<I think 2021 will be a very good — >.
Shut the fuck up.

¿Remember when I started that GBC tribute thing 2 years ago, which I didn’t finish, & I promised to do 1 for the original Game Boy, which I ne’er got to @ all? Well, it turned out I didn’t have much to say ’bout many o’ the games I listed. As it turned out, promising to write ’bout Pokémon Gold & Silver when I already wrote an article ’bout the whole Pokémon series was just asking for writer’s block. So I let it fall to the wayside & realized that doing these system-based tributes just ’cause the system happened to have existed for a multiple o’ 10 years ( tho that’s better than a multiple o’ 5, like something as arbitrary as 35, which is certainly a dumb milestone to make a half-assed battle royale game & e’en-mo’-half-assed port o’ 3 games based on your series ).

But something had been biting on my conscience: I can’t not talk ’bout Game Boy Donkey Kong. I mean, yeah, I don’t need to talk ’bout Pokémon Special Pikachu Version — O wait, I already did. Well, I don’t need to talk ’bout Pac-Man: Special Color Edition — Actually, that had a pretty cool puzzle mode I ought to show off. Anyway, I don’t need to talk ’bout Donkey Kong Country on the Game Boy Color — Actually, that would be interesting to look @.

Well, fuck it, we’ll talk ’bout those games later, e’en if the Game Boy or Game Boy Color’s age is a prime #. For now we talk ’bout Game Boy Donkey Kong, or “Donkey Kong ’94”, as people used to call it, for some reason. The game itself was just called “Donkey Kong” on marketing material, including the box, showing that Nintendo had come up with the dumbass idea o’ naming a sequel the same as the much-mo’-famous original, only for nobody to call the new game by that title, just like nobody would be daff ’nough to call shit like Sonic 06 or SimCity 5/2013 just Sonic the Hedgehog or SimCity. Anyway, the title screen o’ this game says “Game Boy Donkey Kong”, so that’s what I’m going to call it, or “GBDK”, like a Linux programmer would title it.

I don’t know how knowledgeable the average player was ’bout what kind o’ game GBDK was @ the time it came out, since I was 2 @ the time, but I knew nothing ’bout it when I 1st started playing it, since I received the game as a Christmas gift from some local church none o’ our heathen family attended after my older brother tricked them into thinking we were poor ( we were a year off from that happening ). Thus, I went into the game thinking ’twas just a port o’ the classic Donkey Kong arcade game & that I wouldn’t like it since the Donkey Kong arcade game is rather hard & as a kid I had this strange idea that if I sucked @ a game it wasn’t a fun game. When I 1st played the game & played thru the familiar levels jumping o’er barrels on girders, riding elevators & dodging… ¿bouncing springs? I don’t know what the hell Donkey Kong is throwing in that level. Anyway, I was surprised to find that ’twas a lot easier than I remembered ( I now know that’s ’cause Mario’s jumping is much improved, making it much easier to clear obstacles, & the game gives you much mo’ lenience in terms o’ how far you can fall before you crack your skull & die ).

But the real surprise came after soon beating the 4th level wherein you pull out all the pegs, causing the structure Donkey Kong’s standing on to collapse & Donkey Kong to fall onto his head while Mario, who is on the same structure, magically warps to the sides in safety.

I expected the game to be o’er & to turn the game off & find something else to do, only to see Donkey Kong get up, slam down so hard that the girders Mario & Pauline were standing on collapsed, causing them to fall, grab Pauline, & start running to the right while this wicked riff starts playing:

Mario — who somehow immediately recovers from falling on his head, e’en tho that’s death in the game proper — chases after them into a new screen showing them entering the city, where the game shows you the new mechanic the rest o’ the game will revolve round: Donkey Kong locks himself ’hind a locked door, only for a key to conveniently fall from the sky, which Mario needs to grab & bring to the locked door.

& thus what might’ve been yet ’nother port o’ the 4-level classic Donkey Kong arcade game ( not to sling hate @ said classic itself, which is 1 o’ the best arcade games o’ the golden age ) evolves into a puzzle platformer thru 100 cleverly-designed levels where you have to figure out how to get to the key & bring it to the locked door.

’Long the way you can also collect Pauline’s hat, parasol, & purse: if you collect them all you can play a minigame to win extra lives… which isn’t all that useful, since the game just throws lives @ you. To give you an example: when you beat a boss the game gives you a life for every 100 points you collected, as well as 1 mo’ life for whate’er remainder you have ( they effectively round up to the next 100 ). I don’t e’en think Donkey Kong Country Returns or New Super Mario Bros. games are that generous.

The most notable improvement this game had o’er the arcade original are the controls, which feel mo’ fluid, mo’ in line with contemporary games, than the original arcade game’s, which, while better than any platformer till Super Mario Bros. came out, felt stiff in comparison to Super Mario Bros. & onward platformers. But Mario didn’t only feel smoother, but could do far mo’ — e’en mo’ than in Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. 2 years before Super Mario 64 popularized such movement for Mario, Mario learned how to double & triple jump, side-flip, & backflip, as well as do a hand-stand, which helps Mario block falling obstacles from squishing him &, in the case o’ barrels, allows him to pick them up & use them as a weapon for himself. The only limitation is that Mario can’t do this while holding anything, including the key.

Unfortunately, something this game has in common with both the classic arcade Donkey Kong & Super Mario 64 is taking damage by falling too great a height. Howe’er, unlike classic Donkey Kong, Mario has to fall far mo’ than just his own height to end up rolling all the way round & cracking his skull; falling only a few blocks down, ’stead, causes him to roll, stunning him & causing him to slip a bit, but otherwise not harming him — so long as he doesn’t roll into something else that does, that is.

In addition to Mario’s upgraded gymnastic abilities, GBDK offers plenty o’ tools to manipulate levels. Taking inspiration from the Super Mario Bros. 2 released for the US, you can jump on many enemies, pick them up, & throw them as weapons, just like the key. Holding something also gives Mario an extra hit, causing him to bounce back & drop whate’er he’s holding if hit, rather than die — tho if Mario gets stunned back into ’nother danger, he’ll die to that ’stead.

This game also has switches you can flip in either direction to open & close doors or change the direction o’ conveyor belts & timed items that change the level, such as blocks, springs, ladders that grow upward like vines in regular Mario games, & bridges that spread out horizontally till it hits something else solid.

GBDK has generally mo’ interesting level themes than the average Mario game, tho perhaps not as exotic as the smaller selection in its sequel, Mario vs. Donkey Kong. Rather than starting @ generic “Green Grassland Zone”, the 1st world is the relatively mo’ exotic city. While most o’ the themes are common, like the forest, jungle, desert, & maybe iceberg & rocky-valley worlds, some are rare, like the ship world, & I don’t think I’ve seen ’nother platformer with an airplane theme.

These themes are not only visual, but also affect what gimmicks they introduce or use. For instance, the forest & jungle worlds introduce mechanics from Donkey Kong Jr., such as climbable vines & claptraps & e’en feature DK Jr. helping his father during boss battles, as well as birds that fly round trying to drop killer eggs on your head & seed-spitting plants; the ship world introduces scaffolding that you can use to fling you up & ’way & enemies that shove you round & can help or hurt you by pushing you under small crevices you have to duck under ( you can’t walk or jump while ducking ) or smashing you to death gainst a wall, which I definitely didn’t steal in Boskeopolis Land’s “Pepperoncini Pyramid” level; the desert levels introduce blocks that can be broken with the hammer; the iceberg world features blocks that can only be melted by walking fire enemies, iceberg platforms that float on water, & falling icicles; & the airplane theme features wind. While the penultimate world, the “Rocky-Valley” world, doesn’t have much in the way o’ an interesting theme or many interesting gimmicks, — other than maybe waterfalls that are slow to swim up & lava in 1 level — this long, grueling world is full o’ the trickiest puzzle levels, while the final world, the “Tower”, makes every level a boss battle gainst DK.

The game e’en adds a twist to the locked door on some levels, adding extra fake doors on some levels & making the locked door invisible on others, challenging the player to pay attention as the level starts to see where Pauline’s “HELP!” bubble appears to find it.

Every 4th level has you fight gainst DK, with most challenging you to reach DK while the last level o’ each world has you pick up items — usually barrels — to throw @ DK. The 1 exception is the 5th level o’ the final world, which challenges you to raise all the keys on chains to all the locks, locking DK Jr. up — a callback to the last level o’ the arcade Donkey Kong Jr.

Graphics

I think this game was specially made for the Super Game Boy so it looks very nice on the Super Game Boy, with duotone palettes for levels & map screens with so many colors, they look like they come from a Game Boy Color. Strangely, I don’t remember if ’twas this colorful on the Game Boy Color, e’en tho that was how I played the game as a kid.

What I do know is that the virtual console version sucks dick ’cause for no good reason whatsoe’er Nintendo made it grayscale, so I’d avoid that version. If you don’t want to pay the $15-$20 it costs to buy the game off eBay — much less buy a Game Boy Color or Super Game Boy & Super Nintendo — or be a scurvy pirate, just buy the game off virtual console & then download a rom & play on an actually good emulator. Nintendo got their money on a game they developed decades ago, which they wouldn’t get if you bought a hard copy used, & you got a superior version o’ the game — everyone wins.

Pictured: what you will see on the virtual console version.

Music

The 1 song everyone talks ’bout from this game is the 1st final boss theme, commonly called “Final Showdown”, for some reason. The reason why everyone talks ’bout it is obvious: it’s probably the longest loop for a game where the average song loop length is ’bout 15 seconds, making it stand out as less repetitive & mo’ interesting.

Still, that’s not to say none o’ the other music is good. For instance, the 2nd final boss — technically the real final boss — which heavily remixes the music that plays when you enter a DK level is properly menacing. The miniboss theme for DK levels that aren’t the last o’ the world, too. Ironically, the end-o’-world boss theme is much jauntier, tho I certainly find it catchy.

Actually, I like a lot o’ the menacing songs in this game, such as the iceberg & jungle world map music.

Finally, the 7th level theme, oft called “Airplane Overworld” ( e’en tho the map is usually considered the o’erworld, for some reason many people consider the o’erworld to be the part that isn’t the map for this game ), slaps my dick off. Please give me medical assistance.

