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The Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML) 3 judge team was assembled a full year before judging began. We had plenty to keep us busy in that time, but I took on some non-judge work as well.

I spent a good chunk of 2018 helping to expand and test the game engine, making such contributions as assembling new tilesets (eg, the MM10 lab), reorganizing existing tilesets and creating slopes for some of them (eg, Skull Man; Charge Man; MM1 Wily 1, 2, and 4; MM2 Wily 1), and checking engine assets for fidelity to the original games (eg, all the Joes). For a time, I also was in charge of showcase development—that is, planning, building, and delegating the example levels that show off everything available in the engine.

I knew that contestants would be influenced to some degree by how the engine assets were presented to them. Without a showcase, many people would stick with the gimmicks and enemies they were familiar with, and overlook a lot of the engine's customization options. At the same time, any kind of showcase ran the risk of encouraging contestants to crib from the example levels—whether due to a lack of creativity, a false assumption that the example levels demonstrated the "right" way to use these assets, or a genuine inspiration to develop one of the sample challenges into a full level.

Before I took over showcase development, the team was grouping assets together by stage—here's everything from Cut Man, here's everything from Heat Man, and so forth. My main objection to this approach was that it would reinforce that certain assets need to go together, because that's how they appeared in the original games. After a lot of discussion, we agreed to rework everything and break up the assets by theme and/or function. I created a blank room in GameMaker; inserted one instance each of every enemy, gimmick, miniboss, and boss in the engine; and then started organizing these assets into categories (eg, water minibosses, moving platforms). Not unlike dumping out a basket of clothes and sorting them into piles.

With input from the devteam, I finessed the groups until everyone seemed to be happy with the distribution. Once things were finalized, I set up a tracking spreadsheet and requested volunteers to build example levels using the assets in each group. Tapping into my instincts as a judge and design critic, I also provided some guidelines for creating the showcase levels:

Of course, the showcase levels needed to be labeled to help players remember what they had and hadn't seen. You can blame me for all but one or two of these groan-inducing names:

• A Slog of Ice and Fire
• A Torrent of Turrets
• Airborne Assailants
• Brawl of the Wild
• Castle Castoffs
• Circuit Breaker
• Demolition Mission
• Extraordinary Ordinance
• Factory Fisticuffs
• Fan the Flame
• Fluidic Foes
• Ground Control
• Industrial Intrigue
• Invite Your Fiends
• Landlocked Leftovers
• Maniacal Manipulators
• Might As Well Jump
• Misfit Minibosses
• Modified Mobility
• Never Gonna Let You Joe
• Perilous Patrol
• Platform Swarm
• Pleased to Met You
• Razor-Sharp Rivals
• Respect the Unexpected
• Spectacular Spawners
• Submerged Scuffle
• Thug Zappers
• Water You Doing

I called dibs on Maniacal Manipulators (bosses with physics-altering attacks, one of whom is Flash Man, my judge avatar for the contest), Landlocked Leftovers (all the ground-based enemies that didn't fit anywhere else), and Never Gonna Let You Joe. After devoting two years of my life to OH JOES!, a game devoted to using this tired old enemy type in new and different ways, there was no way I wasn't going to claim the all-Joe showcase (Joecase?). Although I wouldn't consider it one of my strongest levels, I relished the self-imposed challenge of making the level beatable without destroying a single Joe (seriously, try it). Plus, I got to put some of my custom slope tiles to use.

I had wanted to take on more levels, but the stress of being a game designer (not just a level designer) finally got to me. For one thing, I was burned out from OH JOES! and needed a break from working on fangames. For another thing, I wasn't prepared for the logistical hurdles of this particular project.

The sheer size of the devkit meant absurd amounts of time spent loading and compiling in GameMaker. With OH JOES!, I could fire up the software, make a change, test it, tweak it, and test it again in a matter of minutes; with the MaGMML3 devkit, the same amount of work could easily take half an hour. Level design was suddenly an arduous, inefficient task that required me to plan my time differently and adjust how I approached playtesting.

Moreover, the showcase was being designed while the engine was still being expanded and tested. From a programming perspective, it's incredibly helpful to see how assets behave in normal gameplay situations. From a level design perspective, it's difficult to plan out challenges when the building blocks are still being finessed. I spent a lot of time logging issues on GitHub or, in rare cases, attempting to make programming changes myself. To push my changes to the rest of the devteam, I had to learn to use a command-based software called Git Bash. Even with a comprehensive guide from devteam member NaOH, I frequently ran into confusing, infuriating issues (read: merge conflicts). All I wanted to do was design some levels.

Recognizing that I needed to step back, I passed the torch to devteam member CWU01P, who did a terrific job of picking up the slack. Really, the whole devteam did some impressive work in pulling together the showcase.

If you'd like to take the showcase for a spin, it's packaged with Megamix Engine, which you can download here.

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I've been a part of the Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML) community since the beginning, back when it looked like MaGMML1 was the only chance I'd ever have to move my Mega Man level ideas from paper to pixels. What followed was an unexpected explosion of level design opportunities—Mega Man Endless, OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure), Mega Maker, and MaGMML2. I shifted my focus away from recording YouTube videos and threw myself into Mega Man fangames, becoming highly active as an archivist, livestreamer, playtester, and wiki contributor on top of being a level/game designer. When MaGMML3 was announced, I got to add another title to the list: judge. But it took some effort to get there.

From my videos and livestreams to the countless reviews I've written across the Web, I've been a game critic for something like 15 years. After participating in the first MaGMML, I expressed an interest in being a judge for the second one. I was briefly considered for the position...but then people remembered that I was the guy who made the love-it-or-more-likely-hate-it "Maze of Death" level for the first contest, so I was back to being a contestant. Recognizing good level design and creating good level design are not the same skill, so I had something to prove going into MaGMML2.

With "Guts Man's Asteroid," I attempted to address every complaint I'd heard about "Maze of Death." By all accounts, I was successful—despite some flaws (read: boulder droppers) that kept the level just barely out of the top ten, my submission was well received by the judges and remains a fan favorite. Hence, this was the level I chose to submit when applications opened to become a judge for MaGMML3.

Nineteen of us applied, but only three of us—Shinryu (creator of MaGMML2's first-place level), Pachy (creator of what might be MaGMML2's best-designed middle-tier level), and yours truly (creator of this blog post)—were offered a judge position. There were two phases to the application process. The first one consisted of playing, rating, and reviewing seven sample levels, which represented a typical spread for this type of contest: the thoroughly mediocre level, the obvious troll level, the level that looks great at first glance but secretly has some issues, and so forth. Eleven of us made it to the second phase, which had us sending the contest hosts an example of our level design ability, be it a new level or one that we'd already made.

During the whole process, I kept telling myself that I'd be happy no matter what the result was. However, the anxiety, excitement, and preemptive disappointment I felt at various points made it clear to my wife, if not to me, that I really would've been crushed if I didn't pass the test. I say "preemptive disappointment" because, for a while, it looked like I hadn't made the initial cut. I was watching for an e-mail or private message with a status update, but I didn't realize a new "Phase 2 Applicant" role (or something to that effect) had been added for me on Discord. Oops.

Because I'd already created the level I wanted to submit as a sample of my work, all I needed to worry about were the reviews. We were given a rubric: 35 points for design, 25 for fun, 15 for creativity, 15 for aesthetics, and 10 for functionality, adding up to 100 possible points. We were also asked to rate the difficulty on a scale of 1-5, indicate whether the level should be skippable (and if so, why), and designate a favorite and least favorite.

I can rate things on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10 just fine, but I had trouble determining what would separate, say, a 23 from a 24. I ended up breaking each category into more manageable subcategories, getting a second opinion from my wife and tinkering with the balance until I ended up with this:

Design - X/35
Learning curve - X/5
Challenge design (deliberate, clear, meaningful, fair) - X/5
Challenge progression (↑ complexity/difficulty, challenge arcs, climax) - X/5
Focus (coherent theme, manageable roster, nothing over/underused) - X/5
Architecture (logical, efficient, unobtrusive) - X/5
Level design (length, layout, pacing, checkpoints) - X/5
Capability consideration (abilities shine without destroying the challenge) - X/2
Name (does the level reflect the title) - X/2
Perfectible (no damage w/ buster only) - X/1

Fun - X/25
Totally subjective rating - X/10
Worth my time - X/5
Highs (do the best parts boost the level) - X/5
Lows (are the shortcomings forgivable) - X/5

Creativity - X/15
Originality (have I seen anything exactly like this) - X/5
Novelty (does this offer new experiences) - X/5
Impressiveness (am I surprised or wowed) - X/5

Aesthetics - X/15
Graphics - X/5
Music - X/5
Atmosphere/theming - X/5

Functionality - X/10
Stability (flawless construction; no glitches) - X/5
Feasibility (can the player reliably complete each challenge) - X/5


Now I was ready to judge some levels. I downloaded an executable file containing the sample levels (which you can download here, if you'd like to try them yourself) and got to work. I played everything once, jotted down some notes, then circled back and played everything again before finalizing my scores and writeups.

Preserved for posterity, and so that you can ask, "Wait, how did this guy get accepted as a judge?", here are the opinions I offered. Note that the numbers in parentheses correspond with the subcategory breakdowns listed above. Also note that this is the last time you'll see level reviews from me in excess of 500 words; no one should spend more time reading my review than I spent playing their level.

Midnight Man

Difficulty Rating: 1
Skippable: No

Design - 21/35 (3, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 1, 1, 1)
Fun - 12/25 (5, 2, 1, 4)
Creativity - 3/15 (2, 1, 0)
Aesthetics - 8/15 (3, 2, 3)
Functionality - 10/10 (5, 5)
TOTAL - 54/100

This is—and I think we can all agree on this—a level. The name “Midnight Man” conjures up images of what might be in store for the player—at the very least, a boss at the end named Midnight Man. Will there be werewolves to fight under a full moon at midnight? Some darkness- or shadow-oriented gimmick, given how dark it is at midnight? Perhaps a battle on a clock tower as the clock strikes midnight? The heart of a lion and the wings of a bat, BECAUSE IT’S MIDNITE? Why, the possibilities are...not really fleshed out here at all.
 
The background of the first half of the stage suggests that it is nighttime, and there are bats. This is a good start. In general, the graphics are pretty good; there’s some nice detail in the foregrounds, and the damage-ridden background for the indoors portion (despite being a bit too close in color to the foreground) suggests there might be an interesting story behind this level—especially on the last screen; I want to know what that cool-looking capsule thing is. Unfortunately, the challenges do nothing to bring that story to life.
 
I applaud that the enemy roster is a reasonable size and that the enemies aren’t placed all willy-nilly. I like the one screen where the dense starfield in the background makes it harder to see the Haehay’s bullets (I hope that was intentional), and I like that the Battons blend into the background for a similar sneakiness (which I also hope was intentional). But that’s about all that stands out as particularly positive about the challenges.
 
There’s no sense of theme to the enemies, and their placement is often less than ideal—the first Beak you meet should not be on top of the first ladder you find, nor should you hide Beaks behind the health bar. The Shotman guarding the entrance to the secret room (which is satisfyingly well hidden) is all well and good until you realize you’ll practically walk right into him on the way back out. Many enemies can be avoided or dispatched with no risk to the player whatsoever, like the useless Hot Dog near the halfway point. And I’m not sure it’s even possible to avoid damage while fighting the secret Hot Dog with the buster; that is a looooooong string of fireballs. The lack of gimmicks is a letdown, too. The level needs something to make it stand out, and the enemy challenges aren’t novel or complex enough to compensate.
 
The music is fine; I found it a bit abrasive at first and I’ve already forgotten what it actually sounds like, but it fills the noise void well enough. I didn’t find any technical issues; there was one screen transition at the top of a ladder that could’ve been a little smoother, but that’s a minor thing. Otherwise, there’s not much to say. This level needs a stronger theme and an actual MIDNIGHT MAN to live up to its name.

Coptar Man

Difficulty Rating: 4
Skippable: Yes (the graphics inconsistently and unreliably convey the actual level architecture)
LEAST FAVORITE

Design - 3/35 (0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0)
Fun - 2/25 (1, 0, 0, 1)
Creativity - 3/15 (2, 1, 0)
Aesthetics - 3/15 (0, 2, 1)
Functionality - 1/10
TOTAL - 12/100

What an exquisite level. While other developers waste their time on such outdated concepts as “learning curve” and “solid floors,” you have masterfully eschewed every so-called “good” game design principle in favor of something truly revolutionary. Like the Pirate’s Code, any graphical representations of spikes or solid objects are more like guidelines, really; they’re a cue to the player that spikes and solid blocks are in the vicinity, but not necessarily exactly where they appear to be. This generates a sense of paranoia that, previously, only the likes of Stephen King or, say, Baby Groot holding a detonator have ever achieved.
 
Amplifying the paranoia is the constant surprise of new enemy types assailing the player when they are least prepared to take them on. A sudden Apache Joe while the player is being launched uncontrollably off the ground by a powerful fan? Genius. Nevermind crafting cohesive challenges or giving the player a chance to understand the nature of each obstacle; tossing handfuls of miscellaneous robots onto each screen is a sure-fire way to create difficulty without expending any effort in the process. Imagine how many more Mega Man games we could have had if Capcom had taken that approach.
 
