MindWanderer

Yeah, I loved the art, the title, and the concept, too, but the t-shirt and tattoo were kind of jarring. Maybe a Kirby or a Master Sword tie? If you love the triforce tat, I think it should be on the back of the hand anyway (per the games), where it would both be more subtle and not be covered by the suit.

That one is amazing. I've put some music into a couple of my levels, and it's trickier than it looks--the item limit hits pretty fast, and placing notes so they don't overlap or conflict, with only about 2 octaves to work with, is really tough. Peach managed to put in melody, bass, and percussion and really nailed it. Perfect length, too. I know what you mean. I made Topsy-yvruT so that the sub-level is almost exactly identical to the main level (but upside down), down to coin placement. And when people see coins, even when they're plainly right at the bottom of the screen and meant to be collected on the flip side, down they go. Turns out I got truly unlucky with my first go at Expert. My first three levels took about 40 lives, but I haven't had a net loss of more than a couple of lives each for the next 4 or 5. I haven't had the frustration tolerance to finish yet, though.

MindWanderer Splash Supafly (Splash Warfly in Sigma Stage 2 [X3]) Hilf Dir (Tunnel Rhino in Sigma Stage 2 [X3]) Laulu (Frost Walrus in Sigma Stage 2 [X3])

Only got one signup, via PM, so consider RWS closed until further notice. I'll relaunch it when enough people start nagging me to do so.

You can also give free trials of many DAWs a shot. Reaper in particular has an unlimited, full-featured free trial--you pay only if you want to. Also it will stay with you if you decide to migrate back to Windows at some point. You can also consider Garage Band as a sort of free trial of Logic (similar interface, much fewer features), so you can compare the two (Cubase too, if you want) before plopping down money.

Two new stages from me: "It's Co-Optitude Time!": [92A2-0000-008A-A02F] This has a theme based on Co-Optitude, the (mostly) retro Let's Play on the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel, with Felicia Day and her brother Ryon. I'm especially looking for feedback on this one because I'd like to bring it to the attention of the channel and hosts. "Topsy-yvruT": [b0AC-0000-008E-1634] Getting through this level will require an occasional change in perspective.

There's plenty of room for a capella. It's an underrepresented (except by Smooth McGroove) and awesome genre.

We'll be restarting again next Tuesday, so consider signups re-opened.

That's the character theme for Queen, the final boss. One of my first, very bad remix attempts was of this source (also using the prelude to it). High on my list of sources to attempt for real some day, but I have virtually no time anymore. The game has a solid soundtrack all around, though. Halloween's theme is a particular favorite, but I also like Wolfman, Ninja, and Shaman.

This is exactly what I've been doing, but I'm just not terribly accurate or fast. I've tried a dozen times at least, and I don't always even get the boss to turn red. When I do, it's always during the last section. If there's no better trick to it than that, then this will probably just sit there as an empty spot on my list. You can also just place a whole mess of them on the ground, so the player keeps touching them. Doesn't work well for a long level, but does work for smaller rooms (bonus rooms and boss fights).

I got this on Thursday and have been going nuts. A lot of people create some pretty terrible levels, but there are some gems as well. 100 Mario Expert is especially stupid--people don't generally create challenging levels so much as sadistic guessing games. Far too many leaps of faith and surprise deathtraps. If Expert was only maybe 5 levels long, it would be more palatable. As it was, it took me 40 lives to pass two levels, with a ton of skips when I realized I'd found yet another one that was just learning by repeated death. One thing I was surprised to find out was that the Music Block has a different timbre for everything that bounces on it! I haven't see that feature mentioned before, and it's nuts. The POW block is a kick drum, the Super Mushroom is a square wave (genius!), and Bowser is an overdriven guitar. There's a list here but it was written by a non-musician; someone who actually knows instruments should probably make a new one. I'm really surprised that with all the automatic levels out there (seems like about 25% of the Easy 100 Mario levels are automatic), there aren't more musical ones. OCR, represent! I set a goal for myself to create one stage with each item delivery, to challenge myself and really learn what each thing can do before moving on. This had... mixed results. Day 1: "Troopas' Towas" (EA45-0000-006B-12F6). Climb the tower, stomp the giant Koopa Troopa, use the shell to escape, repeat. For a day 1-only level, I'm pretty pleased with it. It's aesthetically lacking, and it seems to be harder than I thought, but it works well. It's not hard at all if you're patient. Day 2: "Drill Down". I'm not proud of this one--it's far too hard and not tremendously interesting. It involves getting Lakitu to produce Spiny shells for you to break through layers of blocks, one row at a time. This will undoubtedly be the first level I overwrite. I won't even give you the code. Day 3: "William S.M. Cannon, Realtor" (F95A-0000-0072-6F7E). Should have been "Blaster" but I didn't catch the real item name until later. The cannon floats overhead, feeding you starmen so you can take a tour of the houses on his list. Because everything outside is spikes. Again, easy if you're patient, hard if you try to rush. Day 4: "Wall Jump Palace" (C812-0000-0073-C87F). An intentionally challenging wall jump level. No surprises, no cheap deaths, just a test of skill. The deliveries started unlocking faster than 1/day at this point, since my levels are on the long side. Day 5: "K.K.'s Cloud Convoy" (DE66-0000-0074-A6F7). Didn't get anything I wanted from this pack, so I just made a level where K.K. Slider uses Lakitu's Cloud to fly between airships. There's a lengthy section at the end where the challenge is in cloud management, making sure you get a new one before the old one expires. Even though I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted here, I'm still pretty happy with it. Day 6a: "Complacency" (0DF2-0000-0077-E60D). This is me being a troll. As long as you can take a hint, and remember that the level is indeed trying to kill you, you'll be fine. This was kind of a cop-out, so I made another day 6 level (mostly). Day 6b: "Wario's Haunted Palace" (C236-0000-0079-0B64). Wario makes another grab at real estate, based on rumors that this castle is abandoned. Only Wario isn't all that bright. Can you help him find the exit? A fairly standard haunted Bowser's Castle with a surprise ending. I added sound effects once I unlocked them halfway through making the level, and arrows for hints at the end, but no mechanical elements. I've unlocked through day 8 but haven't used the day 7 elements yet. I have tons of ideas at this point, though. Earning 50 stars to increase the limit seems so far away.... Oh, and does anyone have any tips for that *&^@*%$# fly swatter game? I thought beating the NWC2015 levels was going to be the big unlock challenge, but no--they're hard enough, but unlocking the Maker Mario costume will be something else altogether. There's a reason I haven't seen it in a stage yet....

