Vanilla Level Design Contest X - 1he First place entry...well d0ne to all.

[xfix]

117th: The Golden Bone Mine by Wii2

Koopster
DESIGN: 18/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 40/100

Golden bones don't look that good. Or at least they don't blend very well with the original cave palette. Quite unfocused level, feels like a collection of miscellaneous cave setups in a random order. It feels like it never gets harder or progresses, it just keeps throwing different stuff at the player. The secret exit doesn't really add to the level and it's hidden in a very lazy spot.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 30/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

Lacked any real gameplay ideas. However it was cute and inoffensive.

Noivern
DESIGN: 14/50
CREATIVITY: 8/30
AESTHETICS: 8/20
TOTAL SCORE: 30/100

It's okay, but nothing out of the ordinary. The secret exit is obscure and requiring the player to carry items across the sublevels is generally bad. Slow autoscroll is usually really boring, and this level is no exception. It's a decent effort, but you need way more than that if you want a good score.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 12/50
CREATIVITY: 7/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 32/100

There doesn't seem to be much thought put into this level. Enemies tend to be thrown around with not much purpose, and in a couple parts the enemy placements are purely detrimental to the experience (for example, the Swooper placement above the grey falling platform). The autoscroll in the latter half felt unpurposeful as well aside from making the level feel slower. The æsthetic is pretty much pure vanilla so there's not much to say there, though the bones are a really ugly color.

The secret exit should really have just been scrapped. There is no indication whatsoever that you can go over the wall in the intro segment, and it's especially unobvious considering the exit itself is in the main room. Secrets should be hidden but they shouldn't make the player have to check every single possible tile for hidden blocks (this applies on a slightly lesser scale to the third dragon coin as well).

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 25/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 6/20
TOTAL SCORE: 45/100

An OK cave level. Not super-exciting, but not all too shabby, either. It throws in some secrets and side-paths, and while the obstacles are a bit basic, it includes some variation without feeling incoherent. Visually, there's some weird cutoff, and I'm not entirely keen on the palette; were this the Normal Bone Mine, it might have actually worked a bit better, I suspect.

+ Some respectable if not death-defying spelunking.
- Could push more boundaries
- Could appeal less to the noveau-riche, æsthetically

Other: Do they mine golden bones here? Is it just a mine that happens to contain golden bones? Are the bones actually made of metal, or just discolored? So many unexplored mysteries.

116th: Covert Volcano by MonkeyShrapnel

Koopster
DESIGN: 18/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 36/100

Quite reminiscent of Vanilla Dome 3. Skull rafts are a hard gimmick to work with because they'll often make for boring and slow levels, and that is unfortunately the case here. Some challenges are nice but for the most part the level feels samey and uninteresting. Some bonuses are hidden badly (find a random invisible block), I even got kaizo trapped by the first one once. And the bonus rooms are completely disjointed from the level itself - a P-balloon ride and bubbles for the secret exit in a level about skull rafts? It's an interesting challenge, although most bubbles are really not dangerous and pointless, and again, it has no place in this level.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 32/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 58/100

It reminded me of a pseudo SMW-like vanilla dome, but it doesn't necessarily do things better than
the original vanilla dome. The bonus rooms feel out of place and so does the secret exit. The latter's
design is at least more thoughtful.

Noivern
DESIGN: 15/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 8/20
TOTAL SCORE: 37/100

A generic lava cave level that suddenly turns into an equally okay forest for the secret exit. All of the skull raft sections are boring and most of the swoopers can be avoided without moving. The hidden blocks are almost all *very* poorly placed, and I died a few times from it. I will admit that the secret exit gimmick was pretty good; you honestly should have made that the main gimmick and ditched the cave.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 16/50
CREATIVITY: 9/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 39/100

Starts off pretty standard fare, nothing to be too excited about but not too boring, but it very quickly gets repetitive. Playing through it I thought I had actually looped around at some point because it felt so similar to what was already played. I also think you could have expanded more with the skull rafts instead of just using existing ideas from SMW.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 16/50
CREATIVITY: 10/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 33/100

This sure was a lava cave! Honestly, though, it felt pretty similar in terms of flavor and setups to the lava caves in the original SMW, and doesn't do much to establish its own identity. This is compounded by the fact that second half of the level also doesn't really do very much to distinguish it from the first first half, and it feels as though the level drags on a bit longer than it needs to towards the end. One interesting surprise was the secret path, Which actually makes a somewhat interesting use of the P-balloon in conjunction with the Goomba and Bob-omb bubbles. It's sort of completely out of place visually and thematically in the level, but nevertheless, it's by far the most interesting part, so I didn't mind so much.

+ Secret exit actually sort of interesting.
- Rest of the level not that terribly interesting

Other: As covert volcanoes go, this one was surprisingly explicit.

115th: Movie Night by JerryEris

Koopster
DESIGN: 25/50
CREATIVITY: 21/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

This level has charm, I'll give you that. It doesn't look very good and the plot is kind of confusing, but I really like how you used "every plant has a home" to hide a secret, that was neat. The level doesn't have a central gimmick and the development of the design is lacking, but it is a quite decent, yet still very short romp.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 24/50
CREATIVITY: 17/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

Nevermind, I think I'll just sell my movie tickets to eBay.

