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Cheez posted:Because deciding you are always right and it's everyone else who is wrong always goes well. Correct.
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Oct 29, 2017 19:53
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GunnerJ posted:I don't understand how the secret works. Okay, so, you know how sometimes a video game scrolls the background slower in order to simulate the background being further away, or faster to imply movement? Now put foreground blocks on that layer. It's disorienting at best. You are entitled to have fun with this gimmick. However, I'm gonna agree with several of the other people here that this particular level does not look fun to me, and it is, in fact, a very difficult gimmick to make fun for most people. The fact that the engine doesn't actually support the gimmick all that well is kind of a problem even above and beyond personal preference; in the video you can see several examples of clipping into or through platforms or objects due to the wonky scrolling. A challenge that is inconsistent in whether it will even allow you to do what it's asking you to do is not a well-designed challenge.
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Oct 29, 2017 19:56
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And I'm going to say it again, there's only really one point in the level where the gimmick was working against playability.
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Oct 29, 2017 19:58
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Cheez posted:Because deciding you are always right and it's everyone else who is wrong always goes well. 
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Oct 29, 2017 20:00
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Okay, so, you know how sometimes a video game scrolls the background slower in order to simulate the background being further away, or faster to imply movement? Now put foreground blocks on that layer. It's disorienting at best. It kinda seemed though like this bridge appeared out of nowhere. I don't know what they actually did to make it show up. Earlier in that part of the level there was no bridge, and suddenly there was right on entering it?
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Oct 29, 2017 20:00
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The actual mechanics and concept of this is neat, but once they got to the part where they had to edgescroll the two small tiles out of the wall at 4 minutes in, I said "gently caress that" out loud. This level is for the dumpster.Cheez posted:And I'm going to say it again, there's only really one point in the level where the gimmick was working against playability. Was it the part where it broke and prevented the player from continuing? edit: Jesus christ, I'm starting to get legit disoriented from the foreground parallaxing all over the place, and I've only experienced that with a video game once before. Inco fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 20:03
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Cheez posted:That does not make it unfun. In this video alone you've complained about every single application of layer 2 obstacles. It's not the levels, it's you. Cheez posted:Fun is a subjective thing.  I have never found a variable scroll layer 2 level fun and that's my subjective opinion. It just so happens to be one shared by many people, especially considering they CONSISTENTLY place lowly in contests. The problem with variable layer 2 is it's really -really- fucky to actually play. Having to deal with two interactive layers scrolling at different speeds absolutely messes with the brain, especially when one of them can be directly controlled by shifting the camera either with L/R scrolling or even turning around. It's one of those weird mechanics that seems to pop up every now and then when someone tries to find the hip new thing to change how vanilla SMW is designed (like 1F0 and the eating block snake) but it never works out and really, outside of the VLDCs I don't think people should even be trying to do. You can directly add new mechanics to your Mario, why rely on awkward janky glitchy interactions? Tyty fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 20:04
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GunnerJ posted:I don't understand how the secret works. This is all from my dim recollection of the explanation given in the LP, and that explanation was awhile ago. Regular SMW levels have a few areas where a 1-Up will appear if you touch a set of invisible tiles; usually this is done pretty trivially by just having the invisible tiles in a line and the 1-Up spawns at the end of them. But once you reveal the 1-Up (actually once you hit all the tiles), the tiles have to be disabled, which AIUI involves removing the tile and revealing whatever is underneath it. Again in the normal game that's just "nothing", but you can put actual tiles in instead, causing terrain to appear out of nothing. And you can re-use the invisible checkpoint tiles elsewhere in the level. So the level creator made a bridge and hid it with 1-Up checkpoint tiles. Some other levels have used the invisible checkpoint tiles by putting them at the end of the level, then having a pipe covered in the tiles at the beginning of the level. So once you beat the level once, you get a warp pipe to skip the beginning of it. And yeah, that level was trash. It requires finicky manipulation of the camera and of enemies, it's over-long, and the gimmick tends to result in Mario getting hurt/killed in situations he shouldn't have been (e.g. spinjumping on a mace). The scrolling did allow a few okay ideas: I agree with Ty that the Bowser statues / Dry Bones following Mario up as he climbs worked decently. But that in no way compensates for the majority of the level, which was just bad. There's no reason why that rising vertical section near the end had to be done with variable scrolling, for example. This hack has demonstrated plenty of ways to do fast scrolling that don't require Mario to jump everywhere.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:04
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The one Mario Hack I've seen people talk about, the one about Call of Cthullu (I intended to get to playing it mysefl...), hadlayer 2 scrolling like this but it looked a lot smoother when I saw it played through - it was continuously moving instead of this stop and go up a vertical level. The gimmick is doable, but the Lovecraft hack seemed better designed.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:04
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Oh no, i'm such a hypocrite for daring to say that the level doesn't deserve to be shitcanned just because it isn't your bag. I'm so terrible. God, what's wrong with you people?
