Ant Forest (fixed)

[diamantico21]

This is my first real level!

screenshots

Spoiler: show

download (fixed)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ye3t7 ... xed%29.rar

GFX used

Spoiler: show

Squishy Rex's CGFX Pack
Shikaternia GFX Pack

I hope you like it

[deleted_account]

Hey, that looks like a great level! I like the atmosphere, especially in the last two screenshots.
I can't see any flaws in there besides the non-centered grinder. Great use of the ants from SM3DW. I can imagine this in Pretty Good.

[Alagirez]

judging for the screen, the background and tiles is CLASHING (SMB3 + SMW) (I understood this is your first level, so you didn't know about clashing)
the tiles, koopas, and the venus trap is SMB3
the background, grinder, special blocks, pipe and volcano lotus is SMW.
try to use legend-tony980's SMB3 recolored pack, so it looks better.
but the design is cool, I didn't see any glitches. I'll try this and i'll give you a small review.

[deleted_account]

judging for the screen, the background and tiles is CLASHING (SMB3 + SMW) (I understood this is your first level, so you didn't know about clashing)
the tiles, koopas, and the venus trap is SMB3
the background, grinder, special blocks, pipe and volcano lotus is SMW.
try to use legend-tony980's SMB3 recolored pack, so it looks better.
but the design is cool, I didn't see any glitches. I'll try this and i'll give you a small review.

You don't know what clash is either.

Clash is when two GFX - well - look bad together because of the shading or the palette.
In this case, the SMW and SMB3 stuff actually looks great with each other.
This isn't clash.

[Emral]

Review: Ant Forest

Let me just rename the folder to "Ant Forest", because I already have 75 folders called "level" and it's slowly going on my nerves.

Alright so, I've seen better, but I've also certainly seen worse levels around. What kind of upsets me is that you took your time to import custom ant graphics, as well as the tileset, but close to NOTHING else, while some additional graphics could've upped the atmosphere by a ton. Especially the cave and underwater area felt incredibly clashy since you mixed airship, ghost house, smw forest bgo and SMB3 castle statues with little reason other than "eh this looks like something that could look decent here". I found many elements to look out of place and it destroyed the atmosphere for me. But I'll get back to destroying stuff later on. First, take a look at this:

Spoiler: show

These two npcs have no reason to be where they are. Let alone the statue being in this level at all. This is the Ant Forest, not the Koopa Kliffs!

Speaking of enemies... You used a large variety of them. Oh, was I overwhelmed with all the enemies you were throwing around. Let me just list them, to give the readers who didn't play this level a better idea:
Blooper, Nipper, Ant, Buzzy Beetle, Cheep Cheep, Venus Fire Trap, Volcano Lotus, Grinder, Bullet Bill, Bowser Statue, Piranha Plant, Giant Piranha Plant, SMB3 Koopa, SMW Koopa, Spike Top, SMW Cheep Cheep, SMB3 Crab

Considering this is a rather short level with not even a midpoint, oh boy. I'm certain you can remove enemies like the Bowser Statue and Bullet Bill entirely, while unifying SMB3 and SMW enemies to either style, instead of keeping both. Enemies like crabs can be replaced with ants to lay more emphasis on the level name, as currently they're a bit overshadowed by everything else.

I'm going to make a smooth transition from enemies to placement; and oh boy....

Spoiler: show

.... how you DID place stuff everywhere. I found the areas to be surprisingly hazardous, be it nippers or fire coming your way from an area you least expected, be it ants dropping down the hill, or be it ten spike tops constantly limiting your movement. This isn't to say that you completely overshot stuff in the NPC placement department, it's probably just a side effect from cramping such a huge enemy variety into the level. I'm sure removing some enemy types will make the level easier to traverse and fix these issues I'm having with the placement (except for the spike tops. They're annoying).

BUT WAIT! What about coin placement? Well... I really don't want to talk about it. Just play other people's levels and look how they place their coins, please. If you (reader, not creator) play this level you'll see what I mean, but I refuse to go into detail here because explaining the basics of coin placement could take a while.

After all that I was impressed that both bgo and block placement were really nice. You did a good job conveying the atmosphere of a forest (ignoring random airship pieces and random water puddles everywhere, as well as the clashy caverns) and the flora is just enough to make it look good, and not too much, not making it look cramped. Nice job on this part. I feel like ?-Blocks and powerups could've been a bit more spread throughout the level, rather than majorly in the first half, though.
Here's one thing you should fix though, regarding block placement:

Spoiler: show

You have to count on stupid players like me randomly running up there to test if there's something, and, after trying to get out for a minute, I came to the conclusion that this slope you placed is evil and won't permit players to get back into the level.

Spoiler: show

There's also this fence automatically making you slide upwards. I know this bug, but don't know what causes it or how to fix it, so if anyone knows, please let me know.

BLATANTLY COPYING IMNBH4L'S STYLE BECAUSE I BARELY POINTED OUT GOOD STUFF BECAUSE I SEE NO POINT IN DOING SO

Pros:
-Nice forest atmosphere, considering the resources. Could've been made better by choosing a more unified graphical style and sticking more to the forest theme.
-Sections look different and each call on a different gameplay style, big variety, big pro for this level.
-Relaxing length, perfect for a short level without a checkpoint.

