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(Discussion) 4th Annual SMWCentral Level Design Contest.

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VLDCDiscussion

@Thehoundsquad: Incorrect.

@Forty2: When I've said for me, it sometimes happens with other patches, too. Even my own patch, the first time I downloaded it to test, ended up corrupting my ROM. I'll download it again and play the level for real. I guess that is my modem's fault. Sometimes I get corrupted files and patches, and I have to redownload them.

EDIT: I recently got the patch to work. My ROM was corrupted this time. Your level is very beautiful, but oh, it's so hard to me... but still very enjoyable.

@losoall: As for your entry, I thought it's a very hard level in overall. The first part is kinda strange because of the palettes. The second part (lava) is better than the first. Even it being harder, it was funnier, though. I didn't like the third part (the one with various spikes). For me it's quite unfair, extremely difficult. But I don't know about the others' opinion, maybe because I'm a bad player? And for the fourth one, it's also very very hard, but not so hard like the previous one. The tileset you've used here was not so good, especially the windows from Morton/Roy's room that you used. It doesn't fit good in levels as a foreground.

In a general assessment, I can say it's not a good level, because of the palettes, some tileset issues and the difficulty. The level design would be quite enjoyable if it wasn't so hard to me. And the aesthetics, with some work, would look very good.

You're not far from doing nice things. Keep working, and you will get lots of satisfatory results!
MK2TDS
I'm downloading all the entries and organizing them into one zipped folder, and I found a ROM file as I was going through the list. That's always fun to find.

Also, to anyone who's not a skilled SMW player and has played my level, I apologize for the hairs you must have torn out because of how difficult it is.
Making a level for this contest was really fun. It tested my skills well.

Lunar Limbo was a pretty good level. Congratulations to Uhrix and GN.




Has anyone played my level? What does everyone think about it?
Originally posted by TheGamer
just because i was highlighting the positive point of the entry, doesn't mean i got "distracted". The level design lacked a bit at some points, but it don't turns out to be bad. Geez, you all seems to be angry just because a entry looks good. Just because it need to have good level design, doesn't means it can't have a good look, you all are ignoring it.


I'm not angry or jealous because someone has a level that looks better than mine, however I would like to remind you the title of the contest "level design contest" and I think the rest is self explainatory. I wouldn't mind if I rank up in last place because my level happened to have a horrible design and all the other levels were better, however, I wouldn't like to see and entry get ranked above mine just because it looks better but it had a worse design, that's all. And I'm not saying Uhrix's or anyone's else entry has a worse design than mine at all, I haven't played any of the entries so I can't say much.

And yes, even if level design is for me the most important aspect, I'm aware its not the only one, and I respect hackers that foccus more in other aspects as GFX drawing, sprite programing and music porting or composing, however, this is a level design contest and thus it should be taken in account more than anything else.
Anyone like my hack?
You, what do you own the world? How do you own disorder, disorder?
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence, sacred silence and sleep.
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep.
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
--------------------
Originally posted by aj6666
And yes, even if level design is for me the most important aspect, I'm aware its not the only one, and I respect hackers that foccus more in other aspects as GFX drawing, sprite programing and music porting or composing, however, this is a level design contest and thus it should be taken in account more than anything else.


First of all, don't get me wrong here. As you probably know, I read your level design tutorial as I left a huge sign in the thread saying it was very good. Something that confuse me is that you are talking about this "level design" all the time. What is level design you asked yourself in the thread. The answer is pretty much; everything in the level, as you probably agree with me on. Therefor I don't get why you are so focused on how the tiles and sprites are placed in the levels, thats is some of the most important parts yes, but GFX, music and other miscs also plays a huge role for how the level feels overall.

Level design is pretty much like painting, you draw a sketch (the tiles and sprites) then color it and create the perfect atmosphere and balance.

Also, to rest of you that will review levels, please don't say "I didn't like this" BECAUSE there exist alterative ways to express your impressions on level design, for example, I think you could done "that" "this" way or reverse.
I like what I did with the palettes for my entry. I wish I thought of it earlier. I kind of overloaded on the bullet bills a little.
Has anyone played my level? What does everyone think about it?(2)
I really want to know the positive and negative points of my hack,so i can know what i need to inprove on level design.
Originally posted by Mario's Hat
Has anyone played my level? What does everyone think about it?(2)
I really want to know the positive and negative points of my hack,so i can know what i need to inprove on level design.