Noivern
DESIGN: 22/50
CREATIVITY: 12/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 41/100

Though really basic and unpolished, it was still a somewhat fun level. The secret exit pipe was well hidden. The outside and cave sections featured a lot of cement block pipe hinges and corners cutting into the dirt with no attempts at fixing cutoff, and the movie theater aesthetic gimmick didn't add anything to the level.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 3/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 27/100

I would have liked to see the piranha plants used more creatively, since you decided to make them the focus of the level. As it stands, they don't add much, and if anything feel overused. Outside of that, it's a straightforward romp without much to say.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 13/50
CREATIVITY: 9/30
AESTHETICS: 6/20
TOTAL SCORE: 30/100

Feels a touch directionless and repetitive, especially in the ghost house section. The only real theme seemed to be Pirhana Plant spam, which only heightened the latter of the above-mentioned sensations. I thought the entrance to the secret path was perhaps a little too obscure (even with the hint, which initially feels like a weird joke about the Piranha profusion), certainly more so than the moon. Indeed, I was certain it must be over that staircase-like stack of boxes at the end of the ghost house section, and made a heroic effort to scale it with the help of the nearest Boo, only to find myself hurled into the abyss, my efforts in vain. Woe.

Æsthetically, it's straight-up SMW, aside from the background of the second area, which doesn't really look like a cinema so much as a giant window looking out at the sky. But I think maybe the joke is meant to be that Movie Night is literally a movie of the night sky (which looks considerably less engaging than the actual sky outside)? In any event, the cinematic angle feels a bit weird, tacked-on and tangential to the tangle of fish flowers that make up the only real coherent running theme of the levels content.

+ There's a night, and you move. You may or may not say "Eeee!"
- Somewhat wandering and repetitive
- Secret exit a bit obscure

Other: The punchline might have been funnier if the window had been playing Andy Warhol's Empire.

[Kilgamayan]

* There does not appear to be an scientific name for a group of ghosts (go figure science wouldn't care about ghosts). My immediate thought was "a haunt", though.

* All corporate-owned Blockbuster stores were closed by 2014, and its video streaming service was absorbed by the Dish Network in 2015. There were multiple privately-owned Blockbuster stores as recently as March 2019, though. (There is currently only the one remaining.)

Something I've been wondering for a while now that you discussed in today's video - what actually is the optimal range for locations for a secret exit branch? Or rather, is there a general consensus on such a range? And does it vary by how much effort is needed to deviate from the main path to get to it (assuming the level is at least somewhat linear)?

[Tyty]

Personally I'm of the opinion that, at least with regards to a contest where you enter a single level, secret exits don't really have a place. Often times people will either just slap them on the end, or use it as an excuse to enter multiple levels.

I think kinda the middle, towards the front half of the level, with the route being much shorter and being a twist on the main gimmick is where you'd want it regardless of context though. It should be clear somehow it's a secret exit (SMW -usually- used keys or hid them behind the main goal post, NSMB uses red flags). They should be hidden somehow, obviously, but I think hidden with a subtle clue is better than like, invisible vine block in the middle of the level. The third level in today's video actually had pretty good placement imo.

[10204307]

I think the most fun kinds of secret exits are ones that require the player to be clever and do something a bit unorthodox to find. A lot of the secret exits in the original game are like this, such as the one that requires you to fly underneath the goal.

[xfix]

113th: Sizzle-Rock Cliffs by Mr. Pixelator

Koopster
DESIGN: 17/50
CREATIVITY: 7/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 31/100

This is Koopas And Goombas the level, with a skull raft intermission. There's not a lot of thought on enemy placement and obstacles. Most enemies are just there, some aren't even a menace, and some are in the way in a much more finicky way than you'd expect from a good difficulty curve (like some of the chucks in the second half, and that one bat before the third dragon coin that is a guaranteed death unless you know you just have to duck...), making the level not that interesting at all to play. The secret exit is kinda Butts, it's very in your face and the sublevel has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the stage, and it uses the boo cloud which is almost a free point loss.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 16/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 38/100

No comment.

Noivern
DESIGN: 18/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 41/100

This is a level that did not need reset pipes. The first reset pipe shows that you know the player can easily despawn the skull raft in that section, and that whole section should have been redone to work around that instead of "patching" it with a reset pipe. The secret exit reset pipe is just dumb, and the item manipulation at the very end is wholly unnecessary. I don't like that taking the yellow pipes end up putting you farther back than you would think. This level is already short on time so this just feels like punishment. The platforming gets needlessly precise near the end. Standing on rafts is boring in this level, and the swooper by the third dragon coin is often a forced hit.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 13/50
CREATIVITY: 6/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 32/100

Mostly boring. There's nothing that stands out as being enjoyable; rather, the repetitive and sometimes mindless enemy placement is detrimental to the experience. It's probably a bad sign if your level starts almost immediately with an unpredictable green shell to the face. The lava section is also pretty monotonous, with hardly any challenge whatsoever aside from trying to stay on the 2-wide skull raft, which isn't fun to begin with. The æsthetics are pretty straightforward, though the fire palette is strange.

