#01, "aerials" or "Living on the sky" Fun Factor: 21/30 Presentation: 13/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 41/60 Comments: The secret exit was completely unneeded since it just required the player to play the whole level again but this time find a p-switch and carry the key with them. The level would've been stronger without it. There are also a few nasty blind jumps in the first half requiring the player to jump off the timed platforms onto enemies or walljump blocks that are barely onscreen when they start the jump. Even knowing about the walljump one in advance I still died to it a few times for simply not jumping early enough. Most of the timed platform setups were pretty decent, if tricky. Combining them with the walljump blocks worked well enough. The controllable timed lifts were cool, but I think you could have used them better. As they were, they were sitting in their own little portion of the stage unrelated to the other stronger elements. Graphics were nice, though you should've had the walk-through pillars be a different color than the solid ones. Music was an odd choice but Web Woods has an ethereal quality to it that worked well enough with the sky theming. ------------------------------------ #02, "bacterial" or "Moldy Moonscape" Fun Factor: 25/30 Presentation: 16/20 Creativity: 9/10 Total: 50/60 Comments: Yeah, I've played VVVVVV before too! This level is really creative with its gimmick setups, slowly expanding the core theme of flipping Mario's gravity instead of jumping. By adding in the auto-flippers, you really added another layer of complexity. But it's really hard at the same time. You're not given much time to react to new enemies and setups in the block snake part because you have to continuously keep up with the snake as well as flipping between. The player is still learning how the flipping mechanics work by the time they are tasked with getting through a tough area. The screenwrap and auto-flippers in the second half of the normal exit are quite challenging to mentally process. It's too bad you removed the held item slot because I think that would've gone a long way to making the level a bit more accessible. I do think it goes on a bit long though. Branching off the secret exit early did mean that it was interesting to play the second exit, but the level did kind of feel like two levels in one. Maybe the better thing to do would have been having one path with two midpoints and 6 rooms instead of 2 paths with 4 rooms each (plus the boss on the secret path). Overall, the level is really enjoyable and creative. ------------------------------------ #03, "birth" or "GROWING FIELDS" Fun Factor: 22/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 42/60 Comments: This was a nice little semi-vanilla romp featuring the Growing Block. I think they were used well enough, but there were a few instances where they felt like they shrunk back down way too quickly. Couple this with the relatively low timer and I was scrambling to get to the end without running out of time. And yet I can't help but feel like I want more from the level. The Growing Block was interesting, but it was never really used for anything other than to get higher. I don't know the full details of how they can be used, but I feel like maybe there was more you could have done with them, even something as simple as combining them with some more vanilla elements like springboards. Not bad, but could've been more. ------------------------------------ #04, "boundary" or "Sledding Through the Reactive Factory" Fun Factor: 17/30 Presentation: 11/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 35/60 Comments: Man that's a weird sled. It's kind of buggy too. You're not consistently able to jump on a down slope, you can get crushed if you move left backwards into a solid object and once I just somehow warped through the floor to a lower level and then died because I wasn't expecting it. And then add to this the Elite Koopas and their own weird hitbox issues and I basically was just taking and avoiding damage the whole ride through. At least moving the sled was relatively snappy and didn't feel too bad. It's a cool idea but it feels like a really rough concept. I didn't enjoy having to frantically try and shoot fireball blocks only for my fireballs to not leave enough of a gap and not despawn because they travel along with the scrolling screen, preventing me from shooting any more of them and getting crushed by the wall. There's not much reason to take the multiple paths in the levels when staying as high as possible seems to make you face the fewest elite koopas and fireball blocks. Level looks cool and sounds neat (except the sound effects), but it plays just "okay". ------------------------------------ #05, "cannibal" or "Smasher Stronghold" Fun Factor: 15/30 Presentation: 11/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 32/60 Comments: I didn't expect to walk through the hammer switch and died in lava lol. The hammer is a pretty neat ability to use but it really didn't have much purpose aside from beating Panzers until the 3rd section with the switches. Speaking of, I think those switches could stand to be a tad more lenient with how fast they go down. I felt like I was constantly having to scramble to the next one barely avoiding damage or tanking a hit just so I didn't die in the lava. And I went into the boss really worried because I only had one hit since there wasn't a mushroom outside it. I think the vertical section was by far the weakest