Lix Double-Level Contest 2014

[mobius]

actually no, not everybody has sent in yet. Probably because I forgot to announce it;

Voting can now begin, send in your votes and guesses. Look to first post for format and rules.

[Akseli]

So, möbius is hindered to finish the contest, therefore I will finish the contest.

If you still haven't sent your solutions, votes and author guesses, and you want to affect the results, please do it as soon as possible. You can give them straight to me in a personal message. You can do this all even though you haven't submitted any levels for the contest.

You can get the levels with their latest versions from this post.

The contest levels:
Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple of the Frog Gods
Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)
16x16 / Planet Dulux
Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament

Copied from möbius' post:
--------------------
Anyone [players and authors or even anyone who hasn't participated in either first or second phase so far] may vote on each pair of levels with three categories:
appearance
F-U-N funness
originality

Vote each submission (consider the two levels together) a 1.0 (low) through 10.0 (high) You may not vote for your own submission.
You may also make a guess as to who created each level.
--------------------

I will resolve the contest after one week. Next Saturday 21st March is the absolute deadline.

[Akseli]

The Lix level design contest results are in! Almost half a year after commencing this contest it is officially over now, going through a change of the host, just like Lemmings Level Jam #1, which though lasted even longer. 6 people submitted a level pair for this contest, 5 people gave votes and 6 people guessed for the level authors.


LEVEL SOLVING

This section is a bit mess still, the results are based on a folder möbius sent me, but I'm pretty sure that it lacks lots of solutions, for example möbius didn't include all solutions for his levels (?). Please let me know of all the mistakes and hopefully anyone won't get disheartened because of this!
Also, for some reason I couldn't view geoo's solutions, my Lix crashed when trying to do that. The folder that contains all the contest levels with their different versions and everyone's solutions (mostly) is attached to this post.

Levels solved:
12/12 -- Akseli and geoo
8/12 -- Nepster (I think it's 11/12 (deriving from Nepster's comments during the contest), Cirque Du Solix solutions are missing and the The Climber Predicament level solution (due to being similar to The Floater Predicament?))
5/12 -- NaOH (?)
2/12 -- möbius and Ramon (Where are your solutions for your own levels?)
(Other people?)


AUTHOR GUESSES

For the first time we ran a contest with anonymous entries. For the fun value, everyone could guess who created which entry.

Level pair: 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
geoo guessed: Proxima
Nepster guessed: geoo
NaOH guessed: Akseli
Simon guessed: Akseli
The correct author: Akseli

A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
Akseli guessed: Ramon
geoo guessed: Nepster
NaOH guessed: Simon
Simon guessed: NaOH
The correct author: Nepster

Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
Akseli guessed: NaOH
geoo guessed: NaOH
Nepster guessed: Clam
Simon guessed: geoo
The correct author: NaOH

author: clam (because likely Flingsanity in Nightmare Shrine, but might as well be Insane Steve)

Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)
Akseli guessed: möbius
geoo guessed: möbius
NaOH guessed: möbius
Nepster guessed: möbius
Simon guessed: möbius
The correct author: möbius

Cirque: mobius (or if the contest host is not allowed to enter, then RubiX)

author: mobius (similar in design to Exit, Stage Right)

Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
Akseli guessed: Nepster
geoo guessed: Akseli
NaOH guessed: Proxima
Nepster guessed: Akseli
Simon guessed: Proxima
The correct author: Ramon

author: Akseli (or perhaps ccexplore)

The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
Akseli guessed: geoo
NaOH guessed: geoo
Nepster guessed: Proxima
Simon guessed: Insane Steve
The correct author: geoo

author: Proxima (though to be honest I have absolutely no clue)

Everyone guessed möbius' level correctly, and on the other hand no one guessed Ramon's level.

Correct level author guesses (everyone's "guesses" for their own levels are excluded):
3/5 -- Akseli, geoo and NaOH
2/6 -- Simon
1/5 -- Nepster

Akseli was the only one to guess correctly everyone who entered the contest and who didn't, but ended up mixing Ramon's and Nepster's levels. Proxima was the most guessed level designer who didn't take part in the contest in the end. A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown had the biggest amount of different guesses for the author, 4.


VOTING FOR LEVELS

Levels were voted in three categories: appearance, fun and originality. The scale for points was from 1,0 to 10,0. Entries were voted as a whole level pair, individual levels were not voted for. The results are presented here with their average points from all the voters. I have attached a spreadsheet containing the full score breakdown to this post.

