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[Two Hacks]

I feel like this forum deserves a better description and evaluation for a thread, so I think I'll explain what was driving me to make this chapter and what my idea of it was. I feel like this is a better than just telling people to "go play it!"


Unholy Mountain is a Super Meat World chapter, but I'll assume you'll know what that is if you're browsing these forums.

One of the contributing factors for my inspiration were the already produced mountain/climbing levels. (Sandy Mountain, Free Climb (Coincidentally and ironically Free Climb's dark world is called "Unholy Mountain.") Since mountain levels had already been made, I figured if I made a FULL chapter all about it (and only 2 levels being about actually climbing the mountain), that I would need more ideas and different areas, so I included the inside of the mountain, which was supposed to be a volcanic, dark place with a hell like appearance, and these rocky, terrains around the mountain. And I realized even then I didn't have enough areas. (I didn't want for the chapter to have too much "Hell" anyway, for it being quite redundant.) I thought of the idea of this strange, actual biblical underworld that you somehow found yourself in if you ventured deep enough into the mountain, and I ended up included 2 levels of it in the chapter. (It's funny that I thought I would make short levels so that I could garauntee that there were 20 of them, make sure each were average length. But, for some reason, I still made them really long, and obviously spent a long time working on each.)

One of the other inspirations would be the strange, widely conisdered "mediocre", Super Meat World chapters that were all about one thing, and while they usually didn't have very intuitive gameplay or structure, the theme stayed the same. (Obviously there are some very good chapters that have a certain theme they stick to, and I like those as well.) The ones I played like that always kept me interested, because they felt like more than just gameplay and eye "filler", And that's something I hadn't done with my previous chapters, so I wanted to finally do one that was sort of unique in that same way, had the same intriguing concept of keeping a progressing theme, and make it sort of good looking. The idea was never to make a "perfect", gameplay oriented, challenging but rewarding chapter, because I feel like that's incredibly overdone. I could've made the gameplay terrible and not even given it detailed visuals, because I would've done what I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, I got REALLY sidetracked while making it, in the worst way. My whole opinion and approach changed when I working on it when I showed it HERE, and told people I knew about it. I started getting rather excited, even though I shouldn't have. I suddenly felt like since this was going to be a full, 20 level chapter that possibly has pontential, that I should cater it towards most of the Super Meat Boy fanbase, but while keeping the same idea. At the same time, I wanted to make the chapter dramatic instead of just kind of subtle and letting the "drama" happen when the player decides to. Where I messed up bad was really trying to appeal to the SMB fans who were all for the controls, the challenge and the gameplay, when I should've just stuck with my first idea of it and not made a mess of it. I originally wanted this chapter to be like the one nobody knew about and you just stumbled on while searching Super Meat World, in midst of looking for any other good chapters, and it's just really unique, atmospheric and honestly a breath of fresh air as far as meat world levels go. It's actually unfortunate that I even realized that there were going to be people (but I didn't know most were going to feel this way) who thought the chapter was doing a really bad job at being totally radically hard and "NOTHING UNIQUE OR NEW HERE, THE PLATFORM LAYOUT ISN'T EVEN GOOD!" "Where are the saws??" "There isn't even a challenge; I didn't go past the third level because it was so boring" "What's the point of the chapter?" "Ugh, more meat world garbage creating traffic because it thinks its being funny by being so easy."

...

I guess it's hard to really convey a point in something that's so opposite of what you're doing. It doesn't help that I changed the chapter in order to please this crowd. (And theres nothing wrong with this "crowd"; It's easy to get the wrong point when you're imagining all the other content creators to have the same look on it as you.) It's such a terrible feeling too though, I could think that it's what it feels like to be the lead of a company and producing "Call of Duty" games. Eventually, it feels like theres no actual passion in the work and it's just for the pleasing for most of the audience. It's the exact opposite on how I want to feel about ANYTHING I make creatively.

Well, that's pretty much it. I'm not going to tell people to go play this. They'll play it if they want to, likely they won't like it anyway; I wouldn't blame them, I messed it up. But if this sounds like your sort of thing, then do what you want. I just really felt like saying this, and it's a good thing that I finally have, because it gets across better what I MEANT to say, rather than what it seemed like before.

I'm sure there are going to be people who didn't bother to read any of this, and that's fine, because it's better than what was there before. Luckily, in the same way they don't give a shit, I give one neither. I would've been better off never even having worked on the chapter, so I apologize if you feel like it's a waste of digital space.

[GameRoom]

They look cool, but the levels I played seemed too easy.

[Two Hacks]

They're supposed to be slightly easy. And it will get harder once in hell.

