Mark D Plays Green Donkey Escort (Semi-Blind) [VLDC14 Level] Standard Run

I'll be blindly playing a level from VLDC14 (Vanilla Level Design Contest), called Green Donkey Escort. In this part, I will be playing the level in a standard run and things got awkward near the end. Next time will be the moon runs.

[@SomeGuy712x]

(0:51) Good luck finding all yes moons. :P (1:16) Yep, it's 15.txt from the old Addmusic set. (1:30) "Donkadons", not "dagadons". (1:46) Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with that glitchy extra panel there. The only changes I made to the sprites in that room were adding an invisible block sprite on the corner above the exit, and adding the side exit sprite. (3:58) LOL, I never thought of "pigeon Yoshi" with that sound effect. (4:48) Yeah, I'm not sure how to make the letter "B" look very nice with those tiles. (5:31) Welp, first time resetting a room that you hadn't actually failed yet. (7:44) Time for the KOOPARADE! (7:50) Aw, you didn't opt to burninate the lot. (8:19) "New" P-switch music FTW. :P (9:04) Portal reference FTW. (9:27) All doors are resets in this level. Did you intend to reset there? Or did you mistakenly think that was progress? (10:06) Welp, first death, along with an "unsatisfactory" mark on your record. :P (10:08) Yeah, the gray bushes there say "FAIL". (10:51) Using that pipe as a reset causes most of the Kooparade to be moving to the right upon restarting the room instead of left. Also, carrying the shell in there caused it to be kicked where it's overlapping that pipe when the room reloaded, which had the side effect of messing with the sound effects this time. (11:09) Yep, and I had intentionally "ignored" that moon in my first episode of my level. (11:38) Hey there, hidden note block. You're gonna have to be a bit more clever there. (12:03) What's that additional tune that started playing there? (12:41) You could've opened that block there to get another ? Yoshi without having to reset the room. (13:00) Alright, you bopped the Hammer Bro. there, so why'd you reset the room again? (13:20) Were you absolutely 100% on the mindset that you NEEDED to fry the AFHB? Because that's only one of a few different valid ways to deal with the guy. Bopping him from below like you did at 13:00 also works just fine. And, you could've also tried kicking the shell at him too. (13:33) Welcome to DEATH JUICE. May I take your order? :P (13:49) Awesome, completed DEATH JUICE on the first try. (13:57) It's supposed to be "ZWEE!", but I can see how it looks like "2WEE!". (14:35) Bingo! Solved this puzzle on the first try. (14:40) Zwee! (14:52) Yep, there is indeed stuff up there! (15:09) You should've just held down as you were spitting out the shell there, so that Yoshi would easily stomp it, instead of you taking unnecessary damage from the shell in its kicked state. (15:32) "VLDC14" (16:11) Alright, time for the second half of the level! (16:58) Interesting how you killed all those enemies over there. (18:05) It is possible to get Chuck to fall into that gap, but kinda tricky. You're actually intended to have Chuck go all the way to the right side of the room, then come back left. (19:34) Pfft... You accidentally somehow got Chuck to fall into that gap alright. Well, more power to you, I guess! (20:29) Here's a BS (Broadcast Satellaview) Zelda 1 reference. (20:51) Yeah, this is the place where I wanted to make the Sumo Bros. invisible. (20:56) UMM!!! What happened to that turn block bridge? Why'd it pull a Houdini? That's news to me! (20:59) And, it wasn't merely a graphical glitch where you could still stand on it. It really did just disappear. Oh, actually, it looks like it teleported to the right side of the screen there. How'd that even happen? I obviously call shenanigans on that one. (21:17) Yeah, did you previously not think that turn blocks could kill Lava Lotuses? (21:32) Yep, you did the room as intended this time. (22:42) Okay, no teleporting turn block bridge shenanigans this time. (23:17) Not getting that flower? (23:39) I don't know why, but even though Yoshi clearly went out of bounds at the start of this room, this block still always produces a 1-up the first time. It isn't until you reset the room that it properly produces a Yoshi. (23:55) Of course, I rigged the message to make a mention of this oddity when you do reset the room. I made use of the sprite limit to cause this message to be different the second time this room loads, when you no longer already have a Yoshi. (24:12) Yep! This is indeed the exact same sublevel and the exact same room. So, including all of the stacked display message sprites, there are exactly 20 sprites placed in this room, but when you first enter with Yoshi, I arranged things so that one of the display message sprites fails to spawn, resulting in a different message. (24:58) Yeah, the blue shell isn't strictly required, but it helps. (25:06) Oof, sounds like you should remap one of your controls then to avoid that issue. (25:56) Race start! Fun fact: Initially, I had you running into a Koopa to get Yoshi to run here, but the race was way too tight for the player to barely win, so I put a Lava Lotus there instead, as its pollen causes Yoshi to run more slowly. (26:08) And, you won the race by a huge margin! Nice! (26:17) That ? block up there is a multi-coin block, meant to distract the player during the race. :P (26:20) Instead, it had the unintended effect of making you want to reset the room unnecessarily. D'oh! (26:42) It's rather impressive when a distraction succeeds at its job after it had already failed. :P (27:29) This room's sort of a callback to Eating Block Story. (27:51) I've never heard an ATM that sounds like that before. (28:09) Nice, made it into the pipe before it got fully eaten. Fitting that you enter the DANMAKU room just about exactly halfway into this video. I'm gonna take a break and resume watching from there at 28:11 later.

[@markvd1008]

1:30 Oh, that's not what it actually means? 5:30 Maybe I thought I couldn't get back there. 12:03 Discord Ringtone. 15:09 I was, but it did it anyway. 21:17 Never thought a spin jump turn block break would do it as well. 24:58 How? I can't even jump up there with Yoshi, can I? 25:06 Unfortunately, it's hardcoded into the emulator the AlT+A. And I wish I shouldn't have to change my control scheme keys since I'm used to it for almost 10 years? 26:20 And the muscle memory just can't help but go in the door even when I mentally tell myself to not do that. 27:51 Maybe I meant terminal.