Conclusion

I said in my article ’bout the sequel, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, that I preferred this game to it, but the 2 are close, & it depends on my mood. This game has tighter controls, has mo’ refined gameplay without the lame escort mission nonsense, & has much better music. Still, Mario vs. Donkey Kong does have some advantages, such as having mo’ interesting level themes, having mo’ levels, & having mo’ meaningful challenges to accomplish in addition to beating every level. Mario vs. Donkey Kong had presents & a high score for each level to beat to get a star & unlock extra stages, offering much mo’ replay value, while this game is so straightforward & not that hard that a good player could probably beat it in a day.

I’m actually mixed on which has better level design. It seems GBDK has mo’ gimmick variety ( & just ’bout every mechanic in Mario vs. Donkey Kong that isn’t the colored switches & blocks is from GBDK ), while Mario vs. Donkey Kong was able to form mo’ complex levels while relying mo’ heavily on the red, blue, & yellow switches & blocks.

Bobbing Barrel Brawl

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

It’s shocking to see an Ellie level so high up, but for once we have a level that focuses on her abilities ( & not just the ability to throw barrels, which the Kongs can already do themselves ) & not her weaknesses. E’en better, this level adds many variations to her shooting & sucking skills & breaks up this theme with basic platforming to keep this level from feeling 1-dimensional, making this level feel like it came out o’ DKC2. The only caveat is that this level does have mo’ stopping & waiting than a normal DKC2 level, Ellie’s sucking ability doesn’t have many variations, & Ellie’s shooting ability is just a weaker version o’ Squitter’s, since it requires you to stop & suck up water for fuel, which doesn’t add much to gameplay other than slowing you down.

A few o’ the variations:

In addition to shooting forward, upward @ an angle, & jumping & shooting upward @ an angle, @ 1 point you need to shoot a Booty Bird to drop a TNT barrel onto a Zinger to unblock a bonus barrel.

Suck up a steel barrel & shoot it thru a rather narrow hole to hit Koin.

Jump up beetles to fall onto a lake o’ water with greater force & go deeper down to reach a bonus barrel lower down. ( Note: if this is too tricky to find, you can go back with the Kongs after losing Ellie & pair-throw someone up the 1 cliff in the way & then just swim down to the bonus barrel ).

The bonus challenges are all right: the 1st is just a basic challenge dropping barrels into the water to cross to the bonus coin, which I guess is mo’ challenging ’cause you have a time limit, but still feels a bit redundant gainst the level itself. The 2nd challenge requires you to cross barrels o’er water while collecting ornaments, which are laid out in an arc, which is not a huge challenge, but does feel mo’ different from what the main level offers while still fitting the level’s theme & does offer something o’ a challenge, specially for a rather early level, in that you have to make sure you grab the ornaments.

Krack-Shot Kroc

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

This level finds the best balance DKC3 e’er has ’tween a gimmick that feels fresh, but doesn’t feel like it puts you into a different game, but with less polished controls ( like, say, “Rocket Rush” ). On the surface, this is just a normal, somewhat repetitve level where you play as Squitter & use web platforms to cross o’er boiling pots o’… ¿Pepto-Bismol? while dodging Zingers & Re-Koils. Howe’er, thruout this level there is a reticle chasing you, which stops every few seconds to charge up & shot & then shoots 1 o’ the fireballs that the owls in “Fire-Ball Frenzy” shoot where its reticle has stopped. These shots are so telegraphed, with such a delay after they stop to shoot, that it’s easy to dodge the shots, but the player will still likely want to stay ’head o’ the reticle, giving the player something o’ an urgency to keep moving forward, which thankfully, for once, DKC3 obliged with a level layout that ne’er forces the player to wait. Also, this isn’t an autoscroller, so there’s ne’er a time when you’re forced to wait round.

This level’s shape is similar to a lot o’ other levels’ in that it snakes in 1 direction, with only 1 small branch where there’s a bonus barrel. Howe’er, this being a level that encourages you the keep going, making you explore branching paths would only slow you down & be annoying while constantly dodging shots fired @ you, so it works better here than in other, mo’ slow-paced levels. Also, while this level is as long as most levels, the fact that you’ll be usually trying to keep moving makes it feel like it goes by faster than most, the reverse o’ the problem e’en DKC2 levels had ( “Castle Crush” being a prime offender ) o’ having levels feel too long ’cause they were slow & didn’t have their length readjusted. Since DKC levels tend to be on the long side, anyway, here it feels like a +.

That bonuses are ’bove average, too. The 1st bonus barrel is in a surprisingly hard to find thin niche in the ceiling o’ some seemingly random part in the middle o’ the level. But while it’s hard to find, it’s perfectly fair, without resorting to using move-thru walls, which DKC3’s otherwise superior predecessor succumbed to, including in 1 o’ its strongest levels, “Bramble Scramble”. The 2nd bonus barrel isn’t nearly as well hidden, but it does require somewhat tricky maneuvering round a red Zinger while still dodging the reticle’s bullets.

The 1st barrel’s challenge is all right: you have to collect appearing & disappearing presents using Squitter & use Squitter’s web platforms the reach the higher presents — tho a clever player will realize they can just put a web in the middle o’ the area & always be able to reach a present no matter where it appears. Part o’ me’s kind o’ disappointed they didn’t have you collect presents while dodging the reticle’s shots, like they did with the owl shots in “Fire-Ball Frenzy”, which would’ve been mo’ challenging than just using Squitter’s web, but it also would’ve been mo’ predictable, & maybe it’s good to give the reticle gimmick a break.

But the 2nd bonus’s challenge is the best challenge in the entire game: in an entirely new mechanic, you control the reticle & shoot fireballs @ enemies, desroying them all to reveal the bonus coin, which you also have to shoot a fireball @ to collect. In a game where bonuses fall into either extreme o’ having a bonus that has no relevance to the level or is just the predictable level’s gimmick, but also collecting presents or ornaments, this twist on the gimmick both feels like it fits this level perfectly & feels fresh.

That said, Koin’s placement & “puzzle” is lame: he’s right in plain sight, just on the other side o’ the Squitter end sign, & he has a wall right ’hind him. The only “challenge” is that you only get 1 steel keg, so if you somehow mess it up, you have to replay the whole level, which is mo’ an annoyance than an interesting challenge. This is specially disappointing as there’s an obvious better puzzle: make Koin die to fireballs & make it so you have to lead the reticle to aim @ Koin & shoot him.

The other quibble I have with this level is that it is a bit too repetitive & generic, what with all the verticle sections with Zingers, horizontal sections with Re-Koils & Bristles, & the multiple vats o’ boiling bubble gum you have to cross, with a red Zinger here or there to block your way — specially when most o’ the time they weren’t blocking your way, allowing you to just create platforms way ’bove them & cross without any true danger. I’m sure they could’ve come up with a few mo’ variations, such as having Re-Koils o’er the vat sections. I don’t know if they couldn’t handle having mo’ enemy types than these, but it seems like other levels have a greater variety o’ enemies. If ’twas technically feasible, it would’ve been interesting to see how this level’s gimmick might play while battling gainst, say, Bazukas, or, hell, have you dodge fireballs from the reticle while also dodging fireballs from the owls.

Also, if it wasn’t clear ’nough yet, I like this level’s weird palette. While the previous 2 factory levels have predictable vats o’ red lava & green acid, I love seeing vats o’ mysterious pink substances in this level, bordered by purple walls, which hopefully does some work toward rehabilitating that color after Quawks & “Poisonous Pipeline” has made it look so bad.

I Can Go with the Flow

Here’s a level I’ve been working on for a while. It’s actually a level I apparently wanted so much ’twas the primary inspiration to add the rather recent “swamp” theme to this game ( well, that & my desire to use this level’s music ). This level’s main gimmick is also 1 o’ the many I ripped off from the Wario Land games, but with this game’s oxygen mechanic & the need to aim for bubbles to keep Autumn from drowning as an extra challenge.

The reason this level took so long to finish that 2 other swamp levels were finished before it was simply that I had many 2nd thoughts ’bout this level. ¿Is it truly fun or just annoying? The current mechanic doesn’t work as well with Boskeopolis Land’s Mario-style swimming as Wario Land’s, where you’re actually swimming without gravity constantly dragging you downward, rather than constantly bopping upward in water, as in this game. I also wasn’t sure if the direction the currents are going are easy ’nough to see & whether the path to the end isn’t too obscure. As a developer it’s always important to keep in mind that actually playing a map, where the camera is only showing narrow pieces o’ the map round you @ a time rather than showing the whole map in its entirety before you, is harder than navigating in a map program. While playing the level I was surprised by how much I myself got lost in the maze.

On the other hand, the level is easygoing, with no enemies in the river itself to worry ’bout. I debated adding enemies, but figured the player doesn’t have ’nough control in the currents to make that fair & figured ’twas better to err on being a bit too easy & fair being preferable to frustrating cheap deaths. As a compromise & a way to give the level mo’ variety, I added sections @ the beginning & end with the hopping frog enemies from the 1st swamp level. Anyway, this is only a 2nd-cycle level, so it shouldn’t be that hard, anyway, & I think the threat o’ drowning is ’nough. I also added a small loop o’ currents going down & up ( but ultimately still linear ) round an otherwise unpassable wall @ the top as a tiny unspoken tutorial before immediately throwing the player into the big maze. This expanded the level a bit without making it too long: if one doesn’t make any wrong turns in the main maze, it’ll take the player ’bout 20 seconds. This is ’cause the big maze isn’t all that big, which I consider a +, since a gimmick like this with the risk o’ becoming annoying should err on the side o’ not o’erstaying its welcome.

’Cause the current physics are somewhat janky, I made the time & gem scores somewhat lenient. The time score offers plenty o’ time so long as you don’t take any wrong turns @ all, which is a fair challenge in itself. While the gem score is 1 o’ the highest score requirements in the game so far, @ 40,000₧, there are gems all ’long the current tunnels ( which I just now realized has the advantage o’ showing players paths they’d already taken ). I avoided having hidden tunnels in walls with gems & kept collectibles, like the collectible card, to some branching paths near the bottom middle o’ the level, which are tricky to get to, or in side cliffs in the out-o’-water sections, as expecting players to just ram gainst every wall while struggling thru currents would just be annoying, neither challenging nor fun.