Don't worry, you'll find out in time. From the judges, at least.
Originally posted by Uhrix
Originally posted by aj6666
And yes, even if level design is for me the most important aspect, I'm aware its not the only one, and I respect hackers that foccus more in other aspects as GFX drawing, sprite programing and music porting or composing, however, this is a level design contest and thus it should be taken in account more than anything else.


First of all, don't get me wrong here. As you probably know, I read your level design tutorial as I left a huge sign in the thread saying it was very good. Something that confuse me is that you are talking about this "level design" all the time. What is level design you asked yourself in the thread. The answer is pretty much; everything in the level, as you probably agree with me on. Therefore I don't get why you are so focused on how the tiles and sprites are placed in the levels, thats is some of the most important parts yes, but GFX, music and other miscs also plays a huge role for how the level feels overall.


The funny part here is that the segment you quoted there is pretty much the answear to what you just said (I didn't leave it there for nothing).

I know I can be obsesive about this sometimes, but I just want people to give level design the respect it deserves, a lot of people don't even care about it and think the more custom things there is in a hack the better it gets. Also, as I said in the segment you just quoted I know the design is not everything and I have full respect for hackers that specialise in other areas, I wish those hackers had more respect for level designers thought.

By the way, my remarque was not directed towards you or to the fact that you used nice decoratios or not (I also used decorations anyway), it was directed to the way the gamer based his coment solely on those decorations without even saying anything about the design. And I do apreciate that you liked my tutorial.
Well, aj6666 asked very kindly, so, I guess it's time to critique his level.

Well, I don't know what to say about this level. It was a fun level, but it had its flaws. Visually, it wasn't THAT impressive. The spinies had a wierd green skin tone and shell with red spikes, which symbolizes the toxicness in the koopas, but it looks pretty off with the spinies. The first segment was okay, nothing really special, you had a couple skeletons as your decorations, it was pretty fun, I enjoyed it, but the grass could have used a better palette (one with shading). The second segment was also pretty fun, a race against time, I like those, they add a certain senseof excitement, and I loved how you used a layer 2 level as the background. It would have been nice to have layer 3, but, it doesn't really change anything. Anyway, the next segment is when the level took a turn for the worse. The midway point was at the beginning, and you must have had some sort of brain fart or something, because you had me go through narrow passageways dodging spikes and boos, leading to a P-Switch I had to take back to the beginning of the segment to go through a pipe. Now, that is not nice, nor is it good design. No one wants to go through a hard path, just to go back. SMWCP suffered ALOT from this, and S.N.N. made a joke level all about it. If you're going to add P-Switches, make it some sort of puzzle room, at most 2 screens. Anyway, we go back into the cave, and exit through another pipe, and end up in another above ground segment, with (*grrr...*) fishin' boo. This has nothing to do with your level or anything, but Nintendo really made fishin' bo the most broken enemy ever, with that fireball just randomly swapping to the other side, which is why I think everyone should avoid using it, especially since in your level, it was nearly impossible to duck under the fireball, because your ground was at the perfect elevation most of the time. Anyway, ranting put aside, it was a (thankfully) short segment, and ends in a castle entrance. I hated the castle, it wasn't long or anything, but it was frustrating, considering I got the midway point like 3 minutes before getting there. You did the same BG is layer 2 level thing as the cave, but this time, it didn't come out as good as before. The palette for FG and BG were too similar, with BG having a little darker palette. So I got confused sometimes with the FG and BG, which led to me getting hit by stationary spike balls. This is also something I want to address. It was nice that you changed munchers to spike balls, put couldn't you have used spikes instead? Munchers and Spikes take up most of the tile space, but, the spike balls take up considerably less, so my mind wasn't able to tell the proper way to jump, leading me to get hit, constantly, especially considering you had some pretty mean jumps in there, with Boos attacking me from all sides. And to top it off, at the end, you made a freaking coin trail to dodge spike balls while falling. Again, the mind does not act as correctly when dealing with these threats, and you made it so you had to be perfect when doing this, that I just constantly died, which wasn't nice. Anyway, at the end we have a generic Big Boo fight underground (Which means you have 30 seconds to beat him, which isn't a challenge... at all), and this wasn't so bad, except for one thing. You only have three throw blocks. This means if you F-up once, you have to suicide, and repeat the last three segments. Was making a 2 tile tall Throw block floor too easy of a challenge for you? Considering you have all these eeries to dodge, and dirt that you have to make sure that they won't mess up your aim, it just isn't right. No Big Boo fight should EVER have only 3 blocks available to use.

