Disastrous District (Minor Update)

[MarioWorker12]

So I actually finished another level. It took me almost two weeks to finish but I really like this one. It has a pretty nice atmosphere I think. As for gimmicks, I have always been a lazy designer when it comes to work with layers and events, but I somehow managed to come up with a level that's full of interesting (imo) gimmicks, for the first time I put a lot of effort to events and layers so this one definitely stands out among my levels. And also, this one has three SMW stars and a 1-up mushroom hidden in it because a) it seems to be a popular layout now and b) I wanted to see how well can I pull off this three-stars-in-a-level thingy. As you can understand, I am pretty happy with how this turned out to be and I hope you have fun playing it at least as much as when I had making it!

Screenie:

Spoiler: show

Credits (Also included in the level folder):
Custom city brick tileset: supermarioman
Custom lamp: Ace
SMW City Background + Night Sky, SMW City BGOs, SMW City Sizable (block-245), SMW Glass Door: SuperLuigiBros, FireSeraphim, SilverDeoxys563
Custom construction city: Phoba555 (Platform version [npc-104] by MarioWorker12)
SMB3explosion effect: Dragonmaster146
SMB3 Styled SM64 Bob-ombs: yoshi64
SMB3 Gray Buzzy Beetle, SMB3 Hammer Bro, SMB3 Gray Koopas, SMB3 Blue Coin, SMB3 Para-beetle: Redigit (Para-beetle recolored by me)
SMB3 Hammer: metaboo
SMB3 Black Koopas, SMB3 Black Goombas: Super Luigi Brothers
SMB3 Black Piranha Plants: Red Yoshi
SMB3 Jumping Piranha Plant: Legend-tony980 (recolored by me)
SMB3 Gray Pipes, SMB3 Sideways Lavas: Road Runner
SMB3 Styled SMB1 Dungeon Special Blocks, Custom Red X: Chad
Black torches, Black SMB2 Bomb, SMB3 Small Red Pipes, SMB3 Small Blue Pipes, SMB3 Custom Skull Switch Block: MarioWorker12
SMB3 Custom Star: Geno
SMB3 Springboards, SMB3 Skull Switches, SMB3 Question Mark Signs, SMB3 Red Switch: Legend-tony980
SMW White Platform Lines: zephyr
(The skull switch signs on blocks are made by me, but I copied bossedit8's hint BGOs so the credit goes to him - both for the idea and the frame that I ripped from his original graphic)

Download: https://www.mediafire.com/?b6qdn01uhdz637y

Feedback is always appreciated!

[silent_]

I originally was going to go ahead and review this today, however I am unable to do so until you fix this impossible bug:

Spoiler: show

Should be self-explanatory; you only applied one springboard when you need an additional one to reach the following platform to the left.

[MarioWorker12]

Are you being serious? The springboard is enough to get you on that platform, I tested this level numerous times and never had a difficulty at that part. I jumped up there even when I put the springboard on the door-sizable-thingy. You could try moving it a little to the left though, perhaps on the used ? blocks if you'd like.

[silent_]

Are you being serious? The springboard is enough to get you on that platform, I tested this level numerous times and never had a difficulty at that part. I jumped up there even when I put the springboard on the door-sizable-thingy. You could try moving it a little to the right though, perhaps on the used ? blocks if you'd like.

Oh wait, I just noticed that, er...
Okay yeah, just got done with homework so of course my brain is fried and whatnot. Just expect a review sometime this week or so.

[MarioWorker12]

I had some minor issues figured out right after I released this level, but I wanted to wait until I get a review I'm pretty annoyed by the fact that this still isn't reviewed btw but I decided I have nothing better to do atm so here you go! So I haven't actually done much, but I;
-Replaced a red X that was misplaced, which now is in the correct place
-Toggled the red coins at the Section 5, they should appear after hitting Section 8's switch now (which's what it was meant to be.)

Here's the download link for the updated version: https://www.mediafire.com/?b6qdn01uhdz637y
For those who have downloaded the level already, there's the .lvl file for the updated version since I don't want to make you download the whole thing once again just for some minor updates: http://www.mediafire.com/download/nzzxx ... strict.lvl

Enjoy!

[Kley]

Wow.

