Re: [Super-tux-devel] Tux Levels - The testing can begin!

[Matze B. <ma...@br...>]

Ok, I just played all the supertux maps in the worldmap once now. For most of
them I mention the number of lives I used to get through, but keep in mind that
I knew some of the maps quiete well (the 4 old maps, and all the older maps from
wansti) while others were new to me in their current form.
The game has become very nice. It'll be a very cool Milestone1 if we get all the
bugs fixed, that I mentioned at the end. Another nice thing would be a levelboss
for the Castle map, but I'm not sure if we have the time and/or a concept that
is easy enough to implement.

-Antarctica1: (lives used 1)
 * ok, but maybe too hard for the very first map...
-Antarctica2: (lives used 2)
-Antarctica3: (lives used 1)
-Antarctica4: (lives used 1)
-Antarctica5: (lives used 3) 
  * The iglu should be placed more to the end. It is possible to jump on the
    roof of the iglu, which looks silly
-Antarctica6: (lives used 1)
  * The grey thingies in the background are nice. In generall everything that
    touches up the monotonous background a bit is nice :)
-Antarctica7:
  The 3 Jumpies at the end are very hard to beat. We should have at
  least a reset point there. Better remove 1 or 2 of them so that you can get
  through in each case when you're still big.
-Antarctica8:
  * Seeems ok to me.
-Antarctica9:
  * The place with the 3 flying snowballs is very hard, but also an
    interesting chalenge. Just make sure you place a resetpoint right before it
    and soon after that place. Also take a look at the "Jumpy Problems"
    mentioned at the end of this text.
-Antarctica10: ok
-Above the arctic skies: The black background looks very strange, should be blue
 or even better some sky image. Badly needs a resetpoint before all these
 jumpies near the end
-Entrance to the cave: (Number of lives used: 12)
 * There's still a bug with the cavebackground, the parts at the left side
   disappear too early.
 * When using the secret and walking on top of teh 1st cave part, you typically
   fall down into a hole when you come down again.
 * After the 1st cave part, there's a place with a jumpy where the jump is very
   hard, you typically stop at the small tile before the wall and it is very
   hard to get back.
 * At the 2nd cave part 1 jump is extremely hard, because you easily dodge at
   the roof... Also it's nearly impossible to get through the jumpy there.
 * The end of the level should look like the end of a level :)
-The Cave1: ok (lives used: 7)
-The Cave2: (lives used: 13)
 * At the beginning there are 2 jumpies with a hole between them.
   Nearly impossible to get through. (Might still be ok, since there's
   a growup right before that place). See "jumpy problems" at the end.
   A similar place occurs later in the level
-The Cave3: (lives used: 1)
 * ok, maybe this should be renamed to "Cave 1" since it seems alot easier to me
   than Cave 1,2
-The Cave4: (lives used: 1)
 * at once place there's a jumpy right before you have to jump to a higher
 * platform. In general these are hard jumps. Maybe place a growup before that
   place to make it more fair...
-The Cave5: (lives used: 10)
 * Hard but fair map
-The Cave6: (lives used: ?)
 * It seems you start in a wall, and are dead before the map even starts.
   At this place I cheated to get to the next map :)
-A path in the clouds: (lives used: 6)
 * Still my favourite in leveldesign because of nice usage of
   foreground/background layers
 * At the first place where a block is hidden in a cloud, you easily bump
   against that block and fall down into the hole. Would be alot nicer if the
   ground below this block would be extended.
 * In the cave part the roof is very low (when you don't used the path in the
   clouds...)
-No more Mr. Iceguy (lives used: 3)
 * hard but fair and short level.
 * It even contains a dopefish, we're very cool now :)
-The escape (lives used: 5)
 * Very nice effect at the beginning of the map
-The scattered bridge (lives used: 3)
 * nice map
-Arctic Ruins (lives used: 15)
 * the growup could be placed a little earlier
 * hard but fair. That's how maps near the end of a world should be.
-The Castle of Nolok (lives used: 5)
 * why did you redesign the place with the 3 flames. I found it alot more
   interesting in the older versions (though it also was harder and suffered a
   bit from the enemy activation problem like the jumpies)
 * very nice map, if we just had a boss at the end... ;-)
-Level 25, 26 are mentioned in the worldmap but don't exist

Bugs:
* Sometimes you die when you've been in pause mode and unpaus
* At the beginning and end of the worldmap it's possible to leave the way
* The explosion of mr.bomb is placed at the wrong point.
* often 2 or more enemies get stuck and just turn right/left all the time at the
  same spot.
* Sometimes it's possible to shoot bullets at a very high rate (1 bullet per
  frame or so...)
* Music in the worldmap doesn't loop
* Sometimes the game stops at the beginning of a map.
* The game nearly always crashs when you finished a map, go back to worldmap and
  want to start the next map
* Bumping enemies doesn't work anymore (jumping at a tile below them)

Problems:
* Jumpy Problems:
    1 general problem with enemies and esp. Jumpies is the way they get
    activated: They start to move as soon as they appear on the screen. The
    problem here is that this depends on how the player moves. Esp. in the map
    "Above the Arctic Skies" at the end you easily move forward to slowly, so
    that the jumpies get aligned in such a way that it is impossible to get
    through.
* It seems to me like the game is getting too easy if you have the ice-flower
  upgrade. In this case you just run around and simply shoot all enemies down.
  Maybe it shouldn't be possible to shoot spikies and jumpies... Or mrbombs
  should explode instead of falling down when shot.
* The first few levels should be even easier, so that beginners aren't
  frustrated from the start.