Language…
17 users online: asterkafton, ClaireChan, crocodileman94, DanMario24YT, Gamet2004, h4shcat, Hayashi Neru, Jaiden, LightAligns, MorrieTheMagpie, Rhubarb44230,  Segment1Zone2, ShadowMistressYuko, signature_steve, simon.caio,  Tahixham,  zuccha - Guests: 263 - Bots: 348
Users: 64,795 (2,378 active)
Latest user: mathew

24hoSMW #13 - Discussion

OLD - Level Design

I was so tempted to ramble about how vague the term "light" was when it came to creativity, but... the entries made me surprised. #smrpg{:D}
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Originally posted by xfix
Meanwhile, this contest had "light" as a theme, which I think was a bit too restrictive. To do pretty much anything other than everybody's favorite flashlight and Blackout Basement gimmicks (which pretty much nobody knows how to use correctly) you pretty much needed custom ASM, and in many cases it had to be written specifically for the contest. Well, okay, I guess low gravity gimmicks are rather simple to implement without ASM knowledge, but that's about it.

I initially had this concern too, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. Of the entries I've gotten through so far (13* as of writing this), nearly every level has utilized the theme in some very different way from the others, and in some implementations that I never would have seen coming. Granted, of those 13, one of them was a somewhat loose connection to the theme (which is admittedly very subjective, and if a level's creative enough in other areas then it'll more than make up for that anyway), and one of them didn't have anything to do with the theme at all (they didn't include a TXT explaining it), but the rest were all incredibly varied. Keep in mind, you could use any definition of the word "light" you wanted, and a quick Google search for the list of definitions of the word meant you have a ton of possible interpretations. Unless an onslaught of repetitive levels awaits me later, I'm so far convinced that this was a really good theme.


Also, I'm putting live status updates in my custom title so that you guys know how close I am to being completed at any given time. Yep.



* Note: These 13 aren't the first 13 entries that were submitted or anything like that, I'm playing in the order of the randomized ZIP file that the judges got, so no one could possibly know which levels I'm talking about here!!
Twitter
The handomest people in the world are ones who follow my Twitch
I did my own fan judging of all the levels (my sleep schedule is obliterated so I did these for most of last night). You can read my reviews here. Pretty good batch of levels overall.
EDIT: Updated since I messed up the link originally
Check out my WIP romhack!
Originally posted by xfix
First, I feel like giving 20% of points for aesthetics is a bit much for 24 hour contest. VLDC only gives 10% of points for aesthetics. I think there is too much focus on aesthetics, especially considering within 24 hours there isn't really much time to polish entries.

I don't agree up to this point. The level will always end up being pretty rough anyway. Design is pretty tough to work with, especially if you have barely any time to have someone test your entry for you. If aesthetics are your strong point, they can save your level's score if you're not fully satisfied with design. In fact, you can miss some things you knew about, but it's quicker to judge aesthetics. You have less time to work on a level as well, so your idea and execution are less likely to be ideal to gather a high amount of points in creativity. Average scores in either design or creativity or both won't hurt your eventual note as much as in big contests.

Quote
Second, the theme. I think themes in 24hosmw are a great idea, like really. However, this was... not ideal. 24hosmw #12 had a great theme, the number four. Super Mario World itself had number four everywhere (which is fitting for the game also known as Super Mario Bros. 4). There were many, many, many ways the gimmick could be interpreted, and you didn't have to touch custom ASM.

Meanwhile, this contest had "light" as a theme, which I think was a bit too restrictive. To do pretty much anything other than everybody's favorite flashlight and Blackout Basement gimmicks (which pretty much nobody knows how to use correctly) you pretty much needed custom ASM, and in many cases it had to be written specifically for the contest. Well, okay, I guess low gravity gimmicks are rather simple to implement without ASM knowledge, but that's about it.

This theme isn't really limiting. There are many definitions of 'light' you can work with. Just google 'light' and you'll get an online dictionary page with many definitions of it. It's possible to work without ASM here as well. It's possible to make an original level around this theme without ASM, but you need inspiration. For example, I didn't use custom blocks or sprites, but I made something that's distinctive. My idea was risky, but you can place high for something bold.

Quote
Third, the timing of the contest. I was pretty much unable to participate myself due to most of contest taking place Monday in European timezone when I was in the work. I think that all 24hosmw contests should start on Saturday to make them as accessible as possible to SMWC members.