As an arguably irrelevant addendum, to help me create the o’erworld events shown when beating this level ( as well as the previous level’s event, so the level isn’t just floating on water & inaccessible ), since ’twas getting tedious @ this point, I crapped together a quick JavaScript script to generate the event files from specially made Tiled map files. This will be specially useful, since I plan to heavily redesign the o’erworld map ( which means all o’ the events I’ve already made will have to be remade ), not the least ’cause I’ve thought o’ yet ’nother new theme I may add…

This video almost kept in a serious graphical error, like almost all my previous videos, in which 1 o’ the currents was missing most o’ the moving current tile graphics. Howe’er, this was so jarring & this video was relatively quick to record that this time I went thru the whole trouble o’ rerecording & reuploading to YouTube ( yes, it took that long to find, e’en tho I watched the video before uploading ). Howe’er, there is still ’nother bug shown in the video that I still haven’t fixed: you can clearly see the toad enemies hop thru the player from ’neath, hurting them rather than getting bonked. I think this only happens during a high hop, caused presumably by them moving so quickly upward that they pass the bonk collision threshold within a single frame, causing the player to get hurt ’stead.

Learn mo’ ’bout Boskeopolis Land @ https://www.boskeopolis-land.com/.

Read this code as tortuous as this level’s currents.

Poisonous Pipeline

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

Not only is this the worst level in the game, it’s the worst level in the whole trilogy — & the bitterest sting is that this is the final level o’ the main game. While the original DKC gave you some o’ the trickiest platform jumps that game had to offer & DKC2 offered the ultimate challenge for Squawks, ¿what does this game offer? Water that reverses your controls when you’re in it. This is neither interesting, nor challenging, making this a breather level — & the last level is perhaps the worst level to have as a breather level. The hardest part o’ this gimmick is that jumping out o’ water is trickier ’cause you have to adjust what direction you’re holding right after leaving water.

& yes, just to make it e’en easier, they give you Enguarde, as they do for just ’bout every water level, for ⅓ the level if you find the 1st bonus or the Enguarde barrel just after the 1st bonus, allowing you to just plow thru nearly everything. ¿Why is a level with the slightest difference from a world-3 level @ the end o’ the game?

As for the level layout, it’s just a winding maze full o’ the same Kocos & Lurchins you dodged in every water level. The developers didn’t e’en try to add variety to their arrangements: get ready to weave thru Lurchins going up & down in alternating directions & dodge Kocos going right & left ’tween 2 Lurchins ’bove & below 4 or 5 times — but the last time they totally switch things up & add a 2nd Koco. Shit.

The bonus barrels aren’t e’en well-hidden: they’re both just @ the end o’ halls that telegraph you to make a turn & the “puzzle” is to ignore those signs & not turn yet. But if you’re looking for bonuses, obviously you’re going to search every path, ¿so why would you not explore the extent o’ every hall?

The challenges themselves are middleground: you just defeat all the enemies & collect all the ornaments. They’re far from new challenges @ this point o’ the game, but they do require a bit mo’ precision with the reversed controls than the main level.

As for the hero-coin-holding Koin, he’s just to the left o’ a fork just before the end & the way to defeat them is to just bounce the barrel off the wall right next to him.

The only positive things I can say ’bout this level is that it a’least tries to hide how linear it is by making it twist around space like a snake & that I like the color purple. Some people don’t like the gloomy visuals & music, but I don’t know why they single out DKC3 for this, when the original DKC had just-as-barren aesthetics, specially in its last world. I think it fits the mood o’ the end o’ the game fine as well as this game’s nature vs. technology theme; I just wish its gameplay fit as well.

Low-G Labyrinth

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

After reversing controls underwater, making your character slow & have high jumps is the next lamest gimmick in this game, made e’en mo’ laughable by the way they just ditch the gimmick halfway thru the level so you can have yet ’nother Quawks section where you dodge moving Zinger formations. & slowly grab barrels & try hitting Zingers with them, which is just a worse version o’ being able to just spit nuts @ them with the superior Squawks — not the least o’ which since the Kongs can already throw barrels themselves, making Quawks feel e’en mo’ redundant. You know “Poisonous Pipeline” & Quawks suck when they make me hate purple things. The slightest difference they give to this o’erused mechnaic is that you move mo’ slowly, which is s’posed to be harder, but just feels less fun. You should ne’er create difficulty by handicapping the player; it’s cheap & not fun.

Some parts o’ this level are cheap, too. The vertical sections oft lead to blind hits if you’re playing as Kiddy or not using Dixie’s helicopter twirl ’cause the camera was clearly not programmed with downward movement in mind, oft leaving you @ the bottom o’ the screen with li’l space to see Zingers coming as you slowly drift down vertical shafts.

& getting past the 2 red Zingers after the midway point is ridiculous: the space is so small that your character’s graphics absolutely cannot fit ’tween it; you have to rely on you & the Zingers’ generous hit boxes to just squeeze thru — which means you have to know Squawks & the Zingers’ inner hit box, despite not being able to see them ( ’cause they don’t line up with their graphics ). It’s good game design to make your character & enemies’s hurt hit boxes smaller than their graphics to leave leeway for the player; but that’s s’posed to be leeway; it is a sin — a no-Reeces-ghost ( since Twinkies are gross ) offense — to make players play based on this invisible hit box. The player should always be able to squeeze their whole graphic thru a danger, not just the smaller invisible hit box.

In this level’s defense, it does try to implement meaningful branching in the latter half o’ the level. The bonus positions are somewhat clever, too: 1 challenges you to go back after getting Squawks to go up the suspicious banana trail ’bove the line o’ Zingers, which you couldn’t reach before, while the other is in a fork hidden under a Zinger, rather than just out in the open like in “Poisonous Pipeline”.

Tho the bonus challenges themselves are lame: yet ’nother bonus wherein you destroy a bunch o’ Zingers with Squawks & a bonus where you have to collect ornaments without any impediments — it’s just a rectangular room full o’ ornaments. Yeah, you move mo’ slowly, but you still have plenty o’ time to spare. This is halfway thru the game & yet this feels like the easiest bonus in the game.

On the other hand, there’s a few alcoves that serve li’l purpose, such as an alcove with bananas that are not worth dodging the Zingers to get or the invincibility barrel on the far top-left. You might think the latter sounds useful, but you have to do some rather precise maneuvers — either getting the steel keg o’er the gap with the 2 moving Zingers to throw it @ the line o’ Zingers in your way to the left, & still probably have to jump o’er the last 1, since your character accelerates so slowly that the barrel will despawn before you get to that last Zingers, or just jump o’er the 3 Zingers. & ’cause you move so slowly, the invincibility will run off before you get to the actually challenging part @ the end with the red Zingers clumped together. You’d be better off not bothering.

Treue schwören, keine Flagge,

Gottnation, gottverdammt;

der Teufel tanzt mit den Verachteten,

und wie das Feuer uns warm hält.

—Septuplum ultio dabitur de Cain de Lamech vero septuagies septies…

It’s that time o’ the year. ¿Will the Democrats after years o’ humiliating failure finally snatch victory from the US’s 2nd least competent president¹? Stay tuned to find out… Or, you know, just pay attention to real news.

For instance, votes have already been counted in the tiny community o’ Dixville Notch, NH — all 5 votes ( that’s popular votes, not electoral votes ) for Sleepy Joe, which is proof that people are taking seriously the need to exorcise the Hairpiece, as the kind o’ people hipster ’nough to count votes @ 12:00 AM are the kind o’ people mo’ likely to vote for a 3rd party, like 1 o’ the 4 alternate Republican parties I saw on my primary ballot last August.

As a laugh, I decided to watch the 1st the presidential debate after The Guardian alerted me to how so-bad-it’s-good ’twas, &, yeah, ’twas bizarre. I don’t know what I like best: journalist whose boring white name I recognize, but I know nothing ’bout, trying & failing to take some control as moderator as Hairpiece rambles & Sleepy Joe grumbles; Sleepy Joe’s straight not giving a shit attitude, which is refreshing from the typical false sincerity o’ Democrats; or Hairpiece seeming to care mo’ ’bout getting sweet jabs on Sleepy Joe than whether or not these jabs were actually politically potent, such as when he claimed that Sleepy Joe would lose the “far-left” for claiming he didn’t support “socialist” health care ( the kind o’ nationalized health care that pretty much all civilized countries have & has led e’en poor countries like Cuba to have better health care than the US ), which goes gainst Hairpiece’s attempt to portray Sleepy Joe as a far-left antifa Soros whate’er. I mean, I do that, but I’m a satirist, not a president. Maybe Hairpiece should be debating Colbert ’stead.

Actually, I think my favorite part was when Hairpiece claimed that he would make insulin as cheap as water thru magical trade agreements ( which from what vague info he gave, sounded like a scheme to get cheaper-made medicine from seedier places by butchering health regulations… which would not make people healthier ), which e’en the moderator couldn’t stop laughing @. Nobody asked the obvious question: ¿why hadn’t Hairpiece enacted this brilliant plan o’ his in the 4 years he had?

It always amazes me when I watch debates & see how li’l substance is ’hind either candidates arguments — high school students in debate class could do better. I’m sitting here thinking ’bout all the ways e’en someone as simple as I could deconstruct Hairpiece’s complaint ’bout “socialist” health care — ¿what is his definition o’ “socialist”? If it is government control or use o’ government taxes, ¿how is that different from the use o’ tax $ to fund police, which is ironically something that only the “far-left” supports? — or thinking ’bout all the statistics that show the US’s inferior health care performance compared to e’en poor countries like Cuba, including life expectancy, infant mortality, & death by cancer. Hell, I myself could make a better shot gainst the Democrats than Hairpiece by pointing out how lucrative government-funded health care is for private insurance companies, who get their money either way ( & lobbied for it, from both the Republicans, who were the ones who actually created Obamacare ). Sleepy Joe just babbles on some nonsense ’bout how Obamacare on 1 hand barely changed anything — it s’posedly just gives health care to people already eligible for medicaid ( which he accidentally called “medicare” once ), ’cept those whose governors tell them, “fuck you, you can’t have it, either” — but on the other s’posedly does a lot mo’ than just regular medicaid for helping people get insurance ( ’cept for the people in red states, who would still be fucked o’er ). Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here wondering why I should care so much ’bout keeping my private insurance, anyway — ¿Who cares ’bout their particular insurance provider? & indeed, I looked it up & found out that it’s not just the “far-left” who prefer “socialist” health care, but the majority o’ Americans, as well, making the whole debate subject a farce. So we have a ludicrous situation where both candidates are arguing o’er whether 1 o’ them is a socialist when the majority’s saying, “Actually, we want a socialist, please”.

