*X3 WINNER CONGRATS TO ENJL* the one with the seasonal allergies

[helucard]

Gosh, I'm glad that it was enjoyable to play AND the message was passed to not worry about reading everything I put in the file. I really didn't wanna trouble you with the dissertation there after playing a level twice over.

Couple of things I wanted to say though - In testing I had a couple of issues I decided to make changes for. One of them was boss health. That was, in fact, toned down from 30. I realised that it was way too much and shoved each "phase" down by 2 hits. While I figured that'd be enough, that's coming from a person who experienced the Longer Version and so everyone else still has to deal with the... actually still kinda arduous trial. If I had to redo this, I ABSOLUTELY would've listened to Rameaus suggestion and knocked it down to like 15, with 5 hits per increase in bubbles instead of 8...

Second issue I had in testing. That last box before the painter fight up on the ledge had an ice flower if you reached it while big. Problem - Freezing the enemies and throwing them against a wall did NOT trigger the layer entity death sequence needed to spawn the star. So I turned it to a fire flower instead and made the path to it a little easier since it was no longer a unique powerup.

Honestly though, I am absolutely amazed that I hit this rank in the contest. Something to consider, this was my first SMBX level. AND a water level. You have no idea how much of a boost that is to my self confidence that the combination of those two SOMEHOW squirreled up this high.

Thanks for your absolutely stellar SMBX tutorials, Enjl.
Couldn't have done it without you.

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

Expectations have been set up, so tomorrow's going to be a thing, and 1-2 days in the future will be, as well.... With that in store, time for my comments.

15th - Sunken Temple of the Coast: This is a very nice level. It actually has a lot of ambition and brazenness in its design base, but that's definitely not a bad thing. The level looks great, and the resprites are spot-on. The music works, but there's potentially less common music to be used in here that will convey the mood slightly better. The construction itself is very nice, and it's here that we see the brazenness on display. A water level in most of its construction, which is typically loathed, being used to good effect. The secret exit is located near the end, and brings you to a different (and rather well done) boss, which is normally one of the main sins of Mario World levels, but this one is of high enough quality to play twice. There's also walking fish.

And while it sticks to a few fundamentally flawed ideas, this level is just so well constructed that I love it. Definitely my favorite water level now, and easily one of the best in the entire contest. Excellent job.

X/Audition Level: Ice Bridge: This level's not nearly as impressive. Beetlebelle Harbor has a more interesting landscape than this. This is just an ice level home to very little personality, and just... isn't great. The dance party is funny, but I want a little more out of my levels.

11/50 design, 5/30 creativity, 10/20 difficulty, and 9/20 gimmicks, for a total of 35/120. Yeah, this one is not impressive in the slightest...

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

- Level Comments -

15th Sunken Temple of the Coast: I found this to be an alright level, although I wasn't a fan of the whole "you have to play the level twice to get both stars" thing. I feel like the level could benefit by replacing the Hammer Bro encounter with the boss, and having the dragon coins - or I guess I should say fish coins - lead to a non level ending star.

On the topic of the boss, I found that it started to feel a bit tedious after a while. I think my least favourite part was how fast it moves. With how much health it has I feel like it would be perfectly fine to let the player get five or so hits on the boss before having to move out of the way (and I feel like it would be satisfying to be able to do that), but with how fast it moves, combined with the fact that it shoots bubbles that block your shots after every hit, you can only really get one - maybe two - hits, before having to move, resulting in this fight being a rather long and drawn out affair as you swim around in circles upwards of 20 times.

'Low Effort' Ice Bridge: I feel like maybe something like "amateurish" might be a better descriptor of this level; when I look at this level I imagine the hypothetical level maker to be someone who's enthusiastic about making a Mario level, but they don't quite have a grasp of what makes a well designed level, so they just threw together a bunch of things they thought were fun and submitted it. For what it's worth, Mr. Hypothetical Level Maker, I had a good time here.

As for numbers, I estimate that I'd give this something like 20/50 design, 10/30 creativity, 10/20 aesthetic, and 15/20 gimmick.

- End of Level Comments -

[MonkeyShrapnel]

Honestly though, I am absolutely amazed that I hit this rank in the contest. Something to consider, this was my first SMBX level. AND a water level. You have no idea how much of a boost that is to my self confidence that the combination of those two SOMEHOW squirreled up this high.

