CCLP5: Pre-Voting Culling & Level Nominations!

[Flareon350]

Hello again chipsters! It's that time again for another CCLP5 announcement!

First and foremost, we apologize for the delay in progress after the TWS deadline closed. To keep it brief, some of the staff (myself included), have been held up by important real life events that needed priority. We hope you understand!

During this time though, we have gone through every submitted set and level in great detail, going through a pre-voting culling process to determine a voting pool of quality levels in hopes to be included into the upcoming, Chip's Challenge Level Pack 5.

If we felt a level was under the following criteria, it was culled and removed from consideration for the voting pool:

-Blank, unsolvable, or not compatible across MS and Lynx rulesets
-Poor/uninteresting design quality
-Were not a fun solving experience
-Relied too heavily on outdated design tropes (guesswork, tedious block pushing, etc.)
-Performed poorly in other community voting cycles

With this in mind, we determined around 1,000+ levels that fell under any of the above categories and were preemptively removed from voting. This included entire sets, which are listed here:

AAACC
AF_LsF-CCLP5
AndrewR1
CCLP5MRJ
CCTLFC1-lynx
CCTLFC2-lynx
CCTLFC3-lynx
CCTLFCS2
Chip's Happy Day
ChipHomeLP1
Graue1_LYNX_CCLP4
Infinitea
JacquesS2
JRB_CCLP1
levels.dat
Melinda_.ccl
SubmitSixLevelsForCCLP5

Amidst this, we also determined 151 levels that we, the staff, were uncertain and torn about whether they should enter voting. Some members felt they didn't deserve a chance, while others did.

While we wrap up this culling process and get final preparations made for voting to begin, you can vote and nominate any of the 151 levels, if you feel they deserve a shot in voting! You can find the attached .dat file that contains these levels. You can also find an attached ZIP folder containing all levelsets that were submitted for CCLP5, to use as a reference point.

Additionally, you can also do the same with any of the 1,000+ levels that were already removed, if you wish to do so. However, do note that these levels were essentially agreed upon that they didn't fit the quality being looked for for CCLP5.


Culled Levels:
https://pastebin.com/X5eHKXTs

If your levels are in either the list above or within the attached .dat file, you are welcome to speak up about them. However, do keep in mind this is for an official set that is aiming for excellent quality and a fun, satisfying solving experience.

Also please keep in mind that each staff member that partook in culling, all had different reasons to what was and wasn't culled so we cannot provide a static reason to why your level(s) were treated as such.

The deadline for nominating any of these levels is, June 14th, 2022 midnight EDT.

After the deadline, the staff will review each nominated level and the community feedback it received. We won't have a hard numerical cutoff for nominations to be considered, as we'd like to consider each case individually and carefully.

Thank you so much for your patience and please let it be known what levels you want to see in voting! We will bring you another announcement when voting is about to begin. :)

- Josh Lee [Flareon350]
CCLP5 Staff Coordinator

[Rolf]

Only level I protest against culling, out of my levelset, is Reactor Dice.

[Xaser]

I thought Block Cipher and Panic! were OK -- not sure how those got culled but Termites and Skeleton Key remained.

Side note: xaser-cclp5-sub-v1.dat is an outdated version of my submission set -- latest is xaser-cclp5-sub-v3.dat (I submitted a couple of updates before the deadline with minor fixes & TWS solutions) -- did y'all make sure to play the latest versions?

[Ihavenoname248]

Here are the levels I think deserve a shot in voting, from the nominations set:
3 - Repair the Maze 2.0 (being a sequel is both a benefit and a downside, but I think it does enough differently and stands out among other mazes)
5 - Swip-Swap
55 - Florid Outlands (it's a good easy level - observational in nature for what to do)
58 - Blockade Runner (I liked the blob version, I like this version a bit more. Good level.)
97 - Blueberry Bushes by the Bushel
98 - Fully Charged Lithium Battery (hard mazes are rare.)
99 - Leisurely Stroll (slightly biased but this is probably the best walker level submitted, if "walker level" is enough to kill it I can't agree, and this would be the case regardless of who designed it)
150 - Monster Hunter

[Flareon350]

I thought Block Cipher and Panic! were OK -- not sure how those got culled but Termites and Skeleton Key remained.

Side note: xaser-cclp5-sub-v1.dat is an outdated version of my submission set -- latest is xaser-cclp5-sub-v3.dat (I submitted a couple of updates before the deadline with minor fixes & TWS solutions) -- did y'all make sure to play the latest versions?

The submitted set within the ZIP folder contains v3 of your submission, so yes that was the version that was used. That is purely a listing error from our spreadsheet and nothing more. Fixed that within the pastebin.

