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[REMOVED] "Super Mario Down Under" by Proto Stratos

GO HERE FOR MOST RECENT VERSION.



Permanent link to original submission
Quote
File Name: Super Mario Down Under
Submitted: 2014.04.21 ~ 06:06:09 by Proto Stratos
Claimed: 2014.04.22 ~ 23:22:07 by Counterfeit
Rating: 0.0
Authors: Proto Stratos
Demo: Yes
Length: 26 exit(s)
Difficulty: Normal
Description: Hoping to escape the daily routine, Mario has taken a vacation in Terranova, a land down under. Shortly after arriving, he sees a large bird being harassed by Koopas. After saving the bird, he learns that he is a moa named Mele and apparently, Bowser has set up his operations in Terranova, kidnapping the Moas and their eggs. It looks like it's time for another adventure!
The title screen is an oceanside view of the original title stage during a sunset. What was Yoshi is now a green emu. I think I'm going to like this hack.

The intro is aesthetically pleasing with lots of bushes and a pastel peach sky. The great emu returns.

Lighthouse has a grammar error; "their" is used where "there" should be. I couldn't figure out how to get on the roof of the lighthouse... :S

South Cape is a decently elaborate first level with a few path deviations for a touch of nonlinearity. The P-switch and the use of invisible coin blocks to make and block the paths around the midway point were a nice touch. Exploration is fun.

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ GIVE EMU ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Nambucca Trail goes to show you have some really cool level names. The pinky-purple tones give me the impression that this is a prehistoric style of level; it reminds me of the Jurassic era. The same "P-switch that only the emu can get" concept is recycled, but with a silver P-switch and munchers that the emu can not walk on! There are a few Map16 errors within the level, ranging from slopes that you can walk through where the steep and upside-down slopes connect to a missing midway point tile after level re-entry and a few bad corners. Overall, a nice level with a solid idea.

Salao Caverns has a really bad graphical problem with the message box... it shouldn't be a piranha plant head under any circumstances. This tool and some YY-CHR work can fix that for you. Anyways, the concept introduced in the level before is made mandatory to complete the level. The design has a winding first room, and a straightforward second room - you are led full circle since you need to free up a pipe shown near the beginning of the level. There are a few more bad corner tiles in this level but nothing too noticable. Spin jump doesn't protect you from spiky enemies anymore.

Sea Shack's palettes are weird - the bright orange is pretty stand-out but it makes the level scream "HALLOWEEN!" There's nothing particularly special about the first room, but the second room does lead you into a spooky puzzle. I just kept entering doors until I could find my way to the P-switch. It wasn't tedious because there were only a couple of doors, and it felt appropriate for a ghost house. The house glitches and flickers as the screen scrolls in the exit part.

Sunset Hills is an intense athletic level full of moving platforms. The focus switches from rotating platforms to line guide trickery after the first room. I liked this level, but I wasn't a fan of the palette - the hills didn't seem to agree with the backdrop color.

#1 Cape Castle felt easy but had an interesting atmospheric progression. The castle actually looked kind of like ruins on the outside, flooded a bit and with what appears to be moss on the stone, and a really grungy-looking interior. I liked fetching that springboard and looping around to get into the pipe. The autoscroll room felt strange. The star lagged behind because the scrolling was faster than it, and that was admitably weird placing of an extra life.

Brushy Valley makes nice use of the layer 3 tide and autoscroll. It was nice to give a P-switch to those who actually used the tide to their advantage to swim under parts of the level. On the other hand, that star felt really useless.

Taina Prairie - at this point, the P-switch usage is becoming excessive. I did enjoy the secret exit path and the new story element.

Naked Beach! This level is crazy with the wall triangles and the shell kicking. Very energetic! However, there's one spot that looks like hell without the cape, with the music note blocks above the lake.

Lake Taupo has an exploitable Dragon Coin on a subscreen boundary where it's possible to get 99 lives off of. After re-entering the level from the flying fish room, the whole top of the level is cutoff. There's death from below, as it's impossible to see the Urchins at the bottom of the screen. This whole problem is severe, and can be attributed to the FG/BG starting position of your secondary entrance. You also die at the end of the level because there is no... ground... after the goal post... >_>; The tide in the secret exit room also scrolls with the level.

Blackberry Island has another infinite Dragon Coin between brambles, but this one can't be broken. The level's palette is also pretty bad. Once again, there's a problem with the tide that makes it scroll with the level. The tide goes behind the platforms, making it incredibly weird when you swim through the dirt and grass. The brambles below the wooden planks are harmless - you could use a custom block to fix this behavior. There is no goal tape at the end. The palette in the room inside the pipe you need the switch to get into has an abominable palette. Anyways, after I hit the big green switch... the path to the fortress is revealed but I can't go up.

