Splitting into gameplay and decoration…
GameplayI hate to put it like this, but this is really boring. There are so, so many repetitive parts. Think of how many copy and paste have you used in creating the layout? How many single blocks have you placed throughout the whole level? Repetition is a huge taboo for level creation. People are supposed to have different gameplay
even when the song is repetitive. Layout syncs quite well with the music but feels a bit off at the later parts of the level.
Here are more specific comments.
- 7%: Missing the blue orb will cause the icon to fly to the ceiling. Please block off these extra percentages because you don’t want the player to wait a few seconds before they die. You have done this at around 65% for the dash orb, so it would be great to have it for all others. Despite visible obstacles being the best choice for appearance, even invisible spikes would be okay, because the main thing here is to block paths and punish early.
- 9% to 11%: Spider shines at teleporting around platforms, instead of the top and the bottom. There’s already something that look nicer than this: ball in a narrow corridor, similar stuff, but much more appealing.
- 12%: Again, the blue orb. There are a lot of places when you can fly to the ceiling due to switched gravity. Block all paths. People should die immediately.
- 13% to 19%: An UFO part where you just jump on a rhythm to maintain a constant height. This is not good, because it gives no dynamics to the gameplay. Although the song is a little repetitive there, you should still try to make the route more diverse, like more ups and downs, varied input timing, etc.
- 19% to 26%: Ditto to 13% to 19%. Be more varied.
- 39% to 43%: Super long orb chain that is susceptible to player input discrepancies. If I hit the orbs late I can actually get the bug at 42% where you only hit the bottom pad, and, once again, fly to the ceiling.
- 65% to 76%: Essentially auto. An auto part should not take up 11% of the level. Make it short and sweet, and put them at transitions.
- 81% to 97%: The boss fight could add some more movement, add more attacks, and make the attacks shorter to make the boss feel like it is pressuring on you.
- 99%: Spread the coins.
- Use speed portals. They are really useful in creating fast and slow sections to match the more upbeat or silent mood of the song. Something like slow to 2x or normal to 3x can really make a difference in speed.
DecorationIt’s not impressive either. Sparse air decoration, poor block deco in most parts, and the lack of colour on objects have all contributed to decoration being ‘meh’. Overall it feels extremely empty, and looks dull throughout the level.
Here are more specific comments.
- 9% to 11%: Text do not work well when you separate each letter, unless you are trying to make an animation out of this. When you want to put text into a level, make sure that you also add some work to it so it looks beautiful instead of as a sitting message or title.
- 13% to 19%: The block deco has more detail, which is good. However, it’s repeated lots of times, which is not nice. You rarely see people decorating a long tunnel because nobody does that for gameplay nowadays. But if you insist, at least vary what you use for the blocks. The less organized the deco is, the more natural it looks, and thus, the better it is.
- 81% to 97%: The boss could add some more work. Don’t use orbs as eyes. Instead, there are non-pulsing circle parts you can use to make eyes. There are also a lot of objects available at the editor, but I think dots, lines and squares will be sufficient to make a lot of stuff.
- The pulse trigger don’t look so good when you set the timings to 0.1s-0.1s-0.1s. They are too short to have a smooth colour transition. Try looking for pulsing effects that look good around you, and try to turn them into reality using pulse triggers. I personally came up with 0.1s-0s-0.4s, 0.4s-0.1s-0.4s. (All timings are in the format of fade in-hold-fade out.)
- Do not think like ‘ah, it is covered by the ground in ship/UFO so I don’t need to extend the deco’. You will eventually return to a gamemode where there is no fixed height and your incomplete deco will be exposed, even after the icon has passed that part.
- Try 3D deco parts. You should not use them too often, but they can add a little touch to blocks.
- The thing is the long hazardous floor is too bland, and there isn’t much options that looks beautiful. You should work around having hazardous floor by adding spikes around the route so that the player will crash before they touch the ground.
Check out what other people are making. If you think epic is too much, look for featured levels, or rated levels, or some levels in this panel that is rated Good or Feature-worthy. Dig into how they create their decoration (use Mega Hack if the level is password protected or not copyable) and see what is available and what you can do in the editor. It is a huge advantage to understand the editor, because it provide so so so much items that it can be overwhelming to people, but is essential to make a level good.
TriggersYou should use more types of triggers. Here are some triggers that you may want to poke your head into to up both your gameplay and decoration.
- Move trigger: Makes stuff move. You should use them in a more varied way, like tweaking the timing, moving distance, easing, etc.
- Rotate trigger: Make stuff rotate. Also useful to slow down saws and cogs, or just make your own rotating object.
- Alpha trigger: Changes the opacity of stuff. Useful when you want to make transitions like blacking the screen, making things appear from nowhere, and other stuff.
- Shake trigger: The infamous trigger. Although it would make the level much worse if abused, they are really useful in making effects if used properly and sparingly.
Not knowing how the trigger operates is not an excuse to not use them. There are tons of written or video tutorials in how to use the triggers, and you only need to spend around 5 to 15 minutes to learn them. Every creator will need triggers unless they are ultra-confident about their decoration skills.
VerdictNeeds Improvement. The level is sub-par in both the gameplay and decoration. Try looking at your level to see what is wrong. Do you think that this level look good? Would you rate this along with other creations in the game if you are a mod? Which parts are especially annoying or weird to look at? Then think of what would you do to fix the problems. Are you going to add stuff, change stuff, or even delete the whole part and start from scratch again? Don’t be afraid to scrape stuff. Creators, not only GD ones, but also other creators, have scraped tons of ideas for the sole reason of not being good enough. Always look for room to improve, and you will have something rate-worthy or even feature-worthy.
>>> Moving to NI.