Indy's Walls of CCLP1 Discussion

[Indyindeed]

Here you can discuss the first 20 levels of my in-progress Walls of CCLP1 set.

I'm particularly interested in hearing about level 17, as I'm not sure if I like that one or not due to sliding into water that can't be seen.

[mmoraleta]

Happy, to see another WoCCLP1 set in progress along with J.B's set currently in production. So far a great start to what will hopefully be a full 149 set in the future.

Anyway here's my thoughts on the first 10.

1. Simple level with nice outside monster aesthetics.

2. Nice outside aesthetic and an easy level.

3. Nice Halloween level just have to keep track so you don't get stuck.

4. Quite a transformation to a level. Ordinary chip collecting level, however I would increase the time limit. Seems a little too tight.

5. Fun level. Would be more fun if all 4 tiny puzzles were accessible.

6. Great level, reminds me of "Burning Battlefield" by Josh.

7. Somewhat easy chip collecting and dodging level.

8. Interesting puzzles rolled into one dirt themed level.

9. Like how this looks in the map and nice tank mechanism.

10. Nice and simple "combinations" level.

[Indyindeed]

I'll increase level 4's time limit to 600 in the next update, then.

Level 6 was inspired by Burning Battlefield. Glad you noticed

Also I forgot to add back the sockets in Dystopia when I reapplied the solvability fix... This will also be fixed in an update.

[M11k4]

Some fun levels here. They were pretty, not too hard and yet clever. A few comments...

#1 (Delicate Industry) - This is the type of hint I find unnecessary. I don't need to know there are suction boots under those blocks, as I'll find out when looking under them is the only possible thing to try. (Also, that is the sort of feedback I hate giving because it focuses on something minor in a level, giving the impression that it's really important. I enjoyed both the actual puzzles in the level.)
#3 (Trick and Treat) - maybe just a bit too simple. What if you had some blocks and bombs in the corner rooms to move around, a bit like one of the earlier versions you posted a screenshot of, so it's a combination of the two ideas, pop-ups + blocks?
#4 (Citrus Forest) - I'd increase the time limit more from 400, maybe even have it untimed. This is not the type of level you want to have someone play over again if they get lost and die to the time. If they have trouble navigating this in the first place, they'll hate to do it again. And it is possible to get lost here because the tiles that had chips might be mistaken for a wall.
#5 (Parallel Universe) - Wait what? Looking in the editor was a surprise.
#6 (Blistered Remains) - Very nice.
#7 (Diamond in the Rough) - I was going to say, is it even possible to be killed by a fireball, since I just always followed a Glider, but I tried it and I guess it is. The task here is very simple but am not sure what you could add to make it more engaging.
#8 (Discombobulation Station) - Hidden hints are nice, but this feels off. The only real mechanism in the level is for a hint, when this could have been a puzzle required to solve the level. Even just having chips under these two blocks, and maybe surrounding them with thieves to force the player to push a block into the trap and then open it. Or leave it as it is, just throwing ideas at you.
#9 (Laughing All the Way to the Tank) - This one felt like a winner.
#10 (Triple Trouble) - Nice, but again a bit simple for my liking. For example, there was never a moment when I should have picked up more than the minimum amount of boots required to pick up a chip. Not sure if the puzzle would be enjoyable though if you'd have to think ahead more than one chip.
#11 (Festive Lights) - When playing this, I wasn't sure if I'd have to be super careful with the number of keys I had, particularly since the hint told me exactly how many would be available. I'm glad not all nearly all the keys were needed.
#12 (Ball Street) - I might like this more than the original. Due to block slapping, this is solvable with just a single block in Lynx, so if you want to require that you could add a mechanism that only gives you one block in Lynx (though you might lose the ability to reach the hidden hint). The simplest way to do this would be add a hint tile next to the block cloning button.
#14 (New Blob in Town) - I enjoyed this, but it did turn into a block pushing task instead of a blob fighting task. The sardine can puzzle was not worth it for me, I'd rather have some bombs to blow up where the chips are, cutting down on almost half the required block pushing.

#15 (Bad to the Bone) - Did you try in this Lynx? The timing against the balls in the lower area was much more difficult than in MS. You decide if you want to keep it, or experiment with something a bit different.
#17 & #18 - Already mentioned small problems with these levels on Discord. They both were fun to play though and I look forward to actually solving them.
#19 (Dystopia) - I really liked this. The puzzles didn't, however, seem to be of equal difficulty. I'd make the bottom one a bit tougher by maybe not have it be symmertic, or add in a few more closed toggle walls. Don't feel like you failed though, as this sort of puzzles require a lot of testing to find the best possible execution.
#20 (Exiled Warehouse) - I would have enjoyed this level more had it not required me to work through everything so linearly. And a minor gripe, you could add one more water tile to require the use of the last NE block. And is the pop-up under that one block really required when there are none elsewhere in the level? But overall a fun level, thanks!


