SMI - Dereso in Crisis! (HIATUS)

[Fuyu]

I have the honour to say that I finally released Demo V1.0 of my project, Super Mario Island - Dereso in Crisis! today, 12th of March. Download link is in the main post for everyone to play now.

As an important note, this project will no longer hire testers, as a matter of reviewing and bug checking will now depend on the player. Please, if you find a bug, be sure to report it as soon as possible, and I shall make sure the next version has the bug fixed. Enjoy the Demo.

[sezixor]

Since you are no longer relying on beta testers, I will post my reviews here. Note, these reviews are obviously based off of the level files you sent me, so if I point out flaws that you fixed for this version, then you can ignore them. Anyway, here are the reviews.

Spoiler: show

1-1 The adventure Begins:

This level was a nice way to start off the game. It was quite a nice beach level, with solid decoration and a nice use of the combined tilesets.
There were some nicely hidden secrets, such as the hidden 1-up mushrooms and the dragon coins hidden in the pipes. Some of the secrets had flaws, which I will point out shortly, but for the most part, you did a good job designing the first level of the game. The blue suspension cords were utilized quite well, as were placed just as good. The music was also really fitting. It wasn’t as peaceful as I would imagine the music of a first level to be, but it fit, as I said so there is no need to change it. There were some minor errors in this level that I would like to point out.

-The first dragon coin was too easy to get. Even though it’s the first level, you should still have to put a little bit more effort into getting them instead of just walking a few steps. You could put it on top of the first powerup blocks or something.
-In section three, there are several enemies on the top areas of the land that will fall on top of you while you are swimming in the water areas. You could prevent this by either replacing the enemies (the red koopas and goombas) with enemies that don't fall off the edges, you could add a "cliffturn=1" textfile to them, or you could rearrange the tiles so they can't fall off the edge.
-Almost all the warps only lead you one direction. This means that players can't travel back the other way if they miss a dragon coin or go that way first. You should make the warps go both directions.
-The goombas at the end are a little unnecessary considering that they are right in your way when you just for the exit goal. If you want to keep them then you should place them away from the exit.
-At the end of section one, and at the beginning of section five, there are areas that look like they might have secrets but don't have anything. I would recommend adding secrets (such as the dragon coin I talked about earlier), or remove those areas completely by adding blocks all the way to the top of the screen.
-In the last section, you should not put a pipe with a fire shooting piranha plant next to a slope. The reason is because when the player tries to duck in front of the pipe to avoid the fire, they end of sliding down the slope and getting hit by it. Either remove the piranha or replace it with a regular one, or move the pipe further away from the slope.
-Regarding the piranha plants, there are just a bit too many of the fire shooting ones in section three for the first level.
-This isn't a flaw, but you used all red fish and no green ones. It might look a little more interesting if you mixed them up a bit more.
-The green switch is way too hidden for the first level. I would personally put it somewhere else and not make it invisible, but if you want to keep it where it is at then I would suggest you add a toad or a sign to give a hint that there is a hidden switch somewhere.
-The warp that leads to section four is also too hidden for the first level. There are pipes everywhere and the player's probably won't want to check them all. Maybe you could add coins over the pipe to make it more obvious.

1-2 Sunset Plains:

Definitely a great level. It was quite long for the second level, but still felt right and wasn't completely long. You pulled off the sunset atmosphere really well with the tileset and the music (which you forgot to add into the file, so it didn't play, but I looked at the title and know that it is one of my personal favorites). What really stood out in this level was the design. It had a great variety of linear and non-linear sections, tons well-utilized secrets such as the switch you had to press to get to the secret exit, and those well-hidden one-up mushrooms and dragon coins .I really enjoyed getting the 1-up mushroom that involved using the propeller block. There was also a great use of well-placed background objects and pipes in this level which made it even more enjoyable to look at. Nice job on that switch puzzle as well. There are some things to be looked at, though.

-As I said, you forgot to include the music file.
-At the large cliff in the first section with the invisible coin block that leads to the key hole, I think the invisible block in unnecessary. I thought you had to get a springboard or a propeller block to get over the cliff so I didn't bother looking for the invisible block. You should make that block visible or add a sign.
-Regarding the other invisible block in the middle of the first section that leads to the red switch, you should get red if the koppa that is close to it. This didn't happen to me, but somebody could hit that block by accident and take unfair damage because of the koopa.
-In the red switch room, you should add a non-solid red switch next to the switch button so you will know if it is toggled correctly if you accidently hit it too many times and can't remember if you hit it correctly. Bossedit8 and SuperMario7 use this trick all the time in their levels when they use switch blocks so you can look at their levels if you don't understand what I am talking about.
-Hitting the vine block near the midpoint is way too difficult if you are big. Having to find the switch block to get to it is already enough, so you should probably get rid of the pit below the block.
-Remove the para-gomba at the end of section four, and maybe replace it with a regular one. The jumping one jumps up on the pipe and then on the slope and into the small space in-between the coin blocks and the slope, which looks strange and can be dangerous to deal with.
-The blue suspension BGO that connects the horizontal and the vertical one together does not have its custom graphic. It only appears in the beginning-middle of section 4 near the dragon coin that you need to get using the propeller block.
-This level seems to have lots of enemies and not enough powerups, especially in the first section.


