Overhaul of SM63 judging system

[Supershroom]

Okay guys, since we've gone off-topic and gone back to the old discussion if you can properly do story with the SM63 designer - you CAN, but gameplay still shouldn't get the short end of the stick. That's what e.g. Timpani & Blumiere or Tearing Paper have managed to do well. If you mix gameplay mechanics and story to a homogeneous symbiosis, it's a totally different experience than just reading the story and listening to the music itself. A good judge may not be a fan of story or puzzle by personal taste, yet he can evaluate how well-executed the story is and how well gameplay is done, and judge that accordingly.

Now, first off, if I really followed egoistic motives with this, I should rather be interested in 10/10 because I usually tend to struggling with difficulty and bugs, but getting high Graphics scores. But I don't wish for cheap laurel. The reason why Other should be banned from the planet, and why there should be guidelines on proportions of certain aspects, is that we all have our own little idiosyncrasies, and not because of disadvantaging / depreciating a certain designing style. Things like "1.5 points for music" or "check the causes of loading time / lag" are recommendations, you can do it slightly differently if you feel like, but if you do it too extremely, an LDC host should be there to step in.

Now, why (usually) 12/8 and not 10/10? I've said it from the very beginning already - Other used to contain both gameplay aspects and artistic / atmospheric aspects in approximately equal shares. And gameplay always was worth twice as much as Graphics. In fact it should be even 12.5/7.5, and simply for convenience reason, I suggest 12/8 (alias 15/10), it does the best at keeping things mostly the same, but if we move to 10/10 and have bugs, innovations etc. in the first half, we only create a bias towards a direction we've never moved at before. Again, no rule without exception though, we could always use 10/10 on a theme which focuses on story and music (and these two would be upgraded, while Graphics should keep being worth about 5 points).

[MessengerOfDreams]

50% was never the short end of the stick and giving it unbalanced priority is definitely not. In fact it's giving everything else the short end of the stick. I don't get how anyone doesn't see the logic of that.

[~Yuri]

This post by npromin1 was thumbed up by:

~Yuri (April 30th, 2016, 7:36 am)

[NanTheDark]

I think we need to properly what "gameplay" means. If we were to judge two different games, each game has different gameplay. However, all SM63 levels will have a Mario that can walk, run, jump, triple jump, dive... So when we say gameplay we can't really mean how the level is played since all levels operate under the same basic mechanics. So in gameplay we would probably judge raw level design. Placing of platforms, items, enemies, interesting setpieces, the level's "flow" or "momentum", puzzles and other interesting platforming concepts. This is what you push buttons to go through. Interactivity is, in my opinion, the most important thing in a videogame. That's what separates it from watching a movie, reading a book, and other forms of fiction.

That's why I believe that gameplay should be above thinks like graphics, or some "alternate music" or a sign with a lot of text in it. The most extreme example I can think of a level which is nothing but story and graphics is a flat ground with a lot of hills and trees and cool looking things and a lot of signs. If you really wanted to JUST make a beautiful landscape, make a drawing. If you really wanted to JUST tell a story through text, write a novel.

I am not saying that story is bad, that graphics are bad. I am not saying that a great level should just be the Champion's Road (and also, I'm against frustratingly hard levels where it seems that something is hard not because the player is making a mistake, but because the designer made bad design choices. I am not going to name anyone on this, you know who you are). What I'm saying is that people who like storytelling, like MoD and the beautiful, amazing, great singer and best girl ever MP3 should take advantage of the fact that this is a game. What you should do, is tell story through gameplay.

Let's assume for a moment that your levels were like my extreme example of just flat ground (which they're not, I'm sure of it, I'm just trying to make a point). If you wanted to make a story about a hero traveling the land, then design the trip itself. Make us feel the journey, instead of putting a sign that says "I've gone in a great journey!". Make us play it. If you want to represent someone's inner mental state, you design some trippy looking landscape that represents the person's twisted mind, instead of making a sign that says "I am a very depressed person".

Show,don't tell.

If you think that putting more points into gameplay means your story will be shunned or biased against, all I have to say is that maybe you're not making the most of this particular media in order to tell a story. You can either make us sit through cutscenes (signs) in order for us to know what the plot is, or you can make us play the story itself, as if we were actors. You can make us figure things ourselves by the look of the terrain, a long climb, taking a leap of faith over an abyss.

And then, your story isn't just Atmospherics. It is also Gameplay.

Also MoD, you can always just post levels in the portal if you feel that we are limiting storytelling, which we are not. Maybe you just don't know how to properly tell a story through an interactive media (which I can't say for sure, I haven't really played too many of your levels. I'm assuming a extreme case).

Also stop thinking that everyone's out to get you. You can pretend to be a victim as much as you want, but everyone here loves you and thinks you're one of the greatest LDers ever.

That is mostly my argument as to why I think 12/8 is alright and why I think it shouldn't be a disadvantage for storytellers, but instead encouragement to make the most out of the media they're trying to tell a story in. And it is possible to tell a story in the way I suggest, there are games out there that do that. Stories that are about what the player is doing, or about exploring a metaphor, or whatever. You can do it.


