I felt the same way, and I'm kind of in a similar position. I wrote mostly "real" instrument pieces for a while, and I was relatively happy with the arrangements but not the production. Step 2 for me is working with electronic instruments--I have less of an idea of how to use them "correctly," but I feel that would be easier to figure out than learning how to make free samples sound good (and I'm not willing to make the expensive investments for more). Step 3, which would come after I can get posted to OCR, would be to go back to "real" instruments--only my best samples at first, in conjunction with synths--and make something good with those.

Yeah, the mechanics are pretty far removed--different character movement properties, standing on and picking up enemies and objects, completely different power-up and health mechanics, and a 95% different cast of enemies. Wouldn't work too well as part of Mario Maker. But as far as "canon," now that Miyamoto officially stated that SMB3 was just a stage play, that's kind of moot. Agreed, and they're really nice aesthetically, too. Not too hard to implement if they limit it to 45 degree slopes. Similarly, I'd like to see water tiles (as opposed to just whole water maps) and lava tiles, but I can see how those would be challenging to implement. We'll probably get some of the missing enemies first, if we get DLC content added at all.

"Never Gonna Give You Up" is definitely growing on me. It's a catchy little tune, and I found myself getting a little smile when it came up in "You Know the Game". I'm finding myself looking forward to it more than to some of the Mega Man X themes. I'll be sad to see it go.

Mine (now 12 months) was like that, too. Lately she's been waking up more often, but I've been getting a great deal more sleep than I was warned. Still not much time to work on music, though. That's also why I've been playing Splatoon instead of long-form games. Can't wait until she's old enough to entertain herself....

Mouser's a Doki Doki Panic (SMB2US) enemy, so they'd have to put in behavior and interactions for him from scratch. Heck, there aren't even any bombs in a core SMB game, just bob-ombs. Not that they couldn't, but Charging Chucks would make more sense. Several members of the Hammer Bros. family are missing, too (Flying, Boomerang, etc.), as are a whole bunch of the SMB3 enemies (mini Goombas, Thwimps, Big Bertha/Boss Bass, The Angry Sun). And apparently several types of platform behaviors. Maybe they'll add them in later. Nearly all the 1st party Wii U games seem to have DLC now, either paid, free, or both.

I started LUCT when it was just called "Tactics Ogre" on the PS1. The leveling system was a pain--enemies' power was based on the level of your highest-level character, and one level made a significant difference. Ended up spending lots of time sitting around throwing rocks at each other to even levels up, IIRC.

MindWanderer Never Gonna Give (Up The Funk) (Gravity Beetle in Cyber Maze Core [X5]) Cyberfunk (Splash Warfly in Cyber Maze Core [X5]) Infinite Flight Cheat Code (Storm Eagle in Cyber Maze Core [X5])

"Independent" is the usual word. I agree that the compos don't seem to bring people to the forums for the purpose of voting. It probably promotes downloads, but not votes. I would think that the easiest way would be to use something like Google Forms, and just have people fill in their OCR username. The only issue would be if people decide to be jerks and post votes under someone else's name, but with this community I'd imagine Wheaton's Law would suffice. Otherwise, one could just arrange it so that each voter sets up an association between their Google and OCR ID's in advance. Could also set up an entire, handmade website, where people get login credentials by sending Darkesword a PM. Raises that barrier of entry again, though. If we did use a form, one option would be to have both mandatory and optional sections. The simple vote (top 3 or A/B choice) could be the only mandatory part, but there could be an optional section with 1-5 ratings on various categories for each of the songs, or even a comments field for each. That way we could see how much buy-in there would be for such a system. But I also agree that ultimately the WIP forum would be the way to go for folks who want lots of feedback. Anyway, Darke, if you're (thinking about) setting up a custom website, I volunteer my services. I have experience writing company-internal web apps, mostly using PHP and jQueryUI, a few different backend frameworks. Not sure what you have in mind for an OCR forum-based authentication method, but I have used Google OpenID before.

