Tropical Tower

[ShadowStarX]

This is my first castle in my project, SMB - T6IE
screen:

Spoiler: show

download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/m7l9b ... +Tower.rar

I hope you'll enjoy this level.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

This is a fairly well made castle level. The block placement is decent (I especially liked the part where the player can spin-jump up a Thwomp to access a secret), and the NPCs used, while there aren't many different ones used, have different AI (Hammer Bros, Thwomps, Firebars, Torpedo Teds, etc.), so it balances out (though I felt NPC placement was a bit too sparse).

I only have a few complaints: first, getting the secret I mentioned gives the player a Racoon Leaf, where as just going the normal way gives the player an Ice Flower, which is a much more useful weapon for this level since it can take out Hammer Bros and Dry Bones from a distance, and no amount of backtracking will let the player get both items (this is an extremely minor complaint, though). I recommend making the secret's power-up an Ice Flower and making the other power-ups leaves. Also, I don't care if NSMBWii did it: Mecha-Koopas replacing SMB3 Bob-ombs is just unintuitive; they should sprite-swap the SMW Galoomba.

I also have an issue with your boss: while you get points for making something that isn't just a pre-programmed AI in an empty room (thank you!), the boss's AI is still really simple, and the fact that it sprite-swaps Mother Brain means it takes 10 hits to kill, and this unnecessarily drags out the fight. I recommend you have the boss sprite-swap a nogravity=1 Goomba, make about 3-5 layers representing its hit points, put one Goomba sprite-swap on each layer, give each Goomba its own projectile generator (and each projectile generator its own layer), and use events to show the next layers and hide the previous ones when the previous Goomba is killed. Sure, each Goomba won't appear in the place the previous one died, but it's a small price to pay to keep your boss from dragging out for too long.

Also, the boss's projectiles look too much like a common SMB2 Bomb sprite-swap, so at first I thought I had to grab its projectiles and throw them back at it, and I got hit. I recommend you have a downward-facing Bullet Bill sprite-swap the projectiles instead.

Summary:
GOOD:
-Graphics aren't terrible.
-Music fits the level well (though the boss theme is delayed for a few seconds before playing).
-Block placement is decent.
-NPC variety is above average.

BAD:
-NPCs are fairly sparse.
-Boss fight drags on a bit too long.

In conclusion: despite its flaws, this is a pretty good level. 6/10.

[ShadowStarX]

Visually updated version released again (I didn't want to double post)
- Darkened: coins, power-ups, thwomps, hammer bros
- placed sceneries
- some npc-s re-placed and some pits are shortened
Download in the main post.