Serene Seasides

Lyndis · Postby **Lyndis** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:32 pm

Bowser has taken over the Mushroom Kingdom's seaside, i'ts up to Mario to take care of this and discover Bowser's true intentions... This level contains 3 SMW stars and 5 dragons coins. I hope you will enjoy playing it! :3 (and sorry for the bad english x) )

Screenshoot

Spoiler: show

Download!

Credits
Tilesets - Shikaterna
Various SMB3 Recolors - LegendTony & Valterri

Music
Beach and Cave sections - Frogatto and Friends
Sky Section - Dynamite Headdy Schumacher Fly Techworks cover

JupiHornet · Postby **JupiHornet** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 10:40 am

UNOFFICIAL REVIEW of SERENE SEASIDES by META

Neat level! I enjoyed this one!

Design (5/10)
This was actually a rather enjoyable level! However, there are a few flaws. The first beach area was fine, but after that you head into...a cave. -__- You are told by a Red Goomba that you need to activate a bomb generator to break a wall that is blocking your path. Ok, fine. After you progress a little more, another Red Goomba tells you that there is a brick above him that he wants to break. Now, breaking this brick is actually rather unfair because there is an invisible coin block underneath it, so you must use a Leaf. You have to get up to the brick using invisible blocks, which is also unfair. After I hit the brick I heard a fanfare and the Red Goomba disappeared. After going around in a circle I found him where he was standing, with the key to the bomb generator and a red coin. Now, if you LOSE the key, you are pretty much screwed as it does not respawn. Aside from this there is a Clown Car segment that was rather fun, if a bit cramped. The Bowser boss fight was also unfitting, even though he's apparently trying to take a vacation :P Also, in the Clown Car section, I would remove the sign next to the pipe (the one that mentions Red Coins) as it confused me and made me backtrack when I didn't need to.

Atmosphere (8/10)
This level looked amazing, but as I said before, after the first section you randomly go into a cave. After the cave you go into what feels more like a Sky section than a beach section, before the Clown Car section which actually is in the sky. The Bowser fight takes place in another beach section. Aside from the randomness, as I said, the level looks amazing and the music choices were also pretty good, so you get an 8 here.

Other Comments: Pokemon reference <3

Overall 6.5/10 (Pretty Good)
I did enjoy this level, but the design flaws, especially in that cave section, stuck out a LOT. Still, it was a good level!

Waddle · Postby **Waddle** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 12:15 pm

I noticed that a lot of your Graphics (the powerups, the koopas and goombas, and some more) were actually done by Valtteri.

Imaynotbehere4long · Postby **Imaynotbehere4long** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:23 pm

This is actually a neat level. Pretty much the entire level was well designed except for the part that Turtwig mentioned: when I made it there, I didn't have a leaf, so I could only break the brick by backtracking and tossing a Buzzy Beetle shell at itYay for unintentional alliteration!. In other words, if the player doesn't have a leaf and also killed all of the shelled enemies in that section, the level becomes impossible to beat, and I'd say that this is a bigger problem than the player off-screening the Key's layer or losing the key. I recommend removing the invisible blocks from that area (as well as the Goomba and Key layers) and putting the key inside the block. Plus, to prevent the player from being able to drop the key off-screen, you could add a floor to the water tunnel in between the key and the key-wall.

Also, why isn't there a warp leading back the way warp 9 (the one leading from Section 4 to Section 5) came from so that if the player goes into said warp and realizes he/she missed a secret, he/she can go back and get it?

On another note, the Koopa Klown Kar section was okay, but it did seem to overstay its welcome. Plus, there's no challenge to collecting the red coins since they're all in plain view and easily collectible. Regarding the sign, it's nice that you warn the player not to enter the pipe if he/she is still trying to get all of the red coins, but it could probably be implemented better so that Turtwig doesn't get confused. I don't have any suggestions for this, unfortunately.

Like I wrote earlier, pretty much everything else about the level is well designed. It was nice that you prevented the third SMW star's death event from being permanent and messing up the rest of the level. I especially liked what you did with the waterfall in Section 8; it almost looks 3D. In fact, regarding the graphics, this is the only flaw I found:

Spoiler: show

Summary:
GOOD:
-Graphic choices aren't terrible.
-Music fits the level well.
-Level design is well done for the most part.
-NPC placement is okay.

BAD:
-That whole brick debacle.
-Red coin challenge wasn't the least bit challenging. It might as well not be there.
-Warp 9 doesn't allow backtracking.
-Background/foreground inconsistency.

In conclusion: although that whole debacle with the player having to destroy the brick is a relatively major problem, the rest of the level is good enough that this is still an enjoyable level. I'd say this deserves a 6/10.

