Vera Bounce!
Placement: 4
Codename: sling
Author: E-man38
Judge Comments:
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 28/30
Presentation: 17/20
Creativity: 9/10
Total: 54/60
Comments:
This was a simple idea that was explored really well! It was a lot of fun to bounce off those green patches while avoiding surprisingly smartly placed castle enemies. And since Mario kept spinjumping while bouncing off them you were even able to make sections that required carefully bouncing on Thwomps too. The Roto-Discs turned out to be a great addition to the second half since their motion is periodic and can be timed by the player. Mix those in with the constant bouncing and avoiding damage becomes a matter of seeing an opening and making the attempt.
The level looked and sounded nice too. The only thing I might be able to critique it for is that I'd love to have played a little bit more, but I also think that you ended the level at the perfect point to keep the level from going too long and losing steam. Wanting to play more in this case is a good thing!
Noivern:
There's not a whole lot you can do with bouncy blocks. While what was done here was done pretty nicely, I think the gimmick held you back. Perhaps if the bouncy blocks also bounced enemies and you did something with that, that would have helped push the level from good to stellar.
Total: 46
Blind Devil:
Fun: Cute entry, overall pretty good in terms of design and difficulty. Bouncing platforms are nice when done right, and here I had fun bouncing around for the most part. It gets a little tough near the end, but it's nothing that detracts a lot from the experience. With a little bit of patience, the player can make it without a scratch through the last obstacles involving the bouncy ground, Venuses, a horizontal Thwomp and some spiky obstacles. The Yoshi Coins added good replay value, as well, because they were placed in strategic and challenging spots without being clumsy. The level plays safe overall, with good placement of sprites, powerups, midway point and secrets while being athletic and not too complex.
Fun points: 28/30
Presentation: It has a solid presentation, with some little nitpicks, though. Graphics-wise, everything is pretty fitting and consistent. There's a mix of a slightly more detailed SMW tilesets with liberties taken from SMAS SMB3, as well as some other decorations and SMA2 Special World Goombas. But my nitpick is regarding the sprite setups: Thwomps and Rotodiscs aren't usually seen in happy grasslands such as this one, so if these sprites could be changed by others, or reskinned, or if the environment was "less happy", as in, more menacing, then it'd look perfect in my opinion. Aside from that, it's all good. No big cutoffs, glitches or instances of bad palettes were spotted. The unsampled song choice was also spot-on, and the custom death theme was also fitting. Nothing broke here, so it's all cool functionality-wise. The bouncy gimmick was nicely introduced and executed, as well, so the presentation score overall is also a nice one. But dammit, I'm a perfectionist...
Presentation points: 19/20
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Creativity: Did pretty well while not filling the level with stuff. Level setups involving the bouncy ground were mostly common ones, but there were interesting sections such as the one in conjunction with an horizontal Thwomp which is a bit timing-based, a blocked bouncy block by a turn block right at the beginning which the player can unblock by breaking it with a spinjump or making it turn by hitting it with a sprite from the side - this in order to get the first Yoshi Coin. But I still felt the mechanism could have used some more different setups other than just bouncing and dodging elements - for example, you could have a section where the player cannot be bounced from the ground, so they'd avoid hitting a spiky ceiling by either traversing turn block bridges, doing low spinjumps over spiky enemies or simply riding platforms, or maybe an area in which the player would have to unblock a bouncy ledge blocked by solid blocks with a P-Switch or On/Off blocks or by killing sprites that obstruct said ledges such as Mega Moles. Anyway, due to the overall quality over quantity of resources and the couple of cleverly designed areas, the score here is also a good one.
Creativity points: 8/10
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Total Score: 55/60
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 28/30
Presentation: 17/20
Creativity: 9/10
Total: 54/60
Comments:
This was a simple idea that was explored really well! It was a lot of fun to bounce off those green patches while avoiding surprisingly smartly placed castle enemies. And since Mario kept spinjumping while bouncing off them you were even able to make sections that required carefully bouncing on Thwomps too. The Roto-Discs turned out to be a great addition to the second half since their motion is periodic and can be timed by the player. Mix those in with the constant bouncing and avoiding damage becomes a matter of seeing an opening and making the attempt.
The level looked and sounded nice too. The only thing I might be able to critique it for is that I'd love to have played a little bit more, but I also think that you ended the level at the perfect point to keep the level from going too long and losing steam. Wanting to play more in this case is a good thing!
