A Second Preview of the Haunted Castle

[Zexis]

I went ahead and made a new video, showcasing the first three rooms of the hack. I should note that in the second room, the video quality makes it near impossible to see any of the platforms of spikes. I recommend going to the actual Youtube page and watching it in high quality to better see them. Here's the link to the page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06C9oQUxIXs

Or, you can just watch it right here.

06C9oQUxIXs

Anyways, all comments/criticism are appreciated. To see that really tough jump I'm stuck at for a good bit of the video, ask cheat for the screenshot of that room. This'll be my last preview until the final release of the hack.

[mariowings77]

Nice job Zexis;)
Looks extremely difficult if you don't know where the spikes are XD
Other than that, good job!! :D

[Zexis]

In-game they're easier to see, trust me. But thank you.

[mariowings77]

Oh, haha ok then:P

[cheat-master30]

You need to set vertical scrolling to off, because it's glitched the background a bit. But it looks nice and difficult.

[Zexis]

Which section are you referring to? The roof?

[cheat-master30]

Yeah, the roof section.

[cheat-master30]

Added the videos to the video gallery.

[Zexis]

For the roof section, I wanted to have an outside background. So, I kept the original background, but with the sacrifice of garbled graphics, do to it being a "Castle" tileset area. If I turn off vertical scrolling, I'm not sure the player will have enough room to view some of the blocks higher up.

[cheat-master30]

Vertical scrolling seems like the only way, so try it, and if there are any blocks too high up, move them down a pixel or so.

[cheat-master30]

Apparently, set layer 2 scrolling to v none or something.

[Zexis]

So, it's not okay to have the garbled graphics seen by the player, then? I wanted to make them feel like they were outside, but it was hard without screwing things up a bit.

[cheat-master30]

That would be a factor in getting this rejected at Super Mario World Central, but we need the background. My best guess is just to set it to no vertical scroll then maybe lower down some stuff. The spike columns can stay as they are anyway though, no one cares if you can't see the top of them, because they're not an interactive part of the level.

[Zexis]

Hm. The clouds don't look to bad, I think. It's mostly the hills. What if I took out the hills, but left the clouds as is? Do you think they would accept that?

[cheat-master30]

That would work perfectly.

[Zexis]

All right, I've fixed it. Do you have any other suggestions as to what could be improved on?

[cheat-master30]

Honestly, no. There isn't really much to improve. Although I do know two possibilities for that area after the elevator:

1. A Boo 'minefield', like the Sunken Ghost Ship in the original.

2. A Boo 'ceiling', like the Donut Plains Ghost House.

Either of those would also have more spikes and obstacles as well as the huge amount of deadly ghosts.

[Zexis]

Honestly, no. There isn't really much to improve. Although I do know two possibilities for that area after the elevator:

1. A Boo 'minefield', like the Sunken Ghost Ship in the original.

2. A Boo 'ceiling', like the Donut Plains Ghost House.

Either of those would also have more spikes and obstacles as well as the huge amount of deadly ghosts.
Can do. And I believe you wanted something along the lines of a bottomless pit, correct? Also, I wanted to add that I've fixed the spikes on the ceiling so that they are now facing the correct direction.

[cheat-master30]

No, a spike pit, because a bottomless pit makes no sense over a room. Because you know, the crypt/boss room is geographically underneath that section. But nice to see you've fixed the spikes, so you now have downward spikes, correct?

[Zexis]

Ah. A spike pit. Yes, that does make much more sense. And yes, there are now downward spikes. If you decide to release the map of the level when I supply the last screenshots, you may want to add that the spikes in the earlier screens have been fixed since the pictures were taken. Some other misc. changes have been made as well here and there for smoother performance.

[cheat-master30]

You nearly done the last section of the level then?

[Zexis]

No, not yet. I couldn't work on it yesterday because I was at my relative's place for the holiday. I hope to make some progress on it here in the next hour or so.

[Zexis]

Okay, I've ran tests for both the appearing Boos and the Ghost Ceiling. My results are that when using the random Boo generator along with the dark room sprite, the screen flashes wildly from black to grey, I'm assuming from sprite overload. So, unless we want to give the player a seizure, that isn't an option, unless we remove the darkness (which I'd rather not, since the rest of the level is dark.) The Boo ceiling works just fine, so I'm thinking that I'll just stick with that.

[cheat-master30]

The boo ceiling seems good, with a few careful precision jumps over a spike pit of doom. Maybe a few eerie generators as well, with even some normal Boos thrown in to make it more difficult.

[Zexis]

I've put in a few obstacles over a gigantic spike pit. I tried a Boo ceiling, but for the first few obstacles, it made it impossible to progress. So I took them out and put in an eerie generator, which will be replaced by a Boo ceiling later on. I can send you a screenshot of the first obstacles in a few minutes, if you'd like. Or, I could just wait until the rest of the room is done.

[cheat-master30]

Wait until the rest is done, because it'll be interesting to see how you designed this section of the level.

[Zexis]

Heh. Well, let's just say that it will be...slightly different than what the design shows. In the meantime...*gets back to work*

One more question; do you care about the length of this section? I'm debating whether or not to make it nice and long or keep it on the shorter side.

[cheat-master30]

I don't care about it, just make it so the section after is a simple set of steps (maybe quite a long set) that go down to an ominous door.

[Zexis]

I had planned on keeping the stairs fairly short. But I can extend them. It'll probably just be a simple staircase, maybe with a random Boo generator to spice things up, with a missing stair here or there.

[cheat-master30]

I took the staircase from the Palace of Shadow in Paper Mario 2, which had quite a long staircase going down without much happening leading to the crypt and the final boss. So basically, you're fighting Reznor in a freaking tomb.

[Zexis]

Reznor reborn, eh? Too bad we don't have any fights with him prior to this, so that it would make a bit more sense to be fighting him.

I'm doing pretty good on the room. I've finished the more elaborate obstacles and am now just going to work on a screen or two of precision jumps. Then I'll do the staircase and find a place to put Reznor (I might just take Morton's level value, since I don't think we'll be needing it.) With any luck, I'll be finished tonight. Maybe. But don't count on it.

[cheat-master30]

Reznor reborn, eh? Too bad we don't have any fights with him prior to this, so that it would make a bit more sense to be fighting him.

I mainly meant the whole style of the castle going deeper underground at the end was similar, not the story. But hey, good point.



I'm doing pretty good on the room. I've finished the more elaborate obstacles and am now just going to work on a screen or two of precision jumps. Then I'll do the staircase and find a place to put Reznor (I might just take Morton's level value, since I don't think we'll be needing it.) With any luck, I'll be finished tonight. Maybe. But don't count on it.

Sounds good. But yeah, I'm really keen to see what the finished level is like.

[Zexis]

Okay. The good news is that minus a few tweaks here and there, tentatively titled Creepy Castle is finished. The bad news is, i'm extremely busy today and barely have the time to type out this message. But if i get the chance, i'll upload it today.

[cheat-master30]

Creepy Castle eh? Reminds me of Donkey Kong 64 in the naming. Not that that's a bad thing.