The Thwomp Kingdom (3-7 Available to Play)

[The Thwomp King]

It's been long overdue that I made a level thread for me to post my own levels, so my apologies for taking this long. Here you'll most certainly find levels I personally made for my current project, Super Mario Country, so I hope you guys like the progress you may see. There'll likely be more polish needed with any level added here, so any criticism is accepted as well. Anyways I hope you all enjoy what you see over time!

3-7 Dynamite Fright (October 1st, 2020)

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Inspired partially by the DKCTF level, Dynamite Dash, but I figured it would be more fitting to have a variation of the gimmick in the cave world with a timer that helps add suspense. It fit the mine theme, so I kept rolling with it.
Screenshot

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Download

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http://www.mediafire.com/file/vvk6yvqom ... t.zip/file

4-4 Treetop Town (April 6th, 2020)

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As soon as I found out barrel cannons existed in SMBX 2 I had to get into making a level similar to its namesake on DKC. Although I found it extremely difficult to implement BGO's to this level, I don't feel it as a huge necessity for the exact environment this level is taking place in as well as the vast limitations to what I could actually do to decorate the trees you venture through. Regardless I really enjoyed making it and testing it out before being happy with what is done now.
Screenshot:

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Download:

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http://www.mediafire.com/file/p0bj6cdb8 ... n.zip/file

5-8 Ropeclimb Rumble (Sometime in 2016 with some edits)

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A handful of you still around may remember this old gem from years back, and I tried making some changes to it based on previous comments and critiques. Not sure if I had addressed all of them, but I tried to keep improving the level and I'm always open to hearing back. More changes will be coming for the final version in the episode.
Screenshot:

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Download:

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https://www.mediafire.com/file/xqeancn5 ... e.zip/file

[Teemster2]

Nice pictures. The The levels look awesome. To bad we don't have more actuall DKC baddies such as Zingers (yellow/ red invincible) but the one you have looks cool. More rideables would have been cool to but I know that's impossible or really difficult in smbx.

The DKC series for me was always better then smb series only because of the music and scenic backgrounds. I cant wait for your episode to come out. Good job again.

[The Thwomp King]

Nice pictures. The The levels look awesome. To bad we don't have more actuall DKC baddies such as Zingers (yellow/ red invincible) but the one you have looks cool. More rideables would have been cool to but I know that's impossible or really difficult in smbx.

The DKC series for me was always better then smb series only because of the music and scenic backgrounds. I cant wait for your episode to come out. Good job again.

Yeah I'm taking every little update with DKC NPCs as a victory for now, but hopefully more get added overtime. And yeah I agree with that too. I appreciate the support!

[The Thwomp King]

As promised I added Dynamite Fright as the next level you can check out. Hope you all enjoy, and any feedback is appreciated.

[Emral]

Do you place blocks first and later place enemies into empty-looking areas, or do you place enemies first/at the same time as blocks, and make block structures that complement the enemy placement? 3-7 makes me think it's the former, since the level very much felt like the entire path was completely planned out, but it seemed empty so you used your episode's enemy palette to fill in the gaps. I think that style does not make for very interesting gameplay, since the geometry isn't catered to assisting enemies as obstacles.

[The Thwomp King]

Do you place blocks first and later place enemies into empty-looking areas, or do you place enemies first/at the same time as blocks, and make block structures that complement the enemy placement? 3-7 makes me think it's the former, since the level very much felt like the entire path was completely planned out, but it seemed empty so you used your episode's enemy palette to fill in the gaps. I think that style does not make for very interesting gameplay, since the geometry isn't catered to assisting enemies as obstacles.

When it comes to planning levels I tend to jump back and forth between kinda rolling with the layout on the spot to sketching out how I want the level to look. In this case I did improvise a bit more with the layout with both halves being done at different times in the past month or so.

Admittedly your assumption is correct as I was driven more to knock out the gimmick more so than the enemy placement to compliment the gimmick. I did plan out which enemies I specifically wanted for this level ahead of time as well, but yeah with some of the geometry I struggled with enemy placements (especially in the mountainous area in section 1).

Replaying my level I see where you’re coming from, and I’ll definitely try out the latter strategy with other levels that are currently in progress to see how that pans out for me. I’ll go through this level again too to see which segments could use better enemy implementation.

Thanks for the feedback on this!

[Emral]

Best of luck! I don't think I can provide any concrete setup advice, but I like what you have in some areas where gaps form when one of the block section disappears. One idea maybe would be that that idea can certainly also be brought into more intricate, vertical areas. Think for example thin platforms embedded in the ground, that must be ascended on the way back. Would pair well with projectile-based enemies, I think (kind of a pushover on the way down, a menache on the way up). Regardless of what you attempt, best of luck! I'll make sure to check out future levels, too.