cldc 2018 - layers

[Crow]

Yeah that last level was extra jank & honestly surprised it didn't place in the bottom 3

Not much to say about the other two, they.... existed

[Peliptia]

ohh ♡ the cooking with gordon level has really cuite graphics ✧ does anyone know where they are from??

[Zach808]

Can anyone tell me what's chocolate about that last level? It feels very vanilla to me, and not a particularly great vanilla level either.

Cooking with Gordon was very... cute. Not what I expected from a level named after Sir Swears A Lot (I think), but I liked it. I do think the key part did seem kinda randomly stuck in there, though.

[10204307]

I remember when raocow played CLDC 2009 and one of the low-ranking levels was a vanilla level... themed around chocolate. (also the origin of the classic "i hope i win!" meme)

What I'm saying is that last level really could've used a more chocolate-colored palette

[Arctangent]

pretty brave to submit a vip level to cldc

[Zach808]

pretty brave to submit a vip level to cldc

Well, there was also autopause level. However, I've been going through Vip 4 recently and some levels probably would fit right in.

[Matt is me]

Can anyone tell me what's chocolate about that last level? It feels very vanilla to me, and not a particularly great vanilla level either.

I mean...as far as I know, the C in CLDC just means it is ALLOWED to be chocolate. There's no explicit requirement to use outside resources and stuff....

but it's very likely if you limit yourself to vanilla stuff in a contest where any resource is allowed and you're scored (partially) on creativity, you won't win (as evidenced by this level scoring so low).

[Arctangent]

pretty brave to submit a vip level to cldc

Well, there was also autopause level. However, I've been going through Vip 4 recently and some levels probably would fit right in.

I can't say that's an incorrect way to process what I typed, but the thing about today's last level is that it felt straight out of a VIP without being a direct reference to any of the levels. Meanwhile, the autopause one not only is a clear reference to one, but honestly didn't really feel all that VIP-ish. I guess it wasn't jank enough.

[Mea]

There's something about having no hud in games that make them look unfinished or like a WIP screenshot kinda thing. Last level was a pretty cute-janky level

[idol]

ohh ♡ the cooking with gordon level has really cuite graphics ✧ does anyone know where they are from??

theyre drawn by miku on smwcentral

you can check out his hack wip here

[gbreeze]

Can anyone tell me what's chocolate about that last level? It feels very vanilla to me, and not a particularly great vanilla level either.

I mean...as far as I know, the C in CLDC just means it is ALLOWED to be chocolate. There's no explicit requirement to use outside resources and stuff....

but it's very likely if you limit yourself to vanilla stuff in a contest where any resource is allowed and you're scored (partially) on creativity, you won't win (as evidenced by this level scoring so low).

Yeah, there is no requirement that you use "chocolate" resources. In fact, you can do whatever you want. The "chocolate" in the name speaks to the ruleset and not to thr grading criteria. Much like the VLDC is graded based on the design quality and other factors, and not how well the level stretches the meaning of vanilla. CLDC levels don't earn extra points for being heavily chocolate or filled with tons of ASM, it's still all about the design. So I guess a vanilla level could technically do okay, but really the judges will just rank it poorly cause it won't likely be as fun as the other entries.

[Veruchai]

This level seemed fair to me. Too long and too difficult for me personally but pretty well designed.
I did prefer the start overall, middle was a bit random but fine and I think the boss would have been really fun if it was shorter.
I could theoretically see someone give this really high judge scores

[FPzero]

I liked the first half quite a bit, but I had a lot more trouble than raocow did with the ballooning segment. I'm positive he was literally less than ten frames off from losing his balloon status when he made it through successfully. And then the boss... I didn't find a way to cheese it. Commence slamming my head against a wall for ages.

[Blue]

Wow, that's one of the single worst song choices I can imagine for a wait-around boss. I was sick of hearing it well before the video ended and I wasn't even playing it or hearing it anywhere near as much as raocow.

The song only worked in CV3 because Dracula part 2 was short and because the song changed for part 3.

[Zach808]

Man, with that title, I was expecting savescumming. :D

[Crow]

wow! that boss was garbage!

blatantly disrespecting a player's time with slow, boring autoscrolling is inherently bad game design and you deserve a 0/30 fun score for including something like that imo but what do i know

[Nao]

Haunted Stronghold has to be one of my favorite levels in this contest. It's simple, but very polished and just overall fun to play.

