I was about to say that. It's always fun to introduce a mechanic and then throw in a new one. Just make sure the transition between the mechanics are smooth, if not, players will become overwhelmed.
Really depends on what you're going for. Sometimes you want to see just what the most basic element of an idea is capable of in a level. Mario Maker levels which are basically just goomba chainjumping come to mind.
And if you go too-madman you get too many supplements and get clutter, regardless of how good your transitions are. Mixing a lot of mechanics skillfully and satisfyingly is difficult, and might require more than a single level. I'm looking at you, Celeste, you cheeky bastard.
Also, relating back to the introduction of mechanics I spoke about, here are some exclusive photos from the level I'm working on, which I incorporated the safety net: (And no, I didn't add this just for pictures. I actually run off this formula every time, it's a wonderful formula and I always recommend using it.)
As you can see, at the bottom, the Mushroom Blocks have no spikes below them. Originally I had some, but I realised if the player accidentally dropped one, they can't get it back without injuring themselves. I removed it to give the player a safe environment to experiment with the blocks, and once they're confident, move on.
The next part requires 2 Mushroom Blocks, both of which need each other in order to function. After jumping over a few Sparks, you'll come to the end of the middle corridor (Which has spikes. Punishes failure.) and find the block. Take it back halfway, use it to reach the 2nd Mushroom block, and then convoy them both 1 at a time back to where they need to be. It's a bit pushy, but that's the level design. We're talking about mechanics here.
Oh gee... this is a bit too busy for my skill level. It's doing 4step pretty well but I can't manage to beat it. I think I just died in the final section because I entered it with the wrong switch state, but getting back there will probably require a couple more lives and I don't have the time right now.
Make sure not to place enemies directly in the jump arc of the player during a timed segment. There's this one eerie which always gets me in the second half. Shortly before a much more forgiving set of 4 eeries.
Overall, Transmitter was a good level, but it did have a few flaws. While it is true you can bounce into the lava and the booster will burst without killing the player, s/he would most likely land in lava underneath regardless due to how the stage is designed; however, jumping out of a booster while inside a NPC-Pass-through block will force the player to clip into the wall and zip around. This can occur in two places near the beginning. On another side of the spectrum, the difficulty ramps up from World three difficulty all the way to world eight difficulty between two sections. Mainly due to how tight some of the jumps are. The main offender to this is in the last vertical section. In a change of pace, the ending sequence is kind of cute, even if it is a tad annoying on the ears after beating the level; it is a shame that the never-ending-booster was not used anywhere in the level besides there. Makes me wonder what a longer or more puzzle-oriented version with those would have done. While on the subject of the ending sequence, the player can jump into the star with a skewed horizontal momentum and land in the lava. While not much of an issue in a stand alone-level with a checkpoint two seconds away from the star, it would be quite annoying in an episode environment if the player collected the star and forgot to stop their speed first and missed the booster.
In terms of actual set-ups however, I did genuinely enjoy what was shown and would love to see what would have happened if you expanded upon this. The combination of boosters and electric-currents were used phenomenally, just wish they were more of a threat. One could in essence, run past them without ever stopping and when you do stop, you are waiting on the skull raft. (Admittedly, I enjoy the speedrun-compatibility this offers, it seems like an odd choice on it's own.) If you do not do a perfect run while blitzing the electric currents, they can prove to be a slight threat and it is a great addition that the skull rafts are used to have the player garenté they know how to time them without getting hit. While the Roto-discs were not used often, they did not really seem to add much to the level besides more timing based shenanigans with the way they are positioned, though waiting long enough makes that matter mute.
While the graphics are not the best choice as the lava seems to go against the space-tiles and the Super Mario World Skull Raft seems to kill the space-aesthetic, the music was quite good. I should however point out that the Rooms.lua usage was a tad sub-par when it comes to cut-off on the tiles. This is the easiest to spot in the penultimate section when the screen scrolls left and up 32 or so pixels. This results in the screen showing stuff out of bounds where no filler tiles were placed below the screen resulting in the background showing up and the blocks not ending properly. Otherwise, not much else to say in terms of Visuals.
Difficulty
0.8 md or 8 Dmd (Note: Difficulty is graded using a custom Metric-System unit.)
Overall, Transmitter was a good level, but it did have a few flaws. While it is true you can bounce into the lava and the booster will burst without killing the player, s/he would most likely land in lava underneath regardless due to how the stage is designed; however, jumping out of a booster while inside a NPC-Pass-through block will force the player to clip into the wall and zip around. This can occur in two places near the beginning. On another side of the spectrum, the difficulty ramps up from World three difficulty all the way to world eight difficulty between two sections. Mainly due to how tight some of the jumps are. The main offender to this is in the last vertical section. In a change of pace, the ending sequence is kind of cute, even if it is a tad annoying on the ears after beating the level; it is a shame that the never-ending-booster was not used anywhere in the level besides there. Makes me wonder what a longer or more puzzle-oriented version with those would have done. While on the subject of the ending sequence, the player can jump into the star with a skewed horizontal momentum and land in the lava. While not much of an issue in a stand alone-level with a checkpoint two seconds away from the star, it would be quite annoying in an episode environment if the player collected the star and forgot to stop their speed first and missed the booster.
In terms of actual set-ups however, I did genuinely enjoy what was shown and would love to see what would have happened if you expanded upon this. The combination of boosters and electric-currents were used phenomenally, just wish they were more of a threat. One could in essence, run past them without ever stopping and when you do stop, you are waiting on the skull raft. (Admittedly, I enjoy the speedrun-compatibility this offers, it seems like an odd choice on it's own.) If you do not do a perfect run while blitzing the electric currents, they can prove to be a slight threat and it is a great addition that the skull rafts are used to have the player garenté they know how to time them without getting hit. While the Roto-discs were not used often, they did not really seem to add much to the level besides more timing based shenanigans with the way they are positioned, though waiting long enough makes that matter mute.
While the graphics are not the best choice as the lava seems to go against the space-tiles and the Super Mario World Skull Raft seems to kill the space-aesthetic, the music was quite good. I should however point out that the Rooms.lua usage was a tad sub-par when it comes to cut-off on the tiles. This is the easiest to spot in the penultimate section when the screen scrolls left and up 32 or so pixels. This results in the screen showing stuff out of bounds where no filler tiles were placed below the screen resulting in the background showing up and the blocks not ending properly. Otherwise, not much else to say in terms of Visuals.
Difficulty
0.8 md or 8 Dmd (Note: Difficulty is graded using a custom Metric-System unit.)
Thank you for the feedback. I've remedied some of the problems with the update, namely the cutoff, a tighter star drop and NPC-pass block schenanigans. I am aware that the Celeste bubbles hitting lava just leads to a delayed death, but unfortunately I haven't the knowledge to make it so that hitting the lava while in the bubble outright kills you.
