Time Bandits Of The Holy Land

[MicGorbachev]

Time Bandits Of The Holy Land by MicGorbachev
Your friend and mentor, Professor Headcase, has finally finished his time machine. Travel back to the year 586bc, find the Ark of the Covenant, and bring back its contents.

All dates, events, and locations are historically accurate. 1 PLAYER preferred.

For more info on the Ark of the Covenant, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant.

[MicGorbachev]

Wow, this is the forum to get lots of feedback. This is the 2nd level I have posted on this forum and both times nothing, zero, niet, zilcho. I must be doing something wrong.

[Dragonvarsity]

Hey, shookie told me about your level. Sorry it's getting no feedback. I'll give it a try later today or tomorrow and tell you what I think

[LFiers]

Hey there, I like the detail on your level... its minimal yet very effective. The way the time machince teleported was cool too. Your girrage was for the win. :P Also I really enjoyed the attention to details in the patterns, material and decor you have used. Please play my high tech level "Resident Raytech" aswell. Thank you.

[JustinArt]

Amazing level. The visuals of the desert looked great and the tower gameplay is great too. The boss battle where you go against the soldiers is a bit simple but clever and the final boss of the level is powerful too. I think you need to extend the timing of the explosive a bit and you need to make the scorpions looked more polished. Overall, I gave it 5 stars.

Play and F4F "The Hero Chronicles LV8 Phantom Planet Part 1 and 2"

[CountRuby]

Oh wow! I loved this level!
Someone tell me why it hasn't got all that many plays? Please? Because it deserves them!

Positives
I absolutely loved the whole setting. Every last bit of it.
The Babylonians were hilarious, popping up everywhere.
You had vertical gameplay done well. You are my GOD.
It was serious and funny. Always a good combination.
The detail and stickering was close to spot-on. A few more little details and you're there, probably.
I loved that the dates and things are totally accurate.
"Oh no, the Babylonians are attacking!" <- this was probably unintentional, but it seemed so nonchalent that it made me laugh out loud. Literally.

Negatives
My personal preference is to have platforms that launch you grab-activated, but they work great as is anyway.
The boss seemed a little out-of-place. Had you added the same humour into him as the other characters and let us find out more about him (but almost by being obvious about it?) it would have had much more of an impact.

Other than that, this was brilliant, and you earned yourself 5 big fat stars and one twinkly heart! Wait, no, that's the wrong way round...
Could you please give me some feedback on my level: The (Evil) Castle of the (Evil) Witch Evilline (the Evil)? Thanks!

[MicGorbachev]

Thanks for taking the time to play my level and place feedback.

CountRuby > I have been toying with the idea to make the jump pads grabable triggers. It might make them a little easier to navigate. And I know what you mean about the boss. It doesn't seem to have the same character as the rest.

JustinArt > Good idea to extend the timing. Will do.

[midnight_heist]

+ Teleporter that doesn't kill you. Thank goodness. GOOD JOB. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you creators out there.
- The two visible score bubbles at the start are too distracting, I would move them down, out of sight.
- The first set of spikes, arg. I would either move them (or the camera) to the right. I walked right into them.
- The angled line cutout on the star material is rather obvious, perhaps cover with a thin layer or decoration?
- I don't like the spikes on the bad guy wall here. I pushed the bomb over, when I let go I auto switch layers, right into the spikes. I also suggest making the timed bombs fall to the right a bit more, but I don't know if that (pulling to right then jumping back over to he left) was intentional gameplay.
- First grabby thing. As the checkpoint is to the right, I swung over, let go but then fell down. Add a thick layer in the back to prevent this.
- Visibility of the fire hazard. You cannot see the edges, which means you cannot fairly judge the jump. Unfair.
+ Cool bad guys popping up. Don't think you need the one in the middle.
+- "What the?" indeed. I got totally confused by this, I thought there must have been extra score bubbles up to the left, but couldn't reach it. Then I couldn't get back up to the stairs. I restarted the level as there was no checkpoint above the wheel (where the magic mouth was) to pop and skip reclimbing the wheel.
+- Personal preference here. I don't care for the layer switching while hopping up the ledges. And what's the point of climbing a huge tower just to be lowered into the basement? Seems rather pointless, but like I said, it's just a personal preference of mine. Cool how it spanned the whole level down down though.
- Since you have two R1 switches, I would make the player grab each one. Or just have one R1 sticker.

At least 4 stars, enjoyable play.
Gonna play your other levels too.

EDIT:
For the grabbable lift, I would add a thick block (like a vertical line block from tetris) to the right in the back layer.
When the player swings over to the right, they should fall onto the ledge, and not all the way back down.
Hope you can understand my ramblings this time..:P

[MicGorbachev]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed review of my level Midnight Heist. I have taken on board your review and republished. I have made the suggested changes with the exception of the bubbles at the start (I feel they show the player that there is a path to come back to) and the first grabable lift (I didn't quite get what you meant).

