Originally posted by NajeraldoThose two hit you because you were rushing. If you take the time to swim a bit more (which it's not even a long swim) they'll jump over you. I removed the platforms and lowered the pipe so you don't feel tempted to jump.
There were platforms there. Why would I swim slowly when I could get to dry land?
Those are neat changes, I think they do well in keeping the obstacle intact, but not making it feel like an ambush.
Originally posted by NajeraldoYou should be able to see this one from the platform; I moved it nearer to the pipe so you won't get this problem.
Again, this keeps the difficult and somewhat frantic idea going, without it feeling like a cheap shot. I like it a lot.
Originally posted by NajeraldoI never had a problem with this obstacle. The fishes give you a lot of moment to pass and you can safely go to the venus' safe spot before the fireballs reach you, especially now that you don't have a fish hitting yo in the safe spot. I'm not touching this one.
Going back through, it's ok if you are calm, but I think at this point I was so tilted from the previous things that seemed like cheap deaths that I was essentially in a constant state of panic. I think that is also why the level felt so long. Playing back through when I was less annoyed by things previously, it feels ok.
Originally posted by NajeraldoI agree this obstacle is hard; you have to be really quick to dodge it. I moved the hammer bro 1 tile up and 1 to the left do it gives you more time to react.
Cool.
Originally posted by NajeraldoThe entry to the first secret passage is as easy as entering a pipe that's in the middle of the way, so it's not really hidden.
I would still argue that you treat it as a secret passage. It lets you skip some level (parts that I consider to be much harder than the part it takes you to) so it's clearly not meant to be taken every time. Still, it's a neat setup, I just don't really think it fits exactly there. It's not hard to dodge or anything, so if you don't want to mess with it, I'm not going to press.
Originally posted by NajeraldoDo
this. And no, it's not hard, all you need is to know how the water physics work, which is no big deal (hint: you swim slower if you hit the down arrow).
It is hard. I think my main issue with this section is that puffer sticks to the screen, which I didn't notice before, but that's what makes his movements seem so erratic, which makes this part weird. Especially when there is a platform there, swimming under is entirely unintuitive, I would not do that normally.
Originally posted by NajeraldoI'll flatten the ground if you're too scared to jump over the fish (which is perfectly possible, and that's how you should dodge it, btw).
I do jump over the fish, but it still takes me by surprise, which is my biggest issue with most of this level.
Originally posted by NajeraldoAlso, paying attention to the whole screen isn’t hard.
Not if you introduce one thing at a time, then you know what you need to track. But in this case, it's like there are 2 things introduced almost at once, and the second one hurts you immediately if you don't notice it and dodge (usually jumping between it and a spiny). Doing it the other way around would likely be more fair, or somehow incentivising the player to slow down (when lakitu tends to make you want to speed up, because otherwise he'll pepper the area with spinies) would also work. However, this change works pretty ok as well.
Originally posted by NajeraldoHow much is 5 days? 10 minutes per day? 30 minutes? 1 hour?
It was something like 1 hour and 30 deaths on day one, then the rest peppered over the next 4 days (with one day I just didn't feel like it). The point was that I got too frustrated to continue fairly often, because the deaths didn't feel like they were my fault.
Originally posted by NajeraldoRegardless, you probably need to improve your playing style then (you said something similar in an earlier post)p, 50 attempts is not nearly what it took me to beat the level, and I'm not talking about this or the previous version of the level, I'm talking about the first finished version, which was never posted here and was way harder. You can argue I'm that author and that makes it easier for me, but I'm sure neither Skewer or ShadowAlexandre had to try so many times to beat it, and I don't think most experienced players will have as much problem as you had.
I'm an average player. I'm not great by any stretch of the imagination, but I can get through almost the entire original game without issue (I think outrageous is the only level in the original game that I have any real issues with). The issue is that a lot of the people here are really, really good at SMW, so they don't recognize things that would be problematic to a more casual player. You could argue that the intended audience is most of the people here, but I always had a vision for this hack as a "Real Game", which would mean that most people of moderate skill would be able to beat it.
All in all, I think I'm OK with this level now, more or less, but it's hard to tell since I'm pretty used to it now.