some artificial difficulty!" Nothing like sporting a cape and a fireflower and stepping into a level to be small again. More than anything it's annoying, but it can also be quite cheap, especially in levels where it gives you a cape for one specific part of a puzzle, and then rather than add a ceiling, filters the cape so you can't break the rest of the level. Ceilings, people, you don't need to filter capes, jeez!

- Invisible enemies. You can't avoid what you can't see. It's one thing to have an enemy phase behind Layer 1. It's another thing For you to be in front while they're behind and still get hit. It was a dickmove in other hacks (Spinning Sawblade in Castle of Boswer in Hyper V at the end of the starting area, fine example) and it still is now (SMWCP's level) I mean, you're basically getting hit by what's on the other side of the street, which is bad enough when you can see it.




So what does that say for this level? Disqualified from "very hard" due to blind jumps with enemies, munchers, and thorns, reliance of luck (as raocow said, being pushed by the munchers, and consider the timing and placement of the second one coming in) and of course, cheap death generators. While it's very possible with memorizing, it's the fact that it's designed to take so many lives to do so.

It's great that you enjoyed it, Rao. It stopped me fro nitpicking on it in the comments. But as for me, if I see levels like this, I whip out the cheat codes because it is simply not worth my time.

[rubberfishy]

Maybe it's because I've never played it but to me the donkey kong country graphics always look terrible.

[Ranylyn]

Maybe it's because I've never played it but to me the donkey kong country graphics always look terrible.

DKC graphics look great for DKC. But Mario isn't DKC. They're both on completely different graphical levels, and putting Mario in a DK level looks just as bad as putting DK in a Mario Level. I'll never understand why people insist on crossing them.

[Argumentable]

I'm more surprised that there seems to be a lot of people who haven't really played DKC(2)

[HuFlungDu]

Yeah, it's like porting touhou music into SMW. I'm sure it sound nice in touhou, bug good God is it annoying in SMW.

[OverHyped]

I think it's pretty ironic that this is my username and I'm coming out under a rock to comment on SMWCP.

I've never touched rom hacks nor should i have a say on what is too difficult and what isn't. However, it seems to me that Mario ROMhacks are targeted towards players who know the SMW engine like the back of their hand. So in order to keep the targeted audience awake during levels, ROMhack designers need to introduce a challenge that was nonexistent in the original SMW. I will agree with the opinion that there is a fine line between good and bad challenge, but that line varies greatly between every single ROMhack player out there.

Personally i thought today's bramble level was in the good challenge range. Especially that point in the level that gave you a little hole in the ceiling to jump over the bullet bill and even warned players, who were playing the level for the first time, to press R to look ahead. I seriously don't see why this level is getting criticized to hell on not only YT but even here.. Didn't raocow die more on his OWN LEVEL that he designed himself? Of course that was forgivable, but this level? FUCK IT AND EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR.

[kilon]

I think it's pretty ironic that I'm posting with this username i came up with in 5 seconds to comment on this hack... On to the point then!

Yet you made this account 21 months ago..

[OverHyped]

I think it's pretty ironic that I'm posting with this username i came up with in 5 seconds to comment on this hack... On to the point then!

Yet you made this account 21 months ago..

Welp time to edit.

[S.N.N.]

I seriously don't see why this level is getting criticized to hell on not only YT but even here.

Because once people have their opinions formed about something, nothing will change it. The next level could be the reconstructed body of Christ, but if there were a pixel of cutoff in the corner or something, the usual crew would come up with the same complaints (mostly talking about the YT comments).

[kil3]

Are there some screen mode shenanigans going on in that level? Foreground, background (brambles), background (clouds), status bar... that's 4 layers. Either that or the status bar was edited to be sprites instead of layer 3.

[Kewne]

I consider myself part of the YT complaints crew (and never bothered to register here, hi I guess) and I don't really understand the hate for this level either. It's the special world, it can toy around with things so long as the end difficulty isn't totally unreasonable.

The muncher run has a midpoint in front of it; you'd really see me complaining if it didn't, but it does. The abundance of powerups really does give me the impression that you were intended to abuse the invulnerability so I think it's pretty safe to call it a muncher run. raocow seemed to die way too often from his fear of homing things, not from it being unreasonable.

Pretty much the only problem I have is the platform+muncher segment in the second screen. You basically need to die at least once to know which path you have to take and you can't really jump after you see/parse the munchers. It's only once because you fall down, but once is still one time too many IMO. Requiring prior knowledge is the #1 thing I have an issue with because you will die/get hit if you don't have it, no matter how good you are.

And of course, floating munchers are still floating munchers when it comes to design aesthetics... I wouldn't consider this a good level design-wise, but it's plenty playable. I can think of many, many levels with worse gameplay flaws.

[Wyatt]

Are there some screen mode shenanigans going on in that level? Foreground, background (brambles), background (clouds), status bar... that's 4 layers. Either that or the status bar was edited to be sprites instead of layer 3.

Just opened up the game to check and yep, the status bar is on the sprite layer.

[The Doctor]

I seriously don't see why this level is getting criticized to hell on not only YT but even here.

Because people need to learn that you can't judge a game until you've played it. Watching a guy on YouTube play a game and edit the footage may be entertaining, but you miss out on so many little things you can only get from playing the game. It's the equivalent to talking to someone with text vs. in person -- you miss out on body language, tone of voice, posture, etc.

