Answer 1

I've always wondered what it would be like if someone took dome, and then modified it to suck, now I know.

Answer 2

Can you explain this to me? I see nothing but improvements in my opinion.

Answer 3

Mostly sarcasm.  That said the dust on that slope that you have to go out of your way to touch is about the only thing about dome that bothered the flow for me though.  Most of the changes just make things easier, and less aesthetically pleasing... or don't really serve a purpose at all.  I don't consider easier as better, especially on a gold level.

Answer 4

even tho i didn't take your first comment seriously. This one has me very comfused.

The changes weren't specifically to make things easier, But I did change it and one of my goals wasn't to make it any harder.

As for things being less aesthetically pleasing i'm very confused considering it's almost entirely identical to the original in looks (though it is missing props, the fog trigger)

As to the changes not serving a purpose I'm also curious as to what you mean by this. Why would I change it (especially if my goal is to stay as true to the original as possible) if there wasn't a purpose to the change?

But the thing that confuses me the most. Is that you seem to be able to judge the purpose of the changes by getting the slowest SS, using a character I did not test or tweak for. If you played the level a bit more then once, and tried to optimize your time, and used the character I tweaked around. Then maybe you would see why I made changes where I did. Especially if you compare the gameplay of dustman to the originals.

I know you use Dustkid for stuff, But basically no one is going to design around dustkid, so giving judgement on changes based on her gameplay seems very very very silly and unhelpful feedback to me.

Answer 5

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2014/25/1402925242-ibip6zgmpw4nh2.gif

Answer 6

> The changes weren't specifically to make things easier, But I did change it and one of my goals wasn't to make it any harder.

imo removing a death zone makes the level much harder since you need to reset if you die

> As for things being less aesthetically pleasing i'm very confused considering it's almost entirely identical to the original in looks (though it is missing props, the fog trigger)

after I fell through the hole with no death zone I was greeted with a blank screen which, aesthetically, is quite unappetizing

> As to the changes not serving a purpose I'm also curious as to what you mean by this. Why would I change it (especially if my goal is to stay as true to the original as possible) if there wasn't a purpose to the change?

I want to know your purpose for removing the death zone too

> But the thing that confuses me the most. Is that you seem to be able to judge the purpose of the changes by getting the slowest SS,

I can't even get the slowest SS because I fell through the hole with no death zone.

> using a character I did not test or tweak for.

If there's a dustman-specific death zone then that's news to me, but there isn't.

> If you played the level a bit more then once, and tried to optimize your time, and used the character I tweaked around. Then maybe you would see why I made changes where I did.

Well, I went back and fell down the hole with no death zone with each character as per your request, but I am still having trouble seeing the purpose of removing the death zone. From my observations, Dustman and Dustgirl fall faster, which at first appears to pose an advantage, since greater fall speed a sooner death and getting back into the game faster. Dustworth and Dustkid are naturally at a disadvantage since they are forced to suffer longer before their inevitable demise. In addition, Dustman and Dustgirl do not jump as high as Dustworth, so if they jump before they fall into the hole, they have lesser a distance to fall to reach the bottom than would Dustworth. Or that is how things should be, except for a small problem at hand. You may recall it from when we discussed it before.

There is no death zone.

> I know you use Dustkid for stuff, But basically no one is going to design around dustkid, so giving judgement on changes based on her gameplay seems very very very silly and unhelpful feedback to me.

Unfortunately the fact of the matter is that the lack of a death zone is not a problem that plagues Dustkid exclusively, but the entire cast of characters as well. I myself discovered the absence of the death zone with Dustworth. One could argue that because I did so with Dustworth and no other character, my experience was only one part of the picture and therefore an inaccurate representation of the whole. As such, I was willing to accept your suggestion to replay the map with other characters. However, I must regrettably inform you (not for the first time), that the lack of the deathzone is not only bad, but also equally detrimental to all characters. In this respect, one cannot fully dissuade Fireball's purely-Dustkid testimony against elements of this map's design. One might even go as far as to say that, regardless of how the map plays prior to the encounter with the lack of a deathzone and respective endless void, it is all null when the player is faced with an ultimate ludological nihilist argument that makes both progress and recovery equally inaccessible. Just as there is no end to the fall, there is no end to the player's suffering either until they come to terms with the fact that there will be no replay recorded. Even then, their pain may not end as the player is forced to terminate any semblance of progress or dream of victory, and the player is even forced to do this manually (by navigating the menu to either the Restart or Exit Level options) and at the same time forced to come to terms with their own hopelessness. Truly, the removal of this death zone is an unwarranted psychological attack upon the player, and one can only be grateful that such a quality was not present in the original Dome.

I know you use deathzones for stuff, but basically no one is going to die without deathzones, so removing deathzones without reason seems very very very silly and unhelpful map design to me.

Answer 7

As for aesthetically pleasing, right after the first section, where you remove the blocks you ceiling climb, you leave the blocks forming the L, which only served the purpose of forming a block with the dustblocks.  When you removed the spikes from the block you flipped around, you added a single tile of spikes that not only don't actually serve much of a purpose, but also looks really unnatural.  Also you didn't position the level correctly, which has done hellish things to the parallax layers (you can see the edges of layers that you could never see on dome), and an offset of one tile has messed up the decorations with the wiring blocks.  It's pretty blatantly obviously not as good looking.

As far as gameplay goes, after playing with dustman, I still think your changes were mostly pointless.  Having to light attack a single enemy, didn't really hurt the level.  Nor did the ceiling ride afaik, nor is a narrow corridor, nor having to generate momentum.  I like the original equally or better on about 75% of the changes.  Dome is a good level, I like dome.

Also I still get to have opinions with non dustman chars, in the same way that you get to not test shit with anyone when you make a map, and that's fine.  I also get to have opinions from a different play-style then you, for different reasons than you.  Whether they're helpful or not doesn't matter much to me.  Also, dustkid was made... blatantly easier by the changes you made, and nothing hurts her, I just don't see a problem with domes difficulty with any character.

Answer 8

I don't see why you could not do a total remake of it, like the only thing the same would be the look. Seems kind of effortless in execution to be honest.

Answer 9

Krank wanted it made before he was done streaming i Only had like an hour. I wouldve put more time into it if I wasn't time constrained and probably changed several things. I also probably would have reverted some changes I did do that I simply didn't have enough time to test thouroughly

Answer 10

Ah context, that explains it. Well for your next remake I would recommend redoing the entire route to make it your own and then using the same tileset and decorating theme to get it to look like whichever level you are representing.

Answer 11

Also thought about repainting dome, really like its path.
But since my last map was a remake of core temple, I guess I have to make a few maps of my own for now.
As for some feedback, I'll have to join Towelie, the whole thing feels a bit empty/dry, take yourself more time.