Been nearly 3000 posts since last time I posted on this forum (July 2007, just before Team Fortress 2 even... which been my obsession for a good part of the last decade now), good time to at least start again as I'd love my levels to get some more eyes on and feedback.

Tall obstacles! (1C40-0000-0017-1E91)
My first level, made with just the basic tools. I didn't feel the need to rush for the other tools just yet. I worried about making this level too easy, and winded up making it too hard apparently with a really tricky jump at the start with a unfairly placed piranha plant, so I apologize for that. It's a level I might wind up deleting if I run out of upload slots, but I be happy if you give it a try even if it's rather short.

Mow down the piranha plants! (E8D6-0000-0019-2160)
A short level with a small puzzle element where you have to clear out a row of piranha plants to continue. I made a small mistake though, so it's a bit easier than I intended if you figure out my mistake.

Hazardous waters (5EC0-0000-003B-6F24)
This one I spent the longest time on, I worked on it over the past few days now and then (just a few stray minutes here and then, not long hours :p ) and easily doubled it's length from it's early incarnations but mostly to space out things rather than having one obstacle crowded to another obstacle, which would just had made the level more intense and less fun to play I suspect. It should be bit of a tricky level, but I hope it's fair!

I be sure to go through everyone's levels, I'll star the ones that I like of course. I do wish the game would automatically autofollow people in miiverse within Mario Maker as well, that is my currently biggest annoyance with the game... but ah well.

Admittedly I don't mind that the game unlocks things over time as I like to work with I have rather than put everything possible right away into my levels (that said, I do wish the sublevel would be unlocked way earlier...).

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Flying onto the airship (32EA-0000-0040-CC44)
Judging by player feedback, people find this one hard. It starts with some tricky flying, you need to be comfortable with using the SMW cape to even pass the first part. Xkeeper did pass this level on his stream though without too many tries, so I know it shouldn't be too unfair. Second half of the level shouldn't give most players trouble, I might have used a quite few cannons near the end but it should be beatable on first try if you aren't rushing through it.

Kamek's castle (739F-0000-0042-8410)
Level ends and starts with Kamek/Magikoopa (this game refers to them as Kamek, so that is what i went with for level name). I worked around the fact that I didn't have subarea yet when I worked on this level, and I unlocked the subarea just as I was about to be done (all that filling in blocks triggered a early delivery). Oh well, I think it looks neater with the player using doors than pipes. The level requires some patience, and if a Kamek makes the end level hammer disappear... kill said Kamek and it comes back.

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Originally posted by Dorito

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Airship's not bad--that initial flight takes a bit of getting a hang for (maybe coins as a subtle indicator to when to let go of the A button?), but it's not too tough at all. I actually died at a completely odd spot (which was my own fault!)

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The level was at 4% completion rate for awhile haha. It's now at 7%, probably due to that people who bother playing in expert might not have problems playing this kinda level. It seems like if people know the cape flying mechanics somewhat well, they usually have no problems after a try or two but if not it's near impossible for them.

Originally posted by Dorito

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That Magikoopa level wasn't bad at all! Getting through the second turn block wall can be a bit rough without a shell, but it's easily doable.

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Orginally that was a hard block wall. I decided to make it a turn block wall as there is a bit of RNG with Magikoopas with what they turn the blocks into, including firebars! But it seems random enough to not turn the whole wall into firebars, infact if someone manages to get softlocked due to poor luck... let me know! The turn block walls make it a bit easier to reach the axe in various ways.

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Bowser Junior's armada (0FC5-0000-004B-3367)
Supposed to be a average difficulty level, kinda tried to aim for something that would be passable as a early airship level in a official SMB3 game. Hope the completion rate isn't going too low. Mario veterans shouldn't have any problems with this level, it's a slow autoscroller so take your time with every obstacle.

I also think that under 50% completion rate is normal difficulty, over 50% is easy and under 10% is rated expert. Curious if anyone managed to find out if those are the right numbers or not.

Edit: Turns out I was about right, but there is a little randomness of how high completion rate level necessary for a certain difficulty, so you can still see easy and hard levels on normal. So looks like most of my harder levels are still seen by a few normal difficulty players (only one is below 10% right now).

