DSS Ideal X (v2)

[BillyTheBanana]

This is the best custom level I've played (and I've played a lot). Every area was fun, clever and different. You balanced the difficulty perfectly, mixing difficult death traps with breezy rooms with few obstacles to keep the player moving forward and having fun. The design was up to the level of Mr. Cavanagh's original game, I felt. I can only imagine what you'd be able to achieve with a more powerful editor. My favorite bits were the Either/Or hallway and the final sequence. I only have two suggestions to improve it:

1. At the left end of the Either/Or hallway, it seems like you're trying to use the disappearing platforms to force the player to go out on the route they didn't take coming in. But the player can just kill himself to make the platforms reappear. I can't think of any way to fix that off the top of my head, but maybe you can.

2. Since you let the player go back to get any missed trinkets, I would have liked to have some sort of hint as to what area they were in. I had only missed one, but I wasn't about to play through the whole game again in search of it.

[Damn It AL to Hell]

A very good level, quite challenging, but incredibly interesting, nice work! 9.9/10

[CHz]

Oh hey, what's happening here? Thanks, guys, and thanks to Terry for featuring!

1. At the left end of the Either/Or hallway, it seems like you're trying to use the disappearing platforms to force the player to go out on the route they didn't take coming in. But the player can just kill himself to make the platforms reappear. I can't think of any way to fix that off the top of my head, but maybe you can.

Yeah, I knew that when I used disappearing platforms. The only way I could think of to force that room to be one-way while remaining enterable from both sides was to use some scripting & layout mojo, dropping in some gravity lines and/or warps and clearing them appropriately based on which side you enter.

I decided that was too much work, so my official position is that if you want to play the exact same rooms over again instead of taking the bend and trying something new, that's cool. Either way you're passing through the same number of rooms, so it's not a shortcut.

You can also change the route by just leaving the room from the other side and doubling back. Works with the crossover room too. Doing something about that also fell into the more-work-than-it's-worth category. I'm fine with just leaving it up to the honor system.

2. Since you let the player go back to get any missed trinkets, I would have liked to have some sort of hint as to what area they were in. I had only missed one, but I wasn't about to play through the whole game again in search of it.

Sounds good, especially since there's no map (although this level does some sleight of hand that would mess with an automap). I'll see about whipping something up.