[WIP]Viridity Woodland

A few months ago, I posted a topic on here asking for help on what would make a Coop successful/how to make a Coop wad.

By 'Coop' I mean a wad the requires more than one player to complete a single level.

A week ago I began working on such a wad and this is what I came up with:






Downloads:
There are 2 downloads.

-This one has no Custom music. I figured some people wouldn't want to download 5 MB. This however has Custom Patches and such - File Size=1.23:
http://www.mediafire.com/?c5eyfxs4s61i8g0

-This one basically includes everything - File Size=5.27:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9u1wrr2n41j6ah1

Now before I worked further on this, I wanted tips/suggestions/feedback on how to improve on this or how to make it better.

I have planned a mod made specifically for Coop levels. This is why I require feedback on this so that future levels that I make for the mod aren't horrible.

NOTE(s):
-The following level is unplayable in SP unless you have 'noclip' on.
-The word Viridity is not a word in the dictionary.
-The level itself can be completed by a single person just as long as it's done in Coop mode, however I recommend playing it with more than one person just to get more/better/different results.

EDIT:Forgot to mention there was a small, secret, non-coop, level in there too.

This is not a coop wad. I can completely say that correctly. It is a Change skin/charability wad. No cooperation is needed with anyone. The level might be good, I dunno, I'm just so focused on how the map is NOT ACTUALLY WHAT IT IS ADVERTIZED AS. Its only a coop map on a technicality, and no teamwork is necessary to complete any tasks. Hell, I don't even think All you need is to bind "Skin tails" and "skin Knuckles" to two keys and you're set. Point is, its not coop in the least, and I am just sitting here, wondering how you could possibly falsely claim this is a coop map at all.

D00D64 said:

This is not a coop wad. I can completely say that correctly. It is a Change skin/charability wad. No cooperation is needed with anyone. The level might be good, I dunno, I'm just so focused on how the map is NOT ACTUALLY WHAT IT IS ADVERTIZED AS. Its only a coop map on a technicality, and no teamwork is necessary to complete any tasks. Hell, I don't even think All you need is to bind "Skin tails" and "skin Knuckles" to two keys and you're set. Point is, its not coop in the least, and I am just sitting here, wondering how you could possibly falsely claim this is a coop map at all.

Click to expand...

Interesting because you just gave me a great idea that I will implement.
And no its not a Knux level because of the good old 'Not Climbable' flag.

First off, you got quite some visual talent. Kudos for that.

Regarding your concept of a "coop" map, it's honestly pretty lame in that regard. The whole thing boils down to "climb up here", "fly up there", "break this block as Knuckles", "press this button". Nothing of that is interesting. Not to mention that Sonic has nothing to do (I think he can't even complete the map). Unless you find some interesting ways in which you can challenge the unique abilities of all three characters, the map will be pretty boring.

If I were grading this on visuals alone, they would get a 9/10. They really impressed me.

If I were grading this on playability, they would get a 3/10. Why? Because it is possible to beat the level as Tails only and change skins to Knuckles once, maybe twice, solely to break blocks. How is this coop? And, like SpiritCrusher said, I don't think Sonic can even beat the map by himself.

May I suggest the "No Sonic/Tails/Knux" linedefs flags?

Sonic100000 said:

May I suggest the "No Sonic/Tails/Knux" linedefs flags?

Click to expand...

Those don't work at all in netplay, IIRC.

Oh, well then I only know stuff about SP.

I don't really like this map concept, as others have pointed out, and it isn't implemented nearly as well as it could be.


I'm sorry. I just had to get that bantering out there.

Okay, I LOVE the idea of Coop maps. And I'm glad someone's finally doing it. I haven't played this yet, so I cannot criticize, but reading other comments it seems like its not quite Coop. Did you try learning from robots? Maybe make something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1eN8YE7rM4&feature=player_detailpage#t=72s
EDIT: No matter what I do, the link won't work at correct time... Just skip to around 1:10 or 1:12, you'll see what I mean...

SpiritCrusher said:

First off, you got quite some visual talent. Kudos for that.

Regarding your concept of a "coop" map, it's honestly pretty lame in that regard. The whole thing boils down to "climb up here", "fly up there", "break this block as Knuckles", "press this button". Nothing of that is interesting. Not to mention that Sonic has nothing to do (I think he can't even complete the map). Unless you find some interesting ways in which you can challenge the unique abilities of all three characters, the map will be pretty boring.

Click to expand...

My brother was calling me out on the same things a few days ago. I have found some ways to challenge the characters abilities, but I have yet to see if they actually work.

akb778 said:

If I were grading this on visuals alone, they would get a 9/10. They really impressed me.

If I were grading this on playability, they would get a 3/10. Why? Because it is possible to beat the level as Tails only and change skins to Knuckles once, maybe twice, solely to break blocks. How is this coop? And, like SpiritCrusher said, I don't think Sonic can even beat the map by himself.

Click to expand...

Yes this was originally what I was thinking. Having different characters use their abilities to open up the path to the exit. I was looking at it all wrong and now I redone a few things. Also it wouldn't be Coop if Sonic beat it by himself now would it?

