30th SM63 Level Designer Contest

[MessengerOfDreams]

Leave it. All the judges I've spoken to agree.

[Supershroom]

my prediction that I can't refuse doing

EDIT: of course we have a cool crowd; maybe there's just a larger gap after 4th place methinks

EDIT2: If I can do statistics service only on the 28th, don't be surprised ...

1. MP3
2. MoD / Veso
3. me / Jumbo
4. Fluorescence
5. Karyete

MoDEdit: Damn, son, you were ♥♥♥♥' close
FFEdit: Tbh I wanted FL to place higher there but yeah it was damn close
EDIT3: Thanks now gimme a million bucks

[Charcoal]

I haven't looked at everyone else's levels to know what they look like. Is that bad?

[~MP3 Amplifier~]

Nah, same here. Apart from the few that I nearly got round to judging, I haven't played any of them.

EDIT: Also expect results sometime today

[Raiyuuni]

You're missing out on some grand stuff.

Also, here are my predictions-- *is shot*

[MessengerOfDreams]

We're here live from Cameron's hospital room. Results are gonna come from this-a-ma-way so they won't be pretty. But I do actually have the results and did long term calcs on them. So ya know what, I have the scores, I make the rules!

and yeah Amp asked me to but hush you harlots

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Anyways, we'll start with the five that didn't place, to rip the band-aid off. We were actually kinda split on a lot of these, so don't take it too hard if you've lost. I can't do nothin' super fancy regardless so I'll just run my mouth a little.

Cliffy: 9.34375

Sorry, mate. You had big aspirations but you weren't able to access the ability to sell them. Hopefully you keep growing and your talent matches your vision in the future.

Nenefun: 9.90625

It wasn't a bad level, but for a level with lofty ambitions, it never quite lived up to them.

awesome99: 13.48

Some really liked your unique vision and unconventional design, but others weren't able to look past your design flaws and often unfair gameplay

Illusion: 14.65625

Strangely you've placed higher than most ribbonists and even some medalists, but the quality was high. While yours had a nice story and iconic graphics, it also had a few flaws in design and was seen as underwhelming.

Karyete: 15.0625

How does one not place with an over 15 level? Lord only knows. But everyone was aware of how simple and clean the gameplay was. Some loved it, others weren't as enthused.

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I'ma give 6th place a ribbon. For one, the levels this high were all of significant quality, for another 6 is the exact middle point. It's enough to count for me.

In 6th place, with 15.41 points, is...



1018peter!
with Freedom for All!

While some complications with your design were still present in regards to difficulty and unfairness, we gave you hats off to a grand design, mesmerizing new details, and clear attention to detail to what you were doing, if not always how you were doing it.

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In 5th place, with a score of 15.53...



Christian!
for Switch Factory (Finale)!

A lot of your strengths were also weaknesses in regards to difficulty and confusion, but the design ideas and the grand scale won a lot of judges over!

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In fourth place, with 15.70 points...



FluorescenceLight!
for Brutal Magma Land!

Even if some bugs were found and the bullet spam was unreal, you made a vastly entertaining collection level that was never too unfair and threw a variety of challenges at us.

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So that leaves three finalists. Veso and that one ♥♥♥♥♥, Jumbo101/Supershroom, and MP3 Amplifier. A collab between a one and five time winner, a collab between two fifth placers of the same LDC, and someone with four wins over the span of 8 contests. Time to see how this pans out.

In 3rd place, with 16.35 points...










Supershroom/Jumbo101!
for The Rampage!

While some unfair difficulties still plagued some parts of the levels, the two of you brought the best from each other- Jumbo's organized simplicity and Supershroom's zest for ideas.

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So that leaves Veso/I and Amp, and let's be real... she wouldn't have me host the results if I won, because if there's one thing Amp doesn't like, it's announcing her own victories.



MP3Amplifier
for Fake Reality!
with a score of an astounding 17.48!

Congrats on getting the highest winning LDC score since Buffooner in the 20th LDC! While some annoyances did pepper the levels, it was clear that the vision, the gameplay, and the all-out effort put into this level was something extraordinary.

Of course, that leaves



Veso and MessengerOfDreams
with a Farewell to Arms
that got a score of a pretty damn good 16.82, the highest I think Veso's ever gotten.

We didn't win due to some enemy nuisances and things of the sort, but Veso's spectacular design and my well-applied artistic details such as story and music got this series higher than you'd expect.

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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0
Bloody hell, madam. You and your Google docs....
For history's sake. Here's the results in a table. remove the hide tags to see this. ~Doram

	Raiyunni	MoD	FF	Harm	YB	Average
MP3	16.33	17.75	17.5	17.1	18.75	17.486
Veso/MoD	16.83		17.75	16.2	16.5	16.82
Jumbo/Shroom	16.66	16.5	15		17.25	16.3525
Fluorescence	15.06	16	16		15.75	15.7025
Christian	13.875	17.5	15.25		15.5	15.53125
Peter	15.625	15.75	15.5		14.75	15.40625
Karyete	13.5	17.5	14.5		14.75	15.0625
Illusion	12.625	16.75	15.75		13.5	14.65625
awesome99	10.92	16	12		15	13.48
Nenefun	8.125	11.5	10		10	9.90625
Cliffy	8.375	9.5	9		10.5	9.34375

Here's the chart for overall scorings. Great LDC, guys! We were few, but damn if we weren't proud! Even as far as 9th place out of 11 there were some great scores going around. Spirited effort, here's to more in the future.

Ciao!

[Charcoal]

Yeah, I'll take 2nd

Good job everybody else

EDIT: Excuse me. I left MoD out when I said I'll take 2nd. Sorry about that.

[MessengerOfDreams]

High-five, brotha. The judgings indicate problems that can be fixed with some ease, so there's a good chance the prospects of our level are only going up from here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Ju ... wvcpU/edit

Here's mine! Man was that an existential journey- being in the running to win clouded my judgings in that I feared people would take anything I do would be me trying to get ahead, so I think I suffered early on. I don't think I'll judge a contest I'm in again.

Again. Google docs can disappear. History calls to me. I transcribe. ~Doram
1018peter

First point- love the theme and idea. A Smash-Bros universe level is a clever idea, seeing as Mario is in it. It’s easy to bring the ideas to life, especially Master Hand. The story was simple, but worked nicely. You also threw challenges at me that I hadn’t seen before, and the sheer amount of effort you put into it was nothing short of breathtaking. The best part is that they were way less aggravating and unfair as they were before… but still not enough to be not aggravating and to be fair. I think the fire towers at the end were timed just enough to make it borderline impossible to pass through, and that was before the inescapable ring of fire. The paths were unclear, and the maze especially was confusing. Otherwise, solid platforming and a host of great ideas not quite put to conclusion. The chase room in particular was marvelous.

Fun: 8/10

The level as a whole looks nice and the tiling/what have you promotes a distinct theme color-wise. However, what’s even better is the way you arranged items- frustrating or no the flame towers looked beautiful. I also love how distinct the layout is- love non-linear ♥♥♥♥. It did feel barren at times, but I still think it’s very respectable.

Graphics: 4.5/5

+.25 for alternate endings but the fact that the secret one is the only “you won ending” while the other is more of an immediate lose, and the coins are borderline impossible to get to.
-.5 because it really feels like a letdown NOT to have Master Hand more involved.
+.5 for excellent alternate music choices.

Other 3.25/5

A big improvement- the problems that you struggle with ARE there but don’t detract nearly as much. I love the idea but it could have been pushed a little more. I love a lot of what you went for, though.

Overall: 15.75/20

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FluorescenceLight

The level was actually a lot of fun. The main problem was a confusing lack of direction. But as far as platformers go it was the perfect level of challenging yet fair. I wanted to continue playing it because of the variety and intrigue factor of what could be next. You packed a lot of classic and original ideas into this. The boss was annoying because of bullet spam that impeded platforming drastically and, again, lack of direction. Like, hardcore. Overall, I’m glad I played this.

Fun: 9/10

I absolutely love your graphical style. It’s a cobble of different tile types but actually makes it look otherworldly rather than a copy of the Lava-Lair style that got repopularized in 2012. It all looked not only great, but engrossing.

Graphics: 5/5

-.25 for the metal cap obstructing the invisible cap and making that all a confusing mess
-.25 for bullet spam in the boss punishing me for reading your sign.
-.5 for continuously getting stuck under solid ground due to the metal cap going through lava.

