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I dont know posted:It feels very much against the spirit of a vanilla level competition even if it didn't break any rules. That's probably a factor in why it scored so low. Some could argue the contest has gotten away from its roots in recent years (which you can probably see in the images below) since we see a large emphasis by the designers to have a unique looking level, sometimes to the detriment of the gameplay. Scores are still weighted appropriately, but you still see lots of designers emphasize looks in their level without always remembering to make it fun first. Graphics have always been highly emphasized for as long as I've been a part of SMWCentral. Even back in 2008 when I started the first VLDC, fancy graphics (which were still uncommon enough at the time) were being used to substitute for actually fun gameplay. Appropriately, that was my main reason for starting the contest and setting the rules as I did. At the time, Lunar Magic had less graphical functionality and the rules I set in place regarding manipulations made designers really focus on gameplay over graphics. I think it went well overall and some really good levels were made as a result, but the scores given by the judges--myself included--were all over the place. I forget what my original point was going to be since I trailed off into history for a moment. I think the main point is that even ten years later we still see a huge emphasis on graphics in what was originally a contest with extremely little graphical focus. This isn't to say I dislike the cool graphics and aesthetics designers pull off in the contest. Having the whole game's resources available to mix tilesets together is actually a really neat concept since it allows users to shuffle around existing game assets into new things without having to necessarily know how to draw their own graphics. Creativity is at an all time high whenever this contest rolls around. VLDCX (10) is underway right now and some of the entries I've seen look amazing visually, even if they don't look vanilla anymore.      I love how all of these look and can barely comprehend how some of these are manipulating vanilla graphics. I want to play them. I just hope they are actually enjoyable to play too.
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Feb 21, 2017 20:07
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Oh god that sounds insane. Godspeed Demerine.
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Feb 23, 2017 04:01
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liquidypoo posted:
Good to know R-Nuke has a slight chance of backfiring on you, it would be totally overpowered otherwise!  People get mad when they find out I bought a used FF6 SNES cart for only $30 about 7 years ago. Then they get even madder when they find out I never beat it.
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Feb 24, 2017 02:45
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 Some really solid levels today. Only real thing to note is that Layer 2 can be really difficult to time with line guided objects especially without an autoscroller to dictate exactly when Mario will reach a specific part. Lots of careful testing has to be done here.
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Feb 25, 2017 20:34
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Those were some pretty cool levels! The line guides/layer 2 one reminded me of the NSMB levels, what with all the moving parts. And the switch palace felt like something that I could have figured out on my own without needing to know a lot about the mechanics of SMW, while still being an interesting puzzle. I honestly have no idea what it's used for! I'm pretty sure it never shows up in vanilla. My theory is that that specific tile is used for something in a different tileset and works properly there without the properties you see here in this video. But when it's used outside it's original specific tileset I would venture that its functionality breaks to some extent but not so far as to break the game or glitch it out. As such people have discovered ways to use this partially broken tile in puzzles and design. That's all just a guess though. I understand the applications of the tile but I really don't know why or how it works! Maybe Tyty does.
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Feb 25, 2017 22:28
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 Lots of good examples of how to use a moving Layer 2 today. The frequency of it comes from recent hacking developments that allow for easy creation of Layer 3 backgrounds, something that had been previously very technical and challenging to get working. Space World has been really kind to us so far!
