Official Level Design Contest Voting: January/February 2008

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SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
Tslxruf Village, 0/10
Since I was on Gemini's computer, I used OpenGL. And this zone is way too dark even for that renderer. I got lost, and it took BOTH of us over 2 minutes to complete the first lap. We gave up trying to finish it.

Adjust your freaking gamma levels. I played in OpenGL with 3 other people in that same map, and none of us had any trouble what so ever with the lighting. It saddens me that you gave it this rating, because, aside from its impressive visuals, good flow, length, and areas of skill, this map had one thing that on its own makes it worthy of a 10/10.

It made the characters balanced.

Tails, Knuckles, and Sonic. Any of those characters, properly used, could beat any other, and it required skill to be successful in all scenarios. There is no other map in existence that has achieved this feat to any degree what-so-ever.

On IRC, when ZarroTsu asked me what the contest maps were like, he said "So how many were absolute shit and how many were made by Mystic?". I answered, "All but one. One was made by a god." Because up till now, it was assumed impossible to balance the characters in a race map.\

Tslxruf Village, 10/10

I'll rate the other maps later.

EDIT: Also, to respond to some later comments, tails and knuckels had different routes, and how they were balanced still required skill. I cannot stress this enough; you still need to be good as tails or knuckles to win the race. You can't not know how to use spinfly and downfly to oyur advantage and win a race, just like you can't not know how to thok and win a race with sonic. As for the passageways, you need to moderate speed. In the stairs going up and down, you can't thok...but you can spin-dash.
 
Aw Heck I missed these contest Theards , I might come back on Srb2 this month, thats after im done with SSBB.
 
Multiplayer votes!

Match:

MAPA1 - Arial Match Zone by Cheese (2/10)

Lots of flat narrow places to run combined with awkward platform jumps made this hell for even non-Sonic players. Less death pit and more vertical variation would be nice.

MAPA2 - Last Stand Zone by ST218 (1/10)

This map should be at least one quarter of the size it is now. Maybe even less. Overall the wide open spaces combined with Homing Ring made it exceptionally difficult to find much less hit anyone. Which was really bad considering there were at least 6 people in the game when I played through these.

MAPA3 - Sand Fish by ST218 (1/10)

Same as the previous map.

MAPA4 - Physics Lab Zone by Jazz (mine/10)

bets map evr.

Capture the Flag:

MAPA5 - Spring Passage Zone by HYPERKNUX (3/10)

Using the blue springs to propel oneself over the death pits just seemed like a cheap challenge to me. Also, the bases were exceptionally cramped and difficult to navigate cleanly. The middle seemed the same way. Though the side passages were actually nice and open in comparison. Use those as a guide when you resize your level.

MAPA6 - Season's Greetings Zone by "redechidna1@aim.com" (5/10)

An absolutely average map. Main place where this could be improved is to smooth out some of the platforming by removing blue springs and just letting us jump, and also add a bit more space between the bases to give the Rail Rings you placed a little more utility.

Circuit:

MAPA7 - Freezing Flare Zone by Simsmagic (5/10)

Mainly loses points for crampedness. Springs were relatively well placed, and the hazards were pretty well placed. However, it would have been great if the entire level had a bit more room to it. Some hazards were a lot harder than they should have been (in a cheap way,) primarily due to the fact that the level was so small.

MAPA8 - Tslxruf Village by "redechidna1@aim.com" (4/10)

It was a long thokfest. Levels need to contain more interest than myself pressing my jump button. Also some of the passages were extremely cramped. Having to stop dead to run down a cramped ramp really killed the flow of this race.

MAPA9 - Endless Mine Zone by Glaber (1/10)

A short map combined with the problems with the bust blocks made this entire map very unfun. The funniest part was getting stuck bouncing around the bust blocks like a pinball, but it got old after the entirety of 30 seconds.

MAPAA - Wacky Track Zone by SonicMaster (5/10)

Not bad. My main gripe with this one was the lack of variety in the obstacles. It felt like I had to press up to go over this, press down to go under that, and repeat.
 
The village level had some tunnels that were almost impossible to pass through without coming to a halt and are painful given an amount of c-lag. Also, Tails and Knux are balanced in a somewhat cheap way, in that they get a plain tunnel to skip a large area Sonic has to use. Personally I'd rather use Sonic since he gets the opportunity to go through more level than the others, whether or not they are balanced.

I'll vote later, I want to give some of these maps plenty of playtime...
 
Single Player:
Emerald Valley Zone by I'll Begin - 7/10
Visually appealing, but had some parts that had low framerate. It took a bit for me to realize how to get to one of the jumps, but I saw the springs that were able to get me across the gap, I think you should point that out in some way.

Ivy Caverns Zone by Boss/Azure Hawk - 3/10
There was some cheap deaths in the start, but it got a bit better at the end. The blue water was not good to look at.

Lavender Lagoon Zone by Boss/Azure Hawk - 2/10
Visually better, but the gameplay wasn't good. I was very confused on which way to go, and that just made the map less enjoyable then what it could have been.

