Level Design
My good friend Dylan forced my hand early this year by him playing King’s Field 2. I had writen on my pledge list, “a King’s Field.” So I played the second one.
The level design is unbeatable. I kept finding new layers to the opening shore 10 hours into the game. I would exclaim, “How did I miss that?” It would have made my first 10 hours much easier. I had long before gotten out the graph paper and started sketching out the levels.
King’s Field 2 is the greatest level design.
This wasn’t because I got lost, at least not like you think. The environments are distinct. But the game is like a dream. I would pause the game to talk to Lady Rude. I would return to the game 2 minutes later and have no clue where I was or where I had been going. The island was taking my memory.
The island has tons of shortcuts and alternate paths that would make From Software famous in games called “Souls.” It even locks progress behind a single NPC you’re likely to encounter naturally only once.
Having immersed myself so fully in that level design masterpiece I followed it up with an astounding Mario 64 romhack called B3313. B3313 is a near-endless labyrinth of Mario 64. The levels contain variants of the levels contain variants of the levels. It also plays like a dream, a phantom. You enter a room, to find yourself in the same room. You enter the first world of Mario 64 and it is the first world but off. There are hundreds of areas in this game. You travel deeper and deeper. You can get 600+ Stars.
For people that grew up on Mario 64, that era of early 3D, it captures the feeling of anything is possible. It made me feel like a child again. I was given a playground. Constantly rewarded for going out of bounds with even more doors and worlds.
B3313 is infinitely more Mario 64
Twice I had to restart the game because I flipped a switch that randomized all the flags in the save. I didn’t care. Or I loved it. It felt like frustration to lose my 40 Stars. The more I dug into the game the more I felt trying to find an endstate was a mistake. I was in endless Mario 64 and the reward was pure exploration, not the stars.
Somewhere between these two games I played Sonic Galactic Demo. Which is a 2 Stage, 4 Act 2D Sonic fangame with Great Level Design. I think in every essay on this website, I am compelled to write “Sonic Level Design is the hardest thing you can do in games.” Well I said it again. The Acts took 9 minutes to complete, and I loved every second of it. There are two different excellent bonus stages. The bosses are fun and challenging. Just this little sample is maybe the consistently best Sonic The Hedgehog there has ever been. I’m terrified and thrilled at the idea of more of it.
2025 gave me plenty of Level Design to chew on. More than that I have returned to each of these and loved them again later. Its one thing to like a game the first time, but to truly enjoy it almost immediately again. That’s special.
NEXT: A smell that won’t leave your DS or your memories.
Hinge Problems 
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