[TunnelingEffect]

Are you still working on these? I've played First of All and really enjoyed it.(I think it was featured?)

[Two Hacks]

Yeah, I'm working on the last two levels. It will probably be done this week. 

[TunnelingEffect]

Do you have a gallery of previews up somewhere or am I blind?   

[Two Hacks]

Not sure if I plan on adding one, you'll be able to see all the levels when you play the chapter. xD

I'd add one picture so that people will be able to get a basic vibe of what the chapter looks like, but I honestly don't know how to upload pictures from my computer onto the forums.

[TunnelingEffect]

I just played up to 17, they are enjoyable levels. Well done. Will finish the other 3 later.

I enjoy making people wall jump off 1 space blocks too. 

[Two Hacks]

Thanks for playing them! It's very much appreciated.   

[Genesis]

I loved playing them!
They were a little bit easy, but they're also very innovative, especially the level with the flying rocks!

[PsychedelicEyeball]

Most of the chapter was a little too easy... we're talking Light World Forest difficulty, and if it wasn't for the later levels that take place in Hell, my interest in the chapter wouldn't have stayed. Some really clever sections in the levels, such as the parts with the flying rocks and the later levels have a good "The End" vibe to them, which I like. Even though none of the later levels have any hard sections, the levels are rendered hard due to their length, which is a good tradeoff.

Your levels look great in overall and I'll say this is a chapter worth playing. Well done!

[Two Hacks]

Most of the chapter was a little too easy... we're talking Light World Forest difficulty, and if it wasn't for the later levels that take place in Hell, my interest in the chapter wouldn't have stayed. Some really clever sections in the levels, such as the parts with the flying rocks and the later levels have a good "The End" vibe to them, which I like. Even though none of the later levels have any hard sections, the levels are rendered hard due to their length, which is a good tradeoff.

Your levels look great in overall and I'll say this is a chapter worth playing. Well done!

Thank you very much! It's really awesome to hear that someone whose chapter I liked a lot tried one of my own, and even gave it good feedback! 


As for the difficulty, I wanted to have the player glided somewhat through most of the chapter.
 The first few levels were really easy, but I tried to make sure that the difficulty gradually ramped up, instead of after a few levels, the chapter instantly being hard and staying that difficulty for the rest of the chapter. Another bonus to it be easy is that it's subtable for all skill levels! 

Anyhow, I really appreciate that you (and anyone else) tried my chapter.

[StealthAngel667]

I actually really liked this and played all of it. I'm quite surprised myself, because I normally don't play much of the Super Meat Worldly goodness.

Some points of criticism off the top of my head:
The final level had a great concept, but imo not so great execution. I think the ride down could've been a lot shorter, you could easily cut the first 50% and still have a challenge. It did feel a lot like an Endish level like Omega, which I liked.

Which brings me to Omega. You have the infamous Omega 'jump down after the key' part somewhere in those Hell themed levels copied exactly. I think everybody and their dog hates that jump, and for good reason. It can wreck SMB speedruns. It's also not very creative, unlike all other pieces, which were excellent. I especially liked the flying rocks and the long elevator ride up to Bandage babe. I think creativity is your strong point and you should use it accordingly.

Earlier in the pack, there are 2 or 3 levels that are just straight mountain climbing. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you can leave the earliest one in and take the others out. Also helps you smooth out the difficulty curve. While the final level is quite hard (I'd say about DarkFactory or DarkEnd, maybe even LightCotton in difficulty) you have quite a bit of wiggle room before that, and I suggest you use it to make some more intermediate levels. Again, don't take this the wrong way and make the entire pack hard, we have quite enough of those packs already...

[Two Hacks]

Thanks! But I don't quite remember a part in the chapter that has that "Omega key jump."  I think I know what you're talking about though; it's the one where you have to go on the lift and get the key then come back. There are many different ways to go about that map, so I wouldn't quite so I "copied it exactly", especially since I wasn't thinking about the Omega jump.

Anyhow, I'd kinda like to emphasize that this chapter was all around the theme. It wasn't really the gameplay, but more about how it felt and being aware that you're from some place that isnt from the original game. Unfortunately, I don't think this was conveyed very well, and that should be pretty understandable, since you only have a choice from tilesets that are very limited in content. If there was a universal tileset, it might actually make level creating a little more interesting, and give creators more of a choice in what their world can look.

[StealthAngel667]

Could be just confusion on my part then. I did a lot of SMB that night so I can't really recall everything.

Also, conveying a feeling with design is very hard. I think you actually had a decent go at it. The tileset limitation is annoying, true enough.