Super Mario Bros. X Forums

HeroLinik wrote:OK, so since when were exploration levels frowned upon? I personally love playing them, and back in my day exploration levels were among the best ones you could find and nearly all the top-scoring contest levels, including some of the winners, involved some exploration in some way. Now I'm not sure why people now hate them, or it could just be me.

Economics. Making an exploration level takes a lot of effort that doesn't have enough returns to justify it. On the other hand, making a linear level focused on 4 step design (or similar) can provide a very satisfying experience while not eating up development time.

MosaicMario wrote:

HeroLinik wrote:OK, so since when were exploration levels frowned upon? I personally love playing them, and back in my day exploration levels were among the best ones you could find and nearly all the top-scoring contest levels, including some of the winners, involved some exploration in some way. Now I'm not sure why people now hate them, or it could just be me.

i think it's because usually people make them WAY TOO long and the fact that their usually not innovative enough.

So if I made a level that didn't use switches or coin hunts and instead went for some jazzy concept like controlling light/darkness in order to move to the next section, would the level still be frowned on the same way? Because in essence it's just a glorified switch/coin hunt under a different guise.

HeroLinik wrote:

MosaicMario wrote:i think it's because usually people make [exploration levels] WAY TOO long and the fact that their usually not innovative enough.

So if I made a level that didn't use switches or coin hunts and instead went for some jazzy concept like controlling light/darkness in order to move to the next section, would the level still be frowned on the same way? Because in essence it's just a glorified switch/coin hunt under a different guise.

That's not innovation though. Innovation would be like if the person figured out how to make the exploration unique, rather than a tedious get-the-things.

It's not about the surface level elements like "it's a switch hunt". It is certainly possible to make a really good level based around a switch hunt.

The trouble is that SMBX's mechanics don't lend itself well to non-linear gameplay due to the death system. Death in SMBX has a turnaround time of just over 10 seconds, which is actually really long. Not only that, but it completely resets the state of the level, which makes switch hunts or other non-linear systems incredibly tedious, as it extends their iteration time. Iteration time is a SUPER important concept for game design. In short it basically means "the time it takes for a player, having failed a challenge, to be able to tackle that challenge again". Non-linear levels have MASSIVE iteration times. Using the switch hunt as an example, if you get say, 3/4 switches, and then die, you now have to go through basically the entire level again (grabbing those 3 switches), before you can get back to where you were. That's a long iteration time. Linear levels have midpoint to mitigate this, but the standard midpoint does not do this for non-linear levels like switch hunts, as your progress is not saved.

However, in SMBX2 Beta 4, there's a new NPC that should help with this issue - the flag checkpoint. Flag checkpoints are reusable, so you can grab them multiple times in a non-linear setting. This should make non-linear gameplay a little less frustrating. Some simple Lua can also be added to save the state of things when you grab one of those checkpoints, too, so switch hunts can also be less painful.

I know I'll be crucified but I need to say this...
SMBX levels nowadays are awful, the worst design... As I can see, the golden age of smbx died in 2014
I'm not stuck in the past, but changes not even mean it's good
That's all…

Sux wrote:I know I'll be crucified but I need to say this...
SMBX levels nowadays are awful, the worst design... As I can see, the golden age of smbx died in 2014
I'm not stuck in the past, but changes not even mean it's good
That's all…

Can you elaborate? I'm interested to know why you think this.

Sux wrote:I know I'll be crucified but I need to say this...
SMBX levels nowadays are awful, the worst design... As I can see, the golden age of smbx died in 2014
I'm not stuck in the past, but changes not even mean it's good
That's all…

Honestly completely false. I really just hate generalizations like this. You just get salty every time people dislike your levels (in reference to SCC). There are lots of amazing levels nowadays I just think you're stuck in the past. The quality of levels isn't defined by nonlinearity anymore. There's lots of cool stuff people do in terms of gimmicks and aesthetics nowadays and some amazing levels

PixelPest wrote:

Sux wrote:I know I'll be crucified but I need to say this...
SMBX levels nowadays are awful, the worst design... As I can see, the golden age of smbx died in 2014
I'm not stuck in the past, but changes not even mean it's good
That's all…

