Super Mario Bros. X Forums

Hi guys i made a small level called little level!

Heres the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l7q8xjoxjm41d ... l.rar?dl=0

Heres the link for all screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/HkNGi

This is a small level made by me

And music is YKY and made by Buziol Games heres the link for music: http://www.mediafire.com/download/txbep ... +-+YKY.mp3

Thanks for reading and good luck playing!

OMG the trash can here it comes! I should start making something else because i'm really lol! yay i got in the trash can mission passed woho!

EDIT:

Cheeyev wrote:Well... All I can say is that this level looks very bad. For starters, the level is filled with blatant clash.
I mean, section 1 has SMW's style although it also has SMB3 blocks and 3 SMB3 Koopas, and you're also given two Tanooki suits, pretty much making this level extremely easy if you do know what to do. There's also a Toad saying "Oh hey there! Sorry but this road is blocked. You will need to get into a pipe." I'm not exactly sure if that's an artificial extension or not, but I assume it's the latter, since at least you don't have to hunt for Colour Switches. The only good thing I can give about this section is the music, which is "Mario Forever - YKY", and it's pretty good!
Section 2 is in a cave that also has SMB1's cavern background (Which is fine), SMB3 enemies yet again, and cutoff Bullet Bill blasters as well as SMB1 blocks for some reason. The path is blocked by a bunch of blocks, so you go into the pipe which leads to Section 3, which all of a sudden has SMB1's style and a long boring line of SMB3 styled Donut blocks. There's a midway point, a Toad who says "Grab this P-Switch and get into the pipe!", the P-Switch it was talking about, and a pipe that leads back into Section 2, and use the P-Switch to make the blocks go away. Once again, I'm not sure if that counts as an artificial extension or not.
You go back into Section 1 with those SMB3 Koopas in front of you, although thankfully they're a bit far so you can avoid them easily. Also, cutoff cement blocks on the ground. There's a bunch of coins placed at random and a cutoff bush with the grass corner tiles, a really hard section with Donut Blocks (Mostly due to the last bit), a Kamikaze Koopa out of nowhere with the sign next to it saying "That was a Kamikaze Koppa." Yes, "Koppa", that's really what it says. I assume English isn't your first language. After that, there are a bunch of Banzai and SMB3 Bullet Bill generators placed on air, so you need to hurry through there, and it seems impossible not to take damage by them, so hopefully you still have the Tanooki power-up! After that, you jump on a spring to the end-of-the-level goal tape.

Yeah, that's pretty much the entire level. It's not that good, and I don't expect it to get a high rating unless you revise it, and it's likely going to go in the Trash Can. Plus, you should listen to Bowser is ded's comment, they do have some pretty good points about the level.

Well you could avoid these banzai and bullet bills by just going into a hole and i should make a desert level later maybe its gonna go to the trash can too but if this goes to trash can no worries because i will improve my next levels and i wont get again those trash cans but really laughing out of this part of quote: Yeah, that's pretty much the entire level. It's not that good, and I don't expect it to get a high rating unless you revise it, and it's likely going to go in the Trash Can.

Imo the levels looking a little boring also not very much detail to be honest, also a little flat.

ShadowTreecko wrote:Imo the levels looking a little boring also not very much detail to be honest, also a little flat.

I'm a beginner and not good at desighing levels and graphics and i'm making this to improve my skills and post it to you guys.

MirzaBM wrote:

ShadowTreecko wrote:Imo the levels looking a little boring also not very much detail to be honest, also a little flat.

I'm a beginner and not good at desighing levels and graphics and i'm making this to improve my skills and post it to you guys.

That still isn't an excuse to be honest.

Duster wrote:

MirzaBM wrote:

ShadowTreecko wrote:Imo the levels looking a little boring also not very much detail to be honest, also a little flat.

I'm a beginner and not good at desighing levels and graphics and i'm making this to improve my skills and post it to you guys.

That still isn't an excuse to be honest.

Well i only told him that i'm not good and desighing levels and graphics and that i want to improve my skills and post it to you guys. I didn't wanted to excuse.

