Super Mario Enigmatic

[RudeGuy]

It seems I discover a bug.
In Bowser's castle, in Wendy's battle, when she finish to stay in her shell and jump, the spikes go 1 block up, which makes totally impossible the battle.
Also, Bowser's battle have another sections, and it have the SAME difficult of the other battles in Bowser's castle.
Sorry for spoiler.

[Reign]

It seems I discover a bug.
In Bowser's castle, in Wendy's battle, when she finish to stay in her shell and jump, the spikes go 1 block up, which makes totally impossible the battle.
Also, Bowser's battle have another sections, and it have the SAME difficult of the other battles in Bowser's castle.
Sorry for spoiler.

If I understood you right, both of those things are actually intended. Even if Wendy's spikes go one block up after a hit, it should still be possible to avoid them by jumping over her even after she has gotten two hits. It's all about finishing her off before she can do it to you. Bowser's battle has more than one section, yes, but that is also intended. After enough patience and practice, it can be done. The later levels in the game are supposed to be slightly frustrating.

[Tango]

This is a example that simple design levels can be a featured episode. Well done Reign!

[FanofSMBX]

Could I please put Bone Kamek in my graphics pack?

[electricpretzel0]

Eh Not bad, Not what I had in mind though. The levels are REALLY small. The challenges are kind of "Derpy" if you know what I mean. Sorry, I was hoping for something with a custom world map and a bit more custom graphics. I'd say, I like it about 8/10. (4 out of 5 stars)

[as303298]

Eh Not bad, Not what I had in mind though. The levels are REALLY small. The challenges are kind of "Derpy" if you know what I mean. Sorry, I was hoping for something with a custom world map and a bit more custom graphics. I'd say, I like it about 8/10. (4 out of 5 stars)

I can't help but notice that this comment complained about two topics:

1) The levels being "derpy" (Honestly, if you had read the topic, you'd known the size of the levels an their purpose)
2) "more custom graphics"

A game isn't good nor bad based on the amount of custom graphics it uses. The fact you judged this game based on this premise just baffles me..

[XuticX]

man this brings back a lot of nostalgia. one of my first 10 levels was a level that it was a puzzle exactly like this. but it was all in one level using multiple different sections. This is a lot better than what i made though. It looks like it has a lot of good puzzles in it that aren't too difficult but they still are challenging. and you don't need custom graphics to make a level good. this show's that right here.

[icemario12]

Mah boi, this challenge is what all true gamers strive for!

[Reign]

My playthrough
I have to say, this was a fun game to play. Although only one episode is uploaded for now, I did record 5 last time I played that'll go up for the next few days.

Greatly enjoyed the first two videos!

Although I am not making you use the shell trick in the final level of "One Sunny Day"! You are supposed to

Spoiler: show

jump on one of the rexes that come out from the pipes, the little rex will then run and turn one of the bix rexes towards the final jump. Then you can just bounce to the end from this rex.

Eh Not bad, Not what I had in mind though. The levels are REALLY small. The challenges are kind of "Derpy" if you know what I mean.

Not exactly sure what you mean by "derpy" (perhaps too simple? but the later challenges should be more complicated), but I appreciate the feedback.

[electricpretzel0]

Sorry, The way I judge things nobody likes and I get hated for it. When I said Derpy I meant, Like very strange, unrealistic, silly, dull, and random. I don't mean these as an offence, but I just don't really like this style of episode.

[RudeGuy]

Sorry, The way I judge things nobody likes and I get hated for it. When I said Derpy I meant, Like very strange, unrealistic, silly, dull, and random. I don't mean these as an offence, but I just don't really like this style of episode.

Or you don't like the difficult.

[electricpretzel0]

Not difficult. lol.

[Kyo]

Sorry, The way I judge things nobody likes and I get hated for it. When I said Derpy I meant, Like very strange, unrealistic, silly, dull, and random. I don't mean these as an offence, but I just don't really like this style of episode.

What? Reign didn't respond to you in any negative way, he just didn't understand you so I wonder where this is coming from. And yes, this episode's concept is kinda weird, but weird doesn't mean bad. It's something different and I appreciate that. But you shouldn't be pessimistic about something you wrote that a person doesn't understand, really.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Super Mario Enigmatic is a puzzle episode

Let me stop you right there. This is not a puzzle episode. Puzzles are difficult to solve, but easy to complete; this episode's "puzzles" were easy to solve, but relatively difficult to complete. Although it's more puzzle-heavy than any other episode I've played, it's more like a test of skill (mostly dealing with timing, requiring either speed or patience) with occasional puzzle elements. Example:

Spoiler: show

OH, THIS IS SUCH A DIFFICULT PUZZLE. I WONDER WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO--oh, hey, look: I made it to the end already.

