<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">What a year it’s been! We’ve seen the end of CCLP1 voting, the release of CCLP1, the integration of the remaining CC elements into Chuck’s Challenge, competitions left and right here on CCZone, and much more. As the CCLP1 staff coordinator, I just wanted to write one final announcement-style message to close out 2014 and look at what’s to come.
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">First, to everyone who voted on, downloaded, and played CCLP1, thank you! On behalf of the CCLP1 staff, I hope you’ve enjoyed the set and the story that accompanied it over the past several months. We certainly had a fun time voting alongside you, tabulating the results, and debating about what the final selection was going to look like.
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">Second, to everyone who’s looking ahead to CCLP4: although I’ve mentioned this in various messages here on CCZone, I just wanted to make it official for anyone who’s wondering - I do not intend to be the staff coordinator for CCLP4. I’d like to focus my efforts in the months ahead on grooming someone new for this position and passing the torch to whomever the community selects as their candidate to lead the CCLP4 project.
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">For now, I just want to use my past experience with CCLP3 and CCLP1 to work with the community to determine what the process of building CCLP4 will even look like so we have an idea of what the time commitment for the staff in turn might look like before moving forward. Hopefully, that additional definition will inspire some within our community to step forward and volunteer for the staff. Basically, I’d like to do as much as I can to make the process, particularly pre-voting, much simpler than it was for sets past so there won’t be a huge burden or time commitment on the staff and, by extension, voters. You can see some of the ideas we’ve been tossing around in the “For anyone who’s on the CCLP4 staff” thread, which is located here. Feel free to contribute and join the discussion!
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">Also, for those who may have missed it, Michael Warner posted a call for CCLP4 submissions on the newsgroup. I’d like to second that call and post about it here so hopefully it gains a bit more exposure. Although there is no CCLP4 staff, website, or official list of submitted levels in place yet, this is more for the benefit of designers, particularly those who aren’t active community members, who’d like to go ahead and enter their creations into the submission pool without having to wait even longer for that period to open. You can see a spreadsheet I’ve created with many of the submitted sets (particularly those from the CCLP1 process) listed here. In the months to come, as more sets are submitted, I hope we can all contribute as a community and playtest these levels for compatibility / bust issues to lighten the load on the future CCLP4 staff. This is arguably what’s held up the production of past sets the most, so if we can make this as easy on the staff as we can, that would be amazing.
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">I’ve also written a blog post about why I believe we’re in a good place to go forward with CCLP4 in the near future here. Be sure to give it a read and let me know what your thoughts are!
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">Here’s to another fine year of chipping. Happy 2015, everyone!
<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;">J.B. Lewis
MO3 is a level set I started a year ago. Since then, I've lost motivation for CC so I haven't worked on the set much. Now it's Christmas and I've finally decided to release the levels.
The primary goal of MO3 was to make levels that look really nice. It is also probably my hardest set, since I used up my ideas for easier levels for CCLP1. The set includes 9 finished levels, which are all medium to hard, but greatly differ in length. I also included 3 levels which are close to being complete, but were never finished due to a lack of motivation.
Many CC veterans and long-time community members will recognize the significance of this date. It was the release day of CCLP2. Excitement pierced the online air. After years of playing and optimizing CC1 and being disappointed with the lack of release for CC2, the CC community finally had something different and official to get behind. New levels! New challenges! New records to set! It was all so fresh, teeming with possibilities to be explored. After the set was released, the first few months brought about a flurry of activity on the newsgroup. Scores were being reported every day. Busts were discovered. Records were being broken. People were threatening to rip each others' heads off if their records were broken. It was a level of involvement for the game that I still hope can be rivaled in the years to come. And in the wake of the optimization rush, people started thinking ahead: where do we go from here? What will CCLP3 be like? Let's start collecting levels and build something new! It should be fairly simple.
It wasn't.
CCLP3 wasn't released until almost nine years after CCLP2. Much of the delay has been attributed to the waning community involvement of the original staff and the piling up of submissions that took place over that time. Even though submissions didn't start until 2006, many sets were already created specifically for CCLP3 in the years beforehand that immediately followed CCLP2's release. When a new staff was finally formed, it took a mammoth undertaking to play catchup and test the gigantic mound of levels. But it finally happened at the end of 2010, and a new official set was born. Fortunately, CCLP1 managed to avoid many of CCLP3's delays by positioning itself as a specific kind of set, with a specific goal to achieve. Even though the work was plentiful, it was much more manageable. So...where does this leave us with CCLP4?
After looking back at how the previous CCLPs were constructed, what the level design scene was like in the past, and what it looks like now, I've come to the conclusion that CCLP4 needs to become a reality sooner rather than later. This isn't normally where I'd land on an issue like this. Many of you reading might know from previous comments I made during CCLP1 production that I'm the last person who would ever want to rush production on a new CCLP, and that is still true. But I think we're dealing with a very specific set of circumstances this time around that need to be recognized. I'd like to dedicate this blog post to explaining my reasoning. Please note that although I'm not mentioning any other potential level packs that could be built in the near future (like a "hardcore" set, CCLP0, etc.), I'm still behind the idea of making them at some point.
