cldc 2018 - layers

[Nao]

i think it's pretty funny how a huge majority of people (atleast in the youtube comment section) are saying that today's level was fair, enjoyable and good while yesterday's level was frustrating and bad, mostly basing it off of raocow's experience with it alone. because to me, today's level was way harder than yesterday's level and more tedious to play too, even though i liked both levels quite a bit. and it seems like the experience was similar for the judges, atleast for FP.
people just jump way too quickly from "raocow isn't enjoying this level" to "this is badly designed because it's too unforgiving" or whatever, but you can't really expect anything else i suppose. i think that a majority of those people would have atleast the same amount of frustration with today's level if they played along with raocow instead of just watching.

[FPzero]

fp i fully forgive you for what happened to my OLDC because i agree with basically everything you're saying in these judgings!

i'm so glad we could come full circle on this friend, namaste.

[Tyty]

I think, at least for me, I started calling "JUMP-style" levels Gauntlet levels, because that's what it feels like. A similar design ethos to Kaizo without any of the implied difficulty or tricks. A series of challenges in a row to be beaten, usually focusing on a singular gimmick (and sometimes going on too long). It's even started developing a similar styling with consistent visual cues like more modern Kaizo has, as mentioned in Noivern's judge comments... Though that might just be more of a modern Vanilla-ish styling all things considered. I'm not a super big fan because I personally really like "regular" Mario platforming. It's part of what makes worldpeace's levels so good to me, instead of breaking up the action with small areas you can just stand still and catch your breath (or not at all like some people), they're broken up with (or involve) the aforementioned normal platforming.

This level felt far too much like it overstayed its welcome to me. I understand focusing on the fish gimmick, but it felt like three entire levels and not just one, since each area had a distinct fish gimmick. The difficulty was almost like a cherry on top lol.

[Arctangent]

mostly basing it off of raocow's experience with it alone

point 1: it's really easy to deflect criticism if you just claim the critics are sheeple following someone else, huh

point 2: is it actually so surprising enough people would prefer the difficultly of a level based around a very predictable enemy type rather than a level that's difficult because if you press too many buttons, you'll die that you have to resort to this tactic

point 3: even if there's actual truth to this, doesn't a person enjoying one thing pretty thoroughly while the other frustrates them to swearing when they normally don't really speak volumes anyway

[Zach808]

i think it's pretty funny how a huge majority of people (atleast in the youtube comment section) are saying that today's level was fair, enjoyable and good while yesterday's level was frustrating and bad, mostly basing it off of raocow's experience with it alone. because to me, today's level was way harder than yesterday's level and more tedious to play too, even though i liked both levels quite a bit. and it seems like the experience was similar for the judges, atleast for FP.
people just jump way too quickly from "raocow isn't enjoying this level" to "this is badly designed because it's too unforgiving" or whatever, but you can't really expect anything else i suppose. i think that a majority of those people would have atleast the same amount of frustration with today's level if they played along with raocow instead of just watching.

I'm not really sure if it's just based on raocow's opinion. I could tell just from the footage that Exhaustion's 2nd half went on for so long without a checkpoint that it would've easily pissed me off as well. Plus, janky stuff like the insta-kill munchers that don't tell you they're insta-kill until you're dead. Fish at least put multiple midpoints in there to break things up, and there wasn't a bunch of obvious bugginess shown besides the ascension glitch. Then again, i was pretty forgiving of most of M/M's JUMP levels when I played them, so maybe it's just me.

[gbreeze]

With Exhausted for me at least, I genuinely liked the first half of the level and tried to make sure to make my score reflected that. With Rainbow Trout, I didn't have that same feeling from the start. I thought it was cute to begin with, not too bad for difficulty but still challenging. But then it kept going and introducing new variations on the mechanic in progressively harder ways and it just became too much for me.

A lot of it is also my personal biases. I've never been the challenge designer when I do romhacks, usually shooting for a low difficulty that would be theoretically accessible to anyone who's never played a hack before. That mentality comes from the days of smashing my head against hard Super Metroid hacks back when the only ones that existed were all hard challenge hacks that required knowledge of glitch abuse or upgrade-deprivation challenges. Sure I got better at them, but I only stuck with them because I love that game and these hard hacks were all that existed. And I still can't really recommend any SM hacks to friends looking to try one out because although the hacks are easier these days, they're still usually at a level beyond what someone who's only casually played Super Metroid can beat. It's a "romhacks for romhackers only" paradox.

This drive for accessibility in my own projects does color my judgments of level difficulty even if I know the level isn't something a hacks newcomer will start playing randomly. Easier levels will probably score better if I'm judging because I can more calmly enjoy what I'm doing. There are always exceptions of course, but this is the trend I've noticed.

It's interesting to read your perspective on JUMP ethos. I will agree with you that JUMP creativity and high difficulty are not always linked. I loved worldpeace's VLDC9 level so much when I did my playthrough. It was the right level of challenging, yet lenient and I'd love to see more of that in contest levels instead of the more performance gauntlet style of levels I've rated lower in this contest.

