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cldc 2018 - layers

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idol
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by idol »

blazin thru this contest

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
YOSHI'S ISLAND 1
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
Leg Day
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
i find it funny raocows already played the 4th place entry. gamma v's entry was called "Freeze, Plumber!" i think, at least her bps submission was. and the codename ziploc for leg day is because of a line in tyler the creators song ziploc where he says "leg day is getting skipped". thats all
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by SAJewers »

kinda surprised none of the entries have used MSU-1 yet.
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by FrozenQuills »

Space level today is probably my favorite from the contest, but it got a small penalty for being updated after the deadline.
Interestingly it wouldn't be top 3 without the penalty; I could have seen this entry winning the contest.

(i manage to confuse this thread with the celeste thread due to the title, god)
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by ft029 »

gcheesesunset and blue cheese do it again
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by Tyty »

Yeah, out of all the levels I played Moldy Moonscape ended up being my absolute favorite. It was really well constructed and I really liked the parts where you had to bounce on enemies because it felt like an added layer on top of the VVVVV mechanics.
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Re: CeLesteDC 2018 - removing the ability to move

Post by FPzero »

so mad raocow made it through the first half of moldy moonscape in one life, I struggled against it in judging. But the level is super good overall.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by idol »

Moldy Moonscape
Placement: 6
Codename: bacterial
Author: GbreezeSunset & Blue Leaf
Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 25/30
Presentation: 16/20
Creativity: 9/10

Total: 50/60

Comments:
Yeah, I've played VVVVVV before too! This level is really creative with its gimmick setups, slowly expanding the core theme of flipping Mario's gravity instead of jumping. By adding in the auto-flippers, you really added another layer of complexity.
But it's really hard at the same time. You're not given much time to react to new enemies and setups in the block snake part because you have to continuously keep up with the snake as well as flipping between. The player is still learning how the flipping mechanics work by the time they are tasked with getting through a tough area. The screenwrap and auto-flippers in the second half of the normal exit are quite challenging to mentally process. It's too bad you removed the held item slot because I think that would've gone a long way to making the level a bit more accessible.
I do think it goes on a bit long though. Branching off the secret exit early did mean that it was interesting to play the second exit, but the level did kind of feel like two levels in one. Maybe the better thing to do would have been having one path with two midpoints and 6 rooms instead of 2 paths with 4 rooms each (plus the boss on the secret path).
Overall, the level is really enjoyable and creative.

Noivern:

The gimmick here is very well-developed. In fact, maybe a little too much so. The amount of variation here is enough for two or three levels, and it feels like you just shoved every variation you could think of into the level. You can flip Mario during the boss end fanfare. The secret exit is also easier than the normal exit for some reason.

Total: 50

Blind Devil:

Fun: VVVVVV! Yeah that game was extremely hard and it still was a lot of fun. The same applies for this entry! Every little obstacle was nice and engaging, and bouncing around and around with reversing gravity is soooooo satisfying when done right. The powerups placement, checkpoint locations, secret exit and hidden/hard 1ups placement was very well-thought and were very, very rewarding. The level design itself was absolutely flawless and breathtaking, and the way the gimmick was firstly introduced was amusing. The player jumps, initially thinking it's the usual gap you see in levels and then... what? Ohhh, reverse gravity! I laughed a lot, and during my whole playthrough, the smile never faded away. Brilliant!
Fun points: 30/30

Presentation: I always liked vanilla aesthetics with liberties in palettes and extra touches. And here, the whole spacey-cheesy theming looked awesome. Everything was SMW-styled and nothing clashed, and no errors such as cutoff, bad palettes or glitched tiles existed. Sadly, my nitpicky side had to complain about the fully sampled music choices, wishing unsampled or semi-sampled songs were used instead, even though no SFX or global songs went messed up. The songs were catchy, but too detailed against the simple-looking SMW environment. Ouch. And now let's move on to the theme/gimmick factor. Nice ASM and nice introduction of gravity reversing mechanisms! There's no way this could have been done better. The gimmick never got boring, and never overstayed its welcome. If only there wasn't that nitpick of mine regarding songs...
Presentation points: 19/20

