144 replies to this topic

[Hana-Nezumi]

Thank you!!

Also GUYS I JUST MADE THE MOST AMAZING DISCOVERY IN EDIT MODE!

Spoiler

The warbled noises you hear in tune to the music when you place down or move any object are actually SAYING THE NAME OF THAT OBJECT! Some are harder to make out than others but it's definitely true!

[SteveT]

New one!  This is more puzzly than I've been making (Ghost House, of course).  It would be a good candidate for a video, since I think it will be enlightening to see how someone else plays it.

 

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Edited by SteveT, 03 October 2015 - 09:46 AM.

[Hana-Nezumi]

New course! I tried to make a fast-paced one this time!


30 Second Warm-Up
81C5-0000-0086-371B

[Masamune]

Wiggler's Watery Workout

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Just a tip for this one - make sure you carry the spring with you. This is my first underwater level, which works out as a little bit of a chase. I'll have to see what I can come up with for my next water level.

 

Here's Steve's level! A nice level, though that trick door at the end is mean! Especially since you could end up wasting the Bob-Omb at the end as well. The only other thing I can say about is that the bob-omb at the end could be potentially be wasted and you'd be stuck and unable to win, so something to think about. Otherwise I liked it.

 

I tried both of your recent levels, Hana. Very nice ones. The Yoshi one had some nice backtracking and puzzle solving in it. There were a few moments where I had to think about what to do. As for the 30 Second Warm-Up, that was a nice speedrun level that did a good enough job leading you that although I had some close calls, I was able to beat it one go while not necessarily considering it 'easy'. 

[Toan]

So, I visited a friend's house who has a WiiU and this game, and they encouraged me to try my hand at making a level.

 

It's nothing amazing, but they sure seemed to like it, so I'll share here.

 

F907-0000-007E-07FC

 

They said the completion rate right now is like... 2/38 or something, so let's get that number higher.

[SteveT]

Here's Steve's level! A nice level, though that trick door at the end is mean! Especially since you could end up wasting the Bob-Omb at the end as well. The only other thing I can say about is that the bob-omb at the end could be potentially be wasted and you'd be stuck and unable to win, so something to think about. Otherwise I liked it.

 

The door isn't 100% mean.  I was under the understanding that enemies respawn when you use doors, so that's how you get the Bob-omb back if you waste it.  If that's not the case, I have to change things around a little.

 

Edit: I am 30 seconds in and can already tell I need to make changes.  A Bob-bomb in a visible block?  You didn't hit the other invisible blocks.  Everything is broken.

 

Edit 2: Unbroken version.  I also moved that door to make it more forgiving.  DE21-0000-0089-8F1D

Edited by SteveT, 03 October 2015 - 06:21 PM.

[Masamune]

I actually meant the Bob-Omb at the start of the stage, since it's in a block it won't respawn. 

Also guys, check this out: https://www.reddit.c...checkpoints_to/

 

I played a stage that uses this system. It's stupidly complex, but it's a very interesting concept. I don't know that I'll be using it myself, but it's nice to know you can build 'machines' like that for different purposes. 

 

EDIT: Toan, I can say with full and absolute confidence that you are everything that is wrong with this game. :|

Edited by Masamune, 03 October 2015 - 06:57 PM.

[SteveT]

I actually meant the Bob-Omb at the start of the stage, since it's in a block it won't respawn. 

 

If that's what you think, then the first section of the stage isn't doing its job at all.

 

That password thing looks crazygonuts.  I'll have to spend some time understanding the mechanics.  

[Toan]

EDIT: Toan, I can say with full and absolute confidence that you are everything that is wrong with this game. :|

 

Aw. Why's that? It's a simple gimmick...

[SteveT]

Masa speaks truth.  No further questions.

[Toan]

So much for trying to participate in a community.

 

See ya.

[SteveT]

Ok, switching to constructive criticism mode.

 

The level severely restricts mobility.  Not only that, but it restricts your control over Mario's movements.  So direction of motion itself takes on a random element.  Meanwhile, the magikoopas are another random element.  They pop around and shoot their spells as dictated by the RNG.  Plus, they block transformations are yet another random element.  And finally, if you lose your feather, you have to sit there and wait to die or start over.