As someone who lives in Central Europe, I disagree again. Some people also work on Sunday and there are folks that study and have free Monday because they have a break. Scheduling a 24hoSMW on Saturday isn't ideal, either. People work more often on Saturday than Sunday.
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
-----
Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

Originally posted by Sancles (in the 'fan judging' document)
Design - 4/20
Creativity (Execution) - 3/10
Creativity (Theme) - 4/10
Aesthetics - 1/10
Total - 12/50
First things first, the aesthetics score is because I hate the redrawn style and think everything in this level looks terrible, could be subjective, but I stand by it. The gimmick could be interesting, but I think the light flashes too fast to let you do any cool setups where you have to hurry, the walls you have to hide behind seem placed somewhat randomly, and the design is incoherent. At least you tried to incorporate an interesting light gimmick, but this feels incredibly rushed (weird considering how early you submitted)

That's called laughing at me, and I REALLY hate this.
My level cannot have a score as low as 12/50 (=2,4/10, I've never had such a low grade in my life, even in school lol)
(Also, I just hope judges will have better ability to judge)
it's not laughing at you to rate your level low, and it's not fair to sancles to imply her judging is subpar because you got a low score. your level absolutely could have a low score, those are handed out all the time each contest.
Originally posted by idol
it's not laughing at you to rate your level low, and it's not fair to sancles to imply her judging is subpar because you got a low score. your level absolutely could have a low score, those are handed out all the time each contest.

1/10 for aesthetics is.

Some levels (particularly Stivi's and MiracleWater's) had a ranking that's too low compared to how great their level was.
80% of the entries got a grade below 25 (that's a lot, don't you think?)
Originally posted by DTA450
Originally posted by Sancles (in the 'fan judging' document)
Design - 4/20
Creativity (Execution) - 3/10
Creativity (Theme) - 4/10
Aesthetics - 1/10
Total - 12/50
First things first, the aesthetics score is because I hate the redrawn style and think everything in this level looks terrible, could be subjective, but I stand by it. The gimmick could be interesting, but I think the light flashes too fast to let you do any cool setups where you have to hurry, the walls you have to hide behind seem placed somewhat randomly, and the design is incoherent. At least you tried to incorporate an interesting light gimmick, but this feels incredibly rushed (weird considering how early you submitted)

That's called laughing at me, and I REALLY hate this.
My level cannot have a score as low as 12/50 (=2,4/10, I've never had such a low grade in my life, even in school lol)
(Also, I just hope judges will have better ability to judge)

Where are you being laughed at? Nothing in this review is mocking or making fun of you. In fact, the review seems perfectly reasonable to me. Also, why are you getting so passive-aggressive over fan judging? Sancles's reviews have no bearing on the actual results (and the same thing applies to my own reviews).
Check out my WIP romhack!
Originally posted by JupiHornet
Originally posted by DTA450
Originally posted by Sancles (in the 'fan judging' document)
Design - 4/20
Creativity (Execution) - 3/10
Creativity (Theme) - 4/10
Aesthetics - 1/10
Total - 12/50
First things first, the aesthetics score is because I hate the redrawn style and think everything in this level looks terrible, could be subjective, but I stand by it. The gimmick could be interesting, but I think the light flashes too fast to let you do any cool setups where you have to hurry, the walls you have to hide behind seem placed somewhat randomly, and the design is incoherent. At least you tried to incorporate an interesting light gimmick, but this feels incredibly rushed (weird considering how early you submitted)

That's called laughing at me, and I REALLY hate this.
My level cannot have a score as low as 12/50 (=2,4/10, I've never had such a low grade in my life, even in school lol)
(Also, I just hope judges will have better ability to judge)

Where are you being laughed at? Nothing in this review is mocking or making fun of you. In fact, the review seems perfectly reasonable to me. Also, why are you getting so passive-aggressive over fan judging? Sancles's reviews have no bearing on the actual results (and the same thing applies to my own reviews).

You could review your concepts of aggressiveness.
1/10 for aesthetics is, and most of the levels had a ranking that's too low compared to how great their level was (and 80% of the entry get less than 25).

Well, I don't want to have a ban due to my 'aggressive' behavior, so I'll stop there.
Originally posted by DTA450

1/10 for aesthetics is, and most of the levels had a ranking that's too low compared to how great their level was

As long as there are no proper guidelines for aesthetics it's always going to be pretty subjective. I recommend you to calm down though as I'm sure Sancles didn't really wanted to laugh at you, she was just fan reviewing the entries and just didn't like your entry,that's all. It's not even the official judgement.
Originally posted by DTA450
You could review your concepts of aggressiveness

yeah uh, it's probably best that you do stop, you are coming off pretty rude about this.
Discuss

I bring more reactions. (Motion warning, there's some fast-moving GIFs near the bottom which I've put in collapse tags)

