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130: Myrkky Mainline - MrDeePay

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Or you could make it just drain your meter faster, like 1-2 seconds before it kills you.

I love the level so far. I think it fit in pretty well for a world 8 level. I have no real complaints, great job. :)
Layout by LDA during C3.
I don't think that this level does feel very off. Design-wise it is amazing. I really love the part in the stage were you have to guide the torpedo to the blue wall in order to pass this area. It reminds me a bit of a Sonic stage due to the fact that you have to search for bubbles/ blue mushrooms before your air meter has completely drained.Only tip I have to give you design wise would be the fact that you should put something in the last paret of said room since there is a large empty space after you collected the final bue mushroom.

Graphic wise, it actually looks quite nice as well. However I would recommand you a few things:

1.) Please include the pipe background in the second room as well. A black background doesn't look that good.

2.) Why does the background flash?

3.) After you designed your stage you could actualy change the FG! I think that SCORPION's FG tiles that he is using for his stage would fit this level's theme a lot better since it is supposed to be a factory cavern. Plus it fits better to the background. We would also have more than just one level with SCORPIONS FG tileset if you would use it.

Considering that we just played 2/5 of the level there's a lot to come. I look really forward to the rest of this level and I like the fact that it is pretty long since it is in world 8 and thus should be longer and more difficult than stages from other worlds.
So I guess there will be a Toxic Tower area with purple toxic water rising. It would be pretty awesome. In this case you should only make the purple water rising not the whole screen autoscroll so that the player can still climb up the room at his own speed. :)

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Originally posted by Lightvayne
Or you could make it just drain your meter faster, like 1-2 seconds before it kills you.


That's not a bad idea at all, actually. The air meter sprite doesn't use an extra bit, so I could request for someone to edit the sprite so it has two different drain/raise speeds depending on the extra bit.


Originally posted by Slit08
Only tip I have to give you design wise would be the fact that you should put something in the last paret of said room since there is a large empty space after you collected the final bue mushroom.


That part was completely unfinished; I've even said so myself.

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1.) Please include the pipe background in the second room as well. A black background doesn't look that good.


Also clearly unfinished. Not to mention the fact the transparent sublevels all use layer 2 transparency for the water, so I couldn't add a BG in it conventionally. I'll worry about the BG when the level itself is finished.

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2.) Why does the background flash?


Thought it'd look neat, so I kept it from the original level I grabbed the BG from.

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3.) After you designed your stage you could actualy change the FG! I think that SCORPION's FG tiles that he is using for his stage would fit this level's theme a lot better since it is supposed to be a factory cavern.


1.) I prefer a purely metallic/mechanical look for the level while letting the general atmosphere (music, BG, excessive swimming action, etc) take cover of the rest.
2.) SCORPION's FG/BG set currently isn't available anyway even I wanted to use it. Plus I don't know what BG/FG slots it use and what it would overwrite.

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So I guess there will be a Toxic Tower area with purple toxic water rising. It would be pretty awesome. In this case you should only make the purple water rising not the whole screen autoscroll so that the player can still climb up the room at his own speed. :)


I was considering that already, but a similar concept has been done twice in the collab already. And while there is a good chance that a second checkpoint may be needed, I don't want to drag the level out to the point of it being a road trip.



More work on the next sections of the level. I'll try to take Lightvayne's proposal and run with it, except having to some parts of the level where Mario needs to dive into the water for only a couple of seconds. Oh no, the green toxic water isn't gone from this point on, there'll be another submerged section, though Mario'll need to make a choice on how to swim through. No, it has nothing to do with Switch block statuses.

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Less than a month to go, so where am I?


Turns out that I'll be needing an extra checkpoint, but just for the last "main" room. It's another underwater segment with some use of conveyor belts and probably Vic's vent blocks. With this segment, you can either choose to use the underwater motor for increased mobility or keep the Yoshi (he's found earlier in the level) and have some means of dealing with enemies as well as provide the player with an extra hit.

The default Map16 blocks you see are used as a visual reference for myself until I make a fitting replacement graphic for it. It's a sprite kill block that's being used to prevent Mario from taking the motor above the water as a previous screenshot showed you.


Used Nep-Enut's bubble graphics as a reference (it was extremely easy to replicate) and put this in for now as a test to see if I want to keep it. I most likely will.


- Additionally, I've encountered some issues because I updated to the latest base ROM a few days ago and noticed that all of the Mini-Puffers were now vulnerable to fire so I had to retest everything to make sure that I didn't need to change anything. Included in the level are now Green Piranha Plants that ignore Mario, but I'll need to ask to have their CFG file edited so it can be vulnerable to fire, capes, and Yoshi (as I forgot to do just that).

- Also included is an air meter sprite for the purple water that'll drain much faster, but still not at the rate I want it to be, so I'll manipulate the recovery speed to be very slow instead.

