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114: Playground Bound - GeminiSunfall

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Originally posted by Vic Rattlehead
Couldn't help noticing one of your GFX reserves is for a portable blaster sprite! I assume this launches out some form of enemy-harming Bullet Bill? I made something that I think functions almost exactly like you're looking for, except it shoots only vertically, and it launches Goombas instead of Bills. You might want to give it a look, as I recently posted a patch with this sprite in it. If it works to your liking, I could modify it to work so it launches a custom sprite in your level, and at a more horizontal angle. Maybe even add a little kick-back on the shots to give it a more authentic effect!


I am currently using Ersanio's Portable Blaster sprite, and I pretty much designed the segments involving it around it's functions. Not to mention added kickback would make getting the 3rd SMWC coin a lot more difficult than I already made it.
Yeah, I realized the sprite was already made and that there was a patch in that post shortly after making my own! No harm done though, I suppose. I finished playing the level, and nothing really seemed out of place to me, though the fire flower before the first Banzai Bill seemed to despawn a lot if I waited the platform out and went the safe route. I don't figure this is that big a problem, as if you're in the condition to get a fire flower in the first place, you can just jump through the Bill at no real cost to your health. Everything else was pretty neat, and didn't seem too tough or too easy!
Once again, my weekly status report!

First off, the bad news. I procrastinated again, this time it was because the MMO I'm currently playing just went through a major update. I'm not going to go into any details, other than the fact that the new subclass questline was possibly the most time-consuming I've ever experienced in any MMO I've ever played, eating up many hours that I could've spent working on this level (and having it completed a few days ago).

The good news is I'm almost done with the level, and I know what to make for the secret exit. Those of you who were around back in June probably remembered that when Bloop had this level, he originally had a puzzle room involving colored shells and blocks that broke when hit by a specific color of shell. He ended up scrapping the idea, but I'm actually going to run with it and create some fun puzzles with these shells and blocks. I also intend to include a Yoshi here, who's being held captive as part of some sideshow attraction. You'll need to set him free and use him to eat the different colors of shells to help you reach the secret exit.

...and now I face a tough choice. Should I claim another sprite slot to use YCZ's random-color shell spawner (I'm pretty sure it's a "shooter", and there's not many open slots left), or claim more secondary exits (this level already uses three) to use for reset pipes?
I happen to have a shooter slot that I didn't use, it's slot CA. You may have the slot if you want.
I'll take it. Thanks for offering it.
At long last, I've finally got a finished level design, ready for testing!
Download the test .ips!

Some things to note.
-Because I couldn't seem to insert the Goal Roulette, I placed a Goal Point Sphere at the end. This is temporary and only for playtest purposes.
-I'm thinking of having the shell generators in the secret route be less random than they usually are, because we all know how annoying it can be to wait 20 seconds for the correct shell to emerge. Instead, I'm thinking the generator should spit out shells in a pattern, such as green->red->blue->yellow->green again for example.
-There were supposed to be P-Tricks around the second P-Switch in Level 16B. I removed them due to the lack of available GFX for them at the moment, but they'll be in the finalized version.

Now I'm actually going to start working on more graphics for this level.

Oh yeah, and I'm thinking the level name I'll be using for this one will be Playground Bound, if that works.
Very cute level! Although it seems to use a lot of different ideas (Wiggler jumping, portable shooter, etc), they all seem to connect with the original "midway" theme you were going for. I'm kind of looking forward to see what you end up doing once you draw more graphics. I'm sort of hoping you polish up the Bonus Magician's room a bit as well, since .. well, the overuse of Munchers there sort of irks me a bit.

Just a few specific screenshots. I'll probably have more to say once I've played the level with the P-Tricks/rest of the graphics inserted (that is, something you could consider 100% complete).


I don't like the positioning of the Rexes up there. The front one in particular starts pretty close to the edge, so a regular player who just happens to be looking at the two walls there out of curiosity will get smacked from above.


The second cart has a habit of "flipping" because of the Jumping Piranha. It might almost be worth removing that sprite and pipe entirely.


Blind drop here, even if you're standing on the ON/OFF block.

Looking forward to playing your next (and hopefully final) version.
Good to hear for now. As for what you've mentioned...

Originally posted by S.N.N.
Wiggler jumping

I removed the Wiggler hopping and simply extended the Pipe Lakitu segment. I also included a couple growing/shrinking pipes in there as well.

Originally posted by S.N.N.
...positioning of the Rexes...

I replaced those two Rexes with a shelless Red Koopa and a Snifit.
I also noticed that the wall spring that should be there is missing, was there a Sprite Limits issue on your end?

Originally posted by S.N.N.
The second cart has a habit of "flipping" because of the Jumping Piranha.

Removed the pirahna, and replaced the pipe with another block formation from my tileset.
I might actually touch up on the block formations of the entire level to make them look more interesting, like I have sort of done in my secret exit route.

Originally posted by S.N.N.
Blind drop here, even if you're standing on the ON/OFF block.

I added a raised platform near the ON/OFF.

Originally posted by S.N.N.
I'm sort of hoping you polish up the Bonus Magician's room a bit as well, since .. well, the overuse of Munchers there sort of irks me a bit.

Hmmm, would you prefer I use spikes instead of munchers?

A Mushroom was provided near the begining of that segment, so I felt I had two options here; either make the race completely devoid of harmful hazards and actually have more use for that mushroom, or actually provide some threats to make the player a bit hesistant to blitz through carelessly. I didn't really think I could make an interesting time race without any hazards, as it would either culminate into a maze (which could be a little unfair) or a course that required some form of platforming precision (which can be annoying). It's a timed race, there must be stuff that could slow you down. I might end up heavily redesigning this room if it gets a poor reception during further testing.

