I don't really know how this works but here's Tam's votes

[DoubleATam]

So I'm newish here, started playing some months ago, though I'm not exactly total noob level. Anyhow, a friend dragged me into playing and voting these and I signed in because it seemed fun (maybe I'm a new regular!), so some of this might be an outsider's perspective. Really I'm not sure about the order either so take it with a grain of salt. I hope I don't seem too negative, I think I had fun and I appreciate the effort put into all this. I hope to improve as a critic as well.

I played all of the Single Player levels multiple times, saw each of them in both renderers. I didn't bother with emblems or other secrets for the most part, though I was interested in looking for paths. We didn't do any multiplayer maps because the skill difference is too big. Most of the comments about netplay are observations and nitpicks rather than being something I consider important to judging.

1. Hollow Hill Zone by Othius, Inazuma & Spectorious
2. Lava Temple by Vixuzen
3. Mercury Mine Zone by Rexeljet
4. Ante-Station Zone by Twins'R'Okay
5. Abyss Caverns Zone by yyeellooww7
6. Ridge Rapids Zone by particle
7. Koopa Kastle Zone by Glaber
8. Fort Sunset Zone by DylanDude
9. Falcon Emissary Zone by InferNOr
10. Blizzard Bastion Zone by PhilJFou
11. Teal Tundra Zone by SunCyclone
12. Zaxel's Thunder Yard by Zaxel
13. Drenched Dam Zone by Voidy2246
14. Emerald Glade Zone by DoodlesYT
15. Bombastic Beach Zone by Shapeshifter Boi
16. Music Mash Zone by WasifBoomz

