So if anyones interested what went through with making my level, as well as some more tidbits, Ill leave it in the spoiler so people can savely ignore it if they dont want to read it or want to play the level first ^^''
Spoiler: show
I don’t remember when exactly I started work on the level. My files say I started on May 25th but I also deleted and created files here and there so I’m not too sure if that’s truly the beginning.
However whenever I did begin I already knew I would use one of the characters that people don’t really use all that much. It was a small personal challenge. I’ve never made a level publicly available. At least not in SMBX. I have made quite a few levels for Mario Maker 2. But… the way MM2 does the level upload feels more... impersonal if you get my drift. It’s just click upload and there ya go. Unless they use the level code or follow you they most likely won't see the levels description. With this contest things were different though. And as such I wanted to also express a lot more. And this made me reconsider from making a Klonoa level, to a Solid Snake level. I’m a fan of both franchises so it was either one or the other. But Metal Gears 4th wall breaking gave me an option to tinker around a bit more. I do wonder where the Klonoa level would’ve gone though. Maybe I’ll look back to my ideas and make the level regardless.
Anyway, after deciding for a character I immediately had ideas for the beginning of the level.
The first big expression I made was sort of recreating the title screen of MGS. One of two things the judges, and other players, might’ve not even seen. But I wanted it in there. It’s simply just a background tile changed to a scaled down screenshot of the title screen, with an animated level tile acting as the press start button. Nothing to it really but I just like little things like that.
It’s always interesting to think about how a stealth operation starts. Where’s the entry point? What would make sense for the setting? I chose the sewers. They make a lot of sense and, while quite a cliche I give you that, are also areas I feel like wouldn’t be under heavy surveillance. I placed a single galoomba there. Why? Honestly the area felt quite empty. And there was more planned for this little guy but it was ultimately cut. I’ll talk about that in a later part. With a hidden trigger (I didn’t know about the actual hidden triggers until way later so I used the axe and changed its graphics. I learned a lot during this contest) placed close to him so he would turn around if you get too close. But I made the movement speed of the galoombas be 0. So that they wouldn’t be much of a threat BUT they’d work great as surveillance cameras. Not everything I put in was meant to be deadly from the get go. I felt having an enemy that doesn’t actually harm the player unless you walk straight into them helps ease people into the concept. As a nod to the franchise I also placed a lot of textboxes. Since what’s Metal Gear without hours spent on talking. But it was also to remind people how Snake works. He is a bit different from Mario.
After the short sewer section you’re outside the big Mansion. In hindsight maybe I should’ve named the level Mansion Moses. But Castle Moses has a nicer ring to it. Here’s another part where I wanted to already go more into things. First off, I made sure that the player will die if they get too close to the main entrance. It’s a stealth game. You’re not supposed to just walz in. Even if that’s usually the best method in MGS5 surprisingly. To help guide the players I lit up one of the windows. Giving the players an idea where to go. Putting background objects in places that made them seem climbable, like the statue in front of the tree, I further helped guide the player without telling them to go there. Why wouldn’t you try to use the statue to get closer to the window? But I knew the second someone is at the tree top, they may opt to go left. See if I thought ahead. And I did. With another hidden trigger I made the tree snap under Snakes weight, which naturally alerted the guards. Suddenly there’s more. And if you're not careful on your way down you might accidentally trigger the galoomba. Even if they don’t walk around, they still spawn pawns that can potentially spawn on you. The last tree branch also has a plattform under it. But I didn't make it snap. It's pretty hard getting up there. With that it goes into the “Castle”. And here’s where my problems started.
You’d be surprised how often I redid this section. Interior designs is something I struggle with. I admit it’s still rather ugly to look at.