I'll probably have another .ips up soon, but right now, I'm going to sleep because I'm nocturnal and I'm typically up all night.
Just played the latest rendition of your level, and I'd say you're nearly good to go (read: nearly). There are just a few things I wanted to point out.


It's very possible to kill the encased shell here, thus trapping you. Is there any way that you can rework this puzzle a bit, or at the very least create a reset pipe?


Perhaps a big arrow made of coins or something might make it a bit more obvious that you're supposed to fly here. I just made a leap of faith and died.


Palette oddity on those pipes.

-No screenshot, but I'm sure you already know that the Grey Snifit's bullet in the first half and the P-Trick's graphics are a bit messed up.


Once those are sorted and no other complaints are received, you're good to go.
Playground Bound 9/23/11

The following was what I was going to post in regards to this .ips

For those of you who haven't checked the Level Testing Thread, I've got another .ips of my level, hopefully this will be the last one.

I addressed pretty much everything S.N.N. pointed out in his previous post. P-Tricks are there, but I only inserted a few placeholder sprite frames, just enough so the segment actually makes some sense. Their bouncing animation is still glitched-looking, and honestly, I'd rather someone else draw their sprites when the time comes. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat sprite and I'd like to see it used in a couple more levels of this hack.
As promised, I've also finished with the tileset graphics. Slight changes could be made, but it's pretty much the finished product now.

I'm still not completely satisfied with Snifits and Shell Generator at the moment, but these are sprites that can be modified later on after the level is inserted.


On the topic of Snifits... I wanted to remap the bullet to SP3, but I couldn't seem to figure out where the tilemapping for it was located on the .asm file, so I ended up leaving it alone for the time being. I'll prolly look into this more.

I fixed the growing pipe sprite's palette, and added some invisible POW coins to follow the wall of used blocks.

I'm going to request another secondary exit to add a reset pipe for that puzzle. I honestly prefer to have players use Yoshi in various ways for the puzzle, and requiring him to eat a yellow shell was one of the things I wanted players to do. The problem is there aren't many sprites that are actually affected by stomping quakes, and pretty much all of them can be eaten or destroyed somehow.

All of these changes will be added to the finalized version that I send over, unless it turns out I abosultely need to change something else. I'm still waiting for second opinions on the level before I send anything over.
The level is just awesome. But I have complaints:

weird turn block sprite palette

The fact that the green pipes lack a color of shading annoys me

I'm stuck

Minor nitpick: the area circled in red looks wrong.

[justaskingeventhoughimcertainthiswillbefixedwhenthelevelisinserted] any particular reason to why didn't you use the goal roulette sprite? [/justaskingeventhoughimcertainthiswillbefixedwhenthelevelisinserted]

[no screenshot]
The palette of the ? Blocks looks weird.

Originally posted by Magiluigi

weird turn block sprite palette


Blame 2dareduck, it was his Carnival ExGFX I used for the sprites, who for some reason rearranged the turn block's sprite colors.

Originally posted by Magiluigi


The fact that the green pipes lack a color of shading annoys me


I thought something looked off when I was fixing the stretch pipe palettes. No idea how this happened, might've accidentally copied over a pipe color when I did the palettes for this level. Anyways, it's fixed.

Originally posted by Magiluigi

I'm stuck


Again, this is no fault of my own, but rather whoever designed this tileset and forgot to include proper angled ceiling tiles. If I can fix this, I might send the changed Map16 over to S.N.N. as well (I already plan to send a updated version of my Conveyor Belt tiles from Rusted Retribution)
Guess I forgot to use proper tileset specific settings, derp. I fixed it now.

Originally posted by Magiluigi

Minor nitpick: the area circled in red looks wrong.


Fixed. You've got a sharp eye to notice that :)

Originally posted by Magiluigi

[justaskingeventhoughimcertainthiswillbefixedwhenthelevelisinserted] any particular reason to why didn't you use the goal roulette sprite? [/justaskingeventhoughimcertainthiswillbefixedwhenthelevelisinserted]


I believe I mentioned in a previous post that the goal roulette sprite broke when I tried to reinsert it, hence I used the wiggler head goal sphere to mark the end. There will be a goal roulette there in the final version I'm sending over for insertion.

Originally posted by Magiluigi
[no screenshot]
The palette of the ? Blocks looks weird.


A side effect of the palettes I used for the yellow block formations in this level (which share the same palette). I'd rather not have to change those just to make a ? Block look slightly less odd (the only real oddity about the blocks are the few black pixels near the top, it looks perfectly okay otherwise).

Anyways, I think I've gotten enough feedback to suggest this level is ready for insertion. I just need to make a couple last minute tweaks to some of my resources and I should be good to go. If anyone's got last-minute opinions, speak up while you've got the time!
Yeah, I'd say you're ready for insertion. It seems like the necessary bugs have already been pointed out by others and myself, and aside from that, the level was great fun to play.

Good stuff!
I've created a revamp of this level, shortening some things and making it a tad bit easier. The file for the level can be found on the Discord Server. (In case you were wondering.) I'm pretty sure all it needs is some playtesting.
For ease of search and logging purposes, it's here.

I myself played through it and really liked the revision. The level has been slightly shortened and made easier. The carryable cannons were also removed since they were quite useless considering that the player can also use shells and capespins to get to some places. It still has some oddities left over from the original version (like the buggy ceiling slopes in the orange bonus room, excused as "extra sticky ceiling"), but other than that it does just fine. I'll deal with these things when it gets inserted to the new ROM.
MK2TDS
As posted in Carnival Caper thread - updated background, courtesy of Falconpunch and Magi.


MK2TDS
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