Difference between revisions of "Forgotten Fortress"

Oh wow. Um. Wow. This is pretty awful. There is one absolutely massive flaw in this level in that it has literally no idea what it's doing. Virtually every gimmick in the engine appears at some point (or at least it feels like it), and the level is so insanely unfocused that I don't even know what to think of it besides 'it's really messy'. None of the gimmicks are ever focused on or used well, and they constantly just fly in and out of existence. Nonsensical design is everywhere, like an excruciatingly long autoscroll with a black background and almost no enemies (but plenty of Knight Man bouncers), a random section where there's a block train that seems to want to crush you but you can blow past it before it gets close to you, and asinine amounts of split paths. The latter is what utterly kills the level for me. Everything sprawl everywhere in every direction you can think of and it makes it completely impossible to have a sense of where you are at all, and this is amplified by the utter lack of focus. It took me over an hour to slog through the entire thing and get the energy element and all four noble nickels, and it was an incredibly unpleasent and absolutely boring experience. And on top of that there's a bajillion weird secrets too, like some room with a ton of NPCs and a bonus fight with a strangely drawn Crash Man with actually a kind of creative arena but not really. This level is just a giant mess and I did not enjoy it in the slightest.

I really enjoyed the nice platforming challenges this level provided. There were so many different gimmicks used in this stage, and they were all used so well! The best part for me was the Force Beam section, because there were clear outlines showing where the force beams were. THIS is how you make a challenging level without having it be exceedingly difficult. My main issue was that the level lagged. A lot. It wasn't game-breaking, but it did make some parts the stage pretty annoying. Also, the Crash Man fight...what even was that?

(will fill in later)

(will fill in later)

There comes a point... where you need to stop. This was a slog. I had so little fun playing this stage I wanted to quit part way through.

So, I'm going to get the positive out of the way first: Your original assets are well drawn (although the colour scheme is absolutely garish), and your opening area was great! Good conveyance, good design, really well thought out. And then I got to the second area. And the third. And the fourth and then... Why. I know there is a lot in the dev kit but you didn't need to use... Every. Single. Sodding. Gimmick. Later on in the stage, you seemed to stop thinking and did the bare minimum required to implement a segment. In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with any of these rooms aside from how easy they are (this is actually to your stage's benefit believe me.), and a lot of these areas, introduce themselves well.

Pick a gimmick, pick a second gimmick, maybe a third, and stick to them. Start doing clever stuff with them and maybe this would work. Everything in the dev kit though? Blerugh. You have the makings of a good designer - just scale back next time! This, wasn't fun. Finally: Poor Crash Man. I'm not sure what good making him so gangly was, but it didn't help matters.