one, even if it was neat to play with the screen wrap. And the first half was mostly unmemorable but that was probably because it was pretty short and simple. ------------------------------------ #06, "chocolate" or "Chocolate Mountains" Fun Factor: 12/30 Presentation: 9/20 Creativity: 4/10 Total: 25/60 Comments: There's always one. A very basic level with literal chocolate theming, it's not bad but could be so much more. The most interesting thing it had going for it was the Parachute generator, but I discovered that if you die and restart at the midpoint the generator never restarts. You need to make sure your generator is also placed at the midpoint or any other entrances to that level if you want it to work all the time. Graphics weren't bad, just a bit bland since they were all brown. Music was a bit repetitive too since it was just a simple short game boy track. Aside from that though, the level didn't really have any central idea to it. Find something to base your level around and then explore the ways you can use that thing to make a fun and interesting level in the future. ------------------------------------ #07, "cold" or "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1" Fun Factor: 22/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 43/60 Comments: Two thoughts on the level's graphics. The foreground elements are really pretty and go together very nicely. Liked them a lot. The sprites however, they all feel a bit...weird and blocky. Maybe it's just personal preference but I didn't care so much for them. Music was great in both the main level and bonus cave. I liked the theme of enemies that throw ice balls at the player and I think it worked well. What worked less well was the fact that you wanted the player to interact with the frozen blocks using fireballs, but fireballs were extremely rare and getting hit with the ice balls would take away your powerup. So for the whole second half of the level, I didn't get to mess with the frozen blocks at all and instead had to leave behind the other Ace coins I couldn't get to. If you want the player to interact with an element of your stage, make sure they have adequate tools to work with. I also think you might have been able to go a little farther with the ice balls idea by remixing the idea in the second half or adding something else to interact with them. ------------------------------------ #08, "deleted" or "Cooking with Gordon" Fun Factor: 20/30 Presentation: 17/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 45/60 Comments: Where's the midpoint! This level isn't super long but without a midpoint it feels much longer than it actually is because dying means redoing 4 or more areas. I managed to get from the 4th room to the end in one life, so it there was a midpoint in room 5 or later, I didn't notice it or the game didn't alert me. Visually the level is gorgeous and sounds lovely too. But I have to give it a strike for visual clarity, since the cloud edges are all not solid, meaning you have to remember not to stand on the edges of platforms. Other nitpicks: Early in the level you used I think a koopa replacement to bounce the flying guys back and forth and had the player defeat the enemy to free the flying guy. Later you started to use shells, which means Mario can kick or pick up them and potentially kill the flying enemy with it. There's also one part where a small flying dude collides with a big one and the big guy flips, making you transfer to him. But then in the next room the small one collides with the big one and he doesn't flip, betraying my expectations and I fell to my doom. I didn't really understand the room where I fed a guy but it's not like it was hard to figure out so I guess it wasn't a big deal. Overall, creative use of the flying enemies, decent setups, but a few weird spots hold it back. ------------------------------------ #09, "dennis" or "the tap tap menace" Fun Factor: 22/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 42/60 Comments: It really becomes a totally different game once you remove the jump from a platformer, doesn't it? To that end, I felt the second half was much better than the first by virtue of being puzzle oriented. It's hard to have action platforming when you can't jump to dodge things. There was also a lot of waiting around with the bouncing tap taps and having to follow betwen them. The On/Off switches were a neat addition and I liked having to manipulate them to proceed. Cool concept, a little trickier than I'd like in some places, but good overall. ------------------------------------ #10, "empathy" or "Revolution Adventures" Fun Factor: 11/30 Presentation: 7/20 Creativity: 4/10 Total: 22/60 Comments: Why did you put the sled controls in a message box that you have to jump to hit before you even realize you're in a sled? Why is there even a sled section to begin with? This level has no cohesion of ideas at all, just four completely different sections with unrelated graphics and concepts. Why did Mario jump super high that one time? Why does jumping on some turn blocks make them disappear? What purpose did the ON/OFF blocks serve in the 3rd section? Why the elevator transition? Why was the 2nd part so boring and only full of koopas? And why was the seld section so dang hard and finicky to control? The level might have looked and sounded good but otherwise it just did not come together well at all. Too many questions, no exploration of ideas, no central focus. If this was a group effort and everyone made a different