June 2016 Create Comp - CC2 Tutorials! (First ever CC2 create!)

[_H_]

Your description of the starting post is definitely very clear that you expected lesson style levels, especially because your example Block Tug shows this clearly, and describes every step you have to take via hints. No wonder that you are ranting in your video about the first levels do have so many hint tiles, and that's as well the reason why Trans-Pachipic Partnership won I guess

There is a bit of a twist to this challenge though. Your level(s) is not required to be strictly a tutorial, you can also make a level that focuses on a few elements, or a large level focusing on one tile using its many different properties, but must remain pretty simple as a whole. To give you a better idea and visual of this, here is an example of a decent tutorial-ish level I made a while back, focusing on only a hook and turning blocks into ice blocks.

Teleport Convolution
You don't know what this level is supposed to show off?
Since there is the word teleport in the title and there are yellow teleports in the level, it might have something to do with them...
And even if it is hard to believe, I wasn't kidding in the description I sent you, it's about yellow teleports.
But after showing no intention of even trying to use the teleports or to solve the level after a bit more than four minutes you spent more than enough time on this?
At least you showed off more than enough that Melinda can't swim without fins...

Phantoms
You can kind of see that this level is about ghosts? I definitely would not have thought that someone could figure that out.
But at least I learned something new from you - stopwatches will kill you in the game, which is kind of neat!? - even though at the start of the level you stepped on a toggle clock without dying and you obviously didn't realize the point of the time penalties.

Unraveling Mystery
After four minutes of stupid cooks because you did not think about what to do you got the idea of that one so you don't need to spend a lot of time on this?
Again you don't show any intention of even trying to solve the level, and you didn't even bother finding out what the puzzle of the level is about.
Using a tileset which doesn't show you push up walls is of cause helpful.

However I'm definitely impressed how many levels you solved after not even thinking about two of mine or giving up after seven minutes on Bowling in the Sewer (the imo best level from Jeffrey, and definitely an easy level), you really overcame your initial reluctance to think and solved some puzzles e.g. in the Wrong of Way - at least you try to give the impression as if you are doing so, even if you played most levels including this one before, and just improved your times...

But a bit more serious again, to conclude the post, I thought about writing about all the levels after you put them up your video, but I think it would be pretty pointless, since I disagree with you on almost every single entry, but after you put so much aversion against my levels it feels like I have to defend them a bit, so the most important part is, if you wanted to get lesson style tutorials, you definitely should have made this clear at the start, and not wrote the complete opposite...
I really don't understand the hate for Teleport Convolution and to avoid misunderstandings, it's not supposed to be an easy lesson style tutorial and it was never intended to be as you never wrote that the entries should be that (and your reply to my email in which I stated that it is an advanced level based around yellow teleports and not a classic tutorial, was that this is Awesome! - so I was completely clueless that you did expect something complete different), and to be honest, I don't see how Trans-Pachipic Partnership is all of this in your opinion. Regardless just to clarify, you wrote the level must remain pretty simple as a whole, and that's definitely the case even for my first entry, pick up the yellow teleports (I really did not think that someone could miss this, especially since it is in the title and what else could you do with yellow teleports), use them to blow up the bomb with the ant, and use them again to bridge with the block to the exit (and yes, to double the bonuses there is a fourth puzzle there).

[Flareon350]

Your description of the starting post is definitely very clear that you expected lesson style levels, especially because your example Block Tug shows this clearly, and describes every step you have to take via hints. No wonder that you are ranting in your video about the first levels do have so many hint tiles, and that's as well the reason why Trans-Pachipic Partnership won I guess

Again, the reason why Trans-Pachipic Partnership won is because the concept was straightforward, well designed, and was smaller than the given size limit. It was narrowed down to the specifics of the limitations because it was pretty close compared to Tyler's entry.

Teleport Convolution

You don't know what this level is supposed to show off?

Since there is the word teleport in the title and there are yellow teleports in the level, it might have something to do with them...

And even if it is hard to believe, I wasn't kidding in the description I sent you, it's about yellow teleports.

