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Hunting for Bolds [7/FINAL] |
Posted by: Ihavenoname248 - 29-Mar-2015, 10:18 PM - Forum: Blog Station
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Now You See It: J.B. said this would would be really hellish in Lynx, so after making a notated map I attempted it there first. Took 3 tries, then 1 to match the 906 in MS. The map I used replaced all wall/floor equivalents with wall and floor tiles, then marked the path to the exit with dirt. Paths to chips had gravel, dead ends were marked with a single trap at the entrance. I also had recessed walls for the fork to take second, but these were obsoleted by the dirt/gravel notation.
Skipped ahead to Perfect Match at this point because the solution I had was 964 and I was missing something. That something turned out to be the additional clone and kill to block the fireball stream earlier. I scored 968 on the 2nd attempt. In Lynx, it only transfers as a 965...but the trick to 966 is really neat and feels good to execute.
Paranoia: At first, I thought the boosting was 4 ice tiles, so I could drop 1 boost and just spring slide to not waste any time. Unfortunately, it was actually 5-but fortunately, I could do it every time! I forgot to wait at the paramecia once, but beyond that this was a fairly easy bold to score.
Catacombs: 1/455 shot. I've had worse. (on later calculation & anecdotal evidence, it's more like 1/655.)
3 minutes later, I had 379.8. Reason for the lost move? Being sent left at the first RFF and overriding right. Ah well, going in 379 was what I was going to go for, due to having to head off to class soon anyway. But with how quickly and painlessly that came, I knew in the hour between classes, this would be the goal.
Unfortunately the luck was not on my side, though I did reach the final RFF 3 times. Amusingly the second RFF moved the block where Chip was supposed to go and Chip where the block was supposed to go 6 times in a row! After arriving at home, I spent another hour and a half on it-still without success.
A couple days later I spent a half hour working on it again, got nowhere, hopped in a call with Zorasknight, got it 17 minutes later. Pretty convincing anecdotal evidence towards RNG-based CC levels playing nice while I'm in a call with an Ape Escape speedrunner. Unfortunately LUNiT had to go kill this plan to score luck based bolds before it could begin...
Colony: It took me more time to note down room directions than to score. For completions' sake, here are the notes I used (an * denotes skipping the chip in the room).
DLUL* DULLL DLUL DDDR*
DULUR RRURD RRRLD DLD*
RLURR DDL* DRLU LDUL*
DU* L* UDRUUL LDDDR LD FINISH
I used FINISH because at that point, the remainder of the path is obvious.
Apartment: Watched the route once, wrote down directions as above, scored it in one try.
Icehouse: See above, but without notes and 2 tries to execute. The first attempt forgot to take the ice path to the red lock area.
Memory: I expected this one to take a few tries, but like Colony, encoding the route correctly resulted in a quick execution of the route: actually first try!
LU U*R D LLL U*LD D*R R
LL*UUR*L L D*D*ULD L RURD*ULL*R
U L U*R U*L U*R L*DR*DL*DRDL*RR*URRU*D*R
U U*DR*R U L RU*U LL R*RU*L L RR*DL*RD*DDL*LU*DDL*UU
UR LU D*DL D*L*U RU U*U R LD*DDLU*U*L D L RUL
Every directional input was which direction I needed to leave the room from. An * meant hitting the button in the room was required. Every space was used as a separator for chips, allowing me to remember when I was supposed to pick certain chips up. I still messed up and grabbed a chip early, but played the rest perfectly and still got the 488.
Jailer: I had to wait in the northwest for 2 moves, which fortunately is allowed by the route. Aside from forgetting where to go after the 2 chips on the right wall once, this was an easy route.
Short Circuit: I expected this to be an easy first try bold, but my first attempt came up 1 second short. My second attempt turned the wrong way with 7 chips left, and my third got it despite seeming the same as my first.
Kablam: This one proved rather boring. Thankfully, I got it first try.
Balls O Fire: Took 2 tries. I forgot what to do on the first and got 258.
Block Out: I repeatedly messed up the ball section at the bottom, mostly because I watched the AVI once and went "alright I know how to do this, let me do it real quick before homework". 10 minutes later, I had bold but was in no mood for homework, so I pressed on to...
