Winter Contest: The Winner and the Runner-up

Valtteri · Postby **Valtteri** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:18 pm

Normally I would wait three months from the beginning of the previous contest but I'm gonna have to start this one a few weeks early for personal reasons. I will have very limited free time from January onwards. I hope you don't mind.

Anyway, oh dear, it's the 10th level contest!!!!???? Now wouldn't it be amazing to win the 10th level contest? Yes! It would!

We have a winner! Congratulations to DarkMecha and our runner-up FireLink! Thanks to the judges for doing your best and also to our replacement judges bossedit8, Bomber57 and zlakergirl357. And thank you to all of the contestants. You were all great!

How it will be run

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 red rules will result in a disqualification.
Violation of 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 have more than two exits/stars. And both exits need to be Stars.
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.
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 9.

And yes, as long as the level meets these criteria, you may submit a level that you prepared earlier.

And don't forget to test your level. You have no idea how many submissions with incorrect start positions and warp directions we get 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

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
  
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- 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.
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.

Deadline

December 17th, 10:00 PM UTC.

Judges

Will bold those who have submitted their reviews.

Chad
Joey
Quill
TNTtimelord
Valtteri

Participants

Those who submitted are bolded.

Spoiler: show

Tier 1 Places 51-60

Spoiler: show

60. GLD4 - No (0.18/10)

Chad (0.0/10)
- My thoughts exactly, level title.
Joey (0.0/10)
- I jumped and caught the star and then walked off the platform.
Quill (0.0/10)
- H-yes.
Layla (0.9/10)
- "elsa is love, bomber57 x tntimelord is life" omggg 100000/1 this is the awesome thing what have you done with this level :DDD 111111/10
Valtteri (0.0/10)
- OH NO YOU DIDN'T.... omfg you put elsa is love in that text IM SO EXITED IM BEEN FORWADING MORE OF YOU SO MACH :)))))) 10x9x8x412/1 ~ Volttery

59. lucasandrianogb - Patience (1.2/10)

Chad (0.5/10)
- An interesting idea, but definitely not one that functions well in practice. The entire gameplay is just being able to trust any jump or movement, because any invisible block you aren't expecting (which could be potentially any of them) will lead you into a Spark or falling to your death. You don't always have the luxury of being patient as you recommend, because a moment's hesitation in some spots will get you hit by an enemy. The only thing this level does is demonstrate an unfair gimmick that doesn't play well, and the design is extremely lazy on top of that.
Joey (1.0/10)
- I don't have time for this, sorry. It's a cool gimmick but one section of it was enough.
Quill (2.0/10)
- what the fuck
Layla (1.5/10)
- I didn't have any. Also, I want to say this trick is very cool, and I can definitely see it being abused in the future.
Valtteri (1.0/10)
- Dude, no... The concept has potential but this is just about the poorest way you could execute it.

58. HarrisonTheKitsune - Mario's Half Minute Winter Adventure Variant 2 (1.98/10)

Chad (1.3/10)
- I'm sorry, but this just really isn't good. It's mostly just random block placements with no specific design plan or consistency for a couple of screens. Everything's on a moving layer that's not only unnecessary, but complicates the gameplay strangely, such as speeding across ice or having jump physics unexpectedly altered. The instant pipe warps are weird, the ice block wall that acts as lava is mean and nonsensical, I have no idea what the other sections are about (especially when trying to enter them outright kills you), and the rest of the design is very barren and accomplishes nothing. I couldn't enjoy any of this, and there was hardly a single aspect that functions the way a level should, honestly.
Joey (2.0/10)
- I don't really get it, but it was kinda fun.
Quill (2.5/10)
- what the fuck if you enter a door you die and what the actual hell was this level
Layla (2.1/10)
- Not exactly sure how aware you were of how poorly ice physics act to moving layers, and that played a huge role to how buggy and strange the level was considering the entire level moves to the right. I think autoscroll would have been the better friend here and it would have made your level a little bit higher in quality.
Valtteri (2.0/10)
- Hi. I don't understand... does the level have to move? This is just weird, I go all over the place without any kind of set direction and then suddenly find the star. Yes, I would say I did this in less than 30 seconds.

57. Bj007pro - Pipe Maze (2.72/10)

Chad (4.4/10)
- Eh, didn't care much for this one. It's one of those "keep going in random pipes until you eventually get it right" levels, which don't feel much like I'm accomplishing much as a player. From a design standpoint, it's just a big cluster of pipes with some required invisible blocks with ambiguous placements here and there. I will say I enjoyed the second half, as it had some actual clear path and feeling of challenge to it with that ceiling of Piranhas and those tricky jumps, but it was a short-lived aspect of the level because the second half is way smaller than the first.
Joey (2.0/10)
- I came out of a pipe and couldn't go anywhere.
Quill (1.0/10)
- fuck the invisible blocks
Layla (4.7/10)
- This level is exactly the nightmarish cruelty the designer intended it to be. The entire level is a complete randomized pipe maze, nothing but pipes. It's virtually a guess & check as well as a trial & error level and while in some cases that can work, in this one, it really did not. Better luck next time, make the level a lot more enjoyable. (Hint: if you find a ceiling of nothing but piranha plants, you're at the end)
Valtteri (1.5/10)
- Ugh, really... This isn't fun. You get a 1 because you probably put a little thought into this maze. But gameplay-wise it's pure trial and error and it's as boring as it gets. I don't like it.

56. meowflash - The Worst Level Ever (2.74/10)

Chad (4.5/10)
- I don't know if this was intended to be a joke level, as it does have a minimal appearance and a name that suggests it, but it's actually not too bad. I actually like the tight jumps/obstacles and mazelike quality to it. It isn't much to look at, as it's sort of a barebones level, but it's alright from a functional standpoint. It's short and fair to play while being slightly interesting, given the event functionality and hazard arrangement.
Joey (1.0/10)
- Definitely not the worst level ever, but it was pretty much just a short puzzle.
Quill (2.5/10)
- I wouldn't call this the worst level ever. The small pieces of platforming were kinda cool, though very basic. If you could put in more effort, this could have been better.
Layla (3.0/10)
- This level was entirely in itself a compilation of a few clever little puzzles, but overall not the greatest submission idea for the contest. I won't say I didn't like it, however.
Valtteri (2.7/10)
- I can tell from the name the author did not expect to place high with this level. And that's good because they won't. It's one of those cellphone game kind of levels where rooms are 1 screen in size and you have to go through a very narrow path and dodge spikes and enemies and whatever. Takes about a minute to finish. I'm not impressed.

55. Zeldamaster12 - Cave of Complexity (2.96/10)

Chad (2.3/10)
- This level is WAY too narrow and requires pixel-perfect precision in every spot. It's clearly designed with the intent for the player to remain small, but even then it's nigh-impossible to get through, and it's unreasonable to expect players to try and avoid things like fire Piranhas and multiple chasing Koopas in such small areas without ever taking damage. Also, I'm pretty sure the Spiny after the water segment is impossible, and breaking the bricks is a cruel "one chance or you're dead" scenario. At least the level's really short, so if you have the patience to clear the obstacles in this level, you'll probably get it eventually. I like the exterior decoration you gave it, but I can't honestly say I enjoyed much else about the level.
Joey (2.0/10)
- Besides the fact that I had to remove a yellow spike and a brick block so I could get through the level, this level was full of unnecessarily difficult NPC placement that got careless toward the end. The level was also kind of short.
Quill (3.0/10)
- There's nothing complex about this cave. It's horrendously cramped. There's a segment that requires Big Mario, and the part after that requires you to be hit as Mario is too big to enter. Work on that.
Layla (2.9/10)
- This would have been an amazing attempt at a completely vanilla level, but you really screwed it up by including impossibly tight spaces, overload of enemies (some parts are virtually impossible without getting hurt), and no power-ups or coins. I'm willing to bet you gave more room to attempt to put in more scenery than you did the actual accessible and playable areas. It was a nice attempt, but it turned out to be a nightmare of a level.
Valtteri (4.6/10)
- There's nothing wrong with tough levels. Except if you constantly get stuck. Please eliminate any parts where the player could possibly get stuck, such as the part where you have to either be big or have a Koopa Shell to break a couple of bricks blocking your way. If you're small and kill the Koopa, there's no way you can go. There's also a really tall pipe at the end of the level and you can fall behind it and never get back up. The challenges in this level are too Kaizo-like with all the narrow places and enemy spam. I don't like the looks of the level. Most of the tiles and spikes for example don't mix at all.

54. SamyPlaysSMBX - Bowser's Tank Attack (3.02/10)

Chad (3.0/10)
- Honestly, there isn't really much going on in this level. It's just a couple of tiny rooms, a cannon that camouflages perfectly with the tileset, a very minimalistic Bowser fight, and you're done. I did like the idea you had going for conveying the interior of the tank, and you could have expanded upon that. The idea for the transition back to the outside was neat too, but easily broken by falling back in and warping back and forth without even trying to. Other than that, though, the design is pretty effortless.
Joey (2.0/10)
- That was...poorly made. I didn't care for the ground tileset at the beginning, and all of the characters' dialogue had every word capitalized. The boss fight was uninteresting and the background switches (a cool idea) were not programmed correctly.
Quill (3.0/10)
- Toad was right. I /could/ do it. So this level was short as heck. The background changing when you left the super small tank was clever, but glitchy. That was really the only thing that stood out in this level. Everything else is pretty meh. The shortness of the level doesn't help it either.
Layla (2.9/10)
- This was a really quick level. I liked the gimmick of going inside the tank the background would disappear and then going outside would make it reappear. It may be rather clunky but I thought it works somewhat fine. But then RIGHT AWAY we fight bowser instead of this being a solid level. The Bowser fight was very uneventful and due to the billy gun it ends very quickly. Nice attempt at a tank level, but you need to make it a whole ton longer.
Valtteri (4.2/10)
- The tank looks weird but I kind of like it. It's different! I did not expect the pipe to lead right next to me and fell on the Spiny and that was annoying. The transition between inside the tank and outside is a cool idea but the implementation doesn't work unless you go back and forth for a while. And that was a really short level, too.

53. BlimpFruit - A Very Short Space Level (3.24/10)

Chad (4.2/10)
- Basically what its name suggests. What's there to play isn't bad, and the little meteorites you hop across have good structures to them, but it's over in less than a minute and doesn't offer anything significant along the way. The atmosphere is kinda neat, though.
Joey (2.0/10)
- This level was exactly what it sounds like. Speaking of sounds, the custom music was pretty cool but the stock FL Studio drums stick out. The cave graphics (styled a lot like SMB2/3) clashed with the background (more Metroid-looking), both of which didn't look good with the SMW-styled enemies.
Quill (3.0/10)
- I dunno man. It feels rushed! I just don't know. What was given had a nice taste, but you obviously need more! You need to press on, and on, AND ON!
Layla (3.0/10)
- It's not that great of a level. It visually looks just fine, and I thought the ways you used the Super Metroid background objects were very clever. I personally don't think the brown hills go very well with the blue gem-filled asteroid blocks, the jumbled pixel background objects also seem poorly done. The background is also a little blurry. I cannot stress how much I hate floating water physics in SMBX and the ways you mixed the space bubbles with the star enemies was a nightmare to dodge. Design, to the contrary of the random toad at the very end, it did feel rushed.
Valtteri (4.0/10)
- It's too short to be given an average rating. I'm not too fond of the brown BGOs, they don't fit.

52. MyNameIsEric52 - Central Factory (3.28/10)

Chad (1.5/10)
- Sorry, but this isn't good. The design is extremely minimal, and everything indoors blends in with the background. There isn't much going on except for a few jumps, insta-kill fire, and going through doors. One of them glitches you through a solid block, too. A few of the Koopas are weirdly difficult to avoid too, either because of a really cramped passage or because it's near a door you can't see yourself come out of at first. This just really isn't much to look at or enjoy playing, honestly.
Joey (4.0/10)
- This level was really short and didn't provide much challenge to the player at all. The locked door was apparently useless because I was able to find a different door and press a switch that destroyed the factory. The inside was made up of only small gray pipes and their joints, which clashed somewhat with the background. I don't see the point in the restyled Koopas either, and I don't think they look good with the SMB3-styled ice atmosphere outside the factory (which had too much snow and not enough scenery/colors that aren't white). The music was cool, though.
Quill (3.5/10)
- At first I thought this was a reference to something else, but I should have known better. Anyway, what the heck happened in this level? Things got blown up. It was weird. The level was okay, despite it's length. Not too much great about it. It was weird.
Layla (2.4/10)
- I'm going to not talk about the downright awful language translations used in this level and explain the really bad designing flaws. First off, I walk into the factory, and it's about to give me a key that doesn't work. What the hell was the point of that? I will also now mention how that part right there is half of the level. There's a cheap entrance to one of the last sections as I appear right on a doorway of a 1 block platform between two holes. Please put those holes where a player will fall in them before realizing what happened. The length of the level is just really short so there wasn't much hope for embelishing further onto the design, so I'd suggest making the level longer.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- The pipes inside the factory blend way too well into the background... Please do not place hurtful blocks like the fire on the same level as the floor edges or the player will get hurt by standing on the edges. The factory explosion thing is actually pretty cool, if not done a bit too simply. You could at least have changed the Toad's dialogue after the factory is destroyed. Also please don't place warps on thin pipes, it's weird.

51. Paradox Master - Shroomba's Wrath (3.38/10)

Chad (3.8/10)
- Somewhat of an intriguing story, but not one that's told especially well, honestly. The design is kinda messy, with inconsistent and empty visuals, enemy placements that are sometimes (but not always) needlessly difficult and awkward to predict, and not a lot of room to avoid them. I know the difficulty is supposed to demonstrate Shroomba being an elite Bowser troop, but it doesn't make things nice to work with from a gameplay standpoint. The Paragoomba spam is especially unfair, and the boss is basically "hit Shroomba once while tanking some hits", but some of the enemies do at least offer some fair challenge. There are some interesting ideas, such as the falling Goombas and the crushing brick ceiling segment, and you do offer a powerup to work with to make the latter doable, but if you know that something's buggy then you shouldn't leave it in. If you do, try and find out why, and explain to players how they should be careful rather than just saying "be careful". You at least put the midpoint right there to accomodate this somewhat, though. Overall, there are some neat gimmicks, but not all of them are executed enjoyably and the design's odd-looking and difficult to maneuver at times. This could be something really neat with some improvement.
Joey (3.0/10)
- This level was a mess of different tilesets. The chasing Paragoombas were not a good idea, and the final boss didn't make any sense and had too many random NPCs. I guess the best way to sum up this level is that everything is scattered and messy and there's no coordination in anything, especially the graphics.
Quill (4.5/10)
- I'm not really sure what to say about this level. I appreciate the unique ideas, there's some cool ones here for sure. There's a lot of problems though, such as enemies appearing out of nowhere as well as the main boss who is just enemy spam all around. Work on these things.
Layla (2.2/10)
- I had a fairly difficult time taking this entire level seriously, mostly because you added a LOT of cheap hits, as well as the overpowered hammer suit (which really didn't make much of a difference with overloads of enemies and cheap hits every other screen). I did like a few of the event ideas you pulled off, like the SMB3 bricks moving slowly down you had to break through. Even with the rather terrible designing, some of the talk events were rather funny to me. I will point out there are way too many goombas in the boss section because the generators all generate way too fast.
Valtteri (3.4/10)
- I can tell you had big ideas for this level. Unfortunately the execution is very lacking. The tiles that were used didn't mix at all. The level looks like a mess. The only custom graphic seems to be the yellow big Goomba that was probably created with MS Paint and it's all pixelated. The events in the boss must have taken a while to make though, and I appreciate it.

Tier 2 Places 41-50

Spoiler: show

50. Lonkified 4 Life - Slides & Spikes (3.54/10)

Chad (5.0/10)
- A simply designed short grassland level. It's a fairly standard layout, offering a couple of P-switch runs, some strategic jumps, and some spikes. The core structure isn't anything out of the ordinary, but it's not bad or unpleasant to play, and the P-switch runs and spikes are pretty decently and enjoyably placed. It's a brief, but okay experience.
Joey (3.0/10)
- This was a bunch of scattered enemies and blocks, and what bothered me the most was probably the first P-Switch; the only way to get through there was to use a Koopa shell, obviously, and when you do that safely you have no time to actually get under the block without it killing you if you already had gotten the Mushroom. In short, this level was not really that fun and seems amateur.
Quill (2.5/10)
- This feels like someone's first level. If it is, it isn't that bad. It's a good first attempt. In the future, try to add more variety in the terrain as well as the enemies used. The P-Switch runs are kinda dull, so if you're going to have them, spice them up a bit. Add plenty of scenery too as your level will feel a lot more empty.
Layla (4.2/10)
- This seemed to me to be a rather rushed level. It's almost what the name implies (There aren't many spikes and they're only around for a third of the level in the middle). I'd almost say there's more P-switch related stuff involved than there are spikes, so the name is misleading! In all seriousness, I do feel it is rushed, as it just has some quickly made basics for a SMW styled level. A blue beach koopa kicks a shell right in your face on one slide, and a nearly unavoidable banzai bill comes out of nowhere right after the last set of spikes in the level. I'd suggest you get rid of both of those cheap shots. Add a few more power-ups, but I thought there was a nice amount of coins.
Valtteri (3.0/10)
- This level is pretty boring. It's dodging a few Para-Koopas and then pressing a few P-Switches. The complete lack of background objects also makes it look really bland. The level is over in a minute. It feels very rushed.

