SMW Central's 6th annual
level design contest
Q1 2013
#1 Sockbat Replica - "Fortress Castle" Ambivalent
This is a very straightforward level themed around mobile platforms and an emphasis on using the spin jump for getting around most safely. Blocks that move side by side and rocks that sink are placed over pools of lava. Fireballs and Thwimps are recurring enemies. The theme is pulled off in a manner where the obstacles do not feel redundant, and the difficulty ramp starts above average but demonstrates a gradual increase as the level goes on. It's paced in such a way where you can go about it quickly, but lack of caution will surely screw you over. It wasn't terribly innovative, but it was decently fun.

One thing to admire about this level is that it does not have any sort of filler due to its short length, but one thing that does hurt is the fact that the midway point is fairly close to the end of the level.

The castle here is outdoors: stormy-looking clouds are in the background. The lava is bright orange while much of the rest of the level is grey. Everything is easily identifiable. That said, palettes 2 and 4 could have used some work: they are flat gradients of grey with no effort made to blend hues to give it character, and the thing that suffers most about palette 4 is its effect on the cement block. Layer priority could have also been given to the ground below the lava for a smoother death animation.
#2 Hadron - "Sky Adventure" Unfulfilling
A rather expansive level with a lot of variety in structure and enemies used. Enemy placement was satisfactory to add challenge, but only occasionally clever. The Pokey placement that matched the height of the space between two platform elevations, the Koopa that kicked a shell that forced caution entering the second mandatory pipe, and the Chargin' Chucks that allowed you to get up to the platform that let you reach the Dragon Coin if you'd jumped on them, were some of the more clever placements. Power-up distribution was very balanced. Coins in seemingly out-of-the-way places hinted at secrets in the level, which was a rather cool touch.

There is a huge time limit to compensate for all that could be explored in the level. For me, it was more than enough time in several playthroughs, including the first. It's definitely fair, even for slower players.

Sky Adventure boasts some pleasant colors and atmosphere. It refrains from excessive clutter in the detailing. Its theme is almost strictly in the aesthetics, however - the section with Yoshi's flight and the frequency of capes add to the "sky" theme, but I feel they could have played a more important role in the design theme. The section with Yoshi's flight was admitably weak and unmemorable since the flying Koopas were the only danger, and the section itself was skippable due to a major flaw with being able to jump inside the ground from the top of the screen.

I found that there was also no notable difficulty curve - the level remained fairly level throughout. It's not inherently a bad thing, since it's not like it got progressively easier. In spite of the fact I had an easy time with it, I would recommend having a midway point because it's a huge level.

Overall, you're left with a hodgepodge-type level which does little to stand out and be memorable, and would moreso in context of a larger project.
#3 Purple Rex - "Athletic Something" Enjoyable
A vertical level with lots of line-guided platforms, Grinders, saws, and Fuzzies. Naturally, the level has a forced pace and consistent challenge. The lines have all sorts of twists to make the ascent fun and each guided enemy a unique approach. It is a frantic level in that the player is always required to be alert in order to dodge incoming threats, but those threats are spaced out enough that the trajectory you would expect to take to avoid them doesn't lead you right into another foe. The final room is designed as a brief sigh of relief from the action and hands you the goal sphere almost effortlessly, and doesn't mean anything for the core stage design.

The midway point is placed more or less towards the middle of the level, but the FG/BG starting position for it is slightly awkward. Power-ups are adequately and appropriately available.

There was an infrequent sprite tile memory problem I found over by the radish and land with two Fuzzies some way above the midway point: in one playthrough out of three, the line-guided platform did not spawn.

It's a really pretty level in that the grass and the trees are nicely hue-blended and the ground has a really cool shade of purplish grey with tan spots. It may not sound good in text, but it looks pleasant and vibrant ingame! The trees have stubby branches and pink berries, but by no means are overdetailed. The last room has an ice-cold appearance suiting its high altitude.

I had a lot of fun with this level, but I really would recommend looking into those quirks.
#4 Gamma V - "Bullet Bluffs" Enjoyable
Much in the vein of Valley of Bowser 3, this entree includes a serving of timed moving platforms, and a side of Koopas seasoned with a variety of Banzai and Bullet Bills.

Much like the last level, this one's pace is forced steady by the nature of the platforms. Sessions of platform-riding are broken up by sections of land or pipes with the shooters, Koopas, and Rexes as foes, and it's a fairly even split between the two. It alters frequently with something new to offer with each switch-up. There are minor divergent points with coins to collect, keeping the level straightforward. One Banzai Bill can lead you to a bonus room if you're able to reach the clouds by jumping on it. Nothing was wasted here, but I can't say I expect any less from a veteran SMW hacker.

In spite of the nature of the enemies and platforms, the level feels like one that's very accessible to even inexperienced players yet still fun for those who have played their fair share of tough Mario mods. It's both easy and replayable. There's a well-placed checkpoint in the middle of the level. I felt the time allowance was a little excessive, but it's always better to have more time available than needed for a brief task than too little time.

Bullet Bluffs is another colorful level. The ground is a lovely light brown coated mostly with short green grass and an occasional large bush, with a slight purple tint applied to the background to give some contrast and sense of distance to the mountains. The shades of the clouds fade smoothly into the pale aqua blue sky.
#5 Javier - "Hills and Slopes" Not for me
A horizontal, linear mountain level with Rexes in the beginning and a shift toward Piranha Plants in the latter half, but many Koopas throughout. Immediately, I'm greeted with Koopas walking towards me - I never exactly liked the idea of opening with an enemy in your face already.

The Rexes placed above the first pink triangle in the level stop you dead in your tracks, forcing you to wait for them to drop down. Coin placement is excessive at best, and a dangerous distraction at worst. There's a cluster of red vertical-flying Koopas after the section with the swooping grey platforms: most of them are unnecessary and scarcely position themselves properly enough to let you pass at all. This all sets the level up to be unjustifiably slow-paced, and the difficulty peaks in the middle before dropping down dramatically.

There is a downhill section with Rexes going up followed by a Banzai Bill where I encounter sprite tile memory problems - Mario or some of the enemies disappear if I had not killed any of the Rexes prior to the Bill spawning.

As far as the terrain variation and decoration goes, it's pretty good-looking, and the way it differs gives each segment distinction from the last. The problem with appearance is the foreground palette is monochromatic. The dirt looks fine, but the grass should've been slightly green at least, and the "lava" should've either been a warm gradient (red -> yellow) or a gritty black-brown for tar.
#6 SilverSwallow - "Road to Larry" Enjoyable
A little sister to Valley of Bowser 4, taking its key elements and doing something different with them. Vines, sinking volcanic rocks, Diggin' Chucks, and occasional use of flying Koopas cement this level's theme.

The design favors the Fire Flower, which is clearly demonstrated by the placement of the Diggin' Chucks and how you can position yourself safely to shoot at them to take a secure shortcut above the lava and without the threat of their rocks in some parts. Without a Fire Flower, however, you're forced to take the more difficult path around the Chuck, but what makes it interesting is that it's a little faster to do so. Both styles are rewarding in their own ways.

Placement of sinking rocks was purposeful and creative. I really liked the sinking rock below the vine block. Among other sections, it gave a sense of urgency to rush and do it right but the timing of the sinking didn't make it so that you needed pixel-perfect timing to survive.

Contrast in this level was wonderful. The dark rose taupe-colored cave background contrasted well with the grey rock and red lava. The terrain variation not only added to the visual appeal, but was very meaningful to the level design itself. The only flaw I can find is the FG/BG starting position is a very small bit low for the entrance and midway point.
#7 Doopy Buckride - "VLDC Entry" Unfulfilling
A long level with many themes going on and a few secrets to collect. One thing this level does well is appear to be a strange dream about SMW: for instance, the beginning gives off a Yoshi's Island 1 vibe without being a direct rip of the level, and for much of the area before the midway point, the areas have themes strongly present for much of the Vanilla Dome world. The water section can be described as a more spacious, reverse, abridged Forest of Illusion 3, the ghost house captures Donut, Donut Secret, and Choco references... then the castle seems like Morton's meets Larry's. All of this is topped off with a confrontation with Bowser.

As a tribute, it does its job fairly well, but it just doesn't feel like a proper level to me because it has so much going on and it is ridiculously long. The good thing is no idea overstays its welcome. Things that can become annoying fairly fast, like the Fishin' Boo, are kept brief. Most areas are also designed to be comfortably free to move around in, but do not particularly excel at anything, leaving the level somewhat unmemorable but not displeasurable.

I do feel like there was some wasted potential: there's a section in the vertical room where a vine goes up to a block that looks really difficult to reach without knowing there's a vine that starts near the muncher pit. I was kind of disappointed to find that empty.

There's also a Map16 "flaw" in the first ghost house room where you are able to swim through parts of the pillars above the water line. I would assume the intention was to use the Boo to get up to the top to get the 1up. I feel somewhat inspired now to go fishing in some Gym Statues in Kanto.
#8 GlitchMr - "rRrRrR rRrRrRrR!!!" Not for me
This is a one-screen level with multiple Bullet Bill shooters in a single column on the right side, multitudes of music note blocks, and many hidden ones. The objective is to make your way to the top and get the goal sphere within 60 seconds.

Due to the music note blocks being invisible until hit from below, being above a pit, and the slow-but-steady stream of Bills coming at you, the level involves a lot of trial and error to learn, and likely a lot of death in the process. I found this level to be rather taxing.

Admitably, the level looks pretty good. The background has tall green hills and a soft palette on the music note blocks. The goal sphere being changed to red doesn't impact anything because it's the only sprite in the level using that palette. The music note block's bounce sprite doesn't match its object palette, but other than that, I can't complain about appearances.
#9 luigiman09 - "Random Double Path" Not for me
The level opens by giving you a choice between an autoscrolling segment or a chilly room mostly spent running on top of munchers with the star power before the paths converge. The latter half of the level throws a P-switch race at you, which involves climbing nets and jumping through the coin walls before they turn back into brick, and a harassing Lakitu shortly after. It ends by dumping you in the sky through masses of Koopas and coins.

I did enjoy the autoscroll room. On the other hand, the second door feeling like a bonus room severely weakens the impact of the end of the level. I feel like the level went downhill after the midway point because it came off as trying to fit too big of a variety of sprites into the level. The room could have benefitted from losing everything before the Lakitu, and instead focusing on how to make the Lakitu section interesting beyond the first half of it.

Sprite tile memory problems are evident in the area where Yoshi is obtainable - the dinosaur kept disappearing on my end or the Lakitu's body would appear in front of its cloud. I also do not understand why the platform with the diagonal walkthrough dirt in Lakitu's area, shaped to be a tiny floating island, is a solid all-around block in behavior. I had a lot of slowdown in the final room because too many Koopas were used. The FG/BG starting position is too low for the entrance and midway point.

Random Double Path looks like I spilled a blueberry mojita all over Super Mario World - it's very saturated blue with a purple sky. The shades of the background hills and mountains are unfitting. The munchers seemed to be the only object to match the icy nature of door #2, and admitably, the blue bushes looked decent, but overall, it's in desperate need of a palette overhaul.
#10 Sokobansolver - "Wet Dry Ruins" Not for me
A puzzle-oriented level involving lots of layer tricks and the on-off switch.

I found it confusing that the layer 2 indoor room had to have me back off in order to "reset the layer" before I could move forward. This route seemed pleasantly short to the exit.

While the BG palette is especially vibrant and beautiful, the strong contrast and multitude of tilesets and line guides in the first room are visually busy in my opinion, whereas the indoor contrast is somewhat bland-looking.

