[5x5] Exponential Decay

Started by ThePaSch, September 25, 2011, 01:36:32 AM

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ThePaSch

A quantity is said to be subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its value.

25 rooms in 5 areas. You start in the hardest area and work your way through to the easiest area. In other words, the level gets easier the farther you get.



Also, no excessive scripting, no plot.

Have fun and feel free to criticize.

Stampy

This played pretty well! I can't say I felt it getting too much easier as the level progressed though. The rooms I had the most trouble with were Hairpin, and shafts and pits. (I really don't like the teleporting onto spikes thing).  But overall it was a fun level, with a really good premise!  I also liked the not so much scripting route. A lot of levels overdo the dialogue and terminals.  It's nice to play a level which is just the game!

Buttons

Cool concept, but I agree that the difficulty drop wasn't quite as noticeable as you were going for. Hairpin was by far the hardest level for me (racked up about 200 deaths there), while ↑ and Down was pretty easy. Boo! Think Faster! Was probably the second hardest (which is good, since it was the second room), so I'd swap Hairpin with the first.

If you really want the difficulty to decay exponentially, then the most noticeable difference should be between the first room and the second. I think putting Hairpin there would accomplish that pretty well.

Also: super mean with the warp lines on the third floor! If you're not careful it's easy to send yourself back two rooms at once with a little careless exploration.

The Brass

If you want to make a difficult level, don't use fake difficulty. "Up and down" is just ridiculous. The room itself is very hard, and when you exit it, you'll fly straight on top of a disappearing platform, with spikes both above and below, and a checkpoint on the ceiling taunting you. So put a second checkpoint on the floor so that people don't have to do that room thrice. The same happens with "Highway to hell". Put a checkpoint on the platform in the corner in "Warm-up" to encourage players to go for it instead of staying still.

In the warp section, the warp destinations effectively have randomness to them. Many warps make you randomly spawn on a spike. The green room was all about hoping you appear above a platform in the last warp room instead of a spike. In the token hell room, I thought the warp from the middle room to the right middle room was a death-warp because I flew straight into the warp to the death room below. Require less precision.

I could see the difficulty get easier. You did succeed in that. Hairpin wasn't as bad as it was hyped up to be. But there's no need for the first floor to be empty. The second floor contains the classic "difficult room" gimmicks, backsliders and high-frequency enemies. It should be simple to create easier rooms than that which still require something more than running.

Damn It AL to Hell

DIFFICULT LEVEL! >:( Pretty good one, but hard as hell! 9/10 :viridian: good job.

BillyTheBanana

Thanks for this level, I love a good challenge! I almost quit because of that insane last turn on the Shuriken screen, but I'm glad I stuck with it to make it to the nifty stuff afterwards.