RESULTS POST
π’Summary
Wecome to MAFAB3, a contest where you can show off your boss design know-how and create the most awesome antagonist the world has ever seen! This is the third contest of this sort, and the first to be held by itself without a connection to a MAGLX contest (1, 2). Nevertheless, as the two that came before this one, this MAFAB contest too will have its results showcased in a Let's Play by raocow.
The submission period for this contest is a month, with
SUBMISSIONS CLOSING MONDAY, MAY 29TH, 6AM EDT
So make sure to submit your boss by then.
π‘How to submit
Spoiler: show
In order to submit to this contest, please follow this step-by-step guide.
- Leave a reply saying that you want to sign up, or contact me by PM to receive your keyword sets. ( People who signed up in the announcement thread do not have to do this. ) My reply might take a while between 12PM and 8PM EDT because that's when I sleep, so sorry in advance.
- Select one of the two keyword sets you see to incorporate into your boss's design. For more information on keyword sets and re-rolls, see the section below. From the set, make sure to use all keywords to the best of your ability.
- Before starting your boss, I recommend reading the Submission checklist to make sure you understand the somewhat fiddly SMBX file structure.
- Create your boss using SMBX2 Beta 4 Patch 4.1 Hotfix! The way in which you use the keyword set is up to you. You might find it easy for some keywords to be the names of attacks, while others might work well for innate properties. You can download this version of SMBX here (the first button under "FULL DOWNLOAD").
- Once done, you can use the contest subforum to make a thread for your boss and receive feedback from other participants. Making a thread here does NOT count as a submission by itself.
- When you feel confident in your submission, head over to the SUBMISSION THREAD and leave a reply with a download link. Make sure to read the Submission checklist once again to ensure you didn't forget anything. THIS is your submission and once you completed this step, you are done! You can update your post's download link before submissions close if you make any updates.
Spoiler: show
Like with the MtG cards of MAFAB1 and the raocow LP screenshots of MAFAB2, MAFAB3, too, requires you, the participant, to develop your amazing boss with a creative restriction. This time around, this restriction comes in the form of keyword sets.
Any relation to keywords from a certain large Nintendo property are purely coincidental.
When signing up to the contest (by posting in this thread of sending me a PM), I will generate these keyword sets for you. You will select one of the two (Set A or Set B) and use the keywords as creative input for your boss's attacks, behaviour, appearance, the arena's environment, or anything else that comes to mind.
π²Re-rolls
Since keyword set generation is random, you are allowed to re-roll every keyword twice. The way re-rolls work is that you re-roll individual keywords, selecting the ones to toss and the ones to keep.
Using the above sample as an example, you might like a lot of the words available, but want to re-roll "Replenish, Flail, and Guts". To do so, send me a PM with the keywords you wish to re-roll, and I will reply with the keywords that replace the swapped-out keywords. Swapped-out keywords may no longer be used.
Any relation to keywords from a certain large Nintendo property are purely coincidental.
When signing up to the contest (by posting in this thread of sending me a PM), I will generate these keyword sets for you. You will select one of the two (Set A or Set B) and use the keywords as creative input for your boss's attacks, behaviour, appearance, the arena's environment, or anything else that comes to mind.
π²Re-rolls
Since keyword set generation is random, you are allowed to re-roll every keyword twice. The way re-rolls work is that you re-roll individual keywords, selecting the ones to toss and the ones to keep.
Using the above sample as an example, you might like a lot of the words available, but want to re-roll "Replenish, Flail, and Guts". To do so, send me a PM with the keywords you wish to re-roll, and I will reply with the keywords that replace the swapped-out keywords. Swapped-out keywords may no longer be used.
Spoiler: show
Make sure your submission follows these guidelines. Failure to comply may lead to punishment or disqualification.
- Your submission does not contain inappropriate material such as explicit or bigoted content, or content otherwise inappropriate for the SMBX and talkhaus communities.
