Posts by Doctor No

72hoKaizo #1 Results

It took three days to make the levels (sshhh, let's just say it did), and about 2.5 weeks to judge them, but we've arrived at the results for the first-ever 72 Hours of Kaizo contest. Massive thanks to our judges Atari2.0, snoruntpyro and Sariel, who will be blessed with this piece of SMWC profile content:



Out of our 56 entries, we had 6 disqualifications, which means 50 creators will be receiving this brand-new participant trophy:



And now the good stuff. Like the scholars we are, we go to the hundredth of a point.

Firstly, 10th-4th place. Or, rather: 10th, 4th, and a rack of ties:


3rd Place goes to

Dogemaster - Classic Rock - 44.00

2nd Place recipient

FrozenQuills - DINOSAUR CLIPPINGS - 47.33

1st Place, and a glowing piece of our radical rock this sweet new trophy, goes to:

Gbreeze - Unusual Bug Spray - 49.00

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, we did have six disqualifications:



HECK YEAH ALL THE SCORES

and here are the judges' individual scores and comments for each level:
Atari's spreadsheet
Sariel's Spreadsheet
snoruntpyro's scores and comments


Thank you all for making this first 72hoK a fun one, and see you soon-ish for more stuff like this!

Now if you'll excuse us, we need a nap.

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I'm not a doctor.

RHR is working on our own calendar of things, including BadLDC2, but we'll make those announcements on our end and not here.

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lx5 using their laziness to create a brand new dynamic sprite system

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Perhaps what we most needed was a kick in our complacency.

We’ve learned a lot from the past two kaizo contests we’ve run, and the community feedback has been incredibly appreciated and helpful.

The overarching goal is the same: make a kaizo level beatable without tools.

This year, we’ve taken what you’ve told us and made a couple tweaks to our format, in the hopes of providing the best possible showcase to highlight and properly review everyone’s work.

It’s time for KLDC 2021. Let’s see what you can do in six weeks.

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Requirements

Your submission must have infinite lives enabled.

Beyond this, all custom graphics, sprites, music, and any additional patches (including SA-1) are fair game.

I hear you asking yourself, and the answer is yes. This means your level does not need fast retry.

Be aware if any patches affect emulator and/or console compatibility and include that info in your submission. For example, SA-1 is currently not console compatible for a jailbroken Super NT, which some of our judges may use. This will not affect your score, but will make life much easier for our judges.

Optional Baseroms

For those looking for something to get started, or for creators who aren’t sure what QoL patches are used for kaizo, we have a couple baseroms for you to choose from. Both of these have been the base for several recent full hacks and individual levels.

RHR Baserom
2017 KLDC Baserom

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Rules

Original levels only.

Do not submit a level that has been included in any past races, compilations, or accepted/pending/rejected hack submissions to SMW Central.

One entry per person.

You can work with a partner, but an individual is limited to one entry. You can't enter both a level on your own and one with a partner.

Submissions must be reasonably beatable without the use of tools.

Glitches are permissible, provided it is clear to the player what the intended strategy is and the glitch is reliably executable without savestates. Judges will have the final authority to determine whether a level exceeds a reasonable demand of the player as it relates to difficulty, and any such decision will be made unanimously.

No more than two exits per entry.

If you have a second exit, it also must be beatable without savestating. All levels will multiple exits must explicitly say so in their submission in order to ensure both exits are judged.

All levels must be beatable within 500 in-game seconds from start of level to exit.

Levels with multiple exits should ensure each exit is within the time-limit. If a level features two exits and one falls outside of the time limit, only the exit under the time limit will be judged.

Levels must be compatible with the most recent, stable versions of both bsnes and SNES9x.

The platforms judges will be playing on include: flash cart on original console, jailbroken Super NT, and emulator. Creators that utilize SA-1 are encouraged to say so in their submission.

Please anonymize your submissions.

It’s not the end of the world if you don’t, but we greatly prefer for judges to be blind to the author of each entry for the sake of transparency and to avoid all possible bias.

THE FOLLOWING WILL RESULT IN DISQUALIFICATION:

•  Posting a ROM as part of your submission
•  Posting an .ips patch instead of a .bps patch
•  Posting a corrupt patch file
•  Submitting a level that is not compatible with bsnes and SNES9x.
•  Submitting a level in bad faith  either by being blatantly loweffort or a level that seeks to troll the judges rather than exist on its own merits
•  Submitting a level that is not reasonably beatable without tools
•  Not enabling infinite lives
•  Including content within the level that violates the rules of SMWCentral

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Playtesting

This year, to help connect creators to people who can help test and improve their submissions, we will be featuring Playtesters-in-Residence. These people are highly skilled kaizo players and experienced in providing advice and feedback to creators of all skill levels, and have volunteered to work with any creator who wishes to have someone play their KLDC work-in-progress.

