The Dueling Arena

[MessengerOfDreams]

Awwwwwwww ;_;

How'd my series get a worse score and still beat you?

[Supershroom]

First one to judge and first one to post judgings.

Harmless - Le Casse-tete de la Grotte

FUN: 8.25/10. That was a very interesting and innovative puzzle! Before playing this, I didn’t think anyone could still make a great puzzle with totally new elements today, and you’ve proven the opposite. This surely requires a lot of unconventional thinking, and I’ve had much fun on being challenged so much. The puzzles aren’t unforgiving to the player as he can reset everytime he needs to and the red bricks also don’t deal damage. My favourite puzzle was the last one.

However, some small things were still a bit annoying, especially the bullet bills are quite slow and shoot not that often, meaning if I fail on destroying blocks or killing a koopa, I have to wait a bit. Some places drag on, etc. the fifth puzzle where the koopa needs to be guided to the right; as koopas have a sort of own temperament and sometimes it takes longer until the koopa climbs the moving platform. Maybe it would simply be better to let the player carry the koopa shell to the red bricks (just like in SK’s Asphodel Temple). However, koopa shells also sometimes be a bit obstinate; the one in the last puzzle that is needed to activate the switch sometimes stucks at the ceiling instead of rolling beneath the cave slope tile; just put a flat ceiling tile and there’s no problem. Also the koopa shells always disappear behind the cave trees, meaning that I can “guess” where it is and sometimes I fall down unnecessarily. Just fix the layout and this problem is solved. Also the ending after the last puzzle looks like it’s unfinished (at least because another resetter is placed there). Just going down and turning the switch off, that was it already? Hm. Great job, nonetheless.

GRAPHICS: 4/5. I’ll be honest – the graphics are great and fit to the puzzle atmosphere, but they’re definitely not the best. The use of décor was excellent, especially the cave plants on the red bricks felt really nice (except from the layering problem), and none of the décors looks out of place. The shapes and cave tile figures are also well done, however at so many places you just only use the first type of cave ground instead of both, so this looks rather geometric (especially at the start). Within the puzzles, the brick tiles at the borders really don’t have to be all the same. The third transition shows border blindness cutoff once zooming out:



So just use invisible tiles to prevent the player from going back.

OTHER: 4.25/5
+0.75: so many great innovations – wow.
+0.5: no loading time and no lag
+0.5: music fits nice. Good job.
+0.25: funny and entertaining signs
-0.25: In the first bob-omb puzzle; even after the bob-omb has destroyed the ice block, I get damaged after entering the pipe because it’s aiming a little bit too far left. It doesn’t affect the fun factor due to the invincibilty stars, but it’s a bug nonetheless
-0.5: no need to put a switch right before the ending of the last puzzle. With the arrow above it, it tells me “Hey, come here! Press me!”, and whoops I have to do the entire puzzle again.
+0.5 (joke): immediately thinking of petanque once looking at the title
-0.5 (joke): I've sucked at french in school

OVERALL: 16.5/20. Your best work, I’d say! It kept me very entertained and was a very nice surprise seing so many innovative stuff. Just fix the few gameplaywise flaws and it’s a banger.

---

MessengerOfDreams - Echoes of Time

FUN: 7.5/10. Travelling through the seas and being accompanied by an awesome story was fun, and I’ve also enjoyed most challenges, however some of them are poorly executed – in Part 1, there’s a lot of cheep-cheep’s which dealt some unnecessary damage, at the underwater beginning of both Part 3A and 3B the flames are rather hard to dodge (in Part 3B some platforms below can’t be stand on and require to jump up, in Part 3A there’s not much time to look after the flame’s behaviour within water), and in Part 3A the transition with the switches and the fast rotating blocks was rather annoying, I got squashed at the top so damn often because the health display blocking the view, resulting in a few unfair deaths, and in Part 2 you can’t go back after failing at the block-metal-cap-challenge. Another thing in Part 2 I wasn’t content with:



That empty "maze" was simply unnecessary. However I must state that the difficulty level is fairly okay, not too easy, not frustrating, and I’VE LOVED THE ENDING OF PART 3A TO DEATH, THAT WAS SO HEART-WARMING… okay, I stop here.

GRAPHICS: 4/5. Prologue and Part 1 – BOAAAHHH. Part 2: Meh. Part 3: Also meh. Why? Because in the prologue and in Part 1 you’ve proven an excellent use of décor and cave tile structures, and the magma wall is cool as well. But within the temple, tiling got a bit less varied and roughly structured (long walls and blocks of the same tile all the time), and décor became rare, and I also feel like some foreground tile combinations didn’t feel well together (volcano plateau + sanskrit + ice e.g.). I’m also not a friend of the secret course background; though there wasn’t much to do about this as there is no specific temple/castle/etc. background, a background like cave or space would bring a bit more life to this. The background tiling was better and gave much support to make this feel like a mysterious temple, though it could also need a litte more variation and finetuning. Then in Part 3A again, the ending was so goddamn beautiful, you’ve used décor in such an amazing way and made this place shine a lot.

OTHER: 4.75/5.
+0.75: ♥♥♥♥ AWESOME STORY. To make it even better, you should use colloquial language a bit less, especially in the Prologue the amount of “Ma’am”s was a bit too much.
+0.75: YOUR SKILLS OF CHOOSING ALT MUSIC ARE SUPERNATURAL :C
+0.25: Part 1 from now has no lag, but a rather huge loading time for its size (at least no crash warnings, but 10 seconds for a 240x50 level? Oof.) The other parts have very good loading times and no lag, except from the transition in Part 3B were many bullet bills destroy many blocks and bob-ombs.
+0.25: Cool metal cap challenges
-0.25: At some places in Part 1 and 3, free water flaps over and shows its straight bottom side.
-0.5 (joke): HOW DO YOU DARE NOT TO INCLUDE ANY LEVEL OF MINE TO THE LIST
+0.5 (joke): At least I'm one of your hundreds of companions

OVERALL: 16.25/20. The edits have slightly paid off, good job. Besides, I can officially call you an “Other” master.

[Harmless]

Awwwwwwww ;_;

How'd my series get a worse score and still beat you?

Pssh, you're moy, kinda didn't expect to win anyway. XD

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

This post by ~MP3 Amplifier~ was thumbed up by:

TheExcavator (December 14th, 2014, 3:09 pm)

[Harmless]

Oh.

I actually just noticed that, wow.

Eh, whatever. Was gonna lose anyway.

[Supershroom]

No one can hinder me from zooming out, and like I've said, put invisible tiles and the problem is gone.

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

This post by ~MP3 Amplifier~ was thumbed up by:

TheExcavator (December 15th, 2014, 7:41 am)

[1018peter]

Before I post my judgings here,I would like to ask one thing.

Is the last part of Harmless' level even passable? I see no way to jump 5 tiles high as Mario. (And yes,I did check that area in LD mode,there's no switch tiles,either.)

[Supershroom]

You definitely don't need to jump up 5 tiles. Only destroy the lower ice block, not both.

[Harmless]

You definitely don't need to jump up 5 tiles. Only destroy the lower ice block, not both.

^