Anyway, your level suffers from a couple things.
1.Too long. This level was pretty long, and had some unnecessary segments. If you removed those, this level would have been better.

2.Midway point is too far from the goal, now, normally, the midway point shouldn't be TOO close to the end, but, in this case, it was too far.

3.Low quality design after the midway point. Like I said before, it's like after you put the midway point, you had a massive brain fart, and made the level bad, the first half was way more enjoyable than the second half.

So I'll say it wasn't bad, it wasn't great, but it was good, despite my criticism, it was still an enjoyable level.
Y'know what, other people are doing it, I think I'll drop some reviews of the levels I've played so far. In the order I've played them. I'll probably eventually play every entry.

@Lunar Limbo by Uhrix and GN: Pretty cool, I think. I actually thought the level design was pretty unique: it wasn't in either the typical SMW-hack level design style you see all the time or in SMW's style. It was entirely unique, something different, and I like that. I like the openness of the level design, but a few more enemies would be cool(that's why I liked the brown area). Things like the thwomp and podoboos in the red section; enemies used more as things to slow Mario down, to make him think and use reflexes, could be used. But I like the forcing the player to think, like with the key at the start, I just think people may not appreciate it, since usually people want you to hold their hand throughout the hack, but I respect that you went against that, decided to make them think, since if I did that I'd fear I'd turn many away by doing that. The atmosphere and graphics and stuff were also very pretty: my personal favorite being the rugged, broken up wooden structures in the woods, the way those were cracked just is beautiful. Overall, a nice Knytt-stories vibe in this level. Good job.

There may be a few spoilers in this one.@105 Days by TheGamer: I'll probably review this one by the feelings I experienced as I played, rather than an overall feel I got from it. First thing's first: I think you could have been a little less subtle with the invisible door in the first room. The second room was very pretty, and I love the glitch used to have a unique gimmick, heavily used in this room, but I like that you also reused it on a smaller scale throughout the level. Fun gimmick, but the level was a little hard as a result, a lot of precision jumps and lands were needed. Next was the laboratory area, which looked *amazing*. I liked the webbed and wired feel of the design itself, which complemented the high-tech graphics. Now, the vertical section was a little odd, since you know that place with the floating spiny puzzle? If you go a little ways above it, then return, the spiny has disappeared, letting you skip a pretty fun puzzlish room. Because of this, I kind of got confused, I was wondering if I was skipping anything a few times. The dry bones puzzle room was pretty clever. At first I didn't know how to let the dry bones off the edge. I thought you made mistake, since this is one level, whereas in a real game I would know the maker couldn't have made a mistake, and continue looking. That's a downside of puzzles that make you think in hacks. Anyways, I liked the puzzle though, felt like Legend of Zelda for some reason. The plot was kind of off-throwing, I mean, I love the vagueness, it's nice and ominous, foggy. But again, a simple one level contest gives the player the idea that it might not be polished, and with the open-ended, skipable, confusing previous room, I also thought I skipped a plot point. Eh, not a big deal, just thought I'd share that. The boss was cool, and the room following it. I would have added a goal point at the end to make the player feel whole, for the same reason as a few of the other things I said above: I originally thought it was unfinished or I did something wrong or you did something wrong. Overall, this hack is a bit confusing, and hard at some points, but a great brain tickler, pretty fun, and pretty nice looking too.

@Dungeon Disaster by LunarYoshi: Good job on this. Usually, when you think of a dungeon, you think of a dull, dreary, gray, dark place, but you, instead, added COLORFUL blocks. Though I doubt that was the reason that you did that(I mean there could be a million reasons or none at all so why would I guess the reason?), but it was very unique. The hack was tidy, cute, small but very polished feeling, complete feeling. Nice job. Note this is kind of short which is why the review isn't as long as some of the other ones.