Say that I suck or whatever, but I found it incredibly frustrating to attempt to get the second exit and after sinking an hour into this level, I don't think I can will myself to try any longer. Sorry. :/ I did look through Lunar Magic after I gave up to see what else you had done: it's definitely a creative, thoughtful design with a lot of TLC put into making sure it was playable, but it just didn't sit well with me.
#11 Ladida - "ヨッシーの家" Ambivalent
This level is a Big Meanie that starts out with a Sumo Brother about to drop its lightning on you in a small enclosure before moving onto a hectic adventure, claustrophobic with dangers. Cautious movement is emphasized and there is a focus on P-switch racing with different threats and obstacles on each go.

The 3up moon in this level is admirably difficult to get, as you'd be required to jump at such a time where you can pass through the top layer of coins without falling into the lava as they change back since you can't move the P-switch you have to press to get there.

There's an area of Big Mario bias where if you take your springboard through the pipe and jump up following the coins to the door, you're nearly forced to take a hit because of your velocity unless you know to duck while springing. The flying fish room with the Volcano Lotuses is a little evil for a midway point section. I can call everything else in this tough level completely fair, though, if not a little gear-grinding. Everything is put to meaningful use. The level starts moderately high in difficulty and finishes slightly higher.

Yoshi's House is downright gorgeous with the sunset palette and the detail is rich without being overbearing - this level of beauty continues through the castle and the gloaming with natural and interesting contrasts. The powerups go behind the mist when coming out of the box but it does little to take away from the visual appeal. The ending is quite humorous.
#12 KY2010 - "Terrible Whiteness" Not for me
A lengthy general castle level of moderate difficulty. It has a variety of castle foes, need of spinjumping for progression, and layer 2 madness in one room. A bit over halfway through, it makes a shift to an ice theme, as suggested by its name.

The layer 2 section of the castle often comes frighteningly close to crushing the player and unsafe zones aren't well-implied since a lot of the crushing areas go behind layer 1. The area with the two Grinders on the line is unforgiving since it's slow and the whole area is high and unsafe. The very last layer 2 block in the lava pool before the midway point is safe to stand on at its lowest altitude despite Mario going slightly below the surface. Frequently, Podoboos are placed so high they go offscreen and in some cases, I don't notice them until they're on their way down. Probably, the weakest point is the time limit. The level is very slow-paced and I don't think the time given compensates well for that.

Toward the end of the ice section, there's a long area of floating green Koopas over a lava pool with falling grey platforms that I feel drags on for too long, but apart from this and the layer 2 room, the level wasn't all that bad, but did not have any strong design ideas. The ending with Ludwig blocking off the goal tape was a neat touch, seeing how you had to fly up there to fight him.

The palette sticks mostly to the default, but adapts the spikes and blocks in the ice room to fit. This makes the Dragon Coin palette animation and the bounce sprite of the turn block, unfortunately, unfitting.
#13 notgoodwithusernames - "Concussion Mountain" Enjoyable
Like a punch in the face, this level is brief and packed with lasting ouch. Saws, Fuzzies, and pacing Koopas leave nothing unguarded.

An adequate number of powerups were provided, providing a little bit of comfort in this crazy level. Tapping is the key to success since you need to make near-precise moves in parts or jump with strange trajectories in which you shift in mid-air.

The brown and mahogany hills coupled with the grey clouds, shaking ground, and falling rocks gives the area a volcanic vibe. Everything being in constant motion, especially with the activity picking up after the midway point, gives off a feeling of anxiety and distracts from the slow, cautious pacing of the level - the shell-less Koopas pacing back and forth on those small platforms really help this mood along.

Shooting fireballs through ceiling slopes is kind of funky but it doesn't impact gameplay.
#14 AirMario - "Entry" Not for me
It's a giant waffle. O_≖;;

The level seems to play out in an undulating fashion - you'll go up to the top then back down, repeat. There's a variety in threats, such as bouncing Koopas, a solitary Bullet Bill shooter surrounded by a lake, and an expanding turn block bridge above a pit. There's no standout design moments, no identifiable theme, and the level is far too short to make much of.

Landform designs have layer priority over everything. It's possible to jump into the back of a solid wall where the layer priority clashes, causing Mario to cut off, and there's a section where it's possible to go to the top and skip over a chunk of the level right to the end.

The BG palette and FG grass are bad since the trees are meant to have a smooth gradient and the grass doesn't correspond with the dirt shadow; the light and dark shades of green are reversed.
#15 Morsel - "MorselMorselMorsel.ips" Ambivalent
A mountain level with strong emphasis on individual obstacles. The level is unified by the recurring rocky enemies and the idea of using Spin Jump in various ways to progress. Vines get introduced in the second half. The level ends with Reznor.

I found this level to be on the challenging side, mostly in a good way. Some things that got me though were the facts that some of the flying rocks went below the lava - the first set was probably the hardest to clear because of this, and I also came across a red shell-less Koopa in the second room near the munchers that I couldn't get by without a Fire Flower. It felt too much like I just needed the chips to fall on my side in those sections.

While the individual ideas present are strong and well-done on their own, the level is very sluggish to play through. I would also say the idea is so thoroughly milked, that while the level has variety within, there's little room for growth outside of that with these ideas, and this style of level with this length would be tough to work into anything bigger than a small hack without becoming tedious.

The palette of this level was decent. The grey mountain BG and sandy FG are pleasantly different, though I do feel there should be a little more contrast between the shades in the FG. On a bad note, the puffs of smoke caused by a non-existant bridge in Reznor's room are ugly.
#16 Shog - "Ashy Plains" Unfulfilling
Grassland level with two exits and a balance of different foes. This level successfully demonstrates progressive difficulty, introduces bigger threats (Chucks) halfway through, and saves the cool gimmicks for the ends.

I think early on, this level's biggest weakness is the pacing and having too many coins. The strongest example I can give of slow pacing is a filler section before the midway point where there's a descent across some small platforms with slopes. Quite a few of the slopes seemed decorative and did little more than slow the player down. The use of enemies is fairly strong, but there are some points where it's redundantly overdone, such as the area with the Red Koopas that you must jump across.

I liked the way the secret exit was hidden - interesting but not too obscure. SMW's little glitch with eating the berries made it really easy to make Baby Yoshi grow, though. The regular exit had an unusual run with the creating and eating block, but I felt the organization was too cluttered and it could've gone a little faster.

The palette in this level was pleasant. The grey dirt and hills with the green grass has a very appealing contrast, and the amount of bushes, grass blades, and berries makes it environmentally interesting.

Ideas present in this level were really cool, but could've been pulled off better, in short. You are a creative individual, so keep it up.
#17 Magiluigi - "Mammatus Woods" Unfulfilling
A sky/mushroom/forest level that focuses primarily on Yoshi flight. The beginning of the level has few places where it's possible to permanently lose Yoshi, and while there is no necessity to keep Yoshi to beat the level, he's important for reaching the secrets.

It's easy to break the level because it's possible to fly above the treetops and over the clouds that you can't go through from below. Ignoring that, the level itself has multitudes of enemies placed decently, if not slightly on the overbearing side, but the fact that Yoshi was easily redeemed prevented it from becoming annoying. The route is interestingly designed with each segment presenting a different obstacle like a wall of Pokeys or some flying Koopas, and the turn block wall you must break with throw blocks would've been a challenging touch for keeping Yoshi long enough to get the secrets had the level not been almost completely skippable.

One thing that threw me off about the beginning of the level was that I thought there would be something on the other side of that high platform with the low cloud, so I ditched Yoshi to get up there only to find nothing on the other side. Another thing too is when I die right here at the bottom of the level, the game crashes 100% of the time:


This level is extremely beautiful with pastel palettes, colorful outlines, and bright layer 3 mist that put a dreamy spin on Super Mario World. It's an extremely refreshing style. The cutoff lava at the bottom of the pits is still visible, I noticed the Piranha Plants going behind the layer 2 hills, and the FG/BG starting positions are a little too high in the first room, but other than that, there's not much to complain about visually. I'd suggest not using the mist in the main part of the level because the thing with the Piranha Plants going behind the hills interferes with gameplay.
#18 Aquamentus - "Lava Mansion" Ambivalent
A true ghost house in the puzzle, enemy, and structural sense. The first half of the level has misleading doors, and your goal is to find the door that leads you to the P-switch which gives you the springboard you need to reach the secret door before the P timer runs out. After the midway point is a setup similar to Valley Ghost House's P-switch rush for mystery doors.

The thing that made the misleading doors thing easy for me is that the correct door in the first half was always the one at the very end of the path. Big Boo was placed nicely over the door at the end of the first room. The item puzzle was kept brief and easy to understand, and the swimming segment was enjoyable.

The Boo Trains in the P-switch run room had frustrating placement because they force you to wait when you really can't. It adds appropriate tension, on the bright side, but on a really bad note, it 100% prevents me from going further left to explore what's beyond the exit door. The level's still beatable... but you gave off an impression there's something else there.

Some of the background palettes gave off the impression of heat, but at the same time, many didn't flow well into the black - too much contrast against it. I think the contrast levels of the gas bubble room was good, though, and foreground palettes were satisfactory throughout. There were also some problems with lava contact since I found a point (e.g. the gas bubble room) where I didn't die until I was below the surface tile, but I would've died either way so I'm throwing it into aesthetic issues.
#19 ShadowPhoenix - "So, Let's Go!" Unfulfilling
That's what she said.

ANYWAYS, this level is a grassy area with some building parts and a large variety of enemies: Sumos, Chucks, Lotuses, Special Koopas, and Pumpkin Plants are the stars.

The level feels unified only because it's homogeneous: it lacks a progressive feel in design and difficulty, and the various enemies are spread evenly. Structurally, it's not redundant, but it's inoffensive, so it was an unmemorable experience. Enemy placement proved to add challenge if the player was capeless, but scarcely ever was exciting because much of it was done in the same manner each time. The invulnerablility of the Volcano Lotuses due to placement was interesting, but I feel so much more could've been done with enemies to spruce things up.

The biggest thing this stage has going for it is the palette and tileset. Browns are used frequently with care to prevent it from being monochromatic; the mountains are a light mahogany, building parts are rich brown, and the dirt is very pale. A desaturated look on much of the foreground gives the level a feeling of mildly chilly temperature, which together with the mountains, gives off the impression of a high-altitude level. The nighttime segment at the end is remarkably vibrant.
#20 Yan - "A Haunted House" Unfulfilling
An item fetch quest ghost house.

A Haunted House's most notable point is probably enemy placement. Boo Circles and wave-motion Eeries are used excellently. However, it's possible to lure Boos down enough to spin jump on them and reach the door without needing to get the vine, thus allowing you to skip the whole Koopa Shell fetch. So, while in many places the placement is strong, those areas that break the level need to be watched.

The 1up in one room got glitched into a corner part of the wall and kept wiggling around in it. I'm sure giving a little more space in that section would fix it.

While the foreground and background palettes were generally good, some rooms where the Boo palette is either overshaded or poorly colored and how some rooms were way overdetailed with bricks and trees took away from the appeal.
#21 THY - "muSTARd Nightfall" Not for me
This entry has a lot in common with ShadowPhoenix's - grassy area with some building parts, and a strong inclusion of Koopas and Chucks, but also Goombas, Rexes, and Spinies.

The level is similarly homogeneous with no sense of progression or standout concepts. Enemies effectively guard platforms but their layout is not interesting and they are evenly clustered. The level has a slow pace due to the large amount of foes and jumps. Dragon Coins, being within easy reach, did not give the player incentive to take any risky approach nor bolster any additional design challenges to make the level interesting. Coin placement is excessive and occasionally distracting from the flow of the level.

muSTARd Nightfall has a different palette idea with a bright cyan foreground, blue mountains, indigo sky, and purple stars, but it didn't come together extremely well. The brightness of the star shades does not mesh well with the background color and the dirt/grass could stand to be a little less pale.
#22 Punk Sarcophagus - "Fish Nets" Ambivalent
A vertical descent marked with nets and an assortment of hazards ranging from Hotheads and Mega Moles to moving carrots, which lead into a bridge that have flying fish and Bob-Ombs everywhere.