49. Alex48 - Castle Darkness (3.88/10)

Chad (2.6/10)
- This level initially presents a standard castle setting that looks to be rather decently done. It offers Grinder-hopping, cannon dodging, switches, and a skull raft among some cleverly-placed challenging enemies to give the player plenty to do. It's a fun, tricky course that's an enjoyable test of skill. But then, the midpoint section hits and everything takes a drastic turn for the worse immediately. As soon as you exit the pipe, you have to deal with three fire Piranhas with virtually no room to avoid them unless your movements are perfect, and if you manage to pass those, you're greeted with a group of very frequent Bullet Bill generators with completely different timings to make them impossible to predict before the plants are even offscreen, so you have to deal with all of those together. The midpoint's right after, but if you die at any point past that, the level becomes impossible to complete because a yellow switch is required, which is only at the start of the level. There's no going back there without undoing all of your progress, because the warps are one-way. This creates a similar problem in the section with the other switch colors (besides the disco-shells that are three tiles from the door you come out of), because you need the yellow switch in there too and that door is also one-way. The room is actually still passable if you rely on using the ? blocks as platforms and spin-jump off of Boos, but it clearly wasn't supposed to be possible that way, and even then, getting the required key is a lost cause. The Lakitu spam section is unreasonable, too. Other than that, all that's left is a standard Ludwig fight with a couple Rinka generators and that's the end. In conclusion, a promising first half is ruined by a completely unfair second half that made the level impossible to enjoy. It would have been fun to play if only the cruel and game-breaking elements were fixed.
Joey (2.0/10)
- I could not find the switch to activate the yellow blocks for the third key. I went around the lock anyway and was greeted with a few Kaizo-style obstacles, and I don't even know if it's possible to get through them.
Quill (7.0/10)
- Oh noes, you misplaceed your starting position! Anyway, this was quite an interesting SMW Castle! It did feel like one too, so good job on that! I appreciated the variety on the different sections, nothing really felt like it had been done before. The Lakitu race was kinda silly and not really needed, it looked like it was added just for the fun of it but unfortunatly it's not that fun. None of the key rooms were really exciting anyway. Overall though, this was a good attempt at a castle level.
Layla (4.2/10)
- You made a few very poor choices when you made this level. I'd say the overload of enemies just about everywhere counts as one, the cheap rainbow shell ambush in section 10, the cheap pipes that send you back to the beginning of section 7, the multiple key door blockade which is used just to make the level longer, and the overload of lakitus in section 9. If you're going to use a challenge kind of gimmick seperate to each section, I'd suggest doing something a little bit more creative than just an major, impossible to avoid overload of lakitus as well, because that isn't a gimmick or a challenge, as it's just straight up lazy designing choices. If your player still has the leaf power-up while arriving at the skull rafts, then the player can use a rainbow shell to nerf that entire section by riding the rainbow shell. I would say there are a lot of coins in the level, however.
Valtteri (3.6/10)
- In this level you take the first door and instantly get killed by three Kamikaze Koopas. Trial and error done the worst way. Ugh, fine, I'll play the rest of the level. Way too many projectiles, almost impossible to survive. I have no idea how to hit the Switches in the Kamikaze Koopa room and hence I am unable to obtain the third key.

48. andialifbatara - Candy Land (4.04/10)

Chad (3.2/10)
- This is a charming graphical setup for a level, but I can't honestly say I enjoyed it. The majority of the design is extremely narrow and difficult to navigate, and the placements of hazards and enemies do not accomodate this well. Enemies are awkwardly-placed, where most will interact oddly with slopes, the midpoint, run into one-tile-wide holes and turn around at every frame, or there will be several in a tiny space and they'll move strangely. The Spinies at the end of Section 3 are impossible to avoid without taking a hit without a Fire Flower, the midpoint room is unreasonable because the pipe doesn't look like it would have a warp attached to it, leaving the midpoint room is impossible without taking a hit because of the plant (so if you die, you need to either God Mode or remove the plant to continue), and there's a stack of cannons towards the end that's cruel because the player will be focused on the pits before them and they blend in with the scenery. The worst parts, however, are the SMB3 coins. Such a standard item becoming a recipe for death is incredibly difficult to get used to, and you often have them placed in cruel locations. For instance, the crushing layer with the invisible Hammer Suit block that you absolutely need to hit, which will trigger the coins and troll you. The disappearing platforms in the later half of the level would have been cool if not for the tight maneuvering required, too. This level has a lot of major issues that make it generally unenjoyable, I'm afraid. The tricky tileset placement would be neat if it was fairer, but not much else is positive about this level. You forgot to end it in a star, too.
Joey (4.0/10)
- I really don't like candy levels. I think the graphics are bad and look cheap; to make a candy level, you must have graphics that have a coherent theme and look really good together. The candy graphics that everyone seems to use don't do either, and it's just a mess of random colors. As for the rest of the level design, I can't find anything that stood out as really good. The ground tiles, at times, felt really jagged and forced/unnatural. The spiny spam would result in nothing more than the player losing health/lives until he figures out you can spin jump, and then still probably getting hurt anyway.
Quill (5.0/10)
- What a weird level. It's a nice concept and a good attempt, there just seems to not be much going for it. Not sure I agree with the whole SMB3 Coins = Bad gimmick either.
Layla (4.8/10)
- This was a very amusing level. I could tell it doesn't take itself seriously, but nevertheless I had a lot of fun playing it. One major issue is that my eyes seriously hurt from the poorly chosen color palette in this level. The hot pink mixed in with that cream color will be killer on just about any player. I would like to point out that the "no collecting SMB3 coins" gimmick (where bad things happen if you collect the SMB3 coins and not the awsum face coins) just adds onto the humorous atmosphere. The level design when it comes down to it, is actually not very good. Lots of closed in spaces as well as lots of enemy overloading in close to the same areas. I'd put in a few more power-ups if you're going to make designing choices like that.
Valtteri (3.2/10)
- This tileset is very MS Painty. And dear god that is way too many enemies. At the point where you got drowned in a million Spinies I started wondering if the author even tried.

47. Meepingturtle - Wart's Lava Spaceship (4.16/10)

Chad (5.7/10)
- A space-themed level with simple but intriguing design. I like the structures that are built in the moon-themed areas, and the gameplay is decent. There's a little bit of variation, as you have to climb, avoid a lava wall, and fight two standard bosses in a row (which have a nice difficulty balance as well considering those circumstances). The layout feels sort of empty in the inside sections, but the level as a whole is pretty alright. It's short and relatively normal, but not bad.
Joey (3.0/10)
- This level was full of random graphics that weren't compatible with eachother, and some of the tiles seemed like they were placed randomly. Spaces between different tiles/areas were either too large or too small, and the whole level felt like a mess of graphics and enemies.
Quill (5.0/10)
- Wacky level. It's not that bad, I liked some of the variety you had. Nothing really stood out though, but it was a good attempt and kept me fairly entertained. The two bosses are pretty generic, but thanks for making the player fight them individually. Fighting both at the same time would have been insane.
Layla (2.7/10)
- Well, you sure know how to add a lot of things together, whether they look good together or not. But seriously, you added a lot of things that don't look good (Random red grass with SMB3 underwater sizable), but other things do seem to look good (some of Sednaiur's SMB2 graphics with the SMW Castle). Design wasn't all that great and it added up to a lot of NPCs, not a lot of coins, random moving lava layer, and a double battle with Wart and Bowser that involved no mid battle mushrooms.
Valtteri (4.4/10)
- This level is about as good as the name implies... You attempted to build a space ship with vanilla SMBX tiles which resulted in a mess. The best-looking thing in this level are the custom Mario 2 graphics you decided to use for no reason. The vines cut off. The ladders cut off too. The boss is just SMB3 Bowser and Wart in a row. The lava run before the boss was kind of different I guess so that's good. What is up with people using the wooden SMW spike pillars and then placing yellow spikes on top of them? They're not used like that in any game and you could use ANY block in place of the wood pillar and it would look equally bad. Why do so many people do that?

46. SnifitGuy - Epicmode Stardust Speedway (4.46/10)

Chad (4.8/10)
- An okay city-themed level. It's pretty nice-looking and offers some decent platforming, and I like that bit with the propeller platforms (although them being solid on the bottom was unexpected and a mild pain). The spikes and line platform add a little bit of variety, too. But aside from a highly unnecessary second star area, this level's mostly a bit of standard gameplay and you're done. Not bad as is, but not especially noteworthy, either.
Joey (4.0/10)
- Well, uh...yeah. This level didn't present much challenge to the player and was pretty empty. -1 point for YouTube poop references. +1 point for interesting music.
Quill (4.5/10)
- Sorry, my review was lost down that pipe.
Layla (3.0/10)
- Way to go ruining your levels entire quality by adding in a joke section in the middle of the level. The rest of the entire level isn't even that bad, but you completely trashed yourself with that absolute shit mistake.
Valtteri (6.0/10)
- This is a good level. Very casual, nothing special besides the construction site-looking set of tiles. And then there's of course the optional pingas area that's a joke. It gives you a SMW Star. I would make the platform lines white as they might be hard to tell from the dark city background.

45. GMarinaX - The Unbelieveable Assault (4.5/10)

Chad (5.5/10)
- An ordinary grassland, but with Japanese music. =P The design is basically a standard run of avoiding enemies and jumping over obstacles, but it does a fairly good job at it. That's about all there is to it, but not much to really complain about other than that the bonus room shouldn't warp you backwards as far as it does. It's an unnecessary and mildly annoying setback.
Joey (4.0/10)
- I don't think I've ever heard female Japanese rap until now, so, uh...thanks? Anyway, this level was really repetitive and used the same 4 or 5 enemies the whole time. The background didn't fit with anything else, and the music didn't fit with anything.
Quill (3.0/10)
- A generic SMB3 dish with some weeaboo seasoning resulted in a generic SMB3 dish.
Layla (4.5/10)
- I turned off the music. Don't ever make me listen to that godawful music again. Aside from the music, it wasn't that bad of a level, just felt like a regular, no graphics needed SMB3 level (Although a regular hills background would work a whole lot better than the tanks one).
Valtteri (5.5/10)
- This level seems rushed... It's very basic. There's nothing special to it. Just a rush through a grass land type of thing and dodging a couple of enemies. Nothing much to say about it otherwise.

44. AirSeus - Broken Station (4.54/10)

Chad (5.0/10)
- An okay level. You start the player out with a water elevation gimmick, but there was no need to have two switches per platform because you only need to use each platform once. If you didn't want players to hit the switches while the water was in motion, you could have put the water and switches on separate moving layers that act the same and trigger together, but the switch layer turns on and off. It works fine as long as players follow instructions, but you want to avoid letting players create issues if you can help it, and there isn't much happening in that area besides the water levels. After that is a slow elevator descent with slow enemy generators. Not much to do in there except wait and seldomly jump on an enemy, but sometimes the generators glitch enemies through the platform and that can hurt you unfairly. The elevator could also kill the player as it overlaps the floor, which can be solved by having it disappear before it reaches the ground. The lava chase section is set up decently though, as you have plenty to jump over and avoid while running unlike the previous rooms. The second star is a good idea, but the return warp's direction is wrong. Overall, a fine idea for a level, but very simple in execution. It's more of a moving layer showcase than an actual level, with minor bugs here and there. The level's not especially bad, but more could have been done with it.
Joey (5.0/10)
- Not much went on in this level. I recommend you fix the problem with the water switches - you only need one direction at a time, so having two blocks isn't necessary. It was too open and spacious the whole time; I would add more corridors and tunnels. The NPCs were pretty uneventful and the whole level just felt kind of empty. Some of the block placement was either too open or too cramped.
Quill (4.0/10)
- This level is strange. The elevators perform very strangely, I'm not really sure what the heck is going on with them. The gameplay isn't too exciting, the level feels like it is building up to something, but nothing really happens. It's not that bad, it just doesn't have anything going for it.
Layla (3.7/10)
- After breaking your level once or twice, once unintentionally, I finished your level. I'm not sure how hard you tested your level, but it needs some serious work on the rising and lowering of the platforms. The use of this tileset wasn't done very well, as I could see bits of cutoff in several various places, which could easily have been avoided, same goes for the clash (there's computers that replace signs and SM styled level, use the 4 year old GFX Pack to your advantage) as all of these issues completely destroyed the atmosphere and this ended up not being a very fun level.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- Elevator active!!! Yes I can see that. Why tell me that now when I've already used a few elevators at the beginning of the level? I don't like the way the chosen tileset is used in the level. There's too much cutoff to my taste and the use isn't too interesting either. You're capable of doing a lot better than simple square shapes with this tileset. The long elevator overlaps with blocks randomly as it descends which doesn't look very good. I'm not a fan of the platforms that you control with the ? Switches by the way. I would make them a bit more complex by making them stop at certain heights for example.

43. The Game and Watch - Frozen Spikes (4.56/10)

Chad (4.6/10)
- Sort of a weird level, to be honest. The gameplay is fine and all, but the design and gimmicks are very inconsistent. Some areas have no enemies for a long time but others will have big clusters of cannons or lotuses, there are two midpoints for some reason (start and end are completely ineffective placements unless there's a big boss at the end), the P-switch thing at the start is completely skippable, things like that. It's like the level couldn't decide what it wanted to be. However, the more difficult spots do provide a bit of challenge, and I like the location you gave the second star (although the method for finding it's a bit cheap because you have to take a hit), and the level makes decent use of switches, frozen mechanics, and spikes. All in all, not an awful level, but kind of odd to play because there's not much of a plan or consistency to it.
Quill (3.5/10)
- Oh dear, looks like you misplaced your starting position, friend. The level wasn't that bad, but it suffered from several oversights. For example, the two deactivated switch blocks after the checkpoint don't need to be activated as SMBX doesn't require solid ground to enter a horizontal pipe. The second checkpoint is useless as a level can only have one checkpoint and it was literally 10 seconds from the end anyway. There are several cases of cut off and overall this level needs a lot more polish.
Layla (5.1/10)
- (You forgot to move the starting point, but no worries, it shows you tested your level ;)) There are a few issues with your level. One is the consistency. First off we have a random, very short P-Switch challenge, then we have random SMB3 bullets (SMW styled snow level by the way), boos, A few random invisible coin blocks going over long pipes. Suddenly, waterfalls, frozen coins that act as blocks, snowman hammer bros, dysfunctional flying cheep cheep bridge underground, and a lot of spikes. Most of the aforementioned things only last once or twice, and some didn't even work properly (c'mon man, what's with the misplaced player spawn point then?). It wouldn't hurt to see a few more power-ups and coins as well.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- An average level that does a couple of common mistakes. A common level type that's hard to give distinctive feedback for. The snowfall is not for diagonal use, it looks weird. And the black background tiles that look like SMB3 dungeon bricks... just don't use them ever. They never look good. Besides that, and the narrow places with spikes, it's an all right level. And the selection of enemies is too large. At least leave out the Bob-ombs. If you use every enemy in the engine the level will feel messy.
zlakergirl357 (4.6/10)
- A charming little level. The design was quite interesting and a bit fun. The addition of the Spikes was really nice, however I find them a bit spammed in the overworld sections of the level. I also find the gameplay of the level a bit bland as it has a lack of new gameplay elements. Sure, the P-Switch was there, however it wasn't utulized very good. I find the usage of it really bland cliche to be honest. I can't really say the level was good-looking either as I found the amount of decorations very little. The level also had a true lack of enemies and I find the giant Piranha Plant disturbing as well. Another thing; don't put mutliple checkpoints in the level as SMBX doesn't have the ability to save after a second checkpoint.

42. hacheipe399 - Another SMB1 Castle (4.78/10)

Chad (5.0/10)
- A moderately challenging fortress level. I like the general block layout, and the interior sections have a lot of well-crafted tricky jumps. However, enemy placement in the second half is rather excessive. The cannons and fire plants are strategically placed, but there are too many Hammer Bros for how precise the player's maneuvering has to be around the landforms. The level does offer somewhat of a surplus of powerups and that does help, but getting through that section almost felt luck-based with what it demands of the player. Also, if you don't make it to Bowser with a Fire Flower, there's nothing you can do but sit there and die. Other than that, the level's pretty standard.
Joey (4.0/10)
- The castle was badly designed to start with; a lot of it had too many long straight edges, and the background sizables didn't look good and weren't necessary at all. The enemy/block placement wasn't that good either (namely the random Goomba standing on the spikes, and the hammer brothers at the end of Section 2). And then, we go through a door and are immediately outside...I don't know what the point of this section was, but it was nothing more than a bunch of ground tiles and SMB1 enemies that served little to no purpose. There was no way to kill the boss, either.
Quill (5.5/10)
- This was quite a nice level. I appreciated the variety in the platforming. Some areas did suffer from either cramped corridors or an overwhelming amount of enemies. The only way to defeat Bowser is to have a Fire Flower or a better powerup before hand, which isn't great if you're just normal Mario or small Mario.
Layla (4.4/10)
- First off, were you aware that maintaining the same boring music throughout an entire level does not maintain the same atmosphere or theme? I'd also like to mention that it would be nice to have a power-up right before you fight bowser considering there's absolutely no way to beat him without a fire flower, and that's a terrible design flaw on it's own. Overall, things looked graphically just fine, but nevertheless the atmosphere was destroyed once we reach halfway through the level you COMPLETELY switched themes on us from castle to grassland. In basic design, it wasn't too bad, even with the murderous jumps throughout the castle areas of the level. I did like the outside section, as it felt like a fine SMB1 overworld, save for the music.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- This isn't bad! Here's a few things that you should improve on. There are unnecessarily large swarms of enemies at the end of the first castle section and in the middle of the outside section. The rest of the level has too many enemies as well. Take out like every second enemy. The Goomba and coin box colors aren't consistent. They should be gray inside the castle and brown outside. The blue Goombas don't belong here at all. The first castle section is tediously narrow.

41. Grovfu - Where's Our Tree (4.9/10)

Chad (5.6/10)
- This level has an interesting atmosphere to it. It's a short level, but I like the precise block arrangements and how they influence the player to climb and maneuver. It's sort of an ordinary deal for the most part, but fun and with a silly ending.
Joey (3.0/10)
- Uh...well, okay, that was easy. A lot of this level was haphazard and involved areas that were unnecessary to the player's progression, and you used a lot of the default graphics that ended up clashing with eachother.
Quill (6.5/10)
- Nice level, it's pretty simple and kept me fairly entertaining. By the way, you don't need solid blocks underneath a pipe to enter it. The checkpoint could have been much earlier into the level, in my opinion. The end of the level was only tenseconds away. BUT HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING WAS SO CUTE I FELT THE FEELS ;-; okay it wasn't that crazy but man bowser must get pretty lonely
Layla (4.4/10)
- When I got into Bowser's outpost, I could no longer take this level seriously. The design is rather mediocre, having an overusage of SMB2 sizeables and SMB3 water tiles. Yeah, there's a lot of mixing in this level and for the most part it doesn't all go together very well at all. It was a comical theme and the music was great, but the design really killed the overall quality.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- This is a pretty simple level. It's hard to find anything specific to comment on other than that it's really generic. It's mostly just SMB2 snow sizables but then you get these out of place SMB3 water blocks with lava on them... I thought that was odd and not too pretty to look at.