As for those levels, at least for me, Block Cipher felt too much like a guessing game and kind of ruined the fun of playing it. If the locks were meant to help with that, it didn't really work for me. Panic! was simply just doing the same thing a bunch of times, which tends to lead into dull gameplay.

Here are the levels I think deserve a shot in voting, from the nominations set:
3 - Repair the Maze 2.0 (being a sequel is both a benefit and a downside, but I think it does enough differently and stands out among other mazes)
5 - Swip-Swap
55 - Florid Outlands (it's a good easy level - observational in nature for what to do)
58 - Blockade Runner (I liked the blob version, I like this version a bit more. Good level.)
97 - Blueberry Bushes by the Bushel
98 - Fully Charged Lithium Battery (hard mazes are rare.)
99 - Leisurely Stroll (slightly biased but this is probably the best walker level submitted, if "walker level" is enough to kill it I can't agree, and this would be the case regardless of who designed it)
150 - Monster Hunter

I can't speak for the rest of the staff who culled but from my perspective, "Walker level" wasn't what killed Leisurely Stroll. If that was the case, no walker level would have made it in.

[Ida]

I liked Andrew M’s level “Monster Sorting” that was culled, even though it surely could have benefited from being slower (and/or fewer bombs). The list doesn’t say why it was culled, so if it was because of incompatibility between rulesets or low scoring in previous votings then there’s not much to argue about, I just wanted to mention that I would have wanted to see this level in voting.

My level “Fair and Square” that was culled was an attempt to make a level where random elements can have their place, without requiring luck to score the bold time. The fireballs act as equalizers throughout the whole level. Of course, you can still be unlucky and the equalizers turn out too short in some instances, but it shouldn’t require more than a few tries to get bold. So if this level was culled due to too much randomness (for optimizers), I’d like to ask you to revisit the level. If it instead was culled due to being uninteresting to optimize, I can see that, though maybe I think the community could have voted on it. Again, I don’t know why the level was culled, maybe there were other issues with this level.

I’ll have to look deeper into the set of the 151 levels that are in limbo, but here are a few that I want to nominate from the first look at the list:

1. The Bottom Line
2. Chiptune Hero
12. Vanity
35. Blockage
101. An Exit to Remember (this level is just so beautiful)

Thank you to the staff for the work that you put in! No worries about delays, having real life issues that are more pressing is totally relatable.

(Edit: I've added a couple of levels to the list and might add more, then I'll make a new post when I'm done to make sure nothing is missed.)

[Jeremy Christman]

Levels from the spreadsheet that I would like to nominate:

1.  The Bottom Line
8.  Special Tanks To
11.  Vanity
12.  Subterfuge
84.  Warehousing
97.  Blueberry Bushes by the Bushel
101.  An Exit to Remember
123.  Ocean Temple
126.  Netherrack, Netherrack, and Netherrack
128.  Overgrowth
130.  Numbskull

Culled levels I would like to nominate:

Bowman-CCLP5 - AGONY
Bowman-CCLP5 - PORTMAN

[Tomsbananacakes]

My favorite levels from the nomination set I'd encourage everyone to nominate:

123 - Ocean Temple
125 - Blinded By the Light
126 - Netherrack, Netherrack, and Netherrack
127 - Icy Hot Maze
128 - Overgrowth
130 - Numbskull

[Jeremy Christman]

Also I know these were universally culled by the staff but I just have to say that I played through all of geodave's levels and thought a lot of them were really good. Here are some from that culled list I'd like to nominate just because I really enjoyed them a lot:

1. Governor Limits
3. Over and Back and Up and Around
4. Uncle Morty
5. Appuzzle
6. Head Over Heels
8. Games Played Once Too Often
12. If It Makes You Happy (I think this one upset me most of all - I actually found it to be a really fun and enjoyable puzzle).
18. Death Ice

No disrespect meant towards any of the staff - they worked their freaking butts off here and for no pay.... I really thank them and their massive efforts. I just really like the above levels and would love to see them given a second chance.

[Rolf]

20: Island Solitaire. Interesting design!
112: Bad Xmas Shirt. Hey who dont like bad xmas shirts? lol
118: FrostNoBite favorite out of 10 walls of frostbite really.
130: Numbskull. Very interesting puzzle.
132: The Crusher, nice map
126. Netherrack, Netherrack, and Netherrack

Marginal: I can see why people might not like it, but probably should have a chance:
117: Pathways

Culled, but want to be in:
Reactor Dice. While it has similar premise of CC1 level, it does have new features in it.