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[shoutscion]

Super Myario Land is basically supposed to be an unfair platformer... but only nominally.

at first glance it's rather like a romhack and pulls plenty of cheap, loathesome tricks on you, but the idea is that these tricks never really change- they follow the same typical patterns, don't deviate extremely from what has been revealed to the player (once they HAVE been revealed) and in essence the tropes that make up the 'unfair' part of an 'unfair' platformer become commonplace enough that they are to be expected, and the player can react accordingly

in other words, 'ts an experiment! it's basically one big mindgame. 

and it's still platform hell. don't get me wrong.

it's also a testbed for a new sound design technique in which i simulate voices with inflection by booping in a very specific way in Sfxr, and more pixel art practice

it's playable now- 1 level out of hopefully, like, 4- but i'd also like to include traps and elements based on community feedback, get criticism and also laugh at a few dudes falling down pits, so i've put it up here for all to see

i did the sound design and sprite design and backgrounds and programming and basically everything that isn't the basicmost engine and music. (the guys who did that have been credited accordingly)


try it! windows download, rar file.
Download for PC

stuck? watch me beat level one! (only use this as a last resort! otherwise you'll miss out on the fun of exploring the level and getting totally slaughtered)




i used Game Maker 8, SFXR.
credits to Brod [http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?s=1d9822ab033b40717255d69d6d75e3ce&showuser=65388]
(for the platformer engine (which i have now modded out the butt))
and Blarghalt [http://www.youtube.com/user/BLARGHALT]
(whose music i am using as a placeholder)

((should this go in Feedback? i feel like it's too early a build to be put up there, with all the big kids))

[Conker534]

Oh my gosh this sounds hilarious! Def following!

[ashpd]

Whoa! I like this style .

[shoutscion]

updated the current build with an EZ mode (which will almost certainly be scrapped later)

in case you're the kind of person who plays unfair games and then gets mad when they're unfair

also, more important things that i should have mentioned up front:

F4 will toggle fullscreen and windowed (you'd learn this if you paused the game. it should be noted that just doesn't happen anymore)
F1 will restart the game from scratch, soft-reset style.
K will instantly kill you. so will clicking the middle mouse button.
L will instantly give you the EZ powerup and refill your EZometer

(and yes, i'll actually use the feather in-game at some point. hopefully? maybe? next level. probably.)

[coah]

I like games that just throw you right into it. I played it for a while, got negative several lives by the end of it.

One big problem for me is the controls, I'm very partial to Cave Story controls and would have preferred a jump button that's not part of a directional grouping like wasd or up,down,left,right.

( I know its not an actual problem since this is so early and controls and key-binding will inevitably be there )

Nice work!

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

This looks REALLY good, love the animations and aesthetic.

[SirNiko]

Played through the first level until I got stuck. There's a long jump over spikes with an invisible block placed to make the jump nearly impossible. I was only able to make that jump once, and then I got killed by one of the "question mark blocks" that protrudes spikes. I'm not sure how to approach that, since my idea of running, timing a jump to land on the right lip of the pit and immediately jumping again is really difficult to time, and doesn't seem to work. I can't tell if I have the wrong approach or if I'm just not executing it right.

I like the idea of an unfair game / masocore platformer that uses a set of obtuse rules the player can learn to make it feel like more of an action puzzler, but that isn't showcased here. The first question mark block shoots spikes out if you touch it, but the second just prevents you from hitting it. The one up top releases bombs. Is the theme "never touch question mark blocks"? I think you could be more consistent if they all released bombs, or all shot out spikes. Make a long segment with lots of question mark blocks designed to repeatedly reinforce one rule. My thought would be such that, if the player were told the rule right at the start, they should be able to navigate the first segment flawlessly with little concern for platforming skill. Leave the skill for later when the rules are set in the player's mind.

The spikes on wheels was easy to predict, but since I only saw one so there was no pattern to establish.

The ridiculous cat puns were fantastic, and I was impressed that the pool seems pretty deep. I was getting new comments up to -30 lives when I stopped.

The controls feel pretty fast and slippery, when I'd rather they be slower and more deliberate so I can see what's coming and react to it much more precisely. I'd slow everything down and try to scale down the action so the player can see more of the map at a time (which shouldn't be too hard, your pixels are pretty big, though it'll lose some of the Gameboy aesthetic). The gameboy aesthetic didn't really do anything for me here. It constrains the size of the screen too much and loses you access to colors that could be helpful for creating "rules" for the player, like "green question mark boxes kill from below, red kill from above" or something.

This is a great idea and seems like it could be lots of fun, but right now your game just feels like a ho-hum Masocore platformer improved by a neat theme. Or maybe I've totally missed what you're going for and I'm playing this in the wrong mindset.

[Conker534]

hahaha oh this game is so mean!

i love it!

Animations are great, btw.

[Conker534]

Hey what was this programmed in?

Also your map has these in some places.

[DarkFalzX]

This is amazing! Love everything about it, though I have a feeling the gameboy colors will get old. I have also failed to make any sort of progress in the game, but hell - it's still masochistic fun!

• Since you are doing it in GameMaker 8.1 (or so), why not stretch the window full-screen in full screen mode?
• Also - how about Cursor+ZXC key mode? I hate the WASD+Shift unfortunately.
• I know you are going for a Gameboy look, but for such a fast game the window sure is tiny! Maybe expand it a bit?

Hey what was this programmed in?

GameMaker 8.1 most likely. The F4-full-screen toggle is a dead giveaway. Also - F9=screenshot: )