MaGL X2 - Cat Planet × Pokemon OTP

[Sebby19]

Note: This took time to write, so I'll read your replies to me in a bit
What I'm about write should really go into some MaGL X3 planning thread, but since MaGL (SMW) hasn't even started yet, it's way too early to do that. Anyways:

Organizer, Judging
I think I want to organize the next MaGLX, but I don't think I want to be a judge. But I wouldn't really know how to communicate with the other judges how to score the "Use of music" (worth 5-10%?) category, which sounds like a difficult to judge category in the first place. Maybe I be a '4th' judge, for only that category?
-Judge 1 \
-Judge 2 > (95% of score, averaged out)
-Judge 3 /
-Me: Music Category (5% of score, straight added on top of judges)
Advantage: I don't have to vigorously play and judge +200 levels, something I definitely don't have time for, other judges can just focus on the level design/play itself.
Con: Hmm, seems a lot more complicated, now that I've written it down. Also, since I would be the one handing out music, I may be biased and already have ideas on what I would expect from a track.

Overworld
Whether its the top 100 or more, there should be 10 worlds, each one hosted by Demo and her siblings (and there is exactly 10!). Building on the music theme, the background music in each world will represent each sibling's favorite genre. However, I don't think those facts were not completely established, all I remember from a topic years ago is Demo=Classical, Science=Techno, Nevada=Grunge rock? So we'll have to work on that.
There will most likely be a post game (maybe hosted by the uncles?). Levels by the judges, if they want to; I know for sure I will finally make one (or three); and a relay (or two) if people are willing. As for outside guest levels, I'll let Horikawa handle that. It's definitely her strength, and she enjoys doing that anyways.

MAFAB
Absolutely, with the same music gimmick. The 2nd relay would be based on this.

Pre-planning, the Gathering of Music
While I have a small collection of music, it's mostly techno, so I figure this would be a good point to open the planning portion to the community. People can submit music they want to hear in the contest, with only 2 rules:
1)No Mario (and Yoshi, DK, and Wario). The goal here is to broaden tastes.
2)No lyrics (barring 1 or 2 phrases here and there, or lyrics so incomprehensible its practically instrumental)
A song with lyrics can also be taken if there is a really good instrumental portion within it. In that case, I'll just slice off the unneeded portions. Which I'll be doing a lot of anyway, if it's possible to make a song loopable. Music tracks that make good loops would be highly recommended, as are remixes. OC Remix would be a good source to mine.
The goal is to have a unique track per contest entry. So, there will need to be a part before all this where people will need to declare if they are making a level, before the music is gathered and distributed

This would also be the part where we canonize which sibling likes which genre of music.

The Box
When you receive your box, you will actually receive 3 music tracks:
1)MAIN: The main music track that you MUST use. Worth 5-10% of your score
2)BOSS: A boss track that is optional.
3)BONUS: a track meant for side rooms, or an intro/end room, also optional. You can even swap this one out for your own, if you want. It's just a suggestion.
I know only 1 music track in a level could be pretty boring, so the bonus tracks are included to spice things up. The use of the BOSS and BONUS will not be judged, but don't use BONUS for 1 half of a level, not okay.
Every level will have a unique MAIN track. Depending on how many BOSS and BONUS tracks we get, there may be some repeat, but that okay.

As for MaFAB, they will only get a BOSS track that they must use, but will be free to use anything else outside the fight. Not sure yet if I want every boss to have a unique track (probably will), but there will definitely be a small chance of overlap with MaGLX.

[Willhart]

I feel like having a one song you'd have to use somewhere would be better, than literally choosing a music for everything, though having a set amount of music would help with the level lenght too. It'd definitely work with the reroll idea I mentioned before too. However I feel like there may be issue with the different musics on the same box fitting together though. Like that could be kind of a problem for the level coherency.

Edit: I might be interested in running the next contest too. I'd have to carefully think thorugh the things first though, and reread information on previous contests.

[SAJewers]

Organizer, Judging
I think I want to organize the next MaGLX, but I don't think I want to be a judge. But I wouldn't really know how to communicate with the other judges how to score the "Use of music" (worth 5-10%?) category, which sounds like a difficult to judge category in the first place. Maybe I be a '4th' judge, for only that category?
-Judge 1 \
-Judge 2 > (95% of score, averaged out)
-Judge 3 /
-Me: Music Category (5% of score, straight added on top of judges)
Advantage: I don't have to vigorously play and judge +200 levels, something I definitely don't have time for, other judges can just focus on the level design/play itself.
Con: Hmm, seems a lot more complicated, now that I've written it down. Also, since I would be the one handing out music, I may be biased and already have ideas on what I would expect from a track.

