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Chocolate Island 6 - 1st

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Grounder
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by Grounder »

"Welcome to Burning Town," you say? :partygator:

Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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tirakai
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by tirakai »

That kind of challenge in the second level works great for metroidvanias where you can take lots of damage and quick reset platformers with lots of checkpoints but it really doesn't work for a game where you both die in one hit and get sent back to the beginning each time.

Like most of the individual segments don't seem too difficult but Mario's game design makes it far too punishing.
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BobisOnlyBob
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by BobisOnlyBob »

As always, checkpoints and restart times make a world of difference. I can't call any of this bad level design in and of itself, but as a whole package that forces you to start over and over... oof.
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Bean
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Bean »

Just a word of warning for some people. YT's being kind of glitchy today. Some videos are published but aren't showing up on the subscriber page even though you can still access them through direct links. No idea why. Roahm was having that issue earlier tonight, and I'm noticing raocow's Chocolate Island vid this morning having the same problem.
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Ashan
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Ashan »

Yeah, I literally can't see today's video on raocow's channel. I even did a hard refresh from the Chrome console, I had to just go through the link in the OP to get to the video
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Nimono
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Nimono »

DAY 4 - 19th / 18th
------------------------------------

19th - Kaito - Iggy's Sky Fortress

Nimono:
Design- 10/40
Comment: Pretty plain level design. Flat platforms everywhere, not too many obstacles, not even that many enemies. It's also pretty short.

----------------

Creativity- 10/30
Comment: The boss was pretty cool! Everything else? Mmm... A bit plain, not all that creative, really. Still, a fun level. Wish you'd made it longer!

----------------

Aesthetics- 15/30
Comment: I do like your HDMA gradients, but the rest of the level is visually very plain.

----------------

Overall: 35/100
Torchkas:
Design:
The first part of the level was way easier than the boss. If you make a really hard boss, be sure to make the stage that accompanies it hard as well. Right now you have a very easy level, which makes the design feel completely unbalanced. The level itself is not actually that bad. You throw in some questionable decisions, like putting an enemy right where you start the level, and a grinder that falls out of the sky without any warning. Overall though, it's not bad.
18
Creativity:
All the enemies in the actual level you made are vanilla. The only custom ASM appears to be the boss. You did manage to use some custom graphics, but it's nothing you couldn't have accomplished with SMW.
17
Aesthetic:
The first portion of the level uses a very dull grey foreground with essentially no color variation. The HDMA you use in the backgrounds looks really good. The second part looks a lot more impressive than the first as well. The final boss room is a let down from the build up that came before it.
18
Total:
53/100
Wakana:
Design: 12/40

Pretty much a world 1-Castle level. It's kind of flat, but
it's not too boring to go trough. The gimmicks used were simple and
pretty basic. The boss killed the difficulty curve: due to the tight
room, that boss is actually harder to beat than how it should be, unless
you manage to block the reflecting podoboos in the upper part past the
turn blocks.
Overall, could've been much better. Right now it's kind of empty,
even for a world 1-castle level.

Creativity: 9/30

As said already, you had gimmicks here and there (jumping over the
magikoopa magic, the hammer bros winged block part), but their
use was pretty basic. I atleast appreciate the fact they were used
properly.

Aesthetics: 14/30

Nice touch with the vanilla work on the FG. Not a fan of the colours
of the stars in the outside part of the level; their colours are a bit
too saturated. You needed something softer imo.
The inside part was okay, the combination with custom exgfx worked well
with the fg you have there. Gradients are a nice touch too, but they
sometime bug with sprite priorities (an example is taking the mushroom
from the question block in the inside part of the level).

OVERALL: 35/100
Noivern:
Design - 18
Creativity - 8
Aesthetics - 19
Total - 45
Comments - The level has good aesthetics going for it, but that's about it. Underneath the coat of paint is a rather short bog standard level that can't stick to a theme. The boss is strange and you can technically have an unwinnable situation in the boss room if it fails to create three koopas out of the blocks, but that's so unlikely to happen that it's not really a problem.
----------

18th - hobz - wall jump kid

Nimono:
Design- 5/40
Comment: To be honest... This level was not much fun at ALL. There's a lot of intricate, perfect timing involved, and on top of that, if time runs out, the whole ROM crashes!
It's just...it's just way too demanding. I couldn't even beat it...

----------------

Creativity- 15/30
Comment: A creative idea...executed horribly. It's just way too precise and punishing. Still, it's a very creative idea, and I would've loved to see it used in a not-as-hard
level! Especially the grabby-conveyor part underground- that was really cool!