I was hoping to be able to say I had the best scoring water level in this contest, alas, you have smashed my rankings you jerk.

Really though, nice job, a good water level is a tough pickle to tackle.

[PapyrusSemi]

I really am out of material for intros.

15^th: Sunken Temple of the Coast
That was a nice level, and it shows both the good and the bad of Nintendo adding screen-wrap to a theoretical SMM3. The level also, like basically every other one here, looks pretty nice with its blue motif applied to (mostly) vanilla assets.
The concept of using water physics to create a puzzle level which doesn't involve weaving through a nest of spikes is always welcome.
The walking fish are glorious as always, though I don't get why the Spike Tops are blue. One thing I love is how both endings have a kelptomaniac ruin things and you have to clean up their mess, be it Link letting those vandals in, or you collecting the dagadons which were the only thing keeping Tightfisted Crunch sealed away.
As for the Tightfisted battle itself, it looked okay. I don't know if I would've noticed the health bar if raocow didn't point it out, since most of these games don't give the boss visible health and it's just a case of "shoot it until it dies."

X^{Low Effort}: Ice Bridge
This level being considered Low Effort only makes sense if you're guilty of your level being hastily cobbled together or otherwise crappy enough to be at the bottom of the pack and you just submitted it so that your name would be on the box.
Which mine is.

Also, entirely unrelated side-note, I personally classify a "joke level" as a level which barely takes itself seriously, regardless of the quality therein. In this sense, Ponty Mython and the Grrroly Hail (my entry) is a joke level, as is I Always Knew I Wasn't Made For Sports, and Guts Man's Asteroid from MaGMML2. Essentially, I quantify jokiness by the level's tone rather than its design, but some levels (such as kamirex blast) are designed in a way that you can tell they're completely ironic

[Heavy Sigh]

Interesting how the 'experience path' did absolutely nothing to characterize the reality of the level itself and relied on constant monologues unsupported by anything in the level to bond with the player/viewer (like how it talks about cloudgazing at one point, which would have been a great place to actually make some interesting sights out of the cloud platforms used in the level, but instead just lets the point hang without going anywhere with it)'.

I guess making it look so bland was on purpose? Feels kind of like the author came up with the right side path first and then threw together the left side last minute to justify the title.

[Mata Hari]

I've felt this way for a while but I think this is the ideal time to express it: the default SMBX text box seriously blows for readability when it's more than a couple lines. Seriously look at this madness



Each line is too close together and each word is too far apart! It isn't actually that much text, but my eyes swim over it like a sea. I have ADD and use a reading ruler to pace myself with books, but it's not like I have actual dyslexia or anything. People put far too much fucking text into their SMBX levels anyway - that's probably half the point the level is trying to make - but is it too much to ask that I don't have to actively focus to actually read it?

[Leet]

oh boy i have a lot to say about this that will make people very mad at me (this is me speaking from past experience with awful attitudes on the internet, not inventing external pressure to sound more provocative)

here's what i'll say for now

1) this is the most advanced game design think since the tier 1 levels (from my memory anyway)

2) the level is aware of this and commenting on it very literally, but everyone else's insistence on strictly dividing the components of a game between "gameplay" and "not gameplay" (which this community inexplicably and stupidly has decided to call "experience") is fundamentally regressive and ahistorical, although this is exactly what you would expect in a super-insular niche such as "mario levels within the confines of ~2 engines"

3) people really should not state "deliberately invoking a reaction besides 'good' in fiction is just like manipulating and hurting someone irl" as in zatsu's review

[Crow]

i think it was really neat how the whiteblackred zone relied mostly on sprites that were already whiteblackred to begin with

[WinterSweater]

This level reminds me a lot of Doki Doki Literature Club. Also I'm happy the right side is not required since it was way too hard

[Valentine]

people say "weird how all the judges gave this level a consistently high score but the staff didn't".

I'd give it a pretty high score too, the gameplay part is really good! I also genuinely despise the level because of the writing (and other things which i will not mention yet).

[Zephyr_DragonLord]

...This is so much more than I really could have anticipated. In just about every way. I wasn't remotely expecting this.

here's what i'll say for now

1) this is the most advanced game design think since the tier 1 levels (from my memory anyway)

I wonder if this is for "Trash Level", for "Hell", or for one of the other ones. Because each of those have very different implications, and each of them interesting.