Then ’gain, these debates are aimed @ the same type o’ people who voted for the rambling Hairpiece, anyway, so maybe research & critical thinking would be less palatable than Sleepy Joe dodging questions on expanding the supreme court ( rather than point out all the ways Republicans have been cheaply sabotaging Democrats from appointing judges when Obama was president, like a competent candidate, or be so audacious as to point out that having judges be appointed for life rather than elected for limited terms is stupid & antidemocratic ) or eliminating filibuster ( rather than, ’gain, pointing out that everyone knows it’s a stupid loophole & should have been eliminated decades ago ) by urging people watching to vote, which, presumable they’re going to do if they’re wasting their time watching a debate.

Still, with how nonchalant & passive-aggressive the debate is, it’s hard not to see it as as the elites sober-minded ’nough to know that the US’s government is a joke & now everyone has been let in on it by & are just going thru the motions in the waning years before the country is devoured by rioters & brownshirts.

As a refresher to moderate liberal Redditors fantasizing ’bout things the Democrats definitely won’t do if they win, such as prosecuting Hairpiece or fixing the mess that is the US’s electoral system, I checked in on my favorite faux-rural leftist hipsters @ Naked Capitalism & saw that Yves Smith is still somewhat o’ a crank. For instance, in her article, “One Trump Voter Explains Why Trump Will Win”, which quotes some anonymous hipster Trump voter named Zelda, she links to an o’erly-long thinkpiece that points out the shocking revelation that Democrats like Clinton ( who is still enemy #1 o’ hipster leftists, who is, as Eric Idle would say, an uppity rich bitch, & a’least she isn’t male, so fuck you all so very much ) are rich airheads who only exploit the troubles o’ minorities for their get-rich schemes & then later in her own article calls medicine “a medieval art”, as opposed to random online person’s thinkpieces, which are as hard a science as natural sciences.

FiveThirtyEight has frozen their election forecasts & are currently predicting that Sleepy Joe has a 9/10 chance of o’erthrowing Hairpiece & Democrats have a 3/4 chance o’ retaking the Senate. Howe’er, they were wrong in 2016, so we can ignore what they say & make armchair theories ’bout the psychology o’ the “average American” that I’ve ne’er met, ’cause I only know rich white people like me.

But in FiveThirtyEight’s defense, they do now have cute fox cartoons on their site, so that should absolve them o’ their sins o’ being know-it-alls who are sometimes wrong.

Daily Kos has an interesting spreadsheet listing important referendums and measures on the local state level, including an attempt by Republicans to repeal Colorado’s inclusion in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which, if ’nough states sign up to it, would make presidential elections based on popular vote ( genuine democracy ) rather than the silly electoral college the US’s drunk slave-holding founding fathers conjured up, — since it’s already well established that Republicans are opposed to democracy — as well as many other electoral reform measures. If there is 1 good thing from the great 2016 mistake it’s that mo’ normies are realizing how botched the US electoral system is & starting to actually reconsider it & consider ways to fix it, rather than just obsessing o’er whether candidates are civil ’nough or whether they come from “Starbucks” or “Chick-fil-a” America, or whate’er bullshit. This Cookie Monster man named Stephen Wolf e’en says that there’s a possibility the National Popular Vote could pass by 2024, which genuinely excites my cold, stony heart.

Hilariously, there is a website called “American Interregnum” that provides a table listing various social media’s policies regarding posts calling election results early. Only the US would form brands round the US’s crumbling electoral system.

The /r/politics ne’er mind, I somehow ended up on the /r/neoliberal subreddit, — don’t know why I would e’er want to go there — which I mentioned earlier in this very post already planning for what the Democrats would s’posedly do when they won ( which they most definitely would not do ) are now in despair mode ’cause they feel the polls were off ’gain, tho I feel like that’s just ’cause it’s not a blowout as they wanted, e’en tho that’s not what the polls promised. Anyway, I don’t see how anyone could have any idea o’ whose on top yet, considering how partial the results we have now seem to be. I particularly love the story 1 person told o’ smacking chicken nuggets their mother made for them out o’ their mother’s hand ’cause o’ how stressed they are. Good job making us look like adult-children, buddy. ¡Ha! ¡Ha! ¡I always knew neoliberals were secretly 30-year-ol’s still mooching off their mommies’ chicken nuggets! I’m glad that 1 person yelled @ them to apologize to their mother, tho.

Everyone knows it’s not o’er till Daily Kos starts despairing, & they’re still as calm as e’er.

Thanks to stumbling into the wrong neighborhood o’ /r/neoliberal, I did find this exciting livestream o’ 2 boring white people noodling o’er FiveThirtyEight’s stats all day. I thought neoliberals liked to pretend they were smart ’nough to read.

There’s a few fun electoral hijinx stories, like UPSP ignoring federal court orders to actually count all votes, a poll manager being late to work ’cause they just needed a few hours o’ extra sleep, & Facebook sabotaging liberals’ ability to get noticed. The fact that Facebook’s spokesman’s last name is literally Bourgeois just makes it all the funnier.

¡Ha! ¡Ha! ¡Look @ these Fox News polls showing what socialist atheists the majority o’ Americans are! I can’t wait for Republicans to still win the election, tho, ’cause polls don’t matter, since the US isn’t a democracy.

Everyone’s dour, but I don’t think that’s ’cause they necessary assume Sleepy Joe’s going to lose but just ’cause they for some reason expected a landslide & were hoping that all the Americans in the middle wilderness would come to their senses on Hairpiece. Considering the shitshow W. Bush was, I take for granted that Republicans are incapable o’ coming to their senses & that this was wishful thinking for people in the blue bubble. I have to say tho that I am a bit salty toward people who say things like “I can’t believe so many Americans are this racist, fascist” ( ¿Why didn’t Hairpiece’s original win convince them? ¿Were his sentiments subtle then? ). I’ve been aware o’ this before Hairpiece, but you don’t see me begging for pity.

Washington D.C. elects to turn themselves into the Mushroom Kingdom by legalizing hallucinogenic shrooms. We now have objective proof that the US’s politicos are all on shrooms.

The New York Times embarrassed themselves as they always do by claiming that declaring the winner o’ the election “falls to the news media” ( which only includes rich, connected papers like them, not newbie websites ) to determine election results.

Politico “news”: “We don’t like Hairpiece voters”. I can think o’ a few reasons that’s not exactly news, specially the fact that everyone knew this long before this election.

A great snapshot o’ both Hairpiece’s diehard fanatics’ disdain for e’en the weak form o’ democracy that the US has & their strategical brilliance: they chant “Stop the Vote” in front o’ a vote-counting building e’en tho voting has already stopped — they’re counting now — & @ the current count Sleepy Joe is ’head.

( Laughs ). Thank you for this, Zimbabwe: United States Risks Sanctions From Zimbabwe If Elections Are Not Free And Fair. Obviously, this isn’t truly important, politically, but it is a nice “Fuck You” jab.

I’m also amused @ this comment chain o’ Canadians expressing concerns o’ US people immigrating to Canada & the pros & cons.

( Laughs ). Vanity Fair: “Donald Trump, Colossal Asshole, Says Doctors Get Extra Cash If People Die of COVID-19”. I think you may be editorializing just a tiny bit in that headline, Mr. Lamestream Media. ’Sides, it’s needlessly wordy: “Colossal Asshole” is absolutely redundant before “Says Doctors Get Extra Cash If People Die of COVID-19”.

That article led me to a Twitter stream ( Fun fact: I don’t think I’ve read a single thing Hairpiece — or any politican — has said on Twitter for the entire 4 years o’ his presidency, & I can’t say I missed out much ) that I’d be better off not reading, & I found this bizarre tweet in response to some irrelevant bitching gainst General Motors that Hairpiece was doing for unknown reasons that I can’t tell if it’s ironic or genuine:

President Trump is an amazing man. Because He does everything he can, with his big strong hands, and even bigger plans. Although He is a billionaire, he understands the demands of the working poor, His biggest fans. United We Stand, for only Donald can Make America Great Again!🇺🇸

— Anthony Cornrod (@TWIT_ANTHONY) March 27, 2020

It’s too bad Hairpiece’s hands weren’t big & strong ’nough to win this election. ( Hopefully tomorrow doesn’t prove me as wrong on that as I was mo’ than 5 years ago. If that happens, this paragraph may have to mysteriously disappear like Trotsky did from Stalin’s selfies ).

Ne’er mind: I just found out he outright says he loves Hairpiece “*Sometimes sarcastically*” ( ¿What do asterisks mean in this context? This foreign Twitter culture is strange to someone as backward as me, who still thinks o’ the internet as the place for Geocities-like fan sites ’bout Super Mario 64, where I can learn such intriguing facts as “friendly Bob-ombs” & “70 stars to beat game, or come back to levels for all 120 stars” ).

I must admit, it’s surreal to see a milquetoast left-centrist like Paul Krugman echo the very same “extreme” critiques o’ the US electoral system & warnings ( well, in my case jokes ) ’bout the US becoming a failed state I’ve been making for years. & then we have milquetoast motherfuckers like Bloomberg offered this comprehensive deconstruction o’ all the problems o’ the US electoral system, which includes admitting that the US is the least democratic o’ all countries that aren’t blatantly nondemocratic — tho I would insist that it’s still inaccurate to call the US a democracy for both defacto & historical reasons ( the US was ne’er founded on democracy &, in fact, many o’ its most important designers, like James Madison, were very hostile to democracy, as anyone will learn from The Federalist Papers ).

