9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

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Sux
Ripper II
Ripper II
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Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 12:43 pm

9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Sux » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:09 pm

Well, I usually do great expansive levels, with mixes. But now this is a simple smw linear level, with the fun switch lava/water gimmick.
The normal level is medium difficulty, but the shadow realm of this is really hard ( because this is to the penultimate world )

Image

http://www.mediafire.com/download/wr988 ... _Oasis.zip

I hope you like!
Please, give a feedback...

Sednaiur
Volcano Lotus
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Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:16 pm

Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Sednaiur » Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:47 pm

I just finished playing your level.

I like to say that the water-to-lava mechanic is nice to have in the level, but there are lots of problems that I found too.
To be honest, I am sure that the level got rushed a very lot, as there is so much stuff wrong, it took me more than 2 hours to map all of it. :-(

The first thing that I could spot, was about many of the NPCs you used. For one, the pokeys are SMW-styled but behave exactly like in SMB2. I think you should make them behave like in SMW (jumphurt=1, grabtop=0), since the pokeys look like in SMW. Also, you placed the pokeys in areas with slopes, which causes them to fall apart very easily. To prevent this, you need to place them only in areas where no slopes are present. You also should avoid stairs of any kind when placing Pokeys, as they can fall apart then, too.
For the other NPC-wise problems, here are some screenshots:
Spoiler: show
Image
Image
1) I would use the normal colors for the SMW-Dry Bones, as it looks bad to have the defult-colored SMW-fish bone, but a recolored SMW-Dry Bones.
2) The SMW-Bob Omb has a way too big hitbox, as it will hit you already when you get near it. You should change the hitbox of the Bob Omb from 32x32 to 24x24 (I wrote 28x28 on the screenshot, but 24x24 is the right size).
3) The Lakitu in the shadow realm (located in section 11) should be removed entirely, as that section is also scrolling vertical. When you use the springboards or just travel through the section, you most certainly get hit by it's blue flames, because they pass through blocks and the player will already be busy with all the other stuff in that section.
4) You have 6 dragon coins in your level, which is one dragon coin too much.
5) The SMW-wooden bridge has different colors on the end-tiles than on the inner tiles. While the inner tiles are defult in SMBX, they use the wrong colors (GBA instead of SNES), so I would recolor the inner bridge-parts to the palette of the outer ones.
6) The kamikaze shells (and the cementblocks aound them) should be removed from the level entirely (from both realms), as the way they are used, makes them useless as an enemy, in my opinion. You could place one or two Pokeys there, instead.

Also, the level has several spots where you can cheaply break it or cheat around obstacles, like on these screens: 1) You didn't care about the lower level-boundaries whatsoever, which lets the level look very cheap made, because you can cheat through it by some ways. :-/
You can, for example, use any kind of yoshi to eat a blue koopa (there are some provided in your level) and either fly under the level, or - in some circumstances- fly above the level. So many people do this mistake (even though it should be common sense to think and care about the level-boundaries at all times), but it needs to be prevented, especially for a project like TI3, where so many people wait for it's release. After all, TI3 is meant to improve upon everything that TI2 had, especially the bugs.
You should add 3 more blocks above and under the boundaries of the level, so one cannot cheat easily through your level.
2) You should move all the waterboxes down by half a block, as the way they are placed right now, makes the player swim mostly in the air. Also, you should expand the waterboxes 3 blocks below the lower level-boundaries, as the player may die a cheap death, when he explores the lower level-boundaries (in SMW you can swim below the level-boundaries too).
3) In section 2, there is a hidden dragon coin that gets shown by hitting a switch. I think you should completely remove the switch (and the block that tells about it's function) as it is rather cryptic where it is hiding the pipe. I only found the hidden dragon coin there, by examining the level in the editor. Also, the pipe that gets hidden by the switch, needs to be expanded 3 blocks over the level-boundary, since the player can get over it and then getting stuck in the area behind the pipe.
Also, I would remove the block that tells about the ON/OFF-switches effect, as the player will see it's effect in action right away.
4) I really would remove the color-switches, as the level is already long enough by itself (I guess around 5 minutes is too long for a TI3 level), and because it already uses a switch-based theme, which is the lava-to-water mechanic. In my opinion, the colorswitches do not improve the level in any way, but just break down the player unnecessarily.
5) My suggestion is to recolor the lava to oil, as this fits more into a environment like this, in my opinion. Lava is more something for caves, while oil fits more into a desert-kind of environment.
6) You should get rid of every SMW-muncher in the entire level, as they are either no thread where they are located, or they are placed very randomly. You already have the lava as a environmental thread, so they are redundant, I think.
7) In section 6 and 12, I would remove the lava and the switch in front of the exit/star, as it is rather unnecessary to have that there, in my opinion. Also, you can simply fly over it, since there are no blocks above the level-boundary.
8) The scenery looks fine mostly, but I would a a bit more at some spots, as some places look a bit barren.

