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Automatic Level Design Contest #2 - Results

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wow it's the results

This was an interesting contest with some pretty decent entries, and was fun to judge. There weren't as many entries as I had hoped, but there were definitely enough for a good competition. Judging was done by K3fka, Sinc-X, and myself. We had some pretty different opinions on some of the entries, but that's what judging is about.

Anyway, enough talk, here are your results:

THIRD PLACE:
nick 139: 41/50 points


SECOND PLACE:
JackTheSpades & NGB: 43/50 points


FIRST PLACE:
Wakana: 47/50 points


Remaining ranks
4. TheAbuseFreakHacker0 (40/50)
5. S.L (38/50)
6. MarioFanGamer (37/50)
7. dragoniante174 (34/50)
8. GameplaysDetonados (29/50)
9. chineesmw (22/50)
10. Neropla (21/50)
11. Lespna1 (15/50)


Sixcorby's scores & comments
K3fka's scores & comments
Sinc-X's scores & comments

Overall Breakdown

Video of all the entries

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone else for participating! You all will recieve your trophies whenever K3fka gets around to awarding them.
HDMA effects is what will guarantee a win for an entry? I will take notes.
Boost blocks everywhere.
Jack's and NGB's entries were actually fun to follow, but Wakana's had a nice disco theme I guess the random boosting was appropriate.
Your layout has been removed.
Your level was boring to watch, janky, there were cryptic triangle blocks and unfitting sprites everywhere, it had a LOT of waiting, and just looked like a cobbled together mess.
Mario doesn't even collect half the coins in there and flies over half the level, literally off the screen before entering sublevels that do nothing but move him to the exit as fast as possible, not showing off anything actually fun or interesting.

Also, read the judge's comments. One of them flat out states that you literally did the laziest thing there is and just edited a level you already had made (something you apparently do quite often...)


edit: This was at Lespna, who deleted the post they had made right before this one.
Your layout has been removed.
JackTheSpades' entry was by far my favourite. Impressive leveldesign, especially the boo boss.
I think Wakana's entry was good but definitely not the best one. The atmosphere surely was cool but the level relied too heavily on boost blocks for my taste. Not that boost blocks are particularly bad, I just find the use of vanilla sprites and blocks to move Mario forward much more interesting and harder to pull off.
I'm unsure what to think about NGB's entry. It's cool to watch, then again it misses the purpose of an Automatic Level for me because it didn't really much on sprite interaction but on programmed movement. You might as well claim the Title Screen as an Automatic Level if that counts.

While I loved JackTheSpades entry, I still feel like there could have been something better in this contest. I am kinda sad that Someguy didn't participate.
Shout-out to Sinc-X for completely understanding my level :)
Congrats, winners! Having kept up with the contest I have to say the turnout was... A bit different than I expected, I thought Jack or NGB would've won, but Wakana's had the best athmosphere and synced to the music well (iirc) so I guess it's fair game
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
It was very close, damn it. Congratulations to the winners.
I loved the energy in Wakana's entry, but damn, Jack's level was so cleverly designed and every segment gives the impression of deep thought being put into it. Dat boo boss.

I liked how the automatic controls gave NGB's entry some natural movement, but I can't shake the feeling that, for an automatic level, that's kinda cheating. No big deal though, I still liked it a lot.

But who I really came here to congratulate was nick. I've been noticing lately that your skills are just getting better and better, and it seems you were rewarded for that this time. You did an outstanding job with the vanilla spritework in your entry. Keep it up! #ab{:D}
Congrats to the winners (and everyone else too)! Jack's entry was simply impressive, and everything in it blew me away due to it being so cleverly designed (dat boo boss though). I thought TAFH0 would be among the top three due to the design and the use of stuff normally used in his works, but what matters is that it was pretty nice. Don't be unmotivated with that place, because you're most likely to reach the top someday.

I have to agree that Nick certainly made a great effort in his level for him to be rewarded what he got, as he's been drastically improving his skills with time. You'll for sure grow to become one of the greatest hackers around here!
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Originally posted by Katerpie
Congrats to the winners (and everyone else too)! Jack's entry was simply impressive, and everything in it blew me away due to it being so cleverly designed (dat boo boss though). I thought TAFH0 would be among the top three due to the design and the use of stuff normally used in his works, but what matters is that it was pretty nice. Don't be unmotivated with that place, because you're most likely to reach the top someday.

