Impetus: Welcome back audience, I'm Impetus, here with the 3AM show for you all. As usual, we have a guest on tonight, this time, we have FrozenQuills with us, a cool customer who's been gradually gaining attention for his level design skills.
FrozenQuills: Hio~

Impetus: So uh, let's start off by thawing your quills with a icebreaker! I promice that'll be the last ice pun, just getting it out of my system.
FrozenQuills: Hahaha I don't mind too much, it's all good
Impetus: I guess it's been a while since we did the whole "How did you get started with SMW hacking" question, so let's give it a shot right now, and we can follow up later.
FrozenQuills: So a long, long time ago, I was watching ProtonJon play youtube hacks. From there once he announced that he would stop playing them, I started watching raocow in 2008 or so. Eventually I tried to try to make levels in lunar magic way back when (I wonder if my old username is still in the site? I kinda forgot what it was lol).
FrozenQuills: Anyway, I joined talkhaus at a later point to join MaGLX2, which became of the biggest SMBX contests ever with like 300 entries. I got 81st place, but I uh... magically won the mini boss contest MaFAB that came up during that contest.
FrozenQuills: Eventually I wanted to design in other engines besides SMBX, so I started hacking SMW again by joining VLDC9
FrozenQuills: And so here we are; I've been participating in quite a few contests so far, and have already gotten high places in Kaizo 2016 and CLDC 2016. As well as winning OLDC, which I totally didn't expect.
Impetus: Yeah, you came pretty close to winning in CLDC too.
FrozenQuills: It's been quite a journey but I still feel like a lurker on SMW central, hahah.
FrozenQuills: The 2nd place trophy for CLDC is super rad, btw.
FrozenQuills: And I've also started joining quite a few collab projects once I realized my potential in making levels, including JUMP 1/2 and A2XT2 for SMBX; expect some AWESOME levels out of those works ;)
Impetus: Yeah I started... uh... #collab... It's totally not dead.

Impetus: Well, follow up question: How has your level design skill and style changed as you've progressed through the years?
FrozenQuills: I don't exactly remember what it was when I first started hacking before I joined talkhaus, but it must've been your typical youtube levels. When I joined MaGLX2, I pretty much crammed as much content as I could in my entry, which was overwhelming for some of the judges, hahah. However, there were certainly some great gimmicks in there, though unfocused.
FrozenQuills: When I joined VLDC9, I thought I had a good entry, but then Frost ripped my level apart in his fan judging, which caused me to take another perspective of how I design levels. I remade it, focusing more on certain sprite setups and making obstacles become more complex as the level went on. And it got 24th, which I found to be pretty good.
FrozenQuills: But yeah, I've realized that a key thing to master in level design is to have a good difficulty curve and concise, interesting setups that are fun for the player. And mixing it up with new gimmicks or design ideas later on. There are lots of ways to do that, either by combining design ideas or taking on a new perspective of them, like I did with my OLDC entry. The moving ghost holes are both an obstacle and a way to progress, which is why I particularly enjoyed making it.
FrozenQuills: Sorry if this is a ton to take in, lol; guess this shows how passionate I could be about level design.
Impetus: To be honest, it is a pretty short response compared to the last couple of interviews. I'm sure everyone who tl;dr'd before will be kinda grateful lol.

Impetus: Anyway, keeping in the level design topic - what are your main inspirations for your level design?
FrozenQuills: Oh man, I have so many of them hahah, but worldpeace is obviously one; he's so good at coming up with good and creative design ideas that leave the player on their toes. Isocitration is another level designer I like especially for his JUMP levels, but he hasn't been active lately. As for recent inspirations, pretty much the entire JUMP 1/2 team is incredible at making good levels, lol. We help each other a lot both in the collab and in contests
Impetus: Idol said the same kind of thing and won CLDC so
Impetus: And now she's admin. I'm looking forwards to your 2018 adminship!
FrozenQuills: LOL we'll see what happens