Ah yeah, I totally understand that. And that is something that many hackers miss out on. Most of us admittedly make romhacks for other hackers, not for true beginners. However, I will also say that 90% of people that are downloading hacks are somewhat avid gamers and have probably played Super Mario World. I generally prefer creating hacks that appeal to an audience that has already been quite familiar with SMW and is ready for a much greater challenge. However, the community also needs people who realize that there are tons of beginners out there who need hacks that they will actually be able to play and enjoy.

It's interesting that you say that about Ice Cutting Site, cause that's more or less how I feel about Cerulean Cave (worldpeace's VLDCX level). He specifically designed it so that it would feel challenging, yet would play fairly easy. It's an interesting paradox that only worldpeace would strive to achieve I suppose lol (and he achieved it, not so surprisingly). Actually, the way you are talking makes me think you will like JUMP 1/2. It's easier than JUMP for sure, and most of the early game is very relaxed and fun. In fact, I would say that RAINBOW TROUT and Exhausted Mario second half are probably harder than 80-90% of what is in Jump 1/2. You'll be surprised to see designers known for tough levels make easy and simple levels. I think it's because, when this "group" (and whoever the heck is considered "in" it, whatever that means) makes contest entries, we tend to go *all out*. Both in difficulty and in style, substance, and gimmicks. Most of the Jump 1/2 levels ease players in pretty well. And actually, that's how a lot of Jump was as well, it was just a lot less forgiving and way harder. Funny enough, even though Jump 1/2 is a lot easier than Jump, it is also a lot more methodical and linear and "kaizo in style" than Jump.

I think, at least for me, I started calling "JUMP-style" levels Gauntlet levels, because that's what it feels like. A similar design ethos to Kaizo without any of the implied difficulty or tricks. A series of challenges in a row to be beaten, usually focusing on a singular gimmick (and sometimes going on too long). It's even started developing a similar styling with consistent visual cues like more modern Kaizo has, as mentioned in Noivern's judge comments... Though that might just be more of a modern Vanilla-ish styling all things considered. I'm not a super big fan because I personally really like "regular" Mario platforming. It's part of what makes worldpeace's levels so good to me, instead of breaking up the action with small areas you can just stand still and catch your breath (or not at all like some people), they're broken up with (or involve) the aforementioned normal platforming.

This level felt far too much like it overstayed its welcome to me. I understand focusing on the fish gimmick, but it felt like three entire levels and not just one, since each area had a distinct fish gimmick. The difficulty was almost like a cherry on top lol.

I think it's funny that this has become the JUMP-style cause that is certainly not how most of the people who contributed to the first Jump make levels, or how most of the first hack even plays. You'll find that the levels that *do* feel like super long gauntlet levels are not very methodical at all, even though they can be extremely hard. So the whole "similar design ethos to Kaizo" is just not right at all when we are talking about the real original JUMP hack. Look at Depraved Stronghold for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVL-o6ieueg. This level is insanely hard but definitely not "kaizo" in style whatsoever. That's because there are many different ways to approach obstacles. There is freedom in movement, leeway for player decisions, and respect towards the player's mobility and choices. The original Kaizo also had that as well. But as Kaizo hacking evolved, it became this "do or die" style that you are referring to. This is where the whole "series of challenges in a row" came from: the modern Kaizo hack. Weirdly, though, the so called "Jump team" hasn't even made Jump 1/2 yet, so most of what you guys experience is from the contest entries. And yeah, like I said above, most of these contest entries are *exactly* what you mention. I just want to make a clarification point that JUMP is definitely not like that, and that a decent portion of Jump 1/2 isn't either. I also want to make sure you aren't deterred from playing Jump 1/2, thinking it will be all gauntlet levels.

To bring this full circle, I think the 2 people who made Rainbow Trout and Exhausted Mario are capable of much easier and more forgiving levels. Mandew mentioned at one point that contests are sometimes an opportunity for people to go all out and try wild crazy stuff that wouldn't normally fit in a hack.

[Tyty]

I think it's funny that this has become the JUMP-style cause that is certainly not how most of the people who contributed to the first Jump make levels, or how most of the first hack even plays. You'll find that the levels that *do* feel like super long gauntlet levels are not very methodical at all, even though they can be extremely hard. So the whole "similar design ethos to Kaizo" is just not right at all when we are talking about the real original JUMP hack.

That's exactly why I've started calling it something else. "Gauntlet" is way more applicable (It's hella common in Mario Maker too anymore, at least from what I've seen), and descriptive. It was just easy to call it JUMP-style when it first started becoming super prominent in contests.

[Ditocoaf]

I'd play an entire platformer game featuring a fish-friend-summoning ability like that.

[gbreeze]

I think it's funny that this has become the JUMP-style cause that is certainly not how most of the people who contributed to the first Jump make levels, or how most of the first hack even plays. You'll find that the levels that *do* feel like super long gauntlet levels are not very methodical at all, even though they can be extremely hard. So the whole "similar design ethos to Kaizo" is just not right at all when we are talking about the real original JUMP hack.

