Official Level Design Contest Voting: July/August 2008

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FuriousFox

FuriousFox

AKA FuriousFox
Retired Staff
Welcome to the July/August 2008 contest voting. We have 13 Multiplayer maps and 3 Single Player maps this time.

The voting works as follows: Play a few games of the stage in question, in the intended gametype for judging, and give the map a vote from 0 to 10, no decimals. You can not vote on your own map. Votes where the voter obviously did not play the level in its intended gametype, or where the voter did not play the multiplayer maps with other real players will be discarded. To encourage voting, if you are an author and you judge all of the competitor's maps, the lowest score on your map will be dropped. Please be as unbiased as possible for the author or the look of the map. It's all about how good the map plays, nothing else.

Although it's not necessary, it's very helpful to make comments about what you liked and didn't like about the map, so the author can improve his skill for future attempts.

Judging will end September 8th at midnight GMT (September 7th, 7:00 PM EST). The scores will be then averaged, and the person with the highest score is the winner.

The maps follow:

Single Player Level Pack

Single Player:
Waterfall Town Zone, Act 1 by Superusuario
Poison Palace Zone by SonicMaster
Scrap Brain Zone, Act 3 by Glaber

Match/CTF/Circuit Contest Level Pack

Match:
MAPA1 - Combination Zone by Superusuario
MAPA3 - Sky Island Zone by Roy Kirby
MAPA4 - Moon Milkshake Zone by SonicMaster
MAPA5 - Factory Zone by Chaos
MAPA6 - Nightopeon Casino by Kuja
MAPA7 - Awesome by Torgo
MAPA8 - Hidden Palace Zone by Knockout the Echidna
MAPA9 - Haiff Zone by DarkWarrior

CTF:
MAPAA - Cylindrical Mine Zone by SonicMaster
MAPAB - Tubelectric Zone by Glaber

Circuit:
MAPAC - Los Pants Gehts Zone by SonicMaster
MAPAD - Medivo Circuit N Zone by Glaber

PLEASE NOTE: MAPA2 - 39 Divided By 0 by SonicMaster was accidently included in this level pack. It is not eligible to win the contest due to the new rule that was added this time around. However, you may still post feedback for the creator so that he may continue to improve his wadding skills. This was a mistake on my part and I apologize.

Please make sure to play the levels in the intended gametype, and above all, have fun judging!
 
Why did you add New rule 4 again?
Elegiable or not I'm still voting on Map A2. Why? Because I don't believe in New rule 4. If you want my reasons, pm me.
 
I'll gray out my level on the Wiki.

EDIT: Wow, we have TWO joke wads in the same division this contest: Haiff Zone and Awesome Zone. I actually expect Moon Milkshake to fail; twas a rush job. Glacier Cocktail was made out of concentric circles and won, so...I decided to give my level that type of sector layout and see how well it would do.

EDIT 2: I honestly think my disqualified level will be more popular than its legitimate counterpart. X_X Hey, at least that doesn't stop you from playing it.
 
Voting post

Single player

Waterfall Town Zone, Act 1 by Superusuario (2/10)
4 words, Game Over Try Again
This level just reeked of Roboegg syndrome and felt way to open.


Poison Palace Zone by SonicMaster (7/10)
I thought this was a really good map, but there was a bad spot for sonic and I was able to find some walls for knuckles to climb up. Because of this I skiped a good chunck of the level.

Scrap Brain Zone, Act 3 by Glaber (CR/10)
Did any one press F1?

Match:
MAPA1 - Combination Zone by Superusuario (3/10)
There was too much space and the transzition was bad. (Teleports?)

MAPA2 - 39 Divided By 0 (8/10) [rule invaliad]
I actually thought this stage was better than your milkshake one.

MAPA3 - Sky Island Zone by Roy Kirby (7/10)
I thought this level was preaty good.