I’m glad to finally see a level that recognizes graphics for the scourge they are. All those differently colored pixels everywhere take too much of the focus away from the gameplay. A solid-color background, a few pipe tiles, and a handful of different spikes are really all anyone needs—and honestly, I think you even could’ve gotten away with ditching the pipe tiles.
 
I wholeheartedly support the music choice. The high-pitched noises of Tornado Man’s theme have captured fans’ attention for years, and the decision to loop the music in an unconventional way is a clever tie-in to the level’s overall theme of never knowing what to expect. Truly, this captures the essence of a “Coptar.”
 
I was so inspired by your masterful work that I decided to take a page from your book and score your level with numbers that don’t necessarily match up with anything I’ve said here. Hopefully you enjoy that as much as I enjoyed your level.

X Factory

Difficulty Rating: 3
Skippable: No

Design - 32/35 (5, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 2, 1, 1)
Fun - 21/25 (8, 5, 4, 4)
Creativity - 12/15 (5, 4, 3)
Aesthetics - 12/15 (4, 4, 4)
Functionality - 10/10 (5, 5)
TOTAL - 87/100

Good, good, good. This is a level that reflects both an understanding of good game design principles and the skill to do them justice. Although this level doesn’t elicit the same “Whoa, cool” reaction that I’ve had to other levels in this contest, I respect the heck out of the craftsmanship here.
 
From start to finish, there is a clear learning curve and steady difficulty progression, introducing new elements in relatively safe environments and gradually combining them for more and more interesting and challenging scenarios. There’s a perfect balance of focus and variety, with each enemy and gimmick having a chance to shine without overstaying its welcome. Challenges require a combination of observation, planning, and straight-up platforming skill to overcome, giving the level a bit of a puzzle slant that I appreciate. It took me a few tries to reach the end, but every death was entirely my fault—a mark of truly fair difficulty.
 
Aesthetically, the level is a unique combination of colorful and serious, and the energetic music compliments the visuals well. Highly detailed graphics like these always run the risk of being distractingly detailed and clashing with the simpler 8-bit Mega Man sprites, but for the most part, everything meshes well. The enemy and obstacle selection and coloration go a long way in creating a cohesive look. A couple screens are right on the edge of looking too busy, though; I had some trouble distinguishing between foreground and background on the screen with a Springer in the top and bottom half, for instance. Also, the architecture in one or two places makes the challenge at hand appear a little confusing at first; for example, there’s one screen with four X platforms leading you across spikes to an exit on the right, but the bottom-left corner of the screen has an irrelevant cavern of spikes that appears to be part of the challenge somehow.
 
The autoscrolling section at the end is a nice culmination to the level, yet not quite as satisfying as it could be. It’s tricky to nail the pacing of an autoscrolling section, and this one errs just a smidge too much on the slow side for my taste. I suspect most players will find it fine, but I got antsy a few times while standing around idly for the next challenge to appear. It’s mostly the very end that’s a bit disappointing—it’s extremely easy to wipe out that whole row of B Bitters before they become a problem, which makes it that much more anticlimactic to discover the Energy Element sitting around unguarded on the next screen. Swapping out one of the B Bitters for a Crystal Joe might’ve been sufficient to spice up the final challenge (and as a side note, the Crystal Joes don’t entirely function like they do in MM5, but they serve the challenges just fine). Adding even a simple gimmick challenge to the Energy Element screen would have been enough to remove that feeling of “Oh, it’s over already.”
 
These are relatively minor issues, however. This is a thoroughly solid level with very deliberate and well-thought-out design decisions, and I would love to see more levels like this one.

Space Crusade

Difficulty Rating: 3
Skippable: No
​FAVORITE

Design - 23/35 (2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 5, 2, 2, 1)
Fun - 21/25 (8, 5, 5, 3)
Creativity - 12/15 (4, 4, 4)
Aesthetics - 15/15 (5, 5, 4)
Functionality - 10/10 (5, 5)
TOTAL – 80/100

This was fun! I'm a sucker for outer space, and the stage lives up to its name. Between the groovy music, the eye-catching blend of space-themed tilesets, the reskinned enemies, and the story element provided by the NPCs, everything works together to create the atmosphere of an exciting space crusade. I could tell that the stage was referencing...something...(I looked it up afterward; it's Warhammer 40K) but the whole experience is crafted in such a way that you don't need to get the reference to appreciate the stage.
 
I like variety in a stage, and this one has plenty of it—too much for its own good, in fact. On the plus side, most enemies and obstacles are used at least twice, in situations where they have at least a partial opportunity to shine. There's a lot of creativity in the challenges, and nothing feels completely wasted. I love the screen where you're sliding into time bombs with the cannon firing at you, and the screen where you've got to slide under spikes on a Splash platform...and the screen where you're sliding past those dreaded Up'n'Downs is surprisingly not awful, further demonstrating that you have the chops to turn the familiar into something pleasantly different. The boss is a clever synthesis of different bosses and minibosses, and a satisfying end to the stage.
 
On the minus side, the “sampler platter” approach means that none of these challenges have the chance to be fully developed, which is a right shame. Cutting a handful of foes and hazards would allow more room to explore the potential of the remaining ones, bringing more focus to the level without sacrificing the feeling of variety. In particular, the reskinned falling platforms add nothing to the stage; you’ve already got Shadow platforms and indestructible blocks that could serve the exact same purpose.
 
Unfortunately, many of the rooms are fairly cramped. This isn’t inherently problematic, as claustrophobia-inducing architecture can allow for some tricky challenges and can add to the character of a stage. In this case, however, some rooms feel tight because the entrance and exit aren’t ideally positioned—take the room before the checkpoint, for example, where all the action is jammed into the top left corner of the screen. Moreover, it’s not uncommon to have a few too many objects on the screen at once, or a complex challenge concentrated into a very small space.
 
The learning curve on these challenges is fast, but standing perfectly still at the entrance to a screen will usually give enough time to figure out what’s going on. The few exceptions are brutal, however. The introduction to the reskinned falling platforms seems specifically designed as a beginner’s trap, with only the most agile players making it out alive on their first try. The following screen with the reskinned Sniper Joes and Shadow platforms over spikes demands even faster reflexes, and the screen after that surprises you with Up’n’Downs in a place where they’re totally unexpected and impossible to dodge if you’re caught off guard. Part of the problem is making every screen a self-contained challenge; occasional use of camera scrolling would go a long way in giving the player and these challenges enough space to breathe.
 
Nonetheless, I enjoyed this level. The shortcomings aren’t deal-breakers for me, and almost all of the challenges are individually satisfying, even if there are ways to improve them and the level as a whole. I was promised a space crusade, and by the Emperor, I did not leave disappointed.

Gate 303

Difficulty Rating: 2
Skippable: No

Design - 14/35 (2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1)
Fun - 9/25 (4, 1, 2, 2)
Creativity - 4/15 (2, 2, 0)
Aesthetics - 9/15 (4, 4, 1)
Functionality - 10/10 (5, 5)
TOTAL - 46/100*

This could have been a fun romp through a robot-ridden airport, with our hero on a scavenger hunt for the keys that unlock Gate 303, where an airplane or aviation-themed boss lies waiting. Instead, it's a well-meaning collection of rookie mistakes.
 
The stage starts out well enough: pleasantly backgroundy music, unremarkably but competently used vanilla graphics, and a few simple challenges with a very gentle learning curve. I like the use of the Elec beams as a less punishing alternative to floor spikes (though it looks odd to have the beams overlap with the floor; either give them more space or hide them behind a higher-priority floor tile). Combining them with Guts platforms is a decent idea, and WAIT THAT'S A SOLID WALL NOT A BACKGROUND TILE OH THE ELECTRICITY IT HURTS.
 
Suddenly, the exceedingly gentle learning curve is gone. It's never demonstrated that Guts platforms can pass through solid walls, so it's an even worse shock (literally and figuratively) when you're dumped off. It's not long before you're thrown into a tricky timing challenge involving sliding, falling a fair distance, and dodging Sniper Joe bullets—none of which has been required previously in the stage—while also avoiding an Elec beam trap. And I should mention that the Elec beams across the stage are inconsistent about whether they fire constantly or are on some kind of timer.
 
One enemy after another is introduced in a way that assumes the player already knows how to handle these foes. Never seen a Shield Attacker? Too late; you got hit. What's a Pandeeta? It's that thing you almost fell on, which is now shooting you at unnecessarily close range. Worse yet, these enemies are never seen again. I can easily imagine an inexperienced player getting smacked around the entire stage, never truly understanding how to deal with all this pain. Fortunately, the stage is a wholly appropriate length, and checkpoint placement is good.
 
The last area before the bosses is simultaneously the best and worst part of the level. On the one hand, it's a neat idea to have the player clear out every last bad guy in a large room to collect enough keys to proceed. On the other hand...the whole room is a mess, with enemies all over the place and no real structure to the challenges. Not to mention that the key doors come AFTER you get all the keys (a recurring theme here), which kind of defeats the purpose of having key doors. Although it is easy enough to avoid the enemies and then need to backtrack to get the keys, but that also feels like a waste. Tease the player with a locked door, THEN let them look for the key.
 
At least there's a boss fight behind all those locked doors...except it's the same Plant Man fight we got in MM6. Devkit bosses are fine, but do SOMETHING to set them apart. Bringing in those Elec beams or Guts platforms might have been good. Cutting the second boss fight also would have been good; Gemini Man is pure padding, and the lack of a checkpoint at the start of his battle is a bit of an oversight. There's no thematic connection between Plant Man, Gemini Man, and the rest of the stage...though the stage doesn't really have much theming to begin with.


*When I received my applicant feedback from the hosts, it was brought to my attention that I missed an exploit where you can grind for infinite keys, so Design and/or Functionality should've been a point or two lower. What I learned from that oversight is to play these levels like a playtester, not just a critic.

Universe City V

Difficulty Rating: 3
Skippable: No

Design - 27/35 (3, 4, 3, 5, 3, 4, 2, 2, 1)
Fun - 19/25 (7, 4, 5, 3)
Creativity - 14/15 (5, 4, 5)
Aesthetics - 13/15 (4, 4, 5)
Functionality - 9/10 (4, 5)
TOTAL - 82/100

It took me a while to warm up to this one, but once I did, it brought a smile to my face. Initially, I was a little bored with the stage. Lots of empty space, music that’s nice but far too sleepy for a Mega Man stage, and pretty basic challenges (except the one with the fork blocks, which is good but too exacting to be an introduction to the gimmick). Then there’s a joke boss (which gave me a chuckle) and the stage is over. OK, fine. Except...it’s not over. It’s only just begun.
 
I love that the first part of the stage simultaneously sets player expectations for one type of stage while subtly exposing the player to the normal enemies and gimmicks they’ll face once the main gimmick kicks in. When the music ramps up and you start seeing Volt Men everywhere, there’s this wonderful revelation that you’ve been fooled, and the stage can jump right into more complex challenges because all the basic elements have already been introduced. But I think the intro section could have been tighter and more efficient while accomplishing the same goal, leaving me saying “Oh, that was really clever” instead of “Oh, so that’s why the first part was kinda dull.”
 
The Volt Men challenges are totally worth it, though. I’m a big fan of seeing Robot Masters repurposed as stage enemies, and you got some terrific mileage out of this one—both in terms of gameplay and the fact that the “Volt Man is overused” joke could inspire an entire stage. The challenges are interesting, varied, and continually humorous, and the many flavors of Volt Man mix well with the other enemies and gimmicks in use. I might’ve liked some sort of subtle visual distinction between the different Volt Man types, or at least a shorter timer before the shield-launching ones decide to attack; I frequently sustained damage after (incorrectly) determining that the Volt Man in front of me was just going to hold his shield forever. A little caution is fine, but the stage requires a bit too much idle waiting if you truly want to play it safe.
 
The challenge progression is solid, with a smart blend of timing and speed as the core focus. Probably my favorite part is the screen where you’re riding Spark platforms past fork blocks while a Volt Man keeps shooting at you. Great stuff. That being said, a few spots could benefit from a bit of finessing; for example, I was a smidge disappointed by how easy it was to use Super Arrow to bypass every challenge in that long hallway toward the end.
 
I was thrilled to find that Sakugarne can bounce off the boss projectiles, and I laughed at the unexpected deterrent to using Slash Claw on the stationary, shielded Volt Men. The boss fight is a superb culmination to the stage, offering another good chuckle as well as a challenge that’s well in line with everything preceding it. I experienced a little wonkiness during the boss fight when using Flash Stopper, but otherwise the programming seemed pretty solid.
 
This is a stage that could be improved in places, but it doesn’t need to be. A fun premise coupled with good design instincts makes for a charming addition to the contest, and I’m very happy to have played this.

