Super Mario Bros. X Forums

Posted: **Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:13 am**

summary
welcome to perilous frontier, an smbx episode currently in development which puts heavy emphasis on tight platforming through levels with a central mechanic that have disconnected individual setups built around it. it mostly takes inspirations from smw romhacks, such as:

- YUMP 2
- mice
- What the Hell?
- Grand Poo World 2
- the collective of endgame levels by anonymousbl00dlust in various collaboration hacks

if any of these sound appealing, you might find something to like in perilous frontier.
the current demo features four-ish levels (one of which is a spruced up version of my cldcx2 submission with an extra exit) and part of the HUB.
currently, there is no ETA on a full release.

screenshots

Spoiler: show

level progress

finished: 19
in progress: 8
started: 37
conceptualized: 4

credits
- graphics are rips and recolors, mostly from nintendo games (with a few npc sprites being from megamari, melty blood, prinny or custom)
- music credits can be found in filenames (save for "idle" which is a rendition of the classical piece "funeral march of a marionette" from nyet 3)
- lua is by me (mostly, full credits coming on release)

advice for those willing to play
- the episode is not intended to be kaizo, but it's no romp either. i've been told my standards for determining difficulty are a tad skewed, so please try your hand at the tutorial stage inside the information house before jumping into the main levels
- the devtimes aren't that hard to beat in and of themselves (i'm no speedrunner), the main thing you should focus on is not dying, i might add a visible timer in the future while you play
- have fun :D
- the rest should be explained by the npc dialogue in the information house

download demo
click here for hard hits

Posted: **Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:03 pm**

This should be amazing!! Nice backgrounds and NPC's

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2021 1:22 pm**

here's a little progress report, some wip concepts that i'm thinking of expanding into full-on level gimmicks

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:40 pm**

another update, for those interested:

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:59 am**

posting more updates if anyone feels like they want previews (i'd get reprimanded if i waited more than a month to bump the thread, haha~)

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:02 am**

a slightly smaller progress update this time around. i'm not sure how much work i'll get done in the coming weeks, so here's something to show that i'm still making progress:

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Fri Jan 14, 2022 7:37 am**

i've been busy with my mystery contest entry and real-life, non-smbx stuff so hopefully this long bump time is acceptable;

sadly it's not as big of an update as you might expect. all i've done is completely finish the overworld, get a decent chunk of the wind level done, and get work on a new level (the ice castle level from a few posts back still has to wait it's turn as i can't think of many good setups for it):

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:16 pm**

overcompensating for the last update with a fast one this time. while there isn't too much progress i can actually show (i make it a point not to showcase levels outside of just showing the main gimmick), i have gotten the following done after a lot of crunching:

added the last two facilities to the hub (screenshots below, but i won't quite spoil what they're used for haha~)
the devil mode time trial timer is now visible while you play
also regarding devil mode, time is no longer counted during victory animations to make achieved times more accurate. (this means that other than having to record the times for the levels that came out in the meantime, i also had to rerecord the existing devil mode times which was quite the journey and i probably should have taken more breaks)

i hope to see you all again soon with more substantial updates as i get more free time

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:51 am**

hey hey! let's see if we can keep this trend of fast updates going! i thought of so many setups i liked for the bridge level that it's not only completely done but some had to be cut to maintain reasonable length. there's also other progress all around the board and several new concepts still being played around with. i'll leave you with several out-of-context gifs to keep you company until the next update:

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 4:10 pm**

how are we doing on this fine day? due to the nature of the update, not too much happened in terms of getting levels done, however:

infinite lives as well as instant retry are finally a thing. the reason implementing the latter took so long is mainly because rooms.lua has a lot of weird quirks to it as well as edge cases that it doesn't really care to handle. fine for most levels, but those that rely on setups with several moving parts will inevitably break, so i had to spend quite a while fixing all of that in order to get the retry system into a presentable state
(i also added a neat little menu that you can turn on/off that lets you choose to return to the overworld instead :D)

showcase below (i might start previewing levels less and less, especially ones that don't show up early in the game so as to keep the element of surprise):

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2022 9:03 am**

i've updated the original post with a progress tracker which is now designated as the main way to tell how close the episode is to release. don't expect too many previews from here on out, but i will post one additional gif of a new level being worked on. until next time,

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm**

deice wrote: ↑
Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:13 am
Hi, Deice, I played The Demo levels, Maybe I need to do some Ideas and Fixes in some of the levels because there are awesome.
Bubble level:
-->The Second Star coin was frustrating to collect when the player is on the bubble trying to get above the Passthrough blocks which was here.
-->Maybe Need more checkpoints in this level, or REDUCE the length of this level.

Hands level:
-->Every Pipe warp is MISALIGNED
-->Trying to Grabbing The Grinder section in the movement was not fun to deal it.

Tutorial Stage is unbeatable?

In every level I like More Flourishes and variations, Good Luck in your progress. because I'm the first on comment on this topic

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2022 8:04 am**

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
Hi, Deice, I played The Demo levels, Maybe I need to do some Ideas and Fixes in some of the levels because there are awesome.

thank you very much for taking the time to look at the demo, i really appreciate it and i hope you enjoyed it ^^

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
Bubble level:
-->The Second Star coin was frustrating to collect when the player is on the bubble trying to get above the Passthrough blocks which was here.
-->Maybe Need more checkpoints in this level, or REDUCE the length of this level.

i agree. i've actually changed the checkpoint area around a little bit so that players don't accidentally or out of panic immediately grab the checkpoint, as if you want the star coin but get the checkpoint first, it does become very tedious to have to collect it every time. although, while it's possible to get it with just the bubble, there is the more consistent method of

Spoiler: show

i am also looking into shortening some of the setups to reduce iteration time in the second half as the ending part of the level is fairly lengthy.

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
Hands level:
-->Every Pipe warp is MISALIGNED

could you elaborate on this? i'm not able to reproduce any bugs or issues with the pipes on my end. (if you're referring to the placement of the warps/pipes, it's all intentional)

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
-->Trying to Grabbing The Grinder section in the movement was not fun to deal it.

the hand level is actually a puzzle level. there's a consistent, relatively easy to execute solution for each room and the challenge of the level is almost exclusively figuring that solution out. i can't really give a solution without ruining the point of the level other than maybe

Spoiler: show

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
Tutorial Stage is unbeatable?

the tutorial stage counts as cleared if you exit via the door on the far right end of the level. as stated there's no reward for clearing it, it just sends you back to the information house. if you're having trouble with a setup (i assume the rainbow shell one?) then i can provide a hint:

Spoiler: show

SuperAlex wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:05 pm
In every level I like More Flourishes and variations, Good Luck in your progress.

as i said previously, thank you very much for playing and providing detailed feedback. i'll continue to work hard to make the episode as fun as possible

Posted: **Sat May 21, 2022 8:09 am**

things are coming along well, i'm just stopping by to post a preview since i've reworked most of the overworld, and this one submap in particular turned out really nice i think, maybe someone will enjoy seeing it :)

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2022 8:39 am**

haven't updated the level progress counter for a hot minute, sorry about that. it's coming along fairly well though as you can see, and while i can't pinky promise, the episode will probably release within the first half of next year.

here's a preview of an early game level to keep you on your toes:

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Sat Aug 27, 2022 7:55 am**

an even hotter minute has gone by (busy times and also i'm lazy). recently i've been getting too preoccupied with getting inspiration for levels to actually finish any, haha. at this pace i'm probably going to get all the lua and custom assets done for each level before making too much progress with finishing the design for existing ones.

preview time:

Spoiler: show

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