Coastal Cave Zone, Act 1 by Arrisork - 3/10
This was just meh.

Daimondus Zone, Act 2 by Glaber - 5/10
The textures are less of an eyesore, but it still doesn't quite fit srb2. It was way to short. The design isn't too bad though.

DimenGlabSpecial by Glaber - 0/10
Okay you decided to take the special stages from Jazz Jackrabbit and put them in srb2. The problem is that, they were only cool for the time, because we haven't seen much of that before in a platformer. The Jazz Jackrabbit stages are not too fun, compared to the rest of the game, and is not fun at all in srb2.

Forever Forest Zone by BlueZero4 - 7/10
I played it again, and it made a bit more sense to me. Its still too easy for a player to get frustrated, and not know where to go. It doesn't make sense to me that you would actually have to go back to the beginning after hitting the button. Once you actually know where to go, its pretty good.

Match:
MAPA1 - Arial Match Zone by Cheese - 1/10
Narrow paths and it looks like a ripoff of some other zone.

MAPA2 - Last Stand Zone by ST218 - 1/10
It was horrible to look at, and looks like it had no effort into it. The ring combinations didn't help any either

MAPA3 - Sand Fish by ST218 - 2/10
This map was too large, and bland

MAPA4 - Physics Lab Zone by Jazz - 7/10
This map was a bit large, and the teleporting gimmick was a bit confusing, but at least this map was playable.

Capture the Flag:
MAPA5 - Spring Passage Zone by HYPERKNUX - 0/10
Short not fun, death pits for the lose, just agh.

MAPA6 - Season's Greetings Zone by "redechidna1@aim.com" - 3/10
The music choice wasn't good for this level, it didn't fit both themes. Also, it was very meh.

Circuit:
MAPA7 - Freezing Flare Zone by Simsmagic - 5/10
Kind of interesting gimmick I guess, but the level it self just seemed lacking.

MAPA8 - Tslxruf Village by "redechidna1@aim.com" - 5/10
There wasn't anything too scenic, except for the lighting, which would have been good if there was more too it then that. It just felt boring.

MAPA9 - Endless Mine Zone by Glaber - 0/10
Agh, the frustration with the breaking rocks gimmick just made me rate this lower. It made me forget about any good thing that may have been in the map. Plus it was a bit too short.

MAPAA - Wacky Track Zone by SonicMaster - 7/10
The only problems I see in this map is that there should be a bit more obstacles and the constant sky changeing was not too good. Other then that, I say decent effort.
 
Can't host servers from college, so I have to join them. -_- I can't seem to find contest servers anymore. It must be because this one is terrible. If I can't find a contest server by March 8th, I won't be able to rate the CTF maps or Physics Lab Zone. Physics Lab just can't support 3-player. -_-

I think it's efficient to have 1 post dedicated to voting. When I wanna change votes, or add more comments, I just edit my post. Woot. Oh, and by the way:

Prime 2.0 said:
Adjust your freaking gamma levels
...
On IRC, when ZarroTsu asked me what the contest maps were like, he said "So how many were absolute **** and how many were made by Mystic?". I answered, "All but one. One was made by a god." Because up till now, it was assumed impossible to balance the characters in a race map.\

Tslxruf Village, 10/10

Uhh, no. Even when I did fix the brightness levels, it's still a sub-par map.
 
I'll Begin said:
Forever Forest Zone by BlueZero4: 8/10
After 12 minutes I ended up dying and not finishing the stage. Make it shorter.
12 minutes? It takes me about 1 minute in a nowhere near perfect run. It only took me 12 minutes the first time, when I looked in every nook and cranny twice to see if there really weren't any buttons. Turns out I really was think of act 2.
 
Emerald Valley Zone by I'll Begin - 7/10
This was quite enjoyable. Framerate took a dive in places, but overall the level design is rather solid. There is a major overkill amount of springs in the second half, though, and it doesn't seem like the second half has an alternate path, although I might just not have found it. Overall, quite good

Ivy Caverns Zone by Boss/Azure Hawk - 3/10
This was cramped and had a lot of cheap deaths, especially at the beginning. It did improve near the end, however, but it needs more scenery. Also, what is with the ridiculous water color? Personally I don't see very well with day-glow blue on my entire screen.

Lavender Lagoon Zone by Boss/Azure Hawk - 4/10
While this is better than your other entry, there are definite issues here. It's hard to figure out which direction to go, and often the player has to make leaps of faith to continue in the stage, jumping into areas that are frequently instant death. The passages are still cramped, and outside of the opening area, are quite low on scenery. Also, there are a lot of springs that launch the player insanely high for no real gain. Also, the switch that opens the next area takes FOREVER to open up, forcing the player to wait for no good reason.

Coastal Cave Zone, Act 1 by Arrisork - 3/10
While nothing is particularly WRONG with this map, it is just incredibly boring. Water is a pit for no particular reason, and it's just very bland across the board. There's also a blockmap error at the end of the stage. Open fields with no detail don't make good maps. Try adding details and secrets to the stage.