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Feb 28, 2017 22:12
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Blaze Dragon posted:Could you give an explanation on the different layers? It sounds really interesting but at the same time I never fully understand what you guys mean with them. I'll make an attempt at this one. So The SNES has 5 "Layers" (that I know of, I'm pretty sure of this fact though). They are labeled Layers 1-4 and Sprites. Layer 4 is never used in 99% of games so I won't bother with it, which is good because I don't really understand it either. I'm going to talk about them in the context of a standard Super Mario World level: Layer 1 is the foreground. Mario and Sprites interact with this layer. Layer 2 is the background. Mario and Sprites do not interact with this layer. Layer 3 is the status bar. Sprite Layer is almost all enemies and moving parts. There are also a few other sprites available, like Generators (used for spawning Bullet Bills) and Triggers (dictating autoscroll and more). So a standard SMW level will have Mario running around on Layer 1 and that's the extent of his interaction with the level. Here's where things get a little more complicated. SMW has what are called Level Modes. They change values in the level's header to dictate different types of level. Modes control if the level is horizontal or vertical, if it has a dark background, if it is transparent and more. They also control what Lunar Magic refers to as Layer 2 Levels. In a Layer 2 level, the Layers setup is changed: Layer 1 is still the foreground. Mario and Sprites interact with this layer. Layer 2 is a second foreground layer now. Depending on the Level Mode chosen, Mario + Sprites can or cannot interact with Layer 2. Layer 3 is still the status bar but it also becomes a limited background. More on this later. Sprites Layer stays the same. Some generators or triggers might be incompatible with Layer 2 Levels. So why would you want to make a Layer 2 Level? Well, SMW has a number of triggers that work with Layer 2. These triggers enable or disable different types of Layer 2 scrolling. This is how SMW achieves what's known as a "Moving Layer 2." Example of this in the vanilla game include Donut Plains 2 (the autoscrolling cave), the second half of Lemmy's Castle and plenty more. There's also a trigger for Layer 2 Smashers. This causes the entirety of Layer 2 to be quickly moved up and down, usually in combination with the mega spike tiles, to act as crushers. Moving Layer 2 levels tend to be a little more dynamic because of the moving parts and so they're an appealing thing to include in a level set every once in a while. There are some downsides to Layer 2 though. For one, a Layer 2 enabling Level Mode works by halving the number of available screens you can work with. A regular level can have 32 screens where a Layer 2 one can only have 16. The second and bigger downside is that in order to achieve a moving Layer 2, the game actually needs to get rid of the background. If you think back to the vanilla game, any instance of a Moving Layer 2 level is accompanied by a black screen in the background. However, to accommodate for the lack of background when using Layer 2, Nintendo created a few Layer 3 backgrounds. They are very simple backgrounds built out of only 3 colors + transparency and use some of the same colors as the status bar. They're fairly restrictive and were the biggest downside of using Layer 2 for a long time. However, it appears technology has advanced and proper Layer 3 backgrounds are now available. They are still limited to 3 colors + transparency but we are now able to design and assemble custom Layer 3 backgrounds to accompany Moving Layer 2 levels. You'll see them all throughout Episode 13. While they may not look like simple Layer 3 backgrounds, the trick to noticing them is to count the colors you see in the moving background. In Soul's Temple for instance, the far background might have a complex mountain and clouds pattern but it still only uses 3 colors for all of the shading. The 4th color that's back there is the level's BG color, a color that is removed from the rest of the level's palette and can be set independently to replace whatever transparent pixels are left in the background. So, careful design of your layer 3 background can actually get around the 3 color limitation by using the BG color as a 4th color! (You can count the colors for yourself below.) "But wait, Soul's Temple doesn't actually have any moving parts?" you might notice. And that's true, it doesn't. So why does it use a Layer 3 background? Well, Layers 1 and 2 can overlap each other.  See, by overlapping Layers 1 and 2, you can create more complex graphical scenes that you wouldn't be capable of doing without editing the actual pixels of the graphics. Since this contest doesn't allow you to draw new tiles, people have to be creative in presenting what look like new graphics. Overlapping allows you to have that lower level of tree leaves overlapping the ground tiles. Or let's look at a more complex scene:  Here, the leaves overlap the blue bricks, then the blue pillars attached to them overlap the green bricks in back. More than just creating complex scenes, you can create the illusion of depth in a game that only has a maximum of 3 layers available to edit (I'm not counting Sprites because they don't factor in here). As a wrap up, the SNES's Mode 7 flips the Layers system on its head. Mode 7 is used for scaling and rotating of onscreen elements. When the Koopalings squish and stretch, when Bowser flies into the background then out of the front of the screen, when the elevator shaft in Super Metroid's intro tilts sideways as it explodes, the raceways in Super Mario Kart, all of those are instances of Mode 7 being used. So how does it work? Well, anything that gets scaled or rotated is actually transferred onto Layer 1. In the Bowser fight, the platforms Mario stands on are actually on Layer 3. (edit: correction, it's the Sprite layer not Layer 3) I think Layer 2 is completely disabled for the whole scene and the status bar is transferred to the Sprite Layer temporarily. Mode 7 is incredibly weird as evidenced by how much it messed with the usual Layer system. It wouldn't be until the SuperFX chip was developed and used in later games that you could have per-sprite scaling and rotation like in Yoshi's Island. (Of note, some SMW hacks have gotten the SuperFX chip working in them but since SMW enemies don't scale or rotate by default there's not usually much use for it unless the hacker wants to import Yoshi's Island enemies.) Once again, my explanations go on way longer than I ever intend them to but hopefully you and others found it interesting. I know so much about this game from years of being involved with the community so it's interesting to get to explain what we know as basic concepts to people with little to no background on the subject. FPzero fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 00:09
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Quote is not edit Regardless, I'll definitely consider adding this and the other explanation I did before to the OP when archival time comes.
