Congratulations. This level puts new meaning for my CTF level reviewing system. Finally, a level so bad it deserves an extra long review (not to sound harsh or anything).
GAMEPLAY:
I don’t think I could ever possibly describe how bad the layout is. It’s not balanced, it has no flow, and I was frustrated just trying to find my way around. Let me give you some advice (or a lot of advice) with the problems I saw:
1.) There are no borders around the level, which can create the infamous flag bug where you see someone capturing the flag every second. Always, always, ALWAYS add a border around the entire level of at least one tile (two tiles are recommended).
2.) The events are either misused or just don’t work out. Like with the water, are you trying to make the level much more frustrating with it? And there is the problem around pos 26,34 with the steam where it is easy to get stuck there if you’re not very careful. And you used hurt events? If there’s one event you should never use in MP, it would be that one. It just gets in the way and can even kill the server.
3.) The level has too many dead ends, and not just routes that lead to nowhere, but places where you can actually get trapped and never get out. Don’t use horizontal springs the way you did in this level.
4.) And I think you took the advice to use animations one step to far. It seems as if you used animated tiles for more than 80 percent of the level. When others said use animations, they probably wanted you to use the tiles made just for animations (like with the blue “shock rods” you didn’t bother to animate). You, on the other hand, misinterpreted this I thought that they wanted you to make animations like where the tile disappears and reappears. You can use the disappearing/reappearing animation tiles if you want, but seldomly. The Mez tileset you used just naturally lacks tiles for animations. A lot of other tilesets are better for this.
5.) If I had to guess, I would say you have no idea of how to make layer 3 align with layer 4 (or really anything layer-related for that matter). All you have to do is go to layer 3 and right-click with your mouse and then click on properties. In that, go to where it says “Relative movement”. Next to the “X-Speed” and “Y-Speed”, change the number to 1 (it normally says 1.5 if you haven’t changed it). And you can resize the layer under “Properties” next to the box where it says “Tile width” and “Tile height”. I suggest experimenting with this and with all of the other options (I don’t feel it is necessary to explain everything in that section of JCS).
6.) And finally, the level looks more like a single player level than anything else. This fact alone could kill the rating of this level. It seems that you tried too hard to make the level work when really a simpler level would receive a much higher rating. If you’re going to make a CTF level, look at how other people made their CTF levels. And when you’re making your next level, look for some beta-testers and make sure they barrage you with a lot of suggestions. It appears you will need it. Keep making levels; practice can always help.
EYE CANDY:
I’ll tell you when I find any. It’s definately way below average. The background tiles weren’t used correctly (you’ll have to resize the layer and/or put the layer in “Textured mode”). You were lazy with a lot of the tiles in this level. Look at how other levels use eye candy and try to be more creative in the future.
CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:
Not good at all. Too many carrots in one place and no ammo. Hypothetically, if this was the greatest CTF level ever created but you only messed up on this one thing, it would already be rated a 7.0 at the highest. CTF levels just can’t work with bad carrot placement and no ammo. And powerups are always nice. I’ll give three possible suggestions of what you can do with the carrots:
1.) Use one full energy carrot placed in the middle or somewhere near the middle of the level. Make sure that it is easily accessible, and generally same distance, from each base.
2.) Use two full energy carrots placed not too close to one another. From each base, it should be easy to get one of those two carrots but not both.
3.) Use a +1 carrot, similar to how I said to use the full energy carrot in my first suggestion, but don’t use any powerups (I doubt I myself would ever use this suggestion, but it’s still a good choice to use).
Personally I use the first suggestion the most in my CTF levels, but you can experiment with whatever you want. Also, I can’t really say much about ammo placement since you didn’t even use any. Take example from the way other level makers place ammo in their levels. And when you’re using events like these, use a generator (20 or 25 would be good). You just have to click “Create a generator for this event” where you select the event to use. Then change the number next to “Delay” to 20 or 25 or whatever.
HOST THIS OFTEN?
If I said host this often, that wouldn’t make me much of a reviewer. I’m rating this a 2.5 just because you remembered to put two CTF bases in the level. If I get bored and can think of other things to suggest, I’ll add on to this review.
The Edit: No, I had no idea how long it took you to make the level, but I can tell that during that two month period you didn’t focus on balance, ammo placement, flow, and several other things that I’ve mentioned in my review. I don’t want to discourage you to the point where you don’t make any more levels, but the one you made isn’t even decent. And just because you worked on a level for two months, it doesn’t necessarily make it a good level. Practice and opinions of others is where you get improvement from. Make sure you read all of the advice I added in the review.[This review has been edited by BlurredD]
Capture the flag, by 