3-3 Flooded Shore:

This level was simply great. The beach atmosphere was perfect, with cool effects such as the transparent water and the all the trees and pipes everywhere. The tiles were placed very nicely, and you did a great job combining the beach, underwater, and sky. It was very diverse in terms of direction, but wasn't too complicated or confusing. The music in the beach area was great as well. This level in particular had great coin and background object placement, and those things looked great with the log structures you added. The moving layers were also used quite nicely.
Here are the errors I found in this level.

-In section two, when you hit the invisible coin block to progress, it makes you fall down and you end up hitting the piranha plant.
-The orange switch in the underwater section was too hidden. You should add some more coins around it or something.
-In section four, the coral to the far left of the wall has cutoff with the ground.
-The custom midpoint is kind of hard to see with the sunset background. I'm not sure how, but maybe you could make it stand out a bit more.
-The mismatched pipe at the start of section six doesn’t look right.

1-S Stardust Beach:

Yeah, I can see this was purposely meant to be a challenge, and you did a very good job with that, cause it was extremely difficult. It was a nice challenge, but the Lakitu was overdoing it. Not much else to say about it.

1-F King Calamari's Fort:

I really liked this level. It really is amazing how adding a few extra items can transform a boring, generic SMB3 fortress into something as awesome as this. But really, you did a fantastic job with this level.
It was designed extremely well, with an intricate and well-made switch puzzle, awesome custom graphics such as the revamped dungeon tileset and the custom background objects, and music that fit perfectly. One section that I especially liked was the one with the rising water and the level-warp gimmick. Section three was very expansive and had excellent design but wasn't too complicated or confusing. Overall I really enjoyed this level and it’s my favorite one so far. The boss was interesting. The custom thing, whatever you call it, was quite wall made and had perfect difficulty for the first world. (All the objects were hard to avoid, and it was not easy to pick up one of the plants to throw at him, but once I managed to do that, I was able to hit him with it up close several times until he was finished. But there are a few things to look at.

-The first invisible coin block at the start of the level is insanely hard to find. It is impossible to reach with small Mario, and you have to jump off of the dry-bones on the upper tile at the complete perfect time or you will not hit it. You definitely need to rearrange that invisible block.
-The green pipe in the vertical rising water section would look better if it was grey.
-For the most part you did a great job with the scenery, but some areas still look a little empty. You could add some SMB3 torches to give those areas a little more life.
-As I said in another level, every switch should have the solid switch blocks of that color placed next to them so you don’t make a mistake and have no idea if you hit it correctly.
-In section six, you should place a blue and green switch block that blocks the door so the players have to press them to progress, otherwise they will be confused if they don't press them and just walk through the door.
-A lot of the doors are only one way, so you can't go back the other direction. This isn't that big of a deal for the most part, but it is really a problem in the room before the boss because there are other areas to explore that you will not be able to go to.
-The boss music is not on. You forgot to hit custom.
-You could add some coral to the areas of the water below the boss.

So great job with this world. The levels were well designed and fun to play. I can't wait to play the next one when you release it.

[Fuyu]

Thanks for taking your time to reveiw each level, it really means a lot to me.

Spoiler: show

Answers to 1-1 The adventure Begins:

-The first dragon coin was too easy to get. Even though it’s the first level, you should still have to put a little bit more effort into getting them instead of just walking a few steps. You could put it on top of the first powerup blocks or something.

Thought it'd be ok to just leave it there, but meh, moving it won't be any problem. I'll see where else can I move it to.

-In section three, there are several enemies on the top areas of the land that will fall on top of you while you are swimming in the water areas. You could prevent this by either replacing the enemies (the red koopas and goombas) with enemies that don't fall off the edges, you could add a "cliffturn=1" textfile to them, or you could rearrange the tiles so they can't fall off the edge.

I don't find that fact as a problem of any kind to be honest. Of course, if some people complain about it as well I may consider fixing it, though.

-Almost all the warps only lead you one direction. This means that players can't travel back the other way if they miss a dragon coin or go that way first. You should make the warps go both directions.

I'm pretty sure you can't go back on many Mario games, but I guess I could make an exception and allow people to actually go back through pipes and doors.

-The goombas at the end are a little unnecessary considering that they are right in your way when you just for the exit goal. If you want to keep them then you should place them away from the exit.