- Your submission does not exploit the fact that it will be played in a YouTube Let's Play to make raocow read/see something weird and out of context (such as personal promotion, venting, or other).
- Your submission belongs to you, and all assets you use that do not belong to you are credited in a text file or in the level file itself.
- Your submission was created for this event specifically. It is neither recycled, nor intended to be included in another project.
- Your submission is playable from beginning to end without lua errors in the SMBX2 Beta 4 Patch 4.1 Hotfix version.
- Your submission has one exit. Using lua to modify the boss on repeat playthroughs for a "second exit that is technically the same" is disallowed.
- Your submission is one lvlx file (and its corresponding level folder containing custom assets). Submitting multiple levels is disallowed.
- Your submission was created alone or in a team of up to 3 people. If you are submitting as a team, please select one person from your team to request the prompts. You can also have a team name. Any team member's name may only be attached to one submission.
Spoiler: show
This contest will be judged using the following rating categories. Judges may reward full points or .5 decimals:
FUN (/10)
How much fun is it to fight the boss? Is it fair? Is there replay value? Does a particularly long boss give the player a hand in the form of checkpoints?
AWESOME (/10)
How spectacular is the boss? Did you create cool chains of attacks using layers, events and/or lua, or did you put down a Mother Brain and a Rinka Shooter and call it a day?
BOSS (/10)
Is the player tasked with overcoming an entity? Does this antagonist use the keywords in the selected keyword set?
STABILITY (/-10)
A penalty category for penalizing submissions that are prone to lag, crashes, have poor visibility or are otherwise unplayable.
Scores are multiplied and averaged to a final score out of 10 points. Any ties will remain unbroken.
Our judges' identities? Well, heh...
You'll have to wait a bit longer for that, sorry! πΏ
In order to avoid accidentally sending them repeated progress updates on your levels, please make sure to use places like the contest forum or contest discord for progress updates and feedback.
πRewards and flexibility of results
The weighing of the judging categories is not set in stone. In addition to the following default weights, players will be able to adjust the weights in the episode to see how levels would have placed if categories or judges had less or more influence than others. The highest scoring submissions with every balance below will receive winner medals as a reward.
MAFAB3 BALANCE: 50% FUN, 30% AWESOME, 20% BOSS, 30% STABILITY - The canon balance for the episode. A high emphasis on fun and spectacle. For this balance alone, the top 3 placing submissions will receive medals (first, second, third place).
FUN BALANCE: 80% FUN, 10% AWESOME, 10% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - Who cares about graphics or contest gimmicks when you can have fun? Winner will receive the MOST FUN medal.
AWESOME BALANCE: 10% FUN, 80% AWESOME, 10% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most spectacular of them all? Winner will receive the MOST AWESOME medal.
BOSS BALANCE: 10% FUN, 10% AWESOME, 80% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - If you submit to a contest with a gimmick, you gotta adhere to the gimmick! Winner will receive the MOST BOSS medal.
Judges are also allowed to reward up to 1 medal to each submission for any reason, including medals for their favourite overall submission.
FUN (/10)
How much fun is it to fight the boss? Is it fair? Is there replay value? Does a particularly long boss give the player a hand in the form of checkpoints?
AWESOME (/10)
How spectacular is the boss? Did you create cool chains of attacks using layers, events and/or lua, or did you put down a Mother Brain and a Rinka Shooter and call it a day?
BOSS (/10)
Is the player tasked with overcoming an entity? Does this antagonist use the keywords in the selected keyword set?
STABILITY (/-10)
A penalty category for penalizing submissions that are prone to lag, crashes, have poor visibility or are otherwise unplayable.
Scores are multiplied and averaged to a final score out of 10 points. Any ties will remain unbroken.
Our judges' identities? Well, heh...
You'll have to wait a bit longer for that, sorry! πΏ
In order to avoid accidentally sending them repeated progress updates on your levels, please make sure to use places like the contest forum or contest discord for progress updates and feedback.
