Planet Icy Altair Level Pack Beta 2 released (scrm_PlanetIcyaltair.wad)

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What I liked:
-Special stages were fun
-Good Aesthetics
-Overall good level design (besides 2D)

What I didn't like:
-Buggy 2D sections with bad transitions (if you jump while getting pushed by the axis switch current, you can go where you weren't meant to)
-Sea Egg boss was pointless, and not even really challenging
-Most of the stages take place completely underwater (but that's a personal thing)

Besides the 2D segments, I enjoyed what you have so far.
4/5 because I'm nice like that.
 
Thanks for feedback BZ4 & Kyasarin. Yes I understand the 2D area didn't quite go as how it was meant to, and that is being sorted out. There are some areas which have invisible FOF's to stop the character from flying out, but I'm adding more to completely stop the flying off path issue. Do know, some levels in the mod will have 2D areas, some won't.

I made it water to start off because I thought it would be unique to start it in the water, then as you progress, it will go through the dry areas, but if you wish, I can extend the level design so it would have more variety of land areas as I work along in the mod. Not all may be complete within the next release, but I will add bits & bobs as I go along.

I know I kinda messed up on the boss, and it's being fixed so I can give it more of a challenge, I will make the level much deeper, and also increase the size.

What do you reckon I could have to make Coral Cavern more unique? gimmicks? land area design? what do you think I should have in the level?
 
I think you should use things that Coral Cave in Sonic Rush Adventure did, if possible. It made that Zone stand out among other underwater areas.
 
BlueZero4 said:
I believe that it will not be truly unique unless you decide how to go forwards yourself.
Click to expand...

By what I meant by my post, I thought what features I can add in the level >.>

@Kyasarin: I could have a look at Coral Cave's gimmicks. Some of them were actually pretty cool, especially the rope one.

@Gemin Spark: No, there are emerald tokens in the acts now. Either 1 or 2 can be found in the stages.
 
Heys Guys, this is a bump, but it's an news post.

Sorry I haven't been putting any recent news & updates, I have been very busy with college as I'm in my last year, but I have been working on this... just slowly.

This is what I have done at the moment.

#Special Stage 4 has been made, and Aztec Jungle Act 1 is completed.

#Green Hill Tree added to mod, though it's not custom because it keeps spawning as a green Sonic (if anyone knows this issue, could you give me heads up? thanks)

#Aztec Jungle Act 2 is in progress.

#Coral Cavern Act 3's Boss arena has been edited quite a bit so that the boss fight is more difficult than it is in this release.

#Some of CCZ's 2D areas are being sorted out at the moment. I may possibly add some land areas in thie release, if not, beta 3.

#The Camera issues in CCZ have also been fixed.
 
To sum up my opinion of these levels in one word, it'd have to be: Disappointing.

I was really impressed by your first level pack, Chaos Twilight, but it is evident that you may have forgotten how Sonic levels are generally suppossed to work.
Speed is something that nearly every level should try to encapsulate at some point, after all, Sonic is all about it. Puzzles and tricky bits are okay, but spending your entire time underwater, slowing your speed is not fun, not to mention the constant hunt for air bubbles or sheilds made this level annoyingly slow.

It was detailed, as your levels always are - But the gameplay was lacking. The 2D phases also need work, as they present numerous bugs which often kill the player off if they are unable to access an air bubble.

So, to sumarize:
In my opinion, you need to improve on the overall wetness of this level. Make it a little less.. wet. Keep some of the underwater bits, but give us some room to breathe freely without persisting with a constant search for air bubbles. Seeing this world in one colormap isn't as pretty as seeing it with different ones.

For the 2D phases, add lines of air pockets, rather than just one, so if the player isn't quite centered, they can still breathe. Fix the currents so you are gaurunteed to hit them.

Overall, this level has just scraped a 6/10 from me.

~Azure
 
Azure Hawk said:
To sum up my opinion of these levels in one word, it'd have to be: Disappointing.

I was really impressed by your first level pack, Chaos Twilight, but it is evident that you may have forgotten how Sonic levels are generally suppossed to work.
Speed is something that nearly every level should try to encapsulate at some point, after all, Sonic is all about it. Puzzles and tricky bits are okay, but spending your entire time underwater, slowing your speed is not fun, not to mention the constant hunt for air bubbles or sheilds made this level annoyingly slow.

It was detailed, as your levels always are - But the gameplay was lacking. The 2D phases also need work, as they present numerous bugs which often kill the player off if they are unable to access an air bubble.

So, to sumarize:
In my opinion, you need to improve on the overall wetness of this level. Make it a little less.. wet. Keep some of the underwater bits, but give us some room to breathe freely without persisting with a constant search for air bubbles. Seeing this world in one colormap isn't as pretty as seeing it with different ones.

For the 2D phases, add lines of air pockets, rather than just one, so if the player isn't quite centered, they can still breathe. Fix the currents so you are gaurunteed to hit them.

Overall, this level has just scraped a 6/10 from me.

~Azure
Click to expand...

Well it is called Coral Cavern for a reason. I understand there are issues with the 2D sections, and they are getting sorted out. There will be more land areas in both acts, but the majority of the zone is based underwater. It's only for 1 world. You need to have a mix of stuff, not just Jesus Christ speed like Sonic Advance 2 suffers from. You need to mix the level design to make it unique for all 3 characters. This is one of the reasons why I enjoyed Sonic 3 & Knuckles in some parts because there are different places & stuff for different characters, as well as mixing speed/platforming/gimmicks, and some other misc stuff.

