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| The Starter's Guide to Super Mario Bros X Sunday, July 10, 2011 7:34 pm — Posted by Livio |
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Installing
For some reason this site currently links you to www.SuperMarioBrothers.org, which is also where the game links you to once you've downloaded it. However, I just spent a good amount of time on that site and I couldn't find anything about Super Mario Bros X. I remember when I first downloaded this game I just did a google search and ended up downloading it from CNet:
http://download.cnet.com/Super-Mario-Bros-X/3000-7433_4-10962266.html
What you will get is a single exe file, which is simply the installer for the game. To install the game, just run that file and set your preferred settings as usual. It's pretty straight forward, but if you have any questions, post a comment below.
Playing the Game
When you open the game, you're gonna get a window asking you what you want to do. You can either run the game or open the level editor. Let's hit Start Game for now. It will take a while to load.
When the main menu loads, you can go to Options and familiarize yourself to the controls. If you want to play the game with two players, you'll have to set them now because Player 2's controls are by default exactly the same as Player 1's controls. Plus, you will have to figure out how to how to manage having two players sharing one keyboard, unless you have another input device
When you select either a 1 or 2 player game, you'll see a list of all the Worlds that you have installed. A world is simply one world map connecting multiple levels together. The game comes with a pre-installed world of levels called The Invasion 2. It's best to play around with these to get used to game and how it works. You'll notice that you can play as either Mario, Luigi, Peach, Link, or Toad. You can change your character at any time in the World Map by pausing the game and pressing left or right.
Making Levels
Now we've reached the main purpose of this guide. If you open the editor, you may be completely overwhelmed. If you press F1 at any time, the help files will open, but even that won't keep you from spending hours trying to figure out how to do the most simple of things. So I've made I list of how to do such simple things:
How to use the menus
At the bottom of the screen you'll find a bunch of buttons. Aside from "Selection" and "Eraser" the other buttons toggle the visibility of windows. Depending on your resolution, the window may appear off-screen, in which case you'll have to scroll down to see it. Fortunately you can move these windows around.
I advise you to not resize the Level window as it will distort the graphics within your level. As far as I know, there's no way to resize it to scale.
How to place your starting position
Go to the "Level Settings" window. On the bottom left of the window, under "Start Locations" click on either "Player 1" or "Player 2", depending on which starting position you want to place. Now click anywhere on your level to place the starting position.
How to set the background image and background music
Getting sick of that solid black background? Go to the "Level Settings" window. The buttons at the top of the window allow you to navigate through the multiple pages of backgrounds and music, which represent the two blocks of settings toward the right of the window. If you ever want to remove the background or music entirely, you'll find the "None" setting under the "Misc." category.
How to scroll through your level
First make sure your mouse cursor is in the level window so that you can see the little hand icon. Now you can use your arrow keys to scroll through the level. Hold
Shiftto scroll even faster.
How to change the size of your level
First scroll to where you can clearly see the edge of the level. On the left side of the "Level Settings" window look at the set of buttons under the label "Level Boundry" (sic). Select the boundary that you want to edit. Your hand cursor will now change to a yellow color. Click anywhere in the level to move your desired boundary to that spot. Note that the editor will not allow you to shrink your level past the smallest size allowed.
How to put stuff into your level
Don't be fooled by the "Backgrounds [Background Tiles]" window! The "Blocks and Tiles" window has plenty of background tiles in it, as well.
Other than that, this should be straightforward. Find a tile you want, click on it, and then place however many of them you want in your level. The "Blocks and Tiles" window has a "Fill" button that you can toggle on the top-right of the window. Think of this as a paint-bucket tool for the selected tile.
Also, many of the tiles in the "Backgrounds" window look like they have some functionality to them, such as the doors and the checkpoint. But in reality they don't do anything. Answers to how to use these are below.
How to set a checkpoint
To make a proper checkpoint, go to the "Super Mario World" tab in the "Backgrounds" window. You'll find the checkpoint tiles under the "Checkpoint / Exit" label. To make this a real checkpoint that actually saves your progress, go to the "NPCs [Non-Playable Characters" window. Go to the SMW tab and you'll find a single tile on the right side of the window under the label "check", and this is all you need.
You are only allowed to place one checkpoint in your entire level, regardless of how many sections you have in it. We'll talk about sections later.
How to set a door
To make a proper door, go to the "Backgrounds" window and select a door tile. Now you're gonna have to set the door warp point. Go to the "Warps and Doors" window.
This isn't very self-explanatory, but I found it easy to figure out. You have many settings in this window and they all affect what kind of warp point you're setting. In this case you'll want the Warp Effect to be "Door". Now under "Warp Placement" select Entrance and place your warp point in the same position as your door graphic in your level. Now go back to the "Warps and Doors" window again and select Exit under the "Warp Placement" label. Now you can set the exit point for the warp.
You'll notice that each pair of warp points has a number matching it up with its counterpart. You cannot have multiple entrances lead to the same exit, and vice versa.
How to set a pipe warp
To make a proper pipe, first draw it using the appropriate tiles, which can be found under the "Blocks and Tiles" window, then select any game, and under the "Tile Set" label, choose "Pipes".
The make the warp point, go to the "Warps and Doors" window. Set the "Warp Effect" option to "Pipe". Choose the entrance and exit directions. Then place the entrance and exit warps, as explained in the previous section.
The "Instant" "Warp Effect" is just like "Pipe" except with no animation to delay the warp. This is good for when you want the player to walk off screen and get sent to the next part of the level.
How to add an end to your level
There are several ways you can do this. The first is to add an exit item that when picked up will result in the player's victory. These items can be found under the "NPCs" window under the label "Exit".
To use the Key exit under the "SMW" tab, you must also use the Keyhole tile, which can be found under the "Super Mario World" tab in the "Backgrounds" window. (really, SBMX?)
To use the big fancy goal posts found at the end of Super Mario World levels, first build the goal posts using the appropriate tiles in the "Super Mario World" tab of the "Backgrounds" window and then use the horizontal bar tile found under the "SMW" tab of the "NPCs" window.
How to add a boss fight
First open the Events window (
Ctrl+Eor go to
View > Events). On the top-left, you'll see a list of all events that exist in the level. Click on "Add" to create a new event. Give it some generic name like "boss kill" and hit Enter. Select the new event you just created and look towards the bottom right of the screen until you find the label "End Game". Select the only option within that category, which is "Bowser Defeat".
Now go to the "NPCs" window and select the boss that you want to use. Before placing him down in the level, click on the "Events: Show" button on the top-right of the window. Another window will come up. In that window, click on the drop-down list under "Death" and select our "boss kill" event. And that's it!
There's a lot more you can do with this editor, such as creating moving platforms and doing stuff involving POW switches, but this introductory guide is already starting to get pretty complicated. This is just the stuff that I figured most people would need or want to know to make a basic level. If you've made it this far and want to keep going, you can now start looking up more info in the game's help files and it can start making some sense to you.
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