[Dragonvarsity]

Okay, sorry for such a delay to play this but I finally got to playing it and here's what I thought.

The story for this level is great, very creative traveling back in time to retrieve the ten commandments from Jerusalem. There were some great challenges fihgting the babylonians...or at least dodging their attacks! TThe level was pretty challenging and might be too hard to some but I'm not gonna count against it because I loved the challenge, it wasn't too frustrating anyway, just warning those who aren't very good at LBP.

Anyway, the character design isn't amazing but it's still good and the characters were great. The design of the time traveling machine was good looking and I loved how instead of gassing you, it just took you there, which I really thought was cool. The boss against the scientist was challenging aswell but luckily if you get the hang of it, it shouldn't take too long with only 4 brains. There is a part where you have to grab something and swing to the right but if you fall you dont fall in the spikes, it seems thereisn't any spikes in the back layer creating a short cut to the cave down below. I wouldn't recommend adding spikes there since obviously that's where you fall from above in the back layer but maybe emit spikes and then de-emit, not so sure.

It felt like it kinda passed by for me but maybe I was just very captivated by the level. There were some fun chalenges and it did have a good amount of gameplay. Before returning, it kinda felt like a subway which was kinda cool, climbing the stairs up with the walls around you. and a Great job

[dxdydz]

I played this last night and liked a lot of things about it.

The level was clean, clear and crisp and there was almost never confusion about where to go.

The time machine was done really well.

All the platforming was great, but I felt the "action" sections were lacking. The first bit where the baddies are tossing bombs at you, the time between bomb onslaughts is small. It would be more interesting, I think, if instead of RUN GET OUT OF WAY bomb bomb bomb RUN GET OUT OF WAY bomb bomb bomb, the bombs were spread out more discretely on the three layers so your movement needs to be a little more technical.

When the commandments showed up, it took me awhile to be able to grab them. If there's a way to get up on top of the ark to grab them, I never found it. In the end I managed to snag 'em by just hopping wildly and pressing R1.

When you have to jump over the burning logs, it was the most frustrating thing ever! Perhaps this is because I'm simply not used to the layer-jumping yet, but the sackboy was never where I wanted him. It also was unclear to me which of the three layers held the exit. Perhaps something to make this a little more obvious would be a nice addition.

I had difficulties with the proximity sensors in the final boss battle, I kept dying because they'd trigger before I was on them and then refuse to trigger again once I was on them.

But all in all I really liked it. The design was spartan without feeling sparse and it's clear you gave a lot of consideration to seamless, smooth gameplay instead of "OH HAI LOOKS AT ALL THIS NEON AND FIRE WHO CARES IF ITZ BROKEN IT LOOKZ COOL" which I value.

[TOXIC_KILLA_]

looks stunning

[MicGorbachev]

Thanks DragonVarsity and Dxdydz for taking the time to play my level and give such detailed feedback...

DragonVarsity > The level ended up being more challenging than I meant it to be. I have adjusted the timing of the bombs on the boss and the Babylonians to create more time as well as the rolling flame barrel things. I tried the back layer issue you highlighted but had no success. However I have now put spikes in the back layer except where the elevator comes down. Here I have put a couple of invisible walls to prevent the short cut.

Dxdydz > Sorry for your frustration with the burning logs. I always meant it to be a case of jumping layers to get to the exit. I have increased the time between the burning logs to allow for easier layer jumping and have placed an arrow pointing to the exit. I have also placed some stair like rocks to get to the ten commandments easier.

Thanks again everyone for playing my level.

[onisdream]

Hi there,

I played your level this morning and i t was a real pleasure ! Here are some feedbacks :

The good :
- The professor design
- The labs desgin
- The teleporter that doesnt' kill you
- The desert background (with the palm trees)
- The camel design
- The enemies, simple but efficient
- The babylon soldier design
- The wooden wheel puzzle (all the tower climbing by the way, love it !)
- The hidden elevator

The less good :
- The visible ladder with bubbles at the begining, it's either confusing or spoiling
- The woman design character is too simple comparing to the other character designs
- The sky during the climbing of the tower leaves an impression of emptyness (maybe with some clouds)

So far it's a great level, I put and
I would be interested to know your opinion on my level below, give it a chance if you have time someday

Good job !

[MicGorbachev]

Thanks Onisdream. All your suggestions are good ones, especially the clouds in the sky. I have added clouds and they make a huge difference. I have also removed the bubbles at the start. Still brainstorming the lady character.