Level Design Contest #22 - Playing Phase (Discussion Topic)

[ericderkovits]

ok , Solved Dulstar's rule 1 Interception

[Flopsy]

Flopsy's The Cooler Side Of Hell

These are all great levels; the last two are sweet, simple and solvable, and the first two showcase some particularly excellent mapmaking

Thanks for being the first person to submit a replay for any of my levels and thanks for the kind remarks.
Your solution is perfectly acceptable, this is pretty much an any solution is acceptable level. The skillset is strict enough to guard against the solutions I do not want to see on this level

Spoiler

Rule2 Let's Play Games!
This level was quite hard. The main difficulty of the level was that I had to save at least one lemming from the bottom. I don't know if these stacker/stoner things in my solutions are intended.
Rule3  Random Acts of Nastiness
This is my favourite level of today! I expect there's some very nice levels I haven't played in rule1, but this level is my highlight so far. How to save neutrals while distracting zombies at the same time was the main difficulty factor.

These levels showcase quite a lot of terrain pieces and objects of your new tileset! I especially love the pinball terrains, glitterling pink conveyor belt and slot machine object in casino level! Well, I actually tried to find something to complain about the tilesets, but almost nothing to point out. All the objects have their own animation so it's easy to tell what is terrain and what is object while making the tilesets dynamic. One thing(Let's Play Games!) : at first I expect the triangular terrain pieces at the bottom right are destructible terrains. They don't look steely enough I think, but it's my personal taste. So let's see what other people say about this.

Let's Play Some Games was a major back route sadly, had to be very careful how to fix this without violating the rule though.

Random Acts of Nastiness is a nice alternative solution which I've allowed because you did use all of the skills and I really liked your creative solution, I wouldn't dream of blocking that amazing solution out.

I'm happy to hear the Casino Night and Star Light tilesets agree with you. I tried to make Casino Night as bright and flashy as possible. Star Light I went for a less flashy appearance but still some animations.
More of the same in Gotta Go Fast in a couple of months time

[kaywhyn]

@Armani Thanks for playing! Your solution to my R3 is the biggest backroute I've seen, while your solution to my R2 is a slight backroute. Indeed, if there was anyone I expected to backroute levels, it's you And this is after I have done my own extensive backroute testing (spent several hours in both making my first lemmings levels ever AND my own backroute testing!) before the playing phase began You're the only person who has played both my R2 and R3, and so your solutions are the only ones to them that I have seen so far.

Anyway, I have uploaded V2 of both my R2 and R3. Let's see how they hold up now Again, thanks for playing and the replays

[Crane]

I've given Immortal a slight overhaul now that I'm thinking with more clarity and able to see the backroutes... and fix the one already round.

[ericderkovits]

Ok, Solved Gronkling's Iron-Age Forge

[Gronkling]

Ok, Solved Gronkling's Iron-Age Forge

Yep, that's a backroute

[IchoTolot]

@Armani   Both solutions to my R2 and R3 levels are intended! Good job!

[Crane]

Completed "Come Home Lemmings".

Spoiler

I was able to see the intention with the Basher, but it was damn frustrating to pull off because of the precision required on the Builder placements.  Some of the water pools look untidy (e.g. why can't the one under the stairs just be a single water object in an open pit, flush against the bottom of the screen?), while the pit with the large red barrel has a deadly wall on the left because the water object's trigger area goes right to the edge.

To be a little bit pendantic, the yellow arrows don't belong to the Brick tileset.

[Crane]

Completed "All your bees are belong to us!" - nice little 2-of-everything puzzle.

[WillLem]

Played the R2 levels and only solved Roundy's Purple Pit Of Peril. This was a great fun level to play

I will come back and have more attempts at the others.

[kaywhyn]

Played the R2 levels and only solved Roundy's Purple Pit Of Peril.

I will come back and have more attempts at the others.

Hey WillLem, honestly I think out of all my contest entries my R2 is the easiest one, while my R3 is likely the hardest one. At least it should be, depending on if I've managed to patch up Armani's horrendous backroute correctly with V2. Mind you, I have never made any levels before this contest, and I've always had this thought that I'm no good at level making and hence I can't make hard levels and therefore can't make contest worthy levels. So, I'm surprised to hear that you haven't been able to solve my R2 yet. However, good to know that my R2 isn't overly trivial! At the same time, my R1 has been played the most out of my other two entries, by two people (there might had been more than that, and if there is it either hasn't been solved yet or it has but I don't know for sure since no further replays of it have been posted), while my R2 and R3 have only been played by Armani so far, and other than one person who has said my R1 is hard, I have yet to hear about the difficulty of my levels. Eric hasn't said anything about the difficulty of my R1, but that's because he found a very severe backroute in my V1 of it, and I don't know if he's reattempted it since. Both my V2 and V3 of it should block it off completely, so it should be appropriately challenging now.

I haven't attempted any of the contest levels yet, but I will in about a week or so after the updates, if need be, come in!

[Gronkling]

Here's my replays to all the R1 V1 levels, except for IchoTolot's which I haven't beaten yet

My personal scoring is under spoiler

Spoiler

R1.1 Armani
Aesthetics:★★★★☆
Difficulty:   ★★★☆☆
Funness:   ★★★★☆
SCORE: 32

R1.2 Crane
Aesthetics:★★☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★★☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 15

R1.3 Dullstar
Aesthetics:★★★☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★★★☆
SCORE: 20

R1.4 Eric Derkovits
Aesthetics:★☆☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 9

R1.5 Flopsy
Aesthetics:★★★☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★★☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 18

R1.7 IchoTolot
[not yet completed]

R1.8 kaywhyn
Aesthetics:★★☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★☆☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 9

R1.9 Nessy
Aesthetics:★★★★☆
Difficulty:   ★★☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 18

R1.10 NieSch
Aesthetics:★★★☆☆
Difficulty:   ★☆☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★☆☆☆
SCORE: 8

R1.11 roundthewheel
Aesthetics:★★★☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★★☆☆
SCORE: 15

R1.12 Shmolem
Aesthetics:★★☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★☆☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★☆☆☆
SCORE: 6

R1.13 Silken Healer
Aesthetics:★☆☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★☆☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★☆☆☆
SCORE: 4

R1.14 The Tomato Watcher
Aesthetics:★★★☆☆
Difficulty:   ★☆☆☆☆
Funness:   ★★☆☆☆
SCORE: 8

R1.15 WillLem
Aesthetics:★★☆☆☆
Difficulty:   ★★☆☆☆
Funness:   ★☆☆☆☆
SCORE: 4

[kaywhyn]

@gronkling As already mentioned on Discord, you played an older version of my R1, as your solution doesn't work on the most current version, which is V3. I imagine it's the exact same severe backroute that eric found. Also, I pretested Icho's contest levels, and I agree that his R1 is difficult, so no, it's not just you that's finding it hard. It did go through a couple of versions, and in the its current iteration he said that I got "95% of the intended solution." I'm sure you'll eventually be able to solve it, though.

[Armani]

@Gronkling
Well done!
There're slight differences to what I have in mind but your solution is good enough so I will consider it acceptable!

[Crane]

That's a backroute unfortunately - uploading a fix to hopefully boost my scores!