Magnum Man

Difficulty Rating: 3
Skippable: No

Design - 24/35 (4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1)
Fun - 17/25 (6, 4, 5, 2)
Creativity - 14/15 (5, 5, 4)
Aesthetics - 12/15 (4, 5, 3)
Functionality - 7/10 (3, 4)
TOTAL - 74/100

The Good: Custom assets that look professional, evocative music that fits the level well, several fun and clever challenges, generally smooth learning curve
 
The Bad: Inconsistent theming, lots of clutter, too many enemy types
 
The Ugly: Problematic level layout, some spikes aren’t even spikes, a deadly and easy-to-trigger glitch
 
From the very first screen, this looks and sounds like it could be an official Capcom level. I’m a sucker for Westerns, too, so this level started off at an advantage—which gradually slipped away as more and more problems became apparent.
 
At first glance, everything seems totally fine. All the custom enemies, gimmicks, and tiles look and feel perfectly at home in a Mega Man game, and they work together with the music to develop a strong sense of theme. New types of challenges are introduced fairly, with only a few mild exceptions (eg, the exploding bullet enemies are a bit of a surprise). The oversized revolvers and springboard platforms are really creative and used extremely well, and there’s a satisfying boss fight at the end. Level length feels a mite long but within acceptable parameters, and the frequency of checkpoints and power-ups is just right. If we left it at that, this would be a dynamite level.
 
Upon closer inspection, however, there’s a disappointing lack of focus in the enemy and gimmick selection. When I remember the Alamo, I certainly don’t remember Electric Gabyoalls. Tanks in the desert I can understand, but tanks in Tombstone? When did John Wayne ever ride into the sunset on a Tondeall? For a few dollars more, would Clint Eastwood have agreed to a shootout on bouncy platforms? This is Mega Man we’re talking about, and tradition dictates that it’s OK to include a few elements that don’t strictly fit the level theme, but Magnum Man takes it a little too far. Not only are these miscellaneous elements disruptive of the otherwise fantastic atmosphere created by the themed assets, but they clutter the enemy roster to the point where several enemies only appear once—or twice, if they don’t scroll themselves off the screen before you get to them.
 
This overabundance of different enemy types also contributes to a sense of clutter, which is amplified by the busy backgrounds. The graphics look very nice, yes, but there’s so much variety and fine detail that they tend to draw the focus away from the gameplay. There’s not quite enough of a gap between challenges to give the player a chance to properly appreciate the set pieces. The architecture is occasionally a contributing factor in that cluttered feel; for example, one screen toward the beginning has two random spikes underneath an oversized revolver for some reason (wouldn’t a regular wall have been enough of a deterrent to go that way?), and one screen toward the end has a gunman buried inside a wall above the screen entrance, which is pointless when the height advantage is already a deterrent to using any weapon that can’t pass through a wall.
 
I also got extremely confused about the level layout upon reaching the second Noble Nickel, which is sitting out in the open like it’s a perfunctory health refill. Special items like this are meant to be a reward for accomplishing something out of the ordinary, so I could only conclude that I had accidentally found a secret exit to the previous screen...but then I couldn’t backtrack out of the room, and the only way to progress was to walk through pillars that looked solid. This dropped me awkwardly into the middle of a scrolling section, but there was no indication whether I should go right or left. I arbitrarily went left (which is good, because right takes you to a pointless dead end), but it felt the whole time like I was backtracking through challenges I had inadvertently bypassed by choosing the path that led to the Nickel. As it turns out, the level is completely linear—and it’s a horrible feeling to be lost in a linear level.
 
That really soured the whole level for me, which is a shame, because there are so many parts that I adore. Individually, the majority of these challenges are well designed and highly memorable. Riding oversized bullets from place to place is a hoot, and combining that with sliding challenges is AWESOME. Likewise, bouncy gunfights (despite making no sense in the context of the level) are satisfyingly tricky, particularly when the gunmen’s bullets track you, and I approve of how the spike challenges take advantage of that momentarily delay between landing on the springboard and being launched into the air. All the Noble Nickels (save for the aforementioned second one) are exactly the right amount of difficult to obtain. The battle against Magnum Man is solid, and it’s neat to see him use a couple of the attacks you’ve been practicing against throughout the level. And like I said, this has the production values of a Capcom level.
 
Except...Capcom probably wouldn’t have left an entire floor of spikes as background decoration instead of actual spikes that cause you to explode on contact. And I suspect they would have playtested those springboard platforms more thoroughly—firing Super Arrow and especially Wheel Cutter at an extended platform leads to some interesting visual oddities, and it’s all too easy to get Mega Man stuck inside one...and then speedily shunted to the opposite end of the screen, where he explodes.
 
Other issues with the level may include the following: A few late-game challenges are decidedly easier than their earlier counterparts (eg, going from an unavoidably bouncy gunfight to a gunfight on the ground with a nearby springboard if you feel like using it). The background sometimes utilizes black rectangles (like on the checkpoint screen next to the boss chamber), which look less like holes or windows and more like...black rectangles. The fight with Magnum Man is aesthetically problematic; for one thing, his boss chamber is technically underground and shouldn’t have that desertscape in the background, and for another, his generic looks don’t help the inconsistent theming. Also, Flash Stopper freezes Magnum Man’s projectiles but not the boss himself, and Electric Gabyoalls don’t freeze when hit by a charge shot like they do in MM6, but those oddities may well be intentional. However, I will say that Magnum Man’s animations, especially the gun twirling, are pretty sweet.
 
There are the makings of a truly great level here, but the biggest shortcomings seriously belie the professionalism this level projects.

The third Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest is closed, and the grand total of level entries is...185.​ For comparison, that's twice the size of the last contest plus the size of the first contest. Or, to put it another way, that's more levels than there are in Mega Man 1-11 combined.

We judges are gonna die.

I asked for this, though. I saw how popular this contest was and knew what I was getting into. I'm a writer, a game critic, a game developer, a diehard Mega Man fan, an experienced player, and an authority on both the official and unofficial games; this is exactly the kind of thing I do for fun.

Beyond my personal enjoyment and satisfaction, this is a chance to do some good for the community. No doubt there are several aspiring game developers who have submitted to the contest—and speaking from experience, it's important for them to receive feedback that's comprehensive, fair, and encouraging. I intend to keep that in mind as I write my judge reviews. I'm already projected to be the "nice judge," but I can be just as critical and nitpicky as anyone. The key is remembering that this contest is for fun, and that there's a real person with real feelings and a desire to succeed on the receiving end of my criticism.

As the development team readies the first batch of levels to be judged, I'm bracing myself for a long winter of nonstop Mega Man...and really, that's no different from any other winter. For the last decade, most of my major side projects have centered around this franchise; I'm accustomed to the Blue Bomber being a daily part of my life. There was a span of several years where I was blogging every other day, contributing occasional articles to GameFAQs and GameCola, and keeping up with a personal journal; I can handle writing 185 short reviews in a couple months.

I have a colossal task ahead of me, to be sure, but I'm not intimidated by it. I'm looking foward to it. If I can find the right balance between judging and everything else I want and need to do, the next few months should be very rewarding indeed.

I haven't been on social media much lately, so here's a status report for all the projects I have going:

1. OH JOES! is receiving a major update. I've added or am in the process of adding 9 new game modes, 14 Achievements, quality-of-life improvements (eg, an option for Quick Lasers to have a warmup animation before firing), an Italian translation, and more. This will probably be my last update to the game (notwithstanding any necessary functionality patches), so I'm making it a point to include everything I wanted to have as part of the initial release but got too burned out to implement. Thank you to everyone who's written words of encouragement and rekindled my enthusiasm for this project.

2. I'm updating this website on a relatively frequent basis. I've been chipping away at various Series Opinions, and I finally added a link to my Mega Man Fangame Tracker under the Games section. Once the aforementioned OH JOES! update is released, I'll post the next developer diary I've been working on, which should be considerably happier than the last one.

3. I'm still working on my Mega Man 8 playthrough for YouTube, I swear. It's hard to work up the motivation to play one of my least-favorite games in the series, let alone replay the same half a stage over and over without any guarantee I'll get decent footage. I'll devote more time to this as my fangame commitments disappear. In the meantime, you can track my progress by looking at the banner image I'm using on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

4. I'm designing a handful of screens for a unique trio of fan-made Mega Man relay levels, where each designer makes a few screens and passes the level along to the next designer to continue the challenges. This is a very small commitment that will only occupy a few evenings total. No release date yet, but probably sometime in the next couple months. (If you'd like to participate, we could use more designers! Click here to join the Discord server.)

5. No further livestreams are planned for the foreseeable future. I do plan to get back to streaming eventually, and I may stream on a whim (like I did recently with a dash-free run of Mega Man X), but my Twitch channel is officially dormant for the time being. I need some time away from actively performing in front of an audience, and I want to direct my attention to projects with a clear endpoint.

6. I'm a judge and on the development team for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 3. I will also be designing a judge level and likely making other contributions to the game. I expect this project will consume most of my free time in December, January, probably February, and possibly March. However, after this is all over, I intend to step away from developing Mega Man fangames and refocus on recording. It's been fun to be so active in the fan community and create content based on my favorite video game franchise, but I have a fanbase of my own that's been starved for new videos these last three years.

7. I am a contributor to the Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest website and have been tidying up (read: overediting) the existing pages and adding new pages. There's a little bit more I'd like to do, but nothing I have to do; this might take up a couple more evenings across the next several months.

8. In an effort to complete my playlist of music from OH JOES!, CosmicGem has given me permission to upload videos of his compositions for the game. I just need to take 10 minutes to slap together a background image and make the videos.

9. This has been on the backburner for an outrageously long time, but some diligent fans have added closed captioning to some of my YouTube videos, and I just need to review them. As a professional copy editor, I want to make sure the captions are as accurate and tidy as possible—which means this is essentially an extension of what I do at work all day, hence why it takes me so long to get around to it in my spare time. However, I'm most grateful that people are willing to put in the effort to write accurate captions, sparing my viewers from the inappropriate and nonsensical absurdities of Transcribe Audio.

On top of all this, I've got a normal life to lead—keeping up with boring adult stuff such as housework and bills; spending time with friends, family, and my wife; taking time to relax with books, movies, and video games; and so forth. I'm assuming that all counts as "normal." I'm prioritizing my side projects as much and as often as I can, but there's only so much time in a year, and only so much energy in a day. But thanks for sticking with me as I try to do it all.

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Two years. That's how much of my life I devoted to nurturing OH JOES! from some goofy level concept into a full-blown game with original cutscene artwork, an original soundtrack, ​58 randomized disclaimers for the startup screen, 500 words of dialogue, 1500 words of game over hints, multiple language options, multiple paths, multiple difficulties, multiple playable characters, and plenty of Easter eggs. I participated in every aspect of development—planning, spriting, programming, level design and decoration, music composition, writing, translating, and playtesting—learning any necessary skills along the way, including skills that hardly come naturally. Overcoming my aversion to collaboration, I coordinated with 34 people to make the game better than it ever would have been as a solo project. To me, OH JOES! isn't just another Mega Man fangame; it's a remarkable accomplishment that pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped define an entire chapter of my life.

At first, the game was a fun distraction, something I worked on a few times a week for a couple of hours at a clip. After a year, it was a pleasant obsession, consuming as much of my free time as my sanity (and my wife, friends, and family) would permit. By the last few months, OH JOES! was more of a burden than a joy, an obstacle between me and how I wanted to be spending my life, but I was committed to doing it right.

The good days, of which there were many, were the ones in which I conquered some programming problem myself, designed some challenges I felt good about, had productive interactions with the other people involved in the project, incorporated lots of playtester feedback, or finalized basically anything (menu screens and sprites were especially gratifying). I took it as a very positive sign that I frequently found myself humming the soundtrack, and that I didn't get sick of fighting Joes until the last few months—which, considering the impetus for the project, is rather astonishing. When I posted updates on social media, I could rely on at least a few (if not several) supportive responses to validate my work and keep me excited about continuing.

The mediocre days, of which there were many more, were the ones spent troubleshooting technical issues that didn't make any sense, coming up with creative new ways to use and combine gimmicks I'd grown tired of using, reworking challenges that playtesters disliked without articulating exactly what was wrong, reorganizing menu screens, finessing level graphics, implementing and testing the translations (especially French and German; Spanish I could confirm without too much cross-checking), ​or endlessly adjusting line breaks in the text. These days were productive, but they felt more like work than fun.

The bad days, which became more frequent the longer the project dragged on, made me angry. These were the days where I fruitlessly attempted to solve programming problems above my pay grade. These were the days where a playtester made a reasonable and compelling case to overhaul something that had been completely fine and final for months. These were the days where I sacrificed all my free time to work on this game, for the sake of a release deadline that was always "next month" no matter how much I worked. I took a week of vacation in the summer of 2017, and about the only thing I remember is being glued to my computer for 10+ hours a day in a futile attempt to finish the game that month.

When I set the official release date, I was in a weird place. My need to retake control of my life finally outweighed my desire for the game to be as polished as possible upon release. I knew there were glitches to fix, challenges to playtest more thoroughly, details to streamline, and features to add, but all the most important stuff was in place and reasonably solid. I was happy with it. The game was playable from start to finish. The majority of playtesters enjoyed the game. OH JOES! was more release-worthy than many other fangames I'd played. It was time to hand the game over to the largest group of playtesters yet, take a break, and come back fresh when there was a consensus about what I should focus on for the next update.