section, next time you do something like this make sure you try and make all the sections of a level work together, not randomly. ------------------------------------ #11, "everything" or "Travel to Airship" Fun Factor: 15/30 Presentation: 12/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 34/60 Comments: The bad first. The Boom-Boom fights are brutally difficult because of how fast he moves combined with the jumping saw and generator enemies. I lost over 20 lives on the second fight alone and never felt like I was in control of my victories. It really soured me on the level overall which is too bad. In general the level was very difficult, with lots of new sprites to learn and interact with with lots of projectiles to avoid too. I'm also not sure the second half was all that needed to be honest. The sudden puzzle rooms shifted the level's attention away from action platforming to problem solving. But on the good side, the level looked nice, sounded nice and was generally enjoyable to play outside the bosses. Those sections were difficult but enjoyable for the most part. The bosses though... good thing I farmed lives at the beginning. ------------------------------------ #12, "ferocity" or "CLDC Level" Fun Factor: 8/30 Presentation: 9/20 Creativity: 2/10 Total: 19/60 Comments: There wasn't much to this level honestly. It was over before it even began. Enemies were very sparsely placed and never dangerous, unless it was a Parakoopa being used for a jump over a pit. Speaking of them, be careful with how you place Parakoopas for jumps and make sure the player has a chance to see them coming and also clear the gaps if they hesitated. Level looked and sounded fine but there wasn't enough of it to be interesting. ------------------------------------ #13, "fishing" or "RAINBOW TROUT" Fun Factor: 5/30 Presentation: 13/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 26/60 Comments: The level stopped being fun after the first section and yet there were two more after it. It's too hard! I know there's infinite lives and a checkpoint at each section's beginning but...the second and third sections just demand so much of the player's ability over such long areas. At first I thought the colored fish would be fun to mess with like in the 1st section but then it quickly turned into "do everything exactly this way or take damage/restart" with the second and third. I have no clue how many lives I lost here but I'd wager at least 75. It might look nice and sound nice, but after over a half hour of slowly chipping away at the level I can't say those elements helped me feel better once I beat it. Were the fish used creatively? Absolutely. But it just wasn't enjoyable. ------------------------------------ #14, "furry" or "DO THE WEASEL STOMP" Fun Factor: 16/30 Presentation: 12/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 34/60 Comments: The sine wave boo lasers were pretty neat, set up well, and were often tricky to avoid. But the Angry Weasels(Rexes) I'm not sure about. There were only a couple places where I thought they really added to the level, and one of those places was right at the end. There was some strange framerate hitching throughout the level and I think the Boos stopped spawning at one point. So the level was a little bit buggy but mostly ok in that regard. Looked okay, nothing amazing, music was pretty subdued. It was competent, but I feel like it needed more to it, or at least more use of the sprites it was already showing off. ------------------------------------ #15, "harvey" or "VERY VANILLA CALAMITOUS CAT CANNON CANYON CAKEWALK" Fun Factor: 26/30 Presentation: 17/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 51/60 Comments: Surprisingly, the level had basically everything the name said it would. Seriously though, those cat cannons were really fun to mess around with, especially the rapid-firing ones! It was neat to queue up a train of shells and use them in combination with the triangles to bounce across areas. The climbing koopas were even used in some pretty clear timing challenges too. The level didn't overstay its welcome either and continued introducing new ways to mess with the shell cannons. I thought it looked great, sounded good and was overall very fun to play. ------------------------------------ #16, "him" or "BOWSER'S DUNGEON" Fun Factor: 20/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 41/60 Comments: It was a cool idea to have these one-screen challenges during the level and they got harder and harder as the level went on. They didn't add too much to the level but they did allow for each "room" to be set up exactly as it should be each time you went through it. But it was a little tricky in the second half to avoid damage or death since there was usually a lot to time together. And there really weren't any 1-ups available either, making Game Overs a real danger. The boss was interesting, but the offset timing of the fireballs really made it stand out. Like, they made the fight much harder than I expected, but that's probably a good thing so that you aren't just throwing shells at Bowser with ease. That said I think he could've used one or two fewer hits. The aesthetic was also pretty neat for an NES-inspired level. Good stuff, but watch out for difficulty. ------------------------------------ #17, "hyper" or "BURNING UP FOR YOU" Fun Factor: 10/30 Presentation: 11/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 27/60 Comments: This level just didn't let up with its difficult situations. Even the very first