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Chocolate Island 6 - 1st

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FourteenthOrder
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Chocolate Island 6 - 1st

Post by FourteenthOrder »

Apparently no thread has been made for this yet as far as I can tell, so here's a place for discussion of raocow's playthrough of the Chocolate Level Design Contest 2016 levels.

Episode list:
1 - Please enjoy!
- - - 0th place - Chillah - Autmnmole Stroll
- - - 26th place - h.carrell - CHOCOLATE ISLAND 7 (15.2/100)
- - - 25th place - Barrelroller64 - IGGY'S AIRSHIP (15.8/100)
2 - f(l)antastic day
- - - 24th place - niko - Water Dungeon (33.8/100)
- - - 23rd place - Leiras - Frozen Fortress (35/100)
3 - Mario found a castle.
- - - 22nd place - Wind Fish - Holy Heavens (39.2/100)
- - - 21st place - Luansilva12 - Grassforest (40.2/100)
- - - 20th place - yoshi9429 - Extreme Castle (41.2/100)
4 - otherwise you'll fall off.
- - - 19th place - Kaito - Iggy's Sky Fortress (44.4/100)
- - - 18th place - hobz - wall jump kid (50/100)
5 - 000000000000000
- - - 17th place - DaSpongeBobMan - Yoshi Berry Orchard (50.8/100)
- - - 16th place - LHB - BOO GUY FORTRESS (53.2/100)
6 - You VS a bunch of alien troops.
- - - 15th place - Sockbat Replica - WHAT THE CHECK? (53.8/100)
- - - 14th place - imamelia - Choco Mountain Mysteries (55.4/100)
- - - 13th place - darken - Alien Hive (60.4/100)
7 - again
- - - 12th place - Divemissile - DEATH AND BEYOND (63.6/100)
8 - this is my brother Gohan.
- - - 11th place - Skewer - Sica and The Dark Princess (67/100)
9 - YBXA
- - - 10th place - HuFlungDu & TLMB (70.8/100)
10 - reswoB ekil skool
- - - 9th place - Pseudogon - Cloud Voyage (71/100)
- - - 8th place - levelengine - Chocolate Rush (71.2/100)
11 - ANIN into SUPER MARIO BROS.
- - - 7th place - lolyoshi - A GRINDR EXPERIENCE (71.6/100)
- - - 6th place - G.D. - Tree Cut Mountains (72.2/100)
12 - We are all counting on you!
- - - 5th place - allowiscous - SUNSET VISTA (76.6/100)
- - - 4th place - ft029 - I MADE AN ASM (77.2/100)
13 - Waluigi is underrated.
- - - 3rd place - Blind Devil - Summer Hammer Time (77.4/100)
- - - 2nd place - FrozenQuills - MOTEL (79/100)
14 - luigi, or at least someone wearing his skin
- - - 1st place - idol - neil degrasse tyson (84.6/100)
Last edited by FourteenthOrder 5 years ago, edited 15 times in total.
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Kilgamayan
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - chocolate acorns

Post by Kilgamayan »

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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - chocolate acorns

Post by Alice »

So what was up with 0th place getting disqualified?
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - chocolate acorns

Post by raocow »

from what I read it used to be it was impossible to clear, but that was fixed somewhere between then and now
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - chocolate acorns

Post by Crow »

someone in YT comments said the author dropped out of the contest actually
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - chocolate acorns

Post by Daizo »

What did I even make in this contest, I forgot.
Is this seriously the one where I entered the """Chocolate""" cake entry? I mean if so... wow that wasn't that long ago, I'm surprised.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by FourteenthOrder »

Yeah, this is off to a great start already. I'm really looking forward to this.
Parama wrote: 5 years ago someone in YT comments said the author dropped out of the contest actually
Yeah, the SMWC thread said this was the case.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by FrozenQuills »

wow I completely forgot about this contest
IIRC the top 10 is pretty good.

As for why Frozen Fortress is near the bottom, I remember it being quite frustrating for the judges with how cramped and precise it ended up being for them.
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5th place counter: 5
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by Super Maks 64 »

I noticed that no one has posted judge comments, so I thought that I may as well do it myself.

Then I realised that one judge hasn't even posted the comments and that none of the other comments survived to this day.