The plan for OH JOES! was a soft launch, announcing the game on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and Sprites INC, where I'd been posting about it during development. It made sense to debut to a smaller audience who knew what to expect, and who was maybe even looking forward to the game. After a week or two of incorporating feedback from the general public, I'd "officially" announce the game on YouTube (to around 12,000 subscribers between both my channels) and on the forums at Capcom Unity, Rockman Perfect Memories, Cutstuff, Talkhaus, and anywhere else I could think of.

Despite all the headaches and hurdles, I was about to fulfill a childhood dream. ​I was nervous but optimistic, relieved but excited. I created a page on this website with information about the game, put together a download package, and played through the game one last time. I uploaded the game to three different file-sharing sites (always have a backup!) and tested that each download worked correctly. Then, I took a deep breath and announced my dream to the world.

It took the world 20 minutes to trample my dream, spit on it, and toss the pieces in my face.

I've been a content creator long enough to know that not everything I produce will be an instant hit with the public. I'm always braced for some measure of criticism, and I've learned to brace myself even more when it comes to level design. I was wholly unprepared for the hostility, ridicule, and indifference my game was about to receive, and I was blindsided by the things people would choose to complain about.

First was that initial ripple of excitement—hey, the game's finally out, congratulations, I can't wait to play it. Next were the first impressions—that cutscene art is fantastic; this music is great. So far, so good. Then came the bug reports—or more accurately, the memes making fun of the shoddy game engine, my horrible programming, and the apparent lack of playtesting. People were getting stuck in walls and crashing the game before even making it to the first checkpoint. Multiple people were outraged by the framerate, as though 30 FPS (more or less the fangame standard until OH JOES! was well underway) was utterly unplayable. Whatever credibility I had as a developer was gone before anyone got to the actual gameplay, by which point OH JOES! was just another no-effort fangame for people to trash. Notwithstanding the remarks about the art and music, the most positive thing I saw anyone say on Discord was that the game overall was "meh."

What a profound waste of my life this game was.

I had to walk away from my computer. I felt sick. What had been a source of tremendous joy and pride 20 minutes prior had rapidly turned into a painful mistake. One might argue that I was being overly sensitive to criticism, interpreting comments as negative when they weren't intended as such. But over the next four months, social media only reinforced the notion that nobody actually liked OH JOES!.

People complained about the lack of infinite lives, the fact that Proto Man loses his charge when hit, and the fact that a couple items require a specific character or weapon to collect—so I was being criticized for staying true to the official Mega Man games. But then people complained about the lack of a stage select or "real" final boss—so I was also being criticized for deviating from the official Mega Man games. I heard that the game was both too easy and too hard, that there were too many power-ups and not nearly enough, and that the game overstayed its welcome but wasn't long enough. There was no shortage of conflicting feedback from the general public.

But it didn't stop there. The lack of original Joes (when the entire point of the game was using tired old Joes in new situations) was disappointing to people. Over 250 screens of challenges, and the game did nothing new or interesting with Joes. Three meaningfully different difficulties, three meaningfully different characters, and a large degree of control over which challenges you face and how to face them, yet the replay value came across as artificial. How was I supposed to work with this feedback? These weren't critiques I could use to improve the game; these were indications that my game was a lost cause.

I'm better at handling the negative when there's some positive to focus on, but there was a gut-wrenching absence of praise for the story, dialogue, level design, tile work, special features, overall execution, and anything else I was responsible for. The only things people seemed to like were the stage music (of course, because Cosmic, Jasper, MiniMacro, and RushJet1 are extremely talented), cutscene art (of course, because Phusion is amazing), and secret character (of course, because she's a silly surprise who completely changes the gameplay nobody was enjoying). A handful of people involved in the project, who had previously stated that they liked the game, reiterated that they still liked it. I appreciated their support, but I also wanted—needed—some affirmation from the general public.

To give some numeric perspective: My initial announcement on Discord, Facebook, and Twitter reached a minimum of almost 600 different people—and depending on how much overlap there was between subscribers across the different platforms, that number could have been as high as 1500. I haven't been able to track the number of downloads from Dropbox and Google Drive, but MediaFire tells me that OH JOES! has been downloaded over 400 times—and I'm not sure whether that's since release, or just since I uploaded the last update. The first playthrough of the game that anyone posted on YouTube had over 1000 views within a few months of release, and my post about the game on Sprites INC had over 30,000 views. Even if, say, 90% of those views were repeat visitors and not unique views, those are still significant numbers.

In short: there were hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of people outside the development team who knew about OH JOES!. Of these, five people in as many months said anything to make me feel like I wasn't a total failure as a game designer. With the exception of one glowing and articulate review, the praise was concise and tempered: the game was fun, despite [insert shortcoming]. Meanwhile, I continued seeing hostility, disappointment, and indifference toward the game every day, then every few days, then every week, until people stopped talking about it altogether. Whenever I brought up the game's unpopularity in conversation, secretly hoping that someone would chime in with something nice to say, the response was invariably, "Oh, that's too bad." Pity felt almost like an acknowledgment that there was nothing nice to say. Even on the rare occasion when someone tried to defend my game against criticism, their response was usually something to the effect of, "Well, the problem isn't that bad...".

Emotionally, I was extremely unwell for several weeks after the game's release. There's a sickening bitterness that arises from being so proud of something—something that you devoted years to creating, that other people told you they liked—and then having your self-worth pounded into oblivion when you put your creation on display. After a few days, I no longer had the drive to record an announcement for YouTube. After a week, I was this close to deleting the game's page from my website and killing the download links. After two weeks, I nearly stepped down as a judge for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 3. I felt like the game's existence was ruining my reputation in the fan community, and I wanted nothing more to do with it.

The game's few vocal supporters eventually convinced me that maybe, somehow, the game hadn't reached the right audience yet. I worked up the energy to advertise the game on a couple small gaming forums, but by that point, the branding was substantially different. "I'm excited to share my game with you" had changed to "Here's this thing I made; maybe it's not a total waste." The only response I've received on any of those forums is a compliment about the cutscene art. I made an effort to review bug reports and update the game if anything critical came up, but I expended a minimum amount of effort in implementing any changes. I also started writing this series of blog posts—partially for posterity, partially to share some insights about what it's like to design a game, but mostly to try to salvage the memory of this deeply personal project.

I didn't spend two years making a game; I spent two years on a challenging, emotional, eye-opening journey to fulfill a dream I've had since childhood. Looking back on the high points, I can be proud of what I accomplished and happy with the personal relationships that developed along the way. Looking back on the low points, OH JOES! caused me an unprecedented amount of stress and suffering for something that was supposed to be fun. If I could go back and do it all over again...I wouldn't.

I think about how eager I was to make more Mega Man levels, and how I would have gotten my fix if I had just waited a few months for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 2 and then a few more months for Mega Man Maker to arrive. I think about how many YouTube videos I could have recorded in the time it took to make OH JOES!—and how much happier both I and my content-starved audience would have been. Most of all, I think about how much it hurt to spend two years crafting a keen blade intended to cut through an afternoon of boredom, only to have my peers use it to carve out my heart.

But hey, at least I got some blog posts out of it.

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If there's one thing I learned from "Maze of Death," my contribution to the first Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML), it's that levels need to be playtested by other people—people who think and play differently than you do. People who don't already know what's coming. People who aren't predisposed to thinking that everything is perfect and wonderful. It's important to playtest the heck out of your own creation, but you can't stop there.

In playtesting as in life, there is strength in diversity. Gaming skill varies greatly from one person to the next, and we all have our own ideas about what is and isn't fun. Our expectations are informed by the games we've played and the lives we've led. We differ in how we deliver feedback, and in what we deem important to point out. Some of us are attentive to detail; some of us are oblivious to the obvious. Some of us like to take our time, explore, and think things through; some of us like to barge ahead and rush through challenges. I could go on. The broader and more eclectic the playtesting group, the more bugs you'll catch, and the better your final product is likely to be.

From the beginning, my plan for OH JOES! was to playtest in phases. Whenever I had a substantial amount of new content, I'd send the game for playtesting. Not every playtester was involved in every round of playtesting, and the size of the group depended on the size of the development milestone I'd reached. My rationale was that I'd get better feedback if I had a mix of some playtesters who'd seen several iterations of the game, and some playtesters who came in fresh at various points in development. Rotating playtesters also helped people from getting burned out, and it ensured that the finished product didn't just cater to the tastes and opinions of the same few playtesters.

By the time OH JOES! was released, almost 30 playtesters had taken the game for a spin, and I extend my thanks to all of them. At first, the group was mostly comprised of the people actively helping me with the project—CosmicGem, Entity1037, Jasper Valentine, and Renhoek. Along the way, I roped people I knew (either personally or through years of Internet interactions) into playtesting, including Alice "Mother" Kojiro, B.B. Sting, Dash Jump, Desertskunk, Mr_Cobb, ProcneDevi, Super Adapter, and Zapetroid. A number of folks specifically from the Mega Man fan community either volunteered or took me up on a request to playtest, such as happygreenfrog, IcyTower, Mark in Austin, NaOH, PKWeegee, Quack Man, and Raine.

I thought it was important to get feedback from the people with whom I'd be judging MaGMML3, so I invited Mick Galbani, Pachy, and Shinryu (and ACESpark, but he was extremely busy at the time). For good measure, I recruited Cheez, the MaGMML judge who seemed most likely to appreciate my game, as well as Dolphin, a regular judge of informal Mega Man Maker contests. I wanted input from fellow fangame developers, so I asked for help from Blyka, Lars Luron, SnoruntPyro, and WreckingPrograms. I was also planning on reaching out to the likes of MegaPhilX, MrWeirdGuy, GoldWaterDLS, and YouTuber RoahmMythril, but by then I had a near-excessive number of playtesters for a game that was only four stages long.

As often as possible, I pestered people to playtest my game in person; otherwise, my preference was a playthrough video with audio commentary. It's easier for me to gauge difficulty, fun, and fairness when I know exactly how the player reacts to each situation, both visually and verbally. Glitches are easier to replicate when I can study a recording for possible causes, too. Some people preferred text feedback via e-mail, Facebook, Discord, or even a PDF, sometimes with screenshots or short video clips attached. This allowed people an opportunity to articulate their thoughts in a way that might be difficult in the middle of a playthrough, plus it cut straight to the heart of what they felt did and didn't work. Getting feedback in a variety of formats kept the playtesting process fresh for me, and I got a well-rounded sense of my game that way.

Whenever I watched someone play through the game, I kept a notepad handy and scribbled a bulleted list of things I intended to change. A playtesting session could yield up to three or four pages of notes, with about two dozen bullets per side. I used plenty of shorthand, so Hammer Joe became just "ham"; I've since discarded all these notes, but I'm sure you can imagine what it was like returning to a list a few days later and trying to remember what things like "ham stuck on ice" meant. I crossed items off the list as I addressed them (in whatever order I felt like); any items I didn't really feel like dealing with immediately got transferred to a Word document to be sorted out later. Many of these, such as native controller support, sat on the list so long that they turned into "nice to have" items to be addressed after the game's release, if there was enough interest in the game to justify the time and effort.

For the most part, I contacted my playtesters individually for their videos and written comments. I've been a playtester for other games where feedback was provided in a group chat, and though there are benefits to that approach, I find it lends itself to derailed trains of thought, people jumping on a bandwagon, and people criticizing your criticism. The individual approach also allowed me to address feedback at my own pace, without feeling pressured to keep up with an ongoing conversation.

Most of the playtesting feedback for OH JOES! was very freeform; I welcomed any and all comments, usually with minimal guidance about what I wanted people to test. To some degree, this was a mistake. Hardly anybody tried the final iteration of Easy Mode, I don't think anybody played the game in French, the glitch-prone Item-2 was largely ignored, and there were a couple paths in the final stage that few people bothered with on Difficult Mode.

My original plan for the last round of testing was to send my playtesters a questionnaire about their experience. I used to do this after every Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran for my friends, asking what specific moments and general characteristics of the quest they liked most and least. This questionnaire also would have assessed which game options were selected and which paths were taken, to give me a better idea of the gaps in testing. When it came time for final playtesting, however, I was burned out on being a game developer. I wanted the game out the door. I asked my playtesters to look only for glaring problems and tiny things that were easy to change. So much for the questionnaire.

Keep in mind that, despite the sheer number of contributors to the project, I  was the only one incorporating playtester feedback. Revamping challenges, fixing glitches, adding new features, revising dialogue, correcting graphical mishaps—that was all me. I tried not to outsource changes unless I was utterly stuck. This proved to be exhausting, because the changes required way more programming than I ever wanted to do for this game. Programming was something I tried to get out of the way early so that I could focus on the fun parts, but it kept coming back to haunt me. It was not uncommon for me to spend an entire evening trying to address a single item off my bulleted list. There's a reason why this game took 2 years to make.

