Koopster Judge ================================================= 000 - ONE EFFORT MOUNTAIN DESIGN: 30/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 66/100 There was really a lot of potential to this level, but a lot of it just reuses the basic "hop on stopped enemies" plain setup. I wish you had done a lot more with the other elements you had. The behavior of goombas on water, for example, was totally forgotten after the first half. It was still a nice experience, though. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 001 - DOLPHIN BEACH DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 7/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 This isn't really a level about dolphins. But there's like, at least 7 or 8 of them, so that's cool. It's not a level about anything in particular, but about what you had in your mind and felt like materialising as a level. Really straight-forward and devoid of innovation, but not offensive in any way. That P-switch trap at the end is kind of adorable. THEME: Beach ================================================= 003 - Mars Colonization DESIGN: 33/50 CREATIVITY: 24/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 69/100 A lot of this level is quite clever and tactical and I like that, but it has its issues. Some specific setups all around the level are much more finicky and precision demanding than their neighbors. The worst is probably the bit where you have to wait for the platform to come down while managing falling platforms, it's really very easy to screw up there. Some random setups also have very little reaction time and kinda misleading coin guides (the one right before the midpoint is one example, I was also misleaded by a part near the end where you're... supposed to go under a thwomp and then spin jump back on it? I thought I had to fall back on the platform). I'd say the level develops the gimmicks pretty smoothly but not the difficulty of the setups, if you know what I mean. Also I think it's very long and kinda spread out. You could've easily chopped some of the more uninteresting parts and made it a single midpoint level instead. It looks... just alright, I have a lot to nitpick about here and there, especially with some of your tile choices (1F0 tiles, the misaligned "1F0 line guide", weird colored coins). Also the moon is inaccurate, Mars has two potato moons... THEME: Space ================================================= 004 - VERY DANGER LIFTS DESIGN: 26/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 Short, quite slow and uneventful autoscroller for the most part (it starts off -really- slow). The volcano loti would've been a good bet to base the entire level around - the bits that forced you to be constantly moving in moving platforms were cool, despite not being in a sensible order of difficulty. THEME: Forest ================================================= 005 - AREA 51 DESIGN: 6/50 CREATIVITY: 3/30 AESTHETICS: 6/20 TOTAL SCORE: 15/100 Seems like a level that's clearly misdirected. It has no focus, changing the enemy set every few screens. The sprite placement is quite mediocre for the most part. It's also super short. Seems like a beginner's level, don't give up! THEME: Abstract ================================================= 006 - DARK CLOUD CASTLE DESIGN: 36/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 67/100 A solid platforming experience. It's really gone for variety and as a consequence it ends up not expanding on any of its ideas much at all (except for extensive usage of sparkies) and ends up not standing out so much. It's just a regular castle level. THEME: Sky, Castle ================================================= 007 - Abstract Road DESIGN: 10/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 30/100 Not a very well designed level. Most of the sprite placements are basic or arbitrary, leaving the job of making the level hard to maneuvering between munchers, which isn't a very good thing. It's extremely unfocused, changing its theme and spriteset every few screens between its very short rooms. The secret exit is also completely pointless. It doesn't look very good, the colors are really vibrant and don't contrast well with each other. THEME: Neon ================================================= 009 - AESTHETIC LAND DESIGN: 25/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 58/100 I think this could've looked more vaporwave, it has a lot of purple and yellow but I feel it could've been more "filtered", perhaps some brigther outlines would help you achieve something more faithful. The level looked mostly good, though I'm a bit iffy with the random title screen font floating all about (Peach rescue scene font is better), the randomly scattered black squares in the pits looked kinda ugly and the second room and especially the autoscroller with these glowing outlines didn't look that good. It was rarely defying, other than a thwomp that I couldn't see. The level design is decent, but it's very lacking of focus. Every room presents new concepts that barely get developed at all. The fourth room is though is very slow and uninteresting. I feel you went more for a nice experience than for level design that stands out, and I'd say you pulled that part off somewhat nicely. But I would really like to see interesting setups in this! THEME: Beach, vaporwvave ================================================= 010 - Bowel Relaxation DESIGN: 30/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 62/100 A kinda interesting level - it feels quite samey in retrospect, but the development of challenges is there - sadly, it drags. The dragon coin bonus rooms make the first half feel much, much longer than the second. In fact, you might as well just have scrapped the second half entirely, as it lasts two seconds and does nothing that hadn't been already done, it stops developing the gimmick. I think the third dragon coin is really boring to get, and the second one, although it's an interesting puzzle, can sometimes be tough to perform thanks to that spiny. The secret exit was extremely unecessary as it forces you to replay the level after collecting all the dragon coins (that can mean a second REplay). Not to mention it's really hard to find, the tip doesn't exactly spell out that it's behind a dragon coin, and not only is it behind the hardest dragon coin in the level, but it's also a P-switch door for no reason. I like the reference to your VLDC9 entry though, nice how only then I knew who made this level lol. The room doesn't add anything to the design, but it's a nice bonus. Shoutouts to judges DeputyBS, Frost and Torchkas THEME: Sewers ================================================= 011 - HOT SWIZZ LAVA DESIGN: 41/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 83/100 Easy peasy! But not really, although still fun - right length for the difficulty. It's a really clever concept that has been integrated pretty well in the SMW engine. I also dig the hints and how they were done; everything is quite polished! I don't like the second half as much as the first though, because it relies on either a lot of RNG from the wiggler or really awkward camera management to get the disco shell going. Also not a fan of how long it takes to kill yourself if you screw up. I appreciate how the first half is instead more about figuring it out than awkward execution. THEME: Forest, Volcano ================================================= 012 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 52/100 Really short level. The design feels really uninspired, as the obstacles don't vary and it's very easy to just jump over everything. There was certainly some potential with this "real and fake shells" gimmick that went almost completely unused (the fourth dragon coin is kinda cool, but that's it for the gimmick usage). The fact they're hard to tell apart was more of an annoyance than anything, as I got fooled a few times when trying to stand on real shells. The secret exit just feels pointless. THEME: Beach ================================================= 014 - CHURRASCADA(TM) DESIGN: 44/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 88/100 Yes, blaargs are super underrated, I'm glad you made a level around them and weren't afraid to keep them covered for aesthetic reasons. It's really well designed and flows quite nicely, although I'm not a fan of how it introduces having to spin jump on them (or at least having that be the best/encouraged option) only in the final room. I'm a bit iffy about how some of the blaargs are hardly a menace unless you wait around a lot, but you made excellent usage of elements such as moving platforms, the P-switch run and the fish in the secret exit path to make them time nicely to be challenging. Great job here! THEME: Volcano, very hot ================================================= 015 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 2/50 CREATIVITY: 4/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 11/100 yes THEME: Grassland ================================================= 016 - Absolute Frenzy DESIGN: 32/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 65/100 A nice energetic level for the most part, although it doesn't stand out very much since it tries to develop a lot of ideas and none of them stand out a lot. The difficulty curve is also not very well thought out, and certain obstacles are very finicky in comparison to the surroundings. The visuals were a little confusing, not sure why dark purple rocks are solid but the wooden blocks are passable, while light blue blocks are solid instead - but there was nothing too glaringly bad. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 017 - FUZZY HEIGHTS DESIGN: 40/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 68/100 A nicely focused and developed level, although the difficulty fluctuates a bit near the end (the part with the muncher ceiling is a bit too difficult to time). As far as creativity goes, it doesn't push the gimmick very far at all, what with never really requiring or encouraging spin jumping other than the first and last screens. I thought it was a bit dry overall as it used glaringly few elements. Could've been more interesting, but what was done was done decently. THEME: Sky ================================================= 018 - THWIMP SPINY'S TREE DESIGN: 45/50 CREATIVITY: 20/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 78/100 Props to you for making an extremely well designed SMW-like level. The flow and progression are in point, the bonus at the top is a really neat touch and works as a nice reminder of how SMW wasn't afraid to make a lot of itself optional. The level doesn't do much new, but what it does it does greatly. I have a beef with the secret exit though. I had way too much trouble to find it since it's in a pipe with a plant in it. The pipes around the top of the level (that can be reached with the balloon if you think about it) are so much better options... the secret path itself also has very little to do with anything else in the level and felt much weaker. Not too big on having to do it twice for the moon, either. As far as looks go, I'm really not a fan of teal for a forest. THEME: Forest ================================================= 019 - Covert Volcano DESIGN: 18/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 7/20 TOTAL SCORE: 36/100 Quite reminiscent of Vanilla Dome 3. Skull rafts are a hard gimmick to work with because they'll often make for boring and slow levels, and that is unfortunately the case here. Some challenges are nice but for the most part the level feels samey and uninteresting. Some bonuses are hidden badly (find a random invisible block), I even got kaizo trapped by the first one once. And the bonus rooms are completely disjointed from the level itself - a P-balloon ride and bubbles for the secret exit in a level about skull rafts? It's an interesting challenge, although most bubbles are really not dangerous and pointless, and again, it has no place in this level. THEME: Volcano, Cave, Forest ================================================= 020 - Trust Fall DESIGN: 36/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 79/100 A really creative level all around. The setups and puzzles involving the spring glitch are quite clever. It took me a long while to figure out the baby yoshi puzzle, though - maybe I'm stupid but it felt harder to understand than everything else. I have one big problem with the level in general though, and it's that it doesn't feel like it progresses. It feels like you just put your ideas one after the other, always introducing new concepts rather than mixing them in clever ways, something that would've been key to make this a top notch level. The difficuly curve also doesn't feel like it was well thought out (lava loti spam is the hardest part, also reset doors obsolete a lot of the difficulty of the level - why not make the easy to screw up challenges bonus challenges?). Also not sure what's the point of the 1-up checkpoint, it's not even in the middle of the second half lol I really like how the outside looks but not the inside, I think it's shaped quite weirdly and it's full of skull blocks for some reason THEME: Mountain ================================================= 021 - Ruins of Grassland DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 It's not coherently designed... I suppose there are a few themes you were loyal to, but the setups don't follow any logical line of progression, difficulty nor complexity-wise. The gimmicks don't really get taken anywhere. There are a couple of annoyances in the level aside from that, such as the moles that blend too much with the colors of the castle and can end up ambushing the player (happened to me several times), and two disco sky ambushes in the second half. I also don't get the plot THEME: Grassland, Fortress ================================================= 022 - GHOST TOWN DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 57/100 I just SUSPECT the entrance is not where it was supposed to be. The playable second half of the level is fine, despite being too short and barely developing the concepts as a consequence. There's this sublevel full of boo rings that takes very long and fills no purpose. The secret exit feels a tad pointless too, but I like where the key is hidden - just wish I didn't have to carry it for the entire level. THEME: Haunted ================================================= 023 - CREEPLE STEEPLE DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 Very cramped stage, moreso in the first half, which made it a tad annoying to play. The P-switch for the first dragon coin is really unecessary given the difficulty of the stage (not to mention that you're forced to hop on grinders for other dragon coins further on...). It doesn't go much of anywhere, the second half seems like it's going to focus on spin-jumping on thwomps or something but that concept is executed in the driest way possible, and then the level just ends. THEME: Haunted, Building ================================================= 024 - Blazeholic DESIGN: 45/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 88/100 I like this! It's pretty consistent in ideas all the way through and the difficulty curve is pretty smooth. Very short but pretty sweet, it knows that it's hard so it doesn't stretch it too much. I like the dragon coin challenges and the moon a lot. I just don't like very much to have to deal with random timings, and this noticeably happens in that bit where you have to drop between 3 horizontal fireballs, you basically spin jump and hope for the best. I'm usually not big on secret exits that require switch palaces, but I like how this one is placed in the level. The mushroom puzzle itself doesn't have anything to do with the main level, but at least it implements the fireball obstacles. The level can be a little visually overwhelming sometimes, but I like the aesthetics a lot overall. THEME: Volcano, Abstract ================================================= 025 - Swiss Ruins DESIGN: 43/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 85/100 Nice aesthetics. A fan of Brown Block Basement, I see! This level is very creative, but I feel it's somewhat lacking in gameplay especially in the middle part. Some setups just involve timing a few things together and they feel quite arbitrary, especially when the challenge was much smaller than most setups in the previous third. I really dig how everything came together nicely in the final setups though. For the most part it's fun and very creative. Maybe try sticking to less gimmicks next time though, so you can concentrate on their development more strongly! It looks good although the walls are a little empty and the ghosts have the wrong palette smh THEME: Ruins, Swiss ================================================= 026 - Starlight Symphony DESIGN: 27/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 61/100 A level that has ideas, but for the most part it doesn't flow that nicely. Aside from a couple of concepts that get reused here and there, you barely grasp a development curve; it just feels like setups are thrown around, one after the other, and their difficulty doesn't get accounted for their order. I could point out several little nitpicks, such as how the powerup in the midpoint is unecessarily costly to get and how the coin trails in the music staff segment are not very helpful. The secret exit is a little bit awkward to reach and it didn't bring anything new to the level outside of aesthetics. THEME: Sky ================================================= 027 - BONUS SWITCH PALACE DESIGN: 14/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 A 5-in-1. None of the rooms stand out on their own or have anything that ties them together, it just feels like four unfinished and undeveloped pieces of levels, and a puzzle that's an absolute chore to execute as a topping. The level looks alright in general, but a few palettes could use some work (like the cave BG, bullet shooters and cement blocks). THEME: Grassland ================================================= 028 - Hydromagmatic Fort DESIGN: 38/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 76/100 This starts off rad! But loses focus as well as its appeal as it goes, notably so by the second half. The level introduces "layer 2 only passable by sprites", but that's only used literally once. It then takes the line guided platforms gimmick, but after the midpoint that