cldc 2018 - layers

[Leet]

cirno still rocks in 2018

[Mandew]

I like that we had a level about Math, followed by a level about Cirno.

[idol]

hi

RESCUE CIRNO!
Placement: 17
Codename: nine
Author: ThalesMangaka

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 21/30
Presentation: 14/20
Creativity: 6/10

Total: 41/60

Comments:
This level's pretty ok, but aside from the Coin hunt, there's not too much going for it. The first part uses the triple spinning platforms a bunch but they're usually placed on their own and have no enemies to intercept them or anything. Three of the coins on the first part are "hidden" by vine climbing, which was cool at first but a bit same-y by the last one. Also, Fire Flower was required at various parts of the level but there's no way to guarantee that you'll have one at any given time. Thankfully, the level is pretty easy.
Is the game supposed to just end if you touch Cirno and force you to reset? It was a little annoying to touch her, not expecting to suddenly be unable to continue.
I think you pretty well nailed the icy theming of the level because it looked and sounded good. Overall, pretty fun.

Noivern:

You can make a good ice palette without everything being blue. Some of the collectibles are easy to miss, but luckily the level doubles back and lets you recollect them. Forced exploration is still exploration, I guess. You just lose if you get to the end of the first section without a fire flower. It's not clear (haha puns) that the water kills you. Why is the player even allowed to trigger Cirno before you collect all the Pepsi cans?

Total: 34

Blind Devil:

Fun: Interesting level, even though it's simple by most part. Anyway, a plus point is that it encourages exploring to get the 9 Chirumiru Bottles scattered around it. Time isn't a worry - there's plenty of it. However, some stuff can make this level kinda frustrating, especially that the player is required to be fiery in order to be able to progress, or else you need to die to start over. I admit I haven't run into that issue while playing, though, because there's a decent amount of powerups and the difficulty is pretty fair. On another point, when you touch Cirno (regardless of the ending being good or bad), you're stuck in there... even if you die from time up. This deducts points from the fun part since the player has to *reset* the game to try again, and from presentation, whose reason is covered later. Apart from that, I liked playing this, and the little story is funny, too.
Fun points: 25/30

Presentation: It uses custom graphics for FG/BG tilesets, together with mostly vanilla sprites and regular player graphics. It's a common mix we see in most chocolate hacks out there, but there's no clash here. Only nitpick is regarding bounce blocks, whose palette don't match with the blocks hit from below. You hit a blue question block, and it shows a yellow bounce sprite. This could have been worked around by either keeping said blocks yellow (maybe with slight icy tones/desaturated), or editting the bounce sprite graphics/palette. Music-wise, the entry uses custom unsampled songs which both fit the theme of the entry as a whole, don't break anything and go well with the level aesthetics. Now, speaking of the Cirno teleporting mentioned previously: the fact that the player has to reset the game to replay the level is a flaw that could be avoided in many ways. For the bad ending, the player could die and return to the overworld to start over, or that could also not be an ending, giving the player a chance to carry on from where they are without losing progress. And for the good ending, there could also be a teleporting to the overworld, either as a side exit or beating the level. Theoretically, both endings aren't accounted as exits, as if the level was unbeatable, although the good one can be considered despite the softlock. Anyway, given said possible solutions, points are deducted. Lastly, the level doesn't really have a gimmick - instead, it centers around slippery physics and exploration, which is okay. No level needs to rely a lot on gimmicks to be well presentable.
Presentation points: 15/20

Creativity: The level setup is generic, and some spots that involve collecting Chirumiru Bottles are sometimes samey with no much varied challenge. There were, for example, two spots in which all you need to do is to trigger a vine block then climb it to get the collectibles. The same can be said to getting a fire flower to melt ice and get these bottles. There were many instances of setups that would have benefitted much more with variations, using different sprite patterns, obstacles and so on - and that's not only regarding collectibles placement, but also the level as a whole. And there could be some fire flower farming areas, too, so if the player lost their powerup, they could backtrack a bit without losing progress in order to advance.
Creativity points: 5/10
----------
Total Score: 45/60

&&

CLDC - Greenville
Placement: 19
Codename: rpg
Author: Flabort

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 22/30
Presentation: 13/20
Creativity: 6/10