 

So

 

1.  You can't control your own movement

2.  Unpredictable things are happening

3.  You lose without dying

 

I think the idea of navigating through the blocks with the cape like that is a good one and can be made more fun.  You're essentially making Mario Plinko.  And you kind of have that with the multi-path concept.  The magikoopas are my biggest problem, because it's just not fun to get hit by something you never had an opportunity to avoid.

 

So take the Mario Plinko concept, reduce the level of danger, and add doors or something at the end of wrong paths, and you could have a level that feels more fair gets more completions.

[Masamune]

 

EDIT: Toan, I can say with full and absolute confidence that you are everything that is wrong with this game. :|

 

Aw. Why's that? It's a simple gimmick...

 

 

If you sit down with Mario Maker and sit down with Expert Mode, you'll quickly realize why. But basically to lay it out:

 

• Easily unbeatable. If you lose your feather early on, you are basically put into an unbeatable scenario. This is very easy to happen given the amount of Magikoopas there are. A few times all I could do was spin down to the bottom until I died in the lava.
• Troll deaths. Me going in there and playing it and getting trolled is not a big deal. But if I was to encounter this in 100 Mario mode, I'd be extremely frustrated. As a one off level, this is amusing. But there's actually tons of stuff like this out there. Nobody likes it when an invisible block kills them.
• No real indication of where you should actually be going. There's four different routes you can start out with, but all of them lead to death except one. Worse yet, the bottom route can easily lead you to just being stuck and having to start over by suicide. 

 

The actual idea of spinning through all those blocks is a fun one. It's just way too lethal and trollish to really be fun to play (though I'm sure it was fun to make). It can be fun to subject your friends to play something like this, but I just know it would be really annoying to encounter a level like this in the wild. 

 

EDIT: Dammit Steve, you speedy bastard.

Edited by Masamune, 03 October 2015 - 09:18 PM.

[Toan]

Points taken. It's not my game - I had no idea there's Expert Mode, 100 Mario Mode, etc. I'll ask my friends to unpublish/delete it.

 

So neither of you tried jumping to the top, going to the right, and spin-jumping your way down to the passage you wanted to take? You tend to kill a lot of Magikoopas along the way. And, yeah, the top two passages are trollish, but doable. Ah well.

 

In my meek defense, Bowser wasn't my idea, though.

[Masamune]

I actually did make it to the top, but I admit I didn't even think to spin jump down to the passages from there. That does make a pretty direct route to the end. 

 

Is there a way to get past the section in the pipe?

[Toan]

I actually did make it to the top, but I admit I didn't even think to spin jump down to the passages from there. That does make a pretty direct route to the end. 

 

Is there a way to get past the section in the pipe?

 

I didn't have time to flesh it out. I wasn't familiar with the tools at all, and I had hoped to make it a pipe back to the beginning, but I couldn't figure out how to not make it go to a second area instead of looping back to the front. I ultimately dead-ended it with another troll death. :/ In retrospect I should have made it pipe out to the "staging" area before Bowser. Then it wouldn't matter which passage you go down (out of the top 3), but there would be a clearly favorable one.

 

I got the "plinko" idea from Super Mario World's Star World 1 stage:

 

 

I'd like some more time in front of the game to see what fun I can come up with, though. 

[Masamune]

If you do get a chance to redo it again, you actually can set up pipes like that - you just have to stack them and depending on which one is top, then that will be the one that Mario goes through so that you can have two pipes go to one pipe, but that pipe only goes to one of those. 

 

Definitely try it some more. It's fun and I feel like it's taught me a lot about level design.

[SteveT]

I happened into the victory path the first time I got that far, so I guess I didn't see all the material.  I definitely saw the influence of Star 1.

 

And to the greater conversation about Super Mario Masochist level design, everyone's first reaction to this game is to go mad with power and try to make their friends cry.  You see it in everyone's early levels, and some never give up on that dream.  Masa and I are no exception.  The only question is how it manifests.

 

The thing is, as Masa alluded to, 100 Mario is the main discovery mode.  You're given 100 lives to beat 16 courses of a selected difficulty (Expert being the hardest).  Right now, 100 Mario Expert is full of trolls and clearing it is basically a pipe dream.  So there's a bit of backlash against levels like this one.

[SteveT]

On the topic of learning about level design, thoughts on the revised Spooky Patterns?  I tried to train the player on how to find invisible blocks.  That's key to the whole thing.  If I failed at that, then the level sucks and should be reworked.

I'm probably taking that question to reddit just to widen the pool.

Edited by SteveT, 03 October 2015 - 10:05 PM.

