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[MegaMew]

Weird... is nobody actually playing my chapter? 

I've been busy as hell lately.  I have a week entirely off of school coming up, so expect me to start playing at around Monday at 3:00.

[bofabses]

Hey great job on completing 20 levels . I can tell a lot of work was put into all of them. I think the chapter seems a little unbalanced though. I don't even know how to beat the first level with meat boy. There are a couple levels where the very first jump is frustrating, I'm not sure if that's a design I would use. Plus, I was confused where I was supposed to be going on some. You definitely have a lot of potential and I'd love to play anything that you make. Thanks

[PsychedelicEyeball]

I've finally played it and beaten most of the levels (ones that I didn't complete were the mountain climbing stage, the invisible block stage, the one with gravity wells scattered everywhere and Gentle Rain) so here's my impressions so far.

While the level design on most of these levels is pretty well made and inventive, the design is also so scattershot and wild that the chapter can be hard to follow. None of the levels stick to a common theme so while it can keep things interesting, I also didn't care for all of the types of levels you included.

Let's talk about the negative first: Most of the levels I haven't beaten was mostly because they were either not compelling to play (that mountain level) or poorly made (the invisible block stage which was plain unfair and really boring, the gravity orb level where the clouds end up obscuring Meat Boy so you have even less clue about what you're doing). Those levels made Gentle Rain seem tame in comparison.

I also didn't like how come in that Salt level you actually needed to jump off a patch of salt in order to get the necessary height to get to the end, which you'd normally avoid because it'd kill you. Not cool.

The good stuff: The best levels would be the ones where things are kept simple. My favorites would be Level 8 (Super Meatroid), Level 11 (Windmills), Level 14 (the one with the saws chasing you through the level), and Level 18 (Running Board). These levels were really fun as well as being good-looking and challenging, those would be the cream of the crop for me.

Most other levels also were fun and well-made, although the difficulty really gets maddening at times (Level 17, Level 19 and obviously Level 20 would be the main culprits here). However, these levels still do give the impression that they're beatable, although Gentle Rain is especially mean due to some jumps that feel glitched when you're jumping from inclines and this one jump in the bottom right you have to use a glitch to walljump in a vertical line. Still, I swear that I'll beat this level eventually!

It's definitely an interesting chapter that is worth the download. Good job on your first chapter!

[RockLeeSmile]

Hey, thanks for the crit Psychedelic Eyeball! Sorry if my previous post came across sounding very ... um, needy. That was kinda uncool of me.

If I may address the negatives you mentioned (keeping in mind that I understand that it was the result of poor direction on my part if you didn't get what I was going for, or that I just plain screwed up). Also, I welcome any and all constructive criticism since it helps us grow and get better, so don't ever get the wrong impression and think I'm trying to be defensive or dismissive.

1) Sandy Mountain, it's a speed-run level 100% and maybe it wasn't the best idea to put it into the chapter since it's the only one of it's kind. I envisioned once it was up in the portal that people might want to compare top times on it, that's really the appeal on that one.

2) Ice Truck Killer was sort of a gestalt for me... I realized one night that I don't think I'd ever seen anyone try to make a level with invisible blocks, then I also thought, "how cool is it that meat boy leaves blood smears on the edges of all surfaces, even the invisible ones...". Then I remembered that when he spatters in a saw, bits of blood land on surfaces below him.
The thought behind this level was that you'd have to suicide a number of times to reveal the path of invisible blocks, then hop to the finish. I tried to imply what was you were to do by offering an easily reachable blade with no obvious path up hoping you'd hit it accidentally or intentionally and realize what the deal was. Honestly, I may have been blinded by my perception of a fresh idea and missed the possibility that it may be too far from the traditional gameplay we all signed on to experience in SMB.

3) Floater: I guess I can't really argue your point on that. The only thing I have to say is that I found the gravity wells pretty easy to hop around in personally, but for everyone else, it may have been more frustrating than it was worth. After testing it for about 15 or so minutes I was able to zoom right up them several times in a row, but not consistently. I thought it would be something different.

4) Salt, Injury, Madness: Hmm, I was able to get up the final jump just off the highest exposed edge before the salt started. I actually moved the salt even higher just before publishing it. Sorry if it was annoying. It is a really tight jump though for sure.

Finally, I totally hear you on the weird jumps in Gentle Rain, I just didn't have the heart to get rid of the inclines, and the glitch jump you mentioned I thought kinda pushed the player past the conventional jumping mechanics in the normal game, so I thought it would be appropriate.

Every level is definitely beatable, I've done them all many times now, although, I have had an unfair amount of practice.


Thanks to everyone who tried the chapter out, I really appreciate it. Everybody has been very generous with praise on most of my work and I couldn't ask for anything more than that.

[MegaMew]

Downloaded your level set.  Will play through it tomorrow after class.  I look forward to the invisible floor level.  Just as long as it isn't really really really long it should be an interesting proof of concept if nothing else.

[RockLeeSmile]

Thanks Mew, and thanks bofabses for checking them out.