Noivern:
There's not a whole lot you can do with bouncy blocks. While what was done here was done pretty nicely, I think the gimmick held you back. Perhaps if the bouncy blocks also bounced enemies and you did something with that, that would have helped push the level from good to stellar.
Total: 46
Blind Devil:
Fun: Cute entry, overall pretty good in terms of design and difficulty. Bouncing platforms are nice when done right, and here I had fun bouncing around for the most part. It gets a little tough near the end, but it's nothing that detracts a lot from the experience. With a little bit of patience, the player can make it without a scratch through the last obstacles involving the bouncy ground, Venuses, a horizontal Thwomp and some spiky obstacles. The Yoshi Coins added good replay value, as well, because they were placed in strategic and challenging spots without being clumsy. The level plays safe overall, with good placement of sprites, powerups, midway point and secrets while being athletic and not too complex.
Fun points: 28/30
Presentation: It has a solid presentation, with some little nitpicks, though. Graphics-wise, everything is pretty fitting and consistent. There's a mix of a slightly more detailed SMW tilesets with liberties taken from SMAS SMB3, as well as some other decorations and SMA2 Special World Goombas. But my nitpick is regarding the sprite setups: Thwomps and Rotodiscs aren't usually seen in happy grasslands such as this one, so if these sprites could be changed by others, or reskinned, or if the environment was "less happy", as in, more menacing, then it'd look perfect in my opinion. Aside from that, it's all good. No big cutoffs, glitches or instances of bad palettes were spotted. The unsampled song choice was also spot-on, and the custom death theme was also fitting. Nothing broke here, so it's all cool functionality-wise. The bouncy gimmick was nicely introduced and executed, as well, so the presentation score overall is also a nice one. But dammit, I'm a perfectionist...
Presentation points: 19/20
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Creativity: Did pretty well while not filling the level with stuff. Level setups involving the bouncy ground were mostly common ones, but there were interesting sections such as the one in conjunction with an horizontal Thwomp which is a bit timing-based, a blocked bouncy block by a turn block right at the beginning which the player can unblock by breaking it with a spinjump or making it turn by hitting it with a sprite from the side - this in order to get the first Yoshi Coin. But I still felt the mechanism could have used some more different setups other than just bouncing and dodging elements - for example, you could have a section where the player cannot be bounced from the ground, so they'd avoid hitting a spiky ceiling by either traversing turn block bridges, doing low spinjumps over spiky enemies or simply riding platforms, or maybe an area in which the player would have to unblock a bouncy ledge blocked by solid blocks with a P-Switch or On/Off blocks or by killing sprites that obstruct said ledges such as Mega Moles. Anyway, due to the overall quality over quantity of resources and the couple of cleverly designed areas, the score here is also a good one.
Creativity points: 8/10
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Total Score: 55/60
Placement: 12
Codename: cold
Author: Gamma V
Judge Comments:
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 22/30
Presentation: 14/20
Creativity: 7/10
Total: 43/60
Comments:
Two thoughts on the level's graphics. The foreground elements are really pretty and go together very nicely. Liked them a lot. The sprites however, they all feel a bit...weird and blocky. Maybe it's just personal preference but I didn't care so much for them. Music was great in both the main level and bonus cave.
I liked the theme of enemies that throw ice balls at the player and I think it worked well. What worked less well was the fact that you wanted the player to interact with the frozen blocks using fireballs, but fireballs were extremely rare and getting hit with the ice balls would take away your powerup. So for the whole second half of the level, I didn't get to mess with the frozen blocks at all and instead had to leave behind the other Ace coins I couldn't get to. If you want the player to interact with an element of your stage, make sure they have adequate tools to work with. I also think you might have been able to go a little farther with the ice balls idea by remixing the idea in the second half or adding something else to interact with them.
Noivern:
Small Mario looks like he's having a seizure slipping on the ice. Not a big fan of this port, it really needs much more subdued instrumentation like the original tune and this sours the level somewhat. You should have done more with the melting blocks and less with the projectile spam, as the blocks are hardly even used.
