Episode 2 Level Review and Testing Discussion

[Oddwrath]

TIME TO MAKE A SILLY QUESTION!

my level already got reviewed during the Episode 1 period, but my level didn't get into episode 1, so the question is:

Does my level need to be reviewed again for Episode 2 even if it already got reviewed in Episode 1 despite not being in it?

Probably yes. Mostly for the reasons of potentially missing some problems on the first run.

[Darkonius64]

Okay then!
i'll wait to see the new reviews of my level

[ztarwuff]

I'm getting "Run-time error 6: Overflow" in ztarwuff - Gravity Falls. Specifically, in the

room on the secret path with the four copies of Pal. I knocked two of them into the lava and, shortly after, the game errored out when another of the glowing balls fell in the lava.

Okay, here's a copy of the exact same level without

the lava

.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cy17cltbrugry ... s.zip?dl=0

Hopefully that'll do the trick.

[sedron]

@Darkonius64 - Yes, every level needs to go through reviews again. I'm a little confused on the process myself, since it seems SAJewers (plus others,) want to wait a while before starting submissions, but Shaman put this thread up already. So I don't know if there'll be another step to the process. Your level did really well the first time through, if I recall correctly, so I doubt you'll have any trouble getting it in. I'll likely be reviewing it again, as well.

Here are some more reviews, by the way.

Bat an Eye - Oddwrath

Maybe it's just above my abilities, but this level is way, way too hard. Bat jumping as a premise is pretty dubious (I've used it once, and only in the Make a Kaizo Level contest.) They don't go where you need them to most of the time, and they're hard to predict. Plus you have huge chains of the jumps. Easier variations like extended Koopa jumps are already looked down upon by a large portion of these communities, so I don't know that bat jumping will go over any better.

A few other things.

- The spawn point is currently next to the midpoint. I assume you moved it for testing and forgot to move it back.

- I don't know if some computers will be able to handle the secret room. That's a lot of bats on screen at once.

The music choice is nice, and the level looks good, but the difficulty is the real killer here. I don't know if the central concept for Bat an Eye even works to begin with. I can tell you right now that it isn't fun, which is damning for a level. Like you said, this needs major work.

The Tiniest Castle - Oddwrath

This, I like a lot more. It's a cute, simplistic gimmick and it's executed well. None of the rooms have any overwhelming flaws, though there's isn't exactly a whole lot going on in most of them.

The secret exit is a little contentious. A player could easily stumble into it (I fully imagine raocow doing it immediately,) but if you don't then it's quite a challenge. There's no let at all. I feel like a lot of the time is eaten up by warping back and forth, and even getting hit eats a second or two. The level is really easy as is (and would work well in the early game,) so maybe increase that time limit by a few seconds (I think 50 is totally reasonable, honestly, though it would likely be fine lower than that.) I think this level is pretty nice, overall.

Casual Progression - 8flight

I really enjoyed the gimmick put in place here. It's an uber-simplistic level that builds up on previous iterations.

- The love frog doesn't actually drop all four hearts, since two of them go off the top of the screen. I don't know if this was intentional. Heart generators could work well, and you could move them where you like.

- I feel like the entry point should be a safe area, but it isn't. Maybe consider making it one?

- The respawining donut blocks are glitchy. You can be pushed out of the way by one as it spawns. It actually killed me on the last phase of the level, which, as you may expect, was really frustrating.

It kind of gets visually busy, but I think that's part of the point. This could use a tweak or two, but it's pretty fun overall.

A Castle Level - Mikkofier

- The Big Boo fight happens on a very tiny platform with inconvenient ammo. It provides the player with little maneuverability and isn't very fun.

- The normal exit boss has a few issues. When I first played it it caused a massive lag spike that killed me. I rarely get them otherwise, so it was jarring. I'd like to hear if anyone else encounters issues like this.

- The arena for said fight has a lot of cutoff on the left side, where the stone and lava meet.

- The fight itself is incredibly easy to tank. You get a lot of power-ups right before. Actually dodging things is almost optional.

- The player needs to replay basically the entire level to get to the secret boss. That's a bit suboptimal.