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Mar 1, 2017 02:07
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I haven't played Rogue Dawn yet so I can't comment on it but I find it funny that you point you that it has an early underwater segment as a negative, yet Eris also has early required suitless underwater segments. Actually wait, underwater segments in Metroid 1? poo poo that's impressive right then and there! I've been hearing some mixed things about Rogue Dawn and hope to check it out some day. My tolerance for exploration and bullshit in these games is generally pretty high (anyone remember that absolutely gigantic super metroid hack I mentioned playing at one point) so I feel like I'd have a good chance of making it through the whole thing.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:21
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I wish this game wasn't so technically impressive because it's all being wasted on such a bad gameplay hack.
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Mar 1, 2017 18:57
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Pharohman777 posted:So FPzero, what is your name on SMWcentral? I never thought you were such a prominent figure in the super mario world hacking community. It's the same as on here. However you might have trouble locating the first VLDC since it was posted by a mod. I was just a regular user at the time. The threads you're looking for are here: Submissions Discussion Results Keep in mind this was 9-10 years ago so a lot of standards have changed as well as posting styles. (Basically I was younger and it might be embarrassing to read old posts of mine!  )All of the old VLDC contests are located in the Old Contests & Events subforum so you should be able to find every single year's contest. Whether or not the download links still work for the entries is a different question but I'm sure some of them do. I know there was a re-release of VLDC1 compiled together some time last year so that might be a cool way to look at hacking standards from a decade ago.
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Mar 2, 2017 22:33
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Crazy Achmed posted:I think you mentioned at one point that you made a set of levels designed so that the end of one matched the start of the next - do you have a link to that? I'd love to see it, that sounds like a fantastic idea. I didn't have every level transition but some did. Regardless, the only two SMW hacks I ever released were these two https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=4972 https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=9824 I'm sure some of these levels had transitions. Be warned that they are from like, 2008-2009 era and are nowhere near indicative of how I design levels now.
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Mar 3, 2017 08:44
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FPzero posted:Space World has been really kind to us so far! I loving wish.  Hoo boy. This was not a good level. There are way too many problems with it. It's unforgiving, visually difficult, has a cheap shot right at the end and essentially relies on memorization to get through it. We played it for 35 minutes and if I hadn't gotten extremely lucky we could have been there for even longer. I tried to edit my way through it the best I could, only keeping progress, near misses and our own gameplay explanations intact. The rest is death.
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Mar 3, 2017 20:21
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frankenfreak posted:Seriously, I agree: gently caress that! Spitting the shell would also interrupt flying. You can see this kill me a few times towards the beginning when I try spitting the red shell flames. Speaking of the shell effects, even though there was no color I was always able to tell what color of koopa they were. Only the Green ones will fly left and only the Red ones will fly vertically. That's just how the game is programmed.
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Mar 3, 2017 20:59
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liquidypoo posted:Don't red yoshis always spit fireballs regardless of what sorta koopa they grab? That would have been a good way to maintain a sidescroller shmup feeling, provided I'm remembering that right. They do but sadly this wouldn't work in the context of this sort of level because the Yoshi Wings automatically turn Yoshi into a permanently flying Blue one. You'd need some assembly to combine the effects.