starts to give place to slower setups of waiting for the layer 2 to line up, and it finally just turns into a plain layer 2 level. The difficulty isn't balanced very well either, with a harder and more energetic first half than the second. The part where the platform dips into the lava 2 tiles down is probably the hardest bit of the level, and some setups around that part demand for much more attention and fast reaction time than anything in the second half. I also wouldn't mind if the level was longer - which should tell you that I don't think it is a bad level regardless - it just lacked better direction and progression. The first dragon coin is really mean... that's a good spot for a moon in my opinion, not for a dragon coin. THEME: Castle, Water, Volcano ================================================= 029 - FORT EXANGUISH DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 6/20 TOTAL SCORE: 33/100 A really unfocused and unmemorable level. The first half has nothing going for it and the second half introduces layer 2 but barely uses it interestingly. The secret exit can only be found by a random blind drop and one of the jumps in it is very finicky and discriminates big Mario. The level is hurt very badly by extremely confusing and messy/broken aesthetics. THEME: Fortress ================================================= 030 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 3/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 19/100 Very short and bland first half, the second room is just Bowser's back door with no enemies and a few things moved around, and the secret exit (which is actually just a second normal exit) is hilarious cause it looks like you're going beyond the level's boundary but land just starts existing again suddenly and there's a goal post there. But even then it had no reason to exist. THEME: Fortress ================================================= 031 - Dangerous Mission DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 50/100 Interesting concept but the execution was really dry. There's not much going for the main level in the first place - it's really short and not too eventful. It's neat to find a harder variation, but the main differences are the lack of a tide and munchers added all over the place. It's a decent experience, but I think this idea allows you to me much more creative than you were. THEME: Water ================================================= 032 - PERILOUS PAINTINGS DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 51/100 This concept is really neat but this level looks rushed. It doesn't do anything with the gimmick and with each enemy beyond the basics, and it ends very suddenly (the midpoint is very loopsided too). The bowser statue room was quite annoying, and getting to the two dragon coin room was specially painful. The hole in the ghost room also glitches out very easily. The visuals can sometimes be confusing, the pipes for example I thought were solid, and I didn't notice 1F0 at all in the first setup, so I got hit by the thwomp. Moon is neat! THEME: Fortress, Seaside, Building ================================================= 034 - TWINKLE TWINKLE... DESIGN: 9/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 29/100 I don't get this level. Very directionless, changes what it's doing every few screens and sometimes the design is just thoughtless or makes no sense. My biggest gripe is that on/off switch, uh, "puzzle"? after the midpoint. I thought you had to go on the respective room depending on the switch state you set previously (which mind you, sounds pretty pointless as a concept anyway), but if I go to the room tagged as "on" with the switch on I'm forced to die... good testing? That or I'm just completely misinterpreting it, but I don't think that's my fault. THEME: Lakeside ================================================= 035 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 4/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 14/100 ez first timer detect! This doesn't even seem properly tested. You didn't use the base ROM or SA-1 so your entry suffers from severe sprite memory issues, causing things to be invisible and ambush or block me weirdly. Even with the errors apart, it has nothing going for its gameplay, you just run over it all or wait for the pencils. It's extremely short too. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 036 - SNAKES AND LADDERS DESIGN: 43/50 CREATIVITY: 29/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 88/100 I was sold by the second half, much more than the first. The first half has setups with really little reaction time towards the end, some of which I'm not entirely sure if I even did right. They hurt the level a lot for being an autoscroller. The second half is really really cool and in contrast is super careful to be fair in the first try. I'm not too big on the wiggly saw under a muncher ceiling, though, it felt out of place and was very finicky. But that's kind of nitpickying at this point. THE MINI MARIOS ARE ADORABLE THEME: Swamp ================================================= 037 - water processing DESIGN: 35/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 69/100 Alright level. It doesn't try to do much out of the ordinary but it's quite solid, although perhaps a tad too short for the numerous gimmicks you used. Could've used better flow and development. You screwed up the background of the bonus room at the beginning :/ (took me a while to find it, I don't usually check pipes with plants) THEME: Building, Water ================================================= 038 - DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 39/100 This level is basically the definition of unfocused. There's no progression on what it's doing, it's just always throwing different things at the player. A P-switch run, a fish generator, a shelless blue koopa trap, so many kinds of enemies... levels should have central ideas. What it doesn't isn't all that outstanding either, enemies don't seem to have been placed with a lot of thought most of the time. Sometimes the level is a little too awkward to navigate, like when it has really large gaps for no reason. The setups don't seem to be placed so there's good difficulty progression, like, I don't think that required spin jump right at the beginning even had any place at all in this level, let alone as one of the first things in the level. Or that slide jump right after it. The secret exit was kinda cute but unecessary and it didn't help the focus problem in the slightest. That room has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the level and just lasts 10 seconds anyway. Didn't appeal to me aesthetically. It has lots of details that felt kinda meaningless, like the out of reach ponds and even a piranha plant behind the wall, and used a big variety of tiles from the map16 page, but it ended up not looking all that good or consistent. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 039 - Subway Madness DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 36/100 First half: awkward physics, spammy enemy patterns that can almost only be dodged by learning, horrendous secret exit Second half: quite linear, a kinda annoying contrast between empty corridors (makes me want to run) and overly crowded segments. Gets really terrible when it gets crowded, you picked the worst sprites to abuse (fast, projectile-throwing and following types). I'd rather pay extra DP to ride the green train THEME: City, PSSSSSSSSSSSSH subway stations ================================================= 041 - ANOMALOUS APPARATUS DESIGN: 15/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 I have several problems with this level. I have to say, the presentation is great and the concept of the level changing is quite interesting. But I found this level really hard to read. 2/3 dragon coins in the first half I still have NO idea how to get, and I tried a lot of things, like going all the way back after reaching the first screen or rushing through the level to catch the unchanged bits (I actually caught some cutoff columns going down lol). My first thought upon entering the second half was that I'd play the same level again but upside-down, but it turned out to be a different room that... kind of changes? It kind of flips when you go back but a lot of it doesn't change? I found this "half-execution of the concept" really weird. The baby yoshi was also a weird puzzle. Keep a stored item to feed him and use him to get to that dragon coin, I assume? Although it's rather easy to cheese that one by spin-jumping in any of the ghosts (and that's not a counter-intuitive solution either). The level design of the stage didn't stand out to me, sadly. My favorite part about this level was in the right edge of the second half where you have to jump around in gray platforms while the boo circle spins around - that's so genius! I also like the boo laser before the midpoint. But other than that, the entire level was very basic maneuvering between ghosts, which are sometimes in annoying spots (boo blocks with their weird hitboxes especially, and the parts where you have to constantly turn left and right waiting for the boo circle were quite stressful too), and sometimes being very sneaky hiding behind the incidental priority all around the level. I think little challenges inside boo circles was a great concept that hid behind this level's innocence which you should've explored a lot more. The secret exit needs a paragraph on its own... and what baffles me the most about it is that you have a midpoint right there, yet you decided you didn't need to work it around so getting it wouldn't disallow me to return to the secret path. Instead, you have this long secret exit that requires you to beat the first half again and again everytime you die in it. The first room uses reappearing boos which is probably the one most random and unfair generators in the game, though I won't say it makes the secret exit any harder, it's just... really long, and any slip-up forces you restart it. I guess the... storytelling is alright, but I couldn't help but laugh at the misaligned GAME OVER, the glitchy smoke sprites and the wacky keyhole SFX in the final room. sorry. I think it's still kinda cute, though. This level is aesthetically fine, but I have way too many nitpicks, some of them mentioned right above. I think my biggest pet peeve are all sound effects becoming the layer 2 smashing sound for some weird reason. Some of your vanilla work was interesting but probably didn't pay off very well - I think the lamps on the floor look quite weird for example, and that big skeletonface in the secret exit and its resprited bubbles could stand to look a lot better, too. The hanging lamps also didn't look obviously solid to me at first. THEME: Building, Haunted ================================================= 042 - The Frigid Fort DESIGN: 30/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 62/100 Quite interesting to play actually. Didn't strike me as promising at the start with the ice physics and the difficult jumps, but it's not very long and actually not that hard if you take your time. Though it sometimes is a little unfair. That drop isn't very predictable, the pattern at the wall is clever but not obvious enough to justify it, and the shell at the bottom can hit you as soon as you land depending on the timing. One of the bowser statues also gives no reaction time, the way to get past it is to wait for it to fall in the pit. The second half involved some waiting but it was mostly fun. I think this level only lacked better focus and obstacle progression in the first half mainly, and I wouldn't mind actually giving out powerups if it meant the level could be extended. The Wendy battle is pretty bad, spikes are just there to make it more annoying and artificially make it longer. I can see it being very stressful to less cautious players. Also it's a very cyan level... THEME: Ice, Castle ================================================= 043 - SWISS STEAMWORKS Favorite DESIGN: 48/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 96/100 This level takes its gimmicks and pushes them forward and merges them all in so great ways. I really love the feeling of progression in this level, how the first and second halves are related to each other, and how smooth most of the level feels to play. LOVE the secret exit and especially moon rooms. I'm a bit iffy about how all-around demanding of attention the level is sometimes, namely in the first room of each half - not actively looking at the surroundings can be harmful. Also iffy about that first bat in the second half, bouncing off of it (intuitive solution) makes me get hit by a football I couldn't see. But the level still plays great in general. I ALMOST took off one aesthetics point because the Morsel shrine palace looks like Butts, but I've seen few vanilla tilesets as beautiful as the rest of the level. THEME: Building ================================================= 045 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 5/30 AESTHETICS: 2/20 TOTAL SCORE: 12/100 The secret exit hiding spot is despisable. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 046 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 55/100 Not sure if it's right to try to summarize this in a single word, but it felt... dry? Chained platforms are cool and they have lots of potential, which you did explore a bunch actually. But the level was just it - a sucession of setups with falling chained platforms. They don't feel like they are in the right order either, I didn't really sense progression. Level could've had a lot more meat - a secondary gimmick and a few breather segments inbetween would do it good. It turned out to be very short and a little... pointless? if you can catch what I mean. THEME: Cave, Space, Pipes ================================================= 047 - Rhino's Bubbles DESIGN: 20/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 52/100 I don't think you fully grasped the potential of the dino torches. The hardest setups you made with them are pretty early on - they can throw you off if you bump on them as you step on a falling platform, which I even found to be somewhat unpredictable and unfair. In contrast, they almost feel obsolete in other setups. The second half of the level takes a turn by focusing more on bubbles. Sadly, bubble navigation can be wonky and especially having to deal with platforms while swimming felt quite obnoxious. I really really really don't like the room with the fourth dragon coin. Aside from not being extremely good at development of difficulty and gimmicks, it's a solid level, but I really didn't think it was fun to play. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 048 - Plundersome Pyramid DESIGN: 21/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 55/100 A pretty sweet level, but it makes a few questionable design decisions. The secret exit path is kind of a cramped mess - some setups with pencils are super hard to get through, and that part with the moving blocks around the megaspikes can actually be impossible without proper timing (by the way it's kinda silly how it's possible to ignore the key thanks to the 1-up checkpoint lol). I also have a problem with the bat and spike top after the bit with the throw blocks in the second half, it's really hard to predict and react to that jump. Then there's a half a minute wait for a shell to travel down between turn blocks... Design-wise, not a lot was done outside of the secret exit (although it has its issues, I think it made clever use of gimmicks). The first half feels like just a lot of enemies thrown around, and that becomes a bit glaring when you just give the player a starman. The second half feels a bit unfocused and has a bunch of random setups that don't have much to do with each other. I had some fun exploring it, though, I'll give you that. I think it looks really nice, but the inside areas have kinda gross palettes... THEME: Desert, What's this pyrmid? ================================================= 049 - O r d i n a r y ! ! DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 Finally, a real abstract level. It can quite fun to explore the outer part, but it's still overall very straight-forward, cramped, visually overwhelming, and the very opposite of concise or focused, which makes the level design not stand out. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 050 - Wetsuit Columns DESIGN: 46/50 CREATIVITY: 29/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 93/100 The first half of the level has a lot of creative stuff, but it feels like it threw a lot of gimmicks at once without some sort of focus other than water. Swimming on layer 2 water, then rising up platforms, then pushing a springboard. I think the second half was much better in the sense that it focused on using the blobs of water on the edges of the screen. Nitpicking apart, I think the whole level was very fun to play through, and very creative as well! Very fair and smooth to play even with the jankiness of the gimmick. The kind of thing I like basically. The dolphin rooms were pretty nice "intermissions" too. THEME: Building, Factory, Water ================================================= 051 - GHASTLY LABORATORY DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 46/100 I don't like this level. The first half relies on very weird timings for its difficulty, including a part with two pencils that is impossible most of the time. The second half is very boring and slow and there's one jump that was made awkward due to the layer 2 glitch (if it weren't for the glitch it would be a doable drop, and you also aren't encouraged to jump due to the spike ceiling). Then there's the final segment that's 1, a very drastic change of pace, 2, impossible to predict on first try due to x'es not being introduced anywhere in the level, and 3, has no reason to be there. It feels like you were trying to tell a story but you didn't do it very well, sorry :s THEME: Cave, Laboratory ================================================= 052 - Crystal Lake DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 46/100 I'm not impressed. The level design is very thoughtless overall, it's very empty, spread out, and it doesn't progress. Feels like you tried to let the player take a lot of alternative paths but most of them didn't even make sense. Dragon coins 1 and 5 arbitrarily obsolete a lot of the main level's challenge and dragon coin 3 is out of placingly annoying to get. In the second half, most of the choices you can make are between taking a 2 second versus a 2 minute path. The secret exit was hidden in a very lame way, instead of taking advantage of the potential for puzzles in that section it was just hitting a random block. There was potential to the idea of the secret area itself, but it really did nothing with it. Didn't feel like it was worth it to play the level twice just for that. THEME: Water, Lake, Crystals ================================================= 053 - Chuckmania DESIGN: 27/50 CREATIVITY: 27/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: /100 Hey I just beat your level in 20 seconds by going over the ceiling. Good times. The concept of a snake that chases you is really cool and not something I've seen before, but it's a limited concept when you have a predetermined trail and that shows since after half of it it's very easy to just outrun the snake. The level is also very short. I kind of dig a lot of the obstacles that make you wait around and take a little long (volcano loti and destroying pokeys), but it kind of lost track at a few places. Also I'm pretty sure you can get stuck permanently in several places. I'm not sure what the purpose of the first half is, it has zero connection with the second half and there's no connection between anything within itself either. THEME: Grassland, Abstract ================================================= 054 - Faux Water DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 67/100 A level with really awesome concepts and an alright execution. The first half is mostly fine, although it makes a few weird decisions (second dragon coin/pre-midpoint setup are just boring/annoying, the first powerup is weird to get) and it felt quite short and underdeveloped seeing the gimmicks it had. I like the concepts of the rooms in the second half, but they're quite long and slow, especially the vertical room. Not a fan of how the two autoscroller rooms are the second half, making it much longer than it had to be. The secret exit room's concept sadly wasn't executed very well at all, message boxes have really "friendly" hitboxes and some setups don't take that in consideration - very picky jumps here and there. If you ignore the message box gimmick it's also quite unfocused and misdirected in design. I think the puzzle to reach the secret exit is clever, took me a while to figure it out; but it also takes a while to reach that room, not a fan of that since it can be risky and require resetting several times (I actually died of timeout in my first secret exit run). The tileset of the level is alright but I'm not big on the palettes. THEME: Forest, Cave, Water ================================================= 055 - ERROR CODE #1D4 DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 37/100 ? ? ? ? ? is a good description to this level. Very weird presentation with all those different odd looking blocks that you ended up dropping after the first few screens. The usage of tile 1D4 can be summarized to one-tile jumps that are a little bit more scary. Not only the setups in this level are very random and unfocused, but they don't feel well integrated with the glitchy tile at all. Although they're harder to navigate through, replacing them with cement blocks wouldn't make it feel much different. This was either a really bad pick for a "gimmick", or the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Level could use lots of polish, too. It looks very unorganized and the palette isn't the greatest. THEME: Fortress, Abstract I guess ================================================= 056 - TOWER OF BRASS DESIGN: 37/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 69/100 Despite not being the most coherent and creative chunk of platforming that I've played, it was certainly a nice one. The secret exit was pretty clever because carrying an item does make climbing more tricky. The final room and how the disco makes koopas under the rope jump was really cool, but I wish that concept was taken a little further. The rest of the level is pretty fun, save from a couple of setups that were a little annoying and awkward. The disco shell zig-zags weren't pulled off very well, the first setup with that specially is really harsh on big Mario. THEME: Castle ================================================= 057 - NOCTURNAL HEIGHTS DESIGN: 31/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 62/100 There are interesting setups ideas, but most of them are very disjointed with one another. The progression is very lacking in this level, as well as the difficulty curve which is really messy. The first half has a few quite awkward setups, especially that one with the pea spring and the saw which I only could figure out how to perform after many failed tries. The dragon coins are pretty mean, especially dragons 2 and 5, which you'll intuitively miss for hitting the koopa after landing and pressing the P-switch to grab that otherwise very nicely hidden 1-up bonus. It is a decent level overall, but it lacks better direction. The first half's palettes aren't very good and the music is very... not very fitting. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 058 - Cerulean Cave DESIGN: 46/50 CREATIVITY: 27/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 92/100 I can say this level sets an incredible athmosphere, and it has that tactical level design style that I love (but I know someone who loves it even more). I really have no big complaints about it, other than a few sprites feeling a little arbitrary especially in the first third of the level. But I assume you played it easy and tried to make your level not too hard, which while I think is fine, is also kinda risky when you want to impress! My favorite part is the moon "minigame" by far (but I also like the dropdown), I seriously love it and I wish the rest of the level could've gone as far as that when it comes to creativity in setups. It's not to say that a LOT of what you did wasn't clever, but there's just so many different rooms and each of them is so small... I think you could've gone a bit more far with stuff like popping the bubbles at the right place and hop on goombas over 1F0, for example. Lots of different things also made the level feel a little unfocused to me. THEME: Cave, Temple ================================================= 059 - NEO REZTOPIA TOWER DESIGN: 34/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 74/100 The concept of going up a building through various floors is better in theory than in practice, I think. It makes sense for the first rooms to be easier, but some of them were a bit too simple and boring, and dying in more complex and precision-demanding rooms further up (thwimp room and pencil room were big changes of pace) became a little tiresome. The other issue is that while some rooms were pretty interestingly designed, two screens don't make a lot of justice to most of them, and in the next room you're trying a different concept that isn't very related to what happened prior. In summary, I think the level could've used more focus on specific ideas, and I honestly wouldn't mind the camera going beyond the level boundaries if it meant the possibility of longer rooms. For some more specific nitpicks, the room with the final dragon coin and the torpedo room weren't very first-try friendly to me, and the reznor was a quite anticlimatic finale cause it was so easy lol. Also, the tileset looked creative but the background objects made it a little distracting. THEME: City, Building ================================================= 060 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 1/50 CREATIVITY: 2/30 AESTHETICS: 2/20 TOTAL SCORE: 5/100 This reminds me of Epic Nothing, but it has enemies and a few other things. Still, the gap between them is very huge and you can easily still just run and jump over everything. Flat and lazily designed. You can do better! THEME: Grassland ================================================= 061 - Hotdog Aerials DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 61/100 I don't know what this meme had to do with the level at all, but it's certainly adorable. This level relies on spinjumping and 1F0 gimmicks alone, which I don't feel was a very good choice. I mean, having to keep your slide and such was cool, but the setups can only get so creative when you aren't mixing a good amount of things together. I think you could've integrated a wider variety of enemies and obstacles around the level and in your setups. It's overall alright, but it feels a little dry due to that, if that makes any sense. The yoshi bit was interesting but perhaps a little too short, and as a consequence felt underdeveloped as well. THEME: Abstract, Fire?, happy day ================================================= 062 - Roy's Airship Disqualified for illegal graphics DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 44/100 Roy sure invested in a lot of different paints for his airship. He should've tried a darker shade for the background in the inside, though. Not sure why it's filled with water, either... anyway. Both autoscrollers and water levels are always a bit risky to pull off because they're slow and you have to keep the player interested, and sadly, I don't think this was enough. The first half suffers from lack of focus and sometimes arbitrary/thoughtless enemy placement, and the second half is mostly just uninteresting. Hammer bros are much harder to deal with than everything else in the level. Also I'm really not a fan of the last dragon coin - I thought the moon was okay, but you're basically required to find it (felt like luck) to get to the sublevel where the last dragon coin is, and on top of that it's a blind drop to get to it. That sublevel is also really long and empty, unfocused as well, and shows that the level's time was set to be too short. THEME: Airship ================================================= 063 - AFTERBURNER CASTLE DESIGN: 26/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 58/100 The execution of this level was a little weird. Level has a rather confusing layout, especially in the second half. Getting the silver P-switch is more risky (cause whether the lava is coming from above or below actually matters, unlike in most of the level) but it's an extremely short detour compared to getting the blue one. I don't think I understand that part in the first half where you throw the shell at some turn blocks, either. I think a gimmick like this should've been used in a simpler, more linear level where you just need to press the switches constantly, getting the player confused and in their toes at the same time is not a very good idea! Felt pretty short, too. THEME: Fortress ================================================= 064 - Deja Vu-lley DESIGN: 41/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 81/100 At first I was doubtful of how well you could pull this off, but it was great! The first half or so of the first room is kind of boring and slow, but you slowly introduce new interesting concepts for each of the rooms - jumping on moles above munchers, red lines, going behind stuff with nets - and I think all of them were really nicely executed. Not to say that I couldn't see some of the gimmicks being used a bit more interestingly, especially the net stuff in the castle room that for some reason you dropped. But that's just me nitpickying, I think the level as-is is perfectly reasonable, especially for such a risky concept! Good colors, although the grassland looked a bit too desaturated to me. The effect in the final room is just amazing, though. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 065 - Stageshow Shuffle DESIGN: 18/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 42/100 The first half is very stretchy and gets spammy quite often. It's also very visually misleading, things that are solid or not aren't clear and the palettes aren't consistent in that aspect. The second half is a bit more cramped and more spammy than the first. Overall, it's a level that tries to encourage exploration but the fact it's so dangerous to move around doesn't help it, more often than not exploring is not very rewarding anyway, and the level is full of random semi-blind drops. In fact, I only found the second dragon coin because I wanted to check if the brown texture was solid (it seemed to be, but the bridge wouldn't make sense if it was) - it's impossible to foresee. Overall a boring, unfocused and quite uninteresting level. THEME: Building ================================================= 066 - You are still in... DESIGN: 21/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 51/100 A level that relies a lot on its main concept to be appealing. The level design is very very basic and it doesn't follow a very good curve. Some of the earlier setups are the hardest to deal with (first puntin' chuck, first bats are practically impossible to dodge without camera shenaningans). I think the clouds at the top look very good but the landscapes don't always look that nice, they could've been shaped better and be more well decorated (you're out of luck cause I'm very picky with overworld design lol). Also I've had a little trouble with clarity of what's solid and what's not when I first played the level. Secret exit was adorable btw THEME: Grassland, Sky ================================================= 067 - Night Ruins DESIGN: 33/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 71/100 Really charming level, and the placement of obstacles is quite well thought out (despite some of them being a little too hard to react to). But it's very short and as a consequence it lacks a little bit of more development. Even the secret exit was just barely an expansion of the main level's ideas (+ a random bullet generator) and it also ended too quickly. I could've had much more of it! THEME: Grassland, Ruins ================================================= 068 - LAKE CONSTANCE DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 46/100 This is a fine level as far as romps go. I can see some thought in the enemy placement here and there. However, it's a very spread out and quite empty level a lot of the time. It also feels a little disjointed other than taking place in a lake. There's only so much you can do by using koopas and chucks almost exclusively... I also don't like the fish in the first half too much, sometimes (like in the bonus room) they're pretty narrow to dodge, pretty hard obstacles in comparison to anything else presented in the level. THEME: Lake, Swiss ================================================= 070 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 8/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 26/100 This level feels like absolute nonsense. In a good portion of it I just get the feeling you made landmasses first and then scattered enemies around. In the first room, you had this brilliant idea to split a door into two, which makes it unenterable in the middle and made me think there was nothing in there. It's possible to (awkwardly) get the P-switch by preserving running speed, which made me not have to investigate further, but this becomes a really huge issue when looking for the secret exit, for which the springboard is a requirement. The level has no focus other than using wall springboards a lot, but even they get dropped in the two final rooms. Footballs are frowned upon for a reason, they have random behavior and become really spammy in the descent room. The final room also feels a lot like it was just landmasses first and then you threw random enemies around. Some jumps are pretty awkward. I think my favorite part of the level is the secret room, but I seriously don't get the P-switch and your mindset that a room where you're stuck forever (and you miss getting the secret exit!) is a great reward for carrying it to the end. This level lacked testing, thoughtful design and direction. