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Old 05-10-17, 02:42   #18
Tulilintu
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I didn't read all the posts so far because I don't want them to affect my personal opinions too much, so I write what comes to mind first. Some of these may have been mentioned many times already - anyhow, the more something gets repeated the more likely it has an affect on the builders' intentions in the future.

I am a player and I've never built anything, so I concentrate on the levels from the player's perspective. Meaning I don't put too much focus on technical problems like graphical errors or problems with Lara's movements, but how the level is as a playable game instead.

Like:

- Intelligent puzzles that force the player to think for themselves. Every now and then a real brain racking is enjoyable too, but it's good to remember that too much is too much: if there are very difficult puzzles one after the another, it spoils the actual fun. For example, Richard Lawther is an excellent level builder, but in his early levels (like Ocean Moon) the puzzles were always so difficult that I honestly ended up quitting the levels after a few and never got back to them. All of us TR players love to investigate and get eventually stuck for a while, but if you're constantly feeling you're stuck and the level doesn't feel to evolve, at least I tend to quit quite easily.

- When it's obvious that the game was built with a huge passion. There are lots of great builders (teme9, Richard Lawther, l.m., Titak, vinraider, Clara, masha, Sponge, Max etc.) whose levels just scream the love for classic Tomb Raiders. The level might not be perfect in every possible way but it's clear that the builder has gotten what Tomb Raider is all about. I love seeing pure devotion.

- Clever traps. It's nice if the traps really make you jumpscare. For example, Titak uses suddenly falling rocks that work very well in that matter. One other Titak's trap that I absolutely loved was the spider attack in MoA. It's nice if the trap can be avoided by seeing some signs of its existence, but every now and then I think it's totally acceptable to just make Lara die without player having no clue of it. Also, the jumpscares don't necessarily have to be anything huge and prominent. For example, in TR3's Aldwych a shortly barking dog jumping at Lara from behind is a very effective jumpscare trick.

- City environments. Coastal as well. Also, there are very many cute and lovable Easter and Christmas levels, which I tend to repeat every Easter/Christmas. No Xmas Without a Tree by l.m. is one of my all time favorites of that kind.

- Acrobatics. I love puzzles and routes where Lara has to use sideways jumps, swing in poles and make long jumps etc.

- Jokes or "intertextual" hints to other TR games. The feeling of recognition is a heartwarming experience, it's like a silent, satisfying understanding between a builder and the whole TR community.


Hate:

- A definite number one: Long pushing sequences. I hate having to push blocks or pushables around endlessly and every time I see the next section is about a lot of pushing I scream inside my head. If the puzzle's small enough it doesn't yet get annoying, but anything such as the planet pushing puzzle in The Lost Library in TLR is an absolute annoyance for me.

- Too long crawling sections. This was helped a LOT when the crawling roll animation was developed and the crawling got notably faster, but if that move isn't included in a level, I hate to crawl long distances because it's just so damn SLOW.

- Too dark levels with too little flares. I never use cheat codes when first playing a level, so it's very irritating when you run out of flares too soon. I usually just save in the beginning of a new area, use all my flares trying to figure out a way to go forward, and then reload and start with full flares again. That works pretty well, but still it's polite to provide a player more than 1-2 flarepacks in big and long parts that are very dark.

- Vehicles that get easily stuck. This is very annoying especially in levels that are otherwise very good, but you're supposed to use a vehicle many times and it gets stuck in every object and fence that comes along. One example of this is the motorbike in Secret Agent. I really hated to use the motorbike in it and there was a LOT of driving around on it.

- Tight timed runs. I like timed runs in general, but it's unbelievably annoying if you have to do many tricky jumps etc. after pulling a lever and you end up failing dozens of times.

- Too long flybies or flybies that seem to have no apparent point. I like to see an overview of a certain area, but if it's like two minutes of showing around all the possible little cracks and items, it's just a waste of time. Also, if the area is huge and there are millions of doors and there's no a flyby to show which one was opened, it's sometimes a bit tiring to look for the same place over and over again.

- Having to backtrack a lot. There's a level in which this was a real problem: Richard Lawther's Shalebridge Murder Mystery. I really loved the level as a whole, though, and I've played it twice, but for a player that doesn't use walkthrough, playing that level ends up to be a nightmare. Even if you knew the level route by heart or played it with using the walkthrough on every step, there's still a huge amount of backtracking, and playing with no hints from outside multiplies it exponentially.

- When the level clearly hasn't been betatested properly. For example: a) falling down to a deep pit where Lara can't get out of b) noticing you're supposed to commit suicide or c) getting permanently stuck in illegal ledges repeatedly makes the level instantly feel badly designed.

- When the pistol ammo is limited. I get the point of it as a feeling of survival or something, but still I like to know, while playing, that if I really run out of pickable ammo, the pistols can always be trusted.

- Underwater mazes, especially if they're exhaustingly long. Please, try to avoid them.


There would be SO much more, but the post is quite long already, so I might get back on this later on.

Last edited by Tulilintu; 28-10-17 at 13:54.
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