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

Achievements

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Posts

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Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Is this still a thing?
I assume not - no news for almost exactly two months.
I guess so much SMBX in a row burned everyone out. Makes sense, honestly.

Still disappointed I wasn't able to finish anything for either of the two SMBX events recently due to my living situation. :(
To be honest, all this event needs is a hub, I have been meaning to sort one out for months but life has been kicking the unholy hell out of me recently and honestly, I haven't found the time, patience and creativity to make a proper one.

This event is honestly a bit of a sore spot for me now, I remember being so excited to have my own event to run on the website and the low signup and submission levels just hit me where it hurts. Guess I just left it too long in the end, way past RMNs SMBX years. Doesn't help that I had my own little SMBX Writer's Block, couldn't even get my own level out for the damn thing because I just couldn't think of anything worth it
I can understand, I imagine that I'd be the same way if I ran an event and that happened.
I'm starting to wonder if interest in SMBX here on RMN is dying out. I can think of 3 events that crashed & burned.
1 - Castles Masterpieces Set 2 (finished but with some serious flaws that weren't fixed)
2 - Super Dr. Toadly's World (seiromem can't/won't finish it)
3 - This event (not enough people signed up/turned in levels)

While Super RMN Bros./World series turned out great, but these little events don't pan out so well. Maybe we should stick to major projects instead.
It's not exactly a secret that SMBX has been dying on this website, hell I kinda knew that coming in, but I didn't think the event would be this quiet at all
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Accessibility is part of it, too. This event had a unique premise, and it was a cool idea, but you also couldn't just hop in and make any old level for it. You'll always get more turnout for an event where anything goes, but the more restrictive the guidelines, the less involvement there will be.

But yeah SMBX is so dead here regardless.
...So is this still on somebody's to-do list? c.c I'd like to see this released, small though it may be. I'd be willing to throw together a hub world if that's what's needed. Guess it'd be nice to have a "title screen" for the game page too, although we couldn't actually put it in the game itself. I'd have to beg help from somebody more artistically inclined for that. And by the way, what would people think about leaving the project open-ended? A few folks might get inspired once they play the game, especially if we have some sort of notice in the game about how to contribute. Somebody actually did contribute a bunch of extra functionality to an open-ended DynRPG plugin I started, and it was about eight months after first release.
Welp, it's been a couple weeks since I asked and nobody's saying anything, so tomorrow I think I'll see if I can throw the hub world and maybe even the whole game page submission together. I'll probably just use a screenshot from one of the stages (probably Mozart Mario, since that visually evokes the idea of music the most) for the "title screen", although if somebody wants to send something more interesting my way, I'll gladly update it later. I imagine I'll need admin help for linking the game page submission to this event and getting the achievement distributed to the participants. hali, you've got the Title of Teal and I imagine you still get notifications from this event, could you point me in the right direction for the logistics?

Oh, and something I forgot to bring up before: would anybody mind me also submitting the project to some more SMBX-centric places? That especially might get the ball rolling on further level contributions. I'm not currently a member of any such places, so if anybody wants to make suggestions or better yet introductions, I'd appreciate it.
Okay, the hub world is functionally complete, although there's a few bits of polish I intend to apply. I'm having some technical trouble with it too.

  • Minor graphical glitch: when coming through the door from one hub to another, the door sound plays but the door does not animate on exit.
  • The stars earned/available for a stage don't appear when you stand in front of the door leading to the stage.
  • When you die or finish a stage, you're sent to the start-of-game spawn point, not put back by the door to the stage.
  • Major issue: stage checkpoints aren't working, probably related to the above bullet point.


I didn't have much luck finding existing discussion about these issues (this thread does seem to mention some of them, but I wasn't able to fix the problems the way they did), so I thought I'd ask if the SMBX veterans here if they have any ideas. Here's the project as it currently stands if you'd like to take a look.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
For the doors, it depends on which ones you're using. Some of SMBX's doors are animated and some aren't. Make sure the door types match.

I think the other issues are related to how hubs work. In the editor, you need to switch to world editor mode and use the settings to indicate what stage is the hub. I think there's a checkbox for it, too. SMBX is finicky about this stuff, so you have to set it exactly right for things to work.
As for the doors not showing number of stars, this same mistake was done in Castles Masterpiece Set 2. I had to fix it myself to make it work. Apparently when someone tried to link the level to the door, they got the name of the level wrong because it has to be exactly what the filename is. I.E. If a level's filename is say Lava_Lotus_Grotto, and you put it as Lava Lotus Grotto (replacing underscores with spaces), the editor will not recognize the level. So make sure the names of the levels match the actual names or filenames of the levels.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
I think you need the file extension, too. Lava_Lotus_Grotto and Lava_Lotus_Grotto.lvl tell the game two different things.
Also turns out a lot depends on making your starting level the one from which you access the other levels. I was trying to implement a main hub and sub-hubs as separate levels, to make things more easily expandable should more levels be submitted. Unfortunately that caused the first, third, and fourth issues in my list above. I was able to get the stars to appear even in the sub-hub levels, but the other issues were pretty intractable, so I switched to using different sections in the main hub level as sub-hubs.

I've updated the available project as it stands. I still have a few things to polish and add, but the essential functionality is there.
It's up! The Mario's Musical Marathon game page is approved and the download is now available! I'll PM Liberty to ask for distribution of the achievement. Thanks to all who took part, and if you've got something you weren't able to finish, consider doing so now -- the episode is open to more submissions!
This event is over, but the game is open-ended. See the game page for instructions on contributing more stages.
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