RATTY524'S PROFILE

1) I generally think I understand why some players are feeling underwhelmed with the way flowers are used in this game as a whole. By and large, barely anything is done with them besides hiding them in bonus rooms, and the requirements to reach said bonus rooms are often mega-obtuse or require advanced maneuvers to find, looking at this from the perspective of an average, casual player.

Take note, I don't have a problem with that method of placing flowers on its own, my issue is that it's done too much in this game. I'd say it's done even moreso than the way dragon coins were handled in Super Mario World, too much of it is a matter of "find the secret room to get the flower" and not enough of it is "complete a unique challenge to obtain this," and the result is that collecting flowers feels stale.

Part of the problem is that we were taking a traditional approach of developing these levels in our own isolated bubbles instead of communicating with each other to make sure our levels flow together, but that's said and done at this stage. I wouldn't ignore Isrieri's advice on rethinking flower placement in some of these levels, just make it something that allows the game to feel varied. It's a doable thing and it doesn't necessarily mean we have to break every creator's intent to accomplish this.

2) I recommend adding a warp pipe, for every mid-point on the world map, that functions as a shortcut to Agent Toad's headquarters. It would give those mid-sections a bit more significance beyond "here is where split-paths happen" and save players who want the HQ's powerups some travel time.

3) I like that you can play levels where you missed stars withing toad's HQ. It doesn't really work that well in this engine, though. Entering a pipe to a level in toad's HQ and dying means you get sent back to the world map, at the location from where you entered the HQ, so then you have to go through the HQ level again; and say if you did this from a completely different world and need to play the level from a different world; you'd have to travel by pipe all over again; and I think that also breaks checkpoints, but I haven't explicitly tested that yet. I don't really have an idea how to fix that off the top of my head, unfortunately.

4)
This is just one example of how underwhelming boss levels look on the world map.
I feel like you need a different icon graphic or something to distinguish boss levels from regular levels. Playing through this blind, I felt like I had no idea what was a regular level, a mid-point level, or a boss level.

I mainly grouped these by screenshot because I was too lazy to actually write stuff down this time.


- (Ignore the black bar this image got, it's some screenshot bug with the engine)I just thought the area with the block could have something better than a single flippin' coin. Maybe a row of breakable brick blocks or something instead, just to give the player something to do in this section. It's not a big deal, though, I generally like you levels in this game, Frogge. They're very relaxing to stroll through and nice to look at.


- This is officially one of my favorite ghost house levels I've seen from the RMN Bros series. I have a suggestion, though. I feel like the faded bits of the level could be replaced with maybe a different color or something to better sell that they're translucent. The way it is now, because some objects aren't as translucent as others, it gets hard to distinguish what's solid and what isn't at a glance.


!BUG REPORT! The screen above shows a game-breaking bug with the mini-boss fight. I was standing in the center field with yoshi spitting veggies at the two sledge bros. when the npc that should have started the next phase didn't spawn at all, so I was forced to suicide to restart the fight.

- The second half of this level is generally annoying because you have to do quite a bit to reach the boss, to which it's then very possible to die and have to redo the tedious bits all over again. I recommend moving the checkpoint closer to the boss room, and maybe condensing the level a bit to accommodate.


- Oh yeah, and, uh, this key placement.


- Davenport's nutty levels never cease to put a smile on my face. The only thing I want to see is, for the first camel you come across, a line of coins over its hump to imply that you can jump on them for extra height. I remember seeing Animebryan not do this to reach needed heights in his playthrough, and that shows me that it needs to be communicated to the player better.


- I don't remember if I pointed this out already, but the key is spawning from the wrong direction (from the floor as oppose to the pipe)


- I'm not keen on this lava because it looks almost a bit too "safe;" I could see players thinking it's swimmable and die embarrassing deaths. Maybe try an alternate graphic for the lava with the same color, the one that looks like it's bubbling, to better imply that it's like... bubbling hot mud that you should not step in?

- On that subject, the effect graphic of the lava splashes need to be changed to match the color. I think one of my levels had a problem with this as well.

- What are your thoughts and swapping this level with the Phanto Koopa one? I just felt like, because this level is a very weird kind of crossover thing, it would be better suited for a bonus world?


- This level was alright but its lack of secrets disappointed me! Here was a prime opportunity for one that you didn't use. Mostly a nitpick, though.

ICE CLIMBERS
!BUG REPORT! This is the only level name I remember because it has a bug that crashes the application. It happens during the ski-hanger/platform section. If you continue riding towards the top, and you let that skiing snowman live and ride on the platform, it'll suddenly zip across the screen at light speed, and then an "overflow" error occurs and crashes the game. Maybe try deleting that one snowman.