Ragnarok X, Sporky... We Kotaku famous now! How's the stage making going everyone? Got back from a little vacation and I'm ready to start blasting out stages and playing this amazing GAF backlog. You guys make any amazing, must play levels I missed in the past two weeks?
Oh, and I finally got all the medals! Time to fight the Elite Four.
Made a stage that might be challenging (it was the hardest one for me to personally finish before uploading.) Mad half of it while watching the second Giant Bomb MM video, so there's probably some obvious (and slightly less obvious) inspiration.
The Ballad of Buzzy and Bob-omb
FF9D-0000-00B5-1FAC
So I decided that having a level called "Dungeons & Dragons" would be funny because that's what every Bowser Castle basically is. I ended up basing an entire level around the idea of starting off at a store to purchase some gear, then starting off fighting some goblins or whatever in the wilderness, have an ogre there, climb some vines (gotta have vines) while weird plant life tries to kill you, then finally enter a fortress where dragons and lizard creatures possibly related to dragons along with some undead reside.
Went for both a sense of progression both in powerups and escalating enemy presence. Also went for something.. interesting I should say, with how you navigate a large part of the level.
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Due to D&D being a copyrighted name, I am calling the level...
Oh no! Yoshi´s been captured! The evil Dr. Goomba has taken him to his Quantic Prison, a misterious place located between time and space that no one has escaped yet.
Will Mario be able to save Yoshi? Or will he also get trapped in this mindboggling prison...FoReVeR???
Fear not, the power of friendship will surely break through dimensions!
This is a puzzle level that uses the dual worlds mechanic with many elements changing between worlds:
Yellow Blocks become coins
Goombas become Mushrooms
Grinders become moving platforms
Spikes become stone blocks
One direction doors change to the opposite direction
The layout twists and warps around itself, but if you follow the sound cues you´ll be able to find the exit with no problem.
Hope you enjoy it!
Also, please give feedback on RtDL5: Bomb Battle in Sky Bridge (944B-0000-00B5-13D6), I´m planning some changes but would like some more feedback on the level before updating it . As always I offer feedback in return on any level you wish:
Mario is taking back Dinosaur Land! However, Bowser is not going to allow this to continue. He´s sent Koopa the Crazy Bomber to Sky Bridge to protect this important location from Mario. But this plan might backfire, as Koopa just wants to blow everything up! Once he finishes there may not even be a Sky Bridge to protect...
Careful mario, don´t fall in Koopa´s traps!
Cool, I was worried it was something tied to how many medals you have. Expert 100 mario challenge can be a hell of a slog though. I think normal has given me the best levels even if a few autoplays slip in from time to time.
I've been a bit busy the past few days, but I'm glad I checked the topic when I did. I had no idea my stage was going to deliver me the first place trophy, but I'm ecstatic that it did!
I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me, and everyone who participated and made this tournament a true showcase of talent. The competition was definitely tough.
Congratulations as well, BelgianDude! Excellent job.
Oh, and I almost forgot to thank you, daydream! Without you, this wouldn't even be a thing in the first place. Thanks for making this possible!
Went ahead and played through all three. Hall of Flames I think is the hardest, entirely due to the first screen, but I was still able to clear in a couple tries. Both your roommate's levels are short and simple, so despite a few tricky jumps they shouldn't be frustrating.
Your level is much closer to a "traditional" Mario level, reminiscent to me of some of the later underground levels in SMB3. I think it's pretty good, if fairly simple. Yet I managed to die on the last jump. I've become more and more leery of longer levels in Mario Maker, but yours is a good way to do it, with plenty of powerups and a greater focus on exploration rather than platforming challenge.
I think it'll be close, probably just under 50%. There's enough pits, and a set of Hammer Bros, and that's enough for a couple deaths on the average player. I helped out by clearing it my first try though.
How people tend to die was put into perspective for me when I checked my levels, and found that my "Advanced Platforming" level has a higher clear rate than my 1-1 contest submission, purely because the former has no pits, no enemies, no way to die except the timer. People WILL run into, and fall into these things, more than you would expect. The key is to make it not frustrating (in my opinion).
You've got a cute, simple level here at least, with a nice expansion on a P-Switch theme. One note, though, the last part has a bug of sorts. You do not need the final P-Switch. When you come out of the pipe, the Munchers will be gone either way. It doesn't really affect the level, but if you hadn't seen it I thought you should know.
Ooof. This is quite a ways past "a bit" challenging, right out of the gate. A blind fall into a very precise jump with a narrow window of opportunity sounds like something more out of a Panga/Kaizo level than anything else. I do see you provided the spiny to be a visual cue of when to fall (at least, I assume that's the intent) but I don't even think it's that good a cue, as I found it safer to fall a bit before it. If I saw this in 100-Mario I would skip it right after that, honestly.