- Still undecided on a name though.


EDIT: I almost forgot!
MUSIC!
Ignoring the castle, World 8 basically has only two factory songs. Factory-3 is being used in two inserted levels already (Incineration Station and Musical Mechanisms) and Factory-1 is being used in three WIPs (SCORPION, NotGood, and myself). Factory-2/Electrospire, as I mentioned earlier, doesn't fit with the theme/tone I'm going with my (neither does FL3), so I will most likely be requesting a more watery industrial song (example:Submerged Micromelx) sometime down the road, if not right now. Bonus points if you can implement Yoshi bongos into it, but not necessary.

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Why hello there, Eirin.
More of the level; if you encounter a dead end, just rewind. I'm thinking about redoing everything after the second purple water room depending on if anyone well actually ever do that Layer 2 request I made.

It seems rather long and confusing now, though that may have to do with the rather large amount of "test" pipes in your level (or so I think). Either way, I'd probably recommend ending it very soon, or else it might end up getting quite frustrating, especially since it's rather difficult too.

Just one thing:



The Ptooies seem to act really weird on the conveyor belts. Like, this one in particular will kind of get "wedged" in the wall until you pass him, and then he'll decide to move. I like the idea of having them on the conveyors, but it almost might be worth reworking this a bit to make it look less awkward. Also, this was a dead end, so I'm assuming an SMWC coin will be there or something?

Originally posted by MrDeePay


We kind of did away with the factory idea, so I would be willing to desample this track (it only uses one sample anyway) and rework it to use the bongos if you'd like.

(well, actually, it doesn't even have to be bongos. It could be an entirely different melody line if you really wanted that. I guess I'll play with it a bit.)

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I'll see into cutting the level short and moving some segments to side rooms with SMWCoins in them. It's beginning to become very likely for this scenario to happen, but if nobody does the Layer 2 request within a few days, I'll just scrap those parts of the level.

EDIT: As for essentially having Submerged Mircomelx being transferred (after being de-sampled), I suppose that could work. I personally would've preferred a song that was made specifically for SMWCP2, but then again, Ice-1 and Fire/Ice-2 (both by Jimmy) are in this. I'm not familiar with all of the possible instruments that could be used since, but you could pitch any fitting alternatives if you see fit.

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I'm currently on a mini-break while I consider:

- What parts of the of the level to cut. (Also connects with the below bullet point.
- Seeing if anyone will fulfill that Layer 2 request, which I'll give another day. If that doesn't happen, I'll be cutting/redoing those sections.
- Redoing the method to get one SMWCoin so not all three are after the checkpoint. This one might be trickier than I expect.
- Working on my main game since I haven't put serious time into it since the start of August.

Along with a couple of things not directly related to this project. Said mini-break will end tomorrow at the very latest.

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version 3
Main portion of the level is complete, though there's something about it that doesn't sit right with me in my head; largely due to some slowdown and overall length. If this still seems like it's too long, I'll just cut more parts of it out and move it to the unfinished side rooms, if not remove it altogether. There are no obtainable SMWCoins before the first checkpoint. (One is visible, but cannot be obtained.)

I'd still go for unsampled Submerged Micromelx, though I have no idea if it was ever interest into the base, but unnamed.

If I'm being totally honest, I think everything after the second midway point should go. It's already long enough prior to that, with quite a bit of difficulty to boot .. not to mention the last chunk doesn't do enough in the way of "new" stuff to warrant it even being there.

HOWEVER, I really like some of the setups you used in that last part. For instance, the chain-climbing while dodging the two Thwimps jumping back and forth was cool, as was your usage of Ptooies. What I think would be neat is if you cut most of the stuff after the second midway, but actually put some of those designs in the room with the first midway (violet water). I noticed the last half of that room consists of mostly pipes and Venus Fire Traps, and such a layout gets old rather quickly .. but if you carry over some ideas from the third part into here, I think you'll have a winner on your hands.

Couple of screens:


This screen could use something to spice it up (Coins? An enemy?)


Am I missing a really obvious way to get this coin...?

That's all.

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aaaahhhh

I could do that somewhat, but the problem now will come with redesigning considerable amounts of the level to accommodate for the SMWCoins rather than the other way around, not to mention other things I'll mention later in this post. What will probably not survive the cut this time are sublevels 160 and 161 (screens A-F)... and maybe 162; seeing as how the water levels raising all of a sudden won't make sense since I ditch the layer 2 request.

Taking you up on your suggestion of utilizing parts of 165 in 130 (screens 7-F) and/or 164 will be a no go until I can come up with a detour (the entire level uses layer 2) and I've hit my screen limit on both sublevels. Next will be re-balancing length so the checkpoint isn't too lopsided.

