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Posted: **January 4th, 2016, 6:25 am**

Stronghold of darkness
Mario has made it to the stronghold, but it seems it's all locked up. Is there a key?

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oins%20from%20this%20area%0Dand%20placed%20some%20lava%20at%20%0Dinconvenient%20places%20%28for%20you%29|71,308,152,Right,0,4,100,0,7,0|71,1450,141,Both,0,4,100,0,7,0|59,1128,20,1|59,1294,18,1|59,940,18,1|59,738,25,1|59,527,22,1|73,210,261,I%20have%20used%20my%20secret%20technique%20to%20create%20clones%20of%20myself%20so%20now%20you%20have%20to%20defeat%20three%20of%20me%21|61,627,47,1|61,839,52,1|61,1029,59,1|73,1447,221,Argh%21%0DHow%20could%20have%20beaten%20me%3F%0DI%20should%20have%20been%20unbeatable%0Dthere%20were%20no%20flaws%20in%20my%20plans%2E%0DMy%20stronghold%20is%20crumbling%20right%20in%20front%20of%20my%20eyes%2E%0DBefore%20you%20leave%20know%20this%3A%0DI%20will%20be%20avenged%21|6,1615,22|40,1486,261,1615,88|72,1616,52,1|28,1448,221,1,0~15~15~Stronghold%20of%20darkness

Posted: **January 4th, 2016, 9:12 am**

Feel free to point out things you think my level is lacking/ things to remove from it.

Posted: **January 4th, 2016, 10:59 pm**

This level is, well, kind of meh. Although this level have a decent length, no lag spike and a good amount of obstacles, it has issues here and there.

First of all, this level is too tightly packed and it's unnecessarily tightly packed. The max dimension for the level is 999 x 999 block wide, and you are no where near that amount so feel free to go wild with the size of your level. Elaborate on the content of all the rooms.

Apart from that, the floating water part seems to come out of no where and therefore rather crude. In fact, the entire level is rather bland, there isn't much tile variety and not much feature in the environment.

I am not sure whether is it just me or is there some sort of obstacle blocking me from going through the metal bar with the sling star, and it sure didn't help that the bullies kept blocking metal bar for me to go through anyway.

Furthermore, the maze don't really feel like a maze, it's just 2 paths, 1 to rocked fludd, and 1 to turbo fludd, no dead ends, no loop.

Other than that, the level doesn't seem to have anything to do with it being locked up and no key like you described. Which means the level is rather inconsistent with the level itself.

Conclusion: Not a very enjoyable level but not a horrendous level either. I'll give it 2 stars. Keep practicing level designing, you'll improve

Posted: **January 5th, 2016, 6:31 am**

Thanks for the feedback!

Posted: **January 6th, 2016, 7:35 am**

Nuclear_Blaze wrote:Thanks for the feedback!

No worries, hope I don't come across as being harsh.

Posted: **January 6th, 2016, 9:07 am**

DualFreezor07 wrote:No worries, hope I don't come across as being harsh.

Don't worry about being too harsh or offending me, I don't usually take insults that seriously and any feedback, as long as it's constructive does not bother me.

Posted: **January 17th, 2016, 5:06 pm**

This level has already been reviewed, but I guess I can review it too... I'll go room by room:

First room:

There's a Shy Guy for no apparent reason and then a choice between two doors.
While you did put a question helping the player figure out which door to go through, the answer is something only a level designer would know by heart.
The incorrect door (the right one) burns you, which is fair.

The next few rooms are a bit small and aren't very important: you go to a room with a 1-up if you try to go back, which is a good choice. Most people wouldn't try that.

The large room with the cannon is good, except for some water randomly floating. That's cutoff, and you should replace the water with something else.
In addition, it's really annoying trying to jump far enough out of the water to land on the platform with the door.
I failed at it many times until the Boos from another room eventually came down - I jumped off one to get to the door more easily.
Getting from the water to the door without the Boos is possible, it's just not easy to do.

When you complete the maze, you go to a new room with a couple enemies. They aren't hard, and you'll soon get to the end of it.
You can fall down into the room below with the Invisibility Star, but it's easy enough to get out of.
If you want to force the player to do it all over when he falls in, the invisibility Star lasts too long. You could put one with a shorter duration at the door.

Finally, the battle room: you fight two big bullies and four bomb ombs. Maybe a big bully died?
My personal technique to defeat them was jumping over them and escaping down the pipe.
Perhaps you could have trapped the Big Bully somewhere you need to go (use breakable blocks), so you have to force it to move.

...and that's the level. Overall, it was good. The issues weren't that bad and it was easy enough to complete.

I rate it three stars: What you need here is more decoration and maybe a little more to the story.
You know, like why Mario is in a stronghold - that's not usually where Mario hangs out...

The gameplay is good enough, but it just needs a little more variety. It's sort of bland.
Maybe you could put your maze or a few rooms underwater, to make Mario hurry a little.

In short, the level is functional and easy enough, but it's a tad dull both graphically and in gameplay. It's good, but it's simply not that good.

Again, three stars: Just add more variety and more decorations and you'll be good here.

Posted: **January 17th, 2016, 7:13 pm**

@HickRanger thank you again for reviewing my level.

About that shy guy that you said was there for no reason, well the idea was that it acted as a guard to the stronghold.
About the room with the cannon, I know that that randomly placed water is cutoff, but I just wanted to make that part a bit harder and that was my way of doing it.

About the room under the one with the sling star, I know that the invisibility cap lasts for a long time, but I wanted to make it able to get back up if you went down to get the life.
About the boss room, I know that you only have to fight two big bullies and that's just maybe some glitch or something.
About this needing more of a story, I have posted a three level series called: The Oasis In The Desert, which is the prequel to this level (I encourage you to check them out)

Thanks again for reviewing my level, it really helps me come up with new ideas for new levels.

~Nuclear_Blaze

Posted: **January 17th, 2016, 8:40 pm**

May I ask what's the point of having the 3 rooms in the beginning?

The first room asks a question which doesn't fit to the environment at all.
The second room just asks you to believe this Big Bully and enter the door.
The third room...is just a room with another door, nothing else.

It feels like you're forcibly trying to extend the level. When you're making a level, you should make it so all rooms have actual purposes - challenging the player. After all, this is a "Stronghold" of "Darkness", it should be dangerous, it should be perilous.

Speaking of challenging, the boss fight is absolute pushover. The "plethora" of enemies are really just enemy spam, and the Bullet Bill Brigade is laughable as well. Come on, a brigade of THREE Bullet Bill launchers? They're not even fast enough to be a threat.

Try placing the enemies in a way that will challenge the player, such as placing some Fly Guys and Paratroopas sparsely over the air so the player can't just jump over everything.

I'll rate this level a 2/5. Hope you will improve from the errors you made here.

Posted: **January 18th, 2016, 5:02 am**

@1018peter Thanks for the feedback. I'll be sure to use your advice in levels I make in the future.

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Stronghold of darkness

Stronghold of darkness

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