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Things you do in your hack.

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So, this is a thread for say, things you do in your hacks that very few others do, if any, or summet you do all the time.

For example, I go mad with priority, it's something I love. I take the little grass GFX from the arrow signpost and make little blocks out of them, which I give priority, so as you walk through the level little blades of grass cover Mario's feet. I do it with small bushes too, and tree trunks, or any layer 3 effect. Pretty much anything with layer 3 too I try to use, I rip the layer 3 effect from caves in DKC and use those. On the layer 3 note I always try to use that too, no matter what, I have mist in probably way too many levels and layer 3 backgrounds as often as I can.

So, what about you?

Disarray!

Drinking a cup of tea, hacking SMW... things can't get much better than this.
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Even though I haven't released any hacks yet...

I tend to avoid floating masses of land even though the Mario series has a lot of it. I also kinda spam line guided enemies/platforms too much. And I also go crazy with "dirt walls". It's just fun to build 'em!
I have a habit of trying to make everything a secret. My levels are often so crammed with secrets that before I realize it, the level I spent a good 5 hours working on equates to roughly 30 seconds of gameplay time if the player brushes over said secrets! I also hate the world map, so I abolished it, in favor of using some crude methods to resume a game from a given save point within the stages. I guess overall, I just have a tendency to go overboard on non-linearity! Maybe it's some sort of fascination with seeing what turns out as the most traveled path by various minds, who knows.
In my hack, I make level a little longer than in an average hack. Yeah, I could make them shorter, but I haven't got any inspiration when I'm going to make them short. In my levels, I usually make the first 1/6 of the level a traditional field with some question blocks, ect. the next part 2/6 of my level features new enemies and more gimmicks, which isn't always good, but I'm "expanding" right now. My level designing style is different than it was when I was starting my hack. Dunno why, but I'm making the levels easier and easier with every new world, but it should be the opposite. I'll be fixing it later. I have a total "sick" on the OWs. If there are bad, then my hack "doesn't exist". Well, there are a lot of things that members do in their hacks personally. Every person has different level designing style. :)
...Huh?
A lot of the levels I've made have either a directional coin block somewhere, an eating block sprite, or both. I'm pretty fond of eating blocks. I also have put in a fair number of chase the Mushroom segments. Other than that, I can't really think of any obsessions.
Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

With my hack, I have a few habits:

-I have a compulsive tendency to create puzzles,
-I have many layer 2 based levels,
-I generally attempt a DKC-style of level design,
-And I prefer to edit graphics I'm not using in YY-CHR, rather than make new ex-gfx.


Other Submissions of mine!
I have a strange compulsion to make things in my hacks perfectly symmetrical.

For example, if I have a five-tile horizontal FG platform, and I want to place a bush on top of it, I must make sure everything is symmetrical.

Legend
- Horizontal FG Tiles
^ Bush Tiles

Good Example:

^^^
-----

Bad Example:

^^
-----

First example is good because I placed three bush tiles over a five-tile platform, that way the bush tiles go right in the middle of the platform and look nice, seeing as it results in perfect symmetry.

The second example is bad because I'm trying to place two bush tiles over a five-tile platform, and therefore, you can't place them smack dab in the middle of the platform, and that's icky. ;P
Every landmass, object and decoration must be placed as "randomly" as possible. Nothing can be in line with anything else of the same kind, they must all be of different shapes and sizes. This applies for ground, ceilings and walls. I find that flat, more "mechanically" placed landmasses of similar size and shape don't make for good level design. Symmetry can work in moderation, though I generally try to avoid it, because I like the feeling of the randomness.

Also, secrets must be extremely convoluted to find so they actually feel like secrets. Of course I'm sort of a hypocrite for this because I know I don't enjoy searching for secrets. I like hiding things but I don't like finding them, because that requires you to think and all that, and the feeling of being clueless is not one I enjoy. Sometimes I feel I go a little bit overboard with secrets in my hack, especially because you don't get anything worthwhile out of them because it's a vanilla hack. But whatever.
May we meet again outside the battlefield.
Another thing for me is HDMA, I got nuts with it. Every level has gradients and moving backgrounds and shaded status bars.

Disarray!

tired... don't wanna sleep... bored... Hacking...
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I always begin by creating levels out of cement blocks, crap tiles, ledges without proper palettes, etc. By creating graphics and making it look nice beforehand, I run a huge risk of having a nice looking level with poor design. Thus, if the level looks terrible but is fun to play, I know I've got good design down, and can work on the aesthetics afterwards.

