File Name | The Kaizocamp |
Submitted: | 11-06-2014 04:23:41 PM by xHF01x |
Authors: | xHF01x |
Demo: | No |
Length: | 49 exit(s) |
Difficulty: | Kaizo |
Description: | My first hack I made half a year ago. There are several flunchers in the first levels, but later the levels will look better. In the zip file there are 4 different files: There is a german and an english version and a version with hard time limits and one without. Have fun! |
Downloads: | Permanent Link |
I would really love to say good things about this hack, because it's always kind of difficult for me to criticize things harshly, but... Unfortunately, I can't. The hack has a massive number of flaws that I don't believe can be fixed without scrapping it completely.
To start off, the hack is incredibly bland. It sticks to tried-and-overused ideas like shelljumping, P-switch runs, Koopa hopping, the invincibility timer, cement block mazes, bullet jumps, bringing items from earlier levels... the list goes on and on. The design of early levels is uninteresting, flat, and generally consists of cement blocks and muncher spam. It's never consistent in its difficulty, with the second level in the hack even requiring a P-switch jump despite nothing else up to that point (or for a fair ways after it) being that frame perfect. Particularly guilty is the final level; most of the levels in the hack are fairly short and usually no longer than a single room, but the final level leaps up to somewhere around 15 rooms without a midpoint, ending with... Iggy. Not exactly a difficult final boss considering the level. I admit with vanilla design you're somewhat limited for bosses, but you can still do something interesting with some of the other bosses, such as Reznor, Larry/Wendy, or the Big Boo.
The difficulty in general at least has a fair curve as the game progresses, though, and the later levels do end up significantly better than those at the start. But not by much; they still stick to the same ideas, and a few interesting levels aren't enough to cover the problems everything else has. I will say they at least look better, and the submission text isn't lying; there are in fact less flunchers in them, as they're replaced by spikes, blocks, and whatnot, and generally there's less block spam as ledges finally get used. I don't understand why you couldn't go back and fix up the earlier levels, however, as they're where the majority of problems with this hack lie.
Outside of the general level design, the hack doesn't do much else to make itself interesting. The overworld is just a square of tiles, with the only thing on it being the levels and a few pipes. The idea of a "camp" where each level is a "day" isn't a bad naming scheme nor a bad idea for the hack's basis, but it doesn't mean you have to leave the overworld covered in a mass of grass tiles. Even just turning it completely black like the special worlds would be better.
The translation for the hack, at least, is well done, though there was a message box in DAY 3 that was left untranslated (at least it's not a difficult one to figure out). I also commend you for leaving a version of the hack without the hard time limits; usually, newer Kaizo hackers believe that sticking a tight time limit on a level makes it better, and that's a bad frame of thought for a designer to believe in. So, at least you recognize that as an optional challenge, and I believe you can make better levels in the future.
Overall, this hack gets a rejection from me. The difficulty is spastic, the early level design is bland, the later level design isn't much better, and overall the hack had very little impact on me. I recommend that, in the future, you experiment with some different ideas, maybe things that are a little outside your comfort zone. Find something that will keep people interested in seeing what you have to offer, be it a non-standard use of a sprite or a new sprite off SMWC. Sure, it's not bad to borrow an idea or two from another person or have one of the common ideas once in a while, but the majority of your design should be your own and something unique to you.
Professional frame-by-frame time wizard. YouTube - Bluesky - SMW Glitch List - SMW Randomizer