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[102] Down Monty Mountain [submitted v1.3]

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Its my third post.









v1.3

Oh yeah Renhoek helped me

Mod edit: table stretch nuked
I also helped

Looks cool.
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My hacks:
Bowser's Castle (finished)
Bowser's Castle 2 (finished)
Super Mario World - Mushroom Revolution (Work in progress)
Layout by Koopster
Aesthetically this is probably the best level I've seen so far. I'm very amazed at what you accomplished here so effortlessly!
When I saw the goomba shake, you had me hooked. That is such a perfect way to use this block and idk if I've ever seen it used in that way before. If I have it definitely wasn't executed this well.
The light shining on the pipe you can enter is brilliant. The subtle exanimation on it is also great!

The monty mole can be pretty tricky to jump on the first few times, He moves so fast and before you have an idea of what he's going to do. I also think it could be work it to contextualize the sudden bullet bill generator, since it comes out of nowhere, and nothing in the level up to that point would lead me to believe I'm getting shot at.
e: the song is also super repetitive, and it got on my nerves pretty quickly. idk if there's another one you could use, but I'd suggest it.


This is probably my favourite level I've played so far. It reminds me of an actual Nintendo level, both in how it looks and how it plays. I hope it does incredibly well, because you deserve it. Amazing job!
ask me if i give a f*ck...
aesthetically: wonderful
creative: definitely
design: a bit repetitive after a while. Maybe deleting 1 screen per room may help? Just my opinion, though. Also i agree with Hobz about the music.









My score:
Design and Execution: 40/50
Design Creativity and Aesthetic Creativity:300 /30
Aesthetics and Polish: 200/20
Total: 540/100
Comment: I've played it. This level is very good! I just need look those screenshots. Your aesthetic is amazing! I hope you two win, MM102 and Renhoek.
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My hacks:
Bowser's Castle (finished)
Bowser's Castle 2 (finished)
Super Mario World - Mushroom Revolution (Work in progress)
Layout by Koopster
I just *love* that atmosphere - how the areas gradually change as you descend, and how each one feels natural and overall appealing. It's unlike anything I've seen before. The forest especially - it really feels like you're inside a forest, which is what I've been trying to get right all these years.

If I could leave just one complaint, it'd be the palettes, more specifically the outlines. The foliage doesn't have any, on most tree trunks it's relatively bright gray, and on everything else it's starkly black. I get that it's probably to distinguish solid from passable, but I feel you could unify the outline styles without much loss of clarity - a really dark but visibly non-black outline for everything (where possible) would probably be best.
Have you tried tweaking the sprite palettes, by the way? With everything else being so pleasantly different from the original SMW, it's kind of obvious they weren't.

(oh, and in the first forest area, there's a grass decoration tile floating in the air, just below a group of turn blocks.)

I hope this doesn't sound like a negative review, because it's really not! I was amazed right when I saw the first screenshots, and I have no doubt you're going to rank high (and deservedly so). Great job - hoping to see more from you!


 
This is one of the best level I've seen so far, I'm very impressed of the atmosphere and aesthetic

The level itself fits in the original SMW level design, which is not bad, in fact it's a good thing, but it isn't too innovator. I'd suggest to add more coins or blocks (and maybe more mushrooms), they seem to be a little missed in this level

Other than that, this level is fine and has a great potential
Layout made by MaxodeX
2021 TRENO vibe check thread
Awesome! I hope you don't lose.
My Mode 0 guide.

My Discord server. It has a lot of archived ASM stuff, so check that out!

This level obviously looks amazing, and tons of effort were put into the look of things. The giant cement blocks remind me of something you'd find in Yoshi's Island for some reason (actually the whole thing does). The design doesn't match up to something in Yoshi's Island, however, as it's a bit flat. That's not a bad thing though. The level certainly sets out to fulfill its purpose.

Overall, it's a world 1 difficulty level with occasionally clever level design, which is explored to the bare minimum.