Spitballing here, but what if instead of each judge giving their own score, all the judges give a combined score/agree on the scoring for it?

When I was planning MaGL X1 I initially thought of a similar music idea. The reason I tossed it out was, whether right or wrong, I thought that intruding upon the contents of the level was breaking some kind of sacrosanct barrier. Like I felt that's why MaGL 2 failed, whether I'm right or wrong about that. So with MaGL X I wanted to come up with a gimmick that would only influence a level, rather than force certain elements into it. Same with MaGL X2 (name + character).

That said... I'd be very curious to see how music worked out. Since it was an idea I had, was very tempted by, and rejected, I'd be very interested see my old idea tested and see how well it might have worked out.

I'm dubious about only allowing 1 track for the main track though - I feel that unneccessarily restricts design. Even with one or two other "bonus" tracks included. I'd recommend allowing as much freedom as possible. What I might recommend is giving each contestant like... 5-10 tracks to use as they see fit and they can't use any others. Give them a lot of flexibility, but flexibility within limits that don't feel too restricting - that's the key to a good gimmick.

IMO the issue was the contents of the boxes, and the fact that you received multiple things that may or may not work together.

I would say either:

• give 2 or 3 songs, they have to pick one to be used as the main track. then let everyone mulligan once
• Create a huge list of all the possible tracks, and let people privately claim a song on a first come, first serve basis.

For bonus rooms/intro screens/checkpoint screens/bosses/etc., people should probably be able to use whatever.

[Sebby19]

Actually rereading this I wonder if only one song would be too limiting. What if people get a song they don't like? It'd make the "box had bad tiles" scenario from magl 2. Like 3 different songs could be better, but having to potentially look for hundreds of different sogns could be potentiallty technically challenging. I feel like music based level design could really ramp up the level atmosphere though. Not everyone thinks it's the main thing of the level of course, so something like that might require some scoring changes too.

Thought of that, which is why there is an optional BOSS and BONUS track included, which hopefully should take the strain off of just using the MAIN track by itself.

Also how we would know which are the top 100 levels unless we judge everything? It would not really make things any faster, except for the LP, and even then I don't see too many reasons to not include the bottom tier to the game too, and simply have raocow start later in.

That idea was never meant to make judging go faster, totally meant to make the LP faster, with the side benefit of making the HUB be not as much work for the designer. And reducing the file sizes and such as a bonus. As for anybody who decides to play for themselves, 100 levels seems much more manageable than +270.
If you think about, with the threat of not making it in the episode, I feel that people may put in a lot more effort to make sure they do get in, and the contest a lot more fierce. Sure, joke levels won't exist at all, but personally, I feel they are a waste of time anyways.
For levels that don't get in, there will be a list in the episode (not in a text box!). As an extra idea, maybe a slideshow of images from each level could be in the episode?
Even if its agreed 100 is too small, 300 is my absolute upper limit. I mean, come on...

I get this, but it seems disappointing to me. I actually enjoyed the entire LP, but if people want it shorter what I might recommend is that raocow instead like... Spend a maximum time on the bottom 50% of the levels before god moding through the level. That way they're all shown off, but we avoid excessive one level videos near the bottom.

That said I still prefer he just play them all hahahaha. But that's just me, I understand.

I enjoyed it too, but I'm afraid this will balloon in size too Nitroid, or worse, Big Fish Legends ;)

One could argue the same thing with the name gimmick though. No matter what, someone will find a gimmick limiting and complain.
If you have multiple people cull together songs, having enough shouldn't be a problem (I'd even be willing to help with that).

That's the plan!

Good points I can see so far is the lack of naming difficulty score factor (free two points for anyone who chooses hard), and the fact that it would definitely help to lessen the amount of people who join in due to being more limiting (less levels = smaller contest).

On the other hand the music is really important part of a level, and at least allowing a reroll or two would be good. Like the first reroll could be free, but It'd still deter people from doing it as the new song could be worse than the first one.

I don't know how I feel about rerolling. I guess I think about that once the 'Unique song per participant' goal is reached

[SAJewers]

In that case, sign me up for the music culling team then.

