sgjackson

My second Mario Maker level - Wigglin’ Chomps. Wanted to make a level that should be playing Athletic Theme from SMW, noticed you could do cool stuff with Wigglers on tracks, decided to roll with it. The chomps are there for some flavor but I think they actually detract from the level a little bit because they’re super unpredictable.

The way you can get 3 extra lives in this stage is fucking rad and I’m glad I came up with it. I hope it’s obvious enough people pull it off on the fly. Anyway, here’s the code: 5EA4-0000-009E-DD0E

In general these feel like collections of setpieces that don't really flow or make sense together. You come up with a cool idea, then rather than iterating on it or coming up with twists on it, you go directly to the next idea. In general my design philosophy is to come up with a handful of ideas, and then come up with ways to twist and combine them to make the level's challenge escalate naturally. That said, taken individually, each setpiece is well-constructed, and if expanded upon you could have quite the collection of cool levels.

In particular, I was disappointed when this happened in 1-4 - the idea with the sort of slower, puzzle-ish level with the helmet and the Thwomps navigating through ghosts is really cool and is solid enough to be the main idea for a level, but you dump it quickly in order to go to bone platforms and walljumps, which are a lot more rote.

@doskias said:

Thanks! This is the second iteration of the level - I got some feedback on the first about the blind Thwomps and a lack of coins and decided to kill two birds with one stone. Glad you enjoyed it. :)

I went ahead and played the rest of the levels you brought up also.

Striving for Legitimacy - I think if you were going for a classic-styled Mario level it's a little too cluttered. The beginning feels a lot like a Pipe World Mario 3 level, but after that it turns into something a little more akin to a classic underground level. I'm not super fond of the flying items, as I feel like there's probably a more natural way to lead you toward them.

With a lot of the levels I've played, I've noticed that people seem to have multiple ideas that could be fleshed out into their own levels and that they kinda go a little too crazy placing objects. This level falls into both of those traps - the first section could be pared down into a neat Mario 3-ish World 7 type level, and the second half is some minor adjustment away from a solid cave level.

Simple Challenge 2.0 - Was expecting a themed level about bouncing off of Koopas on one brick wide areas (which would be pretty cool for a short level) based on the beginning, but then it turns into a Lakitu themed dash to the end? Kind of a swing in style. The first idea is cool - flesh it out!

Conquer the Captain! - I really like this concept, and wished it was longer. Using cleverly placed hidden blocks to make challenges easier (especially if you come up with a way to indicate they exist in a way that isn't patronizing) is really cool. Build on the idea - you've got room for at least another two areas that could build on the idea (especially if you replace the Star and Bowser at the end, which is a trick I'm not super fond of. Everyone's doing it cause it's kind of a Mario power fantasy, but it's lost its effectiveness). This level feels more reserved than the last two from a design standpoint, which in my mind is a plus.

Infiltrate the Airship Dockyard - This is the best level of yours I've played so far, very solid classic Airship level. You used the star/Bowser trick again and it needs another theme/idea to flesh out the middle a bit, but you could mold this into something pretty great pretty quickly.

Here's the first level I've made that I'm happy with - Sea of Charon. It's a fairly challenging castle level designed around riding bone platforms under thwomps. You can find it here: BE40-0000-009C-D171

Hurry Up and Wait: I still haven't decided if I like the idea of trial and error design like the first area, but for one of those it's not bad. The water area is decent, and the last area (where I assume we're supposed to switch from Wait to Hurry Up) flowed really well and was cool. I went ahead and starred it because I feel like the upload system in this game is kinda lame and I'll star anyone's level who I feel like is making an attempt at decent level design. I'll come back and play the rest later, Wii U Gamepad is running out of juice.

classic mega man isn't my jam but i'm buying this just so capcom can give the x games this treatment

i'm am excited for this future gaming product

oh my god that bargnani story ahahahahahah

Heeled jelly sandwiches were my jam in elementary school.

Experimented with ESDF in my WoW days but it didn't stick. WASD for sure.

if you can do the rts elements with mouse and keyboard i'd be on board

Fallout 3: Was my gateway drug into the wonderful world of Bethesda games. Clunkier than Skyrim from a gameplay standpoint, but I still enjoy its quirky post-apocalypse more than Skyrim's relatively straight fantasy.

Borderlands: I was a little young for Diablo 2, so this was largely my introduction into loot-based games - and it took an appropriate number of hours from my life as a result. My favorite multiplayer gaming experience this gen is probably going to be having an impromptu LAN party and burning through this with three friends over a weekend.

Mass Effect (series): Mass Effect both combined shooter and RPG elements quite deftly, and created a storyline with both personal agency and investment I hadn't seen prior in a video game. It has faults, but I love that I cared about the adventures of Shepard and crew over so many years, even if I didn't like how it ended.

Saints Row: The Third: It's easy to be dismissive because of silly things like purple dildo bats and gimp suits, but SR: TT has a "we don't give a fuck, here's some insanity" sense to its humor that sucked me in. The fact that the shooting and driving has some of the best feel of any open world game I've played helps its cause immensely.

Rayman Origins: Captured the magic of being a kid and playing platformers on the Super Nintendo more than any overtly retro platformers ever dreamed of.

Pokemon: Black and White: The risk of having only new Pokemon be a part of the story quest worked really well for me - it captured the magic of not knowing what anything was, feeling out who your team was going to be, that I'd largely missed since Red and Blue. Smoothing out some of the quirkier design decisions in the series helped escalate it to a classic.

The Walking Dead: Might be a little early for this, but it's easily the best characterized video game I've ever played. I got all the episodes at once and burned through them all in a two day period, and cried at the end. An emotional roller coaster, which forced me to make tough decisions, and used game mechanics to drive home how tough they were.

Edit: Not sure if Persona 4 counts, but if it does it's probably at the top of the list.