[idol]

Bullet Ship
Placement: 30
Codename: weaponized
Author: ghyn

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 16/30
Presentation: 12/20
Creativity: 7/10

Total: 35/60

Comments:
The boss kinda sucked, I'm sorry. He moves too fast, spits projectiles all over, you're stuck on moving platforms that go up and down and intercept his movements, and you're basically just waiting until throw blocks SLOWLY come into view. It wasn't a very fun fight.
On the bright side, the first half of the level with the homing bullets was designed pretty well. They were dangerous enough to keep me on my toes, but not hard enough to constantly hit me or block my progress. Adding them to line guides segments was a good idea too. Two things though. The first half was much longer than the second and by the midpoint I felt like I'd already played a normal level's worth of content. Second, the graphics for pass-through objects often had black outlines, making it difficult to sometimes distinguish what was solid and what wasn't.
I didn't care much for the P-Ballooning segment. It didn't really match up with the first half's ideas, and required more precision than I think was needed. Quite the difficulty spike, thankfully it wasn't too long.
Could've been a better level if you'd stuck with the ideas introduced in the first half and kept an eye on how difficult the level was overall.

Noivern:

Wew this level gets real cramped, real fast. Tracking bullet bills in narrow hallways are hardly what I'd call "fair". The first midway point doesn't work; dying in the p-balloon section sends me back to the beginning of the level. Everything is needlessly precise, including the boss. I didn't have fun playing this level at all.

Total: 18

Blind Devil:

Fun: Mostly unfair. The level is a bit long already, and there are loads of hazards everywhere. In the first sublevel, tons of Grinders and Homing Missile Bills. In the second, an extremely unorthodox P-Balloon section with little to no room for minor mistakes. The player must dodge Bullet Bills, Grinders, and anti-balloon blocks spammed around the whole place. And then... there is... a boss. A freaking hard to dodge Fryguy, which never stops spitting fire at the player, and they have to jump from platform to platform in order to avoid the pit, the fireballs, the Fryguy AND THE LAYER 2 OBSTACLES. Speaking of such, the player has to attack him with throw blocks, and they only appear as the level moves. So, you have to dodge this fuckload of stuff for about one minute until the first throw block appears. Then, more one minute dodging, and another throw block. And so it goes until there's a screen with many throw blocks (I savestated in there just to know what lied ahead, but it was possible to beat it with the first three blocks). And yeah, the possibility of missing is also extremely punishing. Glad you have used multiple midway points for this level, at least. Also, the Yoshi Coin placement was frustrating at most, especially if you die in the midway point. Coins aren't saved, so the player is punished if they aren't all collected at once. All in all, this level is very unforgiving, and I dare say the boss is borderline Kaizo. I, as a regular player, went way more frustrated than pleased during my gameplay. Measuring in numbers, this level is only 15% fair. So, 15% of fun points only.
Fun points: 5/30

Presentation: The aesthetics were decent, and I liked how line guides were exchanged for bolts. Sprites were vanilla-styled, and they fitted with environment. There's a notable clash, however - the realistic-ish ocean BG didn't go well with the foreground. It may be detailed, but there are certainly lots of other backgrounds that'd fit way better here. There are also bad palettes for the cement blocks in the end of the boss section. The unsampled music choices were good and safe, thus resulting in no broken SFX or global songs. But there's also a problem: the victory fanfare isn't a victory fanfare - it's SMW's Here We Go! song, and this could have been avoided with a bit more of attention. Gimmick-wise: the level was design-oriented, but there was no sprite setup or level layout cohesion - each sublevel felt like a different level in a not-so smooth way, and the difficulty was artificial for the most part. Good aspects here are that the level didn't have any cutoff or glitches and the game didn't crash or had slowdown. You used SA-1 in your entry to avoid that, though, and to benefit from more freedom with sprites.
Presentation points: 7/20

Creativity: There were a couple of neat setups, being the most notable one, and also ironically, the boss battle room. Despite the unfairness, I really liked how the Fryguy battle took advantage of the moving layer 2, and the line-guided platforms gave an even nicer touch. I also liked how the frozen Bullet Bills were used as momentum breakers in the level, especially in the second sublevel. They don't kill the player - they just stun him, and they don't deactivate the P-balloon, which is actually interesting. The resource usage was pretty balanced, but they could have been explored more - in various other innovative ways - and better, especially the freezing bill guy. Think of P-balloon setups that don't punish with death, or momentum breakers that aid the player in certain ways... and yeah, SA-1. You could have had an overall better and less unfair sprite design, fully taking the enhancement to your advantage...
Creativity points: 5/10
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Total Score: 17/60

Chocolate Mountains
Placement: 29
Codename: chocolate
Author: JokingOnTheSidewalk

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 12/30
Presentation: 9/20
Creativity: 4/10

Total: 25/60

Comments:
There's always one. A very basic level with literal chocolate theming, it's not bad but could be so much more. The most interesting thing it had going for it was the Parachute generator, but I discovered that if you die and restart at the midpoint the generator never restarts. You need to make sure your generator is also placed at the midpoint or any other entrances to that level if you want it to work all the time.
Graphics weren't bad, just a bit bland since they were all brown. Music was a bit repetitive too since it was just a simple short game boy track.
Aside from that though, the level didn't really have any central idea to it. Find something to base your level around and then explore the ways you can use that thing to make a fun and interesting level in the future.

