Level Contest Japan

[Kincyr]

I recall one of yoshicookiezeus' levels for ASMT, "the hardest lvl"

we need something like that for SMBX that would cover nearly everything that could conceivably go badly

[Rixithechao]

Getting Hypnosis Redo thread flashbacks here... I forget if I ever commented on this stuff back then so apologies if I'm repeating myself.

Like, I've seen entrants specify in the Youtube comments and on Discord that their thoughts on their levels have changed since they submitted, so what Leet is saying is very much possible. And yes, hyperbole, but a lot of these hyperbolic comments still boil down to "this level is BAD and the creator should FEEL BAD." And, well,


Sure, it's not like there's much else to comment on when raocow ends up spending multiple videos on levels that the vast majority of people would just skip or cheat through (not that I blame rao for wanting to stick to his principles). And yes, the message in the level's code shows that A was either arrogant, ignorant or a troll at the time they submitted it. Even if their attitude hasn't changed since then, it's not like there's any shortage of those kinds of people in the world, and it's not like every single person watching needs to chime in about it.

Folks are complaining about a level from an anonymous creator to a contest that did not account for a future playthrough from a somewhat-niche French-Canadian LPer with strict self-imposed restrictions, just as folks went aggro over a completely optional level from a known creator to a game that was also not made with consideration to an eventual raocow LP while said creator profusely apologized for making the level and owned up to their mistakes.

If it's something like the MaGLs where a big part of it is rao's eventual playthrough, that's a bit more grounds for all the hullabaloo. But not every game on the planet is made with raocow or the talkhaus in mind, and expecting everyone to account for and accommodate us is like projecting one's own culture and sensibilities onto international social politics.

We have a general consensus that the level is flawed and we can analyze why it's flawed. No need to pepper that discussion with ad hominem.

[The0x539]

My favorite part is how somehow the boss fucked up the life counter so every death against her counted as two deaths

The death counter integration was added by Enjl, and min/max's code is...uhh........
I'm gonna guess the boss somehow runs the custom insta-respawn death code Enjl hooked into, but also doesn't stop the vanilla death.

[Emral]

My favorite part is how somehow the boss fucked up the life counter so every death against her counted as two deaths

The death counter integration was added by Enjl, and min/max's code is...uhh........
I'm gonna guess the boss somehow runs the custom insta-respawn death code Enjl hooked into, but also doesn't stop the vanilla death.

I fucked up the death counter for this level lol. I accidentally trigger death counter addition twice when you die to the boss. It's fine, though, I sent raocow something that'll fix the death counter for future episodes.

[SAJewers]

If it's something like the MaGLs where a big part of it is rao's eventual playthrough, that's a bit more grounds for all the hullabaloo. But not every game on the planet is made with raocow or the talkhaus in mind, and expecting everyone to account for and accommodate us is like projecting one's own culture and sensibilities onto international social politics.

Jolpe submitted Pink Zone to MAGL2 (a troll level that didn't even use the box contents) and barely anyone gave him crap for it.

Just an interesting aside relating to that.

[Blue]

Yes I was surprised it wasn't a Steven Universe OC or apparently nothing to do with the makers of SU

Like does Tumblr have a factory to produce artists with that style

I've heard it called the "CalArts" style.

Also, the thing I hate the most in this room is Jonesy. I hate how it looks. I hate that it exists. It's eldritch features are abhorrent. And I was a better human being when I didn't know it came from an actual comic book sold for money with that stupid fucking synopsis.

I'm mad.

I came here to more or less post this but now I'm too angry to be coherent about that because this was sold for money instead of just being a terrible tumblr toddler's scribble.

while said creator profusely apologized for making the level and owned up to their mistakes.

Where/when'd this happen?

[Leet]

See I really don't want this to go off topic either but it doesn't sound healthy to get that angry over a comic aimed at 13 year olds because its art style superficially resembles an image macro making fun of the evil tumblr girls you saw once

That said Jonesy almost probably doesn't shoot any danmaku in the comic, and I can understand how that's awfully disappointing

[Blue]

See I really don't want this to go off topic either

Then why are you doing exactly that?