----------------

Aesthetics- 25/30
Comment: The aesthetics are very nice, especially underground! I quite love how lovingly detailed the walls are there- did you make them? If so, I'd love to see you do more!
You could probably give even Skewer a run for his money!

----------------

Overall: 45/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This level is definitely a different beast. The design itself is actually not that bad. I notice that a lot of the things you do in the design is thought out and not just some clutter. Some of the puzzles are really clever and the way you expand on some of the ideas you had was good. The biggest issue is that the multiple design ideas you had don't mesh together at all. The strict time limit doesn't work with the precise puzzle platforming. The fact that there are no checkpoints doesn't work with the very precise walljump mechanics. They all work on their own, but it doesn't fit together properly. The level's difficulty is through the roof because of these design issues. It makes it way less fun than it could have been. It also has a lot of technical issues.
12
Creativity:
The level makes use of some very creative ASM. It's very clear to me that you had a lot of ideas. The theming doesn't move too far away from SMW. Some of the ideas aren't that new, but you managed to combine it to create something that was at least interesting to me.
20
Aesthetics:
This level looks and sounds good. You use very well conveying graphics for everything and things don't clash. What you use works well with the vanilla graphics you combine with it. The color palettes are well chosen and pleasing to the eye.
27
Total:
59/100
Wakana:
Design: 5/40

Awfully frustrating. This would suit "kaizo-light" as difficulty
pretty much... and this isn't a kaizo contest.
Thus, every flaw that is accepted in kaizo hacks (savestates spam,
no midway points, awfully tight spaces, 1 hp, pixel perfect sections,
"falls of faith" parts, and so on) is valued negatively in here. I
personally gave up a few screens before the goal question sphere.

Creativity: 19/30

The use of what you had is okay. Even if you require inhuman skills
to get past most of the sections, the level has an admirable amount
of creativity. I liked how you use carryable blocks in some parts, like
where you have to bring it with you to break the white blocks, but you're
slowed down. I hated the part next to it instead.

Aesthetics: 20/30

You could've used BGs that fitted your FGs better, but the rest is okay.
Here too, could've used a little bit more decoration. I don't hate the
overall though.
Music choice nailed the mood of the =.= feel the level was going with,
but in terms of atmospheres, it wasn't the best, but not the worst either.

OVERALL: 44/100

(Side note: rates were lowered a bit, due to a fatal crash that
happens when timer reaches zero. It's not a DQ reason imo. I mean,
if you're good/if you use savestates, playing the whole level is still
possible, so... I just lowered scores a bit by 3-4 points for every factor.)
Noivern:
Design - 3
Creativity - 25
Aesthetics - 18
Total - 46
Comments - For starters, I know you're aware of the crashes in this entry when you run out of time. I can't disqualify you for it, but I can't ignore it. So I've applied a 25-point penalty to the level under design. Also while it's a good tutorial, I have to question the use of a forced tutorial in the intro. Tutorials for a contest like that should be optional, since this contest concerns a single level and not a single level plus an intro. One could argue the tutorial level itself was the entry since it's the first level you play.

As for the level itself: it's a little (a lot) too hard for me, but what it does, it does in interesting ways. There are a few big difficulty spikes even given the already hard difficulty (the last p-switch section in the normal exit path comes to mind). I like the idea of forming your own paths to walljump on, and the multiple gimmicks that (all boil down to getting more height or distance out of walljumping) were all great. There are a few glitches that stick out though. Specifically, the music glitches quite often and plays the wrong sound effects, and you can walljump off of the edge of the level. Aesthetically the music works for a more fast-paced level like this one, and the graphics don't look bad either, but clash with the original SMW grassland used at the very beginning of the level.
------------------------------------

So the reason wall jump kid managed to place as high as it did is because it was carried by creativity and aesthetics- it really was amazing in those parts.
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Sebby19
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Sebby19 »

I think the missing Dragon Coin was to the left of start. Then you had to double back to the right side.
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Awoo
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19st and 18nd

Post by Awoo »

Bean wrote: 5 years ago Just a word of warning for some people. YT's being kind of glitchy today. Some videos are published but aren't showing up on the subscriber page even though you can still access them through direct links. No idea why. Roahm was having that issue earlier tonight, and I'm noticing raocow's Chocolate Island vid this morning having the same problem.
Is it just me, or does the spacebar do basically nothing any more? I have to use the "K" key to pause which is super inconvenient and I don't like it, since spaceing spacebar worked super well before and I have literally no idea why they would do something so dumb as to change it.


