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Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- Happy New Year!!

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S.N.N.
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Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- Four

Post by S.N.N. »

The only part of this level I’m not keen on is the water section. I love the rest of this entry and the atmosphere/design it sets out, but that portion just feels substantially less interesting than the rest.

Otherwise, this was a very worthy first place level, so congrats again to you two, and congrats to everyone else who placed well! Really impressed with the quality of this contest overall.
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FPzero
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- One!

Post by FPzero »

1st, hunted as wolves, folly and brey, by idol & Lazy
95.25/100.00 points
Scores:
FPzero:
Design: 56/60
Creativity: 28/30
Aesthetics: 10/10

Total: 94/100

Comments:
Well there's a lot to unpack here. I'm basically going to have to trust that all the graphical adjustments here are contest legal because there's no way I'll be able to figure out where all those background galaxy tiles come from. Dang rules. The level looked amazing and sounded pretty good too, though I think the music was a little loud and obnoxious in places. But it did fit the frenetic gameplay and danger-ridden lava planet we're tromping around through. I greatly appreciated the checkered line guides too to make it abundantly clear where the guides would go even against a dark background.

I saw some really creative uses of the growing/shrinking pipe here when mixed with layer 2 objects. I did get crushed once by the pipe/layer 2 spike smasher at one point though. I think the pipe interaction clipped Mario into the spike and I was instant killed. Speaking of the smashers, the last one with the noteblocks on it right before the midpoint was a really creative setup for the player to avoid. Difficulty remains high throughout the level, but once I hit the midpoint I actually managed to get through without dying and get all the Yoshi Coins along the way. It was a close call though, especially in the water segment. Actually, the water segment felt a bit out of place to be honest. It was pretty, but it didn't really fit the rest of the things the level was doing other than messing with variable saw speeds. I assume variable speed saws were some clever use of tile 1F0, but it was covered up really well by still making the saw look like it was on the line guides.

There are too many interesting and well-designed setups here to go into detail on each one. In general, I think you had a lot of cool designs with some little used sprites and found some fun ways to mix in layer 2, big levels, 1F0 and more to make a really standout level. It was even, dare I say it, really fun despite the difficulty. Excellent work.
Ryaa:
Design: 58/60
Creativity: 26/30
Aesthetics: 10/10

Total: 94/100

Review: To start this off, I just want to say that this is one of my favorite levels. The music is great, the colors are great, the atmosphere is great. Just all around the level is really fun to play. However, like I always say, most good things always have a slipup or two and I do believe that this slipup is how tight some of the platforming is. The most specific part I can apply this point is the water part. The hitbox for a saw is pretty big so it's much harder to navigate through the area if you're big. Throughout the level I pretty much just notice that some jumps are a little hard to do because different sprites tend to fill them a little more than one would hope. But even saying that, I think that this is a beautiful level. I really hope to see more levels like this in the future.
FrozenQuills:
-------------------
DESIGN | 60/60
CREATIVITY| 27/30
AESTHETICS| 10/10
TOTAL | 97/100
-------------------

COMMENTS:
it's my highest score because it has wolf in the level name :)

i LOVE this! The saws, pipes, sparkies, scale shrooms, and layer 2 setups are all
dazzling in design, polish, and fun. During the first half, I feel I could
only just squeak by some of the obstacles, which is satisfying. There is also a
lot of challenge, yet none of it is frustrating. Basically, the design in this
is a winner.

The second half gets more complex by getting a little bit more puzzly, but it's
still very execution oriented. The dragon coin puzzles and the swimming gauntlet
were especially amazing.

The only weakness this level has is its creativity; I admit it's not the most
creative level, but it did bring quite a few new things to the table in its
obstacles. I had no idea you can slow down saws, and I really liked the scale
shroom setups and dragon coin puzzles.

You really nailed it with the professionally awesome design and aesthetics though,
fantastic job. I have an idea of who made this, but I'll hide it in this review.
morsel:
58
28
10
96/100
Here is another level that has a first screen that allows you to admire its graphics. There is black block that I can stand on and a black block that hurts me; I am not sure that this is the best thing (and, indeed, every time I play the level, at the jump between screens 05 and 06 of level FD it always looks as though there is a roof there to me). The puff from the lava is familiar from some older levels and I never liked it. But once the level stops trying to impress you, it starts to impress you. The saws moving at different speeds are subtly introduced and I only noticed them gradually; it was a pleasant realisation. There is a strong focus on elements that are continually developed in pleasing and unexpected ways. There are many small touches which prove the level's attention to detail (a net in a recess at one point so that you can see what is coming above--many, many levels in this contest did not think of things like that; being able to grab a net against a wall). There was a fretful coda written on a stave (the coda might have been improved by having some saws coming from the left as well, vide 'Have Sweet Dreams'). It was a pleasure to re-play and collect the dragon coins. Note to self: Play the beta version at some point. I like how the cut-off ropes were justified by placing saws alongside them. Another subtle touch was the bamboozling half-blocks at the end.
As soon as I finished this level, I had a feeling about who at least one of the authors was, as well as a feeling that I'd just played the first place level. Turns out I was right on both counts. It's an incredible showpiece for what kind of ways you can use vanilla resources to make a truly masterful experience. Like SNN, I agree the water section is a bit weak, but it was hardly enough to drag down the rest of the experience. I wish my brain was wired to think about creative level design like this, but that's why I stick to hosting and judging, instead of entering these days.

With that we come to the end of the contest. I hope everyone enjoyed this year's entries! We're still deciding if we'll be hosting a VLDC12 next year, and where its place is in our busy contest scheduling. The Base Rom Level Design Contest has a similar intention but with more stuff for people to play with, and although it had a rocky inaugural contest the potential is there to refine it further and move towards it taking VLDC's place. That said, this is still a topic we're discussing and in no means a final statement.

If you ever want to play contest levels, or anything else like that from our site raocow, you can always ask me for them. Hope you enjoyed playing the levels!
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Piesonscreations
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- One!

Post by Piesonscreations »

Man, this last level looked fantastic. With that being said, it would've been even better if the music was Space Trip Steps from Sonic Adventure 2. (to be fair most levels would)
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Valentine
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- One!

Post by Valentine »

honestly after seeing all of the levels I'm surprised I even got as high as 23rd.

Incredible quality
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Veruchai
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- One!

Post by Veruchai »

Slightly late but wanted to chime in and agree with others that this contest was amazing.
From the very start we had interesting levels, forget the top 10 for a bit and remember that we had good scores starting with the top 100.
So good job everyone who participated.
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anonymousbl00dlust
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- One!

Post by anonymousbl00dlust »

hey! congratulations on having played all of this! The levels this year were really impressive. Great job to everyone who participated.

If I had known you were gonna play my level I totally would have told you to make it 2 videos / use savestates btw. It was intended partially as a joke, (response to ppl saying it was too hard the first time. I even used the same misspelling of mountan). That said I am proud of the level and it is exactly as i like it, even if the judges disagree. Vanilla will always be difficulty agnostic imo.

Pretty much every level in this contest had something really unique and original about it. Like, Dude jill is one of the coolest levels I have ever seen. Yall are too good at making videogames.
alex2 wrote:It's all a matter of taste.
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ft029
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Re: Vanilla Level Design Contest 11 -- Happy New Year!!

Post by ft029 »

The half-blocks in the final room... so much effort was put into making that happen. I hope it has some applications.
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