Anyways, BEFORE I go into the level proper, I meant to get on a soapbox anyways, so let's bring in another subject, and probably one that's going to draw a lot of eyes to me, in a number of contexts. I'm going to cut to the point with this one.

Atmosphere is a key part of level design, and makes an otherwise equivalent level so much better. This is most striking in the Sunken Mansion of the Deep, but lots of levels in the 11th tier, if not all of them, have utterly incredible atmosphere, and each clawed their way up here thanks to no small part due to that. Do you need to make the level fun to move around in? Yes. But the whole mood can help with that significantly. If the level creator can properly envision how the player thinks, you can get away with some flubs in the level itself, and can make the good parts of a level shine so much more. Looking and sounding nice are two big parts of it, and it's just divine when the chord hits just the right note.

Now, I can talk further about this, but there's so much to say about the level today.

14th - Hello! I'm one of those 'experience' levels. Come on in and let's chat a bit!: Kerkec, you're incredibly brave. There's at least five things here that have never been done before, and just being an experience level is not one of them. Before anything, I do overall like this level. But there's lots of peaks and valleys to scour though.

The left side of the level's fascinating, even more so than just a standard experience level. The level itself tries to socialize with the player, and that alone is a new territory. Which makes the pointedness and missed opportunities of the admittedly shallow and one-sided conversations much more insightful then they might appear. They're not only attempts to make the player feel at ease, but also showing that the level is insecure. This area does look nice, too... a bit of evocation of a sanctuary. Though I would definitely like to also speak to other entities rather than the level, but that's just me, eternally seeking variety. Maybe the level's better for having only... the level. Maybe not.

The right side is a whole other beast, though. I'm not much of a fan of the level's commentary here, and it quickly falls apart and gets hostile. It's likely the point, but there's just something about it that makes me feel... wrong. The hellzone itself is actually *more* evocative of feeling than the sanctuary on the good side is. There's lots of genuinely good gameplay here, though the final shaft section is too unforgiving for its own good, being on the winning side only by a razor-thin margin. But overall, I DO like the platforming here. ....But I despise the false positives that the 'level' brings us though, anyways. Somehow, being told to feel happy is so much more harmful than the stuff beforehand is. Again, that may be the point, but I don't have to like all of the package. Then there's

the fact that the star DELETES ITSELF FROM EXISTENCE on this side, which is actually brilliant, and something that no level before or probably after is going to do.

On a whole, this experience is nigh-unforgettable, and it is best experienced by going through it completely. Very nice work, and congrats on being one of the highlights of this contest, and the busiest place on the Tier 11 hub. I would also give it a high score.

[Kuribo]

I never post but I want to vehemently disagree with raocow re: this being the "wrong medium" for this concept. There is absolutely no other context where this could be done, imho. Or at least not without losing so much of the specificity behind the message. This level is precisely a commentary on smbx contests and level design meta within the talkhaus/extended smw/smbx extended universe. It's also a commentary on unspoken human wants/needs behind entering one of these contests in the first place, and making certain design choices. This isn't a pretentious level like what that judge audition level from a few days ago was making fun of. It isn't faking it to try to impress. It knows what it's saying. It can do this while also being ridiculous and overwrought, bc that's also part of the point.

It's easy to understand at this point why there's a kneejerk reaction against wordy levels, or more generally levels that set off those alarms of trying to be "serious art." Most of them don't pull it off and even if they do, not everyone has the patience for something that uses the mario toolbox for something that has almost nothing to do with mario. But this is one of the rare ones that actually has a point and communicates it effectively if you're willing to parse what it's doing and not just dismiss it out of hand as wordy, pretentious hackery. And it's important to note that this level is playing off those exact expectations and standards, which the title makes clear right out the gate.

[Crow]

also time has not been kind to : ) because now they're a minecraft youtuber who cheats in speedruns and has a suspiciously large underage fanbase

[Grounder]

dream may be an asshole, but to insinuate he's a groomer is too much

(assuming i'm not massively misreading the vibe here)

[Leet]

regardless of the joke that's sailing over my head, the idea of calling it "suspicious" that 12 year olds like minecraft videos is pretty funny

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

- Level Comments -

14th Hello! I'm one of those 'experience' levels. Come on in and let's chat a bit!: I'm not sure I'm a fan of what this level had to say. I think I felt similarly to Zatsupachi, in that it felt like this level character was being manipulative. I think I feel similarly about this level as a character as I do to Dr. Weil from the Mega Man Zero series, who is a character who I find to be well written but who I absolutely despise, although I don't dislike this level (the character) even remotely as much as I do Dr. Weil.