Torturechamber: ...a dumb idea. My very first attempt forgot to wait at the last chip, and then I could not do the boosting right. After another 5 minutes, in which I died at the last chip another 3 or 4 times, I finally remembered to wait...and then waited too long. Thankfully, the next attempt got the 133.
Blah blah blah CCLP1 public routes blah blah blah Cineworld sucks blah blah blah public half of CCLP3 for 76 bolds & 6,000,000 points blah blah blah tried Block Buster a bit and the first 2 seconds didn't work repeatedly because half waits. Specifically, my down input is ignored half the time and the other half the time my second right input was ignored. Have I mentioned I hate half waits? I'll try this again after other routes with them. I took a 387 with "fast" green key, though I messed up and cloned extra blocks.
Chiller: A route that was both surprisingly difficult and surprisingly simple. At first, I had trouble remembering what to do, but after following the top row block once (and playing the rest out to be 274) I had very little difficulty remembering what to do.
Time Lapse: Boosted wrong, [963].
Open Question: I've gotten better at dodging levels. Specifically, playing my own level "Amorphous" (currently unreleased, but will probably be in a demo of sorts for UC5, yes, that exists, fairly soon). Said level has lots of pink ball dodging in similar patterns to this level, and block pushing through it. I watched the public TWS route for the general route between chips, and scored 462 in one attempt following.
Deception: Watched once, played once, made a mistake, still got bold. This keeps happening now: I've noticed I have a lot less difficulty remembering longer or more involved routes than I did when I started out. I had trouble remembering the sequence of actions for Iceberg before, but now I can remember the entirety of things like Paranoia easily, and for routes like Colony and Memory I can encode the route in such a way so that I can reference while playing and easily score bold.
Oversea Delivery: hahahahahahahahaha later. Even after that spiel this route is still a little too involved and a little too execution heavy for the moment. It does allow 2 mistakes, but remembering the route and then having to execute...I'll definitely be back later.
Block Buster II: Oh, you again. I don't like you. I was able to get the first half down pretty quickly and reliably, but, again, the half waits refused to cooperate. After a dozen successful first halves, I finally got the 1st 2 half waits...and realized I didn't know what to do after that. An hour or so later, I was getting the first half 25% of the time, and the first half wait about half the time. However, I still couldn't get the slide delay shenanigans right, with my best attempt moving up after 'button 6' instead of half wait DL. My hand had slowed down at this point and I could no longer get the boosting in the first half, so I took a break and moved on.
The Marsh: It took me a couple tries to remember the block pushing at the end, but it was easy.
Miss Direction: First try, bad boosting at the end . On checking my Partial Post decimal with the command line -t, I found out that this was a -.9.
Slide Step: With my hand still not fully back up to speed, I knew this would pose an interesting challenge. I watched the route in the public TWS, and scored 208 on the first attempt. That wasn't too bad, 210 should be easy, right? A couple restarts later, 209 with mistakes in the bugs. A few tries later, I oofed twice after the bugs, but played the lower half perfectly to score 210.
Alphabet Soup got a skip for now: untimed, non-public bold. I'll look for it eventually.
Totally Fair: Took a few tries to manipulate the tooth monster correctly, but it was a simple enough level.
The Prisoner: It took me the longest time to direct the fireball into the bomb, and then I kept mis-ordering the rest of the 'prison'. When I finally escaped, I forget to take the ice slides as a shortcut, scored 271, but scored 272 immediately after. Fun fact: at this point I was missing more untimed CC1 bolds than timed CC1 bolds!
Tried Block Buster II a bit more. Decided to do an easier route if I dropped any boosts in the beginning. Ended up with 693. Another hour of attempting later, I forgot to wait before following the final block and ended up with a 713. Since it was now 2 AM, I let the time sit there for the night.
Firetrap: I watched the route once, thought I had it down but when I went to score it, I kept making small mistakes. Forgetting to get the red key, forgetting to get the blue key, forgetting there's a wait before pushing the block onto the fire, forgetting to wait for the tank before the fireboots, forgetting where to go after the ice corner hit after the fireboots...after about 15 minutes I had the 667, though, without having to reference the route again.
