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(Complete) Pitch Black Cave

I made a level for this project. You might find it very different and interesting. Here you go.

To play the level in the editor:

1. Download and extract the folder.
2. Open the extracted folder up and copy the folder and the two files into your "The Invasion 2" folder (or another folder in your "Worlds" folder).
3. Open up the level editor, choose "Open", find the "Pitch Black Cave.lvl" file and double-click it, choose "Test Level", "Test Level 1UP", then "Yes", and you can play the level.

The level is meant for one player. And the level isn't quite done yet. The only thing that I have left to do is make it so that Yoshi can't enter the level, which I don't know how to do.

And due to the nature of the level, I can't really show any screenshots, so you'll have to play it.

And please don't edit the level. You may look, but don't edit it.

So tell me what you think about my level, comments, questions, concerns, what's too hard, etc.

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

Personally, I find it relies too much on trial and error. It might be okay for a bonus stage, but I know plenty of people who would rage-quit if this was a required stage. The way Mario moves makes it difficult to know where to jump, even when you memorize the map (smoothly, pixel by pixel as opposed to tile by tile as in, say, Pokemon for lack of a better example).

So yeah, might make an okay special stage, but if you want it to be a main level, you might want to make the tiles a little lighter, so you can see where to go if you look hard enough. Also, it might be a nice touch if you blacked out Mario as well (except for his eyes, you know, like in cartoon?), though I'm not sure if you can have custom graphics on a per-level basis...
Eh, sure. Why not? Kaizo hacking doesn't seem too ha-aaaaaaand I broke the ROM.
It's an interesting idea, but I could only go through a couple of floors, because having to memorize a map is not a good thing in my opinion.

If there was some sort of light block you could find that could turn some of the lights on, even for a little bit, that would be so much better.

Oh, and if there is to be a punishment for choosing the wrong path, instead of making it instant death, why not reset the room?

I'll try to get past where I got to but I think you should seriously reconsider this level.

- BlackMageMario
These types of levels are too gimmicky to be used in main game. As said before it really just focuses on memorization and trial & error which is a major turn off for a lot of people. The only way this could work is you had a small light around Mario so you could at least see a little bit around you, but even then that might take out a lot of the challenge of the level considering there's no enemies as far as I can tell. It might be best just to scratch this level overall.
Originally posted by Doopy Buckride
These types of levels are too gimmicky to be used in main game. As said before it really just focuses on memorization and trial & error which is a major turn off for a lot of people. The only way this could work is you had a small light around Mario so you could at least see a little bit around you, but even then that might take out a lot of the challenge of the level considering there's no enemies as far as I can tell. It might be best just to scratch this level overall.

I don't know if SMBX can use animated tiles for something like this, but perhaps you could make the size of the spotlight flicker between average and large (allowing the player to see the screen it its near entirety) every 5 seconds or so. It would make a good compromise.

...of course, reduced visibility gimmicks are always very difficult to pull off, so it's indeed better to scrap the idea if you don't feel like you can design a perfectly fitting level.
Bad news!

Black is 0 red, 0 blue, and 0 green. I tried to color my death blocks so that they have 10 red, 0 blue, and 0 green, so that you could see the death blocks, but you would have to look very hard. Anyway, when I colored the entire death block picture in Microsoft Paint (the death blocks are actually just recolored lava) with 10 red, 0 blue, and 0 green, although in Paint the entire picture was only colored 10 red, 0 blue, and 0 green, if I save the picture and open it up again in Paint, most of the picture is 0 red, 0 blue, and 0 green (a.k.a. black) while some individual pixels are colored with 51 red, 0 blue, and 0 green. WHAT? How did this happen? That's not what I saved it as! That's so weird!

Unless I can find a solution to this problem, I'm probably not going to submit this level to Quality Control.

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

Sounds like the limited palette of the GIF format is biting you; MS Paint is no good with paletted image formats. Try saving as png (if the problem still appears, save as 24bit BMP, close, reopen, and save as PNG again) and finding a png to gif converter somewhere.
If you're familiar with command lines, I recommend ImageMagick. Otherwise, GIMP/Photoshop/Paint.NET or looking up some online tool should be easier. There should be a lot of options.

And I hope your level is dark enough that 10,0,0 is reasonably visible... it sounds like it can get very annoying very quickly.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
O.K., I've updated my level.

I've recolored my Death Blocks from 0 red, 0 blue, and 0 green to 7 red, 0 blue, and 0 green. I've also recolored the solid blocks from 0 red, 0 blue, and 0 green to 3 red, 3 blue, and 3 green. This might make the level much easier, but now I'm thinking that the map might be unnecessary. I also don't want Yoshi to enter the level.

So tell me what you guys think about this updated version. Hopefully I'll be able to submit this level to Quality Control soon.

Download here.

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

If I don't get any feedback on my updated level, I'll just send it to Quality Control anyway.

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

I just sent my level to Quality Control.

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

HAS MAJOR ERRORS
This is a pretty interesting idea that could potentially work for a bonus stage, but it has one rather obvious flaw: the level is not at all pitch black, the solid blocks and death blocks are completely visible. This takes the challenge out of the level and makes it seem boring, tedious, and pointless. I cannot accurately judge this level as it is now.

Additionally, many of the rooms in the second half seem as if they would be unbearably frustrating if the it actually was completely dark. I personally suggest that you remake those before submitting it again.
Well, the level was originally completely black. The death and solid blocks were originally completely invisible. But me and some other people above tested that version and we decided that the level was too hard. I eventually took DarkBone's advice and brightened it up a bit.

eXcavator, are you trying to tell me to make the level completely black like how it was before and remake the rooms after the checkpoint so that it's easier?

Click the character on the right side of my layout to visit my Discord server and discuss and play and look at and get updates and sneak peeks of the games and other things I'm making.

The authors of these 2 My Little Pony fan games have removed their games from the Internet.
Rise of the Clockwork Stallions has been updated! Download My Little Pony: Rise of the Clockwork Stallions DX: Director's Cut and My Little Pony: Magic Shards now! Spread this link!

Um, well, it's just that like I said, the level is a bit pointless right now. I'm not actually sure that the whole dark thing will actually be fun, but that is the level's gimmick, and you should stick to that.
If it's really ridiculous but not necessarily flawed, we can always use it as a bonus level.
Basically, I just want to make sure it's enjoyable, even if it ends up being extremely difficult.