ISRIERI'S PROFILE

Gimmick Castle
This was pretty good! Very SMW, right down to the moving layers. I'm assuming that the “gimmick” is having to stand on the sides of the spikes to progress? That's fine, but I know from experience that very few people will know that you can do that. So that ought to be the first obstacle in Section 1: A little staircase with spikes on the side, and coins to lead you up them safely. Then they'll know! And if they don't, it won't be your fault!

-This level is a 2. Maybe a 2.5. Not much of a challenge, just tricky.

-The beginning of the castle could really use an opening of some sort to indicate that's the “entrance point.” Like how they did in Super Mario Bros.

-The hallways are a bit bland in their shape. This is primarily due to the flat rectangular corridors and the whole lotta nothing that is the ceiling. Since you're going for SMW, you should replace the ceiling with the dull grey tiles instead of the floor tiles. Don't just make a line and then use the “fill” command though! Make squares out of them so that the ceiling is a bit jagged. It looks better that way. Davenport did this in Agony Castle.

-The large open rooms with the moving block layers are somewhat empty. Add some coins in to spice them up. I'd also recommend pulling some “back castle” backgrounds like the ones seiromem used and have them fill up some of the space along the top and bottom.

-The red coins were fun! Nice usage of platforms there! I guess the P-Switch timer wasn't long enough. But just a single 1-up for the prize? You probably could make it 3 1-ups or even a Tanooki Suit. Just having one wasn't satisfying enough!

-In that same room, lower the Top level border down by 3 or 4 tiles. This may seem odd, but trust me. Making your level more concise by minimizing the amount of space will result in the level feeling tighter and more deliberate. This is a KEY FEATURE of good castles. Do this in the other rooms as well, so that the walls are only 3 tiles and not 6.

-I liked the platforms and buzzsaws in Section 4, but the way they're timed throws them off and makes it too much of a wait for my tastes. I'd actually recommend reworking it to make it a little trickier! Maybe throw in some donut lifts and another buzzsaw?

-Not sure what to make of that last jump before the boss door: Since you can go onto that overhanging block I thought there'd be a secret up there! But I just got crushed. To me, it seems arbitrary to have. But I realize its there because you have to stand on the spikes to progress. If you don't want a secret up there, you should add some spikes to the top so the players don't go on top of it.

-Boss was alright, but nothing special. You'd be better off without one.

Aquatic Project
I think we have to ditch this one. There wasn't one moment where I felt this was a castle: Most of it felt like padding, with no real purpose to it. Plus, its ginormous. All the rooms are way way too big. And the empty space makes it seem haphazardly designed. It was more like a Sonic level than a Mario one. There wasn't a whole lot of challenge to be offered from the obstacles. I like some of the concepts you used though: Like the boos you had to bounce across, or the drop into the rotating firebar.

My advice to you is to try and make a tighter and simpler castle. Don't even touch the Top or Bottom level borders: Only the Left and Right ones. You tried to go a bit too grand with this one I think. I want to see what you can make when you only have a little space to work with.

CastleCrash
This is what I'm talking about! Interesting design, challenging lava pits, well placed enemies, well-paced. This is an excellent castle. It still needs a few fixes, and I have suggestions and comments.

-Don't forget to put a 2 block barricade on walls you don't want the player to walk on: On the first screen, I was able to climb up the castle wall and walk on the roof. Seal it off or put a secret pipe up there.

-Good music choice for the stark outside areas, but hearing the fortress theme when I went inside was a little jarring by comparison.

-I don't know what difficulty you were going for here, but I'd put it at a 3.

-I wouldn't use the red boss doors for anything other than boss rooms. This is a castle compilation so that's something we need to be consistent with: We don't want players waltzing into a room to be assaulted by an unforeseen boss fight.

-Very good placement of powerups.

-That pipe you can go in needs a block underneath it. An invisible coin block won't do: I want this for the sake of consistency with the official games. You weren't able to go in pipes if there wasn't land there also. Just because you can do it in SMBX doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Also, that small crevice on the pipe's other end is a prime candidate for an invisible 1up block.

-I don't know if you knew this, but the AI of the SMB3 lakitu IS different from the SMW one. It's much more cruel with it's projectiles. If this was intentional, I'll think about keeping it, but I'd rather you used the SMW one.

-The way the castle battlements have holes in them means you can catch yourself if you're good enough and hop back up. Cool!