Each part of the descent feels different. It starts slow and simple by pitting you against net-climbing Koopas, and gradually introduces tougher obstacles. One thing I liked was toward the end of the room, and I rarely see this, is the timed platforms moving against you so you have to rush against them, but if you fail, you can hit a vine and climb back up and try again - of course, be wary not to be trapped by the Mega Moles. While the flying fish encourage slow movement, I felt it was easier to just run at max speed through this segment and take my chances. Powerups given suffice for this course of action just as well. It gets very tense toward the end of the level because of the way the fish and the bombs clutter up.

Sometimes the moving carrot doesn't time up with my jump down following the coin trail so I land in the lava, and it's out of sight when I begin the jump... as a solution, I should stay on the timed platform as it falls. The thing that bothers me about this level is one part where the moving pipes are - sometimes, the third pipe doesn't want to move and I have to horse around for a while waiting for it to line up perfectly enough for me to jump over. I feel that if it were a tile or two lower, this wouldn't be a hinderance.

The first room in this level has a wonderful palette - the BG clouds fade excellently into the sky, and the foreground looks rather cute. The grey lava was kind of weird though.. maybe go for a more traditional lava palette or a dark tarlike color next time, or even boiling chocolate. I didn't like the palette of the second room though; the hills further out should be darker and they shouldn't be lighter towards the outside when against a night sky. Those hill colors should be in reverse order to smooth out.
#23 MarioFan22 - "Cave Escape 2" Ambivalent
A moderately long cave level with a few secrets reached via blue P-switches. It starts with lots of shelled enemies, Piranha Plants, and sloped landscape, but the second half of the level shifts toward climbing, Bullet Bills, and munchers.

The amount of powerups given for this rather tight-spaced, enemy-packed level is sufficient. I was pleased with the strategic placement of Puntin' Chuck in one part. There was one part where Bullet Bill shooters surrounded a block with a Mushroom that was fairly annoying since it was easy to lose the power as soon as you got it, defeating the purpose, but other than that, good job on enemy placement. It was also kind of interesting that the same P-switch was relied on for multiple secrets. Due to the low ceiling of the final stretch and the spacing of the ? blocks, the 1up felt disappointing to miss so narrowly after carrying the switch for so long.

There is a brief item fetch toward the end of the level where you go up to the top of the level, go left for a springboard, use that to start a P-switch run and get through a wall to get the silver, and enter a pipe blocked with munchers for the secret exit. I felt that it was executed decently; it had enough action to be entertaining and was short enough to not become a babysitting chore.

Each room of Cave Escape 2 has the same tileset with a different hue - green, blue, yellow, purple, and so on. The variation in the landscaping and design focus also keeps the level visually fresh.
#24 yogui - "A Simple Level" Unfulfilling
A nonlinear grassland where Dragon Coins in the second half are on specific paths that aren't always backtrackable, requiring multiple playthroughs to learn where they all are. Enemy usage is kept to a small, strict set of foes such as Chucks, fish, and Koopas. The first half of the level is largely land-based with a little bit of water while the second half is largely water and freefall-based.

There's quite a bit you can freely explore in the first half, as some nooks and crannies contain powerups or extra lives. There is one such place that is accessible by breaking blocks via Spin Jump or backtracking at the end of the first room, needed for a Dragon Coin - this is the only part of the level that takes place over a bottomless pit, which is kind of interesting. Unfortunately, quite a few of the other paths, especially the underwater ones, feel samey.

A Simple Level's second half feels like something out of Kirby to me for some reason. The flow of the coins in the freefall for one of the last Dragon Coins is stricter than a player could respond to the first time.

Palettes here are pleasant like a pastel sunset and somewhat remind me of Yoshi's Island. The level's variety in appearance comes largely from the fact that most of it is playable terrain - use of decoration is present but minimal. 8x8 tile properties of the Map16 editor was creatively used to give the dirt corners of the grassland a water color.
#25 levelengine - "How did I get here?" Unfulfilling
A controlled-paced sunken ship-style level with Chucks, Piranha Plants, Spike Tops, fish, Koopas, and shifting tides to deal with.

After the midway point when I encounter the next Puntin' Chuck, the level slows to a grinding halt. This is made even worse by the fact I use the Fire Flower by then to try and kill the Chuck before moving on, because he'll continue to punt despite the moving coins. I have more of this slowdown in the second room at points.

One other gripe I have about the gameplay is that the first room feels harder and more conceptually developed than the second room. The level does feel unified by constant use of water and the same set of enemies, but at the same time, no section stands out as a climax of the level or as a notable subconcept. Enemy placement presents a substantial challenge to the player and each foe is purposeful.

How did I get here? is a gorgeous level with layer 3 mist, translucent layer 1 water, and use of the ghost house building tileset to create the illusion of the interior of a sunken ship. Textured details are kept close to the ground and palettes leave everything distinguishable so the visuals never get in the way of gameplay. I'd say it's definitely one of the best-looking entries.
#26 Hawthorne - "Cinnamon Woods" Ambivalent
Cinnamon Woods, all humor prior to the level aside, is a fast-paced, short-but-sweet level with Puntin' Chucks, Spike Tops, and falling platforms.

The level concept is rigid, not extravagant, and does not drag on. Segments feel different due to the enemies and structures they're on as well as the 3-falling platform ascent. One thing I adore about this level is if you tackle it with the proper consistent pace, holding Y but not running full speed, and tap-jumping, you can breeze through it, but any other pace and the level's true difficulty becomes apparent. This is craftsmanship and what makes levels in many real games fun. There is still room for expansion but I'm torn on whether the level should have more substance.

By accident, I fell and discovered how to get to the secret exit. Keeping true to the level's fast pace, the P-switch run itself was well-executed. A stronger hint such as a coin trail below the platform above the P-switch block would've been helpful since from my perspective, there wasn't really anything hinting at the way to go. The Spike Top, if meant as a hint, didn't do it for me - I saw it more as (good) platform guard. I did encounter one instance toward the end with a sprite tile memory problem on my second playthrough - the very last falling platform did not spawn at all, so I fell to my death.

Aesthetically, this level shines with some yellow-brown to light mahogany forest dirt, greyish leaf veins and darkest shade on trees, rich tan hills, sunset orange-brown skies, and sandy-shaded clouds. Rather than looking like a wall of brown, it has fantastic and natural contrast. Toward the top of the level, the sky fades smoothly to blue. Top-notch palette work.
#27 DarkMarioBros - "My Level" Disqualified/Not for me
Uses cutscene water. X

This level felt like Groovy, Cookie Mountain, Yoshi's Island 1, and Butter Bridge 2, all combined into one in a very unpleasant way, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say parts of this level were used directly from Yoshi's Island 1. It did not feel like its own level at all. It crosses the line of well-guarded to overcluttered with enemies with all the Chucks and the Super Koopa generator. I also did not like how I could get hurt by a Piranha Plant behind a bush.

When shot out of the cannon, I go through most of the coins before reaching the moon. The cave section's skulls also shouldn't be starting on the land; they were meant to be put on top of the lava. It was also in poor taste to put a Chuck right next to the midway point entrance.

It's also a very monochromatic level. Everything is the same hue of brown - the water, the hills, the cave, the grass, etc. which leaves it visually unappealing.
#28 Mr. Blue Yoshi - "Boo's Forest" Ambivalent
A spook-infested forest level with Grinders about, which allows you to go back in the past to a time when the forest was alive with a different set of more innocuous creatures so that you can find the Big Boo, defeat him, and 'disinfect' the forest.

This level's first room's pace is defined by the need for patience in waiting for the Boo Circles to give you an opening. Overall, the challenge level seems to start higher in the haunted present, whereas the vibrant past seems easier, but much faster-paced. In an aesthetic sense defined by the gimmick, it's understandable that the difficulty curve is slightly negative - it balances itself out to be neither a good nor bad thing. The fact that the past plays like the present in reverse, with slightly different terrain and much different enemies, keeps the level fresh.

My big big problem with this level is because I took the red shell through the pipe, the Big Boo boss would not spawn, so I got stuck and forced to die. D:

Palette-wise, the original SMW colors look great in the past room. The present room pulls off the greyscale theme well. There are some places where the spelling could use revision, but it's not a terribly big deal. The level having its own story was a nice touch.
#29 tjdtnsu (a.k.a. Snails) - "Short Adventure" Disqualified/Unfulfilling
A grassland level which leads into a water segment which leads into a grassland segment which leads into a sunset grassland segment which leads into a nighttime grassland segment which leads into a switch palace and then you win.

I can't put my finger on a level theme. It does feel like something out of Super Mario Bros./World in a good way, but the level is marred with problems. The difficulty curve here is somewhat unstable. The beginning of the level felt inappropriate, with a Koopa sliding towards you right away. I felt room 2 was the hardest of the bunch, brought down only by the Fire Flower. It feels like a steady increase through the end from room 3 on. The secret exit's room felt appropriately difficult compared to the rest of the level.

The canon exit can only be used once and becomes a stuck-forever zone afterwards. Because of how much is toward the top of the screen in rooms 3 and 4, I feel Vertical Scroll at Will is needed there. The level also is in need of a midway point because it's on the long side. Occasionally, there are threatless enemies, such as the first Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother in room 1 and 3, since he's too high for his hammers to fall, and one of the Urchins in room 2 is out of the way of anywhere you'd be heading. On the flip side, I don't believe Piranha Plants should be behind bushes because they can hurt you while invisible. For the most part, otherwise, enemy placement is not exactly inventive but quite fun.

In room 4, the Para-enemy generators should be shut off before they start awkwardly falling into the wall. Room 2's and 3's FG/BG start positions are too low. The palettes are well-done, although I would suggest darkening the clouds and hills in the nighttime areas to match the dark blue sky.
#30 ShadowFire - "Forest Stroll" Not for me
A forest level with thoroughly carved, sloped platforms and a large variety of enemies from hopping flames and Koopas to Lakitus.

One word to describe this level: Clutter. Forest Stroll has an incredibly slow pace with lots of hesitation before each move. Steep slopes before a pit make some jumps difficult to execute because Mario occasionally would not respond. Lakitus can hurt you when ducked behind the land and unseen. Coins are frequently placed where there's no other incentive for the player to go, often being a distraction more than anything else. The Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother and Splittin' Chuck in the second half of the level are the only things to prevent the nonexistance of progression - that said, it's still weak and the level feels homogeneous in challenge and ideas.

The palette is desaturated and pale to the point of being drab and boring. That said, everything is an appropriate color. The level is very busy with diamond carving in the land, branches on the trees, but regretably, the various spaced-out, small platform structures themselves get in the way of the design being enjoyable.
#31 Blue Leaf - "Sky Island" Enjoyable
A level with lots of moving platforms. It starts with a standard set of foes, introduces saws in the second quarter, and foes with more complex attacks and approaches in the second half.

Sky Island is a boss about progression of difficulty and ideas; it allows the player to adapt and remains fresh throughout. The rotating platforms of the first room are used intelligently to be able to reach Dragon Coins and room exits, leaving no return after reaching the room exit. Saw formations are not redundant. The music note block section to jump over the saws is a nice break away from the regular land and line-guided platforms. Volcano Lotuses, bouncing Koopas, and Super Koopas in the second room are used effectively, fairly, and never overdone. Powerup distribution is spot-on.

Many of the palette rows are taken from parts of SMW to give the cave, mushrooms, and sky their respective colors. The result is delightfully colorful with excellent contrast. Goal post grass sparingly decorates the cave foreground graphics, while mushroom tops alternate between green and red. The world seems to have flipped upside-down in the second room, which puts a neat spin on the appearance.
#32 Dakress - "Grand Galleon" Enjoyable
A level that begins with an auto-scrolling water segment which leads you into a ship. You then enter the ship and work your way to the top. You fight Reznor at the end.