setup is hard enough to kill an unsuspecting player multiple times, even after they know what they're supposed to do. The dolphins were used in interesting ways but always paired with some huge difficulty spike. No midpoint when it really could've used one (though thankfully the level was short overall). It looked fine graphically and at least fit the lava theme. I just didn't have fun with it because I was too busy dying to lava every few seconds. Too bad, not for me. ------------------------------------ #18, "ips" or "SUMMIT HIGHISLANDS" Fun Factor: 13/30 Presentation: 11/20 Creativity: 4/10 Total: 28/60 Comments: The level was way too short and didn't really take the time needed to explore ways the Giant enemies could be used to enhance the level's design. I did notice that the Giant Parakoopas seemed a little glitchy in their hitboxes because twice when I tried jumping on them I took damage instead. And the Giant Spiny graphics look really bad since they're just a resized vanilla Spiny. Overall the level looked nice, but that's about all I can say about it because there just wasn't any development of an idea. ------------------------------------ #19, "kirby" or "Cave M. Ghost Manor" Fun Factor: 6/30 Presentation: 5/20 Creativity: 3/10 Total: 14/60 Comments: This level has no clue what it wants to be. There's just a random assortment of custom sprites throughout the level never used in interesting ways but instead just there as flavor or window dressing I suppose? You've got the spike hat guys from Yoshi's Island, running dudes from Super Mario Land and Metroids that drain your timer all just tossed in without much care for consistency or level design. Not only that, but the graphics were buggy in places, there was massive slowdown in places where there really shouldn't have been, there was floating lava, the layer 2 section was placed way too high and was constantly scrolling the player off the top of the screen... I could keep going but the point is that this level is just not good. You need to choose an idea and stick with it instead of using a lot of different things and not doing anything interesting with them. ------------------------------------ #20, "murder" or "OXYGEN NOT INCLUDED!" Fun Factor: 9/30 Presentation: 12/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 28/60 Comments: The level was complicated enough without the Oxygen timer, but combining it with already difficult jumps and setups involving jumping grinders and more and I was ready to throw in the towel. Thankfully this level is on the shorter side of things, but without a midpoint it just felt like I was slamming my head against the level for ages. Hard levels like this really aren't my cup of tea. Was it creative? Sure. But I sadly didn't have fun with it after I saw the oxygen gimmick was getting used for nothing more than forcing the player to keep moving instead of carefully approaching setups. That's honestly what killed me the most: the inability to wait and assess a situation before moving on. I think you should've either had a level based around getting oxygen back OR have a level that was difficult like this was, not both at once. ------------------------------------ #21, "nephilim" or "CLDC ENTRY, DUDE!" Fun Factor: 11/30 Presentation: 10/20 Creativity: 5/10 Total: 26/60 Comments: No midpoint here, though it wasn't really needed honestly since if you aren't going for the Yoshi Coins the level is over pretty quickly. I like the idea of challenging the player to collect all 10 of them, but there's a big problem with this. I got 5 coins and died. This meant that the other 5 coins never spawned again because the game counts all the coins as collected for that level. So by dying, I wasn't able to actually continue getting the extra coins, leaving a bunch of empty space in the level. Powerups were also weirdly placed, I think I only encountered 2 of them and they were at the very beginning and right before the end. Beyond the coins though, there wasn't much else going on in the level. I feel like you could've added to the coin hunt by also having some sort of central theme or idea you wanted to explore with sprites or blocks. Not bad, but not much to see here honestly. ------------------------------------ #22, "nine" or "Rescue Cirno!" Fun Factor: 21/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 41/60 Comments: This level's pretty ok, but aside from the Coin hunt, there's not too much going for it. The first part uses the triple spinning platforms a bunch but they're usually placed on their own and have no enemies to intercept them or anything. Three of the coins on the first part are "hidden" by vine climbing, which was cool at first but a bit same-y by the last one. Also, Fire Flower was required at various parts of the level but there's no way to guarantee that you'll have one at any given time. Thankfully, the level is pretty easy. Is the game supposed to just end if you touch Cirno and force you to reset? It was a little annoying to touch her, not expecting to suddenly be unable to continue. I think you pretty well nailed the icy theming of the level because it looked and sounded good. Overall, pretty fun. ------------------------------------ #23, "obvious" or "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1" Fun Factor: 10/30 Presentation: 10/20 Creativity: 5/10 Total: 25/60 Comments: The level was over too quickly and never really developed any ideas. There was potential to make it about avoiding the poisonous water or something, but all the jumps over