Return of the Romhackeria!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Return of the Romhackeria!

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Thanks for the Eris LP. There were a lot of clever bits but I kept going cross-eyed trying to parse it. That Mimisbrunnr map looks like it keeps some of the interesting graphics while being a lot cleaner overall.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 08:38

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 13:24

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I think anyone who's designed a level in romhacks or mario maker has thought it was neat to make a level that has you going back and forth over the same area. That level demonstrates why it's better in theory than practice, I don't know if the "no time death" was a coding error or trolling.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 20:43

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Dragonatrix posted:

Jeez, what a ridiculously long and kinda boring level. Like, a 700 second timer that wasn't even close to being enough to finish a level is kind of ridiculously excessive. The level could've been, I dunno, half as long as it was and it'd still be overly long but at least the scant few ideas it had wouldn't have necessarily worn out their welcome quite as much. I'm not even sure what the point of some of them even was. The blue/yellow box "mazes" that aren't was the closest thing to a real main idea it had, and that was just pointless busywork.

Any one of the back and forth bits could have been a cute little level (though that last big vertical one... if your solution to "what if they mess up" is "don't mess up" then you need to take another look at your design) but all of them together after a random assortment of initial stage design, was definitely a slog.

E: as an example, who lists Gnarly as their favorite Mario World level? Big vertical one where it's very easy to clip up and fall aaaaaaall the way back down.

Bruceski fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 8, 2017

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 22:38

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

It's as if you stopped playing Mario Maker levels and turned on an actual game.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2017 04:06

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

FPzero posted:

https://twitter.com/smwcentral/status/907098234698338304

Coming soon, maybe.

Are we supposed to know why?

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 06:48

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Got a bit Flappy Bird at the end there. Glad it was just a final punctuation mark rather than some endurance thing.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2017 21:21

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

get that OUT of my face posted:

Mass Extinction reminded me of Animal Antics/Pothole Panic in the DKC series, except using Yoshis instead of animal buddies.

Yeah, the signposting and style of the level (particularly the "escalating variations on a theme") felt very DKC.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 01:32

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Geemer posted:

I really wonder how well those levels hold up to the cement block test. Third place actually looked like fun to play and something you might actually find in a real game.

Is that "replace every sprite with cement blocks, is the level still interesting to play"?

# ¿ Oct 14, 2017 19:14

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Commander Keene posted:

It seems like your Balloon energy keeps counting down during that section, though. Is hitting zero "lose a life and start over"?

You fall, and die if you didn't get Beat. Then you'll keep bouncing until you can grab some energy

# ¿ Oct 18, 2017 02:41

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Since there are four, my guess is judges' submissions.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2017 19:16

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Mak0rz posted:

I'm sure I've heard that stage music before. What is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY9okTTABus apparently

# ¿ Oct 26, 2017 03:11

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, judge, apparently.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2017 19:14

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Have you checked whether these *did* get scores?

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 19:38

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Remember folks, test your levels from the midpoint.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 23:33

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

That starting fortress WAA chord was the sound of absolute catharsis.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 19:30

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I think it's more to do with the skill of the designers. They know what's coming up, they know what they placed, they know what they're expected to do. When you do this is can be easy to overlook which parts are actually difficult or just plain unfun. For examples, look at all the "guess the right path or die" and "this solid wall of enemies is easy to get through if you dash immediately, jump right HERE and didn't hesitate" levels in Mario Maker. It's people designing for perfection. When you craft something you're proud of like that, it's tempting to force others to go through it exactly the way you designed, taking no hits and DEFINITELY not using a dirty cape!

It's very, very difficult to forget the things you know, to look at what you've built through the eyes of someone just discovering it. That's why one of the key parts of design at any level is to have other people play through your stuff, and watch them without guiding.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2017 04:56

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Rabbi Raccoon posted:

So I don't claim to know anything about the inner workings of Super Mario World, but that last Koopa in the Ice gauntlet was walking after you knocked his wings off, right? Couldn't you have just walked instead of worrying about timing the jump?

