June 25th
You may have noticed that I've returned from duty! I didn't like it much if someone asks. But the positive thing is that the much waited 11th Community Contest is about to launch! It's gonna roll the way you know and love. I pretty much just copied the below information from the previous contest. Sign up as normally. Read the instructions below if you're new. It's pretty simple; Post in this topic that you want to participate and send me a level in private due 25th of July. Let the best level designer win, and most importantly, have fun!
July 25th
The deadline is here, with 85 entries! You can no longer enter. Judging will begin soon.
July 26th
The judging has begun! The judging deadline is 9th of August. Expect results on 10th of August!
August 10th
Finally, we have results. Expect a couple of tiers worth of results revealed a day until I reveal the mighty winner. There will be 10 tiers. Get excited!
August 16th
Congratulations to the winner (revealed below)! Congratulations to everyone in the top tiers as well. And the biggest thanks to the judges who accepted the task of reviewing over 80 levels and doing a magnificent job at it, too! Tower of Biased has been in the works for a few days now and we've got good progress. Quill, Wind and I are working on the project as a team. It is the 10th ToB and it will be special. ;) Expect it within a couple of weeks!
Results
Tier 1 Places 85-78
Spoiler: show
85. 8flight - A Very Short Puzzle Level the Sequel (0.1267484/10)
- Bomber57 (0.0/10)
- u pres da p swith an den u win.
- Too short for me to beat in like 1-2 seconds. Thanks. Also you can easily screw up if you throw the P-Switch out of the boundary so there's that.
- It's a single room with a P-switch, SMW blocks, a star, and the smallest possible effort one could put into that task. Needless to say it is the single best level ever made and I am obviously using golf logic when giving it this score.
- This blew my mind. I was so confused at first, until I realized that jumping on the switch made these brown blocks turn into coins! The path to the star was open and I greedily claimed my reward. It was a glorious day.
- Funny.
- Bomber57 (0.25/10)
- Impossible level. I didn't think it would ever happen but apparently people don't know to test their levels nowadays.
- I can't call it a level if it's unfinished. SMB3 themed wood level with P switches that you have to deal with... which seems interesting so far. We have a key later on and then a door that's only accessable if the P switch effect is off. Seems nice. Then at the halfway point you pretty much are done for because there's nothing you can do about it and after you pick up the halfway point and then die you immediadly die at the goomba once you respawn because the goomba is right at the checkpoint as of where you usually spawn. There's no end goal or anything which means this level is unbeatable with any means.
- Not a good level, frankly. It's an ordinary and simplistic SMB3 overworld with a short P-switch run, and... that's it. You reach a midpoint, there's another switch there, and nothing else. You can't go back through the door, there aren't any warps anywhere else, it's a dead end and the player has to die. It's be one thing if you didn't have enough time to finish the level, but putting a star where the midpoint is would have been just as easy. The P-switch run isn't that fun either because it requires more than the player might anticipate, since you can't see what's ahead until you press it.
- Unbeatable level and what's present isn't that enjoyable.
- This is a really short Mario 3 level that ends at a Checkpoint. It makes me think you've submitted an incomplete level. The P-switch runs make the level different in an interesting way, but still, it's incomplete.
- Bomber57 (0.5/10)
- Oh my god, I am so glad I didn't attempt this level legitimately. This level is 16 THOUSAND blocks, 21 sections of utter hell. The difficulty is too high, simply unwarranted. The length and the difficulty is too much together, and dying before or after the checkpoint is probably really disappointing. The bosses move at light speed (their speed multipliers are like 3 or 4, talk about artificial difficulty) and like to despawn if they go too far off your screen. The room where you have to get 4 keys is full of stupid challenges, like finding a key in 30 seconds or else you die. I decided to see what would happen if you didn't get it in 30 seconds only to be greeted by like 50 bomb generators, which lagged the hell out of my computer. This level would probably take a few hours to do legitimately, and its simply not worth it.
- This level was incredible big and it was so dragged out that it was just repetitive on certain cases. I kinda had fun while I was playing for the first time but then it gets boring and also pretty annoying like some of the jumps are just streched out and you need momentum in order to manage. There's a lot you can do in this level aswell but even if you provide a lot of playability, most of them are forced in order to finish your level anyway like with all of those keys and such. At the beginning you're not even at the castle, you're at the outside lavaland and after a long walk and jump you get to one of the midbosses in this level, Birdo. Birdo in this level is a lot faster than any regular Birdos so watch out... but the stupid part is that once you let Birdo off the screen for too long it will despawn and also it resets it's health. After that you earn the halfway and then there is a very long corridor for you to take care. Climbing, walking, jumping, dodging, waiting and it repeats. This is where it gets repetitive. After that long corridor including a single room with a key you get to another midboss which is Scarlet Shy Guy and just like Birdo he's incredible fast. After that you get to the main room with 4 doors to choose and you have to compete all of them in order to proceed. One is the red donut platforming with podoboos, one is the ceiling and floor lava and you have to slowly follow it, one is a single room where you have to be very fast in order to get to the door or else you have to hit the switch in order to reset the timing which was kinda clever and the last room is pretty stupid because you have to be very fast until you found the key and you even have to be very fast to get out of this room because once the timer hits zero on that room you get spammed with shooting bombs everywhere and you're pretty much done for. After that you fight Shadow Link with unfair appearing hazards at the beginning. Then you get to simplified platforming area with enemies and then to a little maze with doors. The biggest problem with this level is that after I hit the P-Switch 2 times you get a run-time error 6 - overflow because coins turning into blocks will count as blocks and since this level has a lot of blocks involved it will overexceed the limit of blocks. After the maze you fight the boo with a lot of Bowser Statues, multiple switches that you have to press and then throwblock generator appears. After that you get to the secondary halfway point which is a SMW star but only if you go to the left first where the pipe is. After multiple jumpings again you get to the maze part which is just boring because no enemies what so ever and there's even one area that you can be stuck on because any character other than Luigi can't jump this high in a relatively small area so you have to forcefully quit and restart. After the maze part you finally get to the main boss in this castle, buzzy beetle. He replaces Ludwig von Koopa but again just like nearly any other bosses, he's super fast. After you defeat him you get to another buzzy beetle boss which is replacing SMB2 wart and there's also a lot of Bowser Statues on your way, results in spam and you won't gain a power up during the fight. After this monster you finally beat the level with a star.
- This is honestly one of the longest and most unreasonable levels I've ever seen. While the first "half" of the level is mainly a few sections of standard progression ending with a hyperfast Birdo, once you hit the midpoint at the entrance to Section 4, you still have to go through 17 entire additional sections before you reach the end. Most of them are extremely long and convoluted by themselves, and contain several more hyperfast bosses along the way, a few of which are even accompanied with projectile spam or other complex difficulties. There is a SMW star checkpoint, but it's close enough to the end that it doesn't really help the sections before it much. Also in the mix are a very slow and tedious lava tunnel, a luck-or-die/time-based/find-the-key-in-one-of-63-identical-blocks room, very minimal but long platforming sections, a door maze solved by trying random doors after pressing a P-switch generator to see if any changes are noticed (one switch actually crashed SMBX via overflow, likely due to the near-max block count), and an amazingly long switch maze. The outside sections in the beginning aren't bad and I like Section 10's shell timer gimmick, but those really don't compare to everything else, unfortunately.
- The P Switch causes a crash. Until that I thought it was all right. Overall I feel like this would work better if the level was divided into several shorter levels, though. The bosses are way too fast. I dreaded the key puzzle at first but it proved to be pretty entertaining except for the room where you had less than half a second per block to find a key or you would DIE. After that came the door maze with the Switch that would crash the game with the overflow error.
- Bomber57 (0.75/10)
- This level contains an Ice Cap Zone remix, featuring 99% less Michael Jackson. Literally 3 or 4 screens long, and gives you free powerups.
- Well... this level was at least nice with a secret at the floating island and a relatively nice music choice you got there but this level was incredibly short. Literally I beat this level in under a minute without any secrets. I thought this level would of been averagely long at least when I heard that Sonic music in the background but instead it's short... at least you can swim in water and you get a nice reward once you find the secret in this level. Also this beach isn't flying at all except for 2 landmasses at the top of this short level.
- Honestly, this is barely a level. It's just some chunks of land, some water, a few enemies, a secret powerup area, and an exit. It wasn't even long enough to do anything noteworthy with, although what is there isn't unpleasant. The few enemies aren't bad, and the platforming's nothing to complain about, but as a whole, it amounts to the gameplay of a Toad House level.
- Well, you gave it a go.
- That was short... The level looks nice and has good enemy placement but ends way too soon.
- Bomber57 (1.5/10)
- This level contains Spam. The boss was pretty neat but got too difficult because of Spam spam.
- This level is just filled with Spam that they're spamming everywhere! This is for sure a strange gimmick you have to utulize with those rinka shooters but for sure it's also relatively difficult since you have to actually jump on those sideways spikes and you have to glide on those rinka-projectiles in order to manage the whole city. After that you get to the boss + checkpoint which is a giant "thing" with 2 eyes and you have to destroy both eyes in order to earn a star but this is where the fight gets ridiculous. Every time you cut one of the block of meat the rinka shooters changes positions and appears somewhere and later on it gets rather too spammy in order to even hit the eyes if you cut the wrong area. At least you get a 1UP everytime you respawn at the checkpoint but that doesn't really help all that much because everything has to be done correctly or else you get spammed up to death by squishy effects to these rinkas.
- This is built around a silly joke, but isn't something that functions well as an actual level, whether intended or not. The spikes are unreasonable to get past, and the - yes, spam - during the boss is impossible. It keeps negating the weapons, is an omnipresent crushing hazard, and becomes irritating to the point that I eventually just spawned myself a Billy Gun. This level has little value aside from appreciating the joke rather than playing it.
- Hello, I am currently 15 years old and I want to become a walrus. I know there�s a million people out there just like me, but I promise you I�m different. On December 14th, I�m moving to Antartica; home of the greatest walruses. I�ve already cut off my arms, and now slide on my stomach everywhere I go as training. I may not be a walrus yet, but I promise you if you give me a chance and the support I need, I will become the greatest walrus ever. If you have any questions or maybe advice, just PM me. Thank you all so much ~~
- It's a funny level, if you have cheats on. Otherwise it's pretty much impossible. It's a city level of a kind where solid Rinkas spawn everywhere. You're supposed to use them as platforms and this gimmick would actually work if there was like one spawn in a level and they couldn't crush you, but back to this level. The boss shows cleverness but each time you hit it more spam spawns (although in a manner I cannot figure which adds to the cleverness!) and makes it really unintuitive. Effort was put into several aspects of the level. The graphics look nice, the design is quite beautiful and the cinematic before the boss with the Toad falling on the ground dead was cool. But again, the level is (intentionally) ruined by the spam which is a shame as I believe it would have done well in the contest otherwise.
- Bomber57 (4.25/10)
- I was disappointed, for there was no crack to be found. It's really just 1-1 with minor edits (like all the enemies being absent pretty much), I didn't really see anything too outstanding in this level. Not much else to say.
- OH GEE IT'S SURELY WASN'T LIKE AS OF WHAT SMB W1-1 DID!!! No really, it really is different rather than the original SMB but even then... ehh let's go bramble about the level. For sure this was a wonderful concept just to rip off such a famous 1-1 level like this but to turn into crack mode apparently we get this right here. Goombas secretly loving eachother with a key at the top that's inside in a '?' block and then goomba-generators already as you enter the level. Later on there are enemies that originally hasn't been encountered in SMB and that is a hammer bro and a firebar. Also that one hidden block that usually spawns a 1UP after you hit it, it's a poison mushroom instead... such tricky enviorements but there's more. There's one spot where you can spinjump on a thwomp at the Toad where he's talking about and then at the top of it there is a little secret where you can easily get a Hammer Suit out of it. Of course a Starman is relatively impossible to add in SMBX so what did you do in order to replace it? A green shell. That's one of the weirdest choice you could of made but at the other times it's there for a reason actually once you reach the shell to the end since there is a 1UP where you can only get once you have that specific shell on you. For sure your enemies have gone to sleep because there were rarely any enemies throughout the section. No sceneries... of course you would do that. Also after I went into a gap with invisible coin blocks at the top, there is a invisible warp that leads you suddently to a random castle area with Boom Boom fighting at you. After you defeat it you get a key and then simply went out at the near exact same spot where you firstly enter the room... such as no rewards what so ever aswell. This was incredible time consuming after with that one Boom Boom taken over in a castle area that is out of place.
- I didn't really enjoy this one. It's a near-exact replica of SMB1 1-1 with minor changes that don't have much of an impact on anything. The Boom-Boom fight felt unnecessary as well, being just the boss NPC in an empty room for the most part. I would have scored this higher if the level had its own unique design and purpose.
- Greetings, everyone. I am new. (One second � let me get this spork out of the way.) My name is Melia, but you can call me Princess of SMBX (I�m laughing aloud.) As you can plainly see, my actions have no pattern whatsoever. That is why I have come here. To meet similarly patternless individuals, such as myself. I am 13 � mature for my age, however! � and I enjoy watching bossedit8's Let's Plays with my girlfriend, Bomber57. (I am bisexual. Please approach this subject maturely.) It is our favorite youtube channel, as it adequately displays stochastic manners of behavior such as we possess. She behaves without order � of course � but I wish to meet more individuals of her and my kind. As the saying goes, �the more, the merrier.� Ah, it is to laugh. Anyway, I hope to make many friends here, so please comment freely. Switch block hunts!!! That is simply one of many examples of my random actions. Ha, ha. Fare thee well. I wish you much love and waffles. Yours, The Princess and SMBX
- I have to admit I like the general concept. You remade SMB1 1-1 and did small changes. I was surprised that there was use for the Koopa shell. That's an interesting way to replace the Super Star. The Toads all around the level were funny, I guess. There's even a boss fight if you happen to jump in the space between two small staircases. All in all the level is ok; it's functional and even a bit humoristic but nothing special so I believe this is the right score for it.
- Bomber57 (2.5/10)
- Uh, what was this level even trying to be? I guess the atmosphere was kinda ominous but there wasn't really anything going on in this level but a whole lot of nothing. Not much to say on this one.
- You're lucky since I didn't scream what so ever in that "not so well designed" spooky type level. Long corridor of almost nothing going on, just the same enemies over and over including spooky elements which is just coloring changes on the enemy sprites. At the end I had a choice to either get a star or die... UNFAIRLY!
- Eh, this isn't very good to be honest. It does a nice job setting up a creepy atmosphere, especially with the increasing darkness at the start and torches that go out as you pass them, but the actual layout of the level is incredibly barren. The rooms are just flat empty rectangles with enemies placed sporadically, and the Dry Bone bridge is repetitive. I feel that this level was more about demonstrating a creepy surrounding than anything else, but some actual platforming and more interesting room design would have made this level better.
- Well, that was an interesting experience. The atmosphere is all it really has going for it. The level design is super bland.
- This would be an interesting haunted level if it wasn't so lazily made. The first half had had some effort put into it, with the various friendly NPCs providing a (although very vague) backstory of a sort and building atmosphere. The second half consisted of 20 Big Boos and 20 Dry Bones on a flat surface and a Star and an optional pipe that leads to death.
- Bomber57 (1.5/10)
- This was basicaly world one of the original Super Mario Bros. except the music is low quality and off pitch. You used the wrong music for the castle, and iirc the castles used firebars, not podoboos. I'll give you props for copying the levels pretty well, but unfortunately this isn't the "Copy Levels Made by Nintendo" contest.
- This was a level where I can say... it's mostly a remake. Well, remake of world 1 from SMB but some difference. Not much to say if it's just a remake so there's that. Apparently this version of the level has less secrets to discover... or even none of them aswell. Not much to say though... just a generic remake with some changes involved.
- This is just a replica of SMB1 World 1. The presentation is interesting, but still an exact copy. If someone wanted to play levels with these layouts, people can just play SMB1 or actual Super Boy. It would have been better to make your own designs, it's more fun that way!
- Why did you remake SMB1 World 1? Why can't I enter warp zone? Creativity is upset at you.
- I get this is a remake of some cheap port of Super Mario Bros. and I appreciate the effort put into the authenticity but submitting a level like this to a contest probably isn't the best idea as we know you didn't design any of it, just minimally arranged some other company's work and hence we can't really give you a very high score. I also don't understand why you would remake THIS particular game. It's like a downgraded Mario 1. I admit it's interesting but you could have done something more creative, like make a new level using these pastel graphics.
Spoiler: show
77. MECHDRAGON777 - Sanctuary Fortress 2 (3.26/10)
- Bomber57 (4.0/10)
- I thought that I would eventually complete this level. I told myself I would, but I lied. I couldn't. I spent an hour wandering around this hellish maze and didn't get any results. This is true madness, knowing that there might have been some minuscule detail you overlooked. Trapped forever. No seriously this level has two maps, and then a dark world with another two maps. Your first goal is to get the morph ball so you can climb around and get lost some more. So when I finally found it I felt I was in the home stretch, but that was only the beginning. You then have to go all over the level and get items (bombs I guess) that destroy walls. You don't know what destroys what wall and where, so it's a huge toss up. You also gotta find the missile so you can go into these red doors, but I got what I believe was the missile and none of the red doors seemed to let me in. I went down paths expecting progress and instead got useless collectibles (and not the good kind). I just, went in circles forever, and when I finally found a new zone it said "collect the 3 dark keys to enter the dark temple". I groaned, weary from my journey, ready to collapse and give in. So I explored for another 10 minutes. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get some progress, I went through the door at the very start of the level, which ended the level. I stared at the screen in disbelief of what had just happened. An hour of my life, wasted. I'm going to imagine that Mario walked in the level, took one look at the maps, said "A-fuck this a-bullshit." and then turned around and left through the door. At least that gives me some securing thoughts. Other things to note: This level was crowded with enemies, and had a lot of low ceilings around spikes. And by low ceilings I mean LOW.
- Ufff... this level drives into the limits! For sure it was well designed like the atmospheric part of the whole level but as for the rest like gameplay wise, some enemy placement and such is just overkill. On top of that, it's a maze where you easily can get lost in this area... and no, the map in this level doesn't really help all that much even though it's kinda cool that you went through the effort to make one for both the light and the dark sections for each outside and inside of it. Enemy choicements were ok but sometimes they're getting kinda cluttered with it like some of them are just hard to avoid on a small area, some of them you have to be quick to realize after you exit from a warping position or else you gain a hit and there's even enemies that are offplaced and others looks like that they're walking in the air inside the floors... what's up with the spammy enemies inside the walls anyway? I do know for the fact that they're here for solely eyecandy but sometimes they're also so strangely placed that leads me to questions as of how they even survive inside these blocks... oh well. Coin placements were ok but sometimes they're relatively difficult to collect them all. Your midboss, although it's nice how it was done, this entire midboss section can be laggy at times and there's even areas where you can glitch through the wall if done correctly. During the 3rd phrase of the midboss, this is the point where everything gets incredible laggy like even for having a high powered PC like me, my SMBX lags just because of looping events throughout the rest of the level until I die just once and then it doesn't lag again. That's tecnically a bad sign right there. Gimmicks were ok. The boss as the level calls is unfinished but also this overexceeds the limit of SMBX if you put the boss right there and even you can jump over the wall without hitting the switch and then you can get stuck at the bottom of the area. After that you have to evacuate this place, basically and then the whole level is done with some rewards on your place to get. Overall, this level was nicely designed with the whole atmosphere but the gameplay, some enemy placements, the lag and the length was just incredible overkill!
- I really have to admire the effort and massive amounts of complexity and detail that went into this level, but... it's beyond unreasonable. I spent a good hour and a half on a single attempt, aimlessly going from door to door (in slow-mo due to lag), grabbing the three keys of unexplained purpose, before I finally gave up because I couldn't figure out where the end was. I'd beaten the miniboss (which is largely a waiting game) and enabled myself to climb the spider ball tracks fairly early into my experience, but every area looked very much the same and every door practically felt random, so finding my way around seemed useless. There is a map (which, if you ask me, should never be needed in a Mario level), but I had such a difficult time memorizing all of the different areas in the level and how they connected that it was basically meaningless to me, especially with so few places to access it from. The switch-like events were unhelpful as well, because they triggered things that were completely unindicated and I wouldn't even have noticed what changed when I reached the relevant areas. The only thing I can really appreciate is how it looks visually, which is fantastic but doesn't make the experience fun at all.
- Oh boy... I'd like to start by saying that I can really see the amount of love you put into this level. It's obvious how much work went into the design and aesthetics of the level. I have to give you major props for that. That's where most of the praise ends though. This level is too big. It's ridiculously easy to get lost and there's even a map to help you, which I only found vaguely useful in finding the Dark Temple Keys, which you aren't actually told to get at all until you happen to come across the area where they are slotted in. I've played Metroid Prime 2 and didn't even notice which might have been bad play on my part, but I'm sure a lot of people playing your level haven't played Metroid Prime 2, so some indication that there are keys to collect would have been nice. The portals were a great idea, I liked the variety between the light and dark sections, but one thing that was super frustrating was that when you entered a portal, you weren't able to go back if you happened to be warped to an area you had already been in. The missile and green missile features were also annoying, as you had very little indication to what they opened up. It wasn't fun running around in circles trying to find which red door had opened, it's complete bullshit. If the boss was finished, that would have been interesting to see, though it just would have added to the level's frustration. The SMW Star that lets the player no longer need to find the keys is useless as you get it literally at the end anyway. The escape sequence was pretty poor and seemingly rushed as it was over very quickly. But boy was I happy when this level finally ended. It took me about an hour to complete this level. Half of that was spent backtracking. This did help familiarize myself with the level so I had a rough idea what led where, but it was still pretty confusing. Overall, your idea was awesome but executed poorly.
- The level is based on Metroid Prime 2 where the planet Aether is divided into two dimensions, Light Aether and Dark Aether, that the player has to constantly switch between during the game. This gimmick opens interesting gameplay mechanics but can also make the level extremely confusing. This level unfortunately did the latter. I could not for the life of me find my way out of the level. This is a type of level that REQUIRES constant hints as to where the player should GO. The level meritoriously tells the player what to DO, but where to GO, the player has to figure by themselves. Exploration works in Metroid Prime 2 as the different areas are highly distinctive making navigating a lot easier. In this level though, the different rooms are too similar and telling them from each other is tough. The level also has BGOs that look like blocks and that's confusing, too. I do like the graphics, though. And the fact that the level is compatible with all five players.
- Bomber57 (1.5/10)
- "i don't get it why do my checkpoints not work." I'll explain it to you: it's because you put like 7 checkpoints in your level. SMBX doesn't support multiple checkpoints. As a result of there being 7 checkpoints this level is fucking long. Also, just because its a "Galaxy" doesn't give you the excuse to make big square floating blocks of material. The design is boring and flat. Enemy placement is inconsistent, you either have no enemies or huge clusters of them. The Bowser fight should have been the end (or long before that) but then the level went on for another 3 checkpoints worth of stuff after you killed him.
- Ufufufuuu... what kind of star ship level is this? Simple design, spammy enemies on some areas and also skippable areas aswell. There's one secret area that's just cluttering my face with random objects. Also multiple checkpoints in a single level is a very bad idea since they tend to break once you grab multiple ones and no, there's no excuse to put a message box at the beginning of the checkpoint markers since you know that multiple checkpoints in a level just doesn't work very well. This level was on some cases frustration and others just boring.
- This level certainly offers a lot of variety. Pretty much every moment introduces a different set of enemies, style of platforming or other means of progression, different design, and a series of gimmicks. The actual look of the level is mostly barren and empty looking, but it does have a lot to keep the player engaged. There isn't a lot of consistency though, as the theme of the level isn't very well defined. There are a few sections which have a more complicated and mechanical feeling to them though, which was interesting to go through, but there are also a few places that are just a flat run forward on some airships with no enemies for a bit. As a whole, it's a rather on-and-off experience, although none of it is particularly unpleasant. One major issue that the level suffers from though is having a rather large number of midpoints. SMBX does not support more than one proper midpoint per level, and dying after any additional one will just put you back at the first one. It wasn't that you couldn't get it to work, it just plain doesn't work, and that makes dying late in the level extremely costly. It's well within possibility to go from the first midpoint to the end without dying, but if you knew you couldn't make multiple midpoints work, it would have been best not to do it.
- I dunno, man. It had lots of ideas, but most of them felt poorly implemented or they just didn't have enough. That's really all I can say about the level itself. Try working on just polishing up everything. You can only have one checkpoint per level, which is why your multiple checkpoints don't work.
- This level has several issues. The enemy placement is hardly consistent. There are parts where you placed way too many enemies close to each other, like an area close to where the intruder alert begins, and other parts have nothing in them, the small water maze in the sky being a good example. It feels like it's there just to make the progress slower. The level is overly long for its really simple nature. There are several spots where you need to crouch slide if you're Super Mario and that's not good. The Checkpoints don't work because you can only have one per level. If you find something not working, try to find out why instead of just adding a sign that says you don't know why they don't work and not even trying to fix it. The blocks and enemies you used seldom fit together with each other or the area you put them in. Thwomps in airships, castles in the sky. At one point in the end you as a joke (or you gave up) made a purposely corrupted-looking segment. I liked the waterfall warp, it was somewhat creative.
- Bomber57 (2.0/10)
- Super short indeed. Flat level design and abundance/lack of enemies. You know, all the works. Ends with a brief Bowser fight and you get a TOB10 reference or something.
- Daisy! What have you done?!? Anyway, this was a rather... strange simplified level that this area has been provided. Your design was like putting invisible blocks at the beginning to get invisible power ups that way after there was a Koopa just shown at the bottom of the grass area... ok? Then multiple random enemies even a Kamikaze shell attached with a wooden platform which is different. Then after a long 1UP farming spot with the kamikaze koopa if you're doing this correctly (hard to mess up) you get to the castle (instant halfway point included) which is just very few obstacles, multiple paths to choose and then after that you get to dark Bowser. After that the level ends with a star with Luigi and Daisy but if you are any further below the area after the fight ends you can get stuck and you have to do the whole level again.
- I didn't care much for this one. The design and obstacles come off as being minimal and thoughtless, because it's a series of random events with no real coherency to them. The attach-to-layer rainbow shell is interesting, but it doesn't really do much besides give you tons of lives and require little input from the player once you're standing on the right side of the platform. The instant warp room just feels tedious, and SMB3 Bowser is both ordinary and will get you stuck in the floor unable to escape if you aren't on the highest set of blocks at the moment of his death.
- Super basic design, although those blocks attached to the disco shell was weird, but kinda neat. The maze didn't really give much indicaiton to what you had to do and was really unneeded.
- This wasn't very good. The Rainbow Shell platform is actually pretty interesting but there's a lot of flat ground and before the castle it's just a bunch of Hammer Brothers. The castle is two instances where you have to guess the correct path. After that there's a boss and it's over. It's too short.
- Bomber57 (2.0/10)
- /r/gonewildtanks
- Let me think one more time as of what is all about the machinery aspects in this area. Apparently we have tank-wheels coming out from those drilling spikes and then later shooting tank-wheels out of thin air. Ok. We humans apparently learned how to affect the future in a quick pace! This level was just riding on those tank-wheels for the most time and then avoiding enemies and some projectiles that are kinda fast to react at times once it gets on your way and also this projectile has a missing death effect... means once I kill it with another NPC or so it will turn into a fish bone effect rather than a "drill" NPC. The level was pretty short with no secrets involved but at least the obstacles were different even though it's just riding on some tank-wheels and then almost nothing happens during the ride. Music was promising though.
- A really neat idea, but not particularly a nicely-executed one. It's interesting to have generating tank wheels on spikes to jump across, and the moving drill cannons are cool, but that's about the entire level. The design is very minimal and does not much more than support that gimmick, and the generating wheels become highly unstable in the second half. Having overlapping generators and NPCs make a bridge for one another is highly imaginative, but whether or not that functions properly comes down to luck. This would have been a lot cooler if more effort was put into the design and stability. It's really short though, so at least whatever deaths do occur aren't the end of the world.
- The idea presented here is pretty creative! It's a little short and the cannons are repeated a little, but it was pretty fun. That large block that spawns wheels that fall on your head was a questionable move though.