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Note that my levels I usually think of how the average player approaches them, which is why they're sometimes a bit on the easy side. I don't design my levels for people who have played a lot of ROM hacks but more for people who are playing Mario Maker. It's why I avoid putting in thousands of enemy sprites on water levels even though a good mario player would know how to avoid those, and why hazardous water have so many fire flowers... for average players the level is harder than most SMB1 water levels.

I mean some of the levels you complain about being too easy have a completion rate as low as 5-10%, while still having stars from people who seemed to enjoy and beat it. You need to get into the boots of someone who maybe have played the vanilla mario games a few times before but never ever touched a rom hack.

And yes, I usually playtest my levels as small mario so if you wonder if something is beatable with small mario, it is. If you can't pass a certain part without a powerup i make sure that one respawns at least.

The first two levels I'm not particular proud over, easy applications was me trying to make a easy level (which still have a completion rate of 20%, probably cause of tricky jumps). Flying onto the airship is where I do the philosophy of that after a tricky obstacle I make the level somewhat easier to defeat, if there was a midpoint feature I would probably be more daring. Keep in mind, people have a LOT of trouble with the cape gliding here. It's why it's so easy after you done the cape gliding, I didn't want to unnecessarily frustrate people further and I already had people whine about getting stuck here.

Messages are usually added afterwards, and occasionally in locations out of the way sometimes so players don't feel like they're being handhold. I'm not great at drawing so text messages it is unfortunatly.

You probably noticed which levels I spent more time balancing, some I cranked out in two hours other was done in splurts over days. Admittedly I usually submit my levels when I'm tired of adjusting them around, which is why they vary in quality a lot (I just plan to delete the ones with least stars when I run out of upload slots).

Originally posted by Delpolo

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Also why do you swim faster when Yoshi eats something underwater!? That's weird!

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Probably them trying to make it more coherent with NSMB, it's kinda weird. I miss that red shells makes Yoshi breathe fire, probably why they made Yoshi instead be able to eat fire (well it's partly consistent with yoshi island at least).

I do wish the game had like recorded sessions of people playing, watching XK play some of my levels gave me way more feedback than just text.

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I noticed that people tend to call something overrated cause there is something similarish they like better. It's annoying, especially when it comes down to personal taste a lot of the time.

Aka where all those annoying LTTP vs OOT arguments come from.

And my controversial opinion is that a lot comes down to personal taste. Sometimes the simplicity of older games can be good in itself too. The main thing I find that makes a game dated is controls like Goldeneye (but then again gamepad FPS controls are basically unplayable for me even on modern consoles).

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Undertale gives more of a earthbound than homestuck vibe to me. Probably cause the creator actually made a earthbound hack too!

...that said, the fanbase is a little too happy giving away what I consider spoilers. :/ That part is really annoying.

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Most games that have a pacifistic route tend to let it be more rewarding, or at least the moral route.

Deus Ex human revolution gives you more exp for merely knocking out people than killing them, it's way more rewarding longterm to save the girls in Bioshock than harvesting their slugs etc. I guess Undertale might just be the most blatant about it, but it's not really something new and is almost bit of a trope with games that have a more moral route possible. It usually dosen't bother me, even though in Deus Ex Human revolution have a huge arsenal of guns I never get to use due to that haha.

Spoilers only sometimes ruin a little, they admittedly don't show the whole picture, the famous Harry potter

snape kills dumbledore

spoiler didn't really tell much about the why and the circumstances for example.

Honestly, the only thing I want to critique Undertale for is the 30 FPS limit, and I mainly only notice that while walking around ingame (all Mother games and most 2D RPG's are in full 60 fps). And even then I'm just being overly nitpicky to poke on that. It wouldn't make a diffrence for battle screens and such too anyway and it dosen't turn the game unplayable unlike what some dumb people seem to think.

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Originally posted by Xkeeper

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Gaining and losing weight is generally a matter of eating more or less calories than your "daily goal". Certain body conditions can always mess this up, though, but in general that's how it works.

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Yep. The main reason certain diets works is more cause it forces people to think about how much they're eating, than necessarily helping in other ways.

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Originally posted by Girlydragon

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I'm slowly working on a genocide run, but dunno if I will complete because dear lord I am near the end and I am having quite a bad time.