I like the monty mole gimmick, but it's not very obvious at first what "sets" the mole going, although you figure out after a little while. I think the gimmick is interesting, but it was explored very little. Sometimes, it's also hard to "catch up" to the mole, since he will start moving before the player realizes. I actually really liked the ice goombas exploding into regular ones, and it wasn't done too much to become annoying. The "muncher replacement" for those spikes is also decent, since it presents them as dangerous by setting up platforms to dodge them.

The bullet bill generator feels slightly tacked on, but it is a mountainous level, so it certainly doesn't feel out of place aesthetically. It just doesn't add much, since the levels with bullet bill generators were almost built around the generator, since they involved heavy platforming. Nintendo also used the generator either as a buildup (difficulty progresses and the generator appears, then becoming the diagonal or surround generator) or they built the entire level around them.

I really liked the little fire flower secret, and I'm glad it wasn't a bunch of coins reward, but I almost wish the fire flower could serve a greater purpose in the level. It makes me wish melty ice blocks existed in vanilla smw.

In the forest section, I like the replacement for footballs into moles, but I would place them 1 tile higher maybe, since they are barely even threatening as is. They are less threatening than regular footballs and the monty mole sprite. Also, to jankily increase the difficulty, a lot of people will put multiple piranha plants in the pipes, since they aren't very threatening either as is. The mole sections in the forest section are the most interesting/difficult, but I feel that more can still be done, especially when combining the chain platforms and the moles. Also, the whole gimmick with the moles not moving until you step on a cement block opens up a lot of design opportunities for "mole rides". Usually, you can't make a mole ride, because the moles don't come back, and the player is stuck. However, you can design prolonged mole rides easily. Maybe try a prolonged mole ride that involves intense platforming on the chain platforms, bouncing on monty moles on tile 1f0, or something like that.

However, if you submit the level as is, it's still a solid, world 1 difficulty level. I just think the design could be made more... challenging maybe? Still a solid level.


Also, this has nothing to do with my review, but Nintendo doesn't design uncreative levels. If you're going to design a level "like Nintendo did in the original smw", it's probably going to be extremely innovative. Every level in smw introduced a new gameplay element, and each element was explored very well according to the difficulty curve. If I made a very flat level filled with just koopas, I wouldn't be making a level "like Nintendo", unless I'm aiming for early world 1 difficulty.
Very good aesthetics right there. Took me a while to get where the tree leaves where taken from xd. The frozen spikes hitboxes are kinda wanky tbh, but thats not something you can avoid. I liked the use of trees as pipe exits.

The gameplay was not appealing to me, it's pretty much hit-and-run, with some muncher avoiding areas. I don't think you can change the gameplay aspect unless you completely revamp it, so it may be a non-go, but I think making it more enjoyable and challenging would totally grant you first place (kek).

This might be the only negative review since your level is so gorgeous, graphics-wise. I can definitely see the effort you put in your entry.

If you want to enable flying in your level, you might wanna fix this

also
Originally posted by Hobz
e: the song is also super repetitive, and it got on my nerves pretty quickly. idk if there's another one you could use, but I'd suggest it.
+1
Thanks everyone for the feedback, glad people are enjoying the level.

One of the main issues we had was actually with the music, I spent hours looking for a song that would fit the level but unfortunately this was the only one we could find that wasn't overused or clashed with the level aesthetics, if anyone has any suggestions we'd really appreciate it.
Originally posted by Guiga
Also, most of the times the Mega Moles are bugged out in place, they won't move unless you respawn them many times.
Did you step on the cement blocks in front of them ?
ask me if i give a f*ck...
Went trough your entry, I must say that it's very well made. Everything works well, the way you introduced mechanics makes it easy for the player to figure how to keep going trough the level. Graphics were neatly choosen, I personally don't really like the tree leaves (even if it's the smartest way I've seen people doing trees with vanilla gfx) due to those dots floating at the tips.

