The New Invasion [revamp of TI1]

[MacheTheFerret]

Hi there. Been a long while. Not sure what the goal of this project was other than to fulfill a hyperfixation, but here we go.

I took The Invasion (the original) and went through all of the levels to do a variety of changes and tweaks, some larger than others. Changes include, but aren't limited to:

• Every non-bonus level now has a checkpoint
• Altered powerup distribution in some places (including adding Ice Flowers and Yoshis)
• More game-style consistency within sections (between sections, however, not always)
• New/revamped bosses, aiming for every boss encounter to be unique
• Worlds 4 and 8 have been rethemed into a snow world and lava/dark world respectively
• Many "daytime" levels are now in the evening or night for variety's sake
• Swapped out enemies in some levels
• Some level names might get changed in the future, we'll see
• Adding slopes, fixing cutoffs and softlocks, altering several particularly awkward or annoying elements/sections, and more
• ???

And the world map has been completely redone, including giving each world a name.
World map and names:

Spoiler: show

From left-to-right, top-to-bottom:
World 1: Digit Plains
World 2: Occasional Subconia
World 3: Dinoless Island
World 4: Nostalgia Iceland
World 5: Tricky Coast
World 6: Pyramids of Fail
World 7: Forest of Disillusion
World 8: Dark Land

Some level screenshots (though some won't look too different from the originals):

Spoiler: show

(As a footnote, I aimed to use little to no lua for the actual level design stuff, and so far only needed it for autoscroll in the two tank levels. I have a major use for lua in mind for this project, but I'll explain that in the next section.)

But why is this in the projects section if I've already gone through all of the levels? Two main reasons: One, there are several aspects that I'm not confident on and would definitely need feedback before I'd ever consider this thing "done," and two, lua stuff. In particular, redoing the HUD and worldmap HUD and camera to resemble SMB3's, warp pipe camera, disabling spinjumps (the levels were originally made before the spinjump was even added, and thus were not designed around it), maybe intro, ending, and credits cutscenes, and perhaps some other neat tweaks. I had a thought that it'd be interesting to make the project stylistically seem like an SMB3 ROM hack while retaining the classic SMBX level design quirkiness of years past. Speaking of, still more tweaks are yet to come, we'll see what happens.

Unfortunately, I'm very new to and out of the loop on lua, so if anyone is willing to hop on board this thing with me and help out, my discord DMs are always open (Mâché#8834). And, of course, feedback on everything is appreciated. Is this thing even a good idea? Who knows? I certainly don't, but I did it anyway, because SMBX was a huge part of my childhood and I guess I wanted to pay tribute to it somehow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can download the project here:

Spoiler: show

https://www.dropbox.com/s/npegqs6e7kb94 ... w.zip?dl=0

(Some graphics are made by me, most are not. Additional credits can be found in credits.txt)

And that's it for now. It's a bit of a mess but hopefully one day it will become a slightly more polished mess. Thanks, and have fun.
[also, if anyone's wondering where I came from and why I have a post history, I used to go by PaperPlayerX/Paper.]

[Ericklost]

The screens are too small,i can barely see them.
You need a better photo sofware.

[MacheTheFerret]

The screens are too small,i can barely see them.
You need a better photo sofware.

those screenshots are taken directly from the editor using the editor's screenshot tool
if you right click them and click Open Image in New Tab you can then click and it'll zoom in

[Blake Izayoi]

This is a great way to bring the original Invasion to X2! Looking forward to seeing what you plan to do with lua.

[MacheTheFerret]

New version! You can download from the link in the same spoiler as the original.

