27th Level Designer Contest

[Harmless]

Everything seems safe, still waiting for Supershroom's judgings though.

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

I think its quite clear the last few pages have done a good job in making him feel bad. No its not a good thing when a member feels bad, I was being mildly sarcastic.

Nwolf could post them on his behalf I guess, but I assume all the scores are correct as N had already fixed a score of mine that was wrong. So yup.

[Harmless]

Oh, oops. I completely forgot about that. I don't really hate him or anything though, but meh. I was just curious on what he had to say about my level, be it good or bad.

k then

[Supershroom]

Harmless, I've read your judging, and it was almost exactly the same situation which I've had while playing JJJ's level. I've almost felt like the second level had too many impossible challenges, but I've kept on trying and trying until I've got them all right. You see, I've had the ambition to master this level, while you've got pissed off way too early. I've playtested everything except from the stuff with the prologue and the pipes in the boss battle. I've made sure that all challenges are possible to play. It's possible to dodge the flames on the boat ride (you need to stand as left as you can), and it's even rather easy to reach the platforms in the blue trial (just spin instead of walking on the ground). If you ever don't know how to pass a challenge in my level, please PM me next time. (and of course this applies for all other judges too)

I'm gonna edit everything that needs to be edited (making pipes for the checkpoints, removing the sand in the ghost ship, fixing that stuff in the prologue etc). and then it's gonna be WITBLO worthy and then I still didn't waste all that time on making these levels.

Nonetheless, I'm even more frustrated seeing that if you and Nwolf weren't pissed off so damn early and gave judgings like Amp or MoD, it might have been sufficient for 5th. Next time, I'll do a lot simplier, meaning there will be less bugs etc, and maybe I'll win a ribbon or even more.

Here is what you guys are waiting for:

Judgings: show

Waterfire Cave – Nwolf

FUN: 7.5/10. Short and sweet. It complies with its intention to be a simple fun platformer, I’ve enjoyed it. Difficulty is good, it starts rather simple and grows the further you proceed towards the red coin maze. Within the maze, the flames are placed well. However, some oddities: There’s quite a lot of annoying cheep-cheeps in the maze, on the other side, there are many coins and there’s a gap between the water basins so you’re not endangered to drown. If the gap is filled, it’s still finely possible to get the red coins without drowning, but it becomes way more interesting. Also, though it’s sweet and enjoyable like noted above, I’d appreciate it being a bit longer and more elaborated.

GRAPHICS: 3/5. Arrgh. Excuse me but what the hell came over you to make this horrible ceiling cutoff lancing through all the areas until the checkpoint, especially at the beginning. It’s fully viewable while playing, this is a grave error. Apart from it, graphics are nice, especially the maze sticks out with its accurate décor. The flame towers are also well-placed. On the other side, all of the areas before should have at least a little bit of décor. Bummer, without the stupid cutoff, you’d have scored high here.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 4.25/5.
+0.5: no lag and loading time.
+0.5: The maze again. I just like it. Red coins are well-scattered, especially the one at the top is not easy to find for unexperienced players
+0.25: Hm, I’m not sure about the alternate music. It’s a good choice as it fits the level’s theme, but it’s not that entertaining IMO.
+0.25: cool effect with the mansion brick transitions.
-0.25: The level is not hard enough for requiring a checkpoint.

OVERALL: 14.75/20. It’s a decent level, but it could be great with the flaws being fixed, especially the cutoff is what kills your score. Well done though.

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Aqua-Temple – Thefiredragoon

FUN: 1.5/10: Boooooring. Or frustrating once you take the wrong way at the beginning and you’re unable to go back. Is this story-driven? All you do is just swimming around without challenge and fun. Nothing worth to play again. And the story? There’s quite nothing in the level that supports it (also see Other). It’s hanging around loosely. Sorry.

GRAPHICS: 1/5. Boooooring too. Bricks arranged between yawning emptiness. No decoration, no innovation, no variation. Also some stupid flaws like uncovered staircases (only blue ones can covered with wall tiles), and signs floating a bit over the ground. Is this a temple? Um, no.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 1.5/5.
-1.5: The story is boring and also stupidly depressing – why the heck are all the scientists dying suddenly? Very pointless.

