SRB2 Tortured Planet: Final Demo Before Release!

[Krabs]

The devs only made the thing numbers, sector numbers, etc change so that they would be more organised, its not going to drastically change again.

 

[Fawfulfan]

Oh good, that's what I was hoping for. So that'll make things easier.

For the time being however, until Eggscalibur and the others are usable, I'm sticking with the bosses I've got.

 

[MascaraSnake]

OK, a full review would take ages, so I'm concentrating on the things that come to mind:

• Sunshine Atoll's layout is confusing yet linear. There seems to be only one path, still I don't know where to go. Also, most of the time, the level consists only of running.
• The beginning of SAZ2 is annoying. If the player falls into the water, it's hard to find out, since the bottom is almost maze-like.

• ECZ's lava is actually slime with lava visuals. The difference is that is doesn't immediately hurt you upon entering it, but only when you're submerged in it about 32 fracunits or something. This make no sense with lava.
• The outside texturing is obviously stolen from Flame Rift Zone. You know what? It looks horrible, and not the least volcano-like. Same goes for some of the indoor texturing, which is stolen from Vulcan Forge.
• Some parts of ECZ are cramped, or confusing. Some are completely empty, both in terms of visuals and gameplay, but when there is something, it's usually quite enjoyable.
• ECZ1 is too short.
• The polyobject in ECZ2 is difficult to see, and it's annoying to wait for it.
• The end sign in act 2 is easy to overlook.

• Dark City Zone's texture set is, and always will be very ugly. I strongly recommend custom textures.
• The underwater sections are usually too dark. I can barely see anything.
• There are some more maze-like parts in here, including the first underwater section of Act 1, everything between the waterslide and the water floor section in Act 1, parts of the waterslide section in Act 2, the part after the wave room (where the skims are crushed against the ceiling, by the way) and the underwater railway station (because I can barely see the exit).
• That water floor segment at the end of Act 1 is completely devoid of any gameplay.
• In the beginning of Act 2, remove the camera modifications from the death pit. They constantly mess up my camera.
• In Act 2, there is a part where you have to press buttons to raise the water level. This has the annoying side effects that the skims tend to be stranded on dry land, which looks quite awkward.
• Loops are pointless. Get over it.
• Regarding the underwater railway station: It's a really interesting idea, but the execution is boring. All you have to do is run through that corridor. Put a waterslide in there or something like that.

In general, you need more alternate paths. Also note that just because I almost exclusively listed flaws, that doesn't mean your mod is worthless. You have many interesting ideas, but they are unfortunately overshadowed by several design flaws. Keep working on it, this has potential.

 

[Fawfulfan]

I'll see what I can do about those problems. Some of them, however, will require MAJOR level renovation. I actually do plan to do that once I've fleshed out all the levels. After all ten acts are done, I'll go back and make the levels less linear, less buggy, longer, and full of more secrets. I'll also try to fix boring, plain sections.

By the way, I've never even heard of Vulcan Forge Zone. And, while I've played Flame Rift Zone, it never crossed my mind ONCE when I was designing Eruption Conduit Zone. I was just trying to combine THZ, CEZ, and RVZ elements together.

 

[MascaraSnake]

I'll see what I can do about those problems. Some of them, however, will require MAJOR level renovation. I actually do plan to do that once I've fleshed out all the levels. After all ten acts are done, I'll go back and make the levels less linear, less buggy, longer, and full of more secrets. I'll also try to fix boring, plain sections.

I would advise you to fix your renovate your levels before making new ones, but in the end, that's your decision.

By the way, I've never even heard of Vulcan Forge Zone. And, while I've played Flame Rift Zone, it never crossed my mind ONCE when I was designing Eruption Conduit Zone. I was just trying to combine THZ, CEZ, and RVZ elements together.

Vulcan Forge Zone is the Mystic Temple of Flame Rift Zone. Also, I didn't want to accuse you of theft (who would care if you ripped off the texture set anyway?), I just wanted to tell how bad those textures look.

 

[Virt]

Pretty good. Although the grass in Sunshine Attol Zone doesn't match the thingies on the side of the platforms that looks like grass. The sidegrass is too blue to match the normal grass.

 

[Fawfulfan]

I've got yet another new beta out!

Your thoughts?

 

[MascaraSnake]

How do you manage to put out two new zones every week and make them not horribly suck?

 

[Fawfulfan]

I'll choose to take that as a pseudo-compliment.

The reason is that I spend a ton of time on them every day. When I get home from school, I work on Tortured Planet until dinner. On the weekends, I work even more.