A last thing I saw while playing the shadow realm was, that you didn't alter much in it, compared the the light realm. You only added around 2 or 3 fish bone, added a Lakitu in the last two sections, and placed some more bill launchers. I think you should use one or two kinds of NPC that are not present in the light realm, to replace some of the NPCs from the light realm by it. For example, you could replace all the Rexes in the shadow realm by spinies, and all the Galoombas in the shadow realm by bullies (resprited to charging chucks), to make things more different. To have the shadow realm differ from the light realm is important for the mechanic to be interesting, as I see it.

I hope this review isn't too harsh, as this is not my intention. I just do not know how to say it more kindly.
Hopefully you will look into all the mentioned stuff and find my review and suggestions helpful.

Good luck and fun. :-)

Valtteri
Van De Graf
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Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Valtteri » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:06 pm

This will be great with some fixes!
Sednaiur wrote:You should add 3 more blocks above and under the boundaries of the level, so one cannot cheat easily through your level.
You only need to place two blocks outside the border to prevent the player from walking over/under walls.

Sednaiur
Volcano Lotus
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Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Sednaiur » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:20 pm

Valtteri wrote:
Sednaiur wrote:You should add 3 more blocks above and under the boundaries of the level, so one cannot cheat easily through your level.
You only need to place two blocks outside the border to prevent the player from walking over/under walls.
Most people think that, but I menaged to glitch through the blocks on the upper level-boundary as big Mario, when I tried to break some of my levels (back in 2013), so I always used 3 blocks instead of 2. As far as I can see, you can go almost 3 blocks above the ceiling in ducked state, when you are big. It is not easy doable and does not always work, though.
But when you are underwater, 2 blocks are surely sufficient, since you cannot duck while swimming.

Valtteri
Van De Graf
Van De Graf
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Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Valtteri » Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:39 am

I can't pass two blocks as big Mario while crouching. Can you recreate this glitch? Make sure the level boundary is exactly between two tiles. It can be 8 pixels off, which will allow the player to jump over walls even if they're extended by two blocks.

Sux
Ripper II
Ripper II
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Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Sux » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:31 pm

Valtteri wrote:I can't pass two blocks as big Mario while crouching. Can you recreate this glitch? Make sure the level boundary is exactly between two tiles. It can be 8 pixels off, which will allow the player to jump over walls even if they're extended by two blocks.
You are speaking about which part of the level? ( Pls if possible post a screen. )
Thanks Sednaiur for the constructive criticism, I'll try make this better.
I was really a bit rushed ( because I was doing my level for the contest ).
I spend 4 days to do this level.
But, in my opinion, the smw dry bones, fit better in the level with the sandy colors...for my eyes is better the brown sand rather the original blue-white.
I'll fix this now, probably the DL will come tomorrow. ( Because I can't use PC today )

Valtteri
Van De Graf
Van De Graf
Posts: 2150
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2013 1:16 pm

Re: 9-5 Dastardly Dust Oasis

Postby Valtteri » Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:02 pm

I was referring to Sednaiur's notes on preventing the player from jumping over walls. I've always only used two blocks. Even Redigit advised to extend by two blocks back in the day.


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