Also, wow, that second level. I cannot believe it got ranked higher than the previous levels, since that just seems extremely frustrating.
:gravytea: Would not recommend
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Nimono
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19st and 18nd

Post by Nimono »

Awoo wrote: 5 years ago Also, wow, that second level. I cannot believe it got ranked higher than the previous levels, since that just seems extremely frustrating.
:gravytea: Would not recommend
yeah it's entirely due to the fact that chocolate contests favor what can't be done in vanilla over actual design- while design alone is worth more points than others, creativity and aesthetics still get to be a large margin to encourage this- in this contest, they were collectively more than design alone, and thus they carried this level to 18th place
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Piesonscreations
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19st and 18nd

Post by Piesonscreations »

Awoo wrote: 5 years ago Is it just me, or does the spacebar do basically nothing any more? I have to use the "K" key to pause which is super inconvenient and I don't like it, since spaceing spacebar worked super well before and I have literally no idea why they would do something so dumb as to change it.
You have to click on the video (and have that be the last thing you've clicked on) for spacebar to pause the video- it really is just that.

Also, it's funny how wall jump kid basically had the components of a pretty good level, but the author's push for difficulty ended up killing most fun you could have in it.
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Leet
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Leet »

I think if the level had included a "tutorial zone" that gave explanations/demos of the various mechanics in a no-death environment it might have gone better. Stuff like spike blocks not killing you from the bottom/top is not something I'm used to seeing in SMW at all. It's a great innovation and right at home in a chocolate contest! But you have no way of knowing it's like that.

If the "now engage with this non-understood mechanic right now" wasn't so prevalent, this level would be really good IMO I think it's quite well designed. Would fit very well in JUMP.
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
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Sebby19
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Sebby19 »

But where was Yoshi?

And anything after thar 'win' block?
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Nimono
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Nimono »

DAY 5 - 17th / 16th
------------------------------------

17th - DaSpongeBobMan - Yoshi Berry Orchard

Nimono:
Design- 26/40
Comment: A very nice SMB3-SMW-style level! A bit plain, but definitely fun!

BUT WHERE'S MY YOSHI!? I WANT MY YOSHIIII ;_;

----------------

Creativity- 8/30
Comment: While it was nice to see you mash up the styles of SMB3 and SMW together, they weren't really done creatively- we've just got a normal level here.

----------------

Aesthetics- 26/30
Comment: This level looks GREAT! I love how you made SMB3 and SMW tilesets actually feel like they fit together! Great job!

----------------

Overall: 60/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This was a fairly easy level. You didn't really seem to theme it around anything, instead you just put standard enemies all over the place. The way you placed blocks also seemed rather sporadic. It doesn't seem like any of the decisions you made were well thought out or intentional. For example, there's a portion with cloud blocks and 4 arrows pointing downwards. When you go down in the hole you die if you don't move because there's a hole straight below you. This isn't good design. The ending was also rather weird. I don't know why you didn't just put the block on the ground and made it take more attention, or just used a goal sphere.
13
Creativity:
This level uses no custom sprites. It is slightly themed around SMB3 because of the palette and the status bar. The theme seems to be a forest, but it's kind of just a bunch of stuff thrown together as well.
10
Aesthetics:
The palette for this level is way too saturated at parts. You need to learn how to use pastels. Some of the enemies stick out for having normal colors. For the rest of it though, it uses some nice contrast in the coloration, but nothing that's not standard.
12
Total:
35/100
Wakana:
Design: 24/40

An ordinary SMW level, much inspired to SMB3 for the graphics used.
The design is pretty much what you expect from a first level hack,
not too demanding, but it's not too simple either. I appreciated
the secondary exits of the level (the one where you get Yoshi and
the one where you use him (or the feather) to go in the clouds),
it was a nice touch that made your level overall more enjoyable
to go trough, even if the secrets weren't too obvious.

Creativity: 16/30

Ordinary creativity, nothing much was done here except for the
secondary paths. The rest of the level is, again, a basic
smw level. I liked the layer 2 in the cloud sublevel, even if not
too important for the gameplay factor, it's a nice detail.