OVERALL: 4/20. How much time did you need for this level? We have almost one month for making our level and not for kicking our heels. You need to spend way more time for your levels and you should also learn from good levels created by legends. Give your levels some pep and a sense, have fun designing them and make them enjoyable! This doesn’t mean they have to be very long, but they need some spirit, some innovation, some artificial touches. This one was a failure, but pleeeease don’t hang your head. Try to develop and do better next time.

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The Water Butterfly – MP3 Amplifier

FUN: 8.75/10. Wow. This is somewhat fun and awesome. It connects joy and an relaxing enviroment with some interesting challenges like the metal cap part and the underwater search after the red coin. This level gave me a lot awesomeness. But, evil as I am, I must state that some red coins are very easy to reach, meaning the difficulty of the red coins is a bit unbalanced, and the flames in the middle of the geysere part are easy to cross.

GRAPHICS: 4.5/5. The main cause for not giving a 5 is some cutoff I saw at the second and the third last transition. Excellent tiling, great variety of themes, and excellent décor choice. A happy place like you’ve promised it to be. Beautiful.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 4/5.
+0.75: The alternate music is fantastic. Too bad that it’s rather quiet and the in-game sounds dominate it a bit.
+0.75: Dat butterfly. Self-explanatory.
+0.5 for many other great motives and pictures. The geysers belong to these, but the switches should be hidden in the ground IMO.
+0.25 for the poem. Though it doesn’t support the atmosphere that much, it’s sweet.
-0.25 for an unintented troll players can easily fall for if they go to the right side first. The gate block at the beach maze in the third transition can imply that the invisibility cap needed to reach the end has to be found here. I’ve died while searching it unnecessarily.
-1: heavy loading time issues. I need to use the download version. Sometimes also minor lag. Is it the huge amount of décor that causes it? A little bit of décor seems to be abdictable.

OVERALL: 17.25/20. Bravo, bravo. I’m speechless. You don’t wanna win with this? I fear it could happen. This is one of the best levels you’ve ever made, you can be very proud of yourself having it done in no more than two weeks. Though it has some very little flaws. You’ve made me happy, too. Thank you.

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Cheep-Cheep Canal – KABOOM

FUN: 8/10. That was a cool one, I’ve liked it. A straightforward platformer through a real underground canal, nice. The 1-ups are quite challenging to collect, but for the first one, it’s quite annoying to go the way back forward without the metal star, I recommend to put a warp pipe there. Also I think this could be a bit more elaborated and spiced up, with less cheep-cheeps.

GRAPHICS: 4.25/5. Looks cool, a nice checkerboard-similar structure of bricks that fit well together. It would be even more great if it wasn’t the same structure all the time. Décor has been used decently, but it should be a bit more at some places. Also I wonder why the ceiling in the second transition isn’t fully covered by cave tiles or bricks whatsoever.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 3.5/5.
+0.5: like I’ve said, nice 1-up locations and great use of green platforms.
+0.25: almost no loading time, but noticeable lag at some places due to cheep-cheeps
-0.25: The music? It’s not that terrible, but I don’t feel like it fits into an underground canal.

OVERALL: 15.75/20. A nice, interesting level, greatly done, I even say it will make it into WITBLO. It’s quite an asset of you to make cool platformers. Keep it up.

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Floodgate Maze – 1018peter

FUN: 4/10. This level suffers from bugs and not having much effort. The first floodgate part is unsolvable until you figure out that you can enter the pipe even when standing on the breakable blocks. All the platforming stuff around it (climbing the falling platforms, activating the switch) is useless. The sponge area is a way better innovation that can also be considered to be a bit interesting, though it’s also fast and easy to cross. And that was it already. Sorry, but this wasn’t your day. I miss platforming, atmosphere and occupation while playing.

GRAPHICS: 3/5. For itself, tiling is good and diversified, especially at the floodgate part and in the sponge area. However, there’s no décor inside of them, and the last transition also seems to be rushed, rather confusing. The black background also causes a boring or melancholic atmosphere. Why the heck are there no coins? Nothing I can really enjoy. However, you’ve still put effort into your tiling.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 2.75/5.
+0.25 no lag and loading time.
+0.25 for the sponge idea. But it’s not enough elaborated.
-0.25 Hazy Maze Cave music? Is this really something like a cave? Why not Floater Land? Just wondering.
-0.5 for the bug that has been already mentioned. Overall, it costs a lot of points.

OVERALL: 9.75/20. Bummer. I wish you to be motivated next time, and maybe you’ll find a good occasion to use the rudiments in this level for making something great.

