User:NARFNra
Hi, I'm Narf. I created this page because I don't like how the red looks in the edit log all the time and not for any other real reason.
I participated in MaG48HMML, submitting Through the Crabacombs, and I also made a weird Mega Mix Engine fan game in 2020 called The Reggae Operation.
Outside of MM, I graduated with a Japanese language degree and translate in my spare time. Thanks for reading.
If you're interested on my thoughts regarding my level and the Judge's commentary on it, here's a video of me perfect running it with commentary in the description and comment. Here, I'll copy the description/comment for you. It's not like I don't have the space.
| Judge Comments |
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| Vid Description |
| DESCRIPTION
First, I'd like to thank all the judges and everyone who worked together to make MAGMML48Hr a reality - I know it was a long time coming, and it means a lot to me to have been a part of it. I never in my dreams expected to get 20th! If there's ever a new MaGMML I'd love to participate in it again, perhaps with a stage that doesn't need a skip teleporter :P! The judges were, I think, very fair about my stage and I agree with their commentary. To be specific, first of all, I absolutely needed more checkpoints. Having only 2 was inexcusable, and their positioning forced you to deal with frustrating enemies that weren't really necessary. In particular, I think I should have at least considered putting one at the beginning of the first water room, and maybe in the elevator room. The second half doesn't need one as badly, but I think putting a checkpoint at the top of the second to last room would have been good. The first Feeber at the checkpoint is also an unnecessary annoyance. Another serious aspect I never noticed before that seems to have become a real issue in this version is despawn distance. The vertical Bubble elevator rooms have enemies that randomly seem to despawn, and it's especially problematic with the Gyro blocks at the top of the first once since they're so annoying to reset. When I first got here I was worried I'd submitted a version without them that made it impossible to buster only! I don't remember running into this in testing but it's been a few years, and what I believe to be the main way to fix it - fiddling with despawn range using creation code, was something I didn't know how to do at the time anyway. None of the judges seemed to have an issue with this, so I can't help but wonder if it's a version issue? Nevertheless, if I release a fixed version of the stage later, I'll try to make that as consistent as possible. For now, it appears I can make them appear more often by... jumping off the bubbles a lot? I have no idea why. The reverse difficulty curve is definitely a result of me playing around to try to come up with something interesting early on, and then kinda feeling I was being too mean as it kept going. The Feeber room is notoriously finicky, and I didn't want to force people to deal with that again... even if it meant the second water room was pretty simple. I kind of have this opinion on MM stages where I like putting the most finicky bits in front of the checkpoint, so you don't have to do other areas over and over or have a big build up to it if you're going to die a lot - this too, though, could have been dealt with through more checkpoints. I'm just glad I got to throw a lot of weird ideas out, even if many of them weren't ones I knew how to develop. There's a lot of smaller issues I think were definite mistakes. The bottom of the screen jump for the third Feeber is dumb, it should have at least had a longer lead in and preferably a higher ceiling tile. I purposefully kept it like that b/c I felt it was too easy otherwise, but the sheer number of tries I lost to it has made me feel that yeah, it was just cheap. I think my use of the MM2 frogs was awkward, in both cases they're annoying ambushes and the first one can freak out and act bizarrely if you respawn it waiting for the bubbles in a way I don't like. The second one is also awkward because I forgot to add escape methods for if you fall in, like a block to jump off of or a slide hole or something. And animated tiles would have been nice. Other than that, despite all the issues, I still feel good about my stage. For a single tileset experiment that was my first MaGMML submission, I think I could do a lot worse. I tried to do neat things with, let's admit it, pretty hard to use items (M-445, Feebers, and Cyorowns are all terrible enemies in their own way, all being awkward as damage threats, and the MM5 Bubble is infamous), and I think I did something unique if nothing else. Frankly, it's interesting to me how many of the absolutely glaring flaws I could fix with just a few checkpoints and a bit of messing around with creation code. That's what first stages are like, though - we did all have only 48 hours! If I release a new version of the stage standalone, I'll link it here. Thank you for watching and reading, I hope you enjoyed my commentary on the level. I'm glad to be a part of this community! |
| Comment |
| COMMENT
