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Super Talking Time Bros. 3: Yes! It will happen! And YOU can help! (World 1 Demo! Check original post!)

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I think that maybe now is the time to call it on level making. Just for the time being.

To be serious for a second though, yes, I have been keeping tabs on this I've just been more focused on IRL goals.

But now is definitely the time to go through all of these stages and look them over. If we want the game to go anywhere we've gotta shift gears and focus on actually putting the stages together into something cohesive.

I'm working a full double-shift this Friday but I'll have off for new year's day and I'll try to review and give feedback for all of our stages we have thus far.

I have to re-download the devkit though cuz I got a new computer in the interim.


P.S: I haven't been keeping track of the discord so dunno if either of you have made secret plans. If so, then at least I'm good to test.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Welcome back. Please test levels.

The project has become, like, 75% Qu_Marsh by volume so I don't want to damper his enthusiasm, but perhaps you're right and it might be best to hit pause on new stages at least until we see what we truly need and we get more eyes on the stages already made.

I've been rather busy past couple months IRL, and the holidays are of course the holidays, and then Endwalker happened. I'll try to refocus on the project now that things are relatively calm again.

I think what I'll want to do now is assemble a working 'demo' of World 1 as a standalone download, to hopefully rope in anyone intimidated by the devkit or the sheer number of levels. This will also mean adding an intro cutscene, not a finished one but the placeholder for it, just so transitions and everything work out.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I think what I'll want to do now is assemble a working 'demo' of World 1 as a standalone download, to hopefully rope in anyone intimidated by the devkit or the sheer number of levels. This will also mean adding an intro cutscene, not a finished one but the placeholder for it, just so transitions and everything work out.
This is actually a very good idea. I would humbly caution not to go all out w/spritework for the map or cutscene. The level positions (or number of levels) will likely change from the demo to the final draft and what we really want is a basic showcase for the current stages: It would be very useful having a concrete product the forum-goers can dip their toes into, inviting genuine interest and critical feedback. Its become clear to me that nobody wants to download and learn to navigate the Very Complicated Editor, download 98 (that's how many!) stages one by one and potentially run into numerous game-breaking errors we didn't know about. We're almost certainly on our own with that.

To that end I'd also recommend that if we make a demo we should probably handpick a couple of the more interesting stages to add to it as well. I don't think we've got anything spoiler-y right now. What did you have in mind for the opening?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I wanted to chime in on your questions from before while I'm eating dinner
1) The Name

2) Structure and Bosses

3) Collectables: Coins, Star Coins, and Stars

4) Characters
1) Keep it as Talking Time Bros 3. Because if we're being real, this is gonna be the last one. There just isn't the same interest here as there used to be for an SMBX game. That was 8 years ago.

2) Don't psyche yourself out comparing your work to what that work could be. That was my mistake, thus I didn't make any levels! I don't think you have too much to worry about regarding first impressions. The past games have leaned into that chaotic energy and its what gave them their charm. We absolutely want to lead with our best foot forward and front-loading a more technically impressive boss is the right move. I don't think future bosses (except the last one) have to live up to those technical standards, we just need them to be fun and/or silly. I had a lot of unrealistic ideas for Bowser's Castle and the final boss. Probably not stuff we can implement but I still think they're good ideas. But you go first: What was your idea for the bowser fight and the leadup to it?

The structure of our hub should be one of our main focuses going forward, but I think before we can really decide how to approach that we need to figure out....erm..... I'm not sure what the term I'm looking for here is, so lets say The Stage Equilibrium. I'll have a lot more to say about all that once I start going through the list but the gist is that we need to consider not only the difficulty or aethetics in our batch of levels, but what kind of impressions they leave on players, the mechanics we introduce there, and where we want those things. Food for thought, if we were forced to start culling some stages, what are the ones we'd be absolutely remiss to exclude? What are the must-haves? The biggest impressions? Those should be the stages that we should base many subsequent levels; themes; entire worlds around. What would you say are the greatest hits from TTBros 2? Or 2.5?