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I looked at some gameplay footage of a genocide run cause I wouldn't have the heart to do it myself (if I ever do out of completeness, I know I will feel really bad about it), the game give you so many chances for redemption

you need technically to beat the game on the neutral route first time anyway (though if you killed someone you need to reset from the beginning rather than to continue just before the end), the game got a lot of several neutral minor endings too. I can see if some people are bothered by the game marking you for having done a genocide run, but you need to literally be doing it on purpose by killing absolutely everything. Casually killing monsters is not enough.

Usually a name like Genocide run would bother me, but it's basically is suitable for what you're doing in a such run this time (geno means race/tribe).

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I did a genocide run.

Resetted right after defeating Sans, the game gives a really good job at making you feel terrible... even some of Sans dialogue. Although I admit I laughed when I got "dunked".

Winded up doing a second pacifist run to see how the game reacts to my past actions

I had a true reset right away after my first pacifist run so I didn't get to see any of the deja vu moments of the game.

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Originally posted by Garr

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This is a bit old by now, but I'm still just gonna throw this in here. No spoilers, but you might wanna be careful of the youtube comments/recommended vids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdA_axFJZSg

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It's funny as using a Leitmotif this much isn't too uncommon for a game or movie (see a game like Yoshi Story which reuses the same short melody in various ways A LOT), but Undertale manages to at least mix it up in various creative ways.

The way the game uses sampling works really well to invoke emotions as well. The songs that samples Earthbound probably gave chills to Earthbound fans in particular.

I like both the ghost fight theme, which remixes the "Cafe" in earthbound with singing samples from the same game, and the True lab songs which are basically one big trigger of memories for earthbound fans regarding giygas (the amalgates orginates from Toby Fox's earthbound hack!). The theme that plays after you fought the final boss and can walk around freely in the world before the credits is using Chrono Trigger samples.

While I'm at it, in Genocide the ! for battle encounters is replaced by a smiley face. It resembles this thing a ton. In true lab it also appears in some encounters, probably to spook those who have done genocide run before. It also appears as a circular blob with a smiley face at one point like in SMB2 in the true lab just before the Endogeny encounter, but it's not pixel to pixel accurate so it might be a coincidence after all.

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Been experimenting with making autoscrolling levels lately (as unfun people tend to see them), although I only uploaded one. I admit I find them fun as long they scroll fast (I hate the world 8 autoscrolling levels in SMB3 cause how slow they are).


0777-0000-01C7-4974


It's probably a bit too easy again, but when you're combining elements people find unfun I admit I tend to err on the side of making it easy.

Also turns out that people really like the Yoshi level I make awhile back, although I'm not sure whenever that's due to it being a good level or due to me encouraging people to comment if they find a (not so hidden) secret.

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It's intresting cause you can tell there is still bit of a legacy of what you're speaking on that can be seen (or was seen, most communities are dead now) on spinoff communities such as Kafuka board. Such a shame that communities died in favor of big mega centered ones like redddit and social networks. :/ I kinda regret not being active on JUL earlier, I was staying away cause the Board 2 drama hurt me on a personal level but now the drama seems so stupid. Then later on I created a TF2 server community TFP which is still around, and some of the Acmlm board experience proved useful in terms of handling drama and whatnot. As well that the furry fandom is very LBTQ friendly (for the most part).

Originally posted by Xkeeper

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3. General strictness towards personal attacks
This one is a little shaker because it is relying entirely on my memory, but for the most part the community wasn't tolerant of ... intolerance; disagreeing opinions were seen as okay, but attacking anyone or any group of people was generally verboten. This meant that people had a wider range of being able to be "open" without being attacked for who they were (or weren't) — while this policy didn't always work, it was at least present. The old forum Officer's Club was available as a sort of "serious space" where any sort of personal attacking was met with punishment, allowing people to open up and air their thoughts without risk of being attacked for them.

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Unfortunately this is probably the only part i only sorta agree with, mostly that while officers club was a nice safe space (saying this is as a good thing, it's a support forum), personal attacks was usually overlooked especially if it was towards "stupid people". And while some people were lazy and refused to google, it was... a little bit too elitistic and rude how people acted. This is something that was bit of a normal on older communities, especially from usenet and all that but I don't really consider it a good thing. I was on the receiving end of it a bit during my early years, as my English wasn't the best and got heavily flamed as one of my first threads on the Acmlm board forum was about the mew glitch in R/B/Y.

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