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Snowy Plains

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Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 11:46 am
by TDK
It's my level for the snow contest.
Screenshot:
Image
Videos:

Download and enjoy:
https://www.mediafire.com/?aihka7u6fsaspvw

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 1:16 pm
by HeroLinik
Playthrough made:

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 1:35 pm
by MECHDRAGON777
You got 4.66 in this contest, congrats. Here are the reviews you got.

The Thwomp King
Spoiler: show
Entry 7
snowy plains by TheDinoKing432

I have to say this is quite an improvement from your previous entry. The level is pretty nice and plays well. The small area with all the bullet bills is pretty terrible, but a lot of the level I actually really enjoyed playing. I mean most of the level plays pretty smoothly and having multiple paths helps enhance your level too. Your second biggest flaw with this level is easily the visuals. What you had looked nice, but you like the scenery to really make this level stand out. Some parts of the level felt flat out barren and that dulled this level for me by a decent amount. Some npcs felt out of place like the bullet bills and thwomps, but this can be fixed with some nice recoloring. Now the biggest issue I saw was that you used Luna Lua. The rules specifically state you can’t do this! This mishap makes me wonder if people ever read half the stuff I post. Well you didn’t need Luna Lua to beat the level thankfully, so I won’t DQ you. Good job with the level though.

3.4/10 (Would’ve been a 6.8/10 if you didn’t use Luna Lua)
Linik/Castlewars
Spoiler: show
Snowy Plains - 4.6/10
OH MY GOD WHY DID YOU USE LUNALUA THAT IS NOT ALLOWED 0/10 INSTANT FAIL
Nope, but seriously, the rules stated that using Lua is banned from the contest, but I'm going to be kind and only knock off points rather than disqualify you because it was only just a graphical effect and the level is still completable without Lua, as opposed to having the level rely solely on Lua. Other than that, it's quite a nice elaborate level that plays safe with the SMB3 style with a respectable length, but it's kinda all over the place with the design. It starts out quite well with an SMB3 feel, but then it all goes overboard in the second section. Granted, the platforming provides a decent challenge, but there are some random enemy placements like the Thwomp and Bill Blasters, and even after that the level starts getting a bit repetitive despite adding new features like the moving platform.
PROX
Spoiler: show
snowy plains: 4/10

well this level was pretty decent. It wasn't anything all too crazy. I would have to say that the 2 biggest flaws
in this level would have to be that first hammer bro placement (Making a player jump over a gap with a paratroopa
while avoiding a hammer bro? Really?), and the fact that you can get stuck in the floating platform area if you
decide to kill the thwomp with a shell and then decide to jump down to the lower area to collect certain things.
Also this level seemed to get dull relatively quickly due to the emptiness of the level. At least things weren't
very cluttered (well....except for the 2 hammer bros at the end and those bullet bill blasters). I think those big hills,
and the tileset itself should be colored differently as well because the blue that's used is very vibrant and bright, which
can turn out to be quite an eyesore. LunaLua was used, butt it doesn't affect the gameplay in the slightest so no penalty.
HVMetal
Spoiler: show
-Entry 7: snowy plains 6,3/10

Well, the level looks nice and I pretty enjoyed it but the backgrounds colors are killing my eyes, they are so BRIGHT. So lets start
with a the block placement. There arent many problems with it, some areas are so flat. Take as example the area in the first section
with the first green sizeable block. Then here comes a swimming under water part with poison mushroom block spam and what is the best part
that the pipe leads only to the checkpoint which is already few blocks away so you probably spent your time trying to dodge mushrooms and
cheep-cheeps. So the BGOs. They are cluttered, different styles and 100 colors from which 95 are too bright and they are random. And the
main problem is the SMB3 Water and SMB3 Hills/Bushes. Also we have SMB1 trees and in the editor some SMW and SMB2 stuff too which
apparently arent used in the level. So what did happen with the actual BGOs? 2 SMB1 trees which are white and some kind of cyber-blue,
SMB3 GFX turned into 8-bit, Super Bright Hills and NSMBWII Trees, and these are few from the rest. The NPCs. There are a few random npcs
placed in random places like the lakitus on the sky, a paratroopa supposed to chase me and a Thwomp in the middle of nothing in Sec. 2.
Sometimes I dont need to give effort to dodge some Bill Blasters. Also there are some cutoffs between the Cannons and the cannons Base.
And the gameplay of the level. The level itself is good. Sometimes it gets boring with its flat design and the npc placement is kinda
stupid some times. At overall, this level is ok, still needs some work. You should use a little bit more pipes and try to fill empty
places. If you make an underwater part like that then at least make the pipe lead to a bonus area or something. Avoid random enemies
like that thwomp and dont make sure that if you place an enemy then it will apear ever on that screen unlike the lakitus.
MECHDRAGON777
Spoiler: show
snowy plains
All of the Aesthetics come from the lua, and the SMW camera made it harder than it needs to be. The level has a few random difficulty spikes here and there. Overall, it was nice, but it was more unfair than fun. I would recommend you remove the thwomp, and have another way to get back up if you fall as the leaf is not a good way to rely on. Also, what is with the random timer in the top left of the screen?
Replayability 1/10
Music 5/5
Gameplay 7/10
Contest Theme 5/5
Gimmick 0/5
Difficulty 8/10
Aesthetics 4/10
Total 30/60
Average 5/10
Your average would be higher without the contest penalties you got, but I think this makes average? I am no offical level judge, so I can not say, but here are the reviews from the contest (mine included).