It was fascinating to see what kinds of issues each of my playtesters focused on. I could tell who was a programmer, who was a level designer, who had an artistic eye, and who was more accustomed to playing fangames and ROM hacks than the official games. Comments ranged from extremely general (eg, stage 3 is too hard) to extremely specific (eg, here are the particular notes I'd like to change in the music). Some issues were no-brainers to fix (eg, the game crashes when I do this thing); other issues were annoyingly on the cusp between my fault and the player's fault (eg, magnets pulling more strongly when stacked on top of each other, which one playtester misinterpreted as individual magnets having arbitrarily inconsistent pull strengths). Sometimes, I got conflicting feedback (eg, one person said the Chill block sections were brutal and always avoided them; another person said those sections were the best).

Indeed, the hardest and most frustrating part was figuring out when and how to compromise. Incorporating feedback is a balancing act between your vision for the project and what other people want out of it, a matter of filtering out personal preference and bias (both yours and the playtester's) to get to the core of what actually needs to change. Accepting a suggestion doesn't automatically make the game better—in fact, it usually necessitates more playtesting to determine how well the suggestion works.

There are plenty of reasons why you might choose to ignore feedback, but if you start to see a theme in the ideas you've rejected, you can be sure that issue will become a sticking point once the game is released. My MaGMML2 level, "Guts Man's Asteroid," fell short of the top tier because I didn't fully address my playtesters' complaints about the boulder droppers. Despite practically every official Mega Man game having items that are off limits if you come into the stage without the right character, weapon, or upgrade, OH JOES! has received nothing but grief for some of the JOES letters being inaccessible to certain characters. Do yourself a favor and find a way to make a concession, however small or indirect, even if you completely disagree with your playtesters. Especially if your playtesters are unanimous.

For the most part, though, my playtesters seemed to appreciate and enjoy the game. It was gratifying to hear them laugh and smile (yes, you can hear a smile) in their playthrough videos. One playtester described me as a "potent designer." Another said OH JOES! might be the most fun he's ever had playing Mega Man, which strikes me as something that can't possibly be true, but I'll take it anyhow. There were plenty of critiques about the premise being stretched too thin, the stages being too long, and so forth. At the same time, there was also a lot of praise for the soundtrack, the graphics (especially the intro cutscene), the game's sense of humor, and the quality of individual challenges. The general consensus was that OH JOES!, while certainly not the next Rock Force, was fun enough to be worth a look. That's all I really wanted to accomplish.

A couple playtesters didn't seem to enjoy the game as much as the others, but they all had one thing in common: they had never heard of OH JOES! before I asked them to playtest. My other playtesters had been following the project to some extent, and they had a sense of what kind of game this was. This, in combination with some of the specific criticisms I received, led me to believe that false expectations might be influencing some playtesters' opinions. In fact, after I recommended using special weapons more often and approaching each challenge as a puzzle, one playtester who had given up on the game gave it a second chance and ended up having a blast.

It's like when my friends took me to see Hot Fuzz. "What's Hot Fuzz?" I asked. "It's Hot Fuzz! With Simon Pegg!" my friends responded. And then they stuffed me in the car and drove off to the theater. I had never heard of Simon Pegg. I had no clue what this movie was about. I spent a very long, unpleasant time in the theater suffering through a series of uncomfortably awkward character interactions. Then Simon Pegg kicked an old woman in the face, and I realized, "OH! IT'S A COMEDY!" It was a completely different movie from there on out, and this epiphany allowed me to enjoy the entire thing on a rewatch.

Expectations can radically affect the perceived quality of a thing. Viewed as a serious drama, Hot Fuzz is terrible. Viewed as a traditional Mega Man game, OH JOES! is a poorly designed disappointment. In lieu of overhauling the game to address the broadest complaints, I resolved to set clear expectations on the download page and wherever else I advertised the game.

There's plenty more I could write about the playtesting process, but I'd like to conclude by showing you the process. Culled, with permission, from over 19 hours of footage, I present to you a tiny sample OH JOES! playtesting from March 2017 through April 2018. This casually edited video is by no means comprehensive, balanced, or polished; moreover, it's comprised of footage never intended for anyone's eyes and ears but mine. Still, I hope you find the video enlightening and entertaining.

Story navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

I don't play video games for the story. Story is a nice bit of seasoning you sprinkle on top to give the gameplay more flavor. I'm not opposed to story-heavy games (see: Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), but when it comes to Mega Man, all you really need is an excuse to go blow up robots.

I knew I wanted an intro cutscene for OH JOES!, and I knew I wanted to keep it short. With such a simple premise (Regular Joe steals Proto Man's shield; gameplay ensues), I could afford to devote most of the panels to developing a story that's essentially a tongue-in-cheek explanation of why I made the game in the first place.

Proto Man is always portrayed as a loner in the official Mega Man games, but even a loner needs a place to hang his helmet. I thought it might be interesting if, after rescuing Kalinka in Mega Man 4, Proto Man developed a rapport with the Cossack family. He might have run away from Dr. Light's lab, but maybe he received an open invitation to drop by Dr. Cossack's Siberian citadel anytime. This was a perfect way to get Kalinka involved in the story of OH JOES!, and I like how the situation itself implies some character development without me needing to devote any screen time to it. Sneaking in a little trivia about the origin of Sniper Joes was a bonus.

In his official appearances, Proto Man is typically casual, concise, and opinionated in his speech; and his moments of silence reflect that he's got more to say than he's letting on. Kalinka, on the other hand, has only a couple lines in one scene of one game—but you can still extrapolate that she's articulate, compassionate, and a little formal. Although OH JOES! isn't always 100% faithful to the source material (eg, fudging the color choices when the NES palette was too restrictive), I wanted to make sure the dialogue fit the established personalities of these characters.

If we assume that Proto Man has been hanging out with the Cossacks off and on for the last several years, it's plausible that Kalinka has adopted Proto Man as sort of an older brother figure, and that Proto Man has grown comfortable being less reserved and aloof around her. Hopefully I captured their distinctive voices in the way the dialogue is written, because the actual content of the dialogue is basically just me having a discussion with myself. Proto Man's complaints are my complaints about the games I've played, and Kalinka's optimism is my optimism for the game you're about to play.

The last few panels hang a lantern on why Proto Man has this small, random assortment of weapons when the game begins; why the weapons aren't completely accurate to the original games; and why Break Man is a playable character. These aren't things that need to be explained, but they help set player expectations for the gameplay, and I always appreciate it when there's a story reason (however flimsy) for design decisions that have nothing to do with the story.

Of course, these are the panels as they appeared upon the game's release. The initial draft (and there were really only two drafts, initial and final) used more words to say less:

I do miss the throwaway joke about the closet full of Skeleton Joes (my wife had some fun "thought bubble" art planned for that), and I'm still amused at the thought of interrupting my own cutscene with the theft of the Proto Shield when things start getting longwinded. Like, "okay, you've had enough plot; go play the game now."

The intro cutscene was one of the first things I finished for the game, and I didn't need to do any other writing for over half a year. By early 2017, the game had expanded to four stages, the last of which contained a secret "break room" where the player could chat with a bunch of friendly Joes. I don't get to do it often, but I love writing NPC dialogue. Most of the break room text is purely for comedic purposes, but Apache Joe and especially Rider Joe break the fourth wall a little to explain why they aren't featured in the game.

Given the increased length of the game, I expected the player to see the game over screen at least a couple times. Influenced by both the randomized game over messages of Mega Man: Super Fighting Robot and the irreverent and occasionally informative death messages of Sierra adventure games, I began writing very helpful gameplay tips that would appear at random upon a game over.

The hints underwent numerous revisions as the level design evolved and as more gameplay options were introduced. When all was said and done, I had 74 distinct game over messages. That's pretty absurd when you consider the original screen count for this game was half that number.

However, the method of determining which game over message you receive is more complex than simply rolling a 74-sided digital die. This gets into programming territory, but the short version is that a number of variables control which game over messages you'll potentially see. In addition to pulling from a pool of general gameplay tips, the randomizer also considers which character and difficulty mode you've selected, which JOES letters you've collected, and where you died in the level.

Invisible to the player is a "global.COD" (cause of death) variable that changes every time you start or finish a gimmick path. There's a 1/14 chance that the message you get will specifically pertain to quicksand, magnets, or whatever gimmick was present in the section where you died. Generic sections with no gimmick offer some boring tips that really belong in an instruction manual; I should have been more judicious about cutting weak and superfluous tips. I did sneak in a couple hard-to-find messages—there's a global.COD variable specifically for the final boss, and there are special messages that you will only and always get by self-destructing or by holding your breath underwater too long as the secret character.

Writing good game over messages is hard. You've got to be sensitive to the fact that the player might be touchy or downright angry after dying (and I'm not convinced I entirely succeeded here). Any hints need to be genuinely useful, either by revealing something the player might not have realized or by reinforcing a core survival strategy. Any humor needs to soften the blow, encouraging the player to laugh about their failure instead of feeling like a failure. That's why most of the snarky game over messages don't show up until you've collected some of the JOES letters—by that point, you're probably far enough that you have a handle on the game's sense of humor and need a quick laugh more than you need a hint.

The space restrictions offered another layer of difficulty. I was able to fit six lines of text in the message box, but the number of characters per line varied because I wasn't using a fixed-width font. I had to scale back my usual verbosity and micromanage the exact wording of certain hints to fit the space. Moreover, I didn't have the programming knowledge to force automatic line breaks, so every line break had to be done by hand. The testing process for this was outrageously inefficient; I programmed a keyboard key to send me to the game over screen, randomly scrambling the variables that affect what messages might display, and I kept hitting the key to reload the screen until I saw the messages I wanted to check.

Keep in mind that the size of the message window changed once or twice during the development process, and that I kept adding and updating messages any time I wanted to work on the game but didn't feel like doing any of the harder tasks. I spent untold hours finessing these messages. When one of my playtesters suggested making it easier to tell when you were entering a new stage, I slapped together a transition screen showcasing some of the game over hints people were less likely to see—which meant completely redoing all the line breaks yet again, and testing them in the same inefficient manner. This was one of the most tedious parts of the development process...and then I decided to do it again in three other languages.

As the curator of what might be the most comprehensive list of Mega Man fangames on the Internet, I can tell you that the ratio of unilingual to multilingual fangames is at least 200 to 1. Language options are an extreme rarity. If you don't speak English, you're pretty much out of luck. You'll find a handful of games in Japanese, one or two games in Spanish or Chinese, and not much else. I know from personal experience that the Mega Man fan community is an international one, so I had every intention of making OH JOES! accessible to a broader audience.

I went to school to be a Spanish teacher, but I only briefly entertained the notion of doing a Spanish translation for OH JOES! myself. I'm out of practice, and my vocabulary is better suited to ordering lemonade and identifying color-coded farm animals than to advising players that they've been a real pantload. I'd have to do a lot of research and brushing up on grammar, and I'd want to run my translations by a native speaker no matter what. I was willing to put in the effort, but it made more sense from an efficiency and quality perspective to ask a native speaker to do the whole thing. Fortunately, I knew a guy.

Dan Castro and I were on staff together at GameCola for several years, and he had written some articles about video game localization and had done some localization/translation work himself. He was my first choice for translating OH JOES! into Spanish, and he kindly agreed to the project. Around the same time, I put out a call for translators on Discord and Sprites INC—any language you could speak, I'd try to add to the game. Garirry, one of the judges for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 2, volunteered to do a French translation. PKWeegee, another MaGMML community dweller, signed up for a German translation. I also received offers for Malay, Russian, and Latin, but nothing ultimately came of them.

Occasionally, a translator would ask me for some context to help them decide how to translate a line. My favorite instance of this was being asked what Scuba Joe meant by saying "Blub." Y'know...blub. It's a way of life. It's the noise you make when blowing bubbles underwater. What cracks me up is that, in French, this translates to "Bloup." I don't know why that's so funny to me, but I laugh every time I see it.

The translators were the very last people I recruited for the project, because I wanted to ensure the text was absolutely final before getting them involved. I felt it would be a waste of their time to translate anything that was still subject to change, and I didn't want to be That Guy who kept asking for revisions after the work was supposedly finished—and I especially didn't want anybody to bail before the project was over. Spanish notwithstanding, translation was the one aspect of the game I absolutely couldn't finish up myself. I had backup plans if all my programmers, composers, artists, and playtesters jumped ship, but I wasn't about to lean on Google Translate to fill in any gaps.

However, I did use Google Translate to check that the translations did indeed say what I thought they said. "Trust, but verify," as the saying goes. Between Google's translations of the translations, my understanding of Spanish, and my limited recollection of French and German from trips abroad, I got an interesting picture of what my game was like in different languages. Translation isn't a straightforward process; there's a lot of linguistic and cultural context to take into consideration, so literal translations don't always convey the right tone or meaning. As far as I can tell, the translators did a good job capturing the spirit of the text. With the Spanish translation, I was even able to appreciate specific word and phrase choices.

To keep things organized for myself and the translators, I dumped the entire game script and all the menu text into a Word document, organized everything into categories (identifying what was most and least essential to translate, if time/energy/interest became an issue), indicated any length restrictions, and numbered each line of text so I could quickly match up the translations with the original text. As it turns out, OH JOES! contains 8 single-spaced pages' worth of text. For comparison, the dialogue-heavy Mega Man 7 weighs in at only 3 pages. Maybe I'll write a visual novel next time.