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Darkwater Caverns – Harmless

FUN: 6.5/10. Interesting and nice as an exploration level, some good platforming, but the FLUDDs make it rather easy. Graphics and stuff support the fun factor, but it should be more spicy and a little bit more challenging. I don’t feel like there is a strolling-around atmosphere.

GRAPHICS: 4/5. Looks good, feels like a dark cavern, interesting shapes and good use of Bowser texture tiles. Décor was also used well, but not consistently. While some areas have a lot of it, others look a little bit plain and dismal due to lack of décor. Also it would be good to use both cave ground tiles for creating additional outlines within the ground. Nonetheless, well done.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 3.25/5.
+0.75 nice music choice.
+0.5 no lag and loading time.
+/-0: The story isn’t bad, though it ends sadly, but it hangs loosely over the level and also the entry logs can be accessed in the wrong order. Overall, it’s neutral.
-1: Way too little water and it’s only used as decoration, meaning there’s no water-specific gameplay.

OVERALL: 13.75/20. It could bear many more effort and I miss something that makes it really interesting. And like I’ve said, it lacks water. Nonetheless, an essential improvement compared to the 26th LDC, keep on developing your skills.

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Freezestone / Thermal Temple – Yurimaster

FUN: 7.25/10. Hm. It’s fun, it has cool puzzles, but there’s also some stuff hindering the fun. First, if only one more level of the same size follows behind the prologue, then the prologue should include a little but more than searching for secret passageways. But this searching isn’t boring or too hard, the clues are good. Second, in the temple there are many many fish that are hard or almost impossible to dodge, no one likes this. Third, I felt like the puzzles in Thermal Temple were a bit too easy to beat. Within the first area, your way is rather presaged. The fish puzzle is a rather cool innovation, but it could have some extra challenge.

GRAPHICS: 4.25/5. At some places in the prologue, décor seems to be a bit exaggerated for me, and there could also be some ice bricks instead of icy cubes all the time (especially where you walk on them), and sometimes a few less tile variation, it’s a bit too much. And there was stupid wall cutoff at the beginning. Why did you do that? Nonetheless, it looks fantastic, it really feels like being in an ancient village and a temple. The hot-and-cold theme is greatly implemented. But like I’ve said, cutoff.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 4.5/5.
+0.75: Great story. Fits nice into the level.
+0.75 for the fish puzzle and the freezestone. Though the puzzle is easy to figure out, it’s a great innovation.
+0.25: huge loading times for levels of this size, but no lag.
-0.25 for the music. In the first part, it’s good, but in the second part, it doesn’t fit at all IMO, this is an inner-mansion temple, not a cave.

OVERALL: 16/20. Very nicely done, innovative puzzles and stuff, rather interesting, but it could be more awesome and more breathtaking. Then it would be really great.

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Aquatic Breach – Triple J

FUN: 6.75/10. Effity eff eff. I like challenge, but omfg, that was almost too much. The first level has some very problematic places. There’s the thwomp and the rotating block at the beginning of the first level, they’re quite hard to cross due to the block rotating so fast, and everytime I fall down I need to go all the way up again. The worst place in the first level is at the third transition, where all the green platforms are going down so fast, that’s practically impossible to climb, that’s Kaizo-style! Forget about the red coin hunt, it’s way too hard. The koopa climb, the power-up puzzle etc., that’s senseless to try without a checkpoint system. In the second level, there’s skelegoonie spam, but the challenges are all relatively passable, though requiring a lot of skill. The parakoopa climb at the end is very challenging, but also doable, it’s just frustrating to go back all the way after failing. But I kinda like the second level once I know how to beat it.

GRAPHICS: 5/5. But it looks gorgeous from the start to the end. Great and unconventional use of tiles and fantastic tile mixtures, also great decoration. Brilliant.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 2.75/5.
+0.25: Though I’ve already said that some places are too hard, most gameplay requirements are interesting.
+0.25: a few touches of a storyline that are well-included into the gameplay
+0.25: I actually miss a lot of water, but the water parts in the second level shows some very innovative and interesting metal-cap gameplay.
+/-0: Shifting sand land? Sorry, but how is this supposed to fit into the first level? Floater Land in the second level is a better choice, but why is there no alternate music?
-0.5: some lag in the first part, and some loading time issues.
-0.5: it lacks a checkpoint system. That’s a heavy issue on such a hard level.