I like the computer-crashing bit on flavor principles, but on the whole the level is fairly average. Uninteresting land layouts and enemy usage litter the stage. It could absolutely be improved.

Alternative Rematch - Mikkofier

I'll be totally honest, I don't really want to see Mario characters all over the place anymore. We've killed them all, let them rest. The jokes have been done at this point, and I think the game will be better if it focuses more on original content.

The level layout itself is fairly standard. The boss battles are normal SMB1 Bowser, SMB3 Bowser and Ludwig fights with no twists. The fact that they all come one after another isn't the best, though. I'd rather see one interesting battle over all three of these.

One final thing. The opening filter assumes Demo is small, and requires the player to crawl into a one-block high gap. That should definitely be changed.

Frolic - Mikkofier

This is a nice, cutesy romp, and honestly I think it's pretty enjoyable. Great for the early game. I do have a few criticisms.

- The black background parts look kind of odd and cut-offish. If you could use a wood or cave background piece there instead it would look nicer, I think.

- The pond beneath the first optional airship section is kind of needlessly difficult to escape. There's no reason to have a player struggle with that.

- The airships are a bit odd, in general. The stationary snifit replacements look totally friendly, but they aren't. We really want to avoid that. The pipe leading to the raocoin shouldn't have a pitcher plant, either. Generally a plant coming from a pipe means there isn't anything there.

- The Boom Boom fight feels really shoehorned in and unnecessary. It's a standard Boom Boom fight, which the majority of us have done many a time at this point. If you want a secret leek in there, it needs to have a more interesting challenge.

- You have the exit bar placed wrong. Put it at the highest point you want it on the goal post. Right now it bounces at the bottom.

- Finally, you may want to rethink the Pow block Monthra. He creates a lot of extra lives, and we don't need those cheapened further, honestly.

I think this level is pretty nice, overall.

Monoland - Mikkofier

The monochrome looks really cool. This is, aesthetically, your best level (from what I've played so far, at least.) However, it has flaws that could use fixing.

- The gunmen are blurry. They don't look very good.

- Gunmen atop Ninjis sometimes don't shoot correctly. They shoot the Ninji instead.

- This Boom Boom fight is a bit different, but again, not very interesting. Actually, I notice that basically all of your levels have a boss fight. They really don't need it. You can make a level without one and still have narrative and gameplay closure.

- Like some of KingTwelveSixteen's levels, it's got way too much text. Most of the NPC's don't say anything meaningful anyway. On top of that, you don't really need to explain that the catplanet cats are from catplanet.

- Why, beyond the fact that they're black and white, are there a picture of Monokuma and a Problem Sleuth screenshot? They just look like you found something that you like that is also in color and slapped it in there. They don't enhance any part of the level.

Again, I think there should be a few fixes here, but overall the level is pretty nice. I do really enjoy the aesthetic.

[Oddwrath]

Here are some more reviews, by the way.

Bat an Eye - Oddwrath

Maybe it's just above my abilities, but this level is way, way too hard. Bat jumping as a premise is pretty dubious (I've used it once, and only in the Make a Kaizo Level contest.) They don't go where you need them to most of the time, and they're hard to predict. Plus you have huge chains of the jumps. Easier variations like extended Koopa jumps are already looked down upon by a large portion of these communities, so I don't know that bat jumping will go over any better.

A few other things.

- The spawn point is currently next to the midpoint. I assume you moved it for testing and forgot to move it back.

- I don't know if some computers will be able to handle the secret room. That's a lot of bats on screen at once.

The music choice is nice, and the level looks good, but the difficulty is the real killer here. I don't know if the central concept for Bat an Eye even works to begin with. I can tell you right now that it isn't fun, which is damning for a level. Like you said, this needs major work.

