Background Information:
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My project "Cato's Episode" has been abandoned due to long-term procrastination and exceeding expectations of quality Vanilla-like levels. I seem to lose interest in making levels specifically for the episode, now that I got more interest in just watching YT, playing Touhou and hanging out on Reddit/Discord.This playlist mostly showcase what was in the episode before getting nuked because I mistakenly deleted all the graphics of the levels. Not that it matters, since a lot of stuff is outdated. No more of my voice, no more bosses in every single level, no more mundane level design and no more cringy plotline involving the SMBX community like the ToB (at one point I took all the towers and made them into run & gun levels).
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I might post my previous Contest submissions (not that they are of high quality) later in this thread, accompanied by reviews if possible. Besides, those levels, together with publicly-released levels (Twisted Treetrunk and Outcasted Ore-mine) and much of my project's level will undergo drastic changes if I have the time to continue. They will most likely adapt to the newly experimented style and standard demonstrated in this level, which includes a centred Lua gimmick, 2 checkpoints (3 sections, an additional checkpoint if there is a boss) and 3 Star Coins. It will take a long time to remake one level, not to mention a bunch of ideas and themes that I planned initially in my old episode.
With that said, here is my first level made with a newer format of design.
Samurai Stronghold
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This is version 1.0. It has a bad level design, terrible boss, stupid plot and worse of all, made in 1.3.1. I completely remade the level from scratch for version 2.0, which lacks a boss fight, Lua touch-ups and an overall shorter level. Version 3.0 is the most recent one. I spent the entirety of February and March making this level and the boss.
The level works well with the theme and the gimmick, while the boss is no longer completely Vanilla, have a HPbar and actually has distinct movesets. The Lua part is the most challenging since I can't implement crazy things, but I still able to find solutions to make things work, such as the greenscreen (thanks ATWE), makeshift HPbar, dialogue skipping and most of the boss's attacks. There are still limitations, such as using events instead of routine, green Shyguy effects, player sprite mismatch with the conveyors, Hammer Bros' static direction not functioning properly and Star Coins glitch preventing from setting an ID for Star Coins with the pop-up items.
Download link here. Latest SMBX version (Beta 4) and Mario only. Credits (graphics, scripts, music) in the text file.
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However, it is too identical (perhaps the sole motivation making the level) to Darkonius Mavakar's Bramblebridge ruins with same tilesets, different level design, recoloured background, same game mechanics, different setups and different atmosphere. For the time being, I will not retrain from publicizing the level.