[Masamune]

I don't think there's nothing necessarily wrong with not immediately finding the invisible boxes. But I know from seeing other levels that a good way to lead players to them is not to necessarily have coins leading to them by pattern, but to just have a coin right beneath them so that they'll be activated just by going for the coin itself. 

With that in mind, maybe think about using something like that on the first section to make it so players will know that every single segment will have an invisible block, then you won't need to lead them as much the second time around.

 

What did you think about my level? I got inspired for my own ghost house level, but it's pretty time consuming to make since I'm playing around with alternating between nearly identical worlds.

[Hana-Nezumi]

I made another course! This time I wanted to make one where you play as Kicks from Animal Crossing!


A Shoe Salesman's Daydream
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[SteveT]

I don't think there's nothing necessarily wrong with not immediately finding the invisible boxes. But I know from seeing other levels that a good way to lead players to them is not to necessarily have coins leading to them by pattern, but to just have a coin right beneath them so that they'll be activated just by going for the coin itself. 

With that in mind, maybe think about using something like that on the first section to make it so players will know that every single segment will have an invisible block, then you won't need to lead them as much the second time around.

 

Part of the goal for this one was experimenting with methods to teach the player to look for things, in a similar style to what the official games do.  Here's what I was hoping would happen.

 

The first section had 3 coins followed by a ?-block (you are introduced to the sequence).  Then there is a section where you are forced to hit an invisible block (you are told that there are hidden blocks to find).  Both elements repeat, and the player sees 3 coins without a block.  That keeps repeating until there's no where left to go, and there's one more sequence of 3 coins and a ?-block.  I like to think players will put it together that there are hidden blocks.

 

If they make it to the second section, they should be looking for a block every time they see the sequence.

 

What did you think about my level?

 

I like it.  I have very little patience for water levels, and always skip them in 100 Mario.  But I forgot how much better they are with the held item mechanic.  You can actually control your own motion and navigate the water!  It's glorious.

[Masamune]

I'm pretty proud of this one. The easy way to win is through an alternating path between the normal house and mirror house, but it's actually possible to go through directly either direction and win. You basically get to choose between an easy path or a very hard path.

[SteveT]

That was a really well-executed concept. I played through both paths, and loved seeing how not just the layout, but the enemies were mirrored in spots.

 

Two comments.

 

1.  I had zero ability to get through the section with the munchers and donuts.

2.  It would have been nice if you included arrows periodically to keep the player from getting disoriented if they're bouncing between maps.

[Masamune]

Arrows would've had to be done with coins unfortunately, which I didn't want to ruin the aesthetic.Unfortunately the arrow signs you can put in don't appear on top of background blocks.

The munchers are tough, but doable! I was gonna record a hard mode version, but I was having issues with my capture program. But to do it, you need to stand between both donuts and let them sink. Once they start to fall, run and jump. It's tough timing, but it can be done! But only as small Mario. (The hammer bros is way worse imo.)

Edited by Masamune, 04 October 2015 - 09:54 PM.

[SteveT]

I found that the Hammer Bro timing is easier than I thought.  When he jumps, he's not throwing hammers, so that's the opening.

[SteveT]

I didn't post about it here, but I did an experiment with The Floor Is Lava.  I made a remix version where all the donut blocks are replaced by clouds.  The clear rate is much higher, which supports my hypothesis that donut blocks scare people into making more mistakes.

[Masamune]

Yeah I actually played that version. I don't know that it made much of a difference for me, but I had already mastered the timing from my previous playthrough of it. But you're probably right in that donut blocks provide a certain level of apprehension when dealing with them.

 

In the meantime, I'm remastering Cave of Ordeals. The mid-boss is a third version of my giant bob-omb robot thing because I can't do anything original. God this game is so time consuming.

[SteveT]

God this game is so time consuming.

 

I was expecting this to be a 10 hour diversion.  But no, I have to check twice a day to see how my levels are doing, and it's dumb to open the game just for that, so I may as well play a few stages.  And oh, I just thought of an interesting idea.  To the level editor!

[Masamune]

Here's my Cave of Ordeals remix. Honestly it's barely even the same level anymore:

 

FF42-0000-0094-24BF

 

EDIT: edited the stage to remove an extra pipe that led to nowhere and added a secret to skip one of the harder sections. 

Edited by Masamune, 07 October 2015 - 10:20 AM.