My apologies, as I did not send you the update for that level. I've actually fixed that, but did not send the update to you, but the same file I sent to my other testers. You can see many issues fixed if you download the project, along with some others that you pointed out in your post.

-At the end of section one, and at the beginning of section five, there are areas that look like they might have secrets but don't have anything. I would recommend adding secrets (such as the dragon coin I talked about earlier), or remove those areas completely by adding blocks all the way to the top of the screen.

I guess I could move the dragon coin at the beggining to any of those place. Honestly though, I don't find the fact that there are no other areas that you could explore via those pipes as a actual issue.

-In the last section, you should not put a pipe with a fire shooting piranha plant next to a slope. The reason is because when the player tries to duck in front of the pipe to avoid the fire, they end of sliding down the slope and getting hit by it. Either remove the piranha or replace it with a regular one, or move the pipe further away from the slope.

Didn't think that one, thanks for the suggestion, I shall fix that.

-Regarding the piranha plants, there are just a bit too many of the fire shooting ones in section three for the first level.

Now that you mention it, fire shooting piranhas aren't very used on Mario games' first levels, I guess I could remove some.

-This isn't a flaw, but you used all red fish and no green ones. It might look a little more interesting if you mixed them up a bit more.

I always considered the lack of one unique color as a problem to be honest, so I decided to change the ones of different color to make it fit better. I may consider removing them on W9, though.

-The green switch is way too hidden for the first level. I would personally put it somewhere else and not make it invisible, but if you want to keep it where it is at then I would suggest you add a toad or a sign to give a hint that there is a hidden switch somewhere.

I really thought the coin below it would work enought to hint that there is a secret there. I may think of something else then.

-The warp that leads to section four is also too hidden for the first level. There are pipes everywhere and the player's probably won't want to check them all. Maybe you could add coins over the pipe to make it more obvious.

This issue is fixed in the update with coins pointing out you can enter in.

Answers to 1-2 Sunset Plains:

As I said, you forgot to include the music file.

Yeah, I'm well aware of that as the rest told me, so yeah, sent you the same file that I sent them.

-At the large cliff in the first section with the invisible coin block that leads to the key hole, I think the invisible block in unnecessary. I thought you had to get a springboard or a propeller block to get over the cliff so I didn't bother looking for the invisible block. You should make that block visible or add a sign.

I wonder if you bothered to consider the coin as a hint. I honestly don't consider this as a problem, at least not as a big deal. Besides, it is also possible to reach the keyhole by using the Racoon Suit you obtain in the castle.

-Regarding the other invisible block in the middle of the first section that leads to the red switch, you should get red if the koppa that is close to it. This didn't happen to me, but somebody could hit that block by accident and take unfair damage because of the koopa.

I thought about this, but did not pay too much attention. I shall fix this.

-In the red switch room, you should add a non-solid red switch next to the switch button so you will know if it is toggled correctly if you accidently hit it too many times and can't remember if you hit it correctly. Bossedit8 and SuperMario7 use this trick all the time in their levels when they use switch blocks so you can look at their levels if you don't understand what I am talking about.

I guess I could do that.

-Hitting the vine block near the midpoint is way too difficult if you are big. Having to find the switch block to get to it is already enough, so you should probably get rid of the pit below the block.

I shall fix that.

-Remove the para-gomba at the end of section four, and maybe replace it with a regular one. The jumping one jumps up on the pipe and then on the slope and into the small space in-between the coin blocks and the slope, which looks strange and can be dangerous to deal with.

This has been fixed as well in the update. Also, various enemies were removed making the level less tough.

-The blue suspension BGO that connects the horizontal and the vertical one together does not have its custom graphic. It only appears in the beginning-middle of section 4 near the dragon coin that you need to get using the propeller block.

Forgot to include the graphics perhaps. I'm not home right now so I can't tell if that's actually the thing.

-This level seems to have lots of enemies and not enough powerups, especially in the first section.

Like I said, I removed some enemies for the update, so I believe the amount of power-ups is enough.

Answers to 3-3 Flooded Shore:

-In section two, when you hit the invisible coin block to progress, it makes you fall down and you end up hitting the piranha plant.

Never happened to me, even doing the most risky jumps I could possibly do. I shall fix it somehow, though.

-The orange switch in the underwater section was too hidden. You should add some more coins around it or something.

I feel like my coin hint is getting overall pretty much ignored. I shall see what I can do.

-In section four, the coral to the far left of the wall has cutoff with the ground.

A minor cutoff that I shall fix later.

-The custom midpoint is kind of hard to see with the sunset background. I'm not sure how, but maybe you could make it stand out a bit more.

Oh yeah, cramps-man told me about that, but forgot to fix it. I shall fix it.

-The mismatched pipe at the start of section six doesn’t look right.

If by "mismatched" you mean the different color between the body and exit I already fixed that in the project's main download.

