Nova: A Brutal Comprehensive Adventure

[Not Sure]

Hey, everyone. I've been working on this fairly ambitious project on and off for nearly 2 years and I'm happy to say it's finally complete. This dense (though linear) 15x15 map certainly isn't for everyone, as it eventually gets unreasonably hard. If you aren't dissuaded by that last sentence, then check it out and let me know what you think! I'd also love to watch if anyone plans to stream it or upload their efforts to Youtube. I plan on posting a full run myself soon.

Here are a couple screenshots:
   

   



Enjoy!

[uugr]

Alright, I haven't finished the level yet (I've only gotten about halfway through the second area), and I'll definitely post a more complete review if/when I finish, but this level is huge enough that I don't know if that'll ever happen, so here's a first impressions:

- The opening bits are nice, they're some good challenge gimmicks that aren't just 'here is a huge spike path with absurdly narrow jumps'.
- No roomnames!! This saddens me a little... roomnames can be a wonderful addition to a level, and the lack of them makes this level feel a little... dull, in my opinion.
- The visuals seem to be a little bland. This isn't a huge issue, but it makes the level feel less memorable when combined with the lack of roomnames. Obviously it's meant to be a gameplay level, but a bit of variety would help keep the experience interesting!
- One of the rooms in Area 1 (can't say which because I have no roomname to use as a descriptor) uses a spike tile that isn't... actually a spike. The player can just walk through it with no difficulty. It's... kind of easy?
- From what I've seen so far, Area 2 seems a bit weaker than Area 1... The challenges are still (mostly) fine, but you seem to be failling into the fake-difficulty trap of leaving out checkpoints for no reason. I don't think anyone's ever played a level and thought 'man, that was good but if only I had fewer checkpoints, it would be great!' It just makes the player redo the same section, which is obnoxious and doesn't add anything.
-  Other than what I mentioned above, the difficulty seems to be surprisingly well-implemented. Usually when a level advertises 'HUGE CHALLENGE!!! ONLY TRUE PLAYERS WILL BE GOOD ENOUGH' it implies really terrible fake difficulty with no checkpoints, tiny spike corridors, 20-room DTTHW-sections and no original ideas. This level was genuinely fun and well-made from what I've seen so far, though. Nice work!

...it eventually gets unreasonably hard...

This worries me. I hope I'm not getting in over my head... 

[Not Sure]

Thanks for the feedback! Originally, I started off naming the first 20 or so screens, but sometimes I needed that little extra space at the bottom so I scrapped that plan. The spike thing I'll have to look at again and fix. As for difficulty and checkpoints, I knew this would turn some people off. I'm a bit masochistic and usually try to craft a challenge specifically for myself when making games. There are many places, especially later on, where I could have put checkpoints but don't just to make it a little harder. I'll likely post an alternate version with more checkpoints and possibly other tweeks.

[Joshua]

As of me being not that good at the game, I have to say, that I like, that this level starts reasonably hard, at least from what I have seen so far.
I'm not sure how far I will actually get in this level.

[Trinket9]

It took blood, sweat and tears, but I have finally prevailed. I have beaten Nova.

Huge thanks to Balneor, who guided me on my playthrough and helped me progress past a specific room in Zone 3 that I found probably the hardest out of the entire level.

Final section:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNzMGF92EE

Stats:

[Mythic]

Hello, I was wondering what extension/external/script you used to get the enemies sped up and slowed down. I really wanted to use them on my own level and it would be great if you could tell me.



By the way the Nova level is great 

[Info Teddy]

Hello, I was wondering what extension/external/script you used to get the enemies sped up and slowed down. I really wanted to use them on my own level and it would be great if you could tell me.



By the way the Nova level is great 

internal scripting (not the same as normal regular scripting), specifically the createentity command with entry 56.

[SolarOddity]

Clear in 8:57:24 in 4049 deaths. Both time and deaths are likely WAY off, as there were several times I did not save before quitting. If I had to estimate, I'd say it actually took somewhere around 13-15 hours to clear and maybe somewhere between 7000-8000 deaths, though this is a VERY rough estimate. I also skipped the Gravitron 2.0 in Area 6 which I feel kind of bad about, so maybe one day I'll go back and try to clear it legit.



This is an absolute masterpiece of a custom level. There were a few checkpoints that were especially painful for me, but that's normal in a level this big and this difficult. You can tell how much love and effort was poured into making this level. Not once did this level feel cheap or unfair at all. There were parts where there were far less checkpoints than there were in the rest of the level (Areas 4 and 6), but to compensate for that in Area 4 the raw difficulty of the gameplay is significantly easier, and Area 6 is a trials area, so it's understandable. This level is also super creative, there are so many cool rooms here. This is my new favorite custom easily.

Supernova, here I come.

[Vermilisix]

I'm going to try this level but I probably won't finish it

[Balneor]

Heya, another bump. This thread will never fade into obscurity

Ok more seriously, this is a doc I made whose purpose of which is recording every single victors of this custom. I've been keeping it for years, and dropped it a couple times in the Discord server, but it's now time to entrust this legendary thread with it. Where it should have always been.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKzya6tMoHHMv0MdefxfLpS797pRPK2MoMdrSxMjFXw/edit?usp=sharing

[SHARKIE]

this is so hard i died 2 times in the first four areas... with invincibility on

[ILoveV6]

After a 2 month affair and pouring in countless hours into Nova, I have done it. I am the 9th person to come out victorious, its just ridiculous of the amount of deaths and hours I have

Area 1 2 & 3 were the best in my opinion, somehow I was able to squeak by easily in that one really hard room in area 3
Area 4 was annoying and became my first road block for quite a while
Area 5 is really fun too, but some checkpoints were just absolutely painful to do, area 6 is where the level got a bit too carried away with the deaths.
And last of all area 7, this was the best ending I have ever seen, multiple checkpoints were nearly impossible for me but I somehow actually completed it
I give all my thank you's to balneor for helping me so much on a lot of checkpoints, and not sure for making this awesome adventure for me
Stats:


Supernova, here I come