[RockLeeSmile]

I guess I'll try and do a video for this... although my video editing program has been acting kind weird lately. It was saying I don't have the proper codecs for some format, yet I'm able to publish the video I made IN that format.

[MegaMew]

I finished my school work early so I had a chance to give it a whirl before class.  To quote Team Meat "... its too fucking hard!"

Some of the levels were a lot of fun (sorry, didn't take notes while going  ).  I liked the Metroid one, the one with the two twirling saw blades and all the keys, the mountain without hazards, and a couple others.

What I absolutely loved though was your work with color layers.  It was awesome to see Blue Meat Boy and Black Bandage Girl and you utilized tons of visual tricks that were never used in the main game.

Most of the level designs were solid but too hard for me, but I did notice a few instances of poor level design.  The only one I can think of off the top of my head right now is the one where you spawn inside the cube of razor throwers with the key on one side.  My biggest problem with the levels was that so many of them rely on corner jumps.  It was fine on the mountain since there was no danger, but when you're in a very tense situation with blades and rockets or whatever everywhere, the last thing you want is to discover that you can't win unless you pull of a tricky corner jump first try.  For example, I was looking forward to the invisible blocks level, but I wasn't even able to get up to them 

Again, most of my complaints come from my lack of skill but I still can see that the good level design.

And so I can end this post on a high note, just let me reiterate just how fucking cool Blue Boy was 

[RockLeeSmile]

Awesome Mew, thanks so much for the feedback. I definitely understand there's stuff I need to improve on in this group of levels and I thank you for your honesty in both the good and the bad.

Another thing I was after in the chapter, aside from high difficulty, was diversity in level structure (although keys and saws are the main theme), and pushing the boundaries of what I understood I could do with dev mode. I was actively looking for those little weird quirks and things I could exploit. From colors to objects, particles to re-purposed tiles, I was trying to get to the uncharted territory. I think that's where the obsession with corner jumps came from. I thought it was the best way to quickly up the difficulty and force the player to make really accurate jumps... both things I thought would help make this a huge challenge for those who have become somewhat jaded with the difficulty in the proper game.

Glad you liked Blue Boy... I'd make a Dragnet reference here, but I'm not sure anyone would get it.

I got the captures for each level except Gentle Rain... apparently when I am using FRAPS I am no longer capable of doing long strings of technical jumps without getting nervous... also the inconsistent (read: non 60) FPS is making it REALLY annoying.

I may just half-ass that last level video, sorry, I guess you may just have to trust me that I've beaten it in one go...

UPDATE: HA! I got a one shot run of it once I stopped trying to go for the bandage.
I guess that's what was making it hard to concentrate? So I got 6/7 of them...

[PsychedelicEyeball]

Have you tried leaving the "Lock framerate" button disabled and recording at 30 FPS? Hopefully this should allow you to still play the game at 60 FPS and thus making the game behave correctly.

Anyway, I have tried recording a video for Gentle Rain, but I died at the very end of the level.  On that really tricky corner jump you have to pull off to get the key that opens the way to Bandage Girl.

Needless to say I was done trying to beat the level for the day.

[RockLeeSmile]

Hey thanks for trying, I feel your pain! I managed to get it on video so there will be one one-shot run at least. Maybe someday I'll get the bandage too...

[PsychedelicEyeball]

Hey thanks for trying, I feel your pain! I managed to get it on video so there will be one one-shot run at least. Maybe someday I'll get the bandage too...

Good news! You don't have to try and get the bandage anymore!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha0-hnZ94mg

Included here are three runs of the level: a successful one, a successful one with the bandage obtained and finally a spectacular failure attempt.

That was fun to finally pull it off :)

[RockLeeSmile]

Thanks, that was incredible!

Also, bump for adding videos to the first post.

[ShinobiRain]

Hey, no matter what anyone else says, I think your levels are very interesting and clever. Although it takes skill to develop friendly levels, it also takes skill to find extremely hard but doable jumps and make them work in interesting levels, which you did. If you want to make hard maps, that's your choice, but since I only have the XBLA version, I really hope these aren't deemed to hard to make it to the Teh Internetz 

And about the actual levels, I thought ice trucker was very interesting and unique, and the background for that level was awesome. I also liked your levels where everything is a different color. Both the meat boy and alien levels were cool touches as well. The only negative I would say is forcing the glitch jump on the last level is kind of annoying. Like I said, I only have XBLA so I can't try it, but it seems to me since that glitch rarely happens it would be tedious for a jump like that. So yeah, keep up the good work and awesome backgrounds.

[RockLeeSmile]

Hey, thanks so much for saying that ShinobiRain. I feel like a there is starting to be some kind of backlash formed against difficult levels... I can do easier ones too, but I prefer not to. At least I needed to get this set out before I take a step back. If that's really what everyone wants I'm sure I could do some of those next.

I also have to apologize to PsychedelicEyeball... you were right about the salt level... when I moved the salt up just before publishing, I didn't do it properly, and when I made the video, I found that you could indeed touch salt where you weren't supposed to without dying. So, I guess I need to amend that. Sorry about that.