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VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

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ft029
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by ft029 »

It's unnecessary.

You know what, the powerup filter is an unnecessary waste of 5 seconds of time each time you die/do a room.

Also, the rooms suck. (ice was one of the better ones imo, even though it had a few flaws. My favorite is haunted by far.) There was this one room where I got hit by the same shell kicker every single time because I got hit before I even landed on the one-tile platform. Also, the jump at the end of the cave room is absolute nonsense and is also the main reason I don't trust many people with chuck usage.

Enough complaining, I should try to hope that vldcx will be better, but... administrator invasion??
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by S.N.N. »

Welp, that's that.

While I have some complaints about the hack (the judging and the last world X level in particular), I enjoyed it immensely. There were a ton of really creative levels, and some extremely rough ones, but the whole package was super neat to play. If anything, I don't think the maps will be topped anytime soon - seriously still impressed by those.

Kind of a shame a couple of people are so quick to jump down the throats of most levels (a couple in the JUMP team mostly, which sadly doesn't surprise me at this point), but it is what it is. That's the nature of contests of any sort at this point I guess.
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by Mata Hari »

the judging was mostly accurate, which is better than mostly inaccurate
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by morsel/morceau »

I think the issue with the (controversial) judging is not that it is inaccurate (whatever this means), because it could certainly not be so by accident, but that it was inconsistent and given without justification.

The major thing I didn't like about vldc9 was that it was so long: raocow's lp of it was about twice as long as vldc7 and fifty per cent longer than vldc8. The number of really good levels was not larger, so there are proportionately more levels that may not be bad but are just not particularly interesting to me and I suppose this pappy residue is less digestible in larger quantities. Here's to an even bigger vldc10!
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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by FrozenQuills »

oh man it's over

The overall experience of VLDC9 I think is pretty good; there are a lot of good levels not necessarily in best world, and in terms of ASM overworld shenanigans this far surpasses VLDC8. The judgments, while not completely agreeable in terms of specific placements, had the right idea for most of the levels. However, VLDCX is shaping up to outdo VLDC9 in terms of both entry quality and judging, which I'm really excited for.

As a bonus, here are all of the thread titles I came up with during the LP which I had fun figuring out:

very large driven commencement 9

vague little drolly cases 9
vermiform lookalikes deciduous circuses 9
vermilion lairs dreadfully culling 9
vistas leaving denatured colorants 9
verdant lighthearted daytime charm 9
viridescent landslides dazzling canals 9
valuables lucratively deceiving cerebrums 9
vagabonds leading decathlons competently 9
vernal landmarks dyed cerulean 9
vexatious loot devotional cliffs 9
violet lumber dark conservatories 9
versatile legerdemain directing classes 9
vacillating lignification damp coves 9
vigor lending determined cronies 9
vicious letters drifting capriciously 9
vegetative linings draping cathedrals 9
venerable laborious developer commemorated 9
visionary leafage deadly chambers 9
varying landmasses dried components 9
vivified loudspeakers devised cubes 9
vital lucent digs chilling 9
verified lucidity defensive coldness 9
vociferous loveliness dusty commons 9
veneered liners diverse coasts 9
vaporish lagoons delightful chucks 9
vertical lodges doling chaos 9
vaudevilles lighting downstage craftsmanship 9
verdure lacing diverging cordilleras 9
valleys lugging desert caverns 9
ventures livening dusky canyons 9
viscid lava deluging cyclones 9
vehicular lawns dynamic creminis 9
vaults lifted dominions crossed 9
vespertine lyrebirds detecting chapeaus 9
vigilant leviathans dedicated craters 9
vandalized liftoffs dangerous cruising 9
vendace lunacy discomposed copses 9
vestigial lofts downward concretions 9
vices laying damask cascades 9
vanquished landings dire compounds 9
verdigris lengths decrepit catacombs 9
volcanic lifts depreciating clouts 9
viral lines deep conglomerations 9
voguish laboratories dogmatic caves 9
vintage lamps decorated chutes 9
viridian landscapes drizzly coagulations 9
vats leaked dockyards conveyed 9
valiant long diabolical colossus 9
vertiginous latticework donning creatures 9
vast lookouts descriptive checkers 9
vertices localized discos constructed 9
vitreous locomotives diffracted cosmos 9
velodromes leisurely demonstrating carnations 9
vanadium likeness delineated cutting 9
vibrant logs distraught cheveaux 9
various landfalls defying commonality 9
varicolored luminosity deluding canopies 9
vulcanized lacquered disgruntled chunks 9
vengeful lackeys daring cacophonies 9
vivid levitations dreamy comets 9
visitors liking divergent creations 9

vanilla level design contest 9
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by Ivy »

Kincyr wrote:am I the only one who thought that the second mushroom given in Staff Invasion's powerup filter is completely unnecessary?
It's to erase any item stored, I guess
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by S.N.N. »

morsel/morceau wrote:The major thing I didn't like about vldc9 was that it was so long: raocow's lp of it was about twice as long as vldc7 and fifty per cent longer than vldc8. The number of really good levels was not larger, so there are proportionately more levels that may not be bad but are just not particularly interesting to me and I suppose this pappy residue is less digestible in larger quantities. Here's to an even bigger vldc10!
This is a very real issue. It's part of why I'm thankful that the levels are organized by theme and not ranking, else we'd have a giant swath of videos that blend together and are ultimately middle-of-the-road quality.

