[September 22 - October 7] Garmichael's Level Design Contest

Challenge: Exploring the Sky Ruins
Requirements: There are a minimum of two areas. The starting area must be the HSDB Grasslands tileset (Get it here), and the other area must be Dirbaio's Ruins Tileset (Your choice of this one or this one). The Ruins are in the sky, and the player must go UP to get to them somehow. The Ruins area should feel as if it is floating in the sky. At minimum, the player must be forced to go up to the ruins, then back to the ground (area 1), then back to the ruins.

Level Deadline: 11:59pm Pacific time zone Tuesday night on November 6th, 2012.
Critique Deadline: 11:59pm Pacific time zone Friday night on November 9th, 2012.

To submit your entry, just post your level file in this thread. Youtube clips are optional, but help with critiques.

Each player is required to critique each other player's levels, and must use the critique form below. It is encouraged that each player actually play these levels, preferably before watching any youtube clip of that level or look at the level in the editor.

Failure to deliver critiques by the end of the critique period will result in a 20 point penalty to your final score.

I was having some issues with Hammer Bros in the last contest we did. I had the first star coin protected by a Hammer Bro, but it acts weird.

I spent some time just now trying to crack the code, and I think I've figured it out.


When the Hammer Bro is standing on the ground, he throws hammers a bit, and then will randomly jump UP, or jump DOWN. There is only one situation where the hammer bro will never jump down, and that's if there are only two tiles between him and the bottom of the view. Also, if the block under the Hammer Bro is within the view, but is empty (meaning the camera won't pan into it), he will not jump down asuming there are only two tiles between him and the bottom of the block. I haven't tested if scroll-control sprites will factor into this.

You know what I mean?

If not, check out this image:



He will not jump down from the base level, but if you watch him, he will jump up and down randomly between the other ledges.


Here are a couple more notes:

- The distance between ledges in the image is the max distance the Hammer Bro can jump up.
- If you make the upper platform more than one tile high, there will be a bit of a glitch when he jumps down from it.

I don't understand the concept of a portable console on a computer.. by being on the computer, it's automatically not portable - and portability is the only defining quality of a portable console.

I am starting a series of video tutorials for NSMBe.

Be sure to hit the HD button to see all the details.



01 - Overview



02 - Objects and Tiles



03 - Sprites



04 - Sharing Your Level (volume is louder on this one...)

The camera doesn't pan up enough in the entire ruins area. Look how close Mario has to get to the top of the screen before it pans up. Considering there's plenty of vertical climbing with Boomerang Bros above you, this is a problem. You can avoid blind jumps by not putting them in, or adjusting the bottom camera offset. In the 80 levels that come with the game, there aren't many blind jumps because they were designed to avoid them. I don't know what else to tell you about avoiding blind jumps other than not to put them in.

And the camera jumps around specifically around the first star coin. It doesn't matter if you designed it that way because it looks bad. There was another part where the camera did that but I can't remember and I don't want to play through the level again to find it.

Typical political thread:

Uninformed person 1: I have an opinion, but let me express it as fact!
Uninformed person 2: I have an opinion that's different, but I'll express THAT as fact!
Informed person: Here is a detailed explanation of where both of you are expressing an opinion based on on an assumption, attacking straw men, boiling the issue down to an abstract and simplistic view while ignoring subtleties, attacking a person's character instead of their argument, ignoring sound arguments that contradict your belief, and literally making stuff up or believing things just because you've heard them repeated on the cable news networks and by politicians over and over.
Uninformed person 1: Stfu fag.
Uninformed person 2: lol yea u fag. Anyway, here's more opinion that's divorced from reality and shows no clear understanding of the issue!
Uninformed person 1: Oh, I almost forgot, here's an argument based on something I barely understand, but I am going to express it condescendingly and as if I'm an authority on the subject!

Here you go.

The zip has the PSD file and the font file for the font I used to make the text logo. You'll probably want to install it before opening GIMP.

Some of these logos are really, really bad.

I'm noticing that the NSMB:HD text is really pixelated. You want to find the largest possible image you can for that logo and shrink it down. Never, ever, under any circumstance, enlarge an image or distort the dimensions. That's where those pixels are coming from.

The framing also needs a lot of work in these. I can't give any tips on that, except that you have to use your artistic eye. Cropping a character takes real consideration. In the one with the Koopa, he's cut off half way through his shoes, which is super awkward. You're better off cutting him off at the waste, so you see him like a bust. Cutting off his head is also real close to the top of the border. If you want to show the whole head, give him a bit of room between the top of his head and the top of the image. In this last one with Mario on top of the forest scene with the spiders, that cut where his fist is is awkward. It would look better if the his face took up more real estate on the image, and his head is cut off right about in middle of the bill for his cap. Showing part of the M and cutting it off through that will look like he's missing something, so you want to go between that, and above his face. None of his face skin should be cut.


Really though, what's the point in changing the logo if all you're doing is copying the current logo but with different art in it?


If all you guys want is different backgrounds with different characters on them, I can whip up a bunch of them by the end of the night.

If you guys REALLY want a new logo, then.. MAKE. A. NEW. LOGO.

We should just call it Apples and Potatoes.

but as soon as you fix those bugs, NEW ones will pop up.

Yesterday, I realized that the car was broken. I went to work by taking public transportation. When the bus came, I got on it. But I saw that a homeless man was asking me for help. He wanted me to give him some money. But I did not want to because I needed my money for alcohol, pornography, and cigarettes.

It's true. This is my yearbook pic.

I'm running this contest, so this is my decision. Critiques are VERY poor this time around. There're plenty of issues where one level gets a perfect score even though it has misplaced tiles yet another level with a few misplaced tiles gets points taken off, or a level with "MAJOR CAMERA ISSUES!" loses a single point but another level with no polish issues gets multiple points off with no explanation for it.

It's OBVIOUS many of the critiques are biased towards friends.

This has never happened before, and it's a sign of very bad sportsmanship. All the complaining about critiques has gotten old, too.



So critiques are changing. Here are the new rules:

1. Choose the Top 3 levels and number them in order (1 = 1st place). You cannot include your level in the top 3.
2. Each #1 gets 3 points, each #2 gets 2 points, and each #3 gets 1 point.
3. After everyone chooses their top 3, I will total up everyone's points and list them. It's up to @Dirbaio to decide either which levels make it to the Community Remix or to come up with a way to decide. I don't care or have any authority over which levels go into the Remix, regardless of final scores.
4. I don't give a damn how you decide the top 3. By this point, it's clear it has nothing to do with the actual quality of the levels, and has everything to do with who you like best, so if you want to vote that way and sacrifice your integrity, fine, do that.


The deadline for the Top 3 is Sunday at midnight Pacific Time. Click here for a countdown timer.

Anyone who doesn't choose a top 3 by this time will be automatically disqualified.


Finally, ANY further posts in this thread that are not Top 3 critiques will be deleted.

Also, PP, damn fine work there.

I want to see some sort of Yoshi and My Little Ponies crossover.