At the time when I first posted this level, I had about 600+ demos on it. I was so sick and tired from it, that I'd rather post it unfinished and then just spend my Friday doing anything else than finish it. It was a WHOLE LOT less fun than it is right now, but even then it's still too hard. Probably, too hard even for the postgame.
I will try to make it better(maybe combine the spikes and the ghost house floor into one block to give you more leeway), but if it doesn't work, I'll just scrap it and recycle it into something better.
As for the bats being unpredictable, well that isn't true. Where they'll go generally generally depends on your height and where you are. Or that would just be the crazy 600+ demos person talking in me idk.
I also think that adding more bats would help a lot, since it would deal with bats' unpredictability, as well as giving the player more chance not to die.
The level length bothers me too. Tell me, should take one of the areas from section 1 and put it in section 2 or should I just make section 2 longer?
The spawn and the secret are fixed.

The Tiniest Castle - Oddwrath

This, I like a lot more. It's a cute, simplistic gimmick and it's executed well. None of the rooms have any overwhelming flaws, though there's isn't exactly a whole lot going on in most of them.

The secret exit is a little contentious. A player could easily stumble into it (I fully imagine raocow doing it immediately,) but if you don't then it's quite a challenge. There's no let at all. I feel like a lot of the time is eaten up by warping back and forth, and even getting hit eats a second or two. The level is really easy as is (and would work well in the early game,) so maybe increase that time limit by a few seconds (I think 50 is totally reasonable, honestly, though it would likely be fine lower than that.) I think this level is pretty nice, overall.

I'm probably going to the shortcut into a pipe to make it less likely to find randomly. Also, the timer is now 45 seconds.

[sedron]

Stuff about Bat an Eye

Response in spoilers.

When I say the bats are unpredictable, maybe I should have said they are extremely hard to predict. Yes, they will follow a set pattern depending on your position when you enter their detection range. However, they move far less intuitively than other enemies. I think most players will miss the mark on any given bat jump because the bat just didn't go the way they thought it would.

I think adding more bats could help the difficulty, but it's still very iffy.

As for length, it should definitely be cut down, but I don't really have an opinion on how. Honestly, the entire thing was pretty rough. I didn't have fun at either section, though the first section I could at least start to get with a hint of consistency (but not really.)

A few more reviews while I'm at it.

Sheath and the Mysterious House - Mikkofier

- The parallax scroll in the first outdoor section looks weird. It'd probably be better as a regular background.

- You should probably make the warps in the first switch room pipes. The sudden warps are unexpected and can lead to unfair hits.

- Those skeletons could stand to be slowed down to normal speeds. I don't think they're adding anything by being super fast and they'll probably hit a player before the player can reasonably react.

- In general, if you have water, quicksand or lava in a level, make in start a block lower than the gap, if that makes sense. Lower all of the quicksand by one block, as the player can be affected by it while still being on the ground.

- Generators shouldn't be unmarked like in the last switch room.

- The "nothing's scarier," room is underwhelming. I understand where you're coming from with it, but, at least for me, it just ended with me sitting there for a while and being disappointed. Also the switch restarts the music when pressed.

- What's with the lopsided midpoint? If I had to guess, you want it shortly before the boss, but there's a LOT of level before it. The whole "four switches," thing is overdone anyway and is generally a bad idea because it leads to bad level lengths.

- Speaking of the boss, is stabbing SMB3 Bowser until he slowly dies a fun thing? I'm not personally of that opinion. The joke is really similar to the Mario one you've done already, but with a LoZ skin slapped on, and the fight isn't great. Plus, we killed Link already.

World One Scumble - Mikkofier

It's... World 1 remakes. Meh.

- The gate cutoff in the SMW section looks bad.

- When you kill Mouser, if you touch the leek quickly you get overlapping fanfares. Not a good time.

- The music between the first and second section should probably be the same. The first song barely gets a few seconds before it's abruptly cut, and the areas aren't so different as to necessitate different songs. Also not all of the music fits. The underground section does not evoke the same feeling as inside the flesh lord, for instance, so the music shouldn't be the same.

Seriously though, every level I've reviewed from you has included a boss, and they rarely add anything to it. You don't need one every time. This game does not need so many bosses. When you fight them constantly they lose the feeling of being big, nasty opponents.

On the topic of this level, though, it's just an average set of World 1 remakes. There isn't much beyond that.

White Void - Rusbojis

Before I get to the meat of the review, I need to point out that the submission format is incorrect. In order to be accepted and have everything working correctly, you're gonna have to change a few things.