Creativity: While heavily inspired by VVVVVV with the reversing gravity mechanism, and even using known setups such as the Gravitron, the entry was really creative overall. VVVVVV doesn't have many complex sprites as SMW does, and their usage here in conjunction with the gimmick were excellent. Snake blocks used to cut gravity reversers in order to unblock a path, Grinders bouncing around ground and gravity reversing points, riding a snake block above while avoiding obstacles and cleverly riding platforms below, and there's even a Wendy boss battle with the gimmick while the player has to dodge a reflecting fireball and Lil' Sparkies! Oh yeah, this is a wonder of creativity just like various other entries. This edition of CLDC is mindblowing, thanks to this one and various other entries!
Creativity points: 10/10
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Total Score: 59/60
the tap tap menace
Placement: 5
Codename: dennis
Author: Tob & Luks
Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 22/30
Presentation: 14/20
Creativity: 8/10

Total: 42/60

Comments:
It really becomes a totally different game once you remove the jump from a platformer, doesn't it? To that end, I felt the second half was much better than the first by virtue of being puzzle oriented. It's hard to have action platforming when you can't jump to dodge things. There was also a lot of waiting around with the bouncing tap taps and having to follow betwen them. The On/Off switches were a neat addition and I liked having to manipulate them to proceed.
Cool concept, a little trickier than I'd like in some places, but good overall.

Noivern:

This is a great little puzzle level. It was particularly interesting how some of the Tap Taps had to be forced onto and then forced off of switches to continue. It didn't overstay its welcome and the puzzles at the end were really fun. I think it asks a bit too much precision out of the player, but the ability to quickly reset helps mitigate that. Unfortunately, this level suffers from a rather big issue: the switches don't work in Higan. They make a sound when "pressed" but can't actually be pressed, and both the switch triggered solid/outline blocks are nonsolid at all times. You can get through the level up to the midway point just fine (except none of the puzzles work), but you softlock just after the midway point, where a red switch that must be pressed to continue can't be pressed. For this reason, I'm forced to disqualify this level.

Total: N/A

Blind Devil:

Fun: It's a good and somewhat puzzling level, but that sometimes relies in quick reflex and a little bit of precision in order to get through obstacles. The precision required is more on a timely manner than input based (e.g. there's a section where you need to jump between two walking Tap-Taps while also avoiding the rolling ones that are spawned from a pipe, and you must land over the throw block without falling down to the left at the same time you shouldn't accidentally fall into the walking Tap-Tap on right of said block). Also, some switch-based obstacles can be a bit annoying to clear because sprites can re-trigger these (e.g. the player presses switch A, thus unpressing switch B, then the jumping Tap-Tap hops and re-presses switch B, messing with the player's life). Anyway, I liked the fact that the player can press L+R to reset a section if something bad happens or is about to happen. It does not only save time, but it also helps on backtracking if, for example, a Yoshi Coin is left behind.
Fun points: 25/30

Presentation: The level is graphically consistent, with SMW-styled graphics for the environment, player graphics and sprites - except for Tap-Taps, though they don't really clash with the rest of stuff. The fully sampled song, however, didn't go really well with the overall simplistic feel of the level. An unsampled or semi-sampled song would make more sense. Gimmick-wise, it's spot-on. Kudos for making a good level revolving around a limitation - no jumping -, and clever usage of Tap-Taps with the re-pressable switches. As said in the previous topic, being able to use L+R to reset a section adds a good replay value and makes the experience more engaging. Some little things that detract a bit from the score, though, are the disappearing HDMA effect in the beginning of the level while the player is falling, the miscolored HUD palette in the goal point section (numbers are totally black), and the 'Time up!' message when dying. Little quirks aside, solid presentation. To finish this, SA-1 usage for this entry helped not only avoid slowdown, but sprite design has benefitted from it, as well, so good job.
Presentation points: 17/20

Creativity: The no jumping gimmick was already seen in various hacks as a lone gimmick on its on - and the same can be said regarding re-pressable switches to some extent. I haven't seen, however, levels that take sprites and sprite setups in account for these to work. Integrating these gimmicks separately in a level can be very hard for most people, and in this entry the authors managed to make the three things (no jumping, re-pressable switches and Tap-Tap sprite setups) work together pretty well. I'd be lying if I said this isn't a very creative level at all.
Creativity points: 10/10
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Total Score: 52/60
late update because i'm a lesbian. first entry is good, was personally worried it and frozenquills entry would be the biggest competition i'd have. surprised it got 6 - even more surprised that the reason it has 6th is because of blind devil nearly giving it a perfect score, the other judges just giving it 50/60. the -5 penalty due to late update because the secret exit was broken didn't help, though.

