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116: Tropopause Trail - 2dareduck

Complete

To be fair The super Mario bros movie did take place on earth....ok let's not mention that movie again.
#w{=3}

@MrDeePay
Whats the limit where sky ends and space begins? How far the does the sky go up to? I think it extends for the troposphere to the
thermosphere. So i think it fits perfectly.
Perhaps you could keep the "land" view, but get rid of the space aspect of the background and keep it cloudy. It would still look cool while at the same time giving the illusion that you're very high up.

(It doesn't bother me personally, but I figured I'd indulge those who it DOES bother.)
Do you remember in Super Paper Mario, Chapter 7-3, when you got shoot high up in space by a supah cloud, you can see a world in the BG? You could copy the land of that world. It's not the same as Earth :P
Your layout has been removed.
A few notes:

Second Section
-If you want to keep the bullet bill shooters, perhaps you could try setting them further into the wall (or enclose them altogether) so that players can't hug them to prevent them from firing.
-Sometimes I get the feeling that the safest way to dodge a group of parachute enemies is to jump out of the cloud, bounce off the enemy, and land back in the cloud, but doing that can make you glitch through walls and such. Also, keep in mind that if for whatever reason players jump off the cloud in the midst of jump-through platforms, they can kiss their cloud goodbye.
-I don't like the fact that the screen immediately starts scrolling as you enter the room on the lower end of the screen. I wish players had a second more to acclimate themselves to their surroundings before having to move.

Third Section
-I really don't like the way this area is introduced. You have to immediately jump on the winged shell or you pretty much have no chance of reaching that first high platform.
-I think the lakitu is a tile too high. I can't see which way it's throwing the spinies until they're already falling.
-The winged shell->platform jumps demand too much precision, I think. Sometimes I have to dodge a falling spiny, and then it's too late to board the winged shell and have it climb enough for me to reach the next platform. Too many of those jumps are really close calls. If the sprite's x-speed were decreased, y-speed (while climbing) increased, or if there were just a couple more of them to give players leeway, I don't think there'd be an issue.
-The game froze when I got hit on the top edge of the screen as Fire Mario. I don't think this is your fault, though, since I remember the same thing happening in Tourou Temple's boat section.


Other than that, I'm mostly agreed with S.N.N. here. Instead of the first area, how about a small intro in which Mario jumps into a cloud and exits off the top of the screen? That would also lessen the disorientation in the second area's beginning. In the second area, try to avoid situations where players can just swerve around everything, but don't overdo it, either, since the cloud isn't super-maneuverable.
Youtube (Main) | Youtube (Alt) | Bandcamp | DeviantART
Got any updates on this 2dareduck? It's been over a week now so I'm interested in seeing what you've fixed up.
Sorry for lack of updates, it's that time of the year again, finals week. But i was able to fit in some
time for working on the level. Everything is pretty much set so if you find any problems let me know.
LINK
What i mostly fix was some of the stuff AxemJinx mentioned such as the screen start rolling
immediately after entering the level. I wanted to move lakitu lower but then it's to easy to
kill him off, he's the main challenge. Background fixed a bit also.

The right path should be blocked because the left path is correct. But when I went to the right path, There is nothing there. And when I got to the left and moved down and... It took me to the original SMW bonus area (Level 0).


Why is there a translucent block by the goal roulette?

Also, when I touched the goal roulette, the coins stopped animating, and so is Mario. But the changing item in the translucent block is still changing. Sometimes, When I get the star after I got the goal roulette, It changes the level complete music to the star music.
I'm sorry, but I'm not good at SMW hacking, so I gave up on it. That means I'm leaving SMWCentral. Bye!
Originally posted by Woody
The right path should be blocked because the left path is correct. But when I went to the right path, There is nothing there. And when I got to the left and moved down and... It took me to the original SMW bonus area (Level 0).

Oh wow how did i miss that! Thanks for catching it.
Overall, this is pretty good so far. I do like a lot of the ideas in this level - the scrolling parts, (Lakitu), Parachuting Goombas/Bob-ombs, Rotating Koopas, and positions of the coins. I think maybe by World 6, the 2nd coin was a little bit too easy to figure out, but it was fine. I do like the 3rd coin's placement and I think the 1st half was better than the 2nd half.

I do have a couple of issues in this level.

1. In the 1st half, the BG is nice but there was something really strange about it. I get the fact that the level is about climbing up to the clouds but the BG didn't seem to portray that for me. It came off more like the floor was falling rather than me floating higher and I think it has to do with the static BG. The earth is great for the 1st screen but for the 2nd and on screens it should be either getting smaller because Mario is going up higher or showing clouds. Maybe make the BG be Layer 2 w/ no interaction and have the earth on the first screen and show more and more clouds as you climb higher to give the effect that you're climbing.

