Description



37 years Mario has jumped through hoops, bounced over mountains, trekked through deserts and crushed thousands of fungal opponents in the endless quest to keep the danger-prone princess out of the clutches of one Bowser - everyone has their calling - Mario's just happens to be damsel recovery

But a man's gotta keep things fresh right, between those hikes to the Dark World and back, he's found time to stretch his legs in football, tennis and golf, fancies himself a world-renowned racer and even has a life-sized board game for his own personal R&R time

But in those 37 years, you know what never changes?

The music

Mario appreciates those talented Nintendo composers but after 37 years of video game instrumentals, he's not sure he can take it any more - he's going mad, crazy even. His brother Luigi has enlisted the help of a very strange group of individuals to help Mario out of his rut here

Oddly enough, these strange individuals are us

The green brother has enlisted our help to produce a menagerie of levels with what we consider the best music of our colourful world to bring some variety into his stressed sibling's job

When the event ends, this levels will be compiled into a hub-centered SMBX game and sent to Mario by express mail. As per standard, it will also be downloadable on RMN, because of course it will




- This is an SMBX event, you will need to submit levels created with the SMBX engine, specifically, RMN's classic fav, the SMBX 1.3.0.1 engine (I know there's fancier and arguably better engines out there, but I'm aiming to try and keep this a simple casual event, so we'll stay tried and trusted for now)

- Your level must utilise your favourite song as it's sole and only theme, remixes and alternative versions can be used in conjunction but it must be clear that the songs are obviously related.

- Your level must have a checkpoint, 5 dragon coins and end with a SMB3 star

- Your level must not contain SMW stars or the infamously buggy duo of Unskinned Dry Bones and SMW Bowser Statues, it is possible to get textures for dry bones that avoid being buggy and SMB3 Bowser Statues work much better

- Take this from the man himself, there is nothing worse than trying to guess "Am I allowed to swim in THIS water?" Water must be swimmable and waterfalls must be decorative

- All characters must be able to clear a level unless a level is made with a specific character in mind, then you must make sure the player is definitely that character before they begin the main meat of the level

- Avoid pesky softlocks, there should be no situation where you are still alive and yet unable to progress

- Try to avoid one-block high dead end gaps, this causes SMBX's infamous zipping trick and can cause some unwanted effects

- Luigi would like to remind you that the Mario Bros. are generally a U-rated brand and while he will grant some slack, if a song is too vulgar, he will kindly request you to either find a less vulgar or censored version or in extreme cases may ask you to use a different song. if you're not sure, leave a link in the event comments and he'll let you know

- The level must have Luigi of Mushroom Kingdom's Seal of Approval. The level will be judged and feedback provided in order to make sure there is a consistent level of quality, once all feedback has been taken care of - the level will be accepted

- There will be a strict one level at a time rule, you will be allowed to make another level (presumably with your second favourite song and so on) upon the acceptance of the previous

- And finally do not begin work on your level until the event's official start date: November 10th

Details

  • 11/10/2018 12:00 AM
  • 12/09/2018 11:59 AM

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Posts

Hali is disqualified
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
you can have wildly different interpretations of the same song, so I wouldn't worry about "overlap" being a thing.
...ok so life is more important but I feel like this couldn't have been more perfect. An SMBX contest about music that I can't join, because I potentially won't get my computer back until next month.

I hate life sometimes. Such bad timing.
No one's fault, not demanding an extension just so I can join(because getting my computer back next month is hopeful, not guaranteed), but it's kinda disappointing. -3-
Good luck to those of you involved though, can't wait to hear you guys and gals' levels.

anyone considering Go! Child, Nathan Sharp, or Vocaloid music?
author=pyrodoom
...ok so life is more important but I feel like this couldn't have been more perfect. An SMBX contest about music that I can't join, because I potentially won't get my computer back until next month.

I hate life sometimes. Such bad timing.
No one's fault, not demanding an extension just so I can join(because getting my computer back next month is hopeful, not guaranteed), but it's kinda disappointing. -3-
Good luck to those of you involved though, can't wait to hear you guys and gals' levels


If you want, pm me a level a bit down the line once your computers up and sorted and we'll see what we can do, don't want ya to miss out or anything
Noooo! You guys started another event without me! And my laptop is currently getting fixed too! And I have a perfect level & song to use too :(
author=Animebryan
Noooo! You guys started another event without me! And my laptop is currently getting fixed too! And I have a perfect level & song to use too :(

author=jackalotrun
If you want, pm me a level a bit down the line once your computers up and sorted and we'll see what we can do, don't want ya to miss out or anything


I appreciate that people have computer issues so the above offer is open to anyone who can't take part due to these sorts of reasons
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
I was gonna make a kickass auto-scroller level set to Carmina Burana but you guys would reject it for not having a checkpoint.

Your loss.
author=Solitayre
I was gonna make a kickass auto-scroller level set to Carmina Burana but you guys would reject it for not having a checkpoint.

Your loss.


An exception can be made for an autoscroller
Any restrictions on song/level length? Because I had an idea for a level for my current project but scrapped it but it would be perfect for this event. A fire level with a rushing wall of lava chasing after you while rockin' out to Dragonforce's 'Through The Fire & Flames'.
author=Animebryan
Any restrictions on song/level length? Because I had an idea for a level for my current project but scrapped it but it would be perfect for this event. A fire level with a rushing wall of lava chasing after you while rockin' out to Dragonforce's 'Through The Fire & Flames'.