The "introduction" room is a smart idea because you aren't throwing an unprepared player right into the autoscroll. The autoscroll room itself is nicely executed - there are slight path deviations with their own rewards but it all ultimately leads to the same place. Torpedo Teds, Bullet Bills, and underwater foe formations are used intelligently but not overwhelmingly. Much of the inside is guarded by various Chucks positioned very wisely for a balance of challenge and flow. Finding all the Dragon Coins is fun, more challenging than ignoring them altogether, and never feels too out-of-the-way. The Reznor room being filled with music note blocks makes for a refreshingly easy and humorous victory after a lengthy level.

Grand Galleon's use of the ghost house tileset and underwater seaweed comes together brilliantly to make a ship. It does make use of SMW's original colors in an appealing manner. Layer 2 scrolling up and down at the top of the ship was a nice touch in making the ship believable, and the auto-scroll feature of the first main room is a strong foundation for its fun.
#33 ZMann - "Negative World" Ambivalent
A haunted, greyscale mountain level that starts with a muncher-ridden vertical descent before leading into a tap dance around Grinders and Dry Bones.

The first room lays the foundation for what to expect a lot of in the level: Boos, Dry Bones, and munchers, but apart from good enemy placement, it accomplishes little else. The Boo Block segment kind of throws a knife in the pacing, but properly warns the player that more of these are to come. Negative World picks up a LOT in the second room; it's nicely structured with tiny path branches that reconnect and continues the trend of good placement of the aforementioned foes. Grinders add a sense of urgency to react, and abusing the slopes to kill them is fun. Dragon Coins add some exploration value but are never too tough to find.

A big graphical bug I found is when you slide down a slope in a second room and kill a Grinder; the vanilla solution would unfortunately be to never use a Grinder where you can slide into it, and that's a shame because it seems integral to the level design. Disregarding that, this greyscale palette is one of the better ones I've seen because it's butter-smooth.
#34 chineesmw - "Autumn Forest" Disqualified/Not for me
A forest level with a lot of flooring and pillars.

Design-wise, I felt this level was themeless. I get short platform jump after short platform jump from beginning to end. Enemies guard platforms somewhat well, but there's no creativity in how they are used. Together, these two faults leave the flow of the level is left completely broken. I didn't feel like there was a core design idea the level was built around; there was no sense of progression.

Ghost house floors and pillars appearing in front of the level cause immense confusion in what is walkable floor and also obscures parts of the action needlessly. The background is piercing orange, and should be toned down. The grass also being orange leaves the level looking like a wall of orange - green grass leaning slightly towards the yellow side would add some much-needed contrast. Lastly, the FG/BG starting postition for this level was much too low.
#35 Mariosyoshishade - "Blazing Desert" Unfulfilling
A desert level with multitudes of dunes and a heat advisory in effect until 15:00. The outside acts as a hub to multiple smaller rooms underground, and the very low time limit in the outside gives some urgency to check them out.

To me, the gimmick is the selling point of the level, and trying to use the underground as little as possible to refresh offers thrill. Each underground room also has something in it worth the visit, such as Dragon Coins, loadsamoney, powerups, or even a small shortcut so you can get further up in the dunes. The outside is designed as a mass of layered hills. It does get noticably harder as you progress, but the top layer does let you avoid many threats. While enemy usage isn't particularly intriguing, it packs a wallop when you do have to confront it. Large sections to slide on make the level very fast-paced.

Slowdown makes a cameo in the section with lots of Chargin' Chucks and some Hammer Brothers. There's also some spots where the Map16 properties don't seem to make sense, such as where I can jump and hit my head on a floor tile.

Aesthetically-speaking, this level is really weak. Taking advantage of the fact that there are several color assignments in the tileset to allow more shades would've helped the appearance substantially. Everything is a wall of sandy tan, except the BG hills, which look decent. The layered FG hills look sort of sloppy, but tie in with the desert theme. It's fun, but it needs much more polish. D:
#36 everest700 - "Land of Mystery" Ambivalent
A very strange-looking grassland level littered with pipes and Lakitus. Respective friends - Koopas, Spinies, and Chucks, also make an appearance. A cave segment before the middle challenges you to spin jump on a rock across munchers to continue. Afterward, you're faced with parachuting enemies but get a Star to jolt through it all.

Introduction of level concepts comes with each room shift of the level. I imagine this is the kind of level that would be used as a world introduction to give the player a moment to relax, in a similar vein to Forest of Illusion 1 with a little more flesh and living up more to the abstract nature its name suggests. While the cave part is easy to skip, it's required for one of the Dragon Coins. On the flip side, you can find the moon by going over that part of the level, then get shot out of the cannon as you would for completing the cave. Details like this make the level fun to explore.

I did encounter a small amount of slowdown in the bonus room you reach via Yoshi... other than that, no objective gameplay problems. Reset doors/pipes seem sloppy to me and remind me I'm playing a mod. I would recommend removing the message, and have pipes, instead of doors, lead you to where the pipe that came after where you found the P-switch would take you where you can't return, as an alternative "punishment" for failing the puzzle. It's also easy to miss the wings, though I'm assuming the space is to prevent you from dropping your item to get it - with some rearranging, I'm sure you can make space on the left side to walk on with the box above land.

Land of Mystery's yellow sky and background coupled with the mahogany foreground make this level unusual and interesting to look at. It's smoothly, beautifully done.
#37 Carld923 - "Forest, Cave, 'n Mole" Enjoyable
A weaving adventure through a forest and a mine shaft with a wide array of foes to face.

This is one of the rare levels that are elaborately decorated without being distracting, with finely-crafted paths that aren't tedious to run and jump through, and together with a wide variety of enemy placement, maintains a progression of challenge. Dragon Coins were easy to locate but had daring challenges to actually retrieve, such as using a shell to get into a tight spot that you then need to break your way out of with throw blocks or use Chargin' Chuck's anger, or taking a dangerous route to grab a P-switch to open up the final coin. While the theme and its unity are not powerfully presented, the level had a greatly balanced flow and fun obstacles to conquer.

I don't believe I was ever meant to be able to free the items from the opposite breakable turn block column from which I took. I would also not have put that bouncing football so close to the pipe, since it will move toward you; it seems a too early in the cave segment for something like that. Other than that, I can't find much to complain about design-wise.

The cave colors look awesomely done! In the outside part of the level, I would have picked a sky color that goes better with the brightest ends of the trees, though. Other than that, the level looks nicely paletted.
#38 HyperMario - "Frozen Wonderland" Unfulfilling
An ice level with lots of sloped terrain. Koopas and Goombas are about outdoors, while the cave brings its full roster of athletes along.

As expected from an ice level, Frozen Wonderland is 100% slippery. Coupled with the slopes, the level is mostly a fast one. It's a very straightforward level, with the most extreme deviation I can think of being a mere climb up a vine to gather some coins off the clouds. There are very few instances where the enemy placement is completely threatless, one being a Disco Shell Koopa in the first room; for the most part, while not inventive, the placement is intelligent for progression of challenge and maintenance of flow.

The design starts to become a little samey in the cave with the back-and-forth scaling, and the final room is extremely repetitive. The midway point comes incredibly early, leaving the halves of the level much more disproportionate than they should be. The level has two definite climaxes: the P-switch run of the start of the second room and the bouncing Koopa spam in the third room. I'd leave the P-switch run for close to the end of the level, and possibly carry over some of the extremes and few new ideas of the final room to the first before eliminating the final room entirely, as it feels like the last room drags the whole level down with it.

As far as the aesthetics go, this level has a lovely, bright ice coloring throughout. The shades of the cave BG are smoothly done, and even the berries in the outside have frosty green coloring. Everything is easily distinguished.
#39 Archie - "Rocky Land" Not for me
A long level based around line-guided platforms and puzzles relating to them. Varieties of enemies try to make this a soul-crushing experience.

Many of the line-guided platforms are already moving. Keeping them stationary until touched would make the level much less of a needlessly annoying waiting game to trudge through. Furthermore, the Pitchin' Chucks' balls are incredibly hard to dodge when there are two rows of balls and a moving platform involved. Having to run under a Ninji was also an unpleasant choice. There are some creative designs here, such as the fact a Pitchin' Chuck follows you up at the same rate as your line-guided platform, and a counter-clockwise-moving platform blocked at one point by a pillar that will force you off if you don't eject.

The puzzles after the first room are often elaborate, thought-provoking, and inventive, but before that was extremely hard and unnecessary for the core concept of the level. The difficulty curve is very unstable and the level is snail-paced even in the action parts, and I would say to cut out the fat and make this a pure puzzle level would enhance the experience greatly.

The level looks pretty decent with smooth contrast in the light grey mountains and pale cyan sky, and a washed-out tan foreground. Nothing distracts from the raw gameplay of the level.
#40 1UPdudes - "Dino River" Ambivalent
A layer 3 tide level infested with various Dinos. Yoshi himself also makes an appearance in the level.

What really brought this level on the decent side for me is the depth Yoshi added. I rarely ever see the pink berries used, and can say the coin tossing was well-suited for this setup. Yoshi was also a big help in getting the final Dragon Coin. The fish are the best-used enemy, adding threat to the tide and lower ground, while the sliding Koopas on small slopes also added substantial danger.

The level distributes the Dino Torches uninterestingly in bulk, but spreads the Dino Rhinos well. I feel that considering the level's named for these two, more of the terrain could be adapted to bring out more different challenges in them than what's there. Also on the negative side, there are two powerups right next to the midway point for reasons I can't comprehend. It seems like too much.

Dino River is very Earthbound-colored and nicely sculpted. The detailing in the foreground is finely done, but not overly so, with land carving, bushes, and mole holes. The bushes were remarkably well-used over drowning spots and land. Overall, the level seemed lively and somewhat jurassic in atmosphere.
#41 ferrety111 - "Fine Lineguide Ride" Favorites
Very funny intro. The story here is Mario fell into a hole and has to get out. It's a lava-filled cave with tons of line-guided platforms and Fuzzies. There's the occasional Podoboo, Swooper, or Buzzy Beetle.

Both name and design-wise, this stage feels like something out of a Donkey Kong game. This level takes a small set of ideas and continues to design them in tighter and more intense ways as the level continues. The line-guided segments get longer while Fuzzies on short transit paths become more and more frequent or put in narrower areas, even jumping toward the end. A Super Cape is given at some point past the midway point to add a sense of comfort, while the level is not unbeatable without it -- even with the cape, the level did continue to get harder.

This is the style of design that later amounts to a solid full hack - each level having a simple idea that becomes more elaborately executed as you go without milking it to the point where it can't be spun or recycled.

Fine Lineguide Ride is a gorgeous stage. The cave foreground looks like igneous rock, and the background's low contrast and bright browns give the impression of a heated room full of lava. It's easy to see all the line guides and threats.
#42 Ripperon-X - "Weakevel" Not for me
A run-of-the-mill stage with Rexes and company until you get to the midway point. The level then becomes a Mega Mole ride over a sea of munchers.

Something about the mole ride is reminiscent to one of the earlier Desert World levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 where you're riding a platform above water and having to work around blocks. What really grinds my gears is that I have to kill enemies ahead of the mole or keep resetting the section, or if I take damage, I have to reset the section. It becomes tedious very quickly without the Fire Flower, some enemies can't be spin jumped off of and allow you to bounce back up.

It's a very light blue level with enough difference in the colors to look a little more than acceptable. The black pixels in the ground bushes look really bad, though.
#43 Guinimo - "Gardens of Natura" Not for me
wait is this an entry or is this your hack

It's ...level 105, with a few self-made sections cut in and some objects and sprites switched around, which then leads into a 106 of similar nature. An autoscrolling part with tide and scaling mushrooms follows.