Tier 3 Places 31-40

Spoiler: show

40. PaperPlayerX - Demented Dungeon (4.97/10)

Bomber57 (3.75/10)
- I was actually rather thrilled at first to see a level where you got to play as Link. I then learned this was essentially a pogo-stick challenge that wasn't put together very well. It is good to be challenging, but when you have spikes placed in spots that make it hard if not nigh impossible to avoid. I also could never find the first key, and looking in the editor it seems to be inside the ceiling. How was the player ever supposed to find that? The level only seemed to get harder from there. When you make a puzzle, please consider that the player has no idea where any of these secret things would be when you, as the editor, would.
Chad (4.4/10)
- Quite the complicated setup you have here. The puzzle designs are truly brilliant, making ingenious use of various uncommon SMBX elements like Link's spike-bouncing and conveyor belt NPCs to give each room multiple purposes. This really makes the player have to discover and solve in order to find the way forward, and it's really impressive how you managed to do this. However, there are a number of unfair aspects about the level that make it feel as though you designed it with the assumption that players would understand it as fully as its creator does. For starters, how would anyone guess that the fairy section uses the background castle tiles? Nothing indicates them at all, you would have to just plain know it somehow. The conveyor section is excessively narrow, requiring unreasonably tight maneuvering to get through the enemies and tunnels. The elevator section will crush you if you don't perfect-run it before you even know what to expect, because you have to bounce on some of the spikes at the earliest chance while trying not to get crushed by the layer overlap. The level throws a lot at the player and is a pretty long run for having almost no powerups and no midpoint until the end, so you basically have to do everything with zero mistakes. This issue is expanded upon further when the second star requires you to find an extra key in an unguessable block and then do every room twice in ways most players wouldn't even imagine. The "no magic missiles" hint isn't helpful either when the star still doesn't appear if you choose not to hit any of the starting blocks, meaning you got that far and did everything correctly for nothing. In short, the level has really clever ideas, but they're ruined by unfair execution and lack of consideration for how other players are going to pick it up, because people aren't going to beat it without first investigating the entire level in the editor extensively.
Quill (6.5/10)
- The place you hid that first key is cruel and relies on luck if you accidentally find it or not. Fix that. The rest of the level is pretty cool though, I especially liked the conveyor room. The puzzle was pretty cool. Everything else was okay, but nothing too special. The second indoor room seems to have no purpose also.
Layla (5.4/10)
- Not a bad level. It didn't feel too much like a legend of zelda level even if you're playing link, considering it's all heavily SMB3 styled minus the bots. Various spots in the level were very cramped as well, with a lot of irritating bots getting in the way and making it unfairly hazardous for Link. I did like the conveyor belt gimmick and how a switch at the end changes the entire section to move backwards to once again pose a lot of obstacles for Mario.
Valtteri (4.8/10)
- That was mean. This level has one too many cryptic puzzles. The surprise go-through walls are a menace. There are WAY too many enemies in the first conveyor belt puzzle room. And the room with the paths that all just led me to a dead-end, I couldn't for the life of me figure what I was supposed to do there. But I do kind of like the looks of the level, with the mix of the SMB3 dungeon blocks. I haven't seen anything quite like that before.

39. crusher169 - Casual Casino 2.0 (5.0/10)

Chad (4.5/10)
- An odd level, frankly. It's mostly a few tricky jumps and you're done. What's offered from start to finish isn't bad, but it's a very small dose of gameplay. It's also somewhat difficult to tell what you can interact with and what you can't, because a lot of the scenery is just as dynamic-looking as the actual obstacles and surfaces. Also, I don't see why you needed to point out the secret exit in the readme when you could have just had that extra block make a sound or something, because most people are not going to want to minimize ToB9 just to open up a Notepad file. But yeah, that's about all there is to the level. It has a lot of detail, at least.
Joey (6.0/10)
- The graphics in this level were cool, but it was cut kind of short for some reason. There were a lot of times where the player had to make large jumps over spikes, but I guess there's nothing wrong with that. To make this level better, I would put in some more talking characters and maybe a minigame. You could also develop more on the casino setting itself. Is this a casino that's secretly run by the Koopas and employs Shy Guys for labor underground? There just wasn't enough going on.
Quill (4.5/10)
- Casual Casino 2.0: Electric Boogaloo. I don't think I'm going to consider this an improvement over the first. This level lacks the charm the first one has. This level has a bunch of problems, such as tight areas and some lack of creativity, which is a shame. It's not bad by any means, it just could be a lot better.
Layla (5.0/10)
- I remember Casual Casino vividly from CC8 and I can safely say that this is a much bigger improvement. It's got a nice little "find the secrets gimmick" but the gimmick is also applied in rather cheap ways (climbing up on top of piranhas causes a power-up to be lost). I'd also make a little bit more room in the cllosed in areas, especially since the jumping stars take up a lot of space.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- The flashing stars are confusing, I thought you could jump on them. In the first section I didn't realize you could enter the Shell spawn first and went right and found the 1UP and a Toad speaking nonsense. There was just a massive pit beyond that so I tried blind-jumping and died. At least take out the pit... Before that was also a jump over spikes with very low ceiling that looked impossible, but was actually pretty easy. I don't know what to think of that really, it was kind of cool in a way! Overall the level is decent. The structure is a bit weird when it isn't boringly plain if you know what I mean.

38. Mr Pancake Guy - Mushrooms of Rosalina (5.08/10)

Chad (5.0/10)
- A relatively normal athletic-type level. The design feels a little empty (even for a sky level, there are ways around this like cloud-based scenery and additional platforms and such), but this level does offer a few interesting things aside from standard platforming. There are good uses of moving layers and P-switch runs, such as the decently challenging mushroom ride at the start and the layers with the on/off switches on them. The switch platforms automatically triggered by Koopas are a rare sight that I'd like to have seen more of. However, I didn't care much for the invisible block bridge that makes the Spiny generator excessively difficult to pass, the first P-switch requiring you to step on Munchers, and the boss is a lot more difficult and time-consuming than the rest of the level. Still fair, with a good attack pattern, but the simple difficulty of this level should lead up to something similarly forgiving. Mostly minor stuff though, and other than that this level is okay.
Joey (4.0/10)
- There was nothing interesting or rewarding about this level; it was just a bunch of obstacles with no coherent theme or flow. Most of it was poorly designed in that you had to rely on quick jumping/bouncing off Koopas, and the blocks (especially the green sizables) were messy and badly-placed. There wasn't much coordination in graphics either - while they didn't look horrendous, the styles were just kind of random.
Quill (4.5/10)
- Misleading name! This level had nothing to do with Rosalina, or her mushrooms. Anyway, the level is kinda lacking in detail and good design. Some things felt a little rushed or just felt like not much effort had been put into them.
Layla (5.6/10)
- This wasn't a bad level, but it had a few things that really killed the quality. Normally, mushroom platforms have one stalk, in the center. I also think mentioning the creator himself twice throughout the entire level wasn't a great idea either. Munchers also probably shouldn't float in the air, whether or not there is an upside down one right under it. Aside from all those, the level was rather mediocre with a mediocre boss. I will say some parts, like the platform switches and the koopa shells were a clever touch I don't think I've seen used in that manner before, and I also thought the P-switch section was done nicely, at least for a P-switch gimmick.
Valtteri (6.3/10)
- This is a pretty fun level. There's a severe lack of scenery in the first half. It looks bland and boring. The mushroom ride is something fresheningly different though.

37. Cloth pocket - Vicious Volcano (5.2/10)

Chad (5.5/10)
- A rather short lava cave level that, despite its title, is actually rather tame. It's a simple tunnel run of jumping over pits and enemies until you reach the end, but the structure of the cave is quite nice and the difficulty is comfortably moderate. There isn't a lot of variation, so there isn't much else to talk about, but nothing to really complain about either. It's a simple and pleasant run.
Joey (4.0/10)
- Very short and uneventful. I didn't like some of the lava-styled graphics, mainly the background. Also, having vines that you can't climb up is kind of deceiving - I would change these graphics to something else that doesn't make the player automatically think they can climb them.
Quill (3.0/10)
- Well, that escalated quickly. What I played was alright, but extend it, man!
Layla (6.9/10)
- For being a somewhat short SMW lava level, I found it to be a rather nice and easy level. It's got all the basics, coins, a couple power-ups, and a small variety of enemies, all needed for a lava-cave theme. Although, that background is incredibly bright, and I would definitely tone that down. I'm also not sure when we decided to start using SMW vines as background objects instead of SMB2 vines. It was also a pretty cramped level.
Valtteri (6.6/10)
- This is a pretty little level. It takes hardly a minute to complete. It's just a cave run with some lava on the bottom and a few enemies you have to jump over. It does look neat though. Except I don't get the red plants. Have you ever been inside a volcano? There is no vegeation inside a volcano, I can assure you. Not even red grass.

36. MECHDRAGON777 - Fabrik in Weltraum (5.4/10)

Bomber57 (4.0/10)
- Well, we all knew it was coming folks. This level is the Operation Star Snatcher clone. And one heck of a clone it is. This uses nearly every gimmick from that level right down to the walk-through walls. Except instead of the walk-through walls being a little thing for the side star, the walk-through walls are a major gimmick in this level. Specifically, having to deactivate a laser barrier by happening upon a hidden wall and flipping the switch there. That aside, there are many other issues I would like to talk about. First is enemy placement. There are sections where there are swarms, and I mean SWARMS of flying robots while Mario is on a line platform. This can be tricky to avoid, especially over pits and around other harmful objects. The outdoor space sections also didn't add much to the level and simply felt like an excuse to have slippery physics for the hell of it. A thing I have the biggest issue with in this level is the overall layout of it. In Operation Star Snatcher, the level was put into various distinct areas to give the level a sort of atmosphere and also help the player when navigating around the facility. Here it feels very messy. I also don't like how later on there are some doors that will take you to the start and then you can't go back to where you were, meaning you have to cross back over a chunk of the level again. Hidden walls seem to be a large thing throughout the entire level actually. That means that the player has to hug every wall and jump up and down mashing your face into the cold metal surface hoping you'd find the hidden switch or barrier to let you progress. Then there is a final section where you have to go around hitting four switches, and this section has all the bad parts of the level in one. Enemy spam, poor enemy placement and choice, random and unecessary slippery physics, hidden areas that are hard or impossible to reach (I had to use shadowstar at one point), and obscure puzzles that the player could never solve. Again, this level has the serious issue of puzzles that the level MAKER could solve, but the PLAYER could never figure out. I find this level to be a rather disappointing use of the marvelous graphics Sednaiur made for Operation Star Snatcher.
Chad (4.0/10)
- This level asks way too much of the player. It offer a massive amount of variety, interesting event execution, and intriguingly complicated design all the way through, but this level just had no idea when to stop. It takes at least 30 minutes to complete, and that's just if you don't die. On top of that, you're expected to find 4 hieroglyphs (and the midpoint's useless when it comes to this), most of which are hidden in secret passageways that look exactly like the rest of the tileset, so there's really no way to find them except by luck. I managed to find 3 of them, but ironically the one I missed was right at the start and I couldn't go back. You do offer a door back to the start in one area, but I didn't want to redo everything before I was even finished. Most of the gimmicks are annoying along the way, such as Rinkas with no warning, clusters of flying enemies, timed platforms that are difficult to keep track of while watching everything else, and electricity that spends way more time on than it does off. Also, apparently you have a Touhou spellcard segment at the end of the entire hieroglyph run alongside some electricity, and quite frankly I'm not subjecting myself to that. The level already feels like many levels crammed into one before that. The only things I can really say positively about this level are that the visuals are excellent, the overall structure of the level is astoundingly complex, and the amount of effort put into this level is clearly immense. It's just that nearly everything about the gameplay and length is handled poorly to the point that it just isn't fun.
Quill (7.0/10)
- I dunno man. This just feels too similar to a previous contest level. It doesn't really add much to the table, either. It's not that bad by any means, but it drags on for quite a while while offering only some variety.
Layla (5.0/10)
- I'm not sure what went through your mind to made one block high platform areas, tunnels with no indication that they are there inside the filler walls, several annoying platform havens, mandatory to hurt yourself to hit a switch, tedious waiting for blue lazers to turn off, and all of this in one insanely long maze of a level. I am happy to see this great lab tileset by Sednaiur used again, and I'm going to admit you did it some justice, but there are too many issues with the level that I had a very hard time enjoying it. I will say I liked the small elevator element towards the beginning and the amount of power-ups and coins are decent.
Valtteri (7.0/10)
- Please don't make the player look for invisible paths inside the walls... Luckily I was able to find them fairly easily and got out of the level relatively fast. Besides that, it's an okay level. I don't have much to say, it's pretty simple really if you take out the laser beams and whatever you took from Sednaiur's level for the 8th contest.

35. Willhart - Ghosty Lake (5.68/10)

Chad (6.0/10)
- This level is refreshingly different. Using water as a full-blown solid tileset is certainly unusual, but very interesting at the same time. It opened up the similarly-creative possibility to conceal aquatic enemies within the tileset, which made the first few sections entertaining to traverse through. I also enjoyed the generally restrictive block placement, as it gave the level a lot of detail while requiring deliberate planning from the player. However, the design felt lazy towards the end, as it basically set up the joke and did nothing more. The quicksand blocks also threw me off quite a bit. You should have just made them swimmable, because then you'd have some neat reversal of solid/water surfaces. Otherwise, this was a fun and silly little ride, with some entertaining design in the first areas and a bit of innovation too.
Joey (4.0/10)
- The duck mechanic was cool.
Quill (6.5/10)
- what the fuck
Layla (1.9/10)
- I have never played a level that could make me break out laughing like that before. I must say, with the comical inner tube gimmick that was actually pulled off rather well, the strange ghost and motorcycle sprite, and the Christmas graphics and music all amounted to a really hilarious level. Sorry to say it, but the design isn't serious.
Valtteri (10.0/10)
- I laughed my ass off at the motorcycle ghost... This is great! How did you come up with the duck thing and how to make the ground so you can't walk on it? That is so weird! This is truly clever and the implementation is excellent and beautiful. Fantastic job!

34. Sandra - Frosty Land (5.72/10)

Chad (6.0/10)
- Nice SMB1 level. It's a relatively normal snowland run, but with tricky jumps, strategic pipe placements, and Hammer Bros. to require more deliberate action and caution from the player and add a bit of challenge. It's comfortably short with some clear attention to detail when planning the difficulty. You might want to avoid placing brick blocks in front of castles though, as they blend in extremely well. Other than that nitpick, this was an enjoyable minor twist on an ordinary SMB1 setting.
Joey (6.0/10)
- Not too bad, but some of the block placement was really awkward. For example, the single pillars of dirt/grass often looked jagged and out of place. The brick blocks were almost always in front of castles, which can cause the player to not see them. The level also didn't really offer much variation in structure - it was largely the same jump over pits/dodge Hammer Bros. formula. Other than those things, this level was alright. The music was interesting, too.
Quill (4.5/10)
- Cute level. Too bad it was short, it had some potential. From what I played, it wasn't too special either. It wasn't that bad though, it just could have been more.
Layla (5.7/10)
- You should really check all your surface blocks to make sure they all are slippery or all not slippery, because I had a lot of parts where I ended up dying because I either thought it wouldn't be slippery but it was and parts where I thought it would but it ended up not being slippery. It tells me you didn't test your level very well and is a fairly big design flaw. Other than that, I wouldn't say there were many other redeeming qualities, other than it was a somewhat enjoyable level with some tricky jumps and expanded out NPC placement. And the graphics and music all helped to make it a cheerful snowy atmosphere, and I think that really played a role into making it a fun level to play as well. Overall, it was a fine level, but you should really test more to prevent any deep designing mistakes.
Valtteri (6.4/10)
- A decent snow level. All the flat blocks are slippery and the slopes aren't. That's weird.

33. Turtwig - Forest of Terror (5.76/10)

Chad (5.3/10)
- A sort of unique take on a day/night gimmick. The level design is relatively simple, but it does a good job at supporting the gimmick, and it's nice that you made it clear what changes. Although, even with the warning, the enemy placements aren't especially fair when things switch. You caution the player about how to act around the ghosts, but you could just place them higher and more out of the way instead of right above the ground. They'd still catch up with you rather easily. Avoiding the daytime ground-based enemies is purely luck, because there's no telling if they'll appear exactly where you are and unfairly hit you. Also, the Paratroopas in the bonus section are a complete troll move since they all swarm to your location in seconds. In summary, it's a decent level with interesting gimmick execution, but enemy handling should have been given a lot more consideration.
Joey (5.0/10)
- The day/night switch was a cool idea but the rest of the level just seemed bland. I don't think the rest of the graphics fit well with the dark forest background. You might want to try making a layer with a semi-transparent BGO that covers the whole screen and makes everything darker instead of changing the background.
Quill (6.5/10)
- This is a really unique level. I loved the gimmick; it's super unique! A little more could have been done with it, some more variety between day and night would have been nice, but what you've already done is acceptable. It's kinda glitchy to hold shells as when they pass over to night, they disappear but Mario still appears to be holding something. When it goes back to day, he'll be holding an actual Koopa Troopa. One time, it went to night and I was holding a Boo. Not sure what happened there. Overall, you did a pretty good job.
Layla (7.0/10)
- Heh, this was actually a really clever concept, and I can't say I've ever seen it used before. You did warn about the enemies that could kill you in cheap ways, and with a gimmick like this, there's not much you can do about that, so I give you props for having the decency to warn us about it. I'd also like to give you props for using virtually all vanilla elements and still making this out to be a decent level with a great gimmick (even if it was a executed in a rather rough way). NPC placement, even if it was randomized from the day and night gimmick, felt a little bit overflowing, and I'm not completely sure a thwomp or bowser statues fit in a forest level.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- Odd concept... I guess warning the player with sound effects so they don't get unfairly hit by enemies during the day/night transitions works, although I could come up with several less clunky methods. You could make the background go dark through a couple of phases so the player has time to react. The spinjump part with the Eeries was dangerous, maybe a bit too hardcore.