Spoiler: Stage by stage comments

1. Hollow Hill Zone by Othius, Inazuma & Spectorious
   • This stage gets such production values with such a large team that it isn't even fair. Good pace & length, fun and aesthetically pleasing stage.
   • The original gimmick (ectoplasm...?) is also really good, I like it better than THZ goop, it never really broke the flow - outside of that weird pillar going into the ceiling at the end? Got a little stuck there looking for secrets, glad I can't seem to drown in it anyhow. And it makes you go faster?
   • If anything this stage is a little too pretty and dense, since it can be kinda hard to tell where to go in the dark. For instance, one set of mandatory springs is ultra dark and hard to see. (Ironically, I saw it just fine in OpenGL.)
   • Out of every stage in this batch with alternate character paths, this is the only one where they were... actually as fun as or better than Sonic's.
   • I like that the slow cool setpiece at the end is even more easily skippable than the one in Castle Eggman 1, but it feels wrong to completely ignore it without even activating it. Maybe if you at least had to jump out from inside it?
   • Sieged Sanctum never gets old. good taste
2. Lava Temple by Vixuzen
   • This one surprised my play group. Surprisingly cool use of the rideable ball, good puzzles, and the Rayman aesthetic was pretty nice.
   • The character paths at the end though... were a cool idea but it seems the creator overextended. We were very impressed overall (they even all look different), but they're all completely uncheckpointed, and only Sonic's and Tails' felt reasonable enough to make mandatory. For the others, the free shields are pointless because it's all pit. Why is Amy's pitch-dark? And Metal's resorts to blind spring C-jumps??
   • Maybe a happy accident, but kudos for making a stage where Tails is fun instead of trivial, at least in the main path. It usually can't be helped.
   • The secret door in the first half is basically a completely separate stage. I assume this is meant to be the speedrun/challenge path for people who don't like ball puzzles, but it's really rude as a non-flight. I suppose that's fine though, it's neat that it exists at all.
   • I wanted to like the bone climbing gimmick especially since it made going up easier in places, but are they supposed to be hard to see? It being signaled by just a flat texture made it hard to progress at times. I think it was underbaked and underexplored, anyhow.
   • Also, it works via an invisible platform that you activate by landing on, yeah? That actually made it surprisingly unintuitive, I kept wanting to jump at the wall to climb faster. Plus, in multiplayer, lag plus other people using it gave it weird delays and made it kill me by shoving me into the floor.
3. Mercury Mine Zone by Rexeljet
   • This is a fun stage to roll and bounce in -- curvy slopes are a simple pleasure --, and the gimmick works well for a frantic dash without getting too annoying. I find it strange that there's no way to become immune to it though, either through invincibility or the elemental shield.
   • In the mercury pits where if you fall in you're forced to climb back up and try again, it took waaay too long to do so. Very flowbreaking, and I had trouble finding the spring sometimes, though I never did drown. I get that it's a punishment, but 2D sonic usually makes it a point to fail you forward, and this stage does succeed at that at other points.
   • Worth noting I think you also never actually get punished for having 0 rings, there's never an enemy right after a mercury zone, which I can't decide if it's a good or bad thing.
   • Amy needs better things to do here: everything that's fun to let happen automatically as Sonic or finagle as Fang, is kinda boring to just hold forward in as Amy. All she gets is a non-shortcut (longcut?) near the very end of the stage for some reason, and I even took it backwards.
4. Ante-Station Zone by Twins'R'Okay
   • This is a really pretty and impressive stage, but the gameplay wasn't as up to snuff, and it promised more than it followed up on.
   • There's some pleasure to speeding through it, and I think there's a ton of paths, but it's somewhat plain, and what platforming is there is a little too precise and punishing for how unintuitive and basic it is, though it's at least some fun.
   • I found it a weird missed opportunity that it has actual pits instead of using the Haunted Hill style warp-resets.
   • THAT TEXT SCROLL AT THE START WAS MURDER, if you have important info make it concise or it'll be even harder to read. Actually, that's a criticism I'll level at this contest in general: there needed to be some way to give important warnings *before* levels start.
5. Abyss Caverns Zone by yyeellooww7
   • Pretty and short stage, but it was kind of over in a flash without much happening to speak of.
   • I didn't notice that it had multiple paths (one hot, one cold) until I'd played it a couple times. Since I played the ice path first (and I kinda took it without noticing), the stage almost didn't stand out to me as anything but a damp cave.
   • When you have this little gameplay, splitting it in two seems like a bad idea. Frankly this split paths fetish is a design decision in base SRB2 that I disagree with already? Like yeah some exploration is nice, but in 2D Sonic it's more about finding secrets or falling/rising to easier/shorter paths, not "pick left or right to get a different stage".
6. Ridge Rapids Zone by particle
   • This stage has some fun moments with the waterfall, and it's fun to climb around. I also think Amy's fun here, which is automatically a point.
   • That said, I don't really understand why, but I just had a ton of trouble finding my way through this stage. I get lost and go in circles for an indefinite amount of time. But also, you can end the stage awkwardly abruptly. It's far easier to stumble aimlessly into a large shortcut after wasting a ton of time than to finish this level "normally". (I don't think it's a maze, just open, circular, and samey looking?)
   • A lot of the platforming is strangely tight. also bees.
   • I'm glad you still finish the stage if you barely miss the spring.
   • My friends were playing in software mode most of the time, and this stage doesn't have an actual background when not in OpenGL. Again, this kinda thing came up in this contest way too often, as different people prefer different rendering systems with completely different visual results.
7. Koopa Kastle Zone by Glaber
   • A little plain and lacking in substance, but I found it at least a little fun to speed through (maybe unintentionally? you move way too fast in 2D in this game). There's even some fun shell setups, though they're kinda hard to aim (that's vanilla's fault again though). What are these "Spiny" spincushions though? Is it placebo or are they inexplicably hard to try and hit in this stage?
   • The actual gimmick of having a companion 1-to-1 Mario Maker stage was cute, but the Sonic version was way more fun to traverse than the Mario one. Conversely, the Mario version probably imposed some restrictions on the Sonic one just by existing. Is a salvageable idea though.
   • "Surprise Metal Robotnik" is a twist that made the level worse. I hate this boss in vanilla and I hate it here, and it's almost unmodified. And he, unlike the Bowser you have to fight over and over in Mario Maker, takes way too long even with a fire flower (or gun).
   • (Also since it's unlikely anyone will play the Mario version first, it lacking this twist ending fight makes it an awkward note to end on.)
