Super Mario Destiny (SMBX2 Beta 5 reqd)

[Broccolirampage]

Where did Mario and Luigi come from? How did the Mushroom Kingdom come to be? And what will be its fate when the day comes the Mario Bros are no longer around to keep everyone safe?

Experience the story you never knew in this retro inspired, fan crafted epic. Brought to you by the SMBX engine, this new game brings the classic style of the Mario Bros. platformers you love, with the heart of a grand fable.

Featuring over 40 levels, loads of custom graphics, unique gameplay features and an engrossing story to satisfy RPG fans as well as platform game lovers, this project takes the best of classic 2D Mario adventures, pushes the limits of 16 bit gfx with use of DKC-style pre-render elements, and creates a vast and engaging story featuring Luigi as the lone hero all alone in a dangerous and puzzling new world!

https://supermariodestiny.wixsite.com/game

Spoiler

[Wohlstand]

Hello and welcome!

I just want to make your sure that I was about to reject this as a spam (Yes, spam bots had post their mess in the very similar look like you done). But after reviewing the thing deeply, I decided to approve.

Please, anybody who register here, introduce yourself properly, that's would be easier for moderators team to not confuse you and random spammer.

P.S. Just in a case, I'll preserve your thing at the SMBX Archive at SMBX2 section.

Added after 22 minutes 6 seconds:
Just a first note: I made a look on the content, and some cases are inoptimal. You used large audio files without proper looping and content optimizations, and you grown the gigabyte of the stuff.

Just a pro tip: it's enough to compress OGG files with the quality of 5 or 4. Just listen result to ensure content isn't so damaged. (Hearable damage usually appears somewhere at 4, 3 or lower). And, you can use loop tags to make a seamless looping of the middle part of the song. There are a lot of manuals on how to make that. I do have one too: https://wohlsoft.ru/pgewiki/How_To:_Looping_music_files, You might take a look and optimize your content.

Just don't bloat episodes data size without real necessary (like, thousand unique levels and thousand variants of custom graphics, etc). You have only 50 levels, and just get the gigabyte? Okay, I checked the thing deeper, all the audio files just takes around 243 MB. However, I found that you used huge background pictures (every of them takes 4~7 MB of size, wow). Isn't better to make smaller but keep them look nice as your idea is? Please don't spit on general optimisation and rationality use. Not everybody has Core i42, MegaUltra4K screens, 1 TB RAM, RTX9999 SUPER, so, spit on optimisation will hurt even TOP-level PC users, seriously.

P.S. No, gigabyte per game is not okay. Modern games often suck by the plot and general quality. Having over 80GB of game data is not okay. Absolutely. I mean, large data size NEVER means the "game is awesome" (Only exception that "Dark Messiah of Might and Magic" is awesome game that loved by my brother even it takes 7 GB of the space. Actually nobody beated the quality of it's battle system and other stuff).

Added after 25 minutes 47 seconds:
P.P.S. My conclusion: general overall idea looks super, but it needs more work.

[Broccolirampage]

No, I'm not a bot, and I'm really not sure what created that impression. I certainly don't think that my introduction to my episode in any way screams "AI mess", actually, I put a lot of thought into it. Anyways, I appreciate your avoiding a knee jerk reaction and simply deciding to delete it out of suspicion.

To the next point:

I will admit that some further compression will help. May even be able to cut 50mb of that 243mb. However, your assertion that I am not optimizing because I'm failing to create effective music loops is, unfortunately, ignorant of the content I have used for most of the level tracks which are NOT able to be made into loops of the middle section of a track because in so many cases I have featured complete tracks (ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky", several tracks by Royksopp, or Blackmill), that don't lend themselves to looping a chosen section. In other cases, where possible, I have featured sections of a track when it works as a standalone, but it's just not largely possible to do that here.

The custom GFX work in the same way. Yes, in some cases of level "set pieces" there are building gfx, and one-off features that can be stripped down. But the vast majority of the GFX simply...ARE THE LEVEL in and of themselves.

