[Ship/Underwater] The Splinter Sub

[Emral]

Hello!
As previously hinted at, I intended to make a level around those Rammerheads I've recently released. This is it!
I ended up needing a few more NPCs to round things off properly, and I'll release all of them shortly, too. There's a few tweaks I wanna touch on for those which aren't necessary for this level.
I hope you enjoy the level! I had a lot of fun making it and am very happy with the result.
Oh, and please make sure you have an up-to-date devkit before playing this. This level makes use of spawn zones, which have recently (as of writing this) been added.
One or two more things I want to note: There's a little bug in the 4th Dragon Coin puzzle right now - A platform is supposed to be stepped on to make it rise to the surface, but due to an oversight in the MAGLX3 build it rises automatically! I've fixed the issue in SMBX2 basegame, however the fix is not publically available yet, so just pretend like you gotta swoop around to the bottom and raise the platform. :p
There's ALSO a bug in the final section when pausing, which is also related to a MAGLX3 build bug, so that's noted too!

Difficulty (imo): ★★★☆☆
Exits: 1
Dragon Coins: ✓
Players: Default
Powerups: Default
Sprites: Enjl, Nintendo
Music: Rayman 3 - The Calm Before The Storm

Please click the screenshot to download the level.

[MECHDRAGON777]

My biggest concern with this level is that the grinders are not spinjump-safe when they look like they are. (SMW and vanilla SMBX's base grinders are the reason they make me think they are spin jumpable.) Maybe have some kind of sign to show they are not safe, though not sure of a good way to indicate that. I can see this being late game (World 4+) and fitting nicely. Not too hard, but not easy either. The rammerheads being as wide as they are does make a few areas a tad tight however.
Warning: Video contains death(s).

Mario: show

https://youtu.be/N1G0R79ZsQ0

[Emral]

My biggest concern with this level is that the grinders are not spinjump-safe when they look like they are.

I thought about this, too. The fact of the matter is, though, that these behave like in Super Mario Maker, where the sprites are from, and they're not spinjumpable there either! So it's tricky indeed.
I think the best solution might be to use them in more levels. Perhaps I'll make a level around them where you have to make use of Yoshi in order to bounce off them (since that's how SMM does it too). What do you think?

The rammerheads being as wide as they are does make a few areas a tad tight however.

Which areas in particular? And did it end up causing unfair damage? Screenshots would be nice.

I hope you enjoyed the level as a whole, thanks for playing.

[MECHDRAGON777]

My biggest concern with this level is that the grinders are not spinjump-safe when they look like they are.

I thought about this, too. The fact of the matter is, though, that these behave like in Super Mario Maker, where the sprites are from, and they're not spinjumpable there either! So it's tricky indeed.
I think the best solution might be to use them in more levels. Perhaps I'll make a level around them where you have to make use of Yoshi in order to bounce off them (since that's how SMM does it too). What do you think?

Yeah, that would actually help a lot. Using them more in such a way. I believe all the levels should be possible damageless on the first try if a player is skilled enough without any knowledge of the game except for what has been taught in prior levels. This might be a good case of that.

The rammerheads being as wide as they are does make a few areas a tad tight however.

Which areas in particular? And did it end up causing unfair damage? Screenshots would be nice.

I hope you enjoyed the level as a whole, thanks for playing.

Yeah, the level as a whole was fun. Out of the entire level, I only think one area caused unfair damage, though that is only if the player is big. I can give some examples at which I felt that I would have taken damage if I was not careful though. (I will have to take the screenshots in the editor though.)

Spoiler: show

A: Not an issue that I can think of, but it felt a little to close to comfort.
B: Felt a tad scary as I did this part, but I am not sure if that is becuase the dry bone was taking up space on the bottom or not.
C: Felt a little tight trying to get around the rammerhead here.
D: The Rammerheads here to me felt like they were a tad close together making them harder to jump over. (The width becoming height here makes the room for error not as much as one would wish for. (I think in every attempt at that dragon coin, I either missed it (first time not realizing the platform will go down), or take a hit (due to the height one jumps out of the water.) I think I did finally get to do it damageless in the entire section when I did it off camra (this was to prevent the video from being too long).
E: Not exactly a rammerhead issue, but when going through the area with the correct fish-bone, you have to aim the fish-bone then immediatly get into possition to duck, or rush to avoid getting hit. This is the only area that I never got through with a powerup. I felt that the area with the rammerhead closer to the dragon coin was a tad bit close as well and that the intended solution seems to just swim between the saw blades. (based on the size, they appear to be exactly 32 pixels apart horizontally meaning around a four pixel leaway from side to side combined.