Other: 2/5

It has its problems but other than that it’s really fantastic. Polish the bugs and you have something I find rather awesome.

Overall: 16/20

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Supershroom/Jumbo 101

Working together, I was interested to see if your strengths were good at covering the others’ flaws. For Shroom, I say… somewhat? But again, the level is littered with a lot of unfair little things. Unforgiving time limits that require you to be more than perfect with the stars and switches, not enough direction to tell where to go and the difference between traps and actual gameplay, a lot of times where you get no notification that you’re about to be really ♥♥♥♥ over (in the flying room you’re just shown a small amount of space- no wall, no time to react, for instance). These moments are getting really weary in how they undercut well-done gameplay. But there is definitely a significant amount more polish and professional quality to it.

Jumbo’s thing is that he’s way more polished and way more clean in his platforming, but outside of wicked theatrical details, doesn’t take as much risks and can fall into vanilla platforming. And in Level 2… he definitely tries new things and they have more polish, but much of it still falls into that solid 8/10 platforming with not much to spice it up. Still, it is easier to play and I enjoy it more than Level 1.

So apart, somewhat better, but still needs more. Then we get to Level 3. Nicely done here. There still are some filler parts or unfair parts that need work (bullet spam, bullet hopping, random flamethrowers, lack of direction), but even if Jumbo chiefed construction I see the inspiration from Shroom very clearly. I loved the ride in and I quite liked the boss too. The final room was aggravating though because the bullets made it impossible to traverse the level. Not in a challenge way, but in a cheating way.

So I’d say Level 1 is a 7/10, level 2 an 8/10, and level 3 a 9/10. Average of 8/10.

Fun: 8/10

The levels all obviously look beautiful. You made a lava level look fantastic which can be challenging. Great environment building, great setup, and great looking boss. The tiles do get jumbled up to the point where it’s hard to tell ♥♥♥♥ apart, but otherwise good.

Graphics: 4.5/5

+.5 for interesting and fitting alt music choices (<3 anytime someone uses AW:DS ♥♥♥♥)
+.5 for the clear highlight of the level- the beautifully executed burning ground of Level 2. It’s like if a level had Hot Rope Jump in it.

Other: 4/5

Overall: 16.5/20

Still a ways to go, but still impressive.

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awesome99

There’s a significant bit WRONG with this level but it intrigues me so intensely with what it does cleverly so I’ll just swipe it out of the way. Level 2 had two major ♥♥♥♥ moments. Guessing which tile the pipe was under being the only way out of the pit, the inescapable flame towers you just can’t get through fast enough unless you hit the 2 tile long clock tower tiles behind the flames. Big bad mistakes that I searched the level to understand and couldn’t.

Now let’s get to the positive. This level was weird but in a way that I enjoyed. It reminds me a lot of early levels with its kinda corny, dickish sense of humor and loose story, but I enjoyed that because it came contrasted with a lot of cool techy ♥♥♥♥ and a lot of cheer. The ideas you had in the boss battle and even in Level 2 were clever and easy to get down. I’d say strangely Level 3 was way easier than Level 2, especially the short lived chase scene. But there was a lot of strange uniqueness to love.

Fun: 8.5/10

It looks really nice with some nice tricks, color schemes, and sections that feel odd and dream-like but still not unfitting. My only problems were that there was a lot of barren, lifeless sections ya could have done more with.

Graphics: 4.25/5

+.75 for an amazing alternate music soundtrack with Undertale music, but the chase music was way not fitting so I went back to the boss music. Enforced the theme really well.

+.25 it was a little corny but I loved the bit at the end, and it sort of ties together why the narrator is such a ♥♥♥♥. Fun narration trick!

-.25 I wish we could have SEEN Bowser get killed or Bowser in general- he’s strangely absent. But it does add to the narrative ending where it’s like “we don’t care because we’re distant from it.”

-.5 because really, that looking for the door bit is just broken game.

-.25 for not being able to get in the door in the shaky room

Other: 3.25/5

Really unique level I feel like I’ll enjoy more than others will? But I like your style, keep growing it.

Overall: 16/20

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Cliffy

For most new designers, you wouldn’t see them attempt something as massive as this. I definitely give you credit for that. The amount of work you put into this idea is impressive. However, I still don’t think you’ve quite learned what makes a level stand out, and it shows. The length and the barely varying challenges make it really tedious and hard to want to finish. I like the vision but skill to match this grand a vision takes a lot of time.

Fun: 4.5/10

The level was very plain and empty for the most part but you have the concept of style and pattern down which I respect. It just didn’t match the feeling offered from the concept and made it feel like a level trying to be something it wasn’t.

Graphics: 2/5

Other: 3/5

Hopefully you keep designing- being new you gotta learn a lot more but you have a lot of fascinating ideas.

Overall: 9.5/20

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Karyete

My first play-through changed radically on my second play-through. My first go I was like “this is too basic” but then playing it I was stunned on just how perfect it plays. It’s very smooth in every regard and while it is basic it flows together so well that it’s basically perfect. Never unfair, never too much of a drag. The flow was perfect, as was the gameplay- not revolutionary but very fitting for this. Glad I replayed it because I was very impressed.

Fun: 9/10

I liked your levels when it felt like you put effort into them graphically. The themes were represented pretty well and when you were on a roll it worked (the perfectly aligned clock hand and green platform <3) but there were more than a few barren sections that felt like time ran out. A little touchup would have been nice.

Graphics: 4/5

+.5 because it does feel like you put a decent amount of vision and work into things and I wanna acknowledge that it was smartly designed.
+.25 for shortcuts spread about in a clean manner.
+.25 for collection quest.
+.5 for fun alt music

Other: 4.5/5

Could have done more to make it great but it’s very respectable.

Overall: 17.5/20

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Nenefun

You had a great concept here, but sadly all we got of it was an okay-ish level. It had varied obstacles and a lot of interesting play but sadly it was pretty unremarkable. I love this concept and I might myself do something with it but I’m sad you weren’t as inspired by it. Decent level overall, nothing standout.

Fun: 5.5/10

Decent design, but again, nothing noteworthy.

Graphics: 3/5

Other: 3/5

A pretty middling level I hope isn’t the last.

Overall: 11.5/20

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Illusion

I had judging for your first level but apparently it was an illegal piece of the entrant. I will say I like it for its compact nature yet still being engaging and making a lot out of a little. The other levels do the same with sliiiiightly less success. Still, good paced platforming and an interesting, subtle story kept it afloat. I also feel like for being part of a series I don’t feel confused about it all, which is good. It rolls very smoothly- for the most part except some flaws, you know a lot about flow.

Fun: 8.5/10

The tile scheme worked consistently, and while a little monochromatic (making platforming confusing at times) it made the level feel full of intention.

Graphics: 4.5/5

-.25 for repeated stilted jumps by walls blocking it.
-.25 for having us read a sign as meteorites fall, which stalls us and makes us lose.
+1.25 for an interesting story that had a unique villain- one that’s actually menacing which is so rare in SM63. Yet at the same time I’m drawn to the desperation towards the goal. As of now, not knowing who “she” is makes it easier. Is she an entity with power and soul like you or I? Is she a God and he a cult member? I don’t know, but ambiguity is so rare here. Also, what a great alternate ending. Makes it even better.

Other: 3.75/5

Overall: 16.75/20

really well done level. I want to see more from you.

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Christian

Really interestingly designed level. I really felt like you had great things going. Interesting branched paths component, a feel that felt true to the environment you were setting up, and a lot of great little moments and ideas- I loved the bouncy fire dodging room. These aren’t like ideas no one has done before, but they’re ideas that aren’t done enough, and you do them well. The boss also worked well, despite being similarly simple.

Fun: 9/10

Graphics: A little dry and monochromatic at times but just varied and well constructed enough to feel less than gloomy, while also perfectly fitting the theme.

Graphics: 4.5/5

Other: 4/5

+.5 for a fun boss character. He’s cocky but not cartoonish and I love that he’s a normal goomba.
+.5 for an intricate layout

Overall: 17.5/20

Really solid level. Props.

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MP3 Amplifier

This series is full of really great concepts that stretch beyond the tricks and glitches that people usually use. You use the emotional concepts to in great detail evoke emotion, and the callback to them in the boss is incredible. You toy with a lot of fun gameplay, even if structurally it doesn’t feel as unique as past entrants of yours. You buoy it with a fun story and fun concepts. I do think some of the platforming needed dusting off because there were a lot of tight, aggravating jumps and little glitches that made it hard to operate, which often undercut the innovation. Navigation could also have been widely improved. Otherwise, well done.