I was lucky to have a bit of time to check this release. Thanks for sharing and keep them coming

[mmoraleta]

Here's thoughts on (11-20)

11. Festive Christmas level.

12. Level reminds me of "Chip Away" from 100 tiles. Has a neat twist too.

13. Cool level to play, the RFF's in the glider room look like they act as if they're walls but they're not. Nice twist.

14. Great level. It had that creation of a "sardine" can puzzle. The drowning of the blob would be more fun in Lynx since you can see and hear the blob drown.

15. Cool level with a reference to a T2 song.

16. I have to say I was stumped at that "security" puzzle for a little bit. It actually turned out to be a whole lot easier. Still a great level.

17. Easy trap button puzzle and intuitive conundrum for the exit.

18. Medium level. It has that unique blockslide with FF's and teleports/ Plus the walker room could a little tricky with block in it.

19. This level has two fun puzzles, but the bottom toggle puzzle down below needs fixing. I'm not sure how you do it in Lynx but in MS I used flicks to manage the blocks.

20. Boy, that block force floor to the flippers puzzle was legit. Plus it had a unique form of a sardine can puzzle. Nice ending level for a good first draft.

Indy, these levels are good so far and keep up the good work. Hope to play more in the future.

[Indyindeed]

Thank you both for the feedback

I put the hint there in Delicate Industry so that the player doesn't think the ending has guesswork, because of the fact that there are two blocks.

Yeah, I agree that Trick and Treat may be a little too simple. Then again, that's why I put it so early on!

Slime Forest will definitely be made untimed in an update. I didn't take into consideration that you could mistake the missing chips for walls, and I honestly like the level more because of that because now it's more than just a reskin of Slime Forest

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "very good" for Blistering Remains. Fun to play? Cool aesthetics? Good use of the "walls"? All of the above?

Levels 7 and 8 will probably be placed much closer to the beginning in the final release, as they're meant to be very easy levels.

Glad to hear positive feedback for Laughing All the Way to the Tank! The mechanism in that level is something that I think is really cool and I'm glad everyone agrees. I thought the blockslide could be considered a little mean, but I guess it's fairly early in the level and most players are used to the timing of blockslides at this point anyways.

Ball Street was semi-inspired by Chip Away. I won't change it to only require one block in Lynx. In my opinion, levels shouldn't require blockslapping just to be able to complete. Think of it more like a nifty shortcut.

New Blob in Town was a level where I wanted to make a blob level that wasn't too focused on annoying blob dodging. I'd say extracting the blocks can be a bit painful, particularly the lowermost one, but whatever. The gimmick I had in mind was that you were "pushing" the blob at the start out of town (into the bomb) by using the block. Not that interesting on its own, but I'd say a sardine can makes anything better!

For Bad to the Bone, I'll probably change that ball pattern as that wasn't intended.

That security puzzle in Ballpit Bonanza is something I'm really proud of. Glad to see it did its job to stump you!

Dystopia's lower room has already been fixed to be solvable in Lynx. As for the difficulty of the puzzles: yes, they're a little mismatched, but it doesn't matter that much to me.

The whole point of that one block in Exiled Warehouse is that it has nowhere to go! And I don't think the recessed wall is necessary but I don't think it matters that much. It barely has any impact on gameplay whatsoever; the most that may happen is that you'll bump into a toggle door for one move when you're going back. As for the linearity, I definitely felt as though the level was a bit too linear, especially towards the end, but I have no problem with a good linear level once in a while.

I'll shoot for another iterative release soon. I'm hoping to include between 30 to 40 levels, plus removal of the time limit on Citrus Forest.

[Indyindeed]

Status update time!

Recently, I submitted two levels for the October 2018 Create Competition. Both of those levels were compatible with MS and Lynx and used the walls of two CCLP1 levels, and as such they will eventually appear in WoCCLP1. However, the rules of the competition are that the level(s) must be new and never seen before. Therefore, my options for a new release would be:

- Wait until I get 38 levels and then package these 2 levels along with them, but wait until the Create Comp is judged as the only people who can see them are Miika and I

- Wait until I get 40 levels and save these 2 levels for the next release

I'm leaning towards the first option even though the results will have to wait until November 11th, but I want to do that because I've been optimizing a bit more of CCLXP2 and CCLP3 Lynx lately and am planning to do a huge score dump soon. Waiting until mid-November to release more levels gives me a perfect excuse to balance out level design and optimization, especially since my scores on most sets do not have every level (except CC2).

As always though, I'm curious to see what all of you think. Would you rather wait until November 11th or have the levels be released as quickly as possible? I currently have 33 levels done, not including the 2 levels I submitted for the competition, so if I made 7 more levels in that time, I could release again at 40 levels.

You can leave feedback on this on Discord in the #level-design thread or in a reply below. Thanks for your time everyone!

[Indyindeed]

CC Zone File embed: https://cczone.invisionzone.com/files/fi.../?do=embed

WoCCLP1 Beta 2 has been released with 42 levels!

Feel free to leave comments on the new levels here