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John's Level Collections

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by John » March 26th, 2017, 4:54 am

John's Level Collections

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Sorry, my English is not so well...
I joined this website in 2015 and now I'm still active in SM63. As my signature said, I am a SM63 hotfan.
As a newcomer at that time, I'm not experienced in making levels and I always want some warm advices form advanced level creators, I still have a clear memory that whenever I post a level, Supershroom will always give me some advices. But I didn't know how to do that, so I have to find it by myself. Here is my first level on Runouw.com.

first level: Inside the igloo ( Part 2 ): show

If you have played this level, you will find that there is a bug in this level. It' s almost impossible to pass the level. So Supershroom gave me this advice:

Supershroom wrote:This level starts out pretty interesting as a reminiscence to the main game, but the end is confusing and poorly made. Why put a block around many invisibility stars? I've thought I'd actually had to climb that block, which is almost impossible. Also, jumping for a long time on a constantly fast-rotating block is baaaad.

2 stars from me, pay more attention to gameplay and test more please.

I haven't edited just because I don't how to edit a post. I think that Shroom's advice encouraged me to make better levels.
I never give up making levels and I want to join SM63 LDC and get a medal some time.
I regarded it as my exercise. And I make another level before long.

second level: Red-Coins in the Castle grounds: show

I didn't think I could make levels like this. The reason is that when I was making this level, my computer crashed and I had to restart my computer. And my data in SM63 have been deleted, so I have to remake this level from the file I have saved.
Because I have not enough patience, I finished this level in a hurry. I think that As lons as I have enough patience, I can make great levels. So after some days, I made a lava-themed level called Around Bowser's Castle.

third level: Around Bowser's Castle: show

Also, Shroom gave me a reply. In his ( He says he's male ) reply he said that This level is the best of these three levels.

Supershroom wrote:You can fly over the lava without taking damage. Diving forward can let you gain more horizontal speed than triple-jumping, and you can also take some inrun by double-tapping our using the FLUDD. Just look for levels with a cool wing cap challenge and practice. It's really fun.

And red coins on the path are not unnecessary if they have some special difficulty or something extra to be accessed, in this case e.g. the coin the pipe leads to at the beginning.

Oh, and a tip for John. You can use the Ctrl Button to adjust item placement so it looks more ordered.

Awesomeguy 99 said:

Awesomeguy 99 wrote:I noticed a few problems with the level:
The Hover FLUDD takes out WAY too much out of the challenge. I recommend either placing it farther in the level or not at all.
The part with an absolute TON of clock pendulums and hands is very laggy and unnecessary.
The part with the lava and the wing cap star is almost impossible to do without taking damage.
The Thwomps at the cage section can't go through cages, so they just get stuck at the top.
The Red coins felt a little unnecessary, you could have just made this a level to get to the end of, because the red coins were right on the beaten path.

But with all that aside, I think this was a pretty good level. 3 Stars.

3 stars, it's good but it isn't the best.
I think I have to remake the second level of mine. So some days later, I finished this level called "A Misson of Red-Coins".

Fourth level: a misson of red-coins: show

This level is much better than the old version. For some reason, Shroom didn't reply me this time.
This level gave me a lot of confidence to make more great levels though it is rated 3 stars. For me, it is a high score at that time.
Then I want to try more level themes and I made this level, this is the next part of "Inside the Igloo" level.

Fifth level: Inside the igloo ( Part 3 ): show

To my suprise, this level is not good. Many players said that this level is too laggy and there is a lot of mistakes.
I just want to make this level exciting. But on the contary, it is not very enjoyable.
Here are the comments:

Supershroom wrote:There are too many enemies in this level. Far too many enemies. It lags a lot, especially big bullies and the ridiculous amount of parakoopas make the level lag that much. The ascent to reach the Turbo FLUDD was also ridiculously long, climbing so many green platforms is not fun, even more if there's lag.