That's exactly why I've started calling it something else. "Gauntlet" is way more applicable (It's hella common in Mario Maker too anymore, at least from what I've seen), and descriptive. It was just easy to call it JUMP-style when it first started becoming super prominent in contests.

Yeah, I understand that. I mean, you can call it whatever you'd like of course, though Gauntlet makes me think of stuff like Bits and Pieces or Depraved Stronghold, not this lol. But it's important to note that the people who have contributed to Jump projects all have wildly different design styles, and I think that assuming that each super hard methodical gimmicky level in each contest is a Jumper level, and nothing else is, it kinda gives false attribution to the hack and the people involved. I mean, Nightspace was made by someone on the Jump 1/2 team, and I haven't seen anyone call it a Jump level. Mandew is never note for making levels like that. So in that sense, I like them being called gauntlet levels better, even if it gives me Bits and Pieces ptsd lol.

I haven't played a ton of Mario Maker so I'm not totally sure haha. But it's like, totally up to you what you'd like to call anything, and I also understand if you and fpzero thought this level was tiring too! personal preferences, that's all :D

[morsel/morceau]

'Guantlet' makes me think of mediaeval jousting. Now that I look it up, Wikipedia tells me that there is the phrase "run the gauntlet":

"Running the gauntlet" was a military punishment in which a soldier or sailor had to pass between a double row of comrades armed with cudgels. The expression is now generally used metaphorically. Gauntlet in this context is unrelated to the "protective glove" meaning, but is instead derived from the Swedish gatlopp ("street run").

So I think we should reserve the term gauntlet level to refer to those levels where you are running at full pelt through an urban landscape.

[Kilgamayan]

So I think we should reserve the term gauntlet level to refer to those levels where you are running at full pelt through an urban landscape.

That's a different franchise entirely, though.

[Nao]

mostly basing it off of raocow's experience with it alone

point 1: it's really easy to deflect criticism if you just claim the critics are sheeple following someone else, huh

point 2: is it actually so surprising enough people would prefer the difficultly of a level based around a very predictable enemy type rather than a level that's difficult because if you press too many buttons, you'll die that you have to resort to this tactic

point 3: even if there's actual truth to this, doesn't a person enjoying one thing pretty thoroughly while the other frustrates them to swearing when they normally don't really speak volumes anyway

it is surprising to me, yes, because the precision the fish level requires is much higher than the precision required for the exhaustion level. i think that point is more obvious when playing the level yourself though rather than watching raocow play. there is some obstacles in the fish level where you basically take a hit 90% of the time, which can also be seen in raocow's playthrough if you pay close attention (precise jumps over a muncher with a fish, just to give an example).
also i was never deflecting criticism, i was just saying that i'm amused about the huge amount of negativity towards the exhaustion level compared to the fish level, when in reality most of the people these criticism come from would be frustrated immensly with both of these levels.

[BobisOnlyBob]

For me, "JUMP-style" gameplay is peak design for experienced players - take one to three mechanics, demonstrate them, explore them, mix them, remix them, wring every last bit of potential out of them. I love that. I literally can't think of a style of gameplay I prefer in a platformer like this.

[FPzero]

'Guantlet' makes me think of mediaeval jousting. Now that I look it up, Wikipedia tells me that there is the phrase "run the gauntlet":

"Running the gauntlet" was a military punishment in which a soldier or sailor had to pass between a double row of comrades armed with cudgels. The expression is now generally used metaphorically. Gauntlet in this context is unrelated to the "protective glove" meaning, but is instead derived from the Swedish gatlopp ("street run").

So I think we should reserve the term gauntlet level to refer to those levels where you are running at full pelt through an urban landscape.

So what you're saying is today's second level was a gauntlet? Unless sledding doesn't qualify.

Full disclosure: I never realized you could go in the factory when judging. I was just always up high in the level and had no reason to check the low path after getting the midpoint once, or think that there was an alternate path at all. I didn't check the level in LM either so...I'm only seeing the factory portion for the first time now... Crap, I might've rated it a little higher because I liked some of what I saw there just from raocow sledding past. Don't know if that should be on me for not being thorough or on the level for not hinting at the split paths in the slightest. I mean, both paths lead to the same exit.

[ft029]

It's worth noting that mellonpizza helped immensely with the ASM in Smasher Stronghold.

[This Eye o' Mine]

Although raocow claimed the fall through the intangible platform in the hammer level to be his own fault, I (as a viewer at least) had the same expectation about them as he did, and on further inspection I'd say it's also an issue of conveyance. The graphics used for those intangible tiles look almost identical to a floor that you can land on at other points, only slightly differing in color. True, the intangible platform was introduced above the tangible platform before that, which might allow a player to learn this distinction on paper, but I think it didn't click because for one, they still look extremely similar at a glance, and two, the first obstacle has you jumping at it from the side, which doesn't make it absolutely clear that the platform is completely non-solid, instead of just go-through from the sides and bottom like ropes.