Impetus: Next question!
Impetus: Did you listen to the SMWC podcast?
FrozenQuills: Oh I've heard of that, but I don't think I've listened to it unfortunately. I mostly lurk around the site and become more active when contests are happening.
Impetus: That's the wrong answer, you lose 2000 points.
FrozenQuills: rip
FrozenQuills: lol but seriously I can check it out later! If it means more points right? Is this another contest??? |D
Impetus: Yeah, you better check it out, if you score less than 10000 points, you die in real life.
FrozenQuills: Sounds a bit harsh, but I'll deal

Impetus: Speaking of contests, if you were to run a contest, what would your ideal one be?
FrozenQuills: LOL smwc already has so many contests. And fun fact, I actually helped judged a different level design contest for the SMBX community recently called the Super Community Contest, so I already know some of the ins and outs of running one. But if I were to run one, VLDC would be interesting... though I'm kinda overwhelmed with the amount of entries it got this year. Those poor judges.
FrozenQuills: Still, any contest that ends up featuring a collab would be cool to lead I think

Impetus: Similar question, what were your personal favourite levels from the contests you entered?
FrozenQuills: Ohohoho, great question. For VLDC9, Gloomier's Unsettling Bastion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgWXqcPF9c) was fantastic with how it used layer 2 elevators and ninjis. I also really liked ft029's entry in CLDC2016 (great ASM usage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ktb2a9yhE), Centipede's entry in Kaizo contest 2016 (net grinders + mushroom scales is great ), and snoruntpyro's entry in Kaizo contest 2017 (faaaaast water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlxS713cS9U). Lazy's and lolyoshi's entry for KLDC2017 is also one of my favorites for its awesome gimmick (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n3Vvj8Hj3k).
FrozenQuills: I tend to play a lot of the entries once a contest is finished, lol
Impetus: It's kinda bad of me but I haven't played any of those apart from FT's ;-;
Impetus: Sorry gloomy.

Impetus: Last long question before we move onto to quickfire.
Impetus: What do you think the weaknesses and room for improvement in your levels are, and what kind of things do you want to do in the future?
FrozenQuills: One of my biggest problems I had both back in MaGLX2 and VLDC9 is that my levels can be too hard/frustrating. I feel like I've improved in this regard, but managing difficulty overall is still an obstacle. In the future, I actually want to do more than just contests and release a hack I've been slowly working on. I also want to see where I can go with ASM since pretty much all of my levels so far use minimal to no ASM.

Impetus: Alright, quickfire then!
Impetus: Are you ready for quickfire, or is there anything you want to talk about first?
FrozenQuills: Yeah we can do a quickfire, lets go
Impetus: Alright, first question.
Impetus: Who is the best podcaster in the SMWC podcast?
FrozenQuills: you
FrozenQuills: I HAVENT SEEN IT SORRY
Impetus: Nice, correct answer! You gain 10000 points, and escape death.
Impetus: For today.
FrozenQuills:
Impetus: Favourite colour?
FrozenQuills: Navy blue
Impetus: Fire, water, air or earth?
FrozenQuills: Fire
FrozenQuills: (lol)
Impetus: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
FrozenQuills: 3
Impetus: What non-SMW game do you want to be popular in the romhack scene?
FrozenQuills: shoot thats a hard question but sunshine if possible
FrozenQuills: lol gamecube hacking
Impetus: Is this statement false?
FrozenQuills: Nes
Impetus: WHAT!
FrozenQuills: what
Impetus: Cats or dogs?
FrozenQuills: DOG
Impetus: What's your mutant superpower?
FrozenQuills: being one with my fursona
FrozenQuills: -shot-
Impetus: What is your fursona?
FrozenQuills: A good boy
Impetus: Who's a good boy?
FrozenQuills:
FrozenQuills: is it me
Impetus: Who will win VLDC11?
FrozenQuills: snoruntpyro
Impetus: When will SMWCP2 be released?
FrozenQuills: At the most inopportune time
Impetus: Would you rather sacrifice 100 babies, or 100 scientists?
FrozenQuills: 50 babies and 50 scientists
Impetus: What do you want your last words for the interview to be?
FrozenQuills: Thanks for having me, yo! This was a lot of fun.
Impetus: =D