Yeah, I have no life...what's it to you?

 

[MascaraSnake]

Yeah, I have no life...what's it to you?

I sure as hell don't mind. Especially after actually playing the new beta. I'll give you a more complete review later, but let me say for the record that Gritty Columns Zone blew me away.

 

[Ice]

Hey, you're doing what you enjoy. Who cares if others don't consider that a life amirite?

 

[Fawfulfan]

I'll give you a more complete review later, but let me say for the record that Gritty Columns Zone blew me away.

I'm just dying to know what you like about that level. That way, I can try doing that in other levels.

 

[MascaraSnake]

I'm just dying to know what you like about that level. That way, I can try doing that in other levels.

Sorry, but I have a lot of homework to do. I'll try to give my review ASAP.

EDIT: But I think I have enough time to tell you quickly what I liked about it. It was mostly how you varied that crusher gimmick throughout the level, doing new things with it every time. And of course, it didn't have any really bad parts gameplay-wise, save for that room where you had to press nine buttons in a row. Also, I found that part that was copied from Ezer.Arch's acc. scroller example to be quite funny and clever. You should do more interesting things with that however. Right now, you only have to press left and you're done. At the very least, you could use it as a split for an alternate path.

 

[Sergeant Brown]

I've just played this, and it's pretty good (mostly in terms of level design). But there's still problems regardless. This is the review of the boss acts. The other acts will come later:

Your bosses' gimmicks were creative in concept, but most of them made the fight either near-impossible to play, or just they didn't worked at all.
-Sunshine Atoll Zone 3 was pretty nice playing. The only problem I have though is that Eggman can shoot you while you're below the leaves, and that can be cheap since you don't see him shooting the laser.
-Eruption Conduit Zone 3 had it's gimmick really minor: You just could stand on a corner and hit Eggman while clearly forgetting about the lava falls. Though if you were fighting an Egg Slimer and if there were more lava falls, then maybe the gimmick would've been less forgetful.
-Drowning Downtown Zone 3 is probably the only Boss act with nothing really bad about the concept or the level design. The problem it has is it's lack of rings, but that's just it.
-Snowcap Nimbus Zone 3 is just annoying: You fight the Egg Slimer in an icy floor, with very few rings to help you fight against Eggman, ice AND slime. And the bouncing walls just don't help either. Add dry land where the player can concentrate on it's next move and add MORE rings.
-Gritty Columns Zone 3 had it's camera broken; like, if you stepped a bit in the main platform, the camera goes above you for no reason. And the quicksand is more of a pain than what it should be thanks to that camera. There's also a lack of rings (AGAIN). Fix the camera at all costs, if possible, and add more rings.
-Fume Shaft Zone 3, to my surprise, has more things than meets the eyes, at least when you see the screenshot of it. There are only 6 rings, which doesn't really help with a spiky Egg Mobile in a Techno Hill Zone 3 level design rehash, which has it's platform smaller for no reason, yet again. And a false jump or getting hit can easily knock you out of the shaft (if that's what that platform is called) if you're not careful, and you have few to no possible chances to get back (you surprisingly don't die if you hit the rails, but YOU DIE if the invisible wall gets you). Now really, I don't mind if you rehashed the level design of THZ3, but what I do mind is the size of that shaft. Please make it bigger and put more rings.
-Liftoff Gantry Zone 3 suffers from another lack of rings and lack of space to run. Please make the elevator larger and have more rings.
-Spacewalk Zone 3 is one of these Boss Acts where the concept was nice and original, but failed miserably at it. You're fighting Eggman upside down in a platform where you can barely see where you're walking, having then more chances to fall off and, yet again, with very few rings. This here can't really be helped, as far as I'm concerned with the engine, but IMO, I think it would be better if you alternate gravity. And since there's already a platform "below" the one you are in it, you just need to do something where, after some time, you change gravity. And that could probably make this fight more better.
-Alien Armageddon Zone 3 could be better if you just could take off these pillars and make the platforms more bigger. These are the only problems I have for this act. The concept here works, there's nothing really bad about it, then.
-Star Showdown Zone has the same problems as GCZ3, but just much more worse. So worse that, in fact, you can barely fight this Brak Eggman. Again, you must fix this camera problem. And if you can't, then you might as well scrap it (on the contrary to GCZ3, where it's still playable to a certain extent).