Design- Where to begin. Hmm. Well, this level was actually very impressive. I was impressed more-so than I thought I was going to be. I liked the city feel to it, and generally in my opinion, I've always thought it was hard to make a city-like level, because it's hard to incorporate design and gimmicks without straying from the city feel, but you seemed to have overcome that obstacle and made a great level here I tried making a city level back in the day, and let's just say that level was trash can material. I'll be honest with you. This level was a little more confusing than it needed to be, but it kept me on my toes I suppose. I do like how you incorporated stars in the level. It gave me something to look for whilst playing the level. Nice event playing with the trigger switches that moved parts of the 'buildings'. Now, the most confusing part in your level had to probably be the section with all of the flying beetles. That part got a bit obnoxious with all of the slow-moving flying beetles, and it caused my game to lag. I've provided a few screenshots to show you what I went through.

Spoiler: show

They probably should have either moved faster, or spawned at a lower rate.

Scenery- Excellent. Definitely a city vibe I got from this level. Everything from the lamps, to the benches, to the trashcans. It was all accented were well, and as I stated above, you really did make this level feel like we were in a dangerous city. It wasn't overdone in any parts either, or at least not that I thought.

Replay Value- Yeah, I could see myself playing this level again, and if you missed any of the secret stars, it would make you want to go back and try to find them. The level was somewhat linear, yet not at the same time. Depends on where you were trying to go I suppose.

Misc- All of your custom GFX were great. No complaints there. Your music choice was odd. Even though the music was kinda fitting, I personally didn't like the song very much. The song seemed a little on the mechanical side to be for this level, but to each is own I suppose.(custom gfx, music, pros, cons)


PROS:
-Excellent creative design for what the level is (A city)
-Nice gimmicks with switch blocks and moving layers
-Cool that there are secret stars in the level
-Nice length
-Pretty challenging, but no Kaizo (Thank god)
-Confusing (Also a con (Don't ask))

CONS:
-Beetle spamming with generators
-Confusing (Also a pro (Don't ask))
-Music choice could have been a bit better

Score: 9/10
Recommended to someone who is looking for a nice yet kind of confusing challenge with a hip level theme.

MOVED TO BEST

Granted I'm moving your level to best, I'd like to see the beetle thing fixed! Keep up the good work though

[MarioWorker12]

Thanks for the review! I am really surprised that you had trouble with the para-beetles because I tested this level over and over again, and I never had the problems that you're facing with. The spawn rate of the beetles was just perfect for me and it still is, so I have no idea how to fix that. For the confusion part, well yeah, I can see why it was somewhat irritating. But I tried my best to keep the path you should follow as simple as possible and tried hard to be fair with the stars by placing some clues around them, but I still understand what you mean. For the music, well due to the level's nature I felt like the music should be somewhat mechanical and I was either going to use this one or Lava Mountain Zone 3 track from Sonic Lost World, but the second one was too dubsteppy (if this counts as a proper word) so I decided to stick with the current one. I really tried hard and spent hours but couldn't find any better track, but I'll keep that one in mind. Thank you so much again for taking your time and making the review and I'm glad you liked it!

[Imaynotbehere4long]

I also think this was a good level. The moving layers gimmick, while not original, worked for what it was. Also, I wouldn't really call the SMW stars hidden; it was more like going one way on a branching path instead of another (then again, it would be quite difficult to honestly hide the stars while still making the puzzle to get it intuitive). I agree with Kley that the Para-Beetles should have moved faster, especially when trying to get the 3rd SMW star. Maybe you could have kept the slow Para-Beetles, but made another sprite swap for the faster Para-Beetles?

Now, I'm going to try to become a level judge:

Graphics=10/10
Everything came together quite nicely, and I didn't see anything that looked out of place.

Music=9/10
The music definitely fit the atmosphere of the level, but you lost a point because you didn't cite your source. Honestly, the music is just as important as the graphics, and it bothers me that there are still quite a few members who don't do this.

Level Design=9/10
I had fun playing the level. The mushrooms were placed evenly throughout the level; I got hit a couple of times, but I never actually died. Although the stage didn't really do much different than what has already been done, the moving layers "gimmick" helped keep it from being too generic. Again, I think that more could have been done to make the SMW stars more well-hidden; not only did I get all of them on my first play-through, I actually got the second one while thinking I was going the normal path! Finally, the Para-Beetles still need to be sped up, if only for the third SMW star.

Final Score=9/10