So there are some things that will need to be discussed and decided, and I hope to get a broad range of feedback. So even if you haven't contributed a level or testing to this thus far, all opinions are welcome.
1) The Name
As things stand, I feel kind of strange calling this 'Super Talking Time Bros 3', as all the previous games had a significantly larger number of people contributing, they felt more like a forum-wide project. As things stand, an overwhelming majority of the levels are made by Qu_Marsh, while a majority of the remainder of levels as well as all the back-end things are mine. To me, a 'STTB3' should be more indicative of a larger collaborative effort as the title would suggest. So I'm thinking it might be best to call it something else.
I'm not leaning towards a drastic change. But something like 'Super Talking Time Land' or 'Super Talking Time 2D World' or 'Super Talking Time Gaiden' or something silly. Or maybe I'm overthinking things and 'Super Talking Time Bros 3' is just fine. Either way, it's not a decision I want to make exclusively since it is a project that will bear the forum's name regardless.
2) Structure and Bosses
For awhile we've been thinking of this as another 8-world project, and we've had a loose idea for what the worlds could be, thinking that the final world would be a Bowser-dominated New Donk City. But the current spread of levels, as well as the dearth of boss fights thus far, makes me wonder if we should think about breaking from the usual structure? I'm not sure what that would be at this time.
I think I may have been hoisted by my own petard in a way when I first made that Petey Piranha boss fight. Lua creations are becoming more common in the wider SMBX community, but there still isn't a large amount of publically available new boss fights to use. When I finished that boss I had hoped it would be another 'Whispy Woods' moment, often thought of as when development of STTB2 really got going. But making complex lua bosses remains one of the trickiest things, making Iggy took quite awhile, and I worry that in trying to start off with our best foot forward we'd also be setting an unreasonable expectation. As it stands, having a really memorable boss fight at the end of every world like those probably won't be feasible, especially if I'm the only one who does them. Right now there are at least two more bosses I have in mind to make (final battle with Bowser, and optional post-game superboss against you-can-probably-guess) but plenty more would need to be done and it would be jarring to have some bosses be new custom entities, and others be vanilla encounters with existing NPCs.
Or am I just overthinking things again? Maybe the showcasing of some rather impressive SMBX2 lua content lately on raocow's channel has got me second-guessing.
3) Collectables: Coins, Star Coins, and Stars
With regular coins, we already have a Mario Odyssey style not-lives system. But it's likely coins will rapidly accumulate as to make them feel superfluous, so I'm wondering if an item-shop would be a good idea? There are scripts out there for a SMB3-style world map inventory system, and while it doesn't work at the moment with the world map we're using I believe work is in progress to update it. Another option is to create little mini-games with items being the reward, for a coin fee. Of course, it would all need to be created.
One thing I wanted to do early on was to make rewards from Star Coins totally cosmetic, largely new costumes for the characters, but I'm seeing now that was incredibly lofty. Another, albiet easier and more predictable option, would be to have Star Coins unlock things. Thanks to the new map system we can have Star Coin locks directly on the world map. However I don't want to overuse them, and I'd much rather prefer alternate paths to be hidden behind secret exits. So should Star Coin unlocks be limited to the bonus worlds?
As for Stars, I pretty much have a plan for them in mind. Stars are only awarded by world bosses, with another coming from Bowser at the end of the game. I intend to have the big final postgame bonus world unlocked only by having all the Stars, so as to necessitate beating Bowser first. Though doing it this way with a standard 8 world structure would take some of the interest out of hunting them down, so maybe there could be some hidden bosses and perhaps needing all of them won't be necessary?
EDIT: There was a fourth thing I forgot! Oh no!
4) Characters
I've been considering changing the initial plans to make Rosalina a main playable because she is just so different from the others, and also because she's due to be re-worked by the SMBX2 dev team at some point in the future. It could just be a headache. So I'm thinking of keeping the main playables limited to the standard four of Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach. Rosalina would still be usable in Bonus world stages where any of the 2.0 characters (+ Link) are fair game to have their own levels.
This would not affect levels that use Rosalina thus far, since I'm pretty sure the only one is Doki Doki Picnic which is already in Subcon.
But what are everyone's thoughts?
Those are the three four main things that have been occupying my thoughts on the game lately. I'd appreciate any and all feedback, no matter if you've contributed to the project so far or not.