Fusion Pack - Discussion

[Flareon350]

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

[chipster1059]

1: I made this one. It's fun, but I think I made the time limit too short. Sorry.

2: Small levels can be fun.

3: Amazing title. In the end, this level is a good experiment in trust. Just who do you trust, and how much do you trust them? Does the fact that you know this person on the Internet or in real life, have any importance? That's a subject that isn't mentioned enough.

4: Surprisingly fun.

5: Really unusual concept. But it works.

6: The level is easier in Lynx thanks to the safe hint (please don't remove it). Too much walker dodging.

7: I played this in JCCLP. It is really harder than it seems at first.

8: It's a good level that doesn't really fit in any traditional design categories.

9: Surprisingly easy.

10: A pentagram is a fascinating geometric shape. But a pentazium is...absolutely nothing.

11: I solved it on the first try. Repeatedly pausing makes it a lot easier.

12: The only real challenge is the time limit.

13: This one has no challenge at all, except finding the hint.

14: So many levels reference CC1...but this one actually skips some levels, and that makes it stronger.

15: This level is so hard, but that's great. It took me forever to find the solution, and when I did I felt very satisfied.

16: I said way too much about this level and complexities already. So let's just say I want it in the final set.

17: This concept should be done more often.

18: At first I expected this level to be very hard, but it's actually very easy.

19: I think this is in NeverStopGaming. This is one of the hardest levels in voting so far.

20: This level is so small yet so hard, and not just because of the time limit.

21: A good level. It's a good thing the nasty bug from the original version has been removed.

22: Overall, a good ice maze.

23: Really easy. REALLY easy.

24: Really great way to make a maze. Too many thin walls, though...

25: So many easy levels in a row.

26: A very creative concept.

27: This level is all right, but nothing special.

28: My main complaint is that it's impossible to see the fireball section before entering it. I solved it through trial and error.

29: The level is already hard enough without a strict time limit.

30: I've seen plenty of easy levels so far in this pack but this is ridiculous. Also the hint can be used as a safe spot in Lynx.

31: This one has an interesting concept.

32: I played this in Po100T; I'm a bit surprised it didn't appear in CCLP1.

33: This was in UC3 or UC4. It was a lot easier than I remembered it, but still fun.

34: It's quite a challenge. But the tricks are rather clever.

35: Decent maze, but not one of the strongest ones.

36: I played this somewhere but I don't remember where. The dodging is not overly hard.

37: Would have been great if there had been no extra chips. Currently, it's too easy.

38: Repetitive and annoying.

39: The glider room is very hard very late. Other than that, it's a good level.

40: The puzzles are good, but the walker machine is painful when playing without sound effects.

41: The only good thing about this level is that it's shaped like a glider.

42: One of the hardest puzzle levels in voting so far. But maybe a bit too hard for CCLP4...

43: A good precise timing level.

44: One of Jeffrey's best levels.

45: The level is very easy. But why do those corridors have to be so long?

46: And another very easy key collecting level...

47: Very simple maze...

48: This is in TS0. Tyler makes great levels.

49: A good blue wall maze, but as I already pointed out the title can be problematic.

50: Overall, it's a decent dodging level, but easy most of the time.

[jblewis]

It's been a while! I've been taking a break and playing through about three other puzzle games, but I'm ready to tackle the second half (okay, not quite a half) of CCLP4 voting. Let's do this!

#3 (Fission Mailed): This is absolutely my favorite Easier Than It Looks-style level in voting, though unlike its predecessor, which practically allowed Chip to blaze through a fairly straightforward path, this level places Chip in quite a few impossible-looking situations only to reveal that the safeguards were there all along. It's somewhat reminiscent of the "Path of God" trial in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which placed its title character in a similar predicament. I also appreciated how the entire level was not ​about a lot of build-up to only one big trick. I would love to see this as a late CCLP4 entry, if only to provide some thematic congruence and mess with players' expectations even more.

#5 (Sandstorm): I love the concept here, but good gravy - this level's scale is far overextended. If we're going to compare levels with blocks and 2x2 rooms, I think AMSTERDAM is much more reasonable for its size because you can easily zip around, and the task of pushing blocks inward and collecting the chips in every "house" isn't terribly tedious. Here, everything feels very slow and dry - no pun intended - as you have to go in, clear dirt (er, sand), go back out, push blocks inward, remember which you haven't yet pushed in some cases, and so on. I'd love to see a smaller scale version of this, perhaps with a bit more of an arrangement puzzle involved.

#15 (Dual): My personal favorite in the "tiny level" category. I think I had mentioned in a previous pack's commentary that a lot of levels in this vein tend to veer off into "cram as much garbage in a small space as possible" territory, but here, even though there is some claustrophobia, everything is at least readable. You can actually tell that you need Item A to collect Item B, and Item X to collect Item Y, and from there, piecing together the proper order is doable. A fun, satisfying challenge that I'd love to see make the cut.

#16 (Shrub): I really enjoy the aesthetics here. The green door / dirt / gravel combination is very effective at throwing you off when it comes to what is "safe," and the entire map is open enough that you don't feel like you're having to watch every single step you make. I'm looking at you, Zabriskie Point.

#20 (Kamikaze): I had a lot of trouble solving this, and much of it can be attributed to frustration with teleport parity, the time limit, and how tanks behave in MS...which is almost all of the level. It's an interesting idea, but one that I think could've been refined further.

