Official Level Design Contest: May/June

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No, it IS a bad idea. Setting a goal of seven zones means you're creating crap because "quantity > quality". Go play Sonic Ultima again.

You didn't like the backwards springs? Would you rather take some clunky route that's way out of the way? Would you rather not have been able to go backwards? I don't see a better alternative, here. NSZ1 and NSZ2 had backwards springs too. I don't see a problem.

Sure, arrows are a good idea, but I don't want to give too much away. It feels like you guys entirely missed that the button that opens up the door is forwards. Are you guys, like, not resourceful or something?
 
Huge, giant, open rooms (that look at least pretty :D) with several dead ends are going to get you turned around. Then you find a spring only to make you go backwards.
 
...O_O Oh, gosh. I need to fix and resubmit my zone, as there is a serious issue with one gimmick if you don't have Analog Control on. Apparently Dark Warrior is an Analog Control user like I am. It's the area with the really long water current that causes this problem.

Edit: I now have another problem. After fixing it, SRB2 says, "You need to unlock this first!" *facepalm*
 
Then there's something there that's not very well noticable. I've played out the whole map. =P
 
Ahh, I've fixed it, now. This actually makes the camera work more nicely whether or not you have Analog Control on or not. Submitting fixed version. I'm so glad I caught that. However, you do get launched out of that area sideways with Analog Control off, but it's almost kind of cool like that. The long water current was my most favorite gimmick of the map, and now it has no possibility of causing cheap deaths. :D

The original way I was trying to fix the current gimmick just now caused a strange error message:

You need to unlock this level first!

Words cannot express how annoying that was... But the level doesn't do that now!
 
BlueZero4 said:
I don't like Mystic Realm. Despite the large amount of content, I don't like the difficulty and the sheer reek of making levels to fill up the seven zones. If I enjoyed Mystic Realm, I assure you I would be enjoying SRB2 more than I am now. It is truly my loss.
Mystic Realm was not created in this method. It was mostly created, one zone at a time, over a long period of time. Then, later on, I decided I wanted a full mod and made new zones, generally using the same method.

Jade Coast is a combination of two of my ancient zones.
Tempest Valley was created for MR4
Verdant Forest was an ancient zone I made quite a while ago.
Flame Rift was made for MR2.
Midnight Freeze was made for MR3.
Sunken Plant was created for MR4.
Aerial Garden 1 was a combination of two of my ancient stages from Demo 4.
Aerial Garden 2-4 was created for MR4.
Prismatic Angel and Mystic Realm were created for MR4.
All the emerald stages were created for MR4.

Of that, I'd say most of the stages of questionable quality actually WEREN'T made to fill out the zones, except some of the emerald stages. Tempest Valley, Sunken Plant, and Aerial Garden are my personal favorite stages in the pack, and they were made in the process where I was "filling in" the stage selection. The worst stages are generally my older work, since what Mystic Realm really is is a collection of my stuff, including some rather bad ancient stages. The only levels really made to pad out the stages were some of the emerald stages, Silver Cavern and Nitric Citadel, which is clear in their low quality, as by that point I was getting tired of making stages and wanted to get it completed for 1.09's release.

While some of the stages turned out rather meh, I highly encourage this method because it means you'll get a lot of stages of variable quality, instead of a lot of stages of terrible quality. While some MR stages are rather bad, there is at least a lot of content, some of which is very good.

BlueZero4 said:
Sure, arrows are a good idea, but I don't want to give too much away. It feels like you guys entirely missed that the button that opens up the door is forwards. Are you guys, like, not resourceful or something?
I think the issue is that there are so many dead-ends that nobody assumes that the obvious direction is the proper direction. Playing that stage I ran around in circles for at least 10 minutes until I stumbled across the jump across the water to the teleporter. You walk into a room, look around, see no exit and turn around and try another room. There is a lot of detail, but most of it is useless so the player is not really encouraged to check everything because he has no reason to assume that there is anything TO find if they look.

It's entirely possible to make FFZ good, but it would need more clear indication of where the player is supposed to go, and no dead-ends so if the player reaches one, he assumes that there is a secret here instead of just assuming it's another dead end.
 