Aesthetics: 19/30

A mix of SMB3 and SMW graphics. Most of the level is visually
good, even if sometimes, the interruptions of atmosphere (i.e. when
you pass from a green-y part to an autumn-y one) felt a bit weird.
The only issues I have is that some palettes were a bit too bright,
like the ones of the question blocks; the BG of the main sublevel
felt empty because of its weird vertical scrolling rate; I have no
idea what happened to your smb3 status bar, but the top left part
has many half zero graphics on top.

OVERALL: 59/100
Noivern:
Design - 8
Creativity - 9
Aesthetics - 12
Total - 29
Comments - Given the SMB3 theme you're working with, I have to question some of the aesthetic decisions. Why are the brick blocks brown and the cement blocks blue? Why can Yoshi eat the berries from the green trees but not the pink trees? Designwise, a lot of it plays like you made the foreground first then slapped the sprites on here. Particularly bad was the cave section with Yoshi that used a lot of one-off sprites for no particular reason. And while I know the error with the status bar is not your fault, I do have to dock points for knowing that it's glitchy and choosing to use it anyway.
----------

16th - LHB - Boo Guy Fortress

Nimono:
Design- 6/40
Comment: I did not enjoy this level at all. It was alright at first, but then the second half kicked in and all the Thwomps were earthquake Thwomps that stun you.
Set up where once they land, you'll almost always get hit by a statue's fireball. This isn't fun at all!

----------------

Creativity- 10/30
Comment: While it looks nice, the level's ultimately not all that creative at all. Its primary gimmick: Make you take damage by getting stunned by a Thwomp.

----------------

Aesthetics- 26/30
Comment: I love the aesthetics to this level! Definitely feels YI-ish, and I love how you put vines in the castle. Very nice jungle.

----------------

Overall: 42/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This level has a couple of issues. First of all, the difficulty curve makes no sense. The section before the first midway point is way harder than the section after it. The boss is way too easy, and you don't seem to really understand where to put powerups. Another thing about the powerups is that there are no reserve items and only mushrooms. The enemy placement feels really sporadic, the architecture is very cramped on the inside sections, and doesn't compliment the enemy placement usually. You should really learn how to use firebars and bowser statues, because this level made me dislike them a lot.
14
Creativity:
This level only uses a couple of patches. Outside of that it's Yoshi themed without really straying far from anything. Most of the enemies seemed to be SMW enemies, or just simple edits.
10
Aesthetics:
Although you did kind of properly use Yoshi's Island graphics. You messed up by combining them with SMW graphics, and also didn't really get the subtlety of the palette design and changes in color it uses throughout the level in the original game. The music was desynced which was distracting.
10
Total:
34/100
Wakana:
Design: 25/40

An ordinary castle level, its theme is from Yoshi's Island. It's mostly
linear, but the obstacles are tricky enough to not make it boring. I
feel like it would've been better if you made the section past the first
midway point a tad shorter, since the layer 2 section is pretty demanding.
The boss kinda ruins the overall difficulty curve, since it's easier
to beat than the level's obstacles. A bit annoyed that, in the boss
battle, the ground's tiles had layer priority, so you couldn't see when
an eerie was going to approach near the side walls or not.
But overall, it's not a bad level.

Creativity: 17/30

Good use of sprites and gimmicks you had overall. As I said, thanks to
their placement trough the level, it spicied things up, making the level
never feel boring. The ability of the thwomps to shake the ground was
a bit uncalled for, but you eventually learn it troughout the level,
since, apparently, all the thwomps in the level can shake the ground.
The use of the layer 2 mechanic is pretty standard-y; nothing too fancy
has been made with it.

Aesthetics: 23/30

Good 'ol Yoshi's Island. I'm not a fan of the style, but it's nice to
see that most of the level feels like it's from it. I'd have appreciated
even more if you did something for those SMW sprites that are clashing
with YI's style, like Mario himself, the dry bones, the thwomps, and so
on.

OVERALL: 65/100
Noivern:
Design - 31
Creativity - 20
Aesthetics - 24
Total - 75
Comments - YI and SMW graphical styles generally clash, and this level is no exception. Though the clashing isn't too bad, if you go this route the sprites should really be redrawn/edited for best effect. Your use of layer 3 is simple yet effective, and only overlapping the other layers when Mario is outside is a nice touch. But you do have to question the castle designers when they leave huge gaping holes in the construction, you know? The level gets appropriately more difficult towards the end and while you used a wide variety of sprites, you used them well. The reskinned Big Boo battle was rather standard, which was disappointing.
------------------------------------

Apparently, Yoshi was in an underground area I never found somehow.
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FourteenthOrder
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 17th and 16th

Post by FourteenthOrder »

The block to end the first level was so weird.