Total: 41/60

Comments:
It was fun to mess around with the Propellor Suit! You put a lot of things up and down and all around the level to seek out and explore. Though aside from exploration the mushroom itself wasn't really needed to move around in the level, so if you aren't exploring it's mostly just a quick run through the city. They were also handed out like candy, making the level pretty easy overall, and they didn't work well with Yoshi since he can't fly with you when you spin off him.
But the level desperately needed more time if you did want to explore! I know there was a Yoshi and lots of green berries around, but you first have to find him and then eat the berries, and at one point I lost him going into a bonus room and couldn't get him back. I ended the level with less than 30 seconds remaining on the clock and had to rush the whole second half as a result. Even just 100 extra base seconds would've helped a lot.
There were some minor oversights. The castle tileset bonus room has the player come down a pipe entrance that's one X-coordinate too far to the left. The music in parts also seemed like it was buggy, specifically the SM64 Slider theme and the P-Switch track.
Still a fun level, but it could've done more and was held back by its low timer.

Noivern:

Mallow is so cute. The music throughout the level is so loud (usually) and unfitting that it practically ruins the aesthetic. The two main mechanics of the level clash with each other: Many of the secrets found by exploring are done so through use of the propeller, but the ability to explore without dying due to time is tied to green berries and therefore Yoshi. A Yoshi that is very hard to lose and must be jumped off of to use the propeller. Luckily the level is short; this disconnect between the two things the level wants you to do would have killed it had the level gone much longer.

Total: 29

Blind Devil:

Fun: The level is nice overall, but there were a few unforgiving parts due to how the camera doesn't properly follow the player when going upwards while touching wind blocks (functionality factor that affects presentation - more details on next topic), and also due to misleading coin trails that always seem to only take in account that they have a propeller suit. The most notable misleading coins are right after the midway point, as the first time I followed them, I fell in the pit. The second more unfair section was right after that one, where you either had to kill Lakitu with a shell, use a propeller suit, or run very fast and jump like there was no tomorrow in order to clear the big gap. And the propeller suit seemed to be the main aspect of this level, as I needed it to get most Yoshi Coins and get to the first bonus room where most coins are only reachable if the player has this powerup, plus to clear the unfair sections if you didn't have it. The high dependence of the suit brought the fun factor down because of that, as powerups are supposed to add to gameplay and not the opposite (unless the propeller suit was permanent). Aside from that, it's a mostly generic level with common sprites, albeit not too common in a city lol. Acceptable difficulty and overall fair design are the main good aspects of this entry.
Fun points: 21/30

Presentation: The first impression this stage gave me was very good, due to the nice tilesets and cute custom player graphics. While sprites used mostly vanilla-styled graphics, they still fitted nicely with the overall scenery. But in other sublevels, the graphical style clashed badly, as the first bonus room uses a very detailed night-sky tileset, and the second one uses plain vanilla castle graphics. More related to graphics is regarding the status bar - there's a badly colored Yoshi Coin that appear too close from the player name and has green color when it's supposed to look yellow. Now functionality-wise, rescuing from the previous topic, I didn't like that the camera didn't follow the player when riding updraft blocks, and this could be fixed either by using the famous $00F878 hex edit to make the camera always follow the player by changing F0 to 80, or by putting a LDA #$80 : STA $1406 in the block ASM code. Now, related to music and sound effects, there were good and bad choices, being the worst one used in the castle bonus room - it breaks the P-Switch song and likely the death song (untested) due to bad sample replacement, not to mention it also clashed with the vanilla environment for being a fully sampled song. Regarding fully sampled songs, this also apply to the main sublevel song, but this one didn't break anything. Anyway, a custom unsampled or semi-sampled song would fit better. And lastly, the safest choice was used for the sky bonus sublevel - unsampled, non-breaking and not extremely fitting with the environment, the choice was acceptable as it's a happy bonus room. Finally, gimmick-wise, the level was focused around the propeller suit, but it didn't have a proper usage, and would have been better if the powerup was permanent or if level setups were more lenient for players without any powerups. In general, the entry could have been a bit more polished graphically, musically and functionality-wise.
Presentation points: 14/20

