- On Subweapons: my comment is based that I kept running out of subweapon uses in the late game.
- Rope section: I maintain that it’s too much. This is going to become “that section” for many players. Maybe it’s because this is basically the only place with ropes beyond the first use. And it’s weird that your reward for intuiting that there’s a secret passage behind that waterfall (risking losing a life to try it) is the most frustrating sequence I saw in the game. I observe that the difficulty is caused by the fact your arc coming off a rope is mostly downward. It just seems fiddly and too precise. I like that bats come after you during it though! Maybe make the rope jumps easier, but make the bats slightly more common, or adding the occasional platform to land on?
- Cheap shot: While I fell for it multiple times, I kind of like it? This isn’t supposed to be Ducktales after all, and finding good ways to challenge the player is, itself, a challenge. I think all it needs is a memory aid.
- What you call the Death Hallway in CV1 is one of my favorite parts of that game! I’ve played through it many times, and it’s one of the few places that challenges me any more. And the mixture of the demonesses and the fire-dropping eyeballs is a good changeup from the axe knight/medusa heads of CV1. I still think there should be a little more of a tell (just a few frames) for the heights of the fireballs though. If there was that, it would make the enemy much fairer, and that in turn would make the hallway better.
- The Bone Pillar thing isn’t really huge, since I expected to lose a life after getting knocked down there anyway.
- On the Castle, I was talking about the level checkpoint. The Castle could stand to be split into two levels maybe, although then maybe each of them would be a little light. It feels like one-and-a-half levels in length.
On wrestling with the engine, I had a situation like that with Gamemaker long ago. You’ve done so much with it to get to this point, it seems a real shame to throw away all that work. Maybe you could figure out what broke the game? I’d offer to help, but it’s been so long since I worked with Gamemaker I don’t know how much help I would be. Maybe I could still do something though?