Appearance:
9,25 -- 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
8,00 – A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
7,63 – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
7,00 – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
6,13 – Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
5,00 – Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)

Fun:
8,25 – A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown and 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
7,40 – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
7,25 – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
7,13 – Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
6,63 – Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)

Originality:
8,80 – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
8,25 – 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
8,13 – A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
7,88 – Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
6,75 – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
5,50 – Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)

Total scores:
25,75 – 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
24,38 – A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
23,20 – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
21,63 – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
21,13 – Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / The Temple to the Frog Gods
17,13 – Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)


(Difficulty)
möbius didn't ask for evaluating the difficulties of the levels, but Akseli and geoo gave their difficulty votes probably due to a habit from earlier contests. The scale is from 1,0 (easy) to 10,0 (hard). These statistics shouldn't be taken seriously anyway, only two people tried to evaluate the levels. geoo gave individual votes for each level, they can be seen in the spreadsheet attached to this post.

8,50 – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament (based on only Akseli's vote)
8,00 – 16 x 16 / Planet Dulux (based on only geoo's vote)
7,50 – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
7,25 – A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown
7,00 – Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
5,25 – Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you everyone for participating!

Discuss the levels, results, things you liked and things that could have been done better, and things that should be done differently in future contests, below!
I will post my personal comments soon.

[NaOH]

Thanks for hosting, Akseli and mobius!

All these levels were very fun for me. Ramon's Eyesis was especially interesting; it's such a simple puzzle and yet so difficult to find a solution. Mobius' levels were was also like that; I was mislead at first by where to use the builder.

In the visuals, I was especially blown away by the completely unexpected use of the occult tile-set by Akseli. Wow, I never imagined it would be used like that. Also, Nepster's jumbo-lixes were really neat! I wasn't exactly sure how you did that until I opened up the level in the editor. Creative! 

Of all of these, Eyesis was my favourite. It's simplistic design meant it was pleasing to look at and easy to learn the set of possible actions; my final solution (for part 1) didn't involve anything that was particularly unexpected, like tunnelling through a wall I hadn't noticed. It was a very clean puzzle but tricky nonetheless.

As for my level... ehh, I wasn't especially inspired but I was procrastinating for finals. So I tossed in some frogs and selected some random skills until I got something that I thought wasn't immediately straightforward. I think most of the difficulty came from executing the flinging rather than anything especially thought-provoking. (Oops, hope a certain somebody doesn't clamor at me for saying that. ) Unable to come up with a creative name, I used my random name generator from the multiplayer level generator for one of them.

By the way, Akseli, I think you're missing some of my solutions. I think I solved 7 of the levels. In addition to the replays you have, I got Mobius' levels and Eyesis (part 1). I think I got another one, but I lost my all my replays.

My replay folder got deleted a month ago when I did something stupid involving folder linking, but I found Eyesis (part 1) on my lappy. I can't access sent PMs on lf.com, but I guess mobius should have the others all in his inbox there.

[Nepster]

Thanks to all for hosting, creating levels and solving them !

In the visuals, I was especially blown away by the completely unexpected use of the occult tile-set by Akseli. Wow, I never imagined it would be used like that.

That was my reaction as well.

The levels I found most fun were Planet Dulux/16x16 and the Climber/Floater Predicaments. Unfortunately the Predicament levels had (in both versions) a solution that worked for both levels (that's why I send möbius only replays to the two versions of Floater Predicament).


Comments on my own level:
There is actually a part 3 to this level, see attachment (including my intended solution), which still fits within the framework of this contest. 

Also, Nepster's jumbo-lixes were really neat! I wasn't exactly sure how you did that until I opened up the level in the editor. Creative!

Thanks, but this was not really creative, but just a huge, huge amount of brainless work. Never ever expect me to do something similar again: Putting about 2000 terrain pieces in one level that does not even fill one single screen is an experience I definitely do not care to repeat .

@geoo: I only got your replays now. Unfortunately I have the same problem as Akseli .
@Akseli: For sake of completeness I attached my solutions to Cirque du Solix, even though they are nothing special.

[Simon]

The crash of Lix upon loading geoo's replays is a bug.

Instead, the game should dismiss the replay as faulty: The replays aren't replays. They are level files -- identical to the levels in the contest. ;-) Akseli got this archive from möbius, so möbius or geoo should find the proper collection of replays.

-- Simon

[Akseli]

Okay, my comments.

16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
Another level contest where I tried to submit an easy level but then I got some ideas. The tileset I chose right away, I definitely wanted to do an occult level. I got the idea again from a game LaserTank, that has been one of the biggest inspiration sources for my level designing in general. An author called "Funnybunny (o:3" created a level titled "8 x 8" that was a puzzle confined in such a tight area. So, the layout of my entry was created first, and then I chose the skillset to make a puzzle. I don't know if I'm at all proud of this style of level design approaching myself, and obviously the two levels ended up having mostly the same solutions in this kind of terrain setup with lots of skills. I'm not sure if my entry even shouldn't have succeeded this much in the contest. 16 x 16, that has one cuber and one builder, is supposed to be harder and Planet Dulux (whose title is an inside thing from my childhood) with no cuber and two builders is supposed to be an easier level. Nepster, geoo and NaOH all found really awesome, different solutions for my levels. Both levels are any-solution-is-fine-type.
NaOH and Simon: How did you guess it was me?     