You guys aren't helping the case, either. You could provide some actual feedback and suggestions rather than saying "this level looks boring and bland" and leaving it at that.

Here is some level tip

1.You shouldn't give the player the tanooki suit in a level like this. it should be a leaf instread.
2.there is a cutoff here

you should put it like this instread

3.you shouldn't put a bullet bill cannon on a slope. it's just look weird.

4.there's unobtainable coins. and this just look ridiculous.

5.this section is almost impossible

you can't jump through a donut block.
6.don't you think there's a little too much bullet here?

7.i suggest there should be more background object in this level. it's look a little bland.

at this rate. your level might go in the trash can.

you dont have to belive me. i am just a weird guy that want to help.

Well... All I can say is that this level looks very bad. For starters, the level is filled with blatant clash.
I mean, section 1 has SMW's style although it also has SMB3 blocks and 3 SMB3 Koopas, and you're also given two Tanooki suits, pretty much making this level extremely easy if you do know what to do. There's also a Toad saying "Oh hey there! Sorry but this road is blocked. You will need to get into a pipe." I'm not exactly sure if that's an artificial extension or not, but I assume it's the latter, since at least you don't have to hunt for Colour Switches. The only good thing I can give about this section is the music, which is "Mario Forever - YKY", and it's pretty good!
Section 2 is in a cave that also has SMB1's cavern background (Which is fine), SMB3 enemies yet again, and cutoff Bullet Bill blasters as well as SMB1 blocks for some reason. The path is blocked by a bunch of blocks, so you go into the pipe which leads to Section 3, which all of a sudden has SMB1's style and a long boring line of SMB3 styled Donut blocks. There's a midway point, a Toad who says "Grab this P-Switch and get into the pipe!", the P-Switch it was talking about, and a pipe that leads back into Section 2, and use the P-Switch to make the blocks go away. Once again, I'm not sure if that counts as an artificial extension or not.
You go back into Section 1 with those SMB3 Koopas in front of you, although thankfully they're a bit far so you can avoid them easily. Also, cutoff cement blocks on the ground. There's a bunch of coins placed at random and a cutoff bush with the grass corner tiles, a really hard section with Donut Blocks (Mostly due to the last bit), a Kamikaze Koopa out of nowhere with the sign next to it saying "That was a Kamikaze Koppa." Yes, "Koppa", that's really what it says. I assume English isn't your first language. After that, there are a bunch of Banzai and SMB3 Bullet Bill generators placed on air, so you need to hurry through there, and it seems impossible not to take damage by them, so hopefully you still have the Tanooki power-up! After that, you jump on a spring to the end-of-the-level goal tape.

Yeah, that's pretty much the entire level. It's not that good, and I don't expect it to get a high rating unless you revise it, and it's likely going to go in the Trash Can. Plus, you should listen to Bowser is ded's comment, they do have some pretty good points about the level.

Reviewed on request.

After playing through this level, I have to say.. there isn't really a lot it does right. It feels like an amalgamation of crude concepts which could stand on their own if they were explored further, but aren't due to the hasty nature and messy build of this level. Since there's no way for me to really go over the positives before arriving at the negatives, due to the lack of the former, I will try my best to point out as many issues, as well as concepts of this level, and give advice on how to get rid/improve on them.

I'm gonna start with arguably the biggest issue: Tanooki suit. Giving the player two of the arguably strongest powerup in the game right at the beginning of the level is.. not a good idea, unless you're absolutely sure that you know what you're doing, and are designing the level knowing the player might have this power at all times. In your case, you appear to have immediately forgotten about the power you give to the player, as the tanooki suit completely breaks this level and is useful to skip it in its entirety. Here are two gifs which showcase common areas where the player can skip a large portion of the level:
http://imgur.com/a/dJwU0

To prevent such major skips from happening, extend the wall of blocks a bit outside the level boundaries. The player can only go 1-3 blocks offscreen and walls offscreen will still block him from passing through certain areas.
Although this is only half the issues tied to the tanooki suit, as flat design allows the player to skip the entire level. While I don't suggest filling the top half of the screen with random shit, I do suggest using it to hide secret areas, maybe accessible though a vine or invisible blocks (if flight isn't in the player's arsenal of powers). It's true that the humongous screen the game has makes really "hiding" secrets a pain, but I'm sure if you experiment a bit you'll surely find a way.