   • Also I kept forgetting the flower was there since it's behind the checkpoint.
8. Fort Sunset Zone by DylanDude
   • A compact stage that you progress by collecting/doing things in it is a neat idea, routing this for speed seems like a bit of fun, but there's not a lot of things to do in it, and it's pretty flat. Still, despite being a little boring as-is, it gets a lot of mileage out of such a simple layout, and I like it better than a lot of ring missions in official Sonics. High-value rings were a good step.
   • I think there's more than one direction to take this concept in. For example, I'm not opposed to doing a couple laps around a small stage, but there could've been like, secret ring boxes and such to end faster? Maybe I missed the optimal way to do it.
   • I find it cool that not only do rings respawn, it's possible to eliminate all threats to your rings in the first place (including the singular firepit by saving the shield), so if you really want to guarantee your success you can play it safe. But... it's still kinda rough as nospins. Especially since Fang and Amy's projectiles don't work in this stage because of colliding with invisible geometry.
   • The Drawn to Life mooks are cute. I like the rainbow scarf ones and the yellow one sleeping in the tent
9. Falcon Emissary Zone by InferNOr
   • It's a very pretty stage, it has a mechanical identity throughout, and it's very meticulously made. I really want to like it.
   • But I found it immensely frustrating for some reason. It's got really mean platforming, it constantly spams a collection of the very hardest enemies in the base game, and is really really badly checkpointed. Fans and rope are super precise. Fast enemies closer to checkpoints than rings are. I just dunno. I've given this stage so many chances, and I often find more things to like about it, but it does not stop making me angry.
   • It's also badly signposted, and also has a ton of blind pits I kept running into.
   • And it's sooo janky. In OpenGL the stage took me a full 10 seconds to reload per death. In Software there's a pretty nasty visual glitch around a checkpoint instead. Some pits don't actually kill you, some walls you just clip through... It's clear a lot of effort was put into making this stage pretty, at the expense of side effects.
   • Dodging bees while climbing as Knux is a fun idea, but it's set up real badly and usually they just ram into you from the side at mach speed. I was going to recommend you skip the spike maze by climbing from the side, but then I found out it's easier to just force him into the Sonic path.
10. Blizzard Bastion Zone by PhilJFou
    • I like the theme, but I didn't feel like it was followed through on very well. There's some Castle Eggman esque ideas that I enjoyed, such as a wall of Egg Guards in front of a door. But I just didn't see a lot of value added by the ice parts right now.
    • It's still an alright stage though, pretty complete.
    • The platforming is unearnedly difficult and I didn't feel like it was on purpose. I wasn't even sure I could make some jumps as Sonic, sometimes it was hard to recognize the path forward. And what are Jettysyns doing here?
    • In software renderer all the colored character "sign" squares turn the wrong color at a certain distance, which doesn't help find where to go.
    • The ice maze was cute but the platforms never respawning is rude and also completely broke multiplayer.
    • Why would you ever use the singular style catapult
11. Teal Tundra Zone by SunCyclone
    • When I was playing with my friends on my first go through this contest, we were so checked out by the end that we welcomed a simple easy stage like this.
    • That said, there isn't much to it, and now that I'm playing it again I'm having trouble finding anything memorable about it at all.
    • It looks nice enough and doesn't do anything wrong at all. For me to be placing it this low, it's really not bad.
12. Zaxel's Thunder Yard by Zaxel
    • It's strangely mean-spirited. The trolls really weren't funny, so I'm kinda ranking it low out of spite principle. There's an art to making funny trolls, just look at mario maker, but this is 2006-style low effort. And, different kind of "cringe", but the creator seems to be trying really hard to self-aggrandize with their self-inserts here.
    • The stage itself runs a little too long, and platforms and paths alternate between too narrow and too wide. Blue lightning on blue stage making it impossible to see hazards was a consistent problem. Surprise pits were also really annoying, I'm glad a lot of them are just damage floor but it didn't look right?
    • All of that said, when the stage was being fun, it was being fun. There was a feeling of forward momentum to it, and it's not too difficult to finish.
    • I don't know how to feel about these custom enemies, or the suggested "Thousand of " challenge (the reward isn't worth it and i cheesed it with a secret room anyway. Avoiding damage here is strangely difficult?).
13. Drenched Dam Zone by Voidy2246
    • The invisible walls on every fence here are incredibly bad. Obviously it's to funnel you through the intended path while still looking pretty and letting you see Metal, but it just makes it so hard to find my way through.
    • More rude platforming than fun platforming, and while I don't hate cramped stages on principle (outside of multiplayer), rubbing against walls all the time slows you down and feels wrong. Some booster events didn't work right either.
    • The racing part is trivial compared to actually dying in pits, and I later found it was because I was consistently taking a large shortcut near the start without noticing.
    • I think there's more, for example I saw the end of a zoom tube and much later found a secret entry. I like that, but the thing is, you don't really need any shortcuts past the first, you just need to live. The race itself is already quite short too.
    • I don't recommend playing Metal Sonic races in multiplayer
14. Emerald Glade Zone by DoodlesYT
    • I'd like to see more emerald hunt stages, and I like the idea of having some of the shields act as optional aid for some hard challenges that house the emerald shards. So you can just dive in a pile of crabs, or you can explore extra and find the 'geddon shield.
    • But not all of the shields help, some of the possible emerald locations are literally just the faraway corners of the stage, and everything that isn't a point of interest is...
    • (intentionally left blank)
15. Bombastic Beach Zone by Shapeshifter Boi
    • Not much here at all yet, though I didn't dislike what little is here.
    • The top path is faster by a little too much...! But the bottom "bumper heck" path is no fun as a nospin.
    • Kudos on the big bubble idea instead of the awful classic Sonic breathing bubbles, please use that again in a full level.
16. Music Mash Zone by WasifBoomz
    • I'm sorry, I wanted to humor the gimmicks more, there's a lot of them -- seriously, a ton of cool ideas, even though some of them are broken --, but it hurt so much to look at no matter which way I was facing. I practically disqualify it for that reason.
    • Ironically, the visuals were way louder than the music and sounds, which were barely audible.
    • The "flashing lights warning" is like, accurate and appreciated, but it comes in late, which is impressive since it's frame 1. This stage might seriously hurt somebody? Also again, next contest needs some kind of proper warning system.

