AVEE'S PROFILE

Awesome articles about fully understanding the power of level design:

The Invisible Hand of Super Metroid (This game's design was already genius, now we learn why it's freakin' godly. More oriented towards Action genres)

Excerpt:
"Lower Brinstar acts as little more than a passageway to Norfair, but on the way there it hosts one of the game's most spectacular tricks - the mystery of Maridia. A short corridor that seemingly belongs to lower Brinstar, is actually described by the game map as a separate area. This corridor, which is incidentally placed in a chokepoint of a passage which will traversed and retraversed over and over before the game is over, is actually the only part of Maridia we will see for most of the game.

This is a simple yet extremely effective design to create curiosity. We suspect that Maridia is essentially a fourth of the world, but while the player slowly conquers Crateria, Brinstar and Norfair, Maridia remains a complete and utter mystery. The knowledge of Maridia keeps the player nailed to the chair, and ensures that she never assumes the world to be fully explored. As long as there's Maridia, there will be the promise of something significant left to find. It's actually strange how seldom you see this in games nowadays."

and Learning From The Masters: Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda (has 3 pages, easily applicable to RPG dungeons design)

Excerpt:
"Based on my memories of the game, one of my assumptions going into this experiment was that the rooms in the dungeons were laid out haphazardly. I always remember getting the feeling that I was navigating my way through the rooms almost randomly, spitting in the designers' faces and getting to the end only because of my mighty gaming talents!

After analyzing the flow of the dungeons, I quickly abandoned this notion. As it turns out, the dungeon layouts are very carefully planned and the flow is very cleverly executed.

First, I analyzed the critical path. The critical path is the shortest path through a level without using secrets, shortcuts, or cheats. Basically, it's the path the designer intends the player to take through the level unless she gets really clever.

It's worth noting that the critical path often doesn't require a player to complete 100 percent of a level; it just requires her to complete the mandatory objectives within the level.

For each of the dungeons, the critical path is almost always linear. There are very few instances where the player is required to re-traverse ground she's already seen. The only exception to the linearity rule tends to be two or three rooms at the beginning of the dungeons that allow you to choose between a small subset of rooms."

These numbers are the Terrain IDs you can set to tiles. Event wise it helps make custom stuff such as playing a splashing sound effect when the hero walks in water, for instance.
In the Terrain tab of the database, you can check the boxes to let the hero pass on this type of terrain, as well as let the vehicles pass or land (or maybe I'm mistaken about the hero but whatever)
The problem was probably that the tiles were set to a terrain your hero can't pass on.

author=Snodgrass
Everyone thought the idea of vampires was played out and then Twilight came for example. Horrible as it is, Twilight's legacy far surpasses many better stories.

I'm not sure if you're being serious but I'll presume so, at least for a while.

I'd like to know who you're referring to when you say that "everyone" thought the vampire theme is obsolete, and what are your sources.
Snodgrass, if you are to talk about your own thoughts and perceptions, state that they are so. It's fine, you know.

You are confusing legacy with trend here. The greatest legacies in vampire themed works of art are those of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. These stories inspired a plethora of new vampire movies and novels that have been published every year for the last several dozens of years.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was trendy. Many ulterior works were inspired by and emulated the show's depiction of vampires yet didn't try to reinvent the theme much. Stephenie Meyer did just that: putting the vampire theme together with the stupid teenager, emo and gossip girl themes, and the recipe proved successful in terms of audience rate. Yet it is obvious that Twilight is a trend that won't leave a significant legacy, as were Buffy, Harry Potter and the Back Street Boys.

I took MediEvil out of the Closet of Oblivion for the weekend. Actually having a blast.

@TDS: The melee part reminds me a lot of Half-Minute Hero. This looks like a very fun battle system but it's kinda stupid that melee characters can't help each other when a few monsters are defeated.
The melee attacks text at the bottom is kinda useless because it scrolls way too fast and we look at the damage numbers on the sprites anyway.
I like the feeling of speed but at the same time the magic casting interrupts it so much, it's like... I dunno... it reminds me of Castlevania 2's "What a horrible night to have a curse"...
Everything is very well-made though. I especially appreciate that casters and targets clearly stand out during animations.
Menu's great too. Keep up the good work.