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 071 - Dark Data Tower DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 Very long (especially the first half) while not having much at all going for it in the design department - it's just a lot of enemies thrown around for the most part. Most of the first half is very boring and stretchy, but it picks up right before the midpoint which made me have to redo it over and over many, many times. I didn't enjoy the "surprise skull box" gimmick in the slightest, they're basically projectile chucks but unpredictable (or sky ambushes!), and the footballs are already bad enough on their own. Feels like it tries to be "non-linear" but it's really just zigzaggy, which visually I think you pulled off well (although solidity of things can be super unintuitive at times!), but it didn't help very much to make the level interesting to play. Doesn't help that it isn't focused on anything. Some rooms are super out of place - like the P-switch room (although the descent for the dragon coin is nice), the green room and also the final room. Not the first level that I feel tried to tell me a story but I didn't get it... oh well. Also I'm not sure about this secret exit... the koopa tip is really subtle. And it doesn't add a lot to the level ultimately. THEME: City ================================================= 072 - CAVE ISLAND DESIGN: 18/50 CREATIVITY: 8/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 37/100 It's cute. But pretty short, unchallenging and unmemorable! If you take out the completionist goals it lasts basically two seconds and it's just a grassland level with koopas and goombas. The sublevels also have their own little problems - in the cave there's a [safe] blind jump, and in the sky portion the platforms are awfully hard to time (there's a variety that only moves when you step on them). I'm willing to bet this is an early attempt at designing a level. Please keep trying, and next time try to focus on a gimmick or something! I see potential in you. THEME: CAVE ISLANDi mean Grassland ================================================= 073 - CLAUSTROPHOBICLIMB DESIGN: 25/50 CREATIVITY: 24/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 It's a risky gimmick. It feels weird to control cause Mario just goes so slow when he's climbing in comparison to his normal running speeds. I don't think it was introduced very well (kinda rough start), but I got the hang of it after a while. I think the key point that makes this level... not all that fun, is the contrast between segments of high precision and segments that you can (or that it seems like you can) just run through fast. I even almost out of reflex would just bruteforce a couple of setups because taking the time to do them seriously didn't feel like it was worth it. It was mostly fine during the first half (though the timing of the third dragon coin is ridiculous), but the second half got pretty tight here and there. Reflecting fireballs were super annoying and I don't think a water segment was very necessary. I don't think the level is terrible though, it's quite interesting. And it's kinda cute THEME: Grassland ================================================= 074 - Lava You Lots DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 50/100 I think the issue of this level is that it tries to do way too many things, and they end up not being very well integrated with each other - it feels like just a lot of "stuff" everywhere - buzzy beetles, spikey chains, chucks, thwimps, most of them don't do very much. Especially felt this in the split-path-ish segments in the first half. It does neat things though, like the enemies on lava concept that I wish you had developed further (much like most of the gimmicks). The second half grasps the difficulty curve well though, I like the final skull raft jump. I'd love to compliment the aesthetics cause some of what you did I find pretty neat but there's a lot of cutoff and weird palettes everywhere! Sad Day THEME: Volcano ================================================= 075 - On the Bayou DESIGN: 38/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 79/100 Beautiful, quite well designed but also very short, it could certainly stand to be longer. I quite like where it goes with the moving platforms gimmick, although I think it could've gone a bit further even if just with the elements you had. You abandoned pitchin' chucks and started relying a bit too much in munchers towards the end, while pitchin' chucks would've been great to develop the difficulty. The final setup was just a muncher corridor with no enemies which I found to be quite lame. Also the final room is short but it felt weirdly out of place. THEME: Forest, Swamp ================================================= 076 - VANILLA DOME 4 DESIGN: 7/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 34/100 Well, thanks for sparing us the green door, lol. What intrigues me a bit is why you have a debug door directly to the goal room? Were you checking if the goal works or something? That aside, the level design is functional (but not the level itself...) and the obstacles are placed effectively, but... both of the playable rooms are really slow, long, and they're not fun enough to make up for it. The second room specially is extremely tedious to play because it only demands for action between large intervals of staying still (also applies to first room to an extent), and one mistake forces you to redo the entire first room again, which is really terrible. Also, the palettes look pretty gross. I think even if the exits were set properly, this wouldn't have scored that high from what I saw. THEME: Sky, debug door world ================================================= 077 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 Adorable Meme Award DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 5/30 AESTHETICS: 4/20 TOTAL SCORE: 14/100 Mama Mia! It's short cave, desert edition. Where are the enemies in the first half, where's any saturation to the palette. I don't think the design in the second half could get much more linear with enemies thrown around. First-timer? Either way, keep trying! THEME: it's the Orange Desert ================================================= 078 - UNFORESEEN CONSEQ.1 DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 44/100 A level that felt very disjointed and misguided. Makes some weird decisions, like a path in the first half that's super hard to get to and there's absolutely no advantage in taking it, the bit that makes you lash to vines which is much harder than anything else around it, the midpoint making you skip two screens, podoboos that are annoying to deal with/unpredictable during skull rafts and the existence of the secret exit, which is a boo cloud room that has nothing to do with anything (it's ghosts, I guess...). It doesn't have any particular gimmick it sticks to and develops, just keeps introducing random basic concepts (like a P-balloon ride for no reason), and the difficulty didn't feel progressive either. Darkness gimmick makes you go slower but it could've been used more effectively. Also not sure what's up with the moon, it felt like I was taking the normal path when I got it!? THEME: Sewers ================================================= 079 - Nightmares' Temple DESIGN: 27/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 72/100 Okay, what an amazing looking level. I'm always stunned by how people can perform flavors like terror so effectively with vanilla. Amazing job! One point off only cause I think the fishbones look weird and other minor nitpicks. This is a level with lots of potential, lots of great ideas in the first half. But it was on the second half that I started to notice that there really isn't a central focus to this - the light gimmick hasn't been used to its full potential (the low ceiling with switches was a great idea, it's a shame it wasn't very effective in that area and was never used again) and was completely dropped eventually. I wish it was the central theme. Instead, the level has a lot of "miscellaneous" bits and challenges that often aren't that great or interesting and feel kind of pointless (the room with the thwomps above you, for example), and the second half moves to a in-level layer 2 gimmick (more like haunt the judge contest amirite). The second half is much weaker than the rest of the level. It feels weird to execute, it's basically a selection of weird "puzzles" like drag the shell to a specific spot or pay attention to the sneaky spike block while you go around to get a dragon coin - not really challenging, just pure execution. Then there's this part where you have to ride the key, get a springboard and ride it back. It's really really finicky compared to everything else in the level and the punishment for failing is instant death, and it can get annoying quite fast. Not much to say about the secret exit route, most of my main comments also apply, though I do have to compliment the flavor, it's pretty much the highlight of this level. THEME: HAUNTED SHIT, Castle ================================================= 080 - Missing Cleft DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 61/100 This level becomes better when you figure out what the gimmick is, and it honestly wasn't clear at first to me. I missed everything on my first run and started incidentally bumping my head in note blocks in my second run (I was annoyed cause they seemed random), and it took me a bit to realise the blocks could be seen when overlapping with the clouds. A few of them are pretty tricky to find, and I'm not even sure if you can line up the one that hides the fourth dragon coin with a cloud. This gimmick asks for an easy level and that's what you have here, but the level ended up quite uninteresting on its own. I think the idea is cool but it should be complementary and not the main thing going for the level imo, and it had to be presented more clearly and perhaps be executed better (put more clouds in the sky?). Cute little level still. THEME: Mountain, Sky ================================================= 081 - The Moon-Everest DESIGN: 13/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 6/20 TOTAL SCORE: 33/100 Sorry, it's quite a mess of a level. There doesn't seem to be thought for the sprite usage or placement, some enemies are quite annoying to deal with/require waiting while others are very easy to run past. Level is totally unfocused, starting with split path platforming, turning into "puzzles" and then the cramped corridor that is the second half - should mention that the opaque fog was a terrible choice as it can hide fireballs -, while the secret exit room has like some basic platforming, one overly awkward jump and an empty P-balloon segment with basically no challenge. Very messy and rather ugly aesthetically as well, with deco that can be mistaken for enemies and vice versa especially in the second half. Also uses like 5 songs, which is pretty unecessary and makes the level feel weird to play with so much change of pace. I'm not really sure what you were going for thematically, either. Btw: your tips level has some interesting information for the level, but it's not making it to the collab or being taken into account for the judging. You should've kept that in mind :/ THEME: Space? Mountain? Something?, Moon? ================================================= 082 - GENERIC FLYING FORT DESIGN: 28/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 54/100 This level starts to pick up a bit in the second half. The first half is very rompy and doesn't feel like it has much of a direction, while the second one starts to take some ideas and develop them nicely, but it still loses track pretty often - it turns interesting for a bit and then throws in some really boring arrangements. It didn't flow very well difficulty-wise either. The level has a focus problem because it tries to use way too many concepts - a P-switch, bullet machines and even thwimps don't play a huge role in it at all and I would rather have them not be used. Something that focused on grinders (especially line guided) and falling platforms and stuff to make place for setups like the final one would've been a lot nicer. It also suffers a lot from being very stretched out without that much going on. Regardless of all that, it's a decent level to play. I guess it stands for its name, lol THEME: Sky, Fortress ================================================= 083 - Urban Jungle DESIGN: 14/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 7/20 TOTAL SCORE: 36/100 I almost want to punish you for requiring switches for dragon coins argh (but I won't, really). This level has an awfully weird structure and it's very awkward to navigate. Lots of annoying enemy placements and munchers thrown around everywhere for no reason. Some split paths are quite nonsensical. The puzzles don't even seem properly tested. A lot of them require shells that are always screens away, and even if you know in advance that you'll need a shell it's still a nuisance to bring them, especially cause they're all red and the level gives you a yoshi (a shell plus yoshi are required for the last dragon coin!). The puzzle to get to yoshi looks completely broken and the 1-up a bit after the midpoint is impossible. Level is completely unfocused and doesn't seem to have any sort of direction, it's just a lot of things thrown together. The confusing nature of the level wasn't helped a slight bit by the overpowering decorations. Not A Fan THEME: City ================================================= 084 - TWISTICAL SHINOBI DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 46/100 Suffers from a very inconsistent difficulty curve and some very obnoxious obstacles. It becomes very tight and enemy and projectile spammy very often, sometimes being very annoying to navigate. The secret exit is a quite pointless shell gamble, and that path that I need to take anyway for the fourth dragon coin is really boring and slow in comparison to the rest of the level (not to mention it has very little to do with anything else in it). It's a really solid attempt for a first level and I'm impressed, but make sure to keep gimmick consistency and a good difficulty in mind for your future levels. Also I think the atmosphere is really cool, although the level doesn't look that great ultimately, sometimes even hinderingly. THEME: Forest, Oriental ================================================= 085 - Subterranean Shrine DESIGN: 42/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 81/100 This level is quite clever with the midway flag and very careful with not making the player feel lost. The design is very well thought out and flows really nicely, especially in the dropping segment. Feels a little too short though, I think I could've had more of it. That, or you could've spent more of this level using new concepts, like sparkys and the obstacles in the dropdown, rather than reusing a lot of Fortified Cavern's concepts. THEME: Fortress ================================================= 086 - VESTIGIA CAECA DESIGN: 40/50 CREATIVITY: 27/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 80/100 Pretty strong start, but the level gets weaker. The development and merging of ideas is in point in the first room, but I didn't quite feel it after the midpoint, and the final third just moves away almost completely from what the level introduced prior, focusing on random assorted "puzzles" with yoshi and moles (only relation to the rest of the level), not to mention how saturated it is with unecessary reset pipes (this is somewhat present in most of the level, but especially strong here). The bonus rooms also weren't the most cohesive to the level, and I was also a bit weirded out by how they deliberatedly make you skip parts of the main level's development. Overall it's a really creative level doomed by lack of better organization and cohesiveness. Looks okay, but kind of overwhelming sometimes. I think the lack of contrast between everything doesn't help. THEME: Cave, Moles ================================================= 087 - SWISS SPARKLES INC. DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 63/100 I really like some of the ideas presented by this level, but the execution of several gimmicks leaves a lot to be desired. Not much was done with the layer 2 falling, most enemy hopping/spinning sections felt samey, and the final room takes a completely different direction from where the level seemed to be going and ended very suddenly. I think a larger effort at focusing on the main gimmick and mixing it with your other ideas would've been good! I also don't like how many enemies feel obsolete, namely the piranha plants, in that hopping section they will hardly hit you and in the autoscroller they just don't allow you to jump which doesn't change much. Also I appreciate the effort for the tileset and all but honestly the palettes look really, really bad. THEME: Building, Swiss ================================================= 088 - COLOSSUS AUTONOMUS DESIGN: 8/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 43/100 This level is a chore. The first half is long, stretchy and boring. It's devoid of any development of gimmicks and it's filled with split paths whose existance feels pointless. The platforms make it much slower than it needed to be with its huge length and uneventfulness. The second half takes a turn to the frustrating and becomes ridiculously sprite spammy - after a long and slow climbing segment, it splits into an ascent with sky ambushes and a descent with blind drops that more often than not, seem to deliberately lead to getting hit or to death (it's -impossible- to predict that you need to wait for the platforms to line up right before the southern pipe in the outside room that splits). In the secret exit path, the level forces a dragon coin collector to take three long autoscrolling segments in a row, which feels as stressful as it can get, since death in any of them means redoing a LOT, but they STILL don't lack the most dangerous enemies that you could use. The level put a ridiculous amount of effort into its tileset and I won't hesitate to say that it paid off in the sense that it looks really pretty, but it really didn't in the sense that very often it looks extremely overwhelming and it does inflict negatively into the gameplay. It also didn't pay off in the sense that it wasn't used to craft a good level, which is really too bad. THEME: Building, Sky, Factory ================================================= 089 - ROOM 1F0 DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 59/100 This felt... weird. The name of the level implies 1F0 usage, but that's not even what this level is about, like, 3/4 of the time. All of the segments feel very disjointed thematically, and more often than not were super short lived or just involved getting a P-switch and going back or something. The attempt at non-linearity made the level's layout more confusing than anything to be honest. I'm not even sure if I did some parts of the level right (what's the point of the gray platforms in the final ascent to the end of the level?). Some of the aesthetic choices are pretty weird - I personally really dislike switch block outlines as 1F0 and they're especially wonky with the way they work with the platforms before the midpoint. The representation of death water is a strange choice to say the least. THEME: Lakeside, Building ================================================= 090 - Golden Bone Mine DESIGN: 18/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 Golden bones don't look that good. Or at least they don't blend very well with the original cave palette. Quite unfocused level, feels like a collection of miscellaneous cave setups in a random order. It feels like it never gets harder or progresses, it just keeps throwing different stuff at the player. The secret exit doesn't really add to the level and it's hidden in a very lazy spot. THEME: Cave, Grassland ================================================= 091 - Lost Leafage DESIGN: 31/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 72/100 Interesting level, ideas and setting, but the gameplay suffers from a few factors. The level gets cramped and sprite spammy very often, and that becomes a very glaring issue when the enemies used are bullet shooters and volcano loti. It feels there's always way too much going on at once on the screen to maneuver, and you'll more often than not get hit by projectiles you can't see or thorns you overlooked. There are various parts that are just awkward to pull off. It feels like you tried to remedy that by ridiculously overstaturating the level with powerups (and as absurd as it may sound, it seems like there's more than twice as many of them if you have the switches on). The abundance of powerups influences the player to play sloppier though, which is not good. It doesn't help the level