Mario's Puzzle Planet

[Infobox]

Hi everyone, and welcome to my first project for SMBX.
This is designed to be a small project to start with. Presenting...



The idea is a large mission made of twelve small levels. In each level. The objective is to reach the door in each level. Every sixth level is a bonus round, and a boss lurks in the last level of each mission. Afterwards, there is a warp zone to take you to the next world.
The levels are also set out in a world, so if you lose a life, you can just carry on from where you left off.
So far I have finished the first mission and have started the second.
The idea is based off the game Alien Sky by KraiSoft, which has the idea of sets of levels.

Project Started: 1st March 2015
Project Finished: - STILL IN DEVELOPMENT -

Spoiler: show

One day, Mario was on one of his normal every-day walks through the peaceful meadows and the rustling crowds of pine trees, when he came across a puzzle piece on the ground. Mario, gaining an appetite for answers, decided to see what happened when he picked it up. It had a message on it. It said:

“When you reach the tallest tree,
Take a left and you should see,
A winding lane where you are,
Carry on; it’s not that far.”

Mario, wondering if this would lead him somewhere, followed the directions. Upon reaching the king of the forest that was the tallest tree, he turned left and found himself out of the forest. Then, he came across a winding lane. It looked a rather barren lane, with a blanket of heathland plants either-side of it, and the occasional broken lamp-post. After a few minutes of walking, he found one of the strangest spectacles he has ever seen in his life. There, shining a glowing ring of gold and jasper, was a large yellow orb. Mario had never seen anything quite like it in his life. Wondering what he would do, Mario raised his hand and gently surfaced the mysterious sphere of light.

Suddenly, almost immediately, Mario found himself in this strange world eerily similar to home. He could not believe his eyes. He found himself on a dirt road dotted with bushes. After following the path a while. He came across a small village of stacked terraces and bridges connecting everything together. He was starting to worry. What if he never got back? Suddenly, his pessimism was turned around by the presence of a familiar beep. Mario turned around. It was Infobox.

“Infobox?” Mario queried.
“Mario?” Infobox replied, suddenly full of happiness. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here!”
“Well,” Mario answered, “I’m-a pleased to see you too, but-a how did you-a get here?”
“Well, I was taking a walk, and I came across this puzzle piece on the ground.”
“Hey, that’s-a exactly what happened to-a me!”
“Really?”
“Sì” He answered. “Then what-a happened?”
“And then,” Infobox continued, “I followed the clue written on it. It lead me to this winding country lane, and then this big yellow orb. When I touched it: Bam! I ended up here!”
“Uh-oh! I-a did that-a too!”
“Oh, no! We need to find a way off this cuckoo planet and get back home.”
“How do we-a do that?”
“Simple. It’s another wacky adventure for us, Mario.”
“Woo-hoo! Let’s-a go!” Suddenly he sprung into action with a compass in his mind and adventure on the brain. Off they set to try and find a way home.

Mario familiarised himself with the surroundings before deciding “Let’s-a start this way,” as he pointed to the small stacked village of chocolate-tinted houses. Mario lead ahead, with Infobox floating close behind. Mario suddenly stopped as he began to recognise the springy triangular creatures lingering on the road.
“Oh, no,” Infobox said. “Don’t tell me this planet’s got Goombas as well.”
“It-a does,” Mario said, introduced with a long sigh.
“I dread to think of how many other of Bowser’s minions are sweeping this strange planet. And anyway, I can’t even begin to think of how far away we are from The Solar System. We must be billions of kilometres away.”
“That’s a good-a point. Plus, they're-a blue! What is-a going on here? I no know.”
“Good point. Well, I’ve come up with a rational theory as to how Bowser’s minions got here. Bowser must have some sort of teleportation system that teleports the minions to this planet. If we find the portal that brings them here, we can use it to get home.”
“What an eccellente theory.” Mario swiftly and politely answered. “We-a better get going.” Infobox quickly agreed with a re-assuring nod, and they set off on their journey.

That’s what’s happened so far…

Spoiler: show

The first level. As always, starting out easy.

