Bridge Crossing
| Bridge Crossing | |
|---|---|
| Make a Good Level X3 Contest Entry | |
 "Hard Mode" path | |
| Author: | memnarch |
| Rank: | 133 / 152 |
| Score: | 44 / 120 |
| |
| Stars: | 1 |
| Exits: | 1 |
| Star Coins: | 1 |
| Difficulty: | 4 / 5 |
| Length: | 3 / 5 |
| Characters: | Toad |
| Terms used: | |
| |
| Music used: | |
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| Tier: | 2 - Slumber Sea Abyss |
| Previous: | 134th - Butwhythe Volcano |
| Next: | 132nd - Beetlebelle Harbour |
| Video | |
Bridge Crossing is a Make a Good Level X3 contest entry, submitted by memnarch. The player is automatically filtered to Toad at the start.
Overview
Star Coin
The only Star Coin is at the end of the "Hard Mode" path in the second part of the level. Collecting it will also trigger the end of the level.
Score table
| Judge | Design | Creativity | Aesthetics | Gimmick | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sturg | 18 / 50 | 15 / 30 | 12 / 20 | 18 / 20 | 63 / 120 |
| Zatsupachi | 10 / 50 | 5 / 30 | 5 / 20 | 5 / 20 | 25 / 120 |
| Rameau's Nephew | 12 / 50 | 12 / 30 | 7 / 20 | 13 / 20 | 44 / 120 |
| Overall | 13.33 / 50 | 10.67 / 30 | 8 / 20 | 12 / 20 | 44 / 120 |
Judge comments
Sturg
The contrast of difficulty between Normal and Hard mode is nuts. Normal mode took me one try, while hard mode took me almost two hours. I appreciate that it's optional, but I wish it had been indicated in the level itself. I *did* enjoy Hard mode a ton though haha: challenging, super fast paced, requires some learning/planning, somewhat fair in it's power-ups. The only thing is that it goes on for just a smiiidge too long. So many times I'd die a section before the end, and that last section is super easy to mess up. Normal mode, again, is pretty simplistic, if not rather spammy with its enemies. The most common setup that appeared required the player to kill a particular bunbun to create a cloud platform. It was a little annoying timing your jumps with these guys, since they would occasionally stop full speed. Asterons were scattered about, but weren't terribly in the way (at least until the very end). Power-ups (and a midpoint) were scattered healthily too. Not sure about some of the tileset/background replacements, but I like how the bridge and water look. i hate bunbun >:( wow sorry I don’t know where that came from, that was mean
Zatsupachi
Obnoxious Enemy Placement and spam. Either path you take here is kinda the same difficulty concept-wise, but I will concede that the normal path is objectively easier due to the space you have to navigate and you're not constrained to the skull raft. Otherwise, the top route suffers from enemy spam and cruelly-placed Ying-yang Orbs that totally blind-sight me because the bullets came from from the top/bottom corners of the screen. The bottom route is just truly evil but-- learnable, there are however some issues with the final set-ups, they are just horrendous to try and dodge.
Rameau's Nephew
A bit repetitive and dude-spammy. The first part is more or less flat-to-lightly-terraced ground with a parade of ground dudes and air dudes, and not much in the way of distinct setups. The second part is similar, but adds holes (which isn't a bad thing), and also a lot more projectile spewers. And indeed, the only real progression in design is an increasing density of said projectile spewers. The clouds that appear in the gaps when you bop certain enemies were sort of neat though.
The hard path is just a raft ride with nothing but projectile spewers, again in increasing density; it actually seems somewhat interesting at first, as you figure out the best ways to dodge the overhead and underfoot variants, but eventually there are just too many and it starts to feel like a mess (at least it provides easy escape points, though).
As a general rule, if you want an interesting and exciting level, you need to design discrete obstacles which build on one another--relying on NPCs themselves to generate the obstacles for the player in the form of clouds of projectiles will typically not feel like an engaging challenge.
+ Cloud gimmick is kinda neat
- Spams dudes and projectiles to compensate for unexciting design.
Other: Some day we'll get a level about a bridge with excellent maintenance.
Author's notes
I used Underworld, Eager, BunBun, and Asteron for the four gimmick terms. (LoZ Bot was also used)
Filters used are Toad only, No Vehicles, and Starting Big. (should be taken care of by the luna.lua however)
Music sources:
Section 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eInaJSLYJas (also used it in MAGLx2)
Section 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aeLpiUwpG8
Something for the judges to know.... A level in 48 hours is rather challenging, but that's what happens with procrastination?
Complete provided lists for reference
Location
Art Gallery
Underworld
Snowfield
Grassland
Coral Reef
Adjective
wicked
dusty
eager
plastic
upset
NPC
Rip van Fish
LoZ Bot
Asteron
Fire Bro
Bunbun
Gallery
"Normal Mode" path
