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Level themes/gimmick discussion thread

What the title says, what themes/gimmick do you want for the main levels? Remember only 10 main levels are planned for now, so we'll have to be selective.

Also, y/n on a fifth "no gimmick" level, like the other four we did durring C3?
How about a cloud level with line guides, platforms and saws? Also a castle with layer 2 smash would be cool.
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Originally posted by white_moth
Also a castle with layer 2 smash would be cool.

Sounds like a cool idea, although we'd have to work with the fact that it has 0F screens and some of the layer 2 smash commands cease to work on certain intervals. We'd have to make two (three?) rooms depending on the ideas we have in mind and also the length of the level.
We could also have a ghost house somewhere, and it could work as a level with no particular gimmick. Or if we want to go with a gimmick, let's make a layer 3 water level!
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Originally posted by white_moth
How about a cloud level with line guides, platforms and saws?

+1 on this, it'd be interesting to see it goes with this concept.

Originally posted by Katerpie
Originally posted by white_moth
Also a castle with layer 2 smash would be cool.

Sounds like a cool idea, although we'd have to work with the fact that it has 0F screens and some of the layer 2 smash commands cease to work on certain intervals.

Is there any patch/hex edit that fixes that? Or a custom sprite we can use instead of the original layer 2 falls? There's a lot of things that can be done with that generator, so it would be nice to have it working on every screen.

About the ghost house, I was thinking that could be the theme for the fifth no gimmick level that would go with the levels from C3.
There's the last version of sprite EA (the Layer 2 Scroll Range 06 command) that turns into a smash command once you lower it one tile when it's on the top. It's basically Smash-1 that works on every screen. Or maybe the Smash-3 command that also acts on every screen, albeit I'm afraid it's far slower than the first two commands.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
I'd like a level with a Layer 2 gimmick too. Maybe one that sinks, or rises, or does both.
Just so you know, I'm very active on the site anymore like I was before; I'm mainly on Discord now.
A water-themed level using the lowering/rising tide would be cool imo. But it usually causes mass slowdown, even with a small number of sprites, so I'd recommend making the hack SA-1 if it's not already.
That wouldn't cause any problem, considering the screens are 100% vanilla.
The hack already has SA-1 applied though.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
The rising tide idea sounds extraordinarily complex, as one would have to play through all the screens to see how one's own screen would play. I guess that adds to all the chaos, but it won't make for good level design. Also, people suck at making tide levels (I guess these screens can be used for people to experiment on how to make good tide levels...?)

A line guide level with clouds would also be difficult to manage, but I think it's possible.

A horizontal castle seems nice, as the castle sprite tileset is very flexible. Layer 2 smash sounds hard to work around and would probably just make for a ton of waiting in many sections, but we'll see.

For total chaos, we can do a cape level... #wario{:O}
Originally posted by white_moth
How about a cloud level with line guides, platforms and saws?


+1

Also, I was thinking on a level using the Lakitu Cloud sprite. I don't know if it's a good idea though
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2021 TRENO vibe check thread
To sum up we have:

-Cloud level with line guides
-Ghost house with no gimmick
-Castle with layer 2 falls
-Rising tide level
-Cape/Lakitu cloud level

For the line-guide level I we could use both saws and grinders. For the castle level maybe we can expand the spriteset a bit and use some twomp variants (horizontal, diagonal, inverse, 8x8), or roto discs.

The rising tide level could easilly become a "do nothing and wait for the high tide to come" for the reasons ft029 said. About the cape/lakitu cloud levels, I'm not really a fan of those, since all you do is fly arround and dodge flying enemies, although the lakitu cloud one could come up well if done right.
An autoscrolling level could be pretty cool if it was done correctly. Perhaps that level's gimmick could be Layer 2 yellow rocks that rise and sink and whatever?
Originally posted by Heraga
An autoscrolling level could be pretty cool if it was done correctly. Perhaps that level's gimmick could be Layer 2 yellow rocks that rise and sink and whatever?

Autoscroll level is okay. Layer 2 level is okay. But both of these would require a very precise timing and coordination from all screen makers to have the layer 2 parts scroll at the right time.

td;lr it'd be an absolute mess
You could do a lot with the skull raft. It'd be interesting to see multiple people design a level using those.
Seconding Mathos, that idea would be alright if it wasn't for the fact that it has a very limited number of screens we'd have to work around with (ala Donut Plains 2).
Unless we split the level into multiple rooms (echoing my previous post) or insert a custom sprite, but I don't know if that would be worth the trouble at all. Maybe it would still work out if it's done correctly somehow.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
I should have made it more clear that I was kidding about the cape thing. Sorry.

Anyway, from what I'm seeing here, the cloud and line guide level seems most promising. It should probably be kicked off soon.
Right.



I made this for the sky level. It's the mushroom spriteset but with saws. Is there any other sprite you think I should add? (Custom sprites are ok, btw)
Originally posted by Najeraldo
Is there any other sprite you think I should add? (Custom sprites are ok, btw)

Nah, the tileset is fine as it is now. Using other sprites or custom sprites (unless they're especially made to fit the original game, like Erik's Parakoopas) would make the whole thing feel much less vanilla, which is one of the aspects that make the concept's charm. I personally think that unless on behalf of a very popular request, custom sprites shouldn't be used.
Random gimmick passing:
For boss levels you could use a screen scrolling custom sprite that once (for the sake of simplicity) it reaches screen 1F it would loop to the first screen (making it possible to make only up to screen 1D, for 1E and 1F to be equal to 00 and 01 to make a loop effect) and the boss always center on the screen (like the big boo boss, but could have more health).
~Ultrabi

One day I'll make a layout...
I like that idea, I was actually wondering how we could implement bosses that fit with the concept.

I'll start working on the tileset for the sky level so we can begin before the end of the week. Before we do though, any suggestions on how long, and hard it should be?