Squishy Rex wrote:Please do not use the MIMP GFX or Stage 1 Theme as I have not released them yet, and the other MIMP graphics have not been finished.
Even if you ripped the graphics and music yourself (which I doubt since
they're readily available online), your statement can't hold any weight since any of us can easily start the game on an emulator and push prt sc to rip the sprites ourselves (and/or use the "Record WAV" option to record the music). Plus, you're only allowed to do that if you're the person who made the graphics or composed the song, which I doubt you did either.
Besides, you didn't even do a very good job at importing the sprites:
Not only are their hit-boxes the same size as the graphic (when they shouldn't be), but the spring appears behind all of the other NPCs. All you had to do to fix this is add "foreground=0" to them (and maybe add "foreground=1" to the springs), alter their hit-boxes, and use "gfxoffset" when needed.
Plus, by making each set-piece a single NPC, you're taking away some platforms that were in the original game.
Aside from the aforementioned graphical issues, this is actually not too bad. It's awkward, and quite annoying, that the blocks are solid rather than jump-through-able like in the original game, mainly because this, too, can be easily changed. To be fair, the blocks would have to be solid for the "inside the wall" part to work properly, but that could still be done in tandem with the jump-through-able blocks by simply having another sprite-swap. Another awkward design choice is that you had the background sprite-swap the SMB3 hills and clouds, meaning the upper part of the wall scrolls slower than (and thus, seems further away from) the lower part of the wall. There are plenty of single-scrolling backgrounds you could have swapped instead to prevent this, like the SMW clouds. Also, the key could be used as a weapon in the original game, so why is it just a background object here?
Anyway, level design: It's quite simplistic; maybe a bit
too simplistic. I know this is heavily based on Monsters In My Pocket, which had predominantly flat block placement, but MIMP also had some relatively complex AI to help balance it out (the hunchbacks would chase the player, the witches could teleport (and attack), etc.), and SMBX kinda doesn't have that. Since the level has MIMP's flat block placement combined with SMBX's lack of complex enemy AI, the result is something that's not that much better than a Basic Grass Level with fancy graphics. On top of this, the boss is just lazy; it's literally just a Birdo sprite-swap in a flat, empty room with a veggie sprite-swap generator and two Chase-AI Paragoomba sprite-swaps. Once the Paragoomba sprite-swaps are dealt with (which doesn't take long, mainly due to the aforementioned veggie generator), the fight becomes incredibly boring almost instantly.
Plus, Mario is missing his grabbing frames:
And, despite already being a Legacy Boss, another crystal appears via layers and events after the Birdo sprite-swap is defeated:
Even if you're not willing to put forth the effort to make a good boss (which seems to be the case here), I made a tutorial to explain how to use SMBX's pre-programmed AIs to make decent boss fights without having to put forth much effort:
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... =81&t=8890 (though, to be fair, making a Birdo fight not-boring is probably the most difficult thing to do in SMBX; in retrospect, I'm not even sure I managed to do it in my tutorial).
Also, regarding the checkpoint: if you think it's ambiguous enough to mention what it is in the first post, you should put it
in the player's way, not out of it. I recommend moving warp 5 and its drop further to the left so the player falls on the checkpoint without choice. By the way, the "inside the wall" part was pretty clever since, although you still used sprites from the game, the game itself didn't have a part like that. There's also a secret path in Section 1, but the player won't know it's there until after getting to the point where he/she will be unable to reach it.
Summary:
GOOD:
-Graphics aren't terrible.
-Music fits the level well.
-The "inside the wall" part was clever.
BAD:
-Various inconsistencies with MIMP.
-Mediocre block placement + mediocre NPC AI.
--PRE-PROGRAMMED AI IN AN EMPTY ROOM BESIDES A WEAPON GENERATOR AND PRACTICALLY POINTLESS HAZARDS.
-Known unintuitive checkpoint is placed out of the player's way.
-Unintuitive secret.
In conclusion:
Despite my complaints against the block placement, this would have been a Pretty Good level if the boss fight was decent, but it wasn't. I'd say this deserves a 5.5/10.