SuperPika999 wrote:Flaws ( In my opinion )
-------
1. You have only tiles are some ice ones and metal cages. (Plain.)
2.Do we really need that long free-fall in the beginning?
3.Enemy spam I get 15-5 Frames on my gaming PC! (I expect 25-30 fps on my gaming PC)
4.Blind Jump Without zooming out.
5. 2 Launch Stars at a time
You Sure have some work to do... You will soon get better.

I even have the idea of giving up creating levels in SM63 LD. But after a deep think, I knew that I had not put a heart in to the Level Designer.
I order to explore how to make an excellent level, I made a trail of levels:

Sixth level: A Galaxy of yellow coins: show

Seventh level: The edge of Bowser's castle: show

Eighth level: Tower in the fire field: show

Ninth level: Inside the igloo ( part 4 ): show

Tenth level: The secret of the snowland: show

I astonished when I saw my tenth level was only 2 stars!
I made" The Secret of the Snowland" level for 2 months and received just a little bit stars.
I gave up creating SM63 levels and turned into a LL level designer.
But after a while, I gave up LL Level Designer, too. Because it is too hard to make a level. ( Now it is, too. ) It often takes me 2-3 months to make a LL level.
A year later, in March, 2016, I came back to SM63 and made SM63 levels. I think I can try it again, just like I was a newcomer.
I made this level, whose theme is the same as my tenth level. It is huge, so please wait a while when the level is loading.

Eleventh level: The Snowland: show

I was happy because of Supershrrom's reply. I his reply he says I have improved a lot. I was determined again for this comment though it is not the best.

Supershroom wrote:You've definitely improved, yet I'm afraid you went over the top with either the length or the difficulty, if you have something this long and a slight mistake is already lethal and brings you back to the start. This needs checkpoints (hidden pipe at the start + instructive sign at the pipe's destination). I feel like this has not been properly playtested completely and has some bugs, like at the narrow wall with the thwomps going down, they also push down all penguins.

The first two transitions were fairly relaxing, but almost all the others had too many enemies. Lag wasn't that much of an issue, it's more that there are sections where you get constantly hit by a mass crowd of enemies or high-speed bullet bills, which isn't fun. (The walks over parakoopas and penguins were okay, but also became repetitive) At the 4th transition (after the two sling stars), I was honestly confused due to the crowd of flying enemies, there could be more clarification about the course structure than just an arrow pointing down. In the transition with the red coins, the vertical column of small clouds was very tedious to climb. Some moving platforms / sling stars etc. would be advisable to make this faster. The 8th red coin deep down in the water was hidden rather awfully due to camera cutoff, not sure if this was intended.

Graphically, you could try more in terms of varied wall structures (some more ice blocks or ground maybe) and you could try putting a few more décor, even if it should increase the loading time a bit further. 3 stars, just pay more attention for a good difficulty level and use less enemies, and you should do fine.

From this level, I tried to make some decorations on the beginning of a level. And this way is effective.
Also, I made these two levels after a while. ( Actually I started making these levels after I had submitted the previous level. ) These are castle-themed levels.

Twelfth level: Around Bowser's castle 2: show

Thirteenth level: Red-Coins in the castle grounds 2: show

These two levels are huge and hard, so Supershroom and Nuclear_Blaze replied for " Around Bowser's Castle 2":

Supershroom wrote:That one silver star in the rightmost transition. It slams you against the level boundary and knocks you down into the lava unless you manage to stop the "flight" by ground-pounding. Not sure if this was intended or not.

Also earlier, the sudden forced damage was quite mean. Everyone will refer the message "don't touch flame, else you have to retry" only to the cloud drop with flamethrowers to the left and right. You should at least announce on the first sign in this section that there's a forced damage incoming.

Nuclear_Blaze wrote:By the way, I have found a way to exploit the part that you have to take no damage from the flame towers. If you do it fast enough and still have the wing cap, it is possible to triple jump and completely avoid taking any damage from the lava while still making it high enough to get to the platform above the lava. Otherwise this level is pretty solid.

And here is Shroom's reply for "Red Coins in the Castle Ground 2":

Supershroom wrote:There seems to be a bug. The door below the three sling stars in the middle transition doesn't lead anywhere, while you can reach it from another room. Currently this means that the level is still beatable, yet you may not fall down from the top, else you can't access one red coin anymore.

