[Grass/Shadows] Amiable Hills

[Daring Tombstone]

An easy level intended to be a beginning level. I wanted to make it pretty and it uses parallax scrolling like the other level I submitted. This will probably be the last level I make. Hope you enjoy.

Difficulty: Easy
Exits: 1
Dragon Coins: Yes
Players: Default
Powerups: Default

Download Link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ckrlr6633ai6 ... s.rar?dl=0

Screenshot

Spoiler: show

[MECHDRAGON777]

Out of curiocity, does this use Darkness.lua or does it draw the shadows in another way?

Edit: I should point out that I can not run levels that use the Darkness library, so downloading it to check is not possible.

[Daring Tombstone]

Shadows use foreground backgrounds and are not drawn with lua. You should be able to play this no problem. Only lua that is used is pipecannons. I never ended up using inputs2 which is leftover in the lua script though. I forgot to remove it but does nothing to gameplay in the level.

[IAmPlayer]

This level is pretty good, in my opinion. It is fun going through a traditional Mario-styled levels, and the gimmick is used well. The thing is, the gimmick is introduced in the middle of the stage, while the early 10 screens are basically breathing rooms (first two screens doesn't count as one). While the first worlds of SMB3 or NSMB games usually only requires two screens at most until the next screen introduces a gimmick. The breathing rooms can be used later on, I'm just saying that the part before the gimmick is introduced makes it a bit slow.

[Emral]

My notes from playing:
- Pretty nice aeshetic for a grass level, though the brightness feels like it would at times be more at home in a jungle setting
- Never have I seen a level where "pipes that drill through the ground and go off the bottom of the section" means "Venus Fire Trap" rather than "Warp Pipe". The unwelcome neighbour that assaulted me freaked me out a nonzero amount of times.
- - Aside from the fact that this practice seems inconsistent at best in this level, so now I'm even more confused
- When I started to play the level, I didn't know how to obtain the powerup boxes on the first screen
- Are there two suns?
- Faaairly simple and repetitive gameplay wise. The darkness doesn't particularly provide another challenge to the player, since it just makes it harder to see
- - This, in turn, means it can be described as an extra challenge for players with decently reflective monitors
- - It is also used sparingly enough that the level wouldn't feel any different if it were absent
- When I saw the waterfalls I expected some SMB2 logs to come forth, but I shouldn't digress too far from what's presented
- Jumping between a pipe ptooie and its spike ball was, for me, the most challenging section of the level

Overall I don't exactly have many feelings for or against this level. It's there, it's fair (except for people with reflective monitors) and players like me who enjoy a more densely packed level can rush through it in a minute or so (although I wonder how speedrun friendly it is, hm...)

[Daring Tombstone]

Which is why this will be the last level I do. Either forever or for a while. I wanted to contribute but I'm out of ideas and I don't want to pull a gimmick for my older episode.

Feel free to not use this one for slam. I wanted to make an easy level but perhaps it's just too boring as a result. The project deserves better.

[Emral]

Some ideas that could be fun to realize:
- Certain enemies and platforms are intangible while in the shadows or only exist within them (getIntersecting checks for friendly flag -> swap out frame on spritesheet)
- SMB2 logs
- A mix of both? Climbing up a waterfall & logs keep becoming intangible
- Making wall layers move to allow small trees to grow from the now-received sunlight, or the opposite

[Cedur]

Which is why this will be the last level I do. Either forever or for a while. I wanted to contribute but I'm out of ideas and I don't want to pull a gimmick for my older episode.

Feel free to not use this one for slam. I wanted to make an easy level but perhaps it's just too boring as a result. The project deserves better.

That's a pity, there are enough cool gimmicks from Your Journey Awaits that you could replicate, such as the Mirror or the player control lock ...