Cons:
-This is the most atrocious coin placement I've ever seen.
-Enemy variety overload. You should lay more emphasis on the ants. Maybe change the spike top sprite to ants?
-Atmosphere is nice, but there's a lot of room for improvement by adding simple custom graphics. I'm specifically referring to the underground section.
-Second half lacks powerups and coins, compared to the first one.

Considering the HUGE improvement this could get, a score of 4/10 seems appropriate to me. I see huge potential with this level, which is easily overshadowed by its current flaws.

[deleted_account]

I have to add, please use another BGO set, as it clashes with the SMB3 style.
Also, don't use SMW and SMB3 together, as they really look awkward.

[Emral]

I have to add, please use another BGO set, as it clashes with the SMB3 style.
Also, don't use SMW and SMB3 together, as they really look awkward.

I didn't mention this, as the author doesn't use a SMB3 style. It's a mesh between SMW and SMB3 style and one of those things which holds it back from looking great, while not specifically being a flaw of the level needed to be fixed in its entirety.

[RudeGuy]

I know this bug, but don't know what causes it or how to fix it, so if anyone knows, please let me know.

I think this bug was caused from moving layers inside the level. Happened to me too once.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

First of all, I'd just like to point out that Epoch said "enemy variety overload" is a bad thing when I constantly criticize having low NPC variety. For those of you confused as to how both of these are bad points, let me explain: Epoch didn't word that part of his review as well as he could have. There's nothing wrong with using a wide variety of NPCs, but when an NPC is used once and never again, like the Bowser statue in this level, or if an NPC is used that doesn't fit with the level's theme/atmosphere (again, like the Bowser statue in this level), it just seems gimmicky and out of place. While you shouldn't make a level that barely has anything more than Goombas, Koopas, and Piranha Plants, you should also try to keep the NPC variety consistent throughout the level.

Anyway, though I feel the score may be a bit too low, I approve Epoch's review, though I do feel the need to elaborate on a few of the points he brought up:

1. The level's folder shouldn't just be called "level"; it should be named after the level.
2. There's nothing wrong with mixing vanilla graphics with custom graphics, but the super-simplistic SMW graphics (namely the sizable in section 4) don't look good together with the highly-detailed GFX pack you used.
3. Spoiler: show

   You should remove this Piranha Plant pit:
   
4. The player won't expect the ants in section 3 to fall off the ledges, especially if the player doesn't realize that they're there. I recommend adding cliffturn=1 to their txt file.
5. The spike tops in section 4 are annoying, partly due to how numerous they are, but mainly because, when the player makes it to the end of that section, there's a wall by the pipe, and because of this wall, the spike tops quickly cover the pipe, and the player is forced to wait for all of the spike tops to finish crawling past the pipe to proceed (and waiting = boring = not fun). I recommend removing all the ones from the ceiling and replacing the ones on the floor with Spinys or crabs.
6. Coins should generally be placed in rows or columns (depending on which direction the player has to go) in the air, not scattered on the ground.
7. Spoiler: show

   You should replace this off-screen slope tile with two solid blocks on top of each other:
   
8. Speaking of off-screen tiles, if you have a wall that extends to the top of the section boundary, you should place solid tiles at least two units above the top boundary of the screen; otherwise, the player will be able to jump over the wall, like in section 3.
9. Spoiler: show

   As stated earlier, having blocks on moving layers in your level will cause climbable BGOs and NPCs not to work properly, whether they cause the player to slide up or down. I recommend deleting the "on water" layer and replacing the blocks with the SMB3 Wood platform (NPC-104) set to "On." Of course, since the climbable tiles, like many things in this level, are used just once and never again, you could keep the "on water" layer and just replace the climbable tiles with a normal platform.
   

[Emral]

that Epoch said

Epoch didn't word

approve Epoch's review,

I guess I'm epoch now.
Anyways, thanks for elaborating on these parts. I could've gone more into detail myself, but ended up overlooking it or being too lazy ^-^'

[Imaynotbehere4long]

that Epoch said

Epoch didn't word

approve Epoch's review,

I guess I'm epoch now.

Well, um...you have similar usernames, and when I saw your post in the "Your Avatar" thread, I misread your username as Epoch's, so when I glanced at your avatar here, I thought "Oh, it's Epoch again."

But it wasn't. My mistake.

[diamantico21]

thanks for the review!
I just started another level, see you next level!

[SilverDeoxys563]

thanks for the review!
I just started another level, see you next level!

Nuh uh, no you don't, not until you fix this level. Did you even see what you did wrong? You can edit the original post and update it with your fixes to this level, you know.

[diamantico21]

Level fixed

[Emral]

Level """""""""""""""""""fixed""""""""""""""""""":P

FTFY
You didn't fix the slope in the last section. Holy shit what have I done by pointing that out. Got the star try 1. 4.3/10

[FanofSMBX]

You think that needs fixed?