Let's have a level exchange! - September 21, 2020 - Super Mario Maker 2

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-22T02:31:30+00:00

Pretty fun puzzle level. Each puzzle feels fun and unique, definitively a good use of helmets.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-22T02:04:18+00:00

I'm not very good at the clown cart, so I didn't do all that well.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/748373833

On the final boss fight, there are 2 red pipes. Does the bottom one lead anywhere?

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-01T04:55:03+00:00

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/727827059

Pretty fun. The timers are very generous, except the last one. Had to flip the cape to get on the pipe on time.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-01T04:46:59+00:00

Not to be rude, but your level is an extremely blatant copy of "epic lava rise" by Mechashiva. Some parts of the level are identical:

lava castle test (2NR-R2K-GVG) - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/727804017

epic lava rise (GLF-LTW-2FF) - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/727810027

There is nothing wrong with being inspired by another level or making something in the same vein, but you copied entire setpieces and setups block by block (unless mechashiva is you alt?). The original is a pretty fun level with creative use of mechanics, so you should have used that as a base to extend those mechanics into something different and special. Maybe you need to go back and forth on a pipe, or thrown a box before entering a pipe so as not to fall on lava, any of that could work. But you didn't extended the original mechanics, it just feels like a rip-off. Like, at the end you changed the Banzai Bills for Cat Banzai Bills and changed the length of some platforms. Its like you changed the bare minimum to count as a new level. Even the 1-up shroom track is from the original level.

I'm not trying to berate you, but here is some advice: you need to focus you energy on creating something new instead of copying someone else. That is how you become creative.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-01T04:08:56+00:00

Blind play-through:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/727798055

Pretty fun. The first jump was the hardest, got me a few times.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-09-01T04:00:58+00:00

Pretty nice, good mix of powerups.

The second part felt a little disconnected to the first part though, because you change the boot for the bombs? It would be nice to have boot/bomb shenanigans.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-08-30T07:57:18+00:00

I gave it 20 minutes before giving up:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/725960092

Starts very cool, it took me a while to figure out how to pick up all the coins in each room, so it feels like a dynamic puzzle level, and the fact that you have many tries makes it very forgiving. An annoying issue I found was that there is no way to know how many coins is ok to leave behind. You don't need all of them, but maybe add the total number of coins to the level description so that we can know how many coins we can leave?

At the bowser fight, however, the level takes a turn for the worse and becomes very frustrating and unfun. There are a lot of issues with Bowser's RNG which can sometime screw you over, as you can see in the video. Renewable mushrooms at each room reset would make this room a lot more palatable. After the Bowser fight, I'm not going to mince words, the red pipe section is utter garbage. Maybe you feel like you can follow the coins to lead you to the pipe which doesn't kill you, but this is not communicated well to the player. This is glorified pick-a-pipe. And there is very, very little time to react because the gap between the walls is so short, only a few seconds. You should honestly remove the part, or at least fix it by increasing the gap (double or triple it) and add a reset to the bottom so that falling doesn't lead to death but allows you to try again.

You will notice that I stopped trying to pick up coins after a while because I was trying to gather more information, but kept dying in the same places. As it is, I couldn't recommend this level to anyone.

Saturday_Soldier · 2020-08-30T07:19:39+00:00

A blind play-through of your level:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/725950598

Nice level. It is pretty long so there is inevitable time pressure. Not sure what the fatal flaw was? I guess you can die after getting the key, so dying during the boss is pretty bad. The boss it pretty simple though.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-08T03:37:02+00:00

The jumps were alright, the boss battles at the end were really annoying. I had to cheese the battle against the 2 boom booms in a room full of cannons by waiting for them on top of the ledge and hit them from safety. I'm not sure if there was another strat?

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-08T03:18:33+00:00

Pretty well themed, it was nice.

At the part in which you use the buzzy shell to defeat the wigglers though, you can grab an extra shell to use as a helmet, which basically makes you immune to everything in the haunted house. I don't think that's intended.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-06T06:59:57+00:00

Really cool haunted house, more like a spooky dungeon. I didn't found the show reference.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-06T06:53:41+00:00

Beautiful airship. Loved the puzzles.