Block N Roll: SKIP
SKIPSKIPSKIPSKIPSKIPSKIP
NO WALKERS RIGHT NOW, NO THANK YOU
All Full: As a kid this was one of my favorite levels. Scored bold on the 2nd attempt, because the first took the ice slide and cloned a bug.
Ice Cube: 2 attempts, going off the directions on the wiki. The first misinterpreted (2R) to be right, right, backtrack instead of right, right, left, left. I clarified the notation and scored 933 on the 2nd try.
Totally Unfair: Made the mistake of setting odd step first attempt, bold on the second. Common theme, that is.
Recommended listening music for the remainder of this post:
. This is what I was listening to during everything from Mix Up onwards.
Mix Up: I expected this to be a torturous endeavour, and I was not mistaken. However, I expected the reason to be remembering the 5+ minute sokoban route, not execution mistakes outside of the boosting! My first few attempts at the level were with heavy pausing, alternating between gameplay and the public TWS every block. In the bomb room, though, there would be stretches of gameplay only 7 moves long-that room was complicated! The farthest one of these pause attempts went was 717 seconds remaining: the tooth dodging. I accidentally ran into a wall after the sideswipe, then input down left...but the down was post oof so the left input went after, stepping onto the tooth. I wasn't pleased, but get trying. At this point, I found I knew most of the route by memory, and get forgetting minor details in the bomb room. Eventually, I executed correctly to the tooth room again, with 3 or 4 pauses to catch my place in the route, and dodged the tooth monster right! After taking the chip, I paused again and checked the TWS to make sure I wouldn't lose this attempt. The boosting went perfectly...and then I spaced out and didn't move for 2 moves in the bug room. 682.8, I pulled a Spiral (Andrew Bennett's Spiral route in the CCLP3 public TWS was a 395.8, with a move lost after picking up the final chip). I was actually somewhat angry, now, but kept going, determined to pull off a 683 without pausing. 2 attempts at the bomb room later, I messed up the boosting at the end and lost 1 move but that was still good enough to score 683. I can safely say that's one of the most difficult bolds I've ever scored, as the next longest route I've executed correctly is (I believe) Metal Harbor Lynx, at 208 seconds, though Seeing Stars at 203 MS seconds is longer. This comes in at 316 seconds: the longest timed route in CC1!
Blobdance, Pain, Doublemaze: hahahahanope, hahahahahahahafinemaybelater, hahahahahahahahahahahahahanotachanceidon'tevenhaveH2Oyet.
Goldkey: Forgot to tap up 3 times at the end of the force floor area, forgot where to go after the northwest, 392. That's one forgiving route.
Partial Post: After attempting to remember after a single watch, and failing horribly, I fell back on the old standby: notes.
Teleport x5
Feed 3 blocks in up
Adjacent block in, swing around DOWN UDUD
Loop around, stagger 3, swing around UP DUD
Next in, swing around UP DUD
Straight shot, swing around DOWN UD
Clear the bottom, swing around UP DU
Closest in, swing around D U
Closest in, swing around D U
Stagger 2, left and feed down, feed left
Bottom block left 3, middle left 3, bottom down 1, topleft left all the way
Set up post, feed 2 down and slide 3 in front
Swing around to the left, then the top
Partial Post 2, then D(LU)R
The first attempt with notes scored 237. Many, many attempts of ignored inputs later, I had what I thought was perfect, but it turned out to be a 239.6, 2 moves lost. A few attempts later, I realized I had lost a spring slide on the DUDĀ® stretch and another on a R(DL)U(UU). It didn't take too much longer after that to score the bold.
Yorkhouse: New day, new attitude towards random elements. How bad could it be? Well, I made some dumb execution mistakes but still scored a 919 on the 3rd attempt. When going for 920, though, everything seemed to go wrong. The first 2 walkers seemed to strike 50% of the time apiece, but surviving them would guarantee passage to the right side of the level. The next 2 walkers were murderous, though, and I died many times with 143 chips remaining. Finally, I survived that walker...except the final caged walker killed me. I even had a cool reactionary route change to avoid a walker pileup, too... The next attempt died at 86 chips remaining. Next 2 long attempts died at 207 and 293, both from ridiculous collisions and forced chip takes. Then 198 releasing the right corridor walker...you get the idea. Lots of dumb unavoidable deaths. Finally, I was able to survive releasing the final walker and wasn't killed cleaning up the last chips. That was rather annoying.