Fun: 9/10

The level looks amazing for the most part- great representations and visual work that evokes from the story itself. Well done for that regard. It all looks very unique. However, a lot of it is very… cluttered? And not just in a visual nuisance way, but in a way that is very hard to operate with and decipher where to go. It holds back what would have been a perfect score, but overall I respect the visual art you provoked here.

Graphics: 4.75/5

Other
+1 for the story. I think my one problem with it is that I see no reason that Mario himself needs to be involved here- and so when he “changes” it feels less involved for me. But as an idea, very very well done and I like most of what you did here. Wish you had alt. music tho.
+.5 for the idea of the kart- it made for some really fun concepts even if the sections needed work with it.
+.5 because it’s clear how much thought was put into this. As a fellow auteur, I respect that.
-.75 for constant glitching with the boss shoving me out of level or into a wall without escape. Squishing in general led to a lot of deaths that could have been prevented.
-.25 for the Koopa at the end of the sling star that could get a final kill with zero prep

Other: 4/5

Overall: 17.75/20

Needs touchup in a few areas but you have something terrific here.

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1. Christian
2. MP3 Amplifier
3. awesome99
4. Illusion
5. FluorescenceLight
6. Shroom/Jumbo101
7. 1018peter
8. Karyete
9. Nenefun
10. Cliffy

[Raiyuuni]

It's too dangerous to score alone! Take these judgings!: show

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A Farewell to Arms
| MessengerOfDreams | Vesoralla |

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━━━━━ Part 1: Stranded ━━━━━
Gameplay

This is one really tricky stage. Don't let the fancy stuff steal your attention - this map has an assortment of ways to take you down and none are employed sparingly. Our plumber's role as hero is broken as he's told to reflect about every single creature knocked out in years of franchise - all that while his own survival is an incognito. Half of me was trying to not break character, and the other half was figuring out how long could Mario stay in midair by chain stomping critters. Apart from the occasional vertical traps and all the flame turrets coming from pretty much nowhere, this was an awesome beginning act to play.

Graphics

These are another singular characteristic of this stage. The amount of detail never goes overboard, there's plenty of different detail employed, and some of it (such as Jungle and Grass tiles used together) really stands out. However, the scenery, at many times, was also way too erratic and formless.

Other

[+0,125] The playlist was nice!
[0] Magic smashing grass.
[0] Your clock moving blocks were way too fast.
[-0,125] The frame rate is rather unstable at times.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9/10      
  Graphics ------- 4,375/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 16,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Nucleus ━━━━━
Gameplay

This is another map where you just can't go speedrunning. There's a lot of NPC's to be up to date with, and just as much danger on your way. The city's design is, at the same time, interesting and tough to follow properly. First off, there's lots of ways to climb your way through, with varying difficulties. You'll probably be required to restart at some point. It's easy to lose your train of thought in here. For example, the bullet strings allow you to climb the theater, read the sign up there and meet the real soldier without ever getting to know the spy. As long as you know how to take each and every single critter down, though - you're good to go. It's not exactly simple - bullet and surprise fire damage will pile up real easy. But if you have your snacks readily available, don't be afraid to keep up with the journey - it's worth the rage.

Graphics

This level is a step forward from the previous. The tilesets are much more orderly. The airship has a very clean design. The city's design is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The building next to the clock tower is especially well designed.

Other

[+0,125] Good song selection!
[0] I know there's nothing on the airship's weapons chamber, but did you really need stationary bullets to respawn that often in there?
[-0,125] Mind your unsigned turret flames.
[-0,25] The fake "signal" works!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,625/5   
  Other ---------- 2,75/5    
  Part 2 Score --- 16,75/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Baptism ━━━━━
Gameplay

This season finale is likely the most packed ending stage out there. There's both substantial storytelling and fearsome challenges. You get to experience the war both through gameplay and by seeing its consequences for either side through the NPCs' speeches. And, through the story's sinister unfoldings, the plumber has a change of heart and enacts one last stunt of destruction as the player's role as the unquestionable hero is shattered. And, with it, the ultimate question rises: has the Force finally, and truly, achieved balance?

Graphics

You've mashed up the best of both prequels, and added even more good elements on top of everything. The stone slabs on grass terrain worked very well. The ship's design was equally impressive. I didn't understand very well the sudden transition to desert terrain at the very end, but it's no big deal.

Other

[0] The checkpoint arrow was way too subtle.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 4,875/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 3 Score --- 17,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,8333/20

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Freedom For All!
| 1018peter |

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Gameplay

This is but one level, yet it presents some amazing content. All the way through, there's a generous amount of complex and tentatively dangerous obstacles, along with an equal share of incentive to learn the ropes. If you're worried about life-sized loading times mandatorily served beside repetitive knockouts which the stage will put you through, worry no further. You have access to a FLUDD. While this is definitely a difficulty killer, it saves you a lot of time with mastering the leaps and sprints the full experience will demand. When all's said and done, though, unless you are running the game from a mainframe, nothing will spare you from the blade of Trafalgar D. Water Lag. It makes Peter's ridiculous methods of preventing burn damage look easy, as they're paired with the worst game performance a single room will put you through in this contest. Still, don't let those moments of peace mislead you. This level is still hard as balls. You'll still experience big servings of fun and rage alike.

Now, let's see the story. Master Hand's character is undeniably fitting for himself, even with his not being in the action at all. However, the story (with emphasis on the dialogue) by itself certainly wouldn't work as well. Your presentation format also has a part to play in here. You've got who knows how many ways to forward text to people, and just as many means to link your level directly to them. Use them. It's as straight forward as a URL BBcode. Last, but not least, you spoiled too much of the experience by yourself, both with the walkthrough and the secret ending. It's certainly a good alternative to not saying anything at all, but here, you shouldn't go for either four or a score.

Graphics

Your scenery may not have featured ridiculous amounts of random tile assemblies and layers, but it is very solid as it is. You do have to watch out for one important detail here, too - at the chase scene, background tiles and solid platforms are too similar from the point of view of a distant and fast paced cameraman, if not at all.

Other

[+0,25] Good work with the moving platform structures.
[+0,125] Your themes worked. Mostly.
[0] Mind your bullet barrages.
[-0,25] Mind your frame rates.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8/10      
  Graphics ------- 4,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 15,625/20

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The Escape of Fiery Wastes
| FluorescenceLight |

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━━━━━ Part 1: Edge of Brutal Magma Land ━━━━━
Gameplay

This level was lying just on the edge of good difficulty. It was a lengthy and fun coin hunt. There were plenty of well planned obstacles and enemies that could put up a very good fight. The powerups certainly have toned down the difficulty a bit on the far side. That's mostly because it was possible to merge flight, metal and invisibility, in that order - in short, triple the powers and maximum duration.

Graphics

You did a really good job here, as well. All the buildings were really fancy (some slightly too much) and really creative. All of the decoration was spot on. There were very few objects that could be assembled even better (such as the flame turret chains), but it's no really big deal.

Other

[+0,375] For all that was done here, you get an extra for the absence of lag.
[0] There were several smashing traps between lava and other tiles.
[0] The invisibility area at the rightmost transition had a room from which escaping was impossible without the powerup.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,375/5   
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 1 Score --- 15,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Orb of Destruction ━━━━━
Gameplay

You could call this the Orb of Genesis. This is likely the most massive bullet army of the entire contest. May half of these freaks be blown to smithereens. Even so, it was one hell of a challenge, and it was worth the effort of getting that one last shine. Out of all the close calls, this is by far the best. Now all it needs to reach perfection is Android 18, some extra testing sessions and a powerful gravity generator.

Graphics

It is a chunk of everything, but once again, you've put some really good arts in display. 'Nuff said.

Other

[0] No backtracking.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 7,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 4,25/5    
  Other ---------- 2,75/5    
  Part 2 Score --- 14,5/20   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 15,0625/20

---

Fake Reality?
| ~MP3 Amplifier~ |

---

━━━━━ Part 1 ━━━━━
Gameplay

The first installment of this series puts into display some fresh platforming elements. While the difficulty in here may not seem fitting for the master of disaster within us, there's a generous number of different courses to complete. For example, the path of spinners may have been a short ride, but it works much better than any damage dealing substitutes. In short, it's a really well built introductory stage.