The secret exit is equally as boring, with essentially the same enemy structure again and again, but with the addition of the even more obnoxious Boo Buddy generator. Trying to maneuver the key, P-switch and springboard in that tight area with that generator is a real pain.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 37/50
CREATIVITY: 12/30
AESTHETICS: 15/20
TOTAL SCORE: 64/100

A pretty solid level on the whole. The enemy setups are a little on the playing-it-safe side, but they're competently executed enough that it doesn't feel boring. On the whole, the level looks quite good with the wooden structures fitting in seamlessly among the rock formations, and the thermal vents being a nice atmospheric touch (not too sure about the flame palette in the later parts, though...), and there's a decent sense of progression through the assorted environments. On the other hand, the time limit seems strangely stingy for a level of this length, and the near-final setup with the Chucks, kicking Koopa and flame fiesta seems like a weird difficulty spike vis-à-vis the rest of the level. The shocking reveal in the final area was so dopey it was hilarious.

+ Nice atmosphere
+ Decent sense of progression and competent if conservative sprite setups
- Stingy time limit
- Discordant final obstacle

Other: The moon broke my brain in a good way.

113th: Disco of the Dead by PichuVsLink (pikabread)

Koopster
DESIGN: 14/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 36/100

Hey, did you realise the upside down rails are tile 1F0? I don't think you tested your goal room thingy cause it doesn't work thanks to them, lol...
This level is super cramped and I think it knows that given how many powerups there are scattered everywhere. It's very short and doesn't do anything with the design or makes any creative use of the gimmicks. The layer 2 is just there, all it does is make you wait sometimes. Disco shell placement is samey and the pitchin' chucks are a really bad choice for tight spaces. Not a big fan of the looks either, but props for using the AUS song.
super ez/obvious/meh moon but the broken bonus game is funny

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 42/50
CREATIVITY: 21/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 76/100

There is some unpolished parts, but the design is rather solid. It progressed neatly even if the
disco didn't end up being that threatening. I particular liked the visuals in the cave, even if they looked
a bit janky.

Noivern
DESIGN: 8/50
CREATIVITY: 10/30
AESTHETICS: 9/20
TOTAL SCORE: 27/100

I really don't like pitchin chucks nor disco shells, so seeing them together in a cramped cave was certainly a treat. Knowledge of where the disco shells are in the first half is practically necessary to not get blindsided, and spinjumping to clear them isn't reliable due to the fact that they wobble on the ground. It seems you noticed this because there are powerups everywhere, which raise the question of why you didn't choose to work with a less inherently flawed gimmick.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 4/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 27/100

I feared this level the second I realized what the gimmick was. While the level is playable, the shell gimmick is completely tacked on, and is only frustrating rather than being well-integrated and fun. They don't complement the level in any way. Also, the colors in the second half are kind of hard on the head, a little bit.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 20/50
CREATIVITY: 10/30
AESTHETICS: 10/20
TOTAL SCORE: 40/100

Well, I admit, this was not the level theme I was expecting from the title. It doesn't really do anything all that interesting with the Disco Shells, though, and they're usually quite easy to thwart by respawning the pilots and tricking them in to jumping in to the previous iterations of themselves. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the token use of 1F0 in the exterior sections is meant to accomplish, either. The interior sections try to mix things up with the moving layer 2, but it seems to be mostly a half-hearted trap to crush people who are paying too much attention to the disco shells/Pitchin' Chucks rather than an essential element in the level. It's also sort of weird that the question blocks which are slightly more complicated to hit end up being the ones containing nothing of value. Not the worst level by any means, but there are certainly some curious design choices.

+ The cave looks sort of neat
+ Disco shells aren't used very annoyingly
- Disco shells aren't really used very creatively
- Do we really need more Pitchin' Chucks in this world?

Other: I guess the title is meant to suggest that a dance club in a dank cavern is unlikely to have a strong patronage...?

[Implo]

First level was interesting. Outside focused on look of volcano and jumps over lava and fire. Inside is more focused on skull rafts and has some interesting setups. The flaw of this level is it's not going beyond that. It needs more focus to do more creative stuff. But nonetheless it's still fun to play level.

What I disagree a lot is lolyoshi "No comment" comment. Is he trying to be politician? I know he made videos showing his playthrough, but there is really no need for this kind of comment for this kind of level. It should be reserved for the worst possible levels. And this level is far from it.

Second level is mediocre. I know it's trying to use disco shells, but their position is pretty basic. Later it adds Layer 2, but I don't think it's enough for this level to be interesting. At least it was more focused on 1 gimmick, I guess. I'm not a really big fan of this kind of graphic in cave system either. I prefer levels to be colorful. But that's just my personal taste.

As for video of this level, it was actually a very nice change. Instead of raocow being distracted by his speech and making a lot of silly mistakes, we have focused raocow. It's very interesting to see raocow's true abilities right from the very beginning of this level. Damn, I can't wait for 2nd silent level video. It's 19th place, so it will take few months for raocow to get there. I wish you could do more silent videos in the future, maybe for a very hard games.

