Originally posted by aj66661. The player can break very easily through the first part by following the water track, so you should add a porcu puffer fish or something to prevent that.
Though I tried to place a completely solid cliff every once in a while to force the player to take the upper route, I have to agree this is still sort of true despite my efforts. A Porcu-puffer might sort of be overkill, though, as it follows Mario for the entire level, and I don't want to
completely discourage the player from going in the water. Maybe some strategically placed horizontal Cheep-Cheeps might have a similar but more localized effect.
It should also be noted that the watery path in the high cliff Pom-Pommy area originally had two more jumping Cheep-Cheeps, but I removed them to reduce the chance of slowdown in conjunction with the Pom-Pom Flowers. However, I remove one of the Paragoombas (or maybe even the Pom-Pom Flower either immediately before or after the shell-less Koopa patrolled turn blocks...?) I could safely put one of them back in, making the waters again a more dangerous place.
Originally posted by MilkOriginally posted by AxemJinx0:39- This kind of formation is a bit odd because it's also solid from the inside. Might just be my personal feeling though.
This is something that's always bothered me as well. I'd suggest either finding a way to close up that particular formation completely so that Mario can't get in there, or better yet, replace the left edges with right-only blocks - that way they'd still be solid from the left but they won't have that awkward feeling once you're inside the formation itself.
Sounds reasonable enough; after all, that's pretty how the top of the land works already, so it would make sense for the sides to behave similarly. Consider it done (and I'll certainly be on the lookout for the debugged version).
Originally posted by AxemJinxKeep in mind that porcupuffers also make for interesting underwater enemies, especially during descents. The secret exit of
Sludge Trudge Isle from RttC is an example of that.
I actually considered this (in fact, I specifically remembered that RttC level as an example of an uncommon dive level), though I was ultimately discouraged by the fact that using the Porcu-puffer would require me to edit the Pionpi sprite (which is already inserted into the ROM) to use different tiles, as well as the Gao (whom I already remapped once in order to use the Blurp, as even through they don't appear in the same area, I wanted to keep all my sprites on one ExGFX page, which incidentally meant remapping the Pom-Pom, too). Remapping the Porcu-Puffer itself would be an option, but this would likely cause problems for anyone else who wanted to use it (of which there's probably a few). Though looking at that RttC video, I must admit they
do seem ideal for this sort of underwater level, so I'm a bit torn, now...
Originally posted by aj66662. The very last segment of the second part is a bit empty, you should add some more enemies in there, maybe some cheep-cheeps or one of those doll things.
Originally posted by AxemJinxI like the way the second area slowly tapers down as the trench walls converge, but you have a lot of wide-open areas and I'm wondering if you need a different kind of enemy to cover all of that space. I mean, the sense of exploration is definitely there, but sometimes it feels like the enemies are there to make things seem lively more so than to thwart players, especially if they have fire flowers.
Earlier versions of this level tended to have more narrow passages patrolled by trickily placed vertical Cheep-Cheeps and traversed by marauding Blurps, but due to it striking me as too difficult for world 3, I tended to either widen the passages and/or reduce/reposition the fishy foes. The final descent is a good example of this--it was originally much more crowded, but I noticed that the player has a certain tendency to speed up here and get hit (I actually fall for this myself in the video, even though I know full well what's coming), so I toned things down a bit (though oddly, I seem to have left the very beginning of this part somewhat crowded, and thinned it out later on, which just seems strange). What I might ultimately do is throw a rock in there as a momentum breaker, so I can repopulate the area without so blatantly tossing the player headlong into a trap.
Originally posted by AxemJinxI wonder whether that underwater motor sprite could be hidden in a corner somewhere here to reward exploration...but I don't want it to feel tacked-on.
I'm all for giving the player a reward which isn't a powerup, coins or an SMWC coin, but I think the motor might actually prove a liability here, as it's probably a good idea to take one's time in sections of this level, whereas going too fast is a good way to get hit. Also, I'm not so sure it's necessarily the most thematically appropriate addition (unless put in the rusted remains of a motorboat which crashed against the rocks above next to it or something).
Incidentally, there were a lot more Pionpis in earlier versions of these levels, but I removed a number of them because A) they're super-dangerous underwater when placed on a ledge, as their jumps really send them flying (which was in part my intention, but it's important not to take things too far so early in the game), and B) they have a strong tendency to jump inside of solid walls underwater unless the terrain is specifically designed to prevent this, as I note in one of my annotations.
Speaking of Pionpi, you may have noticed I gave him a palette closer to his
concept art, but it was still sort of bothering me. But looking at that image now, I see that the clothing is a bit more blue-tinted and the skin a bit more grey than in the versions I show in the video.
Much better, no?