PYRODOOM'S PROFILE

author=Animebryan
Why not just use the SMB3 styled 'Level-ending' star?

author=halibabica
'Cuz the player doesn't exit the screen with that star. Plus, it can have other problems, like letting you wander off a nearby cliff with your momentum (which can kill you). I could also just make the goal's hit box bigger so it fully covers the star's bobbing.

I think in the events there's a way you can basically replicate the walk off screen thing. It won't necessarily put you off screen, but it'll at least help with not killing the player due to their momentum.
Upon collecting the SMB3 star, have it in the events make Mario start moving toward the edge of the screen. If timing is good, level will end before they reach the edge and have Mario just walk into a 'wall' ad infinitum.

author=halibabica
I see you figured out the blocks were fake. They are a bit harder to tell on that stage. Sorry you didn't like the cactus? I tried to use the keyhole to give it a shocked expression. Since, y'know, the mansion didn't really exist.

Anyway, about that star thing, we had the opposite problem before where you might grab the goal and not the star. Not wanting to rob players of their stars by accident, the goal NPC appears when the star is collected. At least you don't have to do the whole stage again for missing!

I found it out from Frogge's video. Ironically enough, it also showed me the place of a Flower I completely missed, so even if I had gotten that Flower I still wouldn't have them all. Plus, I did consider the ability to walk through the blocks... after they were already technically solid. .3.

And is that suppose to be what the cactus is for? I guess the cactus does look surprised, though I find that silly(not that silly is bad, I like silly, I'm just surprised you were going that direction).
Also, I didn't see it as "the house never existed". If anything, the house did exist, it just disappeared after leaving. I did question why going through that door put me literally in the middle of nowhere. .3.
Still, I was getting more Hotel California vibes with Mirage Manor, and if it mattered at that point and you were willing to change it(I'm not saying you should, just my thoughts - pretty sure it's past the point for level changes, we're bug testing now .3. ), making it so that you never leave the manor to finish the level and just have the key and keyhole appear after defeating Big Boo would fit the song pretty well - in the song, you never leave the hotel after you decide to enter.

Currently going through world 1, and I've got some notes:

author=Notes

• First, on the current debate over what should be the first level, I think Hillside Streams is a good enough, passable first level due to its simplicity. It's Mario, it's normal, it's comfortable to some people. It could use the pizzazz that Colorful Playground has, but imagine this: how would you feel if the first level was Colorful Playground, "Oh boy this looks so neat and the music is so welcoming~" and then a level like Hillside Streams came up. No offense, but to players, it may look like we blew our load on the first level if you know what I mean.

• In Colorful Playground, the Yoshi after the checkpoint on the bottom path is too close to the ceiling. To try and get on it, you have to duck jump, and then it immediately zips you through a wall. It was rather jarring to me.

• More of a nitpick than anything, is it just me or is Fungal Forest REALLY uncomfortable to get through after the very welcoming Colorful Playground level?
  I ask, because everything suddenly felt out to kill me in that level and all the pits seemed to scream "DANGER, DANGER, YOU WILL DIE." Also, I feel the midpoint comes a little early in that level, it was a little surprising, but just a nitpick.

• In Tall Tops Forest, the bonus room for getting a Flower is very oddly designed. I don't want to say poorly, I just don't understand it. I see Buzzy Beetles walking around from an area to the right, and the flower is just out of my reach as Luigi boost jumping off of Yoshi to the left. Going up the right path reveals that you should get that Flower from above... but are you intended to jump on Buzzy Beetles or their shells to get higher up? If so, someone failed the design because even as Luigi, you can't bounce high enough off an enemy to get to the next part. There aren't enough springboards and I can't get up higher without boost jumping off a Yoshi to get the springboard so I can go back, get on Yoshi, and repeat the process with the second springboard. Generally, it feels rather... weird for World 1, and I don't understand why.

• In Mushroom Samba, there's a vine that leads to a secret area that I didn't see some coming. I scoured the level left and right, died 3 or 4 times in the level doing so(my own fault, but really the placement of that flower is kinda crap ._. ), and finally just resorted to checking every pipe and block as I began thinking "there HAS to be a secret area". Seeing the vine, one thing came to mind: what's this game's fascination with vines? If it's supposed to emphasize Yoshi, you should be able to keep Yoshi in almost any situation, right? Especially when doing one of the main things of the game, collecting all the flowers and getting the stars - really, using Yoshi and getting the Flowers shouldn't be mutually exclusive. But to get that Flower, you have to abandon Yoshi, because Yoshi can't climb vines. So I went everywhere in the level, and when I finally found what I was looking for,
  I had to leave Yoshi behind. ._.