[AlchemistHohenheim]

I am slightly disappointed that the background music for Reactive Factory wasn't a SMW port of this:

[aterraformer]

Is it ironic that I cannot design in this "JUMP-style". Heck, I can't design period lol

[SAJewers]

I am slightly disappointed that the background music for Reactive Factory wasn't a SMW port of this:

i mean, MSU-1 is a thing.

[Daizo]

Although raocow claimed the fall through the intangible platform in the hammer level to be his own fault, I (as a viewer at least) had the same expectation about them as he did, and on further inspection I'd say it's also an issue of conveyance. The graphics used for those intangible tiles look almost identical to a floor that you can land on at other points, only slightly differing in color. True, the intangible platform was introduced above the tangible platform before that, which might allow a player to learn this distinction on paper, but I think it didn't click because for one, they still look extremely similar at a glance, and two, the first obstacle has you jumping at it from the side, which doesn't make it absolutely clear that the platform is completely non-solid, instead of just go-through from the sides and bottom like ropes.

Yeah, that's a completely fair point. It is pretty much always good to assume darker palettes means the platform is "in the background", but even I forget that little rule (espeically in The Crater in World 2 where there are cement blocks that look like they're in the foreground, and you're likely to get lasered if you don't figure that out. It's a little more forgiving though.)

So yeah, my fault. I learned my lesson. I should've drawn a different tile instead of being lazy.

---

Just to answer some questions:
--The beginning is a clip from here. The sample was cutoff midway because I forgot to extend the logo (full spc).
--All the songs in order:
Earthworm Jim - Anything But Tangerines
TLoZ:ALttP - Black Mist [ggamer77 Rearrangement]
Final Fantasy 4 - Illusionary World
Yoshi's Island - Before Boss
"Deep Dark Determination" [Self-composed Song made by me]
SMRPG - Fight Against Bowser
--Mario flips the bird because I am an edgy edgy edgelord who does edgy things and other edgy things i'm so edgy yo
(actually I reused a Mario sprite from one of my Kaizo hacks for the hell of it, plus I thought it was funny.)

Fun Fact: I had two other ideas before settling with the hammer powerup. One was a train stage with music with samples chosen by my good buddy Scooter102089 (here's what I had), the other was a castle stage based on "Howl's Moving Castle" where I wanted to work with Eevee known for Sicari Remastered, but he wasn't interested.
Fun Fact 2: Because of the above, Smash Stronghold only had a development time of around 10 days. Good oh' JUMP habits, always in a rush. This explains why I reused a lot of assets from my previous projects, as well (the song, the graphics, and edgy Mario).

[idol]

Smasher Stronghold
Placement: 16
Codename: cannibal
Author: Daizo Dee Von & Mellonpizza

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 15/30
Presentation: 11/20
Creativity: 6/10

Total: 32/60

Comments:
I didn't expect to walk through the hammer switch and died in lava lol.
The hammer is a pretty neat ability to use but it really didn't have much purpose aside from beating Panzers until the 3rd section with the switches. Speaking of, I think those switches could stand to be a tad more lenient with how fast they go down. I felt like I was constantly having to scramble to the next one barely avoiding damage or tanking a hit just so I didn't die in the lava. And I went into the boss really worried because I only had one hit since there wasn't a mushroom outside it.
I think the vertical section was by far the weakest one, even if it was neat to play with the screen wrap. And the first half was mostly unmemorable but that was probably because it was pretty short and simple.

Noivern:

This level was bretty boring up until the second half. The hammer is wonky and took a little bit of time to get used to, but the result is basically just jumping on enemies with a different button. Even the hammerable switches are only a few steps removed from vanilla SMW switches, but they felt like a normal natural use of the gimmick. It could have gone without the hammer-button-in-midair gauntlet at the very end though, that was a pain to play.

Total: 36

Blind Devil:

Fun: Had lots of laughs with the angry Mario jokes, hammering bad guys and also at the Bowser battle after defeating him. My god that was so funny. But all of this came with a price - I was as mad as Mario when trying to clear the moving layer 2 section. It's not pretty clear how to proceed near the end of this section the first times the player reaches there, and the it's pretty unlikely to predict that they have to smash down some wooden buttons while keeping momentum and also paying attention to enemies or projectiles on the way. I, for one, dare to say that one without any knowledge about the level design will certainly die a couple of times in there. On the other hand, the overall design was fun, interesting and challenging, and another nice thing is the Yoshi token. You can skip directly to the layer 2 section if you die in there after collecting the token - just enter the door near the midway point. It's basically a clever second checkpoint. Aside from the little trouble I had, this level was very nice to play, had a fair difficulty, length and time limit. The permanent hammer added a lot positively to the fun factor, too.