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Oct 29, 2017 20:05
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GunnerJ posted:It kinda seemed though like this bridge appeared out of nowhere. I don't know what they actually did to make it show up. Earlier in that part of the level there was no bridge, and suddenly there was right on entering it? Ah, misunderstood what you were saying. Okay, so that one, if I understand it correctly, was linked to the 1-Up they got out of that spinning spike block a couple of rooms earlier. You can have a 1-Up function as a midpoint, apparently, which gives it some of the properties of a midpoint, including persisting until collected and then not spawning again until you fully restart the level. If I understand right, the 1-up mushroom from before was also loaded into the room with the bridge, where it blocked the bridge from spawning, or something to that effect. Once the 1-up was collected, it no longer blocked the bridge (however that's actually achieved mechanically), and so the bridge can spawn. You can also do this with regular midpoints, I think, to make a block not spawn in unless you're reloading at the midpoint after dying, because the ticker tape on the midpoint was blocking it. I don't know if fully restarting the level would then make the bridge disappear again, but I'd guess so? E: Or a more complete explanation with better mechanical knowledge could appear while I very slowly type, that could happen too. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 20:05
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TooMuchAbstraction and Shady Amish Terror, thanks. It seemed like jumping around that block with the mace made a 1up appear for "reasons" and then there was a bridge and I had no idea what was going on. So that changed the level elsewhere, got it.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:07
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Cheez posted:Oh no, i'm such a hypocrite for daring to say that the level doesn't deserve to be shitcanned just because it isn't your bag. I'm so terrible. God, what's wrong with you people? The level deserves to be shitcanned because it's prone to breaking and blocking the player off, as well as being visually disorienting.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:08
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Inco posted:The level deserves to be shitcanned because it's prone to breaking and blocking the player off, as well as being visually disorienting. The first thing I only saw happen to them once and was fixed by walking back through the level just a bit. Oh no. The second is something that can be.. Dare I say it with the romhack police around... Fun???
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Oct 29, 2017 20:11
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Cheez posted:Oh no, i'm such a hypocrite for daring to say that the level doesn't deserve to be shitcanned just because it isn't your bag. I'm so terrible. God, what's wrong with you people? ...??? Have...have you had a rough day? You seem to be very upset that some people did not enjoy this level.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:12
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Shady Amish Terror posted:...??? You know what, nevermind. Oh kings of romhacks, I bow down to you and your superior ideas about what is fun and not fun. Clearly there can be no other opinions.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:13
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Cheez posted:If you've been paying attention, it's about the fact people are overreacting about such a simple thing. Dude, you are super weird
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Oct 29, 2017 20:15
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Ometeotl posted:Thank you for vocalizing your issue with tech or "creativity" over actual level design. It always plagues contests and collabs (USS Suboptimal says hello) and now everything being shown off about the SMBX 2.0 project just screams this. They added like a million characters but they're all terrible gimmick characters that make Link look like just a Mario recolor, and they just keep showing off dumb things you can do with tech, as opposed to actual neat game design things. The Mario 64 hacking scene has been picking up lately and god I'm definitely seeing a lot of this issue. There's this rom hack called Last Impact that I saw getting a ton of positive coverage from youtubers and gaming sites and the like. I gave it a try and it's, like, just barely playable? Like from the very start of the game it's plagued by lovely hit detection and crazy, technically advanced ideas that are nonetheless totally janky and completely unfun to play, walls are basically just guidelines. It does cool stuff like backporting upgrades from Mario Galaxy and it's all very impressive what people can do with the coding of this game but everything is just painful to play.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:15
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Cheez posted:The first thing I only saw happen to them once and was fixed by walking back through the level just a bit. Oh no. The second is something that can be.. Dare I say it with the romhack police around... Fun??? You think nausea is fun? Prop Wash is right, you are weird.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:16
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Cheez posted:If you've been paying attention, it's about the fact people are overreacting about such a simple thing. You're allowed to have opinions. So is everyone else. 'scool.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:18
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Hemingway To Go! posted:The one Mario Hack I've seen people talk about, the one about Call of Cthullu (I intended to get to playing it mysefl...), hadlayer 2 scrolling like this but it looked a lot smoother when I saw it played through - it was continuously moving instead of this stop and go up a vertical level. The gimmick is doable, but the Lovecraft hack seemed better designed.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:21
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It's been a while, but I remember a free scrolling part that actually looked interesting. I neither know OBS nor am good at even normal Mario, but it's a pretty well known hack. Maybe someone will show it off at some point. It's only an hour or so to play through.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:25
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Cheez posted:And I'm going to say it again, there's only really one point in the level where the gimmick was working against playability. Multiple points. Not only is it fairly simple to get yourself perma-stuck on some segments, the upward rushing platform segment seems incredibly janky. Actually, physics in general on the vertical segments are broken (randomly registering hits when spin bouncing, etc.) Also, as mentioned in the commentary using looking left/right as a platforming mechanic is very cumbersome since it doesn't play nicely with the other controls. The whole level is very anti-playability. You can think it's a cool and interesting idea. Honestly, from a conceptual standpoint I agree, and I'm really curious to see what someone with better restraint could do with the mechanic in a more conventional Mario level. But it just fundamentally doesn't work.