Now, let's see what's going on in the story. At long last, the narrator gets some quality speech. However, this whole quest is a little wacky from the plumber's point of view. First thing you know, you're peacefully strolling through your usual mechanised grass field, leaving behind a trail of stomped innocents as you go. The next, there's a letter from an unknown source, who turns out to be a robot with very little reasoning to act conspicuously - but hey, he digs the effects. He sends you off to read the tablets, in the hopes that you understand them, and collect Silver Stars as proof. Unfortunately, you understand nothing. And, thanks to that, the robot decides to motivate you further. How so, you say? By sending you to fight the baddest of baddies, without backup or guaranteed extraction support. All of a sudden, unveiling your emotions involves a journey into the center of the earth to defeat a malevolent beast unbeknownst to us until ten seconds before, while in the face of almost certain defeat.

Okay.

Graphics

We have an outlier here, and it's not at all something bad. The tile patterns here may not seem as elaborate as other entries' at first, but very few present a final product as clean as this. Even fewer have item usage as gorgeous as this level's.

Other

[0] The frame rate is mostly stable.
[0] Mario falling exactly on top of a door leading to a silver star room makes it look like it's meant for backtracking.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,625/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 16,25/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2 ━━━━━
Gameplay

Our Master Quest turns out to be much more Padawan than it first seemed. But, more importantly, it still remains tricky and particularly scorching. The block systems' instability and the occasional misplaced step are the only details that could pose any threat to your clearing the level - even so, the path to the end of this stage is not at all bland. While it may not be as shiny as the prequel was, there's still a lot to see here.

Graphics

Once more, most of this level's beauty lies on unique item usage. Looking at them through the level designer makes you wonder how does the assembly work at all - but that it does very well. The machine's trip toward the core is especially eye-catching.

Other

[+0,375] Quality moving block action, though extremely unstable.
[+0,125] The frame rate is completely stable.
[-0,125] How and why is that earthquake there?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 7,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,375/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 15,75/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3 ━━━━━
Gameplay

While Oval's role as... the quest NPC? wasn't as notorious as in the prequels, both its quest and the fight with Blackworm made this stage shine. Here's the perfect difficulty sizing for the regular player. The platforming mechanics worked beautifully when side by side. The water phase may not have worked as well, but the following ones definitely made up for it. The series' plotline, within its limits, is a genuine Mario experience.

Graphics

See this one right here? This is how it's done.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,875/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 3 Score --- 17/20     
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,3333/20

---

The Rampage
| Supershroom | Jumbo101 |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: The Rampage ━━━━━
Gameplay

There's quite a lot of ground to cover here. It's a lengthy stage, and most of it is dedicated to the gameplay - which is Shroom Spielberg's field of mastery. There's plenty of combinations of tricky jumps, sprints, dives and power-ups. Here, I'll let the score speak for itself. Some of the obstacles here, though, have been pushed dangerously close to the breaking point. Some flame turrets have an annoyingly short cycle or spawn from inconspicuous objects. The second flight sector also benefits too much from being immediately close to the checkpoint. Somehow, the game has even managed to mess up your bullet sentries' offset, making the chain stomp impossible to complete. Most notably, there's the jump from the wooden spinner to a safe Volcano tile, just after the second Wing Cap segment. HOWTHEHECKDOYOUPULLTHATOFF?

Graphics

There's a ridiculous amount of effort in here. You'll find several tilesets being combined in here, some even with slightly over-the-top patterns. Levels by this designer used to be so crowded you had to take a break to know where the hell you were going. While this is not the case with this narrow hall marathon, there's detail whenever the game can handle it. The pipe extensions were a beautiful touch. However, not every Pokémon in this bag is shiny. At times, the foreground skeleton walls were a bit too many. While the flame pulse effects were perfect as gameplay add-ons, they could barely stand for themselves.

Other

[+0,25] The checkpoints and power-up regeneration were well employed.
[+0,125] The frame rate was mostly stable.
[0] At the switch combo, it is possible (and somewhat safer) to completely ignore the second switch.
[0] How the heck does this song have so much replay potential even though I can't totally rave to this?
[0] I found the secret room, and it wasn't because I managed to fail the jump to the Shine Sprite.
[0] Was that flying loose log path in the beginning really necessary?
[0] Snow?
[-0,125] Mind your ceilings in relevant areas. These being too low make triple jumps annoyingly deadly, given I relied on consecutive double jumps. The same applies for the second fly sector.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,675/5   
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 1 Score --- 16,75/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Bully's Volcanic Castle ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage, while not as lengthy as its prequel, features some huge rooms while still preserving linear platforming style and inventive flame usage. There's still good power-up action and lots of nasty jumps. Here, again, some were pushed slightly too far. For instance, the first switch affected too much terrain - it was too narrow for a normal cross and too lenient for speedrunning pace. The second switch wasn't that well made either - true, Jumbo dedicated a checkpoint solely to it, but that's the thing - Jumbo dedicated a checkpoint solely to it.

Graphics

This is the kind of room that could get too crowded in your regular Shroom level. Still, the decoration was spot on. The bigger underground wall surfaces, for instance, were a very fitting substitute of the erratic structures from before. The flame sentries and surfaces here also had a huge step forward.

Other

[+0,125] Good frame rate.
[0] The theme still didn't work.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,25/10   
  Graphics ------- 4,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 16,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Emperor Bully Boss ━━━━━
Gameplay

The series reaches its closing act, and it delivers quite the punch. Rather than break down in difficulty or inventiveness, both story and platforming hit a climactic moment. While, story-wise, this is your everyday rampage versus the baddest of baddies, most of the action in here was gorgeous and borderline annoyingly deadly. Once you're up to date with not being knocked down by surprise and manipulating the Bullet Bills properly (as they were few enough to make this possible, mind you), you were good to go. Still, at first, the former is a privilege for few - namely, the designers. This can be some sort of a letdown for the usual player (especially so due to the lack of checkpoints). Strangely enough, that very same detail was also a blessing - you weren't handing yourselves carte blanche to set up a very inconvenient stunt toward the end.

Graphics

The tile sets followed the previous level, so there's not much to add here other than that it thankfully wasn't overdone.

And then there's Big Bully.

Other

[+0,25] There were no performance issues.
[0] Immediately dashing in some transition allows you to avoid both the first wave of surface flames and the bullet bills from nowhere.
[0] The Angel theme was extremely nostalgic, and the Temple theme... resembles a big arena from Super Smash Flash 2.
[-0,125] Dying on that wooden spinner platform was a bit stupid as Mario wouldn't jump at random while on it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,25/10   
  Graphics ------- 4,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 3 Score --- 17,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,6667/20

---

Bowser's Last Stand
| awesomeguy 99 |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: Nakamura Village ━━━━━
Gameplay

This level was the calm before the storm, as the coin run is a rather straight forward quest. It's a peaceful stroll through town, full of meeting harmless and wacky critters until you notice the haunted cabin and a red coin just beyond your reach. At this point, the plumber goes through a smashing transition, only to eventually return to the level's original peaceful state. You even get to enter the cabin and plunder everything on it. The building's mistery is also unveiled - it was haunted by a pendulum all along!

It was a short yet relaxing stage. It's a neat beginning, even though neither Bowser nor any competent minions are anywhere in sight.

Graphics

The level looks nice, has some pretty decoration and a number of cool tricks. Still, wasn't the scenery rushed a little bit? You got the patience to disable a bunch of items. Aligning them properly should be a piece of cake.

Other

[0] Level transition reliant on damage dealing.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 4,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 10,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Bowser's Castle Trial ━━━━━
Gameplay

Somehow, we've made it to a castle. Several details that at first went over my head became evident as I played other levels - the hidden pipe's location being "revealed" by a butterfly, the safe zones at the flame room being indicated by clock walls. But, to every dose of inventiveness, there were trace amounts of bad gimmicks. The "unrevealed" hidden pipe by itself is a questionable mechanism. The structures on the far right of the last room sit just within your line of sight at maximum zoom out. All in all, the stage was better than its prequel, but there's still a lot of room for work.

Graphics

The graphics were still rather loose here. You have both good and bad world effects. Most structures didn't look good when mashed together. The collapsing clock room and the warp pipe continuity added some shine to this stage, but you could still use some good structure reference to make sure you stand out.