I keep forgetting to mention that there's a (red) Yoshi to the left of the first checkpoint (climb the chain with coins underneath). Eat the Blue Parakoopa and fly over to the small gap in the ceiling with two coins underneath it. That would lead to a WIP room (that doesn't work correctly at the moment) that had the Countdown Magician, beating its challenge would've allowed Mario to enter an pipe hidden from view so he could get that coin from below.

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NAMES!!!
Potential candidates!
- Myrkkya/Myrkkyä Maanalainen. (Poison Underground in Finnish; boy do I love loopholes!!! I haven't asked a buddy I know that can speak the language to tell me how it's actually pronounced.)
- Uh...... Toxic Terror? Sounds fitting, but at the same time, rather plain. Maybe I'm just used to how catchy/"exotic" MM sounds.



IPS LINK HERE
- The multi-leveled water room (sublevel 160 primarily) is completely gone in an attempt to shorten the level to a more fitting length.
- Everything post sublevel 164 (then) is gone... somewhat. I couldn't take SNN's suggestion up because of the reason I mentioned in my last post, so started that room over from scratch and made it much shorter compared to last time.
- To compensate for the efforts to cut the level short and the altered final room, the checkpoint (which there is now only one of) now has been moved to the end of level 130 (screen F).
- Message boxes still don't work due to the flashing palette shenanigans occurring with the level.

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No updates, since I'm waiting for someone to show me any signs of life. The latest version has seven downloads and not a single response?

Well, we're in that "school season" now and I think most people (including me) are a lot busier than usual. In fact, I'm not even going to be able to give this or any other level a shot until Thursday given my current schedule.

..but to make this post not completely useless to everyone, I figured I'd mention that I really like the name "Myrkkya Maanalainen", simply given how different it is from the other world 8 names. I'd say go for it if you want to use it.
Well, when I first saw the name, I ended up reading it as "Murky Mainline". As in a sewer main, which is what I sort of pictured this level as, given the whole industrial theme with an underground water tunnel.

As for other names... lets see...

Noxious Niche
Polluted Pipeworks
Toxic Trench
Chemical Culvert
Filthy Fosse

As for my actual opinion on the level... well, I can't really think of much to say that hasn't already been said. Like SNN pointed out, I felt this level overstayed it's welcome, especially given the challenging difficulty. I'd say it's mostly because I also found the level to be a bit confusing. I wasn't sure which direction I should go at times, and I would end up either running out of air from making bad decisions or even going backwards!

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You got lost? Are you playing v3 or earlier? I ask since v4 cut a lot of the fat out so it should be very straightforward as possible (just head right). I could probably roll with Myrkkya Mainline since mainline's a hell of a lot easier to type out/pronounce than maanalainen (of course, I'm not Finnish nor is the majority of the potential playing audience.) The rest of your choices don't sound bad, but MM sounds the catchiest to me.




Also I completely forgot about the school factor, though I'd credit that to me being out of school for several years myself and the school year in my area begins in mid-late August and not after Labor Day for several areas.

Seems like a perfect length now. I'm glad you also managed to keep the "good" parts of the last chunk there - that is, the conveyor belts, climbing and avoiding Thwimps, etc. Once that slowdown in the water segments is dealt with (something on my end I believe), then I'd say it's all set. I didn't have any particular complaints this time around.

By the way, I may have missed it earlier in this thread, but what do you plan on doing for the background? There was one in 12D before it was removed (still available on the site), but I think we'd need to move it over to layer 3 if possible.
I could probably try and help out with that, as long as MrDeePay isn't using any of the first two rows, I could probably move the background you're talking about to Layer 3... if I could find the files you're talking about. Otherwise, moving it to layer 3 could take a little while, but I'm willing to help when needed.

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OK then, my current to-do/wait for list.

- Add one more short room that will lead to the second SMWCoin.
- Minimize slowdown as much as possible while maintaining level difficulty.
- Get No Yoshi: 1up block added to the base and insert it into the level.
- Consider dropping the flashing effect of the level in favor of working message boxes. Of course, objectives/hazards should be incentive enough for the player to take the hint.
- Get unsampled/Yoshified Submerged Micromelx added to base ROM and apply to level.
- Make "final" version of level IPS.
- Submit level if/when it clears along with updated Shivering Cinders.


Regarding the BG, I was going to use the BG CrispyYoshi originally used. (It is/was ExGFX 16B, but I can post it to my file bin.), but I was going to "shortcut it" and paste the parts all over Layer 1 since I don't know to properly work Layer 3 ExGFX. If SCORPION or anyone else is willing to do it instead, then by all means go right ahead.

And for names, I'll sacrifice half of the "exotic" feeling of the original name in favor of it being easier to pronounce while still "abusing" loopholes, so run with Myrkka Mainline.

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The level, for the most part, is now complete. (At least a week later than I was hoping for.) I'm going to make a few runs through the level myself to make sure that it's beatable in one life; which at this point shouldn't be too troubling for me.

Doing it without taking any damage, however...

Complete