[Leet]

Good one dude. You got me

[Alice]

Come on, man, if you make a bad level you shouldn't try to improve by making more levels you should sit in the corner and think about what you've done (made raocow feel bad).

Everyone's point when saying that stuff is that the creator needs to consider why they found it to be "designed for normal-
skilled players with a non-grindy difficulty" while someone who's quite decent at platformers died several thousand times while beating it. They seem to have taken the whole idea of level creators tending to find their levels a lot easier than other players to a very far, and completely unaware, extreme. This is in fact the single biggest issue behind this since, as people have pointed out several times, the level design in general (especially the first two sections) is actually pretty alright. So the issue is the raw difficulty which the author somehow considered average which is exacerbated by the condescending attitude given in the lua file. (And the level creator is suggesting you just cheat seems to acknowledge the difficulty while hand-waving it away which is just a bad idea really.)

[Leet]

Hey guys here's the new talkhaus emote @mods please add to smilies kthx

Everyone's point when saying that stuff is that the creator needs to consider why they found it to be "designed for normal-
skilled players with a non-grindy difficulty" while someone who's quite decent at platformers died several thousand times while beating it. They seem to have taken the whole idea of level creators tending to find their levels a lot easier than other players to a very far, and completely unaware, extreme.

Wait, I thought that you said their message was obviously malicious and condescending? But now you're saying it's sincere? (I think it's a joke myself, but partially because the alternative is so baffling.)

[Alice]

Wait, I thought that you said their message was obviously malicious and condescending? But now you're saying it's sincere? (I think it's a joke myself, but partially because the alternative is so baffling.)

Er, what? I never said it was malicious and it being condescending and sincere aren't mutually exclusive concepts?

[Leet]

Oh, I used the wrong word. Anyway I just thought that if the author was ignorant to the level being this ridiculous, then they couldn't be intentionally condescending about other people having to use cheats. :jonesy: (make it real mods)

[Kilgamayan]

I bet a stands for

anonymousbloodlust

<_< >_>

[morsel/morceau]

Come on, man, if you make a bad level you shouldn't try to improve by making more levels you should sit in the corner and think about what you've done (made raocow feel bad).

Everyone's point when saying that stuff is that the creator needs to consider why they found it to be "designed for normal-
skilled players with a non-grindy difficulty" while someone who's quite decent at platformers died several thousand times while beating it. They seem to have taken the whole idea of level creators tending to find their levels a lot easier than other players to a very far, and completely unaware, extreme. This is in fact the single biggest issue behind this since, as people have pointed out several times, the level design in general (especially the first two sections) is actually pretty alright. So the issue is the raw difficulty which the author somehow considered average which is exacerbated by the condescending attitude given in the lua file. (And the level creator is suggesting you just cheat seems to acknowledge the difficulty while hand-waving it away which is just a bad idea really.)

First of all, why insist on the worst possible interpretation of this lua file? It could be intended to be condescending, or a joke, or it could be an innocuous statement along the lines of 'I'm not sure if it's not too hard--I don't mind if you make it easier'. I don't presume to know what the guy's intentions were or lambaste him for my assumptions.

I also can't pretend to know what everyone's point is. What are we supposed to make of 'lel he made a hard level he should be banned from making teh levels'. Is this serious? Or is this a joke? Couldn't he have made it a joke then? E.g. 'He shouldn't make a level till he has earned the right to call himself A instead of D-' or 'he made such a bad level he should put the world behind him, retire to an ashram and contemplate the infinite lives trick in world 3-1'. I know these are poor things but at least they aren't nasty malicious witless inanity. Why is every one so unpleasant during these contests?