- That is definitely a new way to use the tank wheels... I can't take this seriously, which I probably shouldn't anyway. I'm sure the level is theoretically possible but the part with the stacked tank wheel launchers is too random. I kept dying and quit. Overall the level comes out as a mess and the background just doesn't fit with the Super Metroid blocks used throughout the level, even with the technical-looking beams added to it.
- Bomber57 (2.0/10)
- Pretty decent I guess, but the level felt square and flat. The really tall vine section full of paratroopas was pointless and frustrating, same goes for the spike section with the leaves. I don't know how you are supposed to get around those spikes without getting hurt, even with the leaf.
- I don't mean that wrong that it was a desert themed level in the night... it's just that I find this level's design not too great for a SMW based level. There were no sceneries what so ever and there are places that you can take a pipe which simply takes you backwards incase if you get stuck at the bottom of the area but there's one area where you can get stuck once you destroyed certain amount of turn blocks and defeated all of the enemies aswell. If you're not Luigi you're stuck down there so you have to restart the level. Afterwords you get to a vertical section with a lot of para-koopas hovering left and right. If done right you can get a lot of 1UPs during that since they're basically stacked up vertically on each side. Then you get a forced leaf power up gliding through spikes and platforms and then there are 2 ways to get the star. One is by simply gliding further ahead to get to the star where you can easily die by your momentum since the platform is small or you can take the key and the locked door to the cave where multiple enemies lies ahead and there's your secret star.
- This isn't very good, honestly. It's mostly a barren set of hills (although the warps back to the start to try again for certain obstacles are nice), followed by a long fall and monotonous vine climb, then you have a series of platforms and spikes that the player has to take a hit on for no reason, then the level ends. There didn't seem to be a plan for this level really, just a handful of very minimal executions.
- I did like how this level tried to be a little like SMW, but it had several notable flaws. For example, that second star was completley unneeded as it's not hidden in the slightest and it's just an excuse to play the level over again. Falling at the start leads to a cave section which will return you to the start of the level to redo your jumps. Why not just have the pipes take you directly there?
- In this level you jump from platform to platform and then you need to do a pretty difficult trick with the Super Leaf. The level lacks variety, and also decoration. There isn't a single background object in the level making it look empty.
- Bomber57 (2.0/10)
- This level wasn't too terrible at first, just very bland and kinda flat. The background was very nice though, as was the music. The last section killed that though when I got the pleasure of fighting 4 Mousers one by one with increasingly difficult placements, and then 4 or 5 Mousers at once before the star. There's also a toad in the middle of the path advertising some website, so yeah.
- I detect spies with bombs and rodents! Ok, about the level itself, it was pretty nice as of how the design goes but adventuly it falls down into the abyss. I do like the whole atmosphere of the level though. Dragon coins in this level are useless since there are only 2 scattered around in this level. At the end where the design dropped, you earn a lot of Mousers with a strange music playing in this area and you have to fight multiple Mousers till the end where the star is but at least you don't have to kill them all just to get to the end. One problem is that once you get to the star while a lot of NPCs are on the screen you get a lot of 1UPs, resulting in life farming.
- Welp, found the Mouser spam level. Getting around them was actually mildly interesting though, even if that probably wasn't the intention. At least the first section was pretty and nicely built, even if to a shortlived extent.
- god damnit nien
- Aw, you should have finished it. It started out as a pretty atmospheric level, although it could have used a lot more scenery. Then you gave up and put 10 Mousers in the following section and the level was over. Well I kind of liked what you started.
- Bomber57 (3.0/10)
- This is pretty much a joke level. Though, it was, surprisingly, actually a bit funny in just how unexpected parts of it were. I thought the Barney fight was funny just because of the animations. The Ninten fight was also cool because you used changing BGO to represent his facial expressions as he talked, sorta like an RPG. Besides some neat or kinda funny things, the level wasn't really serious, so I don't think it deserves a really serious score.
- Run-Time Error '9' - Subscript out of Range! After I saved this level once over PGE I can play this level apparently in SMBX. This level was based mostly at the lava area with some strange enemies involved. Some gimmicks were ok on this level. There's a lot of things that I just say... what were you thinking? I mean we get some random bosses from those childish TV series and others video games and then there's even random POW blocks shooting out of a green hill background object that's partially floating aka creating cutoff at the bottom. There's one place that is physically impossible to get over the giant gap of lave because the skull raft is stuck at the one edge piece at the lava tile. This seems to be a hint that this hasn't even been tested well enough and because of that I have to bring myself a red shor just so I can get further on in this untested level after the halfway point. I do like what you did with the face-images during the dialog while you're at the Ness boss fight which is SMB Bowser replaced. After you defeated Ness you'd think it's all over but once you try to grab the SMB3 roulette exit you met to a secret boss which is a SMB3 Bowser but replaced with a different graphic... maybe it's a Villager or something that I don't really know all that much of that graphic. After you used up 20 hits on that boss the level ends.
- This one's honestly rather bad, and many aspects of the level imply this was not a serious effort. Starts out seemingly normal with a little bit of basic platforming and enemy evasion, but then you get to the next area and deal with jokey minibosses in which Barney (yes, I said Barney) spawns on top of you, then there are nonsensical enemies and random POW-block generators that make traversing the next areas a needless nuisance. After that is a midpoint, followed by a skull raft that literally does not go anywhere, making the level unfinishable. The remainder is just a few more weird minibosses and having to kill a SMB3 Bowser NPC with bombs, which at that point I was not motivated to do. Everything else about the level's basic design and gameplay are rather unremarkable too, so I can't say I enjoyed much about it.
- I'm not sure what this level tried to be, but it was unique to say the least. You had some 'interesting' ideas I suppose. Nothing's really too bad about this level, aside from the untested skull raft ride, but there's nothing too great either.
- You could have tested this a bit better. You get stuck at the Skull Raft ride. That aside, this is a pretty decent overword level with very strange sprite choices such as the villager sprites, Barney, Randall from "Monsters, Inc", some of these not correctly scaled. I have to admit the Barney sprite swap for Boom Boom is pretty funny with the dumb stop mark indicating the spike form.
- Bomber57 (1.0/10)
- Plain, boring, and orange. I actually had to turn off my volume because the music gave me a literal headache. Also when you enter the boss room to fight Larry he spawns on top of you. Oh joy.
- Up going down into a cave filled with water, castle blocks and apparently... a boss of course. For sure this was an interesting level at the beginning but then it gets to the point where I would say... it's pretty short. Areas were cramped where you have to avoid simplified enemies like that. You gave me surprisements by your enemy placements that are close to my warping positions so please give me a favour... DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!!!
- This is a fun, pretty little cave level. The design is simple yet enjoyable, with reasonable enemy placements and modest visuals that look nice. I enjoyed the mix of swimming and platforming, and how it transitions into a castle area. It ends somewhat quickly, but I enjoyed what I played. However, the last two sections feel lazy, as they're mostly just rectangle rooms with little else. Also, Larry's just an ordinary fight with the exit warp placed too close to him. Everything else was decent, though.
- Pretty short level. It looked kinda neat, but it just needed to be extended with more ideas to excite the player.
- That is a weird name. This level is decent, although very short. The custom Goombas look horrifying. I'm not saying the artist failed, but that the Goomba looks frightening. :P I like the orange SMW tileset mishmash. Even if it's short, the level is functional, with the successful enemy and coin placement, looks neat and is pretty fun to play. Please place the exit warp in Larry's room farther from Larry so the player doesn't get surprised and hit unfairly.
Spoiler: show
69. alti0204tri - Jungle Rhythm (3.82/10)
- Bomber57 (3.0/10)
- Alright, this level was way more difficult than it should've been. I think it's real nice that you decide to fuck the player over at the start by putting an unexpected enemy in the first set of item blocks in the level, that was real nice. It was also real nice of you to not indicate that you can't jump on the Fighter Flies without getting hurt. The design was ugly and was mostly big squares of ground in the jungle. The level had many cutoffs, in both BGO, blocks and even in custom npcs. In the area with the rows of spikes that rise and fall the enemies you decided to put on them can glitch out into the blocks. Like mario, this causes them to achieve warp speed and fly off in a direction. In my case, fly into me and cause my death. The worst part of the whole level were the two long line platform sections. Both of them have no powerups, and both of them are extremely hard (in the case of the second, next to impossible). You shouldn't put two volcano lotuses and a venus fire trap near each other on a line platform. You really shouldn't. I could never get past the part where you have to hit the three switch blocks with shells quickly or else Mario wont continue with the line platform and will fall to his death (or be forced to kill himself). Largely unenjoyable due to the difficulty, lack of powerups, and the checkpoint being far into the level considering that difficulty.
- This level wasn't that enjoyable for me to get over everything as of this level contains. I do like the background placements though but everything else like the enemy placements and that stupid moving layer ruins it for me. If you wait for too long at the earlier areas the moving layers will desyncs by itself and they'll create cutoff at the bottom. This level literally learns how to usulize shells onto unreachable switches like that in order to advance. There are places that you can unfaily stuck in this level. Later on the level gets incredible difficult and unreliable depends of what you're doing and one mistake you have to do the whole level again since this locates near the halfway point. The rest is traveling through spikes with your fairy power and other stuff. There are 2 stars in this level.
- This was not a fun level. Honestly, it felt very much like you wanted to include a lot of gimmicks, but didn't put enough thought into how those would work for someone other than the designer. The first section is decent, it's standard but has nice enemy placement, platform design, and construction, and I like the switching platform line and spikebars gimmicks (although the P-switch part there was just unnecessary waiting). But after that, I'm afraid it all sort of falls apart and the rest of the level skyrockets in difficulty after initially offering the player something tamer. No checkpoint has been obtained by the time the player enters Section 2, and you're supposed to activate both platforms at once. It's not apparent they're both mandatory and not a choice, but even if you do activate both of them, you have to deal with a Nipper that goes between both platforms frequently while the route is constantly changing, which is rather incredibly difficult because it's highly unpredictable while taking up all of the only safe space you have. After that, you have a split in the road indicated by a coin arrow, which I was already having difficulty trusting by that point, so I went the other way first. The checkpoint only appears on one route, but both desperately need it, because the difficulty climbs even higher from here. The fairy/spike route is the one that warns you about difficulty, but I'm pretty sure the platform route is even harder. For one thing, the Piranha Plant fireballs are extremely effective on any part of the lines, and then you have to focus on Lotuses which are already painful enough, and then immediately adjust to hitting three switches off to the side with perfect speed. Those are at least somewhat generous in letting the platforms come back briefly if you miss, but it's very difficult in this level in general to focus on stuff other than the moving platforms and projectiles constantly coming in, especially when the platform lines are hard to see sometimes and the level only gives you enough time if you already know what's coming from having died to it at least once before. I did enjoy the P-switch run in this area, though. The maze is interestingly crafted and dead-ends are forgiving. The other route isn't very nice either, though. The fairy tunnels are so precise that you have to go extremely slow in the hopes that SMBX's strict hitbox detection won't catch you. This is made more irritating by the fact that when the sign tells you to hit two switches but leave the other two switches alone, you have no way of knowing which one the second one is until you guess and either end up right/wrong and you can either proceed or die, and because this route has no midpoint, that means doing the entire level over. Overall, I admire the creativity and ambition in this level and it has a lot of cool ideas, but they need to be ironed out a lot before they're reasonable to play by those other than the creator.
- I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I did like the variety, but sometimes it was a little annoying such as with the platform and the On/Off switches which could sometimes glitch out. That whole fairy segment was disappointing as you had to hope you hit the right switches or you had to backtrack a lot to hit the right ones again. More indication there would have been fantastic. The design overall is decent and there were some good and some bad parts. Work on polishing this one up.
- This is an interesting level. I think you went too far with the switches that needed to be hit by carefully aimed shell throws WHEN the moving platform was at the right spot on the track or else you couldn't progress. The hardcore path was interesting, and crazy hard. And you had to guess which switches to hit which isn't as much of a challenge as it is just a thing you must chance. The level is filled with all sorts of plants which fits a jungle so props for that, except for the lazily scaled treetop BGOs which look horrible. The crusher spiked logs and everything attached to them are slowly getting dislocated as they move up and down at different speeds and unfortunately it is impossible to make objects at different speeds move the same exact distance in SMBX.
- Bomber57 (5.0/10)
- Mmhm, this is a desert with sand, and there is some tar about the place. Secret? Not so much. Nothing too spectacular about this one. The graphics were plain but managed to work a little. The last skull raft ride was too hectic, having three podoboos and a thwomp in quick succession. Also, the level ends in a SMW star rather than a SMB3 one, so the level never actually ends, you just get the star and then commit suicide. Was this level trying to say that shiny things don't bring you happiness? Who knows? Maybe that is the true secret of the Secret Desert Tar Sands.
- Overloaded graphical construction in a small level. This level was kinda messy and highly flawed. Being big is pretty much suicide since your timing has to be overly perfect in order to manage. Secret was strange but at least it kinda works as a secret and this level doesn't even have enough dragon coins in it. Only 3. At the end you get a SMW star, not a SMB3 star which basically means there's no way you can beat the level unless you die which is terrible. No thanks!
- This is a really interesting level. It's a desert level with a strong mechanical feel to it, and I like the focus on tricky jumps and enemy evasions alongside navigating around moving layers. The tight design has an intriguing effect on this difficulty as well, requiring careful planning from the player to squeeze around the narrow obstacles, which is pretty entertaining. However, it's a little bit overkill in several places. Sometimes the opportunity, time, or space to avoid something just isn't there, and getting through some of it almost comes down to luck. The Spiny generator at the start combined with the moving platform, for example, make the Spinies' movements inconsistent and unpredictable, while the crushers up above leave you with little room to squeeze through considering SMBX's very strict tolerance for that. The skull rafts, which put you on a fixed path in a narrow space, tend to leave the player no choice but to take a Podoboo hit if luck isn't kind to them. The level's at least short, so at least there isn't a massive amount of level to redo, although I'd say the start of the inside section would be a good place for a midpoint. Also, don't use the SMW star as an exit star, because then you force players to manually kill themselves after grabbing it. Don't put every graphic in the game in the level's folder either, because that makes it take several minutes to load for no reason.
- The SMW star being the exit was weird as it gives the impression that it's just a secret star. But oh man, you have to kill yourself to exit the level! Also, those red blocks at the start move way too slow. As for the rest of the level, it's pretty basic and could do with a little more length too. It was a nice attempt though.
- Yeah, the level ends with a SMW star and therefore can't be escaped by other than committing suicide. It's a pretty out of ordinary desert level with an underground section with thwomps. The level is relatively short. Overall I don't like the messy nature of the level. An illusion of boiling oil coming out of upward pipes was attempted and it turned out blocky.
- Bomber57 (3.75/10)
- I was expecting a nice icy ghost house level, but I guess I was set up to be disappointed. Its really just a long, difficult series of platforms. Some things were really unfair, like having a pipe with spikes on top that had both a venus fire trap and a jumping pirahna plant coming out of it, so you had to time your jump really well or die. There were several spots with just cruel placement of enemies, most of the offenders being blue beach koopas who would kick shells at you.
- Good music choice, typical ghost house level with no puzzles involved and then enemy placement has gone insane. SMW ghost house. You sure things are taking it easy in a ghost house but this time, rather than puzzle on nearly any ghost houses, this is just pure enemy and obstacle course right there. There's even enemies that normally aren't shown in a ghost house level in SMW like spinies, lakitus from pipes and even charging chucks. Speaking of those charging chucks, there's one spot where you have to jump through a one block hole at the ceiling in order to get through the area originally. There weren't any coins in this level, only dragon coins and even a random SMB3 green P Switch which can be used to make the level easier which is ok. One NPC which is the sliding blue beach koopa has a wrong death effect. I don't like that I can go through the sizeable blocks since those blocks are supposed to be solid in SMW but in SMBX apparently they aren't. I also don't like how you used those SMB3 spikes like that I mean you could of just used SMW spikes as custom graphics rather than having them originally there like it is... it would of be much for fitting that way if they were SMW. After the halfway point it gets more hectic since there's even more enemies along your way and on top of that there's blue beach koopas with some empty shells on your way... not fun to look at it of all of these kickings. Also I find this mean that you put Lakitus inside those spikes since they're making it even harder to damage that NPC if you want to destroy them. At least this level wasn't too long nor too short but even then, you will gain issues with all of those enemies along the way including kicked shells.
- This level's... okay. For the most part it's basic platforming and enemies, which are placed to offer some challenge, but you have some interesting ideas regarding the use of narrow passages and Chargin' Chucks. However, the enemies become very numerous in the second half, and putting shell-kickers directly next to their shells is never a good idea because it requires the player to avoid something fast before even knowing it's there. The setup of the ones at the end are creative, but the Munchers are overkill. Otherwise, it's a pretty ordinary level in at its core, but is somewhat intriguing in terms of enemy challenges, even if it's a little much.
- Some interesting ideas were presented in this level. Just work on polishing up your level and playing through other people's levels so your level design can improve! I liked the dead lakitu. Little easter eggs are great.
- This is a decent Ghost House, although short. I would tone down with the spikes. You put them in places where they didn't look very good. You placed a tad too many Koopas, I would say.
- Bomber57 (1.25/10)
- The level is a real short vanilla level. Sometimes enemies got a little too cluttered, especially in the "cave" area. I don't have too much to say, but those skeletons were pretty spooky.
- At least we have some nice short levels going on in this area. This level was ok with regular grass, cave and partually water area but it was short in general. Lack of sceneries, cramped cave area and messed up water hitboxes at the surfaces. SMB3 and SMW combined into this level like tiles, enemies and all that such. Secrets were nonexistence except for one at the very end. Not much to say but it's short level design but I did like your music choice though.
- A short level with rather simple design, but a pleasant run nonetheless. The first half is pretty standard running, jumping, and swimming, while the second half is a little more entertaining due to requiring more precise maneuvering and having more strategic enemy placement. However, the pipes and underwater area are a little too narrow and restrictive when it comes to movement and enemy evasion. Overall, I think the level could have used a bit more to it, as it only took me a couple minutes to get through, but what's here isn't bad.
- Short and sweet. I thought the transition into the cavern was an interesting idea. Overall, this level while super short, was pleasant to play through. Some interesting ideas were presented here, just extend it!
- I kind of like the underground section merged with the overworld section. Otherwise it's a very standard overworld level. The design is okay and the visuals, too, although background objects are completely missing from this level and it definitely needs at least some. It's pretty short, too.
- Bomber57 (4.25/10)
- Looked decent at first, but once you go into the negative world it sorta falls apart. Enemies are placed unfairly and, toward the end there is a lot of cutoff and graphics placed in random places. This didn't even happen in other parts of the negative world so I can't consider it a style choice. Also this level has only two powerups and I only found one.
- You want another chocolate for your health? Too bad this place is so mean that you probably won't have another new chocolate bar in your entire life just because as of how horrible this place is especially after the checkpoint. Anyway, the whole idea of this level was ok but sometimes it seems not too well experimented like at the bonus section where I can easily get stuck at after the enemy despawns at the top while I'm inbetween those 2 different switch block walls. Your idea of having tree branches as platforms was ok but for the beginners they have no idea if you could be able to stand on them or not since usually they're here for background object materials rather than actual standable blocks. Obstacles were ok but sometimes a bit too difficult with all of these enemies on my way. After you order a potion from a pipe that you have to activate via a switch you have to go through the same way back but in a different section including reversal stuff like the background and even the music. Once you are back at the beginning during the reverse there's cutoff at the landmass and there's your star with a coin-formed heart typed via keyboard <3.
- This level's... sort of a mess, honestly. The first half has some fairly standard design aside from troublesome enemies around a moving pipe you have to wait a while for, but between that and the other dimension doesn't really have a lot going on. There's also a bonus room that I don't understand the point of, because there's no way to get up to the On/Off switch and the Koopa despawns so you could actually get stuck inside the green block wall and be forced to quit. The alternate world, though a really neat idea, is just a section that doesn't feel like there was really a plan to it. You've got a Banzai Bill that sort of traps the player under the blocks, overlapping blocks, haphazardly spammed clouds, and a broken sizable. That's basically all there was to it, and the only noteworthy thing I can really take away from it is the changing of dimensions. The music and background do a good job of establishing the concept, but the execution of everything else doesn't really work as a decent level.
- What chad said
- This is a pretty great level, although short. It's an overworld level with a few twists. I like how you can jump on the tree branches. Then there's an inverted dimension. There are some Dragon Coins that you can only collect in the other dimension but overall I think a lot more could have been done with the concept. Also, the sizables overlap and cut off badly in the inverted dimension.
- Bomber57 (1.5/10)
- A really unenjoyable experience. The level is way too difficult, especially in the second half. The first half is an outdoor space area, and the level starts off by having the long stretch of ground you are on sink without warning. You then have to run like hell to the right and hope the ground is still high enough to reach safety. Because there are bullet bills attached to this they fly in an odd manner, which can lead to you getting killed. There are these angry stars that replace firebars that are always placed in the most inconvenient locations and its very hard to avoid them, especially considering all that is going on in this level. The second section has you jumping across jagged asteroids that move to the left, and the sign warns you of a glitch where the right-facing slopes will launch you forward, but that you can also "use it to your advantage" and that it is "not that harmful". They really tended to send me flying into the abyss or hazards more than anything, so yeah, they were really harmful. Once you reach the checkpoint you are inside a mechanical fortress filled to the brim with annoying projectile enemies placed in annoying locations. I mean stuff like having a hammer bro near some sawblades, a jumping blue koopa troopa and some fire, or two rotating spike balls in a narrow corridor where you either barely scrape by or get hit. You have to go a long way to get to the checkpoint, and an equally long way after to get to the end of the level. Given the difficulty and how few powerups you get, this is really unfair. Oh yeah, for some reason the door to the last section with the star has the warp set up as a pipe for some reason, which ends up sticking you in the ground and getting you stuck there. You can't escape, so the level is impossible to complete.
- Uff... for such an excuse for making a "unwater" based rock formations in space makes me feel that it would of been an interesting level... but no, it's not! It's something I really want to just get to the level editor and then fly threw it entirely instead because the whole level design is just too much for the player to handle and other times they're broken but not as broken as you make such run-time errors at least. Beginning, you earn no warning except for the explosion effect as you hear and then you have to be quick or else you die at the very first rock formation. Some angry stars are so annoyingly placed that you either need a helpful device in order to jump over or other times at the correct timing since some of them they get that cluttered up that it gets too much for the player to handle with all of the other NPCs and blocks to handle especially after the halfway point. Moving slopes is never fun to deal with especially that they cause glitches as where you stand on because standing on a top-right slope while it moves horizontally the player will launch off of the platform and you have no idea what's underneeth so you either are lucky enough to actually stand on another rock formation or other times you simply fall into your death. There are NPCs which do not have a correct death effect and others if a yellow beach koopa enters a yellow shell it will turn into SMW kamikaze shell rather than the SMB3 kamikaze shell. Some dragon coins were super annoying to get. Enemy placements were waayy too much for the player to handle and on top of that, there's even places that are too narrow to avoid these enemies. Seriously, if you're gonna put this many enemies on my way, at least have something to kill them easily to get rid of them all but as of right now, you're kinda spamming on my way including some lack of movement ability with the ceiling at the inside section. Back at the outside section after the halfway point, this is the part where it seems that it has been rush a bit because some layers didn't seem to disappear. Gimmicks were ok but it seems that it gets too much for this one level right here and yes, it's kind of rehashed from one area to another with the same gimmicks involved especially the glitchy parts with the slopes. Also, if you fall just once at the secondary "rehashed" gimmick you basically screwed. Later on after that you gain blocks that are real and fake almost like megaman based blocks and during the same section there's even a massive cutoff at the far right of the section means that this part of the level is literally rushed and on top of that, once you get to the end of that section there is a giant error with the warp. Rather than having that on a door warp, it's a pipe based warp and with that, once you're big you physically get clipped off inside the wall and you have to be small in order to get to the last section where the star is. Terrible! At least the music was alright.
- I'm sorry, but to get straight to the point and be blunt, this level is completely unreasonable. It is massively long, filled to the brim with excessively difficult gimmicks, and bugs which make the level more of an ordeal than a fun experience. The basic construction and presentation are gorgeous and the gimmicks are impressively imaginative, so I can appreciate that and the amount of effort this level must have taken. However, there are frankly so many things wrong with how it plays that I just couldn't enjoy myself. It starts you off with really long sinking land, which not only doesn't even indicate that it's sinking until it's too late, but also requires full speed from the very start (and not taking a hit for any of it). Then, you have a section full of horizontally moving asteroids with slopes, and although they look pretty cool, if you're actively aware that something's buggy and need to warn the player, don't include it. The gameplay is extremely fragile there on top of the inherent difficulty, and you could have just used corner tiles. Everything else between here and the checkpoint is all right. Very challenging, but possible, and I like how you used the Grinders and line-guided platforms, often together. Hazards are placed really well to make things nice and tricky. However, you bring the buggy asteroids back, then introduce blocks that alternate between solid and not. The gimmick is always a neat idea, but these have only minimal indication and require timed leaps of faith in areas that already have quite enough dangers without them, making them highly unintuitive for this level. And at the very end, the warp is broken. If you're not small, you'll get stuck in the ground, unless the player thinks to re-enter the door and intentionally take a hit to make room for themselves in the warp. Another unfortunate factor is because this level is extremely long and filled with many different events and gimmicks, I dealt with consistent lag through absolutely all of this. Imagine what a 2.5-second delay must be like in slowdown time. I also didn't care for the hidden boss, because you can break it just by staying on the cannon to the right, the entrance requires a hit (and can only be found in the editor), and beating it makes nothing happen so you actually get stuck there. That's before the midpoint, so that means restarting the entire first half. I want to like this level and the work put into it, but it's insane and broken in multiple fundamental ways that I just can't find enjoyment in it.
- I liked the atmosphere in this level, but found the factory/castle part of this level totally unneeded. It was just an excuse to extend the level's length (which should be shortened) I think it would have been better if you stuck to the theme at the start of the level. The warning about the asteroid was kinda funny as it said that glitching through blocks could sometimes help you, but it actually killed me! Woo.
- You should have some indication at the first part for the collapsing ground. Everyone will be dragged to their death the first time they'll play this. I noticed the ground was moving downwards but didn't realize it would take me into the pit and that I should run fast. I kind of liked the flying asteroid part, even though it was glitchy. The custom Bob-omb is missing the correct death effect. The exit warp can take you inside the floor in the exit section getting you stuck. Overall the level looks nice and besides the few gameplay problems it functions well.
- Bomber57 (2.5/10)
- People keep trying so hard to make rocket barrels work in SMBX, and this one is another that fails. It uses the Airship Pieces as your vehicle (very glitchy) and the difficulty is rather high. It took me a while to figure out how to get past the big Grrrols on platforms at first, which I feel should be a little more obvious. The level ends in a SMB3 Roulette rather than a star. The level does have a star but its impossible to reach, so yeah.
- Autoscrolling Barrel-ride type of level! Getting a power up at the very beginning needs to be done quickly or else you miss it entirely. Now for the barrel ride itself. It's actually rare to find something like that in this kind of level but one little issue as of what I have with this NPC is that any enemy can ride on that NPC which can end off rather bad if it happens. You have to be very careful in this level to get accross spikes, enemies and projectiles or else you're done for. The level has veriety of obstacles and enemies you have to deal with. At least this level wasn't long to get through it all but apparently there's a SMB3 roulette exit rather than a SMB3 star exit. Also, it seems that there are some unused sections that over there there is a hidden layer that usually appears the SMB3 star but since the section is so unused it's physically impossible to get.
- Sorry, but this isn't enjoyable. It revolves completely around the buggy airship piece, this one has an ambiguous hitbox, and the level's full of tight spiky passages, projectiles, awkwardly-synced generators, and a rather fast auto-scroll all at once. At least it's really short, and the amount of thought you put into each set of obstacles is interesting, but it's asking a lot.