32. beanluv - Emerald Hill (5.86/10)

Chad (5.8/10)
- Decent Sonic-themed level. For the most part it's a pretty standard course. You get over some hills and ledges, avoid enemies, cross a few bridges, and that's mostly it. However, the level does a good enough job of that. The length is fine, the difficulty is fair, and the graphics look nice. The boss is interestingly devised and somewhat original, although you can't really figure out how he works until he runs you over at least once because there's no real indication. Other than that, it's a fine level. Nothing's really bad about it, but nothing's really special either besides the aforementioned things about the boss.
Joey (6.0/10)
- I liked the use of elements from Sonic, and I liked the boss at the end (I thought that spitting the fireballs made it more unique). However, this level was really spaced out - there were long stretches of flat and sloped tiles. I know this is more appropriate for a grassland-type levels, but I think you could either cut some of the open spaces or add more blocks/scenery/etc. to them. There were also a lot of repetitive structures (blocks/coins grouped in threes, fish waterfalls). Not too bad overall, but I think you can make it a bit more interesting.
Quill (4.0/10)
- Cute level. It wasn't that bad, but the level just seemed to repeat itself as it progressed, there was no real variety. There was land, then a bridge, then a spring, and so on. The boss was okay, but the Ice Block allows the boss to be defeated really easily as it replaces Mother Brain.
Layla (6.0/10)
- At first, I was having fun with this level because I thought it was a fine Sonic styled level. As I continued to play through, I noticed that there wasn't anything new or interesting added on after the first two screens. Then the atmosphere became tarnished by some direct SMB3 and SMW elements being added in. Not to mention, it's very easy to break the boss by holding a blue block next to it.
Valtteri (7.5/10)
- The Eggman explosion looked pretty ugly. :P This is a pretty simple level that uses Sonic stuff I guess. Nothing too special, done in an idiot-proof way and hence there's not much I can comment on. The random SMBX vanilla stuff in levels like this generally annoys me.

31. Sewpah - Yellow Zone (6.02/10)

Chad (7.4/10)
- It's basically a SMW grassland with a ton of yellow, as advertised. It's a pretty decent level, though. Standard fare for a grassland, but the design has a lot of polish to it and enemy placements are quite good and fun to maneuver around. The structure of the land is carefully constructed to provide entertaining and engaging gameplay, and the visuals look quite nice too, especially in the cave. However, enemies around the midpoint should be reduced to prevent a harsh reintroduction to the level, cave enemy placement is a little sudden sometimes given the general upward direction, and it's a little weird that the upward bullets fall back down. Those are only minor issues though, and the level's still enjoyable.
Joey (6.0/10)
- Not too bad. This level was fairly easy, and although I'm not as fond of yellow as a color I did like the coordination (the cave looked pretty cool). My only complains lie in some of the structural choices. It seemed like at some points there were too many straight lines for too long to the point where it looked kind of jagged - this can be fixed by either making those sections smaller or adding a few more slopes. The cave section was decent but I didn't like the angled background BGOs. Also, the Swoopers ended up wrapping around and never ending, which was kind of funny. The only other thing was having to jump through that block to get to the top of the cave: I can't decide whether or not I like this. You had to jump through a block that had no graphical indication of where it became solid, but at the same time you did indicate it with coins and it gave it an old-school charm.
Quill (5.5/10)
- Not a bad level. It's fairly basic and it was fairly fun to go through. There's nothing much wrong with it, aside from weird bullet bills when shot up, but there's nothing too special about it either.
Layla (6.2/10)
- What a nice little SMW level that stays incredibly true to it's theme! It's got a yellow tileset, yellow background, for the overworld. The Underground's orange background hurts to look at directly. NPC placement was great and every enemy had a purpose, save for the direct up and down bullet bills. The upward moving one didn't have much momentum and would fall down again, looking incredibly stupid. I didn't really like the going through what looked like all solid ground in the second section as it personally looks kinda misleading. Other than that it's a fine level to me.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- This is a pretty normal level. I don't have much to say unfortunately. I like how the level goes from right to up and then back left above the first area. I did not expect that! The vertical Bullet Bills (that replace Cheep Cheeps) are supposed to be set to Projectile. That way the upwards one doesn't fall back down. I like how you used the forest fill tile among the normal grass one. It's barely noticeable but it's kind of cool. :)

Tier 4 Places 21-30

Spoiler: show

30. Thegreatrainbowyoshi - Huge Lands (6.1/10)

Chad (5.8/10)
- A short giant-themed SMB3 overworld. Design is decent, offering some solid platforming and good use of giant things, and it offers a few bonuses as well. The difficulty picks up slightly at the end in an entertaining way through the use of clever pipe placements, and the second star is well-devised. The exit pipes related to the key were sort of lazy though, because you just come out of the tileset or level boundary when you could just as easily put a pipe in both spots, but not much to complain about other than that. It's a relatively standard level, overall.
Joey (5.0/10)
- This level was really quick and didn't offer anything new or interesting, but I will say I haven't seen those Venus Fire Trap graphics before.
Quill (5.5/10)
- This level has very, very strange warps. Not really sure what's going on with them, but oh well. It's pretty short, too, which is a shame as I was quite liking what was going on during the level, but then it just ended, which was a shame.
Layla (6.6/10)
- Carrying the key causes this level to become a nightmare in difficulty because of that wave of piranha plants towards the end. I'd suggest making a seperate path or something of the sort to cater to key-carriers who want the second star. Aside from that, it's a fine level that felt very short. You did a pretty good job keeping a nice SMB3 giant land feel, however, so I'll give you props for that.
Valtteri (7.6/10)
- This is a basic level that uses SMB3 Giant graphics. Nothing too special. It looks nice and is fun to play. Please don't place pipe warps on mere ground, it looks stupid.

29. Valtteri - Castles in the Sky (6.13/10)

bossedit8 (8.75/10)
- Ahh. Nice SMB theme going on here. This was a relatively nice level with the design choices and even secret areas as well as some good variety. This makes me feel I am playing the regular SMB and SMB - The Lost Levels but in a completly different design style. I do like your flying Bloopers like in SMB-TLL but the problem is if you destroy the Blooper, his water layer is still active, allowing Player and the NPCs have interraction with the Water. This applies to every Blooper in this Level. There needs to be an event that if you destroy the Blooper, the water tile disappears as well and that for every Blooper. There are more issues in this Level and one has to do with the Castle Walls and Breakable Blocks. They are mostly fine but at one place where there is a row of them with a Hammer Brother on it, it seems like he is floating but when you hit something under it there are Breakable Blocks with Coins in them. Not all that noticeable for beginners. Another problem is that there are a lot of Cheep Cheeps around the area which was nice for having a different challenge to it but one single Cheep Cheep just falls from the air. This is because in the NPC's "Advanced" it was on "Swim Left/Right" and not on "Projectile". No idea if that was intentional or not but it seems weird that only one of the Cheep Cheeps just falls from the Sky like that instead of jumping from the ground attacking you. The third issue is those Para-Koopas that are placed before the Checkpoint. You have to jump over multiple Para-Koopas to get over a much bigger gap which was ok but they are respawning relatively fast (about 1-second delay), resulting in easy 1UP farming if you keep jumping back and forth on the Para-Koopas. I know that if you are putting Generators on these Para-Koopas that you always have a chance to jump over them with no issues but the fact that they are spawning that fast can be taken advance of in the form of farming a lot of lifes if done correctly. The fourth and last flaw is at the water area with the big Firebar. It is dodgeable of course but getting these Coins is a real pain and it can maybe result in damage taken trying to collect them. I don't think it was a good idea to put Coins at a tough spot like this especially if it is worth 1 anyway. Other than these flaws I have mentioned, it was a very nice Lost Levels throwback with new details. There are no Stars what so ever to be found in this level. At the end you get a Flagpole. I do like your music choices in this level as they are very fitting.

Chad (6.0/10)
- An interesting take on a SMB1 sky level. It's a fairly challenging run, as not only does it consist of many places to fall, but there are plenty of sky-Bloopers, Hammer Bros, and a couple Lakitus to encounter. All of these difficult elements are well-placed and never felt overwhelming, so good job on that. The jumps are satisfyingly tricky and not excessively difficult too, and there are even flying fish that feel difficult but fair. Some small issues are still present, though. The placement of the water segments that hold the Bloopers make attacking it with a shell awkward, and you don't hide the water after they're dead, so you can swim around in that tiny invisible space. Also, putting brick blocks in front of scenery that looks identical to them is strange and confusing, you didn't end the level in a star, and the moving platform in the (unrewarding) cave can actually crush you against the pipe. It's a decent level aside from those odd bits.
Joey (3.0/10)
- This was just a bunch of random mushroom blocks, clouds, castles, Hammer Bros., and pipes. It looked haphazard and the NPC placement caused some unnecessary difficulty toward the end (with the Hammer Bros. and Lakitu). There's not much else to say here other than this level just looked like a messy combination of SMB1 sky elements.
Quill (5.5/10)
- Oh man, the castles in the sky are pretty adorable, since they're so small. Anyway, this level is cool, it plays like an ordinary SMB1 level which adds to its charm. There could have been more variety in the platforming though.
Layla (7.4/10)
- This was a nice and easygoing level that simply just moves to the right. There's not too much special about it, but it still has a cheery atmosphere and it doesn't even need too much to look and feel like a nice solid level. The pipe lines reminded me a lot of SMB3 (strange cause it's a SMB1 styled level) and I like that the atmosphere of the level can invoke a classic feeling to it. There are plenty of items to be collected throughout the level as well, but not very many coins to collect. I have couple other couple issues, however. I never liked how people did the sky bloopers because when they are killed, the floating bit of water that carried them along stays invisible in the air. You also forgot the star, which is required.

28. Ludwig von Koopa - Ludwig's Malevolent Palace (6.24/10)

Chad (2.4/10)
- A decent design for a castle. This level is four sections of a good tileset layout, some careful jumps, and clever enemy/hazard placement. However, you expect the player to do all of that, plus avoid Thwomps that blend in with the background (the first of which is impossible to safely trigger), then fight an enormously-long SMB3 Bowser fight (in which there's two breakable floors around 7-10 rows high), all without ever taking a hit even once. There isn't a single powerup in this level, or even a midpoint. Powerups and a midpoint, as well as fixing the Thwomps, would make a world of difference to this level. However, as it stands, it's not a rational challenge.
Joey (8.0/10)
- This castle was pretty good-looking and was really just a standard castle; the NPC placement was nice and most of the graphics fit. My only complaints were that the blue-colored enemies with red eyes didn't look that good (and the thwomp was hard to see), and that the Ludwig fight dragged on too long. One phase through breaking the blocks is enough, and you could maybe add something to make it more interesting.
Quill (6.0/10)
- Fairly decent level. My only real problem with it is that there is little variety. A large part of the level seems to be just running in a direction for a long time, fighting the same enemies and dealing with the same obstacles. This is more prominent towards the end. The boss also drags on for a bit too, without much variety for him either.
Layla (7.9/10)
- I must say, the 3rd, 5th, and 6th sections all looked quite a bit the same. They weren't exactly the same thing, but I noticed they looked quite similar to each other. The good thing about that is that they're all good sections. In fact, the general quality of this level is very good. It's high in difficulty but I imagine this must be towards the end of an episode. The music, being SMG2's galaxy generator and final battle music, felt a little bit grandiouse for a koopa kid level, so I'd tone that down a little. NPC placement was great and they were all nice choices and fit very well into the atmosphere. Now for the Ludwig "battle" it all pretty much involved a 7 block thick layer and a 10 block thick layer for him to break through, and this all amounted to an incredibly boring and tedious "battle" to go through. Try adding a little more pizzazz than a couple goombas on the second round.
Valtteri (6.9/10)
- This is an okay castle level. I like the looks of it for the most part, and it's pretty fun too, even if a bit repetitive. What are the spikes in the ceiling for? There's no way you can hit them. The blue enemies with red eyes are ugly.

27. RudeGuy07 - Pyramid with Sednaiur's SMB3 Graphics (6.27/10)

bossedit8 (4.25/10)
- Misplaced starting point! After I put the starting point from near the halfway point next to Luigi's (2nd Player) position, this Level is ready to be played. This level surely was large to get to the end. The overall design was between ok and great but there were a lot of things that were not good whatsoever. I do like the several room layouts with one section being regular yellow while the other sections were blue with ghosts and blue enemies around. That's actually nice. About the Switches you had to press in order to get further, it was a nice idea for having to speed up (by the way, it feels like a Sonic level to be honest even though I rarely play or watch it) to get to a specific point in the level but later on where you even have to be fast to avoid getting crushed by the sand from the bottom it gets too much for the player to handle. I even encountered slowdowns while I was at the rising sand from the bottom which means that this level is way too strong for weaker PCs which is normally bad. Speaking of the sand rising upfrom the bottom, it was a horrible idea to add slopes in it aswell since they have the tentency to glitch horribly and it can lead you to deaths as well. There is one secondary pathway which is very hard to pull off by flying up into the higher areas but even if you did go up, once you get to the end at the blue section, that pipe doesn't lead anywhere so you're forced to go back and get to the regular path. Was there something missing since the reward we have currently isn't even rewarding for doing difficult things like this. During the sand rising section there is one Switch that opens the pathway and closes as soon it opens which was kind of funny to be honest but due to the fact that you can press the switch while the blocks are moving it can be completly messed up since that Switch normally needs to disappear while that blockade is moving. At the blue sections with the Blue Koopas, they have a messed up hitbox. If I am trying to jump over it very closely I get hit since his hitbox is inaccurate unlike with the regular Koopas in this Level. The same thing applies to the Blue Para-Koopas. There were coins that were almost impossible to get in a regular way (by that it means no helpful devices like a Leaf power-up). Some jumps at the line riding section can be very difficult to do especially if the places are narrow. Speaking of narrow, there were some places where jumping over enemies was a bit difficult. At the section where you had to climb to get further, it was a bad idea having moving blocks (sand from the bottom rising up for example) since these background fences tends to glitch out once you stand on a moving block. It would have been better to use climbable NPCs over these fences to prevent that. Later near the end there are paths to choose which was very nice for having a variety of ways to get further. At the beginning of this level, these Bully NPCs are missing their original death effect. Overall, the design was ok but there were way too many flaws. The slowdown was an especially big issue.
Chad (3.5/10)
- The layout of this level is quite immense, and there's a large amount of effort on detail, exploration, and moving gimmicks. The execution, however, is unenjoyable. The switch-operated walls give you an unreasonably small amount of time to get past, and nothing short of a perfect run and complete memorization of the level will get you past any of them. It doesn't help when many of them rely on waiting for moving layers or line platforms, and avoiding enemies that take more time than the player reasonably has. The level has numerous occurrances like this, and on top of that, enemy placement in general is often excessive and the level doesn't always give room to avoid them. The rising sand area, though interesting on its own, carries you through areas that seem to be designed without the gimmick in mind, because there are a lot of inaccessible areas you go past. Climbing the fences is unreasonable because the sand triggers the moving layer bug with them, too. There's also a second path that in Section 1 that requires a ton of backtracking, then precise flying, and then surviving a Billy Gun gauntlet only to reach a dead-end with a warpless pipe. All of this is mixed in with some lag that speeds up and slows down unpredictably even with frameskip disabled because it has way more blocks than it needs, and a lot of signs that are unclear until demonstrated. Overall, this level is a decent offering in the looks and immensity departments, but from a functional standpoint, the whole thing felt like a bunch of ideas that weren't given as much thought and testing as they deserved, resulting in a lot of unfair mechanics. Sorry, but this just isn't good.
Quill (7.0/10)
- Oh noes, misplaced starting position! Anyway, holy fucking shit, this level is long! There's some nice variety, but not enough to justify this huge level. The start of the level seems really familiar to me too... I can't put my finger on it, it's like I've seen it before, yeah? The sand rising is glitchy as hell, and it's really easy to screw up because the sand rises so fast.
Layla (8.7/10)
- This level is rather long, but it does have a cool concept with the rising sand layer when you hit a block. Hitting the ! blocks causes a door to shoot out and slowly close again and I thought that was really cool as well. One major issue that really destroys the fun of the level in section 4 is the moving layers cause climbing tiles to bug out like crazy, so I'd suggest moving those around so it's not buggy in section 4. Other than that, it's not too bad of a level, even with some tight spaces.
Valtteri (7.9/10)
- This is pretty nice. Looks great, which is surprisingly rare. When people use Sednaiur's stuff they just slam all of it in the same place and the result is a horrible mess, but not for this level. The sand rise thing in the beginning is actually pretty clever. The enemies keep getting crushed between blocks which isn't very good. You should place enemies so they don't die on their own. I can see the edges of the sand floor near the end.

26. krazykat - Epicmode Jungle Ruins (6.32/10)

Chad (6.3/10)
- Pretty expansive forest level. I like the structured ruins design, where it's mostly a tunnel of various obstacles and climbing methods to progress. The gimmicks range from standard stuff like note blocks and elevators, to more creative implementations of moving layers, such as the ones in Section 4. It's a good variety that's presented along with a polished layout. However, I experienced a number of issues in this level. For one, I didn't care for the falling layer in Section 3. There's no sense of how much time you have left, so all you can really do is run full-speed ahead. Turns out going as fast as possible is completely necessary, but the enemy placements don't really allow that. Also, requiring flight over the level boundary in the midpoint section is an odd design choice, especially where it's possible to get stuck if you don't clear it right. You also shouldn't leave a gimmick like the elevator section in an buggy state if you know that it is. It's still purely passable if you know what to expect, but even Toad is somewhat vague about it. The sky area is especially bad, as it's completely out of place, impossible without the leaf, level wrapping that is purely leap-of-faith, and a Lakitu all at the same time. I think my favorite parts of the level were actually the ones where the challenge is purely based on the structure and enemies rather than the gimmicks, like Section 7 for example. Overall, this is still a fairly good level, as it does a lot right with its ideas and execution in other places, and the issues are still completely manageable if you know what you're doing, but they can definitely pose a few undisclosed problems if not handled correctly.
Joey (8.0/10)
- This was a really solid level. I liked that you kept it simple and didn't go overboard with custom graphics; if there's something to complain about it would be that there were some tiles that were really close together while others were spaced out, but overall this was pretty good.
Quill (5.5/10)
- Interesting level. The background is super crazy, not sure what the purpose of it is. The level is pretty glitchy; you shouldn't admit that in the level either, you should try to fix it. Overall, it's a decent level.
Layla (6.8/10)
- Way to go to have one of the strangest backgrounds I've seen in a while: a bunch of crazy animating bushes in the regular SMB3 forest background. If you were trying to go for a relaxed forest ruins kind of atmosphere, the animating background as well as the random sky section right at the end don't do anything to help with that. Now if you WEREN'T, then that makes this level a lot better because it feels like more of a trippy kind of level. Aside, the desiging is fairly decent and I couldn't find many parts that could easily cause a player to die in a cheap manner. You were also nice enough to give the player plenty of leaf power-ups, considering they seemed necessary towards the very end. I did also like the music as it could go well in a nice forest level. I'm also glad you mentioned a potential SMBX caused glitch in one of the sections, but too bad it's fairly easy to nerf that with a leaf power-up.
Valtteri (5.0/10)
- That is a stupid background... The level keeps jumping between a decent grass/ruins level and a weird bunch of crushing platforms and pipes and swarms of enemies. It's inconsistent and that's bad. I thought it was funny how you needed to have a long message describing how glitchy one section would be and it took less time to play through it than to read the message. Moving blocks keep randomly overlapping with blocks and it looks glitchy. You should avoid doing that.

