I have finally managed to complete this world, with all its achievements plus the bonus levels. There are only 3 levels left for me to finish *perfectly* (it seems that one level is impossible to finish perfectly:
https://github.com/SuperTux/addons/issues/19). So I guesss it's time for a new review.
Looking back, this level set is easily one of the best level sets I have played.
The gameplay is great.
I also like the crystal cave theme very much, it's just really, really cool that you take such a narrow theme to the extreme.
The world map design is great as well, the concept of branching paths is well thought out and implemented.
The achievements system is simple but does it job. Finding the 7 bonus crystals gave a little extra challenge. What I would have wished in the achievements screen is that the game also shows *which* crystals I already have. It's easy to forget when you stopped playing ST for a while. Luckily, the bonus crystals aren't that hard to find (just hard to reach
), finding the 42 hideouts was definitely harder. :-)
The level set is very good in overall gameplay. It was enjoyable while trying to at least win in all levels, and it was enjoyable in finding all the secrets and crystals.
Most levels are well-designed, both in gameplay and graphical design. A few levels have minor graphical glitches (e.g. ugly sharp edges, color mismatch, etc.).
My least favourite level is Octachoral test. I have somehow managed to win this level but I did not enjoy this at all. This is basically nothing more than a puzzle level and therefore does not belong in a jump'n'run game. ST is a jump'n'run, so I expect jump'n'run gameplay. :P I think this expectation is totally justified.
I have nothing against the puzzle genre but I dislike when non-puzzle games introduce full-blown puzzles like this one. It would make more sense to keep puzzle levels as a distinct category; maybe there could be a puzzle level set instead.
What irritated me a lot were those hectic color-blinking levels. Is this color blinking really neccessary? What is the point of this animation other than just to annoy the hell out of the player and cause epilleptic shocks? xD
I don't really know which level is my favourite level. The other levels were all pretty cool and enjoyable.
Some of the more scripted levels seem to be slightly glitchy, but I am not 100% sure about that.
Sorry to say, but the outro of the achievments level was just lame. :P
I don't like the way how players are supposed to unlock the bonus levels. What if the bugtracker dies or is relocated? IMO this “gatekeeping” level should be eliminated. Very frustrating for players who went through hunting for ALL the achievements only to see another lock which they can't pass if they can't figure out where to get the code or they don't know what a “bugtracker” is. Luckily for me, I did know. (Phew!)
The bonus levels were nice, but also not too exciting. They are not bad, but they are simply not of the same quality as the regular levels. They look kinda like “leftovers” which you didn't really want to have as part of the main world map. What would probably make more sense as bonus levels would be a small set of extra-hard levels. These particular levels looks like some kind of “testbed”. There were certainly some interesting ideas, especially in the “entry” level. I must say that the “entry” bonus level was probably the hardest. It seems to be almost impossible if you don't start it with a very strong firetux. Still interesting.
As these levels seem to be very seperate from the regular ones, I will ignore them in my overall rating.
The in-game texts should be proofread, there are some spelling and/or grammar mistakes. Besides, when will this level set go into Transifex? This level set deserves be translated (but only if the English has been cleaned up first, of course)!
Overall, very good gameplay and good work. Because all the minor issues I mentioned before add up, I still keep my rating of this level set at “Good”.