VLDC9 Results - Judge comments added

i feel like i wrote entire essays in my thread compared to these judge comments d

Again, some of these scores (largely from ninjaboy and Nimono) are out of wack. Comments didn't really help. Again, this year's isn't as bad as every other year's at least, aside from certain people getting culled hard. Still surprised at the the winners, as well as GBreeze who I though was a shoe in for top 10. Also Wakana placing so high and eXcavator placing so low. A lot of scores got really hit hard by outlier scores. Don't really know how to feel about that. Is it really balanced when three people say 30s then the fourth says 50s?

Imma go through all the comments later just to compare them to mine. It's cool seeing how similar and how different my scores were compared to the real ones.

Now that I see the comments, my scores weren't really consistent... I mean Nimono gave me a 57/60 (not that I'm complaining) and Ninja Boy gave me a 31/60 :L.

I guess it's just the way the judges perceive the level, but one thing that sorta disturbed me about Ninja Boy's scoring was that he said the disappearance of Layer 3 from Yoshi really affected the way he felt about the level.

I was just wondering if this was the reason why I scored quite low on the design and/or creativity, if so, how does that affect it? Or just in general, what was awful about the level design to score a 12/30?

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My YouTube Channel
Best SMW Hacks Compilation

101st place. Not nearly what I was hoping for. I thought my level was all right this time, as well.

I also appreciate that the judges actually were nice enough to write comments. Lot less of a shitshow, as I see it.

The sad part is that my level had three main issues: the background was apparently confusing (even if I tested it out very well and everyone told me the background was fine so I don't exactly get that one), Mario consistently disappeared (which was incredibly sad because I have no idea what causes this or how to fix it), and the level was a but bland (which is what I expected to happen).

It was a strange experience. The strange part is that I expected my level to score worse in terms of design but better in terms of aesthetics and creativity. That kinda blows but this is my second level ever so I guess no matter.

No matter. Thanks for organizing the contest!

Ninja boy really needs to elaborate WAY MORE, WAY MORE, WAY MORE on the comments. All I see in the comments is a summary of the level, not reasons for docking off points.

Using Luks' level as an example here.

Design: 16
"the level was really fun to play with a nice challenge and a unique charm"

Based on the comments I would expect a 30 for design, as being fun, challenging, and unique charm is the pinnacle of design perfection.

Also the comment for S.N.N. That is just insult to injury, man. Basically "I couldn't figure out that you had to do Yoshi jumps" -> "this level probably caused trouble for everyone else too because Yoshi jumps are uncommon knowledge" -> "S.N.N. is a sadistic Yoshi-killer" -> 37/60. smh

Also gave me and Chill Pingu 26 for design. I will admit that my level was not designed to have charm or have a good difficulty. As for Chill Pingu's level getting a 26. This just makes me think he used savestates while playing through levels (he was also the only person to play through minikami's.)

I would have disagreed with this statement too since good level designs shouldn't revolve around message boxes.

S.N.N. did build the level in a way for the player to explore new skills. Super Mario 3D World does the same and it's very successful.

Even though the first part of the level doesn't clearly state that Yoshi can spring-jump on the pink triangle (I didn't know this either), an urchin is placed barricading the path. So, the player know that (s)he is required Yoshi to continue, having to explore and figure out a way to get Yoshi past that big ledge.

Some people still may not know that Yoshi can spring-jump on the pink triangle, so they try to jump on the Rip Van Fish onto the question blocks.

However, that's not bad because there isn't strictly one way to get past the big ledge, you can do the alternative. And they're still able to find out that Yoshi can spring-jump on the pink triangle, later in the one section with the Yellow Yoshi.



I guess what I'm trying to say is that just because the player can't instantly figure out what to do doesn't make the level bad, that's what puzzles are for, right?

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My YouTube Channel
Best SMW Hacks Compilation

If you watch his youtube videos he uses rewind all the time.



SMW does teach player that if you have yoshi in any level with triangle blocks(vanilla dome 4 requires it if you have yoshi in that level), hell even the manual explains it:

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I'd like to know, how are my scores "out of whack"?

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<Adam> I feel like smwc is a prostitute now, because we put up a porn ad for money

I'm not sure what did Ninja Boy mean by "Yoshi jumps": if he meant Yoshi spring-jumping on the pink triangle, Mario hopping off Yoshi, or the torpedo section.

Which ever one he's talking about, I feel like it shouldn't be penalized because it gives the player some time to explore the level, finding out new techniques and skills. Levels shouldn't be straight-forward to be "good."

I'm not asking for anything, I'm just simply stating that I disagree with some of the scoring.

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My YouTube Channel
Best SMW Hacks Compilation

See, this guy right here, he gets it. I knew my level was gonna get utterly buried in the rankings but this is pretty much verbatim the exact response I'd hoped to get out of anybody who wasn't all 'this is a vanilla contest, not a challenge contest' approximately.
(I did totally go a bit too hard though I must admit, particularly on the dragon coins.)

There were better ways to add difficulty though, adding generators is fairly easy but they don't make for particularly interesting obstacles usually. They don't stay for more than a few screens, either, so yeah I feel they were really out of place overall. I'd rather see you do something unique with the sprites/blocks you had in the level.



There's not much I can do about that :v

That you made a level not suitable for VLDC and is proud of it?