Trying the show don’t tell approach again, I made it so that a Shy Guy is rather close to you so you wouldn’t just rush ahead. Instead it made you wait in the little starting corner. Where you then saw that certain blocks can block the search light and you can safely crouch behind them without ever being seen. I made the Shy Guys immortal though. I didn’t want that the player can just kill everyone and make the level easy peasy. I also learned that Snake can’t crouch when he is standing on an NPC. Curious. I placed some torches that you can stand on without being noticed, as well as the first prisoner door. I thought long and hard about if the player should see the pass through blocks or not. After asking friends I decided they should. In MG2, MGS and MGS2 there's the radar that helps you see enemies ahead, thus I thought being able to see where enemies would patrol was a good addition. There was supposed to be more guards in this section, even using a spring to be able to walk down from a ledge and be jumped back up but I ran into many issues with that. NPCs just falling through the floor if you were a certain distance away for example. In general the way the game renders enemies can be a pain to account for. You can just keep an enemy barely offscreen and the moment they turn around they just vanish until you re-enter the section. I then just put a Shy Guy next to the door on the ledge, in a position that it won’t bother you immediately if you came out of the door. Speaking of the doors, my contest entry was almost cut entirely. I didn’t realize the amount of stars in a level was limited. I was already pretty much done with most of the level by the time I realized the error. Thankfully Mechdragon777 helped me out big time with making a code that checked for the amount of Starcoins you had. I then just placed an NPC in front of the door and just swapped it with a teleport if you had enough coins for the doors. To not make this too long I’m going to speed along now.
For the lower area I simply put enemies there as well as hidden triggers to make the player realize it isn’t a good idea to go to the main entrance. At one point there was a teleport on the doors. In case a player actually did try. But I took it away. You would’ve most likely died from the Koopas on the outside so there was no point.
I’m very proud of the elevator. It however took me days to figure out the exact speed and block movement to get it just right. I didn’t want the elevator to be off by even a pixel. So lots of fine tuning went into the elevator. Only after I had it perfect did I learn there’s an actual button that helps you with that. Again, I’m still rather new to actually making more complex levels in SMBX than just 1-1 remakes. I also tried to get as little help as possible. Another self imposed challenge. I wanted to make this level within my limits as much as possible, and not with the help of someone else. It wouldn’t feel like my level at that point anymore to me personally.
From here on there were a lot of cuts. And I mean a lot. The entire elevator part had more doors than it does now. While I had planned to not use more than 5 Keycoins there were still multiple paths for the player to take. Luckily I cut almost all of them. I would’ve probably missed the deadline if I actually went with the original scale. The rooms that did make the cut are all inspired by areas from MGS. The hidden claymores, the nuclear warhead storage area that would gas you to death if you were spotted, the caves and the furnace. I did put the claymores way under the ground, so only very few pixels would be touchable by the player. So that you had more room to maneuver in midair, rather than explode too often. But given the feedback, maybe I shouldn’t have made tight jumps with them. I also placed Parakoopas in a way that they never ever see you if you simply crouch. And they’re not invincible. So you could knock them out with a well aimed punch. But I didn’t give any clue about that. I felt like that at this point you might have to let players figure some things out on their own. I probably hecked the execution up though. Then you fight Boom Boom and get your first Starcoin. I really should’ve placed a checkpoint there. The gas room isn’t much to talk about. Just instant kill blocks if you're spotted. I did use sprites to make an actual bathroom though. It was a small nod to how Snake crawls over a toilet and see’s Johnny. I placed a teleport there early to not make the player run all the way back again. I already did that with Boom Boom and felt that I could throw a bone there.
Originally Toad wasn’t supposed to give you anything. Originally after rescuing Toad you’d head to the Caves only to realize you need a box to hide. You would’ve then backtracked to the start. Remember the galoomba? Yeah he originally guarded the box. You would have gotten the ice flower, that puts enemies to sleep if used by Snake, to make him sleep and steal the box.
At this point I started to run out of time. I still wanted to have lots of time for people to test the level.(By the end only one friend actually had time to test the level. So there probably might still be things we missed.) So the furnace sadly got a bit rushed. I wanted the elevator to go through the grass since it was supposed to be a hidden lab. In fact this was the big 4th wall break I wanted in the game. Originally there wasn’t going to be a button that makes the elevator go deeper. At least not visible to the player. You had to look at “the back of the box”. For this contest I created actual boxart, where the button was visible. However after I learned that the judges may not even look into the folder, I feared they may miss that and get lost. So I opted to still include the boxart and make a reference to it, but at the same time make the button visible by the time they get the Starcoin from Mario. So even if they don’t look at the boxart, they would still find the button since there was nowhere else to go but back. Also Mario wasn’t supposed to be here, it was originally another Toad. Having been beaten and thrown into the caves to rot. Like a lot of characters in the franchise, he would’ve given you the Starcoin and then die. But I didn’t feel particularly edgy so I switched that up after the room cut happened. I did give the goombas little hardhats. It’s the little touches. The water part of the caves is a leftover from then there was a room connected to this. It was supposed to pump water into the second part of the furnace.