[Learning-Timebuster]

i should run magl x3 so id appreciate it if youd give your votes to me

[Sebby19]

Spitballing here, but what if instead of each judge giving their own score, all the judges give a combined score/agree on the scoring for it?

I dunno, I'm at a complete loss when deciding scoring rubricks. Even if I study the past ones used.

I would say either:

• give 2 or 3 songs, they have to pick one to be used as the main track. then let everyone mulligan once
• Create a huge list of all the possible tracks, and let people privately claim a song on a first come, first serve basis.

For bonus rooms/intro screens/checkpoint screens/bosses/etc., people should probably be able to use whatever.

eh, I feel that picking from a huge list defeats the purpose of a 'inspired by music' contest. The idea is to hear the music first, and then make the level. Here, they can have a premade idea, and attach the song to that.
And the BONUS song is merely a suggestion, they can already use whatever. But I should add that they can only use 1 BONUS track, not like 5 or 6 different ones.

P.S. Oh wow, I finally noticed that list feature. That... would have been useful for the Soldexus and Iji guides >_<

I'm dubious about only allowing 1 track for the main track though - I feel that unneccessarily restricts design. Even with one or two other "bonus" tracks included. I'd recommend allowing as much freedom as possible. What I might recommend is giving each contestant like... 5-10 tracks to use as they see fit and they can't use any others. Give them a lot of flexibility, but flexibility within limits that don't feel too restricting - that's the key to a good gimmick.

I agree that 1 track does sound really limiting, but even having a choice of 2 means ballooning +270 songs into +540, if still going by the 'Unique track per level' rule. And being selfish here, I have some songs I really want to see levels made out of (really my whole motivation for this idea), that might get missed out if people can choose.

[Sebby19]

So from what I gather from this,
-a 'Inspired by music' MaGLX idea has been given a thumbs up,
-'Top 100 entrant only' idea may be need to be loosened up
-Still need to decide on how restrictive 1 MAIN song really is.

Any thoughts on the siblings hosting each world? Because besides that, I think I can shelve this until after MaGL (SMW).

[SAJewers]

Before we discuss any limit of submissions/top 100, we should probably see how many people enter first. Everything else you've said is good.

[Sebby19]

Before we discuss any limit of submissions/top 100, we should probably see how many people enter first. Everything else you've said is good.

Well, whether it be Top 100 or more, I should be upfront with peeps that their level may not make it into the episode if its not good enough, when asking for submissions.

You still have to run like anyone else . But I think your idea is potentially solid.

Ah, there is going to be an election? Didn't know if there were others that were interested. But that is still like, a year from now, right?

Nonetheless, time to put this into hibernation. Thankyou everyone for the feedback.

[Piter Lauchy]

One idea that just came to me would be to give contestants three randomized genres or moods to choose from and give them a song based on that, so there'd still be some options, similar to the three names people got to choose from in MaGL X2.
An example for genres would be someone gets Metal, Techno or Pop to choose from.
Moods could be something like upbeat, whacky or melancholic.

[Telamon]

Guys, let's just start the MaGL X3 LP thread now. It's never too early to hype!

[Sebby19]

Yeah there will likely be a ton of desire to run after the successes of X1 and X2. Especially since I'm opening the voting up to SMBX forum peeps this year too.

That said, former judges and showrunners will all be able to endorse an idea once I collect them all. Since we have a really good idea of what it's like to actually run a contest this size. So it isn't too early to start thinking about ideas and refining them if only to try to get one of the endorsements (which will basically just be a "Horikawa endorsed" thing next to their name in the big list). I have no idea of they'll have any impact but they might.

Ah, I see. Then its a good thing I thought of this now. As long as I have your endorsement, ofcoarse. ;) I hope you read about the part where you still invite special guests to make levels in the post game.

Man, I can't believe I'm planning for something in 2017. This feels like the U.S. presidential election, since those thing go for 2 years. In Canada, our elections are typically 5 weeks (except the last one, which was 2 months).

[Willhart]

If the music idea is popular, we may see other people attempt that too. It'd be a good idea to think it trough pretty well before the proposal. Also I can kind of see some songs giving an unfair advantage to people.

[ano0maly]

It might be wiser to use video game music rather than commercial songs, because copyright.

[Nathan the Talkmaus]

It might be wiser to use video game music rather than commercial songs, because copyright.

