Hey, I was going to post this as a comment in the description, but it was too long, so I've opted to post it here.



Alright, I've played through all the levels released so far, here are my impressions. Firstly, your levels are excellently built, with natural looking decoration and interesting locations (the one set on the boat comes to mind).

However, most of the goodwill I have towards your levels is washed away by the spawning enemies. I understand that they're intended to test reaction time, which is fine to an extent, but having a Sergeant spawn right where you're standing is an unavoidable ticket back to the start of the level. One particularly malicious enemy spawn was the Bully that spawns in Documents, the spawn delayed exactly so that he appears behind you when you go to lockpick the door. It's cheap and can't be countered without first dying to it.

My suggestion is this: wherever an enemy is going to spawn in, place one of those background doors behind them. This gives an explanation for where they're coming from (they're going through the door), and gives a clear sign as to where they're going to be. Now, a player will know that AN enemy will spawn, but not WHICH enemy. This still allows for tests in reaction time while eliminating the inability to plan for the attack.

Another suggestion I have is to explain some of the level's gimmicks through cutscenes. Some people don't read the level descriptions, so for levels like Documents, a note on the wall that says "NO LIGHTS" and nothing else would give a sufficient hint to the player about countering the invisible mines.

Another criticism I have are the traps that sometimes crop up. For example, the explosive valves in Push It. There's no indication that the valves are traps (like the drawn circles in Timur's level, for example) and the first one that explodes is pretty far into the level. This means the player is forced to repeat the first section of the level through no fault of their own - how were they supposed to know NOT to activate the valves? There's a valve that's not trapped earlier in the level. If you're going to have these traps in the level, either give some indication that they're a trap, or put one very early in the level and keep them consistant (e.g. the valves that explode. Make ALL valves cause explosions, so it's not a guessing game as to which one's trapped and which one's not).

Regarding the valve traps, I'm not sure whether or not there was a visible grenade or not. I tried shooting a shotgun in the valve's direction and nothing hit, and the dark grey background coupled with the lack of light in the room meant that I couldn't see if there was a grenade hanging there or not. There wasn't a wire activated, however, so I'm assuming that the grenades were spawned in instead of being there already.

Anyway, thanks for reading these. I hope some of these suggestions have helped. I'm fairly certain I'd really like your levels if I didn't have to replay the same sections over and over because a melee enemy spawned right where I was standing or more enemies spawn than I have ammo. I look forward to the rest of the entries in this series - the idea that the Candles are evil is an interesting idea, so I'm intrigued to see where if goes next.