[Crow]

I'm a little upset that raocow spent 5 days/videos primarily just on one (bad) level keeping the rest of the series held up (and even killing the b-side one day, which I don't even care about but a lot of people do)

Has nothing to do with it being a contest, I'd be just as upset if it was a normal smbx episode

[Rixithechao]

Okay, this is the last I'll comment on the whole thing in this thread, but I might as well get all my thoughts out in the open. Apologies for the oncoming wall of text.

Where/when'd this happen?

I went back to refresh myself on the specifics and I noticed you posted in that thread about that specific level, so if this is meant in the sense of "I remember it differently", let's agree to disagree.

Here's what happened from my perspective: During the Hypnosis Redo LP raocow accidentally stumbled upon a super-long postgame level early, and on top of the level suffering from Poe's law (it was meant as an inside joke satirizing bad design patterns in the SMBX community but this wasn't clear to people out of the loop) raocow ended up encountering a rare bug the devs missed (as he has a tendency to do) that made him lose a lot of progress through the level.

As tragic as it was, it wasn't something you can't really blame the level creator for, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back and a lot of folks took out their anger on them. The creator apologized for it and tried to explain what went wrong, but folks took the explanations as them being "indignant" and just doubled down with the outrage. And when the hostility was called out people tried to justify their responses by conflating constructive criticism with such pleasant and helpful comments as

it's perfectly fine to make a terrible level as long as you do it ironically

All due respect but "I made it awful on purpose" does not really excuse that it's fucking awful!

You are totally allowed to make garbage levels. This does not mean that we HAVE to enjoy it.

You did a pretty good job. You know, for a "Make a Bad Level" contest entry.

I'm sorry but this game looks really unfun and annoying to play.

What an awful game.

Very good level design. 10/10, 5/5, Rank SSS, thumbs up, recommend to everyone, too much water.

I felt mad just watching this I honestly dunno how I'd be if I actually played that only to get hustled like that at the end

These are just from the LP thread and Youtube, stuff went down on a few Discord servers as well (probably other places I'm not aware of as well).

There was plenty of discussion about the issues with the level itself, but it was mixed in with the above comments and other charged language. And I'm not accusing everyone of intellectual dishonestly here, I'm sure some were trying to be genuinely helpful. But kicking someone when they're down is not the way to do it and throwing in some useful advice in the end doesn't erase the unnecessary negativity preceding it.

Even among some of the neutral or positive constructive feedback there seemed to be a recurring mindset of not "here's how you could help the level better embody/convey the intent behind it" but "here's how you do it the right way", "here's the proper way to make a joke level like this." "People shouldn't make these kinds of levels, they're wrong for doing so". There's this mentality that game design is more of a hard science, but it's not. Like any other creative medium -- visual art, writing, even humor -- game design can be extremely subjective, as demonstrated by the recurring contest judging controversies and thriving communities for kaizo hacks, IWBTG clones, grinding-heavy strategy games like the Disgaea series and countless other niche genres. Everyone has a different definition of a good game or good level, but we all have a habit of projecting our own standards onto other works and communities.

Hypnosis Redo is part of a series of games that are pretty much the Talking Time Bros or VIPs of the SMBX community. It wasn't started in the talkhaus, it wasn't developed under the talkhaus' design philosophy or under any strict obligations to be "proper" or "professional", and though the design of the level wasn't on par with the rest of the game it did not warrant as much hate. The devs couldn't have predicted that raocow would play the game, I don't think a lot of them even knew much about him or the talkhaus at the time the game was made. And were it not for the sheer bad luck of encountering that bug and raocow's determination to 100% an optional, postgame level (which tend to be much more difficult than the main campaign of a game and are usually meant for players who've mastered the game and still want to be challenged) with like a dozen stars legitimately, I doubt folks would've even cared. After all,

Jolpe submitted Pink Zone to MAGL2 (a troll level that didn't even use the box contents) and barely anyone gave him crap for it.