Creativity: I expected better. The propeller suit usage as the main gimmick didn't show any promise the way it was used. And apart from that, the sprite and obstacle setups weren't memorable, too. Lots of different sprites were placed in there with apparent no much thought: Lakitus, Hopping flames, Parakoopas, a lone Bob-omb and a lone fire-spitting Piranha Plant that comes out of the ground with no indication. There were no clever obstacle patterns making use of the up/down wind blocks, and lots of different things could have been done. Possibilities are endless: making a long jump section in which a regular jump is assisted by wind blocks, mixing this up with enemy dodging, making the wind interact with sprites to make more puzzling sections thus making the player think more before being able to progress, and so on. Many resources were used and could have made a very interesting level overall, but all potential it had was unfortunately left behind.
Creativity points: 3/10
----------
Total Score: 38/60

meat

[Kilgamayan]

A Yoshi that is very hard to lose

[Voltgloss]

I really had problems enjoying today's second level simply because its music was so loud.

[FPzero]

I never really noticed that the first level does look like it's made of a bunch of pre-fab parts until watching the video and hearing raocow say it aloud.

[TRS]

A Yoshi that is very hard to lose

Oops that's supposed to say easy to lose.

[BobisOnlyBob]

Lovely pair of challenging levels today. The first one was obviously a familiar mechanic, executed reasonably well and tightly, but I feel like it didn't have as much character as it could've done, instead of just using wood and saws and sprite-only on a star field background. Similar mechanics could've been done with the vanilla elements of a short time limit and green fruit. I really liked it, just felt like it could've done more both visually and mechanically!

As for hot hot dolphin bonanza, it's pretty great both visually and gameplay wise, exploits a vanilla element in a clever way (spindrop through the dolphin, that's a new one to me) but seemed really really harsh in its required precision. But it's not too long, which is a blessing.

[S.N.N.]

That second level felt like it was made by someone from the JUMP team (actually got a lolyoshi vibe from it for whatever reason). Really creative stuff - I’ll be curious to see the author and score once they’re posted.

[FPzero]

Here we're going to see with doubled emphasis that I'm not a fan of hard levels once the scores get posted, possibly to the detriment of my overall judging. I tried to be as fair to them as I could, but part of the scoring is subjective fun and I just don't have anywhere near as much fun with levels like these due to constantly dying. I didn't think the oxygen gimmick added anything to the first level and made an already challenging level more difficult than it needed to be. And I didn't like the many of the dolphin setups because they felt annoying to deal with.

Something to keep in mind when the scores get posted and people look at the points for Presentation and Creativity. These were the criteria we were judging by:

Fun Factor: 30/30
How well designed is your level? Is it overall fun to play? Is it too long or boring?
Presentation: 20/20
How does your level look like aesthetically? Is the theme/gimmick consistent? Are there any graphical/musical clashes? Does the theme/gimmick overstays its welcome? Does the level work well or does it have functionality issues, like unintended massive slowdown, sprite memory issues or broken SFX/samples?
Creativity: 10/10
Does the level have an original, nice setup? Is the theme/gimmick innovative? Or is it generic/poorly set up?

Presentation was a catch-all sort of category that covered graphics, technical functionality and level design. I considered 15 Fun, 10 Presentation and 5 Creativity to be a totally average level for an average 30/60 points. I tried to score up or down depending on how I thought the level was in each category on average. So you'll see today that while I didn't have much fun with either level, I still tried to recognize how well each level did in each other category.

This is why I'll never judge a hard level contest.

[Kilgamayan]

We wend from EoSD Stage 2 to SA Stage 6 what the fuck 2hu game is this

[Nao]

That second level felt like it was made by someone from the JUMP team (actually got a lolyoshi vibe from it for whatever reason). Really creative stuff - I’ll be curious to see the author and score once they’re posted.

kinda disagree with this, the design didn't feel JUMPy to me at all. the introduction of the gimmick was really rough and most of the obstacles weren't set up in a fair way. also spinning down through the dolphin felt like a really pointless inclusion to me, because there's no challenge associated with it or anything, it's just "try it until it works"

[TRS]

I'm Idol

OXYGEN NOT INCLUDED!
Placement: 15
Codename: Murder
Author: RussianMan

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 9/30
Presentation: 12/20
Creativity: 7/10

Total: 28/60

Comments:
The level was complicated enough without the Oxygen timer, but combining it with already difficult jumps and setups involving jumping grinders and more and I was ready to throw in the towel. Thankfully this level is on the shorter side of things, but without a midpoint it just felt like I was slamming my head against the level for ages. Hard levels like this really aren't my cup of tea. Was it creative? Sure. But I sadly didn't have fun with it after I saw the oxygen gimmick was getting used for nothing more than forcing the player to keep moving instead of carefully approaching setups. That's honestly what killed me the most: the inability to wait and assess a situation before moving on. I think you should've either had a level based around getting oxygen back OR have a level that was difficult like this was, not both at once.