Honestly completely false. I really just hate generalizations like this. You just get salty every time people dislike your levels (in reference to SCC). There are lots of amazing levels nowadays I just think you're stuck in the past. The quality of levels isn't defined by nonlinearity anymore. There's lots of cool stuff people do in terms of gimmicks and aesthetics nowadays and some amazing levels

Even me don't got satisfacted with my level. How I said it's an old and rushed level, I just take and incomplete 2015 level and put some events....
The question is I see great levels in low places and not so good high on previous contests. I don't like the actual design, of course there are many good works, but I see that smbx are turning to smw central. Each engine has their advantages, and the majority of actual levels don't atract me.And I don't mind non-linearity, I mean atmosphere and gameplay.
This is my controversal smbx opinion, I know nobody will agree, but I feel I need to say that I'm not fine with the actual way of smbx levels.

I mean you can have an opinion, but if you don't elaborate on it then nobody's going to respect your opinion. You're digging yourself into a hole that way.

Personally speaking, there are some good aspects of level design lost from earlier days of SMBX, but over time they've been mellowed down more and more to the point that the average level nowadays utilizing the "old style" is a mere romp with touhou/kirby music. Remember when nonlinearity meant a level with two completely separate paths? Not just two sidepaths in order to get past the switch wall, but two wholly separate paths? There were also some early ideas of combining gameplay mechanics and aesthetics into a unified experience, though rather than just going off of intuition we have guides such as this one which offer specific advice on how to do so.

As an example, there was one level made by Chad that I think was called Shadow Cave, or frozen cave or something. It was a level about spinies and ice flowers. Both mechanics were introduced separately, and had some individual development before being combined together in the second half. The second half was a gradual ascent up a vertical corridor, with side rooms that had switches you pressed in order to progress. Each side room used the spinies and ice flowers in a slightly different way, with no real twist (the third step in 4 step design) but a bit of variation offered nevertheless. This is going off of memory so details may be incorrect, but I think there's some valuable things to be learned.

There are a few examples of the nonlinearity I'm talking about, but I can't think of any that aren't my own level so I'll talk about that some other time.

Here's one specific thing that I think. There's a reason why in games like Zelda or Yoshi's Island or Luigi's Mansion, the player can take several hits whereas Mario generally dies in two hits. I think if other people think about this they can come up with arguments for why levels with heavier amounts of exploration involved could use some tweaking to make them work. I don't mind long-form or exploration type levels in theory but I tend to HATE playing them with godmode off, and I hate playing them with godmode ON because then it's like... what's the point?

And when it's two wholly separate paths, is there any good reason to not just make them into two different levels?

Magician wrote:Here's one specific thing that I think. There's a reason why in games like Zelda or Yoshi's Island or Luigi's Mansion, the player can take several hits whereas Mario generally dies in two hits. I think if other people think about this they can come up with arguments for why levels with heavier amounts of exploration involved could use some tweaking to make them work. I don't mind long-form or exploration type levels in theory but I tend to HATE playing them with godmode off, and I hate playing them with godmode ON because then it's like... what's the point?

I mean your Zeldas and your Marios are indeed made with different health schemes because of different use cases in mind. Mario is based around smaller challenges with short iteration times, while in Zelda if you die, then you end up having to retrace much of your progress. Not that you can't work Mario's health scheme into an exploration game, though, you'd just have to find a way to make comfortable iteration points (which hasn't been possible in earlier versions of SMBX, in beta 4 this will be easy with flag checkpoints).

Magician wrote:And when it's two wholly separate paths, is there any good reason to not just make them into two different levels?

Yes. Typically, a level in Mario is made to explore a mechanic in-depth. Before multiple midpoints, the best way to explore multiple ideas of a single concept without hurting iteration time would have been to split each idea into their own path, before they merge again at the end of the level. With multipoints, however, each idea could be strung together into one long path, with a midpoint between each section.

Still, branching out into multiple paths can have its value. So far there are only a handful of levels which capitalize on the aspects of how each playable character is different, and I think that future levels could really innovate if they utilized said aspects create branching paths seamlessly, a la Sonic 3 & Knuckles--No player blocks involved.

The checkpoints are one way to do it, yeah, but I wonder if it would be less intrusive (for the player) to give Mario more health, considering that's also something that can be done (in theory at least? I haven't been following the beta stuff that closely). 64 and Sunshine did it, and in those it was also less common to outright die when missing a landing.