Noivern:

Hey look, it's the "literally chocolate" entry. Not a whole lot to say about it. It's an unfocused, basically vanilla level you can plow through by holding right. It was there, and then it was over.

Total: 24

Blind Devil:

Fun: It's a basic and straightforward level with traditional rompy setups but nothing really interesting happens in there. The player just traverse through a chocolate scenery with sprites on the way and falling Para-Goombas and Para-Bombs. There are no extra challenges provided, no changes on difficulty and no variety on sprite setups. Different sprites are used but all in samey ways, so it's all pretty monotonous. The good aspects are length, fair difficulty (despite the lack of curve which also affects presentation), good time limit and well-placed midway point.
Fun points: 12/30

Presentation: Good choice of FG tileset that fits with all other vanilla resources used, like background, player and sprite graphics. Palettes are okay, and there are no cutoffs or glitches. Music choice was decent, too - even though the song isn't that great, it's simple and also fits for the whole feel of the entry. It's also unsampled, so the SFX and global songs weren't affected. Regarding functionality, there are sprite memory issues. Sometimes, sprites will not appear partially or totally, especially Para-Bombs and Para-Goombas. You'll often see these without their parachutes. Usually, sprite memory 00 is the safest one to use, and if the 'No Sprite Tile Limits' patch or SA-1 is used, then memory 10 is the way to go. Another issue is related to ledge end tiles that act like corner tiles (a.k.a. 1F0 behavior). Sprites that get over them begin to float, but it's not player-interactable. This could have been avoided by changing these tiles' 'act as' setting to something like 25. Lastly, the level didn't have a gimmick, as it was focused on level design. But there was no difficulty curve or proper introduction of sprites. There wasn't a flow to gameplay, so all sprites and design setups overstayed their welcome.
Presentation points: 10/20

Creativity: Given the chocolate theme, it shouldn't have been all about only aesthetics. The obstacles and sprite placements could have had more thought and effort put into them so they wouldn't just be "enemies on the way". Plus, chocolate is a thing that brings many, many ideas to mind. Think of molten chocolate that could act as water or quicksand, hot chocolate as lava, cookie blocks that could act as sensitive blocks, or something related to Yoshi or Baby Yoshi and edible blocks. And think of the absurd amount of possibilities of setups with these, for the theme 'chocolate' as a whole. At least, you had presented a playable level without massive usage of resources without criteria or with lack of common sense. But yeah... for such an "endless possibilities" theme, it didn't make any justice.
Creativity points: 1/10
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Total Score: 23/60

YOSHI'S ISLAND 1
Placement: 28
Codename: obvious
Author: iBcakester

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 10/30
Presentation: 10/20
Creativity: 5/10

Total: 25/60

Comments:
The level was over too quickly and never really developed any ideas. There was potential to make it about avoiding the poisonous water or something, but all the jumps over the water were generous and there was never really any danger of falling in. And the only enemies were Koopas, Goombas and Shelless Koopas redrawn as different Goombas which didn't make for very interesting sprite interaction since once I got a Fire Flower I could just defeat everything instantly.
What happened to the background? There just wasn't one at all. I thought maybe you were going to use some layer 2 but no. While the graphics looked okay, there was also some cutoff when certain tiles touched the water, making for some odd floating stuff.
Overall it needed to find a central theme and expand upon it. As it is, it's nothing special or that interesting.

Noivern:

Hey, I remember moderating these graphics. While they were decent enough to accept on the site (with some minor improvements that aren't included here), they don't look that great in this entry. There's no background. You made no attempt to fix the multiple instances of cutoff between the tiny poison waterfalls and the poison or trees. The sprite graphics are inconsistent with the foreground graphics and even each other. The level is just there, there's nothing interesting about it and it ends quickly.