Noivern:

Fun: 23/30
Presentation: 15/20
Creativity: 7/10

Total: 45/60

Short distances between blue mushrooms makes for a somewhat more relaxed level. Well, about as relaxed as you can get in a level that forces you to be constantly moving. The density of enemies coupled with the need to rush forward and a short timer (even with frequent resets) lends itself to gameplay that is more based on trial-and-error than anything. The player can't reliably make decisions on how to get through five erratic constantly-moving saws when there's about eight seconds before they run out of air and die. The fast-paced music was rather fitting, except a vocal sample sounds weird combined with vanilla SMW graphics. It was also a little too loud.

Blind Devil:

Fun: What a tough cookie. But I managed to make it until the end after several tries. The major part of obstacles were nice and all, but the airmeter gimmick enforced rushing in a way that one might not predict sprites coming at them, resulting in unfair hits. These hits, however, can be avoided later naturally after telegraphing sections, making the experience less painful while still being challenging. There wasn't a lot to explore or varied paths due to the level being very action-based and short. Still, it provided a good bunch of fun and the feeling of accomplishment after beating it. On a sidenote, I guess judging CLDC is improving my platforming skills lol. I'm managing to clear levels I've never expected to beat savestateless.
Fun points: 24/30

Presentation: All graphical tilesets were vanilla, so they were consistent. There were no bad palettes, glitches or cutoffs. The music choice, however, could have been better. It's way too detailed to fit in a SMW-styled level, despite it being catchy and functional (no SFX/global songs are affected) due to being fully sampled. Even the vanilla Piano theme would be a better choice, but other custom unsampled songs would also be suitable. Gimmick-wise, well, the airmeter is a known mechanism, and it was there in a way to make the player run for their life. It works well, so yeah. I can't measure how this would overstay its welcome because draining to death is all regular airmeters do. On another point, SA-1 usage here was justified and well-implemented, not only to avoid slowdown, but for taking advantage in sprite design.
Presentation points: 18/20

Creativity: There were plenty of nice obstacle patterns here and there, though there were also some filler-esque sections as well, especially one where the player has to dodge line-guided sprites in a small corridor. What's more, these parts were more react-oriented than thought-oriented, as in, the player must prioritize quick reflex to dodge stuff over thinking what they should do. If these were designed the other way round, would have added more not only to the fun factor, but also to creativity. But even so, these setups weren't repetitive, and they flowed well, and you also did well using few resources, so the score here is a good one.
Creativity points: 9/10
----------
Total Score: 51/60

&&

BURNING UP FOR YOU
Placement: 24
Codename: Hyper
Author: Alexandrite

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 10/30
Presentation: 11/20
Creativity: 6/10

Total: 27/60

Comments:
This level just didn't let up with its difficult situations. Even the very first setup is hard enough to kill an unsuspecting player multiple times, even after they know what they're supposed to do. The dolphins were used in interesting ways but always paired with some huge difficulty spike. No midpoint when it really could've used one (though thankfully the level was short overall). It looked fine graphically and at least fit the lava theme. I just didn't have fun with it because I was too busy dying to lava every few seconds. Too bad, not for me.

Noivern:

Fun: 14/30
Presentation: 9/20
Creativity: 6/10

Total: 29/60

Rather short, but difficult. It relies too much on trial and error, as there are a lot of things you can't see just off camera that you need to react to. The powerup gate at the end can be cheesed with only a single mushroom if you duckjump through the gaps with good timing. The palette is really harsh and could be toned down a lot. You especially should not overwrite layer 3's palette.
Total: 29

Blind Devil:

Fun: A short, athletic and straightforward but very hard level. Some areas are practically impossible to beat the first time due to a certain lack of warnings or of a coin guide such as in the second Dolphin jump to a ledge. That was a blind jump. Another kinda unfair zone was the one with two grey platforms, a Dolphin that jumps back and forth and an Urchin. Depending on how far the player goes with the camera, the Urchin gets right in the way, thus resulting in an unfair hit. Moreover, they should keep momentum to spinjump a Piranha Plant a few blocks ahead, and if they make a little mistake, it's a certain death. Overall, the stage length, time limit and sense of action were good, but the unfair obstacle patterns could have been planned better with more thorough testing. Also, it'd be nicer if there were more challenging but optional section with Yoshi Coins to engage the player a bit more, but this means no loss of points.
Fun points: 20/30

Presentation: Good graphics, even though the BG is a bit more detailed than the rest overall. Anyway, this doesn't clash with the FG and sprites (it would, however, if you used vanilla FG elements for example). There's a problem, though, and that's with the status bar palette. There were no glitched stuff, but some minor cutoffs that could have been avoided, such as water blocks placed in between logs, which looked odd not only because of the blank spaces, but also because of the blocky appearance. If these looked like bubbles would have looked way nicer. Music-wise, the unsampled song was a good pick. It fits the level theme, is consistent and doesn't break sound effects or global songs. No functionality issues were spotted. There weren't any gimmicks, due to the level being design-oriented. The theme presentation could have used some work, though, rather than starting already very hard. And the last sections were way easier than the first ones, resulting in an inconsistent difficulty curve.
Presentation points: 16/20

Creativity: The level had some interesting obstacle patterns involving Dolphins, Piranha Plants and Urchins - mostly set up in unique ways with some occasional repetitions. Both these repetitions and unfairness of certain sections (mentioned previously in the fun topic) brought the score down here, though. For repeated sections such as the final ones (player has to spinjump turn blocks and avoid spikes with a low jump twice), different setups could have been created, and for unfair ones, better sprite or object placement would have benefitted more. They could avoid the risk of forcing deaths or hits upon the player and make the gameplay flow more naturally. Anyway, you did a good job with balanced usage of the chosen resources, and made a decent level with them.
Creativity points: 7/10
----------
Total Score: 43/60

[ft029]

1. I'd say the level is a blend between Hai Mari (note: the codename of the level was "hyper") and Morsel (the setup at is identical).

2. These levels are definitely possible on a first try; I'd say they "look difficult" but aren't actually all that hard because the setups kind of play themselves, what with all the coin guides and such. lolyoshi did BURNING UP FOR YOU in one go, and I did the oxygen level in two.

[Tyty]

I can't wait for VLDC11 to be entirely dolphin themed because of that spinjump trick. Sure will be fun to play.

[alexandrite]

no one (at least on camera) has beat the first obstacle the way i intended :( (https://imgur.com/EOYFJmi here's how it's supposed to go). still fun seeing the different ways people try to figure it out.

anyways as a bit of devcom, this level, as made obvious by the anonymous file name, was heavily inspired by hyper mario vi, which raocow was playing through when i made this. i think it's probably one of my favorite series from him. the background for the level i guess you could call an homage to the second part of the final stage of s. mario which also uses the same background though of lower quality. also the filter at the end can easily be broken. i was hoping to make the level longer but ran out of time in the end. i suppose it probably ended up being better being on the short side after all.

[Nao]

Today's level was super well designed, but I wonder if it would've been more fun without the gimmick in all honesty.

[Veruchai]

I basically agree with everything rao said.
That doesn't make this a very interesting comment I suppose.
Sometimes that might still be alright.

[Grounder]

but why

[Kilgamayan]

I can't wait for this level to appear sans gimmick in the next VLDC.

[repairmanman]

I can't wait for this level to appear sans gimmick in the next VLDC.

Is that allowed? I know you can use levels from a hack you're making, but that sounds...

wrong

[TRS]

Not that specific level, just something similar with overly precise jumps and projectile spam.

The gimmick is manageable (but still frustrating) once you learn to stop making jumps that need to be adjusted in midair, and then just hold the run and jump buttons throughout the entire jump even when paused. It's too bad the level goes out of its way to mess up your jump timing with the slopes.

[Ivy]

I can't wait for VLDC11 to be entirely dolphin themed because of that spinjump trick. Sure will be fun to play.

No worries—it's not going to exist

[FPzero]

We're in a rut of levels that I just really didn't care for and it makes me look like a jerk lol.

[raocow]

one of the two levels coming up tomorrow morning I think is more your cup of tea, hopefully it'll balance things up a bit ?!