AndrewR1 feedback and discussion

[andyrkki]

Ihavenoname248, thanks for doing your own (albeit somewhat limited for the level portion) reviews. I'll try to get around to those later. Anyways, let's get this thing done!

29- Comparing

Ok, I like this concept of randomness influencing the experience; however, I didn't get what was going on in the corridors at first and it felt too random to explore what is inside the rooms. This could be fixed by giving me a place to hide along the corridors, like maybe gravel at some points. The level would be twice as fun!

But there's only that single creature in the corridors... what purpose would gravel really serve here? Why do the rooms feel random (beyond the obvious, that is)? I feel I might be missing something here...

30- Dividing

This is a fine level. A couple things to consider. Why not use dirt instead of chips in the Glider rooms, or at least a mix, so I don't need to clear the whole room? (The SW room is worse in this regard because it's simpler to direct the Gliders.) I like the puzzle with the vertical teleports, but would rather see this trick as part of the bold solution than as a required thing to solve the level. A similar thing applies to the SE room with horizontal teleports, where I would prefer there was some room for error and testing the mechanism. I did enjoy this though!

Again, I'm just not sure what you mean. How would you change the level to make the teleport puzzles optional? I thought those are the core of the level, and the other two rooms are just fluff, albeit mildly interesting fluff...

31- Bearing

This is another fine level. I would consider adding a hint that would tell the player how many times they need to go through the teeth room. The bombs look symmetric but it's nice that they play differently because the cloners aren't symmetric, however you could remove a few of the bombs for the same effect and less block pushing. It would be interesting to hear what you think of this level yourself? I like the connection with the next level, both in some arrangements and the name.

I know I said it's hard to pick absolute favourites out of these, but I think that these two levels would have to be at the top of any such list (in descending order). There's just so much here, so much to do, so much to explore... in this sense, it's really only surpassed in this set by the other level. Yeah, I noticed the lack of symmetry with the cloners too... I say "noticed" because it was pretty much accidental that it was set up that way, and I think it works especially well because neither cloner seems misplaced despite the asymmetry (by being identical instead of reversed).

32- Bearing II

This first room has to be the hardest puzzle in your set. I remember giving up on this on a previous play through because it felt like it relied so much on collisions. Now I think the main problem is getting into a state that is not redeemable, so it would be great if there was a way to remove a stuck Glider in an easier way than just collisions. The other puzzles in the level are ok, but again I would wish for execution that didn't require so much waiting. Particularly the tank area loses nothing if there was just two tanks that need to be toggled by the paramecium.

About the glider room: once again, I think you're the second player to say this (correct me if I'm wrong)... and while I do think it's somewhat tricky, I don't think it's that bad, especially what with being at the start of the level and all. The biggest difficulty I have with this room is its relative unpredictability in that a very tiny change in timing upon entry will almost certainly cause the gliders to move completely differently, but aside from that, if you know what you're doing it's not too hard at all.

33- Competing

This was a very good Time Trial level, and it works ok as a casual level as well.

Yup, agreed on both counts. Not much more to say here! (Well, I do wonder what you think of the dirt mechanism at the end... is it a bit challenging for this level?)

34- Clearing

This was a fun mess. It put a smile on my face completing this.

I pretty much created this level to have fun with it. I actually sometimes feel that CC1 really suffered for not having at least one simple sandbox-type level like this. It's just too bad it completely fails to work in pedantic mode (I think it's still possible to complete, actually, but most of the cloners don't function so it's not nearly as fun), and fixing that would seemingly require massive changes to the level. (If you think of a way to do this without that, let me know!)

35- Longing

I don't want to sit here for 24+ days solving this level. Then again, since it looks like it's theoretically solvable, I would like to sit here and solve it. Unfortunately, I play in TW and it won't allow for long solutions like this. Maybe if this was ten times shorter, and pretty likely if it was 100 times shorter. I guess getting me to think something like this was your point in making the level. It is a fine 'unsolvable last level'

A fine unsolvable last level... it is indeed. I've actually thought of calculating how many moves (and then seconds) it would take to solve this as an interesting mathematical problem, but didn't actually get around to doing so just yet.

Your set is not terrible. I like some of the levels, and you clearly have great ideas in many of them. Some of your design choices feel old school and aren't as player friendly as many current levels are. I like that the set is not too large, so I haven't minded playing through it a few times. The difficulty varies and doesn't get too bad. I like that you have made it work in both Lynx and MS. The set has a few too many ice levels for my taste, but otherwise it has a nice mix of monsters and puzzles. I wouldn't mind recommending this set to someone, and I am interested in seeing what might come in AndrewR2!


That brings me to something that's been on my mind: mostly I would like to see new levels from you, or other interactions in the community. Do you still play CC? What are your favorite levels in CCLP1? Have you tried CC2? Hope to see you around more!


-Miika

Lynx, Microsoft, and pedantic, that is... and I don't think AndrewR2 is coming out any time soon. Anyways, your feedback is really appreciated and makes me feel a bit less like I wasted my time creating and fine-tuning this set for so many years.


I've played through the entirety of CC2 (and CC2CC1, or whatever it's called). I didn't get a chance to really try out CCLP1 or even CCLP3 yet, though I have dabbled a bit in each. But this is really stuff for another topic, I think...