!


Do not worry, I'm not disappointed, well a little bit.
Yeah that's so ridiculous.
Originally posted by Mindevous in the discussion thread
NGB you better win or I swear I'm gonna fucking KILL YOU.

welp...

I really want to say I'm sorry for the controversy I sparked. I didn't want to bend or break the rules in any way.
The approach on automatic levels I did isn't the usual one, but I did it with pure intentions.
I thought it would be nice, if it's an automatic level without looking like one by emulating some button imputs to make it look more like a movie.

Later in development I had doubt, because that isn't the thing that automated levels are about, but I hadn't the time to switch to a different concept, so I just finished it.

Congrats to the other winners, your entries were really fun to watch.
My Youtube channel

Currently working on:
Project C

Finished project:
6th place, I feel okay with this place.
Not gonna lie, I am dissapointed that I didn't make first place.
However, all the positive feedback I get here sure is great :D Thanks a lot to you all.

I made the level with my personal feeling of what an automaitc level should be like, that is either playing music (no way I could do that) or closly dodging stuff, repeating the same passage multiple times with different outcome and thelike. So that's what I went for. I find sinc-x's comment about my note block abuse kinda funny given how high he ranked other levels that kinda spammed the boost blocks, but I'm not one to complain. I also forgot to add custom music. That's what I get for watchig shows and playing on mute while creating it and I just plain forgot about the possibility of using HDMA...

Seeing as these are my feelings on what an automatic level should be like, I, of course, have mixed feelings about the other entries. So I'm just gonna try to point out my thoughts without sounding like a sour loser.


Wakana's entry had amazing music and visual appeal. Appearance wise, it was defenetly the best. Automatic wise however, I can't say I found it too appealing. While there are a couple of great moments (like when Mario gets hit with while in cape, bounces back, grabs the mushroom that dropped), many times it felt like Mario was just moving forwards while a boost block made him jump from time to time, especially in the last third of the level with the one screen room with just coin blocks and Mario jumping and the room where auto scroll just pushes him along.
Overall, it is a great level and defenetly fun to watch, just not MY ideal concept of what an automatic level should do.

NGB's entry has me just as contraversed as the others. Again, it doesn't really fit with what I imagine for an automatic hack. It sure is amazing in what it did and well deserves the credid it gets, just maybe, if the boost blocks for example had been visible, it would have made a better impression if an automatic level.

Nick's entry looks nice, is well paced and neatly put together, but... I kinda completely forgot about it.

So much for the first 3, I also wanna mention S.L's entry which is exactly what I have in mind when I think about automatic levels, I'd love to see that castle part completted because honestly, it felt like you ran out of time there with all thoe empty sections at the end. I could complain about the cutoffs but honestly, I don't care. Certain hacks make me not care about certain design rules, for example, I've always found the not upside down munchers at ceillings in kaizo hacks strangly appealing. And the curoff rope from automatic levels sorta has the same appeal to it, especially since we got the music to concentrate on rather than the level.

With all that said, congratulation to the winners. You all did a great job at putting together these levels.
Let's duke it out at the next automatic contest >:D
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... what even am I doing with my life?
[05:58:51] Mogsiah: this is just gonna make people probably
[05:58:56] Mogsiah: not want to enter anymore
[05:59:02] Mogsiah: if the same people win everytime
[05:59:08] Mogsiah: then what's the fucking point
Well yeah, of course, if no new people enter, the same are gonna win. Your point?
It's like saying I'm not even gonna try eating pears since I only like apples.
Also, what's bad about good entries winning? If people dislike it, they should join themself and make better entries and not talk from the sidelines saying how everything should be done.
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400 animes completed ✓
6000 episodes completed ✓
100 Days completed ✓
... what even am I doing with my life?
What's the proposed solution, anyway? Ban those people from entering, bias our scores against them? I know I didn't play favorites or anything here, and I'm confident the others didn't either. It can't be helped if some people are just skilled designers and choose to enter. It doesn't mean they can't be defeated, though.
Anonymous contests

If that is what it takes to get the same people to stop complaining that they didnt win over and over again, i can get behind that.

Congrats to he winners and everyone else.
Layout by LDA during C3.
Yeah, I'd be willing to give anonymized contests a shot. Maybe VLDC9 would be anonymous, at least until the collab part starts happening.
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