The Invasion 3 (Demo of Worlds 1 to 4 released)

[ShadowStarX]

Welcome to The Invasion 3 Discussion Thread!

What is the purpose of this project?
The Invasion 3 is generally meant to be a newer iteration of The Invasion series centered around SMBX2: it's meant to showcase the easily accessible features of SMBX2 (including the old ones) such as NPCs, custom graphics but also a bit of custom music and simpler lua features. (with explanations in the lua files)
We'll also aim to make the episode have a better difficulty curve while still keeping it beginner-friendly. Some levels would be homages to classic Mario games, some will be reiterations of The Invasion 2 levels but a handful of them will be completely new (but still fitting for the episode's nature)

Worlds:
World 1 - Mushroom Plains
World 2 - Dino Island
World 3 - Koopa Kingdom
World 4 - Subcon Complex
World 5 - Hurtful Hotlands
World 6 - Vanilla Mines
World 7 - Rawest Forest
World 8 - Wet Water Zone
World 9 - Valley of Bowser
+Frosty Frostlands and Nimbus Heights as side worlds

Screenshots:

Spoiler: show

Videos:

Spoiler: show

Note: content is subject to change, even if it was recorded.

Progress:


Team of Designers:

• IAmPlayer
• MrDoubleA
• ShadowStarX

Extra thanks:

• Rixithechao, for giving feedback and insight during development
• Redigit, for making SMBX 1.0-1.3 and The Invasion 2
• Hoeloe, Emral, Rednaxela and the rest of SMBX2 Development Team, for expanding the engine's capabilities
• Valtteri, Sednaiur and SanS1m0n for providing lots of assets (mainly custom graphics)

Promo Artist:

• Lusho

Beta Testers:

• Phoebe
• Radiance
• Pseudo (Guest Designer)
• Chipss (Guest Designer)
• DisasterMaster (Guest Designer)
• 55jedat555 (speedrunning)

Gamma Testers:

• Blake Izayoi (Guest Designer)
• Master of Disaster
• Idunn
• Maché
• Uzendayo
• Saltlord

If you have any questions to ask or feedback to give, post it in the thread!

If you wanna play the first 4 worlds of the game, download it here!

[Cedur]

That's so awesome! I've been quite inactive with SMBX but I'll still want to betatest this!
Will there also be 4 switch palaces?

Btw I also hope for a bit of hilariousness in the level names.

[ShadowStarX]

Btw I also hope for a bit of hilariousness in the level names.

It'd suck if that weren't the case wouldn't it?

[Cedur]

Yeah, I've got a couple of suggestions.

Ahoi Brothers! (all kinds of hammer bros)
A Mole of Moles (SMW Cookie Mountain-style level)
Attack of the 50 Foot Trampler (Mega Mushroom)
Bowser's Balls (SMW castle with giant balls and other new SMW stuff)
Burn The House Down (Firethrower Propeller, referencing the cheat)
Carve Your Luck (a level where you smash through Hammer Suit block)
Everybody Jump (red NPC springboards)
Fairytale Gone Bad (Fairy level)
Feed me! (Baby Yoshi's)
Just Your Ordinary Reznor Fight (another SMW fortress with Reznors)
Row Your Boat (Paddlewheel)
Shoe Fetish
Stop the Key Thief (Phantos)
The Even Greater Fish Fiasco (redesign of the original)
They See me Grrrrolin'
This Land Is Your Land (SML NPCs, grayscale effect?)
This Level Hurts Your Eyes (the gameboy effect)
Void Space (a very dark level where you orient yourself with audio sources like a bat ... very hard to execute though?)
Wiggler Stampede (referencing the NSMBU original)

[PROX]

this is actually interesting. If I already wasn't working on an episode, I'd be down to develop some levels for this lol

[TLtimelord]

Btw I also hope for a bit of hilariousness in the level names.

ShadowStarX and I have been having good fun with the mildly goofy level names here and there so rest assured you're in good hands in that regard.

[Cedur]

Also it would be cool if you added a public spreadsheet or something, so any bystanders who want to contribute a level can see what specific asset a level has already been made for

[dragonfan96]

This looks really good so far! With it featuring the aspects of X2 there's always room for tons of levels and content to be made.

I look forward to when this gets more progress for a release demo or episode launch!

[ShadowXeldron]

So it seems I'm not the only one who thought of this. Looking foward too it!

