Single player, by 
You have to appreciate a level that knows exactly what it wants to do, and then does it. Lori Fortress has you climbing up from the bottom of the level to the top, sometimes on thin platforms and sometimes in tight caves, optionally collecting a bunch of gems, but mostly dodging the bullets of enemy Loris who move in predictable patterns. That’s it. You couldn’t build an incredibly long level on this formula but it sure works at this length.
I do appreciate that Primpy has followed my lead in how to make a level: grab a bunch of art and/or gameplay mechanics from a totally different video game, stick them into JJ2, and call it art. And as long as something within those grabbed details is somewhat related to a contest theme, that counts. Here, charged with making something Lori-related, Primpy has placed a bunch of enemies using Lori graphics, because Cave Story(+) had a level where you fight some enemies based on its own blonde girl character. You play as Lori too, for extra measure… there are blink-and-you-miss-it dead bodies of Jazz and Spaz at the start of the level, which is kind of morbid, but hey they’re video game characters: they die all the dang time.
Although the level art is ripped directly from Cave Story(+) (and very cleanly done), and the boss behaves somewhat similarly, the level layout is thankfully all original. Gone is the (more memorable) initial part of Wind Fortress, where you try to navigate the bottom of the floating island using brief boost charges, which is very hard as a tiny robot but would probably be very easy as a copter-eared rabbit. Instead you’re climbing and dodging. The level goes back and forth between multilinear bits and bottlenecks, most notably toward the end when you have to find a trigger crate. The actual area with the trigger crate itself is very well done, a tiny loop that avoids excess backtracking and also clearly shows you what trigger crates do (open doors that look just like this). If you’re trying to explore to collect 100 gems you may get a little turned around, sometimes falling down and having to retrace some steps, but if you’re just focused on heading upwards at all times, you should have no trouble navigating.
The Lori enemies originated in my level “Fooball Field,” where they were but one obstacle among many, sparsely placed and usually quite easy to shoot without getting shot by. Here they become of a main event and, appropriately, are much harder to deal with, though rarely in a way that feels unfair. Lori’s kick becomes a good tool against the walking enemies to quickly take them down before they can turn around again. Bullet trajectories are more likely to get in your way instead of being warnings that you maybe shouldn’t go somewhere until killing the enemy. The ammo types provided are also well chosen, including ice: if you can freeze an enemy, the next hit does just enough damage to kill it outright. The boss is kind of a letdown, most of its difficulty coming from enemies sometimes being drawn behind it instead of in front of it, but hey, bosses are hard to make.
This is a level that cares a lot about (a very specific flavor of) gameplay and executes it well, with bonus Lori theming, and eyecandy that never gets in the way. Some of the gem locations are maybe a little too out of the way, but the gem system is entirely optional, so whatever. Nicely done.