Same thing with LCJ. This was a contest hosted by a somewhat distant affiliate of the talkhaus with participation from various different communities, each with their own playstyles, approaches to design, reservations (or lack thereof) about using cheat codes, etc. If I remember from what I saw of the judging stream, even Iguzamini himself used cheats and stopped playing partway through levels he had too much trouble with. I doubt he counted on raocow playing through it and we can't confirm whether A did either. So we can only fault him for raocow's experience so much, the rest is an unfortunate consequence of numerous factors that not everyone involved could reasonably account for.

TL;DR version:
- I think we're getting too serious about our hobby game projects we make for fun and friendly design competitions that we're forgetting that they're hobby game projects we make for fun and friendly design competitions.
- Game devs and other content creators have every right to make what they want how they want it, and not everyone has to like it but at least acknowledge that any one audience's ideals aren't the end-all, be-all. Competitive and commercial works do need to take others' tastes into account to succeed, but it's hardly a grand felony if they don't.
- It's easy to point fingers after the fact and say what should or could have been done. Not everyone can employ that same degree of foresight.
- Last but not least, we need to be mindful of how much of our responses are reactions to raocow's experience rather than how the thing stands on its own merits. Maybe Google "epistemic feedback" for good measure.

TL;DRer version:
- They're video games, chill
- Different strokes for different folks
- 20/20 hindsight
- raolens


So there you have it, my Dissertation on Everything I Think is Wrong with This Community's Critique Culture that Nobody Really Asked For Hashtag Trademark. In the process of writing all this I noticed a lot of other folks have already given their two cents on the matter. I'm not going to catch up on and update this post any further, otherwise I'll be working on this all night. I have other stuff I need to get done and nobody will want to hear this from me tomorrow once rao's moved on to new levels, so apologies if it seems like I'm ignoring anyone.

And again, in spite of my own heavy-handed word choice, this is all just my own take on things. I'm just as prone to mistakes, misinterpretations, etc. and many of the things I just ranted about. I could've completely misread the overall tone or taken any of the comments I've quoted way harsher than most folks would see them. idk.

Blargh, not sure why I'm writing these disclaimers when they're just going to give everyone more to read and provide something to point at and say "oh, look, he's backpedaling". I really should just shut my trap and get back to A2XT stuff.

[Kshaard]

Thing about contests being contests in their current state, there's absolutely no room for quality control if you're going to include every level as it was submitted and judged. I think that it was a step in the right direction to not make anything like a big deal of the placements. Honestly, though, at this point it only seems natural to treat a contest as just another collaboration (at least in the assembling-the-game process). So if a level really isn't up to scratch in certain ways, then is there any reason not to just quietly exclude it from the finished product and - to an extent - pretend it never existed?

Wait, what even is the advantage of having contests rather than collaborations anyway?

[SAJewers]

Even among some of the neutral or positive constructive feedback there seemed to be a recurring mindset of not "here's how you could help the level better embody/convey the intent behind it" but "here's how you do it the right way", "here's the proper way to make a joke level like this." "People shouldn't make these kinds of levels, they're wrong for doing so". There's this mentality that game design is more of a hard science, but it's not. Like any other creative medium -- visual art, writing, even humor -- game design can be extremely subjective, as demonstrated by the recurring contest judging controversies and thriving communities for kaizo hacks, IWBTG clones, grinding-heavy strategy games like the Disgaea series and countless other niche genres. Everyone has a different definition of a good game or good level, but we all have a habit of projecting our own standards onto other works and communities.

Hypnosis Redo is part of a series of games that are pretty much the Talking Time Bros or VIPs of the SMBX community. It wasn't started in the talkhaus, it wasn't developed under the talkhaus' design philosophy or under any strict obligations to be "proper" or "professional", and though the design of the level wasn't on par with the rest of the game it did not warrant as much hate. The devs couldn't have predicted that raocow would play the game, I don't think a lot of them even knew much about him or the talkhaus at the time the game was made. And were it not for the sheer bad luck of encountering that bug and raocow's determination to 100% an optional, postgame level (which tend to be much more difficult than the main campaign of a game and are usually meant for players who've mastered the game and still want to be challenged) with like a dozen stars legitimately, I doubt folks would've even cared. After all,

Jolpe submitted Pink Zone to MAGL2 (a troll level that didn't even use the box contents) and barely anyone gave him crap for it.