the water were generous and there was never really any danger of falling in. And the only enemies were Koopas, Goombas and Shelless Koopas redrawn as different Goombas which didn't make for very interesting sprite interaction since once I got a Fire Flower I could just defeat everything instantly. What happened to the background? There just wasn't one at all. I thought maybe you were going to use some layer 2 but no. While the graphics looked okay, there was also some cutoff when certain tiles touched the water, making for some odd floating stuff. Overall it needed to find a central theme and expand upon it. As it is, it's nothing special or that interesting. ------------------------------------ #24, "real" or "Exhausted Mario" Fun Factor: 13/30 Presentation: 12/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 33/60 Comments: The level's gimmick felt much stronger in the first half for the simle fact that your exhaustion would recharge and the player was in control of how they managed their movement. The second half in turn ended up a lot less enjoyable because any small wrong movement could make it impossible to get to the next exhaustion recharger. I only died a couple times on the first half. I died quite a lot more on the second. By the end, the gimmick itself was getting a little exhausting Like, it wasn't a bad gimmick, but I think the level would've been much stronger if you'd stuck with the first half's implementation during the second and come up with more ways to challenge the player to not move as much instead of being forced to control Mario's momentum with as little button presses as possible. ------------------------------------ #25, "rpg" or "CLDC - Greenville" Fun Factor: 22/30 Presentation: 13/20 Creativity: 6/10 Total: 41/60 Comments: It was fun to mess around with the Propellor Suit! You put a lot of things up and down and all around the level to seek out and explore. Though aside from exploration the mushroom itself wasn't really needed to move around in the level, so if you aren't exploring it's mostly just a quick run through the city. They were also handed out like candy, making the level pretty easy overall, and they didn't work well with Yoshi since he can't fly with you when you spin off him. But the level desperately needed more time if you did want to explore! I know there was a Yoshi and lots of green berries around, but you first have to find him and then eat the berries, and at one point I lost him going into a bonus room and couldn't get him back. I ended the level with less than 30 seconds remaining on the clock and had to rush the whole second half as a result. Even just 100 extra base seconds would've helped a lot. There were some minor oversights. The castle tileset bonus room has the player come down a pipe entrance that's one X-coordinate too far to the left. The music in parts also seemed like it was buggy, specifically the SM64 Slider theme and the P-Switch track. Still a fun level, but it could've done more and was held back by its low timer. ------------------------------------ #26, "sling" or "Vera Bounce!" Fun Factor: 28/30 Presentation: 17/20 Creativity: 9/10 Total: 54/60 Comments: This was a simple idea that was explored really well! It was a lot of fun to bounce off those green patches while avoiding surprisingly smartly placed castle enemies. And since Mario kept spinjumping while bouncing off them you were even able to make sections that required carefully bouncing on Thwomps too. The Roto-Discs turned out to be a great addition to the second half since their motion is periodic and can be timed by the player. Mix those in with the constant bouncing and avoiding damage becomes a matter of seeing an opening and making the attempt. The level looked and sounded nice too. The only thing I might be able to critique it for is that I'd love to have played a little bit more, but I also think that you ended the level at the perfect point to keep the level from going too long and losing steam. Wanting to play more in this case is a good thing! ------------------------------------ #27, "space" or "Galactic Adventure" Fun Factor: 25/30 Presentation: 17/20 Creativity: 10/10 Total: 52/60 Comments: This level is extremely cool...but it's really more like 4 or 5 levels all in one, isn't it? I'll come back to that in a bit because there's plenty to praise here. The level has one of the most unique aesthetics I've probably seen in an SMW level in that it's trying to look and sound like an NES game while still taking advantage of everything an SNES game can offer. The result is somewhat of an uncanny valley of an NES game, but I really like it! The three main level gimmicks of flipping Mario's gravity, high gravity and variable speed block snakes are explored pretty well and are pretty fun to mess with. At first though I felt like having them all disconnected from each other was just an excuse to make a lot of levels and ideas, but then the final section combined all three together really nicely and I think a lot of that sentiment I had went away. I was pleasantly surprised how well they all fit together at the end. But let's talk about the gorilla in the room: the length. I don't think the level would be as good if it were shorter, but there's no denying that it is very long. At least generous midpointing and the occasional retry system helped mitigate this since you were never having to redo lots of content. But I felt like the block snake and gravity-flipping rooms were a little longer than the other segments, and the