3) I knew we needed an item shop from the start but the technology wasn't there yet. The simple fact is that I never knew how to program. Still don't. The fact I made anything that remotely works is a minor miracle. I think we could really really really really use some help for just coding and spritework if we want to make stuff that's impressive or fancy. Maybe that means we could get a forum goer to help with that. My plan was to just wait until some talented lua scripters swooped in to save the day. Because it has mostly just been the three of us. In our spare time.

I've got no idea what to do with the star coins. I'm gonna take the blame for this predicament too because I recall being a vocal supporter of them over the old red stars since they were New and Cool. My vote goes toward having them unlock unique special stages (seperate from simple alternate paths) over the course of the game as that kills two birds with one stone: We have a lot of stages and I don't think we've seen the end just yet. Some of the more quirky or difficult ones can be utilized as a bonus prize. That needn't be their only use, but I do argue it should be their main use. It's the simplest to implement. Additionally, I would not want to lock a whole world away with them nor encourage players to get them all. I support your stars idea for that instead.

EDIT: One of the ideas I had early on was that for the special world, instead of gating it behind collectibles, we could create hidden easter egg rooms in certain stages that have riddles to a strange puzzle in a later stage. Only once you have all the riddles can you solve the puzzle and make it to the special world. That's probably too lofty an idea but wanted to throw it out there.

4) Highly support that move. I'm in the camp that the fewer characters you have to design your game around, the better. Heck, if I had my way anybody that isn't Mario or Luigi would be locked to their specific stages designed around their quirks. However that's not necessary: your listed four I think is the way to go. Link is just too finicky to be allowable in every stage.
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
For the prospective demo, the opening would just be a sort of placeholder cutscene. Maybe just a title screen. I just want to put the framework in place so the actual cutscene can be added later on.

I've already done some work on the map, thanks to MrDoubleA's level-based world map engine and I've more or less settled on the levels that will be in World 1, though I do like the idea of adding some additional ones as well.

Subcon will be our Star Road of the game, any any levels using Link or the new 2.0 characters will all be found there, likely using the dreamworld justification for it. Still haven't exactly worked out how unlocking the various doors to Subcon will go yet, there is one opened automatically after beating the first stage, just to introduce you to Subcon proper.

If we add a shop system it will likely be located in Subcon as well, since it would have a main town that's centralized on the map, but we could also do toad house 'shops' scattered across the map as well, and with MDA's map system we have much more control over how level entrances function so we can easily do things like make levels inaccessible, even temporarily so, and add things like map encounters and events.

One idea I had for the main Subcon shop was to have it managed by Floyd, the merchant from the Nintendo Power SMW comic. I picked that up recently and was inspired to use him, I think it would be a fun deep cut.


Regarding the main world map and game structure, one of the biggest obstacles we now have to having a proper feeling 'eight worlds' is the lack of bosses. Maybe I set my sights too high with really elaborate custom lua bosses, because I don't think I have it in me to make every other boss in the game that complex. I have ideas for the final battle, and the special world final battle, but nothing more beyond that. We could possibly make the world a bit more free form, not strictly divided up by 'worlds', at least as far as every world needing to have a capstone world boss, and make the bosses something you more have to search for. If we make it so only the main bosses drop stars we can make them more inticing to seek out if, say, the final special world is unlocked by stars. If someone just wanted to go straight to the final Bowser fight they could probably skip much of the game, but they'd need to seek and find every boss to unlock the final special world. This is sounding a lot like what I wanted to do with STTB2.5, though, but we have better tools at our disposal now.

I guess what I need to accept is that we're not likely to have the full 'eight worlds with eight bosses and a few extra worlds' structure that the other games had and just work with what we HAVE rather than what I wished we could have.