Same thing with LCJ. This was a contest hosted by a somewhat distant affiliate of the talkhaus with participation from various different communities, each with their own playstyles, approaches to design, reservations (or lack thereof) about using cheat codes, etc. If I remember from what I saw of the judging stream, even Iguzamini himself used cheats and stopped playing partway through levels he had too much trouble with. I doubt he counted on raocow playing through it and we can't confirm whether A did either. So we can only fault him for raocow's experience so much, the rest is an unfortunate consequence of numerous factors that not everyone involved could reasonably account for.

Regarding point 1:


Second point, I'm not sure I understand, since MAGL2 was a talkhaus-contest with the expressed foreknowledge that raocow would play all entries (also, I believe jolpe specifically made that to dunk on raocow)

also, potentially relevant, potentially not, but since we're on the topic of game design, i'll leave this here

Thing about contests being contests in their current state, there's absolutely no room for quality control if you're going to include every level as it was submitted and judged. I think that it was a step in the right direction to not make anything like a big deal of the placements. Honestly, though, at this point it only seems natural to treat a contest as just another collaboration (at least in the assembling-the-game process). So if a level really isn't up to scratch in certain ways, then is there any reason not to just quietly exclude it from the finished product and - to an extent - pretend it never existed?

Wait, what even is the advantage of having contests rather than collaborations anyway?

If I was gonna run to be MAGLX3 showrunner, then that was something I would've done; drop all pretext of it being a contest in the final result, and make scores only matter if the submitter deems it.

The one advantage is that you'll have some sort numerical number attached to your level design, allowing you to potentially know what area of level design you need to work on, and possibly a way to compare with others.

[Ivy]

Hey guys here's the new talkhaus emote @mods please add to smilies kthx

I haven't even watched today's A side yet but this and the thumbnail instill me with a sense of primal fear.

[thatguyif]

Two things...

1. Good lord, can we stop with the personality cult nonsense? Yeah I said it. raocow is, first and foremost, an entertainer. A funny and great guy, yes, but also an entertainer. He is not God-Emperor of the SMBX or SMW hack communities for there are none, and even if there were, I doubt he'd be qualified just because he plays a lot of these games for the Internet. So he had a bad experience with a bad level. It happens. Regardless of what "a" said in a hidden bit of Lua code that nobody would've noticed had Enjl not found it himself and mentioned it to raocow, we shouldn't turn into Steven Universe fans that decadently drive fan artists to near-suicide just because the designer went overboard with the IWBTG method of design. So he's an arrogant prick. So what? I could name half the talking heads who run around here having that same issue, and some of them possess mod privileges.

I agree with Rockythechao on his general sentiment but take it a step a further: So much of our design philosophy around these levels is shaped by raocow's experience with them, and our own viewing experience thereof, whether we want to admit it or not. Dude's been playing these games everyday for the vast bulk of 10 years. The shit is bound to rub off on us, even if we have our own sentiments on what level design should be. We don't know who the designer is, and we may never know. But it's likely he didn't design this with either raocow as the player or (more importantly) us as the audience in mind. This isn't about "bad level design" so much as it is "I watched a bad video today, and I need a justification to not pin it on the entertainer because he's my favorite."

Which brings me to my second point...