Icedeath: Woohoo, boosting! Another level where I looked at the route on the wiki and executed. My first attempt clocked in at 262, and my second attempt at 262.8. This was surprisingly easy, as not 5 minutes later I had 263.2.
Underground: Notated the route onto a map of the level, took a while to score because I kept making small mistakes.
Stripes?: Made an altered map of the level with gravel and keys, scored 856 on the first attempt. 858 followed immediately after.
Fireflies: Noted down the chip orders and when to wait on an image of the map, scored bold in 2 attempts. The first forgot the 2nd wait in the southeast.
Cake Walk: Some other day I'll execute the "proper" route. Right now, I just played the level once to remove my initial time, scoring a completely improvised 681. I even made the mistake of going for the yellow key before picking up the green key!
Force Field, Mind Block: Some other time.
Special: Overboosted once to score 954, 955 next attempt.
At this point, I went back for Block N Roll and scored 432 in one attempt. The walkers played really nasty and I had to wait a lot, so I went for another attempt. That died on 436-437 pace at the last walker. And another, that got 431. Then I got 434 (stalled a bunch approaching the top...). The 4th completion was my initial goal of 437, and I'm more than satisfied with that for now. This reminds me too much of Time Suspension, but with more walkers involved. A few days after the original posting I played Cake Walk again and scored 700.
And that's it for the initial pass through CC1, aside from some untimed levels near the end. Here's the current score/bold/seconds to gain breakdown.
CC1 MS score: 5,977,020 (131 bolds), 10th place
Missing seconds:
Blobnet: 413 (-23)
Spooks: 547 (-1)
Block Buster: 387 (-15)
Block Buster II: 713 (-1)
Block N Roll: 437 (-6)
Skelzie: 453 (-1)
Cake Walk: 700 (-17)
I'm planning on picking up a 430 on Blobnet, 400+ on Block Buster if not the 402 outright, 714 on Block Buster II, 439+ on Block N Roll, 454 on Skelzie when I have access to MSCC (eventually), and a 710+ on Cake Walk. Once these are completed in the least optimistic scenario, my score would be 5,977,460, which would be enough for 5th place currently, 1 second ahead of James.
Missing untimed bolds, entirely from lack of trying: On the Rocks, Rink, Writers Block, Cityblock, Oversea Delivery, Alphabet Soup, Blobdance, Pain, Doublemaze, Force Field, Mind Block.
Of these I will probably be scoring On the Rocks, Rink, Oversea Delivery, Alphabet Soup, Force Field and Mind Block. Writer's Block and Pain, being public, I may go for eventually. Cityblock, Blobdance and Doublemaze are on the HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANOTLIKELY pile. Perhaps in a few years.
Well, I suppose next on the list is CCLP2 since there's a lot of public routes I haven't attempted there. After that, finishing up CCLP1 (gotta get that 6,005,xx0!), and then I can turn my attention towards CCLP3 and beyond! Oh and Lynx. There's a lot left to do, but rising to 10th on the CC1 MS scoreboards from having never finished the set in a little over a year? That's been fun.
- Jeffrey/IHNN
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Hurt and Heal: The worst hurt and heal yet |
Posted by: IceyLava108 - 18-Mar-2015, 4:45 PM - Forum: Games and Trivia
- Replies (5)
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Because there's not enough of these threads...
+1 for the number you want to heal, -10 for the number you want to hurt. A number will be eliminated from the round when it hits 0.
Copy and paste the latest post reply, then make your changes with +1 and -10 to your choices and numbers.
Rules - No double posting! Wait until at least two different people after you have responded minimum before you post again!
NOTE - If a number you want to give a -10 score to has only 1 remaining, the -10 vote must be shared with another number.
0 [1011] +1
1 [1010]
10 [1010]
11 [1010]
100 [1010]
101 [1010]
110 [1000] -10
111 [1010]
1000 [1010]
1001 [1010]
1010 [1010]
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Hurt and Heal - Random Levels I Remember |
Posted by: geodave - 16-Mar-2015, 7:42 PM - Forum: Games and Trivia
- Replies (3)
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+1 for the level you want to heal, -2 for the level you want to hurt. A level will be eliminated from the round when it hits 0.