[@SomeGuy712x]

@@markvd1008 (5:30) You could easily do so with the springboard. (12:03) Ah, okay. (15:09) Doesn't work if you're jumping. You can only "down spit" while standing on the ground. (24:58) It's a 5-tile running jump from the arrow sign's platform. It is rather tricky, so eating the blue shell is easier. (25:06) Darn you, hardcoded command input! (27:51) Okay.

[@SomeGuy712x]

Alright, resuming at the start of the DANMAKU room at 28:11. (28:33) Yeah, burning the Hammer Bro. is a good start. So, resetting the room until you land that hit is perfectly fine. (28:39) Toasty! (28:46) Okay, seeing that happen, I should've adjusted things to make it less likely for the player to accidentally enter the door there. Simply lowering the blue-topped turnip column by 1 tile would do the trick. (28:59) After burning the AFHB, taking flight with the blue shell is the next logical step, but I wonder whether it's really the ideal play... (29:13) Welp... I knew I should've lowered the difficulty of this room even further. So, in version 1.0, there were three Pitching Chucks on the far right. In v1.1, I changed one of them into a Clapping Chuck, so there are only two Pitching Chucks now. I really should have removed one more of them, and maybe made some other tweaks so this room would not be as much of a difficulty spike. I have a feeling that if anything is going to majorly hinder my level's score, it's gonna be this DANMAKU room right here. (29:42) It's honestly up to the player to decide how to do things. Also, I think the yellow shell is the most useless, as its fart power isn't really able to hit much here, so it's best used as a regular projectile, as if it was a green shell. (30:13) BARF! Another thing I should've done is use the 1-up checkpoint here as a way for a player to quickly get back to this room if they should die. Instead, I used the 1-up checkpoint for something different, which can technically make the room easier, but you need to have reached the right side of the room at least once first. Man, I wish I could go back in time to before the deadline and tweak this room some more. (30:35) Heh, block clone FTW. (31:47) Well, that was rushing recklessly forward, though you at least saw the right side of the room now, along with Moonface's cameo appearance. :P (33:42) Whoa, what caused the screen to vibrate there? Anyway, yep, that ? block gives a Cape Feather, which could be of use. (33:46, 36:32) Post-mortem gulp. :P (36:27) At that point, you should've prioritized the reset door over your reserve flower, because you can farm flowers easily enough by just resetting the room multiple times. (36:35) Yeah, practice this room all you want. (36:41) What's the name of that music track? (38:29) Reached the 1-up checkpoint, which results in a couple of helpful additions to the start of the room from now on, even if you die. But, then you went back in time to before you triggered it. (39:00) Hitting the clear blocks up there kills the invisible Sumo Bro. and "turns off" that lightning generator. (42:36) Yep, the second ? block here contains a star. If you can manage to grab that, you can easily rampage over the Chucks and stuff. (44:43) Chipmunk time. But, is it really "chipmunk" if the audio pitch is unchanged? :P (46:06) Pfft... I saw that accidental door entry. (46:20) Back to DANMAKU. (47:17-47:26) Cape Feather get! (48:00) Star get (and its "new" music FTW). (48:03) No, don't rewind, dood! Just use the pipe to reset the room! Argh, you would've seen what the 1-up checkpoint trigger would've added to the start of the room... (49:28) Thank you! Now, as a reward for at least triggering the 1-up checkpoint, have a silver P-switch that gets rid of the Lava Lotus, and a blue P-switch that dunks the Chucks in the death juice! (50:02) Hey there, Future-Mark. How's it going? :P (51:01) LOL, nice one. You weren't supposed to dunk yourself in the death juice too. (51:47) Finally, DANMAKU is complete! Once again, I wish I could go back in time to make it more reasonable... (51:49) There are many valid ways to do the room, and making use of the P-switches is one of them, so it's perfectly fine. (52:04) Fun fact: In v1.1, I added a Yoshi here, thinking I was fixing the potential issue of the level becoming unwinnable if they lost Yoshi here, but I had forgotten that I had already placed this Yoshi block here, so that was never an issue in the first place. So, in v1.2, I removed that redundant Yoshi, as the ? block containing Yoshi is sufficient. (52:25) This little gimmick to end off the level is pretty neat. Fun fact: I first tried this gimmick with falling gray platforms, but they didn't really work. But then I thought of turn block bridges, and they do indeed work for this trick. (53:05) Yep, as the terrain tiles say, you gotta JUMP there. (53:10) Fun fact: I added that wall on the left there in v1.2, to make sure you couldn't possibly lose Yoshi at the point where there are no more reset doors, even though Yoshi isn't required anymore at this point. (53:15) LOL, and then you lose him at the goal anyway. But, for the purposes of the "escort mission", you still got him to the end, so... YOU WIN! (55:01) Yellow donkey get! (55:18) Unfortunately, 0 moons were grabbed... for now. (55:56) Darn DANMAKU room... (56:07) Yeah, be sure to check Donkey House and seeing what the message there says while you're riding a Yoshi next time.

[@markvd1008]

33:42 Likely the lag accompanied by the invisible Sumo Bros. stomping. 36:27 Yeah, I already realized that in hindsight. 36:41 OcularNebula - Stay Inside Me, the music that Geometry Dash used abridged for practice mode. 53:15 Yeah, I wanted to finish the level with 712 seconds.

[@SomeGuy712x]

@@markvd1008 (33:42) Oh, right. (36:41) Okay. (53:15) Nice.