that the momentum is all over the place - you have areas where you're rewarded by rushing, areas that will certainly punish you if you rush and areas that are just waits for pokeys (although I do appreciate the usage of throw blocks in many places, they don't always kill the wait). The gimmicks and ideas were developed, but not all that smoothly. I'm fairly sure you could've cut some filler parts out and compressed it into a single checkpoint stage. It also ends very abruptly. THEME: Forest, City ================================================= 092 - Broken Bridge Way DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 8/30 AESTHETICS: 6/20 TOTAL SCORE: 25/100 I appreciate it stickying to the vine theme a little, at least, but this level is really bland and uninspired. It doesn't do anything with the vines other than the simplest clinging segments, and the platforming areas are very dull and unrelated. The level doesn't pull off looking like a construction site in the slightest, you would need more than just vanilla objects I'm sure, and even with them you could've done a better job by using the temple thingies from Awesome. No music???????????? THEME: Forest ================================================= 093 - BUBBLE TROUBLE DESIGN: 21/50 CREATIVITY: 20/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 56/100 Cute concept, but the level is really long and has almost nothing going for it. The first half is almost completely stale in obstacles and difficulty. Only in the second half the platforming (between water bubbles) starts to get a little tighter, but the gimmicks are super underdeveloped, and it's a shame cause I see a lot of potential in water bubbles and platforms and spinies being slowed down, etc. Yeah... THEME: Grassland, Water ================================================= 094 - Tropical Island DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 7/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 33/100 Level says it has a secret exit but it doesn't. It's extremely short and lacks of any sense of progression or focus. It just throws a few random things at the player and ends. It also has various minor flaws like unpredictable enemies (disco shell if you drop at that hole, parakoopa at the end), secrets hidden cheapily (dragon coin #4) and the cramped space at the sublevel. Try studying level design a bit more and try again! THEME: Seaside ================================================= 095 - VANILLA SECRET 1 DESIGN: 37/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 76/100 To say the least, this level is pretty interesting. It didn't look very promising and just felt like a jankfest at first, but a few rooms are taken some interesting places. It can get pretty needlessly finicky at places, but luckily the level is pretty forgiving. I wish there was more to it than just the gimmick though, and I'm sure it could be twisted in more ways if you integrated obstacle elements more often. Lots of potential, just decent execution. THEME: Building, Haunted ================================================= 096 - Boom Beach DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 39/100 Very simple romp. It does get harder in the second half (maybe overly so when compared to the first), but mostly because the enemies are more condensed and the bullet machines are on ground level. The placement of enemies isn't very creative and it's easy to just jump over all of them. It isn't a terrible level though, so keep trying! There's a springboard I couldn't find the use for... also, palettes are pretty egh THEME: Beach ================================================= 097 - FRIEND OR FOE? DESIGN: 6/50 CREATIVITY: 27/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 38/100 Okay, you took one heck of a chance to submit this to VLDC. I have to thank you for doing it, because it was completely unexpected and somewhat of a neat surprise. But sadly, the gameplay it offers is extremely bare, consisting of only two different possible "attack" rooms. It also looks really awful anywhere outside of the text rooms... I'm not giving you full creativity points either because this could've been pushed much further - while the idea and concept were neat, its execution was extremely limited. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 099 - NOTE BLOCKS !!! DESIGN: 26/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 61/100 Note blocks are certainly underrated, but boy, how much else could you have done with this! Level has a pretty nice start, seems like you'll have to dodge line guided hazards while constantly bouncing and not being able to spin jump which is super cool, but it never really evolves. The "duck or jump over" tip after the midpoint is almost useless, I never had to duck and only had to jump over stuff a few times. Also ends very abruptly. I think this level needed more time. I don't diss on vanilla looks, but this looked a bit unorganized here and there, but it's mostly ok. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 100 - Koopa Mountain DESIGN: 9/50 CREATIVITY: 6/30 AESTHETICS: 4/20 TOTAL SCORE: 19/100 Very spread out and large level with not much going on. No focus, it just feels like a lot of different, disconnected parts. Pretty weirdly constructed, too. Looks like a classic beginner's level, but don't give up! Practice leads to [nearly] perfection. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 101 - Hop-On, Hop-Off DESIGN: 31/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 61/100 Pure platforming levels are always quite nice and energetic, but the execution of this one leaves a tad to be desired. This level doesn't flow very well, for sometimes slowing down awkwardly (suddenly you stop to wait for a carrot lift to line up), but especially in development of gimmicks and difficulty. A saw hop would've been a nice way to end the level if that hadn't already been done somewhere in the first half. The enemy placement is not always used very well in advantage of making the design more interesting, many setups of the level are very easy to just spin jump over. The second and third dragon coins are pretty rough to get in the first try. THEME: Sky ================================================= 102 - Gorgon's Garden DESIGN: 14/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 52/100 Well, do I need to spell out what the #1 problem is? I really dig the concept and the level looks great, but the fog covers the level and the sprites. It's already pretty difficult to distinguish solid from unsolid from things that hurt you cause everything is the same color and it isn't always obvious or intuitive - which on its own is already an issue. The fog hid enemies and fireballs and killed me unfairly various times. Fortunately the level isn't very long and it's also really simple so it's not a big hassle to go through. But obviously I'd rather have something with more interesting gameplay and without the aesthetic that gets on its way. I'm sad, cause I think the looks and the concept are very good. THEME: Castle, Grassland ================================================= 103 - SPACE ODYSSEY DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 56/100 There's lots of potential with your gimmicks here, but you've used them in rather dry and... uninteresting ways. In parts where you toss an item on 1F0 to step on it you could've easily just made that normal floor instead and it wouldn't change anything. The red pipes were more of an aesthetic gimmick; while they made the level a bit funny sometimes, they didn't add a lot of design value. If you can catch what I mean. Everything feels quite disjointed - setups that don't have much to do with one another and don't give a sense of progression and development of ideas - and sometimes out of order (some of the harder setups are in the beginning, stuff like this). Time can also run short in the secret exit path, especially with that key ride at the end which isn't particularly fun to pull off at all. Feels like it's there just for the sake of being there... much like a lot of this level. THEME: Space, Planet ================================================= 104 - Movie Night DESIGN: 25/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 7/20 TOTAL SCORE: 53/100 This level has charm, I'll give you that. It doesn't look very good and the plot is kind of confusing, but I really like how you used "every plant has a home" to hide a secret, that was neat. The level doesn't have a central gimmick and the development of the design is lacking, but it is a quite decent, yet still very short romp. THEME: Building ================================================= 106 - Luminous Hollow DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 20/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 62/100 The tileset you created is interesting, but the often wacky usage (zig-zaggy line guides for no reason) and sometimes use of too many different elements in a single screen hurt the looks of this level a lot. The level has a lot of gimmicks that aren't developed that much or merged together that well (the falling platforms are very underused for example), giving place to a lot of basic arrangements instead. A few setups are quite tricky to time in comparison to everything else (in particular a few ones in the middle of the second half), and seem to favor running past them as fast as possible and punish waiting for the timing of all the elements to line up, which is what you'd usually do in your first run. Also there are really lots of enemies that aren't well placed and will almost never be a menace. THEME: Cave, Mine ================================================= 108 - DISCO OF THE DEAD DESIGN: 14/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 36/100 Hey, did you realise the upside down rails are tile 1F0? I don't think you tested your goal room thingy cause it doesn't work thanks to them, lol... This level is super cramped and I think it knows that given how many powerups there are scattered everywhere. It's very short and doesn't do anything with the design or makes any creative use of the gimmicks. The layer 2 is just there, all it does is make you wait sometimes. Disco shell placement is samey and the pitchin' chucks are a really bad choice for tight spaces. Not a big fan of the looks either, but props for using the AUS song. super ez/obvious/meh moon but the broken bonus game is funny THEME: Cave, from Forest ================================================= 109 - SPOOKY STRONGHOLD DESIGN: 28/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 There's nice ideas and mixing of elements here, but the execution leaves way too much to be desired. The obstacle design is very simple, often not very thoughtful, and it wastes much of the potential of the elements you used. The usage of mushroom scales in the second half is barely added by the layer 2 other than you have to wait for a bit to things to line up. The extra rooms feel very incomplete and barely take their ideas anywhere, and they have next to no correlation to what's done in the main level. THEME: Fortress, Forest, Haunted ================================================= 110 - Fortress of Decay DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 20/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 56/100 I want to compliment you so much for the aesthetics, but the foreground and sprites have this weird color!!! The main path of the level is very unfocused. Even near the end of the level you were still trying to introduce piranhas and boo blocks. A better formula for a level is always picking a few concepts and developing them instead, rather than using every sprite in the tileset for a few screens each (shoutouts to mister fishin' boo that lasts two screens, and quite intrusively at that - if you think it doesn't deserve more than that why use it at all?). Level turned out very rompy and not too memorable. Also, time can run a bit short if you don't die. I like how the secret exit is hidden. When I entered the dark room, I thought I was seeing a concept where the sparky would show you where the line guide goes, and I thought it was genius, but I was disappointed to see that's not what the room was about - instead it was a quite boring and very standard line guided segment where you make the player take gambles on whether they have to hit the switch or not to get to the right place (and you can't see the lines at all as a bonus). What's worse (or is it?) is how stupidly easy it is to just cheese it and jump to the secret exit when you're taken to the "game over" pipe. Also, I don't think podoboos were a very good choice there for the most part. Yeah, this level has some issues. THEME: City, Pollution, Building? ================================================= 111 - An Unusual Trip Out DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 60/100 The first half is certainly of quality as an automatic level, but that's kinda defying from what this contest is about - playability. Also, it's very VERY confusing in your first run. For some reason I tried collecting all the coins because it seemed to favor doing that. The rest of the level is a handful of challenges that have very little to do with one another. It felt... fine to execute at best. The side puzzles aren't even that challenging, they're very straight-forward (except the moon, that looks insane) and I really don't like how a very random pipe takes to one of the dragon coins. Don't feel very strongly about the design of this one. Try using a central idea next time. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 112 - VULPINE LOVE STORY DESIGN: 13/50 CREATIVITY: 16/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 43/100 AWW WHAT AN ADORABLE LEVEL. I think with some effort, it's possible to make something like this also interesting to play, but I didn't feel this one that much because it's super unbalanced. Some parts are really awkward and HARD, the bit with the fourth dragon coin is super annoying to do. Spinjumping on things that move fast and that have weird hitboxes (saws) is hard man. And then the rest of the level is just there, ride some platforms that don't make a lot of sense and jump around in some chunks of land that exist. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 114 - FOREST OF ILLUSION 2 DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 34/100 Really not sure at all what you were going for design-wise here. This level is really really stretched and empty and when some action happens it's just the jump over stuff kinda obstacles. Has a lot of awkward super high and far jumps for no reason too. And if that wasn't enough, the orange platform segment is super slow and boring. And the secret exit is just arbitrarily above the normal exit (not even hidden at all), so I get to play all that twice! You managed to make some of the worst decisions you could somehow. I like the music though. And the tileset, kind of... sort of. THEME: City ================================================= 115 - RUINS OF ICARUS DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 50/100 This level's structure is very misleading at first. I don't like how there's that door blocked off that you can't access in the normal path. If you wanted to go for some "ruins" lore, you should've used a message or something. This level is quite awkward to play, and that holds true especially if you're going for a dragon coin run. Having to reach platforms too high for the camera to see is a requirement for the second one, and that also becomes a running theme in the main path during the second half. The third dragon's spot is HARD to get back from. And the last two are some heavy item babysitting. The secret exit is a lowkey blind jump (and seems almost impossible to get back from) unless you have switches on. The level is pretty unfocused, with a first half mostly based on pure platforming and hopping on things and a second half that's just waiting for spinjumpable enemies to line up with your needs. It's really dry and empty in actual obstacles amd it gets gradually worse - almost every single enemy of the second half is there just to make jumps performable. THEME: Sky, Ruins ================================================= 116 - Balloons! DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 65/100 I have to admit this level is extremely clever in a lot of what it does, but I have a few very important problems with it. I should mention right away that a lot of the enemies in the ballooning segments aren't really dangerous, in particular the fish bubbles - they won't hit you if you pop them. Right, so my main gripe... is how confusing this level is, ESPECIALLY in your first try. It doesn't help how some of the balloons in the first half are completely redundant (the balloon I thought was necessary for the sublevel challenge isn't cause there's one just before the pipe). In the second half (much longer than the first by the way), it wasn't really clear that mushrooms were to be avoided, and that's because in like, half of the setups where using select to cancel the balloon is suggested, it's possible to just wait for it to run out instead. I also didn't know you could stomp on enemies while ballooning and that made me need to use the duck glitch to get through the first lotus setup in the second half. It's still kind of annoying to manage to stomp on them without getting hurt. The level is... really broken all over the place, and that didn't help its lack of intuitiveness in the slightest. My first playthrough felt extremely wacky and that can't mean anything good. Also, the outer segments felt quite disjointed from the main theme of the level, when I feel they could've been used to help it - perhaps little "tip" rooms? Level looks alright but erasing the status bar was a weird choice to be honest. Couldn't even keep track of my dragon coins. THEME: Sky, Castle ================================================= 117 - The Night Garden DESIGN: 32/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 65/100 Got some vibes from FrozenQuills's and SNN's entries from last year. It settles that it is an exploration level and stays an exploration level to the end, something I appreciate. For the most part, it is really simple in what it does, be that the gameplay, obstacles or even the complexity of the exploration itself. It doesn't really feel progressive gimmick or difficulty-wise and some bonus areas feel really disjointed. But considering what