I just finished checking it out and I must say it's quite impressive! I still have to test/play the rest of the maps in the contest before I vote but thought I would include my notes from playing it and the result of my three attempts encase any of it is useful. Oh yea, I don't know if maybe it's just not done yet but I went everywhere in that town and couldn't fiond anyone to make the thing work after killing the golem. I did look in the editor after beating the game and noticed a high templar I was never able to access even though I went on the location to talk to him (The Sage). Or maybe it was the ghost ship captain who I missed talking too? Anyway, I played lostsoulsv0.5 version. Here is my log:
Good map preview text, nice colors on the wait screen. Good Briefing. Introduction was nice...though some of the waits felt a little too long. Good bridges, nice terrain design, a story everywhere you go, side quests fun, leveling up, a bit of a challenge surviving initially but gets easier. Revive system with the statutes...brillant! Underwater feel great, unit names for the most part good. Soul collection and Soul "points" systems good with gateway to manage system. Death penalty while waiting to revive far but not too restrictive. Boss fights, no turning back good challenge. Loved the wall, use of cloaked buildings for affects was good. Green circles for people that gave quests nice to speed up deciding who to talk to. Haunted ship system was nice. World felt large and open. First boss fight was great way to start off, took a bit to learn how to beat it (just the first time, after it we beat it really fast). Music used that changes depending on the area your in and an option is included to turn music off as well. Very good in-game tutorial system.
Attempt #1: About 1 hour, 4 players, two left (one had to sleep, another one got bored). Myself and the remaining player died taking on the 2nd boss/Robot Goliath (We both entered with low HP).
Attempt #2: About 15 minutes, 4 players, one had to go, another left, and another said it was too complicated and left right after I died. We beat the first boss but never made it far past the first town.
Attempt #3: About 2 hours, 4 players, two got confused and left before the second boss. Other one loved it and we went far (in 1100-1200 exp range) and beat all 3 bosses reaching the end. Weapons thing nobody would tell us about in town (not coded yet?). Same with the thing from the goliath we killed.
This was playing on battle.net with random players so not bad :-). The 3rd boss battle was very epic, awesome music and fight, definitely the best part of the game, though I also enjoyed the ghost ship and running around on it (even with the slight waiting) and that hidden spot you can find from the Ghost ship
. Side quests were also very nice I thought.
None.