Ignoring the fact that the level is largely unoriginal in the objective sense, a lot of the new additions are flat and boring with the occasional enemy walking towards you. The first "new" section with a lot of pipes, on the other hand, is too cluttered with enemies. The entirely new section, being the last room, was underwhelming since nothing was placed high to make travelling across the scaling mushrooms worth it as opposed to swimming. The bridge segment after the mushrooms suffer the first issue in the new designs that I described.

A lot of the new palettes look decent... but the cave connected to the first room had a really bad background palette since the shades are all messed up.
#44 Kenny - "Sunrise Mountain" Unfulfilling
A mountain that throws everything at you. There are many projectile enemies and jumping Monty Moles to make your life wonderful[citation needed] and the level becomes even more pleasant with falling platforms.

A big minus in my book is that the level starts off with two moles ready to pop out right next to you, giving you less than two seconds to start moving or you already die. I also think the level needs to ease up a little on the enemy use or not leave them so close to edges on platforms that are high to jump up to - the level feels like a cluttered stop & go at several points, and I don't feel that is what you want to do with enemy guarding. I also feel strongly that the jump before the wall triangle, where the Volcano Lotus is on a skinny pipe, is incredibly unfair.

The flying question mark block ride to a falling grey platform, with your only shot at entering a secret pipe, is the most memorable obstacle IMO. That said, it was very difficult to stick the entrance, and you were dead if you were off even a little. What was done with the Mega Moles and the small pocket in the land you could duck in was cool.

Sunrise Mountain is a gorgeous level start-to-finish, minus the secret room, which is too monochromatic. The yellow-to-orange gradient has an excellent transition between shades and all the qualities of sherbet minus the coldness. The cloud shades against the orange are satisfactory, but not as smooth. Mountains are just as nicely done as the sky. No additional decoration is used outside of the variety of objects used for the stage design itself. Overall, good work on appearance.
#45 PatPatPat - "How Do Chuck Glitch" Unfulfilling
Another mountain level with many kinds of Chucks and Volcano Lotuses, but unlike the last one, it just takes these two and tries introducing various obstacles throughout the course of the level.

The level keeps to a very strict and well-defined theme, and is not repetitive in structure. It's designed in such a way that jumping on Chucks without luring them away will often send you right into one of a Volcano Lotus's fireballs or back into the Chuck if you're not careful, or a football will bounce right back into a little cubby you're standing in. The level is incredibly cramped and meant to be played very slowly for success, which unfortunately is not my preference, but at the very least, it's consistent all the way through and not terribly long. The difficulty curve felt slightly negative to me, in part because the later part of the level is slightly more open and gives you Throw Blocks every now and then to help, but in that sense, the level has a sense of idea progression.

Powerup providence is sufficient if you paced yourself correctly in the level. The Dragon Coins are a really challenging side quest, as some are not possible or are very difficult to get if you mess up the first shot.

This level looks kind of like peanut butter on stone. Don't get me wrong, it's actually colored really nicely.. it's just funny and unusual. I suppose the background hills and clouds contrast very well with it, but the black sky does not work at all against light blue cloud shades.
#46 Undy - "Fierce Fire Flow" Unfulfilling
A level which is mostly about riding skulls over lava. Castle enemies and bouncing Koopas are main adversaries. In the second half of the level, P-balloons are introduced and much more emphasis gets put on lava sections than before.

Ninji placement was a little frustrating for me at times on those block pillars while the raft is moving since how high they're going to jump isn't very predictable. On the other hand, I really liked how all the other types of enemies were placed. There were a lot of neat things done with the Bowser Statues and the Thwimp formations which gave the level some enjoyable moments.

I became stuck and forced to die at one point because I went ahead with the second P-balloon, and didn't realize that if I got too far away from the raft and couldn't make it to the end, I got stuck on a platform and was forced to die. I think this P-balloon is more misleading than helpful. Other than that, the level feels cramped and often slow.

Undy's level looks like a pack of heather color Fruit of the Looms - a dim but full-looking palette. It looks cool, but I have a hard time seeing some enemies like the Spiny or Li'l Sparky because they blend in with the BG clouds. The level is littered with details everywhere, specks of grass in the dirt, cobwebs, columns, mole holes, bricks - it's a little overbearing at times and I can't imagine why so much grass would grow in such a volcanic area, but since much of the detail is kept close to the walkable or solid ground, it's usually not very distracting.
#47 TomPhanto - "Kumquat Cavern" Enjoyable
A unique level that forces the player into a small column as the level scrolls. Threats include Koopas, Ninjis, Pitchin' Chucks, Volcano Lotuses, and the ever-looming horror of being crushed to death by the cave walls on all sides of you. You foresee everything that is about to happen in your frame, allowing you to prepare for some of the hardest stuff.

The design itself would not be remarkable, but the gimmick brings out the very best in it. There are small sections where you can slide to kill enemies that distract from threats that can't be so easily conquered. Some areas give you narrow room to dodge projectiles. One section has a falling platform you must wait for to pass in order to allow the wall ahead to clear the upcoming ground. Every Dragon Coin is risky but reasonable to go for. Overall, the level feels intense and is forced on at a steady pace.

Kumquat Cavern's entrance and midway point are wisely away from the dangerous moving cave walls, allowing the player to breathe easy when entering the level.

Just about the only thing I didn't like about this level was the general appearance in some parts. The contrast in the BG greens in the entry/midway point area was too much; the lightest shade is too bright. I also think it'd make more sense, given some visual contact issues like the water and when you're in front of dirt, to have the layer 2 walls come in front of the FG.
#48 Snifit - "Forgotten Fortress" Enjoyable
Another unique level, being a castle, built around Butter Bridge 1's special autoscrolling.

This level strongly expresses progression of ideas and challenge all keeping within the castle atmosphere. The start alternates between water and spike sections which are fairly simple and adequately guarded. Escalators like to work against you by pushing you back towards threats you cleared for a brief moment. Jumping Bowser statues become more frequent, and other statues will spit at you as you climb. The climax of the level comes after a switch in direction and pace, where you will be dealing with Grinders and a pesky Magikoopa in a turn block mess above emptiness. Dragon Coins occasionally challenge your boldness against the moving screen since you'll have to make your way back in some cases, quickly enough to not get crushed.

Also like the last level, the only thing not sitting with me well is the palette. It's not badly done, per se, it's just that the brightness level and contrast of the background is equivalent to the foreground, sometimes exceeding it, and has a black filler. The background should be darker. Disregarding that, the sunken ghost ship background set makes for a cool castle ruin. Props for thinking outside the box.
#49 PowerNewTop - "Ghost Tower" Unfulfilling
A really, really long item fetch quest in spacious ghost house level with a fair amount of action and variety in enemy setups.

For being a ghost house level, the puzzle thankfully doesn't lead you endlessly in circles. If you had gone the wrong way, it lets you know very soon in the environment that you simply don't have what you need to go on. It's fairly, and respectably, straightforward.

A big problem plaguing the first action area of this level is slowdown, slowdown, slowdown. Due to the sheer length of the level, it's advisable to put a midway point in at some point where you can easily get back to the ice section. In general, I just think the level is way too long and it's easy to lose motivation, in spite of most of the obstacles being decently challenging, if not unmemorable.

Palettes are taken right out of SMW. This looks good, for the most part, except the blue-to-black transition in the backgrounds isn't the smoothest, and the bright pale blue palette clashes terribly with the enemies in the ice room; it would benefit from the FG being given a dark blue or black outline.
#50 Hobz - "Dimensions" Unfulfilling
A strange level where Mario travels between universes, alternating between reality and dream, warm and cold, to find both exits. The first half is a light action area, and the second is puzzle-based with lots of fish-dodging.

One of the pitfalls of aesthetically-based gimmicks is that level design often is not intertwined or suffers from a focus on prettiness. Enemies in the first half can be considered dreamlike, but there's nothing memorable about the design. The moving carrot lacks purpose when it could hold more potential. The latter half of the level makes better use of the gimmick than the former, and it's an item fetch quest. Fortunately, it's a short one. The secret exit requires a bit of exploration and is rather cool, thinking about where you end up in regards to location and room orientation.

The FG/BG positioning causes strange background garbage (large boxes, a thick row of tiles that don't align) to happen re-entering any given part of the cave, but not on the first entrance.

Palette-wise, the second room is probably one of the most dreamy things I've seen done with native resources. I love the colors used, and wouldn't change a thing about them. The strange fish and FG clouds add to the atmosphere. It's just too bad more wasn't done with the design itself in this part. Besides the background garbage, the cave stuff looks alright.
#51 EvilGuy0613 - "Mushroom Fields" Unfulfilling
Yet another level with a lot of projectile enemies, Monty Moles, Koopas, the works.

I don't really feel a sense of progression going on in this level apart from the level orientation (horizontal -> vertical -> horizontal) and foreground objects I'm seeing. The same enemies are spread so evenly throughout the level, the difficulty is flat, and there is no climax to speak of. Most enemies effectively guard platforms, but unimaginatively so - nothing seems to be designed specifically around sprites apart from the short item hikes and the expanding turn block bridge near the end. Powerup distribution is adequate, but certain places, like where the moles are on the stairs or the Pitchin' Chuck above the Fire Flower, can make it annoying or pointless to go for one.

It's a little on the lengthy side, so I can understand why the midway point comes a little after halfway through the stage. In fact, it's somewhat of a relief.

Mushroom Fields' periwinkle hills in the FG and the frosty tan FG dirt coupled with the washed-out grass give the level a predominantly pastel appearance that I like, but the saturated nature of the bushes and mushrooms clash with that element. The goal sign suffers a little from having such an odd, strong, brown shade on a light green arrow with some heavy shading on the edges. Overall, though, not too bad.
#52 Gloomy Star - "Mountaintop Bridges" Ambivalent
A nighttime grassy mountain level which leads you across bridges through swarms of Koopas and Volcano Lotuses (which seems to be a fetish in this last handful of contenders) until the middle of the level where you ascend the mountain. The Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother becomes more canonical.

The level takes a while to present itself as anything more than a weave fest through scores of Koopas and Monty Moles. Volcano Lotuses gain prominence and throw blocks are introduced to remove the pesky pyro-puking plumes. Enemy placement makes a drastic shift from cluttered in part 1 to intelligent and legitimately tricky in part 2 - my favorite part was the Volcano Lotus below the Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother and general usage of the Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother to make your way up in parts. The second half of the level is quite fun and redeems the level.

My biggest issue with this level is space-wise. There's a powerup right below a solid bridge, causing Mario to get big and get squeezed out the left side. There's also a lot of tiny one-tile-wide platforms, and I feel that the way of getting the secret exit is very poorly hinted at.

This is a really good-looking level. Indigo night sky, twinkling stars, dirt and a foreground palette that looks like it could be a less bold and scribbly take on Yoshi's Island - it's very nicely done! The only real flaw I can find with appearance is towards the end, it looks ugly when you put a Monty Mole on top of a slope, and at the beginning, the FG/BG positioning is a little too low.
#53 Caracc - "Colorsplash Castle" Not for me
A largely monochromatic castle with a different design element in each room. The few colors progress in rainbow order from room to room, until you get to Wendy's, where it's bursting with purple and orange.

Magikoopa, the shifting tides, and various heights of pillars was probably the most well-done room since it made a lesser-seen type of challenge out of so little. The first room is okay, but due to the palette, it's hard to judge when the Volcano Lotuses are about to spit - thankfully, shells help balance out this nuisance. Unfortunately, one or two good rooms doesn't really save the level - I don't expect ideas to be fleshed out since there's a lot of design elements and to milk them and draw out the level would be worse, but read on:

One-tile-wide platforms next to spikes with medium scroll is cruel, and though I did get it on my second try with no damage, I can't say I liked that design. The creating/eating block room was my least favorite, since the block train went on for far too long before letting you in the door and it just spammed Koopas until the end. The Thwomp room was a small but repetitive maze in which you had to wait for Thwomps to go back up and then get into where they were blocking. The pipe room was similarly repetitive but also, to me, was the last of the challenging rooms before the level got easy.