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES



FIREWORK FACTORY



BOOTSTRAP PARADOX



Nation Blue



The Lighthouse



Flashlight Cave



mario commits arson



Photoshoot



a glimmer of hope



THE BLINDING LIGHT



ARCTIC MOUNTAINS



Variable Floats



CROSSOVER CAVE



Neon Dreams



Molded by it



Spittin' Straight Fire



Moonlight Teleport



IN SEARCH OF LIGHT



GRAVE INTENTIONS



Castle To The Blinking



FEELING LIGHTER



Aurora Hills



Desert Sunlight



ACCELERATE


Originally posted by Rye_
(Art of Fireworks Fred)

My son... Thank you for making him look cool...
What is a Lunar Magic, and can I eat it?
I feel like this post was somewhat buried and never actually addressed by the staff/judges/etc, so I suppose I'll post my thoughts on it to give it a bump.

Originally posted by xfix
idol asked me post feedback publicly, so here we go. It may be a bit critical, but eh, may as well provide feedback about things that could be improved.

First, I feel like giving 20% of points for aesthetics is a bit much for 24 hour contest. VLDC only gives 10% of points for aesthetics. I think there is too much focus on aesthetics, especially considering within 24 hours there isn't really much time to polish entries.

I think this was mentioned multiple times after previous contests, but it has never really been remarked upon from what I understand. I won't argue that aesthetics don't have an important place in contests, and the 24hr contests are no different. But the inconsistency between various contests is something that always struck me as a bit odd (and I've seen others mention this as well). You can see for yourself just how inconsistent the scoring is across various contests.

Why is it twice as important that your level look nice in a 24hr contest than a 3 month one? Or almost twice as much in a 72hr kaizo contest than KLDC? Why is it that, of all the contests on SMWC, the VLDC's have the lowest weight in aesthetics, despite the fact that one of the most unique and honored traditions of VLDC is to create interesting tilesets out of vanilla? In my personal opinion, I think it would be beneficial to develop a consistent scoring format across contests. Scores may need to be adjusted to lower numbers (I understand that 50/50 is more ideal than 100/100 in smaller contests, while 100/100 is good in larger contests to prevent ties). However, I think having some odd numbers wouldn't be that big of a deal.

--------------------------
VLDC12 & CLDC 2020:
--------------------------
Scoring:

Design: 60 Points
Creativity: 30 Points
Aesthetics: 10 Points

Weights:

Design: 60%
Creativity: 30%
Aesthetics: 10%

--------------------
72hr Kaizo 2020:
--------------------
Scoring:

Level Design: 35
Creativity: 15
Aesthetics: 10

Weights:

Level Design: 58%
Creativity: 25%
Aesthetics: 17%

--------------
KLDC 2020:
--------------
Scoring:

Design: 60
Creativity: 20
Aesthetics: 10
Kaizo Elements: 10

Weights:

Design: 60%
Creativity: 20%
Aesthetics: 10%
Kaizo Elements: 10%

----------
24hr 13:
----------
Scoring:

Design: 20 pts
Creativity: 20 pts
Aesthetics: 10 pts

Weights:

Design: 40%
Creativity: 40%
Aesthetics: 20%

It's also interesting how many points are allocated to creativity in the 24hr contests. Is this to allow judges to allocate points for theme adherence? I think it could be broken out a bit more clearly in the rules if that was the intent. This is also nitpicky, but I noticed the "6/10 for pure vanilla" guideline was introduced in CLDC 2020 but never used again. Did the staff decide against it?

Originally posted by xfix
Second, the theme. I think themes in 24hosmw are a great idea, like really. However, this was... not ideal. 24hosmw #12 had a great theme, the number four. Super Mario World itself had number four everywhere (which is fitting for the game also known as Super Mario Bros. 4). There were many, many, many ways the gimmick could be interpreted, and you didn't have to touch custom ASM.

Meanwhile, this contest had "light" as a theme, which I think was a bit too restrictive. To do pretty much anything other than everybody's favorite flashlight and Blackout Basement gimmicks (which pretty much nobody knows how to use correctly) you pretty much needed custom ASM, and in many cases it had to be written specifically for the contest. Well, okay, I guess low gravity gimmicks are rather simple to implement without ASM knowledge, but that's about it.

I think it's important to highlight that xfix's point is not that there is a lack of potential in the theme, but that there is a lack of vanilla potential, especially compared to the last 24hr contest. However, a further issue I noticed with the theme (and to a slight degree, last year's theme) is that, in a vanilla setting, the theme slightly points to an already existing vanilla piece of the game. Sure, there will be people who come up with wildly creative implementations of the word "light", but the default will be a light/darkness gimmick. This is slightly true of four (four enemies, math platforms), but to a lesser degree, as there are multiple vanilla elements that pertain to the theme of "four". I think it would be nice if future themes were both generalized enough to allow for a variety of interpretations, but also vague enough to ensure that there isn't a single obvious vanilla interpretation associated with it. For example, something like "make a level based on your favorite movie" wouldn't result in very much gimmick overlap between levels.

