The Tree of Knowledge [challenge/normal/large]

I loved the way the stone creatures came alive, and how well you turned the area from a maze to a challenge, guiding me round the challenge area so well as to completely remove the maze-iness. The challenges were maybe a little tame for my tastes and I hope the difficulty will be higher in other areas, but I understand if you want to keep this at easy difficulty. The final boss was a little disappointing; you built up the tension but actually it was really easy; none of the phases posed any challenge and the last two parts which were just dodging one bouncer - dull. Pretty disappointing after some of the clever ways you used enemies in the dungeon.

But all in all, I like it. I might suggest you consider giving and taking the map upgrade away in other dungeons, particularly if they get bigger, to make it like a dungeon map in Zelda - or maybe having the map drawn on the wall in one of the first chambers so if you're really lost you can go back there for a hint. And, also like Zelda, look at shapes you can make the dungeon. This one was just a rectangle but maybe one dungeon layout could be in the shape of a skull, or put a dungeon in a pyramid and make it pyramid-shaped. Just ideas, but hopefully food for thought.

So yeah, graphically brilliant. Tactically brilliant. Difficulty... disappointing - especially the boss. I'd definitely look at how you can put thought into the layout of the map - it's a little thing but it adds a surprising amount. Still, it was fun. And I think it'd be even more fun in the context of the full level, with the momentum of the plot pushing you on.

Thanks to those who have given feedback so far. Some of you found the boss fight too easy. It's supposed to be the easiest fight in a normal difficulty game, so it should feel right as part of the complete level. Getting the look and feel of a boss fight in KS was the main goal there.

I was mostly concerned about the maze portion. My design options were severely limited due to only having the run-power. Did you run around lost for too long? Did you get hung-up on the sloped screen transitions? Also, were any of the jumps, especially in the challenge portion, above an easy/normal difficulty?

I agree there needs to be more decoration. I'll see what I can squeeze in in the way of clay pots and color. Both tilesets are pretty much full.

I have been unsure about shaping the temples as Talps suggests. This one at least, I wanted to be a simple geometric shape, but I'm not sure if it adds any benefit. I may do this. If I can make it fit in a rectangle I should be able to make it any shape I want.