As for the "real level" part of this, I found all of these sections to be more or less alright, although with all of them together I found it to be a fair bit too long for my liking. I wasn't particularly a fan of the section with the boo circles and fireballs, and I also wasn't a fan of the final ascent. For the latter it didn't help that I was playing as Luigi, which definitely made things harder; since Luigi bounces higher off of the springs you lose time on each spring compared to non Luigi characters, and it also makes it possible to bump into the Parabeetles from below and die if you don't move out of the way in time.

At some point I considered switching characters, but by that time I had already mostly learned the timing for the jumps as Luigi, and so I figured it would be best to stick with him. Now that I've seen the section played as someone that isn't Luigi though I feel like that was definitely a case of sunk cost fallacy, and I probably would have been better off switching.

I find it a bit unfortunate that I had a not so great time with the final section, and with the ending being something I found to be the opposite of satisfying, I left this level feeling quite unenthused.

- End of Level Comments -

[Rixithechao]

So I played this level myself a while back, and now I'm coming from Tavi's and Zygl's stream. I haven't watched rao's playthrough of it yet, but I wanted to take a moment to get my thoughts on the level down after having a bit more time to mull over what I said in the stream chat, and trim those thoughts down to not a novel and a half.


imo the left side's vibe was great and I found the bit at the end genuinely relatable and touching. I could talk about my preferences for the start of the right side or what I think would be the most effective way to execute this kind of commentary for general audiences, but overall I think the buildup still works for what it's trying to do and when things pick up it's pretty engaging stuff. Ultimately my only real issue with the level is that the twist at the end of the right half came at the expense of the episode team.

Now, aiui, the author's intent wasn't to spite them, the judges, or anyone else involved in the hosting/organization of this contest. So with that in mind... I'm completely down for more experimental stuff like this.

I hope that Kerkec isn't discouraged by everyone's reactions and continues to make more stuff that exists for self-expression/commentary/just its own sake. Whether it be more SMBX levels or episodes, indie games, or whatever medium they prefer, just keep pushing the envelope. However, I also hope that the most out-there stuff is standalone so it has the complete freedom to go all out, and for any future contest entries or collab contributions they find ways to challenge design conventions and expectations without being a headache for the people running those projects.

Same goes for anyone else wanting to work outside the collective comfort zone, really -- having more people trying to do more than just make a Good Level or a Fun Awesome Boss isn't an inherently bad thing. It's just when it gets to the point that one's creations for a larger work are deliberately counter-productive or outright frustrating to incorporate into said work.

and with that said rixi please just press submit already there were five other posts published in the time it took you to write this one and you have dogs to attend to

[PapyrusSemi]

rhut rhoh, raocow, four rushrooms, four and a ralf rocks, and two of the raff's least ravourites!

14^th: Hello! I'm one of those 'experience' levels. Come on in and let's chat for a bit!
Oh, hello, Bob from Literally Every Friday Night Funkin' Mod Ever. Fancy seeing you here, in a level contest whose submissions closed before Friday Night Funkin' was any more than ideas on paper.
Funkin' jokes aside, the first segment of the run portion was alright, just a standard issue run-from-lava, though the double-twist dead end was real fancy. The Para-Beetle parade looked tricky, but alright. The bumper shaft, though... Bumpers are already pretty janky in SMM2, but here, yikes.
The third part was pretty neat, though, combining the lava walls from the first area and the Para-Beetles from the second. I'm just glad that the beetles don't automatically vaporize the instant they scrape the lava. Roacoe (not fixin' it!) seems to have forgotten that Para-Beetles go up if you stand on them. Which is basically their one defining characteristic aside from their solid heads. Or, at least, I would've made the one I'm on go up. Either way, from there, the good times just keep on grrrollin'.
The Para-Beetle shaft was cool enough, and it's another one of those areas where you're uncertain whether or not the lava is rising until you see it's gone up a full block. Though, I was half-expecting one of the saws at the end of part 1 to fall on the wrong side. The lava escape shaft, though, is just full of bruh, and makes the Bob's Onslaught comparison all the more fitting. The ending was also real abrupt, but I think that was the intent.
As for the "experience" path, I think the real payoff was the fireside chat with Rao we all got to have, though like his main complaint with experience levels, it was entirely one-sided. Also, the high-pitched beeeeeep sure ain't agreeing with my earbones, either. But, honestly, given how my empathy is all over the place, the ending mighta actually made me a bit sad if I was the one holding the controller.