As long as it isn't excessively long/short it'll be fine - however the level will have to be started from scratch as per event rules
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Submitted a draft of my level, Mozart Mario. Feedback welcome.
Mario's Mozart by Solitayre

- The level did not end with a SMB3 Star
- You've missed a little bit of the black background at the end, the background is clearly visible in the bottom-left corner as you leave the stage
- This one is more of a stylistic nitpick (which I'm not really factoring into accepting/rejecting) but after the level only uses bright colours as highlights (such as banners and stained glass windows) the bright silver pipe room at the end feels a bit jarring

Just sort that star and background and this level will be accepted
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
I should learn to read. Fixed.
author=jackalotrun
author=Animebryan
Any restrictions on song/level length? Because I had an idea for a level for my current project but scrapped it but it would be perfect for this event. A fire level with a rushing wall of lava chasing after you while rockin' out to Dragonforce's 'Through The Fire & Flames'.
As long as it isn't excessively long/short it'll be fine - however the level will have to be started from scratch as per event rules

Through The Fire & Flames plays for 7:20. Is that too long? No need to worry about it being made from scratch, since my Hard Drive died & I lost everything SMBX related :(
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
My level used Mozart's entire Requiem, which is over 8 minutes.
Numbah two spot claimed with "Feel Invincible"! A few technical details I learned that might be useful for others to know: there is a HARD LIMIT on how many events can be in a stage. You can have 98 of them plus the built-in "Level - Start", "P Switch - Start", and "P Switch - End" ones. I wound up having to eliminate a few events by combining them into others in order to finish my stage, and even there I had to make the last interlude and chorus sections boss fights without a lot of synchronization to the music.

As it turns out, the concept described by Link_2112 about chopping a song into pieces and playing the later part after a checkpoint IS possible. HOWEVER, there is a big restriction: in order to play a different custom music, you need to do it in a different level section. This is because when you tell an event to change the music, you can only tell it to change to "Custom", which does whatever is entered in the Custom field for the current level section. The trick I came up with to make this seamless was to place an instant warp to a NEARLY IDENTICAL level section on the checkpoint, but hide its layer shortly after the stage starts. That way, the player can hit the checkpoint without going anywhere, then if they die and reenter the stage, they hit the warp and go to the other section with the other music, and there hit a trigger which starts events in the middle of things. Unfortunately, the "clone section" feature of the SMBX editor is buggy, placing everything a fraction of a brick higher than it should be in the cloned section. x.x This can be worked around to an extent, but it did seem to cause a minor graphical problem with a warp pipe at the end in my stage -- you're sent where you need to go, but you don't see your hero entering the pipe.

Also, SMBX apparently can't handle multiple checkpoints per stage. If there are multiple checkpoints, it won't send the player to the most recently reached checkpoint -- it will pick one randomly, presumably just using the first one it finds through some unpredictable process because it doesn't expect there ARE any others. I was puzzled by my second checkpoint seeming to be fixed and then not for a while, then I found this SMBX forum post going over the issue. I ended up removing the first checkpoint.

I'm considering churning out another stage using Electric Daisy by Lindsey Stirling. This one wouldn't be a synchronized stage, just a regular stage with that music. And Daisy sprites for Peach, of course. ;) If I can find some to use, that is. I'll try sending a PM to ask permission to use Sarasaland Adventure 2's sprites, but the dev's last post was in January of last year, so I don't know if he's paying attention to RMN anymore. Does anybody know of any freely-available SMBX Daisy sprites I could use? A quick Google doesn't seem to be turning any up.
Here's some feedback for Solitayre's "Mozart Mario" stage. It certainly looks like you put some effort into making block and background sprites that match the theme, so congrats on that. Lots of koopa stomping involved, that's always fun. The section immediately after the checkpoint felt a little dry to me, with not much challenge per length traveled. There were harder-to-reach high paths in it, but no motivation to use them, especially since the dragon coin was on the lower path. The pipe organ section at the end was my favorite part, but it was also the place with the most technical trouble. The final dragon coin is very tough to reach as Link, though still possible even without drawing over a paratroopa. There's a blue paratroopa halfway through that simply falls into the abyss as soon as you see him, I'm guessing you intended for him to move horizontally but forgot to set his behavior. Finally, it's possible to softlock yourself on the second-to-last jump by killing the paratroopa with a fireball or shell. Maybe you could trigger an event on the paratroopa's death that causes another one to be generated?
Feel Invincible by Aubrey the Bard

- Credit where credit is due, this has to be the most fun I've ever had with Link in a stage
- My only request is to lower the amount of enemies in the rainbow shell segments, you get waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many lives, the ideal amount of killable opponents up there should be 8, 1 life for successful genocide
@AubreyTheBard: I should also mention to be careful about putting too many events in 1 section (or even the same screen) as well as pushing the editor to its limits. Not everybody that plays this will have a 'Top of the Line' computer, meaning anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck using an older computer might have serious problems playing the level without the video aspect skipping/freezing & screwing the player over.

I myself am having that issue with SMBX with the video freezing (action still continues, I just can't see it for a few to several seconds) or the screen turning black on me (can't tell if its a issue with either SMBX or my HyperCam 4).

Anyway, I'm working on my own level still but will also get around to testing Mozart Mario & Feel Invincible tonight.