- The Barrel thing (basically the ridable cloud) is a glitchy mess, so a whole level based around it was not such a good idea in my opinion. The level is thankfully short though, so if you manage to be extra careful and not glitch yourself to your death, it's over fairly quickly. I do appreciate the attempt, but the clown car would have been much better here.
- This level is a rocket ship ride. The downfall of the level would be the rocket ship's ridiculous brokenness. You can't touch ANYTHING solid with it or you're bound to fall off and die. This makes the level extremely frustrating with the numerous cramped passageways. It doesn't help either that the level would be difficult even without the glitchy nature of the ship. Luckily the level is mercifully short. It looks nice, too.
- Bomber57 (3.0/10)
- Welcome to the big boring flat castle. This level has those jumps where you can just barely reach the platform above you, and makes me feel like I should have played with Luigi instead. If this is what the author intended then they should have informed the player. Hey, did you want to leave the level even though you are almost at the end? Here's this door that is here for some unexplicable reason. Entering the door ends the level. What the heck.
- Outside castle area. I find this level decently designed with enemies and obstacles included. Some jumps were pretty difficult to manage. Some enemy placements were kinda mean like that shell from a generator that's coming towards me. This level has a probek checkpoint which means once you grab it and then die, you immediadly die and you can't process the level any further at the halfway point just because there is a sizeable that goes off the screen and the game thinks that you're in the different section but clearly you aren't. There's a door that exits the level entirely, is that even necessary? The boss was ok but sometimes it gets way too much for the player to handle.
- A decently-designed castle level offering a fairly standard range of hazards. The generated bombs, fences, and pillars to help you get higher do offer somewhat of a variety, but the second half doesn't really offer much aside from being a pathway to the boss. The pillars are a bit too demanding in terms of precise jumps, and the shell generator on the way to the boss door is extremely sudden and nearly impossible to anticipate. The boss is cleverly made, by offering multiple phases and giving you other things to avoid from the sidelines, but the statue/shell spam was unnecessary and the switch/bombs are a useless distraction that only serves to give the player even more to avoid. The boss could have ended after the first clone phase and it would have been fine. It's still doable, just not fun past that point. Overall, this level's somewhat average, but with a few things that could be ironed out a bit, which would also include a broken midpoint.
- It's pretty simple to play through which is alright. Work on polishing up the level. The boss battle sucks a lot because you have to kill him a grand total of 4 times before he gives up and the boss can get pretty messy with projectiles too.
- I like how the signs first rudely tell you to get out and then give you tips on how to progress in the level. :P Overall I think it's a pretty decent castle level. It's pretty well designed. The boss drags maybe a bit too long. You kill the axe brother like 10 times.
Spoiler: show
61. Phazon1111 - Skyward Slopes (4.39/10)
- Bomber57 (4.5/10)
- Not too bad of a level, but its really flat in a lot of areas. The actual level layout never got interesting, and instead would be mostly flat areas. The Boom Boom boss was unexpected but still easy because its Boom Boom. The effect where the mushrooms rise out of the ground after you beat him was pretty cool actually. I would've liked to see more effects like that in the level, but that was the only instance where it happened. Also, for whatever reason the Pirahna Plant is glitched as its animation is very broken.
- This was kinda short and there were no sceneries what so ever which makes this level bland aswell. Some enemy placements were not that great like at the beginning the goomba just fells down the cliff... what a horrible way to become a goomba today. Next are those piranha plants that looks like that they don't really come out straight from the pipes, they're like floating a little bit over it. Thankfully there's only 2 of those but still you need a working piranha plant and not a broken one like that. Some effects are missing aswell like the hammer brothers like that they aren't correct. There were no secrets to discover throughout the level. There was one block missing inside the tiles results in cutoff. At the near end you have to fight Boom Boom and after that sizeable mushroom blocks appear from the ground which was quite nice what you did there. After that some further obstacles and then there's your star.
- This isn't a bad level, but it's not the most interesting. It's mainly standard jumps and enemy placements with not a lot to liven it up, especially since you can get a blue shell halfway through the level with Yoshi and fly over most of the remainder. There is a basic Boom Boom fight and I like the platform events that occur afterwards, but other than that it's a pretty ordinary level.
- You probably should have playtested your level some more. Some enemy graphics are broken, either completely or have some weird mask issues. I would have liked to see more creativity in the design as I see elements of SMB1's 1-1 here. The rising mushrooms after you beat Boom Boom was pretty neat though.
- This is a decent overworld level. The Goombas spawning out of a pit was funny but they kept killing themselves.
- Bomber57 (3.0/10)
- Oh hey it's that thing from Rayman. I really wanted to like this level for what it does but it's simply too difficult. I don't think the concept translates well into SMBX because of how different the physics are. I would keep falling behind whenever I had to jump up steps or slopes and, if I didn't die before, would get to the part with the bubbles of water and die because I would get crushed by the moving layer. So yeah, great concept, not so great execution.
- CATCH! THAT! STAR! This level was surely unique since you basically have to run behind a star and you have to do this quickly aswell. This is also one of the levels which you have to memorize everything as of what's happening since one tiny slip off and then you're done for. The whole design was just multithemed of grass, vulcano, castle, airship and further on combined into one. At least this level wasn't too long to actually finish it off but for the whole memory tasking and quickly realize what's going on in this area screams like "Kaizo"... also the music seems pretty weird but oh well. Overall, this level was pretty unique but everything has to be done quickly or else you die and it's all about memory in order to complete it.
- I love what this level tried to do, and the events and presentation do a fantastic job of introducing it, as well as changing the background as it went along. However, the design is too complex for the speed that is demanded of the player. You insist on only using Mario or Luigi, but eventually I did try it with Toad and I still couldn't finish it as him. The farthest I could get were the flying fish, which require some minor slowing down and planning to avoid when the scrolling won't allow you a moment's hesitation. The bubbles are intensely difficult to get through as well (and as far as I could get with Mario), and that's assuming the lowering pipes beforehand didn't bug your jump and kill you that way. It looks like I got almost to the end, and the level isn't that long, but as it stands it's a bit unreasonable. It appears to still be in the realm of possibility and it's a great effort to do something really interesting, but it's definitely overkill.
- This was a really interesting concept! The level is pretty difficult, but that's a little more managable with the relatively short length. The scrolling is a little too fast in my opinion, especially with a slower character, but it was still pretty fun.
- Nice concept and all but I can't beat this. It's too fast. Other judges made it further in the level to my knowledge (I get stuck at the pipes before the water bubble part). It isn't very beautiful to look at for the most part either. It focuses on the chase.
- Bomber57 (2.25/10)
- This is probably one of the easiest levels I have ever played. There are only about 12 enemies in the entire level. The rest of the NPC space is taken up by 465 coins. There are also two stars, and which one you get depends on whether you go in the upward or downward pipe after hitting the P-switch. Not much to say, but this one was short and boring because there was pretty much nothing in my way.
- Simple forest level that I really like because it was easy compared to some other annoying levels. Not much to say on this level though since there are areas that are lacking enemy placements and others a lot of coins for you to collect. Long corridor of coins in a cave area! Secrets were kinda hard to find at first since for the most part they're hidden. There are 2 stars in this level depends of which way you're going after you press the P switch. One is the cave area which is short and the sky area which is short aswell but overall I do like this level even for being simplistic and easy but it was nice.
- A decent SMW overworld level. Gameplay is pretty standard fare, jumping over hazards and sizable blocks, exploring a cave, going through pipes, swimming a bit, normal stuff. The platforms are nicely arranged, but you can sort of just breeze through everything, which makes the level come off like it's supposed to be more complicated than it really is. I feel a little bit like the pipes leading you to the P-switch are unnecessary padding, because you don't do anything except run left through closed-off parts of areas you've already seen. Something more puzzling would have provided more entertainment. I also would have liked for the spikes to play a bigger role considering they're clearly the theme of the level, but you can pretty much ignore them mostly. It's not an unpleasant level nor is it stressful by any means, but the end result is purely average to me. It seems to want to accomplish more than it does, and most of what it offers can be bypassed almost effortlessly.
- It's a cute little level, but it doesn't really have much to it, you know? It's just your average SMW level. Add something that'll make it stand out from the crowd.
- This is an okay grass level. I kind of liked the crossing paths where you would be taken back to an early part of the level with the P-Switch to reach an area you were previous only able to walk by. You could tone down with the coins. Coins are good but you shouldn't give them to the player for free in such high amounts.
- Bomber57 (5.0/10)
- The slow autoscroll was peaceful at first, but then it decided to go on for 5 minutes with little variation in the level. It's pretty much a SMB3 snow overworld, flat section, pit, slightly higher flat section, some pipes, then another flat section. Repeat. I was surprised there was a checkpoint and a bunch more level after the 5 minute autoscroll. It really goes on for too long. Also, after the checkpoint there is a pipe that is impossible to jump over unless you are Luigi. There is nothing that informs the player you need to be Luigi, so I don't even know.
- Autoscroll at the first segment, Manualscroll at the second segment. The first section was ok but it gets boring eventually as the autoscroll progresses since it's just the samething over and over. At the halfway point there are now Snifits attacking you like regular Snifits but now there's one part where you need at least an enemy to jump over a 6 block tall pipe or else you need Luigi in order to make it. Without any boost you forcefully have to die and there's no invisible blocks nor any indication for that tall pipe. The rest is just the same type of thing you have to do so there's nothing special but at least the background objects as of where it has been played was enjoyable to look at except for a few background objects missing at the snowy atmosphere but oh well.
- A simple SMB3 overworld autoscroller. It has a pleasant atmosphere, considering the music, falling snow, and scenery. The design's pretty basic as well, with a seldomly-changing landscape and sporadic enemy placements, making the difficulty comfortably easy. However, the autoscrolling is very slow. So much so that I spent half my time in the level just waiting for new parts to appear. It went on for long enough that I was ready for the level to end even before the midpoint, and not much new is introduced after that except for the neat Snifit graphic and a pipe that only Luigi can jump over. Sorry, but while the level's nice to look at, it isn't very engaging to play.
- That first half absolutely kills the level. The auto scroll is painfully slow and the level is super bland. The second half is much better, but it's still pretty basic. Work on adding some variety and remove the auto scroll.
- The first section does not need to autoscroll. That was so boring. It's a standard snow overworld area. Besides this issue I thought this was an okay level. The enemy placement is good and the design is neat. There's nice decoration, too.
- Bomber57 (2.75/10)
- I don't think this level knew what it even wanted to be. First it was a boring, flat SMB3 overworld, then it was SMW lava underground, then it was a SMB1 overworld hellscape, then it was a forest, and then it was a castle. Like, it'd be fine if you made the themes fit together (even then it'd be a stretch) but christ this level was all over the place. Not much to say, but it has probably the worst switch puzzle I have ever seen in my entire life. That section was technically impossible too because a crucial jump was simply too high for Mario. Might've been fine for Luigi but technically a general level should be built for all the characters (save Link in most cases). Kinda neat you used the Koopa Clown Car. Nobody uses that, though for good reason since you used it pretty badly. Want to hold right for 1 minute while completely decimating all the chasing paratroopas because you can just fly across the top of the screen? Then this level is for you.
- Huhuu... let me just walk through multiple themed based areas which is just grass, cave filled with lava, outside dark area with mushrooms and then castle cave area... messy! At least this level has some variety going on but at the beginning you won't earn any power ups for a while which means going through small it's for sure more difficult to proceed. At the near end of section 1 there's some invisible blocks next to a pit filled with water that's barely visible at the bottom of the screen. The secret star is located at the top right at the first section where the clouds are but to get to it you have to discover hidden blocks which are located very near at the giant pit of fake SMB3 water. You can easily die after you collect the SMB3 star at a great momentum. At the second section where you have to press switches in order to proceed, how to even jump up there to get to the top is for sure difficult because Mario is unable to jump a 5 block tall water fountain so you have to jump from the red switch towards to the water fountain at a great speed or if you're lucky enough, fly with a leaf power up or greater. There were some cutoffs at the water fountain though. At the cave area it gets difficult just because of a Lakitu throwing SMB3 green spiny eggs while riding on a skull raft and even Blarggs on my way. After this you get to the halfway point with some note blocks above, multiple pipes further ahead and also some mushroom platforms and breakable bricks as a bridge. Hammer Bros... don't forget about those. There's even a Yoshi in this section which I quite like since they're incredible rare for whatever reason in levels. At the castle part you're also in a cave with multiple enemies on your way and after this section you get a clown car riding till the end destroying chasing koopas. After that there's your regular star. Overall this level was ok but it could of done way better than that especially with those annoying jumps at the second section, some specific enemy placements and also that you don't die after you collect the secret star due to your momentum.
- This level is sort of unusual. It's basically a mix of completely different tiny levels rolled into one, which gives the feeling that it isn't sure what it wants to be. You start off with a decently designed grass area, which I admire the enemy placements of because they're rather effective. But then you have a mostly empty switch puzzle consisting of going back and forth a few times, and the skull raft is mostly leisurely and doesn't have a lot going on besides the occasional pipe or Blaarg. I do sort of like the volcanic area where you have to dodge Hammer Bros. and Piranha Plants though, as it requires some careful movement and planning for the player, although the second half of that felt somewhat lazy as it's just a long bridge. The rest of the level from here on just feels like you wanted to get it over with, because the forest section is just a handful of platforms and enemies, then you suddenly enter this empty-looking shadow realm that's just a line of Grinders, cannons, and Thwomps, a Clown Car section with no solid blocks that only requires you to hold run and right while occasionally moving vertically, and then it's over. The level offers variety in terms of hazards, but most of it felt like there was no plan or consistency, and not a lot is done to make the level look lively. Overall, while it's not unpleasant in any of the areas, and I did enjoy the grass and volcanic sections, but it could be more engaging and thoughtful as a whole.
- Boy, this level dragged on for a while. Each section is pretty minimal and segments like the switch 'hunt' and the castle are really bare. You had some nice ideas, you just need to work on polishing them up.
- This is a really spacious level if you know what I mean. There's a lot of room around you, the level is big like that and I think that's a good thing in a sense. It's a very simple level where you work your way past enemies and one very easy switch puzzle and go through a large variety of different areas. There is no gimmick. The level is maybe a bit too long for what it is.
- Bomber57 (2.5/10)
- Eh, semi-boring ghost house with a really frustrating part. Yeah, nice that you have a water room with like 10 torpedo ted spawners. Real neat. Also when Kamek went into phase 2 one of the clones spawned on top of me, which was in no way fair to the player.
- Well yeah, I do kinda like this ghost house which is Kamek relative but it wasn't puzzle like unlike the regular SMW ghost house. The water section with Torpedo Teds everywhere, that was kinda spammy to dodge all and also there's even cutoff at the right side. Also there's one door that once you enter you can't go back anymore at the spikes and shoe area which is kinda stupid because once you reenter that area once you've earned the key after you fought Kamek you're basically screwed. Also I can just simply take my shoe to the next area even if there's a sign telling me to not have it beyond this point so yeah, that's that. Kamek himself was actually an interesting boss in this level since later you have to guess which one is real and on top of that you use Toad's boomerang to fight 'em rather than typical bombs or anything. Key earned, go to the place where the locked door is and then there's your exit with a star.
- A simply-made, but interesting ghost house. You greet the player with a maze of doors that start them off underwater avoiding some Torpedo Teds, which are slightly in excess and end up clumping together awkwardly, but have good placements despite that. The Kuribo Shoe section is intriguing, as it makes the player traverse on and bounce off of a decent variety of things only possible with that, and you even made a proper filter at the end. The miniboss is a somewhat creative explanation for multiple Birdo NPCs, and their placements as well as the arrangement of platforms make the strategy clear, so the fight had a nicely different feeling to it. The underwater section could have something to visually indicate you're actually underwater, but aside from that, this is a short but sweet level. It introduces a lot to the player but gives you the space and time to adjust, which keeps the difficulty consistent and fair.
- I wish people would stop doing the whole "go through an area, hit a switch and then it says "OH MAN SOMETHING JUST CHANGED SOMEWHERE!!! NOW BACKTRACK... bitch." Okay, I may be exaggerating it a little, but that's not a fun concept unless the backtracking is minimal. For the rest of the level, it was fairly bland. I did like the boss though, using Toad's boomerang was fairly unique and you could get multiple hits at once with it which made the fight less tedious.
- Aside the Thwomps and spikes and waterfalls I thought this was a pretty standard ghost house. The underwater part would have been cooler if it had less Torpedo Teds and the background had a blue tint to indicate the water.
- Bomber57 (1.75/10)
- This level was way too long. It should've been over at about where the checkpoint was, but in reality the checkpoint was only the halfway mark. The level's design is very repetitive, and there is little variation between sections. Enemy crowding is a huge problem in this level, and it was difficult trying to avoid all the enemies at the same time. This level also commits the design sin of putting shells right in front of the blue beach koopas. If you ever go in the underground bonus area you have no hopes of getting out unless you are Luigi. The vine leading out doesn't have a warp, and the pipe that brought you in is too high to reach as Mario. There is a little required bonus area that is *sigh* pretty much like Crash Bandicoot, even down to the way you enter and exit. Problem is that if you ever hop off those platforms you are screwed. Even though the readme says not to you could probably slip off accidentally. You should have made it so the event ticks the "up" input so Mario can't move for its duration. When you finally get to the end you are greeted by a difficult boss rush. You fight a Boom Boom, then two Birdos, then two Mousers who will end up destroying the majority of the floor. Simply unexcusable considering how far back the checkpoint is.
- Super long forest level including repetitiveness going on. At least there are secret areas that you can discover and such but that doesn't help for the fact that the whole level is pretty long but at least you put variete like having a vertical section and having also some strange music choice once you hit on the '?' platform and fly away with it... and if you fall off of that while it's transporting you away you can get stuck. Much later there a castle segment with broken parts which you can destroy... hehee. Further ahead there's your boss which is one Boom Boom, then 2 Birdos and lastly 2 Mousers with broken parts at the bottom which is breakable by bombs. After that you earn the star.
- A rather pretty and decently-built forest level. The gameplay is mostly standard, running and jumping and avoiding enemies, and you do a nice job with that... but it gets somewhat repetitive here. The sections are very long, but don't change very much, and rarely introduce anything new except for the occasional vertical section and climbing vines over Munchers. The level really delivers in the aesthetic department, but needs more imagination in terms of design. I also didn't care much for the Lotus on an isolated platform that's near-impossible to avoid without taking a hit, the sudden difficulty spike in the stone section with Thwomps blending in and Hammer Bros. being too effective, or the fact that you have to actively warn players not to move on the bonus platform when you could have just had axes trigger an event that forces the Up control for several seconds. I like the multi-phase boss, especially when the Mousers tend to destroy certain parts of the ground, but the level gives you a lot to redo if you die to them. Overall, not an awful level, but really long (to the point of nearly using the entire block count) with little variation.
- Super long and super repetitive. Any noticable variety in the design is repeated later in the level. This isn't really that fun. Shorten the level greatly and reduce how repetitive this level is.
- This is a neat forest level. The design is interesting and nice to look at. The ride on the Cobrat and the flying rock transports were a nice addition. I liked the secrets in the level, they were quite clever.
- Bomber57 (4.25/10)
- Level was nice, but rather bland. There would be parts that were empty, and it seemed like it would be an enemy, then a bit of nothing, and then the next enemy. Not a whole lot going on in this one.
- Feels like a forest rather than a jungle but that's just me. This level was decently designed. It had enemy variety but the whole design aspect wasn't spectacular since it is jsut mostly the samething what you have to do. I do like the whole background placements surrounding the area but those SMB bushes doesn't seem to be fitting in a fully based SMW themed level. Speaking of nonfully SMW themed level there's even spots that you can get a SMB3 power up like a fire flower formed as SMB3 and some of them SMW power ups... why? You could of just make everything SMW so everything would fit with this kind of level where is just running to the right smashing through enemies and then having a lot of fun with my fire flower power shooting all over the place with fireballs. At least the dragon coins were nicely placed out and also there were some hidden SMB3 1UP mushrooms in a block... again, why SMB3 if we have SMW stuff if those functions just the same as the SMB3 one.
- Pretty decent SMW forest. It's pretty standard fare, but it has a nice layout, good obstacle and enemy placement, and the gameplay and platforming are pleasant. The difficulty is pretty smooth, too. It doesn't have anything remarkable about it other than being just a purely solid level, but I can't think of anything to complain about either.
- Pretty simple SMW level. While that's not bad at any means, I would have like to see more creativity with the level. The two main sections are too similar and you can do a lot with the name "Dino Jungle".
- This is a decent overworld level. It's not bad but not too special either. Take out a few pieces of scenery, especially the overlapping ones. They make a mess.
Spoiler: show
53. Turtwig - Shell Surfin' Fortress (5.31/10)
- Bomber57 (4.25/10)
- This was a nice little shell surfing challenge. Only complaint was the last one at the end of the checkpoint room. You have to get on the shell facing left, but for whatever absolutely retarded reason you can't get on the rainbow shell if you are facing the left. Its hard enough with the volcano lotus below your runway. The boss was nothing special, and I'm disappointed you didn't have to beat it with shell surfing.
- Shellride type level. This was actually a nice shellride level even if there's almost nothing going on along your path but even for that it was still interesting. This shellride level wasn't hard to beat and everything was done very well but there were some objects that are useless to have in this level like the roto-disk inside the lava and a para-koopa going up. Not much to say otherwise since it's just shellsurfing on lava and be quick to realize at the far side of the screen as of what's going on. After that you get to the boss which is DJ Koopa. Easy once you know how it's done.
- This shell-surfing level is... actually reasonable. I don't see that very often. The course is smooth enough that the player can anticipate what to do, the level's short enough that deaths aren't especially punishing, you get plenty of places to rest and recover, and the level has clever ways to make you retrace previous paths without it getting overly complicated. The boss is fairly interesting as well, as it's a creative way to use switches to damage him. The Paratroopa generator is infrequent enough that it doesn't get too stressful, as the Roto-disc is already pretty effective as a hazard. The level's gimmick does come at the cost of complexity though, as it makes the level a simple linear run for the most part. The lava surfaces should stay simple, but I think the castle's structure overall could have been a bit more detailed and interesting rather than looking mostly flat, and maybe you could have had some platforming and enemy evasion in between shell rides to provide some variety. Still, very good job on making a shell-surfing course that's actually intuitive and a uniquely fun boss afterwards, that's much appreciated.
- Well, this was a thing. Shell surfing is uncommon, so it was nice to see it as the main feature of the level, but it was used pretty basically. I suppose I should be thankful, since really crazy shell surfin levels can be dumb. The boss didn't really have anything to do with the gimmick and the koopa took too long to respawn. Other than that, it was also pretty easy.
- I think this level makes decent use of the Rainbow Shell. The level's aestethics need work. Add some decoration like pillars and lanterns. The boss is maybe a bit too easy. You have to dodge the Roto-disc while throwing a shell upwards at a switch and you can pretty much do that in a specific pattern where you just jump repeatedly and you won't hit the Roto-disc. A Koopa spawns sometimes for if you lose the shell. Maybe increase the spawn rate so you have to dodge a Koopa like once in 6 seconds? Make the left wall open so the Koopas don't get stuck in the room and flood it.
- Bomber57 (3.0/10)
- The level provides challenge and remains mostly fair about it. There are a few instances where I feel things were placed just to screw the player over, like a few of the bullet bills or the low lava ceiling. The checkpoint could've been a little earlier because of the difficulty. The lava drops falling from the sky in the cloud section was cool, but remember to make the axes invisible when you are done playtesting if you wanted invisible triggers.
- I went into a lava-based area, has rocks and lava on it's way and there were no ice-physics what so ever... misleading title! I do kinda like this level like how what you did with the lava formations sometimes but sometimes your enemy placements were kinda mean like those bullet bills, banzai bills and podoboos including in a narrowed space at the inside cave area. Also there was a short way inside the cave area filled with lava where it's a dead end with no reward what so ever... why is it there? Some jumps were kinda difficult to accross though. We also have falling podoboos coming from the ceiling which is nice but once you actually kill one their death effect isn't right since you can actually see that they're replacing SMB3 red cheep-cheeps. There's 2 ways you can get to the halfway point like there's 2 paths to choose but it seems that once you get very close to the halfway point it lacks enemies at the bottom of the area and the top area you can dodge those falling generating podoboos very easily. After the halfway you see a wall of SMB axes as they're triggering events once you hit one. They're supposed to be invisible ingame but apparently they aren't. Once you trigger the axe there's a lava drop from the ceiling of the screen falling down and that only once. There's multiple ones on top of that and everyone acts differently which is ok to nice. At the last section there's a lakitu, some enemies and such and there's your star that you can easily die once you have great momentum. Also this level can be easily crashed with a run-time error 9 - subscript out of range once a mushroom power up fall into the lava at the near end of the level.
- Yes, I suppose it does. Oh man look at all that ice, I'm slipping and sliding all over the place. ...All right, I suppose I can't review this without admitting it's a lava level, so I might as well spoil the surprise. Anyway, this is quite a hard level, but mostly in really good and interesting ways. The level is littered with volcano-themed enemies and strategic Bullet Bill placements, keeping you on your toes even in the more standard areas. I really like how you arranged platforms and lava to create a lot of tricky close calls and encourage a lot of careful thought from the player. It was a bit much at times, like in places where you had to duck to narrowly avoid the extremely low lava ceiling, but it's still doable, just requires a lot of caution. Excellent use is also made of Podoboo placements in order to make players walk precisely between narrowly but clearly-defined safe zones, and I like the falling lava masses which have a very cinematic quality to them. The design is very careful and deliberate without being overboard, and it really makes the level thrilling. A level with this length and difficulty really needs more than 3 total powerups, though.
- You lied! This is a lava level!!! It's a pretty decent one too. You tried some interesting mechanics such as the lava falling down when you reach a certain spot. I get the impression you are still learning the editor, so keep working with it and polishing up everything. The level does get a bit heavy with enemy spam, such as with the bullet bills, at times.
- And it's a lava level. Of course. It's mediocre at best. It's decently designed and the visuals are all right. You forgot to make the Axes that trigger the falling lava invisible. Speaking of that, the last chunk of falling lava unfairly covers the entire platform the player would be standing on as it falls. Impossible reflexes are required from the player as the only way to dodge the lava is to not jump, and most of the time the player has already begun the jump when they touch the axes.
- Bomber57 (5.75/10)
- The level was kinda nice, but had a lot of unfair parts to it. One example being on the first skull raft ride a lot of the enemies were placed at the very edge of the platforms the raft goes under, meaning that when you have to go on top you are most likely going to be hit by that enemy. A lot of the skull rafts I feel are supposed to be stationary but wound up moving when I jumped on them. Enemy placement also tended to just be lines of dry bones and dry goombas, which is boring and difficult. The rising lava section started the player a little too close to the lava for my liking and gives you a slim window for getting to higher ground at the start. Also what was up with the weird psychological phrases the level spewed at me at the end?
- Volcano level which seems to be filled with a lot of coins apparently. This level was really nice and I do like what you did with the multiple skull raft platforms that are going left and you have to be fast in order to jump over a pit of lava. Sometimes I feel that you put way too many power ups like at the beginning and at the midway but that's actually good for 2 players which is sadly rarely on the use. What I personally don't like is the secret and that is that there is a lavafall where you have to physically enter via door in order to get to the secret star of this level. At the end the message tells you about it but even then it's kinda confusing since for the first time players, you don't really know where the secrets are and also for whatever reason, the message trigger are on those '?' blocks at the very end aswell which is very strange. At the area where you have to get away from the lava due to an erruption, at the beginning you have to react to that very fast or else you die very quickly and also there's a chance that you can crash this level with a run-time error 9 - subscript out of range message once the 1UP falls into lava after you open it from a block.
- Pretty nice volcanic level. The structure is simple in execution, but has a pretty nice arrangement of lava pits and clever skull raft setups, where they're usually either backwards-moving stepping stones or require you to follow them while traversing land above. However, it'd be better to not have enemies consistently right at the edge of the solid ground following each ride, but it's manageable. Enemies overall are good, but an excess of Goombas makes getting around them feel cluttered. I like the platform arrangements in the rising lava room, but the lava shouldn't start rising right at your feet. Once you clear that though, you can usually ascend much faster than the lava, so while a better balance could have been found there in a few ways, it functions fine enough once you're past the bottom. The second star's bad though, because not only would players never expect to have to enter a completely random lavafall like a door, but the shell needed to activate the switches sometimes despawns by the time you reach the blue blocks, making it needlessly buggy to get.
