Language…
11 users online:  AmperSam, ClaireChan, Darolac, Everest, LightAligns, mathie, MorrieTheMagpie, Nayfal, PaceTheAce, simon.caio, Sweetdude - Guests: 258 - Bots: 344
Users: 64,795 (2,378 active)
Latest user: mathew

Chocolate Level Design Contest 2020 - Discussion

OLD - Level Design

Originally posted by idol
There are a few ways to get a penalty for your entry:
If a level is too long: -5 Points Overall.

Is this a fixed -5 points penalty? You mention that a perfect playthrough should take at max. 5 minutes.
But would a level, which takes 6 minutes get the same penalty as a level that takes 15 minutes? Or can the judges scale this penalty, depending on how exaggerated the levels feels?

Definitely not asking because i tend to make overly long level, no








Originally posted by Lespna1
I have SNES9x v1.56.2 so if it works in that, should it work w/SNES9x 1.60? I had v1.60, but I deleted it b/c the screen was flickering, and I do not use BSNES. Could I try it in ZSNES too or will they be really overcritical and only try it in SNES9x1.60 and BSNES? Just making sure because I want to make sure it works well.

The biggest point is accuracy. ZSNES is an inaccurate emulator so stuff which work in ZSNES may not work in SNES9x or BSNES (or vice versa). Using one of the newer SNES9x versions (such as v1.56 in your case) is much safer and shouldn't be causing a problem if you don't use any advanced ASM.

Originally posted by Sariel
Is this a fixed -5 points penalty? You mention that a perfect playthrough should take at max. 5 minutes.
But would a level, which takes 6 minutes get the same penalty as a level that takes 15 minutes? Or can the judges scale this penalty, depending on how exaggerated the levels feels?

Given that the last VLDC had an entry disqualified just because the creator put for fun a level timer of 501 seconds, maybe. I do agree that it shouldn't be a too strict penality, though.
Can I put A Boss fight in my Entry?
I have a 2 questions for this contest


1 can i put subrooms in my level ex. A bonus room or a cave room or another room which leads to a secret exit?

2 can my entry be locked to prevent graphics being stolen?
This is my non existent layout I plan on adding one soon.. or never

I have a discord server, feel free to join if you want
Can I put Mario in my level?
as someone who tore apart every single bldc level in a drunken stampede, it would be absolutely criminal if i didn't enter this and get, at the very least, last place.
User: Hinalyte / ID: 1553 ~ loading kotori.css
snn I'm going to beat your level
I hope this isn't an overly silly question, but would it be frowned upon or even a disqualifying factor if we plan to put the contest level into another hack afterwards?

Just want to know if I should plan to make the contest level as an exclusive standalone thing rather than a new level for an ongoing project, since I'm unfamiliar with what the general conduct is on this.

Extras



I should have something witty to put here (even if it's just to update dated info), shouldn't I?

Advertising Space

Originally posted by Zerio
I hope this isn't an overly silly question, but would it be frowned upon or even a disqualifying factor if we plan to put the contest level into another hack afterwards?

Just want to know if I should plan to make the contest level as an exclusive standalone thing rather than a new level for an ongoing project, since I'm unfamiliar with what the general conduct is on this.


Generally speaking, if you make a level specifically for this contest, what you do with it afterwards is entirely your choice. What isn't a good idea would be to take an existing level you have for something else and to submit that to the contest.

Originally posted by BootaNoBijuu
Can I create an other level putting credits and/or unused stuffs of my Level?

sure, yes.

Originally posted by Sariel
Originally posted by idol
There are a few ways to get a penalty for your entry:
If a level is too long: -5 Points Overall.

Is this a fixed -5 points penalty? You mention that a perfect playthrough should take at max. 5 minutes.
But would a level, which takes 6 minutes get the same penalty as a level that takes 15 minutes? Or can the judges scale this penalty, depending on how exaggerated the levels feels?

Definitely not asking because i tend to make overly long level, no

for all intents and purposes, yes it is a fixed -5 point penalty. if someone decided to be an ass and make an hour long perfect run level, then it could be susceptible to disqualification. just be reasonable.

Originally posted by BootaNoBijuu
Can I put A Boss fight in my Entry?

yes.

Originally posted by codfish1002
I have a 2 questions for this contest


1 can i put subrooms in my level ex. A bonus room or a cave room or another room which leads to a secret exit?

2 can my entry be locked to prevent graphics being stolen?

you may use whatever subrooms you like or design your level however you please. i would prefer if the rom was not locked, but i didn't make that a part of the rules so i can't enforce it.
Hi, kinda crazy question. If my stage has dialogue messages, and there's an option to skip them, will the length of the dialogues count against the length of the level?
Currently working on:
Super Kekcroc World 4 (lol jk)
Warning: Long post incoming! Here's a tl;dr:

1.) A deduction of 5% of the maximum score would usually cause the affected entry to place 2-4 ranks lower even if it'd be only slightly too long (only compared top ranks of 2 past CLDCs)
2.) How is the length measured? Are judges gonna speedrun every single entry and measure by stopwatch? Or is it more like a "felt length" of submissions (post contains example / compares 2 levels).
3.) How is the penalty gonna be handled / deducted. Mathematically, so if 1 judges votes for it 2 against you get a 1,66 point penalty? Or do 1/2/3 out of the 3 judges have to vote for it, so it gonna be fully deducted?
4.) Superflous rule, since judges can already deduct points from level design if a level overstays its welcome. Now the judges actually mustn't consider length as part of the level design, since if they did so, they'd punish the creator twice which would be quite a heavy kick to the @$$
-> Gonna vote this rule as most inconsiderade rule for a contest 2020 for this year's mosts



Originally posted by idol
Originally posted by Sariel
Originally posted by idol
There are a few ways to get a penalty for your entry:
If a level is too long: -5 Points Overall.

