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cldc 2018 - layers

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Nao
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Re: Cuper Lario Dorld Central 2018 - oxygen

Post by Nao »

FPzero wrote: 5 years ago We're in a rut of levels that I just really didn't care for and it makes me look like a jerk lol.
Don't worry, you're not looking like a jerk at all. The comments you gave are reasonable and the scores you gave aren't even that low compared to the other judges.
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Re: Cuper Lario Dorld Central 2018 - oxygen

Post by Crow »

I get the intent of this level but the gimmick mostly serves to break up gameplay flow which is like, the exact opposite of what I want in a platformer
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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Zach808
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Re: Cuper Lario Dorld Central 2018 - oxygen

Post by Zach808 »

raocow, you didn't tell us you were starting Vip6 early! :O

In all seriousness, was this level tested with a keyboard? The difference is like night and day.
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Re: Cuper Lario Dorld Central 2018 - oxygen

Post by ft029 »

https://youtu.be/9rzZU3VrsS0?t=2h2m43s

Keyboard makes hell of a difference. (But also, this guy is extremely good at mario.)
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by idol »

i probably shouldnt have assumed noivern would do my dirty work again today huh

www
Placement: 27
Codename: stopped
Author: uoouo
Judge Comments:

FPzero:
Fun Factor: 3/30
Presentation: 6/20
Creativity: 3/10

Total: 12/60

Comments:
The gimmick was funny on the first life. After that, it became a source of endless frustration. The only thing the level achieved was making me contort my fingers around my SNES controller in an attempt to have air control again after I reached over and hit unpause.
It doesn't help that this level's actual design is pretty garbage at times too. After the midpoint it's basically nothing but tiny jumps between 1 tile or thin steep slope platforms, supplemented by venus fire traps and pitchin' chucks. Add the forced pauses into the equation and this level is nothing but frustration on top of already weak level design as you go careening into a pit because you couldn't react fast enough after unpausing to save yourself. The gimmick really does nothing for the level and makes it much worse overall.

Noivern:
Meta gimmicks are cool, but they tend to overstay their welcome and aren't very good in subsequent playthroughs. Both of those statements are true here. It got a good laugh in the beginning (and the very end), but quickly became frustrating. You haven't jumped between one tile wide platforms until you've done it with the game pausing and hiding your position in the middle of the jump. The level even without the gimmick spikes in difficulty at the end.

Total: 30

Blind Devil:
Fun: Well I (pause) admit I laughed (pause) when I started playing (pause) in the beginning. The (pause) experience was pretty (pause) funny. The level was (pause) pretty decent for (pause) the most part, but then (pause) I (pause) was (pause) just (pause) being (pause) plain (pause) trolled. Finally I (pause) got to the (pause) checkpoint. I was (pause) starting to (pause) get the (pause) grasp of (pause) it. But (pause) then (pause) o (pause) h (pause) m (pause) y (pause) g (pause) o (pause) s (pause) h (pause) (pause) (pause) (pause) (pause)-- alright, this started to get annoying (and so my review, I believe - this was my intention). But yeah, in other words, I was having a pretty entertaining experience in the beginning, but then the pauses, plus the fact that sprites also disappear in the meantime, became too spammy and annoying. Truth be told, the level isn't that hard if you take this gimmick out, so it felt very artificial. The low time limit also detracts from gameplay considering a no-death run from beginning to end, as it enforces rushing, and makes collecting Yoshi Coins nearly impossible (took me about an hour but I did it savestateless, I'm a fucking ninja). On the other hand, the design is good, and it feels like Nintendo would have made such level which is a plus in my book, but there was no balance of it with the gimmick you went for.
Fun points: 17/30

Presentation: It was almost flawless. Pure vanilla graphics setup overall, palettes and music, good amount of decoration, solid sprite set while making use of custom Venus Fire Traps and cool pausing ASM for the beginning of the level, introducing the gimmick very well. The pauses don't happen on a timely manner - they happen on specific X coordinates, only once, which also means that the execution was planned as intended. A really minor nitpick was with the minor cutoff vines, but since they also have apparitions in SMW, this means no loss of points. However, the artificial difficulty of the level due to the pausing abuse in very unorthodox moments cost some points here as well, and not only in the fun factor.
Presentation points: 17/20