Anyway, that was a mess of thoughts. Regardless, one thing we desperately need right now is more eyes looking over the levels we do have. I've honestly been considering reaching outside of TT for help there, or with the project in general, but I'm not sure how to go about it.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I've played up through the Early Game stages, so I'll post what I have so far and get to working on the Mid-Game tomorrow.
While reviewing the stages I gave each one a 1-5 score in two categories: Challenge & Personality. Challenge isn't just pure difficulty but also how thoughtful and engaging the level is with player interaction. Personality is like how big an impression a stage left on me. Both of these aren't meant to be quality grades but weights to help determine how we should order the stages.

Later I'll start a google doc with an ordered list of stages. It won't be a hard and fast sequential numbering, its just that certain stages should probably be grouped together or come before other stages, y'know? Getting a good handle on that will, I hope, make mapping easier later.



Here's the link. I'll continue to update it as I go. Leave some comments.
Level Testing Pt.1
 
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Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I'm playing Candy Cane Clouds and it appears that the wiki hasn't been religiously updated by a specific someone! (This is why I hate wikis)


I downloaded the current version just now, but if there are any updates that need doing now would be a great time.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Oop, didn't notice I had changed the filename for that one. I fixed it on the wiki. I'll have to go back over my levels and make sure there aren't any other stragglers.

Thanks for your reviews so far. Specifically regarding Iggy and his voice samples, rather than cutting them out entirely I could keep his lines on introduction and defeat, and either remove all the battle voices or have them play infrequently?


One thing I've forgotten to mention, since I was still in the middle of it when the holidays hit, is that I plan on removing the A2XT scripts. I may have gotten a sort-of OK to use them (on the grounds I suss them out myself) but honestly it's never felt right, and watching raocow's recent A2XT Advent LP which uses the same scripts just makes it feel almost proprietary to that series of projects? Plus, renowned lua wizard MrDoubleA has made a script called littleDialogue which does what we'd need for textboxes, and it is for use by all. We'd be missing the custom pause menu that the A2XT scripts come with, but that's probably something we can make ourselves later.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I feel the same about the A2XT stuff. So long as nothing breaks by it's removal I say go for it.

Keeping a voice sample for Iggy's introduction and defeat would be a-okay.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I'm slowly chipping away at the stages. Up to Zigzag Ziggurat right now. I was thinking about it at work and I want to post a step-by-step timeline of things that need to get done so as to keep us focused going forward. Hopefully also easing worries about things like time frames. I told ya it was gonna be a slow burn! A game like this is a very different beast from the previous projects.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
  1. Complete demo and stage critique. The demo would give us invaluable feedback from interested parties.
  2. Determine general stage order and progression curve. This isn't where it should go on the map or what 'theme' the stages should be. Its about cohesiveness: what levels make sense for players to tackle first vs later.
  3. Insert slots for potential new stages. There are some concepts I think we can and should iterate on further. Plus I still have a handful of ideas I wanted to do. A number of our challenge stages could probably become a full level. This isn't a freeform deal like "we need a stage to fill this slot" but "we need a stage with this element or this theme to compliment this other one." You'll see what I mean when I make the list.
  4. Clean up the current code. A lot of that stuff is under my coding To-Do list in the drive. We'll need the new message script swapped in at this time.
  5. Story Workshop. I'm not too fussed what the actual "plot" of our game is but I do want us all on the same page with where we're beginning and where we're going to end. Currently ambivalent. I really really enjoyed Bowser's Castle from TTBros 2 and would want to do something similar in a castlevania style, just with more cohesive elements. I know Spoony has Big Plans for Obligatory Cameo as well. Lets wait to set it all in stone until we have the above stage list.
  6. Implement shop proof of concept. I did this last year but lost my old draft. It was pretty crappy and I could do better. For clarity, this is the in-level shop proof of concept. We could theoretically do a shop purely in-menu on the map but that's not as much fun.
  7. Brainstorm shop areas and contents. This will by far take the most effort and work. I still think cool new powerups and bonus unlockables are the way to go here. If we have a central shop in subcon we could make players unlock them there before they become available in toad houses across the map. The previous inventory script I linked and Enjl's anotherpowerup script makes this very possible now. I've fiddled with it and found some small success, but its gonna take some time and help. Otherwise, we'll have to either seriously consider what these shops will offer or perhaps rethink our coin system.
  8. Finish switch palaces. I'd like Spoony to do one. qu_marsh and I can flip a coin.
  9. World map brainstorming. Everything above should be dealt with before we get bogged down in our map. We could do linear worlds or a big, non-linear world. I personally have barely given the map a moment's thought. This is when I'll be drawing stuff on paper.
  10. Demo 2 -- Electric Boogaloo. If people like what we have at this point we can start getting excited.
  11. Improve current stages and begin workshopping new ones. I don't want any new stages until we reach this point, with focused goals and a quota to meet. If newcomers show up and make stages between now and then, this is the time to deal with them.
  12. Boss brainstorming. We already have a good number of unique and interesting bosses that could be scattered here and there. More are possible, but if we make them they need to be done in isolation. I know its the capstone castle stages you're worried about spoony but I have quite a few ideas I could spitball and work on. We don't want to start anymore BIG ones until we know how many we need.
  13. Boss coding & spritework. This is an unreasonable thing to ask individual devs to do. This would need to be a group effort or the work of some boss-making savant.
  14. World map spritework and polish. We don't want to get serious with it until this point. With all the important stuff finished, then we can get down to detailing it.
  15. Folder organization. Trimming down music files, looping them properly, eliminating any file bloat, etc.
  16. Overhaul Fettuccini Foothills. IE: Get the first level to be the best it can be.
  17. Full game playtesting & bugfixes.
  18. Release candidate demo to a few chosen hands for further testing.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+