2. The red pipe's black color might need to be a really dark red.

3. I don't know if I like the fact that clouds in the 2nd half could stop Mario from going through them from below or from the side.

4. The clouds need a little bit more texture in the 2nd half.

Other than that, it seems to be a very good start so far.
In addition to what cstutor89 brought up, I think that the level needs to be cut down a bit. It still feels a little too long. Also, I think that there should be another powerup for the second half.
I no longer have interest in SMW Hacking as I did when I first started several years ago.
Originally posted by cstutor89
1. In the 1st half, the BG is nice but there was something really strange about it. I get the fact that the level is about climbing up to the clouds but the BG didn't seem to portray that for me. It came off more like the floor was falling rather than me floating higher and I think it has to do with the static BG. The earth is great for the 1st screen but for the 2nd and on screens it should be either getting smaller because Mario is going up higher or showing clouds. Maybe make the BG be Layer 2 w/ no interaction and have the earth on the first screen and show more and more clouds as you climb higher to give the effect that you're climbing.

I think i got the effect your talking about by setting the layer 2 bg scroll rate to: h scroll variable; v scroll slow. Now to get it to be perfect is to have the h scroll to none. Anyone know how???

@tomphanto
yeah i'll add a power to the second half. Alos the reason it feels long is becuase of the slow scrolling.
Originally posted by 2dareduck
I think i got the effect your talking about by setting the layer 2 bg scroll rate to: h scroll variable; v scroll slow. Now to get it to be perfect is to have the h scroll to none. Anyone know how???

@tomphanto
yeah i'll add a power to the second half. Alos the reason it feels long is becuase of the slow scrolling.


I think you can do that with a scroll set to constant for both vertical and horizontal on Layer 2. You'll have to draw out clouds on every screen, but it will give the effect needed.
This is one heck of a nice level you've got here, 2dareduck. The atmosphere is fantastic, the design is interesting, and it is a great intro to the sky world. However, there are a few minor problems that I'd like to point out.


This coin is difficult to get without beforehand knowledge of its location, because it you aren't already on the top half of the screen, it becomes almost impossible to reach safely.


On a related note, major graphical glitch.


I don't really like this setup. It seems that if you try to rush it, you end up getting blown up while trying to find a safe opening in the bombs, and if you wait a little, they blow up on your own and cease to be a hazard.


This coin refuses to appear. It may have something to do with the glitchy first coin.


Very nit-picky, but I've always found the behavior of those Para-Beetles to be really weird (the way that they go up when you're standing on them, when you'd expect them to go down). If this is the level that introduces them, I'd suggest a message block for the sake of the people who haven't seen them before.


This coin also refuses to appear. Also, it seems a little too easy to get when compared to the other two.


Just my opinion, but the last part of the ultra slow autoscrolling seems a bit barren and boring to me.
Originally posted by eXcavator



On a related note, major graphical glitch.


This coin refuses to appear. It may have something to do with the glitchy first coin.


This coin also refuses to appear. Also, it seems a little too easy to get when compared to the other two.


The coins not appearing are just a glitch in the base rom.
I no longer have interest in SMW Hacking as I did when I first started several years ago.
I have to agree with eXcavator that this level as amazing atmosphere, but something about the background is still bugging me. I think it is the peculiar conjunction of realistic stratus and cumulus clouds above the Earth (or whatever planet Mario inhabits) and the cartoony cumulus clouds behind the planet! That's unrealistic even for a Mario game.

Possibly the background colour is bugging me too, the odd dark-blue-green-black-azure-thing you currently have isn't very appealing. If you want some real eye-candy for your background, add Layer 3 clouds, then remove the cartoon clouds and add an HDMA of colours similar to the background colour of the first galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2.

As for the level itself I don't have much to say that wouldn't be repetitive. The third section is fairly well structured for now, but it is kind of boring and doesn't justice the rest of the level. It is also way too easy to be World 6, the areas where you have two options of clouds to stand on (the upper or the lower) the lower isn't even a challenge to get to. Adding some hammer bros or ice bros or even some regular static hammer bros would definitely add some form of challenge to that part.

That's only my opinion though, other than that the level is extremely well made! Keep up the good work!
Hmm. . . not sure what to say so I'll just stop talking. . .

Originally posted by eXcavator
I don't really like this setup. It seems that if you try to rush it, you end up getting blown up while trying to find a safe opening in the bombs, and if you wait a little, they blow up on your own and cease to be a hazard.

yeah i'm not liking this area aswell. I might just replace it with something else.