[Emral]

No, you got the path for E right. I'll make sure to make that less ambiguous.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll change some things around to make them more manageable where necessary. I'm not sure how to handle D yet... but I have some approaches I wanna try out. The width between rammerheads will stay, but I should probably do something about the "didn't know the platform would fall" aspect. Once it's dropped, you can follow it back for a second to stay out of danger.

[MECHDRAGON777]

Considering you said I had the path for E correct, I would assume it is not intentional to let the player swim through the saw blade on the left? (Which appears to be possible damageless)

[8lue Storm]

Considering you said I had the path for E correct, I would assume it is not intentional to let the player swim through the saw blade on the left? (Which appears to be possible damageless)

It is possible to swim in between the saw blades (grinders?) on the left, but doing so without waiting for a rammerhead to go through will inevitably hurt the player because the rammerhead's speed is higher than the section's. Waiting for it, though, is kinda awkward and causes issues due to the player being left behind iirc.

[Emral]

Considering you said I had the path for E correct, I would assume it is not intentional to let the player swim through the saw blade on the left? (Which appears to be possible damageless)

Yes. I thought the saws were a cool aesthetic and impassable without damageboosting, but they're really just ambiguous and causing trouble. I'll add a ceiling there instead.

[MECHDRAGON777]

Considering you said I had the path for E correct, I would assume it is not intentional to let the player swim through the saw blade on the left? (Which appears to be possible damageless)

Yes. I thought the saws were a cool aesthetic and impassable without damageboosting, but they're really just ambiguous and causing trouble. I'll add a ceiling there instead.

I mean, adding a third saw in the center my accomplish both; however, like you said: You can get past them via damage boosting, so adding a solid wall would prevent breaking it, yet look less cool.

[Emral]

I've updated the level with various tweaks:
- Area A has a larger interval between Rammerhead Spawns
- Dry Bone won't walk around in Area B anymore
- Area D and preceeding screens adjusted
- Made Area E less ambiguous and difficult
- Grinder adjustments to ready them for release
- Rammerhead adjustments to ready them for an update

[PROX]

so..... I ran into this issue.... I'm not sure if it's my fault or not, but why does this happen?

Spoiler: show

[The Dwarven Digger]

so..... I ran into this issue.... I'm not sure if it's my fault or not, but why does this happen?

Spoiler: show

I had this issue too. You need to make sure you have the devkit installed such that the assets are accessible to the level. The problem is caused when the game doesn't recognise the spawnzone sizeable, so it acts as a solid block creating large solid areas of the level.

[ElectriKong]

You ned to make sure you have the contents of the devkit in your SLAM folder for the levels to work correctly (don't just put the devkit folder in, as it won't work).

[Emral]

You ned to make sure you have the contents of the devkit in your SLAM folder for the levels to work correctly (don't just put the devkit folder in, as it won't work).

This, though there's currently some ambiguity about whether or not the current version of the devkit is even fully functional? Sanct alluded to me a few days ago that he may have forgotten to register the spawnzone as a sizeable on the lua-side of things, but since Mechdragon was previously able to play the level, everyone is confused!
I'm going off the assumption that everyone attempting to play actually read the line in the thread that said this has to be played in an up-to-date devkit, so confusion is among us indeed.

[Valentine]

In any case they shouldn't be solid like that??? Also I'm about to update the devkit with the reset doors so after that everything should work

[PdizzleParker]

You need to make sure you have the devkit installed such that the assets are accessible to the level. The problem is caused when the game doesn't recognise the spawnzone sizeable, so it acts as a solid block creating large solid areas of the level.

I may sound stupid when asking this but what's a devkit?

[Cedur]

I may sound stupid when asking this but what's a devkit?

basically a toolbox which is provided in the main thread for SLAM, and needed to play other levels that use it.