Hm yeah, I admit level 3 is probs the weakest and I should have designed it a lot better. In hindsight I would have probs have made it linear with a checkpoint halfway through the level due to its length. As the level designer I found it to be the hardest stage, but I wasn't exactly sure why. Your comment made me realize why it was hard- it feels more artificially than naturally difficult if I design stages to puzzle platformers in the future akin to this I will take this into consideration.
I'm not sure what you mean for 4 though, can you elaborate on it?
Viewing post in Mail Menace jam comments
Yeah for sure! I don't think the fourth level was actually harder objectively than the third level. I actually didn't have a big problem with levels being difficult, but rather them being tedious. On the third level, I'd spend quite a fair amount of time figuring out the puzzles (which were great!) and that had that nice sense of difficulty and problem solving. What made the level make me groan and want to close my tab was when I caught a stray fireball because I messed up a jump slightly. The same principle is what made me a bit offput to level 4 too. I actually got through first try, but the stress of trying to maintain my health so I wouldn't have to do everything over again as I was solving the puzzles took away from the puzzle solving experience to me.
But I don't think the death mechanic was all bad, not after seeing the boss level. Since the boss level had an air of "you can die here" and the puzzles themselves didn't take too long to do again and actually emphasized more the mechanics of movement rather than a long Rube Gobert sequence of steps, it made the action more enjoyable!