My favorite part was matching up the randomized disclaimer text that appears when you start the game. I felt amusingly insulted to discover that the French translation of "DECOMPILE AT YOUR OWN RISK; MY CODE IS PROBABLY TERRIBLE" omitted the "PROBABLY" part. I laughed out loud at Google Translate's attempts to turn German into English, with such gems as "DECOMPILE WITH CAUTION; MY CODE IS FEARABLE," "IF YOU FIND ERRORS YOU ARE WRONG," and "IF YOU BELIEVE, PRESS 2."

Implementing the translations was tricky. There's a lot of programming involved in changing text from one language to another; it's not necessarily difficult programming, but you need to keep track of everything in the game that displays text, and you need to keep the code organized enough to not get confused when conditional or randomized text comes into play. In my case, I also had to keep track of image files with text as part of the picture. Despite knowing almost from the beginning that I might want to translate the game, I didn't bother making arrangements to accommodate translations until far too late. I knew this was a mistake; I would've saved a lot of time and effort by planning the game around language options from the get-go.

For the most part, I was able to keep revisions to a minimum. There were a few additional requests—for one thing, I had completely overlooked the need to translate "READY." For another thing, several playtesters expressed some confusion over what to do when they reached Dr. Cossack's lab, so I reworked his dialogue to be more direct and instructional. Unfortunately, this meant ditching two lines that I would've liked to have kept. One was the line about mushroom dumplings, pictured above; the other (which I guess I could have kept, but was too tired of programming at that point to deal with it) was in response to playing as Kalinka without having met the conditions for unlocking her: "Oh, Kalinka. I see you've been hacking your save file again. I thought we agreed you'd stop doing that."

I was originally planning on including a digital instruction manual with the game, but I wondered if it would be worth the time. Hardly anybody reads instruction manuals anymore, and anyone downloading OH JOES! probably already has a basic understanding of how to play Mega Man. On top of that, the translators already had a hefty workload, and I was concerned about what might happen if I needed to make revisions in the future and couldn't get all the translators back on board.

In retrospect, the better plan would have been to do an English-only initial release, incorporate feedback from the general public, and then translate the game once things were actually unlikely to change further. Still, I'm grateful to the translators for sticking with me, and I'm very impressed that the entire game was available in four different languages on release day. I'm very confident that's a first for a Mega Man fangame, and I've had at least a couple people express appreciation that the game is available in their language.

OK, so technically not the entire game got translated. A few items (eg, "CHARGE SFX") were deliberately left untranslated per the suggestion of one or more translators. Most notably (for me, at least), the alternate languages only have about a dozen randomized disclaimers, whereas English has...58. Coming up with disclaimers was pure fun, and my brain gravitated toward crafting more whenever I had an idle moment. I didn't think it was fair to keep foisting new disclaimers on the translators, and several of the phrases really only work in English (given that they're often nerdy quotes or riffs on warnings or product slogans in English). I told the translators they were welcome to provide their own silly disclaimers, but none did.

For posterity, and for people with better things to do than continually refreshing the startup screen until they see the message they're looking for, I leave you with the complete list of English disclaimers for OH JOES!:

1. FLASHMAN85'S WARDROBE BY WHEREVER THESE CLOTHES CAME FROM
2. DO NOT NIBBLE ON OH JOES! LEAVE OH JOES! AT ROOM TEMPERATURE
3. IF YOU FIND ANY GLITCHES, IT MEANS YOU'RE PLAYING WRONG
4. DECOMPILE AT YOUR OWN RISK; MY CODE IS PROBABLY TERRIBLE
5. OH JOES! STAYS CRUNCHY, EVEN IN MILK
6. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED; BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED
7. NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE
8. READING THIS TEXT WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY
9. OH JOES! IS SUITABLE FOR VEGETARIANS
10. DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY WHILE PLAYING OH JOES!
11. SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: DON'T DIE
12. THE MANAGEMENT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SHENANIGANS
13. MACHINE WASH COLD WITH LIKE COLORS; TUMBLE DRY LOW
14. PLEASE REPORT ANY UNFAIR CHALLENGES TO SOMEONE WHO CARES
15. JUST KIDDING; YOU'RE ACTUALLY ABOUT TO PLAY 'MAZE OF DEATH'
16. NOW LOADING PAIN AND SUFFERING
17. I HOPE YOU WIN
18. NINE OUT OF TEN DOCTORS AGREE: YOU'RE ABOUT TO PLAY OH JOES!
19. THIS SPACE FOR RENT
20. EXTRA LIVES ARE DONATED TO CHARITY AFTER EACH GAME
21. NO JOES WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS SENTENCE
22. FUN WILL NOW COMMENCE
23. SHOUTING 'SIZZLING CIRCUITS!' WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
24. OH JOES! IS NOT INTENDED FOR WOOZY WATER BUFFALOES
25. EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE PLAYING OH JOES!
26. OH JOES! HAS BEEN TESTED ON ANIMALS; THEY ENJOYED IT
27. IF YOU GET BORED DURING NORMAL GAMEPLAY, PRESS 2
28. BASED ON A TRUE STORY
29. NO PIZZA UNTIL YOU BEAT THE GAME
30. HAVE FUN, OR ELSE
31. OH JOES! IS MADE POSSIBLE BY PLAYERS LIKE YOU
32. IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF A WATER LANDING, OH JOES! CAN BE USED AS A FLOTATION DEVICE
33. MAY YOU NEVER FIND ROCKS IN YOUR SANDALS
34. OH JOES! IS THE CANONICAL LINK TO THE OH JOES! SERIES
35. EXCESSIVE ENJOYMENT MAY RESULT IN A SEQUEL
36. RETICULATING SPLINES
37. FREE HUGS; INQUIRE WITHIN
38. WHEN YOU FALL IN A BOTTOMLESS PIT, YOU DIE OF STARVATION
39. OH JOES! TASTES SO GOOD, CATS ASK FOR IT BY NAME
40. HOW APPROPRIATE. YOU FIGHT LIKE A COW.
41. OH JOES! IS FILMED IN FRONT OF A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE
42. I LIKE SHORTS; THEY'RE COMFY AND EASY TO WEAR
43. OH JOES! IS MANUFACTURED IN A FACILITY THAT PROCESSES PEANUTS
44. OH JOES! IS CLOSED DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS
45. YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME
46. PLEASE REMAIN SEATED UNTIL THE GAME COMES TO A COMPLETE STOP
47. ALSO AVAILABLE ON LASERDISC, BETAMAX, 8-TRACK, AND VINYL
48. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, IF APPLICABLE
49. IT IS PITCH BLACK; YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE EATEN BY A GRUE
50. OH JOES! IS NOT GONNA WRITE YOU A LOVE SONG
51. GETTING STUCK IN A WALL IS A SIGN OF GOOD LUCK
52. DOES ANYBODY EVEN READ THIS STUFF?
53. OH JOES! IS CONVENIENTLY LOCATED RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU
54. YOU ARE DRESSED APPROPRIATELY TO PLAY OH JOES!
55. EXTRA LIFE EVERY 6,000,050 POINTS
56. I HOPE YOU DIDN'T PAY FULL PRICE FOR THIS
57. SKIPPING THE INTRO CUTSCENE IS A FEDERAL CRIME
58. DON'T BLOW UP. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

Story navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

I'm by no means an artist, but I'd like to think I have some measure of artistic ability. I like to doodle from time to time, I know my way around MS Paint, and I'm pretty decent at modifying and adapting other people's pixel art. At the very least, I'm capable of arranging foreground and background tiles in a manner that's aesthetically tolerable.

Unlike music and programming, I knew for sure I could handle the graphics for OH JOES! on my own. Menu graphics? I could keep those pretty minimal and adapt things as needed from the official Mega Man games. Level graphics? I could mix and match from existing Mega Man tilesets. Object sprites? Almost everything was already in the game engine. Really, all I needed were a title screen logo and an intro cutscene. The former was certainly easy enough:

I can hear you snickering. This, of course, was only a placeholder...though I was seriously tempted for a while to clean it up a little and abandon any semblance of professionalism. OH JOES! was already going to be a ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek romp; why not embrace the absurdity? I eventually tried to design a more traditional logo, using one of the Mega Man arcade game fonts as a template, but nothing looked right. I held onto this logo for basically the entire first year of development.

It wasn't until a fateful Discord conversation that my haphazard MS Paint logo was formally discarded. Someone I knew passed along an image file of the complete English alphabet in the style of the 8-bit Rockman title screen logos. This person couldn't remember who on Discord gave it to them, but they assured me that I had permission to use the graphics in my game. That was good enough for me. The file originator has been duly credited at the end of OH JOES! as "SOMEONE ON DISCORD WHOSE NAME I NEVER GOT." Thank you, anonymous benefactor. Please don't sue.

With the right title font at my disposal, I started piecing together a logo in MS Paint, manually resizing each letter to create the "swoosh" effect we've all come to expect. I was pretty happy with how it turned out:

As far as I was concerned, this was a final product. Now I could turn my attention back to the level graphics, which I had been gradually working on. My policy is to have a general idea in mind of how I want a stage to look, but to use placeholder tiles until I'm confident the level design is unlikely to undergo any radical alterations. More time spent refining the gameplay in its purest form; less time wasted on redecorating rooms.

Although the engine I was using already had dozens of (more or less) complete tilesets from the NES Mega Man games, I wanted to incorporate graphics from Mega Man 9 and 10. Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 2 (which opened around the same time I was starting to think about this) offered tilesets of all the Robot Master stages from Mega Man 9. After a decent amount of sleuthing, however, I determined that the rest of Mega Man 9 and the entirety of Mega Man 10 were completely unaccounted for anywhere on the Internet. Thus began a side project that would benefit me and the whole fan community.

I launched a campaign to create tilesets for MM9/10, inviting other people to chip in if they felt like it. My plan was to rip tiles from the stages I wanted to use in my game, and then pick up any outstanding tilesets if I still had time, energy, and interest. This turned out to be a fun and satisfying little distraction; I got to use both my eye for detail and my penchant for organization, and I got a good amount of support from the community.

Within 24 hours, I'd produced three (more or less) complete tilesets, with graphics pulled from screenshot maps of the levels—the only things missing were animations for things like water tiles. A couple months later, with everyone's help, both games were almost done. I created my tilesets with flexibility in mind, adding transparencies instead of solid background colors wherever possible, and occasionally offering flipped or rotated tiles for things like spikes that only faced one particular direction in the actual level.

With as neat and tidy as my tilesets for MM9/10 were, you'd think my tilesets for OH JOES! would be pristine. You'd be wrong. The problem with mixing and matching from multiple tilesets is that you don't always know what tiles look good together until you've decorated the whole level...by which point it's a hassle to copy those individual tiles from their source tilesets, paste them and arrange them into a new tileset, and then redecorate the whole level using the new tileset. Consequently, the game's file size is larger than it should be because I am a lazy butt.

Stage 1, despite being only 13 screens long, uses two generic starfield backgrounds and (occasionally modified) tiles from Bomb Man, Knight Man, Plant Man, Star Man, Stone Man, Toad Man, Tomahawk Man, MM3 Wily 4, MM4 Cossack 1, MM4 Wily 2, and MM6 Wily 2. I eventually made an effort to consolidate, but I still ended up with seven different tilesets, 90% of which are tiles I never once considered using. The closest I have to a "main" tileset for Stage 1 is the Bomb Man tileset, with other tiles copy/pasted over the tiles I knew I didn't want to use. Even here, I ended up with a few tiles I didn't use.

I learned my lesson for Stage 3 (which I inexplicably began tiling before Stage 2). I picked just one tileset (in this case, the opening cutscene of MM2) and pasted in whatever additional tiles I thought I might use. I envisioned something like MM3 Wily 1 (visually, my all-time favorite fortress stage), but with a nighttime cityscape for the outdoor portions, a different color palette, and accents from other tilesets to keep it from feeling like a lazy ripoff. The first iteration of the tileset looked like this...

...but I quickly realized that, as much as I love gray and silver, the level was going to need more color. I devised an easy fix for the monochromatic blues: color-code the different gimmick paths. This helped inform the aesthetics for Stage 2, because I just used the generic techno-block graphics from MM2's middle Wily stages and repainted them to match whatever colors Stage 3 used for each gimmick. Pasting new tiles over the ones I wasn't going to use, I came up with this:

I had been looking forward to using more unconventional colors and color combinations in my game. Much to my eternal sadness, the level quickly went from too dull to too bright. Moreover, I determined that the cityscape background was never going to work in a vertically oriented level; it'd look awfully suspicious to see the same ground level at multiple elevations. Grudgingly, I adapted some background tiles from Blade Man's stage and filled in everything after the first two screens with unassuming bricks. I fully intended to throw in a few miscellaneous details to liven up the backgrounds—maybe snaking pipes or gaping holes or wall fixtures of some sort—but nothing ever looked quite right. I tried to compensate by adding accent blocks to the foreground instead. Ultimately, my Stage 3 tileset looked like this:

This proved to be incredibly difficult to work with. Bear in mind that I'm colorblind—at a glance, I can't always tell which tiles are supposed to go together. I frequently found myself making small adjustments to the level architecture, only to have my playtesters report a random purple block in the midst of a blue area, or two different shades of background tile for no good reason. When I got around to decorating Stage 2, I made sure to start with a blank tileset and then paste in only the tiles I wanted to use, arranged in a way where there would be no color confusion.