I personally had only a few issues:
- The powerup at the beginning is quite hard to get (especially if it's a fire flower; getting ontop of the question block kept me busy more than expected, lol).

- I can go trough the dirt in here:

I'm aware that none ever is going to attempt this since it's kinda kamikaze-y, but still.

- This was werid:

Why the selected tiles are solid? Not a good idea, since you could also happen to hit them while jumping from the blue platform below. If you just wanted to block players from going up there, maybe you could just lower the platform + ground a few tiles.

- While the song you chose is one of the most abused ever recently (and I dunno why), I don't know what I could suggest you. Maybe this or this?

Great level still.

Trees made of fire. What a world
Switch: SW-2766-9108-9399Twitter: @Vine_STYouTube: that ivy guy
i do kind of question why you'd give the player a yoshi when it allows me to bypass the majority of your spike and monty mole setups (until you start using 1EB). there's no reason to give the player access to the top secret area, they should be entering your level with no powerups and no yoshi.

the way you lock your monty moles in is pretty clever, but i can also do this and it's kind of just... looks bad.

all my other concerns have been addressed already. otherwise it's a pretty strong level. i could see the updated version of it getting pretty high up.
Whooaaaa! Hooollllyyy craaaappp!!! How in the hell did you create an aesthetic like THAT?! I totally refuse to believe that it's totally vanilla! That looks incredible, dudes! Excellent work!

I do have one small complaint about the aesthetics though: The forest section's background looks a little dull compared to the rest of the backgrounds. Why not just try making an entirely new background instead of just reusing the old Super Mario World forest background?
Just so you know, I'm very active on the site anymore like I was before; I'm mainly on Discord now.
Originally posted by Hobz
Originally posted by Guiga
Also, most of the times the Mega Moles are bugged out in place, they won't move unless you respawn them many times.
Did you step on the cement blocks in front of them ?

edit: I noticed that there were some weird sprite issues (like some not appearing at all) so I thought it was probably on my end, I re-patched it and deleted .srm now it seems to run just fine, so the author can rest assured
Originally posted by Falconpunch
I do have one small complaint about the aesthetics though: The forest section's background looks a little dull compared to the rest of the backgrounds. Why not just try making an entirely new background

got it. this any better?


Originally posted by Guiga
If you want to enable flying in your level, you might wanna fix this

there's no feather in the level unless you take one from the top secret area so its fine

Originally posted by Wakana




fixed and fixed.

Originally posted by idol
i do kind of question why you'd give the player a yoshi when it allows me to bypass the majority of your spike and monty mole setups (until you start using 1EB). there's no reason to give the player access to the top secret area, they should be entering your level with no powerups and no yoshi.

the way you lock your monty moles in is pretty clever, but i can also do this and it's kind of just... looks bad.

Bypassing the spikes was kinda considered a "reward" for getting there with yoshi but yeah thats a problem. Also the top secret is mostly made to save past the intro so I didn't have to rewatch the intro all the time.

Originally posted by Wakana
I personally had only a few issues:
- The powerup at the beginning is quite hard to get (especially if it's a fire flower; getting ontop of the question block kept me busy more than expected, lol).

originally there was a note block but ren kinda thought it was out of place so I made it invisible but I'll add it back



Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
Overall, it's a world 1 difficulty level with occasionally clever level design, which is explored to the bare minimum.

I like the monty mole gimmick, I think the gimmick is interesting, but it was explored very little.


¯\_(ツ)_/¯ world one is fun
everyone has different regards when it comes to difficulty so I can't please everybody. Couple real life friends I had couldn't even finish the level. Also all far as the mole gimmick goes there isn't too much more to explore sadly. Sure I could think of something maybe but I feel like it would run the risk of overstaying its welcome.
Oh, yeah. Much better. Great work. Can't wait to play it once it's submitted.
Just so you know, I'm very active on the site anymore like I was before; I'm mainly on Discord now.
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