Is this a fixed -5 points penalty? You mention that a perfect playthrough should take at max. 5 minutes.
But would a level, which takes 6 minutes get the same penalty as a level that takes 15 minutes? Or can the judges scale this penalty, depending on how exaggerated the levels feels?

for all intents and purposes, yes it is a fixed -5 point penalty. if someone decided to be an ass and make an hour long perfect run level, then it could be susceptible to disqualification. just be reasonable.


1.) This could lead to "unfun" 4 minute entries getting a better score than a "fun" 6 minute level.
Don't get me wrong there I don't compare last place with 1st place but a fixed 5 point penalty is quite a lot. Just comparing a few old CLDCs here:
2018 (you have to deduct 3 points here (60*5%) instead of 5 (100*5%) since the max. score was only 60 instead of 100 points):
1 idol/katrina 56.7/60
2 FrozenQuills 55.0/60
3 Sariel/Wakana 53.7/60
4 E-man38 51.7/60
5 Tob/Luks 49.7/60


-> With such a deduction each top entry would've ranked about 2-3 places lower.

2016:
1st: idol (84.6/100)
2nd: FrozenQuills (79/100)
3rd: Blind Devil (77.4/100)
4th: ft029 (77.2/100)
5th: allowiscous (76.6/100)
6th: G.D. (72.2/100)
7th: lolyoshi (71.6/100)
8th: levelengine (71.2/100)
9th: Pseudogon (71/100)


-> Again such a deduction would've made a difference of about 3-4 ranks again (except for 1st place)

2.) Additionally to this I wonder how the length is measured. I doubt each judge gonna replay each level that long until they get a perfect playthrough and measure if this exceeded the 5 minute rule by stopwatch.
I think it's more about the length a judge feels during playing? Let me make an example here comparing 2 KLDC entries (SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE A KLDC JUDGE)

https://youtu.be/nrf6m7eHebg
-> This level is only ~2 minutes long in a perfect playthrough. Yet the player might feel it is way longer, since the 1st half suffers from having no checkpoint and therefore the player might spend 3 hours on it.
https://youtu.be/oMMB5zB74iY
-> This level is roughly 4 minutes long. So by maths its twice as long, yet the player might not feel this doubled length since this level gives you 7 checkpoints. So will a rewarding checkpoint system considered into judging an entry? Or will it be completely ignored since this is a CLDC not a KLDC and even if levels might be challenging checkpoints might not be as essential as for kaizo.


3.) An other question that comes to my mind is how the penalty is gonna be handled and deducted. You are 3 judges. Assuming you go for the "feeling based" length (since i assume no judge would take the effort and speedrun every single entry just to measure its length) it may vary if you decide that a level is too long or not. So would 1 judge, claiming a level is too long, already cause the level to get penalised by a 5 point deduction. Does it need to be the majority, so 2 out of 3 judges for the penalty to take effect or do all three judges have to agree on the penalty? Or would it be mathematically deducted, like 1 judge votes for the penalty, 2 against -> 1/3 * 5points penalty = -1,66 penalty? You haven't mentioned that by any way.

4.) Furthermore i think this penalty is absolutely superfluous! You as judges have any power you need to deduct score from level design if a level feels to boring, tedious, repetitive or simply too long for you. Especially for having a range of 60 points in total you can scale quite precisely here. With this penalty the length of a level objectively shuoldn't be a subject of judging for the overall score of 100 points, because if you already get you fixed 5 point penalty and then you also deduct points at the overall score you'd punish the designer twice, which seems kinda unfair to me.

► Instead I'd rather make this 5 minute playthrough rule more a "fair warning" and that you consider deducting points from level design if a level exceeds this length too much. Yet every judge can judge him-/herself when his 5 mins of patience are over. As stated in my tl;dr i think this is very inconsiderate right now and demotivates me so much from participating.

End of statement. Hope, I made my concerns clear to y'all. If anyone decided to read this as a whole, let me know what you think. Thanks for your time!

edit: fixed a typo and linked the YT vids








oh yes i am going to slay this contest
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Does it have to be a timer? Because I removed the status bar and the timer is not visible.
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)
----------
By the way my Youtube channel
I know I don't have a chance of winning, but I hope I, at least, get somewhere in the middle.

@OEO6, From past contests, there didn't have to be a timer so I assume since it's a chocolate ice cream cone level, you don't need one.
i updated my os recently and apparently even the latest version of snes9x isn't compatible with it. looks like i probably won't be gracing this contest with my presence this time, sorry guys :( i will try retroarch to see if that works though
I’ll be making 2 levels of CLDC 2020 without Overworld.
My released ROM hack: Yoshi Saves Summer Vacation

Should we create a subforum for this contest? VLDC has a subforum, so why this doesn't have one?
-------------
My hacks:
Bowser's Castle (finished)
Bowser's Castle 2 (finished)
Super Mario World - Mushroom Revolution (Work in progress)
Layout by Koopster

OLD - Level Design