Tortured Planet v9 (scmrtf_TorturedPlanet-v9.wad)

Yeah, you could do that. In that case, you could combine my idea of making them sector-based with your original intent of having a texture.

I don't like the idea of texture pipes. I think they need to pop out of the wall or not at all. I'm not sure if the pipes are better or worse than the graffiti.

Well, luckily for you, they are going to pop out of the wall now. But custom textures will still be involved.

BTW, the filesize of Tortured Planet has now officially passed the 50 MB mark. There's no way the ZIP is going to be able to be attached to the topic, unless the size limit gets increased.

Have you tried a cleanup in XWE?

Yes. Many times. In fact, it's the method I use to prevent my custom textures from crashing the game.

If you need XWE to clean up for your textures to work, you must be doing something wrong. I import (most) of my custom textures using SLumpEd and I've never had problems.

Well, it doesn't matter whether or not my procedure is correct because it ends up working in the end.

Eh, true.

Gritty Columns
In the first act, the quicksand is rising too fast for me. I feel like you set it to a speed which would only challenge you, the level designer.

Fume Shaft
Um, this is awkward. Fume Shaft 1 is the worst level in the pack so far.

The rails in the beginning are awkward, being almost a hallway. But there are so many other hallways in this level that you should just get rid of all the other ones. The transition caves, for example, I dislike. Also, the pipes which run under the slime are hallways in disguise. There's a certain novelty to them which makes them less hallway-like, but they're still hallways.

Also, I am opposed to jumping on really really small platforms over deathpit.

I can't finish either act without gameovering, so I'm moving on.

Liftoff Gantry
Why did you hide lazers in the darkness?

I had one major complaint... But I can't remember what it was anymore. Which is incredibly annoying. I suppose I will say that it is very difficult to find your way sometimes in DDZ.
The main thing I can think of being certain springs, and that one broken fire hydrant that launches you up, because the springs don't launch you in any specific direction, so you don't really know where you're meant to land, while the fire hydrant makes you face the wrong direction.

The only other complaint I can think of is that the boss of the "I forget the name of it sky ice place world in the mountains" is much easier than previous bosses, because it's just Eggman in the slime machine again. The ice doesn't add much of a challenge. Although I admit I was using a custom character, so that might've made it significantly easier. Although actually that's quite nice, because the sky ice place world in the mountains is really difficult considering it's mostly platforming over pits.

Okay, I feel the need to rant a bit about Alien Armageddon. IT SUCKS. I don't wanna see 6.0 released before you did the following things to it:

• A decent selection of enemies. Seriously, Snailers, Vultures, Crawlas, mines floating in the air for no reason, turrets etc etc. Concentrate on what makes sense.
• A decent texture job. To put it bluntly, you're just not very good at texturing. All of your levels pale in comparison to the official maps when it comes to visuals*, but you can do better than this. I see blackblackblack all over, and in the castles, I see graygraygray all over. It looks absolutely terrible.
• A decent theme. Get rid of ALL the alien stuff and replace it with something that makes sense. If you wanna keep your "castle on an alien planet" theme, try to think of something mildly surrealistic for the outside areas. Mildly is the keyword here. I don't want to run through an ugly-as-fuck wasteland, even if you want to convey that theme. I want nice-looking surroundings
• Get rid of all liquids except water. Yes, ALL liquids.
• Remove all the redundant sections that contain nothing. Examples: The whole underwater section in Act 1, the whole "sticky lava" section in Act 1, that section where you run through some narrow hallways and then get outdoors and jump over some green slime just to return into another cramped hallway (also Act 1). There are many more, and they make up approximately 80% of this zone, but I don't care. Get rid of them. Entirely. The only outdoor gimmick that I like are the floating barrels at the beginning. For the rest, you should effectively remove all the non-castle areas.
• No square platforms. The castle entrance is an example, as are some of the mace-dodging sections. I don't want square platforms sticking out in the open section. This is just lazy design.

In essence, I wanna see you remove and replace content. A lot of it. Most of this zone needs to be scrapped entirely. I want you to come up with an entire new concept for the outside section. This has to be done if you want this zone to become decent. Whatever you had in mind when you thought of a concept for this zone, forget it. The concept sucks beyond repair.

*Regarding the visuals, here's why your visuals are sub-par: Lack of effort. Yes, I know this sounds very harsh, but it's true. In a perfect level, every single room is pleasant and interesting to the eye. In your pack, there are lots of sections where I can actually see how you built them: You had a gimmick, built a room around it and then stopped caring. This is the problem, you simply didn't decorate a lot of space in this whole pack. I also have the feeling that you restrict your texture choices way too much. Most zones have 5-6 textures in which the whole level is built. Many rooms are actually squares with the same wall texture on every side. You need much more decoration.

(Yes, this post is ridiculously over-the-top, but I was overly blunt on purpose. Don't take my wording too seriously :P)

All that stuff makes sense, but it's a very tall order to try to get it all done before the release. I'm going to seriously try to work on as much of it as I can, though.

You don't have to do all of this for the next release if that means a very extreme delay. I just want your word that you will actually do it.

I agree it all needs to be done, but I'm honestly not sure I can do it, especially considering that I'm getting ready to go to college. Once I get there, my presence in the community will be significantly reduced, as will my time to work on Tortured Planet. I can try, but I can't actually guarantee that I will succeed.

You should probably try to work for a release when college starts, so you have this behind you and don't feel any obligations. Then you can see how much work you can do while in college. It would just be stupid to go into college while still having the goal of releasing 6.0, and then finding out that you don't have the time to actually work on it. Just try to include whatever you get done until then.

EDIT: One thing just occurred to me. You always said you used the palmtrees in SAZ very sparingly because they produced glitches when placed in the wrong spot. That might have nothing to do with the palmtrees at all, but rather with your unusually low thok barrier to the right. Low thok barriers can lead to excessive glitches. In other words, now I want my palmtree hopping sequence :<

I actually fixed the glitches through another means. The palmtree hopping sequence may have to wait, though.

In other news, I have a couple of new ideas for AAZ. Firstly, I can delete some of the enemies and make the sensible ones more ubiquitous. Second, I came up with some new sector scenery ideas, mostly for Act 1:

-Fallen aliens. Some of them will have eyes that glow, indicating they may not be quite dead, and others will have dull, black eyes.

-Flying saucers. Some of them will float, others will be cracked and resting on the ground.

-The twisted remains of alien structures. But they may not make that much of a difference yet...I'll see how they turn out.

-Unexploded missiles sticking out of the ground.

That's too sad to see an emblem an can't get it. Spacewalk 2. I'm waiting for the Wiki. SRB2 hasn't a enough saving system, and I can't stop playing in Spacewalk 3, so I need to defeat Eggman first. Glad I'm on Alien Armageddon. But I can't get out of it, hehehehehe

Oh, there's a way to get it. But it's devilishly hard to find the means to do so. I'll post the emblem locations for SZ2 on the wiki right now, just for you.

Thank you Fawfulfan!!!!! Thank you so much!! *hyperventilating* *airless* Thank you. Done.

---------- Post added at 01:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:26 PM ----------

And... erm... What happens when you collect all the emblems?

Kim the Fox!!! said:

And... erm... What happens when you collect all the emblems?

Click to expand...

Nothing. That's the mean part. But it means that you already have them when unlockables are added in 6.0.

Glad you said that. I was about to throw my computer away because of useless emblems. I'm happy they will have some use.