The difficulty / gameplay is fair overall, good job on that, but the graphics are quite lackluster ... there's décor only in the start transition, try to use it more often, and you can also use more variation on the castle background tiles, there's also windows and edge tiles to use.

No pain no gain. I spent 5 months making these levels and got reward. I began to make better and more beautiful levels.
This time, I also found that we can press "Ctrl" button to suap items into 8*8 grid. This is also a warm hint I often give new creators now.
I never give up making series of Insid the Igloo levels. There is the fifth part of this serie.

Fourteenth level: Insid the igloo ( Part 5 ): show

This is not great. So I gave up making this serie, and I started making climbing level series. Here are the levels:

Fifteenth level: Escape from the earth: show

Supershrrom gave me 4 stars! It means this level is excellent, but not the perfect. And I was satisfied with his reply:

Supershroom wrote:A good, classic obstacle course and a good amount of enemies this time. However, this level makes essential use of water bottles, and these are bugged in the LD-only version (they don't show and don't work when you play the level). It only works if you play this from the in-game level designer, so next time you use water bottles like this, leave a note on that.

Also, the one-tile ice platforms can be really slippery sometimes. This makes that icy section more difficult than it should be. A checkpoint somewhere in the middle of the course would be beneficial again.

4 stars though, this is your best level so far. Keep it up.

Also, Awesomeguy 99 gave me a comment:

Awesomeguy 99 wrote:For some reason, Mario decides to slide on his stomach when walking off an ice block. This makes the ice section much harder than intended. And when you want the player to refill their water while also using only one Fludd, just place another Fludd box, as this refills water just as well as a water bottle.

This is the second part of the level serie:

Sixteenth level: Go to the moon: show

This level was quite laggy because this level is too big. I put two parts into one level. And I didn't know how to disable items at that time. ( Now I have learnt it )
So Shroom posted a comment:

Supershroom wrote:I don't think it was necessary to copy the entire previous level; it actually didn't add much extra loading time, yet it confused me and I've thought first that the start position was misplaced; and anyway the shine above the start position should be disabled.

and you could also gain a Hover FLUDD from Part 1

After a short while, FluorescenceLight posted a level called "Quicksand Pit Desert". I tested this level and I learnt that try to se more kinds of tiles can make a level more beautiful.
So I tried to practice this skill and finished these two levels:

Seventeenth level: Ancient pyramids adventure: show

Eighteenth level: Snow towers adventure: show

I was satisfied with these levels beacuse they are near 5 stars! ( Ancient Pyramids Adventure: 4.80/5 stars and Snow Towers Adventure: 4.00/5 stars. )These level received a lot of success. I keep creating levels with different kinds of tiles and they are all very great.
Supershrrom reply me for "Snow Towers Adventure" :

Supershroom wrote:The tiling was nice indeed, but a little bit too much usage of the Wire mesh tile, since it's superficial to items (what makes it special among all background tiles), it should be avoided within checkerboard patterns (you see this very clearly when there's water). I'd also like to see some vegetation along the snowy paths. And yeah, at the start of the second transition, it would be nice to tell the abrupt ending of the green platform with a trio of coins or something. Also, this could have been even one or two transitions longer, e.g. to complete an 8-red-coin quest (and not only 5).

Overall, 4 stars.

For some reason, I gave up creating SM63 levels and began to make LL levels. And I have learnt how to use "if", "Trigger Properties". "The Crystal City" is my last LL level I have ever made. It took me a month to finish this level.
Then in November, I came back to SM63. Beacyse it is hard to make a LL level. If I make a LL level, it will at least take me 20 days to finish it. Go to the Crystal City
I came to SM63 with a lava themed level named "Fire Towers Adventure":

Nineteenth level: Fire towers adventure: show

From this level, Supershrrom didn't give me any comment for my level. And this level have no comments. And I became active in SM63.
I started to post reply and comments for the other level creator's level.
Then I created another climbing level called "Go to the Space Garden".