[Ashan]

[Kilgamayan]

As for video of this level, it was actually a very nice change. Instead of raocow being distracted by his speech and making a lot of silly mistakes, we have focused raocow. It's very interesting to see raocow's true abilities right from the very beginning of this level. Damn, I can't wait for 2nd silent level video. It's 19th place, so it will take few months for raocow to get there. I wish you could do more silent videos in the future, maybe for a very hard games.

I am glad that sexual assault got you a video format you enjoyed.

[idol]

going onto talkhaus.com to say my favorite let's player raocow makes the best content when he doesn't speak. im not sure if that's more rude or tone deaf, but truly only a hero could say such a bold thing

[Ashan]

Haha did you guys see my fire penis image

[Grounder]

yes bobby hill we did

[Ashan]

[Implo]

I really like graphical style of Twistical Shinobi. Really liked this level even though it has some difficult parts. I remember when I tested this level, author forgot to put music into 2nd half. So I experienced awkward silence. Right now it's really loud music. But it's not author's fault, but person who submitted this music file into SMW Central.

[xfix]

112th: Twistical Shinobi by Blizzard Buffalo

Koopster
DESIGN: 17/50
CREATIVITY: 17/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 46/100

Suffers from a very inconsistent difficulty curve and some very obnoxious obstacles. It becomes very tight and enemy and projectile spammy very often, sometimes being very annoying to navigate. The secret exit is a quite pointless shell gamble, and that path that I need to take anyway for the fourth dragon coin is really boring and slow in comparison to the rest of the level (not to mention it has very little to do with anything else in it). It's a really solid attempt for a first level and I'm impressed, but make sure to keep gimmick consistency and a good difficulty in mind for your future levels.
Also I think the atmosphere is really cool, although the level doesn't look that great ultimately, sometimes even hinderingly.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 19/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 10/20
TOTAL SCORE: 40/100

Gameplay is too wonky to be enjoyable.

Noivern
DESIGN: 5/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 6/20
TOTAL SCORE: 25/100

The part in the first section with the alternating pitchin chucks almost made me stop playing. I don't see how dodging your way through what is effectively a bullet hell segment is good design. This level is filled with sprite spam to the point where I started using savestates because I didn't want to deal with it anymore. The outside palette is poor and the solid-on-top ledges blend in with the green decorations, and the background scrolling speeds should be swapped. Getting the coin is just inane waiting that demands that you time where a shell will be in advance when a p-switch timer runs out THREE TIMES and if you mess up you have to start over. This is simply not fun.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 14/50
CREATIVITY: 21/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 46/100

This is a cool idea that really could have been executed a lot better. The visuals for the entirety of the first half are a bit of an eyesore if only due to bad color choices; the tileset on its own is well-conceived, though the parts of the "bamboo" you can stand on aren't very easily distinguishable. I wish there was more of the visual style in the midpoint area, which is much nicer. Unfortunately, while there are some interesting design choices that are close to being enjoyable, most of what actually plays out is tedious or unfair. There are enemies hiding almost invisibly behind pillars, there are tight gaps with enemies or spikes that don't serve much purpose and are sometimes nearly impossible to clear without taking damage (example: chuck, tight space with spike ceiling, another chuck? seems a bit ridiculous), there are really weird jumps (see: double ninji on tiny slopes), and probably the most concerning is the combination of the lava lotuses and the Pitchin' Chucks. Small platforms and rapid projectiles coming from both sides at varying heights while also dealing with the lava lotus projectiles is really, really annoying--and it doesn't help that the retextured baseballs are already hard to see.

The secret exit was almost good, until the "puzzle"; that has to be one of the most obnoxious shell setups I've ever seen. Not only do you have to sit around and wait for the entirety of three P-switch presses, but if you mess up (which is very easy to do), you have to do it all over again--and that's not including the possibility of dying on the way back up to the midpoint area.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 26/50
CREATIVITY: 13/30
AESTHETICS: 15/20
TOTAL SCORE: 54/100

This starts out as a fun little romp, but quickly transforms into a sequence of repetitive jumps on to one tile platforms with Volcano Lotuses underneath them rendering them uninhabitable a good portion of the time, while simultaneously having to dodge shurikens pitched and chucked by Pitchin' Chucks. While things improve a bit after this, having to jump on to a platform during the brief pause in a Chuck's pitch parade then immediately make a lengthy leap of faith directly into his creepy face with hopefully -just- enough time before he begins his cannonade again, as does doing the One-Tile Rumba in Lotus City. Which is a shame, because when this level -isn't- going out of this way to abuse these two sprites, it can actually be pretty fun.

The secret exit is a bit questionable as well. On the one hand, it's notably easier than the normal exit. On the other hand, the mini-game to unlock it seems to be pretty much entirely based on random chance, with no particular strategy involved; you just sort of vary up when you hit the switches a little bit until things finally work out. It's not really that annoying, I guess, but it feels a touch...pointless...?

I've got to say, the level looks really nice, though. There's some truly brilliant tile repurposing here. The bamboo pipes with spider web leaves, the shrine...these all look great, and are apparently built without any sort of fancy tile manipulation! My only gripe is the scroll settings in the first section: the fixed layer 3 in front of a variably scrolling layer 2 background is enough to drive you cross-eyed (which is doubly a problem with all the projectiles flying around the screen.) Horizontal scroll = none Vertical scroll = none would have definitely been the way to go with this.