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Mar 4, 2017 04:52
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This game would be a lot more fun if you could be Quick Man for all of it.
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Mar 4, 2017 19:52
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That is...bizarre. It does look technically impressive though, you're right.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:28
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 We're back to color to finish out this recording session! The secret exit in the first level works by placing a door hidden behind the yoshi coin. What's supposed to happen is the player has to find all 5 coins first then the door appears since that's how it would work on a vanilla SMW rom. But since this compilation rom saves Yoshi Coins upon collection instead of making the player collect all 5 in one run through the level, just getting the one coin that hides the door then beating the level will unveil the secret path. This is an application of that Z-Ordering concept I mentioned in passing once before. Second level is marred by a sudden transition to an entirely different and more difficult focus in the second half. It was going so well too.
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Mar 7, 2017 02:06
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The biggest fault of the spinjump section is that it has no connection to the first half of the level and spikes the difficulty. It breaks the level's cohesion a little bit. I think it would've been better explored in its own level with both halves dedicated to the concept.
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Mar 7, 2017 22:25
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What a dirty cheater!
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Mar 10, 2017 19:47
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 Huge variation in level qualities today. Today's tip: Coins are generally indicators of safety in Mario, so make sure that any coin path you make for the player will be safe. The player should be able to follow that exact path and not be hit.
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Mar 11, 2017 02:17
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The path left of the fortress just loops down to the lower path. Even though you can't see them, you can place path tiles for Mario to walk on underneath the world map border. So in this case Mario will walk off the screen and reappear down there. Mystic: I'm excited to see FE Green Hack. I know people have talked about it before but I don't think it was ever shown off for the old FE romhacks thread. Looking forward to seeing how crazy it gets.
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Mar 11, 2017 19:29
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kvx687 posted:Canto was already in the original Sacred Stones, and I think the other GBA games as well. It wasn't a skill then, just an ability all mounted units had by default. I assume Mystic means they can now move after attacking, which was specifically something mounted units couldn't do in the GBA titles.
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Mar 11, 2017 22:39
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Well that certainly was a romhack.  Technically impressive as hell but dear god the level design and difficulty imbalance. It's so frustrating to see such amazing assembly hacking gone to waste in this terribly designed game!
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Mar 13, 2017 23:06
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 A really excellent level heavily marred by one segment. It's a shame because I really liked the level overall. It probably took us just shy of 30 minutes to beat but compare it to the black and white flying yoshi level (Episode 15) and the big difference is that I was generally having fun with this level even as I was continually failing.
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Mar 15, 2017 01:29
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Look at all those 1-hit KOs.
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Mar 15, 2017 21:36
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 What an amazing-looking level! It's almost too good looking. As in, while it's visually amazing it's also very visually confusing. This is a rare instance where the level can actually overstimulate the player with signals and information. In the end though, it's a very good and fun level otherwise with an incredibly creative theme, beautiful execution and a clever twist on the theme for the secret exit.
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Mar 17, 2017 19:51
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Also, to whoever wanted to hear a little dev commentary from snoruntpyro about her Fish In Space level, I asked her over on talkhaus and she said a few words:snoruntpyro posted:I guess the dev commentary would be that it was a level sort of made at the last second to replace my old submission. My original submission was your typical newcomer level where it's just a mess of gimmicks and ideas and it had no coherence, and I realized this when I still had the chance so I made something cuter and dumber. The accelerator blocks were an accident with map16 and I just rolled with it. I mainly don't like the level because I don't think it uses its gimmicks very well and the bonus cave section looks awful. I don't necessarily think it's bad, it just could have been so much better. I like my VLDCX entry a lot more. I took a look at the cave section because we did miss it when playing on recording.  She's right about it overall. I don't think the cave adds much to the level. It's pretty long, you have to constantly deal with the Fishin' Boo and there really aren't many enemies in it. Reward at the end is a Moon. I think that the accelerator blocks are neat, but there's just not much that can be done with them in terms of iterative challenges. I still think the level was super fun to play though and that's what mattered for me in the end.
