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The 10th Annual Vanilla Level Design Contest - Results

Originally posted by Noivern
To be honest I don't remember which exit was which. I meant the exit where you fall and finish the level with 1 time left.

Regardless I didn't take off any points for that because of the absurdity it would take to get to that point. That was simply a note.

Yeah, that's the normal exit. And, since you didn't deduct points for that, it's fine.
148th, ouch. Well, that should be good enough to stay out of the worst world, hopefully.

The idea for my level, Pipe Trap, came from a level in VIP5 which sort of has the same gimmick (entering pipes sends you backwards), and also a Mario Gives Up 2 level with fake keyholes. I wanted to expand on that concept, setting up situations that would cause a player to enter a pipe and get sent back, unless they stay on their toes. The execution could have been much better, I guess.

Also, about the secret exit. I actually did add a couple of hints pointing towards the real exit, though obviously they weren't clear enough, or maybe the false exits I added made the hints suspect.

1) The level has an arrow sign every one or two screens in the first two-thirds. The last one appears just before the secret exit.

2) The landform to the right of the secret exit sort of looks like an arrow pointing to the pipe (an idea taken from the MGU2 level.)


71st. I got mostly positive feedback and constructive criticism, thanks judges!
But i still can't get over the fact that this has only been the primary reason for me joining this website (so far). I still feel kinda bad about that...
YouTube - Tumblr - Bluesky
I didn't expect to get 29th with my terrible level.
I don't understand how I thought that having multiple gimmicks in a level could work. Also why I wanted to use something other than coins as indicators.
Also this was based on my unfinished VLDC8 entry's idea. The idea however wasn't as good as I thought it was.

Should probably make a good level for once.

Conveyor platforms are going to remain a mystery though.
Unless you actually put some effort and check out how they are placed in my level, I'm not going to mind that at all.

Check out Team Hack Fix/Translations' thread full of fixed and translated SMW hacks!

Wanted Permabanned or Dead by new staff team
When I saw "VLDCX results are out!", I immediatelly began to panic, thinking "oh no, what if I end up getting dead last again". Turns out, I got 57th! #tb{^V^} It's about the place I was hoping for anyway.

I knew since the beginning that the core mechanic was going to be too awkward to get much higher than this, partly due to technical limitations, and partly due to my inexperience with SMW hacking. That specific layer 2 behavior is not really meant for lava stages, but I still think I managed to integrate it quite well all things considered. With some more tinkering, this mechanic probably could be improved much more.

I tried to make the level easier (in a few different ways) but overall it stayed quite difficult. Sorry for the potential frustration to anyone! (hopefully the conclusion made up for it)

Regarding powerups, there's actually an easy flower that you can get near the beginning with the climbing nets, but I'll agree that some sections could use an extra powerup (or at least, some of the hidden ones could've been made less hidden).

Originally posted by Noivern
It's also annoying that the first powerup can be a trap if the bottom lava isn't scrolled down enough, especially considering a first time player might not even know the lava is there at that point.

The lava that appears two seconds into the level, in a path where there's an arrow pointing the other way? Well...I guess I can see this happening since, right near the beginning, a person probably wouldn't know how the mechanic worked, and they might also expect a horizontal level and not a vertical one.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
I think the idea was that you'd need to hurry and bring the throw block down to the P-switch ledge before it poofs out of existence, but you can either bring the Koopa shell down from about, or simply P on it after you've released the switch from its own block.

I believed that most people would use the P-switch to get the feather. The throw block was an added bonus in case someone was willing to go the distance.

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
Second half seems a bit phoned in.

The idea was that, the blue path is longer and needs to be done quickly in one run, while the silver path is more difficult in general, but it's shorter. I figured, making the level even longer or more difficult would only annoy more people (and I put the dragon coins there for those who wanted a bit more challenge out of the level). I didn't realize I made the blue path that much different compared to the rest of the level, my bad.
166th place? Now I'm a little depressed.

