Haunted Harbour
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:20 pm
Well that's a level theme I don't see very often! This one looks very interesting, but the playtest is what counts. ...
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Alright, here's my review:
The level theme is, like I said, something not done very often and fits well. I imagine a city near the ocean which is empty since years, so ghosts settled. Anyways, this level is nice! I often don't see much variety in harbour or mushroom cloudtop style levels, but this one really stood out (when I don't expand it to all levels but keep it on the level of Harbour and Mushroom Cloudtop levels). You've had multiple interestingly designed sections and some well-placed secrets, which I'll come to later.
In terms of playstyle, you seemed to switch from section to section. First, you had this linear, harbour-like section, but then you added giant rocks, boats and whatnot. I really enjoyed it. A common mistake people do when designing harbour levels is that they keep the water part on the bottom too easy. Or they'll just spam fish. You found a really clever way around this, which also synergizes well with your theme, having enemies fall off into the water and boos following you regardless weither you're in it or not. I liked it.
The secrets, however, seemed kinda dull. The sign in the beginning warned me, so I got rid of every enemy in my path, just to find out that there's a switch in the door which was marked by coins, which leads to a second switch. Here's some suggestions: You could remove the second switch entirely and save the player some useless back-and-forth movement or you could add a pipe in the beginning which warps you to the end of the section, but is unlocked by hitting the second/first of these switches. Just some ideas, since it felt really tedious at points.
The star next to the checkpoint can't be called a secret at all, because the donut blocks respawn and you can bypass them entirely by getting enough speed with the leaf you can get just a few steps prior. So yeah. The second P-Switch secret was actually pretty well-hidden. I was a bit disappointed when I found out that it was just another switch in the middle of nothing. I can't really call that anything but lazy design, sorry. Anyways, when I saw the star locked in behind the four switchpads, I noticed what I was doing all the time. Pretty basic secret here. The only problem with it is that you can't get it once you die after getting the checkpoint without essentially giving up on the checkpoint and redoing the whole thing. That makes it more of a skill-test rather than a secret.
Speaking of skill, moving ground and bullet bills on it are never a good idea. IMO. Because it makes them infinitely more dangerous. I literally died to a bullet bill on the moving boat after losing my fireflower to one of them. I guess this kinda provides a challenge, but I'm not the biggest fan of it.
Graphic-wise this level is fine. I really liked it's look. The only problem I had is that, for some reason, while playing, my eyes lost focus of the foreground, treated everything equally and got lost in the really, REALLY bright background. I know it's a commonly used ghost background, but it can hurt the player's eyes at points. Especially when he's trying to get all secrets and looks at it for 7+ minutes.
The music fits this level perfectly, a remix from NSMBDS's ghost area music. I think it provides a gloomy atmosphere and that's nice.
Also, here's a few things I found:
Spoiler: show
Graphics: 2/3 If it weren't for that annyoing background and the messed up mask this would be a perfect score. Yup.
Music: 2/2 Yeah. I've explained to you why I like this choice and there's really nothing to add.
Gameplay: 3/5 The secrets are really what drags this down. If you play the level not aiming to get all the secrets, or only the 1-UPs, this is a great level to play.
7/10
is your final score. You really surprised me in terms of how you built this level. Both in a positive way and in a negative way. But this is a damn good harbour level. Everyone! Keep in mind that harbour and ghost is a good combo!!!!!!!!
I recommend this to everyone who's not that much into hunting for secrets but nevertheless enjoys levels with atmosphere and variety in design.
Approved