spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
First of all, I'm glad to see your
first mod overhere. Otherwise, for a
first mod is very impressive to see the work you put on it.
In my opinion the mod is
great, you put some
extra in your mod where anyone don't get the
idea before. For exemple, you're the first modder to hack the demo...
I am glad to hear you like the mod that much! It was a lot of hard work indeed! Balancing the work on this and last semester of university! The demo was a pain to do, at first I attempted to do it without hacking and created the demo level as I kept altering the original demo actions of the Prince, and it worked except for some weird actions that the Prince kept doing and I couldn't modify, so I had to ask if it was possible to hack the demo scene in order to clean up that. In hindsight, it would have make the level so much easier to do, but I feel that in the end, it was for the better that I ''improvised'' that one.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
...and create custom character in a video ( the trailer ).
I also wrote the music for the trailer. I would have loved to compose more, but as we haven't found how to insert custom music yet, I only limited myself to the trailer's music.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Your story is great and easy to make with the limit of Pop1 snes possibilities.
Really happy to hear that. I feel that limitations are a double-edge sword, limitations can be a pain to work with but some wonderful ideas can come up because to this.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Now I will try to analyze your levels :
Level 1 :
For your first level, the idea seem to be like the original version of pop1snes. In my opinion, it's great but your cavern is a little bit messy, and some walls/floor don't match together. Maybe you should create a new version of this level. By the way it's ok and the prison is the more complicate tileset to use ( lot of different walls combinaison etc
I tried to make formations that worked on each room, but don't quite link between rooms; probably will redesign this second half for a custom color version of my mod.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 2 :
It's ok, I appreciated the challenge. Maybe the next time you should create a custom wall for the "log", try to create another color for the fire.
This level was toned down in the difficulty slightly. For most of the mod, I worked without knowing how to alter the palette but also wanted to limit myself with the original colors. I do plan to work on a custom color version of this mod.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 3 :
Great level, the Irregular room-link is nice,
I know some people don't like these type of levels, so I limited them to just parts of two levels only. There were more harder traps but caused bugs and unintentional skips, so were toned down or eliminated.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 4 :
Excellent level, maybe one of my favorite of your mod, the background is great and also I like the way you match collum and floor, you create some acrobatic atmosphere in air. Also the idea of the amazon who break the floor is superb you teach me an idea.
Probably my favorite level to work with. It appealed to me the idea of an ''aerial'' level, and it seems that the final result was a success. It was a more tough level though, several puzzles/rooms were made less hard; in fact, I was struggling a lot myself to beat it! It was such a huge spike in the difficulty that it could get frustrating.
The amazon entering the room and breaking the floor, for me, it's ''the money-making shot'' of the mod; introducing the first boss at the end of a ''floating'' puzzle, demonstrating such power by entering the battlefield from above, making her way to the ground by breaking some parts of it! I took as many attempts as it needed so that the sequence would work as intended. Curious to see what you have in mind.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 5 :
Teleport level. It's like a small maze, the idea is great but it can be boring sometime. I think you need a another way to create the teleport gate/door
I wanted to make it feel somewhat confined, as well as somewhat of a ''breather'' level, as it is less longer/tough than the previous one. I do have some more ideas for teleport-type levels. I might change the ''door'' look for the custom color version.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 6 :
Great level. I like how you use the bridge to create a another tileset. Also the moon and the stars are perfect you create some scrolling with it, great idea ! But don't forget, you can't add 2 guards in the same room.
That new tileset was my fourth attempt in creating something with the bridge tiles; there's quite some interesting ideas that can be created with it. I was very insecure about the scrolling idea, thought it wouldn't look like scrolling until I actually playtested the level.
I knew that about the guards, that is why I put each guard at least one or two rooms apart. I wonder if it is possible to have more than one guard per room? Probably the way the game is programmed won't let it work correctly even if we hack it.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 7 :
The second part of the mod for me, you make some new trap with the loose floor in my opinion. The trap with shadow is just perfect. I think I will stole your idea in the future haha. The fight with the shadow is original also, good idea.