I must say this election has completely fucked up my yearly tradition — that’s a far greater crime than COVID or the security dangers o’ vote-counters threatened by wingnuts ( ¿why does nobody use this term anymo’? It’s a beautiful word ). What was usually a recap o’ news sources commenting on a finished election has devolved into a muddled stream-o’-consciousness collage o’ random bullshit I found on Reddit. ¿Does it make sense to try talking ’bout how Daily Kos has reacted to Sleepy Joe’s victory when they’ve been talking ’bout it for days?

Well, fuck you, I’m going to do so, anyway. Here they are, showing off Sleepy Joe & Rando VP in their sinister anarchist black face masks, presumably ready to smash every small business window in the universe & cut socialist spending on police like the rabid laissez-faire-lovers they are.

I love this line, by the way:

There are still potential state wins on the table, but he does not need them.

Fuck you, Georgia & Arizona — Get outta here. Nobody needs you anymo’.

( O, shit, we still have 2 senate elections in George — ¡No, wait, come back! ).

I thought everyone’s favorite economist troll, Noah Smith, stopped updating his blog, but then I found out half a year ago he wrote an article ’bout keeping rabbits as pets. It is probably the only article he’s written that I 100% agree with — I am radically pro-rabbit, which is why I voted for Bugs Bunny for president this year, actually, which is why I feel absolutely no sympathy for Hairpiece & his whining o’ so-called sabotage. Bugs was the true victim here.

Lord Keynes, who I also haven’t been reading for years, still makes blog posts every blue moon, but he’s been quiet on any topic regarding Hairpiece or the alt-right — or alt-left, I guess — for the past few years, presumably after Hairpiece’s major tax cuts completely shattered any delusions o’ him being a Keynesian socialist whate’er. I can’t fault this decision o’ his.

Speaking o’ Reddit, I couldn’t get it to load to see what those idiots say, so I’m just going to assume Hairpiece shut it down in his beginning bid to silence all opposition. ¡Soon obscure blogs like mine will be the only 1s left & we will get our chance to shine!

The Nation responded with a seemingly backward schmaltzy article ’bout how, despite Sleepy Joe being a nothing centrist, they should still be appreciated for their “decency” ’cause he was 1 o’ the few people in the world to have family members who have died. ( I’ve had family members die, too, & no sane person would call me decent. ) I thought The Nation was a bit less coddling to centrists. On the other hand, The Intercept had no problem gleefully pointing out all the ways moderate Democrats were hypocritically attacking their base, not ’cause their ideas are bad ( like maybe some o’ Hairpiece’s mo’-rabid fanbase’s racism, sexism, etc. ), but ’cause it might make Democrats look bad. No wonder there are still many who prefer voting Republican: apparently Republicans still allow their voters to have independent ideas & try to attune their policies to their voters’ whims, rather than the opposite, trying to tell voters what they should believe & say. It’s shocking voters are so ambivalent toward a party that treats them as if they should be their servants, not the other way round.

’Course, I say that moderate liberals are only slightly better than utter failures, since as almost every major newspaper has been admitting ( thanks to Hairpiece breaking the moral horizon so much that e’en mainstream media can no longer delude themselves with the ol’ “both sides” bullshit ), the fact that Hairpiece received mo’ votes than he received last election & that this election was so close is still a deep embarrassment. Also, the Senate will probably stay red, — those fucking commie reds — so I look forward to 4 years where nothing happens & the embittered poor turn back to the right wing for ’nother zany heiler. Apparently the real-life version o’ Thursday O’Beefe is a top contender for 2024.

CounterPunch, a news site I have definitely not read in years, came out with an article called “Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election”. The answer is obviously: “’Cause Capitalism Always Comes Out on Top”. This is as opposed to the 2016 election, when communism was so close to sweeping up the US & giving us all sweet Lenin-brand Po’ Boy hats. This article is legit so generic & transparently phoned-in that it could be applied to just ’bout every election. ¿Why e’en bother writing a new article? If anything, this election could’ve threatened to pull us much farther backward, which should a’least alarm or excite e’en noncompromising communists.

The only interesting thing they note is @ the end:

But those signs also reveal a huge remaining problem: disorganization on the left.

The problem is that CounterPunch doesn’t realize the obvious reason why: intellectual people tend to try avoiding conformity. CounterPunch should understand this, as their founder was praised for s’posedly being gainst the grain, which included his controversial climate-change denialism. The idea that everyone sympathetic to the left will zombie-like become urban labor unionists with the same fervor as Republicans fall into step is delusional.

Democracy Now! makes fun o’ spoiled white people for blaming Latin Americans for not stepping in line to the Democrats, when those honkeys are too busy playing The Last of Us to get off their ass & vote themselves, failing to realize that many Latin Americans are whitebread motherfuckers themselves, like a lot o’ Florida Cubans who couldn’t give a fuck ’bout Mexicans, they just want their tax cuts, bro.

FiveThirtyEight argues that the election was not as close as people thought ’twas this whole time, thanks to making judgments before all the votes were counted ( which is what we’re still doing now, as Sleepy Joe’s victory is still technically a projection ). Honestly, I agree with a lot o’ people, including Naked Capitalism, who expressed skepticism toward a huge landslide. Most pundits, many o’ whom still want to cling to the “both sides” idea, e’en if it’s been debunked, just wanted to believe that most US citizens weren’t low ’nough to support the kind o’ person who outright expressed tyrannical aspirations, a delusion that could be fed only by only associating with their kind o’ enlightened upper-class kind.

Anyway, let us end this week-long voyage thru the strange waters o’ the US’s 300-year-ol’ election system with these words o’ wisdom from our ex-president:

I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

These might be as good as such words o’ wisdom as “IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE”, “IF ALL ELSE FAILS USE FIRE”, & “I FEEL ASLEEP!!”.

&, truly, ¿didn’t we all win this election, by a lot, metaphorically?

Well, ’cept Republicans — but those fuckers wouldn’t be reading this now, so fuck them. We can whisper secrets ’hind their backs & there’s nothing they can do ’bout it.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is an ol’ familiar sweep o’ the rug under your feet. During my 1st 8 or so hours playing it I felt that this game melded the good elements from Dark Moon, such as the secret gems & the rainbow dark-light flashlight that reveals missing furniture, with fixing some o’ the complaints people had gainst Dark Moon, such as the mission system & E. Gadd constantly yapping @ you¹, & adds extra mechanics, like the plunger shot & Gooigi². I began to think that Luigi’s Mansion 3 did as I predicted it could in my comparison o’ the original vs. Dark Moon: easily besting its predecessors by doing the “1 big mansion, lots o’ freedom & exploration” thing. It does do that for the basement & the 1st 2 floors, before you enable the elevator, as these floors connect to each other naturally with stairs, creating a Metroidvania-like up & down that was not straightforward, like the 1st game did. But after that I noticed that the game devolved into simply going from floor to floor, with each floor being its own separate level, like Dark Moon’s separate mansions.

I should add that some o’ these “floors” have multiple floors themselves, which makes no sense, & is inconsistent with how floors 1 & 2 work. If you look @ the map & select floors 1 & 2 on the left, they will show floor 1 & 2 respectively selected on the right & selecting either o’ those right options will select the corresponding option on the left. This is the only time selecting a left option will have you default to the 2nd floor on the right. But if you select, say, floor 7, its right options will be 1, 2, & 3, & selecting any o’ these right options won’t change the left option. So, the right options represent the #’d floors o’ the hotel as a whole on floors 1 & 2, but represent subfloors on any other floor. I can only dream o’ what this game would be like if all o’ the floors connected to each other in the complex way that floors B1 to 2 do, with the elevator buttons as just pieces to that puzzle.

Thus, this game is a return to form to the original game & simply bullshits & pretends it isn’t divided into distinct linear sections, when they most certainly are. That said, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is free from the Super Mario Sunshine Syndrome bullshit o’ having to play thru the same areas in multiple missions just to find all the gems, as in Dark Moon, while having much better variety than both the original & Dark Moon. Still, it would be nice to finally see a Luigi’s Mansion game that was actually nonlinear.

I’m mixed on how the level themes are laid out. As you go up the hotel, floors begin to feel less like hotel floors & mo’ like other places, like a floor that’s a pirate cove, a garden, a desert tomb, & a medieval castle. Tho I defended Dark Moon for mixing its o’erall mansion theme with other themes, such as nature, desert tombs, & snow as being mo’ interesting than the original just sticking with a basic mansion, that game did a better job o’ keeping those levels grounded as mansions, with non-mansion elements feeling like exceptions. Floors like “The Spectral Catch” & specially “Tomb Suites” don’t feel much like they belong in a hotel @ all & feel mo’ like a ’scuse to have standard video game settings rather than be a hotel. But a’least this game has some mo’ exotic themes. While “Tomb Suites” is just a generic desert tomb, which had already been done in Dark Moon, & “Garden Suites”’s garden theme is hardly rare ( & was also done in Dark Moon ), the castle, pirate, disco club, museum, & shop themes feel a bit mo’ refreshing than Dark Moon’s mo’ standard themes; & I like how the game gradually makes floors mo’ exotic as you reach the middle-to-top floors, & then gradually goes back to normal as you reach the top, with the final floor being a normal hotel floor ’gain, as if the middle floors are a drug sequence that Luigi is not sure he truly experienced.

’Nother problem is that this game falls into Super Mario Odyssey Syndrome with some levels — most notably, “The Dance Hall” & “Unnatural History Museum” — way too short & underdeveloped. I wish they’d spent less time copying Dark Moon & other desert levels in bloating out “Tomb Suites” with trite Indiana Jones traps & spent mo’ time developing mo’ deserving levels with mo’ interesting, new themes like “The Dance Hall”. But then ’gain, like Super Mario Odyssey, it says something good ’bout this game’s levels that the main complaint one might have is them being too underdeveloped in a medium where developers try to bloat everything out as much as possible. & most games would probably wish they could have “Tomb Suites” as their worst level.