(Also sorry for the belated OP update today. My computer crashed this morning. -_-;)
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Ashan
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Ashan »

Leet wrote: 5 years agoI think it's quite well designed. Would fit very well in JUMP.
I'm late replying but I agree with this and I think it's a shame a bunch of the judges gave it unfairly low scores for design.
  • 5/40
  • 12/40
  • 5/40
  • 3/40
Yeah it needed a tutorial and could have used some midpoints but it's otherwise very well designed. An amateur couldn't have made this level.
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Nimono
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 19th and 18th

Post by Nimono »

Ashan wrote: 5 years ago
Leet wrote: 5 years agoI think it's quite well designed. Would fit very well in JUMP.
I'm late replying but I agree with this and I think it's a shame a bunch of the judges gave it unfairly low scores for design.
  • 5/40
  • 12/40
  • 5/40
  • 3/40
Yeah it needed a tutorial and could have used some midpoints but it's otherwise very well designed. An amateur couldn't have made this level.
Torchkas and I gave it a low score because it's way too hard. Design isn't just about whether or not there's midpoints or tutorials- it's also about the level of play expected, and this expects *too much* too quickly.

Wakana and Noivern, meanwhile, loved the design and WOULD have given it higher, but docked points because the ROM has a guaranteed crash with the music on game over, or in a situation like raocow found.

For the record, I still stand by my score. I don't feel that creativity or "can't be made by amateur" trump the actual design, which really wasn't very good- look at how awful raocow's experience was, how much he died to those sections repeatedly. Even if every room was its own checkpoint, I don't consider this very good design- that's moreso for a puzzle, not a platforming challenge.

----------------------------------------------

DAY 6 - 15th / 14th / 13th
------------------------------------

15th - Sockbat Replica - WHAT THE CHECK?

Nimono:
Design- 25/40
Comment: Definitely a fun, hectic level! I enjoyed the flying munchers, haha. How'd they fly, anyway? Did they drink Red Bull??

----------------

Creativity- 14/30
Comment: Pretty plain gimmick, though I do love how you used the checkered platforms a lot for different kinds of jumps! Kinda wish you'd used the checkerboard theme more, though.
----------------

Aesthetics- 15/30
Comment: I wish you'd used the checkerboard look a bit more, but still, very nice!

----------------

Overall: 54/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This level is not very well designed. For some reason, the section after the midway point is much easier than the first section. The enemies you used didn't really impact any of the design progression. It started with dodging torpedo teds while on checkerboard platforms, and it ended with dodging torpedo teds while on checkerboard platforms.
11
Creativity:
You used mostly vanilla enemies. The one custom enemy appeared to be the floating muncher, which you didn't really use to do anything interesting with, like alternate patterns. The theme of the level was interesting as a concept. You could have done more creative stuff with it in my opinion, like using chess pieces, or some other traditional game themed ideas.
17
Aesthetic:
You used a pleasing blue background with a horrible dull grey foreground. You should have either used some color in the foreground, or just have made everything black and white. The rest was just vanilla graphics, nothing super interesting.
13
Total:
41/100
Wakana:
Design: 29/40

Omg stacked munchers if I was a 2007 mod I'd reject.
Jokes apart, a good challengy level overall. Maybe a little bit
too intense for my tastes, but it was good. The midway point
position bugs me: I feel like it would've been better if you
moved it a few screens back, because, you see, the second half
felt smaller and a bit easier to deal with than the first half. It
felt like the difficulty curve goes backwards somehow (as in, harder
to easier). I'd blame lengths mostly, anyways.
But again, overall it's a good level.

Creativity: 20/30

I swear each generator and sprite is placed in its perfect position lol.
But yes, perfect sprite placement apart, the use of the sprites
you used is mostly basic. There are no exceptional shenanigans, but
I appreciate how you did some of the sections, combining platforms
and hazards.

Aesthetics: 18/30

Good enough. The level kept this minimal style, with the checkboards
idea. Some decoration here and there wouldn't have hurted imo. The bg
doesn't really help with the emptyness of the overall as well.

OVERALL: 67/100
Noivern:
Design - 20
Creativity - 12
Aesthetics - 23
Total - 55
Comments - For what it's worth, the abstract aesthetic is clean and simple. But the level design leaves a lot to be desired. There is little variation in the enemies and setups. The actual flying munchers look nice but stacked munchers still don't look even with animation; they're just one step away from floating. You've also got some cramped spike ceiling setups that could use widening.
----------

14th - imamelia - Choco Mountain Mysteries

Nimono:
Design- 30/40
Comment: Pretty simple, but fun, gameplay! A solid level.

