Well, it's about time I begin to make this post... About the sequel to Super Mario Bros: Back in Action.
With that being said...
Super Mario Bros: Bringing Back the Action is the "long" "awaited" sequel to my last episode. You're welcome to suggest a new logo because that one is obviously "borrowed," but I'm a game designer, and definitely not an artist.
THA BRIEFING
Super Mario Bros: Bringing Back the Action has seven primary worlds. We can afford one more this time. Mario Mania will give love to all the available SMBX characters in the default roster.
Bringing Back the Action's levels are more fleshed out than Back in Action's. They're a bit longer, yes, but this is to accommodate for broader level design, additional secrets, and the addition of Yoshi Coins to stages. There's literally no reason to collect them besides to feel special. They're just there.
THA PLOT
King Koopa of the Koopa Troopas stole Mario's lawnmower, and hasn't brought it back! Mario's called his friends and they're gonna get back that damn lawnmower!! I don't know what the story is, it's a Mario game! Just be careful, King Koopa of the Koopa Troopas found some Frog Coins and brought the baddie crew back to life!
Can Mario and his friends recover his trusty lawnmower?! His front yard is a disaster!!! We need your help, Player!
THA SCREENSHOTS
there's actually 9 worlds but i count star and superstar world as one like smw
Here's a big collection of them because it looked pretty. Not shown is "It's Pretty Cool Outside" because I wanted to have a grid of 8.
I will be updating this grid as time goes on, just to make it even fancier.
Here's them all individually with explanations:
This here is a Fun Zone level. You'll find these from exploring or discovering alternate exits, doing the do, do the Mario, etc.
Fun Zone levels are typically short, like coffee break kind of areas. They'll always reward with a Star that can be used to get to Star or Superstar World.
Here we have a short level where you blow up some bricks. It's short, it's sweet, sometimes you gotta break up some levels.
This here is a level where you scale some canyons to find the exit. Lots of verticality, flow, and overall, a good ol' time.
This here's a level where it's later on in the game, with two branching routes towards the median, and some tricky platforming.
This here's the beginning of the second world, with a more open expanse of level, lots of flow, and lots of traditional Mario action.
One of Star World's levels. You'll enter two pipes to hit both of the switches, with both pipes having a different route to take.
This here demonstrates my lack of ability to take screenshots. It's the beginning of the Snow World, and has you traversing the terrain with a dash of water here and there.
This is your average second level of the game. It's got a neato secret, kinda.
This here's a Volcano level later on. Lots of tight platforming, riding across lava, and fighting for your life. King Koopa of the Koopa Troopas isn't playing around this time.
THA PROGRESS
Two worlds are done, and I have spread out progress across worlds. We should have this episode ready in the next month or two, as I usually make one or two good levels a day. Any more, I usually scrap because they don't match the level of quality I want this time.
You're welcome to suggest ideas for levels or things like that if you really want to, I do have a bucket list of what I want to include this time, but I will say the levels'll have more variety than Back in Action. Granted, that episode was more of a gag, this one's slightly less of a gag. With some gags. And goofs. And gaffs. And laughs.
THA PHILOSOPHY
Bringing Back the Action is designed to fit right in with the traditional Mario scene, and is my attempt to create an episode that can shine pretty casually among some of the top SMBX 'sodes. I feel like it would be an attempt at "What if Redigit and Kawata made an episode with Kawata choosing the music?," but that's subject to interpretation.
Bringing Back the Action does use custom graphics this time around, but does its best to remain clean, simple, and efficient.
I'm not going to be doing anything overly ambitious, this is a Mario episode after all. But we're going to make sure it's damn good. I've taken notes from classic episodes like The Invasion 2, The Great Empire, all of the past 2D mario titles (NSMB less withstanding given I don't have access to anything besides NSMB2), and I've made good use out of LunaTester/PGE to make sure these levels flow properly and can be completed with not too much difficulty, and not too simply.
The episode is NOT intended to be overly difficult. You're not going to find a Kaizo level here; if I can't beat it, I won't make it. :p
It's designed to be completed essentially, like 1991's SMW.
There's lots of secrets, a fair share of powerups placed to make sure you're not dying all over the place, more fleshed out boss fights with proper gimmicks, and it's designed to "Just Be Good."
It's definitely substance over style, as it tries to do best with its gameplay rather than what graphics are used.
THA COMMUNITY
I do want some testers this time around. In fact, I really need some testers this time around just to make sure what I'm making is properly snazzy and I'm not spewing a load of bullshit falsely attempting to follow the philosophy, you dig?
So come on board. You can make a level for this if you REALLY want, and I will take a look at it, but it's not required and I'm probably going to stick it in the side routes if I received a submission.
Help out any way you can, though. Would appreciate the assistance, but it's not like I'm helpless with this 'sode, it's coming along pretty nicely.
I do have significantly more sample levels for testing purposes, I just haven't released a bunch at once or anything since the music folder is gonna be about 200MB altogether. Whoops.
Hey, this one's at least gonna be bigger in scale than Back in Action in terms of levels and exploration. I can always upload a reduced bitrate version for people not looking for higher quality rips, and I might do that when it's time for launch.
THA SAMPLE LEVEL
Here's one of my favorite levels from the episode that I've released publically:
Needs a new name, but it's there. Sample it and you'll get a feel for what I'm trying to do with this episode.
Sorry about the large file size, I can't find a cleaner, smaller rip anywhere at the time due to where it sources from.
If you can't sample it by hand, watch this. I make a few dumb mistakes, but I was mostly testing OBS studio on this rig.
THA CONCLUSION
Thanks for checking Bringing Back the Action out, we're going to launch this baby sooner than later, and I'm hoping it'll rock your socks off.