- Both the level name and folder with level assets should follow the format "Authorname- Levelname.lvl". You have it right on the folder, but not the level.

- The level cannot be in the same folder as the level assets. You can zip them together, but all of the levels and asset folders will be in one folder in the end.

- Finally, you're going to have to fix the usage of custom music. In the custom music box in the editor, type "Foldername\Filename.mp3". So, for the first room, as an example, you'd type in "Rusbojis - White Void\Fire Emblem Awakening Chaos.mp3".

As for the level itself, it has a wonderful aesthetic and plays pretty well too. I think there are ways to improve it, but they're fairly minor.

- The music choices work for the aesthetic, but not so much when combined together. Switching to and from the older NES(?) style music sounds odd. I'd either get more music in that style or switch that song for something that works better with the Fire Emblem and Kirby music.

- The flying segments are very unforgiving, particularly the part with 3 Disco Dans in a line. That should probably be toned down.

- When ascending to the midpoint room, the final platform is actually missing two blocks in the interior. It's hard to notice, but you can see the background as you springboard up there.

- The Donuts leave noticeable cutoff before and after they enter and leave the final battle. Using a background piece should fix that.

- Speaking of donuts, you could probably make it one donut generator instead of two. It may seem minimal, but believe me it'll make the fight a lot better. It already has a lot going on.

- Finally, when the boss dies, have it make the "spawned NPC's," layer disappear. That should rid the room of flying bullets, donuts and the like, keeping an unfair death from happening.

I think this one is overall really enjoyable. I had fun!

[Mikkofier]

Oh, no! Criticism!

Yep, I definitely have some kind of Boss fight neurosis. I just don't know any other way to end a level without some kind of a boss battle at the end to be "climatic". See raocow's Workday for an attempt to work around this flaw. Most of these levels were made before I saw what the people who have mastered LunaDLL can do and I now realize that I have no business making boss fights.
I've been re-thinking about Alternative Rematch. I should've realized that joke wouldn't work really long. Feel free to dismiss it.
World 1 Scumble is a piece of crap I threw together because I was bored. I only submitted it because I thought someone might like it. I don't know why. It's a filler level. A collaboration like this does not need filler levels. Consider it pulled. In fact...

Alternative Invasion and World 1 Scumble are crap (especially the latter). I'd suggest not playing them.

Now I've made it official.
I don't know about SatMH. Isrieri said he'd make some kind of a proposal to make it better, but he hasn't made it yet so I'm currently waiting for him.

[momo]

Thanks for the feedback sedron. It's actually my first level so I was kind of surprised to hear that you liked it. Anyways the polished version is up now in the submission section.

[sedron]

Stuff

I remember playing raocow's Workday a while back, and I think I liked that one (I'll play the recently submitted version at some point in the near future.) Thing is, you don't really need a climactic fight for every level, or a climax in general. Your level doesn't have to follow a story structure. Remember, your level is part of a world. Your level could be a climax on its own, or the build-up.

If you want to end the level on a higher note, just make the end a little bit trickier is all. Again, it isn't necessary. Frolic does just fine without having a definitive high point, for example. Romps, when done well, are really fun.

If you do want to make boss fights, you need to get pretty creative with the engine at this point (or learn Luna.) There are ways to do it; look at most of the siblings in Episode 1. I'd be lying if I said I had a lot of ideas for fights, though. They're not my strong point.

Something I notice with your work, on a related note, is that most of your levels tried to incorporate its own story. Again, you don't have to do that. A single level is hardly the best place for a narrative, anyway. Your level could just be part of the journey, and that would be absolutely okay. If you do want a story, I recommend finding ways to tell it with less text boxes. Little aesthetic touches do a marvelous job here.

I don't, by any means, think your work is crap. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, absolutely, but that's true of most things. You obviously put a lot of work into this stuff, and there are definitely redeeming factors that could shine through more with a bit more work.

If you keep submitting stuff and release updates for whatever levels you come up with (even ones like Alternative Rematch and World One Scumble that I didn't really enjoy,) I'll keep playing them and providing feedback. Also keep in mind that I'm only one person, and I'm sure some people will enjoy things that I didn't. So keep working at it. =)

[Voltgloss]

Alternative Invasion and World 1 Scumble are crap (especially the latter). I'd suggest not playing them.