Answer to 1-S Stardust Beach:

Yeah, I can see this was purposely meant to be a challenge, and you did a very good job with that, cause it was extremely difficult. It was a nice challenge, but the Lakitu was overdoing it. Not much else to say about it.

I think the Lakitu does a neat job in the level, because the level is actually planned to be difficult at what some people may consider, "unfair" if they would actually like to call it that way.

Answers to 1-F King Calamari's Fort:

-The first invisible coin block at the start of the level is insanely hard to find. It is impossible to reach with small Mario, and you have to jump off of the dry-bones on the upper tile at the complete perfect time or you will not hit it. You definitely need to rearrange that invisible block.

That dragon coin could also be obtained with the racoon suit, but I guess I could change that because I already placed one on which you depend on that power-up. I shall see what can I come up with.

-The green pipe in the vertical rising water section would look better if it was grey.

Nice idea, I shall change it.

-For the most part you did a great job with the scenery, but some areas still look a little empty. You could add some SMB3 torches to give those areas a little more life.

I thought about that as well, but I considered it not necessary as there would be too much scenery then. I'll see if I can do something about it, though.

-As I said in another level, every switch should have the solid switch blocks of that color placed next to them so you don’t make a mistake and have no idea if you hit it correctly.

Right-o

-In section six, you should place a blue and green switch block that blocks the door so the players have to press them to progress, otherwise they will be confused if they don't press them and just walk through the door.

I guess I could actually do that, but if two players play the level one could stay out and the other could just go and stay there as it's pretty much close to the end of the level.

-A lot of the doors are only one way, so you can't go back the other direction. This isn't that big of a deal for the most part, but it is really a problem in the room before the boss because there are other areas to explore that you will not be able to go to.

Going to fix that along with the only-one-way pipes.

-The boss music is not on. You forgot to hit custom.

Because the music is supposed to play once you reach the ground. =P

-You could add some coral to the areas of the water below the boss.

I could, but since the water replaces the SMW checkpoint background you wouldn't be able to see it. =P

I really thank you for the time you took to review all these levels, it shall help me fix many things. Hope you enjoyed playing my levels.

[Fuyu]

For the moment this project is in a temporal hiatus, please lock.

[Fuyu]

Good news everybody, this project's back, rampaging with ... 2 new screenshots. I know, it's not much, but hey, I'll be posting new stuff here as soon as I can, and probably release another Demo with W2 and W1 fixed.

Spoiler: show

[Emral]

It's refreshing to see some simple levels around.
You could even make these 2 the same level by adding a day/night gimmick. Just a thought.

[Fuyu]

That's actually a nice idea, but the first screenshot and the second screenshot are two different levels. The first screenshot was took from a level that's already finished, while the second one is still in development, so mixing them on any way doesn't fit within my plans.

I was thinking about making simple levels, because I can't come up with anything creative for this world, at least for regular desert levels. Most of the levels I have already decided to make for W2 are different kinds, such as canyons, pyramids, temples, caves and such. If I have to name a level that's desert themed only would be the first screenshot which is taken from the very first level, Blocky Gulch.

Thanks for your feedback.

[FanofSMBX]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

[Mable]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

They can sing songs you tell them.

[Fuyu]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

Really? I mean, they do nothing other than what regular piranhas and venus plants do.

[zlaker]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

They give ya cash baby

[Valtteri]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

They shoot out money.

[RudeGuy]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

They have the job to hurts your eyes, because they are gold.

Anyways, I think the background in the second of the new screenshots looks a bit bad. The desert may have to match the colors with the pyramid, and the oasis looks a bit too light.

[Fuyu]

What do the gold piranhas and venus do?

They shoot out money.

That's actually a nice idea, if this project would mimic NSMB2.

The desert may have to match the colors with the pyramid

Why exactly?

the oasis looks a bit too light.

I can fix that.

[RudeGuy]

The desert may have to match the colors with the pyramid

Why exactly?

You can see here that the desert doesn't match his colors with the pyramid in the background, which, in my point of you, is a bit bad. Though you can't fix if you want.

[Fuyu]

They don't necessarily need to match. Also, if you don't like it you should blame Nintendo instead, since the colors for the pyramid in the background were leaved almost untouched. Thanks for your feedback though.

[Darkonius Mavakar]

if you don't use the tilesets that YOU made, i'm gonna be mad!

[Fuyu]

if you don't use the tilesets that YOU made, i'm gonna be mad!

Prepare yourself then, because I might not use it.

[Fuyu]

New video featuring the first level of W2, Blocky Gulch. Many thanks to Emral for recording it.

NOTE: The thing Emral gets at 1:37 is the checkpoint, but you can't really see it correctly because I forgot to include a .txt file on the .zip I sent to Emral. But you all know what it is if you played the Demo.

[Fuyu]

Thanks, if you think so try downloading the Demo in the main post, you might enjoy it. More levels coming up soon.