Suddenly, more votes!
Single Player Votes
Wood Asleep - 2
It’s clear that atmosphere was clearly a priority during the production of this map, however despite an intriguing opening the focus on atmosphere impeded on the game play of the map as a direct result of that long boring forest.
I would also like to point that out that the atmosphere serves as an excellent build up, which would be nice if there was a climax to this build up. Unfortunately, the map suddenly ends without warning leaving the player feeling confused and rather annoyed.
Colossal Castle Zone - 5
Slowly jumping up a dozen sets of stairs does not a fun map make :(
This map has lots of interesting ideas, counter-balanced with bad ones or poor execution. The mid-boss was interesting and a clever idea however which for the most part I rather liked. However, as an issue I feel should be mentioned, and I understand that this boss was intended to be a puzzle, the placement for the button should be clearer.
While the theme for this stage was an interesting concept, the floatiness that comes about from being shrunk noly served to annoy me and as almost everything else in the map was shrunk down. I felt that this gimmick was not explored enough and didn’t quite reach its full potential. On the topic of theming however, I was a little bit disappointed when the castle theme was removed in favour of an Aerial Garden Theme near the end of the map. If that was intended to look like castle ramparts or towers, it didn’t come across as such clearly.
There’s also a serious issue with the cryptic nature of some of your puzzles (such as doors opening in rooms the player has already been through) and that the effects of the gargoyle monitor were not fully explained to the player. As a whole, I would be wary of using the gargoyle monitor as it’s quite possible that a player could run out of monitors and render the map impossible to complete.
Grassy Cliffs - 0
Crashes upon loading, 0/10
But, after loading this map up in Doom Builder and playing it. It’s apparent that despite an honest effort to create a short and interesting map you still have a lot to learn about what is acceptable level design. The scale for the map was much too small and leaves the player feeling boxed in as the map is rather cramped. The boss at the end of the map isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it offers nothing to the level. It does not feel like a suitable climax for a level with such a calm serene atmosphere and the boss itself brings nothing new to the game that a player hasn’t seen before.
Windmill Hill Zone - 4
This map is rather basic. So okay it was average in fact, very little about the level stood out for me. However one gimmick of the level that particularly annoyed me was the windmills and the fact that standing in front of them lifts the player into the air without any visual indication why this happens. Especially annoying as on my first playthrough I accidentally flung myself into a pit as I didn’t expect walking near a windmill to fling me into the air.
Aside from that, while I’m not a fan of the school of level design that encourages death pits below the player at all times, there was very little that impressed me and very little that disappointed me as well.
Clockwork Grove - 7
The custom things used for scenery and enemy placement was creative and a pleasure to see, however the custom enemy, while interesting and well animated, didn’t seem to contribute much to the map, these enemies could be replaced with crawlas the map would play almost the same.
It was nice to see vertical platforming segments in a level, however the layouts often lead to players falling down due to confusion and having to climb up again. A prime example of this is when the player makes dirt fall down to enable a flower to bloom, the player will smash the dirt from the ceiling and will fall because they were following the sign instructing them to do this very thing. Only to discover that they need to repeat the climb up to reach the now bloomed flower. There were similar issues that come from a lack of direction throughout most of the map, such as when the player pushes a button to turn night into day and, without any prompting to jump down to the bottom floor of the area they just climbed up from, search for a hole in the tree.
Wonder Terrace Zone - 6
That music is delicious. I approve of it.
My tastes in music aside however, while I enjoyed the structure of the map I felt that the player goes for too long without access to a starpost at the start of the map. Resulting in frustration if the player dies during the last section needed to bring the elevator down.
The hub areas where the sections of the level are accessed appear to need some difficulty balancing as well, largely because the first hub area is more dangerous than all the others with more opportunities for the player to fall into instant death pits and badniks.
I would also like to use this space to say, climbing up the lava waterfall was horribly executed and was very frustrating, really. Oh god, finding that I couldn’t jump up to the next platform because lady luck decided not to spawn a platform where I needed it to be was horrible and wasted my time (and rings).
Splash Garden Zone Act 1 - 7
There are lots and lots of problems with SRB2’s 2D mode, without a doubt. However for the most part, your level design is able to combat these issues by not springing sudden traps in front of the player after encouraging them to run forwards, as many 2D maps seem to do.
That aside, I felt that the horizontal springs were buggy and frustrating to use, really I think the map would have been better off if they just weren’t in the level. Also I noticed some consistency errors with the design on floating platforms that collapse and those that don’t.
The custom sprites, textures and enemies were very nice though. I didn’t feel that the spring turtles were really used to their full potential though. With no secrets that require their use like in your beach themed level that used them as well.