So yeah, that. *raises Flame Shield*

[npromin1]

I don't see much sense of adding plot to a SM63 level. (No offence,MoD)This isn't as good of a medium as LL is. The atmosphere in LL levels benefits more from plot,then SM63. Adding music and graphics to a SM63 level improves the quality of the level, but plot is optional. Therefore, I think that atmosphere in a SM63 level should mostly come from graphics and music.

If there's story in a level and it's executed well, those two points can serve as room to add points for atmosphere. If it's executed poorly, a deduction of points should be allowed. I'm not saying that those 2 points should be there for story. It should be possible to get a perfect score on atmosphere if the level is missing a plot-line, but if the level doesn't have a perfect score and there is a well-executed plot-line, then points should be added by the judge.

I don't know about everyone's designing skills, but it's un-fair to designers who are better with adding plot, music, and graphics to their level. I should be pushing for 12/8, since I tend to go too far with music, plot, and graphics and mess up instead. (My 5th 25quared level suffered greatly from that) 10/10 is the way to go.


Also you can't have good gameplay without a good atmosphere. It's that simple.


It's time to move on from this discussion and have the polls change to 10/10 VS 12/8 to get the general public opinion.

[Supershroom]

As much as I see that the majority for a 2-category system in general is large, I'm not doing something premature already if I don't get permission from a few others.

npromin, I don't think you should let your experiences at the mini-LDC rule your opinion that much. Overall, it got mixed opinions pertaining your graphics. Also check out some series like Dark, Tearing Paper, The Blind Experiment orTimpani & Blumiere, all of them being in WITBLO12.

If there's story in a level and it's executed well, those two points can serve as room to add points for atmosphere. If it's executed poorly, a deduction of points should be allowed. I'm not saying that those 2 points should be there for story. It should be possible to get a perfect score on atmosphere if the level is missing a plot-line, but if the level doesn't have a perfect score and there is a well-executed plot-line, then points should be added by the judge.

Yeah, you've worded pretty well how I imagine it to work myself.

Also you can't have good gameplay without a good atmosphere. It's that simple.

Usually correct in the sense that good atmosphere automatically boosts gameplay a bit (which is another reason for 12/8 methinks), yet e.g. Volkove managed to be a god with gameplay and often enough he didn't need super-elaborated graphics to shine with that.

[Yoshi Boo 118]

Just to throw my two cents in here...I think for the most part, which 2-category system people go with really shouldn't matter. I'd probably go with the 10/10, but let's be realistic here. When it comes to judging levels for contests, it comes down to opinion. There have been times where I start judging one level for a contest, then I judge another level that gets the same score. But then I think to myself, "well this 2nd level really seems better overall in my opinion," so then I'll go back and either reduce a small number of points (ranging from .25 to maybe even a point) from the 1st or add to the 2nd. I think that's perfectly fair to do, because I believe that you may have a certain bias going (especially after not judging for a while) in that steadily disappears as you're judging. Even then, giving everyone the same score doesn't really say anything about how you feel about the levels comparatively.

What I'm saying is that I think in the end, each judge will give an overall score of what they feel the level deserves, and adjust the category scores accordingly. It doesn't feel right for any judge to give a score they think the level won't deserve. So I think 12/8 is doable, but it may skew the results a little more if judges have the same thought process that I have. I'd prefer 10/10.

So in conclusion,

I'd just like to say that I only agree with the format as a means of organizing the old one in a better way. Any restrictions to the actual judging I don't agree with.

[NanTheDark]

While thinking about what do "Gameplay" and "Atmosphere" categories actually mean, I thought that maybe it would be best to really think about exactly what is it that people look at when it comes to judging. Not in broad categories, but every single thing that matters of a level. I ain't the best to think of these probably, but I'll try to give my personal opinion as to what is it that people might be considering when judging.

-Difficulty (fair or unfair)
-Level Design (covering platforming and level's overall flow)
-Puzzles (if any)
-Story (if any)
-Graphics (does it look good?)
-Adherence to the Theme
-Whether or not you like that one Alternate Music
-Use of glitches (lol disabling)
-Use of blosses
-Use of FLUDD
-Use of caps
-Lag, probably
-Fun Factor
-"Innovative" concepts
-Cool setpieces
-Tile choice
-Item placement
-Enemy placement
-"Checkpoints", if any. More of a meta thing really.
-Exploration (if it's a big wide level)
-Speed (if it's a sprint from point A to point B )
-Achievements (I can't believe it, but the Achievements I add to my levels sometimes somehow make it into the judgings. )
-General Idea

There's probably way more things, feel free to add to it. A bunch of these you can probably place under Gameplay, others under Atmosphere. I dunno. But we should properly define what is it that we're judging as Gameplay or Atmosphere.

[MessengerOfDreams]

Remember when the point of this was to "remove bias from the system", not rearrange the bias?

[Megar]

'Removal' of bias is an impossibility because every judge has their preference which they're naturally inclined towards. To assume otherwise would remove the point of having multiple judges as they'd all think the exact same.