[ShadowStarX]

Some extra screenshots:

[MECHDRAGON777]

This is actually looking decent. (I just now learned this thread existed.)

[PdizzleParker]

I mean, I guess I could be a betatester if you're still looking for them. Mostly because I'm running low on new SMBX levels to play lol.

[DisasterMaster]

First and foremost, isn't there already an Invasion 3 here?

Sure, it may not be official...or good, but it can't be discounted entirely.

The Invasion 3 is generally meant to be a newer iteration of The Invasion series centered around SMBX2: it's meant to showcase the easily accessible features of SMBX2 (including the old ones) such as NPCs, custom graphics but also a bit of custom music and simpler lua features. (with explanations in the lua files)
We'll also aim to make the episode have a better difficulty curve while still keeping it beginner-friendly. Some levels would be homages to classic Mario games, some will be reiterations of The Invasion 2 levels but a handful of them will be completely new (but still fitting for the episode's nature)

Glad to hear that many levels will be reimagined, but remain true to what they were. That's one of the things I liked about Invasion 1 into Invasion 2, a feeling of continuity between episode levels. It'll be fun to see things like the Dino Rhinos from the Pyramid of Fail actually be those npcs instead of reskinned Mega Moles.

It's nice to see a leveling out of the difficulty curve, as well. It was jarring to face Wart, the final boss of SMB2, in the second world for example.

What simple Lua features do you have planned? Are we going to see any custom npc or physics packs? Angry Sun in the Hotlands anyone...

So it seems I'm not the only one who thought of this. Looking foward too it!

I think everyone has thought about it at some point. The original Invasions were released with the earlier versions before SMBX2, so it's natural that a third Invasion would come along with the new features that SMBX2 brings.

Heck, I replaced all the reskinned npcs in the Invasion 2 that have an actual counterpart in SMBX2. I now have a custom Invasion with Dino Rhinos, Monty Moles, Fat Guys (from an npc pack), Rip Van Fishes, ect... you name it. I even turned all the levels into .lvlx and graphics into .png to save on space. Of course I did add a few new levels featuring other SMBX2 content as well, but just for family and friends who love the Invasion episode.

Yeah, I've got a couple of suggestions.

Ahoi Brothers! (all kinds of hammer bros)
A Mole of Moles (SMW Cookie Mountain-style level)
Attack of the 50 Foot Trampler (Mega Mushroom)
Bowser's Balls (SMW castle with giant balls and other new SMW stuff)
Burn The House Down (Firethrower Propeller, referencing the cheat)
Carve Your Luck (a level where you smash through Hammer Suit block)
Everybody Jump (red NPC springboards)
Fairytale Gone Bad (Fairy level)
Feed me! (Baby Yoshi's)
Just Your Ordinary Reznor Fight (another SMW fortress with Reznors)
Row Your Boat (Paddlewheel)
Shoe Fetish
Stop the Key Thief (Phantos)
The Even Greater Fish Fiasco (redesign of the original)
They See me Grrrrolin'
This Land Is Your Land (SML NPCs, grayscale effect?)
This Level Hurts Your Eyes (the gameboy effect)
Void Space (a very dark level where you orient yourself with audio sources like a bat ... very hard to execute though?)
Wiggler Stampede (referencing the NSMBU original)

Love the "Grrrrollin'" one.
Might I also suggest:

Give 'Em the Boot (Kuribo Goomba level)
Maskaphobia (A level with all 3 types of Phantos, that end up all chasing you at once)
Eat Your Greens (short-timed level where you must eat green berries or die)
Hold on Tight (Ropes on guidelines featuring lots of dodging)
Toil and Trouble (Magikoopas and Green Bubbles over a lava pit)
Cooler Heads Prevail (Ice level with falling Icicles)
A Chance of Snow Flurries (Ice level with Flurries)
Into the Subcon Badlands (Desert with Pokies and Cobrats)
Tails of the Tide (Dolphin level)

This looks really good so far! With it featuring the aspects of X2 there's always room for tons of levels and content to be made.

I look forward to when this gets more progress for a release demo or episode launch!

With all the content of SMBX2, they are going to need 10 levels per world if they want to fit it all in.

Which begs the question, how big will each world be in terms of levels? And will the levels still be on the shorter side like they were in the Invasion 2?

[Sonya Sanchez]

That’s not even a invasion 3 is episode, he just found it being named like that and never gave any sources.

