Super Alex Album of Levels

[SuperAlex]

Heya! Guys Welcome to my......



This album was made by me but I have to complete using all the stamps on each page through levels that I create.
Click to the images to download the levls.

Stamp #1: Ancient Bridge in Disguise.

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-->4th place in Dioramacon 2021
-->Medal to most Slowdown.

Stamp #2: Farmyard

Spoiler: show

[SuperAlex]

Note: Ancient Bridge in Disguise Reconstruct version was available...

[marioman2007]

Nice levels I really liked the 1st one, you can glide so slowly!
By the way, where are the credits?

[SuperAlex]

In Ancient Bridge in Disguise 2 levels (Normal and Reconstruct):
CREDITS:

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Level Name: Ancient Bridge in Disguise
by: Super Alex
Collectible stars: 1 SMB3 Star
Player Characters: Mario and Luigi
Diorama: "SuperAlex - Diorama.png"
Credits:
-Music from Kevin Mcleod
-Graphics by Me (Super Alex)
-Water Currents and particles by Waddle or SnoruntPyro (but edited by me)
-SMM2 Twister by Core
-Sound Effects by Youtube.
-Special Thanks to Enjil (for the currents Lua code)

"A inspiration from SMW VLDC11 level"

LEVEL THEME:

A BRIDGE THAT HE JUST SEEN IS SOMETHING OLD TO MOST. A PLAYER 
TAKES IT AS IF OTHER PEOPLE SEE IT AND HIDE A TERRIBLE SECRET. 
THEREFORE, YOU SHOULD RESEARCH AND HELP THE PLAYER GET THROUGH 
THIS AMAZING LEVEL AND BE CAREFUL WITH THE BULLET BILLS.

In Farmyard CREDITS:

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Evan'F for the Farmyard Graphics
Mr DoubleA for the warp transition

[Fuyu]

I was originally going to play both of those levels but I was tired out of my mind playing Ancient Bridge in Disguise, so that is the only one I'm going to review. I might come to the other one later, we'll see how it goes.

Ancient Bridge in Disguise

Boy, where do I start!? Ok, level design. Under normal circumstances, the level design would be ok at best. This level has plenty of moments where first-time players would be unable to avoid taking damage, namely the Football Chucking Chuck and the place with the Boomerang Bro and the Hammer Bro. There shouldn't be much going for this level. But these aren't normal circumstances I'm afraid, this level uses wind mechanics! Yay! Look, I'm not going to say that wind mechanics are bad, but they are hard to work around, and especially these ones since for some reason not only do they slow the player instead of pushing them (most of the time), but they also slow down falling for some physics-law defying reason.

This brings another issue. When the wind actually affects the player its jump height is also manipulated because ... why? I get that moving slower makes the jump height lower, but that's why the level makes the running speed slower in the first place right? Adjusting the player height is another hazard in its own class seeing as 70% of the jumps are barely possible with both the wind AND jump height adjustment.

For some reason, there is also a total of 3 Twisters in the entirety of this level, which is a shame because they could've been used for some really unique obstacles. Like keeping track with the Twisters moving from one end of a section to another, where losing it means falling to a pit.

Then there's the boss. We have the epidemy of originality: Mouser. This boss is just as overplayed as SMB3 Bowser, if not more. And this setup drives it home too, seeing as the only two strategies the player can take are to either jump to the Mouser and filter all of its bombs right then and there to hit it or to casually wait for the bombs to come your way in the rotating platform because waiting is a fun game.

To finish let's talk about the ending cutscene, which is funny. In fact, the entire dialogue provided by Toad is funny, and so is the scream at the end. There's just one problem. Requiring the player to stand in the middle column puts him/her in an unnecessarily precarious predicament seeing as not knowing when the dialogue stops if the player were to jump from one of the columns to that one when the dialogue stops the wind will continue to move the player shoving it off the column and towards death. Experiencing this myself I can say it without a shadow of a doubt, it was frustrating.

Scores
Design: 15 / 30 [If I can say something is that the level stayed consistently annoying. There was also a lot of missed potential.]
Aesthetics: 20 / 20 [Clearly the area where this level performed best. No complaints here.]
Gameplay: 16 / 40 [Both the mechanics, the tight jumps, and the first-time player-killing scenarios really play against this level.]
Originality: 6 / 10 [Wind is a mechanic that while used plenty, the way it was implemented here was quite unique. Just remember that taking from the player usually doesn't bode well for the playing experience.]

Overall: 57 / 100
Honestly, I'm more disappointed than angry at this point. Because in hindsight this level had plenty of potential making the final result all the sadder. But hey, if there's something I can't take away from this level is that it tried to do something, it wanted to be something. It just happened to fall a little flat, but there are worst ways this level could've gone. I'll keep a tab on this thread and see where you go from here.

[SuperAlex]

Fuyu, you are absolutely right I have the worst record in my first level submitedd. but you already played the same level but reconstruct (Check the 2nd image in ABID)? and how would you rate?
Levels coming soon:
-> Lakitu Castle
-> Ancient Ruins in the Clouds
-> etc ...

[Fuyu]

It's hard to call it 'reconstruct' when all the difference it makes is removing the wind and adding another layer to the background. Plus without the wind, all the setups on this level have broken since they were made with it in mind.

I really think you had something special going for this level. The main issue was the implementation of the wind, it felt clunky, and combined with the jumps the player was forced to make it became tiresome and tedious. I think it'd be a waste to throw the ideas you poured so earnestly into this level into the trash bin, that's why I think that if you're willing to 'fix' this level you should do it from zero, and most importantly try to cook up a wind mechanic that feels more natural and less forced.

I recently cooked up a wind code with the help of two friends I'm using on one of my side projects, but it took quite a bit of trial and error. Try playing games with wind effect and see how they work, what they do, and try to replicate it in SMBX. If coding's not your forte asking for help on discodehaus could yield the answers you need. You'll have my support whenever you show me something new here so don't let up!