- This level isn't bad in any means, it just lacks what makes a decent level a good level. It needed something that would make this level stand out. What was presented was fairly fun to play through despite that it got a little repetitive. Keep working on your level design.
- Towards the end the level had a couple of pretty bad bugs you could have easily fixed by play testing a little more. The Axe that triggered the raising lava was visible and all the ? blocks near the Message Block trigger the hint about the secret star. Besides these bugs it's a decent lava level.
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- Hey, the SMBX Vanilla contest was a few months ago bud. This is a perfectly average level. It wasn't bad, but doesn't stand out. Did a good job of being a SMB3 level though.
- Fun SMB3 type level. I do like the whole SMB3 aspects and heh, the music... good one! For the secrets, I do like what you did with the underwater area where you can get a lot of coins and there's even a 1UP at the far right once you either go above or under the screen. The Hammer Bro's hammer though... it's, SMB! How could you do this to a SMB3 themed level? The rest is for sure nicely designed throughout the area since I don't really see anything of what is wrong except for a somewhat huge amount of coins in this level.
- A simple SMB3 theme with simple design, but it's a pleasantly easy experience. There's enough platforming variation to keep the player engaged, a decent amount of effort put into the level's visual presentation, and a modest length that finishes the level once it sets out to do what it intends. There's not much unique or outstanding about it, but nothing really wrong with it either, it's about what you'd expect from an overworld level of nice quality.
- Simple, fun and gets the job done. It's a pleasant run and I have to give it a lot of praise for that, though I'd just like to see something new brought to the table. This level has many elements extracted from SMB3 and not much user creativity.
- This is a casual level. So casual that I can't really think of anything to say about it, in fact. It's functional and somewhat enjoyable but too generic.
- Bomber57 (5.0/10)
- Eh, this level was okay. Its pretty much a SMB3 overworld but in (mostly) gray. It felt a little bit bland but there wasn't really a point where I wanted to stop playing the level. Though all in all this was really just a basic, everyday overworld level. Nothing too special about it.
- So dark I can barely see the background. An average SMB3 type level where everything is gray except for the sprites. I do like the whole design of it like that is an actual SMB3 type level of where you have to go through with some secrets involved. The P switch isn't SMB3 in this level, it's SMW for apparent reason. Inside the secret area after you pressed the P switch you get coins that's formed like a heart but your reward are just coins and then nothing else... at least a power up from a block would be benefitual for a hard to reach bonus room like that rather than just coins. The rest of the level were generic SMB3 designs but it was nice. If I fly at the very top of the screen you can see that the background is too far at the top as you can see that it has been glitched out if any kind of objects travels over that.
- While this one is mainly a greyscale SMB3 overworld, it's one with a decently polished feel to it. There's a nice amount of detail and decoration, a good range of block placements to test the player's maneuvering in different ways, and thoughtful placements of enemies and pipes. It has the feel of a midgamey SMB3 level, but it doesn't really have anything to complain about.
- The theme presented here was pretty unique and reminded me of 8-bit SMB3. The level itself was designed decently. A lot of segments could easily be ran through and there wasn't much variety in the terrain or enemy choice. It's not a bad level by any means, it just needs more.
- This is a decent overworld level. The gimmick is that it's in black and white (for the most part). Like I already said it's a decent level and I can't come up with anything to complain about besides some personal nitpicks. The textureless hills should only be placed in the end darkness! If you're going to make a Mario 3 overworld level, why not follow the rules?
- Bomber57 (7.0/10)
- This level has a LOT of goombas, like, more variety than I have ever seen. In most cases its pretty clear what the goombas replace, in others it isn't so obvious. My two favorites was the Hammer Bro. that threw goombas and the Large Goombas on the big pipes that replaced Blaargs. Those two were real unique concepts. The graphics are beautiful and match the gloomy atmosphere of this underground Goomba paradise. Unfortunately, the one thing that really brings down this level is the insane length. Another issue is sometimes the enemy density gets too high in many areas, probably because you wanted to showcase the wide variety of goomba-themed enemies. If the level had been more concise it would have been better.
- The goombas are invading our nights again! Oh man, there are like a lot of different variation of goomba enemies and such even in different styles. I do like the whole concept of having a lot of variation of goombas doing different things at once into one level but some of them are also kinda glitchy like those goombas that are replacing SMW Koopas. I do like the whole variety of obstacles this level provides including the goomba's shoe segment. What I personally don't like is how some of the hitboxes of the goombas are kinda off like those para-goombas that are going down slowly... they have a big hitbox. There's one area where you can get stuck if done correctly at the spinjump on the breakable blocks area and also if you forget to defeat at least one switchgoomba you have to go back aswell just to kill specific switchgoombas and then you can advance further into the level. The boss is king goomba... twice as much since after you killed one you have to stay away from his spawning point or else you earn an unfair hit as of where he spawns and at the second phase you have to avoid multiple rinkas aswell. After that you earn the star.
- I like the idea of having a level full of various types of Goombas that do different things, and the NPCs do a pretty good job of being distinct from one another. The level has some standard design and platforming too, with a nice variety of hazards such as Piranha Plants, Munchers, cannons, and lava to change things up a bit. However, the level suffers from a few consistent issues that make it less enjoyable, such as many of the visuals blending in with one another and making it a little hard to see what you're doing. There's an excess of scenery that's all colored like everything else, so it can be somewhat difficult to concentrate on where you're going next. There's also an excessive number of enemies. It feels like the focus was more on the variety at the cost of thoughtful placement, because there are more in each area than there should be, making the level needlessly tough at times. Those wouldn't be so bad either if the level wasn't so long. It really drags on and becomes repetitive after a while, and by the time I reached the Kuribo Shoes, I found myself really wondering when it was going to end. Turns out that is pretty close to the end, but then there's still a two-phase boss. The boss in itself is good, as it begins standard and then introduces a few more hazards halfway through, but I couldn't appreciate it as much because the level had gone on long enough and dying there would have been extremely costly because the midpoint is quite the distance backwards. I like what you were going for, but those few issues being constantly present were a nuisance.
- It was neat seeing all the goombas, but the level does get a little repetitive after a while after the player has experienced all the different types of goomba. There isn't enough variety in the gameplay. The closest it gets is the switch goombas, but that's pretty simplistic. I'd also recommend shortening it too. I also like the part where I went down the slide after the checkpoint and died.
- That level was crazy long. And it was all about killing Goombas. You gotta have some variety, especially when your level is this big. I think the everything-is-Goomba gimmick would have worked better if you based all the variations off a Goomba from a specific game, like Super Mario Bros. 1. Now with Goombas from five games and then some custom versions thrown in the mix the result is quite messy.
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- Wasn't a huge fan of this one. The level was cramped and in several parts there were too many enemies. There was a part with a Venus Fire Trap with two bullet bill cannons. The low ceiling makes it tough to dodge both at the same time. The Ace Coin hunt is easy unless you die past the checkpoint, in which it becomes impossible because you can't go back to get the ones before the checkpoint. It's only for a second star, so whatever.
- Ahh... some nice little canyon-styled level going on there but for sure there are a lot of places that are just too cramped to avoid NPCs and such... even with multiple vines at the ceiling makes me want to climb every time... not really. For sure it was nice to collect these Ace coins to get a star and even some nice reward at the end but if you die after you've collect the halfway point you pretty much have to recollect the Ace coins again but since this level is not that long anyway it wasn't too much of an issue. Like I said before with the cramped areas, it's hard to avoid enemies and other specific stuff like this. There is a pipe that is kinda difficult to enter because there is a slope tile at the bottom of the sideways pipe on both ways so it's more recommended to use something flat rather then having it on a steep slope like this at the halfway point in this level. Your music choicements was alright but at the end, why is there a SMB3 hammer bro. battle theme once I want to collect the stat and then that's the end of the level.
- I like the rough and jagged tile placement in this level. It makes it more of a challenge to deal with enemies and navigate tight corridors, and gives the level a surprising amount of complexity for being purely horizontal, and creates interesting placements for the Ace Coins that unlock the second star. At the same time though, it's a bit much when it comes to bullets and fireballs. The space for avoiding those is so limited that you almost have to be perfect to get through that without taking a hit. It's still highly possible, albeit somewhat of a pain, to get through those rough spots, but the skinny passages work better with the simpler enemies like Goombas and Koopas. Those were a bit awkward sometimes too, like the ones at the start being too close and the ones in Section 2 seemed aimless. The general platforming is pretty good, though. Cautious jumps will get you through pretty well, and there's a nice arrangement of the mushroom tiles/stalks.
- This was somewhat interesting. The design was decent and it was fun to play through, aside from a small segment after the checkpoint where the area was cramped as heck and I happened to climb a 1 tile sized vine and since it was so small, Mario released it instantly and fell into a pit. Hooray.
- I'm very fond of the looks of this level! (Props for keeping the Mario 2 vines climbable even though they're just scenery!) Please don't make hidden ? blocks that are required to progress in the level. I found it by accident and I'm sure most people will but there's the chance you won't find it. Unless it's supposed to be a puzzle, and I wouldn't expect an overworld level like this to have puzzles. This isn't Lost Levels. The level is pretty cramped in general. There are several parts where I'd rather the ceiling was higher.
- Bomber57 (7.5/10)
- Nice SMB2 overworld with...Touhou music. You manage to keep the level interesting by having a few enemies you wouldn't normally see, like propeller guys or ghost shy guys. In the underground section, if you happen to use up all the bombs it would be impossible to progress. Making one of the grasses that contain a bomb a generator would solve this issue. The custom Birdo looked pretty cool, and fit with the SMB2 theme perfectly.
- SMB2 all over the place! I really like the whole design of the level relative to SMB2 including further implementations as of what the original SMB2 didn't have. The rest is just generic SMB2 design which is nothing special but hey, at least this level is fun to play. Some plants though on hard to reach areas, at least you could of made it more rewarding like a 1UP or something that was like hidden inside an enemy plant so yeah. At the cave part, once you waste all of your bombs you can't advance further where the barrier is so you forcefully have to restart the level all over just to get to the bomb part again since they never respawn once you waste them all. At the vine where you advance further to the next section, every time you hit the instant warp it has a delay until it can be activated by the warp again so once you're doing it correctly you can either get at the top of the screen or at the other section die at the hole where you're supposed to advance. At the end you fight a Birdo which is blue, has a grass on and that NPC spits out footballs rather than an egg. Overall this level was nice with SMB2 designs but several flaws encountered.
- A rather standard SMB2 level, but not a bad one. The landforms have a lively enough design to look nice, and the enemy/platform distributions are decent. There are some uncommon Subcon enemies, there's a little bit of vine climbing and bomb throwing here and there, and it ends in a Birdo fight, so there is a little bit of variety to the level. However, there should be more bombs by the second rock wall, considering that it's really easy to mess up when you only get one, and it's a very lame way to get stuck. Other than that, nothing too remarkable but nothing really wrong either.
- It's okay. A lot of the sections felt too similar, with almost identical design and usage of enemies. This level needs something unique to the table to make it really stand out.
- This is an all right overworld level, spanning in an underground area as well. The cave probably doesn't need Boos. It's a very basic level. It's well done, just really simple.
Spoiler: show
45. mariogeek2 - Scorching Skies (6.16/10)
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- OH MY GOD THIS LEVEL IS SO RED-ORANGE. Seriously I had to squint at first. Anyhow, the level was okay I guess. It had some low ceilings over pits and lava and occasionally poor enemy placement. The rising lava section wasn't ever threatening, at least in my experience. The boss though, was way too difficult. Its two phases of a flying hammer brother that acts like wart. You have to dodge both his projectiles and two rinka spawners, while occasionally getting bombs to throw at him. The rinkas make it impossible to use a safe spot, and most of the time destroyed any bombs you wanted to throw at him. I tried this fight twice before giving up because it was too difficult. I don't know how you are supposed to do it, really. I probably just suck, but that doesn't excuse the difficulty.
- Incredibly red and orange. This was an ok level although there was a secret that you can only enter once you have a Yoshi or Shoe but there were none of them anywhere in this level so that basically defeats the purpose of even having it unless you bring a Yoshi or Shoe into this level at first but still. I don't like that one instant warp at the end of the first section... kind of unindicated. The level has difficulty involved and what I don't like is how these coins are on the unreachable spot at the later sections. Boss, two times wart which was only ok.
- A lava and sky hybrid level is a interesting rarity, although the visuals of this one are a bit bright and enemies blend in on occasion. The level presents interesting merges of lava and cloud tilesets, and a moderately complex layout designed around nice tricky jumps and strategic enemy placements. They're good most of the time, but Section 3 is a bit too excessive once you get past that first group of Parabeetles. At that point, the passages are too narrow and contains projectile-throwing enemies that really require more room than there is. Even with only two instances, they managed to make the entire room a pain. A green Koopa waiting at the top of a vine is a bad idea as well. The propeller section is okay, but could have been better planned as it's very empty and mainly about following the coin trails, and not having a good sense of how far beneath you the lava is. The boss is impressive, because it adds additional hazards to a Wart NPC battle to make it fairly difficult without being overpowered, but the second identical phase is unnecessary and makes the boss overstay its welcome. Overall, good challenging level, but the execution of most things is rather hit-and-miss.
- Combining both skies + lava was a unique concept. The design is fairly nice, nothing stands out that much but it kept me entertained. The boss ruins the level a little bit as I see no reason why he should come back after you beat him the first time. You do the exact same thing too.
- This is an interesting mix of lava and sky. It definitely looks scorching. The propeller block segment gives the level a pretty neat twist. The boss is simple. Overall it's a decent level.
- Bomber57 (7.25/10)
- Hm, familiar indeed. This is a very DEMENTED level that takes place in a DUNGEON. You play as link and stab some stuff. The level has an interesting mechanic where it loops infinitely unless you find the right pipe. This leads to checking every pipe along the way, but it's not too much of a hassle. The boss wasn't too hard, and you can really just pogo bounce on his head until he dies. I dunno if this was the intended way of doing it but it was the easiest.
- Link! Link! Apparently you have to travel in an unknown place which is called "Mushroom Kingdom" in a castle which is located in World 8-4 in SMB! So this is just basic SMB castle but into SMB3 and some differency of design choicements going on. And yes, you are forced to be Link in this area which was actually nicely done. The rest is just basic SMB design with the same gimmicks and such except for a few additional secrets. At the end of course you fight SMB Bowser but this time the arena is kinda small like the ceiling is a bit too narrow to jump over. After you defeat that Bowser you thougth it would be over... nope, we gain Storylines, halfway point and then get to the main boss which is quite challenging and at least you provide power ups in order to defeat SMB3 Bowser in dark format. Bombs are not necessary at the bottom of the arena since you can just stap your sword at Bowser.
- The title of the level certainly fits, as it felt like SMB1's World 8 castle, only with a lot less at stake. The narration is comical, the warp gimmick is well-established and not nearly as mazey or seemingly random, and enemies/hazards are quite strategically placed. The level has a modest but interesting visual style as well. I admire the creativity of the boss, as it really makes the SMB3 Bowser fight intense in a logical way without making it maddeningly difficult... sort of. The Piranha Plants are implemented really well, there's a great amount of powerups there, and as long as you take into account all the factors of the battlefield at all times, it's possible to come up with a plan. The Hammer Bros. were a bit excessive, though. They created an extra level of intensity above the brick blocks where it wasn't really needed, but you don't always even need to worry about them until the blocks become one tile high or it's time to fall through. And yet, if you don't pay enough attention to them, one could jump up and snipe you, so they're basically a wildcard of almost luck. Falling to their level to finally take them out is almost certain to make you take a hit, but finally getting rid of them and the Piranha Plants makes the battle easier... again, sort of. At this point, any remaining bricks repurpose themselves to form a shield to Bowser's furious stomping while you stock up on bombs, which is interesting because it creatively redefines the fight without anything new really happening. But at the same time, when Bowser's on the floor, he'll decide randomly whether to phase through the bricks or collide with them, and Link's shield is unreliable so the best option for fireballs is to go over the bricks again... only to risk Bowser launching up at you at mach speed. It's also completely unclear how much of a mistake it is to take shelter at the side pipes until you do it. At that point, you can swing your sword at Bowser relentlessly and conceivably get in enough hits to kill him, but once he shoots fire, you're taking a hit, no question about it. Other than that, great job on squeezing so much creativity and fair difficulty into one tiny area using only vanilla elements. It's highly intense and somewhat of a pain, but the execution of the fight plus the fact that the fight's the only thing after the checkpoint makes dying not severely punishing, which made trying again seem worth it.
- The narration was pretty cute, though I'm unsure if the majority of the level basically being the final level of SMB1 was a great idea for a level design contest.
- It is familiar, yeah. The more I played into the level the more it resembled SMB1 8-4. I like the narration, it's quite amusing. The level itself is a pretty cool castle level, taking a lot of inspiration from Mario 1. Not much else to say. It's simple and good for what it is.
- Bomber57 (5.0/10)
- *sniffle* The beautiful true story of how Valtteri destroyed the HSMBXC with bombs. This was a pretty decent level that doesn't take itself too seriously, yet still manages to have serious platforming. The layout wasn't too special, but still managed to keep me interested. The boss was just a Mouser made to look like a certain someone and wasn't too difficult. A nice experience overall with some fun community references.
- Valtteri! There's another mission for you... stop 'em now! Factory space type level including forum characters and regular level design aswell. At least you could of used a little bit more decorations surrounding the area though since I have seen these levels before and they used up more decorations rather than this level right here. At least there's variety in this level with multiple platforms and propeller block stuff to get through the level. At the end you have to fight a boss which is "Uncle Sam" that replaces SMB2 Mouser but that boss was a little bit too near placed at the wall so once he walks towards to the wall he basically doesn't move to the left and right anymore. I do like your music choicements though especially that you even used MegaMan 3 Dr. Wily 1st and 2nd castle theme.
- This is a rather good level. After setting a silly scenario, it throws you into some standard progression considering the level's mostly passages and enemies with the occasional moving platform, but the overall layout is quite good. I do think the level could have offered more of a central gimmick than just "here's some messages that tell you to do a thing", but what's here is nice and there aren't any particular trouble spots.
- Only about 1.6% of people will understand the context behind this level. Hooray. Anyway, it's a good level! There's some nice variety in the design and it's fun to play through. There's not much 'wow' to the level to make it really stand out, but it's still interesting.
- This is a funny level at best. Gameplay-wise, it's pretty casual. There's not much going on that's special besides some fast moving platform and boss fights to spice it up. The level's nice for what it is, though. The frequently placed enemies and coins and obstacles etc. make it an ok gameplay experience.
- Bomber57 (6.75/10)
- A short slippery SMB2 stronghold stage. I was confused by the fact that there were only 3 dragon coins at first before I realized they were for the second star. The level is pretty easy and things were a little flat at times, but not too bad.
- Lovely SMB2 themed icy castle level. Simple yet it was a relatively fun SMB2 level I must say including exploration for an Ace coin so you can get a SMW star at the checkpoint once you collect them all. I find this level a bit short though sadly since once you get to the checkpoint you get to the boss quickly which is Mouser. Mouser is kinda badly placed because he can run towards the left wall and get stuck there. Not much to say since it's SMB2 but hey, it was fun. Only 3 Ace coins to collect in this level so you won't earn a 1UP at the end.
- A decent level. It's somewhat basic in structure, consisting of mostly enemies and hallways, but it's a pleasant run considering that. The Ace Coins are placed fine, but only one of them really requires the player to go out of their way to take a completely different path, so you might as well have just put the star there. Also, it's not obvious that they have anything to do with a second star, so some players might just ignore them the first time through. The Mouser fight's nice, though. It's standard, but Mouser being on an elevated position makes him a bit more challenging to hit. Other than that, the level's fairly average. Nothing outstanding, but nothing really bad either.
- Did you really have to use the SMB2 Underground theme? :c Anyway, this level was alright. Nothing really stood out and it felt like a lot of the level was just running and jumping over enemies, not much variety was present.
- I rather like this level. It's a pretty well done ice fortress. It gives me the feeling of the classic castles in Mario 2.
- Bomber57 (7.5/10)
- Pretty nice pyramid level, though it had a few problems. The largest one was enemy placement. At certain parts you overdid it with things like thwomps and swoopers, or simply put them in a spot that made them too tough to avoid, such as putting a swooper on the ceiling after a large jump. There's no way to avoid that. Same with having two thwomps and a small lava pit with a podoboo between them. There is simply too much going on for the player and they are going to have a tough (if not impossible) time avoiding these hazards. The block movement layers were done well, but again in some points where they were meant to be hazards they were a tad overdone.
- Nice desert pyramid themed level. Your little secrets were nice throughout the level and I do like the whole design of it but sometimes I find it pretty overkill relative to moving objects and also sometimes your enemy placements. The way how you advance through the level is by keys but that has to be done 3 times throughout the level which is kinda repetitive that you have to go back again just for the same obstacles but at least your key can kill enemies on your way so that's a thing. Not much to say except that there's soem glitches involved by the moving layers but yeah.
- I like this level's focus on key-and-lock puzzles, with design that has a wide variety of ways to test the player around lava and tight passages. The moving blocks are an interesting gimmick with a number of applications, and enemy placements are pretty strategic. However, much of the level's layout is too narrow. I often found that I barely had any space to avoid many hazards, and the moving blocks in certain places pose a far larger crushing risk than they should have any right to. The level's pretty decent otherwise, and each area's carefully planned out really well, but there definitely needs to be some more leeway in terms of the player's general ability to move.
- The thing that bothered me about these level was the key segments. You often had to go out of your way to pick up the key and backtrack a fair amount to reach the locked door. The moving blocks were also more of a nuisance than anything. The rest of the level was fairly solid though.
- Those palm trees look bad. I liked this level, to be honest. I had some decent fun carrying those keys around. The level's constructed well and looks fine. Good job.
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- Wow, this felt exactly like a level from the earlier NSMB games. That is, it felt the same the entire way through. Nothing new or interesting was really done, besides the sliding blocks, but they are done the exact same every time. The Roy fight is annoying because you get no powerups or breaks between the first and second battle, and the second battle takes forever since you are basically fighting a bowser equivalent with bombs.
- Lovely castle level with for sure differency of obstacles involved and I really like the challenge that this level has. Your unintended sizeable pillar though, I was be able to stand at the far left and right without falling off like that I was standing at the complete air which makes no sense lol. There was also one part that completly blocked the thwomp unintentionally because of the sizeable being in the way. The rest it was very well designed and I do like your secondary star placement and other related areas. I also like the gimmick in this area. Boss is Roy and that times 2... the second phase it has to do with fighting SMB3 Bowser with throwing bombs though. After that you earn a star.
- Pretty good castle level. Very formulaic in terms of what it sets out to do, but it does a great job with it. The structure is polished, the enemy placement is decent, the moving tiles are a good central gimmick, the secret star is simple but functional, and there's a decent two-phase boss that's slightly tricky but not stressful. There isn't anything especially new or different, but the level does all right in what it does.
- It was alright. There's a lot of repetition in this level. The moving layers were neat, but didn't add all too much and like the level, suffered from a lot of repetition. The first phase of the boss was fine and it should have ended there. The second phase takes over 20 hits on the boss to kill and what you use to hit him doesn't last that long, doesn't work if you throw up when he's landing on you and can explode in your face.
- Here's a pretty great castle. The moving blocks remind me of a castle in NSMB for the DS. In general the level is designed quite neatly. It looks great. The boss isn't all that special but functional as is the rest of the level.
- Bomber57 (8.25/10)
- I enjoyed the serene atmosphere of this level, and it was a well done water level. Though, it still has some issues. It can sometimes be hard to discern the BGO ship parts from the FGO ones simple because there isn't that great of a difference. There were areas where things got too cramped, especially by Torpedo Teds and other projectile enemies. Also, it wasn't necessary to make the Venus Fire Trap's projectile dark blue, which really makes it blend in with the dark blue background. I think the quest to find the 3 baby squids (the main way to beat the level) was pretty neat, but there were some issues in each of their areas, again regarding enemy crowding. In the area for the second baby there was a jump where the ceiling was way too low, and you'd get killed by the spikes or, if that didn't get you, you'd hit your head and fall into a pit below. It took me a few tries to realize I had to just run to the right without jumping to make it, but its not really clear you can make it without jumping. I also didn't like the area with the darkness too much, even though it was easy. Oh yeah, there's also a second star that requires you to get all the 5 dragon coins but I really couldn't be bothered. Though, I did stumble upon a familiar face where the star would (I assume) appear. A friendly face.
- Abyss of torture abilities! For sure this level was nicely designed with great atmostphere and such but it contains flaws throughout the area. First of all, all of these dragon coin huntings is for the first time unnoticeable if it's actually accuired to do it once you reach to the point where the red guy is after the halfway point which means you basically either have to backtrack in order to get the missing dragon coins or beat the level so you can restart it again. I do like your NPC choicements in this level although there were some NPCs that are having a messed up death effect like one of those "Kirby 64" type enemies (those red triangle-shooters) once you kill them and there is one NPC that is incredible messed up just because of specific NPC codings that doesn't really support for european computers apparently which means on my display of playing SMBX they show up completly different than it used to be by the creator. The hitbox of the broken fish is incredible messed up and it also makes it invisible which means it can lead into unfair hits. The crates with cracks on them, at least it's nice enough that you tell the player that you can enter those like that they're doors. Your hunting with the white bloopers, there are 3 of them scattered around the area after the halfway point. Kinda ok by that but it seems that the whole level is just based of hunting specific objects that you need in order to get to the main goal of the level. I do think 1 time is enough for 1 stars, not by 2 different missions just to get 2 different stars because by that you could of just done something different rather than having to do with the hunting missions twice just to get everything done from your level.
- The visuals in this level are simply amazing! The essence and mood of a sunken ship are captured incredibly well, both in terms of atmosphere and the broken-looking design of it, and the amount of detail incorporated is highly impressive. The layout's a bit cramped, but also intriguingly complex. However, a few consistent issues with the level make it not very fun. Enemies are all over the place, taking up the narrow passageways and not giving you a lot of room to avoid them unless you swim near-perfectly and take the level at a pace so slow that it becomes somewhat of a chore. The little room wouldn't be as much of an issue if there were less hazards taking up that space. A lot of them shoot projectiles too, and traversing this underwater environment would have been a lot more fun if there weren't so many of them, or if there was a bit more room. It isn't so bad before the midpoint, but after that, just navigating becomes really difficult, and you don't even get a weapon to defend yourself with before that. Not helping this is the fact that almost every spot has BGOs that resemble the solid tiles extremely closely, to the point where I kept running into stuff I thought was scenery and missing things like Dragon Coins (needed for the second star) because I thought those walls were solid. By the time I knew Dragon Coins were even significant after only being told more than halfway through the level, I'd already missed a few of them. I like the hide and seek idea and the rooms are well-designed, but the darkness gimmick was a big pain and made a level that I was already exploring semi-blindly even more so. I honestly didn't even bother with the Dragon Coins, because after the first star, I didn't want to feel my way around ambiguously solid blocks and tight passages any further. I did check out the resulting path though, and that area was better. The Dragon Coins themselves are nicely placed and the executions of the cutscene and battle are interesting, but the aforementioned issues still come into play, making the punishment very high if you fail because then you have to explore the entire level all over again. This level would have been super fun if not for the above problems, but I admire the effort that went into it.
- I thought this was an interesting take on a sunken ship level. The first half was alright to play through but I think the second half is where this level really shines. Finding the three squids was fun and I liked how you had to retrieve them. Once you got them, the exit routes back to the main section were easier to get to which I thought was a nice touch. Overall, great job!
- This level looks gorgeous. I think the music is pretty fascinating as well. The atmosphere that the visuals and the music shape makes me think of being lost. The weird mishmash of Dino Rhino and Nipper Plant is random but I like it. The background blocks could be more distinguishable from the solid ones. I would say the lighting gimmick in the angler fish room is pretty lazily done. It's all blocky and ugly and it took me a while to realize what it was supposed to be. I find this level to be relatively creative with the quest to find the lost squid siblings.