Total: 33
Blind Devil:
Fun: Pleasant, cute and nicely designed level which reminds me of SMB3/NSMB levels - which mostly revolves around a single or a couple sprites and their behaviors. It can be played in many ways - one can speedrun, other can beat it the easiest and regular way by fireballing most enemies out, try for a no powerup/no hit run, and this liberty is something not very common in most hacks or levels nowadays. Even though the whole thing is pretty simple, the execution here is well done - it's definitely not a boring experience in my opinion. The level isn't unfair, the Yoshi Coin placement added good replay value, and the length, time limit, sprite/powerup and midway point were well-thought and well-implemented. One would argue that this kind of design is 'more of the same Nintendo-styled or too basic', but this doesn't detract anything... at least from the fun factor. Also let's be honest - no level requires to be extremely experimental in order to provide some good bunch of fun.
Fun points: 30/30
Presentation: All custom graphics are consistent and original, so there are absolutely no clashes or weirdness. There aren't any bad palettes, cutoffs or glitches, too. The song choices were good, too - unsampled, they fit with the overall simple ambiance, and don't break sound effects or global songs. Functionality-wise, there were absolutely no issues. And finally, the level didn't have a gimmick - instead, it was more design-oriented, and focused on Ice Brothers and blue Venuses which spit ice balls, plus the slippery physics, of course. Only little problem is that these sprites did overstay their welcome a bit, due to the overall level design style and little real obstacle variations (more covered on creativity topic).
Presentation points: 19/20
Creativity: While the level was fun and well-presentable, it lacked some effort in terms of obstacle patterns or innovative setups. In other words, you played safe in terms of having a fun and appealing level at the cost of creativity. There were many, many possibilities of design that could have been tried out: for example, the freezing projectiles are pretty tricky when the player lose their momentum while riding platforms or dodging faster enemies, so they could have been used in more devious setups - think of a horizontal moving platform, an upsidedown Ice Venus and some flying Koopas on the way. If the player gets frozen (assume they only freeze and don't get hurt), the platform will keep moving without the player, so they would fall (either to death or to some ledge which allows the player for another try), or if the player doesn't fall, they'd get a more punishing hit from a Koopa. Another example could involve these projectiles in a way they interact with something else, like a lit torch. Putting out the fire with an ice ball would open a path or reveal a Yoshi Coin. This might sound a bit advanced but workarounds do exist, and yeah, experimenting is the key. Anyway, props for making a good level with the resources you chose to use. Don't be afraid to experiment more next time!
Creativity points: 4/10
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Total Score: 53/60
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 22/30
Presentation: 14/20
Creativity: 7/10
Total: 43/60
Comments:
Two thoughts on the level's graphics. The foreground elements are really pretty and go together very nicely. Liked them a lot. The sprites however, they all feel a bit...weird and blocky. Maybe it's just personal preference but I didn't care so much for them. Music was great in both the main level and bonus cave.
I liked the theme of enemies that throw ice balls at the player and I think it worked well. What worked less well was the fact that you wanted the player to interact with the frozen blocks using fireballs, but fireballs were extremely rare and getting hit with the ice balls would take away your powerup. So for the whole second half of the level, I didn't get to mess with the frozen blocks at all and instead had to leave behind the other Ace coins I couldn't get to. If you want the player to interact with an element of your stage, make sure they have adequate tools to work with. I also think you might have been able to go a little farther with the ice balls idea by remixing the idea in the second half or adding something else to interact with them.
Noivern:
Small Mario looks like he's having a seizure slipping on the ice. Not a big fan of this port, it really needs much more subdued instrumentation like the original tune and this sours the level somewhat. You should have done more with the melting blocks and less with the projectile spam, as the blocks are hardly even used.
Total: 33
Blind Devil:
Fun: Pleasant, cute and nicely designed level which reminds me of SMB3/NSMB levels - which mostly revolves around a single or a couple sprites and their behaviors. It can be played in many ways - one can speedrun, other can beat it the easiest and regular way by fireballing most enemies out, try for a no powerup/no hit run, and this liberty is something not very common in most hacks or levels nowadays. Even though the whole thing is pretty simple, the execution here is well done - it's definitely not a boring experience in my opinion. The level isn't unfair, the Yoshi Coin placement added good replay value, and the length, time limit, sprite/powerup and midway point were well-thought and well-implemented. One would argue that this kind of design is 'more of the same Nintendo-styled or too basic', but this doesn't detract anything... at least from the fun factor. Also let's be honest - no level requires to be extremely experimental in order to provide some good bunch of fun.
