Dandelion Pack - Discussion

[Flareon350]

This is the official discussion thread for CCLP4 voting's Dandelion Pack. Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, and comments on the levels here!

[ajmiam]

My top levels for this set:

#7 Sokobananas - A series of sokobans that vary between being really easy and deceptively easy...the solution to the very first room has a twist to it that took me several minutes to figure out! The variety, as well as the relatively short execution time for each room, make this an enjoyable standout in terms of block puzzles.

#13 Condo Management - An exploration level whose aesthetics really sell it, as the repeating room pattern from Apartments, combined with the bombs to limit freedom, is quite pleasing to look at. It does a good job of opening the level up as you explore in a way that feels rewarding. However, I believe the condo management is doing a poor job if there are that many dangerous explosives littered around the place....

#25 Central Square in Winter - Another very pretty level with some nice easy variety challenges that could make for a good early CCLP4 pick. There's something neat about being barred from the blue walls until the very end, where you discover that (SPOILER ALERT!) they're not all solid and you can go through some of them to reach the end!

#42 Fossilized Snow - There's something really enjoyable about being able to see all three layers of this maze but only being confined to the first...until you collect all the chips and unlock the second, followed eventually by the third. Also, none of the layers are big enough to be frustrating. Another good early-game candidate.

#46 Compactor Reactor - A very open-ended level, yet surprisingly tricky to navigate. A lot of the fun is seeing a chip you need and going, "OK, I need to teleport in from point A, but to get there I have to come from point B..." and so on. Also, limitless opportunities for building your own partial posts. For me, the time limit was just low enough to provide a bit of urgency without actually causing me to fail, making the hunt for the last two chips a lot more exciting and memorable than it might have otherwise been.

Some honorable mentions:

Phoenix (though this is not my favorite level with the concept of fireball-streams-for-walls)

Monochrome

Horizontal Motion Sensor

Airport Security

Shambles

Biggest disappointment, IMO:

#17 Railroad (Looks nice on paper...but in practice, the core mechanic sucks out all the fun by making it so tedious to actually get anywhere, and somewhat easy to screw up and die)

Strangest inclusion in voting (in ALL sets I've played so far, not just this one):

#9 Conveyor Belt (Am I missing something?

Lucky timing, especially in Lynx where there's no chance for you to "Hit the Brakes!!";

Buttons that affect things halfway across the map;

A "don't have keys" mechanism that doesn't actually guard anything you can't reach by going the other way;

Dodging right at the end...

not sure what parts of this level stood out to people to convince them to rec it.)

[Flareon350]

Strangest inclusion in voting (in ALL sets I've played so far, not just this one):

#9 Conveyor Belt (Am I missing something?

Lucky timing, especially in Lynx where there's no chance for you to "Hit the Brakes!!";

Buttons that affect things halfway across the map;

A "don't have keys" mechanism that doesn't actually guard anything you can't reach by going the other way;

Dodging right at the end...

not sure what parts of this level stood out to people to convince them to rec it.)

I can't speak for anyone else but the reason I rec'd this level is mostly for the concept of hitting the block clone buttons, go to push those blocks and go back to hit them again. It's a concept I haven't seen much of and for that reason, I liked the level enough to give it a recommendation for inclusion in voting.

However, since it is in voting, it's not exactly a level I would want to be in CCLP4 due to its mediocre design (no offense to the designer), but I felt it at least deserved a shot. That was my initial goal during the testing phase was to give levels recs that I thought deserved a chance for voting, even if it was a level I didn't like that much.

The lucky timing does hinder it unfortunately but I ranked it as if that were fixed. And yeah, the locked door nail mechanism is completely pointless since you can step off the force floor at (6, 15) to go back to hit the clone buttons. Even if that were fixed, I don't see a reason for it being in the level at all. The dodging at the end I personally didn't mind but it's not something I would have placed that late in the level.

Needless to say, I think there are stranger levels in voting then this one. See: the last three released voting packs.