It’s been long since last update, but that was ’cause I for no known reason waited till I got these 4 levels sorted through. Thus this update took long ’cause it’s 4 updates in 1.
Foul Fowl Farm
The 1st mountain level, as the music & background hint. I originally planned to have it be the 2nd mountain level, with “Milky Mountains” as the 1st, but I’ve found this level to be much easier than that level, & it fits better, difficulty-wise, like that. It doesn’t fit as well theme-wise, since it’s strange that a straightforward mountain level would be 2nd & the level that twists the theme a bit comes 1st, but that’s not as important. Plus it’s a bonus to start strange, so the audience doesn’t get bored before the good stuff comes. Always put the best 1st & last & the weakest in the middle; & though I don’t consider “Milky Mountains” to be bad, I consider it on the lower end, & worse than “Foul Fowl Farm”.
This was, indeed, a level that took much mo’ time drawing the graphics than coding it, since the goal gimmick was already mostly coded for “Playing Railroad”. I e’en had to make a program to generate the tiles for the barn roofs, since they comprise to many blocks for me to have the patience to do that manually.
However, it did take mo’ recoding than it appears. 1 lame thing I had to do was make copies o’ all the Pollo no Noko enemies, since the originals respawn after they die — & need to stay that way for “Milky Mountains” to still work right. In this level, that clearly can’t fly, since you could just respawn & killing the same chicken. E’en if my counter was smart ’nough to account for that, which would be mo’ effort than just copying & pasting, it would be annoying for the player to have to remember which chickens they’ve already bopped. Much simpler to just keep bopped chickens bopped.
I also had to create a new slope template, since the 1 I I’d just made for “Stormy Skyscrapers” only accounted for different slope widths, while the barn roof needed a super steep slope 2 blocks high. Since ’twas so different, trying to wrangle the already-existing slope template wouldn’t have been worth it, so I just created a new template.
It seems I was mo’ lenient with the time scores with these levels, since the video o’ my winning attempt to get the time score is full o’ weird flubs. The gem score, however, requires you to get all o’ them, which is fair, since this is a short & easy level.
Frostbite Mines
I was mixed on this. For a while I wanted to make a spiral-shaped level as part o’ my strategy o’ basing level maps ( more o’ less ) on simple shapes; & as simple as this level is, I like how it works. You may notice that a common strategy I play is to sometimes give levels 2 gimmicks when 1’s too modest1, so the level isn’t too pedestrian. In this case, just sliding under spikes & dodging falling snowballs by themselves aren’t compelling ’nough for their own levels; but mixed into 1 level gives the level mo’ depth. It feels mo’ like Donkey Kong Country 2 & less like Donkey Kong Country 3.
However, this & the next ice level I’ll write ’bout uses up all the ice level ideas; & I still wanted to have a snowy mountain level. That’s why I waited till I finished the other ice level to confirm whether I wanted these both. ’Twas during this time that I came to my solution: just move the ice mountain level to the mountain theme. However, this pushes me into deciding ’tween mo’ levels: the ice mountain vs. that dumb level where you just don’t press anything for 30 seconds vs. the volcano level idea vs. ’nother desert level I’m working on ( since all o’ these ’cept the ice mountain could potentially be desert levels ). But that choice is easier.
Technically, I finished this level’s graphics last, since I decided to use the ice-mine blocks I made for “Chillblain Lake” ’stead o’ the regular mine blocks. But the main design was made 2nd. Besides, as I’ll rant ’bout, I neglected to finish the graphics o’ the next 2 levels.
’Cause this is a rather difficult level for this game, this is a 4th-cycle level. It’s easy to be a li’l off on your budging when near spikes or next to the falling snowball to get a li’l too close & taking a hit, & there are no hearts. That said, this is 1 o’ the few short 4th-cycle levels.
I think I intentionally made the time score for this level somewhat lenient, since it’s a rather difficult level, as I usually do. I think the gem score lets you miss ’bout 1 gem ( which, sadly, doesn’t include the 250₧ bright gem @ the bottom o’ the slope o’er spikes ).
The Amazon Jungle
This is not a jungle level, but what is planned to be the 2nd factory level. The name is based on a 2-part pun based on the warehouse company Amazon that the city near to me, Seattle, has a love-hate relationship with for being a great job-creator for jobs that are miserable to work & a classic novel, The Jungle, known for its gruesome depiction o’ factories, which inspired regulatory acts by the Theodore Roosevelt administration in the US. I fiddled with names that involved the word “warehouse”, including the truly dreadful “Warehouse o’ London”, which makes no sense, since this game obviously takes place in the fictional city o’ Boskeopolis, not a real British city. I finally decided that the current name is mo’ clever than any hokey Rareware alliteration on “Warehouse”.
The level is mainly based round moving trucks carrying what I s’pose are packages. I actually made these sprites a while ago for a city level I rejected; but ’stead o’ having packages on their backs, they had… whatever the backs o’ big trucks are called. I think they were called “Anguri Trucks”, based on the Japanese way o’ saying “angry”, for some reason. They’re basically just Mega Moles from Super Mario World that are a danger if they run into you, but can help you by giving you a moving platform o’er spikes. Not only is it a ripoff o’ that, but making them trucks is clearly inspired by the VIP rom-hack series, which changed the Mega Mole graphics into some obscure truck meme.
I find this level questionable, mainly due to all the parts that slow you down, such as the part where you have to ride the truck & the part where you have to stay ’tween 2 trucks in a long line o’ trucks to slowly make your way to the end. I don’t like autoscrollers, as they make you wait, & waiting is boring. I guess these aren’t too bad, since you don’t have to wait too long ’tween actions for the riding section, & it’s not long, & you have to constantly time your budges forward to keep yourself from falling too far back & hitting the truck ’hind you or going too far forward to hit the truck ’head o’ you, so you’re not just waiting. Plus, one could take the long line section as a satire on traffic jams — an idea I’ll admit I just came up with now. A’least they’re broken off with free platforming sections.