If you are withdrawing them from Episode 2 consideration, I'd suggest posting to that effect in the level submissions thread (or editing your existing post there) so that potential reviewers don't inadvertently spend time testing them.

[Mikkofier]

I edited my post in that thread. Those levels are gone for now.

[Oddwrath]

Stuff about Bat an Eye

Response in spoilers.

When I say the bats are unpredictable, maybe I should have said they are extremely hard to predict. Yes, they will follow a set pattern depending on your position when you enter their detection range. However, they move far less intuitively than other enemies. I think most players will miss the mark on any given bat jump because the bat just didn't go the way they thought it would.

I think adding more bats could help the difficulty, but it's still very iffy.

As for length, it should definitely be cut down, but I don't really have an opinion on how. Honestly, the entire thing was pretty rough. I didn't have fun at either section, though the first section I could at least start to get with a hint of consistency (but not really.)

Ok, so far I've set the bats to "Don't move" as well as added more of them and deleted the final part of section 1. It's seems a lot better now.
Also, when you say that you didn't have fun at any section, what exactly do you mean?

[sedron]

Stuff about Bat an Eye

Response in spoilers.

When I say the bats are unpredictable, maybe I should have said they are extremely hard to predict. Yes, they will follow a set pattern depending on your position when you enter their detection range. However, they move far less intuitively than other enemies. I think most players will miss the mark on any given bat jump because the bat just didn't go the way they thought it would.

I think adding more bats could help the difficulty, but it's still very iffy.

As for length, it should definitely be cut down, but I don't really have an opinion on how. Honestly, the entire thing was pretty rough. I didn't have fun at either section, though the first section I could at least start to get with a hint of consistency (but not really.)

Ok, so far I've set the bats to "Don't move" as well as added more of them and deleted the final part of section 1. It's seems a lot better now.
Also, when you say that you didn't have fun at any section, what exactly do you mean?

If the update is in the submission thread I'll definitely take a look.

When I say I didn't have fun, I meant that both sections were just way beyond my abilities for me to enjoy them. It's not meant as a mean thing and it doesn't mean there's no redeeming qualities to the level, but that's not a good sign. Generally, I think Ep 1's postgame is around where my limits are in difficulty, and if it's at that point (or even beyond it,) the level needs to give me a really good reason to keep playing. I just didn't feel like doing it legit was worth it (to be honest, the ability to easily cheat in this engine pushes me to this point much more quickly than most commercial games.)

Again, I'll take a look at whatever updates you make, and I think once it's sufficiently toned down I'll be able to have more fun playing it. Fun is (usually,) the most important thing in level design, and I do have some worries that bat jumping, as a concept, just isn't fun. However, we'll see as we continue along. I think you're a good enough level designer where you can absolutely make fun, interesting levels from what I've seen thus far, but remember that you have an inherent edge in playing your levels because you made them. You had 600+ deaths. Imagine how ridiculous it would feel for somebody who didn't make the level. =P

[momo]

Bat an Eye stuff

The only power-up you should be giving the player in this kind of level should be a leaf. Having fire can even work against you sometimes if you accidentally shoot a bat.

I never would have found the shortcut if I hadn't been chasing a radish that fell off the edge. I'd recommend that you either put a darker background where the entrance is or make the hint a little more obvious.

The section where the shortcut takes you is near impossible without a cape. It probably needs more bats.

That's about as far as I could get after dying over 100 times, but I do feel that for a post-game level the difficulty is in the right spot.

[Oddwrath]

If the update is in the submission thread I'll definitely take a look.

Done.

Bat an Eye stuff

The only power-up you should be giving the player in this kind of level should be a leaf. Having fire can even work against you sometimes if you accidentally shoot a bat.

I never would have found the shortcut if I hadn't been chasing a radish that fell off the edge. I'd recommend that you either put a darker background where the entrance is or make the hint a little more obvious.

The section where the shortcut takes you is near impossible without a cape. It probably needs more bats.

That's about as far as I could get after dying over 100 times, but I do feel that for a post-game level the difficulty is in the right spot.