- Bomber57 (7.75/10)
- Nice, a SMB1 level. The level looked nice and all of the custom sprites looked as if they came from SMB1. I think they actually came from Mario Maker, didn't they? I liked the style choice of having the inside tiles be just darkness. Though, I felt that the level ended too soon. I passed the checkpoint expecting more but was thrown into a rather easy Bowser fight.
- Pretty nice averagely SMB themed castle with multitude of graphical choicements even with Mario Maker included. I do like the obstacles that this level has been provided with but for sure it wasn't too spectacular to stand out throughout it especially that after the halfway point you immediadly get to the boss, Bowser which is SMB3 Bowser but in SMB styled. The fight was quickly done and there is a chance to die after you collect the star if you break the floor tiles next to it that Bowser stomps on the breakable castle blocks. Overall this level was pretty nice but you could of done soemthing more after the halfway point because it leads me immediadly to the boss which was pretty easy to beat anyway. I do like the music choicements though.
- An interesting take on a SMB1 tower. The visual style makes it look like a tall factory almost, with carefully placed blocks and obstacles for decent platforming. I like the tight design of the level that makes you act cautiously, and the enemy placement is nicely strategic. It's short, but sweet, ends with a standard but decent SMB3 Bowser battle, and has fair difficulty to make it a pleasant run. The scenery pipes could stand to be distinctly darker, though.
- Pretty simple and short level, but I kinda liked it. The background pipes were a neat touch and the first main section was constructed really nicely. Add some polish to it and you'll have a great, solid level!
- This is a pretty casual level. I like some of the custom graphic choices. They complement the SMB1 theme well. Gameplay-wise I don't have anything to complain about. It's a simple level that functions pretty fluidly. Nothing special though.
Spoiler: show
37. Superiorstar - Quest to Terminite Castle (6.72/10)
- Bomber57 (6.5/10)
- This was a pretty decent Link level. Personally, I didn't like the orange grass with purple dirt. It didn't blend well together with the colors you used. Also, those floating platforms over lava didn't have an indication at first that they would fall in, so I stood there trying to take care of a flying hammer brother before falling to my death. As for the boss, at least the level admits it would be stupid if it didn't throw a mushroom at you every half second.
- I find this level pretty nice with great challenges going on but I do find some of the enemy placements a bit too much and some speed modification on some NPCs were a bit too much like from the gray knight's projectile even though he's easily defeated by him but I didn't notice later on that his projectile's speed were incredible fast once I'm at the castle part where I saw him sitting on the corner of the screen on a narrowed spot like that. The level by itself, playing as Link is surely a rarety so yay for Link levels although the level itself was pretty decent at least. Boss was only ok since as of how I beat that Larry replaced boss with higher speed you just stand at the middle where the power up spawner spawns from the top and just use your sword to that boss until you defeat him.
- A really nice looking level with a highly mystical feeling to it. This level does an impressive job giving Link a thrilling challenge, with every area clearly having his abilities and limitations in mind and developing a great sense of difficulty from it. The landforms and enemies have cunning placements, which kept me on my toes but never felt stressful. Even if it did though, the level's comfortably short, so any deaths suffered aren't massively punishing. This especially applies inside the castle, where a very tricky boss is introduced quite shortly after the midpoint. The boss itself is interesting, and his high speed is manageable once you learn how he works, but it's not introduced very well because he's already on you as soon as the fight starts. The health generators are helpful, but they do sort of cheapen the fight, because you can pretty much avoid death entirely by continuing to grab them. It's still fun, but not as much as it could be since it's largely about alternating between damage and healing.
- This was kinda neat. The knights you had to fight frequently was a cool idea and I think you used Link pretty well in this level. The boss battle is kinda weird, as you have to just sit below the heart generator and hope you can hit him. I don't think it's that great. The rest of the level was pretty good though!
- Princess twinkle sparks: "Even if he can't, I shall help him!" Dragonbreath: "Hey that's Cheating! if you are going to do that then I shall not hold anything back!" Totally lost it. :D What's a terminite anyway? I liked this level. The pastel colored graphics and Sega Genesis-esque music somehow create a neat mix. The level itself is pretty short but you play as Link and you get several mini bosses on the way, although they're all the same Ironknuckle. The final boss is pretty fast. The constantly spawning power-ups are a big help. :P
- Bomber57 (6.25/10)
- The level was pretty decent. A lot of it was empty, and I spent most of the time flying through the level with the leaf it provides. I looked at some of the more secrety areas and was rewarded with *gasp* coins. The level says there is a second star somewhere but I have no clue, probably in a corner of one of the fuckhuge rooms. The King Boo fight wasn't anything special, but it was tough because there are literally no powerups after the checkpoint and grabbing eggs shot from a cannon midair is hard.
- Yoshi's Island type castle level. I really like that you made a YI styled level like the whole design, mechanics and everything... although there are of course mistakes. One of which is that decimal codes can't be read in the EU rather than the US relative to PCs and SMBX by itself so this makes that one platform NPC go incredible fast so I had to remove the speed decimal in order to work properly. Secrets were nice to find although of course there are multiple ways to discover areas and playing it for the first time most likely misses some of the orange based coins but yeah. Not much to say since it's YI mechanics but into SMBX combined but it was good since those are incredible rare apparently.
- A nice YI level, and one with design and gimmicks quite familiar to the series. The inspiration is clearly present, as it contains camouflaged red coins, Grinder platforms on lines, multiple door choices, key-and-lock puzzles, clever secret areas and block arrangements to make each room and puzzle feel different, a required flight area in which falling doesn't necessarily ruin the run, an enemy kill room, and a tricky boss battle. Much of it is executed quite well, especially areas pertaining to moving platforms. Every room is puzzling in a different way, with a stroke of genius applied to each challenge. The only parts I didn't like are the red coins and the boss. The second star asks way too much of the player. 35 coins is a lot for being items that resemble the normal ones that you can't afford to miss even one of, and some of them are in places that you only get one miss-and-lose attempt at. For instance, it's not clear how to reach Section 1's Yoshi until the opportunity has already passed, and getting through Section 2 requires you to plan ahead, which is exactly what the darkness prevents. You just have to automatically know that you don't jump on the Shy Guy leading to the upper door until you've cleared the area to the right and mapped out that expected route in your head, and even then you can only bounce off the enemy at the last possible second. Or bring Yoshi with you, but that requires the same amount of forethought that the player just wouldn't have. The rest of the level isn't so bad with this, but it does expect you to know the exact order of doors to enter, which ones progress the level and which ones don't, so it's a lot of back-and-forth guesswork when it's already challenging to traverse the areas as is. Everything pertaining to the primary objective is done really well though, because any failures experienced there aren't nearly as punishing and everything's much more clear. It's nice to have the midpoint shortly before the boss, too. I would have liked for King Boo's projectiles to not cover the entire width of the arena, though.
- This was surprisingly elaborate. I love the use of the flying lantern, it's a feature not often see that much as it's fairly complex to put into a level. There was some excellent design present in this level, especially with how you got the key in the first part. I did feel like the level design dwindled as the level progressed, but it was still acceptable and fun to play. The boss could easily be cheesed by holding the egg in his face.
- This is an okay haunted level that's built around the Super Leaf. I could fly through almost the entire level. I dunno if that's good. It made it very easy. I like the lighting effect at the boss.
- Bomber57 (7.75/10)
- This level managed to pull off the "Pit of 100 Trials" theme pretty well, though about halfway through I started getting bored with it. My interest was revitalized with the more survival oriented rooms but in some cases I could find a safe spot and just didn't have to move until I could leave. In Room 19 one of the sawblades didn't leave out the sides and became an annoyance in the higher part of the room. The boss fight was just Boom Boom but with a bunch of projectiles flying around, which I feel is a little harsh. The playershouldn't have had to kill the Podoboos because they were extremely annoying to hit with any of the throwable items, and really extended the time I spent on this level because of it.
- Interesting concept by defeating every single enemies throughout the room in order to advance including variety of enemies and at the near end survivals and even some bosses. I do like your room designs like the atmosphere with cave and castle combined but there were rooms that are kinda too small to avoid/defeat enemies and such. Sometimes though at the near end there were some bugs involved like the grinders at the elevator section depends of the timing since they just launched off through everything once they hit the ceiling or maybe even a corner block. Not much to say since it is just killing enemies and dodging such nasty trials throughout the level.
- This level's rather unique to SMBX. It does an excellent job at having a clear and distinct set of trials, all being completely different in design and enemy arrangement, and they start out super simple and get more complex and tricky as the level goes on. I also like the variety of challenge types, where some are just defeating all the enemies, there are a few survival ones (and I'm highly pleased by how well you've indicated everything), an elevator room, and you found a great way to make Boom Boom more difficult since all of the hazards around him keep you on your toes, but maintain a lot of fairness. Item generators are put to good use, as it demonstrates you're well aware that players will need them for some enemies, and at times the level will spawn new landforms in different ways to guide players to the exit of a room they just cleared. I also like how you've given Section 21 multiple purposes, being sectioned off to contain the start, midpoint, and powerup rest areas at appropriate points of the level. However, the elevator room deserves some revision. Once you reach the Lotus pair, the Grinder that's still on the elevator by then will either glitch into the surface or get trapped in the tiny space you have to avoid the fireballs, pretty much guaranteeing a hit there. Also, if you step onto the solid tiles as the elevator passes by them, the game will count that as crushing the player. It's also highly empty in the space below the Lotuses, so you have the player sitting there a while doing very little before that. Trial 18 could also use some adjustment, because even with indicators, chasing Koopas will get you pretty fast in a tiny room.
- This was an neat implementation of this concept, but I feel like the different rooms could have more variety between them. Sure, there is some, but there's not enough. I'd like to see more unique ways of killing the enemies. The later trials were a bit more interesting, but they were easy to predict. The moving platform at the end moved way too slow.
- I think this is a pretty well done "pit of 20 trials", although I would have liked a real level more. It looks pretty cool but I don't like the music.
- Bomber57 (5.5/10)
- Huh, this level almost exclusively uses vanilla graphics. Thats kinda cool, and looks a little odd in places as you would expect. Though, the level was quite short. I could hold right and jump about without worry for large parts of it. Kinda bland but also a little nice in an odd way.
- Ahh... this was a very nice level and I really like how you did with the whole NPC placements in there but there's one dragon coin at the beginning that is kinda mean since the vine block was invisible with some coind inbetween the left and right side. The rest, there's not much to say since this level has a decent length, it has decent challenges, it was overall a very nice level. I do find it rather weird that there's a Toad just standing at one of the top of the mountain that's rather impossible to reach unless you have a leaf as Mario but the info that he provided wasn't that spectacular either and there's no secrets if you actually get up there so yeah.
- Pretty nice mountain/wasteland level. I like the rugged feel of it and the amount of detail presented, and it has solid design that makes it fun to traverse. It alternates between being a very simple forward run, and occasionally having side areas containing small bonuses. I like the desert/cave hybrid that occurs in the middle, too. Overall, the level doesn't have any central gimmicks or anything unique, but the basic layout and gameplay are rather good and pose no particular issues.
- This is a great level for the little resources it's using. It feels bigger and more explorable than a standard level, yet it's quite simple afterall. The little secrets all over the level definitely contributed to the interestingness.
- You know, this is an alright desert romp! It doesn't have any wacky gimmicks, but the gameplay is solid. The level is short, though and I almost feel like was pushed out at the last minute...?
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- Once I finally managed to get past the first room the rest of the level was fine. But that first room was an absolute nightmare to get past. Trying to time dodging the rotating spike balls while on a NSMB-esque green block platform was ridiculously hard. The fourth spike ball is nearly impossible to dodge, especially in combination with the bill blaster next to it. The vertical chamber with 3 spike balls in succession was also way too difficult. Then the difficulty drops to a more sensible level and the rest of it is fine. I thought the idea of the cloud flower was pretty cool (replacing the fairy charm). The Ludwig boss wasn't too hard as long as you stay in the corner. The level was fine otherwise but that first room really dragged down the whole experience.
- Lovely Ludwig's Castle level with difficulty involved. Once you get used to the whole beginning area it won't be that much of an issue but even then, for sure it's difficult to pass. Apparently, at the end of the first section the section begins to lag... apparently but after the first section the lag is gone. Not like it matters on my side but it is noticeable. I do like your enemy variety in this level and your secrets. I found a massive error on this level which is that once I get to the checkpoint, apparently those skewers are offtrack from the event triggers of they had like they have been trigger twice and they go off incredibly depends of the activation and it can be the cases of getting stuck in this level depends of the activation. The boss was Ludwig with some great challenge into it which was nice and after that you get the star. There's even a secondary star once you collect all of the Starcoins and then get to the boss door.
- This is a rather gorgeous castle. The design is impressively intricate and full of tight passages with cunningly-placed hazards. I enjoyed the variety of challenges, different placements of enemy generators, and careful planning the level requires. The attention to detail is excellent as well, and the boss room's hazards are a great way to spice up a Ludwig battle with difficulty that matches the rest of the level, although the overhead pipe cannon is a bit much considering it likes to fire just as you need to get past it while avoiding everything else. However, one major thing I didn't care for was the snake block ride. I already have a general dislike for this method of executing that gimmick in the first place, because it feels unstable when your footing is constantly changing beneath you due to it following an unpredictable path. But in this level, that inherent difficulty is increased even further by the sheer amount of obstacles you have to get around and the large distance you must do so in. In the first part, you have no breaks between dangers to stabilize yourself, so the platforms act as a constant enemy all on their own while everything else is tricky on top of that. Once you head upwards into the narrow passages, players are not going to know when the platform is going to enter and leave spots that require crouching, so you're at the mercy of split-second thinking and possibly not being able to avoid something where you need to be ducking. I probably would have enjoyed the level more if that wasn't its opener and there weren't still two more challenging sections after it before you even reach the midpoint. The passage is crafted really well, and the rest of the level is great, but that gimmick is still a major piece of the level.
- The start of the level and the Cloud Flower segments were neat ideas, but they lasting a little too long for my liking. The start could be pretty unforgiving at times too. The rest of the levle was decent enough and enjoyed the variety. Nothing other than these two features stood out, but it was okay. Overall, good job!
- It's a pretty great level built on the Snake Block gimmick. There's one part where you forgot to drag up the bottom level border. If you jump in the pit you can see some tiles missing from the floor. There's a boss that's spiced up with a pipe that shoots projectiles from the ceiling. It doesn't make the fight all new or anything but it's kind of freshening.
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- Graphics were simplistic but did the job well. Level layout left a little bit to be desired, as it was flat and linear. There apparently were secret areas you would discover similar to the "New" mario games, but I only ever found one and it was by complete accident. I think it was a little much to have that volcano lotus in an untouchable spot with a red koopa above in a cramped area. The level was pretty average overall.
- Very nice grassy type level with challenge involved and variety of obstacles. Sometimes your enemy placements can be a bit too much at times like those nipper plants that are trying to even get to a SMB3 wooden platform and being a threat. Your overall secrets and multiple ways to discover this level was just amazing. Nothing wrong to say other than the fact that sometimes you give me a little bit too many enemies but still it was a great level.
- A rather pleasant level. It starts out simple, then transitions into more complicated objectives by making you take alternate routes and explore underground areas for switches. I like the tricky ground placement and line platforms to influence how you go about the route that you take, and the switches are intriguingly placed. Sadly though, after that, the level seems to lose its steam, because the rest of it is a line ride that you almost just sit back and watch, and then the level's over. Still, what's here is enjoyable, and while it feels like it could have been extended, the length is comfortable and not much of a detriment.
- I thought this was an interesting take on a grassland level. I liked the variations in the terrain. I'm not sure how I feel about having to hit a colored switch to advance, but it mostly never involves backtracking that much so it was alright to deal with. I did like how the level didn't overstay its welcome either. It showed the player what it was all about in a reasonable amount of time and then finished. Great job!
- This is a decent overworld level. There is nothing special going on. It's okay for what it is, though. The level is all bright and happy which I like.
- Bomber57 (5.5/10)
- Hey hey everybody, welcome to the annual "everything is red" level. This level contains three boss fights, two koopalings and a bowser fight. The first boss fight is sorta thrown at you, and if you don't know to jump right away when you enter the room you are gonna get hit or die. The most annoying part of this level were the 4 switches you had to hit after the check point. Most of the issue is that if you died to Ludwig or Bowser you will have to do all of the annoying little challenges again. The worst room was the Kurbio Shoe room, you had little room to jump on the Nippers without hitting the munchers on the ceiling, losing your shoe and falling into the pit below.
- He... the name. This level was pretty nice and I do like the variety of it but I do feel that some of the coin placements were like... hard to even reach. I do like the difficulty though. There were 2 koopaling bosses in this level and a Bowser boss at the end of it and I do like what you did with the flame breathing area before Bowser like in SMB and in NSMBWii but once you defeat Bowser while you're further down the area you can get stuck and you are also unable to get to the star. The level itself, I do like the idea of having 4 different paths at the checkpoint to manage to the top of the main castle interior... similar to Yoshi's Island castle 4-4. At the green shoe area, I don't like that you have to squeeze over the Thwomp like that with your shoe since it's incredible narrow but you have to do this once anyway. The red shoe area, make sure you don't have anything on yourself or else you die by not realizing that there's no ground underneeth you but a red shoe waiting for you. The rest were pretty ok and I like the variety of it.
- I guess the level title is technically true. This was pretty enjoyable, the bosses are spaced pretty nicely apart with enjoyable sections between them. I really like the brick placement and decoration, they give the level a feeling of polish. The bulk of the level would be the four different sections you have to complete to open Ludwig's door, and I always like seeing that in levels because it's very obvious about its "choose your path" nature and lets you know there's gonna be variety in the order that you want to experience it. The rooms all have their own little unique gimmick and design, and all are a pretty reasonable short length, so dying to any of them isn't hugely punishing since the midpoint's right at the fork between them. The bosses are pretty typical in terms of usage, but I appreciate that in this case because by the time you finish all four rooms and reach Ludwig, the stakes are a bit higher. That pacing is probably what I admire most about this level, because it does a lot of different things but the designer has a good feel for when the player might want to get to the midpoint/end and what sorts of things would be more costly in terms of redoing everything. Otherwise, great usage of the different shoes, the timestop room makes you think, and the Hothead room does well at making you avoid things without being stressful. The level's planned out really well. However, the Podoboo Shoe entrance should start the player on solid ground. On my first try, I was wearing the Kuribo's Shoe from that room and wasn't expecting to need to do a precise midair dismount in the millisecond I'm given to adjust to the new room. It looks like it was designed without understanding that the player might do the rooms in such an order. I also didn't care for the narrow space around the Thwomp in the Kuribo Shoe room, because although you can finish the room without it no problem, it's practically a required hit unless you duck-jump perfectly into the gap. Maybe that's why the Podoboo Shoe room's entrance is the way it is, but if so, a required hit is not a good intention and the shoes don't really break the other rooms. Upon further inspection, it is technically possible to do only the timestop room and one other and boot-jump to the top to ignore the other two, but you could have avoided that by forcing a dismount-jump (such as a tall vine) at the end of the Kuribo/Podoboo rooms.
- Psst... buddy, this isn't MaGL X! Also, I didn't see much SMB3 Grassland and there's no Bowser Jr, but whatever. The level was pretty neat. Having to fight the 3 bosses during the course of the level was a unique idea. I liked a lot of rarely used items such as the kuribo's shoe and the green p-switch were used in sections of your level. The rest of the level was pretty simplistic, but I had fun.
- I rather like this level. The Venus Fire Traps coming out of lava is a cool little idea. The Stop Switch puzzle was quite well done, I would say.
- Bomber57 (8.25/10)
- Pretty interesting that you get to swim in lava. It's really a water level for the majority of it, but it still keeps the molten theme pretty well. The water is full of undead enemies, and podoboos. Though, I feel that the podoboos moved too fast for how quick they were generated, but maybe I just suck. Enemies were a little much for the space given in general, and it felt like I had to scrape by too many times for my liking. I didn't quite like the section where the giant bully chases you because you run so fast from him that at the end when you hide in a little hole below you don't exactly catch it the first time, so I wound up running into the wall of lava at the end of the section. Going around stomping the red goombas to progress was pretty cool, and it didn't feel like any of them were hidden so I was never left looking high and low for them. The boss is just an undead SMB1 bowser you throw bombs at. Nothing too special there. Also I don't get the point of having dragon coins if you only put in 2. Keep in mind that, unless you have a specific purpose for them, you should always have 5 or none.
- Apparently Mario learn how to swim in lava for once... well, not everywhere though. This level was ok with the whole graphics choicements even though I catch 1x1 pixels on the red cave tiles. There's places where it's very hard to dodge like these high speed podoboos and on top of that they spawn relatively fast, makes them also hard to dodge aswell for the first time players since of timing involved. There's one spot where the one way is basically a legitory death trap because you thought you would be safe to swim through that one tiny tunnel over there at the far right but nope you get a podoboo getting shout into your face with it. The objective of this level is that you have to kill all 3 red goombas in order to get to the castle area where the midway point is which is ok since this level wasn't that big anyway. At the area where you have to run and jump away from the giant Bully, for the first time it's not too easy since how fast everything goes and you have to be fast aswell or else you have to do the entire level again with the podoboo spawners underlava. After the halfway point you nearly immediadly have to fight dry bowser which is SMB bowser and you have to throw bombs at him to defeat this boss and then you obtain the star which end the level. There's only 2 dragon coins in this entire level... what happened to the rest of it? Did dry bowser just thought they're useless or did the giant Bully just push them into the lava like what he always does at the end anyway? Who knows!
- I adore the level of detail in this level. The swimming passages are carefully constructed to give the player a difficult challenge, and I enjoyed the search for the red Goombas and the different placements they had. However, I think the Toad should have mentioned them, because if you pick the path to the right first, you might not understand what the objective is and have to revisit that once you learn. The enemy placements are intriguingly tricky, but the Podoboos should not be several times faster than the player is able to swim, and many of them require high precision. The giant Bully section is unnecessary and poorly introduced, because it's a sudden panic mode with 5 seconds of having no idea what's happening and then flying into a lava wall because you didn't see the coin alcove in the instant you're given to react to it. Not to mention it's right next to you as the whole thing abruptly starts, and the first time I got there I instinctively pressed the run button and dismissed the message before I could read it. The transparent lava room lagged somewhat and had little to show for it besides a midpoint, but the boss has a pretty good difficulty balance and set of obstacles for SMB1 Bowser. That fight is crafted pretty well, but it introduces the player just as suddenly as the Bully. You could have had the room start out empty and then make things appear one by one. Overall, an enjoyable level with a great challenge, but could use some tweaks in some obstacles and how it adjusts the player into new circumstances.
- An underground lava castle is surprisingly an uncommon sight. The red goomba hunt was interesting and had its moments such as with the bully which was pretty neat. The boss was pretty simplistic and not really a challenge. I just feel like the level needs more oomph. Fire Flowers which were the powerup given in this level were near useless as I'm pretty sure every enemy was immune to fire.
- This is a really nice level, actually. The concept of swimming in lava is odd but is done pretty well. In its core this level is really simple and doesn't try to be more. You kill Goombas and then you kill Bowser. It's done so neatly that I just like it. It's a swimming level which are surprisingly rare. Maybe the neon pink cave tileset is a bit odd. Try using the normal cave tiles (with the default dark SMW palette that most of the other tiles in the level use) and giving eveything a red tint. The Bully part is pretty random and weird but I wouldn't mind it so much if the Bully sprite didn't look so bad, haha! Try making the Bully part longer. It ends so soon the player won't expect the wall of lava. Or alternatively add some sort of coin trail into the few coins in the alcove where the player is supposed to go.
Spoiler: show
29. Tervantez2345 - Heated Hotland (7.12/10)
- Bomber57 (4.75/10)
- This level was way too difficult for all the wrong reasons. The length of the level before and after the checkpoint are too long for its difficulty. The main difficulty comes from clusters of enemies and projectile enemies. This level also has a fetish for random Banzai Bills in the most inconvenient of locations possible. This level also has several cutoffs with the pipes. But really, putting hammer brothers, firebars and bullet bill launchers in the same area together is way too much for the player, no matter how slow and careful they play the level. It just felt like enemies were purposely placed to screw the player over, and that's no fun.
- Well, of course we have a level filled with lava but even with bullet bills and hammer bros? Seems fun on some of the areas that they can simply kill you if you don't pay attention on them like the giant bullet bills including firebars. I do like the challenge though but I do feel like that this level is a bit rushed as far as the placement goes since I do notice some missing tiles and others tiles that shouldn't even be there... kind of nitpicky I know but it's for sure noticeable. The area with the coin collecting event, it was nice but I feel like having a different color of the coins would be a better solution rather than having them on the same exact color as the rest of this level. I do find your enemy placements mean especially for the first time players since they do serve as a challenge for sure but sometimes it feels... too much like 2 hammer bros on my way at the end while being small... ouch!
- This was a really enjoyable level! I like how you managed to have lava everywhere without it being a constant threat, sometimes it just stayed behind the tileset and let the highly strategic enemy placements do the work. There are a lot of specifically planned moves the player must do to pass each area, and it made the level tricky without being overwhelming. The length is great in both halves, so the situation is tense but not terribly punishing if you die. There's a good variation of challenges regarding NPC platforms, cannons, and firebars as well, and the Hammer Bros. are placed deviously in a way that's still fair. The attention to detail really shows, and it made everything a lot more fun. I just didn't care for the exit to Section 2, as you can't see the pipe until you take a blind gamble you can't really return from.
- Pretty decent level. The atmosphere helped contribute to the level's enjoyment and several nice ideas were presented here. Nothing really wow'd me, but it was fun. The idea with the 18 coins was neat, it would have been nice to see that a little more. Overall, good job!
- I quite like this level. There was a coin challenge that you needed to complete in order to progress. It also looks neat.
- Bomber57 (6.0/10)
- The level wasn't that bad, but some of the first sections felt rather empty. The touhou elements weren't too difficult at first, but the final phase of the level's boss was too much to maneuver around. I dunno what the point of the toad who saids you need 256 coins to get somewhere was, he doesn't seem to do anything.
- [Joke]Uhuhuu... someone want's to steal my title![/Joke]. Forest of night including some unique enemies you got right there even if it clashes amongst the rest like those fairies. You give me a pretty fair difficulty throughout the level but I honestly don't like that you have to backtrack after you gain the springboard just to get to that one Ace coin. For the rest from basic level design up to the midboss and boss it was very well made and there's nothing I can say wrong about so that's a very good sign for you.
- Oh wow, a Touhou level with reasonable difficulty! The grass sections are short, but nicely made with decent enemy placements and platforming segments, and the little fairies dropping fireballs are a nice touch to spice it up. However, the level quickly makes it evident that those are not the highlight. I really enjoyed the presentation behind the boss battles, and I'm impressed that they created a unique challenge while still maintaining a good pace and fair difficulty that felt like Mario's platforming abilities were carefully taken into account. It was a little difficult to find an opening at the end when the Lotus fireballs came into play, but it's handled well so that dealing with it patiently will reveal an opening, and I really like that balance. It wasn't ever stressful for me, but it kept me on my toes a bit with all the unique things being thrown at me, which resulted in a fun experience where the focus on deliberately providing a good player experience was truly felt.
- touhouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. But hey, it was pretty fun. The fairies were a unique enemy and the mini-boss segments were fairly fun.
- I don't like Touhou levels... But aside those parts it's a pretty decent woods level. I'd do something about the fairies. The sprite doesn't fit with the rest of the level at all.
- Bomber57 (7.75/10)
- This one wasn't so bad, and had a nice variety of snow-themed enemies. Though, there were a few issues involving the placement of things and the platforming, such as having a venus fire trap at the end of a long jump. I also had issue with the climbable rocks, though it isn't your fault too much. Mario likes to slip off of them for whatever reason, so it makes it hard to maneuver around when they are spread real thin. I think you shouldn't have done this in an area with a low ceiling over a pit, because I died a few times from slipping off the rocks.