Couple other quirks: I always try to include at least two alternate paths/pipes leading to bonus areas per level. When testing I try to make each level about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes to the midpoint and that same amount from it to the goal. Let's just say my levels tend to be on the longer side.

Also, I'm extremely finicky about reused content. Between levels, I will never reuse the same FG/BG tileset or use the same music.
Originally posted by Teo17
In my hack, I make level a little longer than in an average hack.

Same here. I try to avoid making completely linear and short levels altogether... my levels are usually pretty lenghty, and I always try to give them some additional spice, be it through gimmicks or story-based features. I believe a level's lenght is one of the essential keys for it to become memorable to the public.

Originally posted by Jacob
I have a strange compulsion to make things in my hacks perfectly symmetrical.

Ha ha, glad I'm not the only one who is like this, although I haven't always been this way. For some reason I like to think hacking Yoshi's Island on Eggvine is what gave me this tendency. *shrugs*

Uh, other than that, I sometimes have this tendency to give every level their own sprite GFX-replacement. Oh, and I scarcely leave my screens empty at points, as I think it is a total waste.
For some reason the bg seems to be the focus of my inspiration to work on the level, so is the first thing i do, also im not very fond of using grafics from anyone else, i think they clash with the smw style, so i draw everything, i also like to add that of "its like original smw, but with more things" so my levels tend to have custom sprites based on the original ones, things that you would expect on a smw 2, i also make my levels extremely long, like 3 normal stages (600 seconds or more), they are pretty linear, weird shaped and almost everyone have a bonus room, every level is like one month of work, probably because that i'm lazy, i only like to work when i'm highly motivated and i have already a complete idea of what i will do on it.

I like to "spam" koopas, coins and HDMA in my levels also, i don't understand why people care so much about OW's, since the one i have is a squared island with straight paths.

Well i have a lot more, i think that my behavior resumes on "smw expanded or sequel" like hack.
WIP Thread

Progress:
not so NEW progress! (56.25% done) [18/32]

... Why the first level of like every hack has a shooting pipe.
When I make a level, I typically think of a gimmick and take it as far as a can until I run out of ideas. If the level ends up being too short for my tastes, I try to combine it with some other gimmick.

It works pretty well, I guess.
I fell in love with grinders. Really. I just love it to put them everywhere, use ExAnimation to make them stationary and make many obstacles with them. #w{<3}
Pallettes.
I love making pallettes for levels.
The level looks o good when everything fits together.

I also like Map16 a lot. :3
Originally posted by Leo137

also im not very fond of using grafics from anyone else, i think they clash with the smw style, so i draw everything, i also like to add that of "its like original smw, but with more things" so my levels tend to have custom sprites based on the original ones, things that you would expect on a smw 2


I'm the complete opposite when it comes to graphics, everything I do has to have really good gfx, mostly original ones drawn by Icegoom. Namely because I think SMW's GFX absolutely suck. 8 colours for each sprite/object? and even then the drawing is atrocious. Any Graphic I can replace I will do, but it has to remain in a specific style.

Disarray!

I aint a graphics whore in the next gen, but I bloody well am in 16 bits.
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Well i think that some grafics shine in their own style, but when you put mario on them... it just don't mix, looks out of place.

I also love Map16, created like a half page of tiles based on the cave tileset to make weird shapes, but i don't overuse them, i think it looks dull when the level is too charged on decoration details like those (like when the ground have triangles, squares, stars holes just by the sake of having them)
WIP Thread

Progress:
not so NEW progress! (56.25% done) [18/32]

... Why the first level of like every hack has a shooting pipe.
I tend to make levels with too much coins. Also, I try to make every level different and longer than the other.
Originally posted by Jacob
I have a strange compulsion to make things in my hacks perfectly symmetrical.

For example, if I have a five-tile horizontal FG platform, and I want to place a bush on top of it, I must make sure everything is symmetrical.

I tend to make this too.

Edit: I use much layer priority too.
I tend to use alot of slopes and jumps, and especially custom sprites, there are only 2-3 regular sprites per level at max...
Living life takes forever
I try to make my levels in similar ways Nintendo has done with levels in Super Mario Bros. games; usually not having a a major gimmick around them. Also, with my current hack I have been making the beginning of most levels and then moving on to a new one. I don't create the rest of if until I have some decent inspiration.
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