As for air bubbles, there are enough of them as there is. I carefully balanced out the air bubbles in the specific places needed. As for colourmaps, I think one is enough, and multiple colours in the level I think makes it ugly IMO. To be honest, I personally thought some of Chaos Twilight is not as good and this is coming directly from me, but I'm going a little off topic here.

Otherwise thanks for feedback. I will get the issues sorted soon.
 
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Hyperknux said:
To be honest, I personally thought some of Chaos Twilight is not as good and this is coming directly from me, but I'm going a little off topic here.
Click to expand...
This IS an improvement over Chaos Twilight, which felt like the same level over and over for 7 zones. But you need to get rid of these brown rocks sticking out from the floor. They look ridiculously ugly and out of place.
 
Well, it's been months since I last replyed in this topic but I do have an announcement.

Planet Icy Altair Beta 2 is out now! check out the news & the updates in the first post of the topic.
 
in Coral Cavern act 2, the checkpoint in the 2d area spawns you in 3d. Add a 2d activator to that sector.
 
I originally wanted to post this review two days ago, but then srb2.org went down. Anyway, here it is...

Coral Cavern:

  • The visuals are great, especially in the land sections, and the the new textures fit nicely. Those brown rocks with the MM8 texture look ugly and out of place, however. You seem to really like this texture, because almost all the levels you made up until now feature it.
  • Crawlas underwater? How are they going to breathe? Anyway, they don't fit, and you should stick to Jet Jaws and Mines.
  • Pretty much the entire level consists of running and generic hopping over stationary platforms. Imagine GFZ1, only underwater. Not only is that very uncreative, it also gets boring very quickly. It doesn't help that nearly all underwter rooms look the same, either.
  • The 2D sections are horribly executed. The way the player enters and exits them make the camera get stuck most of the time, breaking the transition. The gameplay itself is not that great either. It basically this: Run a bit, thok to get to the other side, let the waterslide carry you forward, repeat.
  • Many waterslides do nothing at all. You enter them, they carry you forward, done. At the end of Act 2, you started getting more creative, and it would definitely make the zone more interesting and varied to include some actual gameplay in the other slides as well.
  • Many of your secrets are not hidden at all. If you have an Elemental Shield in an underwater level, it should be difficult to access. Instead, most of your power-ups are out in the open, and the only things I really had to search for were Emerald Tokens.
  • The ending of Act 1 is really abrupt. It feels like you just decided to stop the level there and slapped an End Level Sign on the last room.
  • The boss has no Egg Capsule.
Overall:
Nice idea, but lacking in execution. It seems like you just didn't have enough ideas for an entire zone. Remove those 2D sections (or at least make them interesting) and get more creative in terms of gameplay, and this should be a really good level.

5/10

Aztec Jungle:

  • Again, visually very pleasing. It's amazing what can be done with the new textures 2.0 has to offer, and this is a good example.
  • This time, your level actually has a gimmick to make it interesting. The rope hangs have some slight camera issues when falling off, but that's not your fault, I guess.
  • How many different enemies have you put into this level? Certainly too many. Concentrate on a few and place these with care. There's really no need to overspam the level with tons of Crawlas, and they don't fit the theme anyway. I actually liked that Buzz at the beginning and I was disappointed that there weren't any more in the whole zone.
  • Your path splits are highly unbalanced. In Act 1, the path leading forward takes ten seconds and provide no challenge at all, and the other one features one minute of rope hang action. In Act 2, you have one long path with a crusher gimmick that appears nowhere else, and two short path with generic platforming.
  • The 2D section in Act 1 is completely unnecessary, and the rope hang there is broken. If you hang onto the upper one, you don't get to the exit, but fall down on the lower one again.
  • In one of the indoor sections in Act 2, you have to go through a really long and winding rope hang section that doesn't feature any player involvement. You hang onto it, wait ten seconds, and continue. That's really pointless and absolutely boring.
  • It was approximately at the aforementioned point when the rope hang gimmick started to get boring. After two acts of doing this over and over again, it didn't feel very interesting anymore. Instead of overusing this one particular gimmick, you should think of some others, like those crusher I mentioned earlier.
  • Both act endings are too abrupt (see CCZ1).
  • Eggmobiles don't work in wide-open areas, because they'll fly out of reach. You could however make the trees solid, then everything would be fine.
Overall:
Nice looking, and solid fun for about two minutes. Then the novelty wears off and the level becomes a farce. This zone is way too long for its few ideas.

6/10
 
I love this level pack, especially the great level design. And I like the custom Flickies. One thing, though: the Knux emblem in CCZ1 needs to be harder to find, as I came out of a small hole and there it was, staring me in the face.

I really like your idea of partial levels for the boss acts. I would have never thought of that. I really like how well the 2D sections come together with the rest of the level. My only problem with the 2D sections is in Aztec Jungle 2(I think it's in zone 2); at the end of one of the 2D sections, it's almost impossible to get past it because there are two hangon conveyor thingies that contradict each other.

All in all, about 8/10.
 
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