By now we’re close to the end. Not having all too much time left, even the furnace changed considerably a few times. I once just nuked the entire section and remade everything from scratch. I also made it a lot easier than previous parts. I felt like giving the player another hard challenge may be too much. After the Bowser fight there was originally an escape sequence.
When the elevator stops at the end, both doors open. That wasn’t an oversight. You were supposed to blow a hole (via an offscreen sequence. I can’t code at all and cutscenes looked too hard for how little time I had left. So you would’ve just jumped on a trigger and heard a kaboom) there and escape through a section that was a sort of medley of every previous section as well as lots of water. Bowser originally also was supposed to be fought in a mech. But again, no idea how to code and using moving layers created more issues with Snake than I wanted to have in a level. So I just cut all of that in one swoop and made a more traditional SMB3 boss fight. After that there’s just the credits left.
All in all this level started as a way to create a level for a character I was rather passionate about, as well as a little challenge for myself. I do like the idea of Snake in SMBX. I just hope that if he gets a rework, it will include crawling and maybe more mobility. He is very stiff. I know he is based off of Link. But I just hope that there is going to be a Snake one day that is fun to make levels for. I had tons of fun and learned a lot in this contest. 2 months was also a lot of time. But with how often I cut things and spent time on stuff that wasn’t really important I wasted a lot of time and ended up with too little to flesh out the ending. This definitely taught me to make a better plan of what to include in the level from the get go, instead of not planning all too much and just going at it only to realize it got too ambitious.
I know Snake isn’t a good character to make a level for. I expected my level to do way way worse. Somewhere from 42 to 40 was my expectation. So from everyone who tried this level, I’m the most surprised it got the place it did. Trust me on this one. Thanks to the judges for trying the level! And sorry for any mistakes. I’m not a native english speaker.
However whenever I did begin I already knew I would use one of the characters that people don’t really use all that much. It was a small personal challenge. I’ve never made a level publicly available. At least not in SMBX. I have made quite a few levels for Mario Maker 2. But… the way MM2 does the level upload feels more... impersonal if you get my drift. It’s just click upload and there ya go. Unless they use the level code or follow you they most likely won't see the levels description. With this contest things were different though. And as such I wanted to also express a lot more. And this made me reconsider from making a Klonoa level, to a Solid Snake level. I’m a fan of both franchises so it was either one or the other. But Metal Gears 4th wall breaking gave me an option to tinker around a bit more. I do wonder where the Klonoa level would’ve gone though. Maybe I’ll look back to my ideas and make the level regardless.
Anyway, after deciding for a character I immediately had ideas for the beginning of the level.
The first big expression I made was sort of recreating the title screen of MGS. One of two things the judges, and other players, might’ve not even seen. But I wanted it in there. It’s simply just a background tile changed to a scaled down screenshot of the title screen, with an animated level tile acting as the press start button. Nothing to it really but I just like little things like that.
It’s always interesting to think about how a stealth operation starts. Where’s the entry point? What would make sense for the setting? I chose the sewers. They make a lot of sense and, while quite a cliche I give you that, are also areas I feel like wouldn’t be under heavy surveillance. I placed a single galoomba there. Why? Honestly the area felt quite empty. And there was more planned for this little guy but it was ultimately cut. I’ll talk about that in a later part. With a hidden trigger (I didn’t know about the actual hidden triggers until way later so I used the axe and changed its graphics. I learned a lot during this contest) placed close to him so he would turn around if you get too close. But I made the movement speed of the galoombas be 0. So that they wouldn’t be much of a threat BUT they’d work great as surveillance cameras. Not everything I put in was meant to be deadly from the get go. I felt having an enemy that doesn’t actually harm the player unless you walk straight into them helps ease people into the concept. As a nod to the franchise I also placed a lot of textboxes. Since what’s Metal Gear without hours spent on talking. But it was also to remind people how Snake works. He is a bit different from Mario.
