KateBulka Makes Good Levels

[KateBulka]

Hey.
Electrosparky Caves [Bmaglx3]:

Spoiler: show

So i've asked Eri7 for permission to make an official sequel to his level.
I'm not really proud it honestly..
Download - https://www.dropbox.com/s/2t5xnxqivfhwv ... 2.zip?dl=0

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[MegaDood]

Electrosparky Caves was really good. It was a little bit short, but I think the gimmick was conveyed really well. It felt like something that would appear in an actual Mario game.

[KateBulka]

Electrosparky Caves was really good. It was a little bit short, but I think the gimmick was conveyed really well. It felt like something that would appear in an actual Mario game.

Thanks! I think you should check out 'Flow with me and Bumper', it think it's better than Electrosparky Caves imo.

[TheNightingale]

Electrosparky Caves was really good. It was a little bit short, but I think the gimmick was conveyed really well. It felt like something that would appear in an actual Mario game.

Thanks! I think you should check out 'Flow with me and Bumper', it think it's better than Electrosparky Caves imo.

Yeah it is! Couldn't play it because the new build doesn't really work for me but I watched it in Eclipsed's channel and it's very well made.

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[MegaDood]

Electrosparky Caves was really good. It was a little bit short, but I think the gimmick was conveyed really well. It felt like something that would appear in an actual Mario game.

Thanks! I think you should check out 'Flow with me and Bumper', it think it's better than Electrosparky Caves imo.

Ooh I sure will. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Added in 39 minutes 55 seconds:
I played Flow With me And Bumper. I really liked it! I thought the difficulty rose very well and sequentially, however I do feel the last part with the bridge parts should have gone before the autoscroll section. It would have made the autoscroll section feel like a true test of the skills you've learnt rather than just another section. It was a great level, and the LunaLua touches felt great as well.

[bossedit8]

Original Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lXIg9uao6U

[KateBulka]

Electrosparky Caves was really good. It was a little bit short, but I think the gimmick was conveyed really well. It felt like something that would appear in an actual Mario game.

Thanks! I think you should check out 'Flow with me and Bumper', it think it's better than Electrosparky Caves imo.

Ooh I sure will. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Added in 39 minutes 55 seconds:
I played Flow With me And Bumper. I really liked it! I thought the difficulty rose very well and sequentially, however I do feel the last part with the bridge parts should have gone before the autoscroll section. It would have made the autoscroll section feel like a true test of the skills you've learnt rather than just another section. It was a great level, and the LunaLua touches felt great as well.

I felt like player needs a rest after that hard section. Thanks anyways!
Also thank you bossedit8 for recording my level!

[PROX]

I know that this comment has nothing to do with your levels, but please get rid of the "a" in your title lol

[AggressivePeanut90]

You made really good levels. Make more please!

[KateBulka]

I know that this comment has nothing to do with your levels, but please get rid of the "a" in your title lol

Got it! I'm so sorry for it, lol. Thanks for reminding.

You made really good levels. Make more please!

Sure. If you have anything to say about my levels (would be nice to hear about bugs or mistakes i've done) then be sure to tell me!

[Cedur]

You made really good levels. Make more please!

Sure. If you have anything to say about my levels (would be nice to hear about bugs or mistakes i've done) then be sure to tell me!

Have you noticed about the fake Betterified? Have you noticed the other random effortless posts made by this guy? He's banned.

(ofc make more good levels though)

[KateBulka]

Holy crap, this level took me so much time to make. whew..
Trial and Error [Bmaglx3]:

Spoiler: show

Download - https://www.dropbox.com/s/owa37hz9ifbjh ... 2.zip?dl=0

[PdizzleParker]

I really liked this level. It wasn't impossibly hard like most hard levels are. This one took a more creative approach. The visual and sound effects were also really good.

[Emral]

All your levels always feel like you have HALF of the ingredients to making a good level down, but the rest is always incredibly lacking.
You have ideas.
They're mostly good ideas.
You string them together in a way that makes sense.
But man, do you ever forget to mix things up.
You also still have a lot to learn regarding what makes a good autoscroller, but that's a different topic.

This post is split into a couple of sections where I think your design can be improved. They're all put into spoilers to make them easier to look through. But first...

Trial and Error notes: show

- You know... with a name like this I'm immediately wary of the level trying to pull some "you figure it out" stuff. I was pleasantly surprised when that didn't happen, but was similarly confused about how the name related to the level or what you do in it
- Wait, where are the enemies? Is it just an iwannabetheguy spike corridor?
- Oh, nevermind. This is where the trial and error starts. A minute into the autoscroller.
-- All the "wait for 1f0 to go offscreen" setups really suck, which is a shame considering the quality of the rest

Man, I wish the autoscroller's setups were the first section, with all the structure movement. And then the level could add actual enemies and obstacles on top in later sections.