I tried using leaf back then and it actually made things worse. This level relies on precision and speed control, which the leaf ruins.
Placed a crab and a sign.
Done.
I kinda want it in the late game, though.

[sedron]

Here's a few more reviews. I'm still not even done with the first page of submissions. Wow.

Night Light Fright - WestonSmith

The concept of the level is solid, and it doesn't seem like it's too abusive with the difficulty. However, there was one major problem I saw.

The platforms that move back and forth do not have a graphic for moving right, thus they seem to disappear. This is hugely problematic and creates a bunch of needless fake difficulty.

A few things I noticed/suggestions otherwise:

- There's one missing block at the beginning. While it won't likely affect the player, it should probably be fixed (it's out of the way, and you kind of need to be suicidal to get in the gap, but watch raocow somehow figure it out.) I'd recommend switching the background to make everything visible, fix whatever gaps you find, then switch it back.

- The atmosphere is superb, and the execution, aside from the platform thing, is top notch. My only suggestion to improve it is to maybe delay introducing the flickering lights. Have a few of them be solid, then shut them all off at once, with a flickering light slightly up ahead. I have no idea how work-intensive that would be, or even how the lights are implemented since I didn't really look into it, but it's something to think about.

I think it's really important to fix those platforms, but otherwise this level is pretty freaking good.

Sea Side Slumber - WestonSmith

Oh my God this level is adorable. I actually had an idea like this a few years ago, but never really tried it because I'm terrible at making custom graphics. You nailed it, though. Again, a few things I think could be improved upon.

- The banana snakes don't have the ability to look right. In addition the colors on the sprites are strange. It looks like whatever program you used to make them just kind of slowly altered the colors on you. It's definitely noticeable. I'd highly recommend fixing that up.

- The first jump out of the water guarded by a sleeping Furba is needlessly difficult. It seems like a very random spot to struggle with. Maybe just move the Furba slightly?

- I was kind of expecting the turnip to come out of the box sleeping and not moving. I don't know if that actually makes any sense, but it'd be a cute touch.

Again, I very much enjoyed myself. It's just so cute!

Accident - Willhart

Is there a joke I'm not getting, or is this just really weird? I'm fine with it either way and I thought it was entertaining, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something.

Are all of the friendly NPC's (minus Calleoca,) supposed to be Luigis?

Also, the Mouser boss is incredibly easy to cheese (haha) by standing below it and to the right, so it rebounds its bombs into itself.

Kudos on the Silent Hill reference, by the way.

Accident is totally in keeping with the series' weirdness and I liked it.

Demo's Fluffy Dream - Willhart

It's a neat concept, and the level itself looks really cool. However, the execution is lacking. The entire thing felt really imprecise and needlessly difficult to control. "Right," corresponding to "duck," is very unintuitive. I also felt like I usually had to be spot-on in my timing, yet the hitboxes weren't accurate so I couldn't tell. Sometimes I could jump early and land on spikes and I'd be fine. Other times I'd jump just a millisecond too late and die when I should have cleared the jump.

I don't think this is very fun in its current state. It boils down to memorization gameplay, which I personally find inherently unenjoyable. On top of that I never felt that I had adequate control over the situation. I have no idea how it works at all, but I think it needs some fixing up.

Jumping Castle - Willhart

Jumping Castle looks really nice from an aesthetic standpoint and plays pretty well, too. It's a nice early game level.

-The music loop on this one isn't the best. I'm sure it could be fixed quickly in Audacity or something, though.

- There are two sections that strike me as noteworthy for the purposes of this review. There was one raocoin that was blocked by coins, and it looked like the intent was to trap the player, but I never got trapped. I could just jump over the whole thing. On top of that when I tried to escape after leaving myself an escape route, I was put into a situation where it seemed I should have been stuck, but wasn't. It's kind of hard to explain in text.

- The other section was a single floating land platform at the top of the screen early on. Why is that there?

- I feel that the coin/block gimmick could have been utilized better. It's there, but is barely necessary to beat the level. I'm sure more could be done with it.

Again, a nice level,and I had a lot of fun. The tweaks I recommend are pretty minor here.