Originally posted by Kojeco2
Possibly the background colour is bugging me too, the odd dark-blue-green-black-azure-thing you currently have isn't very appealing. If you want some real eye-candy for your background, add Layer 3 clouds, then remove the cartoon clouds and add an HDMA of colours similar to the background colour of the first galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2

Layer 3 clouds would only appear in certain segments in a vertical level, it'll look odd but i might go with it. HDMA sounds good but i first have to master the art of it.

Now that finals are over i'll start working on it again. Trying to fix mostly everything that was said ^^^^^ up there.
Update: I, with the help of others, got the background to move scroll down, doesn't sound to complicated but i kinda was. So that part is
taken care of.
I also changed the speed of the para-beetles to move slower and i'll also use the 32x32 para beetles to spicy it up a bit since now the
second part isn't that special i'll have to re-due all of it.
I tested your level again and I think you've addressed some of the issues I had last time around. Still a pretty good level - just a few issues with colors and BG stuff.

Level 116
1. I think you've addressed the camera issue with the vertical climb and it looks better than before. I still think it feels a little bit too much like the land is still falling rather than Mario moving up. I think the key to this one has to be something with the Scrolling feature of Layer 2, H-Scroll:Variable, V-Scroll:Constant. I'd be glad to try to see if this is possible.

EDIT: With the size of the level being larger than E length, it's not possible to use Variable/Constant. Just ignore Part 1.

2. Color 33 - just change that to something like 000E or 000D. That black on that red/white pipe looks a little bit strange.

3. A little bit of slowdown on screen 6 with the Lakitu's throwing stuff with the Bob-omb.

4. The Koopa kicking the shell, discriminates Big Mario a bit as either he has to get out of the Lakitu Cloud or take a hit if he's confined in that area. Maybe just move the cloud and Koopa/Shell one block down.

Level 94
1. Since Mario is pretty close to the clouds, I think it would be better if this area had just clouds to look at.

Level 95
1. Again Color 33.

2. There might need to be a little bit more texture on the clouds in the FG.
As for me, the only real issue I had was at the start of Level 95, the player will not likely know to go up on the para buzzy and fall off the cloud. I know there's coins there, but it isn't really obvious. I like how you enabled vertical scrolling to take advantage of the level, but I feel that the first segment could have something like a branching path in case the player misses the first para buzzy.

Honestly, I think the level's gotten a lot better now.
I no longer have interest in SMW Hacking as I did when I first started several years ago.
Gadzooks, it's testing a go-go!

First section:



- Is there any particular reason the player can go under the cliffs here? At first I assumed something was hidden here, but that doesn't appear to be the case. And since since we're climbing up a mountain into the clouds, would it not make sense for the cliffs to be implied to continue down offscreen, rather than rounding at the bottom, suggesting them to be floating?

- The powerup distribution seem a bit off to me; they seem a little too far apart for an area of this length, and the second one's just a touch too tricky to get for an "essential" (rather than bonus) powerup. I might recommend moving the first one down a screen (say around the area where the coin blocks are now), as there seems to be just a touch too much danger before it appears, and maybe throwing in an additional powerup somewhere in the general vicinity of the smiley face, in which case you could probably leave the third one as is, its comparative trickiness being balanced by its no longer being quite so indispensable as it currently is.



- This Goomba here is a little too tricky to reliably avoid, as there's no really safe side of the wall to cling to, and you can't really wait for it too pass, either. This is especially problematic in light of the above mentioned powerup situation, as this occurs at precisely the point when the player is most likely to be lacking in a powerup.

- I think Not-Europe could probably still use just a wee bit more tweaking to better disguise its previous career as Europe.

Second half:

- I find it somewhat counter-intuitive that the smaller Parabeetles rise when Mario lands upon them, but the larger (and presumably sturdier) ones buckle under his weight (but maybe that's how giant Parabeetles behaved in one of the Advance games, which I've admittedly never played?). Maybe making the larger ones a different color (or even making them look obviously exhausted?) might help a bit on this front...?

- There definitely need to be some more coins in the Parabeetle-jumping sections to give the player some clues as to where and when they ought to jump off. As things stand, this is not always obvious, especially in the later parts of the level, where by the time you can see the next beetle, it's already too late.

- The foreground clouds here are just a bit too toothpaste-colored for my tastes. I always tend to associate this particular shade of cyan with MS-DOS games, and not in a fondly nostalgic way.

- The "main" color of the background clouds as seen in the edge tiles (which use color 0,1) is different from the one used in the interior of the clouds (color 4,1), creating an odd staircase effect.

Complete