Magician wrote:The checkpoints are one way to do it, yeah, but I wonder if it would be less intrusive (for the player) to give Mario more health, considering that's also something that can be done (in theory at least? I haven't been following the beta stuff that closely). 64 and Sunshine did it, and in those it was also less common to outright die when missing a landing.

It's possible to extend the amount of health mario has, so I wouldn't doubt someone could build a level (or episode) around that concept.

I think the roster for this game is meh. I think Mario,Luigi,Peach,Toad,Link,Rosalina,Wario,Zelda,Megaman and Samus are all excellent choices. I think Bowser should just be a costume for Wario and be replaced with DK,Ninja Bomberman gets replaced with Kirby,Unclebroadsword get replaced with Ryu Hayabusa,Snake while a good choice should be replaced by Simon Belmont,Juni should be replaced with Bill Riser and Klonoa is a good choice, but I think either Pacman or Lloyd Irving should replace him. I scratch my head wondering why some of these less known characters are in rather than more well known characters.

Also I think it's incredibly silly that not everyone can pull and throw veggies, and ride the boots or Yoshis etc. Those are mechanics that allow characters to bypass obstacles, not having them for specific characters doesn't make them unique it just handicaps them.

I think Link is lazily done he's a handicapped Mario with a sword and shield, it's lazy that he doesn't have running,swimming,climbing,jumping and 3 frame animations for attacking.(I get redigit is the one who made Link, but that doesn't stop me from speaking my mind)

Yeah those are my controversial opinions. I'm not taking stabs at anyone, so if you're going to respond, please be civil and leave out ad hominem. I'm for having my mind changed if someone can present good counter arguments.

Tiger Festival wrote:I think the roster for this game is meh. I think Mario,Luigi,Peach,Toad,Link,Rosalina,Wario,Zelda,Megaman and Samus are all excellent choices. I think Bowser should just be a costume for Wario and be replaced with DK,Ninja Bomberman gets replaced with Kirby,Unclebroadsword get replaced with Ryu Hayabusa,Snake while a good choice should be replaced by Simon Belmont,Juni should be replaced with Bill Riser and Klonoa is a good choice, but I think either Pacman or Lloyd Irving should replace him. I scratch my head wondering why some of these less known characters are in rather than more well known characters.

Also I think it's incredibly silly that not everyone can pull and throw veggies, and ride the boots or Yoshis etc. Those are mechanics that allow characters to bypass obstacles, not having them for specific characters doesn't make them unique it just handicaps them.

I think Link is lazily done he's a handicapped Mario with a sword and shield, it's lazy that he doesn't have running,swimming,climbing,jumping and 3 frame animations for attacking.(I get redigit is the one who made Link, but that doesn't stop me from speaking my mind)

Yeah those are my controversial opinions. I'm not taking stabs at anyone, so if you're going to respond, please be civil and leave out ad hominem. I'm for having my mind changed if someone can present good counter arguments.

Hoeloe wrote:Characters aren't included for popularity, every one of the SMBX2 characters is designed to facilitate a style of gameplay that the original 5 couldn't provide (though some more successfully than others). Zelda is built for puzzles, Bowser is about resource management, Snake about stealth, Klonoa about crowd control, etc. They're not selected randomly, and while we could just take out less well known characters and replace them with the standard fare of easily recognisable characters, the selection would be less interesting for it. Yes Lloyd Irving, Simon Belmont and Gaiden aren't exactly the same, but they all have similar abilities, and would facilitate the same gameplay style. This is the reason Yoshi is a costume for Klonoa rather than a separate character - they're not identical, but they're both about manipulating enemies to aid momentum.

On the note of not everyone being able to pull up veggies, ride boots, etc. the idea is to have characters that you can design levels around, not necessarily be able to play all other levels with

Tiger Festival wrote: Also I think it's incredibly silly that not everyone can pull and throw veggies, and ride the boots or Yoshis etc. Those are mechanics that allow characters to bypass obstacles, not having them for specific characters doesn't make them unique it just handicaps them.

Good luck trying to remedy this and avoid the side effect of breaking old levels.

BGOs are overrated

Musicality_Minister45 wrote:BGOs are overrated

Why?

bc it is a big part of how people judge levels, your level pretty much needs them to be good

My (probably) controversial opinion:

Am I the only who misses the old levels system? (separate the levels for categories instead of make a thread with the levels)