This one's a lot cleaner, but you can probably tell by the placement of certain tiles that I changed my mind a couple times about how the background should look. After settling on the subdued brick background for Stage 3, I abandoned the subdued  circuitry background for Stage 2 and started gathering tiles that were subtle but varied. One particular element of subtlety was how I would telegraph the length of the stage: at the first checkpoint, there are six red circles in the background; at the next checkpoint, there are five; at the next, four; and so on. I'm fairly certain no one has ever noticed this, let alone found it useful.

As a side note, the "screen" tile used for the pass-through "fake block" gimmick was only supposed to be a placeholder. However, by the time I got around to applying real graphics, I couldn't imagine the blocks looking any other way. They were distinctive (I never wanted the player to guess whether or not a block was solid), and I found them visually appealing both alone and as part of a group. Something similar happened with the Chill Man ice blocks—they were meant to shatter into shards like they do in MM10, but I left in the placeholder explosion animation so long that I eventually couldn't imagine them any other way. I like to pretend they're made of some frozen volatile liquid instead of water.

In order to streamline the tiling process, I decided that each stage's graphics should be governed by a set of rules. There were all the general ones, taught to me by the official Mega Man games: background tiles should always have a shadow on top when placed below a ceiling or platform; bottomless pits should be clearly marked by the background fading to black, etc. Then there were the rules I concocted to prevent me from spending more time than necessary analyzing the aesthetic merits of every single tile combination.

For example: When used specifically as the featured gimmick, ladders were represented with a traditional "hole between the rungs" ladder tile; when used in any other capacity (ie, just to get the player from one screen to the next), they were represented with the charmingly chunky MM1-style ladder tile. In Stage 1, the underground rock tiles had to be contained by pipes and pillars; the player was never allowed to come directly in contact with the rocks. In Stage 2, the foreground tiles had to follow the same repeating pattern across every screen, with every passageway looking like it had been carved out of that pattern. In Stage 3, wall bricks were never allowed to be floor tiles; horizontal pipes had to be used instead, endcapped by blocks that followed their own set of rules, and those pipes generally had to continue extending horizontally until they reached the end of the wall or platform. Obsessive? Yes. But also immensely helpful.

Rules were especially beneficial by the time I got to Stage 4, which effectively utilized five completely different tilesets—one for each set of gimmick paths, and one for the connecting hub areas. I had been somewhat conservative in tiling Stage 2 and Stage 3, trying to keep the focus on the increasingly complex gameplay and not distract too much with the graphics. Now, a little tired of playing it safe (and armed with all the newly ripped tilesets from MM9-10), I pulled out all the stops and put my artistic mettle to the test.

Bold color combinations. Intricate designs. Unnecessary attention to detail, like making sure to use a specific type of square tile behind every Sheep Man block, making it feel like the blocks take out a chunk of the wall when they disappear. It took a great deal of time and effort to decorate this massive stage, but I was very satisfied with the results. I even think the tileset, though not perfect, turned out pretty darn well:

I'm especially pleased with the sunrise effect used in the boss chamber at the end of the game. For one thing, it completes the time-lapse effect I was going for—Regular Joe steals your shield when it's just getting dark, and you're chasing him through the night (seen at the start of Stage 3, which also shows the Bomb Man ball-on-stick buildings from Stage 1 in the distance), finally catching up with him just as the sun rises on a brand new, brighter day. For another thing, the sunrise kinda makes the background look like a Sniper Joe eye, which is the best backdrop for a Joe boss I could've hoped for.

Easily the easiest stage to tile was Dr. Cossack's lab (unofficially, Stage 5). For posterity, here's the tileset for that one—note that the wrench icon was adapted from Mega Man & Bass, my first attempt at converting 16-bit graphics into 8-bit:

It took me 3 months to tile the 300+ screens that comprised the main gameplay. With one major graphical project out of the way, of course I decided to start another one. After successfully adding Break Man as a second playable character, I felt confident about adding an unlockable third character—one who would require custom sprites. I'd been making various graphical modifications throughout the entire development process, from updating Proto Man's sprite to reflect that his Proto Shield was missing, to giving Regular Joe his ridiculous walking animation cycle, to integrating the dome-shaped Quick Laser emitters (which were just random wall decorations from MM10) into existing wall tiles. I was ready for this.

It's always fun to see people's reactions to the secret character (whose identity I will be spoiling momentarily), because it's never whom they expect. For me, it was always obvious. I already had a character involved in the story who (a) deserved more air time, (b) would add some welcome diversity to a franchise dominated by male protagonists, and (c) was perfect "secret character" material. I was inspired by Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, which becomes a completely different game when you unlock Maria, an absurdly powerful little girl who throws cats at her enemies. I thought Kalinka Cossack would follow nicely in Maria's footsteps. Especially if she wielded an oversized bazooka that fired cats.

Although OH JOES! takes place far enough in the Mega Man timeline that Kalinka is a teenager or even a young adult, I wanted to use her classic, younger MM4 look because I like the outfit and think it looks properly absurd when paired with a bazooka. Besides, nothing says her appearance or fashion sense had to change dramatically in the last decade or so.

From scratch, I drew something resembling a bazooka. I consulted reference photos of real-life bazookas, but I ended up going in more of a Worms: Armageddon direction. The only canonical Kalinka sprites I had to work with were two frames of animation from MM4, so I figured out how the bazooka should look in any given pose and then worked Kalinka's sprites around the bazooka. The trickiest part was creating the climbing sprite; I wanted the bazooka to be slung over her shoulder, but I was rubbish at redrawing the bazooka at a 45-degree angle. I may or may not have pasted the horizontal bazooka image into PowerPoint and rotated it to see how it should look. I'm not an artist, but darned if I'm not a problem-solver.

There are very few Mega Man games (official or otherwise) where you get to play as a human instead of a robot. I don't ask for a lot of realism in my Mega Man games, but one thing that's always bothered me is how human characters explode when they run out of health. I refused to let Kalinka explode like Proto Man and Break Man did—that'd just be lazy—so I made sure to give her a unique failure animation that made sense for a human, but without disrupting the lighthearted, family-friendly tone of the game. Hopefully, googly eyeballs and tiny cartoon birds circling overhead did the trick.

The last piece of the graphical puzzle to fall into place was the intro cutscene. Originally, my wife (who's the one with actual artistic talent in this relationship) agreed to do the art; she has a history of sneaking Mega Man–themed doodles into my lunchbox while I'm getting ready for work in the morning, and the cutscene was basically going to be a series of polished doodles. There were two major hurdles: one, she'd never done pixel art before; two, the screen dimensions with which she had to work (256 x 224 pixels, minus space for the dialogue text) imposed a difficult constraint. The project went on the backburner for a while, and when I started pushing to get the game released in early 2018, she was willing to pass the baton to someone with pixel art experience.

Fortunately, I already had volunteers. MJacquelinae, a fellow contestant in Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 2, had previously reached out to see if I needed any help with the graphics for my game. I took her up on the offer and commissioned the mugshot of Kalinka used on the character select screen. When the intro cutscene went up for grabs, I asked if she'd be interested in tackling that as well. She sent me a rough panel sample that looked promising, but it turned out that her schedule and my timetable for release didn't match up.

I had another offer on the table, this one from a longtime fan of both my YouTube videos and my writing. Based on his art samples and his taste in entertainment, I could tell he knew a thing or two about quality. I asked for one panel as a test run, a generic scene of Proto Man talking with Kalinka. Before the day was over, he sent me this:

I was floored. This was exactly what I was looking for, and I had barely provided any direction. I showed the sample to my wife, and she was jealous of his artistic chops. I officially invited him to join the project, gave him the same copyright spiel I gave my composers, asked him how he'd like to be identified in the credits (he eventually settled on "Phusion"), and outlined what I wanted the cutscene to look like:

From there, we went back and forth—concept sketch, feedback, line art, feedback, full-color pixel art, feedback, updated pixel art. Throughout the process, I paid close attention to the logistics of the scene, making sure that the relative positions of Proto Man, Kalinka, the hanging Proto Shield, and the doorway were always sensible and consistent. Body language was paramount; not only did I want the characters' poses and facial expressions to convey their personalities and fit the tone of the dialogue, but I also wanted to make absolutely certain that Proto Man and Kalinka never looked like they might be flirting.

The whole process went extremely smoothly, and I think it helped that we were constantly communicating and collaborating. Phusion ended up doing much more than the intro cutscene; for starters, he updated the title screen:

After providing feedback on the new logo colors, I commented, "The only thing I might do is flip and rotate it so that the shield is facing upward. Right now the shield looks almost like it's weeping tragically about having been stolen, but I'd like to see it optimistically waiting to be recovered." This is the kind of direction I give people.

Phusion also provided a new Game Over screen to replace the "boring text box" motif I had going. I had to make some programming adjustments to accommodate a static image where there was previously an interactive menu, but I think it was worth it. He turned my months-old concept art, doodled on a tiny notepad...

...into something shockingly close to what I had been picturing in my head:

It's worth mentioning that Phusion was the second person to try adapting my scribbles into actual art. GavinDragon (who also provided cover art for the instruction manual I never ended up making) had previously taken a crack at it. I can't tell you how honored I am to have had anyone freely volunteer their talents for this game, let alone multiple people.

Phusion continued to tweak and tidy the Game Over art as we discussed changes—most notably, Regular Joe's fist. Again, I was looking closely at body language. As I described it, "Even though the player just got a Game Over and has shamed their family for generations, I think I'd like to have Regular Joe with a slightly less aggressive pose. Maybe an open palm, which could be read either as a shrug ('Eh, you didn't make it, oh well') or an invitation to try again. Alternately, a Sonic the Hedgehog-esque pointer finger ('Tsk, tsk. Shame on you.')—though I'm not as sold on that one." You wouldn't believe how much effort it took for us to settle on a suitable gesture. Well, maybe you would.

My favorite piece of art almost didn't make it into the game. Very late in the development process, Phusion surprised me with an old-timey photo of Proto Man and Kalinka, intended for use as a "thanks for playing" tag after the end credits. However, unbeknownst to him, the credits flowed directly into more gameplay. I couldn't come up with a decent way to add the photo without it feeling contrived, and it was too late to redo the whole ending. Thus, this super awesome picture that deserves more visibility was relegated to being a postgame Easter egg for the approximately zero people who close the game via the "QUIT" option on the title screen.

Level design may have been the most fun part of designing OH JOES!, but the graphics were the most satisfying. It's hard to put into words, but there's something deeply gratifying about nurturing a bunch of bland placeholder images into honest-to-goodness art, especially when I've got top-notch help.

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OH JOES! started off as a one-man project, so I had every intention of composing my own music for it. I used to fiddle around with music composition software in high school, I've been singing in choirs since middle school, and I'm more of a music fan than I typically let on in my writing and videos. I was fully confident in my ability to come up with two or three half-decent melodies and harmonies. But, as was the case with programming, the biggest hurdle was learning how to translate my ideas into something more tangible.

A mere 2 weeks after pitching my game idea to Blyka and SnoruntPyro, I got to work on the music. Again, as was the case with programming, I wanted to get all the difficult stuff with the highest learning curve out of the way first. I knew I wanted a traditional NES sound, so I downloaded a popular program called FamiTracker and began to teach myself how to use it. During the day, I composed music in my head, occasionally using the voice recorder feature of my phone to capture myself humming a melody I was afraid I'd forget. During the evening, I figured out how to put those tunes into FamiTracker.

Over the course of a week, I hammered out a title theme and three different stage themes. I definitely don't remember having plans for more than one stage at that point (I hadn't even started the level design), so either my memory is faulty or—more likely—the completionist in me felt compelled to compose a Stage 1 and Stage 2 after titling my first composition "Stage 3."

However, my compositions didn't sound much like Mega Man...or anything else on the NES, for that matter. I was happy with the note progression and overall feel of each track, but something major was lacking. Everything sounded a bit hollow, and the instrument set I was using did the music no favors. Even after tracking down some FamiTracker files with instruments supposedly emulating the ones used in a few official Mega Man games, I couldn't get the authentic sound I wanted.

For posterity, here's a sample of what might have been—Stage 1 is incomplete (probably for the best), Stage 2 is a medley of fortress themes from the official Mega Man games (also incomplete; pretend you can hear the beginning portion of Mega Man 2's first Wily stage during the longer notes in the Mega Man 9 section), and Stage 3 is pretty much the best I could ever hope to achieve on my own in FamiTracker:

Regardless of how these stack up as a first effort, I think we can all agree that I have no future in composing Mega Man soundtracks. This was supposed to be a tiny little project, not my gateway into the wide world of chiptune composition, and I didn't want to recycle existing music from someone else's game ("Stage 2" notwithstanding, as it fit with the game's theme of mashing up familiar things in an unfamiliar way). Not long after composing these tunes, I got a taste of what my game might sound like without outside assistance when I livestreamed a bit of Mega Man: Calamixian Edition. I tabled the music for a while to focus on programming and level design. I knew I would eventually need to ask an Actually Competent Composer for help, but I was reluctant to do so.

