Super Mario Bros. X Forums

40. PaperPlayerX - Demented Dungeon (4.97/10)
Bomber57 (3.75/10)
I was actually rather thrilled at first to see a level where you got to play as Link. I then learned this was essentially a pogo-stick challenge that wasn't put together very well. It is good to be challenging, but when you have spikes placed in spots that make it hard if not nigh impossible to avoid. I also could never find the first key, and looking in the editor it seems to be inside the ceiling. How was the player ever supposed to find that? The level only seemed to get harder from there. When you make a puzzle, please consider that the player has no idea where any of these secret things would be when you, as the editor, would.

Chad (4.4/10)
Quite the complicated setup you have here. The puzzle designs are truly brilliant, making ingenious use of various uncommon SMBX elements like Link's spike-bouncing and conveyor belt NPCs to give each room multiple purposes. This really makes the player have to discover and solve in order to find the way forward, and it's really impressive how you managed to do this. However, there are a number of unfair aspects about the level that make it feel as though you designed it with the assumption that players would understand it as fully as its creator does. For starters, how would anyone guess that the fairy section uses the background castle tiles? Nothing indicates them at all, you would have to just plain know it somehow. The conveyor section is excessively narrow, requiring unreasonably tight maneuvering to get through the enemies and tunnels. The elevator section will crush you if you don't perfect-run it before you even know what to expect, because you have to bounce on some of the spikes at the earliest chance while trying not to get crushed by the layer overlap. The level throws a lot at the player and is a pretty long run for having almost no powerups and no midpoint until the end, so you basically have to do everything with zero mistakes. This issue is expanded upon further when the second star requires you to find an extra key in an unguessable block and then do every room twice in ways most players wouldn't even imagine. The "no magic missiles" hint isn't helpful either when the star still doesn't appear if you choose not to hit any of the starting blocks, meaning you got that far and did everything correctly for nothing. In short, the level has really clever ideas, but they're ruined by unfair execution and lack of consideration for how other players are going to pick it up, because people aren't going to beat it without first investigating the entire level in the editor extensively.

Quill (6.5/10)
The place you hid that first key is cruel and relies on luck if you accidentally find it or not. Fix that. The rest of the level is pretty cool though, I especially liked the conveyor room. The puzzle was pretty cool. Everything else was okay, but nothing too special. The second indoor room seems to have no purpose also.

Layla (5.4/10)
Not a bad level. It didn't feel too much like a legend of zelda level even if you're playing link, considering it's all heavily SMB3 styled minus the bots. Various spots in the level were very cramped as well, with a lot of irritating bots getting in the way and making it unfairly hazardous for Link. I did like the conveyor belt gimmick and how a switch at the end changes the entire section to move backwards to once again pose a lot of obstacles for Mario.

Valtteri (4.8/10)
That was mean. This level has one too many cryptic puzzles. The surprise go-through walls are a menace. There are WAY too many enemies in the first conveyor belt puzzle room. And the room with the paths that all just led me to a dead-end, I couldn't for the life of me figure what I was supposed to do there. But I do kind of like the looks of the level, with the mix of the SMB3 dungeon blocks. I haven't seen anything quite like that before.