Roses & Telephones (comments needed)

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cato
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Roses & Telephones (comments needed)

Postby cato » Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:07 am

I made a level called Roses & Telephones, which is based on vine climbing and the momentum teleporters. Please spare a couple of minutes and play the level.
I have a couple of questions on how to improve the level.
1: The first 3 sections are all about vine climbing and roses as hazards, and that it takes place on a mountain and inside a cave. I feel like it is too long for the whole level, and didn't really do much in terms of the structure. Should I remove them?

2: Is making section 2 a vertical section a better choice?

3: I feel like some of the setups are repetitive and lacking. Basically, I am already out of ideas for the last couple of them.

4: I am struggling to make a linear level without using Rooms.lua made by MrDoubleA. There are cool setups, but I can't seem to make a normal horizontal section with the teleporters. Rooms.lua makes it easier to separate it one by one, it doesn't feel quite right. Any solution for it?

5: Besides from being unnatural while using Rooms.lua in a level like this, it also prevents me from using other stuff. For instance, the autoscroll segment on section 9 no longer works. It is basically a climax for the level, with self-growing vines and autoscrolling.

Any help is appreciated.

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Re: Roses & Telephones (comments needed)

Postby Jur1121 » Thu Jul 29, 2021 5:48 pm

The outside and cave parts could stay there and teach the player the basics. Both sections could be shorter, though. You could shorten or omit some of the obstacles and try to make the trek between Start Point and the house one checkpoint long instead of two. Omitting all of the first 3 sections could work, but then you'd need to add some more "basic" vine platforming content in the house anyway, I feel like.

rooms.lua was utilized pretty well I think. In my opinion, you might as well go with it. I didn't see anything very wrong with that as pacing goes.

Your level is a WIP and you probably knew this, but the level felt incredibly difficult as the whole house has no powerups that I know of. The rooms are much easier when you know how to do them, but for a blind playthrough, there are going to be deaths. One mistake takes you all the way back to the starting room and that could lead to a lower score than deserved. I didn't even see many of the deaths coming. It didn't make the testing an easy thing to do.

I also missed the note at the start of the level, maybe they could be made more striking? It had very useful information after all. The chandeliers also deceptively look like they could be walked on but that isn't the case.

Is the problem of the last section such that the player spawns offscreen and the level resets? The camera is somewhere way off. I put "cam.y = player.y-400" into onLoadSection9() and managed to play it, and sure enough, it didn't feel easy to pull off. Maybe I'm bad at the game but I don't know about the judges.

I think you nailed the visuals in the large scale. The level is genuinely interesting to go through.


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