Other

[+0,25] The Thwomp switch was a very nice effect.
[+0,125] Fegelein, the Lost Signs.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 10,875/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: The Bowser-tron 7000 ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage was, by far, the most solid of the series. There were pretty much no cheap gimmicks and many diverse challenges. Despite all that, the challenge could be slightly tougher. Timers and healing could be cut down a little without making the battle too frustrating (and a lot in the chase scene). It was also a bit disappointing to see that both the villain and his mecha overlord barely got any screen time, and were taken down by a god switch.

Graphics

The level was too cramped and narrow. There were several tile combinations that didn't work, such as the wood and the Lego cheese blocks from the first room, checkerboard tiles in general. There were also several good results here - most notably, before and during the chase area.

Other

[+0,25] Thank you a lot for using invincible bullets. I mean it.
[0] The left splitter was not handled correctly in the underwater room. It is possible to return to the bullet zone if you walk left.
[0] The alternate songs here weren't really good.
[0] How did you even get the chase room to lag?
[0] You don't need a story to make a good entrant. Still, if you do try it again, consider putting some more time into it to really make it shine.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 3 Score --- 11,25/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 10,9167/20

---

Pikmin 2: Final
| cliffy987 |

---

Gameplay

Here, we have the perfect sandbox. There's so much space - in fact, it's the biggest entry in the entire contest, overthrowing even all level series, single-handedly. There's so much to explore. There's so much sand! It's an excessively smooth stage if you're in tune with the level's mechanics. That is, unless you're not - then it gets slightly inconvenient (but still not tough).

The breaking point that has to be emphasized is that we must be able to backtrack when it's absolutely necessary. It might be okay to disregard it if you're dealing with a side mission. That's not the case here. Your collecting the red coins is the main quest. There's no returning to previously visited rooms. If you've missed a coin for whatever reason, tough luck. What's more, at the sublevel 7, if you prioritize getting the lowest coin for whatever reason, you will not reach the coin that's above at all.

Still, thanks for bringing this stage to the contest.

Graphics

Here, for whatever reason, you built a path without minding to set up a world around it, no matter how simple. The platforms are hanging on nothing and their existence is absolute - it's you, the big prize, and nothing else. It's the brave journey through the Snake Way. I also looked up the commentary of this level in the Portal that this entry even had a replica of the Pikmin 2 final boss, based on the game's sprite sets, and really - if you were to glance at the structure in the final sublevel by itself, there's no way to tell that was a boss more than it is a chunk of whatever. You would even have a better shot at a legit recreation using wooden objects rather than with shiny metal, fire and gears. There's no need to mind its size, though. Some custom bosses can be huge. In fact, the one silver lining of the whole scenery is exactly that.

Other
[- 0,125] The combination of a permanently spinning triangle on top of a switch and a red coin (that is to say, the red coin) in the final boss can be a bit inconvenient when you have bullet bills and fire to avoid at point blank range and little to no time to react to them. It is even tougher to react with the camera man drifting away to show a newly formed Shine Sprite - and thus leaving you to suffer a scorching demise.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 3,75/10   
  Graphics ------- 1,75/5    
  Other ---------- 2,875/5   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 8,375/20

---

Zone Control
| Karyete |

---

Gameplay

You see this one here? This is how you do a good and non-over-the-top level. While still on the easy side of the scene, with so much recovery space, little to no danger and the FLUDD, it was clean and straight to the point. Lots of space, enjoyable extra quests. 'Nuff said.

Graphics

Neat, simple and fitting tile sets and decoration, everywhere. You could still add some stuff, too - no need to be fancy, just some very subtle touches would make this piece shine even more.

Other

[+0,25] Those alternate themes were nice!
[+0,25] This is for the Desert zone shortcut.
[0] Pay close attention when combining tiles with and without collision. You can easily take one for the other and go for ground that doesn't exist.
[0] Those silver bullet bills are getting fined for flying too fast.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 3,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,5/5     
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 13,5/20

---

The Eternal Cage
| DarwinThe100 |

---

---

The End of SM63
| Nenefun4534 |

---

Gameplay

This was too much of a safe level. It might be easy to get some serious damage here, but preventing it is just as simple. And rather than having the player rely on his/her skills, you have packed in here a lifetime supply of healing assortments for a Level 100 Snorlax. Not only that, powerups and FLUDDs can be easily piled up, which, given time, means you get to ignore everything that's not a solid wall.

Graphics

This level is another example of the Snake Way setting, but it's not as extreme as the other example was. There was some employment of diverse tiles and decoration all the way through, even though most of it was floating at an orderly manner by sheer willforce or just slapped to the edges of the grid.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 3,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 2/5       
  Other ---------- 3/5       
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 8,125/20

---

X
| illusion |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: City of Death ━━━━━



━━━━━ Part 2: The New Opponent ━━━━━
Gameplay

This package of yours was small, but it packs quite a punch. The level path was well made. There was good usage of fire all the way through, too. Nevertheless, the level still had more potential to be challenging, and the platforming lacked fine tuning at times. For example, as I've mentioned before, the powerup could be ignored completely in the flight zone, and some "safe" platforms were too close to lava. Here, we are also given almost no indication of a story. The desert city interpretation is still little reason to cramp all development in a single level, while you took the time to build three.

Graphics

The tilesets and puzzles were laid out well. The foreground wall structures, not as much. Still, the big picture made the cut.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 3,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 2 Score --- 12,875/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Battle ━━━━━
Gameplay

This was more of a large cutscene than anything else, as most of the focus lied on finally get the story going - and that, it did well. Apart from being taken down by an apparently random debris, there is no danger to this level at all. The story by itself was good - but it still deserves less sloppy presentation. The villain's motivation was chattered out in a single transition - until then, we've had two levels of very little story. The third character's deus ex machina trait is as strong as her ambiguity. Despite all that, the development is quick, but really thoughtful - the end is about so much more than mindlessly stepping on a switch.

Graphics

The tileset was slightly monotonous, but it still did work. The debris obstacles, albeit rather chaotic, helped set the atmosphere.

Other

[+0,5] Subtle secret ending.
[0] Mushroom Kingdom is the best final boss theme in existence.
[0] The wooden platform merges with the haunted house walls.
[0] There were too many checkpoints.
[-0,125] Mind your projectiles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,75/10   
  Graphics ------- 3,25/5    
  Other ---------- 3,375/5   
  Part 3 Score --- 12,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 12,625/20

---

Switch Factory: The Finale
| Christian07 |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: The Factory ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage features some cutting-edge platforming that only a handful of entrants can match. It was well balanced, tough but not awfully so, showcased multiple paths, well handled gimmicks and a remarkable puzzle. While it is more of a dungeon than an actual factory, this level is still worth your two cents.

There's a couple of quick reservations to be pointed out, however. Firstly, the level ends in a rather abrupt manner. There's an out of character sign, and that's it. Next, there are a bit too many Bullet Bills that are simply there, posing little to no threat, most notably at the first room and the main puzzle chambers. Granted, a splitter was killed so the mechanism would work, but on an already stressful scenario, the Bills aren't helping much.

Graphics

You did a good job decorating this stage with tiles and most of the items, though the former were slightly rushed and basic. With the Peter-ish platforming style, I often zoomed out as much as I could, and it was possible to tell that the solid ground was still floating around. It's certainly not fun to fill in the grid with checkered patterns all the time, but the grid within line of sight is still far less than all of it (see cliffy's entry for further details).

Other

[+0,25] There is hope for the moving block spring.
[0] You have selected Microsoft Sam as the stage's mysterious voice.
[0] Significantly unstable frame rates.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 3/5       
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 1 Score --- 15,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: The Boss ━━━━━
Gameplay

The mastermind behind the grand scheme finally steps into the stage, and promptly throws a wave after another of disposable minions at you. The machines' design was not particularly elaborate, and not difficult to crack either. All in all, this is a good closing act for the series, yet it is sadly overshadowed by its prequel.

Graphics

More checkered patterns! These could receive another small dose of embelishment as well, but they do look fine as they are.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 3,25/5    
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 2 Score --- 12,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 13,875/20

---

Aethereal Garden
| Oranjui |

---

You called it, so here it is.

You've brought us two days of progress, and yet this stage shows lots of potential. There's the ridiculously open and clean stage format. There's these critters and eye-candy, this sign speech, the Hitchhiker reference. The platforming, despite being on the easy side, is not so too much.