- Ohh!!! This is so neat! Freeze me please for my happyness in this level! I really enjoyed this level and I really like the whole mechanics, gimmicks and the design of it... although I don't like your coin placements on some of the areas though at it feels that they are hard to reach and after that you have to do that specific part of the level again. More power ups would be nice since there's only 2 of them... really, 2. At least this level wasn't too difficult to pass but for sure more power ups would be more of a fun kind of deal. I do see an enemy that has an missing death effect for sure. As for the rest, it was a relatively nice ice based level and I liked it even for some flaws.
- This is a pleasant wintery level. It's a decently-built run of standard progression with nice enemy placements with the occasional careful jump thrown in here and there. You did a really nice job on the switch section as well, using the climbing rocks in tricky placements and adding some exploration to the mix. While this level doesn't have too much of a central gimmick, it still makes itself a good experience just from having good design and carefully thought-out hazards, and it's rather pretty to look at. The only particularly negative thing was the quicksand-snow not being initially obvious, so I got stuck just as I was attempting to kill the chasing Paratroopa, but that's a minor gripe.
- This was pretty neat! I loved the atmosphere in this level and the music helped out with that. The design was fairly basic, but the way you structured the level kept me pretty entertained and I enjoyed this level! Polish it up and add some more unique features and you'll have a very solid level.
- This is a pretty nice level. You need to climb all over the place and it reminds me a bit of the NSMB mountain levels which fits the title quite well. It looks good also.
- Bomber57 (7.75/10)
- A beautiful combination of different themes here, and the music is very befitting. I really enjoyed the wide variety of enemies, and that required the player to keep an eye out. Though, this also leads to the main issue this level had. There were so many areas where it was simply too busy with projectiles and other enemies. This especially took place in the section with the blue dragon heads, which spawned rinka projectiles. I also think the part after the checkpoint is too long for its own good. You have to get 3 keys to get to the star, but the problem is each segment to go after the keys is rather long. Again, this wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the level's difficulty. Now, I'm going to cut the maker a little slack because they decided to give the player 17 fire flowers across the whole level, but there really is no excuse for having so much going on around the player.
- Hnnngh! This level seems to be way too much going on as I see. Forest, lava, castle and even musical stuff aswell. I feel that this level is just too much to deal with like you have boos in the outside, random notes that are insta-kills, bullet bill cannon that acts like wart... wow really... and then some instrumental enemies and even more that I didn't even count into my own dashboard. I do like what you did with the whole exploration deal but if it's this much going on then eh... I'll most likely die... rip. It was an ok level though.
- This is a pretty immense level. It's impressive that you've managed to combine various different themes, but still have them all fit together well while still maintaining a feeling of consistency between them. Grass, sky, castle, lava, and cave themes are all incorporated in a cohesive way. Every area has a ton of detail and life to it, and the level's design follows suit to make it really feel grand. It's overflowing with exploration and variety, which extends to enemies and secrets as well. The first half is excellent, providing cunningly-designed traps and sections for switch-hunting, but the second half has a lot of minor issues that made things feel a bit weird. It's still great overall and maintains a lot of the first half's charm, and the hunt for keys was really fun. However, there are NPC platforms that despawn practically as soon as you see them (so I had to add them in myself to continue), highly sudden Thwomps due to either being offscreen or blending in with their surroundings, fireball NPCs that are difficult to keep track of (there's enough going on as it is and they don't stand out much), a couple of invisible blocks in upper Section 5 that amount to being Kaizo traps due to being right by edges and being things the player's not going to just expect, and the lava/fences area is asking a bit much that late in the level (especially with all the instakill notes floating around that look like items or safe tiles). These are all things that are somewhat minor on their own and not gamebreaking (aside from platforms), but they made the gameplay feel a little unstable at those points, especially combined.
- The aesthetics of this level were gorgeous and creative, but that's really the only highlight for me. The design is decent, but it drags on for way too long. The three keys part is atrociously long in my opinion and this makes the checkpoint incredibly unbalanced. If there was just one key, the level may have just barely fit what I would consider the ideal maxium length of a level.
- This an odd level mixing a bunch of Super Mario World level types including grass, cave, woods and castle. I don't appreciate the warp pipe that drops you into lava. Otherwise it's a pretty cool level! I had some fun looking for those keys. The lively way the different areas are designed makes the level quite enjoyable.
- Bomber57 (7.75/10)
- Oh man, cheese graphics. This throws me back. Not a bad level, but I don't get why there are 6 Dragon Coins (maybe to get the 2nd star?). Even so, it really should only be 5. Anyway, this level is pretty nice. Enemy placement was a little iffy at times but not too big of a deal. I think the secrets to find the Dragon Coins weren't too bad, but there was one I couldn't figure out how to get in the upper part of the first section. Maybe you gotta make a big jump? I dunno. There was a part of the level where there is a steep incline built sorta like steps. The problem is that you basically are left waiting for the enemies on the steps to get to the bottom so you can properly take care of them, and that isn't too fun.
- So much cheese like that I can just byte one in this world. This was a relatively nice level with cheese-like quicksand and mouse enemies but I feel like that some of the enemy placement in this area seems to be kinda strangely put it out like sometimes they overlap eachother strangely and there is one mouse that is hard to avoid at the ledges so you either have to wait until he jumps down by himself or use a random item that you carry along with you like a shell. Also on some enemies, on the Koopas their death effect isn't right. This level mostly requires a leaf or greater in order to obtain the secret star and other relative secrets that you can only get with a flight ability. Later on there are some platforming sections which they bounce off from the end-line background objects which is nice but once you gain a hit or get a different power up they're losing momentum in the air and they bounce inaccurately. I honestly don't entirely like the idea to force me to fly just to get to that one single Ace coin and some other regular coins in the air because I need to fly in order to actually do it. I would recommend to do something that doesn't necessarily allow to use a specific power up that you can lose at any point in the level if you're not careful enough so you can get to the secrets way easier rather than this right now.
- This was a fun one. I really like the happy style and amount of detail put into the visuals. While there wasn't any sort of central gimmick, the core design is solid and the gameplay is enjoyable, and line-guided/bouncy platforms are incorporated really well (although somewhat short-lived). It has an explorative feel about it and a pleasant difficulty. The Scaredy Rats aren't very good, though. They move really awkwardly with the rugged ground, making them weird to interact with or avoid. There could also stand to be a few more powerups, but other than that, nice work.
- The setting was nice and some neat ideas were presented during the course of the level, but the majority of it felt like terrain randomly slapped together and enemies randomly placed. It wasn't uncommon to see enemies bumping into each other and accomplishing nothing as you could easily glide over them. Better enemy placements where the player had to be careful with what move they did would have been nice to see.
- This is an excellently done overworld level. It's all grand going in all directions but doesn't go overboard. The swell aesthetics and happy music give the level a pleasant feeling. I wouldn't use all the different Goombas, though. That looks messy.
- Bomber57 (8.75/10)
- This was a real strong level, even though it didn't end with a boss due to time constraints. A few things didn't fit well, like the green SMB3 pipes which wound up being a bit of an eyesore. This level has some cool concepts, and I like what you did with the chain platforms and the magic sparkles indicating what they do. Though, this level has a common glitch with the chain platforms. Chain platforms will slide mario around when there are other moving layers. A way to prevent this is to change the chains into BGO and use invisible vine NPCs as the climbable part. This will prevent the glitch. This level also implements the bowser laser statues pretty nicely by having them switch on and off on a set timer.
- Liked the level with the whole dark atmosphere throughout the level and for sure I liked the obstacles and I do like the variety like gimmick wise and such. I do find some of the areas empty though like enemy placements for example. Some secrets involved for sure but there's one secret that's filled with cheese... hehee. The rest is just average castle area but it was pretty decent. There's no boss for ya though but at least there's a star for you to collect before the boss room.
- This level is entertainingly tricky, requiring some careful lava jumps and statue dodging from the player while offering some really neat gimmicks with the fences. The layout of the level is rather intricate, and the enemy placement is generally pretty good, so the level offers a good experience in terms of its core design and gameplay, and you did a nice job of setting up the lasers. However, there are a few aspects which feel somewhat off, such as the moving layer bug with the fences being a recurring theme in the second half of the level once you pass the area with the floating land. If you put invisible vines in front of the fences, you could have negated that problem. The absence of a midpoint is also somewhat of an issue, because the level has no real reason not to have one. It would have been easy to just stick it next to the sign that explains the gimmicks. The presentation was a bit weird too, because practically everything (solid or not) is almost the same color and brightness, making everything sort of blend in with each other. Well, except for the pipes and fences that are somewhat painfully bright by comparison.
- I thought this was neat! The variation with the nets was an interesting mechanic. It was simple enough and it would have been nice to see more elaborate uses for it for an alternate route or something. This level stood out and really clicked with me. I thought it was fun!
- This is an okay castle level. I kind of like the magic thing at the second half where there were different types of magic moving objects or something.
- Bomber57 (7.25/10)
- Beat blocks are fun, right? This level used beat blocks well, but it also used beat blocks poorly. Right away I noticed a lot of the time you are going to have to do those straining jumps where you just barely make it. Not much of a problem in normal gameplay, except in some cases if you are just a bit short the beat block will appear on you and, due to how SMBX works, glitch and send you flying off to one side. There were also areas where it simply got too much, such as one bit where there was lava below you and an Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother right above you. Or another where you are in a wrapping, tight-spaced lava section with some horizontal podoboos going around the place while dealing with the beat block mechanic. I feel that this level somehow did the gimmick well and wrong. Oh yeah also there was a part where I got to the end of a skull raft ride and got pushed into the wall and then into lava, so that's fun. I would've jumped off earlier but the section is so cramped that I had to wait for the last moment. The graphics are good, no comments about that.
- Beat Blocks Beat Blocks everywhere, beating me to death everytime... not really. This for sure is an interesting level with multitude of Blocks switching to the beat including enemies throughout the way but the way as of how you did it with the enemy placements especially after the halfway point it gets too much for the player to handle since beating with the blocks including bullet bills and podoboos it kinda pushes the player into the limit since alone to focus on the beat blocks jumping all around is a challenge but to focus on multiple enemies it gets sometimes too much especially if it's incredible sudden at the near end of the level. I do like the whole tile choicements like the multicolored checkerboards surrounding the area like that even with clouds and such. The beat blocks themselfes, they are entirely solid, makes them very easy to clip through and once you don't know anything about that glitch you basically lose a lot of control and then you can easily die after that. It would of been adviseable to have them as sizeables or at least blocks that you can go through regularily rather than having them solid like what we have right now. Also at one part there is a lava ceiling missing where the lavafall is so that looks pretty odd. I do like the ending where you see a giant star formed as blocks once you get to the end.
- This level presents a really unique visual theme in which a lot of the parts are completely different from one another, yet still fit together in their own different way. It's a good setting for the beat block gimmick, which is pulled off extremely well and creates a lot of unique shapes and arrangements to keep the platforming experience different and consistently require high concentration levels from the player. It's an excellent set of challenges that have been carefully devised and constructed to function really nicely. However, this level has some constant issues pertaining to both difficulty and length. Most of the level does a good enough job at keeping you on your toes with just the beat blocks alone, often requiring your movements to be timely and precise, especially with the risk of clipping through one of the blocks and falling into the lava as a result. This means that the player doesn't have as much room to avoid things like Podoboos, Bullet Bills, or Hammer Bros, or at least the amount you've placed in this level. The Hammer Bros. are strategically placed so that even a single instance makes it hard to survive a spot you need to be in to plan out your platforming, but the Bullet Bills and Podoboos cause problems just by their sheer number, so avoiding them almost comes down to luck. This also makes it difficult when there's lava everywhere and the level's long enough that dying anywhere to stuff like this can be really punishing. One section's even almost entirely lava, and in one part requires you to remain crouched on a moving skull raft until it reaches its destination while a Podoboo flies horizontally in the space you're ducking in. I also didn't care much for the coins below the red tetris block in the center of Section 2 because the difficulty in getting back up isn't worth the reward, or the Tanooki Suit requiring perfect precision on the return trip (although I love the basic idea behind reaching that). Overall, the level is really neatly crafted and is highly creative and challenging in terms of beat block arrangements, but the everpresent lava and projectiles plus huge length makes it a bit much. I still had a lot of fun with it and it's still very much doable, but the threat of instant death everywhere is excessive for a gimmick as complex as this. A shorter length would also probably help the minor lag spikes I got from the beat blocks combined with the high block count. The giant star at the end is a great presentation to finish the level off with, though.
- This was a fantastic level! The gimmick was pulled off great, it was used very creatively and it wasn't too frustrating to deal with. There were plenty of extra goodies to find which promoted some exploration and thankfully the path to the star was clear. It's a little on the long side in my opinion. I didn't die so it might be a little annoying to deal with if you screw up, which could happen if you mistime your jump with one of the more elaborate switch designs. Overall though, excellent job!
- I thought this was an enjoyable level. I liked the small creative things like the red switch containing a vine and the lava moving along with the Skull Raft. The Beat Blocks provided a fun challenge, although there were parts where you would often get inside the blocks and usually fall to your death. This could be fixed by using blocks that the player can walk through. From the looks the level reminds me of some celestial setup, perhaps a reference to Super Mario Galaxy since the gimmick is from that game. It's ok, I guess.
- Bomber57 (8.0/10)
- Note: For some reason the music didn't play in this level and I couldn't get it to work. This level was pretty nice and brought some unique gimmicks to the table, such as platforms that occasionally spin to throw you off or, the main gimmick, using switches to alter things for a set period of time. It was pretty cool how you made the munchers stop biting at points, though it was a little hard to get the rhythm of the ones that alternate every 2 seconds. Bits of this level were a little barren but I think thats fine considering most of the difficulty comes from the gimmicks, not the enemies.
- I really like this level and the gimmick throughout this place. Mostly yellow themed in this level... nicely recolored. What kills me is the music. Apparently the music file didn't work for me which killed my fun lmao. Oh well. The rest I really like it so I have no complaints about it... well except for some narrowed spots that you can glitch through if you're big and such. Moving rotating platforms... oh man... never see those as if late until now. Some secrets were kinda lacking though like that one area where I'm just getting a dragon coin from a different section and some coins but ok.
- This is a quite nice level. It's very pretty and detailed, explorative, has some polished design, and contains really interesting timed gimmicks. The spinning platforms are a nice addition to compliment the switch-based timer areas and line platforms, too. However, while the level properly instructs players on how the switches work, and I like the subtlety of the changing Munchers, the automatic ones are not indicated at all. I read the sign upon entering Section 4 and was initially confused by the absence of a switch, but then noticed a few Munchers were off and figured that perhaps some wrong layers were left on or off when the level was submitted. I jumped on the deactivated Munchers and, to my surprise, they came back to life, because the level never gave me a reason to expect that to happen by itself. These also have a poor effect on the maze shortly after towards the end, because I have to move as fast as possible, count to 13 in my head, and count to 2 multiple times in my head all at once just so I can keep track of my movements, the Munchers, and how long the maze is active for. I found that to be overly difficult, especially with no sound cues. I did enjoy everything else quite a bit, though. The design is solid, I really like how each timed challenge is crafted, and the level's difficulty is moderate enough that it isn't stressful.
- This was pretty neat. It had little, but fairly significant features such as the camera boundaries changing and the flippy flip flip things that I forgot the name of. My bad. It added some nice variety to the level and made it fun to play through. It could do with a little more wow factor as while these little extra details are great, it gets a little repetitive after a while.
- I have to admit this level has some pretty clever things going on. I like the block rushes where you hit a switch and a block maze will appear temporarily to help you cross a pit for example. The Munchers closing their mouths and therefore stopping being dangerous is a clever idea.
- Bomber57 (8.25/10)
- Do all the space levels have to use the Magicant music? The space invader enemies were pretty cool, and the level looked beautiful. I especially loved the glowing star trees. Some parts of the level got a bit too crowded with the enemies. You also could've informed the player of some deadly bugs involving the airship pilot section, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. Nice level.
- Lovely space level with aliens hovering around in this area and later a swarm of them. This was a very nice level and I really like as of what you did with the whole airship piece as of how it was used that way. Clever! Not much to say since this level is based on space, has nice variety and challenges... and it was just great. Spinjump requirement to defeat those invaders and some of them are even chasing ones... huhuu!
- This is a cool level. The complex platform and pipe arrangements combined with the cunningly-placed enemies create an intriguingly tricky and careful experience. The atmosphere is gorgeous and compelling too, and contains a high level of detail. It's a little bit shortlived, but what's here is still quite enjoyable. I didn't care much for the fact that Section 2 wraps, though. It's not introduced or explained to the player nicely, so when I got to the left edge and tried to do a running jump onto the sizable, the wrapping was completely unexpected and almost landed me facefirst into a chasing enemy. The airship piece, though really interesting, functions weirdly. There's a reason most people don't attach it to layers. Going through there was awkward because usually the entire ship is your hitbox, so I kept alternating between making sure enemies didn't hit any part of the ship and just blazing through making sure they didn't hit me in particular. The cannons have such a low rate of fire as well that trying to kill them is tedious. I think you should have just gone with the Clown Car or something.
- The sections are pretty short, but there's a decent amount of variety between them. I liked the level wrap in the second section.The mechanic with the boat isn't something you see too often and it was neat, although there wasn't much challenge or length to it. It was fun to see it present though.
- This is a nice level taking place in space. The space ship ride is a good example on how to use the infamous glitchy airship piece from the Lakitu tab. Attach it to a block arrangement and don't place any solid obstacles in the course.
Spoiler: show
20. TNTtimelord - Over the Hills and Far Away (7.63/10)
- Bomber57 (8.0/10)
- This was a pretty nice open world style level, where you use the propeller block to get around. I really like how you made it look like the Hoopsters were climbing around on the stone walls. Though, the main issue with this, and many other explorative levels, is that all of the side areas are unimportant. There is no reason to stray from the main path in this level as there is only one star. Thankfully the author made a series of arrows throughout the level that lead to the star so you wouldn't get lost. I was also bugged by that red shy guy spawner that dropped them down because I kept getting hit by it, but maybe I just suck. Only other complaint is that the checkpoint was out of the way, and I didn't find it until I looked for it in the editor view.
- Rare to go down in a mountain level at the beginning of the area... at least from what I see. I really liked this level and it was fun to play with the propeller blocks. Your secrets and everything was also nice to discover areas for some power ups and other related stuff like multiple coins worth of collecting and also the red coins giving you reward once you collect them all in time. What I don't like is how some of the Para-Koopa's hitboxes are too unnaturaly large. I do loved the exploration for getting a lot of rewards though. I found one invisible NPC that you're be able to bounce on apparently that is supposed to act as a stopper from the sideways Hoopster enemy. Overall I really liked this level and very few flaws encountered.
- This level is gorgeous to look at and has some nicely rugged design. There's a pleasant variety of terrain layouts and enemy types to keep the level feeling lively, and exploration definitely rewards the player with secrets. I like that this level intends to use the propeller block as the player's normal means of movement, too. However, the way this level handles it, I felt like I spent most of my time floating aimlessly through everything. The arrows are certainly helpful, and while I do like the way this level's crafted, it's also really open, which allows me to just sail by everything in the first place. It's really not designed around the propeller block except for the fact that the jumps couldn't be made normally, when you could have made the block placements more restrictive to demand more careful movements from the player and provided a better sense of level direction that way. The level's not unpleasant as it is, but it's not the most engaging either.
- This level felt surprisingly energetic. I enjoyed all the secrets you hid in your level and the random events such as the red coin hunt which you had to do in a certain amount of time. All these aspects help to make the level more lively and that's a breath of fresh air in my books. I'm not sure if the design of a level is that great if you need arrows to point the player in the right direction. Surely there could have been a way to make an obvious path with optional routes?
- So here's a big, explorative level. Something I've personally got tired of playing in SMBX. But it's done in a decent way. Although all the rooms looked the same and I had to walk around the level for quite a while before I could find the exit it still didn't feel like a tedious maze as it wasn't too much of a maze afterall and I appreciate that.
- Bomber57 (7.0/10)
- Pretty cool what you did with the different kirbies. I especially liked the ones that sucked you towards them. Parts of the level were either too empty or too busy. The Meta Knight battle was unfair because his Galaxia projectiles moved too fast, so it became hard to dodge them. Having to fight him with bombs on top of that is rough because of how many hits it takes to beat him using those.
- KIRBYYY!!! Oh man, this level was just amazingly designed like as of what the whole Kirby series did and such but into SMBX. I do like that you explained about this level that all of the Kirbies are evil to the player but what I really love is how they act differently and there are also quite a lot of them. I also like the whole differency of the power-ups acting as mushrooms in this area like the whole SMB, SMB2 & SMW mushrooms and even the Z2 heart are having different amount of food and such based of the Kirby games. I also love the whole design of this area and I couldn't really find any issues. Well, about the boss though, it does have a challenge for sure but I find the mushroom generator to be too fast to respawn so with that you have like no chance of dying even if the boss' projectiles are faster than regular speed from the original boss' sprite. Overall I really liked this level a lot.
- This is a Kirby level done really well. It's full of switch events that defeat enemies or destroy/create blocks, which are carefully thought out and reminiscent of the series. There's a great variety of enemies and land formations to make the level feel complex and alive, while also providing lots of little secrets to encourage exploration and curiosity. The occasional swimming sections are a neat addition too, and enemy placements are moderately difficult to keep players engaged. However, the boss is somewhat cheap, because with frequently-generating Mushrooms, you almost can't die. But at the same time, the Mushrooms are in fact needed because Meta Knight's swords fly fast enough that you almost can't dodge a second consecutive one. I understand wanting to make it different from a typical SMB3 Bowser battle, but making the player take almost-required hits and heal interchangably somewhat negates the point of difficulty. Also, the second star is practically a freebie because the Dragon Coins really don't require you to go out of your way that much, and while the inhaling-Kirbys are really imaginative, they don't serve much of a purpose.
- I liked the Kirby elements you had in this level. It made the player think about what enemy did what which I thought was neat. The level itself is alright. The design is good, but doesn't stand out. I did appreciate the variety in the terrain and the enemies. The boss was a little disappointing as SMB3 Bowser takes so long to kill.
- As a big fan of "Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land" I can't not like this level. Someone's put a lot of effort into porting tileset from the game. The level is also very good. The possessed Kirbys are weird but the idea works. I like them a lot. The cinematic before the boss is nice, too.
- Bomber57 (8.0/10)
- 8.5/10 too much GREEN. No seriously, literally every NPC is now GREEN, and this makes it hard to see them sometimes against the GREEN background and the GREEN BGO. What bothers me the most is that you made the fireballs GREEN because why not. This made them hard to see against the background and BGO, which is worse considering they are projectiles. Abundance of GREEN aside, this was a pretty nice level. The water appearing and disappearing gimmick was pretty cool towards the end, and the way you made it transition smoothly was nice. The second pipe elevator in the last section basically trapping the player if they fall down after raising it is a design flaw, and could be fixed by removing the hole to the lower area after the pipe elevator. The level was pretty nice, but next time please cut down on the GREEN.
- Lovely forest type level with variety, nice designed areas and several gimmicks to spice it up. Everything was a relatively nice designed but sometimes I find your enemy placements rather annoying to deal with especially unreachable enemies but still be able to attack you... since the flames are green they can be difficult to see at times since the level is also mostly green based. I don't like that once you defeat the platform that replaces a "ripper" that you can get stuck there... at leadt make sure that once you defeat it, make standable platforms appear so you won't get stuck there anymore that easily. Other than that I liked this level and good secrets involved.
- This is a great level! It has a really mystical feel to it, with a lot of variation in the design and hazards. I especially like the climbing areas and those where you have to avoid Munchers, and the way Section 2's path overlaps itself and reuses the elevator is clever. You also make great use of the floating water, and the expanding/contracting effect you gave it is not just visually impressive, but functions well as its own gimmick. I wish that was used in more places. However, I don't like the moving spike platforms. If the level's progression is strongly reliant on that in some spots, making it something you can kill with a thrown object is way too fragile. I don't understand why you didn't just use a moving layer. Also, the first one makes you wait a long time if you miss it. The visuals, though really nice as a whole, are confusing at points. The sizables are nearly identical to the ground, and the green fireballs blend in with everything, making it really easy to get hit from something you couldn't see. The second star is also poorly placed, because players are given no reason to check a previous area. It felt like there wasn't thought put into its placement beyond that it'd be somewhere unexpected.
- The atmosphere here was super nice. I wish there was less "hit the thing and go back as something new is there" as this is a common theme in the level and it gets pretty boring after a while. The overall design was fairly good, so good job with that. The level doesn't really have too many flaws, it just needs that extra mile to make it really outstanding.
- This is a cool forest level. I appreciate the in-dept instructions throughout the level but you shouldn't have to explain things like hitting switches to the player.
- Bomber57 (9.25/10)
- Oil canyons seem to be real popular these days, but I can't really blame people because its cool if done right. This level did it right. The lush canyon environment is beautiful, and there was plenty of room for the player to maneuver around obstacles. I like how you put an ! graphic before a Banzai Bill appeared, giving the player proper warning. I wish it was a little more obvious that you couldn't stomp on the bulls normally though, I died thinking it would be fine. The level also could've used a sign explaining how to use the rainbow shell because the gimmick isn't used too often and the controls might need explanation to some players. It's not a massive deal because the rainbow shell is only for an optional star, but an explanation on how to ride the rainbow shell would've been nice. Not much else to say, but this was a good one.
- Nicely made canyon type level with difficulty and secrets involved. I do like the whole design of it and the whole exploration throughout the level and it was neat. I do find your enemy placements a bit too much though like the overkill of hammer brothers and also bullet bill shooters. I do like the decoration and everything else though as it was never too much except for some of the enemies but what I like is that you used the warning sign for the giant Banzai Bills in this level. Not much to say as everything was well made except for some of the enemy placements and such.
- This is a pretty expansive level. I like how much life you put into the layout and interior decoration, which makes it look very rough to capture that mountainous feel. There's a lot of exploration on top of that, with bridges and bombable walls to add to both the atmosphere and gimmick/platforming variety. Enemy placement's pretty good too, with both simple and tougher enemies arranged for a tricky yet balanced difficulty, as well as switch events to make things more dynamic. However, I experienced some minor performance issues due to the high block count, and replacing fill tiles with 2x2 or 4x4 equivalents wherever they'll fit would have reduced the block count without changing the level, which I feel contributed to the difficulty more than it should have. I also didn't care much for the rainbow shell portion. It's thoughtful to put the midpoint right before it, as well as arrows before each jump because it considers the player's low reaction time, but the jumps are extremely frequent for how unstable the ride inherently is, especially around slopes. The last jump requires perfect timing as well, lest you bounce off the side of the bridge and end up sailing blindly backwards into eventual death. The exit of that area also puts you in an ambiguous spot, where you have to do some tricky projectile dodging while racing with bombs in either direction to blow up either wall, and I couldn't figure out which was right until I made an intense gamble. I personally would have had the secret star entrance return me to the pipe I first entered through, but disable the original warp so I can't go back in. Other than that, very solid design and intriguing difficulty, but a few things could be smoothed out just a bit.
- It's a pretty simple level but it gets the job done. Not much 'wow factor' there but I did appreciate some efforts in adding variety, such as with the bombs, but that easily got tiring.
- This is a maze-type of level where you have to blow up stuff etc. to progress. The player is guided through the level decently. I still managed to struggle to find the way out after winning the Rainbow Shell game. You probably shouldn't make it possible to enter after winning it because you will get stuck if you go back there (as the shell is no longer there and there's no pipe out except at the end of the game where you can't go anymore). The level is pretty. The decoration is consistent and pleases the eye.
- Bomber57 (8.5/10)
- 66/100 for some reason? Jokes aside, this was enjoyable, and the references were pretty funny. I also liked the hidden messages in the falling background blocks, but I won't reveal them here. The floating white blocks that replaced eeries were pretty cool. The bossfight was pretty neat too, though the boss would get stuck under the cage in its first phase, making it incredibly easy.