+ Really clever tile repurposing
+ Some good setups when not being seduced by the siren song of One-Tile Willy and Projectile-Spam Sam
- Scrolling in the first section is whooooooa, Nelly!
- Far too often seduced by the siren song of One-Tile Willy and Projectile-Spam Sam

Other: I think the moon is impossible to get...?

[Kilgamayan]

火 is the kanji for fire (hence why it appeared above a Lava Lotus).

[Kilgamayan]

OP updated btw since duder disappeared after video 4

[Grounder]

[Sinc-X]

1) Volume is very easy to change. It is absolutely the author's fault for not addressing that issue, as it implies it was not tested after being inserted.
2) That song is not even hosted on SMWC. It's a Japanese port from elsewhere. Thus the volume issue is even moreso down to the author's lack of proper judgement.
Even if they didn't know how to change volume, there are plenty of resources available where they could find that out or ask for help about it, so there's no excuse.

[raocow]

even if it wasn't something possible to fix... they still *chose* a piece of music that's twice as loud as everything else

[xfix]

Chances are, the level author did not care about music volume. I probably wouldn't either. None of judges did either in their comments.

Specifically, I don't think the problem was not knowing how to fix the issue, but rather not knowing that there was an issue to begin with.

[xfix]

111th: Dangerous Mission by JP32 (KDeee)

Koopster
DESIGN: 24/50
CREATIVITY: 17/30
AESTHETICS: 9/20
TOTAL SCORE: 50/100

Interesting concept but the execution was really dry. There's not much going for the main level in the first place - it's really short and not too eventful. It's neat to find a harder variation, but the main differences are the lack of a tide and munchers added all over the place. It's a decent experience, but I think this idea allows you to me much more creative than you were.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 32/50
CREATIVITY: 18/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 62/100

I liked the secret exit version more. Also getting the secret exit is dumb I don't like it
change it remove it REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Noivern
DESIGN: 12/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 35/100

Why is it that I only see pitchin chucks used in large groups? It's easily one of the worst SMW sprites. The concept of having a hard version of a level is okay, but the implementation was poor; towards the end of the level it became clear that you ran out of ideas because the design turns into chuck spam, so much so in the secret exit that sometimes baseballs fail to spawn! The secret could have used more time. I finished with less than 10 time left.

The jump over the fourth dragon coin was a difficulty spike, and in general hiding both secrets behind dragon coins is a poor idea. The combination of scrolling (that doesn't always work) + tides + porcuffer is just asking for trouble. Pipe lakitus and dolphins have clashing graphics; the bottom of the lakitu is a dolphin tail in LM so you couldn't possibly have missed it. Otherwise, the level looks good, the secret exit area especially so.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 9/50
CREATIVITY: 7/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 30/100

Mostly uninteresting and loaded with unnecessary projectile spam (mindlessly putting Baseball Chucks everywhere is not good level design!). It's a cluttered mess that's hardly a good time. Nothing much to say about the standard æsthetic, but the music is pretty unfitting.

Playing the same level but with more Chucks and a few other minor changes for the secret exit is also pretty lame.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 19/50
CREATIVITY: 10/30
AESTHETICS: 10/20
TOTAL SCORE: 39/100

A straightforward tide level complicated by the inclusion of a bunch of baseballmen cluttering the screen with their spheroid rubbish. Going overboard on the Pitchin' Chucks is generally a cheap way to add difficulty, and all it really does is force the player to stand around waiting for a safe opening. And indeed, that seems to be the intention here; the level itself is fairly short and the geography fairly straightforward, so the waiting effectively serves merely to act as a bit of artificial lengthening.

The idea of a harder, waterless version for the secret exit -is- sort of interesting (though it might be worth alerting the player to the fact that collecting all dragon coins alters the level), and it's interesting to see that the level geography works with the tide removed as well. Unfortunately, the secret path also seems to largely be baseball-based, only to a still greater degree, which means this section suffers the same issues as the main path while also feeling a bit redundant. Projectile spam, I fear, is never a good option for adding difficulty to a level.

+ Secret exit concept sort of interesting
+ Making dragon coins relevant isn't a bad thing
- Baseball spam can go eat a yam
- There's not much to the level if baseball spam is removed.

Other: Everything said, a nice surf rock track here does help calm the nerves after a busy day of dodging basespheres...

110th: Hack Metroid by ShyGuyExpress

Koopster
DESIGN: 23/50
CREATIVITY: 15/30
AESTHETICS: 15/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

ahahaha oh my God that's one wacky sun. This is a nice romp, I like how it tries to mimic the SMB3 desert levels. The pyramids are neat. It makes some wacky design choices here and there however, I'm not a fan of the piranhas after the midpoint, the clapping chucks near the end and the random bullet generator, some things like these that felt shoehorned into the level for lack of better ideas. Would be nice if you reused the sand blaargs or something, and kept some focus in the level other than the structures and the goombas/buzzy beetles. Also the last dragon coin is super awkward to get through the "intended method", and I'm not sure why the wall to its left breaks the color rules and is randomly passable.