End

of

DEMO.

D:

The hack starts out decently enough, with gimmicks used sparingly and the levels seeming different enough from each other, and there's a neat story involving Mele, but as you go on, you realize that there hasn't been much, if any, testing past the first world. It all falls apart in quality, and it's a wonder the two worlds are the same hack. What happened, hacker? Is this the wrong patch?

Difficulty: Normal

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
Originally posted by Counterfeit
Lighthouse has a grammar error; "their" is used where "there" should be. I couldn't figure out how to get on the roof of the lighthouse... :S


The Lighthouse is the Yellow Switch Palace. You're supposed to get a cape and fly to the top, where there's a pipe.

Originally posted by Counterfeit
Lake Taupo has an exploitable Dragon Coin on a subscreen boundary where it's possible to get 99 lives off of. After re-entering the level from the flying fish room, the whole top of the level is cutoff. There's death from below, as it's impossible to see the Urchins at the bottom of the screen. This whole problem is severe, and can be attributed to the FG/BG starting position of your secondary entrance. You also die at the end of the level because there is no... ground... after the goal post... >_>; The tide in the secret exit room also scrolls with the level.


Wow, do I feel like an enormous idiot. The exit to Lake Taupo was originally a sublevel with Layer 3 tides. I edited it at the last minute to avoid the layer 3 fade out glitch.

And Blackberry Island. Yeah, last minute scrap and re-do of a level.

Although you're probably going to do it anyway, I'd like it rejected right away. The glitches having been pointed out, I'll get back to work on this hack and re-upload a fixed version soon.


Originally posted by Proto Stratos
The Lighthouse is the Yellow Switch Palace. You're supposed to get a cape and fly to the top, where there's a pipe.
I tend to type as I play and I realized I forgot to go back with the cape but uh, thanks for informing me anyways. I'll be sure to check it out next time you upload the hack.

Anyways, author says "reject" sooo... that's gonna be a reject. Destickying and removing for now.

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
Permanent link to current version.

Removed because coming out of the pipe from the flying fish room in Lake Taupo results in instant death.

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
Permanent link to submission
Quote
File Name: Super Mario Down Under
Submitted: 2014.06.13 ~ 16:48:55 by Proto Stratos
Claimed: 2014.06.16 ~ 00:24:22 by Counterfeit
Rating: 0.0
Authors: Proto Stratos
Demo: Yes
Length: 20 exit(s)
Difficulty: Normal
Description: Hoping to escape the daily routine, Mario has taken a vacation in Terranova, a land down under. Shortly after arriving, he sees a large bird being harassed by Koopas. After saving the bird, he learns that he is a moa named Mele and apparently, Bowser has set up his operations in Terranova, kidnapping the Moas and their eggs. It looks like it's time for another adventure!
Tags:
Download: Download - 298.60 KiB
12 downloads
Submission Notes: I repaired a few issues (including the death pipe in Lake Taupo and some minor graphic errors.)
Core design hasn't changed so I'm not going deep. Just bug reports and little comments.

South Cape - Weird palettes when eating berries. Check palettes 9, A, and B, and make sure they can match 2, 3, and 4's latter halves without interfering with other sprites. Worst-case scenario, make the berries act like 3F or 25 so they can't be eaten but can still decorate the area.

Nambucca Trail - The Piranha Plants going behind FG that you can walk through and still being able to hurt you is still cheap damage.

Cape House - Not liking that orange.

Sunset Hills - Blue Koopa shell's shading is reversed in the first room only.

Brushy River - Least favorite level in the hack, but most favorite level ending ever when the P-switch is used.

Lake Taupo IT'S FIXED!! Urchin palette problem in one frame though, depicting its top and bottom spikes with blue instead of orange.

Levels that I haven't reviewed yet:

FOREST FORTRESS needs a new name. Pretty cool concept that reminds me of a Kirby Triple Deluxe ghost house gimmick, but instead of the truth being in the mirror, it's in the coins. The colors go against my intuition as I'm used to blue being safe and red being danger but that's what makes it mind-bending. There's a bad background palette. There is one red coin in the third room that lies.


Cumulus Heights has a fantastic vine puzzle which I have never seen pulled off in this manner, like a more colossal version of Gnarly. The bonus room is an unedited version of Mondo's bonus room. The line guides dragged on for an unbearably long time and was not enjoyable.