Video game musics are under copyright too, but I'd say they're a better idea for numerous other reasons like "videogame music feels more fitting to being in a videogame" and "lyrics are totes distratcting, yo"

[Hoeloe]

My only real concern with the "top 100" idea is that it doesn't relieve any pressure from the judges. If MAGLX3 gets 500 submissions, that's going to be a looong judging period unless the way levels are judged is changed.

[Sniggerb0bble]

My only real concern with the "top 100" idea is that it doesn't relieve any pressure from the judges. If MAGLX3 gets 500 submissions, that's going to be a looong judging period unless the way levels are judged is changed.

I don't think there's much of a way around that though, unless you start putting barriers up in the way of people submitting (stricter deadlines, max amount of submissions, etc), and I think in doing that you're inherently risking having lower quality levels or potentially deterring someone from submitting something great. I think inherently, the judges have to bear the weight of the contest to ensure that it attains a higher quality, tough as it may be to judge something gigantic.

I do wonder if even having a max amount in the LP will deter people from entering too. Previously a lot of first-timers and experimenters have joined just to try something out and to guarantee having it shown, but those people and those who are generally more negative about their work might have an 'I know it won't get into the top 100 anyway' mindset and just not bother, and we could miss out on some fantastic ideas as a result. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a level cap for the LP, it's only practical if this contest keeps growing, but we should be at least be aware of the potential risk it might have on the quality and number of levels that get submitted.

[Willhart]

I don't personally see an issue with the first option either. It does increase the risk of one of the judges being hard to work with though, but the accusary to the judge experience should be better saved that way. Having less work on the organizer might mean that they have more time to poke the judges to keep working towards deathlines too. Also I'm not sure how much it would affect deadlines either, as you need a healthy leeway anyway for two judges too. The delay on that part is mostly the time that it takes from the slowest judge to go through everything.

[Mikkofier]

If there's a "top 100 only" cap, I know I wouldn't take part. I don't care about winning, only that raocow gets to play my level.

[Sniggerb0bble]

The showrunner simply 'cleans' levels and does not judge, only playtesting them in god mode.

I wonder, how much, if any, of the cleaning you did was reliant on you playing through the level normally? For example, were there any issues with midpoints or with Lua shenanigans that would not have been discovered had you godmoded?

Also, I feel I should quickly state that I'm not a fan of a level cap myself (either an entry cap or a max amount of levels for the LP), but I thought I'd bring the point up since I'd seen the idea thrown around whilst the contest was still being played. Regardless, your input on the subject is very interesting though.

[Willhart]

Actually now that I think of it, it would be good for the organizer to have some lua experiece, in case the levels don't work. Or at least they should know someone trustworthy who could help them if that happens.

Edit: though hopefully the lua will be more stable by then.

[SAJewers]

My only real concern with the "top 100" idea is that it doesn't relieve any pressure from the judges. If MAGLX3 gets 500 submissions, that's going to be a looong judging period unless the way levels are judged is changed.

I don't think there's much of a way around that though, unless you start putting barriers up in the way of people submitting (stricter deadlines, max amount of submissions, etc), and I think in doing that you're inherently risking having lower quality levels or potentially deterring someone from submitting something great. I think inherently, the judges have to bear the weight of the contest to ensure that it attains a higher quality, tough as it may be to judge something gigantic.

I do wonder if even having a max amount in the LP will deter people from entering too. Previously a lot of first-timers and experimenters have joined just to try something out and to guarantee having it shown, but those people and those who are generally more negative about their work might have an 'I know it won't get into the top 100 anyway' mindset and just not bother, and we could miss out on some fantastic ideas as a result. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a level cap for the LP, it's only practical if this contest keeps growing, but we should be at least be aware of the potential risk it might have on the quality and number of levels that get submitted.

See, okay... Since I ran both contests I can kinda give some hopefully informed suggestions on this.

The thing is, it depends on how much you care about 'accurate' responses from the judges. Like, I don't mean 'accurate' as in some kind of objective quality to the levels (again, I'm VERY against that way of thinking), but rather 'accurate' as to the experience of the judge in regards to the level.

I took representing my experience with a level very seriously, so I refused to bring in outside powerups or use cheats, even if a level took me literally hours to beat. The only exception I made in MaGL X2 was Tenta's (where, after 3.5 hours or so, I used god mode) and in MaGL X1 the exceptions were Mechdragon's (where I brought in outside powerups) and RPGFan's (where I used god mode).