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 23/50
CREATIVITY: 17/30
AESTHETICS: 10/20
TOTAL SCORE: 50/100

While the level's somewhat cute, it's not particularly compelling, and there is a real
issue with consistency.

Noivern
DESIGN: 20/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 6/20
TOTAL SCORE: 37/100

None of this makes any sense. Why is everything skulls? Why can't I get some of the dragon coins? What's with the thwomp sun? Like all good mysteries, this level provides more questions than answers.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 4/30
AESTHETICS: 10/20
TOTAL SCORE: 24/100

When you have to use a bullet bill generator as an excuse for difficulty, you've probably done something wrong. This level consists mostly of mindless platforming, with next to no proper challenge. The tiles all being similar in color makes it difficult to distinguish what is solid and what isn't, making a boring level into a slightly annoying one. The skulls are cute, though.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 26/50
CREATIVITY: 16/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

Kind of a weird level, both in terms of visuals and gameplay, and highly suggestive of Mario hallucinating while suffering from heatstroke. It's not exactly pretty to look at, but there -is- a certain creativity and coherency to the visual theme, and the weird, obese, shining Thwomp sun bores in to you mind in a bizarre way. Similarly, the level largely just relies on (Para-)Goombas and Buzzy Beetles for its foes, but they actually do work reasonably well with all of the multi-tiered constructions. And there's something of an exploration aspect if you're looking for the dragon coins, along with some minor puzzles involving which slabs are solid and which are not. On the other hand, the level feels a little unfocused, and tends to veer halfheartedly in several directions, unsure exactly where it wants to go, and doesn't necessarily reach any clear conclusions by the end. All in all, nothing groundbreaking an OK, slightly offbeat experience.

+ Has a moderate strangeness which gives it a certain memorable character.
- Could benefit from more focus and ambition in terms of gameplay concept.

Other: Is the implication that the skulls are actually Metroids? 'Cause the only eyes a Metorid has are nuclei.

108th: Ruins of Grassland by yoshi9429

Koopster
DESIGN: 22/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 48/100

It's not coherently designed... I suppose there are a few themes you were loyal to, but the setups don't follow any logical line of progression, difficulty nor complexity-wise. The gimmicks don't really get taken anywhere. There are a couple of annoyances in the level aside from that, such as the moles that blend too much with the colors of the castle and can end up ambushing the player (happened to me several times), and two disco sky ambushes in the second half. I also don't get the plot

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 19/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 41/100

There were some challenges, but none of them really connected to each other (wow it's just stuff
again).

Noivern
DESIGN: 32/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 57/100

There's some good progression here from outside to cave to castle, but I feel the level as a whole would have been better if the story message blocks weren't there. The story it told was better conveyed through the level and its progression of settings, and implied a boss fight at the end which wasn't there. The dull nearly black palette was done on purpose, but it could have been given more contrast or something because it was entirely unappealing. Disco shells were used exclusively to ambush the player, which is a big negative. Not a whole lot to say, really. Embedded blocks are a meme.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 26/50
CREATIVITY: 12/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 52/100

Not bad. It's an enjoyable level overall, though there are some questionable enemy placements, saws in particular, that make it a bit more annoying than maybe it should be. The second half is better than the first by quite a bit, with more intuitive design as a whole. The spring carry wasn't really necessary, though, and detracted from the experience a bit.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 6/30
AESTHETICS: 6/20
TOTAL SCORE: 22/100

While it doesn't do anything all too egregious, this level feels as though it's lacking in any real direction or focus. It throws manner of different types of sprites together without really taking in to account how they work together or what they contribute to the overall level, and ultimately feels a bit short, directionless and underwhelming.

Æsthetically it leaves a bit to be desired as well. The palette of the first section is actually not bad by any means, and the spikes make for an interesting contrast, though the leaves floating in the sky are just puzzling. The interior parts, on the other hand, have a palette which far more closely resembles the uncanny way in which lasagna tends to be portrayed in Garfield, and it makes use of a lot of the cliché decorations like bones and skulls-and-crossbones in the sand, as well as the infamous half-buried blocks in a sort of cluttered way. The Reznor statues aren't a bad idea in concept, but their white horns stand out too much while their body almost disappears into the background, making for a jarring effect. I do sort of like the ropes, though. And how the Fuzzies do dance.

+ Ropes are actually a use of decoration in a functional way.
- Cluttered and lacking direction in both visuals and design.

Other: For the reasons detailed above, I can only assume that not-statue-Rezor's unnamed master was indeed none other than that dastardly orange cat.

[Implo]

About first level secret exit. You get it by collecting all 5 dragon coins, then door to harder version of level appears. There is more munchers and tighter time limit (I think it's 100 s). But also there is less enemies, so this hard section felt like easier section for me. The hardest part is getting 5 dragon coins on normal path, where all this spam of enemies and projectiles is happening and entering door leading to hard version. It's guarded by wiggler and it killed me much more than hard version itself.