Fun points: 30/30
Presentation: All custom graphics are consistent and original, so there are absolutely no clashes or weirdness. There aren't any bad palettes, cutoffs or glitches, too. The song choices were good, too - unsampled, they fit with the overall simple ambiance, and don't break sound effects or global songs. Functionality-wise, there were absolutely no issues. And finally, the level didn't have a gimmick - instead, it was more design-oriented, and focused on Ice Brothers and blue Venuses which spit ice balls, plus the slippery physics, of course. Only little problem is that these sprites did overstay their welcome a bit, due to the overall level design style and little real obstacle variations (more covered on creativity topic).
Presentation points: 19/20
Creativity: While the level was fun and well-presentable, it lacked some effort in terms of obstacle patterns or innovative setups. In other words, you played safe in terms of having a fun and appealing level at the cost of creativity. There were many, many possibilities of design that could have been tried out: for example, the freezing projectiles are pretty tricky when the player lose their momentum while riding platforms or dodging faster enemies, so they could have been used in more devious setups - think of a horizontal moving platform, an upsidedown Ice Venus and some flying Koopas on the way. If the player gets frozen (assume they only freeze and don't get hurt), the platform will keep moving without the player, so they would fall (either to death or to some ledge which allows the player for another try), or if the player doesn't fall, they'd get a more punishing hit from a Koopa. Another example could involve these projectiles in a way they interact with something else, like a lit torch. Putting out the fire with an ice ball would open a path or reveal a Yoshi Coin. This might sound a bit advanced but workarounds do exist, and yeah, experimenting is the key. Anyway, props for making a good level with the resources you chose to use. Don't be afraid to experiment more next time!
Creativity points: 4/10
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Total Score: 53/60
Placement: 19
Codename: ziplock
Author: Sokobansolver
Judge Comments:
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 14/30
Presentation: 13/20
Creativity: 7/10
Total: 34/60
Comments:
The idea is interesting but in execution it's really frustrating and finicky to do. I don't think the timer was doing you any favors here, since you included a way for the player to reset if they got stuck but it didn't reset, potentially leading to Time Up situations.
I don't think the first segment was necessary. Not only was it not clear to me at all that the very right edge of the screen was actually teleport blocks, all three of the other segments in the level used the spinning arrow lift. You should've just used it in all four segments to remain consistent throughout. That said, even the arrow lift was weird to use because it required navigating through saws and very small spaces above lava.
Making it so Mario can only jump is a neat idea. But I think your level was a bit too tough on the player in what it asked them to do.
Noivern:
There are a few mechanic-deprivation gimmicks in this contest. This shouldn't be one of them. It's finicky by nature, trying to jump just enough to line up exactly with the next platform. There's hardly anywhere else to go with this gimmick besides that. You will screw up a lot, and you will restart a lot, and then you will die to time because the starting time is low and it never resets. One thing particularly noteworthy is the warp to the second area doesn't function unless Mario is at the top of the rope when it falls. There is nothing that hints at this and I doubt it was even done on purpose. This is Bad™.
Total: 20
Blind Devil:
Fun: The level relied on timing and precision, and revolved around a limitation - the player cannot move with the D-pad. So, they have to progress through the level using another ability, and that is jumping. Jump from a platform to another, jump over a Chuck to be bounced right, ride a line-guided rope, then jump to control arrow lifts. Despite relying also on precision, there was room for mistakes and ways to get stuck... but no problem. Just press L + R and the section will be resetted. That added good replay value, as well as being generous by providing feathers. There's also a midway point in case the player messes up real hard and dies. The ending sublevel was amusing. It's leg day again, lol. I just couldn't have had more fun because I'm an impatient player, often going frustrated for being unable to beat these kinds of levels quicker. Anyway, it did practise not only Mario's legs but also my patience.
Fun points: 29/30
Presentation: All vanilla graphics with exception being the dynamic YI arrow lift. It looked fitting with everything else anyways. However, something related to how dynamic graphics are handled ended up glitching the line-guided rope sprite sometimes when dying in an arrow lift section and starting over from the first sublevel. I have no clues to what could cause this and don't understand how that's possible in a sublevel that doesn't even use dynamic sprites, though I imagine it could be perhaps you didn't use the GFX bypass for it. Workarounds aside from that do exist, though - one could remap the sprite tiles or use a disassembly with remapped tiles that aren't part of SP4 used by dynamic sprites. There's also a notable cutoff in the second sublevel - the rightmost tile of the big bush is not touching the mushroom platform. The unsampled music choice was good. The song was catchy and fitting, and didn't break global songs nor sound effects. The "leg day" gimmick was well introduced and played and the difficulty curve was smooth. Issues aside, solid presentation.