-The hammer bro guarding the midpoint is cool and all, but he's too close to it. He could catch unaware players off guard when they spawn at the midpoint. Personally, I think that's hilarious. But I wouldn't let anyone else get anyway with it.

-Like nin8halos said, the wood platforms are sightly off their tracks. Uncheck Auto-Align in order to center them.

-I think those two ladders would be better off without the blocks next to them. Your call on that one though.

-The final outside section has a little window next to the door you come out of. That's a prime spot for a secret door! I thought there would be something there. Nope.

-A normal boom-boom fight with a twist. Good.

Sky Ruins
This level has a load of problems, and it lagged my computer so bad I could barely play it. It was all the events running at the same time. I have a very crummy computer, and I had to delete them all to try your level out. Sorry about that.

This level looks amazing (the best so far IMO), but it plays horribly. Switch blocks. I should have banned those things!! The switch blocks completely ruined your level. If the player dies, they have to do both switch blocks all over again from scratch. That's horrible! Plus even if you hit the switches you'd have to go back the way you came to go to the next section. It's possible to make backtracking work if you only do it a little bit, but you made the castle too hard to feasibly allow that.

There's a lot of parts where the player can get stuck very easily because of the donut blocks. Yeah I know that the player just needs to go offscreen and come back, but they're the only way for the player to make it through the level most of the time. That's bad design: You should never force the player to circumvent the limitations of the game like that. (Though it is okay to let them use those limitations to their advantage)

And there are way too many enemies that the player has to avoid: Snifits and their bullets, that stupid train of red shy guys, too many sparks, too many podoboos, the ninjis in spots that are way too hard. In fact, the ninjis are one of the worst parts of the level: I don't mind using ninjis the way you did, but you put them in TERRIBLE spots. That's not hard, its boring.

I tried to think of some ways for you to salvage the level, but they all would require retooling the entire thing. Rather than do that, you should just start over from scratch. I DO like your level's theme. An airborne fortress is always neat. And you designed the interior very well. You obviously have the ability to make a good and tough level; you just struck out this time. If you want to give a level like this another shot I'm all for it! But this time you should keep a few things in mind.

-First, there's no reason to have Instant warps when it isn't anything super-secret or a unique gag. This isn't Zelda. Make them pipes or doors instead.

-If you want to make something hard, you must make it simple. A straight linear shot from left to right, no holds barred challenge. Mario works best that way. If you split a level up and make it more non-linear you also make it much harder. So you have to compensate by dumbing down the enemies and obstacles. If you want a hard level, don't force the player down branching paths!

-The section with the rising lava is terrible. The player can't make any mistakes. It made the level too long and it wasn't very fun. It could work if it's a level all by itself, and much easier.

-Here's something I want you to try: Only have 3 enemies on the screen at the same time. Try to limit yourself to that when you make your next level. You shouldn't spam the player with enemies, that's not how Mario gameplay works. The enemies serve as compliments to the level design, that means the thwomps, the floor, the ceiling, etc. That's where the challenge comes from, the combination of all of it. But never too much of one or the other. Mario can only take two hits y'know!

-I like how you hint that some blocks fall: They aren't supported by a pillar! This is a good design choice, and its a good n' subtle clue! But the blocks fall way too fast for it to be any help: Make them the regular donut blocks instead, if you still want to camouflage them.

Air Fortress
My big beef with this is that it doesn't feel like a castle: The first reason is that there's too much cloud and not enough brick. It feels like a sky level. The second reason is that the beginning isn't particularly engaging, in fact its a bit of a snore. This is a problem.

And the part with the Banzai Bills is terrible. Falling back down the tower you're trying to climb up is an interesting, if unintuitive, idea. But I don't think it's executed well here. The Banzai Bills aren't timed well enough with the platforms, and so it gets immensely frustrating to dodge them. Plus it's basically filler material. It goes on for way too long and isn't engaging in the slightest. That whole section needs to be scrapped.

So those are the big things that need to be fixed: Find some graphics that can help make this level look more appealing, and more like a castle! Make the first room a little more interesting. And make a room or two that make up for the Banzai tower.

-I think one of the things you need to work on is what I told pyrodoom: You're trying to make the rooms too big. That first room is already huge, and you don't do much with the empty space. Try and make the next section(s) a bit smaller: Don't even touch the Top or Bottom boundaries unless you must.