@Mario Goes Home by Extroble: Aw, that overworld was so cool in the SS thread, and I'm curious as to what the exanimation version looks like. I like how you literally combined the grass and cave tilesets- no, he didn't just use both in the same level, he actually used the grassland's grass tiles with the cave's dirt tiles(although it's a snowland, not a grassland). You also came up with some cool, unique uses of some things, and some cutoff fixes, so nice one. The level design is a bit hard from what I remember, though. Still, a nice little level.

@Perverted Creatures by yogui: Yeah... this was named justly, I think. Pretty perverted if I do say so myself, and honestly it was only funny for a short time before becoming old. Still, kind of fun(although I would've used a larger variety of enemies).

@An Aerial Anomaly by Forty2: A nice, modest level. People have said the first room of this is way too hard, but I thought it was pretty fair(except a place where you had to diagonally spinjump off a digging chuck's rock without touching a diagonal ceiling of munchers). The use of the cloud tileset was very nice, the background was cool, and the palettes were nice. The cave tileset used as a back-foreground was cool, too. Not much to say, it's fun and worth playing.

@Misty Horizon by Blind Devil: I apologize, Blind Devil, I really rushed this one. It's nice and bright, and I- argh- see I was not the only one to think of using 6 different colors of berries. Felt short, since it WAS short, but had a few extra tiny branches for fun if I remember correctly, but I skipped those. Anyways, nice and fun and happy.

@It's Raining by .LesterVine.: Had potential, but I think this one fell a bit flat, sorry. The graphics were pretty good, the palettes were mostly nice too, although they gave a bit of a sense of them being not their best, able to improve, but the design fell a bit flat. It had a few hard to find out secrets to actually complete the rather short level. Otherwise, it was energetic, but yeah, the design wasn't my favorite.

@Scared Mario by TRS: Great level, in what I consider a similar style to TRS's "A Mission in Miniature", polished and tidy and small in that sense, not really like TRS's SMWR2 or whatever it was called, that big hack of his(I felt that one was fun but a bit awkward looking, this level isn't though). The palette is nice, a darkened SMW palette. The use of layer 2 was nice too, and the level had a great atmosphere, being on a cliff high up above a forest. And the level design itself was really, really, really fun, trust me. The gray switch used the opposite of how switches are usually used was cool, and made me actually be excited to reenter the level, gave it a great sense of replayability. You did something right, I don't know what, but something. I think this one might be my favorite.

@An Autumn Adventure by PowerStrike: I really liked this one too. At a first glance of the level, it was like, woah, this is really overcrowded and awkward looking. Very packed up and all over the place feeling, not one I usually like. But the level itself was quite fun to play, with a not-many-bottomless pits vibe(for some reason that makes me laugh, why would that vibe exist? But it feels that way to me). And I like how you somehow managed to fit a few small multiple paths in a level that doesn't have vertical scroll at all without the paths feeling too cramped. And usually multiple paths make me stressed, I always feel I'm missing something, but these were very short so you avoided that. I think the palette was too bright, but otherwise, kinda awkward looking but very fun, nice job.

@Lakeside Island by Aqualakitu: Aqualakitu is one of my favorite hackers, but he kind of disappointed me here. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice level, but compared to some of his other fantabulous work, it definitely isn't his best. It felt rather empty, I think it needed more enemies. I liked the "sand sunken to the bottom of the sea" feel of the sand in the underwater section, though. Not much too say, other than it could have been better, but it isn't bad.