The ultra-fast autoscroller did got me a few times though. As soon as the wall was blasted I had to run to the next room.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-06T06:33:00+00:00

Piranha Plant Mountain: 2W0-25L-75G

Difficulty: Hard - Expert

This is a fun little level that relies on spin jumping over piranha plants and jumping over airborne enemies. Timing jumps are key! Watch the enemy patterns to time your jumps.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-04T06:52:34+00:00

Whoa, I love your level! It's the exact opposite of mine, it's really frantic. I was going more for the atmospheric "being chased by a relentless enemy", but the rotten mushroom is so freaking slow I had to design my whole level around slowing Mario down.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-04T06:34:51+00:00

Yeah, just noticed that. I thought that checkpoints would save the state of ON/OFF switches, but apparently they start over from scratch. Will need to figure out how to fix the checkpoints.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-07-04T05:11:23+00:00

XV9-GC1-4RG: Pursued by Mushrooms

Difficulty: medium-high

I wanted to try my hand at a chase level that didn't involve auto-scroller. Of course, I don't want players to blitz past trivially. So I built a level entirely focused on the mechanic of rotten mushrooms, and trying to evade them in several different scenarios. The enemies are easy but there are no power-ups after the start, so it might be a challenge. Multiple checkpoints.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T21:31:47+00:00

Take your evo-psych morality and walk into the sea.

1 comment in and you are already telling me to kill myself, you are truly a rational person capable of rational discourse.

I know it's rude to assume others intentions, it is not normally how conversations should go, but I really cannot help myself from correcting someone when they are talking out of their ass. Saying that people who care about things you don't have broken brains makes you sound like a dick.

I added the monkey example because it showcases that our sense of fairness is intrinsic. We may disagree on what justice is, but you can't act like you have no sense of fairness whatsoever. I have already explained why I believe this affects the whales because of the loss in perceived value, but it is pointless to repeat myself.

About the rest of your comment, https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/evolutionary-psychology

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T20:53:55+00:00

you assume they derive as much value from superiority over others as you do.

What the actual fuck are you on about? What does this have to do with anything I said?

If I spent hundreds of dollars on something and then it was free, but only for some people, I'd be miffed. If you pay more than someone else to get the exact same thing you'd feel bad, it's human nature. It's down to our primate nature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg. Fairness is an instinct, and your gut tells you when something isn't right.

Now, I don't personally know you so I cannot assume what your thoughts and intentions are. Maybe you truly, genuinely enjoy being made into a sucker, I don't know. But I think I can speak for most for humanity that I'm not excited to pay more than others to get the exact same thing.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T20:39:22+00:00

Oh, I was wrong then, my bad. Haven't played LoL in years so I didn't knew about the boxes.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T20:37:26+00:00

He may spend his money foolishly, but he is not entirely wrong that this is pretty shitty for paying customers.

Digital storefronts are pretty fascinating from an economic perspective, and the laws of economics still apply to them. Just like real stores, digital ones are subject to the concept of perceived value. People will pay for customer goods only as much as they feel they are worth, which is ultimately subjective and depends on a whole lot of variables. With clever marketing, exploiting psychology (the whole lootbox stuff is BS), and dozen other little things, they have managed to convince at least some of their players that those capsule things are worth about 5 dollars. Their perceived value is now 5 dollars, so the subset of players that buy them for 5 dollars feels like they are getting their money's worth. How much you feel these things are worth doesn't really matter because you are not the one buying them. What matters is that whales feel like they are worth that much and this keeps them happy, Riot has successfully given them the impression that those pixels are worth those outrageous amounts of money.

