Alright, sorry for the late response.  I did play (and beat this), and I've got to say this is the best visual style I've seen yet on SMW...it should be featured!  Also, the par time is 3 secs...is that possible!?

The only criticism I could add is that even though the visual style is great, some of the overlapping layers tend to cover up "safe spots" (like the clouds/buildings).  And the hidden area w/ the bandage was cool too.  Another criticism is that maybe some other hazards like edited fireballs (like falling comets) coming down as you try to reach bandage girl could have given it a rewarding challenge.  All in all, very impressed!

I'd love to see a full chapter from you w/ this style and gameplay.  I had two of my levels sort of like this level (well not really but visually), and you've def given me some new ideas...especially the coloring.  Congratz man, great level!

When I uploaded the par time was about 26 seconds.  I have no idea what's happened since then.  Probably glitch jumping.  I didn't know the par time could be changed.  As for your criticism, yeah the clouds cover up the floating robots a little bit, but if you aim your landings well they shouldn't throw you off.  And originally I actually did have the two random UFOs shooting missles but it made timing the last few jumps virtually impossible.  Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you liked the level!

You are amazing, This has got to be the stage with the best graphics ive seen..
Really, If you make more stages like this you will have a promising future.

The onlything i found a bit wierd is the fast move from sky to night and that fog just sitting there looking wierd.

It's supposed to be you breaking through the outer atmosphere and going into space...  I kinda had to make do with what I had.

And if you like the way it looks, oversaturating layer colors (setting it to something higher than 1.00) is how I got all of those different shades of golden brown on one layer.  It kinda makes the coloring go haywire and creates these really cool effects.

I refuse to believe that is all one level.

Don't take my word for it.  See for yourself.

[one]

This appears to be one of the only Josef levels on the portal so far.

This is actually nice to know, because I spent a lot of time on it so hopefully it'll get seen.  It's directly inspired by Machinarium and I may just end up doing a whole chapter in this style.




Yes these are all screenshots of one level.  It's a doozy.  Search for it on the portal under "Stratosphere", or download it here as long as you promise not to be a dick and upload it under your own name: http://www.mediafire.com/?3chi3q3zdueskbf.

Everybody put the guns down.  This sounds like Direct2Drive's fault, not Team Meat's.  While they try and figure out how to update that version, seriously, GET STEAM.

[illegal hacking tool]

You know what's funny.
Every of those features are in an illegal hacking tool of a Super NES game but not in a legal level editor made by the creators of their PC game.

tldr: Random Guy > Team Meat.

Don't be a dick, they can't stray too far from the tools Edmund used or else the products of the level editor will be incompatible with XBLA/teh internets, and while us PC people couldn't give less of a fuck, they have to honor that established system because that's what they promised and the Tommunism engine was designed with compatibility across consoles in mind.  There's a fragile balance at stake and that's part of why the level editor is taking so long and why we can't have thing like new tilesets, etc.  As far as illegal ROM hacks, you don't have to worry about contract obligations or programming compatibility, you've already technically had to break the game in order to get it to function on your computer.  Team Meat doesn't want to break their own game.  Not yet anyways.  I'm sure they wouldn't be against adding more user friendly features but don't act like an asshat because the alpha editor is kinda difficult to use. We could add limitless features to Meatboy if we started modding it, and you're welcome to try that yourself, as I have no pretensions towards being a programmer, but if you can't program either then don't pretend to know jack shit about what you're talking about.  Just offer some constructive criticism instead of personal attacks on the coolest and most responsive development team I've ever encountered and be patient like the rest of us.

tldr version please.

Oh I was just calling him a jackass basically.

Disappointed?  It's not finished yet.  Go outside.

/end thread

Maybe the fact that it's not finished despite being advertised as being ready back in January is why they're disappointed.

And following in your use of Internet dismissive cliches, you mad.

cool story bro

Disappointed?  It's not finished yet.  Go outside.

/end thread

[C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/super meat boy]

You could also mod the sprites directly:

 1| Locate your folder
     for example C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/super meat boy

 2| Extract gamedata.dat
     look here http://supermeatboy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1280.0.html

 3| Locate your character's sheet
     Josef in high quality would be super meat boy/data/pc/Animations/mech.tp

 4| Get a hex editor and load the file

 5| Copy all content till the last point before PNG

 6| Past it into an empty file

 7| Delete it in the *.tp

 8| Rename it to *.png

 9| Edit it
     WARNING: The sprites can't be bigger than the original
     (atleast until someone knows how to edit the *.am and *_coords.itx)

10| Open it again in the hex editor

11| Past the saved header to the beginning

12| Rename it to *.tp

13| Put it into the original folder

14| ???