That was a 1F0 tile, which is solid to enemies (and has some odd physics) but Mario falls through. It's shown up in other levels as well, for example the second level in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpcRBGIesNQ uses it a lot, those little sparkles that enemies are standing on (12:55 for example). The mistake you made is one reason it's frowned upon unless you can clearly convey its ephemeral quality.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 20:12

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

FishOnAPiano posted:

Because the spot he was walking on lined up exactly with one of the background clouds, I didn't realise it *wasn't* a platform until they started talking about 1F0; I would have jumped right in there and died.

Agreed. I went back and forth on it, since they made the tile have a thicker line as well. It made the cloud stand out too much from the background.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 20:19

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

magikid posted:

People who play games are not good at designing games.

Some are, enthusiasm and tunnel vision can just get the best of you. Heck, look at various difficulty hacks like Long War for that, they do some incredible modding and balancing, it just tends to be around a very specific playstyle that others may find obscure or unfun.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2017 08:33

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

That mandatory bonus stage in Suken Ship reminds me of a Super Metroid hack which, at one point, required you to save your game in a save station and then reload it, at which point you would appear in a different room from the save room, and would be able to progress. As I recall the creator's logic was "nobody ever puts save stations in hacks (which was true at the time, because they were prone to breaking), and this is the only station in my hack, so of course people will figure out you have to use it!"

The "read my mind" method of game design, aka "why you use blind playtesters".

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 22:28

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I thought it was 'machball'. Makes more sense to me.

As far as walljump, I cannot pull it off to save my life, and falling into the ectoon pit in Super Metroid is a deathtrap for me. I like it in Samus Returns though; they included it as a nod to SM, it's not required (though it lets you do a couple of collectables early befor ehighjump), but rather than needing to push away from the wall within a couple of frames or anything you just keep pushing into the wall. Spinjump into the wall, hit jump again, and you bounce off it. That's much easier for mobility, and if romhacks are gonna include it as required they should do it that way.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 20:35

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Any roller coaster level.

E: and the ones I hated were mostly in a good way. "Man this is rough" not "this is bullshit".

# ¿ Jan 6, 2018 19:28

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

GunnerJ posted:

I'm glad you're playing this because this game was one of my favorites as a kid but I forgot all about it. This really takes me back. How do I remember all the music just from a few chords?

https://youtu.be/XvoGVcpTRFc?t=6m42s

The funky star song.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 17:42

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

I like the randomizer streams because it trends very well to races and so folks have gotten pretty good at commentating them and familiar with things. The only downside is that since it's, you know, random, sometimes a race just flops because one person went right and the other left and then you just have another 15 minutes to go without a chance to catch up (the run at AGDQ). I think Keysanity would be too much for races, though.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2018 19:37

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Yeah, one of the AGDQ runners (Andy) is absurdly good at doing the hover and spent the entire race showing off. They had a gentlemen's agreement that he still had to get the hookshot to keep it fair.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 06:25

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

The tea chat in the video has made me thirsty, I should brew some Tazo. That's right, mainstream herbal. Take that, tea snobs!

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 07:01

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Not that that's going to stop my 50-page timeline put on corkboard with string.

It's all connected, I know it.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2018 06:40

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

FPzero posted:

Funny you all should mention that... because Artix and I streamed it for 3 1/2 hours yesterday.

Not much of a surprise, I just checked the katakana for the LttP save file and it's Samusu.

# ¿ May 16, 2018 19:04

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 13:24

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Apparently the LttP/SM crossover randomizer just added a "casual mode" that doesn't require major glitches to run Metroid and also puts the morph ball in the vanilla location. Haven't confirmed it personally.

https://smalttp.speedga.me/ took a while to find the actual generator, my googling for it was just people talking about the thing without links.

# ¿ May 22, 2018 23:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Return of the Romhackeria!