But after showing no intention of even trying to use the teleports or to solve the level after a bit more than four minutes you spent more than enough time on this?

At least you showed off more than enough that Melinda can't swim without fins...

Did you really expect me to spend 15 minutes on this or something because that's how long it would have taken me and there were 21 other entries to play, 2 of which were yours. Even if the word teleport is in the title, that still doesn't make it clear on what to do or how to even do it. I spent only 4 minutes on this one because I didn't like it and I felt I was going to like one of your other entries, which I did. Not to mention at the start of Part 1, I stated I wasn't going to solve every single entry due to time constraints and was going to play enough of a level if I got the idea of it, which I partially did with Teleport Convolution.

Phantoms

You can kind of see that this level is about ghosts? I definitely would not have thought that someone could figure that out.

But at least I learned something new from you - stopwatches will kill you in the game, which is kind of neat!? - even though at the start of the level you stepped on a toggle clock without dying and you obviously didn't realize the point of the time penalties.

Okay...?

Unraveling Mystery

After four minutes of stupid cooks because you did not think about what to do you got the idea of that one so you don't need to spend a lot of time on this?

Again you don't show any intention of even trying to solve the level, and you didn't even bother finding out what the puzzle of the level is about.

Using a tileset which doesn't show you push up walls is of cause helpful.

The level was centered around a swivel puzzle with almost every chip placed on a pop-up wall. I think I knew what the level was about and I did try to solve it in the video. Nonetheless, I didn't feel this level was much of a tutorial and instead was more of a puzzle than anything else. I already liked Phantoms a lot more than this, that's why I stopped at four minutes on this one. I did not fault the tileset used because it's my choice to use that tileset, so it was completely unrelated to the judging process. I could still barely see what chip had a pop-up under it.

However I'm definitely impressed how many levels you solved after not even thinking about two of mine or giving up after seven minutes on Bowling in the Sewer (the imo best level from Jeffrey, and definitely an easy level), you really overcame your initial reluctance to think and solved some puzzles e.g. in the Wrong of Way - at least you try to give the impression as if you are doing so, even if you played most levels including this one before, and just improved your times...

Initial reluctance? I stated in the start of Part 1 I was not going to spend a lot of time on most of the levels because I didn't want each video to be over an hour long. Especially to the ones who submitted three entries, I stated I was going to judge the level I favored the most, which I did. And in case you missed it, the levels were "replayed" because of a fault in a previous recording attempt.

But a bit more serious again, to conclude the post, I thought about writing about all the levels after you put them up your video, but I think it would be pretty pointless, since I disagree with you on almost every single entry, but after you put so much aversion against my levels it feels like I have to defend them a bit, so the most important part is, if you wanted to get lesson style tutorials, you definitely should have made this clear at the start, and not wrote the complete opposite...

I really don't understand the hate for Teleport Convolution and to avoid misunderstandings, it's not supposed to be an easy lesson style tutorial and it was never intended to be as you never wrote that the entries should be that (and your reply to my email in which I stated that it is an advanced level based around yellow teleports and not a classic tutorial, was that this is Awesome! - so I was completely clueless that you did expect something complete different), and to be honest, I don't see how Trans-Pachipic Partnership is all of this in your opinion. Regardless just to clarify, you wrote the level must remain pretty simple as a whole, and that's definitely the case even for my first entry, pick up the yellow teleports (I really did not think that someone could miss this, especially since it is in the title and what else could you do with yellow teleports), use them to blow up the bomb with the ant, and use them again to bridge with the block to the exit (and yes, to double the bonuses there is a fourth puzzle there).

I think I made it very clear what kind of level should have been made at the start of the competition. How you interpreted it isn't my fault. Perhaps if anything, I should have stated your levels should have been beginner friendly but who doesn't view tutorial levels as such anyway? I would have thought it was obvious what kind of level I was expecting. If you view tutorials as being not-so-easy to understand levels then you definitely hit the nail in the head but that's not what a tutorial level is about. I explained why Trans-Pachipic Partnership won already so no need to say why again. And in my reply to your e-mail, I did also state I was going to refrain from any kind of viewing of your level (and even said this here in the thread), hence why I said "Awesome!" and nothing else. Even if I did view the level, I would not have said much about it because the judging comes down to the gameplay, not the looks.

