Answer 1

tl;dr - great aesthetics and nice early game level. fixing the camera size/placement for smoothness will make it even better.

The camera is a little wonky in several places.  It acts as if it wants to go one way instead of where the player is going.  I would try having the camera a little farther out than what you had it at so that you can have fewer cameras which should make transitions a little smoother.  Also, when you have a camera selected you can use the mouse wheel to set its tolerances for movement which can also help with the smoothness of transitions between cameras.

As for the aesthetics, they are really nice.  I like the simplicity of the design and the contrast between the orange and the grey of the background.  The arrows are a help though the two arrows that point straight down then to the upper right are to much.  Having just the one that goes to the upper right should be enough since anyone who wants to get SS will hit all of the dust.

Overall, it's a nice level and a good first try.  Cameras are the only place that you really need to work on, though camera placement seems to be the place where everyone gets tripped up so don't feel bad. ;)

Answer 2

I never played "N" so I don't quite appreciate the reference I think.  The camera can be a bit weird sometimes (but it took me like seven maps to have a camera track at all so it's all good ^^).

Some parts of the level don't play very smoothly at all, and my best advice to you is probably to watch as many of the replays as you can - not just the good ones, but all of them.  Watch for parts people have trouble with - trouble is fine, maps don't necessarily need to be easy, but if everyone has trouble with the same parts that might indicate that the part is poorly designed and could be improved.  You should also pay attention to 'best time' runs - while you might not design a level with time in mind,  a lot of people play them for that, and understanding the routes may help you design a better level in the future (either to help people with their speed runs or force them to go along your route).

Good luck!

Answer 3

I didn't like N so this was pretty meh (3/5) for me, you should've zoomed out the camera though.

Answer 4

Personally, I liked it. Some of the jumps lacked flow, but I found it a bit entertaining to try to see how quickly I could work through those. A good first map, although for your next map you should work on making it flow better.

Answer 5

Oh man, I played the heck out of N!  It's the first "small level/great difficulty" 2d platformer that I can think of, or at least the first really good one.

I like the visuals, but the camera is way too wonky.  You could have just left it out and it would've been fine.  Cameras don't easily work with small, free-form levels like this.

Answer 6

Thank you very much for your kind and constructive comments!
You've inspired me to make a V2 version of the map in the near future; I'll update some of the camera work and hopefully improve that, I'll look at all of the runs and try to improve the flow of the level. I'll also reduce the amount of 'hint' arrows around of the level.

- I agree, I think the level is fairly easy - but the level which I had based the design on is the equivelent of a playground / toutorial level, so a beginners door makes sense. I'll edit that into the description so experienced dusters don't get the wrong impression and be like "yawn."

- That's great advice on the camera Dr. Phineas, I'll look back to that when I'll do the update. I'm glad you enjoyed the small level. Hopefully, in time I can look to contribute to atlas and this little ol' community.
- Submohr, if you're interested; here's a link, I'm not selling or doing any advertising or anything - I feel N is a very spiritual bedfellow to Dustforce and is worth checking out, even just briefly. http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html Enjoy. And thank you for your comments. I'll do that. I can see a couple of parts that can be improved already, such as unessecary attack boxes, and the part near the top with the two sides, perhaps something more streamlined would be more ideal.

- Denferok; thanks for the comment. I feel it's poetically apt that you'd meh a level based on the level design of a game you didn't enjoy. I'll zoom out the camera in the update.

- KrackoCloud - Glad you enjoyed it, hope you might keep it poking around in your collection of levels. I agree, some of the jumps lacked flow, maybe it's because I was trying to replicate the N level too much at the sacrifice of the Dustforce mechanics, I'll change this in the update.

- Subparfiddle - Thanks for the comment. Yeah me too, I played it a fair amount but never really got too far, the difficulty curve in that is impressive.

So yeah. Cameras! Flow! Action.
Let's do it.

Answer 7

Yeah, the modern renaissance of the genre has definitely been N -> SMB -> Dustforce.

Answer 8

Thanks for creating levels that inspire me.