Copy and paste the latest post reply, then make your changes with +1 and -2 to your choices and numbers.
Rules - No double posting! Wait until at least three different people after you have responded minimum before you post again!
NOTE - If a level you want to give a -2 score to has only 1 remaining, the -2 vote must be shared with another level.
Round 1
Excommunicated [10]
Whirlpool (J.B. Lewis) [8] -2
Xenocide [10]
Infinite Grunge [10]
The Sewer (Tyler Sontag) [11] +1
Grump Jan Swim [10]
A Puzzle (Dave Varberg) [10]
Primal Rage [10]
One Block to Rule Them All [10]
Hate This and I'll Love You [10]
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Post count error |
Posted by: Syzygy - 14-Mar-2015, 12:25 PM - Forum: Feedback
- Replies (1)
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I have noticed that my post count has not increased for about the past ten posts. Is there any way to find the actual number and fix it?
Steven
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My CC Zone Resignation |
Posted by: AdrenalinDragon - 12-Mar-2015, 7:47 PM - Forum: Announcements
- Replies (13)
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Hello Chipsters,
I've been heading down a slippery slope lately, and don't feel I am mentally "fit" enough to keep running CC Zone for much longer. My tenure for CC Zone has been 3 years, and I personally feel it is time for me to step down as Site Owner and Administrator. The site isn't going to close down. It will stay functional until I find a successor, but there seems to be a "demon" lurking inside me and the Tom who adored Chip's Challenge is no longer present.
I'm not a perfect creature. I've made mistakes, and have had a bit of a "dark" vibe inside me for quite a while. As the years have passed, the positives have diminished, which is ironic because I originally created CC Zone: The Next Level to give myself some purpose in life and cure my severe depression. It worked for the first year, but after that I haven't really been doing a good job with keeping the site functional and looking after the Chip's Challenge community effectively. I still haven't done all the "Level-Up" rankings and given out all the correct CC Zone awards to members for example.
I can't say I deserve to be forgiven for the many bad things I have done. I don't believe anyone starts evil though. I certainly didn't, but that's how I feel about things.
If you are interested in becoming the new CC Zone owner/administrator, just reply in this topic or PM me on CC Zone.
Tom P (AdrenalinDragon),
CC Zone Site Owner/Administrator
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March 2015 Create Competition - Rulings |
Posted by: M11k4 - 09-Mar-2015, 5:41 AM - Forum: Competitions
- Replies (22)
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Think you know Chip's Challenge and it's inner workings? Then this competition is for you!
For the past couple of years, the March Create Competition has been characterized by a mechanical restriction that has limited the submissions to be 'small', or 'short' or 'simple' in one way or another. While I have a cool new idea in that vein, I have decided to use that restriction next month instead (for reasons that will become clear at the time), so for this month I had to dig up something else. I almost saved this concept for May, but decided it was so intriguing that I couldn't wait to see what you all would cook up now! It's a mechanical restriction that is very wide in some sense, yet very narrow at the same time.
Your job is to create a level that is solvable in MS or Lynx, but not both. You may either make a level that works in MS but does not operate in Lynx, or the other way around. If you choose MS, you are free to use 'invalid tiles' and even 'advanced coding', though be advised that I will play the level in Tile World and will judge heavily on the game play, not how unintuitively you can build a level. If you choose Lynx, use some mechanic that is different in MS and yet is not too hard. Whichever you way you go, make the level fun! Make it so the differences in rules arise naturally and don't seem forced. I also encourage you to find something in the rule sets that simply can't be copied in the other in some way. This time I am looking for levels that are of reasonable difficulty and length (not too long), but will play anything you make. If you need an idea for a theme for your level to get started, I suggest you use some element from the latest dream you remember.
Notes:
-Submissions are open as long as it is March 2015 where you live!
-Do not make a overly difficult level. Please be considerate of not making the judge work too hard on solving your creation.
-The level must be solvable. If it isn't, an update is allowed but it does take extra effort so please play your levels before sending them.
-The level must be new; it must not have been released earlier.
-Please give the level a name, time limit and set a password.