Daimondus Zone, Act 2 by Glaber - 6/10
This isn't bad. I like the spike enemy, and the level design is fine, but it's WAY too short and those textures are still incredibly ugly. If you must use custom textures, please make sure they aren't incredibly ugly before using them. X_X

DimenGlabSpecial by Glaber - 0/10
This is downright horrible. While I guess it's _playable_, it is about as unenjoyable as a stage can get. Constant stopping dead to collect a few rings at a time in the same manner over and over again for six minutes is not fun in any way. There is absolutely nothing positive about this map's gameplay.

Forever Forest Zone by BlueZero4 - 0 or 7/10 (Depending on which version we're talking about)
Well, there is a lot here, but you have a major problem in this level design. There aren't "multiple paths" as much as there isn't a path at all. There's nothing remotely giving a hint to the player where they are supposed to go, and I ended up wandering around through a ton of dead-end passages until I figured out where I was supposed to go. Otherwise, the stage is quite solid. It's quite visually appealing with interesting sector layout, and outside of a useless teleport (which I assume is to avoid the blockmap limitation) the level has a very solid gameplay element too. I will note that the framerate took some major drops in the largers areas, though. It's just TOO non-linear to the point of making the player confused.
 
Emerald Valley
What a pleasant surprise! I actually really enjoyed the start area up to the second checkpoint. I ended up just standing still and looking round using mouslook, as the scenery was perfect. It was a bit short however, and a bit bland towards the end.

9/10

Diamondus Act 2
Like act 1, this was short, and the textures were annoying. The music was OK. One thing I did notice was that you didn't use that many FOF's. Not that that's a bad thing, but it does make the level slightly less interesting.

6/10
Forever Forest Zone
It wasn't a very forever level was it? It was quite short, but I can except that after the Node problem. It was however full of scenery, and had a huge number of paths to take.
8/10
 
Mystic said:
Daimondus Zone, Act 2 by Glaber - 6/10

You know, the level design isn't overly bad, you're right... I was too focused on the fact that that was one of the ugliest zones I've ever played, and that really hurt it for me...

Interesting how Glaber failed harder in JanFeb08 than he did in JanFeb07. His DimenGlabSpecial, if you drop the lowest score, has a rating so far of 0.20, which would be lower than the current worst 1P level, Doomsday Zone (1.55 rating).

At least JanFeb07 had Daimondus Zone (CTF), which I still love and adore to this day. I personally thought it was better than the record-holding CTF map, Castle Canyon Zone.

The only two maps of Glaber's that I like are both CTF maps. Perhaps he should start doing those more often. If he makes future ones, they need to be NOT cramped, something that plagues so many of his levels.
 
1 Player Division

Lavender Lagoon act 1 By Azure Hawk 7/10

Wow, I never expected this to be this good. There are multiple paths, nice scenery, and a wide range of textures used which is pretty nice, but a few things you need to improve on is choose the colormaps you are using. Using many different kinda on a single level just doesn't seen to fit in as well. Also there was some confusing paths from the half way point. Eventually I Found them, but yeah, not bad. Keep going, and you could make something good out of it.

Forever Forest by BlueZero4 0/10

I couldn't get this stage one to play on srb2 due to a mssing patch error in texture CLRWALL0.

Ivy Caverns Zone act 1 by Azure Hawk 2.5/10

Come on Azure Hawk, you can do much better than this. I didn't like this one at all. The level very much lacked in scenery, some paths were a little confusing, and the water palette was way too bright for my eyes to cope. Tone it down a bit. The design most of it was extremely flat as well with the additional cheap death pit every few minutes. It slowly started inproving near the end like Mystic said, but in my personall opinion, the stage needs serious editing, or revamped.

Emerald Valley Zone by I'll Begin 8.5/10

Oh nice stage there :P, this was really great, however, some bits were a bit flat in level design, and a few bits did kinda lack in screnery, and the stage was a bit too short in my opinion, otherwise I would given it a 10.

Haven't finished all reviews yet. Will do soon.
 
Forever Forest by BlueZero4 0/10

I couldn't get this stage one to play on srb2 due to a mssing patch error in texture CLRWALL0.

This is hardly a fair way to judge a map. Don't you think that you should ask about the condition of this map before you go and vote it a 0?

Besides, open it in the launcher. It runs just fine that way.
 
Heh, I tried the launcher in the first place and it still didn't work. I wound up downloading the patched version just to be able to play it.
 
Yeah, that was the one I was (actually, thinking about) referring to. But still, giving it a big fat zero without seeing whether or not it could just be a slight error in the texture lump is just plain harsh. :\
 
Actually, Kuja, giving the map a zero for failure to load is pretty standard procedure around here. There are far worse reasons to give a map a bad score. While I'd prefer people try the fixed version, it is the author's fault that he sent a broken WAD, so scores are going to reflect that.
 
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