So after finally playing through the whole of this again, I came across two more "improvements" that are anything but:
- The firing patterns of Trapgoyles should be apparent before they can hit the player. Hiding them in places where the player is likely to overlook them is cheap design. Besides, just like with the Spring Shells and the circular flamethrowers, the Trapgoyles were implemented so lazily that they hardly make a difference at all. There's already enough clutter in these levels. Don't add more.
- Did you just change the slime behavior in Fume Shaft without ever testing it? For one thing, the extra life hidden in the slime at the beginning of the first act is now inaccessible, and I can imagine that this is true for other items as well. For another, adding the bouncy physics to the slime without removing the damage effect is a ridiculously bad idea that combines the worst features of both. Not only does it defeat the whole purpose of having bouncy slime in the first place, since the player is automatically hurt upon entering, cutting off all his momentum, but escaping the slime is now incredibly annoying and borderline impossible. By the time the bouncing has stopped and I'm finally able to move again, the temporary invincibility has almost worn off. So when I'm inevitably hurt again, I'm thrown back to where I started and have to repeat the whole process all over. Honestly, just killing the player right away is more merciful than this.
I guess since I'm posting in this thread again, I might as well address Tyrannic's reply (which I can't quote because it consisted mainly of quotes itself): I said that Fawfulfan
started with a bunch of linear, overlong, boring and empty levels, not that they are still that way (well, they're obviously still overlong, but they're much less linear, boring and empty). The comment refers to the levels as they were in their original incarnation, aka the levels you can see in the "Tortured Archives". If you haven't unlocked them yet, warp to the maps between MAPC8 and MAPCZ, and you'll see what I was talking about. I'll bet that most of what you like about Tortured Planet isn't yet present in these versions.
Pretty much all the work that Fawfulfan has put into the pack since then was aimed at making the levels more interesting than these skeletal versions. He added tons of alternate paths and hidden items, fleshed out the sections that were devoid of content, added lots of scenery and pretty much retextured everything. And I'm not denying he succeeded in his goal - the levels are definitely much more interesting now than they were back then. The problem is that in fixing the old problems, he also introduced a bunch of new ones: The texturing is now so all over the place that it's often disorienting and sometimes even uglier than it was originally. Many of the new gimmicks, while theoretically interesting, were implemented in a very sloppy way that causes them to be boring or frustrating. The sector detail is often obtrusive and adds clutter, making the layout more confusing and sometimes making it hard to go anywhere without bumping into something. As boring as the original levels were, at least they had some semblance of clarity in their design. Over time, that clarity has been buried under mountains over mountains of new content that was added without much thought as to how it affects the levels overall.
I'm not denying that there's good stuff in this pack. But I'd rather see a few ideas implemented with a lot of care than a lot of ideas implemented with very little care. Tortured Planet's levels might appear impressive at first glance just because there's so much stuff in them, but once the novelty wears off, all the design issues become apparent.