After the short sewer section you’re outside the big Mansion. In hindsight maybe I should’ve named the level Mansion Moses. But Castle Moses has a nicer ring to it. Here’s another part where I wanted to already go more into things. First off, I made sure that the player will die if they get too close to the main entrance. It’s a stealth game. You’re not supposed to just walz in. Even if that’s usually the best method in MGS5 surprisingly. To help guide the players I lit up one of the windows. Giving the players an idea where to go. Putting background objects in places that made them seem climbable, like the statue in front of the tree, I further helped guide the player without telling them to go there. Why wouldn’t you try to use the statue to get closer to the window? But I knew the second someone is at the tree top, they may opt to go left. See if I thought ahead. And I did. With another hidden trigger I made the tree snap under Snakes weight, which naturally alerted the guards. Suddenly there’s more. And if you're not careful on your way down you might accidentally trigger the galoomba. Even if they don’t walk around, they still spawn pawns that can potentially spawn on you. The last tree branch also has a plattform under it. But I didn't make it snap. It's pretty hard getting up there. With that it goes into the “Castle”. And here’s where my problems started.
You’d be surprised how often I redid this section. Interior designs is something I struggle with. I admit it’s still rather ugly to look at.
Trying the show don’t tell approach again, I made it so that a Shy Guy is rather close to you so you wouldn’t just rush ahead. Instead it made you wait in the little starting corner. Where you then saw that certain blocks can block the search light and you can safely crouch behind them without ever being seen. I made the Shy Guys immortal though. I didn’t want that the player can just kill everyone and make the level easy peasy. I also learned that Snake can’t crouch when he is standing on an NPC. Curious. I placed some torches that you can stand on without being noticed, as well as the first prisoner door. I thought long and hard about if the player should see the pass through blocks or not. After asking friends I decided they should. In MG2, MGS and MGS2 there's the radar that helps you see enemies ahead, thus I thought being able to see where enemies would patrol was a good addition. There was supposed to be more guards in this section, even using a spring to be able to walk down from a ledge and be jumped back up but I ran into many issues with that. NPCs just falling through the floor if you were a certain distance away for example. In general the way the game renders enemies can be a pain to account for. You can just keep an enemy barely offscreen and the moment they turn around they just vanish until you re-enter the section. I then just put a Shy Guy next to the door on the ledge, in a position that it won’t bother you immediately if you came out of the door. Speaking of the doors, my contest entry was almost cut entirely. I didn’t realize the amount of stars in a level was limited. I was already pretty much done with most of the level by the time I realized the error. Thankfully Mechdragon777 helped me out big time with making a code that checked for the amount of Starcoins you had. I then just placed an NPC in front of the door and just swapped it with a teleport if you had enough coins for the doors. To not make this too long I’m going to speed along now.
For the lower area I simply put enemies there as well as hidden triggers to make the player realize it isn’t a good idea to go to the main entrance. At one point there was a teleport on the doors. In case a player actually did try. But I took it away. You would’ve most likely died from the Koopas on the outside so there was no point.
I’m very proud of the elevator. It however took me days to figure out the exact speed and block movement to get it just right. I didn’t want the elevator to be off by even a pixel. So lots of fine tuning went into the elevator. Only after I had it perfect did I learn there’s an actual button that helps you with that. Again, I’m still rather new to actually making more complex levels in SMBX than just 1-1 remakes. I also tried to get as little help as possible. Another self imposed challenge. I wanted to make this level within my limits as much as possible, and not with the help of someone else. It wouldn’t feel like my level at that point anymore to me personally.