If you intend this to be highly difficult, then you're okay, but there's a technical issue at the note block in the narrow vertical corridor: I can't see! You give me a P-Switch and I can't see ANYTHING in terms of what to do with it. I guess I'm supposed to throw it and bounce off it? But I can't tell because the screen doesn't scroll high enough. This has to be changed if you have any hope of someone completing your level.
I actually like the style of difficulty you are going for here, but you need to give the player a bit more of a chance to succeed, or they'll just end up frustrated and move on. And be very wary of how the camera behaves, remembering that people don't know what the next section of the level looks like, while you do.
EDIT: Because I was curious, I downloaded the level. And then I saw what I was supposed to do with the P-Switch. I'll chalk that up to the need to be very observant, but I still feel it's going to put a lot of people off right out of the gate. Then they're going to find more deviousness. As far as finding the way out to the Bowsers, I don't think many people will find that before giving up. (Spoilers in case others want to try)
I think the block with the vine should be moved a few blocks up, so I'm more likely to hit it standing on the visible block. That way it feels more like a natural "secret" similar to paths like that in actual Mario games. As it stands I don't know if I ever would have found it without opening the level in the editor. Combine that with the spring trap and most people will give up before they ever find it.
I think it'll be close, probably just under 50%. There's enough pits, and a set of Hammer Bros, and that's enough for a couple deaths on the average player. I helped out by clearing it my first try though.
How people tend to die was put into perspective for me when I checked my levels, and found that my "Advanced Platforming" level has a higher clear rate than my 1-1 contest submission, purely because the former has no pits, no enemies, no way to die except the timer. People WILL run into, and fall into these things, more than you would expect. The key is to make it not frustrating (in my opinion).
You've got a cute, simple level here at least, with a nice expansion on a P-Switch theme. One note, though, the last part has a bug of sorts. You do not need the final P-Switch. When you come out of the pipe, the Munchers will be gone either way. It doesn't really affect the level, but if you hadn't seen it I thought you should know.
Thank you for your feedback! I play tested this thing ten times and I didn't notice this oversight until you pointed it out. It's been fixed. Please try out the refined version when you have a chance. Thanks.
Ooof. This is quite a ways past "a bit" challenging, right out of the gate. A blind fall into a very precise jump with a narrow window of opportunity sounds like something more out of a Panga/Kaizo level than anything else. I do see you provided the spiny to be a visual cue of when to fall (at least, I assume that's the intent) but I don't even think it's that good a cue, as I found it safer to fall a bit before it. If I saw this in 100-Mario I would skip it right after that, honestly.
If you intend this to be highly difficult, then you're okay, but there's a technical issue at the note block in the narrow vertical corridor: I can't see! You give me a P-Switch and I can't see ANYTHING in terms of what to do with it. I guess I'm supposed to throw it and bounce off it? But I can't tell because the screen doesn't scroll high enough. This has to be changed if you have any hope of someone completing your level.
I actually like the style of difficulty you are going for here, but you need to give the player a bit more of a chance to succeed, or they'll just end up frustrated and move on. And be very wary of how the camera behaves, remembering that people don't know what the next section of the level looks like, while you do.
I understand your problem with blind fails, but personally I don't mind a bit of trial and error right at the start. After dropping down two or three times you really should look around and notice the kooper. You're right, as someone building the level you'll have a different approach to those jumps, but I thought the kooper dropping down was on point. I'll look at it again.
There are coins right below the platform you land on. I'll wall off the area above the P block so you don't try to go there.
I think somebody accidentally made a good way to have a simple compact password system in their attempt to make a troll level. Basically Mario starts out stuck inside tile boundaries and anytime he jumps he either gets stuck inside a hole, or hits a hidden block and is able to keep moving in-bounds. They started calling out numbers that make up the correct pattern and I started to think, "Wait. Isn't that like a password?"
The second part of the article is about boss battles, since mine has some nice ones, and they also talk about B-Bech's awesome boss rush course (sorry about breaking that ).
I was wondering why my number of plays suddenly quadrupled in just 2 days (granted I only had about 50 before that), and it was probably all thanks to the article. I'm glad people liked it.
Inkvisible Avenues - 0363-0000-009E-B0CE.
Congrats to RagnarokX and B-Bech for getting featured! Seems like a lot of GAF levels are getting good ratings
Been busy so haven't been playing, but I'll start reviewing levels again once the weekend comes
I've been trying and failing to design a level that utilised a glitch in a user friendly way, that also didn't render the level unbeatable or boring if it got patched.
This is hard.
But today I finally stumbled upon a different direction I felt was interesting, another fun way to use enemy behavior and what I feel is an original take on the Air-Ship theme. I was feeling pretty good about how things were coming along.
Then minutes ago I played Jarosh's latest two levels, including how he's brilliantly used the Air-Ship theme for Hard Hat Area and damn if I don't think my baby is a little uglier than I did 10 minutes ago.