Have some numbers instead



Also, that second level slightly reminded me of Chateau Chilly from ASMT, slightly.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by Sebby19 »

Vaza in the Youtube comments calculated that had raocow not died in Extreme Castle, he would have finished with 10 seconds left.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22st, 21nd, and 20rd

Post by Awoo »

Hey raocow, I'll name an animal: Wolf
It has a nose
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by raocow »

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

Post by BobisOnlyBob »

More likely that due to time panic and frustration, raocow would die on a post Heavy Thwomp boss screen due to rushing and totally change his read on the level :o
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by Grounder »

that sure was a boss that happened

barely
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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

Post by raocow »

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

Post by Ashan »

That was a strange boss. Certainly creative, but it seemed to be like, the easiest form of that fight? Cause you'd kinda have to go out of your way to get hit. I'm not really sure what was intended with that.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by Nimono »

Super Maks 64 wrote: 5 years ago I noticed that no one has posted judge comments, so I thought that I may as well do it myself.

Then I realised that one judge hasn't even posted the comments and that none of the other comments survived to this day.

Have some numbers instead



Also, that second level slightly reminded me of Chateau Chilly from ASMT, slightly.
The links are broken, but the comments DO survive to this day!!! In fact... I might as well post them each day if you guys don't mind!! Until then, please permit me to show you... THE COMMENTS!!

THE DOWNLOADS!!!

All patches - https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5naih081sgk4 ... S.zip?dl=0

Nimono's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/pc1q209y6e8j1 ... G.txt?dl=0
Torchkas' Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrdqqm14xl4np ... G.txt?dl=0
Wakana's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/fciys39f8zzks ... G.txt?dl=0
Noivern the Very Fancy's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/9n3nsr846ou25 ... .xlsx?dl=0 (notepad version does not survive)

DAY 01 - 0th / 26th / 25th/
------------------------------------
0th - Chillah (Dropped out) - Autmnmole Stroll

Nimono:
Design- 20/40
Comment: Very basic level design. Nothing really wrong with the level, but there's nothing really exciting, either.

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

Creativity- 10/30
Comment: I'm not sure there was much creativity here. It was all typical placements of moles, really.

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

Aesthetics- 18/30
Comment: While your tileset was very nice, you open the level with fog and a message box- which promptly removes the fog. You always need to make sure you don't use a
message box when you use layer 3 as well! It will overwrite the layer 3 effect!

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

Overall: 48/100
(No one else made any comments for this level because they dropped out- I, however, felt the level was nice enough to deserve recognition, which is also why I included it in the files I sent to raocow.)

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

26th - h.carrel - CHOCOLATE ISLAND 7
Nimono:
Design- 4/40
Comment: The level really wasn't that fun to play. It had some cool ideas, like the rock jumping at the end, but they were few and far between. The gameplay felt slapped-on.

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

Creativity- 6/30
Comment: I really, really wish I could've given this more in Creativity! I liked the jump to the floating carrot platform at the start, and how if you took the
start at the exact same speed each time, the jump was completely consistent, and likewise, the rock jumping at the end was really neat! But...they weren't
really used much... So overall the level had some nice ideas, but did not build on them at all.

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

Aesthetics- 4/30
Comment: Lots of flat ground, emptiness everywhere, and the end looks very uninspired. I just KNOW the end could've looked loads better!

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

Overall: 14/100
Torchkas:
Design:
Level has a lot of open spaces where nothing but bullet bill dodging happens. The second half of the level is made completely redundant by the cape feather. There doesn't seem to be a central theme throughout the level. It appears to just be some random enemy placement. The section with the digging chuck was a very large difficulty spike compared to the rest of the level. It also feels extremely short because the level is one straight line that can be breezed through easily with the last part being an exception.
13
Creativity:
None of this level is chocolate. There wasn't anything done to make it stand out. So I really can't find much creativity aside from the normal vanilla level design, which is subpar on its own.
4
Aesthetic:
Vanilla, some cutoff. No custom palettes and some questionable Map16 with the fence tiles at the end.
4
Total:
21/100
Wakana:
Design: 4/40

Linearity on its majesty. There is nothing going on for
most of the level pretty much. It feels like you just set
a plain ground and spammed random enemies in random locations.
Even the first jump doesn't put you at ease, since you don't
see the platform where you have to land on, unless you
scroll the screen with the L/R buttons.
The gimmicks used felt randomly thrown up, just like how
you placed your sprites. The turnblocks part and the
buggy tile gimmicks were there just to try filling as
many screens as possible. Not to mention, there's a blind
jump in the buggy tile gimmick part; plus, if you keep big,
you can't climb the 1-tile net after the bigger one.