- Patchouli pictures everywhere! Apparently this level refers entirely of the Talkhaus + SMBX combination. This level was very constructed and also pretty fun but at the same time it refers a lot to the past community events so it's half joke half serious level. I do like the whole layers, events and the whole effects you got there since for sure it affects a lot to the astetics in this level. Your random elements in this level though... hehe, just funny to simply look at it all but well... jokes apparently is still a thing in a Mario level. You gain a lot of variety throughout the level and there's also secrets to discover. I do like the whole gimmicks you used and how it was done. The boss was... well, let's just say... I have to fight a ball with 4 sticks including a face and a yellow hair (*cough* Valtteri *cough*) and that in 2 phases which was pretty cool.
- I'm not too up to date on Talkhaus politics so I'm not really gonna get into that (aside from saying the dialogue was comical), but the first few areas do a good job at setting up the scenario before launching you into the action. Good use is made of various obstacles and items such as donut blocks and propeller blocks, and you get impressive mileage out of those generating white tiles. The design is solid, the gameplay is entertainingly tricky, and the length is pretty good with a thoughtfully-placed midpoint. The bosses are simply made, but enjoyable. The level was a bit visually heavy, though. The BGO brick tiles look close to the solid ones, and combining that with the flashing background and explosion effects make it a little hard to see what's going on. Other than that, pretty well made and silly level.
- This is a completely stupid level, and that makes it AMAZING! Man, there's so many inside jokes here but I liked every part of this level. The blocks you can stand on were unique and enhanced the gameplay. The boss was pretty cool as well, though when the boss throws hammers at you, there isn't much indication that you're successfully hitting him. Adding a sound effect to the event would have been good, but it's really a minor thing. Great job overall though!
- This level is filled with cool detail. The explosions, the collapsing ceiling. All of this contributes to the successful general feeling of take-over that the level is supposed to give to the player. It's a hilarious story that keeps surprising you with all sorts of special effects. The architecture of the level wasn't too special, though. The tileset that was used was very simple when a lot of effort was put in this level otherwise. It could have been a lot better with a more interesting tileset.
- Bomber57 (9.0/10)
- The atmosphere in this level is amazing, and the music certainly helps the eerie tone of wandering the darkness. The darkness was also done in an unintrusive way too, it never felt like it was hindering Mario more than it should. I feel the part after the checkpoint went on for a little too long, and it was nerve-wracking because I spent most of the time as small mario. An extra powerup or two couldn't have hurt. I like how you made the false blocks blend in, but not perfectly. This makes it so that the player has to look close enough to spot the difference, but not stare at it for hours or slow their movement to a crawl to avoid getting hit. The climbable spider webs looked beautiful too. The whole level just did a great job of getting me absorbed in its environment.
- I like the whole darkness level that this level provides but that will cause trouble during SMBX because it used up 8000 background objects... ok. I do like this level though but what I don't like is how some of the '?' blocks seems hard to reach and they contain just a coin anyway. This level for sure is powerful to get through the whole area! Even for all it's powerfulness, I do like the mechanics in this level but even then I do kinda find that one secret rather hard to find since you have to go back for the secret star after you've done a thing. It is a rather difficult level. I like the atmosphere though.
- This was a rather atmospheric level that made good use of graphics and music to give the player a sense of mystery and suspense. The level used a clever darkness gimmick that made the player closely observe their surroundings and time their every move in order to progress without taking harm. It also has a good learning curve, by introducing the player to the gimmick without any dangers, then gradually becoming incresingly more dangerous and ultimately leading up to sections where the player has to watch their every step in order not to die. However, with a gimmick that already hinders the player from moving every few seconds in order not to mess up, the level length really adds to that and drags the level out. Even though it has a midway point, you still have to travel a long path in order to catch up to where you died. There also were some minor flaws regarding enemy placement and graphics that stick out too much, but those are merely cosmetic and don't affect the score. Over all a really interesting level, the only real big flaw is the length in this case.
- This was brilliant! You completely nailed the atmosphere and the darkness gimmick was unique yet interacted with the gameplay in a fun and cool way. Every single enemy placement had some kind of purpose and the level is crafted in a way to take full advantage of the gimmick you've presented. I thought it was outstanding. Each section brought something a little different to the table and I really appreciate that kind of variety. It's just the right length that the player gets to experience what this level is all about without it becoming stale. The second half doesn't feel as elaborate as the first, but that's a minor nitpick. I thought this level was excellent!
- This level uses a pretty simple yet working gimmick where darkness covers parts of the level and you have to memorize the floor or wait for it to drift away. The fake ? blocks that replace Thwomps are worth mentioning. I always fell for them. Either I'm an idiot or they should be made slightly more obvious. I dunno. I'd personally make them a tad more distinguishable from the real ? blocks.
- Bomber57 (8.5/10)
- Not too many levels can pull of HD graphics so well in SMBX. This one was able to do that. Heavily inspired by Super Meat Boy (really is pretty much a Super Meat Boy level) you gotta avoid saws and... tank squirrels. The challenge in this level was great, and I never found that I died to the level's bullshit. When authors pay a homage to another game they tend to overdo it, making things too difficult for the player, but this level was designed to still be possible for Mario while still feeling very much like a Super Meat Boy game. It was real thoughtful that you had a frog at the start who tells you that you cant spin-jump on the saws, as that is important to know in this level. Once I got to the star I was left wanting more, as this level isn't too long.
- EU Computers couldn't advance this level due to an uneven number at the size of some NPC codes. I would of really liked this level if it wasn't for that issue at the beginning just for US and EU differences of code functions. I really liked this level though like the whole saws, those weird tank enemies and some of those... jumping enemies. Difficulty was great and yeah, it was a good level but the whole issue of what I mentioned before was a unnoticeably pain.
- Wow, this is an incredibly unique level! Right off the bat, you deliberately use the powerup/bouncy-saw glitch to a gimmicky advantage to create a new type of hazard, so just from that I knew I was in for a ride. After that, the level exhibits very cunningly-placed sawblades and tight passages to motivate caution and planning in the player while warping you to different parts of the section to make the design feel complex. Didn't care much for the generator just preceding the checkpoint though, as you can only get through that unscathed by taking advantage of the few frames where a newly generated instance doesn't hurt you, which you may not necessarily even know to plan around. The second half also has some pretty deviously-placed saws, but the multi-row generator becomes overwhelming quickly if you don't figure out the route immediately (the solid slope tile doesn't help either), and the water initially looks like it'd be toxic. But other than that, brilliant job designing this challenge.
- This was super neat! Basing your level around saws you couldn't spin jump was interesting at first, but you managed to use it really cleverly. It was fun seeing all the sorts of crazy things the saws got up to and it added a lot to the variety and design of the level. Great job!
- This is truly a level that stands out among the rest... All the graphics are HQ! I like how you made use of the glitch where the saws start jumping really high if the player picks up a power-up. Overall the level is interesting to play. The purple color scheme suits it well.
- Bomber57 (8.75/10)
- Oh look, a monochrome level that mixes three tilesets. Contest winner! Jokes aside, this was actually pretty good. The mixed tilesets were nice and the monochrome tileset was actually done well, except for the BGO walls. They were too light of a tint, and so I would have to mentally focus so I wouldn't think they were solid blocks. I think it was thoughtful of you to include exclamation points below the thwomps (who were the same monochrome blue as everything else) and some arrows when you had to backtrack through the main section. The level had an excellent amount of detail and never felt too cluttered. There's some small gimmicks that I feel were added more as enhancements rather than being a focal point of the level, which usually would mean low effort, but they were actually done pretty decently.
- The way to enter a mountain based area with brambles, cave, ruins including ice and water mixing up together was for sure a thing. I do really like the whole design coicements you've made throughout the level since it gives out a lot of variety as you go further on. Climbing vines, swimming in water after you unfreeze it with specific switches and even unique "P!" blocks as once you press it the area shakes and coins fall down, basically like a SMB2 POW Block. I do feel like that these bullet bill blaster seem kinda hard to see until you notice that they actually shoot a bullet bill with a tail since as of how everything is darker than usual and on top of that there's no marker like a skull sign on the bullet bill blasters aswell. At the underwater part, I feel that that one blooper, once I'm at the top of the area where it gets cramped that it's pretty hard to avoid since you have to go down aswell after you went up there. What I do notice when I look at the level again that once I get to a section which looks the exact same but it's not, the whole area gets even darker which to be honest is pretty clever and also hard to notices at first. Near the end there are temples crumbling down but I advice to not use these Note Blocks on moving layers since they tend to be kinda bugged when you try to jump onto one of them while they move downwards so it gets difficult to get used to them at first. I do find the tileset pretty cool but there were some areas that seems to be kinda bland with such placements but since it's pretty limited as of where you put it up anyway it isn't much of a problem. What I honestly don't like at the beginning is as of how that one fog covers up the sizeable's top but yeah, let's go with that I guess. Overall I really like the whole atmosphere and the design throughout the level and the variety.
- I'm impressed by the strong atmosphere and level of detail in this level, and a lot of effort is clearly put into the construction of the landscape and temple areas. They're fun to traverse, have a lot of neat events that implement exploration, and present a pleasantly simple difficulty that more easily allows the player to enjoy the presentation and good design. You did a splendid job on the thawing gimmick, and it makes the level feel like it expands while you're playing it, especially in the first area. However, I feel that the frozen water doesn't visually come off as being very icy. The falling temples are excellently pulled off, although a curious player could jump over them after they've fallen and get themselves stuck if they aren't Luigi (even though that's something you'd almost have to actively try to do to manage in the first place). I also feel like there could be some color differences between the solid and BGO ruins tiles, because they look very much alike. I initially missed my chance to access the pipe leading to Section 7 because I didn't see the hole in the ground, plus the fact that you used exclamation points to indicate Thwomps probably means they blend in a bit too well. Other than that, this is a very solidly-made and enjoyable level. It shows more from its core design more than the gimmicks, but they do give it some added flare.
- This was a good level. There was a decent amount of variety in each individual section, the more prominent example being the moving towers. Earlier parts did feel a little repeated in terms of enemy usage, although terrain design was pretty unique throughout which was good. Overall, good job.
- I like the occasional special effects such as the explosions and also the P block that acted like a POW block, that was neat. I also have to note the collapsing towers. Those weren't new but a nice touch anyway. The level itself is also neatly designed, and the frequently placed arrows don't leave the player guessing where to go next. The color scheme gives the level a mystic feeling. The brick BG walls blend too well with the solid bricks, I would sometimes not notice when the floor wasn't solid anymore. So if you want to improve, try recoloring the BGO bricks. Overall it's a fun level, in all its simplicity.
- Bomber57 (8.75/10)
- Woo! Someone used music from Pac-man World 2! Finally! *ahem* So yeah, someone finally managed to use the totem graphics decently. In fact, I'm pretty sure here they are redone a little because they look better than I remember. The sawblades were implemented perfectly, and there wasn't one that I felt was in an unfair position. Same goes for the hammer brothers, who made frequent appearences in the level. The custom boss fight is real nice, and the attacks are telegraphed nicely (save for when you first enter, its sort of sudden there). I feel the exclamation points for the horizontal thunder shockwaves could have been a different color so that it was easier to tell what they were. The phase before jumping on the boss the second time had too much going on. Either slow down the generation of the thunder from above or slow down the generation of the thunder shockwaves from the boss. Its too difficult to time when its safe to move, and gets more difficult the closer you are to him.
- Nice exploration... thingy... oh well. I do like this level throughoutly but I feel that some of the secrets relative to different paths seems kinda... lacking but oh well. I do kinda think that the warp pipe's placement at the second section that leads to the third section seems a bit weird since once you enter it's sadly impossible to go back and you can't recheck as of what you've missed on this level even though they gave you just coins and some enemies during the exploration. The rest is just basic obstacles and one point of the section wrapping around which was ok. The boss, I find the boss nice although there were some points of it that his projectile shooters are coming way too fast to react for the fitst time players and there were some forms that are pretty hard to even manage but overall it was a nice boss.
- Pretty excellent level. It's a very lively mountain/sky atmosphere with some tricky design and enemy placements, aided by the totems to keep things lively. The Grinders and Hammer Bros. are placed strategically, and the design is intriguingly open and explorative. However, I don't care much for the color of the sizables. They're not distinct enough from the solid tileset, so I initially got confused at how to leave the first section and got stuck in the upper-right area. The level wraps later in the level are also not clear in either of the places that they're used, which makes them based on guesswork when you could have just put in a couple of arrow signs. The boss is really interesting and dynamic, with a lot of difficult hazards but also plenty of indication and warning. However, the projectiles are excessive during the times when the player has an opportunity to damage Lakitu. There isn't any sort of clear way to avoid multiple sets of them at those points, so it almost comes down to rushing in and taking a hit to get the job done.
- The totems were pretty cool and added to the atmosphere and overall feel of the level. I just wish the level wasn't as long as it was considering that once you've really gone through the first section, you've seen it all. The boss was neat, though I would have liked to see something better than "play the waiting game until the boss just stands there so you can jump on him".
- There are parts where I wished there was more room for jumping. And the second pipe that takes you forward could use an arrow or something beside it as the path crosses into two at it and both paths lead to dead ends which confused me for a while. And is there any reason the pipe after that is hidden on the other side of the section which secretly has Level Wrap on? Is this a ghost house? The boss fight is okay. The exclamation marks oftentimes make a mess but will give the player a rough idea where is safe which is fine I guess. Overall the level is really nice with the aestethics and neat structure.
- Bomber57 (8.0/10)
- To be honest I was scared on what I would see within when I opened the level file, but it just turned out to be a grayscale spooky ghost level. A pretty good one. The grayscale works pretty nicely, though sometimes it could be hard to tell the difference between the grabbable vines and the BGO ones. The level introduced a unique concept where friendly boos are attached to platforms, and you manipulate the boos' movement patterns to get you where you wanted. Though, it was rather annoying to deal with in a few areas, especially when you had to move the platform upward. The level designer was thoughtful enough to place signs that give the player tips, though the constant reminders felt like hand-holding. The event at the end where you are launched out of a pipe looked pretty nice. Also, the skeleton graphics look really out of place. Like, they're just really bad.
- Ohh... what a nice ghostly type level in a forest and then later in a ghost house! I really like the whole design, secrets and the gimmick in this level like the boo traveling with blocks (attach to layer stuff) in order to get further on but my problem is that once they merge it into a regular block while standong on them they can crush you unfairly. I do like that everything is gray with actual different shapes of gray as of how they represent like fire and ice flowers are different for example. There were however parts in this level that you can easily grind up for 1UPs at the interior part of the level (ghost house) due to these enemies never despawn once you're doing this correctly (multiple keys at the checkpoint area or somewhere else without even a key) and wait until you get a lot of them on the screen and chain reaction way to go! There's a small boss in this level and what do you have to do? Kill the wave of boos with your own key. 3 waves to go. I really like the whole variety in this level including in a great length aswell for a ghostly type area. At the end, pressing that switch makes an awesome effect up till the end where the star is.
- I'm glad this is just a pun on the color. This is a pretty impressive level, though. The Boo-controlled blocks are pretty creative, and require you to act and think differently than most gimmicks while still being completely intuitive. You use them all throughout the level too, which really keeps them consistent. The key-hunting, elevator, and propeller block descent sections are a lot of fun and nicely designed as well, which give the level a lot of variety. The sudden changes to things as you got near them give a lot of spice to the presentation, the miniboss is a neat addition, and the cannon cinematic at the end was very flashy. This level has a lot of ideas and puts them to work really well. The core design is pretty good, and contains a moderate enough difficulty to keep things enjoyable. The only thing I don't really like is that the tile placement in the forest sections feels overly jagged and messy. It's highly functional, but a little odd visually, although that's a minor gripe. It looks better inside the ghost house where it's very tunnel-like, surrounded by blackness to make the path distinct, and still maintains a fairly detailed and decorated layout.
- The boo blocks were surprisingly complex and I think they added a lot of charm to the level, though sometimes they could be a pain to work with. The level design overall was pretty good and the boo block gimmick helped to reinforce that at times, so good job! The boo battle with the key was random and I'm not sure if it was entirely needed, but it was there. The explosion at the end where Mario was sent flying was adorable.
- This is a pretty great ghost house! It has puzzles but not too hard ones. It has this Boo platform gimmick that works surprisingly well. The level also looks pretty good. Except the unclimbable SMB2 vines are still wrong. The key has an incorrect mask. You can see a transcluent square over it.
Spoiler: show
10. Bomber57 - Candlelit Corridors (8.18/10)
- bossedit8 (9.0/10)
- Spooky castle area! I really love what you did with the whole shadow throughout the room and then once you hit the switch the whole room gets lighted up at a specific time and then it gets dark again. Your enemies are for sure fitting into the whole castle based area like those bone-clothing enemies and how they behave. Pretty clever although I was kinda afraid at first if I'm even allowed to jump onto them so I spinjumped them to permament death rather than going into their second form but oh well. Dark means more enemies which makes sense since ghosts hates the light but for sure some of them don't really seem to go away even after the light has been activated by the floating torches. The length, the music and the graphics were very well done and nicely chosed so good point right there. The spellbooks was also very nice and how the event plays since eventually if they are about to disappear again, the sound effects gets faster which is a very nice effect right there. Coin placements were kinda low though since there's only 50 throughout the level and your power ups choicements, the fire flowers seems useless for the near-entire part of the level.
- This was interesting. It starts you off with a standard linear run and gradually transitions into something a bit more explorative as the level progresses. It's decently built the whole way through with a good range and placement of enemies and obstacles, and presents a good level of detail and atmosphere. I like the inclusion of darkness and magic platform gimmicks, as they spice things up by essentially creating two sets of timed challenges working together. The platforms are placed really well for the areas they're in, and the time limit chosen is great for each instance. The darkness gimmick isn't executed as well, however. It distorts the colors so much that it looks bad, and skyrockets the lag for the entire time it was on. It's a good thing I preemptively play contest levels with frameskip disabled and strongly recommend the same for everybody else with this one, because it's really manageable that way, just slow. A better option would have been to clone all of the graphics in this level and darken them, rebuild each section on a different layer, then have the layers and backgrounds switch each time the switch is activated or the time runs out. It'd be a lot of effort to set up, but the block count is low enough that it probably wouldn't lag as bad. Even if it did, it'd at least look a lot better. Other than that, this was decent and fun. Despite the lag, the difficulty is moderate, the layout is simple, and the gimmicks are never too complicated, and each of those are at a good level for keeping the player engaged.
- This was pretty neat! The light/dark gimmick was simple enough, but it kept the players on their toes to avoid a harder difficulty. The ehogwat reference was cute and it was used effectively. My only real complaint is that the level ended rather anti-climatically.
- This is a rather beautiful level. It's some sort of haunted castle. I quite like the general looks of it, and it's also pretty fun to play. The lights and the curse books are cool but ultimately useless. That doesn't mean you couldn't make them more interesting, though. You could have created more difficult puzzles using them. I can't think of anything to make the light gimmick more significant, though. There are switches everywhere and it's just a thing you need to do every 10 or whatever seconds to hit it to make the extra enemies go away and see the rooms clearly. I find it more irritating than interesting.
- Oh gee, Shovel Knight graphics! I liked the light gimmick; it reminded me of a stage in Sonic 3. The magic book gimmick was also pretty good (lifted from Shovel Knight :p), but for me the chimes were delayed; they were still playing when the blocks disappeared, but that might just be me... I found this level to be a lot of fun. It didn't overstay its welcome, which was great.
- Bomber57 (7.5/10)
- This level does capture the essence of Super Mario Land. Well, everything except for the shortness of the levels. This level was quite long, and I got to the point where I didn't really want to keep playing. The custom enemies were really cool, and probably acted as close to as they did in SML as possible (never played the games). The level has some moving platforms, which would be fine but all of them, every single one, just changes direction suddenly. I died several times to falling because the platform decided it wanted to suddenly move the other way and I would just fall into the pit below. This was especially apparent when you had to jump from one platform to the other. The boss was pretty easy, not much to say about that one.
- Lovely SML level revamped into SNES SMB relative to theme and graphics. I really like this level. It takes a lot of elements that are from SML and everything was greatly executed into SMBX. I like the differency of the whole level but that one secret that's incredible hard to reach, once I reach it I only get like a lot of coins... not that I can brag about for coins but well... let's just say... a power up would be nice? At least a hidden one? Of course I only get a lot of coins and then nothing else... oh well. Regular overworld, underwater and then the ruins with several secrets involved throughoutly and it was fun and challenging. Not much to say since it's SML but into SMBX executed but hey... it was a very good level!
- This is a really impressive usage of SML1 resources. Many of its design conventions are intact and cleverly used to provide unique obstacles to the player, with highly strategic enemy and hazard placements to give the same ones a high variety of different applications. You even made perfectly remade a lot of enemies that SMBX couldn't normally do very easily, and performed many unique gimmicks from the original game. The level includes overworld, underwater, and castle themes to change things up while providing impressive detail in each place, and the difficulty was fair and consistent the whole way through. Even with a huge variation of different hazards, this level demonstrates great control over how new things are properly taught to the player in order to more easily grasp them. It's also creative how the boss's death seamlessly uses a cloned section to enable a cinematic end. The level's fantastic overall, but there are a few rough spots here and there. The falling spikes are impossible to anticipate until they've already descended upon you, and the boss spawning the rocks is somewhat confusing because the way they bounce changes, which is rather difficult with the fireball already being challenging. Some of the moving platforms awkwardly sync as well, which takes away from the ability to make a stable plan to deal with them. They change directions at seemingly abrupt points, so I'm not always sure if one's going to move away just as I go to land on it, although they're still doable. A few more powerups would have been nice too, although the cannonball projectile is a neat little addition.
- I liked the level's ideas and how well you presented Super Mario Land here. I can really see the effort you put into this level, but man, it's just too long for my liking. It somewhat kills the experience, but the whole level is still pretty solid and the sections are pretty different from each other so it was still pretty fun.
- This is a pretty nice level! I liked the Super Mario Land style. The bullet bill blasters that came out from the pipes were cool, but that's basically it. The first section is all about platforming, the second section is an underwater section but then it goes back to the same platforming and dealing with the same enemies. It doesn't really spice things up, either. It's pretty boring. Also, there were these random blocks that fell from the ceiling. What is this, I Wanna Be The Guy?
- Bomber57 (8.0/10)
- These oriental graphics are pretty nice. You go around the level and collect 8 red coins. This level does that right, because each area that had a red coin felt distinct. The level is rather small, so finding them isn't too crazy difficult either. The platform attached to the top of the one thwomp was pretty cool. Personally, I found the fill tiles for the stone to be a little bit of an eyesore. Probably just how saturated it is.
- Lovely Paper Mario music choicements right there. I really like what you did with this level and the whole concept of it. This makes the red coin hunting mission fun to be honest. I really love the graphics and the gameplay of this level but even then there's something that I don't like. One, sometimes it feels kinda cramped like at the water area. Second, the black background and the black "door" background is very hard to notice if that's an actual door or not due to visuals. Third there's a Thwomp that has a attachement to a block but once you stand there and if the Thwomp is at the complete top, apparently you glitch through the blocks due to the Thwomp's movement and doing it correctly it can kill you unfairly. The rest was just relatively nice and I really liked it.
- This was a super enjoyable level! The atmosphere is gorgeous, with an excellent variety of places to visit despite the level being fairly small overall, and each one is crafted really well but each in a completely different way. The mountainside is an upward climb of nicely-arranged sizables, the cave is a small inner passage, the castle exterior is made up of separate layers of rooftops accessed through different means, the interior is a complex wooden maze of enemies and spikes, and the underwater portion is a careful navigation of tight passages. The red coins don't have complicated placements, they just require you to go to every place there is, which is very thoughtful considering it's the one mandatory goal this time around. I really admire the detail as well, especially inside the castle. I can't think of anything that the level really did wrong, anything that it felt it was lacking despite its short length, or anything that really needs to be changed. It squeezed so much into such a small and easily manageable area and everything about it felt good and right. Very impressive work.
- This was really fun! The area you got to explore looked gorgeous, it was a decent length and the red coins were just generally fun to find. I would have liked to see more secret areas to discover and explore, but that's a bit nitpicky. Overall, excellent job!
- This is an okay red coin challenge type of level. I would get rid of the Thwomps because as much you would like to use them they hardly fit anywhere but classic castle levels. Besides that it's really a nice level. It's a simple 8-coin challenge and it doesn't take it too far.
- Bomber57 (8.25/10)
- Woah, this level has a beautiful background, and I can instantly tell who made it :P. As for the level's author, well, it is anyone's guess. I like the way the kirby smoke was implemented, but according to the author it ate up a lot of events. It was cool to see how each one would change the environment. The worm enemies were adorable and I felt bad for stomping on them. At one point you are given two options; an elevator or an endurance room. I quickly discovered that the elevator room is much easier, so there is no reason to go into the endurance room as they both lead to the same destination. The spiky bee spawners throughout the level were really too much a lot of the time, spawning too fast or being around too many other enemies. I could never figure out how to jump out of the water and over the spiny rocks at one point, as my jump would always fall short. The boss was pretty cool, though I think the arena had slippery physics for some reason which threw me off. The boss could've used a little more room when trying to duck under him in his flying phase. The secret star was hidden pretty well (maybe a little too well). Overall this level was very good and had an appealing environment.
- This was a relatively nice and eventful level we have there. I do like the whole idea that this level provides and such. I really love the gimmick that this level has and it's very original to SMBX. I do find that sometimes it can be a little bit too much by the enemies especially during water after the halfway point since they kept spawning from pipes and getting that one '?' block which is just some coins anyway was a bit cruel. To find the secret star, is a bit tricky since you have to fall at a random point in this level to trigger a switch and such. I really like the challenge though. The boss though, is ok but due to how SMBX works it can break a little bit by the timing and sometimes I find the whole dodging parts a bit difficult at the end and such but yeah.
- What an incredible and mysterious level! The variety and execution of different events in this level is astounding, and the smoke effect for indicating new areas is absolutely ingenious. The rising and sinking water combines really well with impressively-crafted spike passages, and a switch that chooses the gimmick in the next area offers a rather powerful feeling of control to the player. The elevator section's decent, but very tricky when it comes to flying enemies. They're doable, but a powerup beforehand would probably be good considering the narrow window of opportunity. Even more impressive though is the endurance room. A very simple base design with a wildly-changing interior and the same sets of generators being applied differently is quite the lively series of challenges. The moving sets of block formations near the end are also pretty unique and entertainingly tough to get past. The boss is pretty original and different with a somewhat clear range of attacks, but it's a little excessively difficult at times. When it's just flying low, I couldn't tell when the best time to duck under it would be. Its hitbox is vague and the timing is hard to get down, so it could stand to be a block higher when it does that. The ram is also very sudden, enough so that a sign had to warn me about it. It's not as bad as the hover, but I think a good execution would have been to have it in the ram animation holding still for a second before actually charging, that way there'd be a little more time to react. Other than that, good boss, amazing level.
- This was pretty great! The idea you presented with the smoke revealing secrets, but it felt a little limited with its use and I wish it would have been used more creativity. How you did it at the start was pretty great. If you ran out of events, you could try reducing the smoke each event triggers by a half. The atmosphere of the level is pretty awesome too! The design itself starts off pretty simple and gets more complex as the level advances, which I thought was a neat touch. The boss was surprisingly pretty good too. His attacks are avoidable but aren't terribly easy and there's some variety in the boss pattern too. Overall, amazing job!
- The trail of poof effects indicating the direction the player should go next is certainly new. The level is quite simple, with an elevator from a dungeon in Invasion 2. Besides that it's very ordinary. The new graphics are cool.
- Bomber57 (8.5/10)
- Okay, so I actually liked this one for the majority of the time I played it. The reason the score is low is because the level simply didn't know when to end. After the first section I felt that this was a really good level and uses things people don't normally use in a SMBX level. Then I found a checkpoint. I said "Oh okay, shouldn't be too much more." Then the level kept going, and going, and going. Then there was a SMW star that acted as a checkpoint (thats real clever, actually) and then a boss that simply refused to die. Anyway, the level utilizes all the characters and has you go to different areas with them to activate switches. The level was challenging yet fair here, and once you hit all 5 switches you go in a pipe. There was then a checkpoint and a long section that has you choose between two characters three times. I want to keep this concise so I'll just say the level continues through a few big sections after that, and then has the boss, which was a mother brain with 4 rinkas while you had to deal with moving platforms over a bottomless pit. The only way to hurt her was to hit a trigger block that would shoot some SMB3 Bob-ombs at her. It wouldn't be too bad if the Bob-ombs actually hit, but instead they tended to fly into the pit or waste themselves on the rinkas flying around. The trigger block wasn't around always, so it really led to a long fight where I eventually died because I kept getting hit. The experience was good overall despite the insane length of the level.
