[RELEASED] Collapsing Cosmos : The Silver Key

[WALP]

Review of Collapsing Cosmos: The Silver Key
by The Mug

(WARNING: CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS)

Enjoyed the mod greatly, story got me engaged quickly, and though it was quite a simple one when you think about it, I find that it was well told at least when it comes to notes writing, pacing and also environment.

The mod was abselutely gorgeous, especially when it came to lighting, and layouts were often quite interesting. The Other world/dimension/etc maps were also very well made even if you had to improvise a lot with limitations, especially in texture stretching.

I liked very much that the suitor was not just there, but that he was tied into the story, and that soon after the first encounter I thought of him as Andrew(not just an evil thing), and had a little sympathy for him.

The mod overall was light on scares and fear, and did neither feel like it was supposed to be so, so it was fitting. Still there were some pretty tense moments with Andrew and also later when listening to his background cries in the mansion, and sneaking around him in the beautifully reflecting Cistern Water.


This week I looked down, Next week's episode I fall down....Just kidding! It took me only seconds before my bones were crushed and eaten by the breathing tongues of the seemingly green infinite deeps.

Sound went quite good as well, seemed you had some randomized/dynamic elements to them in the mansion and of course the cries were good. When the cries have a source(Andrew) it's called story, I like that. Some levels in the other worlds seemed to lack a bit of that environment ambient sounds as far as I remember though, and things very much went quiet when the clearly from Incompetech soundtracks( that also fitted the mod quite well) stopped playing.

The one aspect of the mod though that I found lacking( and quite an important one) was the puzzles. It seemed as if that they had first been designed and added without much thought of difficulty and player perspective, and that realizing later how hard they were, you simply decided to add some mementos of very ridiculous hand holding, that would give very specific information on a whim and tell you exactly what to do. It's not that I am against making the mod easy and allowing flow in the playthrough, or even hand holding. But rather it is the feeling itself, and displaying it to the player, that I am against. Isolated as puzzles on their own, I did not see them as being anything interesting or particularly unique, rather just filler to make the mod properly paced.

The Boss battle at the end was a brilliant idea, with the damage and smoke from the ground(and quite epic). But it felt untested and was difficult and unforgiving, especially with the red one haunting you down, so I died many many times during this event. The ending(post boss battle) was fine, but I feel it could have been better than having the protagonist tell us something we already know in an ending fitting sence.

Overall Rating: 8.44 out of 10.00

Feedback / Suggestions:

-Before jumping into map editting, put more time into planning the puzzles. Try to make them either Engaging or clever and manageable. If you can, try and see if you can somehow make them tie into the story as well, even if just in faint ways.

-The boss fight should either have difficulty turned down overall, or you could follow a more specific suggestion of mine. Beating the boss now relies on dying 1-2 at least to fully grasp whats going on, I suggest having at least the first few attacks from the ground hit you weakly(like 5 health?) so the player understands the siteration. Also I suggest that, Red attacker, ground attacks and finding the Crystal thing should not be all at once. Maybe have the player avoid for some time, and when the silver key boss needs a little breakie have him go and get the crystal then, while avoiding the red one.

Other:

-I think jumping around in the green lit city may be a bit tough at some jumps for less experienced players. As a modder I broke quite a lot of bones. A lot of structures in the city also hint at being jumpable causing a little confusion for me, but eventually I noticed the key in my inventory.

-I liked going back examining the violin, and this time knowing who this Andrew was, and that was a nice piece of environmental storytelling. So many times in mods things can be examined only for useless information with no connection to progression or story whatsoever.

-Look over your .lang again, use lang tool if you dont have it already. There are some spelling mistakes like Crystal becoming Cristal, and a few more.

-Regardless of how easy install is, or if it is written on the moddb page, instructions should ALWAYS be included with a download.( not saying I had any issues but, it is a golden rule mate. The internet has many people who won't recognize difference between CS or mod, or know where to place either them in their game folder.)

-Were the invisible walls in the river place really neccessary? could you not at least have moved them a little off so you dont bump into them that easily?

-Water fall was cool

-Skulls were cool

-Room upstairs with curtains were you need to climb down into library was cool.

-A crystal bugged into the ground for me and I had to reload, I suggest you make this reset location on death so people wont have to do that because were not all devs with f1 enabled.

-The slime you placed in the green deep was cool idea.

-Like your mod this review was not properly spell checked.