Secretive Spectre Stadium

Secretive Spectre Stadium is a Make a Good Level X3 contest entry, submitted by Zephyr Dragon Lord. The player is automatically filtered to Luigi at the start.

Sturg
The dual path experience here is enjoyable! I think what made it more interesting was that there was a slight deviation in theme for both paths. Some of the first couple rooms needed a bit more of that deviation, as they are just a little too much like your average SMW ghost house. Though, I prefer that sort of platforming over the enemy rush that happened in the 2nd half. It isn’t necessarily *bad* (except maybe the 3 Mousers), it just wasn’t particularly interesting. I did appreciate the enemy indicators prior to each wave, but I think it needed more depth into the design. All in all, a fairly straightforward level that I enjoyed mostly from the split paths at the beginning.

Zatsupachi
Visually, this level is… very empty, nothing much for the eyes to consume. There was an attempt to make the place "human" with the locker rooms but everywhere else seems incomplete. The courtyard path is considerably much more easy than the locker room since it has an overabundance of Chucks. The ending was sorta fun? Triple Mouser is just... chaos-incarnate though not the best feeling at all times. It took me awhile get what was happening with that part where Fish Bones were launched out of pipes, that was cute.

Rameau's Nephew
A strange and indecisive level. There's quite a lot of material here for a week's work, but it may have been a better idea to focus more on a small number of sections. The level's kind of all over the place in terms of quality, difficulty, and theme, and probably would have benefited from a tighter focus. I'm not sure the branching path at the start was needed, as the right path just generally feels more interesting and better-designed than the upper path, the locker room being the worst offender here, consisting of little more than comparatively featureless geography with Chuck and projectile spam.

The second half has a bit more focus in connection to the primary theme with its arena-style challenges, but these could definitely use some improvements as well. It's possible for enemies to spawn directly on you top of you; the level seems to have anticipated this by having harmless markers appear first, but these vanish so quickly you don't really have time to react to them. 3 Mousers was also kind of ridiculous.

On the whole, not the *worst* level, but it feels more like a brainstorming session than a completed product.

+ Some OK bits despite the confusion

+ Second half generally better and more focused

- First half generally unfocused and meandering

- Level generally feels all over the place in all categories

Other: I'm not sure what was going on with the fishbone cannons, but I don't disapprove.

Author's notes
About Secretive Spectre Stadium.lvlx

Preferred Character: Luigi

3 main terms used: Location: Stadium, Adjective: Secretive, NPC: Boo

Other term used: NPC: Grinder

The other stuff to know... This level was only done in 3 days, even though planning was far longer.

While this might as well also be a lair, I thought including something else would be more interesting.

I don't really know how to technology, so chances are, the post might be a bit of a formatting mess...

Hopefully everything manages to work out in that front.