The castle starts off like a multilayered Game Boy game, with four shades of grey. The ongoing theme here is that the most important element of a room to watch (e.g. lava, water, pipes, spikes + coins) is in color, so the design did have something to do with the aesthetic gimmick. It's a cool idea... but the execution needs a lot of work from a design standpoint.
#54 Lemonade - "Molten Magma Meadow" Ambivalent
A grassland with some lava pools. Volcano Lotus and Sumo Brothers are key enemies, while Koopas are about. The second canonical room is like the end of the secret Chocolate Island level, with layer 2 sinking into the lava.

One thing I thought was really cool was the Sumo Brothers' lightning hitting the lava and making fire rise, although the threat it adds to gameplay is merely that you have a fraction of a second less to get off the grey platform. There's also a fair number of hidden secrets in the level, including a free mushroom, an extra life, and a neat little bonus room with a modest amount of coins to collect.

Toward the beginning, there is an occasional sprite tile memory problem I've gotten to appear by backtracking - the Sumo Brother glitches up, and the grey platform to the left of him won't appear. If going for the Dragon Coins from the midway point, I'd say this is pretty severe. I do also feel there's much unrealized potential with the sinking layer 2 and that the first few screens of the level are filler that should not even be there, but overall, the level is pretty fun after the rocky start.

I do think Molten Magma Meadow is a pretty nice-looking level. Everything looks colored naturally, but with a slight ashy tint to it. The sky's smoky grey gradient supports the aesthetic theme. Inside the cave looks hot with that purpley reddish desaturated color thingamabobber and yeah the only complaint I have is the sky color of the bonus room not really agreeing with the clouds at all.
#55 FPzero and Teyla - "Simmering Stalagmites" Enjoyable
b-but i stayed sober for this contest ;_; ...this level is sort of an "outdoor cave" type of deal, with mushrooms and the like around, and all general cave enemies like the Swooper and Spike Top. It's mostly land-based, though there are small portions of water platforming, and an increasing amount of lava as you get closer to the end.

I would say progression of ideas here is clear, but difficulty is steady-even. Much of the enemy placement is effective, like the Puntin' Chucks of the second room, and flying Koopas and Spike Tops that were the backbone of the third room - it was especially neat to see the footballs slow down or bounce back to either hinder your efforts to get one of the Dragon Coins or make a wall of jumping footballs while you wait. Despite enemy use being slightly on the heavy side and the enclosed nature of the level, the level has a good flow because of the placement of enemies, the use of shelled enemies to clear foes ahead, and that the level is just spacious enough that no jump is annoying to pull off.

Two enemies that are completely pointless to have are the winged Goomba that jumps right into the lava in an earlier part, and the final Blargg in the level - neither are a threat whatsoever. (The final Chuck is clearly decorative.) Can't find much to complain about otherwise.

This level looks really really awesome, and I say that because purple and sea green are my favorite colors... okay, not just because that, but the contrasts are great. Simmering Stalagmites is finely detailed with all kinds of cave slopes, grass, mushrooms, and castle blocks. One small touch I thought was neat was the bonus room entry and exit pipes were rainbow.
#56 Hielus - "TENACIOUS" Favorites
A level created by gyrating hips, akin to the Special World level Awesome in its iciness with many of its own unique ideas thrown in. The level begins as a slippery romp 'n' stomp through Ninjis on tricky elevations while dodging Bullet Bills, and the second half is one giant ride on a grass platform in the sky.

The opening part of Tenacious immediately introduces its recurring theme of Ninjis. They and the Bullet Bills are all placed in manners that they serve as both a threat and a convenience. Mega Moles have short travel paths - one of them will harass you as you go for a powerup unless you're quick enough to get it before it drops down. The one Amazin' Flyin' Hammer Brother is placed very effectively, with pits on both sides, toward the end of the first room before the theme changes. Before the room ends, the expanding turn block bridge is introduced, which will be very important in the next room.

A lot of thought was put into this sky ride - there are parts where you absolutely must dismount the platform and face your foes - predominantly Ninjis, as the level was designed with them in mind - or rush through a turn block bridge to destroy a wall of Throw Blocks to keep pace with your ride. It sounds simple in text, but in level design, it's magnificently fun. This level bolsters strong conceptual unification and progression of challenge and ideas with all the proper introduction to them.

I can't say I'm a fan of TENACIOUS's palette, though... seeing how SMW's original ice palette has that terribly pale outline and poor contrast between shades. I'd say if the outline and shades had as much depth as the arches, it'd look much better while still being frigid-looking.
#57 Koopster - "Haunted Treetops" Unfulfilling
A level consisting of various ghosts and Koopas.

Haunted Treetops works by littering the sky lightly with ghosts and filling nearly every other platform with one or two Koopas. Some stretches are longer than others, and there are many shifts in the elevation. After the midway point, more Koopas that kick shells appear, but they always just seem to kick something from a higher platform than you're on... it never skids across a second platform before plummeting, nor bounce off of anything. The level takes a turn in atmosphere in the next major room where you're now jumping across platforms dangling over the treetops... but the ways the enemies and platforms are all used, aesthetics aside, is very much the same, minus the fact that the area is much more enclosed than before. The Boo Circle is the only new thing toward the end of the room.

I think the midway point comes far too soon and should be at the very end of the first room.

This level does look rather pretty with the mist and the really nicely-done palette, but I hate how having layer 3 mist makes powerups go behind the background. It'd be wise to use the mist where it can't be disruptive, like just using it in the Big Boo room. To make up for the reduction in spookiness, you could always make the palette, especially in the lower part of the forest, more gruesome-looking.
#58 Egadd - "Mountainous Mountains" Not for me
Lots of Koopas, Monty Moles, and Sumo Brothers. After the midway point, a Chuck blocks a springboard you need, then you get past Koopas kicking shells, face more moles, then the end.

I just.. can't figure out what else there is to the level beyond everything in the first two screens - beyond that, I don't see these elements progressing. I think the most thought was put into the mole placement, though it doesn't go very far from how it begins, and the ending I described in the first statement. I played this level several times, and I just could not enjoy it nor remember much about it.

There's a disgustingly huge area of cutoff after the midway point, beyond the wall, when taking the bottom path. In the beginning of the level, the vine would not come out of the block, and sometimes the Sumo Brother did not spawn. Furthermore, if I didn't kill the Chuck blocking the springboard with fireballs so it couldn't activate the generator, the Koopa and the shell at the top of that section did not spawn either. The midway point also comes far too late in the level, with a mere two or three screens worth of level to beat after that. Lastly, I don't know why you let the end of one midway path feed into the other before moving on rather than letting them both lead into the next room. While it didn't confuse me, it did confuse a hell of a lot of people.

Palette-wise, the foreground looks like a more Nickelodeonified version of PatPatPat's palette - honey instead of peanut butter, and purplish instead of grey. It's very weird, but it works.
#59 BokuNES - "Bokusecret Stage 1" Disqualified/Not for me
The level has 3 exits so it's out of the running. :[ This slope-free forest level has few pitfalls. Enemies include Rex, Koopas, Goombas, and one Banzai Bill. Toward the end, a P-switch appears that you must backtrack with and hope to discover the secret exit.

The layout is very simple and linear with only elevation shifts, which isn't inherently bad. In a way, it's SMB1-like. There's a small bonus room which makes things a little more interesting. However, not enough changes as you go on. The enemy placement and number/width of pitfalls is overly sparing. The gradual appearance of turn blocks and that one Banzai Bill at the end were the only things reminding me I was still moving forward. It starts and finishes easy and the level has nothing to revolve around without the secret exit being so heavily tied in. It leaves a lot to be desired.

I like the palette a lot in spite of being original SMW colors. It's a very rich and vibrant foreground of brown forest and green treetops, coupled with a beautiful dark purple-to-yellow background tree palette. Good taste.
#60 FrankyC253 - "Small Vanilla Castle" Trolled
A castle level with a variety of tricky obstacles, heavily adorned with spikes. Dry Bones is a frequent foe, but also a utility for moving forward.

This level reminds me of Morsel's in the sense that it seems to be designed with strong obstacles over the whole product's flow in mind. I like the ideas presented here and it makes for some very entertaining gameplay, though a large hack would suffer from levels being designed exclusively in this style, and the level doesn't have any proper build-up.

There's a couple of parts where the wooden pencil is sort of neglected: there's one which can hurt you at its lowest elevation where it's just behind the rope, and there's one that comes up too high and is cutoff when it comes above a spike. Other than that, all was going well...

and then

you dumped me

into

a neverending



BONUS



GAME
#61 K1ngHacks - "Deep Dark Cave" Unfulfilling
For a level named Deep Dark Cave, you spend about a third of it outside in the sun. The second room focuses on a lava raft ride, and the third has a small P-switch run in which you hit a block on the ground to get it, then use another throw block to get a springboard to clear the coins before they become solid. Oh, and there's a reset pipe if you mess up.

Before the lava raft ride halfway through the level, I feel the level is extremely overwrought. There are divergent paths to nowhere which distract from the objective, and too much trivial detail in the land - some being platforms that don't necessarily need to exist. The pace is terribly slow due to the terrain sculpting and the enemy placement.

Then, getting into what the level is about, the cave, the major downfall is that many of the Swoopers are placed benignly too low and will fly right into the lava with no chance of hurting you. A higher ceiling will fix this. The next room is a major shift from the action feel of the level, and is easily abused for cape feathers to make the springboard snatching trivial.

The appearance is pretty good in the cave. I personally don't like the yellowish-brown dirt outside, but there's nothing objectively bad about it. Overall, the palettes serve their purpose and look kind of natural.
#62 Burst Man - "Burst Man's Level" Ambivalent
WALL OF LAVA OH FUCK Thanks for exploiting one of my biggest fears and throwing me right into the thick of it with not even a "prep intro" (see TomPhanto's entry for example) D:

Going for Dragon Coins in this level is really intense because you come mere millimeters from being killed by the lava at times, even if you do go for it as early as the level will allow you to. The level has some dead end paths which will result in an automatic death, should you not backtrack and follow the coins. I kind of wish there was a little more leeway here.

I could not find any major level design problems, objectively. The highest Spike Top on that really tall ascent near the end got me so many times because waiting for it to go by to safely clear as a paranoid small Mario will be your undoing. I consider that the climax of the level and also the strange moral pronounced as loudly and bluntly as can be: move or die. Progression of difficulty and utilization of resources is solid in this level.

The level uses SMW's original grey cave palettes with the layer 3 rock background and a solid black backing. While definitely presentable, this doesn't really bring out the reality of the lava's threatening nature. Warmer colors, like mahogany, are much better suited to that.
#63 Jonny - "ihatemylife." Ambivalent
An exploration-centric, multi-routed, enclosed grassland level.

The diverging paths are justified by coins to collect, particularly Dragon Coins, and powerups. Enemy usage is sparing but intelligent and efficient. Clappin' Chuck annoys on the first Dragon Coin, for instance. A red flying Koopa is needed to jump on and reach the second Dragon Coin. Enemies like Koopas and Rexes are used individually on some platforms and due to nice spacing, are enough alone. Mushroom platforms often indicate points of no return or pitfalls below, which is a nice touch.

One thing I did not like in this level was the area with one Clappin' Chuck under a mushroom top - when I'm standing on the top platform, I can't see where the next lowest mushroom is and I sort of have to take a blind guess unless I've taken the time to remember where it was. Some repositioning or visible decor on the next lowest mushroom would help substantially. Ideas are solid and the level feels unified, but I'm not really feeling any strong progressions. It's a level that is definitely meant to be searched to be enjoyed.

