LEVEL REVIEWS
-RING EMRAL
Call me a stalker, but I've been watching your development from afar, patiently waiting for you to come out with this level so I could experience a first-time level again ala The Invasion 2-like designing style. And seriously: This level didn't disappoint. After playing through it I can definetly say that this is one of the most solid first-timers I've ever seen. No joke. If anyone doubts me, play this one and then compare it to my first level. I didn't even know how to enlarge sections back then. But I digress.
So what the player encounters in this level is a forest. Obviously. You can tell from the thwomps and especially the LoZ music. You don't use thwomps in your forest levels? What year is this? 2014? While playing the player will quickly notice that the level is actually rather difficult (although people with little to no experience in placing enemies and coins normally fare way worse when it comes down to this segment), be it to the aforementioned (IMNBH4L review) lack of powerups, the claustrophobic area, or the waves of enemies rushing towards the enemy at full speed (except spinies because they have cliffturn hue...). Being confident in my abilities I obviously failed multiple times while trying to overcome some advanced jump combinations like the spiny-into-fireball-ambush or the oh-shit-I-didn't-see-that-thwomp. But while IMNBH4L suggested POWERUPS, it wouldn't work without reworking the entire level.
The way I see it, the cramped atmosphere is what drives this level. Hell, even the background objects join it. Overlapping bgos, while commonly shunned upon, enhance this claustrophobic feeling and the atmosphere as well. It's like the topping to the cake when it comes to what makes this level engaging. The main factor, the cake cake, is the enemy placement. Like I mentioned before, it is rather challenging to overcome if you're not careful, and the player has to watch his surroundings at all times. Although I feel like it was a bit overdone at some points. Getting ambushed by a fireball, three enemies, and a bullet bill cannon, is nice and all, but incredibly spammy. A segment like this would be just as challenging if two of the ground enemies were removed, and only the spiny remained. Same goes for multiple other sections in the level. They're a bit too harsh on the player.
One thing I feel like this level suffers from is the what I like to call "oh there's a pipe so there must be a plant there" syndrome. Not all pipes have a plant, but most do. This isn't a dead set rule and I think if this syndrome occurs in your level, you can easily tell that you should shift back a gear in terms of NPC placement.
So why do powerups not work? Many passages are even harder to navigate if you're twice as big as small mario, and end up making the extra hit not really worth it. Especially since you'll be playing more carelessly than before since you do have that extra hit.
So what does this level offer? Well, a challenge for not so good video gamers like myself, obviously, but apart from that? Not much, actually. It's, like Zeldamaster himself already said, a rather standard forest level. Even though the jumps themselves had some variety, the level didn't. And I'm not going to say I expected such a thing from this level, because frankly, I didn't, but point is that this level ends up being rather forgettable in the long term. But this is just the nature with first(ish)-timers. So is the all-over-the-place-ish coin placement, but it's acceptable, so I'm not going to complain here.
Length was fine, maybe perfect? Mostly fine. The player has to take his time and not rush through the level anyways, so why make it incredibly long? Adding a second half and a checkpoint wouldn't offer anything new, to be honest.
I think it's quite fun watching you climb up the base of the Level Design tree. This is a very good first(ish) attempt, and I really enjoyed playing it.
PROS (yes I'm going to be copying this system forever now)
-nice atmosphere, brought to life by the cramped design and bgo placement.
-I'm impressed I found a level which works better without powerups
-Nice length, perfect to make the level engaging, but not frustrating
CONS
-please turn down the NPCs a bit. Maybe remove one or two thwomps, a few goombas, and some upside down piranhas in the more cramped areas. That should settle things.
-doesn't stand out much due to it's length and, may I call it, newbie design
So, overall I think this earns a 6.4/10 from me. I really don't have much to add at this point. I'll continue stalking you from afar for a while, dropping hints here and there on what you could do better, but this was a really solid first release. Good work!
