Reference to this level: https://megamaker.webmeka.io/level-data.php?id=304833

Competitor Level's: https://megamaker.webmeka.io/level-data.php?id=535049

My submission for a private challenge, titled the Lonely Lackey Challenge, where I was challenged to create a level using only one type of enemy!
Going into the challenge, I knew exactly what I wanted to make, since I knew a level which was made for a very similar challenge, and decided to make my submission as a sort of sequel to it. title was so long i had to text edit it lol

That's also kind of why I didn't really use many assets beyond the original 6 NES games, because the original level was made in like, 1.4, so I tried to get the asethetics to have the same feel as a 1.4 level. I hope I succeeded!

Due to the restrictions of the challenge, I quickly realized that if I wanted to keep the player's attention, I'd need dozens of gimmicks, and boy, dozens of gimmicks indeed... Needle presses, crash lifts, push blocks, one-ways, force beams-- you can tell I had to get real creative here to keep things interesting... for better or for worse.

Near the end, there's some really tight force beam timers, which I only realized were really poorly timed after upload. There's also the alternate skull barrier path, which is absolutely brutal, but gives a really good shortcut and an e-tank at the end... but I didn't properly convey it was optional, so most people who went through it got confused. There's also no checkpoint at the end, which was extra punishing.

On top of all of that, people also got pretty confused at the climax... there's some tight dodges there, and a lot of people died to the spike ceiling there, which I tried my hardest to convey wasn't safe. Wasn't good enough, sadly...

That aside, though, I still believe it's pretty solid overall, and was the last level I uploaded to my profile until very recently!