Changelog:

• Disabled spinjumping
• Added warpTransition.lua
• Added temporary borders to the worlds on the world map (would prefer to make it a HUD element like in SMB3, but this will do for now)
• World 5 now uses the e-reader tileset on the world map
• Some powerup adjustments (namely more fireflowers in World 1 and red shoes in world 8 bonuses)
• Added smol intro level in World 1 (will adjust this later)
• Updated world map image in the original post

Todo:

• SMB3 HUD for both levels and world map
• Roulette card system, P-meter (maybe), etc SMB3 mechanics for flair
• SMB3-style worldmap camera
• Thing that adds an echo effect to certain level sections
• Maybe changing the screen size? idk
• Potentially more powerup adjusting
• Level design tweaks based on future player feedback

[MacheTheFerret]

Another patch (download link in same spoiler)

• Fixed World 3 Reznor boss to be not cringe
• Fixed World 7 Birdo bosses to not be so trivial
• Yellow switch stuff is now purple for the sake of old SMBX nostalgia
• Fixed missing death effects for some NPCs, among other things
• Fixed some softlocks
• Other things I forgot immediately

[Gab Trucker]

Hello what is smbx to play on this episode

[Julia Pseudo]

This is extremely cute to me and I'll be sure to check it out. It's cool to see some of these old levels modernized that didn't make the cut in TI2.

[Julia Pseudo]

I played through this the last couple of days, and here are my thoughts:

I'm really a big fan of most everything you've done here. This is something I've imagined being made for a long-ass time, probably really ever since I first played the Invasion 2 and found out that world 8 had been completely reworked (admittedly for good reason). You brought it to life quite well. I'm a big fan of the world 4 and 8 rethemes, making them worlds stand out more (and causing the lack of swimmable water in world 8 to make more sense). I appreciate the subdued use of custom graphics, which feels very Invasioney to me. While there's still a lot that feels very dated about the Invasion 1 at its core you did a great job of giving this the veneer of a modern SMBX project, and you made the whole thing feel new again. I'm glad my beloved Crushing Hazard can finally see the light of day again.

That said, I do have a few criticisms:
- While the new world map is very pretty and its simplistic structure helps with this issue a lot, I still think it would be a lot better if the levels with secret exits were marked as such. People have for sure made graphics for red versions of the Mario 3 level tiles before and I would recommend adding them to make things a bit more clear, especially since many of the secrets in the Invasion 1 are pretty obscure.
- Replacing certain music tracks with Mario 3 music tracks is a huge mistake in my mind. The Corneria theme is honestly one of the most iconic bits of the Invasion 1 and 2 to me, and makes the invasion levels stand out way more than they do using the Mario 3 airship theme that we've all heard a thousand times before. I'd strongly recommend returning Corneria to the invasion levels and leaving the airship theme at the end of world 8.
- Similarly, the replacement of the Mario RPG Forest Maze theme with Mario 3 and SMW tracks in world 7 is also quite disappointing to me. I think the original Invasion did a good job of establishing a unique musical identity for itself that you wouldn't expect from a Mario 3 clone and it's sad to me for that to be stripped away. Also, changing the music track in The Rawest Forest obscures the reference it's making to this old Newgrounds flash music video that's based on the Forest Maze theme; it was pretty popular at the time: https://youtu.be/QfXng_kD9ZA
- "The Water is a Lie" doesn't make as much sense for the first level of world 8 any more, since it doesn't have water that you would think would have a hitbox any more.
- In Shell Hell, the wall at the far left of the first section doesn't extend past the top of the screen, making it possible to fly over which causes Mario to fall to his death.
- In the level Underground Battle Maze, the coin pictured in the screenshot below caused me to assume that the secret was down the hole with the coin in it, particularly because I had vague memories of the original secret and SMBX2 has vertical screen wrap capability. I would recommend moving the coin up one tile at least (probably add others around it too) because its current location strongly implies to me that something is down there.

Spoiler: show

- A couple of issues in the level Survival of the Fastest – first of all I'd like to say that I'm really impressed by what you've done with the level. Phantos work great for it conceptually, I was wondering what would be done with it because of how much of a multiplayer gimmick level it fundamentally is. I would however recommend blocking mounts from this level for a couple of reasons as seen in the screenshot below. For one, Yoshi can swallow the key without triggering the Phanto, which you did anticipate as an issue for the Birdo fight in The Rawest Forest. Also, while mounted, Mario can survive the spikes at the bottom of this pit, making it a softlock – better to replace with lava or a death pit probably.