Highly likely I'm forgetting something, but these are the essentials.
 
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Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
Four hours a night every day this week and now the Mid-Game stages are completed. I was gonna go to bed two hours ago but they kept being amazing and I didn't want to stop. I'll need a few more days to get through the Late-Game, and I hope to have the Challenges wrapped in one long marathon session.

Some of my favorites in this batch!

Level Testing Pt.2

EDIT: I hope you're reading my words on everyone's stages and not just your own! This is a lot of work!
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
I've been reading them, yes, and they're much appreciated. I've just been distracted by IRL stuff so I haven't commented yet. But I have started tweaking and fixing my levels (I even started addressing some of the issues in Hop Hop Bumper Blocks before you pointed them out, it looks like the physics for them changed in the most recent patch and I guess I haven't played it since? Some parts will need some work)
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Alright, level updates!

This is Cannon: I'm not sure what you mean about the Pipe Cannons being broken? They work fine for me. I can't remember when I last updated this level so it's possible the version you have is using some incorrect code. Regardless, see how this one works. And I removed that one Spike as well.

Rammerhead Reef: No changes here, but I looked at the date on the zip I uploaded and the date of the level file I have and the level file is one day older so it's possible I left a message box in the one I uploaded? I don't remember, but this one should be fine.

Mangrove Cavern: Fixed the castle gag. Seems like it was broken due to the SMW goal tape not triggering events on death if you don't directly collide with it, I think. Changed how it's activated, seems to be fine now.

The Undernet: Moved Star Coin 2 towards the end (and changed it to #3) and added a moon where #2 used to be. I'd like some feedback on how this looks and feels, the moon feels like it's in a rather cramped space at the moment.

Also, I'm pretty sure it should be possible to add some code so that moons can only be collected once, but I'd need to look at the particulars.

Iggy's Spikeatorium!: Cleaned up some graphical issues, and tweaked Iggy's voice sfx. Now he just screams at you upon entering the room, being jumped on, and on defeat. Added standard jump sfx and the 'sproing' sfx to his two types of jumps because otherwise him just leaping into the air in silence felt weird.