----------------

Creativity- 28/30
Comment: ...Your gimmick is Chocolate Island 2??? ...I quite like that! No one ever tries to do ANYTHING with that level's gimmick, so kudos to you! That's pretty unique!

----------------

Aesthetics- 20/30
Comment: I like how each section is basically a different section of the surrounding area. The hills, the forest clearing at the bottom, the lake... Neat.

----------------

Overall: 78/100
Torchkas:
Design:
You used an interesting, though not original, concept for this level. My main gripe with your design is the enemy placement. At parts it is really frantic, where there can even appear slowdown. As far as execution of the idea goes though, it is well done.
27
Creativity:
The idea you used is one that I haven't seen replicated before. Using the Chocolate Island 2 mechanic to make a level gives it great replayability, it also takes a bit of ASM skill. You used a small number of custom sprites. It appears that the theme of the level is simply chocolate island. I like the different take you took on it.
21
Aesthetics:
You used fairly simple SMAS-esque graphics. The palette is standard as well. Nothing to awe over, but well done nonetheless.
16
Total:
64/100
Wakana:
Design: 20/40

Basic, yet fun enough to go trough. It kinda feels like SMW,
most of the sections designed here are pretty linear. My favourite
is probably the one with the slopey bridges.
An overall linear, ordinary, but okay-ish level. A bit too inspired
from the original in some parts.

Creativity: 16/30

Good use of the level 24 gimmick, where depending on coins and etc.
you get to see other sections. Due to this, the replay value of the
level is very high, the gimmick served its purpose, even if it's
pretty much its basic use.

Aesthetics: 19/30

Good use of the BG elements (layer 2 and layer 3). I feel like
you could've enriched the foreground a bit more, maybe adding
more decorations (infact right now you only get to see a few trees
here and there). Palettes are overall fine; music choice is good,
though the music itself is a bit weird (I'd blame the weird panning).

OVERALL: 55/100
Noivern:
Design - 8
Creativity - 2
Aesthetics - 21
Total - 31
Comments - This level edit is a little more than semi-blatant. From the layout to the enemies to the aesthetics, this is standard level 24 at its core. The new graphics and the custom sprites don't do nearly enough to help the level distinguish itself. The graphics and music work, though.
----------

13th - Darken - Alien Hive

Nimono:
Design- 32/40
Comment: Definitely a great level! I do have to take points off for the spot halfway through the first section where you have to land on a one-wide, three-high space where going
too far or not far enough leads to instant death. There isn't much room for error! Everything else is GREAT, though!

----------------

Creativity- 20/30
Comment: I liked how you had to regularly bounce off Xenomorphs to cross spike paths! The theme of "Alien attack" is pretty nice, too.

----------------

Aesthetics- 30/30
Comment: I was left spooked and unnerved. VERY unnerved. But in a good way! I quite liked your aesthetics here, everything was just WRONG to me, in the horror kind of way. Great!

----------------

Overall: 82/100
Torchkas:
10.ips:
Design:
This level is very hard, but not in a fun way. The enemies are very obnoxious. In the first half, the motif of jumping on the aliens is stupid because you need to calculate where you're going to land, and the alien's hitbox isn't super clear. The landscaping around these sections is also very unfair, with a lot of very tight jumps, and almost no space to really rest. The powerups seem to be thrown in randomly where you saw fitted. The level is very claustrophobic, which might be intentional from a thematic standpoint, but because there needs to be a lot of jumping you end up hitting your head a lot and jumping doesn't feel satisfying at all. The second part introduces a new enemy that follows you unless it despawns. The way to get around these things is to get past them really quickly or else they'll follow you throughout the entire level. What you should have done, is give these enemies a set area they can't get out of, so they don't follow you for the rest of the stage. The pink spike crushers wouldn't be half as bad as they are if there weren't any of those phantos aliens.
8
Creativity:
The theme is creative. It's just a shame you didn't use the theme very well. You used some interesting custom sprites and custom graphics to make a level that feels cohesive. It would have been much better if you used this theme with better ideas.
17
Aesthetics:
The graphics you did end up using look nice. Although the level could have been less dark than it is. You ended up mixing some pretty interesting things together. The first part is a bit monotone, but the dark and ominous feel it gives off fits it well. The music is very distracting, and not good.
22
Total:
47/100
Wakana:
darken - Alien Hive


Design: 12/40

Many flaws are all over this level. You can see tight sections where
you have very little room to move, one tile jumps that easily make
players frustrated (sometimes these two even go together!), unneeded
long level length, where you just repeat same shenanigans over and over,
and that's it. I didn't really enjoy this level much overall.