This level looks like space candy. It's very pale, but with strong contrast between shades. The landscaping is very, very smooth. Small things like tiny showing of pipes or half-buried signs are interesting prop choices. There's also many colors, especially in the coins.
#64 RealMarioGamer - "Vacation Island 4" ☆ ♥ ? ∉
I always wanted someone make a contest entry where you win as soon as you enter it. THANK YOU. Unfortunately, I can't give you the gold medal outright because Lightvayne won't be my designated driver anymore.
#65 The Secret Exit - "Running Greens" Not for me
A grassland level.

This level suffers strongly from what I feel are poorly hinted-to areas. One's just a bonus room with a life, coins, and a Dragon Coin. You have to follow a Koopa down a pit, which you can't even tell whether it's deadly or not from that hint. A secret pipe resides under the end of the P-switch-related coins, but that, too, is poorly hinted to and can only be discovered accidentally. Just as bad, if not worse, is the gross overuse of enemies. The level is spammed to the brink with Koopas and Goombas, and quite frankly, it is tedious and samey to play through. The level does not feel like it goes anywhere until the very end when we see the addition of Chucks, including a Pitchin' Chuck that's somewhat cleverly used, but incredibly benign compared to the first 90% of the level. There are no intricacies to speak of.

The Piranha Plant under the midway point jumps right into the turn blocks. Some minor flaws exist with the Map16 - the small pipe meant to hide the problems with the bottom of the diagonal pipe should be placed one tile further to the left since I can walk into the corner of the pipe. Similarly, there's solid corners I can hit the presumably walkthrough dirt part of, and I noticed one spot under the midway point where I can walk through a coin.

Coin glitch.

The aesthetics are nothing special, seeing how it's the same background and palettes seen in 105, but they get the job done.
#66 Amida - "Air Plains" Not for me
A hodgepodge grassland with a very punny title. It includes net-climbing sections, P-switches, music note blocks, Yoshi, his wings, timed moving platforms, Hammer Brothers, spin jumps, munchers - everything but the kitchen sink.

What this looks like to me is a typical beginner's level in the sense that it's a level with mad ADHD. Instead of taking a few ideas and building on or slowly introducing them as the level goes on, it keeps on bouncing between ideas that are very shallow at best. The end result is an unmemorable experience. I wish I could identify a single point to recommend for growth, but this level is much too diverse and aimless to even know where to begin. Take two, maybe three key elements at most, and figure out how to order and develop them, I suppose... that's the best I can do. =(

There is a sprite tile memory problem early on as the Banzai Bill launches - the P-switch temporarily vanishes. The large amount of ? blocks in one area is unappealing. Other than that, I can say the level as aesthetically decent, seeing how it's just Yoshi's Island 3's palettes.
#67 mariocool1999 - "Reznor Fields and Fortress" Unfulfilling
A level that starts outside and works its way into a castle where you fight the Reznor quadruplets.

Nonlinearity is the focus of this level, and a double-edged sword it is. It's not good in the outdoors portion - I feel like some parts of the level have absolutely no purpose but to be distracting and frustrating, so I'm inclined to stick to the top and skip its offerings. On the other hand... the castle is okay in this respect. The ways the Koopas are used on both of the paths are the exact same, but there's slightly different rewards and other challenges for each path taken. The castle, while much simpler than the grassland section, strongly outshines the grassland in concept refinery.

The area below the silver P-switch early on has a ridiculous amount of slowdown, which should speak volumes about the enemy overuse in the outside part of the level. Some of the "secrets", such as the Dragon Coin inside the castle, do not seem worth the risk involved to get them: for the Dragon Coin, one must spin-jump on a Grinder over lava as it travels erratic shifting paths.

The palette here is kind of interesting, but not spectacular. Hills are maroon and burgundy; the grass is yellow-green, offering a very strong contrast between the foreground and the background. The castle is chocolate-colored with grey walls and yellow lighting.
#68 Ragey - "Verdant Garden" Unfulfilling
Highly developed forest level.

Yoshi is key to pleasure, as the level has many munchers, but that isn't to say the level's unbeatable without him. He's also a requirement to get all the Dragon Coins safely, and he is provided in the level frequently. He doesn't make the level excessively easy. Progression of difficulty is evident, as is the introduction and frequency of more severe threats, such as the Swooper in the cave, the increasingly common Volcano Lotus in room 3, Bullet Bill generators, and so on. Design is straightforward for the most part, and all the landforms feel unique.

So why the Unfulfilling rating? ...well, this level's Achilles's heel is that it's long... unforgivably long without a midway point at a reasonable area. Despite the progression, it becomes repetitive with the Goombas and Volcano Lotuses - they constitute a lot of filler. The level also grinds to a halt because of how much weaving around enemies you'll have to do at points to survive. Rarely, there's a stupidly-placed foe, like some of the Swoopers in the caves that sit above the screen view while you're high up, making for some cheap hits. This level has the potential to be amazing when the fat and the cheap shots are cut out.

Verdant Garden is beautifully paletted, with a cooler shade of green in the background trees to seem more distant than the slightly yellowish greens of the foreground grass. The cave's blue background with light purple cave and green grass is another lovely step. Treetops later on are finely molded, and the wooden logs pair nicely with them. There's the occasional bad corner tile and the fact that the wooden logs don't overlap treetops well, but overall, it's very pretty.
#69 SomeGuy712x - "Magikoopa Fun House" Not for me
Exactly what it says on the tin.

Don't get me wrong - this level utilizes Magikoopa and the turn blocks in impressive and creative ways throughout. The thing that kills the whole experience for me, though, is excessive amounts of waiting if you don't have a powerup. Powerups are provided frequently, but ever being small in this level is pure torture. That said, I can see from the design and novelty of an entire level based around Magikoopa why a lot of people would like this. It's just not my cup of tea, though. Sorry.

I can't say a whole lot for appearance... Magikoopa's Fun House looks like a typical ghost house. I expected a lot more rainbow colors, since that's what "fun house" looks like in my mind, but eh. It's presentable, and everything is easily identifiable. The attention to detail in the object balancing is neat; you'll see crates residing atop floors.
#70 findoku29 - "Jumping and Stuff" Not for me
No offense, but I couldn't be bothered for very long to play this level. You have to jump out whenever you think the Bullet Bills will appear, then hope they carry you far enough to reach the next platform. Super Koopas may or may not play a role in this. Length of segment is usually longer than the previous but does not show conceptual growth. Rinse, wash, repeat. There's no indication of how high you need to go or any trajectories you should follow, only coin faces.

The palette is fine but the sky doesn't match the mountains' outer-most shades. Other than that, the level looks kind of empty, and I usually don't say that. :s
#71 Daizo Dee Von - "Platform Pothole" Ambivalent
A cave level with a green grass platform ride over lava and many land-based areas above, fixing the pace of the player with autoscroll so the platform is never lost.

The level was short, bitter, and to the point. I say bitter instead of sweet because though it was a short level, it was an ass-kicker. There is a clear progression of ideas here - the raft ride begins with the occasional Chuck digging rocks or charging off the ground toward you, and a rare Bullet Bill shooter. You then reach the upper cave, which is tightly-designed. You occasionally need to weave dangerously around projectiles and foes in that space, which I did not like. The puzzle to get the key was well pulled off. The most memorable part of the level in a good way, and one of the cruelest if you tried to rush it, is near the very end where a sinking rock on a lava slope is the only thing that gives you enough altitude to clear the slope to get back to your platform or else you die. Difficulty throughout holds relatively steady.

I liked a lot of the Chuck placement here, although I am torn on whether or not I'd recommend raising the ceiling one tile in several parts. It is somewhat heavy on the enemy placement, but it's mostly intelligently done, and the player should know not to adhere to the front of the screen. My one complaint on the enemy placement is that Piranha Plant toward the end not coming out all the way seeming completely threatless since you can duck under it.

Platform Pothole's palette is kind of ugly in my opinion. The foreground dirt, moving platform dirt, and background all look almost the same color with shallow contrast between the shades. Mario's face, on the other hand, is overshaded, but it is kind of cool that you tried to make him fit in with the dark cave. Lava is appropriately bright, but I don't think the pipes or coins should be. I am also not fond of the cave slopes used as dirt decoration, but I'm happy to say that the canonical slopes don't interfere with playability.
#72 neosaver - "Volcano Valley" Ambivalent
This is a volcano.



I am unsure of the purpose of the second room, as it is nearly contentless. The third room is the heart of the level with rising layer 2 lava and some rocks that float on top of that. There are rare path splits with better rewards for the scarier one and a mix of interesting obstacles that make the room fun. That said, I disagree with the choice to make the lava surface instant kill on contact since it looks like you die the moment before it touches you and it's really unlike how SMW had it. It didn't ruin the level for me, don't get me wrong. I thought that the Chuck puzzle was neat, and one of the lesser-seen ones, and the tenseness of the secret exit room was an excellent touch. However, the canon exit route after the midway point did little for me as it deviated to filler from what was a pretty strong concept.

First impressions of the appearance are mixed. The foreground has lush but dark jungle colors, and is lightly littered with bushes. The furthest background hills seem to blend right with the background, but the nearer ones have reversed shading, and the clouds have way too bright of an exterior against the red background IMO. The rock foreground part does look foreboding. The foreground in the lava room doesn't have much contrast between shades of brown, and it looks rather boring.
#73 DPhoenix29 - "Burning Boiler" Unfulfilling
What looks like a hot room of a factory, amazingly lava-free, is Burning Boiler.

My first impression of the level design is... it appears winding and confusing at first, but maintains a left-to-right direction. Pushing forward, the level shows itself to be of moderately short length, frequently recycling Pitchin' Chucks, Bullet Bill shooters, and a variety of Koopas... but as I had feared in the first room, I am just not feeling any sort of increasing complexity or creativity in how these things are used - the level does not seem to get harder or have any stand-out moments. The stage design and enemies awkwardly do not take advantage of the level's aesthetics and namesake. As a specific design nitpick, I didn't like being given two powerups in the beginning as opposed to having them spaced out.

The most is gotten from this level when searching for the Dragon Coins. You will need to explore each path, bring a springboard back slightly with you, and take some risks to get them all.

These palettes look pretty damn sweet, honestly. I rarely see people do hue blending, as shown quite vividly in the background and in the red and green sprite palettes - I don't feel like the green one agrees with the glowing heat illustrated in this level, nonetheless, in context of a regularly-lit, cooler area, this would be magnificently done.
#74 Poloros - "Great Koopa Gate" Unfulfilling
A box of chocolates with spoilers posted. It showcases areas belonging to, above, and under a castle, in an unusual way.

The water part is kind of boring IMO, disregarding the fact you can swim over or under the entire level, which should've been planned for. The last two Torpedo Teds are completely benign unless the player is fooling around. I don't mind red stems, really - they're less weird to me than the Piranha Plant coming all the way out, and I don't think leaving them a tile low like that has any sort of effect on the potential VRAM glitch they could trigger. I'm against Piranha Plants behind bushes since they can hurt you while invisibly behind the bush. Also, the diagonal Bullet Bill generator works best when there is no vertical scrolling in my opinion... it just doesn't fit a vertical level at all given the flow clashing with the spawn points since you may be going toward a corner they'd suddenly come from without warning, and not be centered.

The parapet was simple and sweet, on the other hand, keeping with the castle and gate theme, and having a small selection of enemies to populate the area with. I felt a little more could've been done with the foundry and its layer 2 attributes, but it did its part overall. The armory, line guide room of the boss route, and autoscroll segment were also decently fun and kept to simple ideas so the level was not exhausting, though the autoscroll part was on the empty side. It needed more substance for a finale. Overall, the entire level amounts to unmemorably designed and sometimes too spacious. The concept and freedom are neat points, and the thematic diversity works because you're not forced through all of it in one go.