Autoscrollers: show

Autoscrollers are hard to make. They can be a rewarding sendoff to the level or a great place for synthesis with different, unexplored ideas, but they can also be a pool of frustration or very easily feel out of place. What I'm noticing in your autoscrollers is that they'd almost entirely work better if they weren't autoscrollers. 75% of the time you're waiting for the screen to catch up, and the rest of the time you're hurrying to where the level expects you to go (especially notable in the beginning of the 2nd section of Bonus Area). Setups that exploit unpredictable offscreen behaviour in relation to screen movement aren't worth having if the price is a player's ability to quickly return to the setup they failed at.

So what do I try to do in my autoscrollers to take care of these issues?
- Setups inside the autoscroller ideally would never work in sections that aren't autoscrolling. This means carefully timed enemy spawns, tricky platform paths, some sort of escort, or whatever else you can come up with
- An autoscroller should be more stressful than difficult. Especially in autoscrollers it's important to have mercy on the player and let them parse everything going on so that they don't have to replay a large chunk of level to return to where they were. If you want your autoscroller to be hard, make it shorter and put the harder setups near the start and the scarier but easy-to-parse ones near the end
- The speed should be the servant of the setups. Autoscrollers should be set up so that players hang out somewhere in the 2nd to 3rd fifth of the screen relative to the scrolling direction. Too close to the scrolling side and they might get telefragged by oncoming obstacles, too far away and they might fall into a panic and fail to parse whatever comes next
- Whenever it makes sense, I prefer to use a pseudo-autoscroller that gives the player a chance to control the speed by themselves to a certain extent. An example of this could be putting the player on a moving platform with controllable speed, or periodically adding barriers that temporarily halt the scrolling (think a screen-by-screen challenge autoscroller).

I wanna be the guy: show

Man, so many of your levels boil down to tight spike corridors, it's kind of monotonous. I don't even have much of a suggestion here aside from "remember that the remaining features of the engine exist and add a couple you like to your tileset itembox". Seeing more elements instantly develops more diverse ideas. Try to mix things up!

Level names: show

Personal nitpick.
Really really personal nitpick.
If there's one thing to not take personally or too strictly from this post, it's this.
Feel free to ignore it all.
But man, I'm not a fan of a sizeable number of your level names, sorry.
Bomb-foo Tower has bombs and foos but no Bomb-foos, Bonus Area is a description befitting a million different levels, Trial-and-Error is named after a bad design practice, August flying gods only tangentially relates to "flying", some other names (like bomb-foo tower) are [Enemy] [Location], and "Flow with me and bumper" remains incomprehensible to me.
I'm really sorry for rambling, and again, feel free to ignore all of this spoiler, but I'm kinda passionate when it comes to level names since there's so much character that can be put into them. References, foreshadowing, lore, jokes, you name it.

It would be unfair for me to not name some names I like:
Machinarium, while hardly relating to the context of the level which seems to be more of a construction site, is an awesome level name. Sounds great, rolls off the tongue, and sets a kind of dystopian vibe.
Shadow Mausoleum and Mystic Caves, too, foreshadow some mystery. They're simple, but really neat.

Here's some ideas for how something like Trial and Error could be named in regards to the previously mentioned categories: Reference, foreshadowing, lore, joke, and one that's just Enemy Location:
Reference: Alley of Toe-Stubbing (referencing how Mario dies whenever he stubs his toe on a spike), Cut through the City! (spikes)
Foreshadowing: Aimless Dance (relating to the way Mario seems to dance atop the arrow blocks that move in all directions) (music could be used to emphasize that idea too), Prickly Journey (again, spikes)
Lore: Charge! Advance through Spiketropolis (action), What remains of the city (tragedy)
Joke: Spike Dance Revolution (DDR blocks)
Enemy-Location: Arrow Alley, Spiky Suburbs, Arrowspike Rooftops

I'm excited to see how your level style continues to evolve over time. Try to take some of this with you and keep it up!

[KateBulka]

Well, i agree completely on this one. I'll try to follow those tips, and i hope that i can learn them well, so those mistakes wouldn't happen in my future levels. About enemies - i wanted to add them, but level development was pretty stressful, so i kinda forgot about it, but i don't deny it though. Enemies would make an interesting interactions for sure.
Also just thing i want to point out:

Spoiler: show

-Bomb-foo tower doesn't means that there is bomb-foos, it means that there is bombs and foos in this tower.

Also would be nice:

Spoiler: show

Don't call me man, guess why. Also i've noticed you are calling me 'Eric52' sometimes, so would be nice if you would just.. call me Core, i really don't want to be associated with this nickname anymore.

Anyways, thanks for review and tips for autoscrollers!

[Emral]

If Bomb-Foo tower is about bombs and foos, the - should be a &. I understand now, though. Also, I use "man" as an expression like "aw man the store is closed" rather than in relation to a specific person. I only referred to you as "you" in that post, I'm pretty sure.

[KateBulka]

If Bomb-Foo tower is about bombs and foos, the - should be a &. I understand now, though. Also, I use "man" as an expression like "aw man the store is closed" rather than in relation to a specific person. I only referred to you as "you" in that post, I'm pretty sure.

Mhm.. Fair enough.
Ah, i never take it as expression, but alright, i got you. Also level is updated.

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