second level was ok, but it had fun controversy attached to it. as you can see, noiverns judge comments dq'd it initially because the level was not playable - turns out its just broken in higan. originally it was penalized -10 points for this, but after an arduous fit was thrown in a sacred place it was revoked. thank god for america, am i right?
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Crow »

literally don't understand how tap tap placed higher than vvvvvv from those scores, even with the -5 penalty, the math doesn't work out at all?? ok
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Nao »

Parama wrote: 5 years ago literally don't understand how tap tap placed higher than vvvvvv from those scores, even with the -5 penalty, the math doesn't work out at all?? ok
It does. The -5 penalty applies to the average score, not to the total score when adding up all 3 scores. So moonscape would be 50 + 50 + 59 / 3 = 53, with penalty makes 48. Tap tap would be 53 (Noivern's final score) + 44 + 52 / 3 = 49.7.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Piesonscreations »

Both levels today were super great! And while the switches and switch blocks on the second one should've probably been one color, It definetaly played to it's strengths with it's mechanics. Sucks about the penalty for Moldy Moonscape though- really tight level.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by 10204307 »

When Celeste was in development, there was a mechanic where, upon running out of stamina, Madeline had to stand completely still for two seconds in order to catch her breath, and a lot of the levels had obstacles designed with this in mind, such as having to catch your breath on crumbling platforms. But upon playtesting, they discovered that this wasn't very fun, so they kept decreasing the amount of time you needed to stand still for, until eventually it was down to .2 seconds and the devs realized it was completely pointless and just removed the mechanic entirely.

That's kind of how I feel about the second level. It's a neat concept in theory, but in the context of a platformer, having to stop moving every few seconds (or carefully control your movements so you don't move too much before you reach the thing that restores your stamina) just doesn't feel good to experience, or even to watch.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by morsel/morceau »

Of course, raocow should have been able to have see this for himself, but he also should have been able to interpret blocks and switches respectively turning on and off: The bar does run down all the way but it fills up a bit when you die. I imagine whoever helped ft with the asm for this sprite was a complete fucking moron.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by eltiolavara9 »

that exhaustion level would have been more playable if the checkpoint-y things were actual checkpoints
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Kilgamayan »

I hadn't thought about Kirby's Block Ball in ages and then two videos in a row use the same song from it. Thank you to both authors for the wonderful nostalgia bomb there.

OTOH the happy music in Exhausted Mario feels like an intentional middle finger.

EDIT: Also don't forget that you get one "fuck" word per episode to still be PG-13
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Veruchai »

Yeah, rao touched on this at the end of the video but that wasn't a raocow level.
Just looking at it, it was probably a bit too hard.
With slightly more let you wouldn't have to: "do everything perfect".
However I do believe it was fair enough and a good level.

Multiple times things rao thinks are impossible end up being doable.
This was a precision puzzle level, where you have to learn exactly what you should do.
That is like rao kryptonite, he hates learning and prefers doing stupid impossible non intended stuff until he makes it work anyway.
If that doesn't work he gets agitated and starts making more mistakes because he rushes and get sloppy.
It's well know, it's in yesterdays Celeste thread, it's not new information.
This isn't a giant flaw rao. Both myself and the community love you despite, regardless and possibly because you do these things.

The level isn't perfect. The gimmick doesn't fit with the normal mario playstyle. It's probably too unrelenting with the bar. It's learning by death. It could possibly use more midpoints... However I still think it's an interesting and cool level that deserves recognition.
I just fear that people will and are hating on the level mostly because rao didn't have fun. Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Mandew »

I'm glad people enjoyed my level with all its little subtle touches P:

P.S. raocow, are you going to do a post-scriptum clean-up of the extra stuff you hadn't found? If you'd like, I can tell you about how to find the two hidden extra challenge rooms in my level.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by FrozenQuills »

The problem with Exhausted Mario is that it focuses more on having the exact correct inputs than on making few unnecessary inputs.
I think the gimmick could work if there was simply 50% more stamina meter for everything.
That said, it did get 10th, but the puzzley design allowed for super divisive opinions (see also: that starry mountain level in VLDC9).