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Mar 18, 2017 17:11
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Wait so Lugh doubles when his Attack Speed is 1 instead of 4? That doesn't sound ridiculous on an already fast mage at all.
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Mar 20, 2017 15:21
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 The levels we played were pretty good overall so we spent most of the time talking about old romhacking history on the internet.
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Mar 20, 2017 21:53
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 Some good looking and fun levels today. First one was a little bit boring though and had one odd mandatory puzzle that probably shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out. That can happen though when the player really isn't expecting to be confronted with a puzzle.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:58
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 It's really surprising how effective that simple animation was. Atmosphere is hard to pull off in an engine like this but man, sometimes it just works.
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Mar 28, 2017 21:38
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After we finished the level I had the realization that I probably would've been less happy about it if I hadn't done the entire post-midpoint section in one life because yeah, when editing the footage those were some tough jumps. We did a shorter recording session tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to get them edited and ready for posting before I leave town for the weekend. If not, the next video will probably go up early next week.
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Mar 29, 2017 07:55
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That Sonic hack looks amazing! I knew they had broken open the whole engine but I never expected to see something like that.
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Mar 31, 2017 16:53
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Yep. Sonic hacking has access to the entire ROM/RAM maps. It's a full split-disassembly. Basically, this allows them to theoretically do anything they want to the game because the entire thing is documented. Also, the assembly language used on the Genesis is apparently a little bit easier to work with than the SNES. That said, Lunar Magic is still a way better tool to use than any level editors for Sonic hacking. For a while, you had to know assembly to do anything at all to a Sonic game.
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Mar 31, 2017 17:08
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edit: There's a new LP that was posted on the last post of the previous page. Go check it out! --------- I can't watch because I'm on mobile for a few days and mobile youtube has no annotations but I should inform you of something if you're unaware. Youtube is planning to do away with annotations soon in favor of those "cards" and "end scenes" they offer. Except that neither of those allow the functionality of annotations. I don't know when exactly they're removing the ability to create them but you may need to think of a different way to do your subtitles since annotations won't be viable soon. (videos with existing annotations won't see the messages be removed; you just won't be able to add new ones to any videos.)
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Apr 1, 2017 06:42
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Eris is extremely unique when it comes to its visuals but that comes at the cost of visual clarity. Sadly, clarity send to take a backseat to making a weird alien aesthetic. It's a super cool aesthetic and I think DMantra nails it but when playing the hack, there is an unfortunate amount of occlusion, you're correct. Someone mentioned that the palettes are not great in places. Back after the hack released in 2009, I remember talking with DMantra about them. He didn't seem interested in fixing up the palettes then and didn't make any updates with the 2012 release either. I remember opening up the rom in the editor and attempting some palette fixes on my own time just to see what could be fixed, but never made it very far. Turns out the weird palettes often allow for the alien aesthetic he pulled off.
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Apr 2, 2017 03:16
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Kurui Reiten posted:Also, it kinda confuses me how it seems like no one has swapped the suit order, giving you Gravity first to make water areas navigable, and then Varia later for fire and lava. Or even reskinning the "hot" areas into ice or something and making the Varia suit help against extreme conditions like cold as well. I mean, Fusion did it. At this point, I'm pretty sure ASM patches would let you swap Gravity and Varia, and there are a variety of other environments you could have them protect against instead of the same fire/water duo. It's because Gravity Suit, when obtained, gives the player all the benefits of Varia Suit too. Even if you never had Varia, you will suddenly be heatproof. There's a patch to separate the effects now but I don't think any major hacks have taken advantage of it yet, or if there are some they have not been released yet.
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Apr 2, 2017 15:42
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 They're all short! But also good. This is pretty indicative of Mountain World (with one exception).
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Apr 2, 2017 23:35
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 18:52 |
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In some previous years the themes were assigned but for vldc9 people were able to make what they wanted and the categories were made after the fact.
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Apr 3, 2017 00:03
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