Having to jump across enemies? Not a puzzle. Navigating a P-switch labyrinth? Not a puzzle. Destroying bricks using a shell generator? Not a puzzle. Avoiding various NPCs while waiting for a spring to be generated? Not a puzzle. Jumping through small gaps between lava sprite-swaps? Not a puzzle. Trying to fight a boss, but you can't because you have to wait for the generator to give you another weapon? Not a puzzle, but it IS quite teious. There were very few times I actually thought to myself "wow, this is actually a puzzle," and the only time I thought that in the absence of switch blocks is 11-5, and even then, it took me longer to beat the level than it did to solve the "puzzle." Don't get me wrong, there were many levels with switch blocks that didn't qualify as puzzles, either.

AND NOW, MY REVIEW OF SUPER MARIO ENIGMATIC:

To begin, the story was actually presented quite nicely, though there could have been a background during the intro. The little joke after the fight with Bowser got a chuckle out of me, and the message about the friendly Koopa in the desert ruins also made me laugh. In fact, I only have one quarrel with the story: "masterplan" is supposed to be two different words, not one.

NOW, ON TO THE EPISODE'S STRUCTURE:
Rather than have each stage in one level, you gave each section its own level, meaning that when a player passed one section, he/she could continue from that section until getting game over or proceeding to the next level. This could work, and sometimes, it did. However, the problem with this is that the "puzzles," heretofore refereed to as skill tests because that's what they really are, are so short, that I ended up hearing the same few seconds of the songs before I either passed the section, or I died. I got really sick of Bianco Hills (1) and the desert song (61) because of this, respectively. The episode needed more songs like the desert ruins (62) and the ice song (9), or, in other words, ones that don't have obnoxious intros that get super repetitive after a few deaths. At the very least, you could let us save between sections; it is honestly not like anyone is going to get game over in them with 99 lives, and it's not like anyone could go back to get power-ups, because there are none. The only other reason to do this would be to keep a steady flow, but having the music restart after each section, on top of breaking the flow, often gets really annoying, as stated previously.

On top of all of that, whenever I made it to a boss, with the exception of Bowser, the music would cut off. While this may just be compatibility issues with Windows 8, I still think this could be designed around: give the bosses their own level on the world map. That way, whenever the music cuts off, I can just restart SMBX to restore the music, and I won't lose any progress.

Finally, the character swap station is entirely pointless because you can just pause the game on the world map and push left/right to change characters. It has been like that ever since The Invasion 2.

AND NOW, ON TO THE LEVELS THEMSELVES:

I would like to begin this section of my review by displaying my sequence breaks:

Spoiler: show

Yay, my first sequence break!

Seriously, how did you NOT catch this one?

I'm pretty sure these two are also sequence breaks...

This advice came a bit late, don't you think?

Spoiler: show

I'm referring to the fact that we already had to do it in the previous section, not to the fact that I broke the brick before taking the screenshot.

There's a bit of cutoff with the tiles on One Sunny Day (mini), but this is a minor complaint.

Also, some of the boss battles, such as the Wart battle and the Triclide battle, are really boring fights; you're basically just waiting for the blocks to appear. One is especially tedious, but I'll get to that later.

AAH! THAT NOISE! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOOOOP!

Spoiler: show

I also discovered a bug here: if you knock the koopa far enough to the left, he'll fall down to where it is now:


But wait! What's worse than sound effects being repeated ad nauseam? Forcing the player to actively make said sound effects to progress! (If you're wondering why my life count is so low here, I'll explain later)

I don't know what you're referencing here, but I can tell you now that it is too obscure; this is basically a guessing game for anyone who doesn't get it, such as myself.

Spoiler: show

By the way, the hammer bro fight is easier than the boo boss. If you were trying to have a steady difficulty curve, the bosses should switch places.

One thing to note about the star challenges: you should use SMB3 stars instead of SMW stars; I made it to the end of Flagship Star Challenge, but accidentally went in the door before getting the star, and I had to beat it again. It's not like it would make much difference; players could still tell if they beat the level by looking at the star, and it's not like the SMW stars affect any level besides their own.

In the desert levels, I noticed that the oil's movement in the pipes is smooth, but then it jumps, making it look unrealistic. Choppier animation would be better in this case, as long as each frame is distanced evenly from the others.

plot twist:

Spoiler: show

Toad is Luigi's brother!

Also: ha! I'm better than you, Luigi! It only took me nine lives!

There's no need for the hyphen between "shyguy" and "infestation" here.

Spoiler: show

Speaking of, I actually liked the "don't kill the Dynos" gimmick. It helped to add challenge to the episode without making it some sort of puzzle. However, I dare you to tell me this was intentional:

Spoiler: show

This is the first time I've had to use a video to make sure I was getting my point across. I hope you're proud. If it looks like nothing's happening, just wait a few seconds.