Last edited by NightKawata on Sun May 14, 2017 2:04 am, edited 10 times in total.
NintendoOtaku93 wrote:I hope the levels aren't as long & hard as any freaking level made by Mechdragon! That'll be pure HELL!
lmao.
Nah, they're no longer than per se, a Sonic 3 level played not on drugs.
Some of the levels in Back in Action took less than a minute, the only ones that are THAT short now are the Fun Zone stages.
None of them tend to go over 3 minutes unless you're walking (for whatever reason) through the whole level.
Try sampling the sample level I provided to get a feel for stage length, that might give you a couple of ideas.
After trying a speedrun, I got it down to 1:16 without going for Yoshi Coins, and about 02:04 with them. Of course, this is from trying to blaze through the levels, so offset about 10 seconds, but yeah, typically not MECHDRAGON length.
Last edited by NightKawata on Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Not many flaws here. And unless it is suppose to be and episode from hell, then I would highly doubt that MECHDRAGON style levels would be in this episode.
The level looks interesting, neat and unique. Talking about custom graphics especially for the tilesets, level backgrounds and such; it's a good and neat choice. i would say I am looking forward for this. As it won't stole my space on my computer.
Hell yeah. To the guys fueling the hype train, I really appreciate it.
I also whipped up a quick showcase of the sample level:
It's in 1080p at 60FPS, so you can watch all that smooth Mario action...?
I might record more as time goes on, as now my computer has been proven to do this stuff effortlessly.
Progress is still going smooth like butter!
Anyone looking to get their hands on testing this episode, though? Getting some more input on that end would provide a benefit.
This looks.... actually pretty frickin' good for what I assume is your second episode! There's minimal clashing, the levels look great and varied, and there doesn't appear to be any stupid bullcrap (so far).
I have to say, man, both this episode and you show great promise. Just kind of curious, though:
Why have you waited until recently to start making episodes? You've apparently been on this site since 2014.
This episode seems like a huge step up from BIA! I can definetly tell that it's going more for a modern style style rather than a vanilla redigit style. There doesn't seem to be any weirdly designed, cramped areas like BIA had, and custom gfx really seem to add a lot to the levels. Looking forward to this!
Pseudo wrote:Exciting stuff! I'll definitely be let's playing this once it's released.
Demo content playthroughs are still incoming by the way, I haven't forgotten but I've been busy all week. You'll get feedback... soon™.
good stuff homie
mariogeek2 wrote:This looks.... actually pretty frickin' good for what I assume is your second episode! There's minimal clashing, the levels look great and varied, and there doesn't appear to be any stupid bullcrap (so far).
I have to say, man, both this episode and you show great promise. Just kind of curious, though:
Why have you waited until recently to start making episodes? You've apparently been on this site since 2014.
It's... technically my fourth? My first episode has long been destroyed by the sands of time (which thank god, that episode was horrendous), and Seizure Land was a joke episode.
And yeah, Mario Mania tries to be as light with the bullcrap as possible, and make sure stages can be played through swiftly or casually.
I've been on THIS site since 2014, yeah; I've been with the community since the Bicycle Computer era and I was definitely a youngin' around then, and to tell you the truth, I dunno.
Back in Action was like "man I bet I could make a vanilla episode haphazardly," Mario Mania was essentially inspired by the generally positive reception that received, and the need for improvement.
Snessy the duck wrote:This episode seems like a huge step up from BIA! I can definetly tell that it's going more for a modern style style rather than a vanilla redigit style. There doesn't seem to be any weirdly designed, cramped areas like BIA had, and custom gfx really seem to add a lot to the levels. Looking forward to this!
I've learned that if I stop designing levels at 3am, that stops happening. :p
I also do spend a lot longer per level this time around, where as Back in Action took me maybe half an hour to whip out a level like Ron Jeremy whips out his ********, but these ones tend to take 2 or 3, not including the too many iterations of testing they go through.
I would say custom graphics are a bit of mixed territory, they do allow the creation of environments not possible in vanilla SMBX, ...especially ice levels. I didn't have a lot to work with there last time around, now there's a couple more toys to work with.
Shout out to Valtteri, Sednaiur (???), Witchking666, Crazydev, Airship, and reghrhre for the graphic selection, though.
With that being said, thank you guys for the positive feedback so far, I appreciate it, and I anticipate we'll be dropping a pretty radical bomb sometime soon.
mariogeek2 wrote:This looks.... actually pretty frickin' good for what I assume is your second episode! There's minimal clashing, the levels look great and varied, and there doesn't appear to be any stupid bullcrap (so far).
I have to say, man, both this episode and you show great promise. Just kind of curious, though:
Why have you waited until recently to start making episodes? You've apparently been on this site since 2014.
It's... technically my fourth? My first episode has long been destroyed by the sands of time (which thank god, that episode was horrendous), and Seizure Land was a joke episode.
And yeah, Mario Mania tries to be as light with the bullcrap as possible, and make sure stages can be played through swiftly or casually.
I've been on THIS site since 2014, yeah; I've been with the community since the Bicycle Computer era and I was definitely a youngin' around then, and to tell you the truth, I dunno.
Back in Action was like "man I bet I could make a vanilla episode haphazardly," Mario Mania was essentially inspired by the generally positive reception that received, and the need for improvement.
Oh, ok. I haven't played Back in Action yet, but I plan on getting to it soon. Got some stuff to get taken care of first.
I thought that this was your second, because I couldn't find any other episode posts by you when I went rifling through all your posts. I still have yet to make an episode, and I've been around since the days of Community Contest 6 on Knux's forum, so I just assumed you were like me in that regards.
I've got another level for preview this time around, which I'm not sure if it should go in World 4 or 5, but here it is...!
Oh yes, and playing as Link eviscerates the entire stage. :p