-You may submit more than one entry, but please keep the levels distinct from each other. Your best two entries is recommended.
-Points will be deducted for late entries, but will be accepted until a notice is posted in this thread.
-Entrants receive the normal prizes: the "You're Winner!"-award, Chip Cup points, and "Tool Box"-award for first time entrants.
-Please ask about other unclear situations.
Email and attach your submissions to valeosote at hotmail dot com. I will strive to reply with a confirmation that I have received your entry.
I prefer if you use your username and this competition in the subject. Keep it short and simple, something like: "March Create - Barrack"
Let the submissions pour in!
-Miika
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Pit of 100 Tiles Developer's Commentary, part 4 (Levels 31-40) |
Posted by: ajmiam - 09-Mar-2015, 3:48 AM - Forum: Blog Station
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Level 31
"Culprit"
(CCLP1 Level 135!)
[Click to Show Content]
One design idea I always thought CC1 overlooked was using tanks to push tank buttons, thus making them constantly move back and forth like pink balls. (Yes, I know Paranoia involves tanks pushing tank buttons, but it's not a constant back-and-forth and I never got that far back then in CC1 anyway.) So, in Levelset 1, I made this Level 17 called CULPRIT (in all caps for no good reason; no, I did not name all my other levels in caps) that was basically a simple tank dodging level, similar to the middle column of the final product, where one of the tanks far from the start was pushing buttons controlling the rest of the tanks. I can't quite remember whether I was actually smart enough to make it so you couldn't stop the whole mechanism by just pressing one button while the tank hit the other....
Anyway, I liked the concept enough to bring it back in Tiles 200, where I thought of a few things to add--the long line of tanks preventing you from exiting until they're stopped, the upper-left area with the tanks arranged so you can only go through each row in one direction *coughIactuallyscrewedthatupandthere'senoughtimetogothroughbothways* and the icy tank section inspired by Think Tank's southeast corner. Oh, and I added force floors above the bottom tank so that you could only stop it using a block, not by pressing the buttons yourself. The Pit of 100 Tiles version is very similar to the Tiles 200 version. It was originally going to be Level 17 as a throwback to my first set, but I moved it to 31 since it was rather difficult for the teens.
In both the Tiles 200 and Po100T versions, I made sure to leave room at the bottom of the level for you to turn the block. Back then taking the block through the middle column of tanks was a bit of a harrowing experience for me, and it would have been even tougher if I couldn't take the block along the side walls while going through there. I'm not sure if adding the hint (saying that there's room to extract the block from the side when it reaches the bottom) was totally necessary for CCLP1, since it seems like a reasonable thing the player would assume, or at least check for, while they're getting the chips down there. Oh well, I guess as long as it helps some people, it's fine.
I'm quite pleased that the "culprit" tank was given plot relevance in CCLP1's storyline!
Level 32
"Combinations"
[Click to Show Content]
I'm always happy when I can make pure puzzles like these that don't feel like a drag to play and don't feel like a rehash of an overused concept. I got this idea from a college class called "Discrete Structures" (basically discrete math, but taught by the CS department) where we learned about Boolean logic, set theory, induction proofs, and combinatorics. The "combinations" in the title refers to the combinations of boots that you have to choose to solve the rooms. There's one room requiring each possible combination (including the no-boot combination and the all-boots combination), and there's no guesswork--each room has only one solution. (It wasn't actually too hard to build each room to have only one solution, though I had to write down the solutions on a piece of paper as I went to make sure I didn't reuse a combination.)
Note that there's a little indent into each room to allow you to see the whole thing from outside before you step on the recessed wall. I think that this level is one of the largest difficulty spikes in the set since it's rather long, can be deceptive (such as the no-boot room which may not be immediately evident), and gives zero margin for error--every boot is needed. However, since each room can be worked out individually and the overall goal of the level is pretty clear, I considered it acceptable.
Since we usually count combinations only of a specific number of items out of a specific larger set of items, maybe "Subsets" or "Power Set" would have been a more appropriate name for this level, but I didn't think of it at the time....