Spherallic said:

I don't really like this map concept, as others have pointed out, and it isn't implemented nearly as well as it could be.

Spoiler: shenanigans related to style and visuals

You must have been stealing my map ideas. Especially in terms of visual design. You, with your two maps there, just crafted exactly what I had in mind for a very old scrapped level of mine, Temple Traversion.

Spoiler: to prevent further cluttering and possible advertisement thoughts

I know that they don't look alike that much, but the feel does, in my opinion. Not to mention the tree style (I actually used the same bark texture as you did, this is an older picture), with the multiple layers that go down one light level the closer to the bark they are.

But you actually went through where I quit the map. Heh. :P

I'm sorry. I just had to get that bantering out there.

Click to expand...

I honestly had no clue about that map of yours and about the design. I learn from what I see. Even though sometimes it can be poorly executed.

Metal Fighter said:

Also it wouldn't be Coop if Sonic beat it by himself now would it?

Click to expand...

You might want to consider making it beatable by multiple Sonic players, though.

Have you ever played Four Swords for Gamecube, Metal Fighter? Take some ideas from that. That's the best co-op game I've ever played.

I feel I should point out these two sector effects that will most likely be critical to making some good co-op map gimmicks.
This, and
this.

You know, it occurred to me, you might have used these. I haven't played the map yet, I was just giving suggestions. ;)

I think if remade this level as a single player, by that I mean to the degree of scenery not button pushing, then you'd have a pretty damn awesome level!

Charybdizs said:

You might want to consider making it beatable by multiple Sonic players, though.

I feel I should point out these two sector effects that will most likely be critical to making some good co-op map gimmicks.
This, and
this.

You know, it occurred to me, you might have used these. I haven't played the map yet, I was just giving suggestions. ;)

Click to expand...

I have thought of this. In fact this is exactly what I'm trying to do. I am also trying to mix it up a little as well.
Oh and I've used the first sector effect you posted.

daiches99 said:

I think if remade this level as a single player, by that I mean to the degree of scenery not button pushing, then you'd have a pretty damn awesome level!

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, then it would turn out to be another SP mod, and that is something I don't want.

Metal Fighter said:

Also it wouldn't be Coop if Sonic beat it by himself now would it?

Click to expand...

Nope. But I think Sonic can't reach the exit even after all the buttons are pressed. Either way, he's totally useless and has nothing to do but stand around.

And what's wrong with "just another SP mod"? It's not like we have many of those.

Then how about fast crushers/obstacles that only Sonic can get through, like in ERZ1?

You could also add separate ways to the exit. One for each character.

SpiritCrusher said:

And what's wrong with "just another SP mod"? It's not like we have many of those.

Click to expand...

The point is, that he was going for a co-op mod. Making it Single player would defeat the purpose of why he made it.

Designing something for more than one person is gonna be a HARD task, I must say.

What you have now is pretty boring, and there's no actual challenge on your level, so I suggest you making something more challenging than just keep switching characters. If you plan making a coop level in SRB2, you should consider merging the character abilities, so that you'll force at least two players to be two different characters to pass one single challenge. Suddenly I had an example in my mind which could be a good challenge for the three characters (this may be very long) :

Imagine that you're in a net game, in a room with 3 players, and that in this room there are some pillars, and all of them are breakable, but not all the entire pillar is breakable, only from the half to above. The pillars are holding the ceiling of the room and for some reason Knuckles can't climb up them. So, a Tails player is forced to bring a Knuckles player up for him to break all the pillars, while Sonic player is waiting in the ground. When all the pillars become half of the height because the Knuckles player broke the other half of them, the ceiling will fall to the height of the pillars, but a little part won't fall, leaving a hole to the Tails player to go up. The Tails player will find a big breakable wall in front of him and surely will switch to Knuckles to break it, but after he breaks it, he'll look in the next room and he will see a breakable wall in the ceiling, where Knuckles can't reach, so he'll be forced to come back and bring up the Knuckles player with him, and they'll continue their way. Now you should be thinking "and the Sonic player? What will he do? He'll just wait?". To answer this, let's go back in the time where the Tails player were switching to Knuckles to break the wall, after he did it, he activated a trigger linedef exec. that opened a door in the breakable pillars room, the Sonic and Knuckles players obviously saw it, but Sonic is faster and he reached it first, activating another trigger linedef exec. that closed the door, and then Sonic would go alone in his path.

That's what I imagined as a coop level challenge, you could do a lot of variations with the Tails & Knuckles combinations that I said here, and then you just leave a path for Sonic, and make the two paths (Tails & Knuckles path and Sonic-only path) interact with each other, using buttons and all. You could make, in a certain point of the game, the players be togheter again, and change the character ability combinations.

Anyway, this is just a suggestion, but I'd really like of something like this in a coop level.

I like that whole thing, except the "Change Skins" part.
If it is truly coop then a player should NEVER have to change his/her skin. (except to choose it the first time of course.)

Uh what? The whole purpose of this thing is that one player can't complete it on his own.