MAPA4 - Moon Milkshake Zone by SonicMaster (4/10)
Can you make it Strawberry next time? Personaly I don't like low gravity zones

MAPA5 - Factory Zone by Chaos
Big. more later

MAPA6 - Nightopeon Casino by Kuja
MAPA7 - Awesome by Torgo
MAPA8 - Hidden Palace Zone by Knockout the Echidna
MAPA9 - Haiff Zone by DarkWarrior

CTF:
MAPAA - Cylindrical Mine Zone by SonicMaster
MAPAB - Tubelectric Zone by Glaber

Circuit:
MAPAC - Los Pants Gehts Zone by SonicMaster
MAPAD - Medivo Circuit N Zone by Glaber
 
Verdict: Haiff is a much more amusing concept than Awesome Zone. I'm surprised Haiff doesn't lag with all those Rings in the level.

EDIT: I'm glad I entered this contest. Many of the entries look pretty lame.
 
glaber said:
Why did you add New rule 4 again?
Click to expand...

To reduce the number of maps an author can submit to a contest. It's enforced so as to encourage people to focus on quality rather than quantity.

Elegiable or not I'm still voting on Map A2. Why? Because I don't believe in New rule 4. If you want my reasons, pm me.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone will mind you voting on the map. That doesn't necessarily mean that the map's vote will be relevant to the rankings, of course.
 
Alright... time to rip apart the single player levels in patented Kroze Style (TM)...

*Note: Not to be confused with ACTUAL ratings*

Waterfall Town:
Hahhahahahahah this is a joke level right? Right? No?
.....
Lots of enemies along with tons of flat land where there is nothing interesting to see or do....

Kroze gives this level a NOTHING (Like what most of this level was populated with) out of 10.

Poison Palace Zone:

Alright, this one deserves a play by play of what happened while playing...

Wow... the start of the level feels exactly like it was ripped out of Dandjr Palace... and those celing/floor pillar crushers look exactly like the ones from the 1.1 video... *Checks to see who's level this is* Oh, that explains it... SonicMaster.... should have guessed with the Dandjr Palace opening and platforming sections... hey, these path splits and the way they are done feel just like Nuclear Sunset Zone 1... Yay! More Dandjr Palace platforming sections including the lift/turbine thing thats taken right out of that level! Peno should be thrilled! Oh hey look! A waterslide section.... just like in the 1.1 video!
WAIT! Something ORIGINAL! A room which kills you with a countdown timer if you don't get out within 5 seconds! Bravo for coming up with a gimmick on your own! You get a cookie!
All in all, the level played pretty well made despite from blatantly stealing whole pieces from previous levels that won previous contests that you loved.

It gets a Ripoff out of 10.

(Side note to this: After playing this level, I noticed that SonicMaster entered another level into this contest that cought my eye... Los Pants Gehts Zone which is based on Peno's other level... seeing this I quickly looked twards the Match section to see if SonicMaster had a entry in that as well, which he did... but to my sadness, it was not "inspired" from Peno's other level Gele Mountain... shame SonicMaster... you could have went 3 for 3 and that would have earned you the Tim Kring "I shall borrow this idea and call it my own" Achievement which is worth 100 gamerpoints.)

Now onto the final single player level.... Scrap Brain Zone Act 3:

Only glaber could somehow make a 2d Maze level in SRB2.... only him...

This level gets a A-MAZE-ING out of OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!

This concludes Kroze's Reviews for the Single Player entries for this contest...

Kroze will return in: "Never Say Kroze Forever"
Kroze can has ban now plz?
 
These levels were played in software. If you think your map looks like crap in Software, please tell me and I'll be sure to play it again in OGL and see if it looks any better.

Also, if you guys want my attention, make single player maps.

Waterfall Town Act 1 by Superusuario - 5/10
From a purely gameplay standpoint, this level needs work. There was too much space and not enough stuff. I also thought the elevators should've worked a little bit differently so they don't kill the player as often. I'd also like to say something regarding the enemy placement, but I don't think I can really say anything because the size of the level throws me off.

When we leave the gameplay standpoint and enter into personal opinion, the amount of empty space felt out of place only because it didn't have a purpose. Either remove it or put something interesting in there. Personally, I'd just cut out the empty space so that the small details of the map such as the waterfalls can actually stand out as the scenery it's meant to be.

The elevator-thourgh-building idea was nice. However, there's no visual hint that it will rise up through the building, so I was unprepared and died.