Fun points: 25/30

Presentation: The level is graphically consistent, using a mix of SMAS graphics with SMW-styled sprites, as we see in most chocolate hacks. The styles were spot-on, and nothing clashed. No glitches, bad palettes or cutoffs were seen, too. Nice and safe music choices, as well - unsampled and fitting songs, with nothing else being broken as a result. Little, little issue with the custom moving layer 2 ASM, though: if you pause the game while layer 2 is still rising, it stops and won't move again until you re-smashes a wooden button. I managed to break the final obstacle by doing so, but for the others, I still depended on the layer 2 movement to progress lol. That ASM was pretty nice in fact, and the introduction of the permanent hammer was well done. The level revolved around it very well, and the gimmicks involving it flowed nicely. Almost a perfect score here - if it wasn't by that little layer 2 issue... oh well.
Presentation points: 19/20

Creativity: For a level centered over a permanent "custom powerup" sprite while being design-oriented at the same time, there were many examples of creative setups made with neat usage of resources. On the first section, the player gets introduced to all enemies that will be faced throughout the stage. In the second one, the player does vertical platforming while being able to screen wrap, and faces the same enemies, however in more unique setups different from the previous ones. Then, there's the moving layer 2 section, where the player has to trigger buttons with the hammer in order to raise the layer temporarily while also having to face more enemies in even more varied setups. And finally, a "Bowser battle", where the player has to smash Bowser with the moving layer 2 against the ceiling in order to beat the level. This entry didn't impress in terms of exploring stuff to their limits or beyond their limits, but did impress a lot with the overall top-notch design quality with a good bunch of resources without feeling samey.
Creativity points: 10/10
----------
Total Score: 54/60

Sledding Through the Reactive Factory
Placement: 22
Codename: boundary
Author: Strikeforcer

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 17/30
Presentation: 11/20
Creativity: 7/10

Total: 35/60

Comments:
Man that's a weird sled. It's kind of buggy too. You're not consistently able to jump on a down slope, you can get crushed if you move left backwards into a solid object and once I just somehow warped through the floor to a lower level and then died because I wasn't expecting it. And then add to this the Elite Koopas and their own weird hitbox issues and I basically was just taking and avoiding damage the whole ride through. At least moving the sled was relatively snappy and didn't feel too bad.
It's a cool idea but it feels like a really rough concept. I didn't enjoy having to frantically try and shoot fireball blocks only for my fireballs to not leave enough of a gap and not despawn because they travel along with the scrolling screen, preventing me from shooting any more of them and getting crushed by the wall. There's not much reason to take the multiple paths in the levels when staying as high as possible seems to make you face the fewest elite koopas and fireball blocks.
Level looks cool and sounds neat (except the sound effects), but it plays just "okay".

Noivern:

Well you really went all out on the aesthetics here. But they're not really consistant. From the very start, the graphics are of mixed perspectives: the roads and hanging lights are are somewhat isometric, while the barrels and floating platforms are all flat. None of the new sound effects fit with the originals, and all of them are too loud. The big control issue against the sides of the screen during the autoscroll sections should have been prevented instead of merely informing the player and doing nothing about it. Controls during those sections are wonky anyways, with janky movement and hit detection that's more like guessing than anything.

Total: 30

Blind Devil:

Fun: It's a level with no much freedom of platforming, given the gimmick the author went for for most of the time, which is riding a hoverboard in an autoscrolling level. And autoscrollers can be pretty tough and boring if not done correctly. To some extent, there were some annoying parts involving lots of sprite, pit and wall dodging without much breathing room, especially inside the factory. Speaking of such, the first time I played the level I didn't enter the factory, as I chose the upper route. That left me wondering: is that really all? Fortunately, it wasn't - the picked paths actually make difference, and that enhanced gameplay. I was also surprised that I had to dodge Elite Koopas in special - these sprites are usually pretty annoying to deal on their own, and even though here they can be sometimes as well (for example, I see a green Elite Koopa floating, try to dodge it with a jump/going under it, but it suddenly changes its wavy motion direction and boom I take a hit), there was no spammy usage of them, and the player gets proper warnings most of the time so they know what they're going to face. And getting Yoshi Coins was extremely hard - they're often located in hard to reach spots, and the player has to replay the level in order to get them because they'll likely never do it in the first tries, adding to the fact they don't save in midway points. Finally, multiple midpoints and lots of powerups are provided, plus there's instant item box item usage when you take hits, making the whole experience less draining and more engaging.
Fun points: 22/30

Presentation: Looks nice aesthetically. Nice and consistent use of redrawn player, sprite and object graphics, and the custom tilesets for the FG and BG both fitted well. However, there were a few glitched stuff (Bob-omb explosion stars looked pieces of Elite Koopas, and if you capespin them you get a Yoshi fireball tile which could have been avoided by changing a few CFG options of the bomb sprite like making it die in puff of smoke or something) and some cutoff tiles (midway point tiles placed at the beginning of the second sublevel). The fully sampled song choice also went very well with the ambiance, but it broke various sound effects and the death theme due to some crucial samples being replaced. Perhaps picking another song would be a good option if you couldn't fix that one in terms of sampling. Also related to sound effects but apart from samples is that Elite Koopas played random, weird sounds (that's because they used bogus values for SFX to play, which used to work in original SMW and in the old Addmusics era, but with AMK changes, these values don't work anymore). There's a functionality issue in the second checkpoint if you die, start from there and backtrack all the way where the hoverboard sprite is located. It's not game breaking but it's still weird. As for the theme and gimmick, it's okay. Even though there's no proper introduction of the hoverboard (and even I wonder how one would introduce that in a level), it worked without problems for the most part, with a downside that you could be crushed into blocks if you hit them from the right while going left. Summing up: a solid presentation graphically and thematically, but with loss on functionality and due to the mentioned cutoff/glitches.
Presentation points: 12/20

