Night and Stuff (CC5 - OLD LEVEL)

[Beyond]

Basically a SML2 land with water level... It's long and have 2 stars!

Screenshot:

Spoiler: show

Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2tmp8ypkitq9p ... f.rar?dl=0

[Ness-Wednesday]

It's nice to see you release a level from 2013, if I do recall that I still have this level with the ToB4 stuff, also that's a nice screenshot you posted.

[Beyond]

It's good remember the past! I was doing a kind of organization of my past Contest Levels today and I found this, then I think "why I don't repost?" (I found my first entry too, Skycrafter Stormy... But idk if I will repost, it's a weird level ).

About the screenshot: I love how PGE have this "entire section print" function! =3

[smartiemartie7]

Yuu, here is an old level, ready for an new review.


Level design (technical)
This is a slightly hard level and most of my deaths were because of enemy placement.
To be percise, it was the bullet bill cannon placement. I am not saying that anything is wrong with the cannons, but the fact that they could hit me while i was crouching/small mario surprised me.
I hope that was your intention, because it bumped the difficulty up a tad, which made this level more enjoyable.

Spoiler: show

the first basin of water has escaping fish... :O

Also there is a ant enemy which has a gun(??) strapped to its back. I don't like that when he shoots, the bullet comes out of the head of the ant instead of the gun.
The enemy placement in the remainder of the level was really fair so that the player could just have a good time, instead of raging.
Speaking of rage, I fell a lot(this mostly has to do with skill) off of certain platforms/water, this might be to make it harder, but it would make the level more fun if you made the level so that you can fall down without dying. Maybe it is an idea to make the level more vertical so that you can just fall back on a piece of the level you already passed.
I, do not have anything to say about the switch section, it was good, not hard, and forgiving if you passed the checkpoint by making the green available from there.
Next up: the floating body of water.
I don't want to say that i hated the concept,but at 8/10th of the section it began boring me because of the repetitivity. The fact that you need to go through it a second time for the star was kinda original, but it did not fix my problem with it. maybe you could have added a vertical piece of level in that section to mix it up a bit.

Spoiler: show

i would give it an 7.2/10

Vibe
Let's see if the level's vibe fits in terms of background,graphics and music.
To really be able to judge fairily, I need to understand what the level is going for.
I personally think you, the creator, are going for a semi mario galaxy level so that point is which i will be judging from.
First, the background: It has dark, purple clouds and a deep blue sea. The purple clouds make the level feel kinda space-ish and the dark sea makes it feel like it is at night, even though you can not see any stars... (not the obtainable ones xD). This combination gives the feeling of mario being in another atmosphere, thus that he is in outer space (or that some impeccable apocalypse is incoming).

Graphic-wise (this is where the galactic theme is really coming out), this level is really going for it... purple grass, trees and giant ants... well, if that is not fitting with the space theme, I don't know what is.
Just FYI... I like all the colours together, especially the blue from the pipes/water and the purple from the scenery next to eachother.

Music: ... just when you thought this was a flawless level... I'm going to talk about the music...
When I listen to it I personally think of a industrial(slightly galactic) level. This level, on the other hand, is more of a nature level which could use some slow paced smg2 music from a water level.
That is the only nitpick i have on the music though, it is just a little too techno, even though it is relaxing.

Spoiler: show

8.3

Final result
Seeing everything together i would give this level a 7.6
I hope you make tons of new levels even harder than this, because i can see you can make some challenging levels.

Cya,

[Ness-Wednesday]

Heya, I have the reviews from Official contest 5.

Spoiler: show

Chad wrote:
Night and Stuff: '8'

This level is just excellent. The tile and water placement are great all the way through the level, and the switches are hidden in rather creative places that made them fun to hunt for. The Ace coin placement is similarly clever. The design is open and explorative, and some areas are nice and challenging. It's also neat how some of the cannons are mounted on brown blocks, but the cannons in general should fire from both sides wherever they're not pinned to any walls, because a few times I expected one to fire from a certain side and it didn't. The moving water is especially interesting, though. It was a neat challenge to try and keep up with the water while dodging the pipes and spawning enemies. The corners going in front of the pipes somewhat ruined it graphically, but otherwise it's a creative and fun part of the level. It ran on a little bit long, but not too much, because it ended just as that thought crossed my mind. Very nice level, and the music fit nicely with the mood set by the graphics. The only other issues are that hitting the blue switch is unnecessary (you can hit the green switch first and bypass the blue blocks if you hold a shell close enough to it and let go), and that there aren't enough powerups.


SuperMario7 wrote:
Night and Stuff - 5/10:
I thought this level was decent. The graphics were good, but they were copied from SMSE so they weren't very original. The level was well decorated, though. However, the enemy placement was a little overloaded. There were too many enemies in some areas, especially fish, and it got a little spammy on occasion. The bullet bills were also hard to get by. The design was nonlinear, which is appreciated, but I thought the whole thing was a little repetitive. The switch gimmick is overused in general, and that took up a large portion of the level. There was even more backtracking then usual for a switch puzzle, which made design even more repetitive. The moving water at the end was a good idea, but it was so long that it got tedious. Also, when the water overlapped the pipes, it looked strange. You'd see what I mean if you look for it. Anyway, the level had some expansive design but it just came off as repetitive.


Jayoshi wrote:
Night and Stuff - 9.5/10

Design: Awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if this level won, either. It has some of the best design I've played so far in this contest, and I didn't think it was bad at all. I especially liked the moving water at the end.

Graphics: Also Awesome. Nothing wrong to say here.

Music: Honeslty, the techno music was quite a bit off. I'm not sure what to suggest, but not this one.


Valtteri wrote:
Night and Stuff (8/10)

This level has floating SML2 water, which is quite creative. The design is also great; there is a lot to do in this level. You have to explore the area, press switches and finally there's an original floating water ride where you have to swim along with a floating water square. The corner pieces for the water overlaps with the blocks in that section though, which looks silly. Maybe it should have been designed so those parts don't collide with blocks.