CCLP5: Pre-Voting Culling & Level Nominations!

[Flareon350]

Thanks for the fix! Just makin' sure -- there were a ton of last-minute stuff so I was worried it may have been lost in the scramble.

re: Block Cipher, the locks are indeed the key (heh) to the solution -- it's not random, it just takes a bit of noodling to figure out how to match 'em up. I dunno if the solution is too obscure or if the community is "meh" about this sort of puzzle, but I was hoping to have the votes be the judge of that.

The level could benefit from a hint or a better level title that nudges the player in the right direction, maybe? I'd originally named it "Decoder Ring", which is maybe somewhat closer to what I was going for here, but if anyone who's figured it out has any suggestions, that'd help a ton -- I'm rubbish at naming these sorts of things. :P

re: Panic!, time pressure is the challenge -- there's not enough time to push each block into a bomb before the next one spawns in, so you gotta pack 'em in the main area (and not get any blocks "stuck") before the chute gets backed up. It's probably a trivial challenge to anyone who's done a ton of optimizing (or anyone playing with SuCC, heh :P ), but it's real easy to mess up for us mere mortals. :P

If this one's no good as-is, I wonder if the same concept would work with a smaller area, a faster timer, or some existing obstacles in the space so it's less symmetrical? I had a lot of fun testing this one, but I'm also a much less skilled player than most of y'all so it's hard to judge the "fun-ness" here.

At any rate, I figured these two had enough going for 'em that it was worth tossing 'em in the voting pool to see how they'd do -- I'm not attached to any of the other culls.

I should probably give some other levels a play so I'm not just ego-talking :P -- thanks (again) for hearing me out on this.

No problem. I was certain there were some documentation errors in our database, just wasn't sure where. 3,500+ levels is a lot to keep track of, especially when receiving several updates to submitted sets.

Block Cipher could possibly benefit with a hint, yes. But generally speaking from both a player's and designer's experience, levels like this don't usually fare well even with such changes, especially with a CCLP in mind. Most players would just use the map to figure the solution out, which would defeat the purpose of that kind of puzzle.

The only suggestion I can give for Panic! would be to lower the amount of repetition with how many blocks are required. I can appreciate what its trying to do and I like the idea behind it. I think it just had a little too much.

I personally don't think either level is bad though! So if you're listing those two as nominations, consider them added for re-evaluation.