Hop Hop Bumper Blocks: I had to fix the castle gag here too for a similar reason as Mangrove, though I had an invisible trigger that set the event in motion that activates on death, and it would die when the level ends, but now invisible triggers don't 'die' on level end anymore, at least I think that's what the problem was. Anyway, fudged the activation with some lua chicanery, and also made the castle itself an NPC instead of a BGO object attached to one so that the bumpers animated a bit better.

But more importantly, I think I fixed the few spots where goombas bounce on baby boompers, and I mostly did that by creating a new square baby boomper block (called a baby sqoomper), only affects enemies, like boompers, but has squmper physics.

And I changed every baby bumper into a baby squmper as well, just to make it less aggravating. The most recent update to SMBX did change how bumpers propel things based on proximity, but squmpers work as they always have.

Thunderhead Skyway: Moved the P-switch (and added an additional way to reach that one Sumo platform besides goomba-hopping), but let me know how it feels.

Also tweaked the firebars/thunderheads so that they don't play a fire sfx when they scroll on screen now.

Tapped Out: Made the raft a tad easier to jump on, as well as off.

Also, I've already fixed the spinners so that ones with no center bit won't just have an invisible thing Mario bounces off of, but I haven't updated the devkit itself in a bit. Just throw this lua file into the AI subfolder in the main episode folder and replace the one that's there.

Also the second: I didn't even realize that I updated most of my progress on the world map last year in the discord channel and not here, so here's the most recent video I took of the WIP for World 1:


And I've even made a small tweak beyond that video, just adding a little animation for Iggy's Spikeatorium:
2021-07-21_12_18_44.gif

(ignore the counter, that was recorded while testing)
 
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Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
You double posted your Hop Hop Bumper Blocks link over Thunderhead Skyway.
That world map is stinkin' professional quality. As expected, you're the world map master.

I should update the playerPhysics code too since it wasn't working right after I updated my build. Overwrite it in globalScripts and Let me know if any issues arise, specifically when you jump out of the water and back onto land and when you go through underwater pipes onto onto land.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
So I've been putting together a workable demo episode for STTB3, and I've set it up so that you can access some additional levels upon collecting the star at the end of Iggy's Spikeatorium. But now I need to figure out which extra levels we want to feature, and how many.

There's also the matter of Achievements, none of the World 1 stages (I think) have any hidden Links or White Mushroom Houses in them so I'll probably leave those achievements out. Same with the Portal challenge stages. One of the Block Land stages is in World 1 so we could perhaps put one of the other ones in with the extra stages?

I was thinking of adding a hidden achievement for goading Iggy to land on the spikes during his boss fight, naturally I'd name it 'My Butt Hurts' after that classic STTB1 stage. What other Achievements could we add? One for getting all the Star Coins in the demo is a no brainer. Perhaps we could also add one for X number of coins?

I've also been rethinking Peach's sprite (again!) and I find that both the new one and the old one just don't look right, especially with the SMM2 Toadette costume for Toad. So I was thinking of redoing it from the ground up to look more explicitly like a Super Mario World styled sprite:

smwpeach.png


Loosely based off the Marisa sprite some SMW hacks use. The colorization is based off the palette the old STTB Peach uses, hence the yellow gloves, though that can be tweaked. But I'd like this to be the last time I put effort into Peach's dang sprite so feedback on this one frame before I go into production on sprite sheets? (already I think the puffy shoulders aren't puffy enough with the chonky SMW arm, looks like she'd be cutting off circulation)

If we go with this and the SMM2 styled Toadette, it might be best to change Mario and Luigi to SMW styled costumes as well? Perhaps with SMB3 colors, never been a fan of Mario in magenta and cyan.

We'd need to wrap up the World 1 stages as well. The only one explicitly missing is the Diamond Switch Palace. I also haven't seen Din in ages and he has two levels in World 1, should we try and wrangle him or leave his levels as is?
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
feedback on this one frame before I go into production on sprite sheets? (already I think the puffy shoulders aren't puffy enough with the chonky SMW arm, looks like she'd be cutting off circulation)

As a random onlooker, agreed, but also that arm is so chonky compared to most Peach depictions I didn't even parse it as her arm for a second. I wonder if you could make them one pixel slimmer and still retain a SMW style feel...
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I really like the Peach sprite that we already have. SMM2 toadette also looks good and for me, they don't clash. The Mario & Luigi sprites we ought not change at all. I'd leave any and all spritework for later in any case.