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Oct 29, 2017 20:25
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Straight White Shark posted:the upward rushing platform segment seems incredibly janky
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Oct 29, 2017 20:27
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Welcome to judge world. It's really bad, though I think that one's the worst of them
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Oct 29, 2017 20:33
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Cheez has bad opinions and gets belligerent when people don't agree. News as 11. The only good part about this level was the secret exit having a hint. I think it's a real shame these judge levels weren't judged by the other judges and scored (anonymously).
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Oct 29, 2017 21:10
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The upward rushing platform bit seemed especially odd since you could do that with just a regular moving platform. Though probably not as fast? The speed didn't seem to benefit it though.
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Oct 29, 2017 21:12
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Straight White Shark posted:Also, as mentioned in the commentary using looking left/right as a platforming mechanic is very cumbersome since it doesn't play nicely with the other controls. The whole level is very anti-playability. This is the real issue. The camera controls are jank and the level required more finesse than what the camera controls provide (having to position the camera to have 2 half-blocks in the wall in order to climb over it for example.) Pretty much the only parts of the level where the gimmick worked were the autoscroll section and the horizontal part where the blocks were revealed as you progressed through it. Although in the latter case it also has the weakness of allowing the player to screw themselves over by moving the camera around, something that the level expects you to do. That's a pretty big strike against it in terms of design (it is ok to let the player fail your level. It is not ok to let your level fail the player.) Edit: oh right, having bowser statues and dry bones follow you was also an ok idea. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 22:05
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it's a neat gimmick but kind of janky and inconsistent and the level's demanding in a way that just looks frustrating
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Oct 29, 2017 22:19
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Geemer posted:Cheez has bad opinions and gets belligerent when people don't agree. News as 11. Hello, pot.
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Oct 29, 2017 22:52
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Cheez posted:Hello, pot. Geemer hasn't been belligerent.
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Oct 29, 2017 22:58
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Replying to them is like throwing water on a grease fire and it also makes blacklisting them worthless
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Oct 29, 2017 23:13
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Sure, live in your own little world where your replies are perfect and don't have any hostility to them.
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Oct 29, 2017 23:19
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Here’s a nice non-hostile reply from the mods: everybody chill the gently caress out about rom hacks. Thank you 
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Oct 29, 2017 23:24
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lets hang out posted:it's a neat gimmick but kind of janky and inconsistent and the level's demanding in a way that just looks frustrating Yeah, it looks like it's fine when the level autoscrolls just because it's consistent. There were some wierd janky situations in the hallway that had to be climbed because the blocks would kind of get stuck halfway up or just not quite work properly. The concept might be neat for a puzzle level if the setups are perfect every time, but outside of some neat puzzle level, the mechanic has no place in the game because of how badly it fucks with the flow of platforming.
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Oct 29, 2017 23:53
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Wow. That level was certainly creative, but looked like it worked way too wonky for it to be any fun, imo. In that Call of Cthulhu themed romhack, this sort of gimmick works, and especially since it was just one part, and it wasn't that difficult either. But here in an otherwise normal level? Not really. The gimmick just doesn't look fun here.
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Oct 30, 2017 00:37
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That level sure was a brown block of poo poo, all right. If you're going to work a concept into a level, make drat sure it works consistently and is easy to grasp. Also, like I said before, the consequence for a hard stretch of a level should not be death.
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Oct 30, 2017 00:40
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That gimmick looked really poorly implemented and it was nauseating to watch. It might have been able to work a lot better with a more delicate touch in level design and such, but that is really not what happened here.
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Oct 30, 2017 02:09
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I feel like it would have been significantly less garbage if it didn't have the vertical sections (because they were by far the most buggy) and the "abuse L/R scrolling to phase through walls" sections (because they required meta-knowledge of the game engine and the controls in a contest that's supposed to be about vanilla level design). I could see it being workable if they were just horizontal platforms and it was like... a level where you had to climb up a huge tree in a spiral pattern, because that would make sense from both a design and aesthetic perspective.
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Oct 30, 2017 15:23
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Power Bottom posted:I feel like it would have been significantly less garbage if it didn't have the vertical sections (because they were by far the most buggy) and the "abuse L/R scrolling to phase through walls" sections (because they required meta-knowledge of the game engine and the controls in a contest that's supposed to be about vanilla level design). I could see it being workable if they were just horizontal platforms and it was like... a level where you had to climb up a huge tree in a spiral pattern, because that would make sense from both a design and aesthetic perspective.  There's a reason that most of the levels in Best World don't push their gimmick to their logical conclusion, because that's really not what makes a good Mario level.To hook into the conversation earlier about secret exits, stuff like wall phasing would have been a neat way to hide an exit. But... what exactly was it supposed to add here except breaking up the gameplay? It's not a mastery check because the game hands you the solution. You can say "oh, weird, neat I guess???" when you see it in action but then it just does the same thing several more times.
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Oct 30, 2017 16:15
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