Creativity: There was a good sense of creativity by mixing sprites disappearing with the pause, but the enormous potential it had wasn't explored well enough besides for trolling more towards the end of the level. You could have pauses in sections with more space, but with enemies coming at you... the game would pause, and you still would have time to see and react. You could simply have a section with many sprites and some breathing room... the game would pause, and you wouldn't know where the sprites are. You could also have used moving platforms that would disappear with the pauses... so the player would have to think twice *before* executing a jump instead of having the jump momentum affected... and much more. The pauses were more momentum killers, to weaken the player, forcing them to hits or to death. The good aspect is that you still managed to make a playable entry using pretty few resources.
Creativity points: 4/10
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Total Score: 38/60
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by FPzero »

Turns out 12/60 is the lowest score I gave to any level so...it's all uphill from here as far as my scores are concerned?
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TRS
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by TRS »

idol wrote: 5 years ago i probably shouldnt have assumed noivern would do my dirty work again today huh
oops
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by lolyoshi »

One of the most compelling and fun thing about designing with this gimmick was that you'll nearly have no solid prognosis of how the player will be able to handle to such an uncharted and quite arduous level. I was pretty intrigued by how the experience would go and (especially) the audience's reaction to it.

Despite some expected struggle, I can safely say that it made up for an entertaining video. Thank you very much, rao "god gamer" cow for tolerating it.
Zach808 wrote: In all seriousness, was this level tested with a keyboard? The difference is like night and day.
Both. It actually doesn't make much of a difference from my experience.
Kilgamayan wrote: I can't wait for this level to appear sans gimmick in the next VLDC.
I would have to get rid of the venus plants (the one that spit fire). They're a fairly essential element.
Upon finishing the level, I almost felt bad because it was pretty fun/challenging without the pauses implemented.
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by Sugar »

The entries today.
8th place

Author: Super Stiviboy
Nickname: Him
Score: 45.7

===

Noivern - Fun: 25/30, Presentation: 14/20, Creativity: 7/10, Total: 46/60

Short, self-contained rooms was a unique level design decision that played out very well for you. The short length was also to the level's favor. Walljump tiles seem out of place in an SMB-inspired level and didn't add a lot aside from one or two rooms. The boss battle music and the song before that were both much too loud.

===

FPZero - Fun: 20/30, Presentation: 14/20, Creativity: 7/10, Total: 41/60

It was a cool idea to have these one-screen challenges during the level and they got harder and harder as the level went on. They didn't add too much to the level but they did allow for each "room" to be set up exactly as it should be each time you went through it. But it was a little tricky in the second half to avoid damage or death since there was usually a lot to time together. And there really weren't any 1-ups available either, making Game Overs a real danger.
The boss was interesting, but the offset timing of the fireballs really made it stand out. Like, they made the fight much harder than I expected, but that's probably a good thing so that you aren't just throwing shells at Bowser with ease. That said I think he could've used one or two fewer hits.
The aesthetic was also pretty neat for an NES-inspired level. Good stuff, but watch out for difficulty.

===

Blind Devil - Fun: 27/30, Presentation: 16/20, Creativity: 7/10, Total: 50/60

Fun: Nice level design there. The stage was very challenging and nostalgic, due to the overall NES SMB inspiration and the usage of screen-per-screen scrolling which reminded me of Zelda 2. The player had to traverse through common obstacles coming up in varied manners such as Firebars, Podoboos, Thwomps, Bowser Statue fireballs and more, all introduced well (more on presentation), and placed well. My ony complaints are that in the second section, the Bowser Statue fireball generator can get tricky at moments, especially when clearing a jump and getting near the right screen border. A fireball may or may not appear at the player's face. And finally, there's a boss battle which is a bit monotonous. All the player must do is dodge fireballs and wait for Koopa shells to be spawned by a shooter so they can be thrown at a standstill Bowser on the other side of the screen. If the battle had a bit more of action, exploring more behaviors, had "more life" in all aspects, it would have been a funner experience. Finally, the midway point location and level length were good. There was no time limit, and it'd be nice if it had, but that's not much of a game changer here, honestly.

Presentation: I'm a sucker for 8-bit-styled stuff. Here, liberties were taken such as HDMA and usage of multiple layers for effects, but everything looked seamless. Tilesets, sprite and player graphics were also modified to suit the environment. There were no clashes, cutoffs, glitches or bad palettes. Music-wise, the first 8-bit choices were spot-on, but the boss song broke consistency hard due to being very detailed against the simplistic ambiance. I also wished sound effects and global songs were modified, too, for an even better retro style presentation. There were no functionality issues at all. And the main theme/gimmick was the screen-per-screen scrolling. The level design revolving around it introduced the mechanic nicely, and the overall design patterns had a smooth difficulty curve.