Welcoming Season - Willhart

Being asked if I could find the raocoins set off a little warning siren in my head, but surprisingly this wasn't so bad. Welcoming Season does cover a wide area and replaying it all if you die can be frustrating, but the design here is pretty solid. I think placing another power-up or two couldn't hurt, though. Also, like the last level, the music loop is a bit janky.

Overall, another good level. Not the most noteworthy, but good fun nonetheless.

[WestonSmith]

Here's a few more reviews. I'm still not even done with the first page of submissions. Wow.

Night Light Fright - WestonSmith

The concept of the level is solid, and it doesn't seem like it's too abusive with the difficulty. However, there was one major problem I saw.

The platforms that move back and forth do not have a graphic for moving right, thus they seem to disappear. This is hugely problematic and creates a bunch of needless fake difficulty.

A few things I noticed/suggestions otherwise:

- There's one missing block at the beginning. While it won't likely affect the player, it should probably be fixed (it's out of the way, and you kind of need to be suicidal to get in the gap, but watch raocow somehow figure it out.) I'd recommend switching the background to make everything visible, fix whatever gaps you find, then switch it back.

- The atmosphere is superb, and the execution, aside from the platform thing, is top notch. My only suggestion to improve it is to maybe delay introducing the flickering lights. Have a few of them be solid, then shut them all off at once, with a flickering light slightly up ahead. I have no idea how work-intensive that would be, or even how the lights are implemented since I didn't really look into it, but it's something to think about.

I think it's really important to fix those platforms, but otherwise this level is pretty freaking good.

-The graphic disappears? Either I missed that or it has something to do with the Furba moonwalking problem. I'll look into it and fix.

-I'll do a sweep for missing blocks. I missed quite a few in version 0.1

-I actually had the idea for the lights being on then shutting down during testing. It was one of several ideas I scrapped, but I could add it real easy like I think. Other ideas involved timing the lights to a thunderstorm soundtrack and using candles instead of roof lights.

-Thanks for the feedback. I take it you didn't find the speed of the flickering overly harsh/annoying?

Sea Side Slumber - WestonSmith

Oh my God this level is adorable. I actually had an idea like this a few years ago, but never really tried it because I'm terrible at making custom graphics. You nailed it, though. Again, a few things I think could be improved upon.

- The banana snakes don't have the ability to look right. In addition the colors on the sprites are strange. It looks like whatever program you used to make them just kind of slowly altered the colors on you. It's definitely noticeable. I'd highly recommend fixing that up.

- The first jump out of the water guarded by a sleeping Furba is needlessly difficult. It seems like a very random spot to struggle with. Maybe just move the Furba slightly?

- I was kind of expecting the turnip to come out of the box sleeping and not moving. I don't know if that actually makes any sense, but it'd be a cute touch.

Again, I very much enjoyed myself. It's just so cute!

-I left the banana snakes as on directional since they're supposed to be sleep walking, and therefore wouldn't even be aware of the player. However, if this isn't obvious to the player, I'll just give them a reverse graphic.

-Not sure about the colors, but I used paint.net for these and that program seems weird. Not sure how to fix off hand but I'll try.

-The jump was made with speed-running in mind. I'll probably move it lower rather than back.

-Turnip? As in, the powerups? I could try and make them sleepy...

-Again, thanks for the feedback. An adorable level is exactly what I wanted.

[Darkonius64]

Ah so you're reviewing the levels by following the order they were sent uh?
well my level is the number 84 so i'll have to wait plenty of time eh!

[sedron]

Ah so you're reviewing the levels by following the order they were sent uh?
well my level is the number 84 so i'll have to wait plenty of time eh!

I'm using the submission thread, not the wiki page. I'm also not going perfectly in order, since there's a lot of them and I downloaded a lot at once, and my computer didn't bother to keep them in order. Frightening Factory isn't too far away though!

Stuff

For Night Light Fright, the flicker speed was fine for me. I don't usually have problems with flashing lights, so I may not be the best person to ask. From a gameplay standpoint it's fine though. The "lights going off," idea was just a suggestion, by the way. Something I think would be neat, but not necessary by any means.