Uhhh are the stages in your demo showcase above all the stages in the demo so far? I can name a few that would be good to put in on the backend. We want feedback on our progress more than anything else. So, same philosophy with the map. I won't stop you from going all in on it but it isn't necessary, so don't push yourself (again it is damn impressive).

I didn't even know we were gonna have achievements! That's a fun idea.

Lemme go have a look and I'll throw a few out there
 
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Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
It'd be good to also include:

Sundown Saunter
Crumbling Crypt
Fat Tum Forest
Lamplily Marsh
What Do I Do With This?!
Storm & Stone
The Downward Spire
Koopatoa Shores

For feedback & hype purposes. You're free to include any others you think would be smart.


EDIT:

I whipped up a Diamond Switch Palace for the demo. We can always change it.
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
That switch palace looks fine for a placeholder, we will probably want to change or replace it later, yeah, but it will be functional for the demo's purposes.

Well I added those stages to the map (on a blocky island that only appears once you reach it). I think that's a pretty good spread, though I'm all ears if Qu has any preferences for additional stages.

So there's still the matter of any other achievements we might want to add, and whether or not we want to make any changes to Fettuccine Foothills.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
So there's still the matter of any other achievements we might want to add, and whether or not we want to make any changes to Fettuccine Foothills.

Re: stages we're good for right now. Feedback and some words on our current progress (as well as finding out if anybody cares) is the critical thing. Like I said before, FF doesn't have any real problems. Its mostly little things I'd wanna clean up or build upon later to make the best first impressions for the full release. The first stage ought to be a collaborative effort between all of us for that reason. As far as achievements go, I haven't really thought about it but maybe an achievement for your hundredth death? Or not dying at all? Or finding a moon for the first time. Or getting all the star coins in a world. I could think of some other weird ones that might be fun, but none come to mind for the demo. Like, people aren't gonna nab 9999 coins in the first few stages.

While I'm here I've got the Late-Game stages completed. Almost there!

Level Testing Pt.3

An additoinal note regarding Thunderhead Skyway is that for some reason there's now a ton of lag that happens occassionally. It's got to be related to whatever fix you made to the firebars. It always slows down the goalpost for certain.
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Ahh, I see what happened. In addition to tweaking the firebar script I also downloaded the most recent version IAmPlayer put out, which included code to have firebars melt ice blocks of any type. Neat addition, but that was the slowdown culprit. I turned that code off and the stage runs smooth as butter again. I updated the link.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
I spent some time putting together a title screen and an end credits, neither of which will be representative of how they'd look in the final game but even for a demo they just feel good to have, y'know?

I'd like to make sure I'm not missing any credits when it comes to the scripts, though. I think I have the main outside ones accounted for, but there are still a few project-specific scripts that are unsigned in the global scripts folder and I can't recall if they were all by Isrieri or not.

Any suggestions on anything else to add to the credits? I think I got all the music for the stages that will be used in the demo. I thought about doing graphics as well, but tracking down every last creator of every tileset, especially when some might be from graphic packs a decade old or more, felt like a total nightmare.

