Copper Cave

60th: Copper Cave Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Is this copper, or bronze?

Overview Creator(s): ItsEmily Composer(s): Akari Kaida Statistics Scores: 46 72 52 60 Total: 56 / 100 Rank: 60th Elements: 1 Box Items: Press'n Scworm Taban Hover Top Lift Enemies: Caricarry Docbaton Doncatch Drillun Hirarian 427 Mousubeil Pickelman Dada Press'n Rock Thrown Scworm Taban Up'n'Down Gimmicks: Hover Jewel Platform Rock Platform Top Lift Sub-Bosses: Gundrill Bosses: Stone Man Other Information: 44 Minutes Late

Theme Music Mega Man & Bass - Ground Man Boss: Mega Man & Bass - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 5 Previous: Alpha-Omega Next: Taking a Dip

Copper Cave is the 60th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. It is a cave-themed level that uses multiple assets beyond just its box items, to the point where it can be hard to discern what said box items even are (not helped by them being used rather sparingly throughout the whole stage). Most of the level is about fighting enemies while occasionally crossing instant-death hazards with various gimmick platforms.

Strategy

The early parts of the stage have multiple enemies populating cramped corridors, with the occasional pit that has Top Lifts rising up from it. Each enemy can be easily dispatched with Charge Shots, though the Tengu Blade can be used to dash through most of them while also hitting the ground-based Mousubeils. To the left of the second Pickelman Dada is a hidden area reachable with either Rush or the Concrete Shot, which contains an E-Tank and a W-Tank. After another Top Lift pit is a spike-lined corridor with Hovers. Hirarian 427s hang from the cavern's roof, but will drop down and die on the spikes before they can even hit Mega Man. Up'n'Downs hide in both pits in the corridor, so he should exercise caution. At the end is a Gundrill miniboss fight, which itself precedes a checkpoint.

After a set of Scworms that are easily killed with Charge Shots or the Search Snake is a Press'n next to a Top Lift pit. The safest way to get past it is to stand under it while it is airborne, then run once it presses down towards the left. After crossing a pit on a pair of Jewel Platforms is another Hover corridor, with Docbatons and Hirarian 427s: the former are easily dealt with via constant shooting, and the latter are once again no threat at all. Down below is another checkpoint, as well as a split path. Taking the left drop avoids multiple enemies, while a set of spikes lie at the bottom of the rightmost drop. The last difficult part of the level takes place over a large pit, with Rock Platforms guarded by Doncatches. Try not to dawdle and jump onto Top Lifts as soon as possible. On the off-chance that a column of tops fails to spawn, use the Rush Jet to cross the gap instead. At the very end of the level is a boss fight against Stone Man.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 46 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 13 / 35 6 / 15 9 / 10 10 / 25 7 / 15 I don't want to sound rude, but did you use two boxes? Cause that's like how many items you used in this level, no joke. If you were scored on two boxes I'd say "sure, good job, that's a lot to throw in one level", but you were only supposed to use one. With that, the whole level is super unorganized. It starts out fine with the Hovers, but as the level goes on it just loses any and all purpose. The whole level just has so much in so little space that nothing has time to properly develop into something really good. Take half the assets you used then use them for the same amount of space and you'd probably get a much better product.
PKWeegee  : 72 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 23 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 17 / 25 12 / 15 Certainly an interesting artistic choice, but it worked really nicely. As for the level design, it was nice and rompy, even if it never picked up the heat that much. Especially the Top platform sections all felt the same, where you could just hold right and jump, and you'd be fine. It also felt to throw around quite a number of things at times, which never saw much usage later on, but that kinda helped it here, in its rompy nature.
M-Jacq  : 52 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 5 / 15 7 / 10 16 / 25 9 / 15 This level doesn't have much of an identity other than "brownish," largely because it doesn't really stick to any particular set of enemies or gimmicks. This is exactly the problem the box assets were supposed to avoid, even if I understand why you might choose to shy away from using Scworms. That being said, even though the level is a mishmash of gimmicks and enemies, it's a fun mishmash of gimmicks and enemies. Strictly speaking you should probably have done a better job introducing the level gimmicks and building on them as the level progressed, especially with those Jewel Man platforms (which show up twice, one after the other, both over bottomless pits and in a space where you can get hit by enemy projectiles). But I did enjoy romping through the level. I especially appreciate that you didn't make the Hover sections overly hard - nearly every other level in this contest with the Hovers stumbled on that front. You actually might have gone too far in the other direction, actually - this is a pretty easy level. But maybe there's something admirable about that: easy is leagues better than frustrating. Nice, serviceable level, this one - just not a standout.
Freems  : 60 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 17 / 35 7 / 15 10 / 10 14 / 25 12 / 15 My goodness that level was all over the place. Every other screen there was a new enemy type or sometimes even a new gimmick. Because of this the level never really felt like it had a chance to do anything super unique or creative with its assets since it kept jumping from challenge to challenge. The Jewel Man swings showed up once. The falling rock platforms showed up once. There was no chance to do anything more with these challenges; they just made an arbitrary appearance and then went away. Some of the enemies show up so little I wonder why they were even added to the level in the first place. It feels like you do have a grasp of what you're doing when it comes to putting a level together, but given how unfocused the level as a whole it just doesn't feel fully realized at all. More focus placed on the given box assets and less of the extra stuff, and I think things would have felt a lot more cohesive.

Trivia

• Copper Cave suffered a lateness penalty of 44 minutes, capping its score to 56; it would have had a score of 57.50 (dethroning Seahorse City as 55th place) otherwise. This uncapped score appears to be why it is ranked one place higher than Alpha-Omega, which it shares an official score with.