[xfix]

108th: Urban Jungle by yoshifanatic

Koopster
DESIGN: 14/50
CREATIVITY: 15/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 36/100

I almost want to punish you for requiring switches for dragon coins argh (but I won't, really).
This level has an awfully weird structure and it's very awkward to navigate. Lots of annoying enemy placements and munchers thrown around everywhere for no reason. Some split paths are quite nonsensical. The puzzles don't even seem properly tested. A lot of them require shells that are always screens away, and even if you know in advance that you'll need a shell it's still a nuisance to bring them, especially cause they're all red and the level gives you a yoshi (a shell plus yoshi are required for the last dragon coin!). The puzzle to get to yoshi looks completely broken and the 1-up a bit after the midpoint is impossible. Level is completely unfocused and doesn't seem to have any sort of direction, it's just a lot of things thrown together. The confusing nature of the level wasn't helped a slight bit by the overpowering decorations. Not A Fan

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 18/50
CREATIVITY: 12/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 43/100

The level is a bit overdecorated and I don't get what the level was trying to do. But the
dragon coin puzzles are kinda neat.

Noivern
DESIGN: 20/50
CREATIVITY: 17/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 44/100

Requiring switch palace blocks to get dragon coins is a poor use of the blocks. Actually, the way the coins are hidden are rather poor overall, sometimes requiring shells from earlier in the level (red shells, meaning you need to get off Yoshi to get one of them). Overall, the level feels crowded, even in the open spaces. The jungle city aesthetic works, but the palettes need to be not so saturated; as is they're far too bright and detracts from the level.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 17/50
CREATIVITY: 11/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 42/100

Not sure how I feel about this one. It's fairly nice to play, but the design is definitely odd, most notably the placement of the Yoshi coins--were you drunk when placing those? I'm not normally fussy about them but their placement here is completely ridiculous. æsthetically it's okay, but I don't love the palette. There's not much sense of progression either, and the few parts that stick out from the rest of the level generally just feel out of place or senseless.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 24/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 17/20
TOTAL SCORE: 55/100

This level feels...kind of unfinished? I don't know, it seems like there's more intended to be going on here than most players will actually experience in the final product. On the one hand, the actual path through the level is kind of straightforward and simple...on the other hand, there's all these little extra optional places with loving little details for the explorer. As it stands, they're entirely for dragon coins, making the risk/reward ratio a bit dubious, especially as it's often poorly indicated how safe certain downward areas are to travel to. On the other hand, there is something nice about finding little extra details for going out of the way. I'm generally not so sure about a level that's largely about collecting dragon coins that doesn't actually -do- anything with the dragon coins, though.

And this level does go out of its way to create an explorable environment. There's lots of little details scattered about, from wildlife to people making their homes in the ruins of building to mops. Yes, the mop, that so rarely used of vanilla SMW elements. The hammer? That we see all the time. But so rarely the mop.

+ Nice environment and fun details
+ Rewards exploring with fun little easter eggs
- Main path sort of just there
- Dragon coins kind of overly elaborate

Other: "Rameau's third wife was a mop." - Roo

107th: You Are Still In... by SkywinDragoon

Koopster
DESIGN: 21/50
CREATIVITY: 19/30
AESTHETICS: 11/20
TOTAL SCORE: 51/100

A level that relies a lot on its main concept to be appealing. The level design is very very basic and it doesn't follow a very good curve. Some of the earlier setups are the hardest to deal with (first puntin' chuck, first bats are practically impossible to dodge without camera shenaningans). I think the clouds at the top look very good but the landscapes don't always look that nice, they could've been shaped better and be more well decorated (you're out of luck cause I'm very picky with overworld design lol). Also I've had a little trouble with clarity of what's solid and what's not when I first played the level. Secret exit was adorable btw

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 25/50
CREATIVITY: 20/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 59/100

lmao

Noivern
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 16/30
AESTHETICS: 7/20
TOTAL SCORE: 33/100

Using overworld graphics is a neat idea but it comes with the caveat that the graphics, which are designed to be orthographical, don't blend with the side view used in 2D Mario platformers. It makes it difficult to determine what tiles are solid. This is made even worse due to the fact that the brown overworld tiles are decoration when following the style of the level they should be solid or solid-on-top.

I wasn't a huge fan of the slow autoscroll. It made the level boring and something I didn't want to replay, and it wasn't necessary. Also not necessary was the secret exit. I found no indication in my playthrough that it existed and had to look in Lunar Magic. I wasn't pleased at all with the invisible blocks blocking the jump to the goal and I managed to trigger a glitch that caused me to die upon beating the level. Fun stuff.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 8/50
CREATIVITY: 10/30
AESTHETICS: 3/20
TOTAL SCORE: 21/100

This is an interesting concept for a level, but hoooly crap this is hard to look at. The visual ideas are really badly executed, to the point where it negatively impacts the gameplay. As for the design, it's pretty uninteresting, with really not much to say. Not much real challenge outside of trying to make sense of the æsthetics. This feels more like something out of a VIP game just to get a couple laughs rather than a submission to a contest.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 22/50
CREATIVITY: 18/30
AESTHETICS: 17/20
TOTAL SCORE: 57/100

This style works a lot better than I was expecting it to! The level itself is kinda basic, but that's probably for the better with this style, as more complicated setups would likely get confusing in the pseudo-3D. As things are, though, it feels surprisingly smooth. The one thing that stands out is that it's not at all clear that the beige-topped landmasses should be completely pass-through, as there's nothing that makes them look any more non-solid than the begrassed ones. On a purely visual level, the strange vaudeville canes the boids perch on look pretty strange; I'm not entirely sure what they're supposed to be. The autoscroll also works less-than-brilliantly with the end goal; after you hit it, there's a non-negligible chance that you'll die either by being crush against the edge while flashing the victory sign or walking off the end of the world. This could be easily rectified by either stopping the generator or putting the goal in a separate level.

