The VG Resource

(07-12-2012, 03:18 PM)alexmach1 Wrote: [ -> ]what
all i asked is why you have different looks for the same thing, ie the ground and clouds

just a simple question, not a complaint

To make the sprites more diverse and not make it look the same way. They'd look pretty redundant if they all look the same way, in my point of view.

Quote:I think you misunderstood me. Having a story is GREAT, but it needs to be A) more entertaining to read, B) Spaced out so the story keeps your attention. You can't have a story dump in the first few minutes of the game. That's not why people play a Mario game. Hell, when I turn on Mario World, that one little balloon that pops up "Welcome to Dinosaur Land!" makes me scream at the TV "I don't give a shit! Where dem Goombas?!"

Not really, but here's a better example; Mario 64. We get Lakitu zooming around, then Mario pops out of the pipe and the game starts. NSMB Wii; The Koopa Kids snatch Peach and take off. The story is quick and you immediately get to play.
Mario 64- You enter the castle, Bowser says "I got yo woman! Bwahaha!" and you get to play. Simple and easy.
The thing, however, that REALLY ruins the intro is all the dialogue between Bowser/Jr/Koopatrol/Kamek that goes on and on and on, and then just as Bowser is about to DO something, it cuts away and get a box that says "Bowser did something." This is telling, not showing, and is the number one thing NOT to do when you want to draw in an audience

I understand now, good point, Tonberry. At least you gave good examples and critique on how the prologue can be improved on.

Alright, so so far I get critique on the Prologue, clashing styles (that isn't much of a problem), and gameplay?

I understand clashing sprites are bad. And I know I, quote-on-quote. "lazily recolored" them. But I wanted people playing the game to see graphics from a variety of games. My goal was to take all the Mario platformers and mix them together, accompanied with what I believe to be a much more serious plot that requires a good explanation. From what I've seen, not everyone understands the plot immediately. It's like a melting pot of Mario fun. You have a lot more diversity. Games like Toad Strikes Back had clashing graphics, and those too were recolored to fit the situation. I've been working on this game since Halloween 2010, trying to appease everyone. It's not easy, and at times it's very stressful. Just when I think I've got it right, and everyone will be satisfied, people start to point out more flaws. And I'm not saying that's bad. That's a good thing. I need people to point out what's wrong with the game so I can improve upon that. Being a website called The Spriters Resource, I'm sure other spriters like Iceman404 will be turned off by the clashing graphics. But I don't have the spriting prowess to make a game with 100% custom graphics. I'm improving, and I've improved greatly since I was last on here, when I was told that I wasn't a good enough spriter to sprite Waluigi as a playable character. (To expand upon the previous topic: I still don't want Waluigi as a playable character, neither do my team, because there are other popular fangames out there that feature him.)

You'll see gameplay soon enough. We are still trying to clean up the source, so it isn't so memory-intensive. I'm proud of the work me and my team have done, and hopefully you guys will be too.

As for the HUD, I agree with your ideas. As Mikeystar said, we'll see what we can do. That HUD was designed by me, so blame me if anyone on that faulty design.

(07-12-2012, 08:43 AM)Gors Wrote: [ -> ]also i should add the fact that the sprites clash with each other. Try using an unified style if you have the time. (yes I know you're looking for spriters, I'm just making sure )

(07-12-2012, 01:47 PM)Gors Wrote: [ -> ]

can I suggest this layout?

Code:

MARIOX99  OOOOO        TIME  0X99
9999999  >>>>>>P [  ]   999  CX99

Changes:

• No one will ever need 999 lives. 99 is more than enough for lives.
  
• Score is put below Mario's name and the label 'SCORE' is omitted. Everyone knows that long string of digits is the score. Also, this being a Mario game, score isn't important at all.
  
• Moved the Ace Coins over the P-meter.
  
• Removed 'ITEM' because it's redundant.
  
• Removed 'WORLD 1-1' because it's redundant.
  
• Other things were kept in place.
  

This way, the HUD gets tidier and aligned. Also I'd mode the HP bar a little higher, because the in the middle, it looks like actual objects instead of HUD icons.

999 lives may be necessary because of the different level design styles of the members of the ASETeam who contribute to the levels.

Also, the HUD was based off MKFusion's but the ASETeam has our own twist to it.

(07-12-2012, 02:50 PM)Tonberry2k Wrote: [ -> ]I was hoping to see some gameplay, not a ten-minute unnecessary intro story. By now all we need to know is "Bowser = bad. Here are your characters." Brevity is the soul of wit, after all. Right now we get a lot of exposition on both sides and no action. It immediately tunes me out of the story. We have a 5-minute scene with Bowser and then when he's about to finally do something, we cut away.

