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Mountan Castle

In 2010 my VLDC entry got docked points for being kind of tricky. That's why this year I made my level very easy.



Link
this looks like a late game yump level
Thanks for making this video. Thanks to that I know at least it's possible to beat this level. First of all, why did you do this extremely difficult level for VLDC. It's more appropriate for Kaizo Level Design Contest. I played the whole level with slowdown, savestates and rewinds and still was forced to repeat sections over and over. I didn't beat the level. I got to section with 3 grinders, 2 time lifts and warp blocks in Level 17 (2:50 on your video). And I didn't knew what to do. For 30 min I tried to beat it. Still, I have no idea how you got correct timing with platforms.

What I didn't like was tutorial that ends with death. I also have no idea how you made it work Yoshi coins checkpoint. I was forced to die in order to make it work. I'm not a fan of dying at the beginning of second section just because you don't have fire flower.

Your level is very creative, but also very unfair. It's super easy to die and I didn't have fun with this level. What the hell is wrong with you?
Originally posted by Galaer
Thanks for making this video. Thanks to that I know at least it's possible to beat this level. First of all, why did you do this extremely difficult level for VLDC. It's more appropriate for Kaizo Level Design Contest. I played the whole level with slowdown, savestates and rewinds and still was forced to repeat sections over and over. I didn't beat the level. I got to section with 3 grinders, 2 time lifts and warp blocks in Level 17 (2:50 on your video). And I didn't knew what to do. For 30 min I tried to beat it. Still, I have no idea how you got correct timing with platforms.

What I didn't like was tutorial that ends with death. I also have no idea how you made it work Yoshi coins checkpoint. I was forced to die in order to make it work. I'm not a fan of dying at the beginning of second section just because you don't have fire flower.

Your level is very creative, but also very unfair. It's super easy to die and I didn't have fun with this level. What the hell is wrong with you?


Thank you very much for the kind words! The tutorial has to work that way because you enter it using dragon coins, and if I let the player continue through the tutorial it would effect the checkpoint system (you could get the checkpoint without doing the jump).
You could have avoided forced deaths by using screen-side exit, but I assume it would be confusing, so it's probably for the better.
This looks wild haha. Exactly the kind of level I'd expect out of a Youtube hack or a Kaizo Contest... but not really vldc. Well best of luck anyways!

Originally posted by Galaer
Your level is very creative, but also very unfair. It's super easy to die and I didn't have fun with this level. What the hell is wrong with you?

Well that's a bit aggressive, don't you think?
                                                                                                                  
                              
Woah, this is awesome. I love it, it does look absurdly janky though, but quite creative. I bet at least one crazy judge will like it lol
Oh my! This looks awesome!
The amount of creativity in this is incredible! There are so many great gimmicks used together, and the execution is fantastic! (In fact, i don't even know how you managed to pull off many of these setups!)
This level seems to flow incredibly well, and it seems extremely satisfying to play through it! (Of course, learning everything first would be kinda painful xD)
It does look too hard for a VLDC though, it looks something between Very Hard and Kaizo: Light. So in the end it might score a bit low due to the difficulty.
However, from all the Very Hard/Kaizo levels i've seen in this contest so far, this seems to be by far the best one in terms of design and execution!
I'm really looking forward to playing it at some point! (And thanks for the video, as i admit i'd probably not be able to figure everything out by myself =P)

Originally posted by jesus
That's why this year I made my level very easy.

I'm quite scared about what you think is very hard in this case xD

Originally posted by Galaer
Your level is very creative, but also very unfair. It's super easy to die and I didn't have fun with this level. What the hell is wrong with you?

I also think this was pretty rude, and very unecessary!
I know his level is too hard for this contest, but there's no reason to react like this. In fact, i'd say there isn't really anything wrong with him. As i said before, this level seems actually really good in terms of design and execution!
My Youtube Channel
I apologize for my reaction. It's just visible for me that the author is very good level designer and still he made extremely difficult level. As for me I would say that this level is even harder than Kaizo Light though it's not Kaizo. It's just there is a lot of unfair design. Like for example you must know that after bouncing on note blocks you get teleported. There is nowhere any information about that. There is plenty more. And because how good designer he is he should easily tone down greatly this difficulty. Most players will just not manage to beat this level. Author instead decided to release this super hard level and I assumed that he decided to troll all players. That's why I reacted like that.
Finally I have more time, so I decided to make a list of all unfair stuff in this level. I'm gonna skip the whole stuff that was just too precise for me and too fast for my reaction time (that's pretty much the whole level). I'm gonna refer to your video, because I don't have your bps anymore. Hopefully I will do that in more calm manner. Also I'm gonna list things that I thought were unfair, but after looking at your video, I realized they weren't unfair. It's just a case of overlooking something, probably because level is very long and frustrating, so I was very tired at these moments and, I guess, my brain switched off.