Creativity: The level took good advantage of the screen-per-screen scrolling in various parts, being, in my opinion, the most memorable one the brick block bridge which gets broken by a kicked Koopa shell. If the bridge gets completely broken, things get pretty tricky, but it's still a passable section. Just make sure the shell isn't killed somehow with another one lol. Other sections relied more in engagement factor by increasing difficulty, like some walljumping areas. Each one benefits from having their own hazards without being boring. I only wish there were one or two puzzling setups, and especially a more creative boss battle, because the fight was pretty lame and generic.
25th place

Author: lukacspatrick
Nickname: Nephilim
Score: 32.7

===

Noivern - Fun: 19/30, Presentation: 10/20, Creativity: 5/10, Total: 34/60

This level has some creative setups, but they all of the creative setups are done in ways that seem to hurt the player. Vines eat things the player wants to grab, creating a sense of urgency that otherwise doesn't exist in a level that wants the player to explore. Green coins point out secrets, but don't always do so. You can't collect all 10 dragon coins if you collect at least five and then leave the level. It's a fun romp otherwise.

===

FPZero - Fun: 11/30, Presentation: 10/20, Creativity: 5/10, Total: 26/60

No midpoint here, though it wasn't really needed honestly since if you aren't going for the Yoshi Coins the level is over pretty quickly. I like the idea of challenging the player to collect all 10 of them, but there's a big problem with this. I got 5 coins and died. This meant that the other 5 coins never spawned again because the game counts all the coins as collected for that level. So by dying, I wasn't able to actually continue getting the extra coins, leaving a bunch of empty space in the level. Powerups were also weirdly placed, I think I only encountered 2 of them and they were at the very beginning and right before the end.
Beyond the coins though, there wasn't much else going on in the level. I feel like you could've added to the coin hunt by also having some sort of central theme or idea you wanted to explore with sprites or blocks.
Not bad, but not much to see here honestly.

===

Blind Devil - Fun: 16/30, Presentation: 16/20, Creativity: 6/10, Total: 38/60


Fun: It's a decent entry that encourages exploration while being a traditional romp. The level has 10 - yes, ten - Yoshi Coins, which's pretty unusual and generous. In terms of exploration, it could have been better. There are no clues for getting some of the coins, and the player has to guess where invisible question blocks are located in order to make it to most. Regarding the level design itself, I didn't like the springboard babysitting near the last screens in order to proceed. If the player somehow throws the sprite away (not in a pit, but somewhere unreachable), there's no way to advance anymore, and they have to die and start over from the beginning. Yes, because there was no midway point, too. Also, due to some unpredictable invisible question block placement, I took an unfair hit from a Monty Mole in the last screens. Well, okay, there was a green coin kinda indicating that there was something. But I simply collected it before doing the second jump to dodge the enemies, assuming there was nothing special because the level had tons of coins scattered randomly in various parts with nothing special about them as well. In the end, the experience was affected negatively a tad bit.

Presentation: It uses a consistent and simple tileset for the foreground which fits with all other vanilla stuff like player, sprites, background. No bad palettes, no cutoffs (excluding the minor cutoff vines, but since they also exist in SMW this means no loss of points) and no garbled graphics, so it's graphically alright. The song choice, however, could have been different. You used a fully-sampled song for a simple-looking level, thus being too detailed over it and not being coherent in my opinion. A good thing, at least, is that it doesn't break sound effects or global songs. The level didn't have a center theme/gimmick, and initially, I thought it'd revolve around growing vines. But they were used in very few spots, and felt a bit disappointing - the first impression wasn't concretized. And lastly, anoter little nitpick about the goal point placement: it's located on the last screen of the level, so after beating it, there isn't enough space for the player to do the ending march, and that looked odd.

Creativity: Some setups were creative, such as the growing vine at the start of the level. There's a mushroom over a platform that can be eaten by it, and when it's eaten, the powerup falls and starts to move right. The same applies to an 1up later on, but the player has to be even faster to get it. But that was mostly all, and much more could have been done if you chose to center your level around them: making them eat blocked ledges with enemies so they'd fall on the player's head, making the player guide a rainbow shell or something to trigger a growing vine and unblock a path while avoiding enemies like Bullet Bills, and much more. Anyway, given the existence of a couple clever sections and balanced usage of resources, the score here is an average one.
Last edited by Sugar 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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TRS
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by TRS »