However, as I was also the clog in the pipeline, since I was the one 'verifying' that levels were complete and completeable (no missing music, no obvious errors in forgetting to place a midpoint or a star, using the right exit, etc), this added to the iteration time of getting things to the other judges.

There are a couple key solutions to this that I see as being realistic.

• First - The showrunner simply 'cleans' levels and does not judge, only playtesting them in god mode. This saves some time, but means you have to rely on yet another judge (and judges can be quite unreliable and often need extensive poking to keep them on strict deadlines). I really don't like the idea of having to rely on another, non-showrunner, person to play all 300+ levels. People are unreliable and it makes deadlines really rough to estimate properly or work around. I'd really advise against this.
• Second - The showrunner 'cleans' levels and also judges, but they, and all other judges, accept a general 'maximum time spent.' For example, if they spend more than an hour on a level, they just godmode through it. This means you only need to rely on two other judges, which is really good for reliability. But it also sacrifices 'accuracy' as to the representation of how a level would make a judge feel if played 'honestly.' It imposes upon a level in a way I don't feel comfortable with.
• Third - Sort of between those two. The showrunner 'cleans' levels by playing through them in godmode and making sure everything works fine, but also plays through them again on their own time for a judgement. This decreases the time it takes to get levels to the other judges by rather a lot and relies only on two other judges (good for reliability), but necessarily sacrifices the judgement of a level based on first reactions. For levels with fun gags or jokes, this could have a serious impact on their score from the showrunner/judge.
• Fourth - What Sniggerb0bble suggested. Cap the entry count. The problem with this though is that you get somewhere around 60-80% of the entries literally in the last hour of the last day. So imagine the (imho justified) hate that would spew when someone found out that level they worked 100 hours on got rejected because they submitted it like... 2 seconds after someone else. In MaGL X2 I got like 100 submissions in an hour, so this isn't an unrealistic scenario. And the only result would just be an insane amount of drama. If everyone (or even most people) submitted early this might be reasonable, but that simply isn't a realistic expectation. It would work, but I'd strongly advise against this.

All of these would potentially cut down on judging time substantially... Maybe. I do say potentially for a reason - note that I got done judgement like a month before the other judges. So I'm not sure. However, any of these would get judges levels quicker and that might encourage them to play at a faster pace? I'm not sure.

However, I don't personally see an issue with the amount of time judgement took. I think we got a really good spread of judges this year and I'm generally very happy with the general order of placements. Though obviously I think we all took issue with a couple particular examples we disagreed with, the general trend and thrust of the contest was really good I thought. To me, the time sacrifice was worthwhile, but I suppose if people are genuinely concerned about it, I think the solutions I listed above could work well.

Could you also just not "clean" levels, and have the judges play them as submitted, and DQ levels if you have to?

[S1eth]

Could you also just not "clean" levels, and have the judges play them as submitted, and DQ levels if you have to?

Then what if a level works perfectly for one judge (or the contestent) and doesn't for others?
I know that my boss caused a lua error for Horikawa, and just using the latest version of lunalua fixed that.
But in that case, it was rather obvious that the boss didn't work as intended. What if something like math.random breaks (as it did for raocow)? Having at least one other person on a different PC open the level helps a lot with finding that stuff.

And someone has to replace all the exits with stars, fix incorrectly placed starting position, correct folder hierarchy (graphics and music into the level folder), etc. anyway.

BTW, I think it'd be good for judges to come together somewhat regularily to discuss the levels they judged. That way, you can tell if the other judges had vastly different experiences (e.g. didn't die in a super long level), or if something broke. And then you may want to reconsider your scores, and/or replay the level if you played a broken version.

[Sebby19]

Actually now that I think of it, it would be good for the organizer to have some lua experiece, in case the levels don't work. Or at least they should know someone trustworthy who could help them if that happens.

Edit: though hopefully the lua will be more stable by then.

Heh, yeah, I got none of that... Well, I got a year to learn!

Could you also just not "clean" levels, and have the judges play them as submitted, and DQ levels if you have to?

I'd be more leaning to doing that. And as for lua breaking, I guess that is just the risk you should know you are taking when using it.

Having the judges come together to talk sounds good, assuming they all start from the same point.

And having the showrunner 'clean' levels (or at least make sure they work) will work with my idea of just me being the 'use of music' judge, since I don't have to really focus on level design (I'd be terrible at that).

As for the Top 100 idea, I'm willing to expand it to 150 or 200 (300 is the absolute max). I think this idea should be tried at least once.