I feel like I learned some lessons myself.
Suggestions for most level makers:

• I think split paths in general shouldn't just be "pick left/right to get a different stage", vanilla SRB2 is guilty of this as well. Exploring is fun and there should be some of that, but paths need a purpose, or you're just wasting effort on half of a stage players won't see.
• Related to split paths, though with the stipulation that I don't like difficulty for the sake of itself:
  • Make more paths that fail you forward, instead of repeating an annoying climb or having a fail state.
  • If you really want your mechanic to be mandatory, it probably shouldn't need too much precision to interact with at a basic level. (A useful rule of thumb might be to make the level reasonable even with input lag.)
• I think character-specific split paths shouldn't just be arbitrary, rather, they should replace parts of the level that just wouldn't be as fun with them.
• Just because something's fun as Sonic doesn't mean it's fun as everyone else. (I've been told you were allowed to lock a stage to a character? That sounds advisable if you're short on time or want to limit the scope.)
• Test your level in both renderers if you can, or at least warn if you didn't.
• I think the signposting for both pits and level progress is already kind of insufficient in base SRB2, I think generally more care needs to be put into that. Considering you can see ahead of you, it's easy to overestimate how much is visible, and the amount of times I either backtracked on accident, or ran forwards on what seemed like flat ground and ended up in a hole, is Too Many.

Suggestions for contest organizers:

• Add warnings before stages. All the "use software or it won't look right"s, the "here's very specific settings so that it won't crash" star wars text crawl, and the too-little-too-late "flashing lights warning" were absolutely egregious.

Other thoughts and context:

Last night I had a rough first time with this contest. My friends invited me to do this but I hadn't really adjusted my expectations, and they kinda dragged me out of bed after a bout of insomnia to do laggy co-op over the internet, which ruined a lot of first impressions somewhat unfairly. For a lot of them, whenever I wasn't frustrated, I was cheating as Tails, completely checked out.
Today I replayed all the levels with a clearer head and no input lag, most of them multiple times, and it went a lot better! I can probably say I had fun with this. However, some of my first impressions stood.

Sonic's often just kinda like that even in official games, unfortunately. Some stages feel really rude on the first dozen attempts.

I don't really know how helpful any of this was. In any case, thank y'all for making.