Total: 18

Blind Devil:

Fun: It's a short, easy, linear and pretty straightforward level with nothing really outstanding going on, except for the insta-kill poisonous pits. All enemies are the most common ones, and used in pretty common ways. There's nothing that makes the player think a bit more nor anything valuable that encourages exploration, but it has a decent design. In a hack, this could fit in first worlds due to its easy difficulty. All in all, the experience isn't extremely engaging, but it's acceptable.
Fun points: 18/30

Presentation: There are various instances of inconsistency. Mostly vanilla enemies and player graphics, plus an oddly-drawn, simplistic Paper Mario-like Goomba reskins for shelless Koopas, a detailed forest foreground which stands out from everything else and no background which looked plain odd. Better choices could have been made, maybe only using vanilla-styled graphics or downgrading the detailed tileset somehow in order to fit with the rest of stuff. And, of course, adding a BG so the level would look less empty and more vivid. Good thing there weren't any glitches or cutoff, and palettes were nice. The custom unsampled music choice was also nice, fitting, and didn't break anything. There was no main gimmick - instead, it was centered over a poisonous forest theme and was more design-oriented. While its presentation was okay, said theme didn't have any special touches that made it stand out.
Presentation points: 15/20

Creativity: It lacked. The level was easy but there weren't any creative setups or obstacles that explored their full potential. A lot could have been done with Goombas and Koopa Troopas even in the simplest ways: making a long row of enemies to hit with a shell kinda like in SMW Yoshi's Island 2, using Goombas or Koopa shells to smash higher blocks which the player can't normally reach, making a path where the player has to wait some sprites to move before being able to proceed, or simply making something more athletic with focus around the poison pits, by using platforms, different sprites and whatnot. All it had were simple enemies, simple setups, and poisonous pits that could be simple bottomless pits. The player would die the same way. Stuff was just... there, and one could even beat the level without interacting with a single sprite. At least this is a playable entry made with few usage of resources, thus having balance of quality over quantity.
Creativity points: 3/10
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Total Score: 36/60

SUMMIT HIGHSLANDS
Placement: 32
Codename: ips
Author: TheInsanity115

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 13/30
Presentation: 11/20
Creativity: 4/10

Total: 28/60

Comments:
The level was way too short and didn't really take the time needed to explore ways the Giant enemies could be used to enhance the level's design. I did notice that the Giant Parakoopas seemed a little glitchy in their hitboxes because twice when I tried jumping on them I took damage instead. And the Giant Spiny graphics look really bad since they're just a resized vanilla Spiny. Overall the level looked nice, but that's about all I can say about it because there just wasn't any development of an idea.

Noivern:

I've never seen large enemies handled satisfactorily outside of official games, and this level features most of the reasons why. Graphics are upscaled, and awkwardly at that, when they should be redrawn. The giant koopa's and spiny's hitboxes don't match the graphics. Giant shells don't destroy giant brick blocks. The use of giant enemies instead of regular doesn't improve the level in any way. The level itself is rather short and still essentially a straight shot to the end despite the illusion of nonlinearity via the path to the p-switch. It doesn't do anything special and bungles its gimmick. Taking a giant koopa shell through a pipe glitches its graphics. The p-switch music doesn't end properly. The last giant piranha in the autoscroll section is a cheap, forced hit if the player jumps down the pit too late.

Total: 21

Blind Devil:

Penalty (-5 points): IPS file provided.
We judges initially discussed during the contest proposal, before it started, if we should have accepted IPS files or not. We agreed for not allowing. However, we didn't *explicitly* tell that in the rules, so we're gonna let this pass. Do keep in mind that for future contests the judges might not tolerate this anymore. We’ve decided to deduct 5 points from the total (average) score.
Fun: The level is pretty generic and somewhat short, with nothing very interesting going on. There were giant sprites, blocks and an autoscroll section with enemies on the way, and that was it. Yoshi Coins were scattered around the level a-la SMW, being pretty easy to collect. There was no much sense of progress in terms of gameplay because the difficulty felt constant - it didn't raise or lower at any moments, feeling monotonous (which also affects presentation, more later). Level length, time limit and midway point locations were good on the other hand, and the P-Switch usage without forcing babysitting was decent.
Fun points: 12/30

Presentation: There's a mix of different graphical styles in this entry, like SMB3-styled player graphics, custom FG and BG, being the FG kinda SMWR-styled while having some vanilla stuff like cement blocks, pipes, coins and brown blocks, giant SMB3-styled sprites adapted to SMW, and a pixelated ugly 24x24 Spiny which could have gotten better GFX. Clash is a word that doesn't fit well here, but inconsistency does. You should have sticked to an specific graphical style overall. Music choice was a safe one - unsampled, thus not breaking any sound effects or global songs. Functionality-wise, no problems were found. The level was focused on giant sprites and environment without being gimmicky, but there was no difficulty curve and the level setups overall overstayed their welcome.
Presentation points: 10/20