I have avoided using blocks and tiles. Instead, I have pre-designed the levels in a gfx editor, laying out the level in a single or series of large visual elements. That is the reason so many files in this game are 3000+ px width. I think it is possible still to knock SOME size off of them, but in those cases, you won't get anything more than a shrug's worth of compression unless you go down to like 5%. It's simply a feature and necessity of pre-rendering the vast majority of the levels and backgrounds.

Beyond the size of the full game itself being large, the file sizes do not impact gameplay. I am creating this on a many year old, POS laptop that was an entry level pc to begin with.

So, yes, some of the tracks can be compressed further and I appreciate the info. They cannot be cut and looped. All in all, I can probably strip 50-100mb from their total size.

The GFX are trickier, as most of the larger culprits are those massive terrain set pieces which cannot be shrunk or significantly compressed.

My estimate is I can compress things down to probably 800mb, from 1.2gb, but it's simply never going to be in the range of other games of this type, it won't be a 50mb game simply because it's built in a way that DOESN"T USE tiling, looping tracks, or repeating background elements.

I will do my best, as I do appreciate the feedback and desire to help me improve this thing, but at the end of the day there's no way to avoid this still being a vastly larger SMBX project than most people are used to seeing.

[Wohlstand]

No, I'm not a bot, and I'm really not sure what created that impression. I certainly don't think that my introduction to my episode in any way screams "AI mess", actually, I put a lot of thought into it. Anyways, I appreciate your avoiding a knee jerk reaction and simply deciding to delete it out of suspicion.

Don't worry, all okay since I already approved your post. Just because on a quick look the pattern "block of text and link to thirdparty site" makes an impression that it's a possible spam. But I always carefully read what's the content is before to make final decission.

are NOT able to be made into loops of the middle section of a track

Ye, I saw several examples like that, and from some of them I made a kind of loops. It's need to make that wisely. Find the moment that can be set to be repeated relatively seamless. I could try to take some examples that were already done on my end, just random songs.

I have avoided using blocks and tiles. Instead, I have pre-designed the levels in a gfx editor, laying out the level in a single or series of large visual elements. That is the reason so many files in this game are 3000+ px width. I think it is possible still to knock SOME size off of them, but in those cases, you won't get anything more than a shrug's worth of compression unless you go down to like 5%. It's simply a feature and necessity of pre-rendering the vast majority of the levels and backgrounds.

You can build a kind of composition of elements using multi-layered background system (without tiling, just placing them like in graphical editor, but as level objects), or make a kind of BGOs that will serve as pieces for your composition. Like an example of the large mounting, it's just a spam of rocks, and you might draw the same spam just by BGOs, and spruces pieces also can be done by BGOs. Or use multi-layered backgrounds system's power to draw that at absolute positions and with explicit Z-order. In result, the complex composition can use just few files, and draw the same as you draw on the huge canvas.

Overall, I wish you good luck in your project, just take some advices on how to implement idea in rational way

Added after 4 minutes 52 seconds:
Just an examlpe composition that I built a while ago as a test of BGO ordering at my projects: Just one large castle built from small pieces;



But in your case you shuold make custom elements and align them in the way that needed to build up the final composition.

[Broccolirampage]

Beta v. 2.0 is now out!

I have reduced the overall file size by about 20%, in addition to doing a full revamp of the worldmap to eliminate some persistent glitches related to running the worldmap in fullscreen without a border. This fix has allowed me to also complete the bonus world which was previously a victim of the worldmap issues, as well as add some little tweaks such a modification of one of the powerups to create a unique gameplay twist.

I believe I am now firmly in the final stages of "bug hunting" with no known major glitches, if you decide to try out my game, please reach out to me via discord, reddit, or FB with your insights or any problems you discover!

https://supermariodestiny.wixsite.com/beta

[Broccolirampage]

Gotta put this out there!

Who would be interested in contributing in any way on Super Mario Destiny pt 2?

[Broccolirampage]

And the full stable release is out!

https://supermariodestiny.wixsite.com/game