2. This whole sequence of videos demonstrates why I wouldn't watch raocow play IWBTG or its clones. After the novelty of that game wore off, I saw it for what it was: A cheap attempt to replicate Nintendo Hard without understanding what that meant. They are, when you get right down to it, really boring in structure due to their rigidity. Whereas a game like Super Meat Boy could theoretically be beaten first try by someone without dying, games like IWBTG make that impossible because they expect you to follow a very precise sequence of movements and paths to finish the game. Moreover, because of the precision, it's impossible to know ahead of time whether you're making the right choice or not unless you die. A broad deviation would mean death, a slight deviation would mean death, even sitting still to get your bearings could mean death. Not only is that frustrating to play (especially for someone with a neurological condition that cripples the right hand to some degree), but it's really boring to watch. There's little fun in looking at the same exact screen for 5-20 minutes while the person figures out the exact movements to get through the screen, regardless of whether it's raocow or Proton Jon or Wayne Gretzky watching and playing it. So I'll pass...

[Mata Hari]

So he's an arrogant prick. So what? I could name half the talking heads who run around here having that same issue, and some of them possess mod privileges.

[BobisOnlyBob]

wow looks like my hyperbole kinda got blown out of proportion. yes, "prohibited" was excessive language. You sure can say it's a video game, to which I say to you it's a youtube comment, as I clearly pointed out.

I stand by the intent of what I said, "a" needs to take some time out and consider what they've made, in light of all the feedback these episodes and the level itself have generated, because what they've made is a IWBTG style precision-platformer/needle game inside of a heavily momentum-based engine. They've clearly put a lot of time and effort in to produce such as experience, and if their comment is to be taken at face value (I certainly assumed it was literal) then it's almost perfectly calibrated to their own level of skill. That's good for them, but the resulting experience for almost anyone playing this is so far removed from their claims, that I think some of their clear and apparent talent for playing and developing challenges (raocow was positively enthused by the end of those first three levels, albeit in very different ways) could be better applied in either almost any other engine, or by taking some time to examine what makes challenging momentum-based platforming appealing to others, because if they're submitting this to a contest then it was clearly intended to be seen and played by others. Also to consider the sheer number of challenges they packed into one level - more does not equal better, and this contest allowed multiple level submissions.

Also I am genuinely curious as to what their motivation was to include a character from an indie comic free of context like that, it's genuinely bewildering. Maybe that was the point. I'd love to actually be able to ask them. Likewise with the music, which was strangely fitting for the first two, but I felt kinda wandered off into just personal preference.

Critique the level, please critique the level, write an essay on the level! But don't assume the creator = their work, or that a creator stands for their work, because both are seldom true.

As you can see I don't care for this sentiment, I consider the works of an author to be an expression of their intent and I am more interested in understanding and responding to their apparent intent than I am in telling them how their expression should be altered or changed - in this case, my gut reaction was "Wow, your intent sure was something but I reckon you should spend a long time thinking about why it's been received the way it has before you go back to making anything else, because if you haven't then I have to assume you're just going to make more of the same and I'm not sure that's a great idea given my own reaction and the reactions of others". I had an emotional reaction to their level and experiencing it, and conveyed this response laconically targeting the creator. I'm sorry that my hyperbole was so egregious and that my criticism is personal, not objective.

Jolpe submitted Pink Zone to MAGL2 (a troll level that didn't even use the box contents) and barely anyone gave him crap for it.

I totally did, because I played every level in MaGL2 and my eyes were screaming by the end of it

Edit: Apparently I even used the same sort of hyperbole 4 years ago, using suicidal emoticons and adding "The fishing fish guy is the fishing fish guy, and should be banned from reality indefinitely."

[Sturg]

I know some would probably disagree with this opinion, but I would've opted to not reveal the "author's note" in the Lua file. It's not like it was in the level itself, so players wouldn't have been likely to see it unless they went in to look at the code in curiosity or (as the comment said) modify the level. Whether or not it was meant to be a joke or not, it just seems to me that, at this point, the comment has caused more unnecessary anguish than anything else.

[Mata Hari]

I like how the first level fakes you out, it has Grand Dad just sitting there and you're like 'man, this isn't dank at all', then you get to the second half and it turns out to be EXTREMELY dank.