Just below where I'm stainding in this screenshot, there's an invisible note block. If the note block is activated, even by accident, the poison mushroom will not leave the area by the door, and there's nothing that can be done but to die:

Spoiler: show

I didn't activate it again because I didn't want to lose another life.

and now, my review of Tedious Turtle & the Terrible Timing:

The mother brain sprite swap boss was just plain tedious. Not only was it another "wait for your weapon" boss, but TEN HITS? REALLY? On top of this, the optimal strategy is to grab a shell and toss it right after another is generated to avoid there being too many shells or the wall re-activating, meaning you'd have to wait twice as long just to do 1 damage. What I'm saying is that I didn't really like that part very much. It was so tedious, I forgot to restock on lives, and got game over on the ice boss. That was the only time I ever got game over on this episode.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, look no further than this screenshot:

Spoiler: show

All right, back to the rest of the episode:

You see this screenshot? The section in this screenshot is just boring, and adding a lakitu doesn't change that, nor does it make it any more difficult.

Spoiler: show

Neither does two.

Something of note that may not quite be a sequence break is that pipes in the first section of Koopaling Headquarters can be jumped over. Just sayin'. Also, why did you have to reuse a song? As I said before, they can get quite annoying as it is.

Speaking of, the semifinal section of the Koopaling Headquarters actually had me stumped for a few lives before I realized it was just another skill test. Congrats. (However, I did not ever think that it was a puzzle)

So, how many Iggy/Ludwig sprite swaps do you think we're willing to put up with, eh? You'll have to do a lot more than design the room a bit differently to make it challenging. Just look at Wendy here:

Spoiler: show

I saw someone complain about this fight earlier...was this just another skill test, and I found the solution without realizing it?

The final Bowser fight was just long enough to be threatening but not tedious. Good job making a final boss that doesn't feel like it's dragging on for too long.

As for the final boss, I kinda wish I didn't have to talk to Luigi each time I went to fight him. You could have made the door active in the first place, or made a separate level for the final boss. Speaking of, by the time I made it there, the music had cut off for SMBX. Maybe it only does this on my computer, but I still think that episodes should be built around this. None of the skill tests were so difficult as to take all 99 of my lives, so preventing being able to save between the final stages and bosses only serves to greaten the chance that the music will cut off after the next death.

IN CONCLUSION:
You had a great idea for a unique episode here, but it could have been executed a bit better. I'm sure if you iron out the flaws, this could be even better than it already is.

Still not a puzzle episode, though.

[Reign]

Haha. Thanks for the detailed review. I blame the lazy beta testers (and myself I guess) for not catching those things! I'm already working on a new episode and I doubt there will be any more updates to this one, as my "bug fixes" in the past often caused other issues that enabled players to cheat. Basically after making just one or two fixes the whole episode would have to be tested again, and it is currently in a state that I'm happy enough with. The music issue is something I'm not aware of at all, do you have more information about it or something I could check on the forum?

By the way, there are several players who have reported losing all 99 lives as early as to Koopaling Works, so perhaps your skill is above the average level. And from what I heard, very few people so far managed to make it to the very end. And I guess I have been trying to differentiate this episode from the others by calling it a puzzle one. But the definition is not that relevant anyway, as long as you are having fun with it.

[Stevu]

I blame the lazy beta testers

[HeroLinik]

I blame the lazy beta testers

That really didn't have anything to contribute to the topic in hand. Stick to the topic please and refrain from posting off-topic posts.

[bossedit8]

Heya. Here is my first part of this playthrough:



Original YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=388y3kI1Wsc

[CreatorForce]

My Playthough Too. I Die Over And Over X_X

[Imaynotbehere4long]

The music issue is something I'm not aware of at all, do you have more information about it or something I could check on the forum?

Unfortunately, no, but I'll try to explain it to the best of my ability: Whenever I play SMBX for more than a few minutes, it will stop loading other sound files, whether it's music or sound effects. If this happens, and a level uses a song other than one that has already played, SMBX will simply not play it; same goes for sound effects. This can be especially annoying if a level is supposed to be silent because I can never really be certain.

Speaking of music, why didn't you cite your songs? The music is just as important as the graphics, and it bothers me that there are still some members who don't do this. I know that 1 and Boss are from Super Mario Sunshine, and 2, 11, and Danger are from the Super Mario Galaxy games, but what of the others? (I think "End" is from Paper Mario, but I'm not sure)

P.S. If you want to make a true puzzle episode, I recommend you check out すってはっくん. Not only is it a puzzle game, it's also in the skin of a platformer, so that will help you get some ideas. The first couple of worlds may not seem like much, but the puzzles get quite tricky later on.