+ Fun idea
+ Pseudo-3D terrain works better in practice than one might expect
- Some visual confusion with walk-through land
- Goal sequence sometimes kills you.

Other: I never trusted that overworld bird, and this level only confirms my suspicions.

106th: Ghastly Laboratory by Poppy (alexandrite)

Koopster
DESIGN: 17/50
CREATIVITY: 16/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 46/100

I don't like this level. The first half relies on very weird timings for its difficulty, including a part with two pencils that is impossible most of the time. The second half is very boring and slow and there's one jump that was made awkward due to the layer 2 glitch (if it weren't for the glitch it would be a doable drop, and you also aren't encouraged to jump due to the spike ceiling). Then there's the final segment that's 1, a very drastic change of pace, 2, impossible to predict on first try due to x'es not being introduced anywhere in the level, and 3, has no reason to be there. It feels like you were trying to tell a story but you didn't do it very well, sorry :s

lolyoshi
DESIGN: 22/50
CREATIVITY: 18/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 53/100

A fairly okay idea, however the execution is either fine, obnoxious, or terrible. There were small
things that could have easily made it less irritating to play.

Noivern
DESIGN: 12/50
CREATIVITY: 20/30
AESTHETICS: 13/20
TOTAL SCORE: 45/100

Good ideas, poor execution. Little annoying things like wooden spike's buggy tendancy to slow Mario down ended up causing me to get hurt and die unnecessarily. Tight passageways and low ceilings, sometimes at the same time, were annoying, and waiting for boo rings is boring.

The last segment is easily the worst part, and I think you noticed because you supply an extra mushroom even though there was one just a few screens back. I don't think the player has nearly enough time to process what the Xs mean. The spikes come down like rapidfire and it results in cheap hits. The one tile-wide drop at the end with spikes on either side is almost a guaranteed hit.

Sinc-X
DESIGN: 10/50
CREATIVITY: 8/30
AESTHETICS: 14/20
TOTAL SCORE: 32/100

This level is just boring. It's alright æsthetically, but there's nothing from a design standpoint that keeps it interesting at all. The Thwomp + spike arrangements in the first part are thrown down without much thought and hardly pose a challenge, whereas the Boo rings in the layer 2 segment are completely obnoxious and makes that whole section unenjoyable. The spike fall at the end is unnecessary and really not fun (they rarely are). Did you really think it was a good idea to have a 1-block gap between spikes in a freefall? Not cool.

Rameau's Nephew
DESIGN: 20/50
CREATIVITY: 14/30
AESTHETICS: 12/20
TOTAL SCORE: 46/100

Honestly, the obstacles in this level seem designed for maximum annoyance. The Thwomp/pencil combinations in the first part are irritating to time correctly and offer very little let, the worst offender being the one that comes out of the floor (also unfortunately the first one), whose odd hitbox causes it to block you even before it's visible. The coins in front of the pencils seem designed as warnings, but due to the fact that the pencils go behind them, the coins effectively serve to block them from view, disguising their presence rather than alerting the player to them. If the corridors in this section were less cramped, this wouldn't be such a problem, but this level seems determined to give the player the minimal amount of let feasible.

The lack of a switch at the start of the second section, requiring one to instead re-enter the pipe, automatically boot the key out of the way, be forced to grab the key and put it in the hole again then go back in the pipe is strange. The section itself is also likewise defined by annoying placements, with boos and boo rings blocking the switches (whose ideal status is not always predictable) and some narrow shafts to jump in and out of. The whole affair feels a bit tedious, and the addition of the spike drop segment at the end (even if it does look sort of cool vis-à-vis the rest of the level) just feels wearisome thereafter.

The idea of heading back to the entry room after both parts to find an item to progress -is- sort of neat, but doesn't seem all that well-realized; the room itself feels sort of sparse both in terms of atmosphere and content, which makes the idea of it being a central hub/place you're attempting to escape feel a bit vaguer than it ought to be. Not a bad concept, though.

+ Core idea with entry room sort of neat
+ Not bad æsthetics in the final room
- Obstacles designed for maximum annoyance
- Drop room feels tacked on and dispiriting after the slog of a room before

Other: Who would have suspected moving a spring board through a pipe was such a wicked deed?

[raocow]

so does anyone know why for the second day in a row a level would just randomly crash before a scene transition with snes9x ? I'm using the latest version. I just don't get it. The only thing that changed in my system is plugging in a new controller, and there's no way that would have an effect.

I'm just very confused. I recorded tomorrow morning's video with bsnes and it worked fine, but I'd rather not have my computer fans running this loud all the time, you know ?

[Whimsical Calamari]

today's episode is why i'm happy this series didn't skip to top 20. these first two levels were great to watch