πRewards and flexibility of results
The weighing of the judging categories is not set in stone. In addition to the following default weights, players will be able to adjust the weights in the episode to see how levels would have placed if categories or judges had less or more influence than others. The highest scoring submissions with every balance below will receive winner medals as a reward.
MAFAB3 BALANCE: 50% FUN, 30% AWESOME, 20% BOSS, 30% STABILITY - The canon balance for the episode. A high emphasis on fun and spectacle. For this balance alone, the top 3 placing submissions will receive medals (first, second, third place).
FUN BALANCE: 80% FUN, 10% AWESOME, 10% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - Who cares about graphics or contest gimmicks when you can have fun? Winner will receive the MOST FUN medal.
AWESOME BALANCE: 10% FUN, 80% AWESOME, 10% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most spectacular of them all? Winner will receive the MOST AWESOME medal.
BOSS BALANCE: 10% FUN, 10% AWESOME, 80% BOSS, 20% STABILITY - If you submit to a contest with a gimmick, you gotta adhere to the gimmick! Winner will receive the MOST BOSS medal.
Judges are also allowed to reward up to 1 medal to each submission for any reason, including medals for their favourite overall submission.
Spoiler: show
- Do you wish to engage with the community while designing your boss? Join the contest discord to engage in discussion with other participants!
- Taking a dive into lua for the first or second time in this contest? The SMBX2 documentation has you covered on most things lunalua can do. Starting out, you may also find my lunalua tutorials helpful.
- If you are not in a position to program, do not despair! Head on over to "Non-scripting features" pages of the SMBX2 documentation to look at things like the NPC config codes for niche and helpful configurations that require no coding at all. Using for example health=5 on SMBX 1.3's boss NPCs, a Mother Brain hitbox can be made a lot more appropriate for a boss fight than back in the day. Check out a recent "Retro Boss Contest" if you want to see some examples of these new non-lua tools in action.
- If your boss is large, spectacular and maybe even multi-phased, don't forget about iteration times. If dying one hit before beating the boss sends players back to the start with a frown on their faces, consider adding a checkpoint to the fight. See the below "common code" section for more information.
These libraries range from import-and-it-works to framework-to-aid-coders. The star ranking next to the link indicates the difficulty of use. If the link does not contain usage instructions, there may be in the file. You don't have to use any of these, but you might find one or the other useful.
Libraries are generally imported with the line "local libraryName = require("libraryName")"
β ββββ anotherPowerDownLibrary.lua - When taking damage with a Tier 2 powerup, power down to big
β ββββ heartsForAll.lua - Replaces Mario & Luigi's itembox with Toad's heart system
β ββββ Reserve Powerups for Toad, Peach, Link - If you want the opposite
β ββββ playerphysicspatch.lua - Lets you customize the player's physics
β ββββ coyotetime.lua - Allows jumping a few frames after dropping off a ledge
β ββββ littledialogue.lua - Better text boxes
β β βββ lightHitPoint.lua - Add HP to any NPC
β β βββ Freeze Highlights - If you wanna give big hits on a boss that extra oomph
β β βββ simpleLayerMovement.lua - Layers that are defined in lua, rather than events, and can perform more complex motions
β β β ββ afterimages.lua - Give things cool trails
β β β β β Core's Boss NPC - A NPC that can be given custom boss AI
β β β β β adversary.lua - Boss code framework
πͺCommon code
The links below contains some pieces of lua code that I suspect might commonly appear in this contest. Simply copy them into a file called luna.lua to use them. They are designed to be easy to use even if you haven't worked with lunalua before.
βοΈSome of the links contain duplicate sections. When copying these codes, make sure that duplicate sections are merged, and that there is only one of each "function" by name. As in, if you find SMBX showing you red warnings of "duplicate handler onTick", move the contents of one onTick into the other onTick and then delete the now-empty onTick you moved the code out of.
Simple checkpoints
Simple UI
Simple cutscene & player input lock