25. Lwiri - Bone-Rock Desert (6.38/10)

Chad (5.7/10)
- A comfortably short, but reasonably challenging level. The first half is a fairly standard run, you move forward and avoid enemies and quicksand, but it's made somewhat difficult by the increased number of enemies such as Spinies and fire Piranhas. It's a fine setup, although the enemies are slightly excessive, especially in the spaces with low ceilings. Most spots felt like they had two enemies for every one that they needed, but it's still manageable. The second half is entirely devoted to a short disco-shell mine cart course, and it's great that you not only made the course doable, but kept it brief and put the midpoint right before it, because the shell gimmick is quite difficult to control. I like how you incorporated the Munchers, too. You could still die from hitting the underside of the upper track, but other than that, it's a good design. The level's biggest issue, however, is that Dragon Coins are not only mandatory, but you also don't tell the player that at all. Some of them are quite tricky to get, which would be great for a secondary star, but failing to get all of them results in a useless run because a SMB3 exit does nothing for a hub. The coins are in great spots on their own, but as required things, it's asking a lot. Also, the coin trail at the start shouldn't land you right in front of enemies. Otherwise, it's a decent level. The layout's fine, the graphics chosen to convey the desert theme are pretty nice looking, and the gameplay was generally fine.
Joey (6.0/10)
- The minecart was a cool idea but I couldn't get it to work. Other than that, I didn't really like the background you used - but I guess it would be appropriate if you were going for a more smog-like desert. This level was pretty good overall, but there were also some graphical errors (mainly in the pipes).
Quill (6.5/10)
- Neat level! I liked the atmosphere, it was simple yet effective. I would have liked some more variation in the terrain, there were segments which felt too simple as they were just a run to the right while avoiding enemies. This normally isn't a big issue, but there were too many of these segments.
Layla (5.9/10)
- You didn't make the star mandatory to retrieve by the end. How did this happen? You never told me It was required for me to retrieve all the dragon coins. This is a really big mistake on your part. Getting to the rest of the level, it's not actually a bad level, having a few oopsies here and there. The dark reddish palette actually seems to look fairly nice for a desert and even if the music is a little loud, I think it fits very well. You are, however, missing a few graphics (Pipe corners, certain pipes in general, and I can see the axes. Also, screw you for putting in a minecart "tracks are lava" gimmick in. If you're an experienced user here in the community, you should know by now how much of a bitch those are to play.
Valtteri (7.8/10)
- This is a pretty fun level. The atmosphere is successful in my opinion; the level looks beautiful! The minecart ride at the end was well done, I think. The first trail of coins leads dangerously close to a Spiny. I would move back the Spiny a bit. A couple of graphics seem to be missing from this level: Invisible axes and pipe pieces. Please place quicksand tiles half a tile lower than the BGO if you're placing ground on the same level as the surface of the quicksand as otherwise the player will get stuck on the edge.

24. SuperWingedYoshi - Just Chill! (6.52/10)

bossedit8 (8.5/10)
- Some trouble with the Yoshis in this level! This level was relatively nice. I like the concept. The design was great. The scenery placements is good. There were some little issues. There were places that seemed incredibly small for getting pass the enemies, especially the jumping ones. There were also some annoying jumps to deal with in the cave areas since the blocks are slippery and you necessarily need a running start to get over these gaps more easily. Other than that most of it was fine. Your secrets and the secondary pathways are relatively neat. I do like the idea of if you get past a specific area, one pathway gets closed and there is no way to get back to the area where you can get certain items. Now let's talk about the secrets in this level. One secret is unveiled by hitting the unreachable ? Block with a Shell which was a good idea but at the first timer you can miss it most easily since you have to actually hold the Shell and kick it on the edge of the Bridge (you can also jump and then kick it) to hit it. The second secret was a Toad getting all the items before the player could reach it (there were no items once you reached the section though anyway) but once you talk to the Toad there are blue Rupees to collect at the bottom and at the right bottom there is water. Once you actually get to the water you end up in a horrifying section which is secretly just messed up. The third and last secret is to carry the Yoshi after the P-Switch run til the end of the Level with the Berries at the right side and that door leads you into a room filled with Yoshis and a Star for you to collect.
Chad (4.0/10)
- This level starts out fine, with being a nice dose of snowy platforming with the clever gimmick of sealing off certain routes after you've chosen them to commit you to that path. However, I don't care what the messages say, that joke section is completely unnecessary. Not only is it ridiculous to navigate, but also a complete eyesore and its escape method is ambiguous. Even with the hint, pressing down on the block isn't clear, and not figuring it out means having to quit out of the test mode. The design after that is also pretty bad, because you have jumping enemies bouncing around extremely narrow passageways unreasonably, and the platforms in the cave should generate but don't, so winding up stuck and forced to die is extremely likely. The skull raft segment was enjoyable, though. The obstacles and Munchers are pretty well-placed to offer a fair challenge, so I'd say that was my favorite part of the level. The unfair and actually somewhat game-breaking aspects of this level really made it hard to enjoy it as a whole though, as about half of the level is made up of that. The other stuff is fine, but I had trouble trusting the gameplay during those parts.
Quill (6.5/10)
- Oh man, what a cute level. The story was pretty generic, but it was still pretty fun. The level itself was nice, with some nice freedom on where you can go. That was pretty cool! There's nothing too special about this level, but what it does, it does good. Try to add something to spice this level up, in my opinion. Make it stand out!
Layla (7.5/10)
- This was a nice little level with an interesting small multiple paths gimmick, where if you take the bottom path, you appear to not be able to return until you go all the way through. I really can't find anything wrong with the gimmick especially since the bottom path usually has some sort of reward, which makes blocking it off after you pass through the paths have more of a meaning to it. I'm not sure if you couldn't come up with a boss or something but then the player goes back through the very same level once you reach the end and retrieve the Yoshi eggs with virtually no resistance, save the various enemies throughout the level. Nevertheless, it was a fun level with plenty of power-ups and coins.
Valtteri (6.1/10)
- This is a rather simple level. You go right until you see eggs and then you go all the way back. There isn't even a boss. It's really easy but easy isn't bad. Just a tad boring.

23. Magna - Blurred Bluff Escalade (6.52/10)

Chad (5.3/10)
- This was a weird level to play. The general layout's pretty good, with lots of exploration as the readme stated, with complex design and rather nice visuals, but interacting with enemies was strange. I'm perplexed as to why the Grand Goombas turn invisible when they face right, and why you didn't just use the ones that natively come with SMBX. It was a recurring problem throughout the level, and getting consistently hit by something I can't see is annoying. Enemies in general seemed to have trouble with slopes on occasion, too (although they might have just been running into the Goombas come to think of it). Placements are otherwise fine, but the above combined with the music not playing (it's in there, called "DKC-TF - Ground", but is named wrong in the editor) made the whole level feel incomplete. The issues basically saturated the entire level, making it awkward to play.
Joey (6.0/10)
- This level would've been really good had it used some different graphics and ideas. I liked the overall structure of moving around large areas with multiple paths that the player can take, but what threw me off was the randomness of everything else. I don't know what the point was with recoloring the Koopa Troopas or making the Goombas move faster. There was also a point where it looked like the giant Goombas were warping wrong - I don't know why they were warping in the first place, and it was kind of annoying to have Goombas appear out of nowhere. In addition, the music didn't work at first because the file name was wrong. The bridges also had inconsistency in whether or not they could be jumped through (which is expected because parts of the bridges were sloped) and also in the transparency of the railings. There was also too much going on across all of the graphics - it looked like you were trying to make everything a spectacle in itself. I would pick something you want to highlight and then tone down all of the other graphics so it's not a mess of color. Not too bad overall, just fix up that stuff and this level will be a lot better.
Quill (6.5/10)
- Not a bad level. The music is broken, so I just added in ordinary music. The level wasn't really that bad, but had a lot of minor issues that added up. For example, parts of the level felt a tad cramped, areas could have been made more open. There were also some background objects covering sizables, so it would look like Mario was floating in mid-air. The slope bridges were also solid. I won't be too picky about that one, as the process to fix this issue can be a little difficult even if you're experienced with the editor. Overall though, it wasn't a bad level. Everything else was done to a satisfactory extent.
Layla (8.1/10)
- Very nice and easygoing short level. It looks great, minus a few small graphical errors inside tiles that includes a thick outline for the SMW styled bush. The mixing of the tilesets looks very nice and overall is detailed very well. One thing: you have no music. I looked in the folders, but it's gone, so I pulled it up on youtube, and I can say it fits really well with the level and plays onto the atmosphere very nicely. Design wise, it's got its issues like an ace coin that has little to no point of being in a section all by itself. I think it's a fairly solid level with a few errors that can easily be fixed.
Valtteri (6.7/10)
- This is a nice little level, really. It's fun ascending the level, and it looks cool, too. Although I don't like the background, it looks messy with the mismatching clouds and hills. There's a patch of grass inside the ground with black background near the beginning, you should fix that. The sloped bridges are solid unlike the bridge tiles, and usually you should avoid designing with them so that the player can hit the slopes from below. It might confuse the player near the first Advance Coin as the jump is slightly trickier than what it would be if the slopes in the bridge right above that part were go-through. I was able to fly through almost the entire level after you gave me a Super Leaf.

22. bulletbill43 - Bazuka's Pirate Ship (6.56/10)

Chad (5.8/10)
- This is a gorgeous looking level. The ship design is excellent, with different ledges spread out to really capture the feeling of size as you travel across it. There are quite a few good gimmicks as well. Avoiding cannonballs, jumping past collapsing terrain, and swimming past fast generators are tricky and well-executed challenges that give the level some good variety. Having ships in the background is pretty creative, too. You shouldn't have required Dragon Coins for a level this long and difficult, though. A lot is thrown at players in this level, and we're expected to do everything but the boss in one go. The coins are quite difficult here, which makes it really easy to die and need to restart at any given point, so you should have used them for a second star. The third coin especially needs to be fixed, as it's placed in a blind jump that the player not only has to expect before reaching that point, but you also have to somehow know that the platform beneath it will rise. Neither one can be expected until a leap of faith is taken. The boss is pretty cleverly devised, though. The cannonballs there should be easier because they practically cover every space, and Bazuka shouldn't reappear right where you're going to stand, but other than that the fight was a great challenge. The midpoint being at the end is really helpful given the difficulty of the battle. In general, the level's fairly good, but the Dragon Coins being mandatory singlehandedly makes playing it a pain.
Joey (6.0/10)
- There wasn't much variation in this level, with the exception of the underwater part (which I wasn't expecting, so that was cool). There were only three or four NPCs throughout the whole level, and the ship felt empty. The cannon minigame was a good idea, but I would remove one or two of the ball generators. What really through me off about this level was the boss fight - seriously, 3 Birdo runs plus cannons plus chasing bees? That's a bit much. There wasn't much that went on in this level, but what did go on was alright and I liked the Donkey Kong theme. Also, there was a wall that I couldn't get through that blocked the pipe leading to the area with the midpoint. I tried backtracking but I couldn't go back through the other pipe at the start of the area.
Quill (6.0/10)
- This level is okay. The design is fairly good and the enemies were placed decently, providing some challenge. Add in a way to retrieve missing dragon coins, such as warps back. If you miss one, you're screwed. The boss was pretty annoying too, it dragged on for far too long and it just wasn't fun. The cannon balls falling from the sky are even more overkill than the ones at the beginning of the level, and you have to deal with that twice.
Layla (7.8/10)
- This level had quite the widespread feel to it, which I guess worked for the level. I would right away like to congratulate using Dragon Coins and not using them as optional and hiding them but making them mandatory and easy to grab. Anyways, you really used AirShip's custom cargo ship really well and it plays a huge role, giving the level a great atmosphere. The minigame was a nice addition, but I feel the bullets generated a little too quickly, especially for the boss. The last "unstable" platform was also a cheap kill just in case the player fell down to the dragon coin platform after they landed on the last falling one, because this made the jump right there impossible.
Valtteri (7.2/10)
- Great level! It does have one fatal flaw however. You're stuck in the room before the boss unless you collected all the Dragon Coins. Also, I find it undesirably inconsistent that you cannot stand on the small barrels, only the massive ones. Besides this, it was a very solid level, and I appreciate that it's entirely customized. It's not boring either, lots is going on, like ship parts falling down and whatever. The cannonball minigames are simple but suitably challenging.

21. Emral - Peaceful Plateau (6.6/10)

Chad (6.3/10)
- A pretty pleasant level. The difficulty's simple, there's a lot of good exploration, a nice amount of detail in how the level's designed, and there's some decent reliance on Yoshi and puzzle-solving. This level has a couple of neat touches to it, but also some less helpful ones. The coins at the start are good at letting the players know that the sunflower petals can be climbed, which is not always certain in YI-themed SMBX levels. The custom line platforms are nicely made, and not having them automatically loop is great because then the level would be constantly filled with sounds. Those are some thoughtful design choices, but there are a few that hinder you, such as enemies interacting unpredictably with fruit while trying to jump on them. You also shouldn't use a timer gimmick for something that's considerably far away and also unclear, like the gray/blue blocks area. The timer is otherwise used really well with great indication intervals, but that part was a bit much. The worst part, however, is the red switch pipe. Not only does it take away Yoshi and I can't imagine why, makeing the Big Reward impossible because you can't collect the apples in Sections 4 and 5 at all, but you also can't re-explore the spike area safely to find the unmarked locked pipe that I was convinced simply didn't have a warp attached to it. It looked suspicious enough, so after choosing the red pipe over that, trying to get back there doesn't work. Similar to the apples, no Yoshi through the red switch pipe means no grabbing the key and taking it through the unclear specific route back to the unmarked locked pipe, so the second star is impossible too. I also didn't care for how some of the clouds on the bottom border are solid and others are not, which is an inconsistency that can trick players into death. Overall, this is a fine level in terms of the main route and has some generally good design and intriguing elements, but one unnecessary and easily preventable issue breaks a large percentage of optional bonuses, alongside some other questionable implementations. Basically plenty of good, plenty of bad, but the primary objective at least holds up well enough.
Joey (4.0/10)
- It's really hard to make a Yoshi's Island-style level look good. The grass tileset you used didn't fit well, and the rest of the level was jagged and mismatched. There were not enough slopes, and the blue in the background didn't fit with anything else. It really looked like you could land on the clouds at the bottom of the screen in the last section, too, and I don't know why you lined the top edge with clouds and blocks. Overall, this level was full of randomness and inconsistency across all categories.
Quill (8.0/10)
- What a cute level! I actually enjoyed this, it had quite a nice charm to it. There's a fair amount of variety too. The design is good, though not outstanding, but it is still efficient enough to do the job. While I don't really have an issue with this level, there could have been more variety. While it was fair, some more could have made this level more fun.
Layla (7.4/10)
- Very happy-go-lucky Yoshi's Island styled level. It had somewhat decent level design but a couple of the gimmicks like the platform gimmick (I wouldn't say it would be easier for you to use regular platforms cause the way you have the lines set out they would have been rather buggy) really stood out, in a positive way. Anyways, it's a fine YI level, with good NPC placement, but a few cramped places. I liked how certain aspects tended to get more complex as the level went on, like certain blocks disappearing and others reappearing to unlock new secrets in the level for a short time. Stuff like that added a lot of complexity to a seemingly simple level.
Valtteri (7.3/10)
- In this level you hit switches and whatnot to open paths and reach the exit. I haven't got much to say. I like the Yoshi's Island stuff. Except the background has 1x1 pixels. The terrain isn't too great, it's all blocky. More variation would be great.

Tier 5 Places 11-20

Spoiler: show

20. Pivot40Channel - Grassland's Hill Top (7.04/10)

Chad (6.5/10)
- Pretty big grassland level. There's certainly a lot to its presentation and it has rather nice design the whole way through. From a gameplay standpoint, it's mostly hills, pits, enemies, obstacles, and such like that. Mostly standard stuff, but with some variation here and there such as minibosses, Bullet Bills, and fences to climb. You could have used some of those a bit more, but you didn't do a bad job at what you did. Enemies and hazards are decently placed, as they require some caution and deliberate maneuvering. However, the first Bullet Bill area is a considerable difficulty spike, giant Goombas interact oddly with slopes (treating them like edges when they're not), and the Wart boss is completely broken because you can just grab a veggie and stand under him. Otherwise, this is a fine level. Not as much variation as the level seemed to want to introduce, but the gameplay and design in general are rather enjoyable.
Joey (8.0/10)
- This level was cool, but I've never understood the fascination with putting grass on the ceiling of grassland levels. I don't think it makes sense, and I think it takes away from the beauty of the background. I also wasn't really a fan of the bright orange tileset (or the bright blue water). My other complaint is that Birdo AND Mouser in the middle of the level is too much, even if the bombs help it out. Overall, though, this level was pretty good.
Quill (6.0/10)
- Oh man, this level made me SO HAPPY. No sarcasm, It actually has a really cheerful mood. The design is pretty basic, but it gets the job done. The bosses are pretty disappointing though. For example, the Birdo + Mouser fight is ridiculously easy as the bombs can be used to kill Birdo with easy, while Mouser tends to throw bombs that bounce back and hit him. The Wart fight is even easier as vegetables are constantly generating, slow that stuft down!
Layla (7.4/10)
- Not a bad level at all! It was a very fun basic grassland level, mixing a few SMB3, YI, and SMB2 elements, and none of it seemed to go together horrible, in fact, it all together helped build the atmosphere, so props to you on that! Although, I'm not sure I like the impossible to kill venus fire traps in the switch room. The bullet bills seem to get a little spammy right after you warn about their sudden appearence in the level. It was also easy to nerf the wart boss by standing right under it and not getting hurt, and the ice flower is completely useless at the very end of the level when you have nothing to use it for. Other than those issues, I thought it was a fine level.
Valtteri (7.3/10)
- Hm. A free secret star. Kind of pointless if you ask me. :/ This is a good level I guess. Nothing too exciting besides a ton of enemy spawns. I did get a little bored. The level looks great though. The shape of the ground varies nicely and all.