Creativity: 14/30

Overall the use you do of your sprites isn't too awful... but hell,
I raged on the layer2 part, in particular, to those spinning aliens:
why on hell you need to put two of them on the same x position? That
way, they'll go one on top of the other, and you'll only make the
spinjump bug happen (smw says: if two spinjumpable sprites are one on
top of the other, spinjumping on them hurts you). I was hoping you
applied the fix for this, but nope.
This apart, the rest is pretty basic overall: the use of layer2 isn't
exceptional (not to mention that you can see it bug sometimes, since
it acts in certain ways depending on the screen you're on).
Overall okay-ish, there was a little bit of creativity, but not too
much.

Aesthetics: 20/30

Ambience-wise, it's okay, except for the emptyness in the layer2
part, and for the too loud music used in the whole level.
Some sprites didn't fit with the mood of the level (most of all,
the spinies replacement).
Noivern:
Design - 12
Creativity - 16
Aesthetics - 25
Total - 53
Comments - This was unnecessarily difficult. Your use of spikes that can only hit you from one side with munchers that can hit from all sides is confusing. You can touch the layer 2 spikes when you hit the ceiling in the second part, and that section in general was a pain to go through. Though I'm not a fan of this style of graphics, everything blends well together, but the hdma goes away temporarily when you hit a message block. The music is also fitting.
----------

...now that I've watched raocow's video, I question why I scored imamelia's level so high on creativity and design. The full title of the patch is "Choco Mountain Mysteries, or A Semi-Blatant Level 24 Edit"- in hindsight, I feel like an idiot for not noticing that it's WAY MORE than semi-blatant- the creator clearly just took the pieces of Chocolate Island 2, broke them apart individually instead of starting from scratch, and in some cases...just left them intact verbatim. It's not creative to DO Choco Island 2 as your entry, nor is it good design to essentially steal someone else's... Probably should've disqualified it on those grounds.

so, sorry in advance about that
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 15th, 14th, and 13th

Post by Sebby19 »

Maybe you were supposed to store the Silver P-Switch for something? Though I don't remember if the P-Switches can knock the regular blocks, likes shells can
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 15th, 14th, and 13th

Post by SAJewers »

Correct solution:
-use the p-switch, which makes the coin kill you
-keep the shell after releasing the vine, use it to remove the yellow turn block, then kill yourself with the second chuck
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 12th

Post by Reverning »

Did yesterday's video get taken down or something? It's not showing up on the channel for me.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 12th

Post by Ditocoaf »

If you click the link at the beginning of this thread, the video's still up.

Youtube is just Having Problems in a lot of places, and not putting videos in all the lists they belong in. Hopefully they'll resolve it soon.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 12th

Post by Nimono »

i am late because i was too lazy to go open the files for this :D

DAY 7 - 12th
------------------------------------

15th - Divemissile - DEATH AND BEYOND

Nimono:
Design- 28/40
Comment: Very interesting puzzle level you have here! I enjoyed the death aspect, though I'm left wishing you'd used it a bit better! There was only what, 5 puzzles?

----------------

Creativity- 30/30
Comment: Full marks for creativity! I love how you utilized death as a means of progression! Waluigi likes this! Though, I do wish you'd made more puzzles with it...

----------------

Aesthetics- 18/30
Comment: Loved the rainbow road theme, though the graphics were a bit plain- I wish you'd used more details and decorations! As for the music, I must say, Mokou's theme is...
very fitting! Also enjoyed the Waluigi graphics replacing Mario- it's sadly quite fitting for the gimmick!

