Ok, so I logged onto IRC to be bombarded by people telling me about a new NiGHTS map that was released on the forum. I told them I couldn't play because I had too much homework. A few minutes later I decided that it couldn't hurt to play a bit.
Then spent about an hour playing in this map because dear gods is this thing fantastic.
So I want to start off by saying that I have not seen a fun NiGHTS map since BSZ (well, one that I wasn't involved in) and this was a really awesome surprise. The presentation in this wad is fantastic. It's clear a lot of love went into this.
The graphic and sound replacements are wonderful. I've always wanted to see someone actually go ahead and mod the sprites and sounds for the NiGHTS stuff, and this does it perfectly. The throwback in the loadup was really a fantastic idea, and I knew I was in for a treat when that came up. The choices of music for the stage & menus were spot on, and audio replacements really sell the NiD theme. The visuals, too, were adapted really well into the game, which is fantastic considering that the NiD assets would not naturally convert well to SRB2. The stars look really close to their original style, the chips are perfectly animated. The Nightopians look great and were an awesome surprise. And the enemies...I totally wasn't expecting that, and they looked like they fit in fine. I think my only letdown here is that there were no ideya present when you broke the capsule. I was totally expecting one and was a little sad when I didn't get one. :(
Now, onto the real meat of the wad, the map itself.
I love the attention to detail and the visual flare you have going here. The custom graphics really do wonders for the GFZ theme you have (Usually I hate the GFZ theme, but this map does it really well). The choice of water texture and colormap were really nice, and I'm so glad you didn't go for copying GFZ's water here.
The actual level itself is really cool and has lots of cool things about it that make it shine. I loved going through the map and finding the emblems, it was actually really neat to explore and had a decent amount of area to it. Having said that, I do think a lot of the locations of the emblems are fairly obvious. I found them all in just a few minutes. Given the size and layout of the map, this is unsurprising. Don't take that to mean that the emblems were bad and that the hunt was boring. It was still enjoyable. If you were to make another NiGHTS map in the future though, I would recommend that if you're going to include on-foot content, you might want to make a few segments that require the player travel on foot and maybe have to work a bit to find.
Now for the mares themselves. I think they were all fantastically designed, and that they all play really well together. As a general statement, I want to say that your variance in item placement and height was perfect. I love how you have to actually keep an eye on the map to try and optimize your link and chip count, and how it forces you to figure out how to best flow through the map. Little known fact to a lot of people who play NiGHTS: paralooping a circle of items is not actually always the best plan, and zipping through them might just be a better option. This map has a few areas that make you have to consider how to proceed, and that's symbolic of really good design. The optimal route should not be immediately apparent, and the player should be encouraged to try something different, and this map does that.
Mare 1 I really liked because it does a few things I find fun to do in a NiGHTS map, and it does them on such a short trip that it's actually really cool how you pulled it off. Making the player have to pass a mare in order to get more chips is one of those things I really wish I could have justified in SRB2's special stages, because it's actually really fun to see how fast you can snag the chips and double back to rack up points. I also love how much of a race this particular mare is. It's really fun to just zip past it multiple times and rack up as many points as you can. It's also not easy to immediately do either and takes a bit of practice. Spot on for a first mare.
Mare 2 does things differently and I really like the change of pace. Instead of zipping around, you're encouraged to try and do a little bit of precision navigating to optimally score in the mare. I like how you make it challenging - but certainly not impossible - to get the capsule broken without passing it. I didn't realize it could be done on my first time through. It's also cool how, if you play well, it's possible to chain the link all the way through the ideya capture.
The 3rd mare is also really well handled. I like the paraloop trick with the bumper, and the mare itself lent to a nice combination of play between mares 1 and 2. It felt like a natural extension of the 2 and provided the player with the ability to both speed through
and do some precision flying. I do have to question the reasoning behind using the Nightopian Helper in this section of the stage though. Especially with the horizontal paraloop bumper area, it seems like a missed opportunity to reward the player for grabbing a Super Paraloop and flying through that segment. It would have been so rewarding.
The 4th mare was the clincher. It took all 3 mares and mashed them together for a nice ride. I think the best part about this is that you have to calculate if you're able to do another run of the mare at the end. While most of the other mares you pretty much know whether or not you can pass through intuitively, this mare you have to actually think about while you play, because you have to try and get in those extra few seconds to justify another run through, which is fantastic design. Putting pressure on the player to perform well is always a good thing, and this mare does it.
I love the nod at the end there too. That was really neat and cool to see.
In conclusion, I think this is a fantastic map and would love to see more from you in the future. I will leave you with a few suggestions if you decide to do more going forward.
1) Vertical challenges aren't always easy in SRB2, but they can add a lot of variance to a map. Sometimes you can make better use of a track by giving it verticality. This can conserve map space, as well as help mitigate challenges that can come from overlapping mare tracks.
2) Moving sector blocks are your best friend for challenges. There's a lot of unexplored territory in NiGHTS mode regarding moving sectors. Especially now with the advent of flat-rendering polyobjects, there's a lot of funky things you can do to a map.
3) Consider more duration to the mares. Mares 1-2 are a bit short for more advanced maps (If this were part of a mod that needed an act 1 for NiGHTS mode, this map is literally perfect). Somewhere between 3 and 4 is perfect, and I wouldn't go much larger than 4.
4) I like the idea of using enemies and the placement here is great. I recommend, though, if you go the enemy route for future maps, do set some variance in how they behave. It can do a lot of good for theming in different maps.
5) Take advantage of some of the new powerups we made for the game. Link Freeze can be used to keep the player from feeling penalized by losing his link when he explores. This means you can justifiably hide something really cool on the track that could be valuable, and the player would be more willing to get it. And Extra Time can let you set up some real nice challenges while giving players who might be struggling a bit of a hand-up so they don't feel overwhelmed.
6) Keep in mind that players want to be able to fly through a map if they get good enough. A good example of a map that utterly destroys a player's ability to flow through a map is the very last segment CEZS. Don't follow that example.
7) It's hard to gauge something like this, but I found it rather easy to get the highest rank in the mares. Try having people play and give feedback to best spread the grades around.
That's all just general advice, feel free to take it or leave it. You clearly have a good grasp on NiGHTS mode and how it should play. I really look forward to seeing more like this from you in the future.
Oh, and just to show off:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3ht9xd7zvdlv4x/dreamy.zip?dl=0
Do remove the _TIME and _SCORE before using. You can only have 1 guest ghost at a time, but I figured I'd share them both. I got a Rainbow A in all 4 mares :3