puzzling nature of the gravity-flipping one made it much slower too. I think the level could honestly stand to cut the intro area entirely since it didn't add too much overall. Just begin Mario at the path split instead. Again, I don't think you could cut much else from the middle three segments or the end without compromising the level's intent or having to redo huge portions of it. I suppose I'll just have to live with the fact that this level is a serious time commitment. Difficulty was high in places and did occasionally feel like trial and error, especially in the block snake segment where I was trying to predict when the snake would speed up or slow down. I died a lot in the gravity flipping segment though much of it was my own fault. Bowser's fight was a little slow because of the falling Layer 2 nature of it and he was surprisingly hard to hit with fireballs even with the ability to shoot up and lots at a time. Very fun level, impressive ideas, cool aesthetic, just very long too. Oh, and that blast off cutscene was really cool too! ------------------------------------ #28, "spooky" or "Haunted Stronghold" Fun Factor: 23/30 Presentation: 16/20 Creativity: 8/10 Total: 47/60 Comments: Those Boo Ring variants were interesting to deal with, especially once the block snake was involved. Actually that block snake section was probably the strongest part of the level since it forced the player to interact with the rings quickly instead of sitting there waiting for the perfect moment to pass between Boos. Though it was sometimes hard to sneak between the Boos. Using the block snake in the Big Boo fight was also a pretty unique take on that fight setup. Looked pretty good, sounded good too. Overall, the level was pretty competently done. Good job. ------------------------------------ #29, "stopped" or "www" Fun Factor: 3/30 Presentation: 6/20 Creativity: 3/10 Total: 12/60 Comments: The gimmick was funny on the first life. After that, it became a source of endless frustration. The only thing the level achieved was making me contort my fingers around my SNES controller in an attempt to have air control again after I reached over and hit unpause. It doesn't help that this level's actual design is pretty garbage at times too. After the midpoint it's basically nothing but tiny jumps between 1 tile or thin steep slope platforms, supplemented by venus fire traps and pitchin' chucks. Add the forced pauses into the equation and this level is nothing but frustration on top of already weak level design as you go careening into a pit because you couldn't react fast enough after unpausing to save yourself. The gimmick really does nothing for the level and makes it much worse overall. ------------------------------------ #30, "sundance" or "Choo Choo - REDRUM" Fun Factor: 19/30 Presentation: 14/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 40/60 Comments: This level's interesting because its two halves are linked via plot but not at all in terms of gameplay. Honestly, for as little traditional Mario gameplay as there was in it, I think the train part was stronger than the platforming part. You were setting up a tone and atmosphere, and I thought I was going to get into a murder mystery on the train and have to solve it by finding clues and figuring out which passenger did it. But then it turned out to just be a sky level in the second half and I was a little let down. As for the platforming, it felt a bit rough at times since it relied entirely on the Propellor Shroom, to the point that it required reset doors in case the player lost their powerup. And some of the platforming asked of the player was weird, like spinning upwards into the ceiling to fly over munchers, or bouncing off the cloud enemies after coming out of an upwards spin. Speaking of the cloud enemies, I don't think they were working, unless their only purpose was to slightly obscure the player's vision. I expected them to push me around with their wind gusts but that never happened. I wish you'd expanded on the train part a little more, or even kept the whole level contained within it because I think it could've made the level more interesting overall. It's not bad as it is, just a little disappointing. ------------------------------------ #31, "syrup" or "NIGHTSPACE" Fun Factor: 21/30 Presentation: 15/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 43/60 Comments: It wasn't until the second half the the low gravity gimmick really started working paying off. Up until that point, having everything be floaty wasn't much more than a novelty since nothing was made particularly more difficult by having it. But the second half was plenty weird thanks to it. Rocks and mines slowly falling through the air in strange intercepting movements all while a lone spinning platform moves round and round in the lower left, as the whole level slowly falls down. It made for an interesting take on a falling Layer 2 level for sure. I liked the semi-vanilla aesthetic you created with the mushroom platforms and the backgrounds. It helped create a sort of strange, otherworldly feeling to match the low gravity. Nicely done level overall. ------------------------------------ #32, "unknown" or "CLDC 2018-The Level" Fun Factor: 12/30 Presentation: 8/20 Creativity: 5/10 Total: 25/60 Comments: I dunno, this level is weird. There's sort of an idea after the midpoint with using coin blocks on layer 2 to pass through un-activated coin blocks but it's not really developed very much, and then the level has strange p-switch segments