Creativity: 2/30

The only elements that sparkle in your level are the
already mentioned turn blocks part and the buggy tile part.
Both were very short. The idea was there, but
it hasn't been executed at all.
Fun fact: you don't even need to spinjump at the turn blocks
part. Just spin with cape and pass the vertical wall in
front of you (I obviously didn't bypass this part; I just
pointed out it's possible to).

Aesthetics: 5/30

Basic vanilla, which is always nice to see. In your level,
though, there was no work with decorations, which leaves
your level pretty empty visually. Also, the tiles used for
the buggy tile don't look too good the way you placed them like
that. I thought they were solid, or you could climb on them.
I wish you made those more obvious for the purpose they have.

OVERALL: 11/100
Noivern:
Design - 5
Creativity - 4
Aesthetics - 7
Total - 16
Comments - As soon as I started the level, I jumped to avoid the koopas and died to a generated bullet bill. Yay! This level was a hodge podge of elements that had no real reason to be together. Only at the end did you have something creative enough to use in a level, but it was short and cheapened that as well.
------------

25th - Barrelroller64 - IGGY'S AIRSHIP
Nimono:
Design- 3/40
Comment: The level was ultimately quite flat without many obstacles at all, even with the slow autoscroll. It was mostly just a lot of sitting around, and that wasn't very fun.

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

Creativity- 2/30
Comment: Just a plain old SMW level with autoscroll. Nothing new was done.

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

Aesthetics- 4/30
Comment: I liked your new tiles, that was a plus, but...your palette for the background was VERY off, and did nothing really special. They didn't really seem to fit, in my opinion.

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

Overall: 9/100
Torchkas:
Design:
All this level is, is just a bunch of long stretches with random enemies thrown together. There's nothing interesting going on. You didn't use the ship design to make interesting platforming, there are barely any pits. You didn't combine enemies in ways that's challenging or changes things up. All in all, the design of this level is not good. It's very boring.
12
Creativity:
The level appears to be completely vanilla aside from the foreground graphics and a bunch of sprites.
6
Aesthetic:
What a horrible background. It would have honestly been better to keep the background completely black. The foreground has cutoff at every edge, though its palette is less bad.
6
Total
24/100
Wakana:
Barrelroller64 - Iggy's Airship


Design: 3/40

Flat land + slow autoscroll is the worst combo you can pull from
a level. The level coinsists of nothing but lazy obstacles and
cheap enemies to avoid. It felt neverending thanks to the autoscroll.
I don't think there's more to say; considering the other two
factors, this is most likely a first run on Lunar Magic.

Creativity: 1/30

There's just flat ground and badly positioned enemies, there was
no creativity at all in this level. Maybe the only honorary mention
here is that small section where you have to spinjump on a jumping
piranha plant to get the blue coin. That's the only reason I didn't
give a zero here.

Aesthetics: 2/30

The background has awful palettes; ground has cutoff in many parts;
there are next to no decorations at all. This factor wasn't probably
considered by you author. Not zero score, because the sublevel's
graphics were okay (vanilla smw castle) and because the music
fits an airship level.

OVERALL: 6/100
Noivern:
Design - 5
Creativity - 3
Aesthetics - 2
Total - 10
Comments - This entry is one big argument against autoscrolling. The level itself consists of mostly enemy spam, with little meaningful changes in variation. The bulk of the time is spent simply waiting for the scroll to get to the next part. There were a few sections where I thought I needed to jump on a bullet bill to pass but there was ground just under the camera. To your credit, there were a few setups that were enjoyable, like the blue coin under the jumping piranhas. The palette is one big clashy mess, though, and none of the sound effect changes make sense.
Last edited by Nimono 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by Grounder »

Nimono wrote: 5 years agoThe links are broken, but the comments DO survive to this day!!! In fact... I might as well post them each day if you guys don't mind!! Until then, please permit me to show you... THE COMMENTS!!