Why not open with Bowser transforming Pipe Land or whatever, so we get an example of what the Star can do, then cut to Mario, et al reacting (Maybe they see the sky darken on the horizon and all run off to help), Choose your character, bam.
Then we could get snippets of what the All-Star is as bosses are defeated. It keeps the story going as you progress and lets you jump right into the game. Just an idea.

EDIT: I also stopped making the "clashing sprite styles in Mario games" argument when Nintendo added SMW2 sprites to SMB3 on the GBA and gave zero fucks about sprite style consistency.

Um, the dev is laggy on the core members' of the ASETeam's computers', we are, finding ways to reduce lag in the game. Thats why you havent seen any gameplay vids of thid game yet. Also, I agree with the story. We can show the transformation of the World maps.

are you trying to say that the game may have levels that are so difficult that the player could lose more than 99 lives?

ok, that's cool i guess. you don't need to make up for that by giving players a higher max lives count.

do you not want players to ever get a game over?

(07-12-2012, 04:31 PM)Crappy Blue Luigi Wrote: [ -> ]are you trying to say that the game may have levels that are so difficult that the player could lose more than 99 lives?

ok, that's cool i guess. you don't need to make up for that by giving players a higher max lives count.

do you not want players to ever get a game over?

No, but the difficulty of the levels in the later worlds (Worlds 5-8 and the bonus world) can be on the hard side to say the least. And some levels may of been generous with coins and extra lives. Thats why its necessary to have x999 lives

I made it 999 lives because I based it off of Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World. Not because levels are harder, or later levels in general. The game isn't very hard. As you progress, it gets harder, yes, but you'll never lose over 99 lives. There's no way. World 8 should in general be no more difficult than in a game like New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Closing this thread now to clean it...

Please stand by and think about how you should behave.

---

Okay now. Go on and discuss the game. No more arguing. Got that? Good.

Please don't take comments and criticism personal and don't assume people expect you to be perfect. TSR is there to try to help you get better, that's all. Think positive.

Alright, feeling better now. Heh.

Anyways, we just made a better HUD Preview. What do you think?



Now the HUD looks like a huge gap between Coin and Cherry Counter and the rest of the HUD. We'll find things to put there soon.

We forgot to remove the "ITEM" text, that'll be removed.

Much better than the last one.

Perhaps you could move the HP counter or that other section to the empty part at the top of the screen. It helps to keep the HUD in as few different places as possible, since it means a player can gain as much information as they need with a glance to a single area of the screen, rather than having to remember where certain information is. This is important, because every moment you spend looking around the HUD is one you're not looking at the game itself (and thus one in which you could be killed, etc.). For the same reason, you also want as little information as possible (without omitting anything necessary) in the HUD, so you have less to look through to find what you want.

P.S. Previous, I would double and triple thank that post if I could.

(07-12-2012, 06:01 PM)Mikeystar Wrote: [ -> ]Alright, feeling better now. Heh.

Anyways, we just made a better HUD Preview. What do you think?



Now the HUD looks like a huge gap between Coin and Cherry Counter and the rest of the HUD. We'll find things to put there soon.

We forgot to remove the "ITEM" text, that'll be removed.

I didn't forget when I made that, a few of my favorite Super Mario World hacks have the ITEM text. I know it's silly, but I like it. I was thinking we could move the bonus star counter to the gap, but that's just me. Then again, the bonus star counter only appears whenever you're within distance of a SMW goal.

The whole HUD isn't visible at all times. The Doki Doki Panic/Super Mario Bros. 2 health hud only appears when you snag a Super Heart, as Mikeystar said earlier. The card slots only appear when you're within distance of a SMB3 goal, and the treasure counter only appears whenever you collect treasure.

you could remove that 'ITEM' label, so it gets neatly aligned with everything else. Or make a smaller font.

lol welp, you posted that faster than me. disregard this post

I still perfered the "World #-#" on the gap between the time and the coins and cherry hud icons.

Move the cherry icon next to the coin to fill up the gap, not below it.

The cherry icon below the coins actually fits quite well and the whole bar (save for ITEM) is two rows high anyways. But yes, some other thing could possibly be moved there. If some of the non-standard displays like treasure and star would never be active at the same time, they could share a position.
Overall, it looks much better, cleaner and even now.

(07-12-2012, 06:27 PM)Previous Wrote: [ -> ]The cherry icon below the coins actually fits quite well and the whole bar (save for ITEM) is two rows high anyways. But yes, some other thing could possibly be moved there. If some of the non-standard displays like treasure and star would never be active at the same time, they could share a position.
Overall, it looks much better, cleaner and even now.

I'll try moving the bonus star and treasure counters there then. The SMB3 card counter will stay near the bottom of the screen.
EDIT:

Something like this? I hate the shading on the star counter and treasure counter. I tried to make it look like the cherry counter's shading.