and requires you to be Small Mario in places. And then the Big Boo boss will force you to kill yourself if you jump up to the platforms to fight him without realizing doing so was a one-way trip. It's kind of all over the place with ideas, and none of them are really that standout to be honest. First half was probably strongest, even though there wasn't anything like the coin block idea. At least it was fairly consistent. ------------------------------------ #33, "weaponized" or "Bullet Ship" Fun Factor: 16/30 Presentation: 12/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 35/60 Comments: The boss kinda sucked, I'm sorry. He moves too fast, spits projectiles all over, you're stuck on moving platforms that go up and down and intercept his movements, and you're basically just waiting until throw blocks SLOWLY come into view. It wasn't a very fun fight. On the bright side, the first half of the level with the homing bullets was designed pretty well. They were dangerous enough to keep me on my toes, but not hard enough to constantly hit me or block my progress. Adding them to line guides segments was a good idea too. Two things though. The first half was much longer than the second and by the midpoint I felt like I'd already played a normal level's worth of content. Second, the graphics for pass-through objects often had black outlines, making it difficult to sometimes distinguish what was solid and what wasn't. I didn't care much for the P-Ballooning segment. It didn't really match up with the first half's ideas, and required more precision than I think was needed. Quite the difficulty spike, thankfully it wasn't too long. Could've been a better level if you'd stuck with the ideas introduced in the first half and kept an eye on how difficult the level was overall. ------------------------------------ #34, "ziploc" or "leg day" Fun Factor: 14/30 Presentation: 13/20 Creativity: 7/10 Total: 34/60 Comments: The idea is interesting but in execution it's really frustrating and finicky to do. I don't think the timer was doing you any favors here, since you included a way for the player to reset if they got stuck but it didn't reset, potentially leading to Time Up situations. I don't think the first segment was necessary. Not only was it not clear to me at all that the very right edge of the screen was actually teleport blocks, all three of the other segments in the level used the spinning arrow lift. You should've just used it in all four segments to remain consistent throughout. That said, even the arrow lift was weird to use because it required navigating through saws and very small spaces above lava. Making it so Mario can only jump is a neat idea. But I think your level was a bit too tough on the player in what it asked them to do. ------------------------------------ #35, "lightest" or "lightest" Fun Factor: 29/30 Presentation: 19/20 Creativity: 10/10 Total: 58/60 Comments: The bad first: Difficulty was kind of high and with only five lives it was very easy to game over and have to redo the level all over again. I would've liked to see a higher starting lives count, more 1ups (I know the moon was there but I didn't think I could make it) or no lives at all. But this isn't a huge negative against the level or anything. Aside from that though, this level was incredible! I need to give you a special shoutout for having some of the best visual clarity I've seen in a level. Gray objects are solid and walkable and brown are background decoration. The smashers are all color coded as well to signal when they move. Red go first, then green, then blue, all in a rhythm that's very easy to internalize. I was almost always able to time when I should be moving and when I should be waiting thanks to your consistent visual design. It took me a while to realize that this was also a Big Level, so it was cool to be moving up and to the right constantly without having to change sublevels. The level design itself was really well done. You built the whole thing around the idea of the timed smashers and it just really worked out. Nearly every jump presented felt like it had been carefully tested and tweaked to be challenging but doable. Deftly weaving between spikes or hanging in the air long enough for one to move down made me feel like I'm actually good at video games haha. The boss was mostly good, just a little tricky to time jumps onto. I know I died once because they fired magic right as I was landing on them, which was a bit annoying. But in the end they weren't too hard and I was happy it was only three hits. All in all, this level was amazing and I'm honestly kind of stunned by the technology on display here. I turned off SNES layers one by one only to discover that this was using Mode 0, and I still have no idea how you drew the starfield when it didn't appear to be on any layer at all! The level is impresses both technically and mechanically, and its overall design is top-notch. ------------------------------------ Fun Factor: 30/30 How well designed is your level? Is it overall fun to play? Is it too long or boring? Presentation: 20/20 How does your level look like aesthetically? Is the theme/gimmick consistent? Are there any graphical/musical clashes? Does the theme/gimmick overstays its welcome? Does the level work well or does it have functionality issues, like unintended massive slowdown, sprite memory issues or broken SFX/samples? Creativity: 10/10 Does the level have an original, nice setup? Is the theme/gimmick innovative? Or is it generic/poorly set up?