Looks a hell of a lot better than i imagined from the descriptions
Damn Exit
Treasure hunt, by FireSworD,
requires version 1.23 with JJ2+
Description
My entry to Treylina’s “PRECIOUS BOOTY” treasure level making contest.
You’re not supposed to exit damnation, hence the word damn referring to something illegal. You need to pay a “bond” in gems to exit, which I recommend is set to at least 150 gems for games of 4-6 players.
I added one secret, and that’s all I’ll say. :)
Credits & Acknowledgements
Level: ME. Tileset: The edit is by myself, but the graphics were (mostly?) drawn by Epic. Music: "Void Dwellers" by Necros. Much thanks to Sir E for writing the script; The concepts are mine, but the execution of the "vortex" and the earthquakes were done by him. Thanks to all of my testers: Treylina, PurpleJazz, Sir E, Rag and anyone else I haven't mentioned.
Contains 4 Files
 DE.j2l |
Damn Exit | 15.34 kB |
 Damn Exit.j2t |
Damn Exit | 172.37 kB |
 DE.j2as |
9.58 kB | |
 iron seed - void dwellers.mo3 |
177.05 kB |
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Reviews and comments
Ragnarok! 6 Dec 2014, 23:29
Stijn 5 Jan 2015, 01:32 (edited 5 Jan 15, 01:33)
8
This level is easily recognizable as made by FireSword: lavish eyecandy, heavy on the conceptual side and with some interesting scripted effects. I found that it played fairly well, with a lot of fighting occuring in the lower corridors. On the one hand this was great, but due to the flatness of the level’s bottom area it was also easy for everyone to just run back and forth shooting with their blaster with no one really getting the chance to grab the dropped gems because everyone was constantly blinking.
There’s plenty of room to move around the rest of the level though, so if the fighting at the bottom gets too intense it’s always possible to roam around looking for potshots and gems people haven’t taken yet. There’s a fair amount of gems in the level and there’s a lot of useful ammo in the upper parts of the level as well which keeps things dynamic. The ammo selection is standard but seekers are relatively sparse but also really useful in the vertical parts of the level which makes them all the more desirable.
The level-ending warp is through a scripted portal in the middle of the level that looks rather spectacular, and puts you in a separate area where not much happens if you don’t have enough gems – in which case you just jump down back into the fight. The portal looks great and somehow even attracts players when they don’t have enough gems. The rest of the level is heavily decorated as well and makes ample use of Castle’s slides, which didn’t look that great, in my opinion; a matter of taste maybe, but I didn’t care much for it. There’s a couple of other areas which looked like tilebugs but might have been meant to look like that, knowing FireSword’s style. I guess I prefer a less experimental style.
Finally, the secret mentioned in the description involves walljumping for a bonus of 100 gems. I think it’s a really bad idea, games where people know of the secret will become “who will get there first” races instead of actual treasure hunts. Secrets are cool, but this one is a bit too big.
It’s things like that – the imbalanced secret, the somewhat-too-avant-garde eyecandy – that don’t really endear me to the level. It’s not bad by any means and will make for good games – and it has that spectacular portal – but there are better levels out there, and in this contest.
Slaz 13 Dec 2014, 23:03 (edited 13 Dec 14, 23:08)
9
Before reading further, please note that I drank a bit too much beer while playing this level and feel quite tired writing this review, but I’ll try anyway. Hope I won’t regret this tomorrow. :P
The base setup of this level is a fancy scripted warp around the center that takes players to the upper part where the exit is. If they haven’t got enough gems they can simple enter the battlefield again by falling back into the pit.
The first thing noticable is the customized tileset, which is basically a combination of the original JJ2 tilesets Damn and Castle. The layout makes a lot of use of the abandoned ‘slide’ tiles that were in the Castle set by making clever use of One-Way events. A lot of the level’s layout resides around towers that players can climb by jumping through the One-Way blocks. Overall I really liked this yet the one-tile gaps that you can get ‘run-stuck’ in felt weird at times (it’s not that you actually get stuck, I don’t know how you call that effect, lol).
Weapons placed are the usual bouncers, toasters, RF, and seekers. I like how the seekers are mostly placed on harder to reach spots, since all those One-Way blocks and the vertical orientation of the layout makes seekers far more powerful. Gem placement is done very balanced and I like the placement of the non-red gems and the gem rings (and of course the invisible gem stomp!).
In my public game, most fights took place around the center and the exit, probably because it were mainly random strangers that felt attracted to the scripted portal and were quite slow moving through the various towers.. At least their seekers gave quite a fight. Matches usually ended pretty fast, but I’m sure more skilled players who know the level can make good use of the RF’s and bouncers as well to steal those gems!
I recommend this download, and just as Laro’s entry I believe it’s worth a solid 9. The tower layout doesn’t demonstrate perfection, or at least I think it doesn’t, yet it plays like nothing that has been done before in a treasure hunt level. Originality and overall fun-factor are the true showpiece here!
Whew, that was quite a speech. I’m going to sleep out the alcohol now hehe. ;)
Seren 8 Sep 2015, 12:32
9
This level is very enjoyable, especially in the collecting phase. Gems are placed almost perfectly, quite time-consuming to obtain, letting every player get a few, and there are many green and blue ones, making the effort feel like it paid off. Unfortunately the layout and ammo placement are less suitable for fights. Also, excellent atmosphere.