Nepster - A Day in Lixtown / A Night in Lixtown – My votes: 6 for appearance, 7,5 for fun, 7 for originality, 7 for difficulty
My first impression was the appearance with the apartment house environment with big Lix images. Three different cracks in the layout lowered my appearance score, I always feel that those kind of details break the layout and make it less natural. I gave my votes months ago already based on the first level versions, and now being host and watching the mind-blowing solutions from the author and even other players, I feel that I strongly undervoted this level. It also makes me feel a bit bad now that I know how much effort the author put to the Lix images. This entry should maybe even have won in my opinion afterwards thinking.    It was a damn thrilling run between this and my entry though, the voting situation was super exciting after I had calculated scores from 2 categories out of 3! 
Author guess: Ramon – This was maybe the hardest level to guess. I'd recall that my only hint was the quote from möbius' post here. My second guess would have been DynaLem, but I don't even know if he designs for Lix.

NaOH - Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods - My votes: 7,5 for appearance, 8,5 for fun, 8,5 for originality, 8 for difficulty
Amethyst Nightmare Shrine and Eyesis (Part II) were the hardest levels for me in the contest, being the two ones I didn't solve in the first day but in the next day. Both NaOH's levels were interesting and had really different solutions, which was the main aim of the theme of this contest in my opinion, so I had a big respect for this entry. I think no one found backroutes to these levels either. Also, loved the thing that they were so different in their difficulties also, one easy and one hard level. Furthermore, this was the only entry (other than mine) that had different titles for the levels, which gave stronger feeling that there really were two different levels. This was my favourite level pair of the contest gaining 24,5 points from me, and I was surprised that the general consensus was that different.      
Author guess: NaOH – This was also really hard to guess. NaOH because of the frogs, Clam because of the flinging, Proxima because of the tileset. I can't remember why I ended up guessing NaOH, maybe because she was involved with the contest solving levels according to möbius' posts unlike the other two.

möbius - Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2) - My votes: 7 for appearance, 7 for fun, 5,5 for originality, 7 for difficulty
Another level pair with an easy level and a hard level. My solution for the 2-blocker-1-builder level was pixel precise and annoying to execute. Yesterday I watched Nepster's and NaOH's similar solutions, and they made a lot more sense. No real backroutes were found, and the solutions were different enough, unlike what I feel about my entry. :b
Author guess: möbius – This was the easiest one to guess for me because of the title. I knew that möbius likes Cirque du Soleil, he has talked about it. Those who gave their author guesses just recently might also have noticed mobius06 levelpack. 

Ramon – Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II) - My votes: 7 appearance, 7 for fun, 9 for originality, 9 for difficulty
This was the hardest and the most original entry for me in the contest. It seemed like there was not much to do at all, but finding even one solution for either level proved to need surprisingly much effort. I loved to discover some tricks, like jumping to the slanted slope and then the tumbler just turned around bizarrely. Time limit was merciless and I needed to rub my face over and over again when getting my Lix to shatter into tiny pieces during the firework show. The visual design was really scarce, but I started to wonder if it really worked in this level and emphasized the tricky puzzle in a really simplistic arena.
Author guess: Nepster – A small, hard, technical level. Also, this Nepster's comment was in the end a quirky red herring?    Before that post, my guess would have been geoo, because small, technical, sparsely decorated levels are very characteristic to him.
geoo and Nepster: Any ideas why you guessed me as the author of this level pair? 

geoo – The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament - My votes: 8 for appearance, 8 for fun, 7,5 for originality, 8,5 for difficulty
This, like Nepster's entry, were the ones in the contest that suffered from backrouting the most I guess. I liked a lot my solution even though it needed some fiddling with the distances, but yes I solved the both levels in the same way. A bit bright and colourful looking entry compared to the others. I'm not sure if geoo tried to fix the backroutes in the end.
Author guess: geoo – The level didn't give me any hints at all. I went with geoo only because I remember him pondering about submitting an entry fairly late, and this entry was the late submission. Simon would have been my second guess, going with just by intuition.


General comments:

möbius, which one of your level is which? Level whose file name is part 1 is titled part 2 inside the game and it has 2 blockers and 1 builder. File name2, level title 1, 1 blocker and 2 builders. Did you end up deciding at all which one you want to be part 1 and which one part 2? This caused me a headache when trying to interpret which levels other people meant when talking about them. In my opinion it is important to be able to tell the individual levels from each other. 

@Akseli: For sake of completeness I attached my solutions to Cirque du Solix, even though they are nothing special.

