I’m reluctant to do this, but seeing how hideously overrated this level is, I felt like I had to do it. That’s the only reason why I’m reviewing this.
Chilly Swamps is a very small battle level created by now inactive Arti (aka Camou), using the (very overused and kinda boring) Swamps tileset by Agama. Due to the small size, this level feels too crowded with any more than 2 players, so in public servers this would be very annoying to play in. The layout has a “floors of height” design, meaning there are platforms in rows on different levels of the Y axis. This layout is not too interesting, however there are no serious gameplay problems here. It’d be better if the level was larger and had a more varied design. The flow was rather tilty; I had to constantly run and stop, turn around, run and stop, etc. In other words, the level does not flow smoothly like a good level like E.Prime. I also feel the water at the bottom was unnecessary.
Placement is not great. The ammo is not evenly spread; some areas of the level have a lot of ammo while others have barely any. The top left in particular has about twice as much ammo as the rest of the level put together. It’s mainly placed in lines of around 5 or so. Although I prefer large groups, seeing how small the level is this doesn’t really raise much of an issue. There are 3 powers up, the common Bouncer/Seeker/RF mix. Due to the level design, Bouncer will probably favour over the other two. There are two carrots, which are placed ok.
Nothing really much to say in the looks department, for it looks exactly like the usual bunch of swamps. The author did not try to attempt anything creative with the set aside from the weird floating branch platforms, but yet they look ugly and out of place. The only saving grace was the music choice, giving this level a peaceful and enjoyable atomsphere.
In general, I wouldn’t reccomend this level, as it has nothing here that makes it worth playing over other levels already existing.