OVERALL: 14.5/20. It’s a good work, but it needs to be way less frustrating. Especially in the first level. While playtesting your levels, please make sure all parts have a realistic chance to be passed, and for next time, I recommend making an easier level such as “Weather Works” or “Fresh”, as well as giving some good alternate music, and you can still keep all the stuff with exaggerated difficulty for your portal creations.

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Echoes of Time – MessengerOfDreams

FUN: 7.5/10. Most challenges were good and interesting, but some of them also seemed a bit odd – the vertical magma field in the first level where the flame can’t be dodged on the left, the upper metal cap challenge and the switch challenge in Part 3A, and also a bunch of annoying cheep-cheeps, the floating platform challenge in Part 2 where you can’t go back after failing – all this damaged the gameplay. But it’s all possible, and difficulty is still at a good level, and the awesome story also makes its contribution to make these levels interesting.

GRAPHICS: 3.75/5. The first level looks excellent with the seas, the decoration and stuff, but the second and third level didn’t keep that high niveau. Decoration is missed a lot inside of them, so it looks a bit barren. Plus, I saw some cutoff at the third transition in Part 3. Nonetheless the use of tiles is rather interesting.

OTHER TOUCHES/BUG REPORT: 4.75/5.
+0.75: That story is somewhat awesome, you could almost write a novel around it. This could be an even higher bonus if you cut out some unessential stuff and maybe put longer sequences into the vault topic as a “long dialogue”. Especially at the prologue, it feels a little bit story-overdriven.
+0.75: also great alternate music.
+0.25: great metal cap challenges except from the mentioned one that is too difficult, and the one in Part 2 where you can’t go back.
+0.25: lag / loading time. Part 1 takes almost half a minute too load and sometimes it crashes my AFP, yet it has no lag. But all other parts have good loading times and also have no lag.
-0.25: I don’t see any sense in the death-trap door at Part 3B.

OVERALL: 16/20. Very good levels with a very good story, but they suffer from pretty hard challenges and the lack of décor in Part 2 and Part 3. That shouldn’t be sufficient for the win. Nonetheless, well done.

And just a final word for Nwolf: I try to be as nice as possible, but I never embellish anything. I'm plain-talking.

[1018peter]

I believe that I've made a lot of things clear in my level.
The pipes in the green spots should be visible.

But I admit my level is very buggy,I've tried everything to make the bricks in the water unbreakable,but as it seems I've still missed quite a lot of those problem.


I'll take this...rather hard lesson,and improve.

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

This post by ~MP3 Amplifier~ was thumbed up by:

Supershroom (September 8th, 2014, 9:08 am)

[~Yuri]

-0.25 for the music. In the first part, it’s good, but in the second part, it doesn’t fit at all IMO, this is an inner-mansion temple, not a cave.

Oh, sorry about this one. I couldn't find anything else for a water temple, except for the disturbing, insanity driving, not cool at all, unfitting Zelda water temple themes.

Also, for some reason, I aways thought Hazy Maze Cave had a temple feel hidden into it. I wanted the player to forget this was a cave theme and just play it in the background, it should give a nice atmosphere :p

[Supershroom]

which tileset/s had cut-off, and ideally could you explain specifically where?

There were unfinished grass tiles at the top in the second transition, and at the transition with the bullet bills, blocks and cavetiles (the third one from the right, as mentioned), the lower left corner of cave tiles was also unfinished. Both cutoffs were visible in both the on-site designer and the download version.

And btw I personally decided not to use pipes for checkpoints because players could always find them by accident, and also I didn't see many good places to hide them without making them obvious. Especially in the castle, where every completed trial means to be a checkpoint, it's only possible to put a pipe for the final checkpoint.

[Nwolf]

or you could've made the challenges in the castle less annoying in general and just added a silver star only avalailable with the secret pipe before the boss room or something

EDIT: I've also never said anything was impossible, but it can still be not fun to play (e.g. Twin Temples, the flame tower 3 tiles away from transition)

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

Yeah...I don't fill in tiles if there is a lot to fill in, just saying. Obviously I do fill in the bits that you can see in normal view in this case, but if you can only see cut-off when you've zoomed out, please try not to count it, people don't fill them in because it prevents lag. Levels like Disaster Strikes filled in all the tiles and then playing it was a very laggy, long loading experience.

I mean it makes no difference now, but in the future yeah, that's one of my judging 'rules', that I don't consider that cut-off unless the tiles are not filled in within normal view.