Thank you! I'd become very critical about Break the Bank in retrospect, but you've pointed out some things I'd forgotten I'd even tried to do in all my focus on what I'd wished I'd done.
Congrats to Kebiinu and our runner up BelgianDude.
I'm late to this but I needed to reignite my creative spark so I've been absent from the thread as of late.
Alright, I was just doing a 100-Mario Challenge today, nothing special. That is, until I came across a level which had a single pipe in the beginning. Of course, first thing you do is enter the pipe. Well, this is where the pipe took me.
Mario didn't go back in the pipe. For some reason I couldn't skip by either holding the - button or swiping the screen, so the only thing I could really do was quit te game, meaning I need to start over my 100-Mario challenge. The timer also stopped counting AFAIK. I didn't check it at the time, but looking at the screenshot, I've definitely been there longer than 5 seconds. I haven't seen this before so I figured I'd post this here. I'm not sure how you could prevent this, but I at least wanted to let you guys know.
Something I like about just making a standard platforming stage with a noticeable trend/gimmick.
And somehow this game continues to compel me to make autoscrolling stages.
Is there a way to make winged enemies fly sideways without putting them on a track? I want them to fly towards a platform so you have to use them to get to the next platform, but I'd rather the little track not be visible.
Is there a way to make winged enemies fly sideways without putting them on a track? I want them to fly towards a platform so you have to use them to get to the next platform, but I'd rather the little track not be visible.
Unfortunately you're kind of stuck here, the winged enemies that go horizontally like buzzy beetles and bob-ombs are set going their one way (so when dropped in the maker it's always towards the player)
Using a Bill Tower can have them fire out the opposite direction but once again they only go the one way.
And pipes to of course keep pumping them out if they're necessary to get past a gap when coming towards the player.
It's odd that there's no way to make winged red koopas move left and right as opposed to just up and down.
Ultimately though I'm not entirely sure of your scenario so this is the only info I can think of that may have any use.
Is there a way to make winged enemies fly sideways without putting them on a track? I want them to fly towards a platform so you have to use them to get to the next platform, but I'd rather the little track not be visible.
Unfortunately you're kind of stuck here, the winged enemies that go horizontally like buzzy beetles and bob-ombs are set going their one way (so when dropped in the maker it's always towards the player)
Using a Bill Tower can have them fire out the opposite direction but once again they only go the one way.
And pipes to of course keep pumping them out if they're necessary to get past a gap when coming towards the player.
It's odd that there's no way to make winged red koopas move left and right as opposed to just up and down.
Ultimately though I'm not entirely sure of your scenario so this is the only info I can think of that may have any use.
I might be misremembering things, but the first part of the underwater section feels too difficult now, I don´t remember it being so hard. I love the final Wigglers setup underwater.
Beat it first try, no more dying at the Z platform! Minor changes, the level looks nicer now with the rounded letters. Fun, intense and challenging, I wouldn´t change anything.
I think you should add a one way upwards door in the place where the player has to dismount the Clown Car, I stupidly missed that jump in 2 different attempts and if you do so you´re screwed as the Clow Car will despawn. That way if the player fails the jump he will land on the platform and can make it. That, or make the dismounting zone bigger, it´s easy for the Clown Car to touch a wall and move a bit to screw your jump. Also, as the Clown Car hasn´t appeared in the level up until this point you should assume that the player has no practice whatsoever with it (specially with dismounting it, which is something few levels require). So: make the landing zone easier and avoid all ways in which the player could mess up there.
I don't understand how you struggle jumping off the Clown Car, you just have to jump right? The Clown Car doesn't despawn either, only when you go too far apparently.
I would also remove some of the yellow blocks in the part where you have to destroy them to get to the Spiky Helmet, it´s time consuming and that repetition really doesn´t add much to the level. What´s worse, as you´re spinning you´ll surely hit a block with the cape, so you´ll ahve to wait for it to stop spinning to break it. Just reduce it to one or two columns of blocks that can be destroyed easily with a single Spin Jump and some rebounds: you´ll achieve the same thing but make it less repetitive.
Apart from these 2 little things, it´s still the best cape tutorial level.
This is a puzzle level that uses the dual worlds mechanic with many elements changing between worlds:
Yellow Blocks become coins
Goombas become Mushrooms
Grinders become moving platforms
Spikes become stone blocks
One direction doors change to the opposite direction
The layout twists and warps around itself, but if you follow the sound cues you´ll be able to find the exit with no problem.
Hope you enjoy it!
Also, please give feedback on RtDL5: Bomb Battle in Sky Bridge (944B-0000-00B5-13D6), I´m planning some changes but would like some more feedback on the level before updating it . As always I offer feedback in return on any level you wish:
As I commented the level, it was a good course, I liked the mechanics and puzzles, however I feel like the first section is easier than the second section, but that might be because I was better at catching the puzzles.
If you're afraid of water, you'll hate this course. I even managed to include some Lakitu action, which I normally shy away from since the cloud can be exploited.
