I'm finding it hard to assess because it assumes a familiarity with the setting that I don't have.
I appreciate distinguishing the monsters with boxed text.
I can't tell the difference in purpose behind the "underscore" bullets and the "dash" bullets, but don't find either to be particularly useful in distinguishing descriptive text from mechanics. Since the mechanics come first and are in bullet form, my brain wants to read the descriptive text as subordinate to the mechanics.
Hmm, looking closer at the "Huge Radiation Elemental" entry, you start with an underscored bullet, which should be your top level entry, but then you go to the boxed text, which is more prominent and is not obviously subordinate. Then you have paragraphs with no bullets, which look subordinate to the boxed text but not to the underscore text. Then more underscore text, which should be subordinate to the boxed text but is identical to the "header", which is also underscore text. Then you have dash text which looks like it should be subordinate to the underscore text, but I can't see a difference in the type of content.
TL;DR, I think you need to choose a format that makes it clear which text is modifying/subordinate to which text. I like it a lot better than all the colour coding and symbols, though. I note it is much clearer when it is just used for the wandering monster entries and is not part of a keyed entry.
On to page 6 now, the white space paragraph breaks make it
much easier to follow.
Both the images and the word choice for the Control Room make the whole thing seem very modern and antiseptic. Is that the image you are going for? If so, is it possible to get that imagery in a way that conveys its alienness to the PCs? I'm inferring that this is some sort of post-apocalyptical setting, and assuming that your average village in the setting is less modern in feel.
Page 8, and you have lost the paragraph breaks. Boo!
It's a pretty quick read!
Perhaps, but not so quick to comprehend. This is a really complicated space. It isn't really 7 levels, it's 8 pages to describe 1 room divided into 7 spaces. Outside of the formatting issues, it would take a fair amount of effort to digest this and comment on playability. I do feel like there has to be a way to make the areas more accessible for the DM, but I don't have a good enough handle on it to say what that might be. Maybe a general (written) overview of the space? Maybe rewrite the first paragraph of the control room to give a better sense of space?
Looking at it, I do think there are problems with the Control Room description. You are having to synthesize information from the cutaway diagram, the 3D image, the level 1 map and the Control Room description all at once; I think this is a place where you can deviate from Bryce's usual advice not to put in the description information that is on the map, because there are too many maps to do that easily.
(As an aside, the thing I assume is a ladder on the map doesn't look like a ladder, and it took me quite a while to determine that it was supposed to be a ladder, and I'm still not sure. I assumed from the external image with a hole that appears to be centered, that the ladder came out in the middle, but I'm assuming that the middle of the room is actually a huge pillar because it is black on the map. A better "ladder" icon would help, as would marking the hatch in the floor.)
So it seems to me that the PCs have emerged in a circular room, 50' across, with a massive 10' wide pillar in the middle (trigger fruitless search for secret doors - does that count as "massaging" the pillar?). The ladder is affixed to the wall of the central pillar, with another hatch in the floor beside it. The outer wall is ringed by thick glass windows. The walls and floors of the room are green, and look like enameled ceramics but are impossibly smooth and without any detectable seams.
If the PCs look out the windows, they will see that the room they are in sits within and near the top of some sort of domed artificial cavern, filled with a glowing mist. Through the mist they can see three massive pillars which stop short of the ceiling (would the players know they are tanks?), placed equidistant around the room, which disappear into a glowing fogbank (how far below, I can't tell?). Looking closely at the pillars, it is apparent that some kind of bridge or wide strut extends from each pillar toward the center of the room, disappearing from vision somewhere beneath the room in which the PCs are now standing.
Which is, I think you will agree, a lot of description, but I can't think how to orient the players with less. Like I said, a complicated space, I have spent about an hour parsing this page, and I'm not sure I got everything. I am not at all certain that I'm not missing something important about the animations. This might be a good place for pictures.
Given that the tanks can't be reached until you get to level 2, I'm not sure the details of manipulating the valves should be in this section. It actually threw me off track quite badly, and contributed to me misinterpreting a number of other room elements; I kept looking for a way to manipulate them remotely using the displays.
(Another aside: I did not immediately understand that the numbering in the cutaway diagram were "level" numbers, they look like room numbers, so the "level" appellation threw me a bit.)
I will say that having now spent more than an hour deciphering level 1 I am quite interested in it, and I think I am getting a sense of how the space works. But it was a lot of work to get there.
are my Achilles heal. Locations and Situations are great, but players appreciate a little Interactivity. I'm finding it difficult to present these interactive elements without the 'If-Then'. Give it a read and tell me where I'm going wrong!