Sandy Serpentine Beach

[Mosaic]

This level was my entry for The Thwomp King's Water Level contest, it got in 1st place.
So I'd figured i'd post the level here for you guys to play.
Reviews:

Spoiler: show

The Thwomp King

The “You are a pirate” song turned into level music. Interesting. So the level is very linear and pretty long. Visuals are nice with the music actually fitting it well. The first half did get kinda boring for how long it was though. The second half had a weird remix of Jolly Roger Bay, which I’m not sure if I really liked it or not to be honest. It kinda fit, but something else could’ve worked better. The purple underwater blocks had weird dark purple spots, so I’m taking off for that too because it doesn’t really make much sense to do. The second half is shorter than the first half, just pointing that out. Otherwise the level has life, plays well, and has decent atmosphere. It doesn’t have too much replay value either though. Still a good job overall with making this.

6.3/10

RoundPiplup

Was expecting someone to bring up that music. A somewhat short level.

When you grab those big creatures, it seems like you are grabbing something invisible and the creature itself. There's a lot of coin placements and enough NPC placements as well to make the level feel alive. There weren't much difficulties trying to get past through the level in general as for the very least. Its pretty fair in the majority of the level itself anyways, which is pretty fine, despite being somewhat short.

8.9/10

Linik

Sandy Serpentine Beach - 6.8/10
This level appears to have a lot riding on it, but some design features appear to kill it. The level was nicely decorated and the grasses were interesting, but the music in the overworld sections (an SMW remix of the You Are A Pirate! song) doesn't fit with the theme of the level, because there are no piratey things in the level. Also, the first section is just a plain old run, which could have been executed well if it weren't for the length of the section and the massive numbers of enemies that impede progress, and some of the powerups are placed in risky locations, such as one in the overworld section guarded by a lot of Cheep-Cheeps and Bloopers. However, once the player passes the midpoint and enter the water section does the level truly open up and redeem itself. The underwater section was done incredibly well in comparison to the overworld section, and the key-hunt provided a welcome change to the linear run of the overworld.

Overall: 7.17

Screenshots:

Spoiler: show

Download

[Witchking666]

For what i can see on the screens, it looks pretty good!
I'll give it a play And review somewhere tomorrow

[Witchking666]

Unofficial Review of Sandy Serpentine Beach by Mosaicmario
Although I think the general design of this level is pretty decent.
There are quite a few flaws aswell.

Negatives:
*Coin spam, I know coins are great good-looking things to have in a level.
But 308 in a level this small is a little too much don't you think?
*Underwater Cobrats, Snakes are reptiles and those don't like oceans that much
*a LOT of broken Graphics in the smbx editor, For example, the pink underwater block and checkpoint, They look Like This

Spoiler: show

*bgo spam in the beach section
*?-Block spam, It's nice to have some, But this is pushing it
*Too many power-ups
*Too many kinds of power-ups

Positives:
*Pretty cool useage of the herb thingy's in a beach level, I liked it a lot.
*Really great music choices, I liked them, Especially the remix of Dire Dire Rocks.
*The general gameplay was good, Except for some flaws.
*Good npc Variety.
*Good Athmosphere

Notes":
*The Snifit snakes are a little too bright IMO.
But since they are just GFX, I wont score ya down.
*You cannot get to the top of the goal in any way.

Score: 5.1-10

[Mosaic]

Unofficial Review of Sandy Serpentine Beach by Mosaicmario
Although I think the general design of this level is pretty decent.
There are quite a few flaws aswell.

Negatives:
*Coin spam, I know coins are great good-looking things to have in a level.
But 308 in a level this small is a little too much don't you think?
*Underwater Cobrats, Snakes are reptiles and those don't like oceans that much
*a LOT of broken Graphics in the smbx editor, For example, the pink underwater block and checkpoint, They look Like This

Spoiler: show

*bgo spam in the beach section
*?-Block spam, It's nice to have some, But this is pushing it
*Too many power-ups
*Too many kinds of power-ups

Positives:
*Pretty cool useage of the herb thingy's in a beach level, I liked it a lot.
*Really great music choices, I liked them, Especially the remix of Dire Dire Rocks.
*The general gameplay was good, Except for some flaws.
*Good npc Variety.
*Good Athmosphere

Notes":
*The Snifit snakes are a little too bright IMO.
But since they are just GFX, I wont score ya down.
*You cannot get to the top of the goal in any way.

Score: 5.1-10

I actually didn't know that the ocean tiles were still broken, I thought I fixed them. About the coins, I often put too many coins in the level because it's hard to caculate. I'm questioning why there are too many power-up types though. Also I find it weird that you gave a lower score than any of the judges. But other than that thanks for the critism!
EDIT:
Also those cobrats are sea cobrats.