Speaking of long contests, I wonder if whoever runs MaGLX3 will consider taking this route. I had a similar issue with MaGLX2 (sorted by ranking, so a huge chunk of mediocrity in the middle). Sorting by theme doesn't necessarily solve the problem of length, but it masks it a bit.
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by MECHDRAGON777 »

S.N.N. wrote:
morsel/morceau wrote:The major thing I didn't like about vldc9 was that it was so long: raocow's lp of it was about twice as long as vldc7 and fifty per cent longer than vldc8. The number of really good levels was not larger, so there are proportionately more levels that may not be bad but are just not particularly interesting to me and I suppose this pappy residue is less digestible in larger quantities. Here's to an even bigger vldc10!
This is a very real issue. It's part of why I'm thankful that the levels are organized by theme and not ranking, else we'd have a giant swath of videos that blend together and are ultimately middle-of-the-road quality.

Speaking of long contests, I wonder if whoever runs MaGLX3 will consider taking this route. I had a similar issue with MaGLX2 (sorted by ranking, so a huge chunk of mediocrity in the middle). Sorting by theme doesn't necessarily solve the problem of length, but it masks it a bit.
If I was going to win it, I was planning on using that exact same thing. Organized by world instead of ranking. The only issue is that does not raocow like to reveal the order of the levels through his videos?

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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by Ivy »

Traditionally yeah, raocow was the outlet for the rankings. Wouldn't be too bad to change it up for this contest.
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by SAJewers »

S.N.N. wrote: Speaking of long contests, I wonder if whoever runs MaGLX3 will consider taking this route. I had a similar issue with MaGLX2 (sorted by ranking, so a huge chunk of mediocrity in the middle). Sorting by theme doesn't necessarily solve the problem of length, but it masks it a bit.
I hope so. To me, the VLDC series has shown that's the better way to do it.
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by ft029 »

Ivy wrote:
Kincyr wrote:am I the only one who thought that the second mushroom given in Staff Invasion's powerup filter is completely unnecessary?
It's to erase any item stored, I guess
Consider that the filter only provides 1 mushroom:
Case 1: Mario has no powerups. Mario tanks the grinder and goes through.
Case 2: Mario has a powerup. Mario gets a reserve mushroom, loses it from the damage, and goes through.
Case 3: Mario has a powerup and a reserve. Basically case 2.
Case 4: Mario has no powerup but has a reserve. This transforms into case 2 as well if you think about it.

So only 1 mushroom is necessary, but who cares (unless sprite limit becomes an issue, which it isn't)

I found the sky/space room way harder than raocow. The shell kicker that raocow luckily bypassed was super unfair in my opinion. I did not kill the lotus, so I went below. Before I could even land on the one-tile platform, the shell would already be in my face. This death happened 3 times to me because I didn't know that I literally had no way of avoiding the shell kicker other than using screen scrolling tricks or killing the lotus and going above.

And then I read most of the ice room first try (died to the blue koopa though lol). Welp, that's me I guess.


Also yeah the overworlds are superb. The overworld team's dropbox was updated every couple of minutes or something. They worked pretty hard over a month.
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Re: VLDC9 - visitors liking divergent creations 9

Post by AUS »

ft029 wrote: Case 4: Mario has no powerup but has a reserve. This transforms into case 2 as well if you think about it.
Pff, lazy. No, there is a nuance. In this case, Mario becomes big, tanks the hit, and whatever was in his reserve plummets to the ground.
See? COMPLETELY different from a mushroom plummeting down.

Either way he can't get access to it. A feather isn't close enough to even flutter onto him, right?
AUS supports comprehensive explanations. Either way, not only are two mushrooms redundant, the powerup filter AT ALL is redundant.
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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by S.N.N. »

be grateful though, there used to be a really obnoxious and long elevator segment before the power-up filter that you'd have to go through each and every single time you died or completed a room (it was like a 10 second ascent on some layer 2 platform).

so not only is the filter sort of dumb, it's actually LESS dumb than it used to be.
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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by Kowkarot »

I'm surprised by how raocow blazed through the last level, beating some really annoying sections in his first try. I'm happy for him too, since redoing the power-up filter to then run for like half a minute to get to one of the last doors, as people already mentioned, gets horribly tedious after dying a lot. So raocow could successfully end the lp on a happy note.

Also, reminder that in this playthrough raocow (almost) achieved one of his long term goals : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMTlqKtxj-w
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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by Koopster »

charlie horses okay!!!

Well, this ended in a much nicer note than I expected. Thanks for play!
This hack has been a huge target of complaints and a lot of salt, but I'm happy most people seem to have enjoyed watching you play through it. Not being happy is okay, too. There's admittedly a lot in this hack to complain about. I just like to be optimistic about it and say there's still chunks to enjoy.

also I hope you're working on your vldcx level raocow :idea:
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Re: VLDC9 - vanilla level design contest 9

Post by Lockirby2 »

I found the Ice room to be more annoying than fun because the first obstacle was by far the hardest in the level IMO. I'd usually die to that one several times in a row between each attempt at the rest of it (which didn't take that many attempts), so I felt like I spent 90% of my time running down a hallway. In other words, the Ice room is basically Final Fantasy 13. >.>

Honestly, despite any nitpicking I may have done, I thoroughly enjoyed VLDC9. Overall I thought the quality of levels was really high, and I had fun even with the supposedly "meh" ones.
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