From here on there were a lot of cuts. And I mean a lot. The entire elevator part had more doors than it does now. While I had planned to not use more than 5 Keycoins there were still multiple paths for the player to take. Luckily I cut almost all of them. I would’ve probably missed the deadline if I actually went with the original scale. The rooms that did make the cut are all inspired by areas from MGS. The hidden claymores, the nuclear warhead storage area that would gas you to death if you were spotted, the caves and the furnace. I did put the claymores way under the ground, so only very few pixels would be touchable by the player. So that you had more room to maneuver in midair, rather than explode too often. But given the feedback, maybe I shouldn’t have made tight jumps with them. I also placed Parakoopas in a way that they never ever see you if you simply crouch. And they’re not invincible. So you could knock them out with a well aimed punch. But I didn’t give any clue about that. I felt like that at this point you might have to let players figure some things out on their own. I probably hecked the execution up though. Then you fight Boom Boom and get your first Starcoin. I really should’ve placed a checkpoint there. The gas room isn’t much to talk about. Just instant kill blocks if you're spotted. I did use sprites to make an actual bathroom though. It was a small nod to how Snake crawls over a toilet and see’s Johnny. I placed a teleport there early to not make the player run all the way back again. I already did that with Boom Boom and felt that I could throw a bone there.
Originally Toad wasn’t supposed to give you anything. Originally after rescuing Toad you’d head to the Caves only to realize you need a box to hide. You would’ve then backtracked to the start. Remember the galoomba? Yeah he originally guarded the box. You would have gotten the ice flower, that puts enemies to sleep if used by Snake, to make him sleep and steal the box.
At this point I started to run out of time. I still wanted to have lots of time for people to test the level.(By the end only one friend actually had time to test the level. So there probably might still be things we missed.) So the furnace sadly got a bit rushed. I wanted the elevator to go through the grass since it was supposed to be a hidden lab. In fact this was the big 4th wall break I wanted in the game. Originally there wasn’t going to be a button that makes the elevator go deeper. At least not visible to the player. You had to look at “the back of the box”. For this contest I created actual boxart, where the button was visible. However after I learned that the judges may not even look into the folder, I feared they may miss that and get lost. So I opted to still include the boxart and make a reference to it, but at the same time make the button visible by the time they get the Starcoin from Mario. So even if they don’t look at the boxart, they would still find the button since there was nowhere else to go but back. Also Mario wasn’t supposed to be here, it was originally another Toad. Having been beaten and thrown into the caves to rot. Like a lot of characters in the franchise, he would’ve given you the Starcoin and then die. But I didn’t feel particularly edgy so I switched that up after the room cut happened. I did give the goombas little hardhats. It’s the little touches. The water part of the caves is a leftover from then there was a room connected to this. It was supposed to pump water into the second part of the furnace.
By now we’re close to the end. Not having all too much time left, even the furnace changed considerably a few times. I once just nuked the entire section and remade everything from scratch. I also made it a lot easier than previous parts. I felt like giving the player another hard challenge may be too much. After the Bowser fight there was originally an escape sequence.
When the elevator stops at the end, both doors open. That wasn’t an oversight. You were supposed to blow a hole (via an offscreen sequence. I can’t code at all and cutscenes looked too hard for how little time I had left. So you would’ve just jumped on a trigger and heard a kaboom) there and escape through a section that was a sort of medley of every previous section as well as lots of water. Bowser originally also was supposed to be fought in a mech. But again, no idea how to code and using moving layers created more issues with Snake than I wanted to have in a level. So I just cut all of that in one swoop and made a more traditional SMB3 boss fight. After that there’s just the credits left.
All in all this level started as a way to create a level for a character I was rather passionate about, as well as a little challenge for myself. I do like the idea of Snake in SMBX. I just hope that if he gets a rework, it will include crawling and maybe more mobility. He is very stiff. I know he is based off of Link. But I just hope that there is going to be a Snake one day that is fun to make levels for. I had tons of fun and learned a lot in this contest. 2 months was also a lot of time. But with how often I cut things and spent time on stuff that wasn’t really important I wasted a lot of time and ended up with too little to flesh out the ending. This definitely taught me to make a better plan of what to include in the level from the get go, instead of not planning all too much and just going at it only to realize it got too ambitious.
I know Snake isn’t a good character to make a level for. I expected my level to do way way worse. Somewhere from 42 to 40 was my expectation. So from everyone who tried this level, I’m the most surprised it got the place it did. Trust me on this one. Thanks to the judges for trying the level! And sorry for any mistakes. I’m not a native english speaker.