19. XerX - Ilmalaiva (7.14/10)

Chad (6.5/10)
- Great airship level! The design and presentation are very solid, giving the level a grand feeling as you traverse the immense-looking airship. Enemy placements and the general construction around them are quite good, providing the level with a nice difficulty and requiring interesting maneuvers from the player. I enjoyed the general decoration, the placement of crates and how they add to the platforming variety, and the precision involved with hazard setups. However, the second star's placement and boss aren't devised as nicely. The second star area has quite a bit of stuff in it, which makes it seem like a vital location for something that's entirely dependent on a luck-based invisible block. Chances are, players are going to have to look in the editor for that one. As for the boss, not only does the moving layer make SMB3 Bowser buggy, but also more difficult to predict than he is normally. The Mechakoopas walking off the pipe add an extra layer of difficulty by being very tough to avoid in that scenario, but also because half the time Bowser's just going to stomp on them. It just isn't fun, and it could have ended just fine there, but you added in a second phase. It's not much of a true form if it takes less hits to beat, the sprite looks terrible because of its enormous pixels, and the movements and generators are so haphazard that strategy is completely out of the question, especially with no powerups. In conclusion, really nice level up until the bosses, but the bosses are just entirely unenjoyable and unnecessary.
Joey (5.0/10)
- This level was okay, but I don't think the boss was programmed correctly. The ship tileset was interesting, I guess, and it just looked like a solid doomship level. Nothing special, but no real complaints.
Quill (8.0/10)
- Very pretty level! This is the closest anyone has gotten to a level that really resembles and feels like a classic airship. Great job! It was very enjoyable. The boss was a bit of a let down, the first phase is kinda glitchy due to the moving stage, while the second stage can be beaten in mere seconds by holding a mecha-koopa near Bowser and just letting him die that way. Overall, this was a good level.
Layla (7.9/10)
- Not a bad airship level. The NSMBWii tileset is used very well. The swaying definitely helps convey a massive airship kind of atmosphere, but the special blocks that don't move tend to move away from that (I can understand the pipes with warps considering warps don't always like to move in layers. The NPC placement isn't too bad, savor some points with bullet bills. A big issue with the Bowser fights is that the Bowser AI does not react well at all with the moving layers and that tones down quality in the fights by a lot. I suggest just canceling all moving layers in that section so there are no free moments to attack bowser as he is frozen in one spot, especially the SMB3 one where he is frozen in one frame.
Valtteri (8.3/10)
- Everything seems to be fine in this level. Enemy placement, items, challenges, structure. Looks cool too with the lightnings in the background. I like the inside bit with the windows that show a bit of the background. The boss is weird. Everything halts when the floor is moving down. :P And yeah that's Finnish for "airship".

18. litchh - Chip Zone D (7.2/10)

Chad (6.6/10)
- Well, this level certainly is intriguingly different. Not sure how I feel about the design, because while it isn't bad, it's somewhat all over the place, like I'm exploring a cluttered attic rather than playing a level. It works well enough for gameplay purposes, but the block placement didn't feel like there was a particular plan to it. I really like the creative enemies and hazards, though. The rabbits and the on/off switches are especially unique in terms of SMBX execution, and they work quite well. The boss is clever too, but when it gives you a weapon, it doesn't do so in a way that's fair to dodge. You're already sidestepping fireballs, then a big projectile lands on your head without warning. In general, it's a fine level with a decent dosage of creativity and uniqueness.
Joey (5.0/10)
- I didn't like this level at first because it seemed like a haphazard mess of sizables and coins that looked like blocks. There was a bit more development over the course of the level, and while I didn't care for the graphics I liked the way you customized the boss/enemies.
Quill (7.0/10)
- What a weird level. It was super strange, but some of the things in the level were really creative, such as the rabbit thing that wobbled the carpet. Man, that's a sentence I didn't expect I would be saying. Some things were kinda tricky to tell what they did though, like the coins, they looked solid so it was kinda confusing. The boss was actually pretty cool, though he could have had more attacks. The segment after it was adorable and clever. Overall though, good job!
Layla (8.4/10)
- I'd have to say, this wasn't at all the kind of level I expected to see this contest. It wasn't a traditional conventional level we see around the community so I'm going to assume it was made by a Talkhaus user. Nevertheless, it's a level that stays very true to it's theme and invokes a very nice, classic 8-bit feeling atmosphere. The events used to change how an enemy acts is all done fascinatingly well with invisible triggers hidden everywhere to change an enemy to do something else, and I can tell you tested this a ton just to make it all turn out right. The boss was also nice, using an enemy I wouldn't expect to be used to easily kill a mother brain.
Valtteri (9.0/10)
- This is fantastic. I love the fake boxes! I love the rabbits who try to trip you with a mat and then run away if you get too close! All the technical details in this level just make me really excited. The graphics are consistent, too, which is rare when it comes to levels like this that are based on something entirely different from Mario. So good job on that. It looks beautiful! And WAS it fun to play!

17. ap3jmpt - Giant Things and Lakitus (7.2/10)

Chad (7.8/10)
- Pretty enjoyable level. It's a simple SMB1 style, but with excellent handling of giant enemies and plenty of design variation to provide a good balance to how they change the gameplay. The Lakitus are well-placed to make the level challenging, but there are also plenty of resources to fight back with. The secret path is a lot of fun too, because while it has plenty of toughened-up enemies, there are also plenty of buried things to use. The design is carefully planned around this as well, with restrictive and detailed structures suited to these tasks, which made it an enjoyable segment of the level. I found the Dragon Coin placements to be clever, too. There are a few things I didn't care for as much though, such as the multiple types of brown Goombas. The ones that are stompable and the ones that can be picked up are incredibly similar looking, and one variety should be given a different color. I also felt that the first rainbow Goomba appears too suddenly, as it speeds in your direction just as you're getting off the falling platform. Also, using the castle scenery as a warp to something as important as a second star is confusing, because even with the coin indicators, the castles aren't used for that 99% of the time so players aren't going to expect it, usually. In general though, this level is an entertaining revamp of a typical SMB1 setting, with different land constructions and giant resources expertly used for polished design and fun gameplay.
Joey (5.0/10)
- This level was really long, boring, and repetitive. After a while the blocks started to become more haphazard. There's not much more I can say because I covered most of it in the first sentence.
Quill (8.0/10)
- Oh man, this level is big! Well, it's not long, but it's big. ANYWAY, this was quite fun. The giant gimmick is rarely seen, but you put it to good use. While that's all well and good, it does sometimes get a little crazy though. I did really enjoy this though!
Layla (7.5/10)
- This was quite the amusing level to play, adding things as the level progressed, like different colored goombas, various piranha plant and bullet bill tricks, and giant mushrooms platforms. NPC variety was nice and coin & items were plentiful. I found the "Mario Sunshine" section was very strange and at some points rather tight, but it seemed to work well. The bonus section was also a nice touch. When it came to design, some points were very nice, like most of the mushroom platform area, but others felt very mediocre, like the piranha plant wave to get a dragon coin.
Valtteri (7.7/10)
- This is good! I would use small power-ups, though. Big power-ups look terrible inside the item reserve box. I kind of like what you did to get several kinds of Hammer Brothers, although they aren't completely without glitches. The black place is definitely different from the rest of the level but usually any background will do over just pitch black. The level is way too long. The way the terrain is shaped is ugly. There are way too many different clouds and it looks messy. And there's too much scenery.

16. Flying Brick - Anuvver Castle (7.54/10)

Chad (6.8/10)
- Well, this is definitely a grand-looking place. The structure of the castle is pretty nice, with a good distribution of angled and flat surfaces to make the design look nice, and feel deliberate and polished. The reliance on lock-and-key obstacles are enjoyable as well, and enemy placements are well thought out and tricky, especially around the pillar-supported platform areas. However, one way that the level suffers is that there are absolutely no powerups between the first lock and the midpoint. This is especially problematic when the difficulty climbs immediately after Boom-Boom. It's also overkill to make Link fight a SMB3 Bowser AI twice. Once is plenty, considering that you have to be at point-blank range to attack, and the projectiles fly faster than you can get away from that spot. The battle seems as though it was intended for the secret room to be required, but for the life of me I couldn't find an extra key or alternate way in there. Overall, the level's pretty good and presents a clever variety of challenges, but the imbalance of difficulty versus the shortage of capabilities given to the player detract from the experience.
Joey (7.0/10)
- Everything in this level was good until the rising platforms. It started to get really difficult after that, and two whole runs with Ludwig seems like too much (especially on top of Larry and Boom Boom earlier). Other than that, I thought the level had a really nice flow to it and, while there were too many bosses, it presented a decent challenge to the player. The graphics were nice as well.
Quill (7.0/10)
- I like this level. You used Link's mechanics effectively and provided a nice level to progress in. Things did feel like they were dragging a bit. I was surprised when I got to the checkpoint as it felt like the end of the level to me. Jesus christ, that door at the end is huge though. Overall, it's a nice level. Nothing too much wrong with it. It has some nice qualities, but nothing too special.
Layla (9.1/10)
- I'm all about that atmosphere. Even if it was 90% Super Mario elements, it still proved to be an immensely well done Legend of Zelda style level. I even was forced to got to play as Link, which upped the atmosphere by a ton, plus the absolutely fantastic graphics AND music used. I absolutely fell over about how castle/tower like this level felt, with all these atmosphere-heavy elements included. I also loved the design and gimmicks like the locked gates and, the fairy room, and the platforms, because instead of making the level seem longer, they add to the gameplay. I did have some issues with the small reducing of power-ups as there a lot more enemies than were probably necessary.
Valtteri (7.8/10)
- This is a well done Link level, I would say. I'd personally try to make the environment more Zelda-y but I found little to complain about the gameplay. I got tired of carrying around keys really fast. The platform before the very first lock left without me because I didn't realize I couldn't go to the right quickly enough. I'd place it like five blocks higher and then place some steps around it so the player doesn't accidentally set it off by rushing into that part, but that's a minor thing. Well done otherwise!

15. Sux - Raining Blood (7.64/10)

Chad (7.5/10)
- Well, this level is certainly something different. It has quite a dark atmosphere with a lot of detail and really elaborate design. Gameplay is somewhat standard at the beginning, but the toxic caves require a lot of interesting precision around lava, although perhaps a bit much given the difficulty and length. The rest of the level does a great job at offering complicated platforming, but the ridable cloud section is rather extreme. I know people like using the airship piece despite its bugginess, but it's still buggy, and very difficult to maneuver around the increased number of fireballs in. Putting the checkpoint right before it is helpful, though. The second cave is perhaps a bit much as well, with a lot of narrowly-avoidable lava, a barely reachable 1up, a Podoboo that snipes you from below, and considerable distance from the midpoint. I really enjoyed the transition to blood rain though, as doing so both visually and musically is a somewhat powerful presentation for a Mario level. In general, this is a really interesting level with a complicated structure, a uniquely dark theme, and plenty of challenge (but with a few things that could be ironed out a little).
Joey (5.0/10)
- I didn't like the blood theme of this level at all. Aside from that, none of the tilesets you used looked good with eachother or the background. The purple scenery didn't fit at all with the red castle, both of which didn't fit with the purple and brown dirt, all of which didn't fit with the background. The structural design of the level itself was okay, but everything else was a turnoff.
Quill (9.5/10)
- This level gave me chills, and I don't even know why. It's so god damn edgy yet it's wonderously werid. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it was definitally one of the most unique things I have ever played. Fantastic job on the atmosphere, it was outstanding. The level itself was fun to play through too, there was only one thing that needed attention. That invisible block in Section 2 was really cruel, as the player wouldn't think to look for it to progress. Overall though, great job! I really enjoyed this.
Layla (8.8/10)
- This level was pretty heavy on atmosphere. It had a dark, depressing atmosphere, and all the signs and toads saying deep and sad things didn't help one bit. All the graphics especially the music (rain sound was hideous though) added onto this and definitely gave this level an experience I won't forget, especially since you made the atmosphere so strong and memorable. Now for design, it's ok, with a few issues (Didn't FanofSMBX warn the entire community never to use NPC 280?). Albeit things look great, but some parts are fairly frustrating to play, especially areas with the purple lava. I also must say that the blood rain induces a lot of lag and the rain effect in the music sounds pretty bad and goes over everything else that makes a sound in the level. Any other way, I thought this level had some great effects save for some places that hurt the gameplay.
Valtteri (7.4/10)
- So here's a Mario level that ponders the horrors of afterlife. On the right you can see an upside-down cross made out of purple switch blocks. The floor's slippery because there's blood on it. This level is very unusual, but it looks pretty cool, and the road varies in a nice way I suppose...

14. zlakergirl357 - Jammin' through the Jungle (7.66/10)

Chad (6.8/10)
- It's been a while since I've seen a silhouette level, and this one certainly sells in the looks department (the water especially looks excellent) and presents a lot of cleverly puzzling and elaborate design and gimmicks to the player. Creative use is made of obscuring scenery to hide secrets, switches and items that transform certain aspects of the level, and generally a ton of great exploration. Unfortunately, the difficulty in this isn't as good. A darker background was chosen to work alongside the silhouette graphics, which makes things especially difficult because the dark objects don't stand out as much. They already blend in well enough with each other, as is the point of the gimmick, but the darker background to worsen this makes it borderline unreasonable. On top of that, frequent use is made of projectile enemies such as fire plants, lotuses, and Snifits, which are extremely difficult to anticipate. Bloopers and Jelectros are overkill as well, especially since the Jelectros can very easily look like platforms in the darkness. Overall, brilliant design and gameplay with very enjoyable and creative exploration and challenges, but conveying the visual gimmick needs some work and don't have so many difficult/projectile enemies. You need to remember that the darkness is its own added layer of difficulty, and it should be accomodated accordingly. It's still doable, but a lot harder than it has to be.
Joey (9.0/10)
- I wasn't able to finish this level because one warp may or may not have been formatted wrong, leading me to never uncover the entrance to the area with the star. It could've been my mistake, though. Anyway, this level was pretty awesome. I have never been a fan of silhouette-styled graphics until this level proved that it can be done right. Seriously, the silhouettes' blend with the background was really nice. The only thing I can think of is that you could try just making all of the graphics really dim instead of completely dark, but that might not even look any better. Nice job with this level.
Quill (8.5/10)
- Oh man, this is such a cool level. It sucks that it's pretty much uncompletable. The atmosphere is perfect, it feels mysterious, relaxing and fun too. The directions were very much appreciated, as well as the glowing on the player. That could have been used for blocks too, maybe. Other than that, it's pretty easy to figure out what's what, which I was surprised to see. There must have been a lot of effort put into this level, I couldn't see myself doing it (unless you did all the graphics last, of course).
Layla (6.0/10)
- I did not have the patience to look for dragon coins in a silhouette level where I can hardly see shit because the background is dark. This level is great and the atmosphere is fine, but you made a shit decision by making the entire level silhouetted PLUS that incredibly dark background so I can't see where I'm going, when I run into an enemy, or especially the dragon coins (for a while I thought they were necessary to retrieve the star ;-;). Also fuck floating water I will say that the level design aside from everything else is pretty nice. Coins and power-ups were plenty, and the enemies had fine placement. The biggest issue is the dark background, because I have a very big issue seeing a lot of vital things because of it.
Valtteri (8.0/10)
- Those are SMB2 vines and I can't climb them. No, it's not okay even if they're just silhouettes. This is a great level! You pulled the silhouette thing pretty well. I like the way the trees look. However, there's one tiny problem though that lasts throughout the level. I can't see stuff. I completed the level by randomly hitting things and paths opened and most of the time I didn't know what I did that caused it. It just felt like luck. :P There was a warp with an incorrect exit direction. Near the black silhouettes.

13. Nickname - SMG Starshine Beach (7.8/10)

Chad (8.0/10)
- This is a really nice level! The design is enormous, with a lot of different paths to explore, but no matter which way you go there's always pleasant platforming and difficulty to greet you. Enemy placement is great, which keeps the level simple to play and lets you enjoy the cool graphical theme. The overall structure is complex and detailed, and I especially enjoyed the long-jump area and second star placement. The chests are a neat addition to the level, although the second one doesn't work, which seems to be a big oversight considering it's the exit. There are several dead-ends that lead to just a few coins and the purple cloud platforms blend in with the scenery ones, but overall this is definitely an enjoyable experience. Not a lot is offered in terms of gimmicks, but the level provides a lot with good raw gameplay.
Joey (8.0/10)
- All I got was a chest, so I'm going to assume that's where the star should be as I couldn't leave that area (upon looking at the level, there seemed to be a good portion that I didn't explore). I liked this level, but I was initially kind of thrown off by the bright blue dirt. It grew on me, I guess; you might also want to make the grass/tree BGOs a little brighter. That may or may not look good, but I think the contrast between the blue dirt and the green stuff is a bit heavy.
Quill (7.0/10)
- This was a cool level. I liked the start, it had some nice atmosphere and some interesting variety in design. However, as the level progressed, things started to become more bland and emptier, as if the level was rushed. It lost that beach feel. You should improve on that to make this level better.
Layla (8.9/10)
- Are you aware the second chest doesn't open to anything, that I'm going to assume may be a star? You also appear to have 7 Dragon coins and I'm not completely sure where you're going with that. Other than that this level was very nice and widespread. NPCs were placed nice, the entire atmosphere seemed to feel very nice and relaxed, and I like the mix of the tilesets as well as the use of those new Mario Maker mushrooms. It would be nice to add a few more coins as I thought they were spread out a little too thin.
Valtteri (7.1/10)
- Beautiful level! It has versatile challenges which is good. The Mario Maker SMW Mushrooms are supposed to be solid. That's the entire reason why they exist. SMW had no solid mushrooms like SMB1 so they made ones. So I found this chest that says "You opened the chest." and then nothing happened? And I was stuck. There was no way I could go.