----------------

Overall: 76/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This level uses an interesting mechanic with a block that revives you when you die above it. The first flaw I saw was that I could actually jump over the "tutorial" section where the game shows you that you get revived when you die by the muncher. You should have made the stone wall a bit higher there. The puzzles themselves, after you learn how the mechanic works, are very interesting. They're focused around bullet dodging while guiding chucks. The difficulty curve felt good in my eyes. The break between the two hard sections is good, with a 1-UP included. I did however get to hear that the solution I used for the first hard puzzle is not the intended one. After storing a blue shell, I used the reset door to get another blue shell to kill myself, instead using the silver P-switch with the muncher. The intended method is a lot harder than the method I used. The method I used felt a lot better to me, because guiding the chuck through the long wall of turn blocks is very finnicky.
24
Creativity:
You managed to combine an interesting mechanic with vanilla sprites to make very nice puzzles. You were very creative with the tools you used.
22
Aesthetic:
Although the fore- and background are very sparkly. They do not mesh well together with the cement blocks. The background color could have been a bit nicer, and the stars you used have a weird blue hue around them, which doesn't mesh well with the purple. I do think that the rest of the enemies don't clash too much with the other graphics.
16
Total:
62/100
Wakana:
Dive Missile - DEATH AND BEYOND


Design: 13/40

What it seems to be a puzzle level. Each section was
pretty simple to pass trough, except for the part with the
chuck throwing balls. There's no way to pass it properly unless
I missed something: I'm aware you placed the chuck there in order
to break the wall of turn blocks... but the maximum the chuck breaks
are 4 blocks in length, not 5. Thus, you never get to the block which
contains the silver p-switch. Other ways were still possible: one is
level breaking (put the shell in the "ender chest" block, reset door,
take another shell and die where you have to), and another is annoying
as hell (use the shell to get trough the turn blocks, take the silver
switch out, then put the shell in the "ender chest" block, then activate
the silver switch and die where the black coin is).
This one section just ruined the whole level imo: it wasn't well
thought, nor properly tested.

Creativity: 13/30

Basic use of the death block and the ender chest. There are no
extreme shenanigans made trough the whole level.
...I don't think there's more to add.

Aesthetics: 10/30

A simple FG with a starry BG. The whole level felt extremly
empty. I feel like you author didn't care about this one factor
much. The music isn't really fitting with the level theme too. The fact
that it resets everytime you die and resurrect is also a bit annoying.

(It's sad because you probably wanted to make a Touhou reference? The
fact that Mokou (which theme plays in the level) suffers pain but never
dies was a nailed reference to her with the gimmick you had there.
As fan of Touhou, I appreciate the reference if there was one, but ye,
I had to value this factor as obectively as possible. Sorry :<)

OVERALL: 36/100
Noivern:
Design - 27
Creativity - 29
Aesthetics - 22
Total - 78
Comments - As soon as I noticed the revive block still took a life, I immediately had to see what happens when you would lose your last life. Glad to see it can't prevent you from getting a game over. Anyway, your death-defying puzzles were creative, but just about all of them could be cheesed by either going over the cement block barricade or by running out of time over the revive block. The cement blocks themselves clash with the great-looking rainbow platforms, and the gradient in the background stars should have been changed as it meant to work with a black or dark blue platform rather than purple. The music was too loud.
----------

waa
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 11th

Post by Sebby19 »

When I first saw this, I thought: "Woah, look at the graphics and technology! Why isn't this in 1st?"
-Answer: Level Design

To answer raocow's question: "When has a hack in a level ever worked out?" I read in the youtube comments that it did in 2009.
-You know, playing the 2009 contest winner might be a good idea as a 'filler' day, between LPs.

I originally thought the lasers had just invisible triggers, but I also read in the comments that it looks like the Emitter is proximity based. There is also a slight graphical difference between the Emitter and the Receiver, which I didn't notice at all.

Looks like Gohan had some instant dash ability that was never explained. Weird.
Finally, it is weird that they start a story, but no payoff at all. Not even a 'To Be Continued...'
Last edited by Sebby19 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 11th

Post by Classtoise »

Man, today's level sure uhh... Happened.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 11th

Post by Classtoise »

Sebby19 wrote: 5 years ago When I first saw this, I thought: "Woah, look at the graphics and technology! Whi isn't this in 1st?"
-Answer: Level Design

To answer raocow's question: "When has a hack in a level ever worked out?" I read in the youtube comments that it did in 2009.
-You know, playing the 2009 contest winner might be a good idea as a 'filler' day, between LPs.

Looks like Gohan had some instant dash ability that was never explained. Weird.
Finally, it is weird that they start a story, but no payoff at all. Not even a 'To Be Continued...'
I'm still not quite sure what the story IS. Like I feel like they wanted one but either did a poor job explaining it or just didn't like it.
:bi_pride: :trans_pride:
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 11th

Post by Sebby19 »

Dang, you caught me between edits. I added another paragraph about the lasers.
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