The other thing is that a lot of people watching raocow are not exactly challenge gamers themselves. Now that's not a bad thing, but the thing is us challenge gamers enjoy being frustrated. When raocow is getting annoyed and starts ranting in French swear words it means he's having FUN. There's a huge difference between "Oh god brambles" frustration and "Cave of Lost Pride" frustration that I think a lot of people don't notice.

[S.N.N.]

And of course, floating munchers are still floating munchers when it comes to design aesthetics... I wouldn't consider this a good level design-wise, but it's plenty playable. I can think of many, many levels with worse gameplay flaws.

There were actually two message boxes in this level in an earlier version (and perhaps still in the final version) which went as follows:

I couldn't resist
putting a floating
muncher in this
level. forgive me.

also its alive and
will eat you every
chance it gets

and when the second one appeared:

And you know
what's better than
one?

Two, of course!

Time to start
panicking...

I think he actually put them in as a joke of sorts, and then turned it into a genuine design idea.

[MrDeePay]

I seriously don't see why this level is getting criticized to hell on not only YT but even here.. Didn't raocow die more on his OWN LEVEL that he designed himself? Of course that was forgivable, but this level? FUCK IT AND EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR.

Because raocow's fanboys like to judge levels/games based on how well he plays through them unless he does something so mind-numbingly dumb that they have to go against him. Virtually anything made by raocow (Rupture in Reality) or panders to him (ASMT, though it got hammered for the same things as SMWCP, but in different fashions) tend to get a pass.

[Fapnoob]

I want to know what was behind the shovel charlie near the beginning

[limepie20]

I liked the level. Well the first half. It seemed like it was designed well and fun to play but the second was stupid. It was just basically panic and run forward and be lucky. And why did he use a floating muncher? Geez.

[MrDeePay]

A handful of coins and a Flower/Mushroom that would've been moreorless lost on the return trip from that section (assuming the Chuck wasn't destroyed, though the blocks he was standing on were indestructible turn blocks.

[Dollop of Mayo]

I seriously don't see why this level is getting criticized to hell on not only YT but even here.

Because people need to learn that you can't judge a game until you've played it. Watching a guy on YouTube play a game and edit the footage may be entertaining, but you miss out on so many little things you can only get from playing the game. It's the equivalent to talking to someone with text vs. in person -- you miss out on body language, tone of voice, posture, etc.

The other thing is that a lot of people watching raocow are not exactly challenge gamers themselves. Now that's not a bad thing, but the thing is us challenge gamers enjoy being frustrated. When raocow is getting annoyed and starts ranting in French swear words it means he's having FUN. There's a huge difference between "Oh god brambles" frustration and "Cave of Lost Pride" frustration that I think a lot of people don't notice.

You're saying that communication via text is basically an invalid form of communication when compared to talking in person with your analogy. You're saying that the very text that you just typed down is unacceptable as a medium of communicating your views. And your views are that you have to play something to judge it.

You can judge a game without playing it. A judgment is just an opinion in the end. And you can form an opinion on anything for any reason via any exposure to that thing.

Now, can you judge something FAIRLY based on not having directly participated in that thing? Yup. Now, can that judgment be colored by experiencing it third-party? Absolutely. And yes, some people just ape the person they're judging vicariously through. But not all of them.

Some opinions formed while not directly experiencing something are, in fact, invalidated. But not all of them, not by any means.

[Chompie]

This level looked like a lot of fun. A lot of fun that I would have given myself like four different savestates to get through, but enjoyable.

In particular, I was amused by the homing muncher of doom (which by the way- did I hear you calling it a total ass, raocow?), looked like the sort of thing I'd enjoy learning how to deal with if I didn't have to wait long in between attempts.

I guess what I'm saying is that for someone better AND more patient than me, this looks fun. As for me, it'd still be enjoyable with checkpoint spamming.

Seriously, the most annoying things about levels where I die a lot are- waiting for the death and level-enter screen transitions to finish, and re-doing parts I'm fine at.

I'm going dangerously far from what I meant to be writing earlier.

[Test Pilot Monkey]

...but if there were a pixel of cutoff in the corner or something...

I find it funny now that people complain about cutoff, since I noticed that even Nintendo did it in the original game.

[McGack]

the way some people react to raocow's reaction, its like they haven't played a game before, everyone has their own little ways of saying "augh i should have (x,y,z) / gah why am I not doing this, ive done it like 7 times before" and so on and so forth.
Since its the Special world i think the difficulty was alright the jump at the start and the long coin grabby jump were the only things i didn't like about the level.

[Burgers]

A little late, but man, Santa Mario was amazing. That is the kind of stuff I love to see in hacks, where they change even the way progression through levels works. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for platformer puzzles that progressively get more difficult.

The sewers/space was... eh. Alright.

Super Bramble Donkey Kong Country Land Place looked great, but...really? A homing flying muncher? At least if it was the "Phanto" type it could be more easily dodged. A HOMING flying muncher is just cruel in a level like that.

[AUS]

I liked the floating munchers. I also like to point out that they're floating.

P.S. why in all the versions of this were the coins that appear when you burn something or hit a block or whatnot never fixed to actually look like the normal coins that you pickup?

I'd rather mention that then the fact that the floating munchers are based off vanilla ones, probably something harder to go about changing.

[The Doctor]

You can judge a game without playing it. A judgment is just an opinion in the end. And you can form an opinion on anything for any reason via any exposure to that thing.

No, you really can't. A game is intended to be played. Judging a game by watching it is like judging a book by tasting it.