Spoiler: show

- At the point in Air Raid pictured in the screenshot below, the space for moving the clown car back out after pressing the purple switch is extremely tight and likely to result in death if you're not extra careful, since you have to press down to get back in the clown car to begin with. This wasn't as much of a problem in the original episode since there was no lava, only a death pit that can be approached much more safely, but if any part of the clown car touches lava Mario instantly dies. I would recommend moving this area up a few tiles.

Spoiler: show

- At the point in Crushing Hazard pictured in the screenshot below, Mario will be mostly stuck if he's on the left side of the gravity blocks. There's another set of gravity blocks blocking the exit in a similar way on the left side. I say "mostly" because I was able to get Mario to where he is in this screenshot by zipping through the blocks, but this of course doesn't work if Mario is small and is far less than ideal in general, so this is pretty much a softlock as is.

Spoiler: show

- Directly after completing The King of the Koopas, Mario ends up in this position on the world map shown in the screenshot below and is unable to be moved. I don't think this is supposed to happen because I don't have 100% completion on my save file and there's a pipe above The King of the Koopas on the map.

Spoiler: show

I know some of these are a bit nitpicky, but believe me that it's only due to my appreciation for what you've done with this project and my own fixations on the Invasion series. You've done a really cool thing here.

[MacheTheFerret]

-snip-

Thank you so incredibly much, I'm glad that I've pulled it off as well as I apparently have (so far).

As for those notes:
- Levels with secret exits are now red
- Agreed, and I've reverted the music to what it should've been
- Ditto
- That level is now called

Spoiler: show

"The Level Title is a Lie"

- Fixed
- Removed the coin
- Players now start in a new section with doors that remove mounts on entry and lead to the regular starting point
- Added a little block to climb out of the softlock pit
- Put a safe little floor under that hole and raised the ceiling by a block so that getting back into the clowncar there is safer
- Realized that part of the problem with the new Crushing Hazard was the lava (since those physics blocks collide with lava), so I removed the lava entirely; complementing this, I changed the background to put the level up in the sky
- Hopefully fixed?

The download should be updated shortly after I post this reply. Thank you again for playing the episode and giving great feedback. <3

[mariobrigade2018]

But why is this in the projects section if I've already gone through all of the levels? Two main reasons: One, there are several aspects that I'm not confident on and would definitely need feedback before I'd ever consider this thing "done," and two, lua stuff. In particular, redoing the HUD and worldmap HUD and camera to resemble SMB3's, warp pipe camera, disabling spinjumps (the levels were originally made before the spinjump was even added, and thus were not designed around it), maybe intro, ending, and credits cutscenes, and perhaps some other neat tweaks. I had a thought that it'd be interesting to make the project stylistically seem like an SMB3 ROM hack while retaining the classic SMBX level design quirkiness of years past. Speaking of, still more tweaks are yet to come, we'll see what happens.

[also, if anyone's wondering where I came from and why I have a post history, I used to go by PaperPlayerX/Paper.]

Not sure is this project is still alive but here's the no-spin jump code:

Code: Select all

function onTick()
	player.keys.altJump = false
end

[MacheTheFerret]

Not sure is this project is still alive but here's the no-spin jump code:

Code: Select all

function onTick()
	player.keys.altJump = false
end

Spinjump was disabled in the first update, but thank you regardless. As for if this project is still alive, I'm not sure. Theoretically I could actually just call it done and not bother with the custom hud/worldmap camera/etc stuff at all. We shall see.

[Ibaka]

The screens are too small,i can barely see them.
You need a better photo sofware.

those screenshots are taken directly from the editor using the editor's screenshot tool
if you right click them and click Open Image in New Tab you can then click and it'll zoom in

cant see them even when doing that. They are grainy.

[MacheTheFerret]

Been a hot minute, but I'm bumping this to say that I've finally updated this thing to have a proper ending and credits scene, which some of y'all have now already seen in the Discord. I am 99% ready to call this done. Don't know why I didn't touch this thing for a year, but there we go. Download is already updated. Voila.