it set to be, it is enjoyable. Quick and not too overwhelming. I really love how it looks and how it feels to play it thanks to the atmosphere. THEME: Forest ================================================= 118 - Obscure Fields DESIGN: 9/50 CREATIVITY: 5/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 22/100 An extremely short and very uninspired level. There's no central focus, and some parts are quite awkward to play, like the boo block jump and the powerup in the tight corridor with a saw. Keep trying! THEME: Haunted, Mountain, Shore ================================================= 119 - Sweet Tooth DESIGN: 32/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 Other than the banzai bill before the midpoint and a few setups with note blocks, I think a lot of setups here have some potential but give too much leeway. Like the chucks that are supposed to break the blocks where you're stepping on, I think it's almost impossible for them to be a risk if you're not a super slow player. Some of this level is clever, but a lot of it is very basic platforming action and just waiting for the chuck on the other side to open the way. Solid, but could've done a lot more! Also the palette is sweet as is the BG, but I personally think SMW's cloud FG is very bad. THEME: Clouds, tooth...? ================================================= 120 - Abstract Plain's This level was not made by Aristocrat DESIGN: 10/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 300/20 TOTAL SCORE: 38/100 This level is actually hilarious. I think it goes without saying that these 105/106 edits and the Bowser fight have very little gameplay value, but I'm glad you made it surprisingly not atrocious to play through (punishes exploration tho) cause that would've ruined everything. I even think the first bonus room is a little interesting. Well, congrats, you won VLDCX, I guess, in a way. THEME: hell, Bowser ================================================= 121 - Cleft of Luxetumbra DESIGN: 28/50 CREATIVITY: 24/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 71/100 The concept is really cool and visually very nice, too. However I feel like it fits better as a puzzle concept, despite it making you change constantly the level felt super linear most of the time. On top of that, I didn't feel the design much at all, would even dare to say it feels like you made the land shapes first and scattered some jumping guys and spike tops around later. It didn't feel progressive. Also I find it a little weird how it feels like you're exploiting the level sometimes (to get the 1st and 4th dragon coin) and you kinda do cause you skip parts of the level by doing so. Also I'm disappointed by how the secret exit pipe doesn't follow the rules! THEME: Ice ================================================= 122 - Sandy Seafood DESIGN: 39/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 84/100 This level is generally very good, but I have some quirks with it. There are really great ideas in it and their execution is pretty exceptional, but I feel the organization is a little lacking. The setups aren't in a very logical order of development, and although all the gameplay gimmicks are mixed quite well with each other, it doesn't feel too obvious because of that. I also don't like the two bonus rooms, they don't feel like they belong. I found the first one not very obvious to perform (I completely missed the safe spot in the ceiling in my first try though, so that's my fault...) and the second one has urchins for nothing... On a separate note, you get a full aesthetics score despite using atrocious unused switch blocks as tile 1F0. Congrats I guess THEME: Desert, Ruins ================================================= 123 - To Heck With Marios Tool Usage-Surrendering Bullshit Certificate DESIGN: 7/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 27/100 Level is a series of random and very difficult tasks. First half is DOABLE, but the second half is some kaizo garbage. The tight place with the diagonal fireballs and bullet shooters right after the midpoint is BAD, VERY VERY BAD, and the fact it's the very first setup of the second half makes the rest of it really stressful. And of course there's some other setups similar to that one later on. The layer 2 room has absolutely no place where it is, considering it's fast-paced and it's almost impossible to make it on the first try (you have to know how to deal with it and be fast). Even if the second half was on the tier of the first, this level still lacks focus and a clear direction. Feels like it's a random series of challenges you came up with. I think the backgrounds are creative, but most of the level looks pretty bad. I guess Mario did go to Heck after all THEME: heck ================================================= 124 - TEMPLE OF ATLANTIS DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: /100 A short, quite uneventful level that's lacks any sense of progression. Just a lot of random obstacles thrown around, some of them thoughtlessly, it feels like. The first half has a couple of cramped bits that are almost impossible to dodge unless you swim back and wait or something. THEME: Fortress, Sea, Water ================================================= 125 - DOLPHIN'S BET DESIGN: 13/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 35/100 This level makes no sense. It's a little redeemed because of the two somewhat fun rooms and bits of creativity (that most of the time aren't even used well). The first room and the two rooms after the midpoint are just so boring to play over and over when you die in the more energetic and more bearable rooms that come afterwards. Their difficulty really doesn't take the boring rooms into account. Even then, the level's theme is completely disjointed and nonsensical. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 126 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 6/50 CREATIVITY: 3/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 17/100 There's not much to see here. Nothing, but a nice, passionate attempt. Keep practicing! THEME: Grassland ================================================= 127 - Down Monty Mountain DESIGN: 26/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 71/100 A very sweet romp. It's really easy and spread apart, but it makes solid usage of the gimmicks it picks. Changes them pretty strongly between the two halves however. The first half had some rad chained platform concepts I wanted to see you blend into the second half with the moles as well. Also the camouflaged enemies looked super cool and you should've used them more as well! I have a lot more to say, sadly. The midpoint is very loopsided. The first half is more like a first third. My biggest issue is what the post-midpoint segments are like - the first half is a long mole riding-themed room, which is pretty clever and swell if you only have to do it a few times, but gets stale and tedious after a lot of tries. And the final chunk of the level is much harder than anything else, and far more punishing - it's full of holes. My biggest gripe is of course the secret exit. I think that room is really rad and cool, but one little mistake means death and it means that you have to do the mole riding segment again. It annoys me greatly how either moving the midpoint one room further or moving the pipe that takes to the secret room one room prior would've gotten rid of this issue. The level is really really long and stretchy and could've easily been made shorter. There are many linear, goomba dodging segments especially in the final room that you could've done without. THEME: Forest ================================================= 128 - Sizzle-Rock Clifs DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 7/30 AESTHETICS: 7/20 TOTAL SCORE: 31/100 This is Koopas And Goombas the level, with a skull raft intermission. There's not a lot of thought on enemy placement and obstacles. Most enemies are just there, some aren't even a menace, and some are in the way in a much more finicky way than you'd expect from a good difficulty curve (like some of the chucks in the second half, and that one bat before the third dragon coin that is a guaranteed death unless you know you just have to duck...), making the level not that interesting at all to play. The secret exit is kinda Butts, it's very in your face and the sublevel has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the stage, and it uses the boo cloud which is almost a free point loss. THEME: Volcano, oops sorry for the spoilers! ================================================= 129 - Elemental Heavens DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 50/100 Kind of a messy, very compact level, kind of stretched by the two dragon coin rooms that need to be redone constantly, which gets very boring. The first half feels quite randomly designed. The second half flows a bit more nicely but it can get really cramped sometimes. Level has a lot of tiny issues - broken/cheeseable setups, arbitrary stuff (long pointless waits and enemies that you won't ever reach), and sometimes visual overwhelmingness. I'm not the biggest fan. THEME: Sky ================================================= 130 - Forest Level DESIGN: 3/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 45/100 Kind of a cliche, but it's still cool to find out what happened by putting the small pieces together (though I will say figuring out riddles is not my forte and it still felt vague to me). For a type of level that I feel should focus on exploration, it was really linear and almost had no secrets (and "go through a random block that's unsolid" is a lame secret, I'm glad it was just done once). The theme kind of demands for no gameplay and the level delivers I guess, so there's not much going for it other than the plot and setting, and going through stretchy empty corridors if you're into that... I think a few rooms look too busy and overdecorated and that honestly hindered the experience a bit. THEME: Forest ================================================= 131 - Red Planet Station DESIGN: 13/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 Some weird excuse to make like, five completely different levels for a contest (that you have to play in one single shot other than the final bit). Most of them suffer from being super cramped, especially the grid zone, the water cave and (ugh) the haunted room. The puzzle room just felt weird, I'll never get "puzzles" where you just have to press switches and zig-zag around the room. Also the secret exit is the embodiment of stupid. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 132 - A Moonlit Path DESIGN: 18/50 CREATIVITY: 9/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 41/100 Too short level. It feels underdeveloped, enemies are almost always used "one at a time", which limits the creativity of your setups a lot. It seems to have put a lot of effort into the looks, but it looks too oversaturated in decoration sometimes, and the colors could stand to be better. I'm not gonna pick on you for using volcano lotuses as deco though, I think it's actually nice how it makes you pay attention, and it's an easy enough level for that to be appropriate. But it's still not very interesting to play. THEME: Forest, Swamp ================================================= 133 - 2 exit level DESIGN: 12/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 32/100 It's a weird, unfocused, but otherwise innocent-ish level until the vertical segment which rammed my experience into the ground. I'm not sure why you thought the level needed impossible to predict sky ambushes and a baseball swarm in it? It's also a terrible environment to look for the secret exit, which is pretty stupid to find, and just consists of another not very well thought out, out of place room in a level where everything feels to be out of place. THEME: Abstract, Neon ================================================= 134 - CHAINSAW CD DESIGN: 31/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 70/100 Sweet but short. It feels like every cool concept you introduced was only used twice or so, which is unfortunate cause there was a lot of room for development with the gimmicks you had at hand. I'm not a fan of the slow moles, and the autoscrolling section could've just not had the top line cause it was never a menace lol. Good level but I'm left wishing for more. Also looks cool, but the colors made solid and non-solid objects/the BG a bit confusing to distinguish sometimes. THEME: Construction site, Desert ================================================= 135 - Sky Mines DESIGN: 39/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 73/100 A short but pretty solid stage. The second half is a little slow and has a couple of segments that are hard to anticipate (first diggin' chuck rock and fourth dragon coin) and I feel it's not developed as much as the first and ends a bit too soon. THEME: Mountain ================================================= 136 - Bowser's Villa DESIGN: 27/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 63/100 This isn't a villa it's a castlE!!!!!!!!! The interesting part of this level is the second half, the platforming segments, and even they could've been more interesting, sometimes they're just too "pure" (nothing but hopping from platform to platform where the only risk is falling down). I don't know how you pulled off this platforms that make you move thing but it's a really neat concept that should've been used more often in obstacle courses. This level's #1 problem is lack of direction. It starts off introducing this white/black squares gimmick that's useful for nothing but for a podoboo or two in the first half, completely dropped in the second and kind of handy in the """boss""", but I don't see why just coins wouldn't do the job instead. The first bit is about conveyors, then it becomes a half-water room based around sparkys, and the second half takes a completely different direction with moving platforms and grinders. And the final segment is a really not-boss-like room that tries to give squares some use, which wasn't necessary. It's a completely disjointed level for the most part - other than trying to use what it introduced very subtly sometimes -, whereas certain gimmicks you had seem to have enough potential to have been developed into something much better. I really like the swimming with tides (when you go to the left, moreso) while avoiding things with fast moving patterns, and I really like the wacky platforms. Either of these gimmicks I think you should've pushed forward. The first and last room don't really have a theme to them and didn't stand out to me gameplay-wise. Should've worked on your colors too, the background in the inner segments is super in the way of viewability. Everything is too gray... THEME: Castle, Bowser ================================================= 137 - DanishSUPERBLOckTM DESIGN: 21/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 52/100 The gimmick is introduced very poorly - took me 3 lives to understand what was going on. All it boils down to is really finding the question block pattern and keeping it in mind when the blocks come up. The fact the reverse question marks are a little difficult to parse didn't add much to it in my opinion. The gimmick gets really samey quite quickly, and it doesn't help the level much with its very repetitive/copy-pasted design. It threatens to develop into having to uncover the patterns, but that ended up not happening. THEME: Fortress ================================================= 138 - Tidal Temple DESIGN: 48/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 94/100 Exceptionally well designed level, despite playing it safe for the most part and ending up being quite short (I'm glad you haven't overdone it, though!). The focus on ideas for each segment is very clear, and it never gets too overwhelming or spikes in difficulty. I honestly have very little to complain about this one. I guess I can say the background could use a better palette, but the athmosphere in general is neat. THEME: Castle, Water ================================================= 139 - Cloudcandy Castle DESIGN: 35/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 63/100 It is pretty mindless, the difficulty of the obstacles is wobbly and there is no central idea to be found anywhere, but it is a quite fun little level to play. The midpoint in the (unmarked) secret exit path is broken though. THEME: Fortress, Sky, Pink ================================================= 140 - Fish N' Bits DESIGN: 28/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 Most of what this level does seems to be for visual effect. Lots of fishes that are just there to fall on your head or big lines of grinders that are barely hazardous. I mean, they look very cool (I love how this level looks!). But the gimmicks feel underdeveloped. You had the concept of dolphin ceilings in your hands (it's cool to play with, I've been there!) plus line guides. Level's also on the shorter end of things. It happens way too quickly and the design wasn't very memorable! Not a fan of seeing levels with this much potential that don't go wild. THEME: Shore, Water, sharp stuff ================================================= 141 - GENOCIDE CITY DESIGN: 43/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 87/100 It's a little rompy but it's extremely solid. It introduces and uses gimmicks extremely well, though I missed the going behind the fence thing a bit in the end. I'd love to see the gimmicks blended together in more creative ways. The secret exit is really neat and I like how it focuses on a gimmick that's otherwise used very subtly. I dig the survival for the key! THEME: City ================================================= 142 - Koopa Koal Ko. Line DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 75/100 This level has an incredible setting, and it takes advantage of it to pull off some really neat design ideas. The execution was okay, if not a little lacking, but also often flawed. The autoscroller rooms felt a little wasted (first one moreso) and the inner segments in specific had a lot of awkward spots, like that volcano lotus you had to have there for no reason. My biggest issue is the second half, which presents a really awesome "mole holes" gimmick, but barely takes advantage of it. You only need the holes they make twice, making the existance a lot of the spots you can end up at redundant, and letting you very easily just rush through almost the entire room. The way to the final dragon coin is really cramped and much harder and more annoying than anything in the rest of level. THEME: City, Train, WAAAAAAA ================================================= 143 - DELUGED FESTIVAL DESIGN: 28/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 66/100 Some cool ideas are there, but overall the execution is kind of dry - the interesting setups and obstacles that are actually well placed are pretty far apart, while a bunch of them are not very well thought out. The first half in special is very boring and uneventful, and the bullet generator that goes and comes back randomly doesn't help. Also feels disjointed, with a variety of gimmicks that while mostly involve water, aren't really connected or reused all that much between rooms. The elevator room though really has nothing to do with anything. It was a little janky at first, but it's mostly fair, I'm just bothered by that when the ninjis die is not indicated at all. This P-balloon + elevator mechanic (press down to speed up and release to slow down) is really cool and it's a shame that it was barely explored at all (I wonder if you even noticed how it works). The secret exit is pretty dumb, basically just remember the message and enter a random pipe way at the end (aka play the entire level twice). Also thanks for locking your entry, I guess. THEME: Water, Building ================================================= 144 - CAVE ESCAPE 3 DESIGN: 22/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 45/100 Very very simple, doesn't seem to be sure what it wants to do and ends up feeling pretty disjointed by using a wide variety of sprites, not really excelling at the usage of any of them. Breaks the linearity artificially a lot - the back-and-forths don't add very much to the level, and as a side effect it becomes very cramped sometimes, and it being quite crowded doesn't help very much. The moon is very very very very very very very very very very bad. You should be ashamed for placing this moon. (no point deduction, just happiness deduction) THEME: Cave ================================================= 145 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 Riding spinies isn't that interesting on itself, nor inside the cramped spaces in this level. There are a bunch of awkward setups, like one bit at the cave where the camera doesn't scroll up and you can't see where to land from spinjumping in some spiny egg. Lots of random enemies all over the place. The level doesn't flow very nicely - the setups don't get harder, feels more like the waiting gets longer as the level progresses. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 146 - VERTIGO DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 14/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 33/100 Your mistakes: Things are temporarily completely invisible, including -spikes- and -ENEMIES-. Several times I've bumped into something invisible. This gimmick is not the place for one-tile jumps. Near the end the grinders are very unpredictable and there's a hole under them, where it seems intuitive to have ground. The execution could've been far, far better. A disrupting gimmick like this asks for something much more friendly. The level is thankfully short however, and somewhat bearable. It takes a while to learn and it HAS to be learned, and it still can get you unfairly anyway. I'm not a fan, but also not the biggest hater. And I think it looks kinda cool. THEME: Abstract, hell ================================================= 147 - Linespace DESIGN: 42/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 19/20 TOTAL SCORE: 83/100 For an autoscroller, I think the first half lacked some meat, some action, to keep the player interested. Most of it is just following the path and timing a few things. The concept of ninjis and holes is interesting but I don't think it was enough on its own for that. The second half is pretty cool, though. I think the level suffered from being a little too short, I feel you had a lot of room to try new things and innovate a lot more. The boss is cool, but I was confused about what I had to do with that orb in the "first form" (got hurt by jumping at it from below at first, maybe I'm just dumb lol). (who's tanasinn) The level looks really cool, quite simplistic but it does that in the best way possible. Though the gradient in the background lines bothers me a little for some reason, they don't seem to fit all that well being that detailed compared to most foreground objects I think? Also turn block bridges can unfairly trick the player as they're solid in the bottom unlike all the other same-looking platforms, it happened to me a few times... THEME: Neon ================================================= 148 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 7/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 28/100 Quite short and unmemorable. The setups are very stale, there's not really a progression in complexity and difficulty, they're just there. The most dangerous obstacles are bats that will most certainly hit you if you're rushing through the level, which the blandness of the level otherwise encourages. It doesn't look terrible, but lots of random slopes everywhere and the fog that follows you vertically bug me a tad. THEME: Cave ================================================= 149 - HACK METROID DESIGN: 23/50 CREATIVITY: 15/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 53/100 ahahaha oh my God that's one wacky sun. This is a nice romp, I like how it tries to mimic the SMB3 desert levels. The pyramids are neat. It makes some wacky design choices here and there however, I'm not a fan of the piranhas after the midpoint, the clapping chucks near the end and the random bullet generator, some things like these that felt shoehorned into the level for lack of better ideas. Would be nice if you reused the sand blaargs or something, and kept some focus in the level other than the structures and the goombas/buzzy beetles. Also the last dragon coin is super awkward to get through the "intended method", and I'm not sure why the wall to its left breaks the color rules and is randomly passable. THEME: Desert, :praisethesun: ================================================= 150 - The Death Star DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 22/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 66/100 This level looks absolutely gorgeous, the palettes and the tileset are on point! The first half lacks focus. A lot of different ideas and setups are used in the first room, sadly not very cleverly. The trapped bombs would be neat if they were more of a menace most of the time. The fires are much more annoying to deal with than anything around them. The second room also seems unsure about what it's about, not developing the concept of rope turtles (supposedly the central theme) much at all. The second half is solid, but also quite simple and it doesn't do much with the concept of layer 2 other than being a waiting game. I think this level could've been executed a lot better design wise, but I really dig the flavor and thematic progression, so there's definitely something going for it. THEME: Space ================================================= 151 - Shroom Starship DESIGN: 46/50 CREATIVITY: 30/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 94/100 God, this wasn't a level, this was an event. The first half was just excellent in almost every way, amazing usage of the underwater enemies glitch! The second half slowly gets a little less interesting in design and quite unfocused compared to the first, dropping the rad gimmicks, but I appreciate it for telling a story and looking so neat. Would be rad if it did both things though. The final space swim in special is pretty boring compared to everything else. Other issues I have are with some of the dragon coin puzzles, in special the multi-coin block one which is a bit too weird to figure out (bop it twice quickly before the shell is thrown seems to work). I'd swap it with the moon puzzle, which is also a bit awkward cause the mole can kill you when going over the tiny gap, which doesn't seem intended. For the second dragon I also got the bomb to despawn somehow before being able to figure it out. But compared to the greatness of the level, those aren't very big nitpicks. THEME: Space ================================================= 152 - Crystal Chamber DESIGN: 36/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 16/20 TOTAL SCORE: 73/100 The level presents a lot of ideas and develops them all, although the development feels a bit random. There isn't much of a difficulty or complexity development, in particular in the second half. I think a lot of the setups are quite clever though - although they're not new or innovative, you two made a nice usage of the gimmicks you had! The darkness gimmick was really just visual though, I wish it had a bigger impact on gameplay, but I can see that being hard to pull off without making the level flat out annoying. The second half already had enough waiting I feel. Not too big on some of the sublevels, I find it super cool that they introduce gimmicks that get used later on, but some are really uneventful (third and final dragon coins come to mind) and the first two make you skip LARGE chunks of the level for no reason. Also, I don't think the secret exit was very necessary. Forces you to play half of the level again (which may have happened before if you had trouble with dragons) and the room itself is really quite uninteresting. I think the moon was enough for a dragon coin bonus reward. THEME: Cave, Hinalyte, Mirann ================================================= 153 - HD Peridot Temple DESIGN: 5/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 21/100 I have no idea what you were trying to do with this level, and most likely, neither did you. I've never seen something so abstract, nonsensical and devoid of any direction... and of level design, for that matter. Keep trying though. heart THEME: Abstract, Fortress ================================================= 154 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 6/50 CREATIVITY: 5/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 15/100 A super short ascent that happens. It seems more concerned with being symmetrical than actually having thoughtful design. Most of it is pure platforming, jumping from one platform to another without any real risk. The secret exit is pretty stupid but it's also just another normal exit so whatever (you didn't even bother with making a room and just recycled a SMW room ok). Also why did you put only one dragon coin lol THEME: Cave ================================================= 155 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 30/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 58/100 Much of what you have to do in this level is a lot more precise than I believe you gave it credit for. Spin-jumping on single rocks, or fuzzies, is pretty harsh, and the level is really not forgiving with pits being everywhere rather than just hurt blocks. The first half has a good length for its difficulty, but the second half pushes it a bit too much. I wouldn't have that much of an issue with the length, honestly, if one; it was more first try friendly - which seems like you tried to do, but you did not succeed everytime, -glaringly- not in the very last obstacle ("RUN"), which hurt my experience a lot - and two; it didn't have certain awkward bits - the very first fuzzy jump in the second half for example is very harsh on big Mario, and the excentric saws at the beginning (are you really supposed to dodge them consistently?) made it really difficult to get the second dragon coin (I cheesed it by letting the mushroom slide ahead of me while I dodged while small/big until I took a hit). Overall, a quite fun experience, but also kind of stressful and tiresome. THEME: Ice, Mountain ================================================= 156 - Monty's Hall DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 48/100 Really wanted to have fun with this. Let's talk about the two Us: Unecessary and Unfun. This level has a lot of this. Why did that falling chained platform "puzzle" have to exist? It took me several dozen tries to perform everytime. It has absolutely nothing to do with the level. It's not fun to do, it looks "creative" but the novelty wears off when you realise how finicky it is. And even if it wasn't - what's the point? Feels like the level tries to mimic being a puzzle with a main room that you access several times, but it's absolutely linear. I wouldn't have minded the fact the main room existed if it wasn't so tiring to have to wait for the platform and deal with the moles everytime I died. The comeback from the two midpoints really wears off because of that very unecessary bit. Going through rooms to get a key or a yoshi also. The level could've been made so much more "efficient". This level suffers a tad from something that a lot of these large gimmicky levels do - being very punishing in the most awkward places. After doing that terrible rolling platform and shell rigamaroll and hopping around with the starman, it's very easy to die from falling in the hole while trying to not kill the last ninji. The final third of the level, with the yoshi, is a much worse example of this - one hit is imminent death, there's not even a nice reset door at the end if you lost your horse but survived. I feel a lot of the obstacles are quite first try unfriendly, The three eeries in the end of the first room and the footballs and that rushed awkward hop between spikes in the triple platform in the "main" room come to mind. It really gave me a good first impression, but the level lost a lot of its focus as it went on. It's barely about moles and what they do. The setups gradually become less and less dependent of moles and more and more possible to be easily mimicked without them. THEME: Building ================================================= 157 - 1st place level DESIGN: 3/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 24/100 This is cool. But the midpoint is mean. THEME: Forest ================================================= 158 - 3 Ambience Castle DESIGN: 8/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 29/100 A level whose difficulty relies on awkard low-ceiling or far jumps and little to no reaction time enemy placements as well as literal traps (there's a thwomp under the carpet). The difficulty curve makes no sense, there's no ideas being developed - especially not in the fake boss room which is just a random straight-forward platforming room with enemies. You forgot to make the way out pipe from the fourth dragon coin enterable, making them impossible to collect, which makes me glad - and I think that's telling something about them. THEME: Forest, Fortress ================================================= 159 - Oriental Mountains DESIGN: 26/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 52/100 The level design is pretty bland. Sprites are very spread out and far apart from one another and they're used in very simple ways and are easy to just run over. There wasn't much going on in the first half and I didn't feel there was much point to the net and the platform ride in the second half cause nothing happened in them. The secret exit was extremely obvious and not very necessary. By the way I somehow got the platform to not spawn various times (including my first runs), not sure how you managed to run into sprite issues with SA-1 but you did... Your attempt at making it feel oriental was cute, but I think the cave tileset doesn't fit with the bamboos lol. The deco could be more present and it needed a palette that fit better with everything else. THEME: Mountain, Oriental ================================================= 160 - Sky Castle Lake DESIGN: 8/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 5/20 TOTAL SCORE: 24/100 What even is this? This is so broken everywhere and the layout makes no sense. There's no theme to it, it sometimes threatens to introduce something interesting but every room lasts like 3 screens. The difficulty of some of them has no place with the rest of the level, and I don't even know if the carrot lift room (secret exit) is possible without some switches. THEME: Sky, Fortress ================================================= 161 - CHOCOLATE ISLAND 3 DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 55/100 Mostly devoid of interesting gameplay. It's not focused on anything and it doesn't flow or progress well. It's very clear you focused on trying to tell a story or create some sort of setting rather than in the level design, but even that didn't feel quite right. The plot you present is very vague and feels really... random, especially in the context of a level. The "puzzle" of memorizing the pillars felt quite out of place too. One concept I did like though was how the small rooms gave tips to dragon coins. THEME: Forest, Fortress ================================================= 162 - Bubble Skies DESIGN: 9/50 CREATIVITY: 10/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 32/100 Clearly a rushed entry, as it doesn't really go anywhere and just ends. The autoscrolling is a bit fun, albeit pretty unforgiing. THEME: Sky, Space ================================================= 163 - Santuario Etereo DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 23/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 70/100 no hablo tu lengua sorry This level seems to be themed after spinjumping, but that's such a broad concept that it still ends up feeling pretty unfocused. First half starts developing on the spikes a bit, and I think that was a great concept to invest on - making spikes fall and then spinning on them, and stuff, but it gets dropped. The problems I have with this level get stronger from the layer 2 segment onwards: spinjumping on moving things is harder than it may seem - the little sparkys after the midpoint are pretty annoying and their difficulty feels out of place with the rest of the level, same for the ted segments. Hopping on the statue's fire (below the second dragon) also didn't have much of a place where it was. Also, many setups involve some unecessary waiting that kinda cut the flow of the level, the end of the layer 2 room being a pretty strong example. Overall it was an interesting and quite clever level, but