Creativity: As mentioned in the previous topics, the entry didn't explore well sprites or obstacle patterns in interesting, clever ways. It may be hard to work with a set of enemies that mostly consist of moving straightforward and nothing else, but having them placed in more strategic spots would have added not only more challenge, but also fun factor. You could have a path blocked with a giant Spiny in which you could unblock by hitting question or turn blocks from below, for example, and could even make the stage revolve around this while having varied challenges for the player to accomplish the task. Everything was limited to enemies on the way until reaching the goal point. At least, the usage of resources was balanced so quantity didn't surpass quality.
Creativity points: 4/10
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Total Score: 26/60

Haunted Stronghold
Placement: 9
Codename: spooky
Author: MegaMarioMan9

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 23/30
Presentation: 16/20
Creativity: 8/10

Total: 47/60

Comments:
Those Boo Ring variants were interesting to deal with, especially once the block snake was involved. Actually that block snake section was probably the strongest part of the level since it forced the player to interact with the rings quickly instead of sitting there waiting for the perfect moment to pass between Boos. Though it was sometimes hard to sneak between the Boos. Using the block snake in the Big Boo fight was also a pretty unique take on that fight setup.
Looked pretty good, sounded good too. Overall, the level was pretty competently done. Good job.

Noivern:

The tricky ghost blocks were neat and should have been used throughout. This level is fun but not particularly creative. It does some cool things with custom boo rings that make me wish they were the star of the show instead of just another level element. The level could have dropped the castle theme and been better for it; the ghost elements were far and away better than the castle elements and the level is less focused for using both.

Total: 39

Blind Devil:

Fun: It was cool, I liked playing it. There were some little but non-unfair tricks and everything progressed well, despite the overall simplistic design. There was a decent amount of powerups provided, regular difficulty, nice usage of sprites and an interesting Big Boo boss battle. On the other hand, it was a bit too linear, considering there weren't many valuable collectibles such as Yoshi Coins to add a different challenge to the entry. Anyway, for a rompy level, this is pretty good. The time limit and midway point placement was spot-on, too.
Fun points: 23/30

Presentation: Some graphics looked off, and could have been reworked. FG and BG tilesets are mostly SMW Redrawn-styled, while player and sprite graphics are vanilla. This little inconsistency is pretty minor, but it still counts as inconsistency. This could have been worked around by making everything look the same style. Aside from that, no cutoffs or glitches were found, and the palettes and overall aesthetics were decent. The custom unsampled music choices were good, fitting and safe - no SFX or global songs were affected. Functionality-wise, I didn't get why SA-1 was used besides to avoid potential slowdown, but judging by the entry, I guess that wasn't the case so I'm not going to weigh this. Finally, the level theme was nicely explored, despite not having a centered gimmick. I liked the custom Boo circles, specifically. And the difficulty curve was smooth.
Presentation points: 19/20

Creativity: Being a more design-oriented entry, I expected some better exploration of resources. There were many different things you could have tried out to make the level stand out a bit more, by using the fake (look solid but are passable) blocks to make trickier sections like a wall or a maze with them, and especially with Boo circles - maybe using in conjunction with the 32x32 Boos in a way you should make said Boo unblock a corridor while dodging the circle, and so on. You did well with the Big Boo boss battle, for example, by using the block snake in conjunction with it in a way that added more challenge to the fight. More stuff like this could have done throughout the entire level in order to raise the creativity score.
Creativity points: 7/10
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Total Score: 49/60

h

[Crow]

that any of today's levels scored below bullet ship is disappointing, tbh

[Arctangent]

today was just like, an ascending sliding scale of memorability starting from "you sent this in just to send something in didn't you" to something actually pretty nice

[Kilgamayan]

Tomorrow's video is presumably already recorded, but since we're getting close to the end, what's going to happen if the last level or two are really short and you're stuck with a, like, six minute video if you don't add in the third place level (which I assume you will want to be its own video)?

[raocow]

I was implied that the top three each have enough meat for a video each so I guess we'll see

[raocow]

wait I misread your post!

TO answer: I don't know. Haha, we'll see. If the third place gets a roommate, so be it

[idol]

gonna go ahead and spoil stuff: the third place level is the meatiest of the three, and i think you're gonna get a really silly long video if you try to pair third place with anything. it's Long.

and then yeah, at that point should just have second and first place be their own videos.

[10204307]

I'm hoping that third place won't turn out to be one of those "five levels in one" type dealies that were pretty prevalent in earlier contests.