Rakiura Ridge has a giant cutoff wall below the bridge. There are some instances where Hammer Bros are jumping through the ground to their death or walking off of ledges and jumping mid-air. There's also a blank message box.

Castle Araneae flows really well and makes great use of the moving castle brick and the net doors. The graphics for the net Koopa are pretty creepy. I was impressed with how much was done with Thwomp placement in the second room.

Korowai Forest is okay, but forgettable, and a huge step down in difficulty.

The Old Sawmill has a problem in the key room where I can get wedged between a Boo Block and a wall on the stairs and get squashed to death. The room with the Eerie generator has glitched Eeries. There's a crate I can walk through but for no reason. It's an unclean way to end a demo, and that secret exit is all kinds of frustrating to even think about getting to. There are too many unnecessary items in that key room that serve to mislead the player: I had two P-switches I didn't know what to do with. I didn't like the amount of waiting that had to be done to get safely past Grinders or to draw Big Boo out enough to get through the corridor.

Eh, it's still highly questionable, with more problems after the previous versions' breaking points. I enjoyed the first two worlds, but the third, not so much so far. The Old Sawmill especially feels like an incomplete level. I'd recommend having a clear "End of Demo" marker so I know that there's no oversight or glitch.

Difficulty: Still Normal

I'm expecting one more version before positive verdicts, but let's see what happens anyways.
+1
Wakana
Everest

Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!
Aww good thing I scrolled down and saw the update, I was going to play the one in the first post. Cou-chan, please write in first post that a new version is available~

About the hack, I must say that I had a nice first impression. Although, as I went forward, it kinda disappointed my expectations.

Starting with the level design, your hack is good: I liked how you designed each level in general, the sprite placements and so on...although, as said earlier, seems that you cared less for the late levels. That may be just my impression, but it kinda felt like it. The difficult curve seemed alright and, if I have to judge the overall, it's good enough. I'd still put some work in the late levels so the quality of design keeps the same.

The aesthteics...well, meh. The first "new" GFX is the Yoshi, which has been replaced with Mele, and I'm ambivalent on it: it looks okay, but it could've been better. And since it's one of the main character of the story, I'd make it a little better. As for the rest, I'm not a fan of your palettes in general: some colors were really eye soaring (like that yellow of the forest fortress), which really need some work; others were just wrong, like messed gradient colors in the palette rows and so on. Apply more work on the aesthetic factor too.

I'd say that this hack is normal: the design and the difficult curve felt that normal suits best here.

Sadly, I guess I'd reject this hack: you're on a good road, your hack features a unique character, although you have to put more work and efforts on it. Keep working and I'm sure this will soon be accepted.
Nice little hack here.

I am rather impressed with some of the design and creativity in this hack though I cannot say everything is done correctly in this hack as no hack is perfect and there are examples of that which I will get into later. Right now however, the focus is on level design. I found the levels in this hack to be design to be pretty neat though there are some levels where it does have its sloppy parts in them. The levels generally start out by having varying segments within them. The variety in the levels is quite good and I am impressed with the structures you have designed though you might want to avoid creating narrow spaces in some areas as that is quite annoying to deal with. The sprites used in the levels seem to be fine in general though they are placed in inappropriate areas in certain cases such as placing them in places where it is not easy to jump or where it unfairly inconveniences the player. The difficulty in general seems to flow pretty well in the beginning of the hack but as I progress, I experience difficulty spikes. That is not impressive and it should be fixed. Generally, the level design is fine but it can be improved.

The aesthetics in general are not horrible but they could use some work. The majority of the graphics in this hack are vanilla and as such, palettes are the main focus. The palettes in this hack are merely good at best but some of the palettes seem horrible though not to the worst extent possible. An example of this is the background of the FOREST FORTRESS level. Make sure you palettes are more pleasing to the eye and smoother in certain cases. The non-vanilla parts seem to be fine to me so no complaints there. The level Salao Caverns contains structures with varying palettes and I think it is executed well there. The overworld is quite nice with the exception of the occasional cutoff which are usually small so there isn't a major issue there. The music is unchanged. I suppose that is fine in this hack considering it is pretty vanilla like. There are some glitches towards the end of the hack regarding sprites and there are more unusual problems there with disappearing sprites. The levels towards the end seem to be the culprit in these problems and I am not sure what to say about how it affects the hack.

Difficulty: Seems to be Normal on average.

I am not sure what to do. The majority of the hack seems to be fine except the last few levels which need serious attention. There are other issues however that need to be looked into like I have mentioned. I am leaning towards rejection because I want to see the issues fixed. Have some testers to test your hack before resubmitting and good luck on whatever decision you make!