Answer 1

Nice! A few minor things

1. some of the "art" blocks, and the layer 19 blocks are very similar colors. You really want to make sure its clear what blocks are layer 19 and what aren't.

2. Try not to have "floating checkpoints", basically checkpoints should be slightly in the ground (blue flag icon). This way when the player re spawns they can instantly go versus having to wait to land on the ground first. This is noticeable in your first checkpoint.

3. Try not to do "random" deathzones, basically let the player break your map with routing if they want, or if you don't want that use spikes. Since deathzones are invisible  to the player it feels bad to randomly hit one when its not expected to be there.

4. The camera was decently fine for this map, however sometimes lots of camera nodes and the size of the nodes when switching between them can be a little jarring. For example, near the end you went between 1475-1300-1400 camera node in about 15 tiles.. Try to keep it consistent sizing and use proper jumping points to increase and decrease (this comes just from experience). You would also benefit from learning interest nodes, helpful for long boosts and showing the player where to go. Check out this map for a visual tutorial (https://atlas.dustforce.com/8441/camera-tutorial-z)  or ask around in the discord for playtesters.

Overall good map for a 2nd one! These are just minor things to consider if you keep making maps

Answer 2

Awesome, thank you for the detailed criticism. I will keep all that in mind with the next map I make. This map was really just to figure out the whole editor.
The layers mess me up. Can be hard for me to keep track of everything. I will try and make 19 more distinguishable though.
Thank you for the map link I will check it out. What's a good node height for big drops? and is there a tutorial to back drops? They seem weird to create since they move.

Answer 3

That camera tutorial helped a lot.

Answer 4

This is like the very top of "art" in dustforce, but could be helpful to you to see how parallax and layers 1-5 work. But it just comes from experience and taking your time to learn and tweak things. I recommend doing a map in this order: Gameplay > Camera > Art. Because gameplay affects camera, and camera affects the art (especially parallax)

Check out this user's maps: https://atlas.dustforce.com/user/Meark

Answer 5

I think this is a pretty big improvement from your first map. Art looks like you put a lot of work into it.  3 big things:
1. Deathzones are probably the most egregious issue. In my opinion, A player should never hit a deathzone unless they have clearly made a mistake. I would use spikes if you really need to kill the player so its clearly visible that "you are going to die if you go here"
2. Rain emitters can cause a ton of lag and visual clarity issues if you make them super big like the one you have. Dustforce is an old crusty game that can lag for some people and not for others, even when their hardware is clearly strong enough to run it well. Try and make just a thin horizontal rectangle next time to reduce the lag and visual noise
3. you are missing a deathzone at the end below the dustblocks. Nobody should fall there but people always find a way to mess up in almost every way possible.

I think if you took the art of your rainy forest section and just moved some of the further back trees to layer 11 and 10, and moved some of the layer 20 trees to some layer between 12-17 it would really help you see immediate improvement in visuals. Its the best looking part of the map for sure.

Thanks for the map