MAKING A SIMPLE AUTOSCROLLING LEVEL

If there's anything Super RMN Bros 1 showed, it was how to do autoscrolling levels completely wrong. Three different levels by three different developers tried to make an autoscrolling level with Super Mario Brothers X (SMBX) 1.2 B4. This version of the editor had no proper support for autscrolling levels like they were done in Super Mario Brothers 3 or Super Mario World. Want evidence? The three levels in question (Skyjinx by Anaryu, Kentsnowna by Kentona, and Break Bowser's Blockade by yours truly) both tried to create an autoscrolling level three different ways. All three levels have major issues largely due to how they fought with the engine to make the autoscrolling work. Thankfully redigit, the creator of SMBX added a proper autoscrolling feature in the next version of SMBX. Unfortunately the new issue becomes how do you do it? It's a tale of Google, trying to interpret various ways others have done, and fighting with the engine itself trying to get it to work. Even now my efforts come down to "It works unless you look at it funny then it'll just flip you off and go home". This is a reproducible method of creating a simple autoscrolling level. No frills or gimmicks. Mostly because I couldn't figure out how to go any farther than that.



The first thing to do is to make your autoscrolling level sans any autoscrolling. Make the level first with the autoscrolling segment in Section 1. Not too difficult, right? Set a place to start and an exit and a few things in between.




Done? Now open up the events window (View->Events, or Ctrl+E) and select the "Level - Start" event. There's a handy "Autoscroll" section to the right where you set the horizontal and vertical speed of the autoscrolling. The "Section" scroll bar goes from 1-21 (or zero for older versions), one for each section of a level. For now just leave it at 1; I can't get the damn thing to work for any other section.




Now for the extra confusion part! See that "Positon" under "Section Settings"? We need to set that to the area Mario can move in during the autoscrolling segment and where the area the autoscrolling starts. Shrink your level boundaries so it is a single screen big around the starting position of the level. Once the boundaries are shrunk, click on "Use Current" under "Position" which will change the box text to "Set".


Restore your level boundaries so the game knows when the autoscrolling ends. Save, test, and you should have a basic autoscrolling level on your hands! Experiment with this and hopefully you can do something cooler than what I've managed to do so far.




Here's a quick level I made messing around with autoscrolling. I'm not sure if it'll do much good though due to the nature of how you set it all up.