The next issue I'm going to address is something more generalised, which is something a majority of designers here actually don't get completely right. I thought I'd address it anyways, as this level serves as a good example. I'm talking intelligent NPC placement. In this level, NPCs are kind of thrown around whereever. This is most evident with the wall of bullets right at the end (I'll get back to that one in a bit). What many people don't realise is that NPCs are a powerful tool to manipulate the player and create challenges without creating unfair difficulty. For example, coins are an amazing tool to tell the player where to go and if they're not flung around at random they can be super useful as an indicator for land, danger, secrets, etc... it's like a subtle messaging system.

If I were to pick a good example for this from this level, I'd pick the area with the disco shell (or kamikaze koppa, if you will). Instead of placing a completely unneccessary sign (which I'll get to later) AFTER the player got hit, you could place an exclamation mark of coins beforehand to warn the player of incoming danger. While the area will not be any less bullshit, players won't be caught off guard by the sudden disco and are more likely to forgive a more experimental take on difficulty.

Speaking of the sign, the message boxes in this level lead me to believe that this is a joke. All of them are completely redundant. Period. One important part of designing is "show, not tell" which means that you should try conveying your gimmicks, obstacles etc through design rather than text. I'd only use text where it helps establish the plot of the world the character is in. For example: the toad in the beginning says something about the road being blocked and that the player needs to find an alternate path. This can work. It can, but not with design which makes it blatantly obvious that the level continues right above the pipe which you enter for the detour. If you placed the pipe next to a long, bottomless pit which can't be crossed by flight, not only will you make the world more believable, but you'll also create a setup for a joke where once you're on the other side the road is unblocked again and all the player's efforts were useless (if you're into jokes like that).

To pick another example which you might argue can't be omitted: The sign which informs about the p-switch. It doesn't prevent the player from just pressing the switch in the section where it's found, and the player is likely to not know where the pipe leads. I suggest making the connection between p-switch and wall as obvious as possible, for example by moving it to the cave like this:


Any player will be immediately able to tell that the pipe will eventually loop around and allow them to lower the wall, and it'll be almost impossible for them to waste the p-switch (unless they re-enter the warp 3).

The next area I want to touch on is one of the concepts which could be executed better if they weren't so cramped and thrown around carelessly: The bullets right at the end. It's something you could actually design an entire level around by placing the player in front of various situations where bullets fly at him, and requiring the player to perform different maneuvers to avoid them. For example: kicking a shell at them, hiding in a small hole, jumping on them to get rewards... it's really something worth expanding on.

Another similar gimmick you had was the long donut run with bowser statues. This idea was trivialised by the tanooki suits, however it might be interesting if not slapped down so carelessly, and if you included different obstacles, such as paratroopas.

Lastly, the part where you press the p-switch to have some npc airship objects crash down can ALSO be turned into an entire level by using switch blocks to toggle whether blocks should be held in the air or fall down.

Overall this was not a good level at all, but I hope you're able to take something away from my feedback. Overall I'll give this a 0.5/10 as, to me, all it is is a mesh of ideas with terrible execution.

[quote="Enjl"][/quote]
Hey thanks for the trash can now i'm gonna just forget about this level and finally make another one then if that gets to trash can again and over and over again i'm holy now sad a bit but don't worry.

MirzaBM wrote:

Enjl wrote:

Hey thanks for the trash can now i'm gonna just forget about this level and finally make another one then if that gets to trash can again and over and over again i'm holy now sad a bit but don't worry.

I suggest reading through my review and talking the advice I gave you, rather than risking falling into the same traps again. I will not review your levels again if you straight-up ignore the feedback I gave you.

Instead of being all sad and acting like the world ends, you shoulf take his advice and listen to it. It will help you to get better at level design.

We all started bad, and later got into the good section.