Creativity: The hoverboard gimmick, also seen as minecarts, cars, skates and stuff in other levels, was used for this level. There was nothing much different about it aside from the unusual enemy choices. Working with Elite Koopas is always challenging in a regular level, so I imagine how much one would strive making it work together with other mechanisms while not being spammy. However, all other setups apart from Elite Koopa usage weren't so innovative design-wise, but that's also maybe because such gimmick is limiting on its own. Anyway, various obstacle patterns could have been more interesting, especially the ones containing Yoshi Coins, so they wouldn't just be "hard to get coins".
Creativity points: 7/10
----------
Total Score: 41/60

i gave pizza / daizos level the codename cannibal bcus of cannibal corpse song hammer smashed face. i gave strikeforcers level boundary bcus the incessant level gimmick.

nice.

[Grounder]

lookin forward to mump

[Kilgamayan]

That last death was wondrous.

[idol]

CLDC Level
Placement: 26
Codename: ferocity
Author: Manofer

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 8/30
Presentation: 9/20
Creativity: 2/10

Total: 19/60

Comments:
There wasn't much to this level honestly. It was over before it even began. Enemies were very sparsely placed and never dangerous, unless it was a Parakoopa being used for a jump over a pit. Speaking of them, be careful with how you place Parakoopas for jumps and make sure the player has a chance to see them coming and also clear the gaps if they hesitated.
Level looked and sounded fine but there wasn't enough of it to be interesting.

Noivern:

A fairly short but fun athletic level. Redrawn graphics work better than vanilla here, but still aren't much to talk about. It could have used a much better background, as the current one makes the level look empty.

Total: 36

Blind Devil:

Fun: A pretty straightforward athletic but linear level, with no path variety, worthy collectibles or anything that really stands out in terms of design. The romp was cool, but could have used some more interesting setups, using different sprites and obstacle patterns in order to make the level more engaging. It was strictly focused on spinjumping spiky baddies, riding platforms and dodging sprites for a short amount of time, and stomping other enemies in order to proceed. Nothing more, nothing less. Also, the fact that the level was really short didn't leave too much to evaluate. Given how short it was, no midway point was used nor required as well. So, I didn't and couldn't have more fun with it because there wasn't a lot to offer overall.
Fun points: 17/30

Presentation: Good choice of graphics with the redrawn-styled player and sprites - they went well together with the custom urban theming. A little and minor palette issue was found, though, and that's with Mario's name in the level end scorecard. The best way to have avoided this would be removing Mario's name from the GFX file, since the level doesn't use a status bar, or properly recoloring/remapping the whatever graphics that overwrote the status bar palettes. The unsampled song choice was safe and sound - nothing got broken, and it also fitted for the entry. There was no main gimmick for this level, which was more design-oriented, but the difficulty was spot-on, and there were absolutely no functionality issues. You played safe for the most part, so the presentation score is a good one.
Presentation points: 19/20

Creativity: Not very creative. The level revolved around jumping over enemies and riding some platforms the most basic ways, without making the player think a bit out of the box. Many, many more possibilities could have been taken to advantage, maybe making a path where the player would alternate between riding a platform and spinjumping a Grinder when they couldn't ride the former, or bouncing over enemies while having to time a Grinder or another sprite's position in order to clear an specific obstacle or to get a Yoshi Coin/powerup/whatever, and so on. The only good creativity aspect here was making more of less - that is, balancing quality over quantity of resources.
Creativity points: 4/10
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Total Score: 40/60

Cooking with Gordon
Placement: 11
Codename: deleted
Author: Miku & Wind Fish

Judge Comments:

FPzero:

Fun Factor: 20/30
Presentation: 17/20
Creativity: 8/10

Total: 45/60

Comments:
Where's the midpoint! This level isn't super long but without a midpoint it feels much longer than it actually is because dying means redoing 4 or more areas. I managed to get from the 4th room to the end in one life, so it there was a midpoint in room 5 or later, I didn't notice it or the game didn't alert me.
Visually the level is gorgeous and sounds lovely too. But I have to give it a strike for visual clarity, since the cloud edges are all not solid, meaning you have to remember not to stand on the edges of platforms.
Other nitpicks: Early in the level you used I think a koopa replacement to bounce the flying guys back and forth and had the player defeat the enemy to free the flying guy. Later you started to use shells, which means Mario can kick or pick up them and potentially kill the flying enemy with it. There's also one part where a small flying dude collides with a big one and the big guy flips, making you transfer to him. But then in the next room the small one collides with the big one and he doesn't flip, betraying my expectations and I fell to my doom.
I didn't really understand the room where I fed a guy but it's not like it was hard to figure out so I guess it wasn't a big deal.
Overall, creative use of the flying enemies, decent setups, but a few weird spots hold it back.