Yeah, I feel too that this level is like the second half of the mod. The ''new'' ''trap'' is introduced back in Level 2, and is used for an optional puzzle in Level 4, but yes, it is not used like this until this level.
Those shadow actions were difficult to hack (thank you and sorry David!) and make them work on one level; a lot of bugs/glitches/trials-and-errors occurred. I think this and the fourth level took the longest to complete. Several puzzles were reworked several times due to the constant changes of hacking the shadow sequences.
Haha, hope you can use that idea effectively in your future mods!
That fight had an alternate Shadow behavior when fighting, I think it made some bits easier but others were harder (can't recall what exactly, I will have to check if I have builds with that Shadow behavior). Also, it had fire tiles across the fight room but that made the fight practically impossible to beat without save states.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 8 :
I used a lot of savestate for this level, the room-link is better than the level 3, you catch the idea, great level.
I think this level might be the one that frustrate players even though I did left hints as to where you should go next. Level 3 was an introduction to that mechanic but it was for half of the level only; this is the one level that is build upon it. It was actually a bit longer, but I didn't want to bore and frustrate players.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 9 :
I like the way how you use the fire trap, but like the level 2, you should try to create another color for your level, and maybe try to put more different room, I think you try to create a tower level, why don't you use the brick from the bridge for illustrate this idea ? I like the end with the queen, the breaking floor is good
I used the ''demo red palace'' level because the last part takes place outside; also, I didn't want to repeat level types. I didn't thought of it as a ''tower'' level, but you give me an idea for the custom color version.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Level 10 :
The hack tileset is a little bit messy in my opinion, maybe you should create variety with the gray walls and change the color of the blue walls, maybe you tried to match the blue walls with the blue skin of the queen ? Let me know. The fight is very great the "skull cont" option is a good point for a final boss, and the fire trap remember me my level 6 of "the lost bottle" with the monster fight. Also I like the room 12 with this floor, nice idea.
I'm not so sure what do you mean with ''hack'' tileset. I will assume is the custom ''bricked'' walls; I tried to create a different feeling for the level in comparison to the previous one by using tiles in a different way. I could have changed to another type of level, but I still kept using this ''demo red palace'' type of level because, originally the fight started outside but I had problems with trying to make both the Prince and Queen go the room below, so I cut off the outside battle and opted to start the fight with the dramatic start of the Prince and Queen coming from the roof to the battlefield. By the time I had made that decision I had already worked on a few rooms, and liked what I have done so I kept using this level type. I might change it on the custom color version, but then the bottom part of the level will lose its unique look.
The color of the walls as well as the Queen's sprite is unmodified, so it was an unintentional match. The Queen's sprite will be colored different in the custom color version, to look more human and not use Jaffar's palette.
I am glad that you liked the idea of a boss fight with the ''skull cont'' mechanic, as I wanted a different type of final boss fight and level. I toyed with the fire tiles until it was a fair challenge.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
Training :
Very nice level, my favorite level is the training 5, the blue color with this custom collum are very pretty. And the fire cavern are nice, no bug etc. The walls of the training 4 match with the floor, I like the idea maybe you should change the color
The training levels were the last created, as I wanted to make sure that players could learn every new mechanic necessary to beat this mod, so I think they have a more polished design, you know, after 9-months of learning how to mod. I might do some color changes.
spartacus735 wrote: ↑December 30th, 2018, 11:47 pm
For me it's a 7.5/10. Continue to make mod you're great, I think for your next mod you need to create some new color and tileset, you have some great ideas !
Thank you for your extensive review and liking it that much! I do plan to work on a custom color version of this mod; aside from the aesthetical changes, I don't think I will change puzzles/rooms or restore the original difficulty/length of those.
I am slowly working on the SNES mod of the DOS port, which will have color and tilesets that try to match the original ones, though due to scale, tiles and other differences it would not be a ''perfect'' conversion.
And then after it, I do plan another original mod, but that one will be like the japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, ''For Super Players''. Of this one, I can only say that there won't be any puzzles/levels that force you to take some damage in order to continue.
Thanks to you! You were the first person to help me here when I asked about if guards could appear on a room below. I would love to see your best times, I am curious to know how well you did, and maybe see how far you can lower the time!