Never underestimate solutions of any level, no matter how trivial they would seem. I solved both levels differently, thanks for the replays!
Also, Nepster wrote comments for all the levels in his voting message, should I post them here or do you Nepster want to post some comments yourself here?

geoo had a late submission for this contest (and möbius kind of made rules for penalties?), but I have no interest at all to give punishments. Anyone else feeling that there should be some penalty for geoo? 

Everyone, feel free to comment especially why did you guess whoever for the authors of the contest levels! The reasons should be interesting.

[Nepster]

As Akseli suggested, here are the arguments for giving my votes. Note that I rated the levels compared to each other. So a low number does not mean, that I disliked the level, but just that I liked the others more.

16 x 16 / Planet Dulux
appearance: 10 (as already mentioned above: very clever ornaments around the level)
Fun: 9 (wide variety of skills makes for huge amount of possible approaches)
orig: 6 (the solutions to the two levels are too similar)

Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods
appearance: 5 (mostly because I simply don't like pink, but as well because of certain asymmetries in the terrain)
Fun: 6 (well, the lixes certainly had much fun with being flung around, but they never landed where they should )
orig: 8 (without knowing the solution to Nightmare Shrine this is really hard to evaluate)

Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2)
appearance: 3 (there is simply no harmony between the different parts of the level. It feels like that functionality had a much higher priority than appearance here)
Fun: 4 (somewhat too easy and straight-forward for my taste)
orig: 6 (different solutions, but both are not really something special)

Eyesis (Part I) / Eyesis (Part II)
appearance: 5 (Not much decoration and a few terrain pieces were off by one pixel)
Fun: 3 (time limit ; needs some fiddling around to make the correct approach work)
orig: 8 (solution of Part II is not terribly interesting, but certainly completely different from Part I)
Author: Hard, technical and need of precise placements of skills and lixes - that reminded me of some levels in Akseli's first level pack. And I don't remember Akseli complaining much about time limits. True, the terrain design resembled more geoo's ones, but I already had matched geoo with Planet Dulux/16x16.

The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament
appearance: 7 (looks better from the preview screen than while playing)
Fun: 8 (some clever thinking needed here)
orig: 3 (the very same, nevertheless interesting, solution works for both levels. So a deduction was due to not properly fitting the design rules of the contest)

@Akseli: Where do you see the three cracks in Lixtown. There is certainly one at the lower right corner of the house, which was unfortunately necessary, but could you please point out what you consider the other two cracks?
And my comment was not meant as a red herring - I honestly wanted to give people more time to solve (your level) Eyesis and perhaps get some solutions to my update as well...

[NaOH]

Everyone, feel free to comment especially why did you guess whoever for the authors of the contest levels! The reasons should be interesting.

Alright, then.
A Day/Night In Lixtown (Nepster). Simon, because I thought he'd've written a script to generate the jumbo lixxies. 
Eyesis (Ramon). My guess: Proxima, because it's pretty. But I would have guessed Simon because he thinks logically and approves of subtractive design. This level is very simple and elegantly laid-out. I didn't find it technical like Nepster did; if I had, I probably would have guessed somebody else.
The Climber Predicament / The Floater Predicament (geoo). Sorry, but the time of entry gave it away.
Cirque Du Solix / Cirque Du Solix (part 2) (mobius). The clown set => mobius or Rubix, but Rubix was up on a mountain somewhere.
Amethyst Nightmare Shrine / Temple to the Frog Gods (NaOH). What can I say, this one was a real shocker for me.
16 x 16 / Planet Dulux (Akseli). This level's colour made me think of Akseli's avatar. Beyond that, I thought maybe Proxima would make something so pretty, but the regularity of the grid pattern didn't seem quite like him compared to the flowing colours with a dash of chaos I see in many of his levels. Plus I've seen some of Akseli's levels and they're also rather artistic.

I felt like the theme of this contest was far too restrictive, which made making the levels quite challenging. Even if entirely different skillsets were allowed barring changes to the terrain, this would have been tough. If we do another contest, I would suggest something more open-ended, like "use two different tilesets" or "make a level to fit a certain theme" or "make a level that strongly features traps" ( munch ~burp) or "make use of one of the hidden skills."

[Akseli]

@Akseli: Where do you see the three cracks in Lixtown. There is certainly one at the lower right corner of the house, which was unfortunately necessary, but could you please point out what you consider the other two cracks?

Oh yeah, sorry for being unclear. The other two things that made the layout unnatural feeling were the staircase at the top of the building and the bomber-shaped hole on the ground, but yes I admit that these two weren't at all as layout-breaking as the vertical crack.

And my comment was not meant as a red herring - I honestly wanted to give people more time to solve (your level) Eyesis and perhaps get some solutions to my update as well...

Well, I fell for that in any case.