The Mine — feedback wanted

Didn't seem like excessive enemies to me. not sure how many you were aiming for so dont know if i got "Way more" or what you intended.

Liked the map well laid out etc. my comments would be 20 objects hidden in a map that size I could look all day and not find them all LOL. I stopped looking after about 8 or 10. If i were you I'd bunch them closer and use the rest of that map to keep telling more story. (or maybe there is more story but i got tired of looking for the keys)

Also try to theme some of the terrain - especially in the caves so its not all the default green grass/grey rock. you could even theme areas which would help the player remember if they looked there or had been there or not. Or use a sky changer to make it darker when player enters caves etc.

I did like the layout as I said however.

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

So, the enemies, I had this occasional glitch where I'd set an enemy wave to spit out 12 enemies of different classes, but they'd just keep coming. Sometimes they'd stop, others they keep coming for as long as I kept killing them. It wasn't bad, just that I knew something wasn't right but couldn't work out why. It also meant that while that glitchy wave was flooding, none of the other waves I'd set up would fire…

The 20 keys, yes, I'd wondered about making the target lower but keep the same number of keys floating around. It's good to have that thought reinforced.

Themeing, I'd planned to do more, but didn't want to go too far if I was making a bunch of fundamental mistakes in the general construction. Knowing that the map is sound, I'll definitely spend more time refining the detail. It's just so time consuming! I'd had the same sky-changer idea, I don't know off the top of my head what sky options I've unlocked at this point.

In terms of that story, I've got a bit of an episodic structure in mind. One of the gates at the rear of the map opens once you've found all the keys and hints at an underground bunker level beyond - but that doesn't exist yet. I'll definitely think about adding more narrative building towards the end of this level though.

I'm curious, did you find the entry to the caves tucked away behind the cottage?

Thanks again for the feedback. I really value it

i did find it, but only after i had already aborted the challenge. flew under the level and saw there must be a way down from cottage side so went back and saw it. - from a play stand point, at the onset i was a little confused if i was supposed to find the 20 keys by the cottage before heading for the mines - but not seeing many keys there, i just started wandering aimlessly.

Yeh, fair point. Do you think that's a lack of instruction thing?

Hey Plumb, glad to see you got the mine up and running!

As jkhouw1 pointed out, a little more instruction/hint at the beginning would be helpful. For example if most of the keys were in the mine, have a camera pan over to one or two of the keys in the mine. Giving the player a subtle nudge in the right direction. Maybe even have a timer set so that after a certain amount of time a few more clues could be dropped. Say if after 10mins the player hasn't gotten all the keys yet, through up a few more hints, like pan the camera to the lava area. Speaking of which...

The lava zone was my favorite part. Actually the whole overall design was good, but something about that lava area really clicked. I think the enemy selection was spot on. However I would have themed the area more. Something simple as changing skys from something dark to the light when exiting the cave adds to the experience.

A nice big map like that made it hard to find all the keys. 20 was just too much, so I tag teamed with my daughter to find them all. I gave up after 10 and she found the rest.

You certainly have an eye for level design, as placement for the items seemed spot on. Subtle things like the not quite complete road in the mine was a nice touch. Great for your first submission.

Thanks for the input, really apreciate it

Hints: I haven't played with cameras yet, so I'll definitely have a look at that. I can imagine pointing to 3 keys, one on the surface, one in the mine and one in the lava pit. That should hint that there's a lot going on in the map. The time-delayed prompts could work really well too.

Sky: I'd actually had that idea. It occurred to me that doing that would break as soon as you have multiple players in though. Is there a way to work around that?

Themeing generally: Yeh, I got a bit ahead of myself in that I played out the blocks before I'd fully understood the styling tools. As a result, everything was created with the default fairytale theme. I'm slowly working my way around the map theming block by block. Painful! I've learnt that lesson now though

Ultimately, I wanted to double check whether my first project was worth the effort in rethemeing it all - the feedback here has confirmed that for me, so there'll definitely be an update, and I'll continue with my ideas for the second episode.

Keys: I started with 10, but that felt a bit light, I totally take on board the feedback that 20 is too much. I'd wondered about leaving the 20 in place but making the target something lower, like 15? That way, you don't have to find them all, but you do need to have explored all the areas. Does that make sense?

Thanks again for the feedback, feeling encouraged