Getting a little programming guidance was one thing, but formally recruiting a composer was another thing entirely. I've had numerous bad experiences with collaboration over the years, stretching back at least as far as high school. People have a tendency to disappear on me without explanation. Heated debates and irreconcilable disagreements have soured whole projects for me. I was wary of letting other people into the project—also because it would be one step closer to having a team of developers, and I explicitly did not want the game to get big enough to require a team.

By September 2016, I was far enough along with the level design and had warmed up enough to the idea of collaboration to reach out to CosmicGem and Jasper Valentine, two chiptune composers. I didn't know either of them particularly well, but I had been impressed with Cosmic's Cut Man remix, and I liked Jasper's work for Mega Man Eternal II and was a big fan of his spin on the Air Man theme from Mega Man II for Game Boy. They were amenable to the idea of composing a few tunes for my game, and we began coordinating the details on Discord in a group chat.

Although this was a casual, volunteer project, I felt it was important to request and document the composers' agreement to the terms and conditions I laid out—essentially, they'd keep the rights to their music, and I'd have permission to use and redistribute the music as I saw fit, provided I wasn't making a profit off it. In both my personal and professional life, I've seen how much of a hassle copyrights and permissions can be when left vague; I wanted to ensure things were clear from the start.

Here's a sample of the musical guidance I gave my composers:

Because I was still designing a glorified Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest level at this point, I was planning to start with the exact same credits sequence, with Mega Man 10 music and the words "MAKE A GOOD MEGA MAN LEVEL CONTEST" scrolling through a starfield, followed by "CANNIBALIZED FOR PARTS TO MAKE OH JOES! (A PROTO MAN ADVENTURE)" and all the silliness that ended up in the actual release. I had forgotten about the aforementioned game over screen idea until writing this post; I honestly don't remember when or why that changed, but now I'm a little sad it didn't get used.

Given their specific styles and strengths, I knew I wanted Jasper to compose the stage theme, and I knew I wanted Cosmic to jazz up the title theme I had composed previously. However, instead of assigning the other tracks in a similar fashion, I left them up for grabs. Cosmic claimed all of them, and within 24 hours I had perfect intro cutscene music, title screen music that no longer sounded hollow, and game over music that conveyed the vibe I wanted. Over the next few weeks, the main stage theme took shape, and even the rough drafts sounded great. I provided some feedback along the way, but I didn't want to steer the creative process too hard; as long as everything fit the overall sound I had in mind, I was usually content to let the composers take the lead.

Things got messy when the game started to grow beyond its original scope, and that's largely my fault. Suddenly I needed an intro stage, and maybe boss music, and now maybe yet another stage, and hey wait let's add one more stage. Composer MiniMacro had previously volunteered to contribute to the soundtrack, and toward the end of November, I took him up on the offer. Jasper and Cosmic had been getting progressively busier, and I was pushing to get the game released soon. Though I failed to explain this clearly to the group, I also had grown to like the "collaborative" feel we had going, and I wanted to use the larger soundtrack as an excuse to get more people's names in the credits of a fangame. Poor communication coupled with my overly optimistic timetable for the game's release led to some confusion about what was actually happening.

Things ultimately got sorted out, and the soundtrack continued to develop in fits and spurts for the next several months. A full year after work began on the soundtrack (not counting my preliminary efforts), all that remained were the credits music (which had been on hold until I finally designed the credits sequence) and an alternative for the current Stage 3 music (Cosmic's updated version of Jasper's Stage 2 theme, which worked when it was still the last stage of the game but didn't work as well as the transition from Stage 2 to Stage 4). I reached out to RushJet1, whose work I had casually followed for some time, and who had previously gotten in contact with me to share his Mega Man 4 soundtrack cover after watching some of my Mega Man videos on YouTube. I thought his style would be a great fit for the soundtrack, and he agreed to contribute.

Here's a sample of the guidance I provided:

For comparison, here's the rough credits melody I provided...

...and here's what it sounds like in the hands of an Actually Competent Composer:

Reaching out to other people for help was the right call, and I'm incredibly happy with how the soundtrack turned out. The music gives the game the kind of character that I never could have achieved with graphics and gameplay alone. After months—and in a few cases, years—of hearing these tunes over and over throughout the testing process, I still find myself fondly humming them from time to time. If that's not a testament to the talent of these composers, I don't know what is.

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I love to build and create. LEGO toys were among my absolute favorites growing up, and I spent large chunks of elementary and middle school drawing towns, dungeons, and overworlds for video games I wanted to make. I've poured countless joyful hours into developing my perpetually in-progress ROM hack of Super Mario World, multiplayer maps for Heroes of Might and Magic III and Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, and levels for basically every game that's ever given me a level editor. It should come as no surprise, then, that level design was easily my favorite part of working on OH JOES!.

I didn't set out to make a proper fangame—in fact, if you had told me the game would require extensive programming and 35 other people to finish, I would've laughed and dropped the idea on the spot. I was looking forward to a project that was 80% level design and graphics, 20% whatever else was necessary to make it a standalone download. All I wanted was another opportunity to make a Mega Man level, and I was willing to branch out and try my hand at a few new skills to make it happen.

In the short time that I had been designing Mega Man levels, I had learned some important lessons. In lieu of the "Lessons in Level Design" blog post I started a year ago but never finished writing, here are my key takeaways from Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest (MaGMML) and Mega Man Endless:

• Learning curve is always important, even if expert players are your target audience.
• Get other people to playtest your level, because you cannot accurately judge difficulty or fairness when you know more about the level at the beginning than players will know at the end.
• There's a line between variety and excess; keep the enemy and hazard selection focused.
• Keep an eye on level length, both in terms of screen count and completion time.
• Ideally, levels should be beatable without taking damage, using only the default weapon.
• Use instant death sparingly and deliberately.
• Anything players can do, they will do, no matter how inane or counter-intuitive it is.
• Setting player expectations is critical, especially in a nonstandard Mega Man level, because players otherwise make (usually false) assumptions based on their own unique gaming experiences.
• Consider the player's likely emotional state at various points in the level—fatigue, panic, and complacency can change the dynamic of the challenges.

In addition to these points, I worked out some core guidelines specifically for OH JOES!—a checklist, if you will, for every challenge in the game:

1. Give the player ample time and guidance to understand the nature of each challenge before being threatened with bodily harm, introducing new enemies and gimmicks in a (reasonably) safe environment.
2. Aside from basic platforming mishaps, injury and death should only occur as a direct or indirect result of a Joe. Challenges surrounding power-ups bend this rule a bit, because you wouldn't subject yourself to extra danger if you didn't need power-ups to keep fighting Joes.
3. Through special weapons, careful observation, damage boosting, power-ups, Game Over hints, and a reasonable amount of practice, any player of any skill level should be able to beat the game.

With all these suggestions and rules swirling around in my head, I got to work on the level design. The ideas I had in mind for creative Joe use relied on the player being familiar with the Joes' attack patterns, so an intro section devoid of gimmicks was essential. This was good practice for me as a level designer, too; when you've got the ability to create anything your imagination (and limited programming skill) can come up with, it's easy to forget the importance of starting with "boring" challenges as a warmup for the player.

The first few screens of the game draw inspiration from the official Mega Man games, at least in terms of Joe placement. Just like in Bomb Man's stage, your first encounter with a Sniper Joe is out in the open with nowhere to hide, and your second encounter is on a ledge (though this time it's more feasible to hop up on the ledge if you prefer face-to-face combat). Although I would normally never kick off a level using something as complicated as a Sniper Joe—let alone with no safe place to observe the enemy's behavior—I wanted to emulate the experience of playing through the official games and encountering these enemies for the first time.

Next was the obligatory Returning Sniper Joe at the top of a boring ladder (I had to do that at least once), followed by one atop a short ledge, as in Quick Man's stage. Except this time, you could charge your default weapon and take out the Joe without ever moving into the line of fire. As often as possible, I wanted to give players the option to avoid engaging Joes in normal combat—but if they did have to fight, I wanted the environment to interfere with the usual formula of "hang back at a safe distance and trade shots at roughly the same rate."

Part of thinking strategically is remembering and understanding everything you have at your disposal. To enter the room with Hammer Joes, whose projectiles can often be avoided by sliding under them, I force the player to slide through a narrow passageway. The first Joe is up on a high ledge reminiscent of the one in Hard Man's stage; though in OH JOES! it's definitely possible to jump up to the ledge unassisted, it's enough of a stretch that some players might investigate whether they have any support utilities (which they do). The second Joe fulfills the "Joe blocking a boring hallway" obligation, but the encounter gives the player a chance to practice avoiding projectiles while falling, with enough room to either slide under the Joe's projectiles or hang back and jump over them. Freedom of choice is a core component of the Mega Man franchise, and I wanted to incorporate that into the challenge design as often as possible.

This is the level of thought I put into each and every one of the game's 300+ screens. Once gimmicks entered the mix, I started thinking about situations I hadn't seen before in other Mega Man games, and the game took on a "sampler platter" approach to level design. Each screen was a self-contained example of how Joes could be used in more interesting and creative ways than usual. At the time, I wasn't planning on adding more stages or combining gimmicks, so I tended to ramp up the challenge complexity pretty quickly—four or five screens was all I thought you were going to get with these gimmicks.

To maintain the element of player choice, I employed split paths—a hub room would introduce two new gimmicks in a safe environment, and then the player could pick whichever gimmick they preferred. The options I offered were never arbitrary; by the end of the game, I wanted players to have survived challenges based around forced movement (magnet vs quicksand), ubiquitous gimmicks people take for granted (ladder vs water), gimmicks that everyone hates (Guts lifts vs Quick lasers), destructible blocks (Dust blocks vs Chill blocks), and...uh...cone-shaped things (needles vs springs). OK, so that last one was a stretch, but I was running out of gimmicks in the MaGMML devkit that (a) had potentially interesting interactions with Joes, and (b) weren't too glitchy to use reliably.

That's why the puzzle-oriented challenge choice (Sheep blocks vs Yoku blocks) eventually changed to Sheep blocks vs fake blocks. Yoku blocks ended up being too much of a liability to keep, but I didn't have any good alternatives in the devkit (and I wasn't about to program another gimmick, given how much effort the Sheep blocks and Chill blocks were). Desperate, I turned to Mega Man 5 for inspiration: by simply adding a tile layer in front of the player, I could recreate the pass-through blocks seen briefly in Napalm Man's stage (and in one of the fortress stages). It was a lazy solution, but it offered some interesting Joe interactions and fit the puzzle mandate well enough.

By the time the game had expanded into three stages, I had an unusual problem on my hands: my emphasis on split paths potentially put the player at a disadvantage. If first-time players made it through the second stage without dying, or at least without trying out any given alternate path after being sent back to a checkpoint, they'd enter the third stage having only seen 50% of the gimmicks about to be thrown at them. I wanted to start combining gimmicks, still giving players the option to choose between one pair of gimmicks over another pair, but I had to ensure that players had a proper warmup no matter how much or how little they saw in the previous stage.

I wrote a list of all the gimmicks in the game, and then I started mentally smashing them together. Most importantly, each choice of paths needed to offer players at least one gimmick they had definitely seen before. For example, a choice between "magnets + needles" or "Chill blocks + water" was out of the question, because it was entirely possible for players to have selected all the paths in Stage 2 that allowed them to avoid those gimmicks. My problem wasn't so much that these gimmicks hadn't been selected for their ability to work well together; it was that this restriction ruled out many of the combinations I actually wanted to use. Believe me, "Chill blocks + fake blocks" was not my first choice.

Even with at least one path featuring a familiar gimmick, I wanted to give players enough of a warmup that they could take a chance on a path that was totally new. This is how "three screens of one gimmick, three screens of the other, then three with both combined" became the formula for Stage 3. Any shorter, and the learning curve might be too accelerated; any longer, and the stage's screen count would fall too far outside normal parameters for a Mega Man game (usually 20-30 screens).

Of course, when I decided to add a fourth stage combining every gimmick with every other gimmick, all that careful planning went out the window. I still tried to give the player a choice between thematically similar options, but otherwise the design mentality was that (a) players should be pretty comfortable with most of the gimmicks by now, and (b) the abnormally high screen count would necessitate thinking strategically and using everything at one's disposal to survive—things I had tried to encourage from the very beginning.

It was exhausting to design a stage that was effectively 12 half-levels with connecting hubs. On the plus side, I was able to showcase a huge amount of variety in how Joes could be used, which was the whole point of this exercise. On the minus side, it's pretty clear that I was running out of ideas for a few of the combinations ("ladders + fake blocks" might as well just be "fake blocks"), and the nature of the stage made it incredibly hard to keep a steady difficulty curve. I can't tell you how many times I overhauled the Guts path so that it wasn't outrageously more difficult than the other paths at that juncture.

Level design is so much more than making interesting challenges. There's an art to crafting level architecture that's visually appealing as well as functional. Challenges don't exist in a vacuum; it's important to consider the context of what comes before and after. Assets don't always function as well as you want them to, and sometimes the only solution is to work around them rather than fix them. And perhaps most relevant for me, planning ahead—and sticking to the plan—is essential.