Nimono's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/pc1q209y6e8j1 ... G.txt?dl=0
Torchkas' Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrdqqm14xl4np ... G.txt?dl=0
Wakana's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/fciys39f8zzks ... G.txt?dl=0
Noivern the Very Fancy's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/9n3nsr846ou25 ... .xlsx?dl=0 (notepad version does not survive)
thanks for being vauge af about who youre talking about torchka
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24th and 23rd

Post by Nimono »

Grounder wrote: 5 years ago
Nimono wrote: 5 years agoThe links are broken, but the comments DO survive to this day!!! In fact... I might as well post them each day if you guys don't mind!! Until then, please permit me to show you... THE COMMENTS!!

Nimono's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/pc1q209y6e8j1 ... G.txt?dl=0
Torchkas' Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrdqqm14xl4np ... G.txt?dl=0
Wakana's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/fciys39f8zzks ... G.txt?dl=0
Noivern the Very Fancy's Comments - https://www.dropbox.com/s/9n3nsr846ou25 ... .xlsx?dl=0 (notepad version does not survive)
thanks for being vauge af about who youre talking about torchka
They wanted to do the judging anonymously, like VLDC had done before that to quell complaints that the judges were biased towards specific names, and thus the names were why certain people got high scores. So I sent her a package that only contained the entries in submission order. (though some people still put their names in the title screens)

Anyway, I edited in the comments for the first day's levels into the previous post! I'll put the remaining ones up till now in this one~

DAY 2: 24th / 23rd
------------------------------------

24th - niko - Water Dungeon

Nimono:
Design- 4/40
Comment: The water and "airlocks" weren't really utilized to the best of their abilities. I was left wanting more out of the latter in specific.

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

Creativity- 4/30
Comment: I liked the "airlocks", but there wasn't much to it. They were really just... "there". They didn't really feel very much like a coherent part of the level. Nor did the
water...

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

Aesthetics- 4/30
Comment: Pretty basic and vanilla, but it didn't really jump out at me, either.

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

Overall: 12/100
Torchkas:
Design:
For a castle level it's very bland. There's no interesting enemy combinations, and there's no challenge in the platforming either. You introduce water pockets, which are pretty interesting on their own, but you fail to do anything super interesting with them. It wasn't very clear to me that the red blocks were going to kill me, it would have been better to give me a powerup before introducing them. I don't think the section at the end of part 1 is well done. Judging the exact right position to place yourself in to bridge the gap of red blocks is very difficult compared to any of the other challenges. The full underwater section is very slowly paced. There are a lot of moments where I need to just wait until a ball 'n' chain passes, or until a wooden spike goes up.The one interesting thing you did was the portion with two ball 'n' chains and the elevators, I don't think I've seen a set up in the way you did, it's a shame you didn't do more with it.
18
Creativity:
The level appears to be completely vanilla. You didn't do any imaginative things with the tools you used. It's not very interesting even in a vanilla sense.
7
Aesthetics:
You used a custom palette, but there's a lot of cutoff in the first tileset you used. The palette you did use is also completely monochrome for every object. I would have preferred to see some more color variance.
12
Total:
37/100
Wakana:
Design: 16/40

Okay-ish. It's a well-thought castle level without
too many shenanigans. Complains here are mainly the fact
that there is a very little room to avoid hazards in some
parts of the level. Look the beginning for example: block height
from the spikes is 2 blocks, so basically, you're most likely
going to get hit if you're big, unless you spam the jump button.
The rest is pretty much okay. The fact that red blocks hurt you
was uncalled for, but figurable enough for me; the water/no water
part was also nice.

Creativity: 12/30

Removing the generic-ish parts of the level, this level
was creative, in particular, with the use of the water/non water
part. Some parts were neatly placed I must say. Too bad that
this is the only noticeable creativity spark; as I said already,
the rest is pretty generic.

Aesthetics: 10/30

Vanilla tiles, vanilla music. I don't really like the bg palette
of the first sublevel: I think the darker part is supposed to be
the brightest one, and vice-versa.
The net pillar things you use to separate water from air parts
has a weird palette.