I played through the entirety of World 1, including Tempest Valley(which was rather weird to get to, I had to enter Agent Toad's HQ to get to it, and I didn't know that as you did levels and worlds on the world map, they unlocked in the HQ. Quite interesting. BTW, is there an actual, physical WX or is WX just the collection of extra levels found in Agent Toad's HQ?), and the first level of World 2.

The issue that some people discussed before this beta released reared its ugly head to me as I played, and while I find it pretty good so far, I don't necessarily know how things will work out for me. In general, as people said, SMBX is not meant to be a collectathon game engine. It gets easy to forget which Flowers you already collected and how many you have, and some design choices seem backward to how Mario is normally played. Especially for a game like this, with technically two gimmicks, those two gimmicks tend to grind against each other, as in, some designers seemed to want to make it so you need Yoshi to get Flowers. I'm okay with that. Other designers make it so if you have a Yoshi with you, you have to leave it behind. I am not okay with this.

And that's how this game clearly wants to work. In many collecathons, that's the whole point, but in this game, I guess the excuse is that "it's optional"(?). Combing over levels for... I'll guess an average time of 5 minutes and dying multiple times because of it in levels that don't like backtracking but allow it(I'm looking squarely at you, Mushroom Steppes), whereas the level normally should only take me on average 2 minutes, tires me out after a while. Breezing through Mario is how I normally do things, and if I want a collectathon Mario game, I go for Mario 64. And yet, I want the extra content and levels. I guess I don't feel like I've earned it by collecting Flowers because of how tiring they are to collect at times?

Is it bad that I'm already exhausted by World 1? ._.

author=halibabica

from Animebryan
why are some of the Mini-Boss levels skippable?

I wanted to get some variety in our branching paths, so I paired things up differently in each world. Every world has a definite stage 1 and stage 6 and two stages that can be skipped. Those stages are in different slots world-to-world with only a few repeats.

To skip the fewest mini-bosses possible while maximizing the variety, I doubled up the patterns that don't include stage 3.

2&3
2&4 x2
2&5 x2
3&4
3&5
4&5 x2

So some are skippable and some are not.

Yes I am insane.

Given you've managed to manage/direct 3 Mario fangames(though one with a little more help), working with the designers in every way possible, and did it almost constantly and consistently to the point I come to the page every day and see most of my notices are from you, and that the last Super RMN game was only about... a year or two ago
Yeah, I'd be surprised if you weren't insane at this point. .3.

Also, can you explain all those numbers to me? Like, what does @&3, or the x2 with 2&4, 2&5, and 4&5 mean? Basically, what is the & for and what does x2 mean?
Do they correlate with worlds? Stages capable of skipping in those worlds? Are they part of your calculations for how you decided which levels should be skipped?
The numbers legitimately confused me.

author=halibabica
Thank you, pyrodoom! Even if that was a crappy method, it sure worked!

that is the nicest backhanded compliment i'e ever gotten
jkjk

All jokes aside, you're welcome. That song is really nice. :3

author=Animebryan
Tempest Valley by pyrodoom:

I'm certain the gimmick where platforms are revealed by rain has been done many times before, though I got the idea from a Sonic fangame, Sonic After the Sequel.
Hali was the one who implemented the rain effect and invisible blocks - I made the level, he did the awesome stuff. .3.

Also, on the note of that weird pipe... I'd have no reason to do something like that - in earlier versions of the level, where invisible blocks like what Hali's using weren't used, that pipe DID just disappear. I think Hali may have put invisible blocks there in its place to give a hint that something's there(even though the indent in the ground and the fact that the cave is a bit off the path should have been clues enough .3. )

Also, I don't know why I never did it - maybe that place WOULD have been a good place for a 1-up? Given Hali did later replace my 3-up moon with a 1-up in that section where you need to Yoshi boost, and due to the apparent difficulty of jumping up there, maybe the 3-up moon would work there? Then again, that'd be a bit much - a tanooki suit, a whole bunch of coins, and a 3-up moon just because you found a secret pipe in the W1-WX level? IDK. I'm assuming the green means "final testing", since I remember reading that somewhere. I guess that means final feedback to Hali so when he puts the final game together he can edit the levels one last time in the process?



On that note, I feel kinda shitty that I only recorded 5 or so levels, then sorta stopped. Like, I have school and my current recording situation is still meh(my computer doesn't seem to like recording videos, and my family legit doesn't care, they'll interrupt my videos whenever they please), but more feedback in general, videos or not, I feel I should have given. There may still be time to do so, but to begin with, which levels would I be recording/reviewing here? The ones that are above the HALI IS HERE line, or the ones below?