Noivern:

Super neat graphics, but they heavily clash with vanilla Mario. If you're going to make a big door that looks like you could enter from the center, make sure you can actually enter from the center, and don't put it next to a layer-priority-enabled wall that enemies pop out of to kill you. There's not a whole lot of variation; it's just riding the same two enemies over and occasionally you duck under walls and jump over enemies while doing so. The blue/red water section is completely out of place.

Total: 36

Blind Devil:

Fun: The level starts pretty nicely and gets gradually harder as the player goes through it, which is not only a good fun aspect, but also a good presentation one (more covered later). It relies on athletic but precise platforming, riding sprites in order to proceed and sometimes having to clear obstacles in order to such sprites be able to keep moving forward. A downside in this execution, however, was when there were shells blocking them. On the first try, I accidentally picked one up and smashed the sprite that was supposed to be ridden on. There were no ways to reset the section so I had to die to start over. And there was also that little section in which you should "feed" a creature with a roasted "thing", and there wasn't any indicative of that. I figured it out by association: two different water pools, a little sprite and a creature - it must be something thermal-key related, as I already knew that mechanism from other levels (and also from sprite remoderation). The section was a bit random/out of place in my opinion, as after that, you just keep the pace from the previous areas. All in all it's a nice entry, but it could have been funner if the sprite thingies could be resetted somehow or if generators/respawners were used in case the player messed up. Also yeah, the level is short but a midway point would also be nice, since the last sections can be pretty tough and punishing for some.
Fun points: 25/30

Presentation: Cute and well-presented in its majority. Great original graphics, by the way. However, there were some very little inconsistencies with sprite graphics, like the player graphics, question blocks, Koopa shells, water graphics and goal point graphics. For Mario, there's an specific GFX set in SMWC that would fit perfectly with the environment. As for the other stuff, some reshading or reskinning would have helped keep the consistency. Still speaking of the water, the pools looked a bit bland and square-ish, as there's nothing effectively transitioning between the water and the ground. Other small nitpicks regarding graphics is the sometimes incoherent question blocks and bounce sprite palettes. Some blocks look red, and their bounce sprites are yellow, which could have been worked around by either keeping said blocks yellow, or recoloring the bounce sprites (though I'd go with the former option as there actually are some yellow question blocks in the level). And I'm gonna be killed for that one nitpick, but the creature that the player must feed has some almost unnoticeable ExAnimation desync lol. Alright, let's move on to music. It uses two songs - one fully sampled, and another one unsampled. Both work and break nothing, though the unsampled song felt out of place because it was just on a standalone section with the same main theme aesthetically. The sampled song, however, went extremely well with the theme and aesthetics. Gimmick-wise, and rescuing the difficulty aspect mentioned in the previous topic, it's well done. The curve was pulled off extremely smoothly. The level is centered around rideable reskinned Beezos, and there's a pretty nice introduction to the gimmick at the start which is expanded later in more complex setups. However, the "feed the creature" room had nothing to do with the gimmick, and felt a bit filler in my point of view.
Presentation points: 17/20

Creativity: I liked the sprite usage, and especially how you took advantage of their interactions with others in order to make varied obstacles and patterns. But more possibilities could have been explored in order to make the player think a tad bit "out of the box" - you could have patterns where you could unblock a rideable sprite in one section to progress in a different one, could have benefitted from more valuable collectibles such as Yoshi Coins in alternative routes, and so on. Even though there were some creative ideas, the level was linear as a whole, with no much path or platforming variety.
Creativity points: 7/10
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Total Score: 49/60

CLDC 2018-The Level
Placement: 31
Codename: unknown
Author: Somebody for sure

Judge Comments:

FPzero:
Fun Factor: 12/30
Presentation: 8/20
Creativity: 5/10

Total: 25/60

Comments:
I dunno, this level is weird. There's sort of an idea after the midpoint with using coin blocks on layer 2 to pass through un-activated coin blocks but it's not really developed very much, and then the level has strange p-switch segments and requires you to be Small Mario in places. And then the Big Boo boss will force you to kill yourself if you jump up to the platforms to fight him without realizing doing so was a one-way trip. It's kind of all over the place with ideas, and none of them are really that standout to be honest. First half was probably strongest, even though there wasn't anything like the coin block idea. At least it was fairly consistent.

Noivern:

The first half is sufficiently random enough to replace a few random number generators I found online. The second half is a little less so, and manages to develop its mechanics into a few cool small puzzles, but they come too late and too few to make the level in full all that great.