The turnip idea might just be me, but for some reason, yeah, I expected the power-ups to be sleepy. Maybe I'm just weird. As for the banana snakes, the whole sleepwalking thing would make sense if they didn't start throwing yawns backwards. Try opening the original bananasnake graphic and your new one and look at the differences. Honestly, I'm not sure what the best way to fix it would be.

[Mindez]

Anybody looking for levels to review that haven't been reviewed yet may wish to check this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

(I like spreadsheets) (This is based purely on the submission and review thread, not the wiki)

Reviews incoming!

[Mindez]

raekuul - Approaching the Sand Temple

A nice short rompy level that doesn't outstay its welcome and is overall pretty interesting. The grass everywhere slowed me down a lot, and I believe the only items of note were two raocoins and a pow block, so I'd personally probably tone down the amount of this. Boom boom fight at the end was a little weird - is it supposed to just take place in that gap at the end? Because he just seems to jump straight in there. Difficulty is on the rompy easy side, could definitely see this in world 1/2. One other point that I noticed was that the level is entitled 'approaching the sand temple' and yet it just kinda... ends, still in the desert. Ending on a grandiose sand temple entrance with big ominous looking doors would end this level off so well and let the next level pick up from indoors!

Overall summary: Tone down grass, and maybe have a look at the 'boss' fight and ending of the level.

Septentrion Pleiades - Adventure's End

Er help I'm stuck in a black room after going through a door, I'm wondering if something's failed to load. I've tried with both the older and newer luna DLLs, I just keep hitting my head on stuff. Guessing something's supposed to appear but I've been stuck here for a good 5 minutes or so now and nothing's happened, sooo... uhhh.... Hi!

Hoeloe - Demo's Journey Through Time

Great level! Very nice feel to it, sticks to a single theme and explores it in a very interesting way with little repetition, overall incredibly solid. I've read back over sedron's review of the first version and I think all those things have pretty much been addressed fantastically. It being slow/annoying to get through the quicksand was my biggest gripe, but having read that it's possible to get through the whole level without touching any quicksand I can forgive that.

I did encounter one weird glitch around the pencils that move up and down, where I took damage when a pencil was fully down and shouldn't have been coming up for some reason - that might be worth looking into? Other than that I really don't have anything negative to say. Great job!

[SAJewers]

Ah so you're reviewing the levels by following the order they were sent uh?
well my level is the number 84 so i'll have to wait plenty of time eh!

I'm using the submission thread, not the wiki page. I'm also not going perfectly in order, since there's a lot of them and I downloaded a lot at once, and my computer didn't bother to keep them in order. Frightening Factory isn't too far away though!

I would honestly use the wiki page, since I plac to throw all the levels posted in the General Levels Page over to the Official Episode 2 Submissions page, since there are levels there that are probably done, but the author isn't around.

BTW, pholtos: are you planning on doing reviews? Do you need me to send you some levels to play?

[Hoeloe]

I did encounter one weird glitch around the pencils that move up and down, where I took damage when a pencil was fully down and shouldn't have been coming up for some reason - that might be worth looking into? Other than that I really don't have anything negative to say. Great job!

Thanks for the comments! I thought I fixed that bug, though. It only seems to happen rarely, and I think it's to do with the way SMBX layers work, meaning I don't think it's possible to fix. I might replace the moving layer events with LunaDLL controlled ones, and see if that helps anything.

[sedron]

I would honestly use the wiki page, since I plac to throw all the levels posted in the General Levels Page over to the Official Episode 2 Submissions page, since there are levels there that are probably done, but the author isn't around.

BTW, pholtos: are you planning on doing reviews? Do you need me to send you some levels to play?

The way I see it, the people submitting levels to the thread are around to make use of any feedback I give, and the newest levels don't have any testing (as opposed to some older ones I played in the past, like Frightening Factory and raocow's Workday.) I plan to get to it all at some point, either way. I'm going to try to do a lot of testing for this thing.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

For Adventure's End, I will make the path to the midpoint easier. There is no lunaDLL involved.

Speaking of lunaDLL, how are we handling music credits? Shouldn't everyone provide a readme for music?