Still, this game had some interesting levels that did a better job o’ balancing this game’s o’erarching theme with creating a new theme that felt fresh, such as the “Fitness Center” with puzzles ranging from running on a treadmill to reveal items ( a subtle reference to the original Luigi’s Mansion ) to folding & unfolding yoga mats to match posters on the walls or “Twisted Suites”, with its gimmick o’ mixing up rooms so that doors warp you to a completely different room on the floor & rooms that seem to make a puzzle out o’ every magician cliché, from chained-up water tanks to optical illusion mirrors to rotated floors.

& while its mechanical/sewer theme is far from the most original theme, “Boilerworks” uses this theme to create clever puzzles involving you maneuvering Luigi round in an inflatable duck to avoid hitting spikes while Gooigi ’bove has to manipulate switches to open Luigi’s path without getting hit with the water all o’er the place, while also fitting perfectly its place in the 2nd basement floor. Some people may not like the return trip & consider it to be padding, but you don’t redo much o’ the floor on the return trip & I like the way the developers foreshadow this return with inaccessible paths ’hind brick walls. I only wish they hadn’t made the reason for the return trip as arbitrary as E. Gadd randomly sending a Toad there ’lone.

& then there’s “Paranormal Productions”, with its clever o’erarching puzzle involving warp TVs to movie sets parodying movies like The Ring or cheesy spider monster movies. Granted, much o’ the puzzle is technically fetch-questing; but the area is small ’nough that you don’t have to do too much travelling, & the game doesn’t spell out exactly what you need @ each part o’ the sequence like many fetch quests.

I’ve read complaints that the game starts boring with typical hotel floors round the beginning, but I like how the game warms you up to exploring hotel rooms before getting exotic. Also, I like how the basement & 1st & 2nd floors connect to each other, making them feel some cohesion that all the other floors lack.

1 subtle thing Luigi’s Mansion 3 has that its predecessors don’t is the sheer amount o’ destruction you can cause to all property you see. Not only can you suck up all papers or clothing you find, as in all games, but can also use the plunger shot to fling & break all manner o’ garbage cans, shelves, & potted plants. A particular highlight is on the 7th floor when you can grab a buzzsaw & shred thru everything: beds, couches, chests o’ drawers. It’s as if the Halloween spirit made the developers not only want Luigi to be a ghostbuster, but also a normal-sized Godzilla as well ( speaking o’ which: you can also destroy a shrunken set o’ buildings while fighting a ghost disguised as Godzilla ). Honestly, the funnest part o’ the game is just exploring the variety o’ environments & destroying everything you see for money, just like any good entrepreneur does.

Still, while the Godzilla element was fun, the actual ghostbusting is less so: combat has not been made any less arbitrary, only now it’s streamlined ’nough that it gets o’er with faster — sort o’ a less extreme version o’ Ocarina of Time’s “press Z & let the game sword fight for you”. For instance, Luigi can swing ghosts back & forth as he is sucking them in, allowing you to hit other ghosts & prevent them from taking cheap shots from ’hind you, while also whittling down their HP before sucking them up, while also allowing you to break e’en mo’ shit. It’s not meaningful, mechanics-wise, but it is just a li’l mo’ fun. 1 problem this game has that the previous entries didn’t is that the game ne’er tells you that you have to press the A button right as you slam the ghost onto the ground to go fast ’nough to get mo’ slams & cut down on cycles, rather than mashing the A button, as one would intuitively guess, which is actually the least optimal way to handle slamming.

1 element that has become worse is the flashlight, which for some reason has piss-poor hit detection. The most blatant example I can give is when I had my light covering the inside o’ a barrel full o’ rats, flashed, & yet 1 rat somehow didn’t get killed, e’en tho there was nowhere in the barrel the light could have missed. Many bat $ have been lost repeatedly flashing straight up @ bats, only for the bats to not react @ all, e’en if the flashlight beam was right in their face. It’s light for fuck’s sake: it spreads. If the light is anywhere near a bat or rat it should hit it; ’stead trying to flash up @ a bat is like jabbing a thin needle up & trying to pierce one with it — which is to say, nothing like how light works in any sane realm. ’Nother problem, tho 1 that was in the 1st 2 games, is that when you aim your flashlight & then start moving, Luigi automatically moves his flashlight back down for no reason, forcing the player to use alternate buttons for using the flashlight to avoid holding the controller in a weird way to flash upward. Luckily, you can suck up enemies to collect their money, like in the original Luigi’s Mansion. It’s just unfortunate that I ne’er bothered to check since I just assumed the game worked the way Dark Moon.

The dark light, howe’er, has been improved, not only ’cause it’s used a bit mo’ sparingly than in Dark Moon, but also ’cause it no longer o’erheats, which was a mechanic that ne’er added anything to Dark Moon. They also added new enemies that are possessed garbage bins & treasure chests that are defeated with the dark light.

But what makes these nitpicks less o’ a problem in this game is that this game focuses a lot less on ghostbusting than previous games, emphasizing puzzle-solving e’en mo’ than Dark Moon. Since the ghost-catching mechanic was ne’er the most interesting element o’ the series, I consider this an improvement. Unlike Dark Moon & specially the original, which could sometimes feel monotonous with making you catch the same ghosts o’er & o’er ’gain, I don’t think I e’er felt like ghost-catching was o’erbearing in this game, save for maybe in the postgame, when you can just ignore them, anyway.

As mentioned, the game adds new mechanics to give a bit mo’ variety to a series that e’en in Dark Moon didn’t have much but a hammer to solve almost all puzzles. Some o’ these work well, like the plunger & Gooigi, while others feel tacked-on & janky, like the weird blast attack that on rare occassions is s’posed to be used as a wimpy jump, rather than, you know, let the 1 man who can jump better than the king o’ platformers, Mario, jump. Some people have criticized Gooigi for being a “flat character”, ’cause a rational person would certainly expect a Mario game to have the deep character exploration o’ a Henry James novel ’nother hurtfic character who does nothing, like Rosalina. But Gooigi’s character works perfectly for the game mechanics that he is used for, being a copy o’ Luigi who can move thru permeable surfaces, but dies to water, fire, or lasers, which is what’s actually important to a video game. Also, I don’t know, I find his uncanny valley blank-faced robotic behavior kind o’ funny. I found it hilarious that he’s standing round @ the end & nobody, including Mario, asks what this abomination gainst nature is & where it came from. “Sure, my brother just has a clone made out o’ slime that he can possess. Just ’nother day in the Mushroom Kingdom”.

The problem with all these mechanics is that the game is inconsistent ’bout how effective they are. There is no logic to when you can stick a plunger to any surface, what the blast attack can or cannot break & whether enemies are stunned by the flashlight, dark-light, or blast attack. It’s a coin flip whether or not a ghost wearing shades will allow you to suck its shades up or require you to use your blast attack or whether a ghost with a shield will need you to yank it ’way with your plunger or blast it ’way with your blast attack.

Puzzles are hit & miss in this game. There are plenty o’ great puzzles thruout levels, such as the secret brick in “The Dance Hall” that you have to blast attack to jump under & hit to reveal coins like a classic Super Mario Bros. coin block, the weight puzzle in “Tomb Suites”, or most o’ the puzzles in “Boilerworks”, ’mong many others.

Then you have puzzles like the laser statue puzzle in “Tomb Suites”. You have no idea how annoyed I was, dying multiple times & having to wait thru long loading times, ’cause silly me kept trying to stop the lasers by blowing sand to cover them, using the mechanic that made the most sense in this situation & which was explicitly introduced in this level, when the actual solution is just to use your blast attack on all the statues, which I only found after finally judging that the sand method wouldn’t work & just started brute-forcing all my moves. E’en ’mong your moves, the blast attack is the last you’d expect to work on the statues. I still don’t e’en know what that attack is s’posed to be doing, canonically — it doesn’t destroy the statues. I guess these statues are just triggered by harsh blasts o’ air & nothing in the game hints @ this @ all ( well, ’cept for maybe E. Gadd’s hints — but I shouldn’t need to say that good puzzles telegraph their solutions, not tell them to you directly ).

Bosses can also be rather unintuitive. The 2nd phase o’ the T. rex fight expects you to move Gooigi next to the T. rex so that it tries to eat Gooigi, stunning it long ’nough to hit it with an egg. The seemingly very similar method o’ having Gooigi lure the T. rex into shooting shockwaves @ him doesn’t work — then the T. rex will immediately swing its head round after you shoot the egg. Why it can stop its shockwave that fast but not stop eating Gooigi is a mystery, as is why you need Gooigi to be right next to the T. rex to make the T. rex try to eat it, when the T. rex looms o’er you no matter where you are in the room.

I’m also mixed on the hint that Polterpup gives you for the Johnny Deepend fight. I wasted a lot o’ time trying to sneak Gooigi o’er to the switch, only to keep getting sprayed by water, e’en tho I had already come up with the idea o’ smacking Deepend with a volleyball ( the most obvious idea ), simply ’cause Polterpup hanging round the switch seemed like the game was explicitly telling me, “1st you have to get Gooigi to hit the switch”. I had to ignore this hint to figure out the actual solution. On the other hand, you need to distract Deepend with Gooigi to get the chance to hit him with the ball as Luigi, & I guess Gooigi going toward the switch is a way to do that. I still feel as if Polterpup got in the way o’ my progress o’ already figuring out the puzzle, rather than helping in any way, which feels cheap. It’s better to give no hints than give bad hints.

Speaking o’ bosses, they’re pretty weak, which is unfortunate, as a few floors are just a few rooms & a disappointing boss. I cannot fully communicate how sad I am that they squandered the cool theme used for “The Dance Hall” simply for the small intro to a boss that’s just a mo’ simplistic variation o’ the main mechanic o’ the magicians from “Twisted Suites”, which was a fully-developed level. Almost all bosses in this game are Rareware Bosses with phases where you just dodge shit for a while & then you get 1 hit in on them, rinse repeat. ¿Does anyone like these bosses? They’re transparently lazy compared to developing a boss with actually interesting interaction & make fights feel slower & drawn out. They’re basically inherent padding. What makes it dumber is they throw virtually infinite hearts @ you, so there isn’t e’en much urgency to avoid getting hit — which is somewhat good, since some o’ these bosses are cheap. The knight ghost has a magical hit box that makes its jousting stick warp you to its end, e’en when you’re clearly inches ’way from it. ( Meanwhile, it’s a coin-flip whether or not flashing the knight’s face will actually stun it; if it doesn’t, have fun waiting while the knight rides round the edges ’gain ).