Total: 19

Blind Devil:

Fun: Mixed bag of things here. The level starts out with very random and generic design, but as progress is made, it gets more interesting and engaging despite the sudden peak of difficulty which affects both the fun factor and presentation due to curve inconsistency (more on next topic). However, there are several frustrating sections in which the player is punished regardless of doing what is intended. Little mistakes can cost a lot. Some design issues involve, for example, getting the Yoshi Coin in the end of the first sublevel. Let's say I triggered the invisible note blocks at the right, then I backtracked and made my usual way to where the coin is located, by spinjumping the rising Thwomp that only rises if it hits solid blocks (these must be triggered with a blue P-Switch). Okay, I got in there, got the coin, and got stuck as well, because there were ropes blocking my way back, and I blocked the other path with the note blocks. While entirely my fault, this could have been avoided. Other instance of punishing design was regarding spinjumping Magikoopa spells - while the player does it right, spinjumping in between two of them or between a spell and a Bowser statue fireball results in an unfair hit. This also affects presentation and the reason will be explained later. The midway point is also located in a kinda bad place, as you only have cleared the easiest section of the whole level, and not the two harder ones - plus there's a Big Boo boss battle in the end, so the midway point only saves, like, 20% of progress (that if you progress through the usual route). Speaking of the Boo battle, it's also punishing because if you jump into a place where you get stuck, thus being unable to reach throw blocks anymore, you have to kill yourself and start all over. That's extremely annoying. And now I'd be over with my review, but I entered some other rooms by using a P-Switch over an 1F0 tile, them pressed it and managed to enter a pipe which sent me to weirder places. My god this is a box of silly surprises. I went to a room where all it does is loop between itself and a random grassland sublevel with a message about weaker bridges. What's this supposed to be? Amusing, but it did not add anything to the fun factor (more details on presentation topic, too).
Fun points: 14/30

Presentation: Uses vanilla graphics for everything, but there are some oddities. The first one being related to the bad midway point palette in special. It also affects bridge railings and Bullet machines, though not too noticeably. The other one is related to note blocks that have glitched bounce sprite tiles. The tileset setups are also a bit weird and look busy, like the instances of ledge edges as decoration almost everywhere, misflipped ceiling/corner tiles, and lastly, the last room is a Ghost House room, unlike the rest of the level that uses Castle graphics. What's more, there was a little issue with the BG candle flames. The generator was only used in the first screen of the first sublevel, and not again in the midway point screen, making it so if you start the level from there, the flames don't appear. Music and SFX-wise, they remained vanilla and unchanged. And there's yet some more issues: you used glitched time limits that go into hex numbers, which not only looks weird but also nonsense. If you really wanted time limits over 999 seconds without glitching the timer, you could have used such a patch for that. After all, this is a Chocolate contest. Now, to another topic: music. The castle song was used for the castle sublevels, the boss battle song was used for the boss battle, and... the grassland song was used for the random grassland room. Oh yeah, that room - I'll talk about it later. All suited, nothing broke, so no loss of points in that regards. And now for the theme/gimmick presentation: the entry initially didn't have one, but then it revolved around several puzzles, mainly involving moving Layer 2 and invisible coin blocks (visible outlines). The introduction was good, but the level could have explored these puzzles ever since the beginning, and not only after the midway point. Also, the sudden peak of difficult affects the presentation score due to inconsistency. Level started somewhat normal in difficulty, then went very hard abruptly. And the level had a certain functionality issue regarding spinjumping more than one "spiky" sprite at the same time, resulting in unfair hits. While this wouldn't be big deal in restricted vanilla contests, this could have been avoided for this one contest by either changing the sprite setup, or using the Double Spinjump Antifail patch. With all said, the score for this category is seriously affected. Oh... finally! The awaited moment! What was that with random weird and nonsense rooms accessible via P-Switch stomping to enter a pipe? That looked awful and resulted in the player getting softlocked. Nice easter egg.
Presentation points: 4/20

Creativity: Even though the level didn't have a proper gimmick cohesion, there was a decent amount of clever obstacle patterns and challenges. Notable examples are using the P-Switch to prevent the Thwomp from falling into 1F0, thus never rising back, so the player could bounce on it to get a Yoshi coin; the Layer 2 invisible coin block obstacles as a whole; the unintended spinjumping behavior while big to pass through solid blocks and get many 3up moons; and the Big Boo boss battle room setup that, despite being punishing, was cleverly designed. If only these were better implemented in a way that the player wouldn't suffer so much (and there are like tons of possibilities), the score for this category would have been higher, too.
Creativity points: 6/10
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Total Score: 24/60

didnt like any of these levels, surprised at how generous the judging on manofers level was from noivern & blind devil. i mean 40/60 for that? the reason why wind fishs level was codenamed deleted was bcus he originally submitted a different level very early on, it wasnt that good and this is,,, laterally better. i wasnt a fan of this level either, its the same setups ad nauseum sandwiching a weird ice / fire key room. the last level is horrible and kinda speaks for itself, but i do enjoy the invisible block gimmick the first time.

[This Eye o' Mine]

I like the music in the second level. Not enough people use Plok music in things in my opinion, and it goes very well with the space and food theme. The whole package feels very "90's platformer". That just makes the part where you have to feed the thing to the creature that much more out of place though.

I think a large part of the first level feeling empty is to do with the HUD being removed, but absolutely nothing being put in its place. It basically feels to me like you've had information taken away from you for no reason, practical or aesthetic or otherwise.