- We've already got a solid collection of levels from CCLP1 voting. This is probably the most understandable reason. We can all agree that the CCLP submission periods are typically kept open for a while so plenty of levels can fill up the pool, and thus, there can be plenty of options from which to choose when voting. But there's a difference here between what these pools theoretically looked like between CCLP3 and CCLP1, in which many new levels congruent with the set's purpose had to be created, and CCLP1 and CCLP4, in which there are (so far) no such restrictions, and many existing levels can be submitted again. It's especially worth noting that a lot of deserving difficult levels were given the shaft for CCLP1 for a number of reasons: they were too complex to begin with and didn't even make an appearance in voting, some of the ones that did were perceived by voters as less beginner-friendly than others, and the staff's attempt to establish a gentle difficulty curve meant limiting the number of difficult levels in the final tier of the set. So although there are also plenty of levels in this bunch that didn't make the cut by virtue of being poorly designed or not very fun, there is a very strong collection that could perform quite well in CCLP4 voting.
- We've already got a solid collection of levels created after CCLP1 voting. The term "level factory" has been tossed around in reference to some very active designers in our midst, but it's also an interesting statement on the state of level design in general today. Although the number of designers may have decreased since, say, the age of heavy activity on pieguy's site, the rate at which levels - specifically quality levels - are saturating the potential submission pool is quite astonishing. The past year and a half has seen the release of and/or additions to sets like JoshuaBoneLP, The Other 100 Tiles, JBLP1, TS2, ZK2, ZK3, Ultimate Chip 3, JoshL4, JoshL5, and many more, with even more additions to some of these and entirely new sets on the way. What's really encouraging for a CCLP staff is that many of these sets have tried to incorporate some kind of difficulty curve, which helps introduce a form of variety into the submission pool. One of the indicators that can be an effective way to determine when it's probably a good time to start looking at working toward a set's production is to see if it's theoretically possible to construct a decent 149-level set from the levels available, especially if it's difficult to choose between a number of quality options. Personally, I think CCLP4 submissions are already at this point, though it doesn't hurt to keep them open for at least several more months.
- The set needs to be constructed with CCLP5 in mind. This may seem like an odd reason, but it's an important one. If CCLPs are meant to represent the best of what the community has to offer, waiting too long can end up putting deserving levels under the bus - not only during the current set's production process, but also during the next's as well. Many designers who walked away disappointed after not seeing a favorite level of theirs in a CCLP have been encouraged to submit it again for the next. And as levels like Lazy Hourglass, Yet Another Yet Another Puzzle, Rhombus, Double Diversion, and Traveler show, it is indeed possible. But it's much more difficult when these levels are up against a brand new bunch that's taken the spotlight. Alongside that, waiting too long will bring about way too many "147 candidates" (read: ultra-difficult levels) from which to choose. Of course, the staff would need to be responsible for maintaining a proper difficulty curve for the set, but it would be that much harder for them and voters to make the difficult choices when there are so many of them. Plus, again, the levels that get shafted will have a much harder time competing for a spot in CCLP5 with so many new options available by then.
I don't think we need to have CCLP4 submissions open past the end of 2015. In fact, I'd even go as far as to suggest that they should be closed in the middle of 2015. We've got the components for an amazing set at our disposal right now. Let's move forward. Though I personally don't intend to get involved with its production, I hope we see interest in staff positions from the community in the days to come.
Am I dead? No. I'm clearly right here. I've also been active on my other sites I visit.
Am I done with Chip's Challenge? No. I've had other things to do lately.
When will I be active? Probably throuought this week, winter break, and generally whenever I got a school break.
Why is that so? Many different things.
When CCLP4 comes out, will you submit for it? You can bet on that.
Are you ready for Freddy?No.
What are your other sites? I usually use Camwoodstock and frequent Tumblr. If that's too much to fit, Camwood is a close 2nd.
Are there any MMOs you play I can find you at? Yes, actually. Realm of the Mad God. Server is USWest3. If anybody else actually plays that here, I wouldn't mind chilling in that server.
Are other video games a key factor in not being active? Yes. Plants Vs. Zombies and the aforementioned Realm of the Mad God have kinda been my main games recently.
So wait, you're returning? Yes. I'll try to be as active as I can.
I have recently been playing through the CCLXP2 Beta. Really great set.
I have solved all the levels except two: Run-A-Muck (I harldy attempted it yet) and Cloner's Maze (spent over an hour on it). I am totally stuck! I did not find a single AVI for Lynx, and all the MS AVIs involve burning gliders and/or fireballs going on the hint, neither of which work in Lynx. I managed to find ways to economise gliders, but I am stuck about how to blow up the bomb blocking the yellow key, and another bomb that blocks a chip and requires precise timing. Help???
Happy 2015, everyone!
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