0:48 - tutorial ends with death. I mentioned that before and you explained that you were forced to do that. Still it doesn't feel good. Luckily it's just beginning of the level and there are infinite lives. Speaking about tutorial - point 3. is pointless - you never mix objects with green coins.

1:00 - note block teleportation. It surprised me a lot the first time I played and I feel it should be properly introduced in tutorial (maybe in place of useless point 3.).

1:20 - thwimp - fire flower filter. I mentioned that before. There is no indication that we need fire flower at the end of first section. And by the way, fire flower is only needed to shoot piranha plant. The rest of section can be beaten without it. And for me this lack of indication is a dick move.

1:24 - Yoshi coin jump. First of all, how did you got 1up from collecting just 4 dragon coins? That's probably why the next section didn't load for me correctly. But I will talk about this a little later, because there is another really unfair thing you did with this jump. When I was in the air collecting dragon coins, I noticed that I move too fast and if I don't slow down, then I will touch black blocks on the right. So I slightly slow down only to notice a split second later that Mario unnaturally slow down in the air and I felled onto black blocks under me. It took me few tries to realize that I need to move right without slowing down, so my momentum was fast enough to get through slow down section into correct spot. But it felt really weird. For 10 other tries I was fighting my instinct to do this jump. You probably did that in order to help player to not stop. I don't know how you did that, but I would appreciate if you wouldn't do that. It's completely unindicated.

1:27 - Yoshi coin checkpoint. Still, I have no idea how this checkpoint worked just from getting 4 dragon coins instead of 5. It didn't work for me. Instead I felled through 2 dragon coins and returned to tutorial zone. After death I assumed that this level is broken and left it. After 15 min of break I realized that it could be ancient case of getting checkpoint and dying in order to spawn in new place to progress. I was right. It doesn't feel good and somehow you got checkpoint without dying. I have no idea what I did differently.

2:00 - lower part of water isn't swimmable. This is something that really screwed me many times.

2:04 - jump into water. To tell you the truth I didn't noticed water when I played. Water is clear and lower part is covered, so jumping into water out of nowhere was so sudden that it killed. Well, after watching video, I notice that water for this part was visible. But for me from this part to the end of this section water was invisible. Hm, maybe I just switched off Layer 3 in my emulator without realizing it.

2:13 - while coin wall isn't that big problem, it stopped me from using P-switch in more safer environment. So I was forced to activate it while in midair. I didn't noticed green 1F0 tiles, so that is on me. But on the other hand threw P-switch acts like it is underwater. That's really weird. There is no indication that P-switch will act that way. I know you probably wanted to help player, but you should inform somehow player about it. I needed 50 tries to beat this part.

2:20 - sudden vanish of water. That's another one on me. Because for me water was invisible (again I probably switched off Layer 3 by mistake), I didn't notice sudden vanish of water after throwing baby Yoshi. And I didn't connect it with Layer 3 water and Message Boxes. So, yeah, that's my fault.

And the last real section I would say is the most doable section in this level. Even though I couldn't beat almost last obstacle, I looked into Lunar Magic, so I know I was almost at the end. That was very frustrating and super long level. I was playing for more than hour in "/2" slowdown with lots of savestates and rewinds (which were actually more screwing me than helping). I disagree with ECS.98. This level isn't well designed. Not for this contest. But you aren't a newbie. You are in SMW Central for 12 years and you are designing levels for probably even longer. You should know better what kind of difficulty is appropriate for this contest. This level should be submitted into KLDC instead. You would get a high place there, maybe even win. That's why I don't get it why did you submitted this extremely hard level for VLDC. This just doesn't make any sense.
Originally posted by Galaer
post


It is very hard to get me to not shitpost.

I was going to print your post out and pin it on my refrigerator, then send that as my reply. But I remember the way I used to get about levels i didnt like back in the day. I wouldnt be arguing the points you are arguing, but I was equally abrasive. So on some level I have to respect that. I'll try to address everything.



I entered this into VLDC because its a vanilla level, and the fun of it is that I did some unusual things with vanilla. The enjoyable part of this contest in my opinion is finding fun and innovative things to do with such a constrained ruleset. If I were to enter KLDC, my level would be very different because I wouldn't have those constraints (I am actually making a teleporter level for my main hack, and it looks nothing like this). Nowhere in the rules or guidelines does it say anything about a difficulty cap, because that's not the point. Level quality and level difficulty are independent.