Looking in SRB2DB just now, I was surprised to see where the teleporter was. -_- See that room at the bottom left corner of SRB2DB? That's where I got stuck at. I thought you had to make those tiny spring jumps to the next tier. Quite a challenge, but I got absolutely NO reward, and SRB2DB doesn't show one, either.

BZ4, I also know about the big secret in NSZ2 via NOCLIP. Looks like one of your faults in level design is putting decent secrets. That was quite a lame reward, actually. Some of the secrets in EMZ1 are quite easy to reach, but hey, at least I have some pretty good ones. Well, DW can be the judge of that; are my secrets OK?

Getting back on topic about hyping our levels, I'm going to continue with hyping my zone. Anyway, EMZ1's main design is similar to that of NSZ2: a constantly changing graphical theme with a button-hunting gimmick used only to open a secret. The gimmick is not required to beat the level, obviously. However, the buttons should be easier to find in my stage, and the reward is better, I feel. However, my stage plays nothing like NSZ2. My graphical theme changing is adhesive, not cohesive. However, in an Elemental Mansion, this makes sense. There is a lot of platforming in the level, and you'll eventually end up over 4000 fracunits higher than how you started the level. You can go as low as -96 and as high as over 7000. List of levels that inspired EMZ1:

* Deathmatch Arena (main idea, actually)
* Elemental Ruins Zone (electrical section)
* Nuclear Sunset Zone Act 2
* Egg Palace Zone (the lighting in the sand section)
* Sandopolis Zone (by Sonic Team, not by JJames19119. I must say, though, JJames19119's Sandopolis Zone is an utterly exemplary race level. Better than Race Alley :D) The Sandopolis references are solely with secrets, though.
* Deep Sea Zone, as well as Undersea Palace Zone Act 1
* Aerial Garden Zone
* Dandjr Palace Zone (the optional platforming in the first room, as well as the chandeliers)
* Aero Shrine Zone (it's quite hard to spot the minor references, actually)

...Still need to review Blade's Magma Core Zone. I know one thing, though, the rising lava gimmicks have to go D:
 
Don't mind me, I'm just boosting my ego.
LmstnLke1.png

LmstnLke2.png
 
Mystic said:
Tempest Valley, Sunken Plant, and Aerial Garden are my personal favorite stages in the pack, and they were made in the process where I was "filling in" the stage selection.
...scary.

Mystic said:
Playing that stage I ran around in circles for at least 10 minutes until I stumbled across the jump across the water to the teleporter. You walk into a room, look around, see no exit and turn around and try another room.
Big, wide-open doorway for me, I guess.

SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
BZ4, I also know about the big secret in NSZ2 via NOCLIP. Looks like one of your faults in level design is putting decent secrets. That was quite a lame reward, actually.
Gee, thanks. The switchhunt is intended to add more content to the level, and keep the player interested longer. The journey in itself should be worth it, which you missed by noclipping your way through the last door.

Oh, and that cameo appearance wasn't the reward. The exit in that room leads to a secret map.
 
SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
If this a Match mode map, I think those bridges should be widened out to 384 fracunits.
It's singleplayer.
EDIT: Out of curiousity, is having testers through PMs against the rules?
 
Well, shoot. I had a map finished for the contest, but I can't get to it right now.

Of course, I might have a copy in my webspace. But I don't have SRB2 installed on this computer anyways, so I guess I'll just wait for until I have a solution.
 
Zanyhead said:
SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
If this a Match mode map, I think those bridges should be widened out to 384 fracunits.
It's singleplayer.
EDIT: Out of curiousity, is having testers through PMs against the rules?

No, it isn't. It's encouraged. I did so, my beta tester was Dark Warrior (again). He seemed to like mine a lot.

EDIT: It also appears as though the only real competition I have is Blade T. Hedgehog...
 
Why aren't I a beta tester any more, SonicMaster? D=

In all seriousness, I have better things to do with my time than beta test levels. For you see, I've actually gotten a life. An internet life, but a life, nevertheless.
 
SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
EDIT: It also appears as though the only real competition I have is Blade T. Hedgehog...

I tend to consider you my competition when it comes to NiGHTS based stages.
 
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