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Yoshi's Bramble Blast - Ultradragonyoshi

Hack name: Yoshi's Bramble Blast
Lenght: 5 levels
Author: Ultradragonyoshi
Description: This is a little 1 world hack I made for fun but it turned ou pretty well so here it is.


IPS Link

The concept of the hack wasn't bad, but it was very repetitive in general, not because you used the same GFX in every level, but because the level design seemed lazy and didn't have many variations in it. Since this was a short hack, I'll review it on a level-by-level basis.

Levels 1 and 2: These two levels were really similar to each other. Both levels consisted mostly on flat segments where I occasionally had to jump from a bridge to another with one or two enemies on them, like here, here, here, here, and other spots I didn't take screenshots, this makes it look like as you just copy-pasted the area and changes the enemies on the bridges, which is a really lazy way to design levels. The beginning of level 1 was well designed, but the rest was really boring.

Level 3: This level followed similar logic as the previous two, it was entirely flat and consisted on jumping from a bridge to annother in order to avoid falling into the brambles. The difference is that here you had a lot of bees, which appeared in very simiar patters and almost no other enemies, so it was still repetitive. My advise for this level, aside from making it less flat, is to have less bees and more enemy variation.

Level 4: The first half of this level consisted mostly on jumping from a vine to another while dodging bullets from a generator, which makes it noy just repetitive but empty as well. The second half was a long series of these pipe with rope segments with a few enemies in the ropes; just like in levels 1 and 2,it looks like you copy-pasted the same area a lot and just changes the enemies. Again, these things make me think this level was designed lazily.

Level 5: The first half of this level was very similar to the first two, except it had more obstacles (fog, bees, fishes) which made it a little more entretaining, but was still repetitive. In the second half all I had to do was to stand on a platform while occasionally dodging balls from pitchin'/puntin' Chucks, which also makes you look lazy.

In general, you need to have more variation in your levels, SMW hacking is not just about jumping from short platforms with one or two enemies on them, it's about using different terrain variations, different enemies and combining enemies and objects to create obstacles. Try playing some recently accepted hacks so you can get a bette idea of what we expect to see.
actually I worked very hard on this hack.
and most of the reviews I've gotten on it said it was pretty good.
but I'll work on the levels and add some custom sprites like the zinger and barrel cannon sprites to make it more like DCK2.
thanks for the review!
Originally posted by Ultradragonyoshi
actually I worked very hard on this hack.
and most of the reviews I've gotten on it said it was pretty good.
but I'll work on the levels and add some custom sprites like the zinger and barrel cannon sprites to make it more like DCK2.
thanks for the review!

I see no reason for you to spend time putting in custom sprites; simply put, the level design was boring. That's the main thing you need to work on.

Perhaps it'd be worth a shot to read this for a bit of a crash-course on SMW level design.