Waffle Pack - Discussion

[Ihavenoname248]

Slime Pockets (#4): Blob level similar in style to The Incredibly Safe Maze and Compaction. The former of those does the style of invisible walls whose locations can be deduced by monster locations better, and the latter is entirely just the waiting for blobs to move. Not a strong pick from me, though if the blobs didn't need to be waited for, it would have fared better, but not as well as The Incredibly Safe Maze.

Non Sequitur (#12): I love when a design plays with your expectations, and this level is no exception. So many aspects of the level seem superfluous or arbitrary, but all end up having an impact in the final solution. My one nitpick is that, like many levels, the 'open' nature of the design is constrained by needing one color key to reach the next, to reach the next, to reach the next, and the overall solution has no real branches to it. That's that only thing holding this level back from being truly great, in my opinion.

Pneumatic Diversity Vents (#22): Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not a huge fan of this level. The design gimmick of force floored ice paths to get around is neat, but ultimately obfuscates where everything leads. You end up needing to remember where many different items are used, and how to get there, and it just turns into either a memorization-fest or an aimless wandering for a casual solution. Each individual section is well crafted but the overall feel suffers to me.

What? (#31): At first glance, this seems like another itemswapper similar to Tool Box or Which One Next? However, it quickly reveals itself to be a puzzle to figure out where to go first, and with which boots, and which recessed walls to use when... I like the 'escaping the level' part but ultimately this proved but frustrating than satisfying to solve- I felt like I was trying iterations on the same theme until something worked.

Citadark Isle (#32): A fun concept (trading keys for more keys of the same color and more map access) but a little rigid for my liking. It's definitely more of a puzzle compared to Keyboard Malfunction, but I'm not sure that's always a good thing.

Deflection (#37): "get the exact right half move 6 times without failing 6 times". Neat concept, would be a really cool mechanic to see incorporated into a larger puzzle, but on its own the level just isn't fun.

Wanted Dead or Alive! (#44): I like hectic teeth dodging levels more than hectic dodging levels with any other monster- the amount of strategy that's possible is really interesting. This level sacrifices any of that potential by flooding the map with 30 teeth. There's really nothing you can do other than Victim it. CCLP4 will need some teeth levels, but I lean towards Eddy's Grudge Match and my own Seeing Red for much higher picks.

Drift (#49): Another example of a neat level and fun puzzle being heavily brought down by arbitrary trap connections. It feels like the paramecia button should allow access to the tank button, the lowest trap button to the lowest trap, and the top trap button to the suction boots. However, only the last of these is a correct assumption- the paramecia gives you access to the teleport. I'm not sure what a better way to design this would have been, but there had to be some way to make the connections clearer.

Favorite level: It's Easy Being Green (#42)

Least favorite: Long Distance (#36)