Level 33
"Think Outside the Block"
[Click to Show Content]
Well, I decided to make a block bridging themed level, and put it in the On the Rocks slot because reasons. The real inspiration for this level was Obstacle Course in CCLP3, which reqiured me to build a bridge from part of the level to a previous part of the level that was too far away to see in order to get more blocks to use. Well, I decided to revisit this concept but hopefully make it a bit clearer (through the name) what the player had to do. Other than that, the first two rooms are pretty random, and I'm a bit proud of the third room (the 1-block-per-item room). I guess this level could be accused of sticking a few toes over the line of the "no guesswork" design philosophy.
I'm super surprised the title wasn't taken in any of the sets I played before making this level, since it seemed like such an obvious pun....
Level 34
"Paramecium Palace"
(CCLP1 Level 107!)
[Click to Show Content]
The inspiration for this level is a very silly Levelset 1 level. It was called "Promenading Paramecia" and it involved a few instances of a bug and paramecium walking around the outside of a room in opposite directions, meeting up in the middle and walking side by side up the center, sort of like this:
I guess I imagined the para and bug dancing with each other to the tune of the MSCC music or something. Anyway, I thought it was kind of cute but not really challenging, and planned to remake it for Tiles 200. However, before I even started, I realized that there was a massive problem. Promenading Paramecia had worked when I playtested it in Levelset 1, but I had only playtested it in Lynx mode (I liked it much, much better than MS back then because animations were cool)! In MS mode, the concept would always fall apart since one of the insects would have to move first and the other would step out of line instead of following alongside. Thus, I had no choice but to scrap the concept.
But I liked the idea of a bug/paramecium couple, so I decided they could be king and queen in a palace filled with their fellow noblebugs and servants! From there came the idea of a moat filled with glider-sharks and a small "forest" of blue walls that you had to traverse for some blocks. Then I just added some rooms to the palace and some locked doors, and made the "throne" out of traps, and the level was pretty much done. The only real original concept inside the palace was the pair of "Push the block and RUN!" hallways adjoining the throne room, something that I had originally planned to make an entire level out of but never got around to doing.
Don't ask me why I used so much fire as decorative walls; I know it doesn't make a super huge amount of sense. Maybe to make the monsters seem more evil...? Anyway, I kept in a little of the old Promenading Paramecia aesthetic with the bug and paramecium that walk side by side in the lower-left room of the palace around those blue walls.
Overall, I'm very happy with how this level turned out, and quite proud of its inclusion into CCLP1. One little thin I think is weird about this level is that when I require you to walk through the fire on the left side, the bugs in that tiny room are out of your way, but in the equivalent room on the right side, you have to dodge them. Arbitrary asymmetry >_>
Level 35
"Difficulty Switch"
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This one is, as the name indicates, based on the concept of difficulty settings in games. I've always thought difficulty settings are a good idea since they add a bit of replay value and make the game accessible and interesting to a wider audience. Anyway, here I implemented difficulty settings by letting the player set the frequency at which the toggle doors and tanks switch throughout the level. The player does this by pressing a red button, which triggers some blocks to clone to knock a fireball into an alcove where it bounces between the two switches. The depressions are larger (making the switching happen slower) further away from where the fireball starts. Oddly, in my first iteration of the level, I had the red button trigger a stream of ball cloning from the right side of the passage to deflect the fireball instead, but it proved highly unreliable (especially in Lynx) and took up more space. The image below shows what it looked like:
This level is where the ice/toggle wall timing challenge I mentioned in Four Corners (Level 11) first returns, and most people seemed to dislike it here. I understand why completely. If you step towards a toggle wall, often it will be solid when you slide into it, and the wall you came from will be solid when you bounce back to it, etc. until Chip eventually lands on one side or the other. Annoying waste of time. In retrospect, I think my biggest error when designing this section was putting the toggle walls so far away that you couldn't see the next one from where you were.
The bug section in the upper right was entirely experimental. I put the bugs and toggle walls down, not really knowing how I could expect them to behave. Fortunately, they turned out to be pretty manageable to deal with.
I think the most dangerous (and exciting!) part of the level is snatching those two chips (at (2, 13) and (2, 18)) away from the tank moving vertically in the center of the force floor loop.
The reason for those four toggle walls at (8, 3) to (9, 4) is to hopefully prevent you from running too far and slamming into a tank or onto the force floors out of there after sidestepping off the force floor leading to that area.