The level is already one hell of a sight as it is, and there's even further room for tweaks so it'll get extra slick. On the first sector, you could add a few stone objects to the side edges of stone tiles, as they look a bit off as they are. The Great Indoors would surely benefit from some extra polish, so that it looks extra great and... indoors. But wait - these few songs you've listed in two days of progress already grant this playlist's spot among the contest's elites. Y'all, bow down to DJ OJ.

Well, now it's your turn. Get to work, crystal clod!

---

Local Scoreboard

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Here's a non-fulltable version if your machine cannot handle the one above for whatever reason: show

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A Farewell to Arms
| MessengerOfDreams | Vesoralla |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: Stranded ━━━━━
Gameplay

This is one really tricky stage. Don't let the fancy stuff steal your attention - this map has an assortment of ways to take you down and none are employed sparingly. Our plumber's role as hero is broken as he's told to reflect about every single creature knocked out in years of franchise - all that while his own survival is an incognito. Half of me was trying to not break character, and the other half was figuring out how long could Mario stay in midair by chain stomping critters. Apart from the occasional vertical traps and all the flame turrets coming from pretty much nowhere, this was an awesome beginning act to play.

Graphics

These are another singular characteristic of this stage. The amount of detail never goes overboard, there's plenty of different detail employed, and some of it (such as Jungle and Grass tiles used together) really stands out. However, the scenery, at many times, was also way too erratic and formless.

Other

[+0,125] The playlist was nice!
[0] Magic smashing grass.
[0] Your clock moving blocks were way too fast.
[-0,125] The frame rate is rather unstable at times.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9/10      
  Graphics ------- 4,375/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 16,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Nucleus ━━━━━
Gameplay

This is another map where you just can't go speedrunning. There's a lot of NPC's to be up to date with, and just as much danger on your way. The city's design is, at the same time, interesting and tough to follow properly. First off, there's lots of ways to climb your way through, with varying difficulties. You'll probably be required to restart at some point. It's easy to lose your train of thought in here. For example, the bullet strings allow you to climb the theater, read the sign up there and meet the real soldier without ever getting to know the spy. As long as you know how to take each and every single critter down, though - you're good to go. It's not exactly simple - bullet and surprise fire damage will pile up real easy. But if you have your snacks readily available, don't be afraid to keep up with the journey - it's worth the rage.

Graphics

This level is a step forward from the previous. The tilesets are much more orderly. The airship has a very clean design. The city's design is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The building next to the clock tower is especially well designed.

Other

[+0,125] Good song selection!
[0] I know there's nothing on the airship's weapons chamber, but did you really need stationary bullets to respawn that often in there?
[-0,125] Mind your unsigned turret flames.
[-0,25] The fake "signal" works!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,625/5   
  Other ---------- 2,75/5    
  Part 2 Score --- 16,75/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Baptism ━━━━━
Gameplay

This season finale is likely the most packed ending stage out there. There's both substantial storytelling and fearsome challenges. You get to experience the war both through gameplay and by seeing its consequences for either side through the NPCs' speeches. And, through the story's sinister unfoldings, the plumber has a change of heart and enacts one last stunt of destruction as the player's role as the unquestionable hero is shattered. And, with it, the ultimate question rises: has the Force finally, and truly, achieved balance?

Graphics

You've mashed up the best of both prequels, and added even more good elements on top of everything. The stone slabs on grass terrain worked very well. The ship's design was equally impressive. I didn't understand very well the sudden transition to desert terrain at the very end, but it's no big deal.

Other

[0] The checkpoint arrow was way too subtle.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 4,875/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 3 Score --- 17,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,8333/20

---

Freedom For All!
| 1018peter |

---

Gameplay

This is but one level, yet it presents some amazing content. All the way through, there's a generous amount of complex and tentatively dangerous obstacles, along with an equal share of incentive to learn the ropes. If you're worried about life-sized loading times mandatorily served beside repetitive knockouts which the stage will put you through, worry no further. You have access to a FLUDD. While this is definitely a difficulty killer, it saves you a lot of time with mastering the leaps and sprints the full experience will demand. When all's said and done, though, unless you are running the game from a mainframe, nothing will spare you from the blade of Trafalgar D. Water Lag. It makes Peter's ridiculous methods of preventing burn damage look easy, as they're paired with the worst game performance a single room will put you through in this contest. Still, don't let those moments of peace mislead you. This level is still hard as balls. You'll still experience big servings of fun and rage alike.

Now, let's see the story. Master Hand's character is undeniably fitting for himself, even with his not being in the action at all. However, the story (with emphasis on the dialogue) by itself certainly wouldn't work as well. Your presentation format also has a part to play in here. You've got who knows how many ways to forward text to people, and just as many means to link your level directly to them. Use them. It's as straight forward as a URL BBcode. Last, but not least, you spoiled too much of the experience by yourself, both with the walkthrough and the secret ending. It's certainly a good alternative to not saying anything at all, but here, you shouldn't go for either four or a score.

Graphics

Your scenery may not have featured ridiculous amounts of random tile assemblies and layers, but it is very solid as it is. You do have to watch out for one important detail here, too - at the chase scene, background tiles and solid platforms are too similar from the point of view of a distant and fast paced cameraman, if not at all.

Other

[+0,25] Good work with the moving platform structures.
[+0,125] Your themes worked. Mostly.
[0] Mind your bullet barrages.
[-0,25] Mind your frame rates.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8/10      
  Graphics ------- 4,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 15,625/20

---

The Escape of Fiery Wastes
| FluorescenceLight |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: Edge of Brutal Magma Land ━━━━━
Gameplay

This level was lying just on the edge of good difficulty. It was a lengthy and fun coin hunt. There were plenty of well planned obstacles and enemies that could put up a very good fight. The powerups certainly have toned down the difficulty a bit on the far side. That's mostly because it was possible to merge flight, metal and invisibility, in that order - in short, triple the powers and maximum duration.

Graphics

You did a really good job here, as well. All the buildings were really fancy (some slightly too much) and really creative. All of the decoration was spot on. There were very few objects that could be assembled even better (such as the flame turret chains), but it's no really big deal.

Other

[+0,375] For all that was done here, you get an extra for the absence of lag.
[0] There were several smashing traps between lava and other tiles.
[0] The invisibility area at the rightmost transition had a room from which escaping was impossible without the powerup.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,375/5   
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 1 Score --- 15,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Orb of Destruction ━━━━━
Gameplay

You could call this the Orb of Genesis. This is likely the most massive bullet army of the entire contest. May half of these freaks be blown to smithereens. Even so, it was one hell of a challenge, and it was worth the effort of getting that one last shine. Out of all the close calls, this is by far the best. Now all it needs to reach perfection is Android 18, some extra testing sessions and a powerful gravity generator.

Graphics

It is a chunk of everything, but once again, you've put some really good arts in display. 'Nuff said.

Other

[0] No backtracking.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 7,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 4,25/5    
  Other ---------- 2,75/5    
  Part 2 Score --- 14,5/20   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 15,0625/20

---

Fake Reality?
| ~MP3 Amplifier~ |

---

━━━━━ Part 1 ━━━━━
Gameplay

The first installment of this series puts into display some fresh platforming elements. While the difficulty in here may not seem fitting for the master of disaster within us, there's a generous number of different courses to complete. For example, the path of spinners may have been a short ride, but it works much better than any damage dealing substitutes. In short, it's a really well built introductory stage.

Now, let's see what's going on in the story. At long last, the narrator gets some quality speech. However, this whole quest is a little wacky from the plumber's point of view. First thing you know, you're peacefully strolling through your usual mechanised grass field, leaving behind a trail of stomped innocents as you go. The next, there's a letter from an unknown source, who turns out to be a robot with very little reasoning to act conspicuously - but hey, he digs the effects. He sends you off to read the tablets, in the hopes that you understand them, and collect Silver Stars as proof. Unfortunately, you understand nothing. And, thanks to that, the robot decides to motivate you further. How so, you say? By sending you to fight the baddest of baddies, without backup or guaranteed extraction support. All of a sudden, unveiling your emotions involves a journey into the center of the earth to defeat a malevolent beast unbeknownst to us until ten seconds before, while in the face of almost certain defeat.

Okay.

Graphics

We have an outlier here, and it's not at all something bad. The tile patterns here may not seem as elaborate as other entries' at first, but very few present a final product as clean as this. Even fewer have item usage as gorgeous as this level's.