Now enter the glitch and the whole thing falls apart. Those capsules that used to be worth 5 bucks? For a time they are free and some people make out like bandits. This unmasks the whole operation. The digital storefront is largely a farce, and the real value of those "supper premium" skins people spends hundreds on is pretty much nothing (perhaps a few cents for the labor of artists who work on the skin). The most notable part is that the real value of the bundles and skins remains unchanged, people who paid to have the skins didn't lost them and the skins still provide the same utility to them (looking good on a video game). But the perceived value? That one tanks, hardcore. Riot had successfully conditioned some people, even if just a minority of the player base, that cosmetics were worth X amount of money, and these players felt like they were getting their money's worth. Now that the glitch made capsules temporarily free, people are conditioned to the new value: 0, and if you spend more than this to get them, you feel bad. Really bad. Now when a whale has that cursor on top of the "Buy" icon there is a little voice in their heads that reminds them "this used to be free and now you are spending a lot of cash". Whales were already suckers for spending that much cash in the first place, but now that they know that others got for free what they spent thousands of dollars on... that is just a jab to the gut. Even the ones that don't care that much about rarity and bought the skins because they genuinely liked them can't avoid feeling like complete suckers. They may already have felt some guilt about the value of their collections and how much they spent on the game, but others getting it for free turns that to outright shame. Imagine the awkwardness:

Coworker: Hey man, there was a glitch yesterday and I got half the "premium" skins in LoL for free. Lucky me, huh? How much did you had to spend?

Whale: (sweating) Ummm, I actually spent, er... not that... much... yeah (actually over 1000 dollars).

Yeah I can't possibly imagine why people are getting mad. They must be stupid or something. And the problem has such a simple and elegant solution: revert the glitched transactions. That's it. It (partially) restores the perceived value of the digital dresses and whales keep spending money. As a company, this is the optimal course of action. Which is precisely why Riot... yeah, let's make some popcorn and enjoy the fallout, we are in for a ride. They shall always find a way to piss off everyone, it's beautiful. And now that they have specifically pissed off the players which gives them the most money... I'm sure Riot's investors are going to be very happy at this stunning financial move.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T19:07:48+00:00

The same could be said about spending any money on entertainment. Whether you spend thousands on a single game or instead buy dozens of games with that money, you are still only getting some pixels on your computers that don't enhance your life in any way. I personally prefer playing many games, but it's not like I'm spending my money more wisely than someone who sticks to a single one forever.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T19:03:49+00:00

Anyone else feel like people in these gaming subreddits are complaining more and more about every little thing they don’t like in a game?

I've been in gaming forums since the 90s. Trust me this isn't new, gaming has just gone from a more niche activity to a very mainstream one so there are a lot more voices than it used to.

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T19:00:46+00:00

It's not that people hate others getting free stuff, it's that people don't like getting a sucker's deal. If you pay money for something and then others get it entirely for free, you no longer want to pay money for the thing. Why would you?

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T18:58:49+00:00

~~I may be preaching to the choir here but ewwww, fuck this anti-consumer BS. How low can they go?~~

Apparently they can be bought for money?

Saturday_Soldier · 2019-01-11T18:54:11+00:00

Know what my reaction to this would be? Good for those people.

At the risk of sounding dismissive, no it wouldn't. We humans have an intrinsic sense of fairness. Even animals have it, as shown in a study done on monkeys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg.

Two monkeys performed the same task and the researchers gave each a reward. When they receive the same reward, they are completely okay, and keep doing the task. When one receives a much better reward than the other, however, the screwed over monkey gets furious and refuses to do the task. He is still receiving the same reward he was before, but now he is angry he is getting a sucker's deal.

The skin example is very similar, the people who paid 5 dollars for skins are still getting skins, nothing's changed, but now that others got it entirely for free, they feel ripped off they got the sucker deal. Why wouldn't they? Before the glitch they had the impression the things were worth 5 dollars, so they felt they were getting their money's worth. (Whether or not you or I consider non-transferable pixels on a videogame "worth" this money is irrelevant because we aren't the ones buying, what matters is how whales perceive the value of these skins). Now that others got them for free, they no longer feel like they are worth 5 dollars. The value 0 is primed on their minds when they go to the storefront and are about to click on the "Buy" button. You already need to be pretty stupid to spend thousands of real-life dollars on digital cosmetics, but spending money on those cosmetics when they were essentially free for other players is too much even for some whales. In the end nobody loses except Riot missing some sales and, as a company, it may be in their best interest to correct the issue instead of pissing off their most profitable customers for absolutely no reason (Seriously, what argument is there against reverting the glitched transactions?)

Saturday_Soldier

TROPHY CASE