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Frigid Lake Cavern (23), Morel Mountain (11E), Wild Wet Castle (123)

These are the three levels I made, obviously. I figured I'd start a discussion thread for them, as well as a place where I could post any changes I'd make to them...whenever that happens.

Frigid Lake Cavern:
- Seems like not so much an outright bad level, but kind of bland. In the redesign, I might consider making it shorter but perhaps a little less linear.
- I think the graphics and music could possibly be changed to something better, though it doesn't matter too much if they're not. (In a Snow-Bound Land would fit well for the music, though I'm not sure what graphics I'd use...)

Morel Mountain:
- Okay, no way is this easy enough for World 2. Maybe not hard enough for World 7, but if it's going to be a World 2 level, I should redesign it, or at least parts of it. I should probably redesign parts of it anyway.
- The music choice could probably be better. Tengu Man's theme suits a more sky-type athletic level than a mountainous one, but I swear to God that I cannot for the life of me find a good general-purpose athletic theme. (Or a mountain theme, for that matter...of the very few mountain themes I can think of that I would consider worth using, none of them would really fit this level.)

Wild Wet Castle:
- I know that this one is supposed to be just scrapped entirely and remade from the ground up.
- Should I change the level name? I'm thinking of making it kind of an overgrown swampy ruins area with a lot of plant-based enemies and obstacles (possibly with a sewer section or two), so...maybe Botanical Bastion? Temple Thicket? Boulder Bog? Perilous Plants? Or even "The Hungry Swamp" or something.
- I'm thinking of making the level have several rooms that can be done in any order, as in Marching Milde's Fort in Yoshi's Island. I might do a more swampy one, a more ruins-ish one, a sewer one, a higher-altitude one...I don't know.
- Also on the subject of Yoshi's Island, should I keep the Yoshi's Island graphics? I could probably find some overgrown ruins or swamp-type graphics, and I'm not even sure what I'd use for that one room, but the sewer parts...well, there are just about no other good sewer graphics around.
- I realize that the boss needs to be tweaked as well. Other than making her not glitch up, not take so long to beat, and not be so dependent on the RNG, is there anything that should be changed?
- Oh yeah, and the music could probably be changed here as well, though I'm not sure what would fit a swampy castle...maybe this?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
As far as I know, the boss has some sprite memory errors. It makes Mario's cape cut off, and once somehow I hadn't a half of my head while being small Mario.

Well, nice to see some work here. I think you can keep Yoshi's Island graphics if you want. As for the names - Bonatical Bastion and Perilous Plants sounds good, but you can keep the old name if it's theme will be the same like in the old level.

Good luck on this.
I've only replayed Frigid Lake Cavern so far, but here are the impressions I walked away with. I put it in the "keep" pile, meaning it would probably be fine even if left alone.

Originally posted by AxemJinx
Frigid Lake Cavern
--Remove the on/off switch and the backtracking.
--Remove the message box at the beginning.
--Make it a bit shorter.
--Part of me feels the whole layout could use a makeover, with more focused obstacles instead of "enemy per platform" design (especially the first section).


I'll update with the other two once I reach them again.

Originally posted by imamelia
I might consider making it shorter but perhaps a little less linear.

Actually, the linearity doesn't bother me.

Originally posted by imamelia
I'm thinking of making the level have several rooms that can be done in any order, as in Marching Milde's Fort in Yoshi's Island.

Keep in mind that Yoshi's Island has a much more lenient health and checkpoint system than Super Mario World does. My concern with that kind of structure is that it would end up too long and hard again. It could work if you kept the rooms reasonably short and provided enough midpoints, though.

Originally posted by imamelia
I realize that the boss needs to be tweaked as well. Other than making her not glitch up, not take so long to beat, and not be so dependent on the RNG, is there anything that should be changed?

From what I remember, the simplest solution would be to force the attack that leaves her vulnerable every other attack. So, the flow would go like this:

(1) Attack selected from the attack pool
(2) Vulnerable attack
(3) (If hit) Retaliation attack (Remove this from the attack pool)
(4) Repeat from (1)

Under that system, 3 - 5 hits would be enough. Definitely no more than 5- that's already pushing it, I think. Just my opinion, though.



Edit: Replayed Morel Mountain. If we're moving it to world 2, here are my suggestions. I agree it needs to be toned down in difficulty a bit.

Originally posted by AxemJinx
Morel Mountain
--I'm going to assume we're moving this to world 2, since it has a mountain theme. In that case, though, I think the difficulty needs to be toned down in some spots.
--Limit panser use to the vertical-throwing types. It's a bit tough to distinguish between four types just by color when the level uses so many other sprites, too.
--Remove the green winged parabeetles. Whenever I try to dodge them, it makes the red ones spawn too far apart, and I can't continue. They could be used elsewhere in the stage, but they're pretty similar to bullet bills.
--In the second set of red parabeetles, the third one is too far out. Move it and the fourth one left a tile or two. Move the upper platform left as well if necessary.
--Where the path splits between high and low, simplify the bullet bill salvos on the top path. Consider removing the bottom path or increasing its difficulty a bit, as it feels like the safer choice. I'd rather just see a single focused path, though.
--Remove the classic lakitu. It makes plenty of jumps awkward and difficult, plus it clashes with the SMW version, which is essentially the same. (Perhaps the cloud left behind is the issue, but I don't think a lakitu is needed anyway.)
--Does this level have a midpoint? If not, add one.

Youtube (Main) | Youtube (Alt) | Bandcamp | DeviantART
Does anyone happen to know what resources I used (sprites, blocks, graphics, music, Map16 tiles) that were exclusive to these levels? Or where I could find a decent sewer tileset?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Originally posted by imamelia
Or where I could find a decent sewer tileset?

If you would like one in the vein of Yoshi's Island and NSMB, I may be able to whip something up for you as I've been interested in creating a sewer tileset of my own.
Yes, that would be nice. There are very few sewer tilesets out there, and all of them other than YI's seem to be pretty simple. I like how YI had a couple different types of terrain to choose from and some extra things like wall decor, background pipes, and flowing water. Would you be making the background as well? Or should I just use this one?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
I could make a simple background for it, though if I do, I'd press for the background to be used elsewhere in the hack, as well (such as the sewer world's levels, even though they're apparently being relocated).

I should ask how slope-oriented you want it to be. Do you only want 45-degree slopes as in Yoshi's Island and NSMB or should I also add the more gradual slopes?
I would accept only 45-degree slopes, but I certainly wouldn't mind having other slopes as well. And would you also make something like those rooms with the rocky wall background in addition to the pipes?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Yeah, I can do that. No problem. #tb{:)}

EDIT: Here's the beginning of the graphics:

More progress on the sewer set. We've got slopes and those giant, Yoshi's Island drain pipe doors now:

Hm, not bad. The blue part might look better with a simple brick pattern or something, though I'm not sure. Are you planning to make a pipe background as well as a wall background?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Yeah, I've been wondering what to do about the negative space within the walls. In both Yoshi's Island and NSMB, there is very little if any decoration beyond the borders of the playable field. I may toy with a brick pattern.

Also, when you say "pipe background," do you mean that weird gray and blue background in YI's sewer levels or a background comprised of pipes a la SMB3? I can go either way.
I was referring to the former. A custom version of the latter would be nice (bonus points if it includes a Layer 3 image), but not really suitable for this particular level.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.