 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
I've continued work putting the demo together and it's coming along nicely. My time yesterday was mostly spent getting one of the achievements working. Right now I have eight for the demo, and I had the brilliant idea to have one cheevo tracking levels beaten (only counted once per exit) and another counting total number of exits, and my gosh if differentiating those two values and making sure it was all counted properly wasn't a pain in the butt. But I think I got it, and as it stands here's the demo's cheevos:

1. "Kept Ya Waiting, Huh?" - Start the demo, kind of a joke cheevo
2. "Giant Novelty Coins" - Get all the Star Coins in the demo, currently 53
3. "Let me Level With You" - Beat every level in the demo, currently 20
4. "Exit Stage Left" - Find every exit in the demo, currently 26
5. "One Day in Block Land" - Clear the two Block Land challenges
6. "Switch Blocks in the Sky with Diamonds" - Hit the Diamond Switch
7. "My Butt Hurts" - Cause Iggy to land on a spiked block (Hidden)
8. "Achieve ALL the things!" - Get the other seven cheevos (Hidden)

I added the second Block Land stage to the extra stages to round out that achievement. Also of note, as of now the Diamond Switch Palace doesn't count as a 'level' (though it does count as an exit) which is mostly why I made the separate cheevo for it. I could add it to the level pool, but I like at 20? I dunno, what do you guys think?

I've added code that save Star Coins upon collection (we already had something like this for the Challenge stages so it was just a matter of making that global), and now I'm going to see if I can set something up so that SMW Moons can only be collected once. We may have to limit them to one per stage at most, and the code I have in mind would only work with moons placed in the open, not in boxes, so that's something to think about, but I'll see if I can get it working first.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I finished out the green star stages tonight before I got sucked back into Civ 6. I know they're not "green stars" anymore but everyone knows what I mean. There was only one game-breaking bug with High Noon in Block Land. There isn't much to actually critique here as the best green star stages of the past have been those where there was a good or funny idea at their core, but didn't deserve a full level. Some of our challenge stages I didn't like because they were either too bland or could be better as an actual stage yet we do have a good grab-bag here.

Level Testing Pt.4 (Final)

That's it for level reviews. I started working on the list for suggested groupings but don't want to go further until I try out the demo.

I spent some time putting together a title screen and an end credits, neither of which will be representative of how they'd look in the final game but even for a demo they just feel good to have, y'know?

I'd like to make sure I'm not missing any credits when it comes to the scripts, though. I think I have the main outside ones accounted for, but there are still a few project-specific scripts that are unsigned in the global scripts folder and I can't recall if they were all by Isrieri or not.

Any suggestions on anything else to add to the credits? I think I got all the music for the stages that will be used in the demo. I thought about doing graphics as well, but tracking down every last creator of every tileset, especially when some might be from graphic packs a decade old or more, felt like a total nightmare.
The ones that were me were blaargSFX, chuckTurning (which should probably go in the AI folder), properFireballs, classicMushroom, coinBrick (which I think is broken), playerPhysics (which is just water physics but maybe ice one day) and odysseyCoins. I think the starmanPatch was Din. It would be nice to have a full Music credits for the future. If we know where we got the script from but forget who wrote it, we'll add a special thanks section for there. The SMBX forums and the talkhaus (and Nintendo obviously) I know have been big helps and influences. I don't want you to do all the credits work yourself, I'll be glad to help once we get to that point when we're sorting out all the stuff in the game folder. At that time it'll be easier to keep track of who's music is who's for instance.

Before I forget let me add that making kirby into the "3" was a great move. I almost thought he didn't show up until the title moved back! Great job, and perfect for the demo.

I added the second Block Land stage to the extra stages to round out that achievement. Also of note, as of now the Diamond Switch Palace doesn't count as a 'level' (though it does count as an exit) which is mostly why I made the separate cheevo for it. I could add it to the level pool, but I like at 20? I dunno, what do you guys think?

Ahhhhhh **handwave** nevermind those switch palaces. They're more bonuses than actual levels and 20 is a good number.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
The Helmet powerups are just in that level folder, not the devkit, but I suppose they could be. That'd be something for the next main devkit build, I'd want to make sure there was no compatibility issues if they can be taken outside levels, but I could easily add some code to the map that removes them if so just to prevent any headaches down the road.

Speaking of the devkit, the warp blocks not unlocking sounds like you might not have the most updated version? Or maybe I never updated it with that functionality. I'll need to see.