Other

[0] The frame rate is mostly stable.
[0] Mario falling exactly on top of a door leading to a silver star room makes it look like it's meant for backtracking.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,625/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 16,25/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2 ━━━━━
Gameplay

Our Master Quest turns out to be much more Padawan than it first seemed. But, more importantly, it still remains tricky and particularly scorching. The block systems' instability and the occasional misplaced step are the only details that could pose any threat to your clearing the level - even so, the path to the end of this stage is not at all bland. While it may not be as shiny as the prequel was, there's still a lot to see here.

Graphics

Once more, most of this level's beauty lies on unique item usage. Looking at them through the level designer makes you wonder how does the assembly work at all - but that it does very well. The machine's trip toward the core is especially eye-catching.

Other

[+0,375] Quality moving block action, though extremely unstable.
[+0,125] The frame rate is completely stable.
[-0,125] How and why is that earthquake there?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 7,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,375/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 15,75/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3 ━━━━━
Gameplay

While Oval's role as... the quest NPC? wasn't as notorious as in the prequels, both its quest and the fight with Blackworm made this stage shine. Here's the perfect difficulty sizing for the regular player. The platforming mechanics worked beautifully when side by side. The water phase may not have worked as well, but the following ones definitely made up for it. The series' plotline, within its limits, is a genuine Mario experience.

Graphics

See this one right here? This is how it's done.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,875/5   
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 3 Score --- 17/20     
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,3333/20

---

The Rampage
| Supershroom | Jumbo101 |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: The Rampage ━━━━━
Gameplay

There's quite a lot of ground to cover here. It's a lengthy stage, and most of it is dedicated to the gameplay - which is Shroom Spielberg's field of mastery. There's plenty of combinations of tricky jumps, sprints, dives and power-ups. Here, I'll let the score speak for itself. Some of the obstacles here, though, have been pushed dangerously close to the breaking point. Some flame turrets have an annoyingly short cycle or spawn from inconspicuous objects. The second flight sector also benefits too much from being immediately close to the checkpoint. Somehow, the game has even managed to mess up your bullet sentries' offset, making the chain stomp impossible to complete. Most notably, there's the jump from the wooden spinner to a safe Volcano tile, just after the second Wing Cap segment. HOWTHEHECKDOYOUPULLTHATOFF?

Graphics

There's a ridiculous amount of effort in here. You'll find several tilesets being combined in here, some even with slightly over-the-top patterns. Levels by this designer used to be so crowded you had to take a break to know where the hell you were going. While this is not the case with this narrow hall marathon, there's detail whenever the game can handle it. The pipe extensions were a beautiful touch. However, not every Pokémon in this bag is shiny. At times, the foreground skeleton walls were a bit too many. While the flame pulse effects were perfect as gameplay add-ons, they could barely stand for themselves.

Other

[+0,25] The checkpoints and power-up regeneration were well employed.
[+0,125] The frame rate was mostly stable.
[0] At the switch combo, it is possible (and somewhat safer) to completely ignore the second switch.
[0] How the heck does this song have so much replay potential even though I can't totally rave to this?
[0] I found the secret room, and it wasn't because I managed to fail the jump to the Shine Sprite.
[0] Was that flying loose log path in the beginning really necessary?
[0] Snow?
[-0,125] Mind your ceilings in relevant areas. These being too low make triple jumps annoyingly deadly, given I relied on consecutive double jumps. The same applies for the second fly sector.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 4,675/5   
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 1 Score --- 16,75/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Bully's Volcanic Castle ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage, while not as lengthy as its prequel, features some huge rooms while still preserving linear platforming style and inventive flame usage. There's still good power-up action and lots of nasty jumps. Here, again, some were pushed slightly too far. For instance, the first switch affected too much terrain - it was too narrow for a normal cross and too lenient for speedrunning pace. The second switch wasn't that well made either - true, Jumbo dedicated a checkpoint solely to it, but that's the thing - Jumbo dedicated a checkpoint solely to it.

Graphics

This is the kind of room that could get too crowded in your regular Shroom level. Still, the decoration was spot on. The bigger underground wall surfaces, for instance, were a very fitting substitute of the erratic structures from before. The flame sentries and surfaces here also had a huge step forward.

Other

[+0,125] Good frame rate.
[0] The theme still didn't work.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,25/10   
  Graphics ------- 4,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 16,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Emperor Bully Boss ━━━━━
Gameplay

The series reaches its closing act, and it delivers quite the punch. Rather than break down in difficulty or inventiveness, both story and platforming hit a climactic moment. While, story-wise, this is your everyday rampage versus the baddest of baddies, most of the action in here was gorgeous and borderline annoyingly deadly. Once you're up to date with not being knocked down by surprise and manipulating the Bullet Bills properly (as they were few enough to make this possible, mind you), you were good to go. Still, at first, the former is a privilege for few - namely, the designers. This can be some sort of a letdown for the usual player (especially so due to the lack of checkpoints). Strangely enough, that very same detail was also a blessing - you weren't handing yourselves carte blanche to set up a very inconvenient stunt toward the end.

Graphics

The tile sets followed the previous level, so there's not much to add here other than that it thankfully wasn't overdone.

And then there's Big Bully.

Other

[+0,25] There were no performance issues.
[0] Immediately dashing in some transition allows you to avoid both the first wave of surface flames and the bullet bills from nowhere.
[0] The Angel theme was extremely nostalgic, and the Temple theme... resembles a big arena from Super Smash Flash 2.
[-0,125] Dying on that wooden spinner platform was a bit stupid as Mario wouldn't jump at random while on it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 9,25/10   
  Graphics ------- 4,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 3 Score --- 17,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 16,6667/20

---

Bowser's Last Stand
| awesomeguy 99 |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: Nakamura Village ━━━━━
Gameplay

This level was the calm before the storm, as the coin run is a rather straight forward quest. It's a peaceful stroll through town, full of meeting harmless and wacky critters until you notice the haunted cabin and a red coin just beyond your reach. At this point, the plumber goes through a smashing transition, only to eventually return to the level's original peaceful state. You even get to enter the cabin and plunder everything on it. The building's mistery is also unveiled - it was haunted by a pendulum all along!

It was a short yet relaxing stage. It's a neat beginning, even though neither Bowser nor any competent minions are anywhere in sight.

Graphics

The level looks nice, has some pretty decoration and a number of cool tricks. Still, wasn't the scenery rushed a little bit? You got the patience to disable a bunch of items. Aligning them properly should be a piece of cake.

Other

[0] Level transition reliant on damage dealing.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 4,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,75/5    
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 1 Score --- 10,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: Bowser's Castle Trial ━━━━━
Gameplay

Somehow, we've made it to a castle. Several details that at first went over my head became evident as I played other levels - the hidden pipe's location being "revealed" by a butterfly, the safe zones at the flame room being indicated by clock walls. But, to every dose of inventiveness, there were trace amounts of bad gimmicks. The "unrevealed" hidden pipe by itself is a questionable mechanism. The structures on the far right of the last room sit just within your line of sight at maximum zoom out. All in all, the stage was better than its prequel, but there's still a lot of room for work.

Graphics

The graphics were still rather loose here. You have both good and bad world effects. Most structures didn't look good when mashed together. The collapsing clock room and the warp pipe continuity added some shine to this stage, but you could still use some good structure reference to make sure you stand out.

Other

[+0,25] The Thwomp switch was a very nice effect.
[+0,125] Fegelein, the Lost Signs.
[-0,25] Mind your hidden objects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3,125/5   
  Part 2 Score --- 10,875/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: The Bowser-tron 7000 ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage was, by far, the most solid of the series. There were pretty much no cheap gimmicks and many diverse challenges. Despite all that, the challenge could be slightly tougher. Timers and healing could be cut down a little without making the battle too frustrating (and a lot in the chase scene). It was also a bit disappointing to see that both the villain and his mecha overlord barely got any screen time, and were taken down by a god switch.

Graphics

The level was too cramped and narrow. There were several tile combinations that didn't work, such as the wood and the Lego cheese blocks from the first room, checkerboard tiles in general. There were also several good results here - most notably, before and during the chase area.

