It feels a little weird posting here considering I didn't get the chance to finish my entry, but...
Originally posted by S.N.N.Do you prefer the levels to be stand-alone submissions, or do you prefer the idea of them all being integrated into a single ROM?
I think collaborative ROMs are the way to go!
Having them all into a single ROM changed the general atmosphere around the contest. See all the threads with people giving level feedback? A product of the whole ROM collaboration, I'm sure.
I think it helped the overall level quality. I enjoyed all the levels I've played so far and I haven't come across a bad level yet, so the feedback certainly helped! I also usually only play (high-ranked) contest entries after they're judged, while this new contest format makes me want to try them all. It does feel a little less like a competition though, but I don't really see anything wrong with it. I would call it a natural evolution of the contest format.
Originally posted by BlackMageMarioI think having one contest per year like this will make them like mini "SMWCProductions," and will show how the community changes and evolves over the year.
A good point made earlier in the thread. It would be fun to play the 2014 ROM, 2015 ROM, 2016 ROM etc. and see how the community changed over time. P-Swtiches and Springboards, for instance, fell out of style. But that's going a little off-topic. In closing, collaborative ROMs are a good idea.
Originally posted by S.N.N.Do you prefer the assigned resource method, or would you rather have endless freedom?
I don't know how it would be possible to have endless freedom with only one SMW ROM. There has to be an upper limit to prevent someone from using a million Map16 tiles. Unless you're talking about the "ROM 1 ROM 2" business? Imagine if someone had an entire ROM to their self!
Anyway, I think assigned resources are the only way to go in this type of contest. The resources that were given felt like enough for the most part, but the Map16 space was a
little low, I feel. It probably helped users focus more on their level design, though.
Originally posted by S.N.N.Would you prefer another contest like this, or would you rather go back to the way it was before?
I don't know if I can truly answer this question until we have the VLDC ROMs all finished up, but right now I think we should have another one of these!
As I mentioned before, it feels like a natural evolution of the vanilla contests. I don't know if I can put it into words, nor do I know how everyone felt about the contest, but seeing that it would all be in one collaborative ROM made me feel like I had to try my absolute best, and I'm sure a few others felt that way too. I think that's why I didn't finish my level though. The pressure of being as good as some other levels.
Other thoughts:
I don't know how the logistics would work, but I'd also like to see a chocolate contest that's similar to this one. I think that would be a lot harder to manage, though! What if someone wants to insert a gigantic custom sprite? A bunch of .brr samples(as we're finding out in this contest)? You would have to enforce byte limits, and that would probably be a headache for everyone involved.
To comment on the VLDC contest in general, one misstep was the idea of a "worst" world. It sounded funny when it was proposed, and I thought we'd have some poor levels, but I dunno... While I don't think there would be any objections to placing a stacked muncher gray lava flat level in "the worst", it's kinda... Mean-spirited, I guess? I'm not asking others to name bad levels for me, but so far, I haven't seen any really poor-quality levels submitted. Nothing that I would label "the worst", at least. That might change as I go through the entries.
Plus, a few people felt like they'd be placed in "the worst" and I don't know if that's a good way to feel while making a level. I think the contest was managed very well otherwise.
I admit that I want another VLDC like this so I have another chance hahahaha
This post showed up while I was making mine:
Originally posted by UnderwayI'd like to add, though, that the recoloring that was allowed was a bit too much imo.
Tough question for me. It doesn't feel nearly as "vanilla" when you recolor a tile so much that it becomes something else. Personally I was avoiding that kind of recoloring in my unfinished entry. I think recoloring was fine, but it's probably because I was making extensive usage of it for shadow tiles.
How does everyone else feel about it?