Blogpost mega thread

[BobTheLawyer]

Ain't nobody got time for that.

[Superjustinbros]

I never bothered to check the livestreams, sadly.

[TurretBot]

I never bothered to check the livestreams, sadly.

They're amazing.

[Camewel]

Scripted sequences would be better if you could lock the framerate, for perfectly predictable movement.

[BobTheLawyer]

Beautiful...

[kevansevans]

A few scripted sequences that should be put in:

Controlled environments, These were all over portal 2.

There will be instances where the player has to use gel in order to solve a puzzle. To make sure the player had the least amount of adequate gel coverage, the environment would script some automatic gel placement whenever the correct gel was used, covering the exact amount of distance necessary.

There was also controlled portal exits where regardless of speed or angle, the player would come out exactly the same regardless, travelling the same distance in order to progress. These are a great way of making sure a level is progressed properly, or to prevent players from cheating.

Controlled portals. There will be times in P2 where the player would panic and not know which portal was placed wherever. As a way to make sure this didn't bother the player anyway, the portals would automatically switch to wherever the player placed the portals. IE if if the orange portal was supposed to stay, but the player shoots orange anyways, the blue portal will take the place of the previous orange, and the player carries on his merry ways not noticing what happened. (I suggest walls that can function as buttons when a portal is on it, allowing for the scripted sequence to occur)

Objects fizzling on command.
Spawning on command including droppers.
Making ant-lines flicker.
Puzzle parts flickering.
Animated parts of aperture falling apart.
Player death (just to be an asshole)
Powerups
Character switching
Portal color switching
Toggle tile portability (can/cannot shoot portals on them)
when game saves/makes a check point
erasing portals
mood lighting
camera panning
shader toggle
hat toggle just cuz

and that's about all I can think of as of now.

[Superjustinbros]

I wonder if Will Smith may have had something to do with the earthquake?

[renhoek]

needs more explosions.

[TurretBot]

needs more explosions.

and trosh backgrounds and flutterpies and more explosions and wheatley.

EDIT:

They should have put the New Super Mario Bros. 2 in there.

[Sky]

-blogpost image-
They should have put the New Super Mario Bros. 2 in there.

I suppose it'd be appropriate to link this.

[TurretBot]

-blogpost image-
They should have put the New Super Mario Bros. 2 in there.

I suppose it'd be appropriate to link this.

Yeah someone should stick a portal gun on that

[renhoek]

no, because that's not funny.
the reason why Mario up there has a gun is because it was an obsession with coins in mari0 so it makes sense.

[Superjustinbros]

I wonder, what would happen if you stuck a Coin entity inside a breakable block...?

[idiot9.0]

Probably single-coin blocks, like ?-blocks are now.

[Chippy348]

breakable coin blocks?

[Maurice]

There would be a coin on to of the block.
Coins aren't entities and thus won't be inside the coinblock.

[BobTheLawyer]

So to get the coin, you would have to break the block, correct?
And then all that would be left would be the coin?

Are coins drawn in front of blocks?

[Superjustinbros]

There would be a coin on to of the block.
Coins aren't entities and thus won't be inside the coinblock.

So that equals no single-coin brick blocks like if say you were to destroy your only foothold going into a horizontal pipe with no other exits in the level to make it respawn?

Probably one of the most functional of requested features got overlooked.

[Camewel]

Justin it sounds more like you have a level design issue there.
Design levels better so the player can't do that.

[Superjustinbros]

@Camewel
Well, in your defense, there is a way to make it so there are brick blocks that contain nothing as discussed earlier; just put in any entity that's normally not used for items, enemies, or exits, (such as Bill End or Fish End) on the brick block you want to not be breakable. Normally if a canon Mario game were to do this, it'd release a single coin, or in the rare case of Super Mario Land 2, it'd just be silent, with only the sound of Mario hitting it playing.

[renhoek]

couldn't you just reskin the ? block?

[Maurice]

Why not just make the tile before the pipe non-breakable..?

[HugoBDesigner]

On topic: I made multi-customizable coin blocks to my next mod update. Taking advantage that Maurice reads this topic, then I'm suggesting adding this feature to SE too (since a lot of users want to have this option):



In my mod, just add "customcoinblock(n).png" to "custom" folder, where (n) is the tile number (for custom tilesets, the first tile's number is "221") (in the image, the first block just represents normal customized coin blocks, that uses "customcoinblock.png" when it doesn't finds it's tile number).

[Superjustinbros]

couldn't you just reskin the ? block?

True, but with that you'd have to mod; and what if you wanted more than one style/color of ? Block in the level?

Why not just make the tile before the pipe non-breakable..?

So the unbreakable tile doesn't look that out of place compared to what's surrounding it?

Okay, it doesn't really because the colors match... But normally with proper portal placement and Koopa manipulation you could destroy the foothold into the pipe, making you have to play the bonus room or take a warp pipe.

[idiot9.0]

Make a custom tile that looks like the brick. Make it solid but unbreakable, like a ground tile. Boom. Done.

And if someone goes out of the way to see that it's not breakable, then they're just bored and it's not your problem.

[Sky]

Is this really the main argument for having a single coin entity? Just pipes?