I’m close to thinking the best boss is the penultimate Hellen Gravely boss, who requires you to go back & forth ’tween moving Luigi & Gooigi, moving Luigi to keep him safe from the lasers ’bove & Hellen’s attacks & moving Gooigi below to turn off the lasers ’bove so Luigi has room to suck up Hellen, with the urgency o’ needing to act quickly before Hellen turns on the water below & kills Gooigi, forcing the player to restart. It can be annoying & a li’l cheap, specially on the last phase, as Hellen just keeps undoing the progress, which can make what you do feel a bit repetitive. Also, Luigi’s weird explosion attack that late in-game acts as a jump, well, is a shitty ’scuse for a jump with a noticeable delay, which is terrible for trying to dodge a laser that accelerates as it moves, & which needs to be moving fast ’nough to not land back on top o’ it. It feels like something you’d see in a Super Mario World rom hack whose developer realized a mechanic not meant for a certain puzzle can be jankily used for that puzzle. This boss also doesn’t just throw hearts @ you left & right, making it an actual challenge.

But what ruins Hellen is that some idiot decided to make it so that if you lose to the boss, you have to mash thru the whole cutscene ’gain. I stared with wide eyes as this horrific realization came to me the 1st time I died to her. ¿What game in 2019 has unskippable cutscenes @ all, much less unskippable cutscenes after beating a boss? ¿Did nobody playtest losing to the penultimate boss? The problem is that they just make you reload your save when you die ( forcing you to load what you’ve already loaded ), ’stead o’ just letting you restart the boss immediately, as a well-programmed game would do. What makes it most maddening is that the final boss does just restart you @ the final boss³.

It’s annoying ’cause you know if you make this reasonable complaint some douche bag will retort, “just git gud”, proving that they’re too dumb to be worth listening to; but the problem isn’t losing itself, but that the developers contrived some idiotic extra punishment for losing that slows down my playing momentum & just wastes my time. This is a maddeningly common problem in modern games & is why I sometimes prefer games like Lost Levels o’er easier games: a’least Lost Levels doesn’t make me mash thru a bunch o’ bullshit just to retry a level. It’s 1 thing to make me retry a level when I lose: that’s necessary for the challenge to actually work. I’d be annoyed if I died @ a tough level & then the game just warped me back to where I died & didn’t let me try to challenge ’gain properly. ¿But what does seeing a cutscene ’gain have to do with the challenge? ¿Why would anyone e’er want to see a cutscene a 2nd time so soon? Imagine if after every time you died in some classic NES game they made you read the same scene o’ Hamlet. So if you die on level 3 o’ Ghost ’n Goblins a dozen times, you have to read Act 1, Scene 3 o’ Hamlet each time. You’d despite that scene o’ Hamlet by then & ne’er want to read it ’gain in your life. That’s why nobody e’er reads books mo’ than a couple times in 1 sitting & why nobody should e’er have to watch a cutscene — which, let’s face it, is no Hamlet — mo’ than once in the same playthru.

Technically, you can buy bones to maybe avoid the cutscene. I don’t know ’cause I’ve ne’er bought a bone, ’cause they’re otherwise useless, since the game autosaves after every room. These bones are the perfect example o’ a game implementing a mechanic, despite having no use in this iteration o’ the series, simply ’cause an earlier game did. Some may find this 1 convenience clever, but I find it stupid needing to think to buy an otherwise useless item just to avoid having to waste time on a long cutscene.

But the worst boss in the game has to be the final King Boo boss. O’ all the Rareware bosses in this game, this is the Rarewariest. ’Cept in Rare’s defense, e’en a boss as tedious & repetitive as the final K. Rool boss from Donkey Kong Country a’least works solidly & is intuitive. Many o’ the mechanics in this boss, such as tossing a bomb into King Boo’s mouth or pulling on his tongue, don’t work half the time, forcing you to wait thru mo’ generic attacks, like making you run to the 1 spot where they don’t shoot lightning down or making you dodge fireballs, if you miss your chance ’cause throwing the bomb didn’t work or the 1st few times I tried to attack King Boo after I did manage to blow him up, ’cause after I tried to vacuum his tongue & failed, I tried doing other things till, in desperation, I tried his tongue ’gain the 3rd time only to find, to my surprise, that this time I magically worked now. In the final phase, you have a time limit, which means if the bomb just bounces off King Boo’s open mouth or if the motion control bullshit just suddenly swings your aim in a different direction right as you shoot too many times, you’ll have to do the whole boss all o’er ’gain.

This is worsened by the fact that this is the most generic boss in this game, who could fit into virtually any 3D game, it requires you to use Luigi’s Mansion mechanics so sparingly & shallowly. Most o’ the challenge is dodging things, whether it be fireballs, lightning, tongues, spike balls, or bombs. None o’ it is challenging, ’cept for maybe trying to jump o’er the tongues when they rotate toward you thanks to the aforementioned jankiness o’ Luigi’s “jump” & the wonky hitboxes on the tongues, & unlike Hellen, this boss goes back to just throwing hearts @ you left & right, so the only true danger is the timer on the final phase; but you have no idea how mind-breakingly tedious it is to do them o’er & o’er & o’er ’gain. It’s annoying, ’cause it makes this boss’s 1 clever element terrible: during the 2nd & final phase, he splits into copies, only 1 o’ which is genuine & is actually affected by getting a bomb thrown into their mouth. This is telegraphed in many subtle ways, the most prominent being that the real King Boo has 4 teeth, while the fakes have 2 ( a clever callback to how King Boo looked in the original Luigi’s Mansion ). This would be cool if missing out on this fact a few times didn’t make you waste several mo’ minutes dodging fireballs that will ne’er hit me if their life depended on it.

What makes this lame final boss mo’ annoying is the way they tease a much better boss. They have you rescue Mario after beating Hellen Gravely & have Mario lead Luigi up to the final battle, which makes you think you’ll get to have Mario helping you during the final boss, which would be a cool twist to the series.⁴ But for some asinine reason, King Boo just puts everyone back into the painting, ’cept for Luigi simply ’cause o’ a Deus Ex Machina thrown in using Polterpup. ¿Then what was the point o’ rescuing Mario before Peach? ¿Just to trick the player? ¿Why on earth would the developers o’ this game think leading players into thinking they’ll get an awesome boss battle with Mario assisting you only to deliver a generic Rareware boss would in any way produce a positive effect on players?

Many people online criticize Polterkitty as being padding. I agree that the boss itself is unintuitive when you 1st fight them & repetitive on subsequent fights. For some reason she’s impervious to being flashed in the face ’cept when she’s right ’bout to pounce on Luigi. I guess it’s s’posed to be ’cause her paws are right under her eyes as she’s creeping; but they’re right under her eyes just before pouncing, too.

But the idea o’ making you go back & re-explore past hotel floors, e’en making you go thru multiple floors, is a nice ’way to encourage a less linear exploration than the level’s proper gave you. If anything, I think the problem is that they only have to explore 1 or 2 other floors before it ends. I think this mechanic would’ve worked better if they made it postgame & had you explore most o’ the floors & made where you have to explore randomized. That way it’d feel like a sort o’ final exam wherein you have to treat the hotel as a whole as a level, rather than individual floors.

The final question is, ¿how does Luigi’s Mansion 3 compare to either o’ its predecessors? As mentioned, none o’ the Luigi’s Mansion games had good combat, & Luigi’s Mansion 3 a’least makes it less tedious while also offering a few mo’ options to add variety, too. & despite my long rant ’bout Luigi’s Mansion 3’s bosses, it probably still has generally better bosses than its predecessors. The original & Dark Moon, too, had Rareware bosses that were either tedious or forgetful. The only bosses worth caring ’bout were 2 bosses in Dark Moon: the Grouchy Possessor ( the spider ) & the final boss. If not for the cutscene problem, Hellen Gravely would be the best boss in the series, & if not her, the magicians on the 12th floor, Johnny Deepend, or Captain Fishhook would be. E’en with the unintuitive puzzle for the 2nd phase during the T. rex fight, it’s still mo’ interesting than any boss in the original & most from Dark Moon. It says something that tho Amadeus Wolfgeist is a generic Rareware boss, it’s still better in every way than the utterly forgetful & pointless piano boss in Dark Moon, the Harsh Possessor.

Most o’ the internet seems to agree that it’s better than the very controversial Dark Moon, but many still cling to the original for some vague magic that I have heard described in many games that basically just boils down to nostalgia. People seemed mixed on whether or not this game better matches the “dark atmosphere” o’ the original. They’re mixed ’cause the only special “dark atmosphere” o’ the original is made-up in their heads — probably memories from when they were young & had mo’ fragile sensibilities. Yes, it’s shocking that newer Luigi’s Mansion games are less scary now that you’re in your late 20s. The fact is that the original Luigi’s Mansion was just as goofy as the other 2. For instance, its final boss is the goofiest o’ them, involving King Boo dressing as Bowser, putting on Bowser’s head upside down & running round like a Looney Tunes character. & I don’t know what humans these nostalgic people know in real life, but “realistic” is not how I would describe the portrait ghosts o’ the original game. The only halfway creepy thing ’bout the original Luigi’s Mansion is the shadow glitch that appears during the blackout that makes it look like Luigi’s shadow is being hung from the rafters — & that was on accident. If one wants genuine horror, there are much better series to look than the 1 starring an italian plumber with a vacuum who acts like the video-game equivalent to Scooby Doo, including being barely able to talk.