12. PROX - Rocky Coast (8.12/10)

Chad (7.8/10)
- Quite a good level! There's an enormous amount of detail and really polished design the whole way through, which made it quite fun to explore. It has a lot of strategic enemy placements that demand some careful movements from the player, and a generally fun difficulty and platforming experience. However, in the underwater sections exclusively, enemy placement is excessive and unpredictable. Jelectros, Cheep Cheeps, Bloopers, and even the occasional giant chasing fish all work against you at the same time in sections that are already restrictively designed. It's still manageable, especially if you have a Fire Flower, but it ends up being rather obnoxious. There's also no indication of where the second star pipe appears, which may result in players wandering the level aimlessly until discovering it's at the end. The last star coin doesn't make an extra sound either, so there's no immediate confirmation that the events are programmed properly, so the whole system ends up being rather vague in this case. The level's still quite enjoyable otherwise, though.
Joey (8.0/10)
- This level was cool, and I really liked all of the graphics. Sometimes, though, the first area (before the underwater part) felt a little busy in terms of graphics. The underwater part had a lot of enemies and it was, occasionally, hard to move around. The chasing Cheep Cheep was a cool addition, and the level really reminded me of NSMB2. The water piranha plants were also really cool. I didn't really like the music, but I did appreciate how the underwater music was a variation from the original.
Quill (8.0/10)
- Fairly good level. I liked the atmosphere, you captured the beach/sea theme well. Not sure I agree with what you did with the green switch, as one long path just leads to a dragon coin which can be a little misleading and annoy the player if they're not interested in that route. Overall though, it's a good level.
Layla (8.5/10)
- I'll say this is a fairly decent beach level. When it boils down to the design, it's very good and it has a lot of detail and areas for itself to develop and become more complex, which it does just fine. Underwater areas had a lot of bubbles that I didn't think were very useful considering the mass amounts of enemies in most of the underwater sections. The side tiles on the beach tileset also tend to cut off on pipes as well as the mixing with the sand tileset. I think it would be a good idea to not include the giant blue chasing cheep cheep and a leaf power-up in the same level, considering it turns the giant cheep cheep into a red SMB1 koopa shell.
Valtteri (8.3/10)
- This is a nice NSMB styled level. I appreciate the plentiful use of scenery, it looks pretty. The level is a nice mix of beach and underwater segments that are quite fun to play. Good job!

11. Darkonius64 - Murky Ruins (8.16/10)

Chad (7.4/10)
- Intriguing level. The design is a nice hybrid mix of simple forest and detailed ruins, and I like how each of those has its own design plan. I especially enjoyed the more restrictive design of the ruins, as it made the level feel trickier. The level is also host to a number of interesting elements, such as statues that come to life, spike pits, falling platforms, and falling platforms. The bosses are rather impressive, especially being introduced in a way that eases the player into the concept. I would have liked to see more done with the ruins stuff, as I feel that's where the level really shines over the grassy parts, but what's here is still certainly good.
Joey (9.0/10)
- This level was really nice-looking and you had a really good idea with that boss. I liked nearly all of the graphics (except for maybe the Koopa Troopas) and this was a pretty solid level overall. I don't really have any complaints here at all. Nice work.
Quill (7.5/10)
- Interesting level. It's simply designed and enjoyable to go through. The length is also great too, good job with checkpoint placement. The boss was pretty cool, though I think it was too easy to kill him and there should have been more of a challenge. He could have taken more hits as well.
Layla (8.6/10)
- For being a pretty short level, I thought the gimmicks with the statues, especially the boss, were really cool and well done! The entire level looks really nice and I thought the music fit rather well. It felt kind of short, and the boss battle was incredibly easy, so I'd suggest embelishing a little more on the level entirely and this could definitely turn out to be amazing!
Valtteri (8.3/10)
- Beautiful ruins level! Very simple except for the boss which is pretty advanced I would say. The thing where the statue makes things that fly left and right when it hits the ground was pretty cool. You could have made the boss a lot more challenging, though. Everything required 1 jump on the head.

Tier 6 Places 1-10

Spoiler: show

10. Sambo - Island Exploration (8.24/10)

Chad (7.4/10)
- Enjoyable level. The design is quite good, with great tile placements to provide plenty of exploration and tunnels that hold bonuses, while giving the level a great overall structure. There's a nicely-devised separation of two distinct halves (wet and dry), and the underwater one has a good feeling of depth to it. Enemy placements are great too, as they feel particularly planned and require careful movement from the player at times. The level's comfortably short if you're going for the main star, but you have to comb the entire place for the second one, which is a good balance. It's easier to invest the extra time when the level has a generally moderate difficulty, as well. However, the very first shell-kicker's placement is mean, because the shell flies straight at you the instant it appears on the screen with no warning. Other than that though, this was a pleasant and well-crafted run. I really only have that one little thing to complain about.
Joey (9.0/10)
- My only complaint about this level was a few of the graphics; I don't like the look of the SMB3 wood bridges or the SMB3 brown seafloor. Besides that, though, this level was great. I really liked how you could take multiple paths and I really appreciated the way they met in the end. If anything, the enemies seemed kind of random and scattered (due to the different colored Koopa Troopas, etc.), but other than that I can't think of much more that was wrong here.
Quill (8.5/10)
- I really enjoyed this level! The design and variety was good and finding the red coins was fun and challenging enough. It's just a shame this level is a bit short, I would have loved to have had more exploration! I really enjoyed this level overall though, good job!
Layla (8.3/10)
- Very fun level! I won't say the red coin collecting for an extra star is a bad gimmick as it usually pertains to a beach level. I will also say it was executed very well and I thank you for not making me replay the entire level to get the main star when you give me the secret star. Aside from the gimmick, it's a very fun and atmospheric open range beach level which by itself has a lot of it's own secrets, all in one section. Dragon coins were in spots where people may actually bother to go get them, and NPC placement was fairly decent. Some points, I didn't expect there to be a blue beach koopa to kick a shell at me, and I won't say that's a very nice thing to do to a player!
Valtteri (8.0/10)
- This is a neat level! It has a lot of collectibles, which can be fun. If you like collecting stuff. I like the way the level is split into a beach and an underwater area and how the background supports this. The level is quite beautifully constructed, and is fun to play, too.

9. Waddle Derp - Subcon Swamp (8.3/10)

Chad (6.0/10)
- This is an intriguingly eerie forest level. The design and gameplay are somewhat elaborate, making the player explore and hit interesting multi-hit switches to unlock new pathways. Aside from that and the creepy atmosphere, the gameplay's fairly standard, but I didn't much care for the rapidly moving land and disappearing platforms. They're fine once you understand them, but they are introduced very poorly, so it's likely that they'll drop right under a player's feet before it's even possible to tell what will happen. For a level with no midpoint where the gimmick is introduced fairly late in, that's unfortunate, and also makes it quite difficult to trust any of the surfaces. The poison mushrooms are also unfair because they look the same as everything else, but at least they're only in one spot. The boss is quite cleverly devised, though. Very interesting uses of appearing and disappearing mechanics, and unlike the other gimmicks, the phases are introduced quite well.
Joey (9.0/10)
- This was a cool level and I liked how you incorporated the moving tiles. The boss was really interesting too and I think you did a great job with the eerie atmosphere. You also managed to keep it pretty simple - I never felt overwhelmed by anything, though I think there may have been one or two areas I didn't explore. They were probably just dead ends. The music was pretty cool as well. Nice job.
Quill (8.5/10)
- Woah, what a weird and mysterious level. I liked some of the gimmicks used here, like having to hit a block thrice to activate all its contents. The whole land appearing out of nowhere was a bit weird, since it seemed to happen randomly and it could catch the player off guard. The boss was pretty unique, he was simple, yet it was still fun to play. Overall, good job!s
Layla (9.7/10)
- This was an amazing SMB2 styled level, using the grass in ways that look very well done, precise and intricate. It's amazingly well detailed and the music, sounding very creepy and ambient, pulls off a really dark and spooky level! The gimmicks you used with the platforms, ranging from a block hitting three times makes three platforms appear one by one, with land shooting up and down yet still working correctly, and a platform getting thinner and then wider. All of these tricks work together to make the level more trickier and a lot more fun! The midboss was also nice, and I thought it even worked where it was. However, I would move the midpoint to either after or before the boss. Other than a few cramped areas I thought this level was fantastic!
Valtteri (8.3/10)
- It's pretty hard to tell poison mushrooms from normal mushrooms when everything is all dark and Mario 2... But I like this level, it's really gorgeous! The terrain is shaped beautifully. It's wavy but in a controlled way. Enemies are placed in a thought out manner. Although I don't get why the big green Shy Guys turn around at edges and the small versions don't. Why do the Cobrats shoot lava? I'm not a fan of the platforms that disappear. They're not very fair. I do like the blocks that you have to hit many times to make platforms appear. They're pointless but they're new! I liked what happened after the boss. Try to enter jar, you can't, jar suddenly turns upside down, you think the boss isn't over yet, but then it is and the jar turns back right side up!

8. Vanishing Bulborb - The New Forest Temple (8.32/10)

Chad (8.4/10)
- This level is overflowing with absolutely brilliant puzzles. There are so many different elaborate tasks that the player must do in order to unlock new areas, some of which span almost the entire level, and that's honestly amazing. The design is excellent in order to accomodate these aspects, with a lot of neat event presentation to really make the temple feel alive. It's a quite tricky level to solve, but quite an accomplishment when you finally do. However, one problematic aspect of the level that was almost always present is that enemies are really intense. They'd be a great difficulty if the level was shorter and less convoluted, but it's way too demanding to deal with that in all of the many rooms you must visit multiple times. The midpoint doesn't unlock any of the puzzles that you've already completed (except granting you heavy block powers right away), so you basically have to do the whole level in one run while dealing with every hazard. This would be excellent if the difficulty was more lenient, though. Also, the background and some of the scenery are detailed and dark enough that it can be easy to confuse what's solid and what's not, and the bats blend in extremely well. Otherwise, the amount of complication in this level is still quite impressive. The minibosses and enemy kill rooms are quite clever, too. Even with the overwhelming enemy placement though, the level's's still doable, but requires a large amount of patience and stamina.
Joey (7.0/10)
- This level was cool but it dragged on for too long. The green boss was interesting, but everything else had a lot of NPCs that would probably make this level take a really long time for the average player. That was my only real complaint - this level would be better if it was shorter. The graphics are also a little bit off-putting but I think that comes back to personal preference.
Quill (8.0/10)
- Man, that was a really cool level. Though ideas are taken from Ocarina of Time, the way they are executed in SMBX is amazing. The elevator can easily be broken, as once you hit the mid-point, backtracking back into the room after entering the main room again can break the elevator as it's higher up. Preventing access into that room upon death of the checkpoint can fix this issue. The bosses are pretty cool, ntohing too special, but at least they are not generic. Overall, good job.
Layla (9.2/10)
- Fantastic forest temple! The goal to find and beat two ghosts is fantastic considering you have a bunch of little puzzles in each room you have to beat to advance to certain areas. Each idea is done very well, ranging from a moving layer room, finding a glove to be able to move objects, etc. This definitely felt like a Legend of Zelda level (and the music helps a lot).
Valtteri (9.0/10)
- I don't like the fire in the first boss. It's not fair. This has to be the best Ocarina of Time based level I've ever played! I think it's very loyal for a Mario level. It's a lot of fun to play- Excellent job. It looks amazing, too. The puzzle structure reminds me of Ocarina of Time, although I haven't played that game too much.

7. sezixor - Astronomic Arctic Adventure (8.42/10)

Chad (7.3/10)
- This is a pretty elaborate level. The hybrid of ice and space is interesting and the atmosphere is conveyed really well. There's an impressive amount of detail in terms of how the cave/castle tiles are placed, and especially how the red coin-based moving layers are presented. The gameplay is otherwise fairly normal with pleasant difficulty, but there's a lot more complexity in the Fire Flower sections. However, the second half is significantly longer than the first. It takes some time to complete the Fire Flower segment, and then the pipe cannon area is extended quite a bit after that, which made it drag on. The pipe cannons themselves are impressive, but they don't offer much more than eyecandy. The rest of the section is ordinary platforming, and feels like it's just there to show the cannons off. Personally, I'd have liked to see a bit more done with the castle stuff instead. I also disliked the propeller block part, as it forces you to fall into a pit that looks like death, the water is easily mistakable for solid surface because of the similar palette, and the Thwomp that blends in with everything is a poor hazard choice. This is a well-made and fun level, it just started feeling repetitive after the Fire Flower bit and has some minor things that could be ironed out.
Joey (8.0/10)
- What was immediately off-putting was that all of the graphics were recolored. I don't mind the color itself, but rather the fact that almost every graphic was changed to this color. I definitely would change that, and I also didn't think the music was fitting. Other than those things, this level was pretty fun and I liked the moving tiles concept. My only other complaint would be that this level dragged on a little bit too long - I liked everything that was put in it (moving tiles, fire flower, propeller block), but I would've made it a little shorter.
Quill (9.0/10)
- What a beautiful level. The setting is extraordinary, giving an amazing and unique atmosphere. This level is very good, my only real complaint is the length. It did seem to drag on for quite a while, but it kept me entertained. I could see it being annoying if the player were to die though.
Layla (9.3/10)
- Oh boy, this music sounds beautiful, and it comes from effing Finding Nemo! The somewhat monotone, oh boy it implements an unbelievable strong atmosphere and I thought deep while playing! Oh man look at those fancy moving layers and those red coin tricks that make things fly in! Holy crap the cannon parts! Omg this level is so amaz... wait... invisible coin block bridge...? Huh, is that a section entirely dedicated to retrieving a fire flower to remove some ice in a area back to the main level? Oh goodness, not floating water physics! Yeah, this level really has some events that pop out at the player, and they almost seem to be desperately used to keep the player's attention, away from the rest of the level that is attempted to be shined out, with the invisible coin bridge I have to make. Although the monotone looks great, it gets kind of old, and grey, but it still holds the atmosphere strong. With a few gimmick flaws, it's still a fantastic level.
Valtteri (8.5/10)
- This is a very good level! The path is interesting and goes all over all kinds of interesting areas. I like the platforms that come out of random directions, they look cool! They also make the red coins more interesting. Normally I just sigh out of frustration when I see red coins and I'm supposed to collect them all to get a second star or something but these ones actually help me to get further in the level! I like it very much. I would complain that the level's maybe a tad too long. I don't like the grayish purple color that dominates the level, and the large selection of BGOs makes the level look kind of messy, but that could be just me.

6. ElTipsta - Distinctive Level Name (8.54/10)

Chad (9.4/10)
- This is a pretty amazing level. It has a uniquely great design that feels very careful and deliberate in order to serve the purpose of everything around it as effectively as possible. It frequently presents cleverly-crafted Kuribo Shoe runs, tricky hazard placement, paths and objectives that wind around all of the available space to give off a puzzling and explorative feel, and impressive placements of secrets and bonuses. The entire level does a lot of different things to test the player while maintaining a consistently challenging but completely fair difficulty. This level demonstrates a strong sense of how to make the player do a wide variety of things in optimally interesting ways. All of this is contained in a serene cherry blossom forest atmosphere, and sets a mood that makes this level feel great both visually and functionally. It isn't without its issues, though. The first Dragon Coin is a bit unreasonable considering your window of opportunity is so narrow that it's gone by the time you notice it, the secret star and keyhole exit (odd for a hub) imply that you can explore the level further afterwards when you can't, and the moving Munchers in the second half remain stopped for so long that you can't tell what some of them will do until they push you into the ceiling and kill you. Other than those though, this was a supremely enjoyable level.
Joey (7.0/10)
- I got to what I thought would be the end of the level and was greeted with a midpoint. Long story short, this level was way too long and I got kinda sick of it toward the end. A bunch of new ideas were introduced at really bad times and it started to get repetitive. That being said, I did get a Japanese Cherry Blossom kind of vibe from the pink forest, so that was cool. The music was relatively fitting as well. I do think you could've done without the recolored enemies (save for the jumping piranhas) and instead just used the normal SMB3 versions. That would make the level more consistent, since the SMW recolorings have nothing to do with the rest of the theme of the level.
Quill (8.5/10)
- This level is beautiful. I loved the design of it and the atmosphere is simple, yet charming. I like the use of the Kuribo's shoe, as it's an underrated power-up. It would have been nice to see the red and blue variations, but I'm that picky. It was a little lengthy, but I can't say any of it was boring. Something about this level made it impossible to grow bored, so great job!
Layla (9.5/10)
- I was genuinely surprised at this level. At first, I didn't think there was much going for it, but it turned out to be a really fun, relaxing level to play. The music is absolutely gorgeous (let me emphasize on the absolutely gorgeous) and it adds so much to the atmosphere. The tileset mixing with the wood and the stone as well as the pink trees, all seem like an awkward combination, but it all seemed to work together perfectly. The Kuribo areas were all nicely done, and the enemies weren't overflowing. Power-ups and coins were also nice. My big issue with the level is how confusing it was, as I got lost quite a few times.
Valtteri (8.3/10)
- Excellent choice of graphics. ;) Except for the Venus Fire Traps, those are ugly. This is a great level that uses the Goomba Shoe a lot. The level's pleasant to look at, the terrain varies in a beautiful way I would say. I got lost a lot which was annoying. Maybe I just have a bad sense of direction.