It's time for the menacing Koopa Troopas to step in.

The bonus round. Here you can score a few power-ups to add to your roster and gain some more coins.

The switch blocks have a part to play as well.

A face-off between Mario and Birdo.

Go on, Mario! Give her a taste of her own medicine!

Off to the next world!

Sorry that there's not much for now, but I only started this project on Sunday.
Custom GFX seen by Squishy Rex and Natsu. Thanks, guys!
Any feedback or personal opinions will be much appreciated and not taken as insults or patriotism.

[Chip Potato]

You should recolor the bottom of the hills in the first screenshot to pure black, and turn off auto-align and move that bush a little to the left, so that it doesn't look that cut-off. In the second screenshot, you should do something similar with the hills that have the top of them covered up by cloud platforms. In the fourth screenshot, we face a similar problem with the hills near the top left. I'd recommend replacing those hills with a smaller BGO. The Birdo screenshots are very bland and have no scenery or interesting land formations whatsoever. In the last screenshot, "yor" should be "your". In nearly all of the screenshots, you should probably recolor the sceneries to SMB3, because there's a lot of clashing, and it's very ugly to look at. In the last screen alone, there's a SMB3-colored tileset, hills, lamp and rope, as well SMW-colored blocks, info box, pipe, and bushes, along with SMB1-colored grass and a mini-tree.

With that said, this looks like a pretty decent episode.

[Infobox]

Thanks for the feedback, fireflowerhour!
I'm on it tweaking those things you pointed out.
However, I'm going to keep the SMW blocks and the SMB1 enemies the same becuase Infobox is modeled from SMW.

Just done them now. Screenie time!

Spoiler: show

As you can see here, I've added a black outline to the hills and I've shifted it slightly.

I decided to remove the non-SMB3 foliage, since I'm not very good with 16-bit graphics, and to add more consistency and flow. Despite this, I've added a few SMW tree branches (as seen on level 1) for taste and a bit more natural touch.

I've shifted a few things around again.

I've added some scenery and vegetation to Birdo's arena.

That minor typing error has been fixed and the warp zone is slightly more spacious in terms of foliage.

[Tango]

Lol. I remembered now when i said on your introduction post:

"Nice nickname! Imagine your avatar in some SMBX game as reference to you?". So this sentence come reality.

Well, nice project. I think that i can call that is "Super Mario Enigmatic 2". Keep cool and good luck on your project!

[Infobox]

Lol. I remembered now when i said on your introduction post:

"Nice nickname! Imagine your avatar in some SMBX game as reference to you?". So this sentence come reality.

Well, nice project. I think that i can call that is "Super Mario Enigmatic 2". Keep cool and good luck on your project!

Thanks, Miles Koopa!
I made sure that one day I would get my spotlight on the show.
I can see why you said "Super Mario Enigmatic 2". It's very similar in terms of one-room sections. That's because I adapted this idea and analysed the level design for inspiration.
It's not really a sequel considering it's not difficult all the way through. I made it to be a fun episode with an adaptive difficulty that suits any player's taste.
Once again, thanks for the feedback!

[Witchking666]

That plot was very creative and those screenies looked.pretty good
Succes

[underFlo]

Looks pretty good, but the SMW styled blocks/BGOs and SMB1 enemies don't loom too well with the SMB3 blocks. There is an SMB3 style graphics pack that you can for example find in the ultimate GFYX pack, which is stickies in the Graphics subforum.

Aside from that, this looks pretty ok, but I don't get the glass on the Sizables.

[Infobox]

That plot was very creative and those screenies looked.pretty good
Succes

Thanks. I added the plot to give the story more structure and reason.

Looks pretty good, but the SMW styled blocks/BGOs and SMB1 enemies don't loom too well with the SMB3 blocks. There is an SMB3 style graphics pack that you can for example find in the ultimate GFYX pack, which is stickies in the Graphics subforum.

Aside from that, this looks pretty ok, but I don't get the glass on the Sizables.

Thanks for the info; I'll go and check it out.
By the way, the glass on the sizable platforms are meant to be house windows. It's a technique I use to add architecture to the levels.