Also, I'm pretty sure that like a fifth of the province of Ontario is on fire and everyone here in the rest of it is getting smoked out, so my fellow Ontarians, I hope you're all holding out fine and not too spooked by the smoke fog and the sun literally running red.

[Shard1697]

regarding specifically the bit where the level tells you you're not getting the secret star: this is part that didn't work for me, and it reminded me of a bit in undertale genocide route where

flowey makes fun of you for doing all this out of a sense of completionism.

the main reason both fell flat for me is that I'm not a completionist. that's not the reason I did undertale genocide route and it's not the reason I did the 'hard' path of this level. I'm just challenge driven.

also it's funny for the level to say "I can't think or feel anything" and then 2 text boxes later "It makes me sad"

[Classtoise]

I can't even say "damn this sure was a level" because I'm like...85% sure it doesn't count?

I will give a legitimate piece of advice to anyone attempting to write or produce anything; calling out that Thing might be unpopular or bad in a meta sense does not stop it from being bad. And calling it out is, generally, just calling attention to the thing that might not be very good. "These types of levels aren't popular and don't do well!" is not going to make the level more popular or do better. If you know it won't do well or isn't popular, then simply submit a different level concept.

If you are doing it as a gag? Don't. It's not charming, it's just playing off people's sympathies for cheap emotion. If you are doing it because you legitimately believe these things? Have more faith in yourself! Telling someone you already know they'll hate it just predisposes them to be sour towards it because YOU aren't giving it a shot...why should they?

[Leet]

"These types of levels aren't popular and don't do well!" is not going to make the level more popular or do better. If you know it won't do well or isn't popular, then simply submit a different level concept.

Sometimes people make things for reasons other than "make something platonically Good" or to be "popular". I struggle to understand why this must be explained. This level had a really obvious and blatant theme and point to it, it's not just "oh we put random elements in it and then commented on them" because that's not how people make things. It's not a "gag" nor "the author believes these things", it's a character in a fiction, and fiction has themes.

[songofstorms]

I've felt this way for a while but I think this is the ideal time to express it: the default SMBX text box seriously blows for readability when it's more than a couple lines.

I agree, the font and style of the text boxes are terrible. I'm normally a pretty fast reader, but I swear it takes me twice as long to read and comprehend SMBX text boxes than it does to read literally anything else. Just abysmal.

(And I say this as someone who enjoys making and playing text-heavy levels. I just want to be able to read the text easily without having to sit there consciously piecing together what it says!)

[Reecer7]

not to be the five hundredth person to throw an unneeded two cents in about :) but

i can see how this level would be polarizing, but man, i am incredibly unpolarized about this. it seems like it does some okay things, pulls some real neat gameplay punches, but the premise of the Meta Sentient Clingy Video Game is just, i've seen it tackled too many times before by professionals and amateurs alike to seriously invest my entire self in it again. i don't know how this is being interpreted to be a new thing, honestly at this point it's a tried and true narrative device. some people eat it up, i don't. It's Fine.

[FourteenthOrder]

oh boy joining the train of people writing essays about this level

I feel like I tend to enjoy "experience" levels more than a lot of people and absolutely adore metafiction. This was a really trite and inconsistent example of the latter and I did not like it at all.

I feel really bad saying this about such a high-ranking level (though it's pretty polarizing so I probably shouldn't feel too terrible ^^;) when I had so much fun with like dumb tier 2 ones but, like, this may be my least favorite level thus far, and given how few levels are left I doubt that'll change. The real path is like literally nothing, and the "level" path is obnoxious and unfun by design, which feels like a billion times worse to me than first-time levels that are that by accident. At the end of the day it's basically just, like, troll-level-but-earnest. Really the only thing this level has going for it (save for a small handful of genuinely interesting setups) is that it's definitely memorable, but I'm not entirely certain that's for the right reasons.