I found a error at the top at the second section. I could not enter the boss room so during my playthrough I added it by myself. Please add that warp on the door and maybe during the tower section do not overdo the whole bullet machine at the one spot because that was just spammy and if you defeat those Thomps, sometimes you cannot go up just for a spinjump gimmick. Try to make a level without making you to spinjump just to get further on on your level. What happens if I would of play that level with Peach or Link? Those playables cannot spinjump...
Re: Living Castle
Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 5:44 am
by Valentine
I watched your playthrough and read the comments about the level. I'll try to fix everything now
Re: Living Castle
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:49 pm
by m4sterbr0s
Review: Living Castle
Overall Design/Gameplay: A very challenging level. This castle would fit well in a World 5 or a World 6. It's good that you made an attempt to bring about the atmosphere of a living castle, but I mainly just saw it as an ordinary castle up until the boss, but graphics won't hurt your score. They were alright, along with the music choices. But I think there's just a spam of some enemies, like the thwomps and bullet bills for instances. I found myself at times blindly jumping into a spot where a thwomp could land on me (this was the second section). In addition, lack of powerups required the player to work hard enough to keep them. Also, it was difficult for Super Mario (big size) to navigate through a few jumps unless through ducking. Finally, the boss was somewhat of a disappointment. It's easy to kill the huge piranha plants if you keep holding the shy guy/block/shell. Even though some nipper plants, goombas, and a fire breathing piranha plant were thrown in, having a tail at this stage or just using the items available to you makes the boss battle a whole lot easier. But otherwise, it was a good level.
Suggestions/Improvements: A graphical suggestion, though this won't affect your score: there's a background in the SMBX Custom Graphics Pack where there's the SMB3 dungeon background with vines wrapping around the pillars. I think that would help a bit in terms of making this a living castle. Next, due to this level's difficulty, a checkpoint is needed. I'd suggest adding the midpoint when you're midway in the second section (i.e. after you enter the door to the area with note blocks). Thirdly, there should either be more powerups or less enemies. Fourth, there should be an indication of where the thwomps will fall (i.e. having the grass on the tiles as the area a thwomp might fall and the regular tiles indicating a safe area). Fifth, the level designing should be more spread out so that Super Mario can be able to navigate through the level easier without having to rely on ducking all the time when jumping. Finally, you should throw in an actual boss (i.e. Boom Boom), but still keep other enemies (i.e. fire breathing piranha plant) to provide more of a challenge.