15| Profit!

Would do but I'm terrified of the consequences of modifying those incomprehensible animations files.  I'm used to easy to understand sprite sheets.

So I noticed that if you actually make the layer color something greater than one, which people have been hesitant about doing, you get some crazy results, and can get all kinds of permutations of color that look really cool.  I might post some pictures later.  But that's not what this thread is about.  This thread is about what oversaturating Layer 4 does to the player character, which is this:

Now in some ways this is a problem, and I actually tweeted Edmund asking if there was any way he could add two more center layers that you can put solid tiles on, which would be helpful for a lot of reasons.  The fact is sometimes maybe you want your background to look crazy without rubbing off on the player. 

On the other hand, this opens up a whole range of possibilities for what we can make the characters look like.  It would be very easy to make Viridian look like every member of his crew, since they're all just different colored versions of him.  People like Josef, who have more complex color gradients, can be made to look like above.  And beyond.  The possibilities are pretty endless.  Do your own experiments, take some screenshots, and post the pictures here.

I'd argue levels that are difficult due to layout are the best. They almost act like a puzzle game, as the game challenges you to work out how to finish it, and when you do, it becomes relatively simple, and then speedrunable.

7-19X: XOXO is a perfect example of this. It's always listed as one of the hardest levels in the game, but one you get the trick to the upper level jumps, it's quite easy.

I'd argue the Kid levels fall under this blanket too, of course I've only ever played the first one. 

Once you figure out each of the jumps, it's muscle memory.  Of course, it's very precisely timed muscle memory, and it's still very easy to fuck up, but it still fits the model.

Enter the Unknown will randomly generate an endless string of levels from the portal.  Maybe Team Meat could be coaxed into adding something like a statistics tracker that tells you how many levels you made it "into the Unknown" without dying, and other things like that, and there could be a new highscore board for such feats of manliness.

This is a much better idea.

I've thought about this a lot actually and how it might work.  It could definitely be implemented, it flat out won't ever be officially because that would give us a huge leg up on the XBLA players, but maybe could work as a mod some day.  It just requires some outside the box thinking.

A fun idea I had would be a sort of King of The Hill/Juggernaut type mode for 4 players.  You're in these specially designed arena-ish levels with traps littered about, and one person is "it" and tries to stay alive by avoiding traps and jumping from place to place, etc.  The problem is, the other three players want to be "it" and do so by being the one to knock you to your death by bouncing into your body.  When two people collide in the air or on the ground, they would bounce off of each other, the distance depending on momentum and direction etc.  It'd be like extreme sumo wrestling, you try to knock the other guy to his death, and at the end of the round time the person who's been "it" longest wins.  Or you could just do a normal deathmatch based on who has the most kills.  I could actually see this being really fun, and if the stages were well designed you could use all of the different characters without them being horribly unbalanced.  For instance, Naija would be able to hit hardest because of her energy mode, but she'd also have the best chance of accidental suicide.  Tofu Boy would probably still suck.

A racing mode is pretty obvious, but Meatboy levels aren't really designed to accommodate more than one person and the characters aren't at all balanced.  That's why there isn't already a racing mode in the game to begin with.

Co-op could work, the characters are designed like characters in a good co-op game, with complementary strengths and weaknesses, but the level design would have to be restructured.  Again, good potential for modding.

I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.  He has all the necessary sprites already, as does flaming Meat Boy from the Little Horn boss battle.  Definitely a possible code character for the future.

1. Yes. Bandage Girl and Meat Boy occupy layer 4; enemies can occupy any layer, I think. With tint levels, choose your layer color such that you have an amount of 1 for total color saturation.

2. Parallax can be in any layer.

3. Tiles can be placed on layer 2, 4, and 6. Meat Boy only interacts with 4. However, you can place a window tile on 2 and have it look out onto 4, or 4 onto 6, and MB will still interact with it.

4. You cannot modify enemies like that.

1. Okay, thanks, but can you also tint characters or just totally saturate them?  I'm open to the possibility that this just isn't working at the moment because I tried full saturation to black and there was no change.

2. I know it can be placed in any layer, but no matter what layer you place it in, it always appears behind the tiles, regardless of their layer.  Is there anyway to bring it to the front?

3. Confirmed.  Thank you. 

4. That sucks.  I may be wrong but couldn't you reszie enemies somehow in the old devmode?  I thought I saw it in some video.  And does that mean the big red blood clot things are an entirely separate enemy from the regular ones?