I’m also not sure how to feel ’bout that section that kills you if you stay on the truck as it lets it rise up. I tried to indicate that it’s death by putting a skull in the background there; but that just makes one wonder why it’s e’en there. The obvious answer is as a joke — but it’s still weird. O well: better games got ’way with worse bullshit.
Since this level constrains your movement so much, I know I intentionally made the time score lenient, as seen by my still-winning flubbed-up video. Like “Frostbite Mines”, the gem score lets you miss a few gems, but not many.
I always hate it when I spend so much time trying to make sure the presentation o’ a level is as polished as I can make it before making these presentations & being able to move on, only to realize after already making the video that I didn’t finish everything. ¿How could I forget to put a string on that package that raises you to the top? Actually, I didn’t e’en notice that till I noticed that the package lacked any kind o’ shading & realized that I ne’er got to polishing that sprite @ all: I just drew the simplest design that looked like a package I could & commensed with making it work how I wanted ( as is wise to do: e’en worse is wasting time polishing design for something you later realize doesn’t work & must be tossed aside ), only to forget to do the polishing part.
Chillblain Lake
Though I originally planned to make this a 3rd-cycle ice level, I may make this a 2nd-cycle — or e’en 1st-cycle — level & move “Frigid Frigates” to the 3rd cycle, since I feel like it’s harder than this level. E’en “Ice Box Rock”, which is in the 1st cycle, might be harder than this level.
This level is heavily inspired by Wario Land 3’s “E2 The Frigid Sea” green treasure, wherein you start out with water, giving you access to the chest, but not the key, so you have to go hit a switch to turn the water into solid ice, giving you access to the key, but not the chest, which means you have to go back & hit the switch 1 mo’ time. As arrogant as it feels to say, I feel my design is better than Wario Land 3’s, since there’s less backtracking: in Wario Land 3, you go through the same path twice to the switch, while this level makes you go in a figure 8, with the 1st path to the switch in the water that leads to the chest, & thus blocked off after turning the water to ice, & the path to the key going onward to the switch in ’nother way.
I particularly like the way the 2nd path leads to a cliff o’er the switch. When you 1st reach the switch, you’ll likely see it, ’specially if you grab the tantalizing gems ’bove the switch. But you can’t reach up there ( nor can you reach the very topmost tantalizing gem ). It’s only on the way back to the switch through the other way that the player learns the mystery o’ the cliff too high to reach & can finally nab that too-high gem.
The diamond was originally just in an alcove on the key side o’ the water, sort o’ parallel to the main path in the chest side o’ the water. However, I felt that was still too easy to find. I wanted to involve the water-ice gimmick in some way, so I made it so that you couldn’t quite reach the diamond ’bove the water, but could with the ice. But then I remembered that ice is solid, so you can’t go through it to reach the diamond. So I made a somewhat secret passage ’bove the spikes @ the end o’ the curve upward & made a ladder passage ( which, unlike “Stormy Skyscrapers” & “Foul Fowl Farm”, has a top that you can climb up to, but can’t climb down, making it 1-way ) back up to the curve, since the ice path is still blocked off. My only problem with this is I don’t think this passage is secret ’nough. I pushed it back ’nough so that you couldn’t see the other side o’ the wall with the kind o’ natural camera you’d have when you reach the spikes; but as you jump up the curve on the normal path to the switch, you’re guranteed to see the secret passage opening.
You may notice the sliding under spikes gimmick from “Frostbite Mines” used here, but in a much easier, shorter way. That is ’nother technique I use sometimes: gimmicks reused in later levels in much less prominent ways as either a short tutorial for the real threat, as used here, or mixed with ’nother gimmick as a mo’-challenging twist on the gimmick, as seen in “Crying Lightning” with the fading-in & fading-out cloud platforms from “Cotton Candy Clouds” ( a gimmick that was also taken from Wario Land 3 ) mixed with the chasing lightning cloud enemy for a short bit, challenging the player to time jumps gainst the 2 gimmicks simultaneously ’stead o’ just 1.
Sick o’ the mine blocks used in so many levels already, I made an icy version, mixing the ice tops o’ the ground blocks from “Frigid Frigates” with the mine blocks, which I then decided to add to “Frostbite Mines”. I also changed the also-o’erused rocky mine background ( I’m still not sure if I’ve finished that background or if I’m going to ’ventually try adding wooden frames to it ) to a background totally not heavily based on a Wario Land 3 background from the same level this gimmick was taken from, but I didn’t use that background in “Frostbite Mines”, ’cause I found ’twas too hard to see with that level’s much brighter palette, made brighter by the white fog. I also opened the roof & added sunlight streaming in from the top. I e’en made this level’s name “Chillblain Lake”, ’stead o’ its original name, “Chillblain Caves”, which is mo’ fitting, since this level’s main focus is the lake shifting back & forth from being liquid or solid. All this is a way to try minimizing the mines aspect o’ this level, since it feels weird having half the ice levels be mine levels, too, when we already have 3 mine levels.
Despite all this polish, I realized too late that I ne’er bothered to make the fish enemies have mo’ than 1 animation frame or not look like something I sloppily drew out in a couple seconds, which is what I definitely did. Worse: this isn’t e’en a new enemy, but 1 I made way back for “Soupy Sewers”. Why I still haven’t given that enemy worthwhile graphics is beyond understanding.
However, I did think to make these fish boppable underwater, as the video shows, proving that I took my critique ’bout not being able to hit enemies in water levels being a contributing factor to those levels’ popular hatred in my article ’bout Super Mario Bros. Deluxe to heart for my own game.