Originally posted by xfix
Third, the timing of the contest. I was pretty much unable to participate myself due to most of contest taking place Monday in European timezone when I was in the work. I think that all 24hosmw contests should start on Saturday to make them as accessible as possible to SMWC members.

Not much to say about this point. I think it's a good point. Though that being said, there will never be a day that works for everyone unfortunately. Maybe mixing 24hr and 48hr contests together in the future would help?
@ Gbreeze I think the idea of having a consistent rubric across all contests is a good one. I've looked through a lot of the contests on here and I think having scores out of 50 or 100 makes sense, but then there are some contests that had scores out of 60 and even 120??? I've always found that really strange.

Originally posted by Sancles

Pretty big difference between even just our scores; makes me excited to see what the actual judges think.
Check out my WIP romhack!
NOTE: These are my own thoughts on the matter and do not reflect the official stance taken by the judges/staff.

Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
But the inconsistency between various contests is something that always struck me as a bit odd (and I've seen others mention this as well). You can see for yourself just how inconsistent the scoring is across various contests.

Having scoring guidelines for all the contests sounds like a good idea, and I definitely think staff should talk about some kind of standard. However, keep in mind different contests value different kinds of qualities, hence why aesthetics has less points in vanilla contests. (Which kinda makes it odd that CLDC only had 10 points in aesthetics too, but again, that's why we should have some sort of standard.)

Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
It's also interesting how many points are allocated to creativity in the 24hr contests. Is this to allow judges to allocate points for theme adherence? I think it could be broken out a bit more clearly in the rules if that was the intent.

My understanding for creativity was that it was almost entirely based on the entry's application of the contest theme. While level creativity played a factor, it was very much tied in to how the author approached the theme and applied it to their level. I think making it 20 points was good as it allows me to reward levels for really playing with the "light" idea even if the level design was lacking.

Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
This is also nitpicky, but I noticed the "6/10 for pure vanilla" guideline was introduced in CLDC 2020 but never used again. Did the staff decide against it?

I wasn't here for CLDC 2020 so I didn't know about the "pure vanilla = 6/10" rule (though I think I've said something like that before), but that is also something that would be discussed for contest scoring standards.

Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
I think it's important to highlight that xfix's point is not that there is a lack of potential in the theme, but that there is a lack of vanilla potential, especially compared to the last 24hr contest.

This is a really good point, and I don't think that was something discussed when deciding on the theme; it was more of a "what sounds cool" / "relates to the holidays" way of thinking. I definitely think in future 24-hour contests that should play a factor in planning to make sure everyone can participate.

That said, I would be surprised if there weren't enough resources on the site to make use of the light theme, even if not in the typical ways. I am not fully aware of the site's resources, so I couldn't tell you what I played so far was brand new or taken from the site, but I would be very surprised if everything I've played was made in 24 hours just for this contest.

Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
For example, something like "make a level based on your favorite movie" wouldn't result in very much gimmick overlap between levels.

I know this was just an example, but this would be an absolute nightmare to judge on theme adherence. Unless we saw the movie the user was referencing (assuming they told us, which not everyone did for this contest), we would just have to take their word for it or go off a simple synopsis from IMDB or something.

Originally posted by xfix
Third, the timing of the contest. I was pretty much unable to participate myself due to most of contest taking place Monday in European timezone when I was in the work. I think that all 24hosmw contests should start on Saturday to make them as accessible as possible to SMWC members.

Saturday would've been the 26th, which for a lot of people is a holiday (Boxing Day) or the day after a holiday (Christmas), in which case people want to unwind. While I'm sorry to hear you weren't able to participate, I think this was our best option of the ones we had. Like Gbreeze suggested, maybe we should utilize 48/72 hour contests more often?

(Also, I apologize for not responding to your post. I admittedly had a hard time understanding it, and it got buried in a bunch of spoilery discussion so I stopped checking the thread.)


On a side note, I honestly wouldn't mind trying VLDC6's style of judging again, removing scores entirely and just categorizing the levels (Favorites, Enjoyable, Ambivalent, Unfullfilling, and Not For Me, though I would swap the latter two.) So far scoring has been my least favorite part of the judging process, and I feel these categories would reflect my thoughts on the entries a lot better, like it has in my old VLDC reviews. I am curious to see how people feel about this idea.

OLD - Level Design