My only complaints with Great Koopa Gate's appearance are with the foreground palette in the ocean part, which go light green to sand to dark green inappropriately, and one of the line-guided platforms being disconnected from the line before boarding in a room leading to the boss. You can also carry a Buzzy Beetle down a pipe and glitch it in the goal area.
#75 Oh Hell No - "Complexity - in a Nutshell" Unfulfilling
Political satire; a somewhat long level that has a little bit of everything from lava raft rides to saws on lines to item puzzles to simple grasslands and forests. It's the stereotype of what I imagine the average person trying really hard to win would do in a level.

It's charming in a way, since it's the nonverbal summary of everything I've played up through now, bringing up memories of the good, the bad, and the ugly moments of the contest. Many of these rooms are designed quite well for their brevity and it does demonstrate a steady increase in difficulty. I feel the last two non-goal rooms are favorable in challenge and substance, with the rest being so-so.

The level should have a midway point somewhere in the third room IMO; this level is definitely long enough to warrant one. However, what really kills this level for me is I can't get around how conceptually disjointed this level is. Nothing has to do with the room before or after it, and with all the different things going on, the level's left unmemorable as a whole. A lot of the concepts here have strong potential to blossom, but not like this.

This level has numerous takes on a variety of decorative and palette styles within native resources, in fact, so many that analyzing later rooms to earlier rooms would lead you to think a different person designed them. In a way, it shows progression of complexity itself - each room is more detailed than the last. On a negative point, berry tiles don't blend with bushes in the second room and some enemies glitch because they can be carried through pipes, easily remedied by using a door and having the next room entry hold no item. There's also a neglected joint tile above the lava fall in the raft ride room.
#76 Masterlink and MaxodeX - "Entry" Ambivalent
A castle focusing on above-ground elements, such as nets and jumping on springboards. It shifts appropriately to a vertical ascent after the midway point, riddled with spin-jumpable enemies and line guides. A Reznor battle awaits at the end.

Grinder usage, to me, is where this level really shines. They jump at the nets, and must be spin jumped from, in many parts of the second room. Pacing is rather slow, but the designs are intricate and often feel worth waiting for the opening to make a move. The level feels conceptually unified.

The first net area with a diagonal fireball and net area next to a Dragon Coin in the second room have low-ceiling jumps that are very hard to make as Big Mario, but very easy as Small Mario - adding more net in the first or lowering the spikes in the second to compensate would be a good idea. One thing that should be kept in mind when designing a vertical ascent without being allowed to use the hex edit to fix the camera's position to Mario at all times when vertical scroll is at will is the fact that a fair amount of what you are aiming for is either slightly offscreen or could have immediate threats that you aren't going to be able to see until you land. This harms pacing and enjoyability on my end. I also feel like the difficulty curve is slightly negative - I found the first room a little harder than the second, minus any cheap shots documented. The midway point comes at a great location.

The palette work in this level is overly blue in a pleasantly dreamy, nighttime-style way. Mario especially looks colored to be like something out of Cave Story. The structure is very clean and not at all boring. Subtleties like the moving blocks fitting into inaccessible holes carved into the foreground add to the appeal.
#77 678ruby678 - "The Time Dimension" Disqualified/Not for me
A level in which you must enter 3 variants of the same room - each a different time of day - before moving on to face Magikoopa in the same room yet again.

So much more could have been done with the concept. The only one that seems to have foes true to their time of day is the Night section, with the ghosts. Morning or Day's choices don't have any distinctive indication of such; Morning seems very active with the jumping fish, which I feel would be more appropriate for Day, and Morning makes sense as the easiest of the bunch.

The Eeries turn translucent and extremely hard to see in the tide area with the Boo generator. I can also swim underneath the levels if need be to reach the pipe, which was a favorable choice of action for the ghost variant of the tide room because it was annoying working against the tide to not hit any Boos. The line guide platform for Day does not appear. The last room seemed overrun with Podoboos to an annoying degree. Ultimately... the level was frustrating, buggy, and not very rewarding.

Futhermore, there is a laundry list of other graphical problems, including blue tiles littering the background, cutoff clocks, glitched tiles in the tidal areas, lava topped by wall triangles, munchers with pink and blue stems... none of which make sense, let alone the fact that "Morning", "Day", and "Night" are all the same bright colors. These should have been worked with much more thoroughly, since as it stands, it's a giant mess.
#78 Lui37 - "Untitled" Unfulfilling
A water level with some building structures and ghost enemies and frequent Torpedo Ted usage. The tidal sections are broken up by a completely underwater section.

Enemy distribution in this level serves to guard well, but is slightly annoying since backtracking to remain safe is occasionally necessary. Platform variation is high, and it's often open about letting you choose to swim or walk on the floor in the first section. Dragon Coins are often hard to get because Torpedo Ted is menacing. Powerup distribution is very fair and not overdone. The level is unified and challenging.

My biggest problem with this level is obstacles don't seem to evolve, so it becomes boring easily. Both the first and the third sections felt samey throughout; the second section was a breath of fresh air structurally, but didn't offer a lot new except the invulnerability and omnipresence of Torpedo Ted. The midway point cuts the level into disproportionate slices; I feel like it could've come just a little bit later.

I love the palette in this level, which is mostly made of colors surrounding and including indigo - there's a lot of blues and violets to speak of and it does capture a natural-looking night setting. It's somehow both peaceful and comfortable yet unsettling to behold. Enemies are nicely shaded, too.
#79 X-cniS - "goat world snes" Not for me
A winding level featuring.. well, a variety of stuff.

For the entire level, I felt like this stage did not know what it wanted to be, and that it was mindlessly improvised front-to-back. There's no flow to speak of in the first room, flip-flopping between nets and small-width platforms with lots of slopes, and a surplus of Koopas and Bullet Bills... the pipe leading back to the beginning was somewhat off-putting, especially with not even a subtle indication of where I should use the switch I found in that room. I did not like the P-balloon weaving around munchers and Bullets, as it was just up-and-down; getting hit meant standing on the munchers until death.

Thwomps and Thwimps underwater was an unusual choice, but the execution was lackluster right-left-right-pipe while dodging munchers on the floor or ceiling. The last room had something going, as weird as it looked, with the autoscroll and the spurts of lava, followed up by a tricky mix of Bullet Bills, Bowser statues, and Thwimps, but again, it too, felt lackluster, and only slightly more developed than its predecessor room.

Visually, the level has a neat foreground in the first area, with a dark brown grass and a milky dirt... and the third major room has an ugly case of layer 3 rocks above the layer 2 cave background. Everything else is not noteworthy, in an average way.
#80 tatanga - "Bowser's Blocks" Disqualified/Ambivalent
A level which involves not touching any of the icy blue blocks.

It begins rather repetitive, with a lot of small sections of safe ground between block pillars, but it quickly shows to be a part of setting up a steady learning and difficulty curve. The player is expected to jump on top of enemies over dangerous ground, time jumps on swooping, flying platforms to clear tall pillars, maneuver over falling platforms, and jump cautiously on music blocks to circumvent walls of cursed blocks. Without throwing too much into the mix, obstacles vary themselves using similar resources and remain fresh.

The difficulty span is very wide for a single level, which is a bad thing, and the transition is gradual and smooth...which is a good thing. The level is not too long, but on the other hand, the midway point comes a little too soon.

There's not much to be said about the palette - it's standard ghost house colors, but with icy-colored hurt blocks and sprites. I don't feel as though the ice-colored sprites are appropriate and that their defaults would be better, but the ice blocks look... okay.
#81 Pikerchu13 - "African Cave of Ice" Ambivalent
The title sums up what this level is about quite well.

Whoa. Whoa. This level is way too crowded. There's no flow to speak of in the first room, since a lot of times, I am stopping and waiting for Piranha Plants to sink in, Spike Tops to move away, or everything to crawl my way so I can slide into them, there are a lot of munchers everywhere. I can't say I mind the ice; it kind of makes the level what it is. There's very little leeway for error and THE END OF THE SECOND ROOM WAS MEAN. D:

That said, the level does have a strong theme. I can't really say if the level had a difficulty curve because I kept dying all over the place, but I am seeing clear progression of ideas throughout this backbreaker of a level. It establishes a set of recurring foes early on and creates new obstacles out of them. Then, in the second room, it throws something new (autoscroll, lava) your way to mix things up while keeping those foes a part of the mix, and the end result is frightening.

Many savestates later, I beat this level, and it was a huge relief. Needless to say, I will remember this level for a very long time - it's probably the most memorable out of all the entries I've played, and though it wasn't exactly a fun experience for me, I developed an immense amount of respect for it and I couldn't put it down for some reason until I had finished. I'm honestly confused about how to rate this level because it's literally not for me but it has such an addictive quality for a sadistic level and stands out so much to me that it should be a favorite, so I'll give you Ambivalent. It's this contest's evil masterpiece.

African Cave of Ice is a show-stopper. It has a translucent rocky layer above the entire level for a unique appearance, as if the player were watching Mario through a sheet of ice inside the cave. This also looks really good with the lava. Layer 3 rocks make the background furthest away, though they are bright for something against a wall of black. The foreground has pipes, crates, cave ground, and stone for a colorful, varied appearance.
#82 NoelYoshi and Incognito - "Untitled" Unfulfilling
A ruins type level with two main routes - the top will have you running along the top of them and the bottom will pit you against the sinking structure, before the paths diverge to the same room.

Let me start by saying I think that the first room is very misleading on what this level is about. The quality is abominable - it's nonlinear for the sake of being nonlinear. It's confusing to navigate. It's possible to die from spikes from below, and there is no solid idea in here. It's just enemies thrown wherever they seem to be the most effective guard; no progression. Then, you come to the divergent path and enter the ruin... this is where thought started to come in.

The lower path was really neatly done, with a Grinder falling down some way through to complicate things for the player hoping to get everything out of this room. That said, apart from decoration, it was slightly on the empty side. The top route felt shorter because the pace wasn't forced, but demonstrated a slight increase in difficulty and idea growth with Hotheads, Li'l Sparkies, and Grinders alike. The final room focused more on standard platforming like the top route did, with Thwomps, Thwimps, and this one moving block below Munchers. I can't say they were spectacular, but it was a significant improvement.

...okay, you know the glitch where the shell goes through the slopes? Yeah, that resulted in an unnecessary death for me because of how the land is aesthetically overlayered - another reason I can't stand landforms within landforms. Anyways, that's a reason I detest what went into appearance in the first room. The other is it seemed so grey and lifeless even for a desert. The sinking ruin route was beautifully done and I loved the sky gradients of the top of the ruin. I think that, though, against a brighter background, the walkthrough bricks ought to be pale and desaturated to blend in a little more and be distinguishable as a contact-free object rather than darker.
#83 LuigiTime - "The Koopa Hills" Disqualified/Not for me
A grassland level with a lot going on.

This includes vine (well, guard rail) climbing, P-switch events, Bullet Bill shooters, Koopas, Goombas, but none of it seems to coalesce into something. There's a lot of running back and forth, either with items or low-height corridors that just go right-to-left-to-right, and many threats are easy to avoid just by jumping over. There's an overabundance of powerups. It didn't feel like it was thought-out before it was executed. On top of that, it leads you into a water section with Torpedo Teds - one part so narrow it feels almost impossible to not get hit - and yet, there's an opening to the top of the level early in this segment so you can skip most of this.

Difficulty is curve is unstable in this level with the sharp jump in the water section (assuming the canon path is used) and there is no midway point to speak of - for the level's length, it is necessary.

I didn't really like what you did with the cave background since there was so much cutoff in the shading. The massive pipes, on the other hand, were kind of cool. There are a few Map16 problems where items and enemies interact weirdly with diagonal walkthrough dirt, and a sign shouldn't be placed where a vine can eat through it. I should not be able to walk into the back of a solid corner or wall. I also enjoyed everything about the palette of the first and final rooms. The hue blending in the soil of the second room needed a small bit more contrast, but it was okay. The background probably should've had a darker brown for the underwater mountains, though.
~ counterfeit [371]