Twentieth level: Goto the space garden: show

However this level have no comments, too.
I guess Shroom is active in LL.
The previous level of "Bowser's Castle are not very good. So I wanted to make the third part.

Twenty-first level: Around bowser's castle 3: show

This level was not good at first, it was only rated 2 stars. Now it is 3 stars.
I decided to give up this theme because it is too hard to get high score.
I found that I was good at grass tiles, so I think of desert and grass. And I made this level for players to save water.

Twenty-second level: Desertification: show

This time a very active player called Maaaaarrrrriiiiio ( Am I right ? ) always gives me a comment when I posted a level. Here is his ( He says he's male ) comment for this level.
In his signature, he says he will give every level a unoffcial overview.

Maaaaarrrrriiiiio wrote:Give an unofficial overview:
all points 100
difficulty: medium(20/20)
graphics:10/10(excellent)
in-game playing: 36/40(good)
other:25/30(awesome decorations, awesome use of items and tiles, level not exactly fits theme-5)
total:91/100
My star rating:5/5
My comment: Overall it is an awesome level, good job!

This is my best level ever, it got 4.86/5 stars. I'd love to make level with somewhere Mario can get stuck. I just add a chellenge but I wonder why it is not welcomed by them. Is it too hard? I don't think so. Maybe I am a advanced player. :lol:

After several days, I made another level with a small puzzle.

Twenty-third level: The secret: show

Here is Jumbo's reply:

Jumbo101 wrote:Not a bad level. Your tile work is pretty impressive. The level design is also
remarkably splendid. the small puzzle with the metal and wing power-ups is nice.

A short, solid level that's overall great. 5/5.

Here is Maaaaarrrrriiiiio's reply, for some reason, he didn't give me an overview.

Maaaaarrrrriiiiio wrote:I've played this level, it's awesome, and I guess my help to you worked of course.
But, on my browser, the level just keeps lagging, I don't know why because it's not supposed to, but it's around 11fps, so 5/5 stars instead for 4.5/5 stars.

Sorry I don't know much about computer. But this is a n excellent level.
I created a mini level with full of dangerous. It is called "Dark Shrine".

Twenty-fourth level: Dark Shrine: show

Maaaaarrrrriiiiio gave me an unoffcial overview this time:

Maaaaarrrrriiiiio wrote:Give an unofficial overview:
all points 100
difficulty:20/20(medium-hard)
graphics:10/10(excellent)
In-game playing: 10/40(good 30/40, and might I point out that these narrow spaces that you can walk and press down is very annoying? Also the only bully you've placed, it prevents you from triple-jump to the next platform.-20)
other:28/30(excellent use of tiles and items, and this level isn't exactly dark...)
Total:68/100
My star rating:3/5 instead of 3.45/5
My comment: a decent small level, just reduce the narrow spaces in the level, it might be easier to finish these missions. Also, I finished expert mission.

Yes, as he said, the Dark Shrine is not exactly dark. I just didn't want to make it too dark.
And Maaaaarrrrriiiiio, I have edited this level. The problems you have spotted have been solved.
And this level is a useful level for new level creators. It teaches how to prevent a "laggy" level.

Twenty-fifth level: Why is a level laggy: show

Credit to Maaaaarrrrriiiiio for his suggestions!
The following level is a kind of technical level to check if you can use Rocket FLUDD well.

Twenty-sixth level: Advanced Rocket FLUDD test: show

And in April, 2017, the 32nd LDC started. And I took part in it. Here are the levels for green team and red team:

Twenty-seventh level: The Lost Factory ( For red team ): show

Twenty-seventh level: The Lost Factory ( For green team ): show

Thanks Maaaaarrrrriiiiio gave me an extra piece of advice!
These are all my SM63 levels on runouw.com. I'll keep on editing and adding more levels.
Thanks Supershroom, you let me know about the level designer.
Thanks Jumbo for your level decoration.
Thanks Suyo's help of how to disable items.
Thanks Maaaaarrrrriiiiio for all your comments and replies.
Thanks all players that helped me grow up in this website and let me know about LD and all things in Runouw.com.
Thanks Runouw for giving me the chance to communicate with others.
Thanks...