-You NEED to lower the Top boundary in the first room. The level boundary should be five blocks high from the coin blocks by the door. Enough room for a 3-4 tile ceiling. Don't put a brick ceiling up there though! Use the cloud tiles instead: This first section can be your “outside” area. The later sections can be the “inside” and use more bricks.

-I know you were looking for a good "sky" music track, but the one you have now just seems sort of meh. I think this would be better.

-Those cloud thingies everyone's talking about probably just need to be slowed down. A lot. They should probably be moving at a speed of 0.5. Maybe then it will be more obvious you have to duck.

-The 1ups aren't placed very well. No one will ever get them, because it isn't worth it to try. The hammer suit though, that's in a good spot!

-The beginning is fantastic buildup. Make sure to have just as good a payoff!

-Don't be afraid to get rid of some things, like those 1ups, and replace that stuff with something else. No, I don't mean the blocks, I mean all the stuff around it. The clouds, the enemies. Retool the level to make it more interesting to play through. Like adding some hovering koopas or goombas.

-Under no circumstances whatsoever should you have a cannon that shoots homing koopas.

-Under no circumstances should you use homing enemies unless you know how hard they are: They're like bloopers. They are a foil to Mario's controls.

-The midpoint room could be a bit bigger. Some ? Blocks maybe? You could also mix the cloud tiles and the brick tiles together.

Babel
First thing's first: No one will ever find that invisible mushroom. It's not placed in a spot where players are likely to search, or find it accidentally. The invisible 1-up IS in a good spot because its on a lone platform with nothing there. That calls out to the gamer instinct!

I like this tower. Towers are acceptable as castle levels, but next time you might want to flip-flop your ratios here: The outside parts would've been better as indoor, and the indoor the outdoor. It's fine as-is though. What I really like is how easy it is to ascend, and how if you fall, you don't fall ALL THE WAY which is a common problem with these. I had to learn that lesson myself a while back. Have you made stuff in SMBX before? Or is this your first time submitting something? You did a good job overall.

-It's just called “Babel?”

-I know it's neat you can bury coins in the ground, but it gets very wearisome to pick the grass and only get coins for your trouble. Bear with me on this: You should bury a P-Switch there. It'll intrigue the player and will immediately make them question why it's right at the start. How you use the P-Switch I'll leave to you, but make sure you give them stuff both at the start if they press it right there, or later in Section 1 in case they expect a secret room with goodies!

-I don't quite get that solitary pipe next to the thwomp. I know it's a platform to get higher up, but why a pipe? It seems out of place. If you don't use it for P-Switch fun, you ought to put a piranha plant there. (Not the fire spitting Venus Plants, just the regular kind).

-Thowmps can be killed by turtle shells if you didn't know. Its not a problem.

-I don't know if you intended the rightmost hammer bro to walk off it's platform and drop down to the lower ledge, but bear in mind that because of the low platforms, it doesn't leave the player a lot of room to deal with him if he's on the player's left. That's mainly concerned for more inexperienced players, whom we don't want to alienate. I like them otherwise!

-I'm not quite keen on the lakitu. Putting a lakitu in a up level isn't a good idea because of what Ratty said: he wildly sweeps from left to right, but slowly ascends and descends as well. So he can be tricky for even veteran players to deal with. But at least he's mainly on his own, and you gave the player plenty of time and tools to deal with him. Still, try and think of something else you can put at that part instead. A few bullet cannons maybe?

-Excellent use of the Ghost House backgrounds all throughout the level.

-Like nin8halos said, the blocks in Section 2 are flagged to break if you are a Tanooki Statue or you toss a hammer at 'em. Just change them to the same bricks you use for the rest of the tower (and add some of those purple pipe formations you had outside!)

-I really like Section 2! The statues and roto-discs make for a nice challenge. And there's plenty of power-ups to get you through it. I really liked the venus plants as well: It made me have to actually dodge! I had no trouble with it, but I think that having 5 venus plants plus roto-discs will be a bit much. You should take out the discs or get rid of the piranha plant at the top. (All those pipes will tempt some players to check them for secrets!)

-Section 3 was good, but it also surprised me: Riding the platform will be the first thing anyone thinks to do, but it's actually safer to go up on the sides! It's very clever misdirection, that's exactly the kind of design I was hoping for when I started this event. I'd make the 1up a little easier to get though: make it 1 block instead of 3.

-The vine near the top is great buildup for the end. I'd lower the Top level border down about 4 tiles, for the same reason I told Ratty to.