BTW I adored the Nightspace and it was another one of my favorites; simple gimmick, great execution, and a nice twist on vanilla graphics.
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The boss entry that made me eat a shoe.

5th place counter: 5
(SMBX Forums CC11, SMBX Forums CC12, Endgame Madness Contest, SMWC Kaizo Contest 2016, SMWC 24hr Contest 2018)
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Crow
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Crow »

10204307 wrote: 5 years ago When Celeste was in development, there was a mechanic where, upon running out of stamina, Madeline had to stand completely still for two seconds in order to catch her breath, and a lot of the levels had obstacles designed with this in mind, such as having to catch your breath on crumbling platforms. But upon playtesting, they discovered that this wasn't very fun, so they kept decreasing the amount of time you needed to stand still for, until eventually it was down to .2 seconds and the devs realized it was completely pointless and just removed the mechanic entirely.

That's kind of how I feel about the second level. It's a neat concept in theory, but in the context of a platformer, having to stop moving every few seconds (or carefully control your movements so you don't move too much before you reach the thing that restores your stamina) just doesn't feel good to experience, or even to watch.
the stamina mechanic in celeste is still the worst mechanic in the game too even despite this, i wish rather than trying to use it as a means to prevent exploration & then abusing it in some particularly unfun platforming challenges later, they just... used unclimbable walls or something. like,

they literally already exist in the game too



anyways yeah that looked absolutely miserable and i don't blame you for save-stating. having a level segment that long where pretty much every mistake is punished with death is grueling and unfun in a particularly obvious way and tbh i'm surprised this scored higher than the bottom three

the mechanic could've easily been fixed by just preventing you from moving until the bar recharged a bit, it'd still lead to death in a lot of cases but it wouldn't be as absurd
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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ft029
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by ft029 »

fun fact, the level idea came to me after I got tired running home from school
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Wind Fish
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Wind Fish »

I have a strong feeling we'll see a replay of a certain level after raocow realizes who the level author is.
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Sugar
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Sugar »

I liked the level.

And yes, I played it.

But I understand people will go "bad level design" after seeing raocow have a hard time with the level. Could it have been a better experience? Sure. But it's not the worst level ever, not even close - I think myself it's really good, it's just that most people here will go by whatever raocow experienced.

(speaking of Celeste, I honestly have no idea what's the deal with stamina mechanic in Celeste however, for me it felt like somebody really really wanted this mechanic in a game, even if it doesn't improve the game in any way)
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by AlchemistHohenheim »

So I acknowledge my first impression of this level is being colored by The raocow Experience, but the main thought running through my head for pretty much the entire second half of Exhausted Mario was "this is basically just a kaizo level where you're allowed to stop and catch your breath every 30 seconds or so".

That's probably a bit unfair, but the required movements just look way too exacting for something where failure = death.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by FPzero »

In judging, I found the timing way too tight in the second half and I was stuck on it for quite a while, though not as long as raocow. Which is too bad because I think the first half is actually really good since the focus there is finding places where you're safe for even just a second to get your meter refilled a little bit before the level forces you to keep moving. By contrast, the second half removes the ability to safely assess a situation before tackling it, and the end result is a level that asks the player to learn by dying. Because you don't know how far you need to go before you hit a meter recharge, you generally have no idea how much you should be conserving your movements. Toss in some puzzles towards the end, along with lots of enemies meant to make you do any kind of button press in reaction, and you have a recipe for a very frustrating level.

It's a cool idea, but the second half's execution drags the whole level down, and my judge comments will basically echo what I said just now.
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by gbreeze »

ft029 wrote: 5 years ago fun fact, the level idea came to me after I got tired running home from school
Still my favorite level creation lore

and yeah whoever helped make this air meter sprite must be one Rude Boi for not fixing that glitch!!
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Re: i updated this way too late cldc 2018 - mmmmmm

Post by Zach808 »

I'd say the biggest problem was the glitchy stamina bar. I don't know if you always have the same amount of stamina and the bar is just wrong, or if it actually is running out early, but dying with green left in the bar just looks frustrating as hell. It did seem like raocow started getting irritated a lot earlier than usual, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was why.
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