And here's the note I gave to these acts.
SAZ3: 7/10
ECZ3: 5/10
DDZ3: 8/10
SNZ3: 4/10
GCZ3: 7/10
FSZ3: 6/10
LGZ3: 7/10
SZ3: 3/10
AAZ3: 6/10
SSZ3: 4/10

 

[MascaraSnake]

I really don't know what's your problem with rings. I never ran short of them in any of these boss levels. Also, the camera problems come from the Camera Modifications you tend to apply to almost every death pit in the whole mod. Death pits should only have Camera Modification if they're well below the deepest level of ground.

 

[Sergeant Brown]

I never ran short of them, too. But what if this mod gets to be played in coop? Obviously, it'd need more rings in these boss fights to let play at least 4 people safe.

 

[MascaraSnake]

See, that's why I don't like coop. You run into a lot of problems if you want it to be supported. But seeing as GCZ2 wouldn't be playable in coop anyway, that's a minor issue.

 

[Fawfulfan]

I think many of those problems you mentioned are fixable, Brown. I'll see what I can do.

Also, that's one of the reasons I deliberately left out support for Coop in my mod.

 

[MascaraSnake]

Looong post, part 1: Snowcap Nimbus Zone

SNZ1:

• The first thing I noticed were those Christmas textures. Ugh. They're simply, GFZROCK and THZROCK in blue, and they look extremely plain. We have a nice amount of good-looking new ice-themed textures, so I'd suggest using them more. The next thing noticed was that the deep snow actually slows you down. That's a nice idea, as it actually affects how the player has to move.
• Those snowflake/cloud/whatever-shaped platforms were severely overused. I wouldn't mind that if they actually contained a gimmick of some sort, like making them bouncy, but they're just ordinary platforms. You should either use another gimmick for the outdoor sections or make these platforms do something.
• I also don't know how clever it is to use quicksand-like oil when your next zone already contains quicksand. And why do those oil-falls hurt me? That makes no sense whatsoever.
• Enemy choices are fitting, and the enemies are mostly well-placed. One notable exception is the use of Jetty-syn Bombers in the room where you bounce off several springs on wooden platforms. They tend to be in the player's way when bouncing off the springs. The way the last spring takes you directly onto a rope pulley is quite clever though.
• Immediately after that, there is a very easy-to-notice hidden passage with an impossible-to-get emerald token. The corridor itself is also too narrow.
• I really like how you modified that gimmick from DSZ with the continuously falling platforms. The way you used it makes it actually not frustrating and useless. You should make the platforms intangible from below, however. Otherwise, the player can be trapped easily. The Camera Modifications are extremely annoying here, as they constantly mess up my camera. You have that problem at many spots throughout your mod, and I commented on them earlier.
• That glassy looking room where the paths split (that one with the arrows) blinds my eyes. Also, the right path here is much longer than the left one. I really like that Star Post room that looks like a mirror, though.
• Multiple paths seem to be a problem in general. First of all, you don't have enough of them. You said you'll fix that later on, so that's OK. But the ones you currently have are largely useless. They're just very short splits with nothing but straight running for 5 seconds before they rejoin. If you want some real replay value, remove those and add long alternate paths with alternate gimmicks.
• The ending is somewhat maze-like. It's pointless and annoying, and you'll eventually end up at the End Level Sign anyway, so it's probably best to remove it.

SNZ2:

• Oil death pits? I don't know. The first level introduced the oil to me as being quicksand, and now it kills me all of a sudden. Not to mention it looks ugly. I'd suggest making that a normal death pit with F_SKY1 as texture.
• The beginning can be easily skipped by holding the back button and then pressing forward. The polyobjects at said beginning are quite fun, and the oil barrels add an unique touch to the scenery.
• At one point, you have a oil-fall at the wall that extends to the floor to form a sort of pusher. You could use that as a gimmick if you make it a bit faster and make it push you into a death pit or something.
• The room where you walk on a transparent floor that breaks away into an oil-quicksand room doesn't really work. You can't see where you jump to, so you will eventually land in the oil. It's easy to get out, but I still have the feeling that I should have more control over the player in that room.
• Much of what I said for Act 1 applies here as well, and I noted here in particular that the outdoor section are quite dull in terms of scenery. They're basically huge empty room with large chunks of boring wall textures.
• Oh, and the ending is cool, by the way.

SNZ3:
Nothing wrong here. It's not terribly original, but it works. I like how the bouncy walls force me to take it slow.

Gritty Columns Zone will follow shortly.

 

[Fawfulfan]

• Immediately after that, there is a very easy-to-notice hidden passage with an impossible-to-get emerald token. The corridor itself is also too narrow.

Try poking around that corridor for a bustable block. It breaks open the corridor and renders the emerald token get-able.