I'm an obsessive min-maxer, so I look at the abilities I want, choose what I think is the most optimal brand, and focus on those items. Different gear goes well with different weapons and in different modes. For instance, Damage Up is near-useless on most weapons, but is handy on chargers, blasters, and brushes. I've recently been doing quite well with a Rapid Blaster and a full set of Damage Up gear (3 main, 5 sub). Stealth Jump is very handy in ranked with most weapons, but not always in Normal; Ninja Squid is really nice with close-range weapons but can be a handicap in Ranked. I've also been doing quite well with the .96 Gal Deco, but man do you need Ink Saver for it. After being busy for a while, I finally got to play this last weekend. Some bullet points: I am now a fan of the inkbrush. Couldn't get it to work well when I first unlocked it, so I gave up on it, but now I'm having a blast with it. Zip! I'm flanking you. Zip! I'm out of the crossfire. Toss a sprinkler to make you think I'm around one corner, but nope, slapslapslap you're dead. Not great on every map, but when it works it's amazingly fun. My aim is not so great, so Chargers aren't my best weapons, but the Bamboozler with some Damage Ups is quite nice. If you get it up to 99.9% damage, you can often get a one-hit kill in actual combat. And the Splash Wall with a sniper rifle is crazy useful. Looking forward to trying the Disruptor version. Finally got to play Rainmaker, and it's probably my favorite mode to foster cooperation. My second match, I was playing with teammates who knew perfectly well that picking up the thing was painting a target on them, and wanted nothing to do with it. They'd pop the bubble and then all sit around defending it. We did badly for a while because of this, but eventually I managed to pick it up and carry it from right next to our goal to the 20 mark on the other, because our opponents were focusing entirely on the rainmaker and not at all on territory. Shortly after, we had a beautiful finish, with my allies fanned out in front of me, creating a huge, clear area for me to dunk it. A couple of matches later, I got a glorious finish on Port Mackerel, where two of my allies distracted the enemy near the midline, I happened to be just up ahead, and the third ally got the Rainmaker. I laid down a Seeker, zipped to the end of the trail, repeated, fired three quick shots at the ramp to the goal, and that was it. Quickest, cleanest win imaginable.

While I agree that I've never seen Deus Ex and FF Tactics lumped together before, I do see the similarity: games that have heavy RPG elements but in which combat is decided by equal parts stats and positioning/control. Front Mission 3 is the only game in that series I've played, but I sank over 200 hours into it. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is my favorite in that series. I'd personally include the 2D Castlevania games (post-Symphony of the Night) among action-RPG's as well, and they range from solid to amazing. Not sure if you'd count the Mana series, which are heavily stat-dependent, but if you do, Seiken Densetsu III is my favorite. And actually, Dragon Age is along those lines as well, especially playing as a mage. Maybe Mass Effect, too. I stopped playing Disgaea because the mechanics of it started bogging me down--the best tactical options were through insane combinations of picking up and throwing your allies, which was fun at first but quickly became tedious. I'll probably pick it up again when I can convince myself to focus on playing through the story and not worry about all the min-maxing. (I'm also "that guy" who unlocked most of the classes in FF Tactics before reaching the point where I could buy equipment for most of them. Samurai Punch!)

Yeah, it does seem to have some timing issues. And it's basically just a piano roll turned on its side, with the piano animation added. You can do something similar in any DAW in about 30 seconds, with better performance.

Share some secret techniques with us sensai Duct tape.

I like the idea, but more as a long-form multi-round compo than recurring one-shots. Some options: Participants each choose a game to stick with for the compo, then the organizer chooses a game each week. The remix uses a source from the participant's game, in the style of the organizer's game. As above, but with the selections reversed. This would cut down on the research needed on the participants' part, but some of the fun from breaking them out of their comfort zones would be lost. Both the OST game and the style game are fixed for the duration of the compo, but the type of music changes each week. Boss battle, love theme, title screen, credit roll, ice stage, industrial stage, etc. My experience with longer-duration compos is that they don't really help. If something takes longer than 2 weeks to do properly, way too many people will just drop out.

Actually, that sounds like it could potentially be amazing. Not as amazing as if National Gymnastics Day were on May 4, but still pretty good.