@Abandoned Toy Factory by DragonLX: So, this hack starts off with a neat title screen. Then, what seems as a normal snowy area. And, well, it is. At that point I was a bit disappointed. But don't stop playing there. You reach an abandoned toy factory, which is obviously what makes up the name. The custom vanilla tilesets here were very awesome, and I congratulate him, because usually you think: "an abandoned area? If it doesn't have enemies it feels boring, but if it does it doesn't feel abandoned.", and yet he STILL made it feel eerie, and long-abandoned. At one point there are non-working conveyor belts, but you basically turn on the power. I would've liked a more extensive tour of the factory, you were off to a great start and I definitely thought it needed more factory considering the level name. Also, I've never seen a toy factory theme, obviously because there are no tilesets for that from SMW nor are there many fitting enemies that come to mind, but you created a toy factory beautifully with colorful toylike tiles, mechakoopa toys, and footballs. Nice work, but I want more XD

@Reznorland 1 by Zeldara109: First of all(not having to do with the review), I feel I've seen this level before in a YouTube video. Not saying you stole it, just wanted to share that I recognize this from you. I like the spirit you had when you made this, but I dunno if it was demonstrated correctly. I mean, I like the idea of "and ugly looking level can be fun.", and that would work if the level was super fun, and I mean, it wasn't boring, but it was pretty average fun-wise. I liked the theme you kept of flying fish, but the glitchiness of the level as a whole felt overdone. I mean, the level was fun at some points, but overall it felt pretty average. But yeah, not mentioning the graphics since you meant to do that. I do hope, though, that people don't think "The creator focused only on level design so the level design is GENIUS.", because honestly there are better levels I've played so far, that ALSO look better(I know this wasn't the intent of this level, but c'mon, a level that looks that bad MUST be the funnest thing I've ever played, right? Wrong). So uh, I like you spirit, but the level itself wasn't especially fun which felt like the intent(but it also wasn't boring so you got half a point across I suppose).


That's all I've played. I really wasted a ton of time on these reviews. Enjoy.
Your layout has been removed.
Originally posted by Pikerchu13
Review of my level.


Thanks for taking my request, I'll take in mind what you said next time. I intentiolaly raised the dificulty after the midway point because I wanted the level to have some sort of curve..but I guess it didn't turn out so well. I'm aware the fishing boo is hard to dodge thought, that's why I made that room short.

However, I most point out that you don't need to comit suicide if you miss one of the purple blocks against the big boo boss, you just have to take the purple pipe where you entered and the fight restarts, all purple pipes in the level are enabled with exits.
Originally posted by aj6666
However, I most point out that you don't need to comit suicide if you miss one of the purple blocks against the big boo boss, you just have to take the purple pipe where you entered and the fight restarts, all purple pipes in the level are enabled with exits.


That would have been very helpful information in a message block...
Originally posted by Spud Alpha
@Abandoned Toy Factory by DragonLX

Actually, I had like 5 more room ideas for the factory and more lenght but due to the screen limit I couldn't fit them in (procastination too derp). It's exactly 75 screens long and that's also the reason the ending looks very rushed. I plan to remake this once the contest is done as a one level hack with all the ideas I left out but that'll take a while regardless. D;

Anyways thanks for commenting on my level. It means a lot.
i play videogames
Hmmm... I guess i will make a review of every entry as well, But i guess the judges have to stay away from this thread, them might get influenced by all of those reviews.

Well, I liked your review about my entry Spud, thanks. About the spiny puzzle, i thought i have fixed this problem, at least i tested it and nothing wrong happened, but it confused me, it only have 4 sprites, 5, if you grab a shell on the same screen, so how this happen? I tested this, and even with yoshi the spiny was still there.
but i'm glad you liked my entry. =D



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Originally posted by Blind Devil
Levels that may place well, but I think that could be better:
-Mario Takes a Walk, by Blaze.128

Huh. Could you elaborate on what could be better? Is it the water part?

@Blaze.128: No, it's not because of the water part. In overall, it's a pretty fun and challenging level. I liked the way you explored all the vanilla GFX sceneries: it was unique from a sublevel to another. The design is pretty good, the same for palettes and stuff, I like theirs simplicity- hey?! Did I put your entry on the "could be better" list? Well, *shot*.

I think that I've mistaken your entry and put it in the wrong list. It deserves to place well, it's a very good entry.

I guess I should edit my list again... so sorry for the mistake.
MK2TDS
GvS @smwcentral.net ~ u:11380
Hey Blind Devil, just a question, but since I'm not on your list, you probably didn't like my level (Silent Shivers). Could you tell me what I can improve or can do better next time? Sorry if the question bugs you, but I'm just hungry for feedback since I haven't got any :3

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