#23 (The Three Trials): This is the kind of level I really enjoy when I'm looking at introductory candidates for CCLP4. None of the "trials" on their own are particularly difficult, but they accomplish two things: first, they do a great job of reintroducing veteran players to CC without any mean early-set surprises; and second, the block-pushing segment serves as a great teaching tool to condition players to start thinking in terms of using items across seemingly unrelated areas in a level. Very well designed and very fun.

#30 (Teeth Tamer): I liked this idea more when it was called "My Friend."

#32 (Combinations): Like Chipster, I'm surprised this didn't do well in CCLP1 voting - and I'm hoping that's only because some people thought that the deduction involved would be too difficult for that set. For CCLP4, though, this level, much like The Three Trials, does an excellent job of taking familiar elements and bringing them together in a way that actually teaches the player something - this time, to observe the environment and make conclusions. I also love how no two combinations of boots are the same. Overall, an excellent level worthy of an official set inclusion.

#46 (State of the Art): I'm really torn about this one. The design is neat, and it's a fun, breezy level that could be placed early in an official set. But, it's also mindless - there's nothing stopping Chip from walking around to each door, opening it up, and grabbing every key without any consequence. Perhaps this could have been more effective if it had either been in very early CCLP1 or if there were some sort of limitation (collect only three of each color, perhaps?).

#49 (Mein Mmmpf): This is a brilliantly designed blue / invisible wall maze, in no small part thanks to its refusal to conform to the space-filling tendencies of its brethren in voting. The subversions of the initial blue wall zig zag pattern are also quite clever without going into full-fledged "if it looks like a maze..." territory. There's even an entire section in the lower area where you zig zag down a path...only to discover that the entire thing is a dead end. Level designers, take note.

[KeyboardWielder]

• #20 (Kamizake): [which is how it's spelled in the actual levelset] - Curious how the voting site got the spelling correct... Doesn't it extract the level titles out of the .dat file?
  
• #37 (Imperial Elevator): Disappointing to carefully collect all the chips in the first 7 rooms and then find that you didn't need them all when you reach the last room. I think all the chips should be required if this level is going to be in CCLP4.
  

- Madhav.

[quiznos00]

• #20 (Kamizake): [which is how it's spelled in the actual levelset] - Curious how the voting site got the spelling correct... Doesn't it extract the level titles out of the .dat file?

Here's an unnecessarily detailed reason as to why that happened. The voting site doesn't extract level titles from the .dat file, and in fact the list of levels for the first 25 voting packs existed on pieguy's site even when only the first four packs were released. A staff member corrected this spelling to Kamikaze. The script that generates the CCLP4 voting packs extracts the levels from the original voting packs and assembles them, and the title from Cybersmack CCLP4 was "Kamizake".

[Flareon350]

Happy new year everyone! I haven't posted any feedback in a long time due to the fact I've just been too lazy to do it when I'm actually able to. But I am going to work at leaving some of my comments on the rest of the packs over the next week or so, since I finished voting a while back!

1. Failure to Yield to Pedestrians

This level is kinda similar to Suburban Legend, in terms of design with the 3x3 squares and when comparing the two, despite being different in their own ways, I actually like this level more than the other for a few reasons. The biggest and probably obvious reason are the aesthetics, which are pretty appealing. Another reason to why I like this level is it remained interesting and kept me focused, due to the dodging throughout the level. While one would most likely complain about that, I actually liked the dodging. Lastly, this is basically just a collection level which I personally think goes better with this type of design specifically and makes it a lot of fun. I'm not terribly excited to see it in CCLP4 but I don't think it should go completely unnoticed.

5. Sandstorm

I have yet to complete this level because every time I play it, I fall asleep. I'm 100% serious. At this rate I never will complete it and I don't really want to. It's just too boring. Sorry.

13. Water Park

Once again, beautiful aesthetics. Though it's a bit on the "too simple for CCLP4" side for me but it's still a fun level to play.

16. Shrub

A level I designed and one I really hope makes it into the final set. I don't think there are enough levels of this type in official sets as the only ones I can think of are SPOOKS and Jeepers Creepers. I think one should appear for CCLP4 and I'm rooting for this one more, since Zabriskie Point doesn't seem to be everyone's preferred choice plus I like the aesthetics of this one more.

29. Airlock Warehouse IN SPACE

I appreciate a good time crunch level but this one didn't really settle well with me. I would have liked this level a bit more if there weren't three sections with the items under all blocks. In particular, the second section was my least favorite of the three.

33. Antidisruptive Caves

Very awesome concept and level all around that I hope makes it into the set. Between this and Blox from another voting pack, I prefer this one just slightly more mostly due to the layout and how the level progressively gets slightly harder.

34. Tom Foolery

Instant reminder of those CCLP3 days! Don't collect this chip yet or else you can't solve it! I definitely wasn't expecting to need the glider for the whole level and when I found out I did I wasn't terribly pleased with it. Even though the level itself is nicely designed and still (but barely) remained fun to me, I can't say I want to see something like this in CCLP4. I'm pretty sure this level would have made it in CCLP3 though had it been made and submitted then.

41. Size Up Your Enemy

There aren't a whole lot of glider dodging themed levels in the voting pool and CCLP4 will need it's share of melee levels. With the welcome addition of the overall mosaic of the level being shaped like a glider, this would be very well suited for the midgame of the final set. The dodging might be a tad on the "chaotic" side, but it's doable.

Favorite level: Mein Mmmpf (#49)

Favorite level that's not mine: The Three Trials (#23)

Least favorite level: Sandstorm (#5) / Kamizake (#20)