P.S. Your songs aren't properly labeled (and by that I mean Googling their names doesn't bring me to their source), and they don't have composer or album credits, either. Remember: music is just as important to levels as custom graphics, so be sure to cite where they're from. I was able to find out that alienjamyes is definitely from Frogatto; are all of the songs from Frogatto?

Lyndis · Postby **Lyndis** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 4:38 am

I would like to thanks Turtwig and Imaynotbehere4long for reweiving my level. :3

Waddle Derp, you are probably right about some graphic being made by Valterri, already added him to the credits... I tend to use the custom graphics then ask who made them after x)

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:Pretty much the entire level was well designed except for the part that Turtwig mentioned: when I made it there, I didn't have a leaf, so I could only break the brick by backtracking and tossing a Buzzy Beetle shell at it.In other words, if the player doesn't have a leaf and also killed all of the shelled enemies in that section, the level becomes impossible to beat, and I'd say that this is a bigger problem than the player off-screening the Key's layer or losing the key. I recommend removing the invisible blocks from that area (as well as the Goomba and Key layers) and putting the key inside the block. Plus, to prevent the player from being able to drop the key off-screen, you could add a floor to the water tunnel in between the key and the key-wall.

Actually backtracking to get a buzzy beetle shell is required to destroy the brick. And if you killed all the aviable shells, a rainbow shell will spawn somewhere. As the underground section is not big, i tought a bit of backtracking won't hurt...

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:Also, why isn't there a warp leading back the way warp 9 (the one leading from Section 4 to Section 5) came from so that if the player goes into said warp and realizes he/she missed a secret, he/she can go back and get it?

Just checked and it seems that i forgotten to set up this warp... .x. Will be fixed in the next version! :3

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:On another note, the Koopa Klown Kar section was okay, but it did seem to overstay its welcome. Plus, there's no challenge to collecting the red coins since they're all in plain view and easily collectible. Regarding the sign, it's nice that you warn the player not to enter the pipe if he/she is still trying to get all of the red coins, but it could probably be implemented better so that Turtwig doesn't get confused. I don't have any suggestions for this, unfortunately.

I have no idea on how to make the red coin challenge.... challenging x) I have changed the text of the sign, to make the player fully explores the section instead of backtracking the whole level...

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:It was nice that you prevented the third SMW star's death event from being permanent and messing up the rest of the level.

I remeber my level getting messed up beacause of this star x)

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:I especially liked what you did with the waterfall in Section 8; it almost looks 3D.

Just tried a little experiment... I should make a level based on this "effect" x)

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:In fact, regarding the graphics, this is the only flaw I found:
Spoiler: show

I keep forgetting about those foreground bgos and everybody complains about them...TwT Should be fixed in the next version.

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:Your songs aren't properly labeled (and by that I mean Googling their names doesn't bring me to their source), and they don't have composer or album credits, either. Remember: music is just as important to levels as custom graphics, so be sure to cite where they're from. I was able to find out that alienjamyes is definitely from Frogatto; are all of the songs from Frogatto?

I usually tend to rename my music files when their name is too long... I will think about this the next time i have to change a music's name...

alienjamyes and 8bitness are from Frogatto and the music used in the Sky section is a remix of one of the Dynamite Headdy's Sky Stage...

I'm really glad you liked the level, should be reposting soon a, hopefully, better version.

Have a good day <3

Imaynotbehere4long · Postby **Imaynotbehere4long** » Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:25 pm

Meta wrote:Actually backtracking to get a buzzy beetle shell is required to destroy the brick. And if you killed all the aviable shells, a rainbow shell will spawn somewhere. As the underground section is not big, i tought a bit of backtracking won't hurt...

Oh, so it does. Also, sure, the backtracking doesn't hurt that much, but it doesn't really add anything to the level, either. Plus, it would be unintuitive for the player if he/she backtracked for a shell, accidentally killed it, and then suddenly there's a rainbow shell where there wasn't one before, and with no indication that killing the shell(s) is what spawned it. However, it was neat that the blocks are placed in such a way that if the player misses, the shell doesn't fall off-screen. I still recommend 1) removing the invisible block below the brick, 2) removing the Goomba and Key layers, 3) putting the key inside the brick, and 4) adding a coin above each invisible block so that there's a bit more indication that they're there.

Meta wrote:I usually tend to rename my music files when their name is too long... I will think about this the next time i have to change a music's name...

You could always highlight, copy, and paste the name into the "Custom" music space instead of typing it out the entire time. Even if you can't do that for some reason, you could always name the song "Frogatto - 8bitness.mp3" or something similar.