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 1:54 pm
by HVMetal
and dont make sure that if you place an enemy then it will apear ever on that screen unlike the lakitus.
Oops, I didnt notice this little mistake.
and make sure that if you place an enemy then it will apear ever on that screen unlike the lakitus.
Done ^^

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 6:40 pm
by Mable
MECHDRAGON777 wrote:reviews
I like how reviews are really ugly. Some judges gave a penalty for something which didn't even affect the gameplay. And Prox didn't give the guy a penalty. So this guy could have placed way better, if the judges wouldn't be like that.

Of course if all judges would had to give a penalty he would have placed worse but in this case the reviews are just pure randomly.

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 6:44 pm
by MECHDRAGON777
Tinkerbell wrote:
MECHDRAGON777 wrote:reviews
I like how reviews are really ugly. Some judges gave a penalty for something which didn't even affect the gameplay. And Prox didn't give the guy a penalty. So this guy could have placed way better, if the judges wouldn't be like that.

Of course if all judges would had to give a penalty he would have placed worse but in this case the reviews are just pure randomly.
I will admit I should have done a penalty, but still. I wonder if I did something accurately...

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 7:14 am
by TDK
The contest's penalty doesn't really matter to me. If you any problem about the contest, please post about it in the contest thread. Thanks.

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:22 pm
by Emral
TheDinoKing432 wrote:The contest's score doesn't really matter to me.
You can learn from the reviews, even if they are from a contest.

Review

This level feels like a bit of a failed experiment. I like the theme and some of the "nice to have"s like the water lowering in volume or the smw camera, but in terms of gameplay there isn't too much praise I can give to this level.
One thing it has going for it is that its length is right for what it is. The SMW camera actually helps justify the level length to me, because you're not always able to view 12 blocks ahead and plan out your movements. It's a nice change of pace and definitely helps this level stand out.
However I wish the level was designed more around having the SMW camera. Some jumps are kinda stupid if your camera is stuck behind you, so I gotta wait a second and take a look at my surroundings, which the enemy placement doesn't always allow me to do.
Image
The overall structure of this level isn't too great. It's actually rather generic if you take away the smw camera (which I'd consider the level's biggest plus) and even that can be rather offputting at times to people (such as myself) who aren't familiar with it.
The particles seem like something you only added for the sake of having snow of some kind. And I think it would be a nice touch if the amount of particles didn't chip away at the framerate, making some of the platforming even more stressful. Keep in mind you can edit the particles ini file to adjust rate and other things!
Speaking of "stressful platforming", I found the addition of slippery ground to be kind of overkill to be honest. This ties in with building your level around the smw camera. You had three ideas: clever platforming, smw camera, ice physics. However you should only have chosen two.
Image
This part just confuses me.

Improvement suggestions:
-more focus on smw camera
-less particles!!
-have a secondary type of ground which is not slippery to make some of the platforming easier

Overall I can't really tell whether I enjoyed this level or not. It's a neat experiment but lacks a ton of polish, which makes it incredibly stressful to play.

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:23 pm
by TDK
Thanks for the review.
Enjl wrote:
TheDinoKing432 wrote:The contest's score doesn't really matter to me.
You can learn from the reviews, even if they are from a contest.
I meant that I didn't really mind the penalty in the contest's score.

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:24 pm
by Emral
Right, my bad!

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:40 am
by Quantumenace
Enjl wrote: And I think it would be a nice touch if the amount of particles didn't chip away at the framerate, making some of the platforming even more stressful. Keep in mind you can edit the particles ini file to adjust rate and other things!
It uses the standard snow ini with a maximum of 1000 particles. Does it really cause an appreciable difference in the framerate? The speeddemon cheat gives me about 275 frames per second.

Re: Snowy Plains

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:28 am
by Emral
Quantumenace wrote:
Enjl wrote: And I think it would be a nice touch if the amount of particles didn't chip away at the framerate, making some of the platforming even more stressful. Keep in mind you can edit the particles ini file to adjust rate and other things!
It uses the standard snow ini with a maximum of 1000 particles. Does it really cause an appreciable difference in the framerate? The speeddemon cheat gives me about 275 frames per second.
Speeddemon gives me between 100 and 124. Commenting out the particles code I get about 320.

Without speeddemon I surprisingly get the same framerate either way. I think I came to the wrong conclusion in my initial post. While the framerate is the same, having all those particles on screen gave me the illusion that some frames are being skipped or the game is stuttering. Playing it again I still notice that with particles on, playing this level doesn't feel as smooth, even though it runs on the same framerate.
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