So the year 2013 is upon us! Lots of things seem to be happening in the CC world!

The CC1 lynx board is up and running! I have been pleasantly surprised by the reception it has had. So far quite a few players have posted scores, and many have already seriously started optimizing in lynx too! I expect most of the levels to be close to optimal before the summer! Considering that the set has been out for decades, this is pretty rapid and focused progress! Though of course the library of ms routes doesn't hurt. What doesn't come across quite as evidently is if this also gets more people to play the set casually in lynx. I hope it does, and that those people will also post their casual scores. I believe this lowers the bar for others to report scores too, and eventually helps bring and keep more players in the community! So keep the score reports coming!

Another thing that has been on my mind are the Time Trials for this Spring. I will be running them for the few coming months. I have most of the levels ready, and a few need some work, but hopefully I will have time to do that and still play test the levels before release. I'm hoping to encourage more players to participate than ever before. This means that YOU should also try out the levels! http://cczone.invisi...ccz-tt-1301ccl/ Even though I obviously made the levels, I have to say I like them. They are short and not too complex, but they still hopefully have enough variance to elect a winner. Part of this is that there are ten levels, so maybe even some of the best players will miss something on at least one level. I certainly welcome all casual solutions to the levels, as they are interesting too! There won't be this many levels next month, so don't worry! I'm going to try and make each month a bit different in its own way, so if you want to the maximum fun out of it you need to participate each month for that unique experience!

Of course there are other things I should focus on too. One of them is a (not-so-)super-secret CCLP2 lynx project, but more on that some other time. Another is that I've always meant to go back and update the set I submitted for CCLP1, called kidsfair. I could easily write a full blog post about it, so I won't go into much detail, but basically many of the levels were not really meant for CCLP1 and many of the ones I would hope might have a chance really need some changes made to fully bring the concepts to where I wanted them to be. I bring this up now, because I heard a small rumor that CCLP1 voting shouldn't be that far away anymore... at least compared to say half a year ago.

I guess I should also visit the topic of what kinds of goals and expectations I have for the year, as this is the first post of the year. First, I do not intend to play lots of CCLP3. I spent to much time on that during the last two years! Maybe I will thus have time to go back and look at where I stand on the CC1 and CCLP2 score boards. Hopefully I will also be able to participate in CCLP1 voting, which should be fun. And, comparing CCLP1 to the CCLP3 schedule, I have to hope that we will have a new official set out before the year is out, so that should be fun too!

On that hopeful note, I leave you all to die by Glider. Have a good one!

-Miika

P.S. will post a new blog post quite soon!

EDIT: just checking how the editing function works.

So Windows 8 has literally just came out of the stores not too long ago. I had a look at it and is it just me or is it a downgrade from Windows 7? I coudln't find the Start Menu button anywhere and couldn't find a way to get to the desktop mode so that it runs like Windows 7. All I got were this Xbox 360 like touch screen icons that were really annoying to navigate, and the "hyped" apps feature new to Windows 8 was a bit of a letdown because all the apps had to be full screen and alot of them could be done better in official windows applications. The only one I enjoyed was Pinball FX 2. Is it worth the upgrade at all, especially without a touch screen?

Well, I had a go at the first five levels of CCMiniLP. I did a review. Here's the proof for my award:

http://cczone.invisi...e/155-ccminilp/

I'd say it was not quite 1srar from what I played, but slightly below par I'd say.

I like chips. Maybe that's not an item. I guess I like flippers then. Or the blue key.

We had two competitions last April, one was a time trial with two levels, and the other was a create competitions with a boat theme. The activity here slowed down a bit towards May, so the results for these competitions were delayed. I investigated the situation a bit and Rock was able to provide the necessary information and gave me the go-ahead to announce the results. It's unlikely, but if further information turns up that might have been lost, the results will be adjusted accordingly.

The create competition was announced by Lessinath, and the submissions were to be sent to rockdet. There was a single entrant, Ida! You win again! So far that's three wins out of three submissions over the years. Not bad Maybe you scared away the competition? In any case, your level was original and clever, so it would have stood a good chance even if it wasn't the only entry, and we did check that it met the criteria for the competitions too (like being solvable in both ms and lynx, and you even went for the extra awesomeness, by finding a way to make the boat sink

). I guess we should give everyone the chance to try the level, right? Well, Ida can post it herself, or we can wait a bit longer and find it in the soon to be released set of all the create levels from 2012. Sound good?

I'm afraid the time trial results aren't quite as exciting. We did have double the number of entrants than in the create comp, so there's that! The two levels were created by rockdet and submissions were accepted a couple of weeks into May. Second place goes to Mike L with times of 208 + 51 = 259
, and first place goes to M11k4 with 213 + 54 = 267
. Hey, that's me! Yay, I win *does a dance* Anyway, we'll try to post the quickest solutions on the CCZone Youtube channel in the near future, along with some other stuff.

Hope to see you all again competing in 2013!

-Miika

EDIT: should also mention that Ida's level's name was "All day, all night, keep watch!
" and that Mike L has now been awarded the "Run, Chip, Run!
"-award.

Happy New Year Everyone!


Let's kickoff this year's competitions with a Time Trial!

http://cczone.invisionzone.com/index.php?/files/file/191-ccz-tt-1301ccl/

Download and enjoy. Send either ms or lynx solutions to my email address ( valeosote at hotmail dot com ).

That's basically all the information you need (and a bit of common sense), but I'll spell out some details too.

1) The levels are quite simple, at least to solve. There are several of them, but they all stick to the same frame so you won't get lost easily. I wanted to try and see if something as basic as this could still be fun to compete with, and if the submissions will still avoid ties.

2) The person with the highest combined remaining time on the levels #2- #11 wins! Both ms and lynx will be judged in the same category, though I suspect that there are no levels where lynx can be completed quicker than ms. Ties in overall score won't be broken.

3) This is part of the new 2013 season of the Chip Cup. Winner will be awarded 15 points, second place 12 and so on. If you win a competition here for the first time, you receive the "You're Winner!" award. All participants who haven't participated in a time trial earlier receive the "Run, Chip, Run" award.

4) Do not post your solutions or solution times or share them with others. All times will be published at the same time, and the quickest solutions will eventually be released.

5) Submission deadline is at the end of the month. In practice this means I will post here during the first week of February announcing that no more submissions will be accepted, and judge the competition right then. This can happen sooner than you hope, so get your solutions in early rather than later. You can send in improvements while the competitions is running, so there is no downside to sending in something you know might not be your best effort if you had forever to work on it.

6) I have the Time Trials for this spring mapped out already, so there might be something special in store for everyone who participates in all of these before the summer. Each month will be a different experience, so join in now to not miss out on the fun! If you have a level you want to submit as a TT level, send it to me and I might still find a slot for it too.

Report any problems or ask any questions here! Have fun!

-Miika

File category: Archived


Here are the Time Trial levels for January 2013. The set has a dozen levels, but a couple of them are not for the competition. See the thread in the competitions forum for details on the time trial itself.

Use either ms or lynx. Have fun!

Levels by Miika Toukola.

Attached Files

  CCZ-TT-1301.ccl (Size: 6.25 KB / Downloads: 372)

Just barely made it!

11:58pm PST January 1st, 2013

M11K4!

Final results will be updated once all the points are added, but it was a clear winner trust me.

File category: CC1 Levelsets

This is the latest version of the supercolab level. I think it's version 1.11, but I am not certain.

Attached Files

  Supercolab.ccl (Size: 994 bytes / Downloads: 270)