OVERALL: 38/100
Noivern:
Design - 22
Creativity - 15
Aesthetics - 20
Total - 57
Comments - Welcome to the water dungeon. It's a dungeon… with water. That's really it. Oh, and these red hurt blocks that don't fit the theme at all. They really could be replaced with spikes (which are used in the level as well!) and the level would have been better for it. The design really is just a normal castle with water that doesn't do anything especially creative. I'd like to have seen some secrets hidden in those large bodies of water in screens 6/7 and 8. The palette is okay by vanilla standards.
----------

23rd - Leiras - Frozen Fortress

Nimono:
Design- 3/40
Comment: This level was incredibly unfun to me. Slippery physics plus difficult jumps and bounces, with very little margin for error, or even protection? NO THANK YOU.

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

Creativity- 3/30
Comment: I did like how you had frozen thwomps and thwimps around, but overall it didn't feel THAT creative.

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

Aesthetics- 5/30
Comment: It was basic SMW with a frozen theme.

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

Overall: 11/100
Torchkas:
Design:
This level isn't very good. The combination of ice physics with the tight corridors and precise jumps make for a very frustrating experience. It is an experience not only of hardship, but of pain and suffering. It took me probably half an hour to get through this level. The thing is, that I feel like the design decisions were deliberate, but they were deliberately done in a way to spite the player, not just out of challenge, in the same way a kaizo level would. Now, this level certainly isn't kaizo, but it certainly does use the same design philosophy. When you make a level, try to make it fun.
16
Creativity:
You used only vanilla assets. No creativity was added to the vanilla assets you did use. The one interesting thing you did is a boss fight on ice, though I doubt that hasn't been done before either.
9
Aesthetics:
The level didn't put much care at all into aesthetics. All the blocks that were used were copy-pasted. Although there was some space made here and there to make the eye rest on something else, you definitely could have paid more attention to it.
8
Total:
33/100
Wakana:
Leiras - CLDC2016


Design: 9/40

It's sad that we have to judge entries as "normal levels", because
this one here is a pretty good kaizo-light level. Sadly, all the
flaws that are accepted in kaizo hacks badly punished you with the
design score here; that is, pixel perfect jumps, duck jumps,
claustrophobic secions, and so on.
Needless to say that it's a bad idea to go savestateless on this level;
I would've probably called it quit way before the midway point without
them.

Creativity: 20/30

The theme is nailed: some sprites are frozen and so can't hurt you, while
others do, even if they look frozen as well. What I appreciated most, though,
are the ways you designed those sections which gave a reward if made
correctly, like the disco shell part. A good amount of creativity was
put into this.

Aesthetics: 16/30

A vanilla SMW castle. I don't like the FG's palette, it's too bright imo;
the BG's is fine instead. Here too, since as base SMW's castles are
pretty empty in decorations, I'd have appreciated if you made/put
some decorations here and there, aside from the fake sprites of course.

OVERALL: 45/100
Noivern:
Design - 16
Creativity - 15
Aesthetics - 9
Total - 40
Comments - The gimmick was cool but it had the unfortunate side effect of making everything the same shade of blue. I think you should have added another indicator that a sprite isn't frozen, perhaps by making it a sightly different shade. I lost quite a few lives because I didn't know whether I should jump or spin jump onto a thwomp until it was too late. A vast portion of the level is cramped jumping around spikes, and this works against the frozen gimmick for the reason I just stated. The music cuts out after the P-switch timer runs out, but the music was fitting for the short time I was able to listen to it (I didn't count off for this).
----------------------

DAY 3 - 22nd / 21st / 20th
------------------------------------

22nd - Wind Fish - Holy Heavens

Nimono:
Torchkas:
Wakana:
Noivern:
Design -
Creativity -
Aesthetics -
Total -
Comments -
----------

21st - Luansilva12 - Grassforest

Nimono:
Design- 5/40
Comment: This level is full of blind jumps, where you can't tell where you're going, ESPECIALLY in the second half. Heck, there's one at the VERY START where not hugging the wall
leads to you dying! There's no way to know this beforehand, either... You just have to risk your chances at repeating the level to find out what to do. ALWAYS make sure
the player can SEE where they need to go next! Getting there can be tricky- but they HAVE to know where to go!

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

Creativity- 2/30
Comment: There really isn't much to this level aside from the graphics. There were no obstacles used in a unique way, it was just a normal level with a lot of blind jumps.