5. SuperMario7 - Epicmode Interstellar Adventure (8.8/10)

Chad (8.8/10)
- Quite the ambitious level! It's clever how the level uses magnetic forces as a gimmick but frequently switches them up to have opposite uses. The design around them is excellent, because the idea enables the layout to be rather tight and dangerous in order to challenge the player's precision. Pretty much every spot of the level uses them in a slightly different way to really flesh out the potential, and the same can be said for the arrows. The planet atmosphere is set up pretty well too, it's a great way to convey a toxic environment. The lightning is a pretty unique implementation as well, requiring clearly-indicated precision and timing to overcome, and the lava finds interesting ways to test the player's caution as well. Great job in giving the story an epic finale and chase sequence, too! However, most of the lava placement should be more forgiving. This is a long level with a lot to redo if you lose a life to the omnipresent insta-kill substance that presents very little room for error. For instance, widen the tunnels of it and make the chase sections start at an earlier point, because it's right on top of you the minute you enter those. The lightning during that is also a bit much, as it's very much a wait-and-plan obstacle which there really isn't reasonable time for. It's still doable enough, but a lot of progress is lost to something you can't always help. Other than those, this is a pretty astounding level that really offers a lot of variety and creativity along with interesting presentation.
Joey (8.0/10)
- I really liked all of the concepts that were introduced in this level, and the planet areas looked really nice. There were only three things that bugged me. The first one is mostly insignificant: I wasn't too fond of the laboratory/space station graphics or the lightning graphics. Both looked a little bit too cartoonish (and the latter too wide for a lightning bolt). Second, the up-blocks were a great idea that ended up being too difficult to use given the circumstances. They were almost always surrounded by lava, pits (I know that's kind of the point, but still), or enemies. Finally, the level was pretty long. You incorporated really good ideas and it never felt repetitive, but it just took a lot of time. Another powerup or two may fix this.
Quill (9.0/10)
- What a crazy level. I loved how the setting of the level changed half-way through, normally it isn't so great, but the way it is used here is pretty awesome. But man, this level does get really over the top towards the end, not that it is a bad thing, it was quite intense. I really enjoyed the level though! A sign somewhere to indicate what the Arrow vine things do would have been nice, as I wasn't really too sure what they did at first. In addition, why are there thunder bolts in space?! Oh well, it was good!
Layla (9.7/10)
- I must say the music in the second half is not meant for Mario because it sounds like something straight out of Lord of the Rings, but some of it does fit and it pertains to the atmosphere (ranging from spaceship to geonosis to puke green star) fairly well. Some of the gimmicks were also nice, and I wish I knew of that rocket vine idea a long time ago. SOME gimmicks were not nice, like the thunder. In places like a space/underwater, or any section for that matter, the lightning blocks were hard to difficult, and this is likely because of how many you put around, so it was annoying to die a lot from the lightning blocks. I will say when it comes to the Geonosis sections with the puke lava parts, I didn't get much room, to move around with the propeller. This level had some fantastic elements, ranging from the drop dead gorgeous sections to a very legitimate space-like atmosphere, but I found the water space sections cheesy as hell and I can't say I enjoyed the lava or lightning areas either. I can't say I didn't enjoy this level a ton, because I did!
Valtteri (8.5/10)
- Well this was interesting! I like the gravity thing very much. It's simple but ingenious. The level goes through very different-looking phases and it's pretty cool. The escape sequence was fascinating too. The lightnings are ugly and annoying.

4. Shinbison-Kof - BRKS Sub-Corporation RX (8.82/10)

Chad (8.6/10)
- This level sure has a lot going for it. It does a great job at presenting an underground sci-fi base theme. The design is really interesting, with a variety of neat technological gimmicks such as lasers, toggling platforms, elevators, and flickering lights to give the player plenty to work with. The enemies are intriguingly creepy, I enjoyed the moving lava segment and how you thoughtfully made it stop to prevent overloading the level, the darkness gimmick is especially well executed, and the rising lava section at the end isn't too demanding considering everything that comes before it. The level isn't without its issues, though. One consistently present problem is that all the detail, though excellent-looking on its own, made it more difficult to tell what's solid and what's not. It's mostly not a big deal, but sometimes the scenery will look similar to a platform and it'll be a little unclear how you're supposed to progress, especially where laser generators are concerned. This isn't helped by the fact that the laser sounds are playing through the ENTIRE level despite only encountering them a few times, so that's annoying at first but eventually I started to tune it out and it loses its effect as an indicator. A better way to do this in a level this size would be graphically, like removing the sound but making them a different color or faded scenery versions when they're about to appear (and don't make them lava, that's mean). Also, the ghost coins don't accomplish much of anything, and look like regular coins. They could reward you with a Mushroom or 1up or something. Another potential problem is that the midpoint should be just before the block train, because it has an unclear path and you have to redo everything because of it if you die. Finally, the explosion at the very end nearly knocked me off the pipe and into the lava near the star, and that would be another incredibly lousy way to die. Other than those, this level is quite good. It's immense, it's got a ton of exploration, an interesting story, and a lot of challenges to keep the player invested. It definitely requires frameskip-disabling though, so take note, players!
Joey (8.0/10)
- This was quite an interesting level. The thing that bothered me the most was how much was going on graphically, to the point where it was hard to tell what you can jump on and what you can't. There needs to be more differentiation between what is there to look cool and what is there to be useful to the player; it's great to make the useful stuff look cool, but do so in a different way from all the other cool stuff. I had a lot of lag playing this level, but was able to finish it. Pretty good overall.
Layla (9.3/10)
- This level has a truly astounding atmosphere, and a truly astounding on nearly everything it does. The music plays onto the downright astounding graphics, using modified versions of GFX I've seen before as well as a lot of new custom stuff that adds onto this subterranean lab kind of them to it. I couldn't count the number of different gimmicks you used and the fact that you used them all flawlessly. You put a LOT of different things in this level, whether it's the gimmicks (hello flickering lights, flipping platforms, lasers, etc), NPCs (Hello grudge girl) and tileset mixing (Hello Steins;lab). What's an issue with the level? Maybe it's just because of my computer and how incredibly slow it moved, but I didn't have too much fun playing the level. I would also like to point out towards the end there's a toad placed right under a warp pipe. That toad is in a godawful position. The switch from that trippy industrial music to the SM item room music also eats at the atmosphere at the end of the level.
Valtteri (8.8/10)
- The floating Jesus is pretty weird. :P This level is filled with detail. It looks absolutely gorgeous. It feels like an underground laboratory research central thing. It's perfect! The lasers are old but still cool. I'm not a fan of the platforms that constantly disappear for a few seconds, they just feel like a waste of time for me. While the level gets really creative with all the explosion effects, and varying platform rides, the weird-looking enemies kind of ruin it for me. Not entirely but they affect the atmosphere. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe the silly looks of them supports the overall atmosphere a Mario game should have. They're still zombies, though. :/ The malfunctioning lights near the end are really cool, it really feels like a blackout with the flashing. Good job on that. Thanks Mario =D
zlakergirl357(9.4/10)
- A stunning level. The design in this level is amazing and innovating. The whole concept of the level is amazing and very original. The gimmicks in this wasn't that well used however it they were nice additions. The atmosphere is what you nailed in this level. The placement of the different NPCs was well, however a bit overwhelming. Overall an amazing level and I loved it! I can imagine this winning the contest. Guess: Shinbison-Kof

3. Bomber57 - Gearworks Greenery (8.84/10)

Chad (9.7/10)
- A thoroughly impressive level, I've gotta say! A mechanical grassland is a pretty great idea, and the concept is conveyed rather excellently here. The visual delivery is heavy on industrial appearances while also maintaining a strong grassland feeling, so you definitely nailed the theme and provided plenty of detail in both regards as well. The design and gameplay are similar, providing a great balance between gimmick-filled layouts that wrap around themselves, and simple straight runs of solid platforming. I really enjoyed all the different traps such as flamethrowers, cannons, fire plants, Munchers, and bombs. Their placements are extremely effective, which gives the level a fun difficulty and makes everything feel carefully planned. The gear hunt was fun as well, as there was plenty of freedom to explore and they're all in locations that are unique from one another. I did find a few very minor issues with the level however, such as the dark gray metal floor in the first area being a little ambiguous, because the level hasn't firmly introduced it to the player as scenery just yet. Also, a few missing tiles are somewhat visible while going through the waterways, and I didn't care for the last gear's indicator because I interpreted the sign as "go here once you got all the gears" instead of "this is where the last gear is" which got me lost for a bit. I appreciate the simple enemy kill room though, and generator-based ones in phases like this one are clever. It's breakable by blocking the generators with the Ice Flower, though. Other than that, I had a really enjoyable time with this level. There's so much to it, and the clearly-large amount of effort really pays off.
Joey (7.0/10)
- This level was really well thought-out, but I wasn't a fan of the graphics. There was a lot going on graphically in this level, and there were a few different styles of graphics going on. I think it would've been better to make everything look a bit more similar and pick a few things (maybe the hidden gears just a little bit) to stand out more. The NPCs felt a little bit cluttered sometimes, too.
Quill (8.5/10)
- I actually really liked this level. The atmosphere is super cool and the design backs up it up well. There's plenty of variety too. It's a tad long, but it's still mostly enjoyable that the length isn't that big of an issue. The 'boss' was interesting, though more could have been done with it in my opinion.
Layla (10.0/10)
- I must first say that the effing background is just beautiful and this along with the tileset mixing, the slightly ominous music, gimmicks with gears, fire pipes and toxic lava all made this atmosphere... near perfect. I thought the toad brigade was a comical touch, yet signs may have been a nice idea as well, but that's only a small nitpick. This level is absolutely fantastic design wise as the mix between a grass level and a factory level would have never been one of my first ideas, nor would I have expected someone to do it so well. The red platforms that flip are a nice little addition and the gears section was a very well done open section. The generators in the "leaked pipe" section can cause an overflow of bots in that area, but that's only if you're a wuss like me who cheated and got stuck in the wall.
Valtteri (9.0/10)
- I like the cogwheels. ;) I don't like the smoke effects. :( I love the background! :) This level is great! The first half is pretty simple and in the second you collect gears I guess. I'm not a fan of tasks like that, I always have to keep count of things myself and I can't do it. But I found them all afterall. I did get lost a lot, though. I'm like that. The level's fun to play. There are lots of different challenges on the path to the Star. I like the purple slime thing and how the leakage is actually purple Zelda 2 Bits, that's clever. The level looks awesome too, except for the smoke, that looks bad.

2. FireLink - BRKS Sacred Menace RX (8.96/10)

Chad (9.2/10)
- Wow, I was thoroughly impressed with this level. I like that it uses a mystical theme in a way that's very modest about its presentation, especially at the start to gradually introduce the scenario. The level's pretty generously decorated, but it does a good job at setting the environment without mixing a million tilesets and overflowing with scenery. The design reflects the presentation similarly, as it's very explorative and well-crafted, uses a lot of ideas in great ways, yet retains some pleasant difficulty and simple gameplay so you can just enjoy the level. The level's long enough to nearly hit the block limit, but I didn't feel bored or overwhelmed at any point and none of the effort felt lacking. The magical cloud platform events are interesting, the skull rafts are thoughtfully placed, and even the lava areas have clever designs without being too demanding. However, the lava "chase" at the end is completely unnecessary and isn't executed as well. It's unclear how fast you need to be when the lava just teleports large distances at unpredictable intervals, and dying to that would be incredibly cheap considering how far back the midpoint is. If you wanted a boss, you probably could have had one replace that lava section entirely without issue. Granted, it would have to be an easier boss because, again, midpoint distance. It would also make the Magikoopas actually lead up to something. The exclamation point spot is also a little lame because it still doesn't tell you what's coming or how to react, and you could have put invisible vines in front of the fences to prevent the moving layer bug. Other than that, this level was extremely fun, and the effort put into it really paid off. Great work!
Joey (9.0/10)
- This level was really cool but it was really long. Some of the maneuvers required to get around NPCs and such were pretty difficult as well, but overall this was one of the better-designed levels I've played in this contest. Please make more like this, but maybe make them just a little bit shorter. Or don't. It was pretty good either way, just difficult. If I could criticize anything else it would probably be that the BGOs/angry stars/NPCs amounts felt a little bit busy and random sometimes, and the ugly SMW Venus Fire Trap.
Quill (8.5/10)
- Very nice level. The theme has been overused to death, but you kept things interesting with creative gimmicks such as the floating platform activating an event as well as the magikoopas. I would have rather had a boss than the lava chase segment, as those aren't normally that fun or interesting. The level kinda overstays its welcome too, it's pretty massive. Overall though, good job.
Layla (9.6/10)
- Absolutely fantastic job on this level! Not only did it have a great high in the sky ruins atmosphere but it also played around a lot switching from castle to forest to a little bit of water to lava in many different places and it gave the level a lot of unique aspects and graphics variety that kept it fun to play all the way through! Coins and power-ups were plentiful across the level, which helped with the random appearances of fire magikoopas (which might I add was a nice addition and it worked very well). The lava run at the end was a decent addition, and it was even a rather close call as well. My only real complaint was that the midpoint could have been a little closer towards the end.
Valtteri (8.5/10)
- This level has this fascinating metallic shine to it. It's really cool! I like the paths that open when you go near them; they're pointless but give the level a fresh feeling... for now. They're getting quite popular. The part where the Skullraft stands still and the lava goes down a bit and then the Skullraft starts moving is pretty clever. The red Magikoopa that appears every now and then is pretty interesting, although not an entirely new concept anymore. The climbable fences lift you up which is annoying. You can fix this by placing invisible vines all over them. The last bit with the lava appearing behind you was pretty fun especially with the Super Leaf.

1. Dark-Mecha77 - Gravitational Heaviness (8.98/10)

Chad (7.6/10)
- Cool space station level. Excellent use is made of antigravity gimmicks, and is a great test of the player's timing and speed. It functions quite well, and I really enjoyed the interval-based gravity switching as well, because it made the gimmick feel like it got more intense over time. The sections are laid out extremely well too, with impressive placements of projectile enemies, spikes, and Roto-discs along with restrictive tileset layouts to ensure strategic thinking from the player. There's also an admirable amount of detail conveyed in the level's presentation, however the colors are too similar to the solid surfaces (on both gravity settings). The boss is creatively executed and has quite a challenging difficulty to it, but it'd function a lot better if the gray and red bombs didn't often cancel each other out and the boss wasn't so far from the midpoint. It's quite a hard boss, and the difficulty's still fair by itself, but you have a large amount of level to redo if it kills you. The disappearing arena edges is a neat idea, though. Overall, fun and well-designed level, great gimmick, but visuals and boss handling could be a bit better.
Joey (9.0/10)
- This was a really cool level and I loved the gravity mechanic. The only things I didn't like were the piranha plant graphics and the boss - I think having the gray bombs that immediately explode was too difficult. I would suggest setting them on a timer to maybe send 3 down at a time every 10 seconds, and keep the red bomb interval the same. You could even use the timer sounds from the gravity timer (if you can get the gravity timer to turn off once you enter the boss area) and create a timer for the gray bombs as well. Great job overall, this level was nice.
Quill (9.5/10)
- Really cool level! The gimmick is used beautifully, and you kept it fresh by altering how it works in the second half. The boss was pretty fun too, but I would have liked to see the gimmick used for the boss as well, as that would have helped bypass the whole events going on in the background which you can't see. Overall though, fantastic job!
Layla (8.8/10)
- What is with using underwater as an excuse as antigravity? It's really not as flashy as you think and if not used properly (It was used properly here, though) can make a level seem really cheesy. When turning on the antigravity, the slightly darker shading absolutely killed my framespeed, so I'd suggest getting rid of the tint and this would be a lot more fun of a level to play. Nevertheless, the design was absolutely fantastic and I will admittedly say the gimmick worked out very well. The generator on the boss at the end seemed to shoot out bombs a little quickly and it cost me a lot of dying and losing power-ups.
Valtteri (10.0/10)
- This is a really nice level! The timed gravitation things are a creative thing. They make the level fun and interesting to play. The enemy, power-up and coin placement is fair. Level looks beautiful and consistent. I like how the boss is literally just a flying Mother Brain. You could take that as an insult to bosses that are reskins of Mother Brain and just fly back and forth...

Play the contest submissions: http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... =36&t=7492

Postby **Magna** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:20 pm

No way man, and right after I finished my level, too. Sign me up!

Zeldamaster12 · Postby **Zeldamaster12** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:22 pm

I'll try to whip something up.

Chip Potato · Postby **Chip Potato** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:26 pm

Sure, why not. I'll enter.

Postby **Magna** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:28 pm

How many contests has Joey judged in?

Postby **Shadow Yoshi** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:44 pm

None of them.

#gethype

Postby **Magna** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:45 pm

Joey wrote:None of them.

#gethype

Well great to have you judge for the first time.

By the way, my level that I finished recently will be 300% better than my CC9 submission.

SuperMario7 · Postby **SuperMario7** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:52 pm

I'd like to participate.

sezixor · Postby **sezixor** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:56 pm

Guess I'll join. Hopefully I'll have more free time to work on my level this time.

MacheTheFerret · Postby **MacheTheFerret** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:59 pm

Sign me up, my level is already almost finished!

Murphmario · Postby **Murphmario** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:24 pm

Perfect! I'm in! And I won't forget any warps this time

AirSeus · Postby **AirSeus** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:29 pm

Yay, one of the first in, count me in baby yeh.

(Is ToB8 even out yet like?)

Postby **Magna** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:30 pm

AirSeus wrote:Yay, one of the first in, count me in baby yeh.

(Is ToB8 even out yet like?)

Nope!

This contest sure is early!

Superiorstar · Postby **Superiorstar** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:49 pm

Jesus Christ Venteri.
I'll join.

FanofSMBX · Postby **FanofSMBX** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:12 pm

I thought LunaDLL was going to be allowed since Danny said Valtteri was allowing it.

icez · Postby **icez** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:16 pm

I 'll enter I will have plenty of time to work on a level now

DatDude · Postby **DatDude** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:22 pm

Well done Valtteri, making a new contest when ToB8 isn't out yet. xD Anyways, sign me up. At least THIS TIME i have more time to make my level.

Postby **Shadow Yoshi** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:26 pm

To put the LunaDLL discussion (or lack thereof) to rest before it evolves:

LunaDLL will not be allowed in Level Contests at the very least until SMBX 1.3.0.2 (the update that will include LunaDLL) is released. After that, Valtteri may choose to make a decision based on the readiness of the community to have LunaDLL be included.