- Well this certainly was an adventure. The level does a spectacular job of using every individual ability that every character has, as well as every capability of their respective mounts. The level is carefully designed to restrict access only to those who can handle the areas that are designed for them, with no unintentional overlap that I could see, and that is quite impressive considering how difficult and careful you'd have to plan all this out to get the entire system to function as well as it does. I especially like Peach's route, and how the switch blocks make you crisscross where you've been and how the spikes and fences are placed. Enabling use of rare functions like Yoshis flying or Link bouncing on spikes is really good, too. There are so many split paths for each character, and all of them are very well made. I also enjoyed the upward propeller section with all the spikes and generating platforms, since those are a very unique and effective way to test the player on progressing that way. However, I found the sections with pink/purple Yoshis and the Flamethrower to be a little excessive. It's interesting that you found uses for nearly everything, but those felt a lot like the other sections and made the level drag on a bit. The SMW Star checkpoint was thoughtful, but I think the level length would have been fine if the second half consisted of only the section directly following the midpoint, the upward propeller section, and the boss. Other than that, the only things I'd really take issue with are how easy it is to get the black/blue Yoshis in the first area despite them not doing anything there, how an excess of scenery makes it a little hard to see things sometimes like the occasional cannon or spikes of almost the same color, and the Rinkas. There are also a few too many during the boss, and although they're reasonably possible on their own, it's sometimes hard to sync your movements with those, the propeller block, and a platform you need to land on. The bombs launching is also a distraction from all of those things at once, and a decrease of Rinkas would help that as they're the biggest problem in the set. The boss as a whole is really unique and climactic, though. The scrolling background, generating platform, propeller block, and method of attack create a great and original airborne battle. Overall, an excellent level with deliberately intricate design with a lot of complex tasks and a high level of visual detail all over the place.
- This was an incredible level! The use of all five players was done amazingly. Each section for each individudal character used their abilities well and the obstacles present in each were unique and added lots of variety. The second half also had lots of alternate paths so you could try out new paths with a different character if you died. The second half did feel a little too long, but this isn't much of an issue with the Luna-styled checkpoint and the ability to regularly switch to another character with powerups if you get hit with another. The boss was a little crazy. The scrolling background was neat, although a little disorientating. I did like how the boss functioned, though it did get a little repetitive as the fight went on, especially if the bombs happened to miss the boss. Overall though, fantastic job!
- I had to check if you sent me your CC6 entry ("Usage Abilities") because it looked exactly like this. :P Apparently this is a sequel, with the different playables in the spotlight which is great. The warp in the Link zone is placed incorrectly. I like how Link can't stomp enemies. That's how it should be, too. I feel this is a Switch level done right. The start point is a great way to keep track of progress. You know what switches you need to press and why, which motivates you to DO it and enjoy it. Overall it's a really versatile level. Outstanding. The boss is also very good. The scrolling effect is really cool.
- Oh hey, it's a factory level! I enjoyed the character gimmick; that was pretty neat. The level layout was pretty confusing at first, but I got used to it quick. Everything seemed pretty bland; even the enemies were gray and lacked colour! While I liked how you also had different Yoshi types, things like Peach's bombs were not incorporated, which I feel was a wasted opportunity! Or were they? The level is so big, I probably might have missed them. A bit too big, in fact, since most of the time dying sent me a bit too far back, but the checkpoint star in the end helped. Nothing else to say about the level, really; the boss was pretty cool (I especially liked the rad background).
- Bomber57 (9.5/10)
- The name is deceptive, for this level wasn't just a typical lava level. The simplistic, almost vanilla graphics were pleasing to the eye and surprisingly fitting for the level. I wasn't sure you could make standard color ghost house blocks work with a lava level, but you did somehow. The level just felt really good to play. There is an interesting gimmick I haven't seen before where there are platforms attached to Podoboos, so the platform jumps out of the lava with them. This gimmick is used in several creative ways throughout the level. The first section is rather linear but the second half of the level is a large-sized exploration section where you have to find 8 red coins to get the star. I groaned at first because red coin hunts are typically boring and painful, but this was actually fun. Each red coin was in a thoughtful location and nothing felt repetitive. The author was even nice enough to keep track of how many red coins you've collected below the checkpoint, which you'll be crossing several times during the search. Thus you can easily keep track of what ones you have and what ones you don't. This level had challenge to it but it was implemented in a fair way, where you can easily say "I see what I did wrong and I'll try not to do that next time." Oh yeah, and props to the music choice as well.
- I really have to say about this typical lava level... it was awesome! I really like what you did with this little level right here with lava surrounding the area, enemy variety and how you did with the whole attach to layer function since how this was executed was really good and on top of that, it doesn't causes unnecessary deaths after you accidently try to kill an NPC since they are actually modified that you can't kill them by accident. There are also multiple pathways and secrets to discover. There were some areas where you can glitch through the blocks due to narrow placements but oh well. At the midway point you have to collect 8 red coins throughout the same section in order to get a star which end the level off but on top of that there is even an indicator as of which red coin you have collected which to be honest, it's very clever and this makes the red coin challenge more fun than it used to be.
- I disagree with the name. This isn't just a typical lava level, but instead something that is extremely well-made. Despite the volcanic setting, the level is quite modest about its usage of lava, and the ghost house block arrangements make the level feel very mechanical, like it's more of a mine than a cave. I'm impressed with how much more you included in the first section than I would have expected from an area with no vertical scrolling, particularly the intersecting split tunnels and skull raft implementation. The Podoboo platforms are extremely interesting too, and the red coin maze is intensely elaborate without being mind-boggling. The red coin placements are great too, and even try some unique things, like making the player anticipate guiding their fall to the left but letting them try again instantly without punishment when they inevitably miss the first time. If you do die from missing the attempt by mistiming your actions and hitting the lava, it's not too punishing anyway, because the level's two halves are pretty reasonably defined. First half is the outer section, second half is the red coin hunt, and neither one is overly long. Creative use is made of the jumping platforms and springboards in these areas as well, and the difficulty is quite pleasant while providing minor challenge. My only minor issues with this were the first red coin to the left of the checkpoint (it's excessively difficult to anticipate both the timing of the Podoboo platform and Rotodisc) and the narrow lava tunnel on the right side (you clearly expect the player to carefully walk across the platform without jumping, but it doesn't go quite low enough to allow that, so you have to duck-jump perfectly). Otherwise, extremely impressive and fun level. I could really feel the deliberate effort and planning from the designer in every spot, and those little design nuances really contribute to the quality.
- I loved the creativity in this level. There's so many unique elements and it truly shows that you put thought into every aspect of your level. The podoboos attached to the blocks were a great example of this and they were used amazingly. The red coin hunt was also fun and the exploration did no harm to the level. Overall, fantastic job!
- This level used some pretty freshening gimmicks, such as the platforms attached to Podoboos and how you needed the Skull Raft to hit the vine block. The music disturbs me. I don't like it. :P I like the blue/red color scheme the blue ground and the red lava make. It would look even better if the yellow spikes were blue. The level is functional and pretty fun to play. The red coins in the final section are cleverly hidden.
- Bomber57 (9.0/10)
- Oh wow, this one was a great spin on the ghost house theme. I could tell some of the gimmicks were heavily inspired by (read: taken directly from) Kirby: Triple Deluxe and they were implemented pretty well. I also liked the surprise scare (not a jumpscare) the level gave you, though the second one was a little unfair because I wound up getting hit by an enemy at the end of the drop. The rooms where you had to remember the layout were pretty neat, but I dunno, to me a lot of the level looked the same so it was hard to remember where spikes and pits were. Also, nice secret room Kappa.
- Toybox has been spooked with ghosts and dry guys... huh. This was a very nice level and I really like the whole variety of colors of what this level provides. I do like the whole mechanics as of this level has but on certain cases it can produce lag. Enemy placements were alright and I find the secrets to be pretty cool even though some of them are just... strange to say at least. I also like about the fact that you went to the same room but more invisible and not real rather than the previous one and I also like that you can go back incase if you didn't remember that part all too much. Your donut blocks seems to be placed at the area where it's not at the complete area as of where the original blocks are (specific: height differences). The end though, that kappa star is basically a new way to fool the player to lose any power ups at the end except if you use your momentum to not stand on the middle platforms. This level has a 2nd star but that is physically impossible to collect since it's hidden in a layer and there's no way you can trigger it. Overall I really liked the level.
- Quite the tricky level. It really captures the haunted toybox feeling well by being both really colorful and really dark at the same time. Various creative and clever events occur all throughout the level (mirrors, changing land, illusions/memorization, trap ground that still gives you a real place to land) that felt a lot like the Boos were playing tricks on you, as was probably intended. The core design is excellent as well, alternating between linear and being a bit more complex, but not too much so in order to leave room for the gimmicks to do the rest. Aside from all the smoke and mirrors, the level's pretty nicely littered with spikes, enemies, and secrets pretty evenly in order to keep you on your toes. I just wish everything wasn't practically the same in color and brightness, because the solid/dangerous objects could really stand to be brighter compared to the equally-colorful/dynamic background. This is especially important in a level that has a few rooms that question the logic of visible = solid, because while the gimmick is well done by itself due to using small and simple rooms for memorization, the similar visuals add a needless extra layer of difficulty to it. This makes enemies difficult to spot and get around at times, too. I also have no idea how to get the second star, because it's on a hidden layer with a BGO very clearly indicating it on the main path, but no event actually seems to be tied to making it appear, so I don't know what you expect of players there.
- I loved all of the features in this level. I can't really describe them as it's hard to, but that first gimmick with the switch was super neat and I wish it was present more in the level. That's not saying the other gimmicks were bad, but that one has so much more potential for crazy things. I did like how the place was a psuedo-ghost house of sorts. Fantastic job!
- This is a clever level. It's sort of like a ghost house with a lot of clever puzzles including the screens that upon hitting a switch show sprites or a silhouette of blocks. I really liked that gimmick. It's so innovative I'd think it's from some commercial video game but if it's not and you came up with this, congratulations. Another gimmick used in the level was floor that disappeared for a moment every now and then forcing the player to memorize it before they could safely pass. I didn't like that as much. The blocks stay hidden for way too long. The last part was permanently invisible which I thought was overdoing it by a bit. I struggled with that part for a while. Overall, though, it's a fantastic level.
- Bomber57 (8.75/10)
- A grassy lava level is a theme that surprisingly works well. Probably because green and red are complimentary colors. This level brings a great deal of challenge to the table, but the majority of it is fair to the player. It took a few tries to get used to the lavafalls hurting the player if they stepped on them. The blue yoshi section was very difficult, and its a good thing you put a checkpoint before it. It was also creative, because not many people use blue yoshi the way you did (or at all for that matter). The second blue yoshi section was unecessary, and I feel the level would have been better if it was cut entirely. It simply adds too much after the checkpoint, and with how difficult it is you are bound to die there several times.
- A wonderful lava based forest and cave section. I really like this level as of how you even overcome with variety of level designs right here. You ride on skull raft, you use P switches to accross coin bridges including enemies throughout the way... variety of enemies I should say which was very nice. I also like that you used the blue Yoshi for flying purposes throughout some of the sections and also later on with the P switch. I do find your dragon coin placements sometimes a bit mean though like one shot at the skull raft since you know you have to go back and then suddenly that dragon coin is unreachable for you to get. Also this level would of been unplayable with Peach, Toad and Link because of the Yoshi segment. and the error with the P switch turning them into a block that's breakable is sadly unavoidable. Also there's a little error with the P switch that if you actually press the P switch at the end of the first cave section and enter the pipe where the halfway point is, there is a bullet bill blaster that has been turned into a red SMB3 coin which was weird.
- This is a gorgeous level! The amount of detail provided in this volcanic forest/mountain hybrid is astonishing, and the construction is highly complex and tricky. The specific layout in each location really demonstrates that a lot of testing must have gone into every skull raft ride, every P-switch run (the timing and arrangement is perfect for a hard but fair level), and especially the Blue Yoshi flights. I like how the last P-switch run leaves behind a trail of growing giant Piranha Plants, the hazards have clearly strategic placements, and everything put together gives the level a tough but thrilling difficulty alongside a comfortably modest length. It's long enough to be slightly stressful, but not enough to be savagely punishing if you die. However, making lavafall surfaces hurt you, even with a warning, isn't very intuitive when you require the player to pass by background ones on a regular basis. Also, instead of a No Yoshi warp, it would have been good to have a really tall vine (higher than blue Yoshi can fly) leading to the final pipe, as that would be an effective filter.
- I really enjoyed this level. The atmosphere was really great and the level was fun to play through. The P-Switch and Blue Yoshi segments were not too difficult and were fun to progress through, especially when you combined them both at the end. I thought it was a neat touch. Overall, fantastic job on this level!
- This is a beautiful level that is cleverly designed. A good example of clever design is the falling lava rock platform that will fall into a flamethrower if you stand on it for too long. These small things you don't see many people coming up with make this level extraordinary. I found the P-Switch runs fascinating and the you made fair use of the Blue Yoshi.
Spoiler: show
2. Enjl - Robotics;Shisetsu (9.2/10)
- Bomber57 (9.75/10)
- Welcome to the level that references every other level trend that has happened to date. This is an explorative level that pulls off the concept well. The graphics are breathtaking, and are very befitting of a volcanic facility. It is never unfair, but never too empty or boring either. I never found myself too lost either. I really liked that you put in a map room (with a cool animated GIF type thing going on). Maps like these give a cool sense of scale of the whole facility, and makes it feel more like one thing rather than just a series of rooms. The same goes for the signs which identify each room or tell you important gameplay elements such as how some pipes and doors are one-way, or how you can only carry items through pipes. A lot of the almost cinematic special effects used in some areas were cool too, like the facility exploding scene. The boss was great, though it wasn't clear at first that the chasing fire in the final phase (where the boss is down to its last 4 hp) could be spinjumped on. I thought I had to lead them into the lava since it worked once. The boss health bar was real creative too, and much more important to custom bosses in SMBX than most people realize. I also really loved how it was given a personality, that was pretty refreshing given how people tend to write other bosses. Minor issue I had with the graphics is that at first I didn't know the doors and signs were doors and signs. They blended into the background a little too well. Only other thing I didn't like was how messed up that third option was. Scarred me for life.
- I feel kinda confused in this level to be honest and also everything looks so futuristic... well, as of what this level is all about is that you're at the volcano area including a factory and later on after the halfway point on a lava-based mountain with some waterparts. At the first half it's a little maze you have to go through with such weird styled enemies on your way but they do look pretty cool though. The area where those donut blocks are, they look like regular platform as you've seen as a regular tileset so they look like they are regular tiles rather than those donut blocks and apparently bigger ones fall way faster than the smaller ones so as I went from right to left the first time the reaction to that is very fast for the first time players. Apparently your keys can push those sign NPCs away... weird. Your secrets throughout the level... most of them are pretty fine like how to even get to the secondary star which is pretty cool and such with other power ups but there's one secret that seems... very strange especially for a Mario level. What exactly what I mean by that is that once you enter in one of those... "paintings", you'll be surprised with a giant show which just keeps looping and a random beach koopa that you can talk to. I mean sure it's secretive like that but uhhh... why is it there? At my first runthrough, I missed the checkpoint room by complete accident because I couldn't really see the door for the first time and then I thought I had to do the entire level over again but I just missed the checkpoint somehow... maybe because that the graphics is kinda messing me up at the beginning of the runthrough but that's normal since you have no idea what's gonna happen for the first time. Sometimes I feel that the power up placements were kinda low at some of the areas. There were also areas where you have to use your spinjump in order to proceed... it's not like it was a bad thing, it's just that not everyone utulizes the spinjump to do something like that and you also have to use it at the boss. Speaking of the boss, it has multiple phases which was pretty cool and I really like it. After you defeat the boss you earn a star but you can still die while the star is still there but at least after you obtain the star you can't necessarily die to the lava pits at either sides.
- Wow, this is quite the adventure. An unbelievable amount of work is put into the cinematic presentation of the level to really immerse the player into the volcanic base setting. Even the background details have complex animations to them. As for the design itself, it definitely succeeds in making the facility feel huge and multi-faceted. It challenges you to navigate a complex layout, explore and familiarize yourself with each area, make use of certain item generators and figure out all the different ways they can be used, avoid lava in different ways, and even explore the exterior at some point to make the scenario even more immersive. Hazards and enemies are nicely placed, the skull rafts have a good moderate difficulty for that late in the level, everything's clearly explained to the player, and it ends with an incredible boss. It's not so much difficult as it is cinematic and eases the player into what's going on, but it can still get you good if you get careless, which is perfect for a boss that finishes off a level this long. It even has a functioning health bar and interesting personality, and I like that even when its body is split apart, it still uses what's left of itself to try and kill you. The second star's hidden pretty well too, as it requires a bit more memorization from the player and making sure you didn't miss anything when exploring. It's not stressful to get, you just need to figure out where to go, which I wouldn't ask anything more of in a level that's already as convoluted as this. The only issues I had with the level are that the signs and doors were sometimes hard to spot due to looking like every other background detail and coming across as not being important as a result, and that it was unclear what to do when the boss fell flat to the ground and stayed there a while. I couldn't tell if it was an attack, the body, or some disarmed thing that I could pick up and throw back at it.
- This was fantastic! I loved exploring the area and the atmosphere was gorgeous. It was pretty confusing at first, but it was easy to familiarize myself with where things were. I love all the neat touches you added to your level to really show the effort you put into it, such as how the map works (which I didn't find that useful, but oh well). The boss was pretty great too; you had a unique way of defeating it and you didn't have to wait too long until you could hit it. Amazing job!
- I'm fond of the graphics overhaul. I kept getting lost in the level but it wasn't so bad when I found the boss. The boss is excellent, especially the last parts. Effort was put into it and the execution was carefully thought out as well. I like how the level kind of forms a story together with Steins;Lab. The explosion that followed the vending machine was executed in a funny way. The level had other pretty cool jokes too like the Dr. Pepper vending machine floating in the lava and some weeaboo's office filled with pictures of some anime chick. The fact that you could only use pipes for transporting items was a neat little consistency. Overall the level is done really cleverly and I can't really come up with anything I didn't like in the level except for the wandering which was probably just me being a bad player.
- Bomber57 (9.75/10)
- Viewer beware, you're in for a scare. The exterior forest is very deceptive and doesn't prepare you for what awaits within the hotel. I was legitimately a little scared at first, which goes to show how great the atmosphere for this level was. All of the tricks and traps of this place felt unique, and could even be frustrating in the way you'd expect from a ghost house. The graphic and music choices were perfect for this level. Like any ghost house, the level can be punishing if you aren't observant. Paying attention can make the first half of the level easier. Once you get to the checkpoint things get a little too hectic in the last section. The lanterns that shoot fire can be a little much on top of the other enemies, but you provided enough powerups to make up for it. The custom npcs were creative, such as the floating bomb boo. The boss was my favorite part and was probably one of the most unique custom bosses I have ever fought. There was a life bar in the top left that helped you keep track of how much health the boss had. There wasn't a single phase that felt the same, which is important for custom bosses. This level leaves one question unanswered: what WAS for dinner that night?
- Ahh... such a wonderful ghost house on my way and the one that I actually loved! I do like what you did with the whole effects throughout the level like the sleeping moment, special blocks disappearing into ghosts and those purple auras hinting that at this spot that there's evil forces surrounding it. Your multiple pathways and gimmicks you used throughout the level was just well made and there weren't any flaws what so ever and you also did it well with the power-up placements. Secrets were pretty cool and your graphics and music choicements are just perfect for this level. I find your checkpoint placement a bit far from the previous rooms before but at least it's a bit close to the boss of this spooky level. Your boss was very cleverly designed and everything was well done for a big boo boss.
- This is a really amazing and intriguingly spooky level. It does a brilliant job with taking a seemingly-mundane scenario and turning it into a network of often-changing tricky passageways. I like how one room has appearing and disappearing parts as you travel through, another has you going outside into the blackness to solve the puzzle, and the falling spike room has a really neat design to it while making clever use of donut blocks, Thwomps, and pipe choices. There's even a room with a mirror-esque spot-the-differences gimmick, and one with floor tiles that disappear in sequence to create an illusionary road. It's also impressive how you introduced a fake ceiling in a subtle way and then challenge the player's attention to detail where that knowledge is truly needed, that had me stumped for a bit. The boss is incredible too, and very cinematic. There's a health bar, a very clear set of attacks with a bunch of fake harmless ones that chase you after each time you hit it, and the floor changes to a bunch of slowly moving parts at one point. You even thought to have it teleport the player in the event of being beneath the normal floor when the star appeared. You also pulled off the transparency pretty well, the seldom Mushroom is generous without making the fight cheap, and you even teach the player how to identify the real one when the false clones become more consistent. The main layout of the level in general is great, too. It's polished, enemies are placed really well, and platform arrangements are nicely devised. However, the possessed lamps should have been a bit more obvious, because I encountered them before the Toad explained them to me and they don't stand out much, and neither do the glowing lights. Also, I found the enemies to be difficult to spot in the foggy sections, and the one beyond the mirror seems like it'd be better for a second star rather than a Dragon Coin given the difficulty of finding it.
- This was a kinda neat take on a ghost house level. I did get a little lost though so a little more indication on what you had to do would have been nice, or maybe I was just dumb. The mirror section was neat, it reminded me of Luna Tower.
- I thought this level succeeded at being threatening, if you know what I mean. The color scheme, the background music, the malfunctioning lights, the living objects and traps make this level a really nice haunted level. The downfall has to be the key puzzle. I had serious trouble figuring it out. While it made sense once I had solved it, it still involved a lot of entering doors that would lead me long away from the puzzle. Having to go through the same rooms over and over ruined it for me. But it wasn't totally unfair or anything like some fan-made ghost houses tend to be, right? This has to be one of the better ghost houses around. I would also like to say that I liked the flashing donut blocks and the false ? blocks.
Those who submitted are bolded.
- bossedit8
Bomber57
Quill
Valtteri
MECHDRAGON777
glitch4
Marina
Enjl
Frozen Boo
RudeGuy07
Ludwig von Koopa
Tervantez2345
KingBowserKoopa
Trace42
Darkonius Mavakar
Turtwig
FireLink
zlakerboy357
Chip Potato
AeroMatter
as303298
Spinda
Uzendayo
SuperMario7
Imaynotbehere4long
witchking666
TNTtimelord
PROX
Zeldamaster12
mariogeek2
Superiorstar
ShoulderBreakDown
ragont
XerX
Snowburger
Daemon64
Dollarluigi
Sewpah
andialifbatara
Nien
SuperMario12345
Paradox Master
Murphmario
Luigimario280
Mabel
Shinbison-Kof
Thetoxicminecrafter1
PaperPlayerX
Radishl
IUndercoverTroll
Vinyl Scratch
castlewars
Marionette The Puppet
litchh
Streetzero
Waddle Derp
ElTipsta
Ghostly_Guy
bulletbill43
HealthyMario
alti0204tri
AlexGKubbed
Eternity
Pivot40Channel
Wind
NopeToster
Zonnepoes
OtherOtter
Phazon1111
Willhart
andregemeo23
GameClip477
Ness-Wednesday
RarePairGaming
rj123
dragonfan96
LordYoshi999
Vyvuto
ap3jmpt
Friendly Dictator
eitan555
DAT LUIGI FAN
DarkWolf658
h2643
meowflash
Rawr
ShyGuy37
DerpMcSkerp20
blue_kirby
Zant
Man1234FK
8flight
RoundPiplup
CraftedPbody
Thegreatrainbowyoshi
awesome_gamer
Technetium43
Suckerman7 GM
pokota
DarkMecha
Ace
sezixor
Kuribo
Cosmik
7NameSam
Sinem
jasonbt
Lwiri¨
Luigifan2010
Sux
PixelatedBlock93
HenryRichard
FrozenQuills
Mudkip
Will bold those who have submitted their reviews.
- Bomber57
- bossedit8
- Chad
- Quill
- Valtteri
- July 25th, 10:00 PM UTC.
You'll submit a level (that meets the criteria stated under Rules) before the deadline, and after that the judges will take a week or so reviewing them. Each level will have a score on a scale of 0.00-10.00 and will be given a short review from all the judges.
Rules
Violation of the red rules will result in a disqualification.
Violation of the orange rules will result in your final score being reduced by 1 point.
- The judges mustn't know which level you made. You may not reveal any details about the level to the public before the judges are done judging all the levels. This includes showing screenshots of the level prior to this announcement. You may not submit a level that you've posted screenshots of, or videos for that matter. And you can't say which level you made.
- You may only submit one level. If it's an accident, we'll just drop the extra level but if you submit a second level under another name, both levels will be disqualified.
- It has to be made by you and you alone. The level, that is. You can use anyone's graphics/music (unless they haven't permitted it obviously).
- You must submit the level before the deadline.
- The level must be complete and completeable.
- The level cannot end to other than a Star (SMW or SMB3) and it can't have more than two.
- The level can't end the game.
- Don't put the .lvl or the music in the graphics folder.
- Do not use music that goes beyond 6 minutes. And this means a single song, not all the songs combined. I don't care how many songs you use, just make sure none of them as an individual goes beyond 6 minutes.
- Don't submit levels that require an unbelievable gameplay / puzzle solving skills from the judges. While I want this contest to be as unrestricted as possible, so called Kaizo levels are something we don't want you to submit as they're a waste of our time. We won't disqualify you if you send us a Kaizo level or something comparable to Kaizo, but the judges aren't required to complete an unreasonably difficult level and it will receive a low score. You've been warned.
- LunaDLL isn't allowed as it's still a bit too complicated to the majority and those who know how it works would be in an advantage. If you use LunaDLL your level will be reviewed with the LunaDLL features stripped.
- By submitting a level you agree that it will be in Tower of Biased 10.
And don't forget to test your level. You have no idea how many submissions we get with incorrect start positions and warp directions every time! And make sure you don't place the (optional) secret star in the same section as the exit star. One section can only have one star or only the other one will add to the star counter. You may update your submission (send it to me again) until the deadline.
How to submit a level
- Sign up by posting in this topic that you want to participate!
- Put your level in a ZIP along with the optional custom graphics folder and custom music.
- Please don't put the files in another folder before archiving because I will have to move them out afterwards and that's more unnecessary work for me.
- You may include a readme with tips if you want. But if your readme only has credits for graphics or something, please put it in the graphics folder. I only want critical info regarding playing the level next to the levels themselves.
- LIKE THIS
→ 
- Archive your level as shown above. Don't put the level, music or the possible readme inside the custom graphics folder as I have to move it out and it slows down the process unnecessarily. Make sure the custom graphics folder and the level have the exact same name as otherwise the custom graphics won't display in the level.
- Give your level a unique name. Don't name it "Level" or "Contest" as that just makes organizing the levels a pain and at worst levels will get overwritten because they have the same names.
- Name the custom music as shown above. Here's an example. If it's the desert theme from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, don't name it "Desert" or "Custom music" because it could overwrite an existing custom music with the same name when I pack the levels for the judges. Renaming songs and then making sure they still work in the correct levels is extremely time-consuming. So do this instead: name it nsmbw-desert.mp3. That's a great way to prevent overwrites, and if somebody happens to use the same music, the overwrite is actually beneficial as the double song will be eliminated and the package size will be reduced.
- Don't name your readme just "Readme" either because, again, that'll definitely cause overwrites. Put the name of your level in the beginning of the name as shown above.
- Please name the .zip after the level, too.
- LIKE THIS
- Please make sure none of the NPC codes have decimal values. They cause problems and slow down the judging/TOB progress significantly.
- Send your level to me in a Private Message. I will direct them to the judges.