• JonM (f.k.a. CNaught) (JonM#6537)
• MarcyAugust (MarcyAugust#8008)
• SJ_and_CharlieTheCat (SJ_and_CharlieTheCat#6992)
• SQL_Infection (SQL_Infection#2527)

To arrange for one of our resident testers to play your level, contact them directly. Additionally, you are free to use your own playtesters - we are just providing resident options for those who can not or do not wish to find their own testers.

Note: These playtesters may choose to stream their testing. Judges are aware of these testers and will not be viewing these testing streams, and individual testers will work with you on your schedule and desire to have your submission streamed.

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How To Submit

You must submit your entry as an unlocked .bps file, created in FLIPS off of a clean SMW copy. Submitting an .ips file will result in disqualification! You can put your .bps file in a .zip or 7zip archive if you want.

Upload it to your personal File Bin on the site (click on Files in the SMWC site menu), then link to the file in this thread. If you edit your level, edit your original post double posts will get deleted.

You can talk about your level in the contest subforum and on the Discord server, but in order for it to count, it needs to be linked here in this thread.

All levels must be posted to this thread by 17:59:59 UTC Sunday, March 21.

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Judging

This year, KLDC will have four judges: Thirdwall, SuperMargot, Cartesius, and GlitchCat7

Judges will use the following 100-point scale and criteria:

55: Level Design
Is your level well constructed as a kaizo: light level?
Does the level accomplish what the aesthetics and creativity attempt to convey?
Is it both challenging and rewarding to play?

35: Creativity
Does the level bring something new to the world of kaizo design?
Did the level use new or existing resources in a way that creates a unique experience?
Will others use this level as inspiration for their own creation?

10: Aesthetics
Do the graphics and music enhance the gameplay experience?
Does the level look and feel complete?
For the purpose of this contest, the judges have determined that a score of 5/10 will represent purely vanilla aesthetics.

Each judge will do their evaluations separately and confidentially judges who livestream their evaluation playthroughs will not confer on scores nor reveal their scoring until results are announced. Final results will be generated from the average of all judges scores.

All entrants will get a lovely trophy, with the Top 3 entries receiving a special trophy and special prizes.*

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Please feel free to ask questions in the Discussion thread as well as the dedicated contest channels on the SMWC Discord server.

Engage.

*The special prize is video games.

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I'm not a doctor.

This thread is for open discussion about KLDC as a whole. Please feel free to create your own thread in this sub-forum for discussion of your own individual entry.

Judges will not be here to see your sharing of levels and resources. They will be able to see the #KLDC-Discussion channel on Discord, so limit sharing information about your entries there.

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If you are looking for a quick and easy way to enable infinite lives, use this hex edit:

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The time limit is timer-independent. You can set your timer to FFF, set it to 500, kill it altogether if you want, but there will still be an enforcement of a 500 SMW-second/333 actual second limit.

That will be enforced by the judges in their playthrough, but we also will be working to make clear videos of each entry so that it's pretty cut and dry what the playtime of a level is.

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The timer applies to clearing the level, not to the entire process of learning and then beating it. If your level takes more than 500 SMW seconds to beat in one life, assuming you are progressing as intending and not intentionally stalling, it's too long by our contest rules. If it takes a judge 20 minutes to go from first play to clear, that's fine.

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Some entrants use the overworld as a way to reinforce the overall aesthetics of their entry, but it's just that - window dressing. The only thing judges will score is your level, not your intro screen or overworld. Many entries just use the vanilla intro screen and the bare minimum of an overworld and score very highly.

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The only thing that will be judged is the level itself. Everything else (overworld, credits, easter eggs, title screen) is up to you to add as you see fit but will not affect your score.

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ONE WEEK REMAINS.

As we wrap up, a request from the team putting together the judging and contest logistics:

We are planning on having clear videos for each of the levels made following the submission period in order to help the judges, as well as to better showcase all of the entries once the contest is past. However, that's a lot of work!

If you or your testers have a clear video of your submission and are willing to share it, it would be most appreciated!

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Either that, adding it to a thread in the subforum, or dm'ing it to me will get the job done.

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Awesome, and extra thanks for the clear video!

Don't forget to officially reply to the main submission thread before the deadline in order to enter before the deadline passes.

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Now that the submission deadline is closed, it's time to see everyone's work!

Thanks to the efforts of many of the creators, as well as volunteers such as Shoujo, tjb0607 and iIIustrious, a clear video has been made for each of the KLDC entries we have confirmed to be RTA-clearable. These videos, as well as direct links to all of the patches and a bulk patch download, can be found on the Kaizo Wiki:

View the entries and clear videos here!

Additionally, a highlight reel of all of the clear videos was clipped together and set to some funky jams. Think of it like a skate video, except with more item abuse.

View the 2021 KLDC Level Showcase

Updated 4/11: Edited to reflect receipt of all videos, post level showcase and close thread.