Just a heads up, there's a discrepancy between your ranking list and the youtube guy's ranking list. I'm not saying one of you two are wrong but one of you two are wrong and it's you. The first entry got 8th.
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Peliptia
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by Peliptia »

ahgosh⁚⁙ i really loved the bowsers dungeon level (^▽^) ♡ its super duper cute in its visuals ♡
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Sugar
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Re: Chocolate Le*pause*vel Design Con*pause*test 2018 - auto*pause*

Post by Sugar »

TRS wrote: 5 years ago Just a heads up, there's a discrepancy between your ranking list and the youtube guy's ranking list. I'm not saying one of you two are wrong but one of you two are wrong and it's you. The first entry got 8th.
Oh, right, fixed. The reason for that is that I made that error is that I have prepared all combined reviews before level placements were fixed.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by morsel/morceau »

I don't know why this awkward status bar became so fashionable, but it has cropped up at the top of the screen or cropped down at the bottom of the screen in more entries than I'd care to remember this year. Its use amounts to replacing the vanilla status bar which is pretty and familiar with one that is ugly and hard to interpret. Just look where the item falls from: There used to be a gorgeous little box where now there is a pair of empty parentheses displaced slightly to the right.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Tyty »

Because it allows you to have a full-screen layer 3 bg and honestly looks kinda slick. I agree the item indicator could be better (or it could pop out of Mario ala nsmb) there's also SMB3 styled ones.

The alternative is a sprite status bar. I'm not sure if that has any implications with the amount of sprites you can have on screen though. To make those look better than the vanilla one you also kinda have to roll your own code too.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by gbreeze »

I think the biggest advantage of non-vanilla status bars is definitely layer 3. I actually prefer not having any status bar at all most of the time.

I think the minimalist status bars are a matter of taste but I have to agree with Morsel, I've never been a fan. This one is especially akward, and sometimes I feel like adding a minimalist status bar is a sort of weird right of passage for chocolate levels, even when it isn't necessary ar all. I actually really prefer the bowser item box status bar, so there's no hud until an item is grabbed and the item box appears.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Duker »

...so just me that think the vanilla HUD is ugly and intrusive? Ok...

That aside, the minimalist HUD is perfect for the level as it uses the entire screen, vanilla HUD would be essentially removing far too much of the screen real estate.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Super Maks 64 »

I too prefer the minimalist status bar over the vanilla one which takes too much space on the screen.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Sugar »

Am I the only one who likes standard status bar?
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Wind Fish »

In my opinion, SMW's standard status bar is kinda a pain, because:
* It goes over the screen rather than above or below the screen. This means the people don't get a full view of the level, so there is potential of them getting screwed over by something hiding under the status bar.
* Most custom backgrounds overwrite the status bar palettes. If the status bar only used one of two colours this would not be an issue, but that's not the case. It uses multiple colours from the end of first two rows. So you essentially have to move the BG palette to a row you think isn't used in the level.
* This was already pointed out by others, but layer 3. It's already not the easiest to work with. The standard status bar just adds to the annoyance.
* The standard status bar reserve box uses a sprite of the item you have reserved, meaning you have less sprite memory to work with.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by morsel/morceau »

I was so annoyed when raocow beat the first sublevel of Leg Day on the second try, but thank god he had to play it again and found the many infuriating elements (warp blocks, time limit, on/off switch, etc).

CRIMES OF THE STATUS BAR PART THE SECOND

The mushroom has warped from the middle box on the right bottom corner to the middle earth.
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Also the less said about that p-meter which plays the collect coin sound effect when full the better.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Wind Fish »

That's not bad, to be honest. It's Lakitu sending you your reserved item from the heavens. It's better than it being stuck in a rusty old box.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by FourteenthOrder »

morsel/morceau wrote: 5 years ago Also the less said about that p-meter which plays the collect coin sound effect when full the better.
Wait the P meter makes that sound too? The enemies' ice balls colliding with the ground were making that sound a lot too so that seems really silly to me.

This contest in general has had great levels, I'm super enjoying this.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Grounder »

i dont think ive ever seen a good mummy ball level
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Mandew »

Grounder wrote: 5 years ago i dont think ive ever seen a good mummy ball level
I've not even ever seen an enjoyable Mummy Ball *section* in vanilla Yoshi's Island.
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Re: someone talk to me about god 2018 - screen-edge scrolling

Post by Ashan »

So i was like 5 days behind on videos but I just got to episode 8 and I was so happy when raocow sang the Duane and Brando Zelda 2 lyrics to the music cause it means I'm not the only one who literally can't hear the temple theme without that going through my head
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