Level 36
"36 Cell"
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When I made 25 Cell, I didn't originally intend it to be a series. After playing it a bit, though, I decided to make a larger version called "64 Cell" and put it in the level 64 slot. However, I...got a bit impatient waiting to design all the levels before it (for some reason I didn't want to make it out of order) and decided to make Cell levels for the perfect squares in between--36 and 49. I thought that if I kept only the elements from 25 Cell (chips, force floors, and monsters), the Cell concept might get a bit stale, but I didn't want to make 36 Cell too different from its predecessor, so I only added a few new elements (two colors of keys, a pair of teleports, and some rooms with a diagonal wall down the center). The later Cell levels would include more elements. I think I originally set the time limit to 400 or something not-too-special, but quickly decided to go with the level's theme and set it to 360.
Level 37
"Cross Over"
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This is very similar to a Levelset 1 level I made. I can't remember its name exactly, but I think it might have been "Crossover". Anyway, the inspiration for that level was Blink from CC1. I liked the aesthetic of 4-way intersections with a slippery tile in the middle, but didn't want to go through the trouble of planning out a teleport maze, so younger me kept it simple and used ice instead.
At first I thought the idea was a bit unexciting for Po100T, but decided to put a little spin on the concept: I would make it so that the player had to find a specific place to "cross over" between two halves of the maze. That is, for most ice intersections, if the player could currently cross it horizontally, the player would then have to walk through the crossover point to be able to cross it vertically. (The crossover point is the bottom-right corner of the map, in case you're curious.) Thus, the title had a double meaning: The paths crossed over each other, and the player had to cross over from one half of the maze to the other in order to solve it!
Level 38
"Keyrithmetic"
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If Combinations is a difficulty spike, this is a freaking difficulty thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot-pole! The punny title inspired this level concept: you have to figure out where to use your keys to get the most chips (and, in many cases, more keys to keep yourself going). This level turned out slightly differently in Po100T as compared to Tiles 200, but both had the cross shape, designed to let you see every room before you have to spend any keys.
Anyway, I think this level is incredibly difficult for its place because of the huge number of choices available and the fact that it's extremely strict. (It's only possible to just get enough chips and have one key left to exit with). However, I purposely designed the level (both times I built it) to be solvable using a few heuristics, if you can discover them:
1) Red keys are the least valuable key type, then blue, then yellow. What I mean is, trading a blue key for a red and nothing else is always wrong, while the inverse is always correct, and both yellow keys in the level are required.
2) The green key is a bad idea! Don't get it! (I put it there just because I figured everyone would expect there to be a green key in a level like this, but I thought it would be too obvious if it were necessary for the solution, so it's a trap.)
I did consider moving this level to the 60s at some point shortly after Po100T's release (and I think maybe even that's too low of a position!) but I didn't get many complaints about its difficulty, so I decided to leave it in place.
Level 39
"Corral"
(CCLP1 Level 58...)
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I wanted to make a level all about trapping monsters, somewhat inspired by JezzBall (a member, alongside Chip's Challenge, of the Windows Entertainment Pack that was installed on the computer I played on back in the late 90s). So I came up with this level where blobs wander around open space and you have a large number of blocks at your disposal to trap them with. Admittedly, most of the rooms are so huge that trapping the blobs may be more effort than it's really worth, but I personally am willing to take any risk-free opportunities to get around random monsters....
Out of my CCLP1 entries, I think this is one of the weaker ones. It has quite a few more rooms than needed to get the concept across, and it's extremely easy to cook the level at the end if you're not careful (i.e., you're preparing to trap the blob with the final few blocks but it goes the wrong way and you push the block before you can stop yourself, thereby sealing off the only safe path to the exit).
Level 40
"Courage"
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What a messy looking level! (But it was made like that on purpose, so I don't see it as a bad thing.) Just an odd idea I had. The title refers to the fact that you have to be brave and take advantage of gaps in the monster streams to get by, since the collisions, while not actually random, are quite hard to predict when you're playing casually. Because the collisions play out the same way every time, I did put a time limit in this level.
Originally, the level was called "Risks", another fitting title, but I thought "Courage" sounded a bit more uplifting.
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