Presentation points: 18/20
Creativity: It was creative but could have been more. Anyway, kudos for designing a level around a limitation - I know this is a pretty hard task. Regarding the obstacle patterns now: it started with a neat platform-oriented area, and then there was a Chuck to be stomped the right way in order for the player to proceed. Then, the arrow lift sections were a bit less interesting, as all the player had to do was to control the lift and dodge stuff. I expected to see more platform-oriented setups in the end, and maybe some momentum-based stuff involving slope sliding, climbing or conveyor sections. Anyway, you had a good quality entry with the resources you chose to use.
Creativity points: 7/10
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Total Score: 54/60
FPzero:
Fun Factor: 14/30
Presentation: 13/20
Creativity: 7/10
Total: 34/60
Comments:
The idea is interesting but in execution it's really frustrating and finicky to do. I don't think the timer was doing you any favors here, since you included a way for the player to reset if they got stuck but it didn't reset, potentially leading to Time Up situations.
I don't think the first segment was necessary. Not only was it not clear to me at all that the very right edge of the screen was actually teleport blocks, all three of the other segments in the level used the spinning arrow lift. You should've just used it in all four segments to remain consistent throughout. That said, even the arrow lift was weird to use because it required navigating through saws and very small spaces above lava.
Making it so Mario can only jump is a neat idea. But I think your level was a bit too tough on the player in what it asked them to do.
Noivern:
There are a few mechanic-deprivation gimmicks in this contest. This shouldn't be one of them. It's finicky by nature, trying to jump just enough to line up exactly with the next platform. There's hardly anywhere else to go with this gimmick besides that. You will screw up a lot, and you will restart a lot, and then you will die to time because the starting time is low and it never resets. One thing particularly noteworthy is the warp to the second area doesn't function unless Mario is at the top of the rope when it falls. There is nothing that hints at this and I doubt it was even done on purpose. This is Bad™.
Total: 20
Blind Devil:
Fun: The level relied on timing and precision, and revolved around a limitation - the player cannot move with the D-pad. So, they have to progress through the level using another ability, and that is jumping. Jump from a platform to another, jump over a Chuck to be bounced right, ride a line-guided rope, then jump to control arrow lifts. Despite relying also on precision, there was room for mistakes and ways to get stuck... but no problem. Just press L + R and the section will be resetted. That added good replay value, as well as being generous by providing feathers. There's also a midway point in case the player messes up real hard and dies. The ending sublevel was amusing. It's leg day again, lol. I just couldn't have had more fun because I'm an impatient player, often going frustrated for being unable to beat these kinds of levels quicker. Anyway, it did practise not only Mario's legs but also my patience.
Fun points: 29/30
Presentation: All vanilla graphics with exception being the dynamic YI arrow lift. It looked fitting with everything else anyways. However, something related to how dynamic graphics are handled ended up glitching the line-guided rope sprite sometimes when dying in an arrow lift section and starting over from the first sublevel. I have no clues to what could cause this and don't understand how that's possible in a sublevel that doesn't even use dynamic sprites, though I imagine it could be perhaps you didn't use the GFX bypass for it. Workarounds aside from that do exist, though - one could remap the sprite tiles or use a disassembly with remapped tiles that aren't part of SP4 used by dynamic sprites. There's also a notable cutoff in the second sublevel - the rightmost tile of the big bush is not touching the mushroom platform. The unsampled music choice was good. The song was catchy and fitting, and didn't break global songs nor sound effects. The "leg day" gimmick was well introduced and played and the difficulty curve was smooth. Issues aside, solid presentation.
Presentation points: 18/20
Creativity: It was creative but could have been more. Anyway, kudos for designing a level around a limitation - I know this is a pretty hard task. Regarding the obstacle patterns now: it started with a neat platform-oriented area, and then there was a Chuck to be stomped the right way in order for the player to proceed. Then, the arrow lift sections were a bit less interesting, as all the player had to do was to control the lift and dodge stuff. I expected to see more platform-oriented setups in the end, and maybe some momentum-based stuff involving slope sliding, climbing or conveyor sections. Anyway, you had a good quality entry with the resources you chose to use.
Creativity points: 7/10
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Total Score: 54/60