Poison Palace Zone by SonicMaster - 5/10
I would really like to differentiate my feedback between a gameplay level and a personal level, but I find that almost impossible. My opinion is that I didn't like the level. Partly, my dislike for the level stemmed from my two game-overs. Jamming Dandjr and CEZ (and little bit of 1.1) into a blender didn't help either.

Gameplay-wise, the two biggest turnoffs were the the difficulty and un-forgivability. Saying something is difficult should have obvious implications: It's incredibly easy to fail at a given challenge. The un-forgivable-ness goes deeper into the core mechanics of the level: Most tasks, when failed, result in death. Granted, death in videogames is bad for generally two reasons: Firstly, you'll have to conquer tasks that you've already proven you can conquer. Secondly, if you die enough times, you're told to do the entire level over again. Honestly, if I can conquer something once, I really shouldn't have to be asked if I can do it again. The only situation where I failed at said task and didn't die, I was incredibly lost. After wandering around for a bit, I found I was quite simply backtracking to a point where I could retry said task. Dieing would've been quicker and less painful, seeing as how there was a starpost there anyway.

Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 by Glaber - 1/10
I'm sorry, Glaber, intentionally confusing us isn't a good idea. I liked the music, but it really shouldn't have been louder than the sound effects.
 
SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
Kroze, every one of those reviews were obnoxious.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't be a patented Kroze post (TM) if they weren't! ^_^()
Nice to see you are on the same page as the rest of us...

And by the way, none of those levels won contests, either.
Click to expand...

Ok.. Dandjr came in second, but NSZ1 DID win the contest when it was entered...
 
SRB2WikiSonicMaster said:
EDIT: NSZ1 didn't even cross my mind when I made this level, seriously.
Click to expand...

The way the paths go is very much a NSZ1 feel to it all...
I would say its NSZ1 + DPZ mixed with 1.1 gimmicks for good measure if I had to describe it...
The map at least played very well... which I just thought strange...

And I did play the level as Knux you Knux hating bastard!
LET ME CLIMB WALLS GODDAMNIT!!!
 
FuriousFox said:
The voting works as follows: Play a few games of the stage in question, in the intended gametype for judging, and give the map a vote from 0 to 10, no decimals. You can not vote on your own map. Votes where the voter obviously did not play the level in its intended gametype, or where the voter did not play the multiplayer maps with other real players will be discarded. To encourage voting, if you are an author and you judge all of the competitor's maps, the lowest score on your map will be dropped. Please be as unbiased as possible for the author or the look of the map. It's all about how good the map plays, nothing else.
Click to expand...


Feh. I guess THAT "rule" went out the window, huh? /not directed at Kroze

Anywho, I'm going to judge the SP entries for now. I couldn't get in a netgame for the match division, so yeah. That'll have to wait.


Waterfall Town Act 1 - 2/10

Well, this definitely doesn't look like a 20 minute hack job, amirite? Lack of obstacles and/or detail, wide, empty areas, and overall lazy copy/paste houses really didn't make me feel like you wanted to impress me with an actual Sonic level. It was more like, "lol entry" and see how badly I do.


Poison Palace Zone by SonicMaster - 7/10
Well, I think it was a nice level, overall. It was the best one in the division, though I suppose you didn't really need to try so hard this time around. I'll go into detail later, too lazy to give a full explanation now.

Scrap Brain Zone Act 3 by Glaber - 4/10
Well Glaber, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The good news is that I didn't get lost, and finding the right way to go was a simple matter(I tend to have a good sense of direction most of the time, though). It was very Game Gear-ish, which I suppose was the whole point. Kudos on that. However, I have to say that the level was very bland, with a single enemy standing between me and the exi-oh wait, it was standing in the background. The springs and opening doors thing got repetitive, and there really was nothing else to the level that was remarkable, or anything. It would have been nice if you mixed it up a bit with a few other level features and/or scenery. Also what the heck? You used the conveyor belt only once, and it didn't really do anything other than look out of place. You could have SO exploited that for some level design possibilities.
 
Eh, the feeling changes from time to time. It's still the best one in the contest, so what do you want from me, a 10? D=

And no, it had nothing to do with the spikes(although the retracting spikes were a nice touch)
 
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