“Sunshine Walking” is an interesting idea. It is not often that new level makers use their own tileset in a early level and it does not work very badly. While I can not say that this is my favorite tileset by any measurement at all, it does offer some eyecandy, there are other problems. The gameplay was not exactly amazing, either. And a lot of this can be traced back to one thing – the tileset. The tileset’s mask is one of the major faults of this piece. The tileset often caused me to get stuck and because of poor masking on the diagonal surfaces, the level flowed badly. It is also fairly small and there is not all that much to bring the level’s quality back up. At least for a while after first using JCS, I recommend people use other’s tilesets. Building your own tileset and then using it in a level is definitely a challenge, and perhaps one that this amount of experience does not allow for.
TILESET/TILESET USE: It is often hard to compare the quality of new tileset-using levels, as no other level has used them before. But there is one thing which is definitely obvious what sort of quality the tileset is of, and the tileset use. While it is apparent that the author did attempt to make the best use of his (I think) first tileset, it is also apparent that the tileset is not exactly ready. The masking, if anything, is at the most fault here. There are a lot of jaggies throughout the level that the player can get stuck on, which not only reduces flow, but also proves troublesome and makes the level look bad. The eyecandy itself is not wonderous either. The entire level was indeed quite bland. Overall, not a good job here.
Pros: It is nice to see that the author went to the trouble of creating a tileset for this level. And then it is obvious some effort was put in.
Cons: None of this was enough to save the level from having bad eyecandy.
Rating: 4.0
WEAPON/ITEM/ENEMY PLACEMENT: Here is yet another area in this level that needs some serious work before being good enough to be even average. First of all, the level has very little ammo. Most of the ammo is more or less easy to get, though, and the lack of ammo is not that bad, considering how short the level is. Still, it does not look as if much thought was put into the selection of where to put all this ammo. The same goes for enemies. Enemies are placed in some interesting areas, but everything seems to not have been thought through well enough. The enemies are placed in areas which are inconvinient and downright hard to get to, therefore making the player go out of his or her way simply to kill one, when they could just be evaded just as easily.
Pros: Not as bad as it could be.
Cons: Bad placement all around.
Rating: 4.5
ORIGINALITY: The idea of this level is not that original at all. However, there are a few parts of this level that are more or less interesting, although none of them are used very well. The first thing is that this level uses the author’s presumably first tileset (at least first publically released tileset, I think.) The tileset does not exactly look very good and functions poorly, but does provide some originality to this level. The second thing that you somewhat rarely see is the warps in areas in which the player could simply fall to the ground – they warp you back to start. These warps, however, are annoying and quickly become more of a burden than an interesting part of gameplay. They are easily avoidable, though, if you are actually trying. Good examples of somewhat original concepts used badly.
Rating: N/A
GAMEPLAY/DESIGN: When I first saw the areas in which there was no floor in the level, I was sort of expecting that I would be able to just fall through them. Fortunately, the author decided to place warps down there. This did not add all that much to gameplay, but was better than just getting stuck down there and being unable to get up. The rest of the level fared similarly. Nothing was as bad as it possibly could be, but nothing was very good, either. The masking of the tileset, yet again, was this level’s biggest problem. Flow and everything was hurt by this. It was difficult to smoothly navigate the level. This level simply does not play very well. Oh, yes, and this level is too easy and short.
Pros: A few interesting places.
Cons: Not many. Masking issues
Rating: 4.5
REPLAY VALUE/FUN FACTOR: I obviously do not like this level as much as the previous reviewers. It was not fun to play more than once, in my opinion. In fact, it was not all that fun to play the first time.
Pros: N/A.
Cons: N/A.
Rating: 4.2
OVERALL (not an average): It is apparent that the author did put some degree of effort into this level. Unfortunately, that effort was brought down by the poor tileset. It probably would be a better idea to use someone else’s tileset until you can get both a good hang of how to use JCS very well and a good hang of how to make tilesets. Still, this level is not all that bad, and while it is below average, there are much worse. Continue making levels with others’ tilesets. This does show promise, although it also needs definite work.
Pros: Shows promise. Uses authors’ own tileset. Shows effort.
Cons: The tileset is badly done and masked.
Rating: 4.5
GAMEPLAY: C -
Flow: D+
Layout: C
Creativity: C
Bugs: C -
EYECANDY: C -
Tileset use: C+
Eyecandy look: D
Creativity: C
Bugs: D
PLACEMENT: C
Weapons: C
THE FINAL GRADE: C -
THE FINAL RATING: 4.5
+ PROS: Does show effort, and the author did use his own tileset.
- CONS: Major masking issues. Not good gameplay. Too short.
- Trafton