Other

[+0,25] Thank you a lot for using invincible bullets. I mean it.
[0] The left splitter was not handled correctly in the underwater room. It is possible to return to the bullet zone if you walk left.
[0] The alternate songs here weren't really good.
[0] How did you even get the chase room to lag?
[0] You don't need a story to make a good entrant. Still, if you do try it again, consider putting some more time into it to really make it shine.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 2,625/5   
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 3 Score --- 11,25/20  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 10,9167/20

---

Pikmin 2: Final
| cliffy987 |

---

Gameplay

Here, we have the perfect sandbox. There's so much space - in fact, it's the biggest entry in the entire contest, overthrowing even all level series, single-handedly. There's so much to explore. There's so much sand! It's an excessively smooth stage if you're in tune with the level's mechanics. That is, unless you're not - then it gets slightly inconvenient (but still not tough).

The breaking point that has to be emphasized is that we must be able to backtrack when it's absolutely necessary. It might be okay to disregard it if you're dealing with a side mission. That's not the case here. Your collecting the red coins is the main quest. There's no returning to previously visited rooms. If you've missed a coin for whatever reason, tough luck. What's more, at the sublevel 7, if you prioritize getting the lowest coin for whatever reason, you will not reach the coin that's above at all.

Still, thanks for bringing this stage to the contest.

Graphics

Here, for whatever reason, you built a path without minding to set up a world around it, no matter how simple. The platforms are hanging on nothing and their existence is absolute - it's you, the big prize, and nothing else. It's the brave journey through the Snake Way. I also looked up the commentary of this level in the Portal that this entry even had a replica of the Pikmin 2 final boss, based on the game's sprite sets, and really - if you were to glance at the structure in the final sublevel by itself, there's no way to tell that was a boss more than it is a chunk of whatever. You would even have a better shot at a legit recreation using wooden objects rather than with shiny metal, fire and gears. There's no need to mind its size, though. Some custom bosses can be huge. In fact, the one silver lining of the whole scenery is exactly that.

Other
[- 0,125] The combination of a permanently spinning triangle on top of a switch and a red coin (that is to say, the red coin) in the final boss can be a bit inconvenient when you have bullet bills and fire to avoid at point blank range and little to no time to react to them. It is even tougher to react with the camera man drifting away to show a newly formed Shine Sprite - and thus leaving you to suffer a scorching demise.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 3,75/10   
  Graphics ------- 1,75/5    
  Other ---------- 2,875/5   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 8,375/20

---

Zone Control
| Karyete |

---

Gameplay

You see this one here? This is how you do a good and non-over-the-top level. While still on the easy side of the scene, with so much recovery space, little to no danger and the FLUDD, it was clean and straight to the point. Lots of space, enjoyable extra quests. 'Nuff said.

Graphics

Neat, simple and fitting tile sets and decoration, everywhere. You could still add some stuff, too - no need to be fancy, just some very subtle touches would make this piece shine even more.

Other

[+0,25] Those alternate themes were nice!
[+0,25] This is for the Desert zone shortcut.
[0] Pay close attention when combining tiles with and without collision. You can easily take one for the other and go for ground that doesn't exist.
[0] Those silver bullet bills are getting fined for flying too fast.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,5/10    
  Graphics ------- 3,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3,5/5     
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 13,5/20

---

The Eternal Cage
| DarwinThe100 |

---

---

The End of SM63
| Nenefun4534 |

---

Gameplay

This was too much of a safe level. It might be easy to get some serious damage here, but preventing it is just as simple. And rather than having the player rely on his/her skills, you have packed in here a lifetime supply of healing assortments for a Level 100 Snorlax. Not only that, powerups and FLUDDs can be easily piled up, which, given time, means you get to ignore everything that's not a solid wall.

Graphics

This level is another example of the Snake Way setting, but it's not as extreme as the other example was. There was some employment of diverse tiles and decoration all the way through, even though most of it was floating at an orderly manner by sheer willforce or just slapped to the edges of the grid.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 3,125/10  
  Graphics ------- 2/5       
  Other ---------- 3/5       
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 8,125/20

---

X
| illusion |

---

━━━━━ Part 1: City of Death ━━━━━



━━━━━ Part 2: The New Opponent ━━━━━
Gameplay

This package of yours was small, but it packs quite a punch. The level path was well made. There was good usage of fire all the way through, too. Nevertheless, the level still had more potential to be challenging, and the platforming lacked fine tuning at times. For example, as I've mentioned before, the powerup could be ignored completely in the flight zone, and some "safe" platforms were too close to lava. Here, we are also given almost no indication of a story. The desert city interpretation is still little reason to cramp all development in a single level, while you took the time to build three.

Graphics

The tilesets and puzzles were laid out well. The foreground wall structures, not as much. Still, the big picture made the cut.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 3,5/5     
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 2 Score --- 12,875/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 3: Battle ━━━━━
Gameplay

This was more of a large cutscene than anything else, as most of the focus lied on finally get the story going - and that, it did well. Apart from being taken down by an apparently random debris, there is no danger to this level at all. The story by itself was good - but it still deserves less sloppy presentation. The villain's motivation was chattered out in a single transition - until then, we've had two levels of very little story. The third character's deus ex machina trait is as strong as her ambiguity. Despite all that, the development is quick, but really thoughtful - the end is about so much more than mindlessly stepping on a switch.

Graphics

The tileset was slightly monotonous, but it still did work. The debris obstacles, albeit rather chaotic, helped set the atmosphere.

Other

[+0,5] Subtle secret ending.
[0] Mushroom Kingdom is the best final boss theme in existence.
[0] The wooden platform merges with the haunted house walls.
[0] There were too many checkpoints.
[-0,125] Mind your projectiles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 5,75/10   
  Graphics ------- 3,25/5    
  Other ---------- 3,375/5   
  Part 3 Score --- 12,375/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 12,625/20

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Switch Factory: The Finale
| Christian07 |

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━━━━━ Part 1: The Factory ━━━━━
Gameplay

This stage features some cutting-edge platforming that only a handful of entrants can match. It was well balanced, tough but not awfully so, showcased multiple paths, well handled gimmicks and a remarkable puzzle. While it is more of a dungeon than an actual factory, this level is still worth your two cents.

There's a couple of quick reservations to be pointed out, however. Firstly, the level ends in a rather abrupt manner. There's an out of character sign, and that's it. Next, there are a bit too many Bullet Bills that are simply there, posing little to no threat, most notably at the first room and the main puzzle chambers. Granted, a splitter was killed so the mechanism would work, but on an already stressful scenario, the Bills aren't helping much.

Graphics

You did a good job decorating this stage with tiles and most of the items, though the former were slightly rushed and basic. With the Peter-ish platforming style, I often zoomed out as much as I could, and it was possible to tell that the solid ground was still floating around. It's certainly not fun to fill in the grid with checkered patterns all the time, but the grid within line of sight is still far less than all of it (see cliffy's entry for further details).

Other

[+0,25] There is hope for the moving block spring.
[0] You have selected Microsoft Sam as the stage's mysterious voice.
[0] Significantly unstable frame rates.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 8,875/10  
  Graphics ------- 3/5       
  Other ---------- 3,25/5    
  Part 1 Score --- 15,125/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━ Part 2: The Boss ━━━━━
Gameplay

The mastermind behind the grand scheme finally steps into the stage, and promptly throws a wave after another of disposable minions at you. The machines' design was not particularly elaborate, and not difficult to crack either. All in all, this is a good closing act for the series, yet it is sadly overshadowed by its prequel.

Graphics

More checkered patterns! These could receive another small dose of embelishment as well, but they do look fine as they are.

Other

[0] That's all, folks!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Gameplay ------- 6,375/10  
  Graphics ------- 3,25/5    
  Other ---------- 3/5       
  Part 2 Score --- 12,625/20 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Final Score: 13,875/20

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Aethereal Garden
| Oranjui |

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You called it, so here it is.

You've brought us two days of progress, and yet this stage shows lots of potential. There's the ridiculously open and clean stage format. There's these critters and eye-candy, this sign speech, the Hitchhiker reference. The platforming, despite being on the easy side, is not so too much.

The level is already one hell of a sight as it is, and there's even further room for tweaks so it'll get extra slick. On the first sector, you could add a few stone objects to the side edges of stone tiles, as they look a bit off as they are. The Great Indoors would surely benefit from some extra polish, so that it looks extra great and... indoors. But wait - these few songs you've listed in two days of progress already grant this playlist's spot among the contest's elites. Y'all, bow down to DJ OJ.

Well, now it's your turn. Get to work, crystal clod!

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Local Scoreboard

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Here's the spreadsheet with all my judgings in all criteria. God bless Excel.

[Charcoal]

I'm wondering if I can do really well next time with just a single level because I see the top 3 are all a series of levels.