Music is the 1 thing this game may do worse than its predecessors. It, ’long with Dark Moon’s, are definitely weaker than Totaka & Tanaka’s music in the original. While Dark Moon had a catchy main theme, ’twas remixed for every level, lending that game li’l musical variety. This game has the most musical variety in terms o’ styles, — ’nough to almost hide the fact that each level’s melody is round the same, just @ different tempos — but none o’ the melodies stand out as much to me, & the instruments, like Dark Moon’s, are mostly cliché stock haunted instruments, while the original’s music felt unique with its blend o’ horror instruments spiced with hip hop & techno. Still, there are a few highlights, such as the use o’ harmonica & banjos in “B2 Boilerworks” or the slight surf rock to Johnny Deepend’s theme, which a’least feels fresh for a Luigi’s Mansion game. I also like the weird strings in the Polterkitty boss fight, which is the closest this game comes to sounding as weird as the original. “F3 Hotel Shops” & the DJ Phantasmagloria battle themes were the catchiest to me.

The visuals are, ’course, much better than its predecessors from much weaker consoles. & surprisingly, that’s not just my tastes: I was surprised by how many people I saw online who said Luigi’s Mansion 3 before e’en Breath of the Wild when asked which game they thought looked best. I only have 1 caveat: I was always disappointed that the Switch didn’t replicate the 3DS’s 3D capabilites. Dark Moon & the 3DS remake o’ the original were the highlight games for the 3DS’s 3D, as it brought out the strangeness o’ those games’ art design e’en mo’.

Cometropolis

This level started with just the idea o’ a neon palette, the implementation o’ which probably did take the bulk o’ the time I spent on this level. The “palette changes” as they seem to be in the actual game use completely different coding, bending this game’s flimsy ’scuse for a palette system e’en farther. Unlike ol’ consoles & computers, wherein changing palettes was much quicker than changing tiles that many ol’ games would cycle palettes to create the illusion o’ animation, changing the palette in this game requires regenerating textures, which is much slower than just animating tiles. Theoretically it’d be possible to do it rather quickly using shaders; howe’er, SDL doesn’t allow shaders, & it’s much too late in development to switch o’er to the much mo’ complex & much less intuitive OpenGL. What I did do to create the illusion o’ a cycling palette is take advantage o’ 2 caveats to this problem: 1. I can render a rectangle o’ any color that covers the whole screen in no time; 2. SDL allows me to apply the equivalent to Photoshop’s “multiply” blending mode to textures, which, when used with a white & black image makes whate’er is ’hind show through the white while still concealing what’s ’hind the black.¹ Thus, I just set whate’er palette entries I want to show the shifting rainbow color ( which are dark gray & black ) to white while everything else is black.

I had originally planned to use the city theme for this palette, since I felt the city would look nice in neon, but since I had all 4 city slots filled, I ’stead considered making a space level, since that theme has the fewest slots filled & it would fit there, too. I think I played with the idea o’ focusing on dodging horizontally-moving sparks on wire or something; howe’er, none o’ this felt fun, so I shelved it for a while. I don’t remember where my mind went from there, but as some point I came up with the idea o’ dodging falling stars, — probably from the 1 memorable level from New Super Mario Bros., the 1 wherein lava rocks fall from the sky — & then decided to move “Sleet Streets” to the “domestic” theme ( since it’s mo’ ’bout homes than the city ) & make this a city level. Then, finally, I decided to make this a space level ’gain, despite keeping the city graphics, & would just say this was a city on ’nother planet. It’s not as if I haven’t been blending themes together & sticking them into whate’er slot was most convenient, & if any theme deserved to dip into other themes’ slots, it would be the city theme.

The falling stars are just a bit mo’ complicated than just randomly placing them round. To ensure the player could not outrun stars in either direction & that there was a steady supply, I made it so that every time it generated a falling star it not only placed it on the current screen, but also on the next & previous. & to decrease the chance so’ stars congregating in 1 area I made it so that it had to spawn the next star a few blocks ’way from where the last spawned.

Recording the time & gem scores were surprisingly smoothly. I made the time score somewhat lenient to make up for the delays falling stars can sometimes force on the player when they form walls. E’en then, I still couldn’t help myself from just running thru stars when I knew a heart was close ’head, which I try not to do, since I want these challenges to be possible without taking any hits. Shockingly, I was able to record the gem score on my 1st try, which I always found very hard to get during practice. Then ’gain, here you can see me moving as carefully as I can. I should point out that this will definitely replace “Stop & Go Space Station” as the 4th-cycle space level, pushing “Stop & Go Space Station” down to the 3rd cycle, as it is much mo’ difficult.

Learn mo’ ’bout this project @ boskeopolis-land.com.

“I will multiply thy bugs as the stars o’ the heaven…”.

Don’t Touch Me, I’m a Real Live Wire

This level’s main gimmick, electric walls that could only be deactivated with switches in ’nother area, forcing the player to race from the switch to the electric walls, was originally going to be a space level, but I felt it would be better to use this mechanic to spice up an attic maze level idea I’d been toying with, since I feel exploring a maze just to find a keycane or collect a certain # o’ gems had already been done ’nough in this game. This gimmick also helps set this level apart from the attic levels in Cool Spot whence this level takes perhaps a bit too much inspiration otherwise.

I’m mixed on the size o’ this level. I insisted on constructing the maze so that all space is used for something, with no large chunks o’ solid wood ( which the Cool Spot levels also do ). While I feel like I did a rather good job o’ that, I do worry that the level might be too big. Then ’gain, a maze needs to be large ’nough to get lost in & have plenty o’ dead ends to offer any challenge, & players who know their way will be able to beat the level within less than a minute. Still, part o’ me can’t help feeling like some pieces — specially the lower left section — feel like filler that exists just to collect gems.

I like the proportions ’tween the pre-1st-wall & after-1st-wall sections, with the early section being much smaller & having fewer dead ends, acting as a subtle training wheels before the boost in trickiness for the 2nd half. This 2nd half immediately starts with 1-way sections down. If you fail to make it to the 2nd electric wall before the switch runs out, you have to go up a longer path round where you went do to fall back down to where the switches are.

If you’re wondering why there’s switch blocks right after the 1st electric wall with switches on either side, this was just a way to force players to reset the switch after the 1st electric wall. E’en with the warning telling you outright that the switches are timed, I can imagine players rushing & forgetting to reset the switch on their own, which will almost guarantee that the switch, which would be getting low just after passing the 1st electric wall, would turn off long before the player gets close to the 2nd electric wall, which felt too much like a frustrating gotcha to let stand.

The time score is so easy I was able to do it 1st try when recording. I intentionally made it less demanding, since players needed to remember the path they needed to take & ne’er take wrong turns to have a chance to make it in time. The gem score was much harder for me & required an embarrassing # o’ tries. As the video shows, this level has the largest gem score o’ any level so far, requiring 40,000₧, which is 400 individual gems. If you pay close attention to the video, you’ll see that there are many gems hidden ’hind the foreground pipes ( 1 o’ the many elements I ripped off from Cool Spot’s attic levels ). Howe’er, there are so many gems in this level, I doubt you need to collect any. I didn’t go too out o’ my way to collect them & e’en flub up collecting the large star formation o’ gems in the top area, falling down a 1-way area before collecting most o’ them. Howe’er, by that point I’d already reached the required 40,000₧.

I was planning on having this released in September, but was delayed by major programming renovations. Graphical layering glitches in this level, specially when someone dies, was the last straw for this game’s unbelievably naïve layering system inspired by Super Mario World under the mistaken belief that code aimed for a 90s game console would work well for modern computer architectures. This scheme used dumb boolean flags on all blocks & sprites & looping o’er all blocks & sprites twice ’tween map backgrounds & foregrounds, 1st blocks & then sprites without priority, & then blocks & then sprites with priority. To draw sprites ’bove the foreground, I resorted to some hacky virtual function that did nothing for the vast majority o’ sprites.

I completely o’erhauled all this, removing all traces o’ “priority” flags. I replaced this with 17¹ layers o’ lists o’ generic renderable objects, which can render blocks, sprites, or map layers, which are simply all looped o’er every frame. This allows blocks, sprites, & map layers to be on any layer & to be easily moved to any other layer.

To better fit this new mo’ generic system, I also o’erhauled how maps & level files are read: explicit “backgrounds” & “foregrounds” are replaced with generic “layers”, which can be set on any o’ the 17 layers ( tho to make it convenient for me, they default to the default “background” layer & their “layer” can be set to “foreground”, which will put it on the default “foreground” layer ). I also changed the map tile layers to use generic types like “Blocks”, “Texture”, “BlocksTexture”, “Tiles”, & “Fade”, followed by a # that represents which layer it should go on or the strings “BG”, “BG1”, “BG2”, “FG”, “FG1”, “FG2” to simply put it into those default layers so I don’t have to remember their #s. I also changed it so that the BlocksSystem has multiple blocks lists to accommodate this mo’ generic scheme. Since the priority flag is completely ignored now, blocks that should be drawn ’bove the player should be put on a 2nd “Blocks” layer set to “FG”. This new scheme also allows for mo’ opportunities for rendering optimizations. For instance, both block & tile layers ( tile layers are drawn but cannot be interacted with ) can be made textures, wherein they are all combined into a single texture, simplifying them into a single draw call @ the cost o’ not being able to be animated or affected by level events.

There are also some subtler changes I made. For instance, I fixed a glitch that may have seeped into earlier videos wherein the “GAME START” text on the title screen would randomly spread onto 1 or 2 lines. ’Ventually I found out this was caused by a mistake in the look-’head code for the autoline code that would read 1 character beyond the end o’ the list o’ characters, which would be random data. In hindsight, the fact that this clearly involved randomness should’ve clued me in that there was garbage data being read; for some reason, I was stuck for a while on the hypothesis o’ a rounding error in some division or float-to-int conversion. The fact that this only e’er seemed to affect the “GAME START” text & ne’er caused segmentation faults, despite this error technically occurring everywhere there is text, astounds me.

A mo’ noticeable change is that the diamond has been replaced by a spinning card ( I think I also fixed a bug that would cause already-collected cards to still appear when re-entering a level & would only disappear if the player went near them due to optimizations in the block-collision code ), which was a change I had planned for a while, but for some reason had trouble getting the animation right before. Someday I plan on implementing a way to view each level’s card from the o’erworld menu.

Learn mo’ ’bout Boskeopolis Land @ boskeopolis-land.com

Look @ this project’s eldritch code