The baseline idea for this level came from trying to figure out - what can we do with these enemies that's meaningful? Feebers are tricky to use because they only really work by pushing you into things, so they're better when you're being harassed by something else. M-445s are VERY weak, but in their original context their main purpose is to be randomly spawned - so I thought that the combination of the two could be interesting. Forcing you to move vertically is a decent way to make M-445s more threatening, since their main issue is how easily they're destroyed - and I think on quick plays of the first room there's a neat sort of interplay between trying to time things so you don't have to wait for an M-4445 to wander by. They can even be an issue when you're speeding around and triggered one earlier and suddenly have to deal with it, like when you double back and there's the little Feeber over the spike alcove. Cyorowns are weak and easy to kill, and they only fire a few times. The main thing their AI is designed to do is to fire a single pellet at a diagonal angle, and then maybe get around to making another one if they live that long. The best way I could find to take advantage of them was to make them ambush enemies, not in extremely intensive rooms where everything else could hit you, but more just to keep you on your toes in climbing areas. Vertical levels have an interesting interaction with them because they can respawn and fire again when scrolled on screen, so even though despawn rates were kind of my enemy here, that one aspect was something I enjoyed seeing with them. Oh, I seem to have forgotten the first few rooms. Well, these rooms are basically meant to perform the duty of introductions, as you might expect. Feebers are a weird enemy, so I wanted to start you with one in a totally harmless environment so you could learn how to break out - did YOU know you can just spam the jump key to break it without having to shoot? It's useful if you're using weapons! The next room immediately shows you the Gyro blocks and the trajectories that Cyorowns fire at with an easy platforming situation that, if failed, just makes you deal with some Feebers instead. This room is partially meant to show you that UNLIKE G.S.Q., which protects you, Feebers CAN kill you by bubbling you onto spikes. Another optional room gives you a W tank, since I felt that with Feebers being so tanky and M-445s attacking from a vertical angle, people might want to use a variety of weapons to speed the next room up. I think Flame Mixer works well against most of the enemies in this stage, and Concrete Shot can help with a few of the tricky jumps. The second horizontal room with the pipes was mainly the result of wanting to try a different pressure method. These enemies take some effort and can make jumps fairly difficult, and all that stuff slowing you down combined with the need to leap up to shoot them made them another excellent pair with M-445s. There's more Feebers in here, but not many - they're mostly to be a bit of a timing hazard more than anything. This room has one of the biggest oversights in the stage - the ability to leap off the top of the screen. I tried to deal with it by including lots of spikes because I didn't know at this time the way you stop that, extending a collision box off the top of it. It doesn't work great, but on the plus side for later speedruns it might be worth a shot as a cool route decision. The tall room with the 3 bubbles was part of an experiment - I wanted to make a bubble elevator where if you got surprised and fell you could use the knowledge you got on the whole room to be more aware next time. I think the ambush Cyorowns are the most fun here, and the slowly connecting pipe enemy is funny to me. I wish the crab on the top wouldn't despawn all the time, but he's mostly filler anyway. The next room that goes down is definitely my hastiest design - I forgot to add ways to get out of the pits, and the frog has a really obnoxious attack pattern. That said, the use of the Cyorowns as a multi attacking turret you can't destroy at first is cool, I think, without stooping to just putting reflector blocks around them, and I like the way it looks. The final room, the bubble elevator, suffers really badly from the despawning making it act funny. An intended aspect is that if you jump too high the bubbles will disappear, forcing you to be careful at first. I really like the way Feeber bubbles can run along the platform bubbles, and how the rising platform makes M-445s once again feel more like they're actual threats - even if the room doesn't work so well, I think it's a nice "cinematic" end to the stage. I do wish that there'd been a bit of an intensive room somewhere in the last few segments of the stage, but I was trying to make it feel less exhausting compared to the earlier nit picky jumping and dodging segments, so it's meant to feel a bit more like a cutscene or action moment once you learn it. My biggest mistake was probably using instant death spikes here that force you to go back to the slow parts if you mess up. The Green Devil was chosen because... 1. It fit the level theme, 2. It was another boss that has mildly different actions underwater due to the trajectory of its blobs, 3. I felt it'd be an under used boss and thus a good change of pace (and I think I was right... I've only played up to level 30 and then my stage, so idk if anyone else used it!) and 4. It was really very easy. I didn't want to include some frustrating boss that would require you to spend a lot of time at the end of the level like Commando Man or something, with so many ways the stage itself could go wrong. Overall, I think it was a good choice, but what do you think? I'd love to hear people's opinions! |
