The Beaches

[RoundPiplup]

This level contains more water than sand through. The underwater part is a little more intense(video doesn't show it, not trying to spoil the whole thing).



Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-dH2r_KcQM
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/snp2y ... Level).zip

Credits to...
MechaLxNiiur : Custom Beach Tileset

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Before I begin my review, I have to state that you forgot to add your custom song, "30funatthebeach.mp3," to the download, meaning the first section has no music. I switched it to Beach Bowl Galaxy because I figured it was the closest vanilla song to whatever you planned on having (I don't actually know what your hypothetical custom song is because my Google search turned up nothing).

Don't worry, I won't take off points for that; just remember to include your custom song next time.

And now, my review of The Beaches:

So, the level starts out well enough, but there are a couple of annoyances I encountered on my play-through. For starters, on the line-rider part, a red Koopa Paratroopa flies left toward the player, and since the line-rider was moving right (in other words, toward it), I figured I could jump on it and land safely on the line-rider again. However, you put a green chase Koopa Paratroopa fairly close to where the red one was, and I ended up getting hit before I could get back on the line-rider. Also, in the underwater section, after I hit the switch, I was told that the sand would "wreck this place," but that didn't really give me any indication as to what exactly would happen, especially since I wasn't expecting the sand to come from below the screen (yes, I also got hit here as well).

Those are merely annoyances and can easily be fixed; however, there are a couple of legitimate flaws in this level as well. The biggest flaw is that, near the end of the level, you have a bunch of fish jump at the player, and it's difficult to tell where the safe spots are, if any. I played through that part twice, and I got hit both times. I recommend that you replace the large group of fish near the end of that part with more columns of fish (like the one at the very end of that part), because that would be better indicative of where the player needs to run to in order to avoid the fish.

Sure, the player could theoretically avoid the wood box and swim across in the water at his/her own pace, but let's be honest, few people, if anyone, will do that on their first encounter with that part.

Another pretty big flaw is that there's barely any indication as to where your secret is. Yes, it's above a palm tree, but you have a bunch of palm trees throughout the level that don't have invisible blocks above them. I recommend adding a coin trail above the palm tree to further indicate a secret (it doesn't have to be a solid one; maybe one coin every four units or so). Plus, having two stars in the same section only counts as one.

Finally, the midpoint is imbalanced. The first "half" takes, like, 2 minutes, whereas the second "half" takes, like, 15 seconds. However, due to the way the level is made, not much can really be done about that.

In conclusion:

You were this close to having a pretty good level, but then you had nigh-unavoidable projectile fish spam. I think your level deserves a 5.9/10