Clearly it is not the case that I entered this just to troll. I had multiple testers helping me out, and I worked very hard to make this a fun and enjoyable level to play.
Originally posted by Galaer
post summary: level is a dick move and shouldn't be in this contest.

Frankly, I've never seen someone get so personally offended by a vldc entry level.

And you can't criticize someone's level over mistakes that YOU'RE making. That doesn't make sense.
                                                                                                                  
                              
Originally posted by jesus
The noteblock thing is something I actually considered a lot. I really dislike tutorials and sections which verbally have to explain a game mechanic. I consider it to be cheating on the part of the designer because they should be showing, not telling. The thing is that with the green coin thing, there is no way in the span of one level to introduce that "correctly". Either I would have to make the level longer and force people to play the "teaching" part every time, or I would have to use a side exit or a secret exit, which is banned in this contest. So I very reluctantly put in that tutorial, and made it as short as possible. So, given my stance on that, you can see why i didn't want to tutorialize the noteblocks also.

Luckily the noteblocks are at the very beginning of the level, so it's not that huge problem. About length of your level - I disagree with you. If you would like, you would definitely make this level shorter.

Originally posted by jesus
You get a yoshi coin at the beginning of the level. I also intentionally give you 2 grace yoshi coins in the room after the checkpoint in case you dont to the jump perfectly. You also dont need to die to get the checkpoint so I dont know what it is you are doing there.

I have completely forgot about this dragon coin. I assume that after dying on thwimp filter I was so tired with redoing first section, that I was so focused on beating first section and I somehow managed to avoid first Yoshi coin without realizing it. I was holding run+right at the start of the level, so I guess that's possible. In my defense I would say that there is really no indication that I will need to get dragon coins in order to continue.

Originally posted by jesus
Maybe if enough people said this I would change the tide position, but not one of my testers ever mentioned the hitbox.

The problem here is that you submitted your entry just before deadline, you also made this thread just before deadline. So other than your elite group of testers, nobody else could give you a feedback. For the next contest I would suggest you to make a thread much earlier and ask for feedback even if your level wasn't completely finished. You can also request a feedback from Fan Judge. I would say that it would greatly help to your level.

Originally posted by jesus
There is a valid criticism in that I should have made the 1f8 tiles more visible. Other stuff sounds like your own doing.

It may sound weird, but I disagree with you. !F8 are visible. I had no problem noticing them when I was riding a statue. It's just I have a tendency to sometimes overlook an obvious stuff. So not noticing these tiles was entirely my fault.

Originally posted by jesus
I cant design for people turning off layers in their emulator. Thats silly.

Yeah, it was silly on my end.

Originally posted by jesus
Last section is the easiest on purpose. Often times I literally draw out the relative difficulty curve I want between sections of a level when I'm constructing it. I am not going to get into a long discussion about why the ordering is the way it is in this level because this comment is long enough.

Sorry to tell you, but my last comment wasn't about difficulty curve. It wasn't even to sound as an issue. I just think that last section is the best part of this level.

Originally posted by Plasmodium00
Frankly, I've never seen someone get so personally offended by a vldc entry level.

First of all, I'm not offended by this level. I may be a little exhausted, but I'm not offended. I was just curious to know author's reasoning. And by the way, he already answered my questions gently. It rather feels that you are offended by my feedback. For examples of that behavior you don't need to look very far. Just check JP32 Fan Judging thread. By his feedback he offended few people so much that in the end he decided to resign from being Fan Judge. Some people are just cruel and doesn't take criticism very well.

Originally posted by Plasmodium00
And you can't criticize someone's level over mistakes that YOU'RE making. That doesn't make sense.

Believe me, I can. In fact everybody can be a critic. I may not realize that I am making the same mistake. That's why I expect other people to inform me about these mistakes, so that way I can improve my level. That's why giving a feedback is so important.
On an unrelated note, I appreciate the comparison to Yump, idol. I actually had that in my head when I was working on my level. I definitely wouldn't make a level this janky in something like hackers dreams, but the vanilla contest being what it is, it seemed like a fun place to try out something new.
Only enemies can detect water.
How did you do this?
Now that I've started working, I won't be able to be as active as before. This is really very sad and depressing for me.

WORK IN PROGRESS
▬ good old days 4 (10/? level(s) completed)
▬ dumb 2 - strange levels in my notepad (22/62 level(s) completed)
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By the way my Youtube channel