[ShadowStarX]

The Invasion 3 is generally meant to be a newer iteration of The Invasion series centered around SMBX2: it's meant to showcase the easily accessible features of SMBX2 (including the old ones) such as NPCs, custom graphics but also a bit of custom music and simpler lua features. (with explanations in the lua files)
We'll also aim to make the episode have a better difficulty curve while still keeping it beginner-friendly. Some levels would be homages to classic Mario games, some will be reiterations of The Invasion 2 levels but a handful of them will be completely new (but still fitting for the episode's nature)

Glad to hear that many levels will be reimagined, but remain true to what they were. That's one of the things I liked about Invasion 1 into Invasion 2, a feeling of continuity between episode levels. It'll be fun to see things like the Dino Rhinos from the Pyramid of Fail actually be those npcs instead of reskinned Mega Moles.

It's nice to see a leveling out of the difficulty curve, as well. It was jarring to face Wart, the final boss of SMB2, in the second world for example.

What simple Lua features do you have planned? Are we going to see any custom npc or physics packs? Angry Sun in the Hotlands anyone...

I'd like to note that not every single TI2 level will be reimagined for this, just a noticeable majority.
Also by simpler lua features I mean stuff like IAmPlayer's Firebar NPCs or meddling with projectiles. Regarding the Angry Sun, we don't know, it depends.
And when it comes to physics changes: (X) Doubt (perhaps gravity if anything)

With all the content of SMBX2, they are going to need 10 levels per world if they want to fit it all in.
Which begs the question, how big will each world be in terms of levels? And will the levels still be on the shorter side like they were in the Invasion 2?

Not every single basegame SMBX2 feature will be featured (primarily those NPCs that are difficult to design around in a beginner-friendly way) and the levels will naturally not be too long. (roughly 2-3 minutes to beat usually, with a few exceptions)
The level count per world will be higher than in The Invasion 2,

[TLtimelord]

I just want to reiterate SSX's talking point about custom npcs and go further down with it. For the sake of filespace I don't actually think we plan on using any custom NPCs at all, maybe one or two levels will have some custom npcs assets at most and I don't even want to promise that. This may be subject to change, but since the goal of this is to be apart of basegame in future versions of SMBX2 then we want to make sure we don't end up bloating the download size.

[Chanceux2]

I would beta test this but I'm quite busy because because my new episode, its killing me.
But beta testing is my thing! Hopefully I could join and be a little more active than last time

[DisasterMaster]

I just want to reiterate SSX's talking point about custom npcs and go further down with it. For the sake of filespace I don't actually think we plan on using any custom NPCs at all, maybe one or two levels will have some custom npcs assets at most and I don't even want to promise that. This may be subject to change, but since the goal of this is to be apart of basegame in future versions of SMBX2 then we want to make sure we don't end up bloating the download size.

You should have very little problem with bloat, at least comparatively to The Invasion 2. When you download SMBX2 right now, it comes with The Invasion 2 as a basegame episode which consists of 2258 files @ 13.1 MBs. Most of those files are .gifs with masks and the actual .lvl files themselves.
I’m not sure if you’ve discussed with the devs if your Invasion 3 would replace the current one, but if it is a replacement then it would have to be of comparable size to not be consider “bloated”. This would not be as hard as you may think…

As I mentioned above, I converted all the level files of The Invasion 2 to .lvlx and graphics to .png, which decreased the size to 1751 files @ 6.84 MBs. That’s a 507 file and 6.26 MB decrease to its size, just by those simple steps. You could further decrease that by changing the same custom tilesets used in multiple levels (such as warp 1, warp 2, warp 3, warp 4, warp 8, and warp 9) onto episode custom blocks 751-1000 so that one block could be used over multiple levels while only taking up 1 extra file slot. Depending on how many levels use the same custom blocks, that too could be substantial.

Theoretically, you could create an episode with more levels that would actually be smaller in size than the current basegame Invasion 2.

(perhaps gravity if anything)

I'd be down with a "Low G Labyrinth" level. If anything, it could help people create that type of effect for their levels by letting them examine the Lua used to make it.

[Cedur]

I'm officially signed up as beta tester. Don't expect any activity for a week though, I'm still busy with finishing my tenancy contract stuff.

[JulianSteve_18]

Will the levels made in the invasion 3 Shadow Star be included?