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

Aesthetics- 18/30
Comment: I quite liked the graphics! Mario clashed with the enemies a good bit, but overall I quite enjoyed the aesthetics.

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

Overall: 25/100
Torchkas:
Design:
A lot of leaps of faith and jumps that are hard to predict. Compared to the enemy density, which is easy, the unpredictable jumps are very hard which feels unbalanced. If the jumps were more thought through, the level could pass as a fairly easy challenge, but the design in the platforming makes it unfair at parts.
20
Creativity:
I haven't seen any non-vanilla enemies. The level design and block types seem pretty standard SMW as well. Not really any interesting things going on. I appreciate the theming of the level, but again, it's not a very original theme. I like how it transitions from grassland to forest though.
10
Aesthetic:
It's essentially vanilla with a different skin. The palette is nothing to awe over, but it's fairly good nonetheless. There's no clashing in the graphics choices. It feels like a cohesive whole.
16
Total:
46/100
Wakana:
Design: 12/40

A basic level which doesn't differ much from the
generic "near the line of acception/rejection" hack.
My main complaint here are the blind jumps. Blind jumps are
everywhere in this level, and I had to die quite
a few times just to figure out where did you place the
ground tiles.
Right after the midway point I felt like there was this
sudden big increase of difficulty, with precise jumps,
which honestly felt out of place. A few screens
later, the level resumes the layout it kept in the first half.

Creativity: 5/30

Pretty much the generic hack level. There is next to
no creativity in this level imo. You just keep going
forward, jumping obstacles and avoiding enemies. Nothing
much more to say.

Aesthetics: 19/30

I liked the graphics used in the level, except for
some questionable palette choices (the pipe in the forest
part of the level, or the ones in the cave part).
The rest is alright though; I particularly
liked the whiteline shapes of the sky at the first half of
the level (wish you kept them only in the most-blue part of
the bg sky though...). Certain sections are just a little
bit more empty than the others. The music choice on the
cave sublevel is out of place, mainly because you switch
to a sampled music all of sudden, while the atmosphere you
set works better with unsampled ports.

OVERALL: 26/100

(Fun fact: Mario dies at titlescreen. Don't worry, it
wasn't taken in account while judging the level.)
Noivern:
Design - 21
Creativity - 12
Aesthetics - 17
Total - 50
Comments - Something about this graphical style is just… off. The level is decorated well enough, but it still doesn't look right. This level plays decently, but there are just so. many. blind jumps. They mar the experience. The level is fairly standard; not much to say.
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20st - yoshi9429 - Extreme Castle

Nimono:
Design- 12/40
Comment: I didn't really enjoy the level all that much. You had nice ideas, but... You spam Venus Fire Traps a LOT, and love to use other obstacles like roto-discs to offer no
safe spots from their fire. With a fire flower and a cape, the venuses are easy to deal with. Without, they're a massive, massive pain. Nice ideas, bad execution.
Also the Thwomp Boss was way too easy since it had no way to really hurt you unless you were an idiot and stayed on the upper level!

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Creativity- 18/30
Comment: I liked the overall theme of "fire n thwomps", especially the Forever Thwomps, but... I don't think it was all that creative, either. It was overall a normal level!

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Aesthetics- 12/30
Comment: I do like your combination of vanilla and custom graphics, but... there wasn't much decoration to speak of except outdoors.

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Overall: 42/100
Torchkas:
Design:
The biggest gripe with this level I have is that there's way too much inconsistency in the design. There are quite a number of parts where I can see a lot of potential of the individual elements, but you either don't expand on them, or don't put them in the right context. The difficulty curve of this level makes absolutely no sense either. The intro is probably the hardest area to get through the first time you encounter it. The portion after the midway point feels way better to play than the portion before it, which might just be you becoming a slightly better designer. The ending is unsatisfying, especially after such a cumbersome level.
12
Creativity:
You used a bunch of ASM, you kept a lot of the SMW aesthetic. No real thematic challenge anywhere. It's just a very hard castle level. I like the way you have an outside and inside section. You didn't really think through the way you combined a lot of the design elements. No real new ideas did I see here.
13
Aesthetics:
I really like the aesthetics of the intro section, well done color choices and combination of graphics to still fit the SMW feeling. The inside part of the level feels just like an SMW castle though. It's way more bland than the outside section and doesn't surprise the eye in any way. The music is nice.
14
Total:
39/100
Wakana:
Design: 19/40