it felt unfocused and sometimes awkward to play. Looks great, but could use darker palettes for background objects. My biggest gripe is the goal room, it's very hard to know what's solid and what isn't in there and the two times I beat the level I feared dying in there for falling in the holes. THEME: Sky, Castle, filthy chilean level ================================================= 164 - Deep Within Dunes DESIGN: 36/50 CREATIVITY: 26/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 79/100 A really neatly designed level when you look at the individual setups, but the full experience is kind of underwhelming. The level is a bit too mechanical while not being that clever with its elements. The progression of ideas and development of setups is lacking, giving place to detached, "zig-zaggy" setups that are just like that for the sake of it. It's also a little too unforgiving and unpredictable sometimes (first dragon coin is a strong example of a setup that could stand to be more clear on first try). The secret exit forces you to replay the entire outer segment for some reason and it barely adds anything to the level - it's really just another room. THEME: Desert, Ruins ================================================= 165 - ABANDONED ENIGMA DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 38/100 This isn't a puzzle, you cannot call a straight-forward "there's a main room, get this in this other room to get there then get that to get there" a puzzle. It's very long, stretchy and for the most part, uninteresting. I really like what it did with boo blocks in the first subroom, they're not used as obstacles in tight places very often. But other than that, you have a bland flight segment, bland switch rooms, and really not concise, isolated setups overall. The secret exit is extremely costly to find and to get, and it's not even a good "sum-up" of everything in the level because, again, there are no concise ideas in it. Very lackluster in the design department. THEME: Haunted, Building ================================================= 166 - BOWSER'S STEELWORKS DESIGN: 25/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 15/20 TOTAL SCORE: 53/100 I don't like the second half. Veeeery slow, lots of waiting (one extra cycle for a powerup, damn), lacks action. The final dragon coin is super hard to get if you're big (which is very likely since most of the danger in the level is insta-kill). The first half was fine, although quite unfocused and pretty empty sometimes (the skull raft segment had nothing going for it for example). It didn't seem like a level that was trying to do anything new gameplay-wise, which is fine, but the second half kinda blew it for me. THEME: Building, Fortress, Fire ================================================= 167 - Pipe Trap DESIGN: 16/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 39/100 A simple and very unfocused grassland level that has a "gimmick" as an apparent attempt to spice it up, but the gimmick is almost pointless because you never have a reason to enter the pipes. A similar gimmick existed in Ruin of Cupidity from VLDC9, but the level would make you duck on or walk towards pipes - here they're just scattered around, other than in one case or another which may have been accidental. The progression is very weird, the first half is filled with tight jumps and even a bullet jump while the second half is just running and jumping over enemies and gaps. The secret exit is really really bad, I was afraid you'd be required to try every pipe in the level and you ARE - of course, if you know you can only set one exit per screen it becomes easier, but for the naive player I can see it being really really painful to find. There are even pipes that look secret but they're just mean traps! Thumbs down for this secret exit, man THEME: Forest, Dark ================================================= 168 - Abnormal Asylum DESIGN: 32/50 CREATIVITY: 29/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 78/100 I was quite engaged by this level. It's got a nice difficulty and development curve, but a lot of the setups are quite awkward to perform and I'm not a big fan of instant death with the fires all over the place. The boss battle is weird and getting out of the room can be extremely annoying due to the blocks bouncing you off. The level is sometimes too generous with resets to the point some setups seem obsolete. THEME: Building ================================================= 169 - Swissotel DESIGN: 47/50 CREATIVITY: 28/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 84/100 Looks atrocious. You should step up your aesthetic game, man, even if just to make it look not bad I think you already expected me to like this a lot. Based off of one of my favorite levels in 9 but packed with a lot more action and variety and much more observation rather than just "following the coins". It's extremely fun to play and very easy to predict, almost never feeling unfair. I'm not a very big fan of the second room and how it makes me deal with spike corridors while having to manage Mario's normal mementum, and later on making my field go way down to the bottom of the screen, giving very little reaction time. I think the level could use a bit more leeway here and there, but overall it doesn't affect the experience too much, there's a good amount of powerups and the midpoints are well placed. While the theme of the level is more or less grinders and limited movement, I think the final third is a quite weird change of pace from the rest of the level. I'm impressed by the fact that you pulled off no spinjumping in vanilla though, kudos! THEME: Building, Tower, Abstract, Sky ================================================= 170 - Lofted Lifts DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 44/100 A badly constructed level and seemingly untested. Specially the line guided segments - they are very confusing, unpredictable, and even broken (like, two stances where segments that were meant to be played can be skipped entirely because you can just jump off to the ground). The regular platforming doesn't stand out and the level can get cramped when you decide to make split paths. The gimmick of chucks destroying the blocks doesn't go anywhere, at best the puzzles to get dragon coins just involve waiting and some awkward maneuvering (the last one is barely possible). The looks are kind of cute, but they can get overwhelming and distracting especially in half 2. Also I only found that trees are climbable by accident. THEME: Snow, Tundra ================================================= 171 - NEW FUNK CITY DESIGN: 35/50 CREATIVITY: 20/30 AESTHETICS: 17/20 TOTAL SCORE: 72/100 Very nice looking (although I'm not a big fan of all the colors) and the concept of climbing on building walls is really cool. Doesn't go very far with its gimmicks though, it's some pretty basic net action and classic platforming, but it's pretty solid, although sometimes it feels a little empty. The end of the level is destroyed by the slot machines, grabbing either a cape or a star obsoletes the setups that follow up, which is a pity cause I think the tight corridor with net koopas looked pretty cool. THEME: City, you mean NEW PORK CITY? ================================================= 172 - Move Them Bones! DESIGN: 44/50 CREATIVITY: 25/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 87/100 Skeleton hopping is underrated, nice to see bones getting some love. It is a risky gimmick because you need to keep your eye on the player and on the enemy you're hopping on at the same time, and it can get tricky pretty fast. The level has a good length for the difficulty though, which I appreciate. I think it could've done a bit more still, it has some interesting parts (the P-switch wait is cool) but it's all inbetween pretty basic setups. I see a lot of potential with the bubbles... Not to say I didn't like the level, but it leaves me wishing for a bit more. The tileset looks sweet (YI vibes) and the trolly trickery here and there was pretty funny! THEME: Grassland, Lakeside, Swiss Bones ================================================= 173 - BLAZING JUNGLE RUIN DESIGN: 19/50 CREATIVITY: 13/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 46/100 There are a couple of things I like about this level. The music, the background, and some of the palettes used. Everything else, not really. This feels like a huge cluster of experimentation that was never fixed around properly. All around the level makes weird choices of dragon coin spots, it has a lot of mildly blind drops, a couple of ambushes, random cramped areas and many other little things that could've been easily fixed if the level had actually been tested. The autoscrolling segment is really terribly designed around the scrolling. The moon (moons?) is also literally impossible to get... Overall there is no coherency in the level other than it uses a lot of chains in the second half I guess. THEME: Forest, Volcano ================================================= 174 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 29/50 CREATIVITY: 21/30 AESTHETICS: 14/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 The message box at the end of the secret got me good, my mind was completely blown when I discovered Zyglrox made this lol Alright, so this is a team level and it shows, because the first and second halves are completely different. The first half definitely isn't as hard as you'd expect a Zygl level to be, but instead it's very annoying to navigate - ghosts are way too much in the way, especially during wall-running the hitboxes just go insane. The priority was also a problem in a few places. Though I did enjoy the platforming quite a bit, even though a lot of it felt disjointed - lots of different platform types were used quite randomly. The second half and the secret exit are all about following and spinjumping on eeries and I think they were pretty neat, but they suffer from being a bit too cramped sometimes. Also it took me a while to figure out those last passable spikes, I thought a ghost hole wasn't spawning or something - but it was a quite clever puzzle. Both halves have their own issues and cool things, but I feel the second half overall was a bit stronger than the first. THEME: Forest, Haunted ================================================= 175 - SMW Showdown DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 12/30 AESTHETICS: 13/20 TOTAL SCORE: 42/100 I don't know what you were trying to go for in this level, it's too short to cause an impression or to focus or develop on anything. The damage boost segment stands out like a sore thumb as something completely unusual in the middle of a very casual platforming level. THEME: Grassland ================================================= 176 - epiletia way 2 DESIGN: 7/50 CREATIVITY: 11/30 AESTHETICS: 4/20 TOTAL SCORE: 22/100 Falta de consideração da sua parte escrever a dica para a saída secreta em espanhol - apesar de que ela praticamente não diz nada, de qualquer forma. A fase tem poucas sacadas interessantes no design, e chama mais a atenção pelo que a faz ser ruim. Vários inimigos que se comportam de maneiras indecifráveis à primeira vista, algumas partes exigem movimentos irritantes (como o hammer bro perto do final, e até mesmo alcançar o P-switch é irritante), e a saída secreta é um completo tiro no escuro e os vários "red herrings" só a tornam mais terrível de encontrar. Sem falar no midway point que você nem fez questão de tornar útil. THEME: Abstract ================================================= 177 - YOSHI'S ISLAND 1 DESIGN: 14/50 CREATIVITY: 8/30 AESTHETICS: 8/20 TOTAL SCORE: 30/100 I don't think a level can easily get more basic than this. The biggest issue here is lack of a sense of progression - from start to finish the difficulty and complexity of the setups is pretty stale. You have quite a lot of different ideas that don't get developed at all (vines and growing pipes for example) and some things are only there once (falling platform, hammer brother, lotuses). Very short and unmemorable. As for the aesthetic, I'm not a fan of the bright outlines in the land for some reason. THEME: Forest ================================================= 178 - Lava Floaters DESIGN: 11/50 CREATIVITY: 18/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 41/100 This level's flow is so weird. In the first half it feels I'm doing something different every 2 screens. The second half reuses a lot of the concepts you used a bit, and I think it's even cool near the end. But most of the activities in this level are honestly just awkward to perform. I don't see how that key juggling at the beginning is necessary at all. Lots of obnoxious powerup filters that could've been avoided by better design, too. Very disjointed and for the most part, not fun to play. THEME: Volcano ================================================= 179 - Lakeway Odyssey UnT DESIGN: 12/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 11/20 TOTAL SCORE: 40/100 I was thinking of some stuff to say about the level when I was near the end, but then I got to the midpoint. Here's a summary: aside from the obvious "too long, 4-in-1, wears the player off very quickly" - it oscilates a lot between rad and action-packed setups and stale platform and waiting for/on platforms, and this really kills the pace. Also doesn't seem to be self-aware of its own length with some of these really crowded and cramped difficult setups. What were you thinking with that baseball and lotus spam right before the midpoint!? The final cave has problems as well, the part with the disco shell and bouncing chuck in that very tight double snake spot is very overwhelming. Also should go without saying that the secret exit was very unecessary and it looks kinda bs. I only found it when I died to the bullet generator while above it. When making a level you should be a lot more focused than this, give it central idea/s and work around them instead of just packing a whole lot of things together. THEME: Grassland, Water ================================================= 180 - Forest Jinx DESIGN: 17/50 CREATIVITY: 9/30 AESTHETICS: 12/20 TOTAL SCORE: 34/100 Looks like a rushed level. It's very very short and tries to implement a lot of things but the setups built are of a very basic nature. Lots of things are easy to just run/jump over, a glaring example is that bullet shooter that really had no reason to exist. With more time in your hands, you could've invested in more thoughtful design. I kinda like the concept of the forest cave aesthetically, but otherwise the colors of the level didn't look very coherent and sometimes background objects have too strong colors. THEME: Forest ================================================= 181 - 5 THEMES AT ARCADE DESIGN: 15/50 CREATIVITY: 17/30 AESTHETICS: 9/20 TOTAL SCORE: 41/100 After playing it a few times, I think I understand what you were trying to go for. Various rooms with some item puzzles, but it seems awkwardly broken? For the normal exit you only need to go in the room with the silver P-switch. The other exit and the dragon coins are a bit more elaborate (and dragon coins require all rooms), but they're still kinda broken, for example the cape obsoletes the springboard completely. While I'm glad that this level isn't that big of an item babysitting chore due to its breakable nature, the structure doesn't feel any less weird. Not to mention it takes a lot of going back and forth until you figure out how to work the level out. The levels on themselves are pretty quick and not very memorable and there's no focus on anything specific anywhere. Tries to get away with being a "many-in-one" kinda level by introducing a theme where it would make sense, but the theme isn't even that well explained to begin with. An arcade in the middle of the forest? Aesthetically, not only it has a really obnoxious port of that one song (what's the name again) with an entire channel made out of notes placed wrong and a pretty loud synth, but it's also filled by minor/mid-tier graphical glitches (taking yoshi to the castle room or even a little back in the cave room bugs him out, the last dragon coin is in a screen boundary, some weird structuring here and there). THEME: Arcade?, Forest ================================================= 182 - Glittering Grotto DESIGN: 25/50 CREATIVITY: 19/30 AESTHETICS: 20/20 TOTAL SCORE: 64/100 The nature of bubble physics asks for a nicer level than this. It's really cramped especially in the first half. Setups are sometimes clever but there's lots of tight jumps and maneuvering that hurt it a lot, and most of it is really pretty straightforward. Lots of unused potential here. Not big on the final 3 dragon coins; third one because it involves a lot of waiting and for some reason you have to redo part of the main level, fourth one because it's hidden in a pipe with a piranha plant so it's super annoying to look for, and fifth one because it's unecessarily tight and difficult, and the 1-up checkpoint you placed seemingly for it doesn't help, because it's not really a "checkpoint" and it won't save dragons 3 and 4, not in vanilla SMW, not in the compilation. THEME: Cave, Pretty ================================================= 183 - Swiss Nazca DESIGN: 46/50 CREATIVITY: 30/30 AESTHETICS: 18/20 TOTAL SCORE: 94/100 This level is technically and visually impressive and it presents new, very fun gameplay concepts. Gets away with being very varied by always focusing on the concepts of line guided sprites and fuzzies. The secret exit is kinda lame though, lots of it have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the level. The way to reach it (the non-glitchy solution, which should've honestly been the only solution) and the concept of minigames from the Great Fuzzy itself is pretty great but I wish you had stayed in the theme. Otherwise I really have very little to complain about this one. Great job! THEME: Desert, Swiss ================================================= 098 - ninjaboy.xls The one left for last DESIGN: 24/50 CREATIVITY: 9/30 AESTHETICS: 10/20 TOTAL SCORE: 43/100 Really difficult and unforgiving level. It is doable and quite fun to learn, but that doesn't excuse the lack of midpoints or more powerups. A lot of obstacles discriminate big Mario, I don't even think it's possible to get to the second room big. The boss is just there to be nerve-wrecking despite not being too hard and I really don't like that. THEME: Spreadsheet