My qualm was always with the ? Blocks. Usually I would make a static ? Block in a tileset and mark it as "breakable"; it was an okay substitute for not having a real coin block without it defaulting to the SMB animation. When I wanted it to have nothing in it, I was always annoyed at the lack of just a single coin, and since leaving it blank wasn't an option ("why did that ? Block just break?"), I had to use a workaround with the Bill End entity.

Since we're getting custom ? Blocks in SE, that problem isn't too much of a factor anymore. Now it's just the missing functionality. They're actually all over the place in Mario games (except SMB of course) simply as a way of keeping things looking consistent in a stack of brick blocks. For example, if I break the wrong block, I can't reach the platform; hence the coin. A multi-coin block is rewarding the player for nothing, and a ? block would just look out of place.

Besides, why not have a single coin in a brick block? Wouldn't that take like twenty seconds to code?

[idiot9.0]

Besides, why not have a single coin in a brick block? Wouldn't that take like twenty seconds to code?

Since we're getting custom ? Blocks in SE, that problem isn't too much of a factor anymore.

Just kinda answered your own question there. Honestly, when SE comes, just make a a custom ?-block with all the frames look like a brick and don't change. Insta-done.

[Sky]

Besides, why not have a single coin in a brick block? Wouldn't that take like twenty seconds to code?

Since we're getting custom ? Blocks in SE, that problem isn't too much of a factor anymore.

Just kinda answered your own question there. Honestly, when SE comes, just make a a custom ?-block with all the frames look like a brick and don't change. Insta-done.

Actually, you answered my question, since I didn't think of that. That would definitely work.

[Automatik]

On topic: I made multi-customizable coin blocks to my next mod update. Taking advantage that Maurice reads this topic, then I'm suggesting adding this feature to SE too (since a lot of users want to have this option):



In my mod, just add "customcoinblock(n).png" to "custom" folder, where (n) is the tile number (for custom tilesets, the first tile's number is "221") (in the image, the first block just represents normal customized coin blocks, that uses "customcoinblock.png" when it doesn't finds it's tile number).

There is animated tiles in SE.

[HugoBDesigner]

There is animated tiles in SE.

I know that. I only made that suggestion because, at least for now, whatever tile you make with "coinblock" property makes it use the "coinblock.png" texture and, except if Maurice adds a way to detect when there's an animated "coinblock" tile, that'd still happen instead of those animations...

[Automatik]

Maurice should just remove the coinblock.png replacement in SE, and instead change the SMB tileset so that the vanilla coin blocks tiles are animated.

[TripleXero]

But the problem would probably be matching the timing up with other ? blocks, coins, and HUD coin

[Automatik]

But the problem would probably be matching the timing up with other ? blocks, coins, and HUD coin

The timing for animated tiles is constant. Look at Goomba's Industries's trailer.

[Jorichi]

But the problem would probably be matching the timing up with other ? blocks, coins, and HUD coin

The timing for animated tiles is constant. Look at Goomba's Industries's trailer.

I have to correct you here: You can set the time for each frame.
For example the shyguy getting shocked has six frames really fast (the flashes) then one really long (lying down):

[Automatik]

Yeah, uh, I meant that the [?] box's tile, if well made, will always be in sync with coins and other [?] boxes.

[Jorichi]

Oh then yes, definitely. My bad.

[TripleXero]

Ohh, he's laying down. For some reason I saw a fat Shyguy standing. Now that I actually see it for what it is, I have no clue how I saw that

[TheJonyMyster]

Ohh, he's laying down. For some reason I saw a fat Shyguy standing. Now that I actually see it for what it is, I have no clue how I saw that

It's ok, me too.

[Superjustinbros]

They're actually all over the place in Mario games (except SMB of course) simply as a way of keeping things looking consistent in a stack of brick blocks. For example, if I break the wrong block, I can't reach the platform; hence the coin. A multi-coin block is rewarding the player for nothing, and a ? block would just look out of place.

SMB3 does it in 2-3 and NSMB had a set in 1-4.

As for how placing the coins as an entity would work, here's how I'd do it:

You could apply it safely to any tile that does not have the "breakable", "coinblock", and/or "coin" properties. When put on a breakable tile the coin goes inside the block, and on coin blocks and coin tiles, it does nothing.

[TurretBot]

Coins should be drawn behind bricks so when you break them you see a coin floating there.

[Sky]

Coins should be drawn behind bricks so when you break them you see a coin floating there.

Foreground tiles?

[TurretBot]

Coins should be drawn behind bricks so when you break them you see a coin floating there.

Foreground tiles?

Pretty much.

[mallo]

I'm sorry to revive so old news but hasn't anyone noticed how Mario's death animation was changed from jumping up a bit first?

[Superjustinbros]

I think that's only for certain deaths. It probably was fixed in the final release.

[BobTheLawyer]

Yep. It was well known as a glitch.
Probably fixed.

[Maurice]

Actually it still happens.
Haven't looked into it yet.

[Superjustinbros]

So Maurice, will that time trial level for Gamescom make it into core Mari0 either bundled with SE or a downloadable add-on?

[Automatik]

Maurice said in IRC that he don't read this topic, unfortunately.

[Sašo]

The code will likely be left in but I doubt he'll make it a 'public' thing.

[Kexaihami]

It's been almost a year and I'm still stuck on that intelligent post Turret made.