[Witchking666]

About the coins, I often put too many coins in the level because it's hard to caculate.

There is a function called the debugger, that neatly shows the amount you have of sertain things.

[Enjl]

Woah that download size. Almost as big as this review. You guys should really switch to .ogg sound. You can even make the song loop seamlessly! Apart from that, the beach music you used is silent as all hell anyways. People who'll turn up their volume from that will lose their ears once they enter the water.

Jokes aside, it's time for an
OFFICIAL REVIEW (GONE WRONG | GONE SEXUAL)
I mean technically I could just add my two cents to the judges' reviews, but my opninion on this level vastly differs from theirs, and I have some (hopefully) interesting feedback for you.

It's a water level! And I'd go as far as to call it very ordinary. It's an overworld section with water elements, followed by a key hunt underwater in the second half. Unfortunately, this level does not have a lot of substance, apart from the serpentines which stand out in a weird way due to both their colour and shape.
I guess if I were to describe this level, I'd call it a standard beach level, and a rather good one at that. The level does a fairly good job at keeping the player invested without adding any interesting twists or gimmicks (though I would have loved stuff like rising water, but that's a story for later down).

The geometry in this level feels rather fluent and suits the theme. I liked the flow of ups and downs in the overworld section, and the underwater section gave a good contrast to it by being rather open and more square. If there was one point I had to criticise this level for, it's that the weird graviy-defying shapes of sand didn't appeal to me very much. Here's an example. I think just making a background object for the fill and having the sand flow into the dirt (?) would've looked nicer:
[rimg]http://i.imgur.com/00qMc2k.png[/rimg]

You'll see me colouring in a few words here. I'm gonna get back to those later. Gotta keep the review structured.

The NPC placement was fine for the most part. You did a good job at placing enemies in the water section (maybe one cheep cheep to much on-screen at certain times but eh), though you seem to like to overdo it a bit. For example, this screen houses a total of 7 enemies. The blooper is offscreen, and the plant is inside the pipe:
[rimg]http://i.imgur.com/hIuxZMl.png[/rimg]
The other part of NPC placement I have to criticise is the excessive coin placement. It feels like New Super Mario Bros 2 in here! I suggest just taking two from each row of coins you made which is longer than 3. Their placement is fine, it's just that there are a bit many overall. 2-3 coin columns are probably the standard, though feel free to experiment in shaping and spaaace between them.

Let's get to the meat of this review, right? The main flaw with this level: The lack of substance. Let me start by saying that you tackled substance kind of in the wrong way by suggesting a few better alternatives to your main "gimmick" of this level, or how I like to call it, "way to pad out the playing time":
[rimg]http://i.imgur.com/eV92vld.png[/rimg]

While the overworld section didn't get stale for me personally, backtracking through what feels like the same section twice with no way of defending yourself with the powerups I've found did get boring quickly. Now, key hunts like this, to me, are the lowest form of padding out the gameplay time without adding anything to a level. They can be done right, but that part often is exclusive to ghost houses. The easiest step to improve this part, in my opinion, is to replace the keys with coloured switches. I know these are generally frowned upon, but in this case they're used to give back the player the ability to actually utilise their powerups. To make the area not stale, I think even just replacing one of the keys with a switch would work, though I think redesigning one of the areas around the usage of the key is what really needs to happen. Trust me, it's not easy. Especially underwater.

Alternatively, structuring the water section more linearly to reduce backtracking would help make this part feel less like the chore. It'd come down to placing a subtle wall beteen the upper and lower half of the checkpoint section and adding a pipe here and there, maybe a section back to the surface at the end, if you fancy.
Lava lotuses kinda existed.

While writing that last paragraph I realised that I don't want to go on for another 3 paragraphs talking about unutilised potential and which gimmicks would work in this level, so I'll just leave it at the rising/falling water in combination with muncher traps, which I mentioned earlier.

So, overall? Like I said in the beginning. A pretty standard water level with really no big ups, but also no major sins. I do encourage touching the level up a bit at least. Removing a few npcs here and there, especially coins, and maybe experimenting with structuring water segments. Maybe you'll come up with a neat gameplay mechanic to make them interesting which I didn't think of? Also the music which I mentioned in the very beginning. Turns out it was not a joke. BWEEP.

While I don't agree with The Thwomp King's decision to take off for a graphical oversight while in the range between 6 and 7 out of 10, I do agree with his score the most. 6.5/10, moved to "Pretty Good".