Oh and in the meantime, I think I have the code figured out to remove SMW Moons from stages once collected. As of right now it will remove every Moon from a given stage if one is collected, so if a stage has more than one they'll all go, but a stage really shouldn't. We'll also need to make sure no stage has them in boxes, since the code doesn't track that. They should absolutely be used sparingly. I set their award to 500 coins, and added a new NPC called a Blue Moon which awards 5 which is what the normal Moons are transformed into on revisiting a stage where one was collected.

Right now there's no cheevo connected to getting all of them, but it would be easy enough to make since the moons are being tracked in the same manner as level clears and exits.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
In my tests of the demo I realized one glaring omission that I can't believe I didn't notice till now, the custom world map script doesn't natively let you change characters like the OG one does. I think this is because MrDoubleA was also working on a custom pause menu script at the time which would pair with it to allow it, but that has yet to be released. So in the meantime I threw together a custom pause menu that only appears on the world map:

20220124073800.gif
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Ok I think I have just about everything ready for the demo. I just need to give it one last playthroguh to make sure the 'get all the achievements' achievement awards properly, and make sure levels have no more than one moon, and it isn't in a ? block. I've had to tweak Fat Tum Forest since it had a moon in a ? box, and also it didn't have the IDs of its Star Coins assigned.

I also tweaked the code in Fettuccine Foothills that accounts for starting the level with a mount, now instead of just taking your mount away it will start the level past the clear pipe if you have one.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I also tweaked the code in Fettuccine Foothills that accounts for starting the level with a mount, now instead of just taking your mount away it will start the level past the clear pipe if you have one.
That didn't even occur to me. Smart move.
 

Isrieri

My father told me this would happen
I'm still tinkering with our crop of stages to put together a progression curve and wanted to post what I have so far.

I can't post images here without imgur and I refuse to go through the trouble

These are all of the stages I reviewed. Now, I'm not done yet. This is just a rough draft so you can see where my headspace is. Still need to put them in an order and add in some slots for extra stages that can support the centerpiece and primary ones (I'd say we have room for maybe 20 or 25 more). Also want to group them by exits and vague themes so they're easier for me to catalogue.

Current categories are thus:

Centerpiece stages are the best we have according to my opinion. These are the backbone of the game. However the map is designed and whether it is a linear or split path, it should be designed with these in mind.
Primary stages are meant to be on a direct main path between the centerpieces. They don't all need to be in a linear line, but nevertheless are the meat surrounding the bone.
Secondary & Tertiary stages are meant to be on paths that branch off from the main path. This can be in the form of secret exits, star coin gates, or just a different road that isn't locked. I think of these as the "treats." The only real distinction between the two is that the tertiary levels are more high-concept or unique.
Bonus / Challenge stages are the bite-sized bits that could conceivably go anywhere. These should be self-contained and ideally terminate whatever path they are on.
Finally the Iffy stages are those that aren't quite ready for inclusion. Again, according to my opinion.

I'll keep an eye on the thread for now, and will probably have something a bit more final after the demo.


EDIT: Yo I was going through qu_marsh's levels and I think I missed two! I'll play them once I come back from my shopping trip. If you were curious like me, he made 71 out of the 98 total. So 6 or 7 on the cutting room floor ain't bad.
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Ok, hopefully I haven't overlooked anything in my testing, because boy will my face be red if there is.

World 1 Demo.

So the question now is, how far to we spread this? Keep it confined to TT? Link it to some related discords like Brickroad's? raocow's Talkhaus? The SMBX forums? We could definitely use the exposure and the extra sets of eyes on the project, but on the other hand I don't want to create a headache for the forum mods if we suddenly get an influx of SMBX peeps trying to register. Also, we can expect anything unique we created in the demo to get pilfered because that's just how it goes once it's out there (remember Whispy Woods being lifted from STTB2 before it was even fully out?) so stuff like Iggy will probably be a prime target. But that might be the risk we need to take at this point.
 
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