I really didn't thought that it will be that bad level. I got spoiled by lolyoshi feedback on the stream. When I saw Torchkas score of 44/100, then I was sure I will avoid worst 10. But he dropped from judging. Now that I see other 3 judges hated my entry from the bottom of their heart, it affected me much more than I suspected. I feel bad.

Regarding is this entry a joke or not. It's not. I tried my best, but I failed.

Regarding tutorials. I have checked FAQ, it was helpful, but some info there was for more advanced players or lacked a lot of information. As for tutorials. Back then, they weren't in any order and they just jump on me and I just got overwhelmed. I have decided to figure things on my own. I also checked some tutorials on Youtube. But still it was very hard. And that's the result - bad level.

It's good to see that overtime has been created thread with esential tutorials. That's really helpful.

Though it would be even better to have a tutorial about vanishing sprites or coins (including Dragon Coins). All my test levels have that problem (aside of aestethic problem which I still work on). Teoretically, I could have ability to put 10 sprites on 1 screen but some sprites vanish.I have tried to share this number of sprites between 2 or 3 screens and sometimes it works and sometimes don't. I searched Tutorial thread and Old Tutorials thread with no result. I tried to search SMW Hacking thread but that's too much pages of threads. And there is no SEARCH option on this forum. So I used Google search and it tells me to change sprite mode to 12 which doesn't work. I tried other modes. Nothing works.

It also doesn't help that recommendable emulator Snes9x crashes after 15 minutes every time. And stable Zsnesw is discouraged to use.

Sigh...

Sorry. No more excuses.

I wanted to thank Vitor Vilela for organising this fantastic contest and idol for continuing his (Vitor Vilela's) work and making results to happen.

I wanted to thank all judges, even these that dropped, for the time they spend on judging and sacrificed their sanity.

I wanted to thank everyone who participated. And to congratulate everyone who scored better than me (that's almost everyone). Especially the biggest congratulations to the winners (you really deserve that) and the guys who scored barely better than me.

Congratulations and see ya next VLDC someday.
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN-
It didn't help that I was literally here for less than 6 months before the contest

My level might possibly be better for the next vldc if there is one

asm coding time
My current(?) hack (outdated, possibly)
I scored higher than ~100 people so I'm not too disappointed with the score I got
111th, meh I'll take it, considering how little effort I put into it.
138th, huh. Better than nothing, and in the end I can't really complain about the judgement, cuz it's aaaall pretty apt.

Congrats to the top placers, as well.
Did you bring a light?
...No...
thank god I won
wow I didn't expect to rank 25th with the level I rushed 3 days before the deadline nice

congrats to the others who participated, don't get sad because you ranked low, focus instead of what the judges had to say about your level

speaking of which congrats to the judges as well for pulling it through 200 levels, I couldn't even understand how you guys that were left didn't break down from the sheer amount of work. simmering through these must have been hell on earth
Well done everyone!
68th place? Not bad.
Perhaps i should improve more in the next VLDC.
Shoot! I forgot to enter! good job to the top 3, I'll try to enter next year. I'll enter other contests in the meantime. I wonder if they will combine all the entries into one like they have been doing?
Originally posted by SMW Hacker 123
Shoot! I forgot to enter! good job to the top 3, I'll try to enter next year. I'll enter other contests in the meantime. I wonder if they will combine all the entries into one like they have been doing?

A best-of compilation (Top 60) is in the works, due to the high amount of entries this year.
HackPortsASM"Uploader"

Ah, the results are in! I might be a bit late but im still happy with the results (55) considiring it was my first level on this website.

If I had more time I would propably be more active here but I guess I'll just lurk and see if I can participate in any other contests or events.

Congratulations to all the winners and everyone who participated!

Originally posted by lion
A best-of compilation (Top 60) is in the works, due to the high amount of entries this year.


It's going to be a top 60 compilation? I was expecting a top 20 from what I read. Well in that case im even more happy with my results.
Thanks for fixing my score/placement. Turns out I really did make the top 50%.

Still doesn't look like I'll be included in bast-of hack though, though I've already begun to work on my level for the next VLDC with the goal of making it into the hack (assuming it will be another best-of hack).