The level is pretty wild on difficulty, but it's doable. The main
thing that penalizes it is pretty much the fact that the screen is
always full of enemies and hazards: if you don't keep your focus
at 100% on everything that is going on, you end up being hit. Safe
spots are barely in this level, and since it's kinda long too, it
makes the player tired at a certain point.
Another point I'd like to make is about the difficulty curve: your level
isn't well balanced. In particular, the outside parts felt much more
difficult than the parts inside the castle. I would've atleast reversed
that, but the perfect solution would've been to make your level
gradually harder. Jumps in difficulty aren't good, especially when
they're very noticeable, like in your case here.
My output is: try removing some venuses and roto discs here and there,
since they're the most annoying obstacles of the level.

Creativity: 16/30

Kudos for finding a way to make the thwomp boss not a bitch to deal
with, lol. That aside, the rest of the level is pretty much generic-ish:
there is nothing that sparkles hard, since pretty much everything
used has been used in a basic way. Aside from the use of the boss, there
is nothing too memorable in the level.

Aesthetics: 18/30

Here too, good use of what you had. I personally don't like the
outside ambience, where you use a standard vanilla FG, decorated with
animated flowers, combined with a very dark, creepy BG. It's not
style clashing; it's more like ambience clashing. I would've either
used something happier for the BG, or something darker for the FG.
The layer 2 smashers part makes a good use of layer 3, even if there
is that one grinder that goes behind it, making it look weird.

OVERALL: 53/100
Noivern:
Design - 18
Creativity - 11
Aesthetics - 18
Total - 47
Comments - The backgrounds are great and the music is great, but you really should have used a custom palette for the foreground. The mix of thwomps that stun and thwomps that don't, as well as regular thwomps and thwomps that move quickly both up and down, are confusing because as far as I can tell there is no indication of which one a thwomp is until it falls. The thwomp boss is also ridiculously easy because you never have to use the top pipe at all. That said, you did a good job of raising the difficulty and combining obstacles in interesting ways, but it screams "standard castle" and all of the elements that would change this (SMB3 pipe, sprite-only blocks, most of the grassland enemies in the castle outside sections) aren't really used creatively, are only used one or twice, and ultimately make the level less coherent as a whole.
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Awoo
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 24nd and 23st

Post by Awoo »

Probably should have posted this a few days ago, but since it's now a thing I can quote, I'll quote it now!
Nimono wrote: 5 years ago Comment: While your tileset was very nice, you open the level with fog and a message box- which promptly removes the fog. You always need to make sure you don't use a
message box when you use layer 3 as well! It will overwrite the layer 3 effect!

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Kilgamayan
Happy Birthday, Schwer
Posts: 1914
Joined: 14 years ago
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by Kilgamayan »

I feel like the "worst" entries in contests are still levels worth playing simply because the romhacking community has experienced so much of what is good and what is bad and has learned accordingly. A decade ago someone thought Temple of the Dollar was a good idea (and IIRC other people thought it was enough of a good idea that it finished in the middle of the pack). That would never ever ever happen today.

Also I'm still waiting for the day when we get a contest where the judges aren't romhacking experts or even all that great at vanilla SMW. I will gladly volunteer my services for the title of ScrubJudge 20XX.
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SAJewers
ASMBXT Level Wrangler/A2XT Project Coordinator /AAT Level Designer
Posts: 4199
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by SAJewers »

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Sebby19
Posts: 2544
Joined: 14 years ago
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

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

Post by Sebby19 »

Hmm, its 7AM here in Manitoba and I don't see the video.

I barely have enough time to watch raocow, and then breakfast, before I go to work. Unless it's 15 minutes long and posts right now, I might not be able to today.
:(
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Grounder
Posts: 5765
Joined: 10 years ago

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

Post by Grounder »

rao, did you set it to 7:30 PM? :ehh:

EDIT:This might be a site issue.
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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SAJewers
ASMBXT Level Wrangler/A2XT Project Coordinator /AAT Level Designer
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Re: Chocolate Island 6 - 22nd, 21st, and 20th

Post by SAJewers »

Thanks pancake55 in the patapon spotzone

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