I'm not sure what else to say since most of your post is filled with sarcasm. But in general, I'm pretty surprised with your post, considering most your feedback on various other custom levels - you criticize them for not being clear on what to do, being too hard, etc. Yet I'm getting the impression it was wrong of me to do the same in this competition.

If you don't agree with the rankings then I apologize but I do feel like I was fair, even to you and your level, Phantoms.

[Flareon350]

Thank you very much for hosting and judging this competition, Josh! Good job to all those who entered--I enjoyed most of the levels, and the top three definitely deserved to be up there. I actually learned a lot from some of the tutorials, particularly Tyler's block tutorial.

Didn't mean to double post but at least someone appreciated this competition and the rankings. Thanks Andrew

[_H_]

If you don't agree with the rankings then I apologize but I do feel like I was fair, even to you and your level, Phantoms.

No reason to apologize, at least not to me, since I don't care about the ranking at all, but it's inconsistent, and different from a ranking I would have made.

But in general, I'm pretty surprised with your post, considering most your feedback on various other custom levels - you criticize them for not being clear on what to do, being too hard, etc.

I can't remember a single level I criticized for being too hard puzzle wise or because it's not being clear on what to do. On contrary, hard puzzle levels are the ones I generally rate the highest, because I like to play them the most!

What I don't like is trial and error, hidden information or crazy timing and crazy monster dodging, and I think I'm pretty consistent and clear on the feedback in this regard.

[chipster1059]

I haven't played any of the levels except my own, and I didn't watch anything except the part about my levels and the final rankings.

"chipster ten fifty-nine aka the best chipster ever...or maybe that's underscore...overstatement, but ok" Thanks!

EXCHANGE: I have to admit the skates are pointless and confusing. I originally put them so Chip could drop objects on the ice like Melinda, but you do have a point that it causes problems if the bowling ball picks them up. I will remove them when I put this in C1059-CC2 (should take a few months at my current designing rate).

ERASER RUSH: I don't think it can be solved without the speed boots. In the end, I don't really care much about this level. I'm wondering which of my levels are made interesting by a tramogrifer's presence, though. And Jeffrey, I don't see how the walkers can be problematic, since the player has speed boots and should be able to easily outrun them.

TWICE THE EYESIGHT! : I noticed that you called this "Twice the Fun" at one point, and yes, the title is a reference to that TCCLPRejects level. The other reference in the title (and the reason why the whole level exists) is extremely obscure and doesn't make any sense anyway. I'm rather surprised that it did so well, since I said in the designer comments that "I think this is my weakest of the three entries". But all right, I'm glad you liked it.

Also, I think Joshua's level should have been disqualified entirely. No matter how great is is, it was clearly written in the rules that the level CANNOT be more than 25*25. Not “bonus points if the level is less than”, but literally “cannot be larger than”. It broke the rules, so disqualified. I'm harsh, but that's my opinion.

I like this way of judging, because you can really see the player's first thoughts on the level as they play it, instead of an edited text written a while later, after overanalyzing the levels. And either way, I hope there will be more CC2 competitions eventually, without them replacing CC1 competitions entirely.

[Joshua Bone]

Excellent competition! It's nice to have a CC2 event, I hope there will be more.

Regarding my submission and the rules, yes, I broke them, sorry . I simply had a list of things I wanted to include in a boot-dropping tutorial and after several attempts to cram them all into a 25x25 level, decided it wasn't worth sacrificing the concepts to try to force them into those constraints. My rational was that the actual space used in the 10x90 final product was probably about the same as the space that would be used in a 25x25 if I got creative with thin walls, but the layout is much less distracting this way, which I feel is quite important in a tutorial. But yes, rules are rules and I have no complaints .

[Flareon350]

I'm very pleased most you enjoyed and approved of how the competition went! I hope there will be more in the future but I'm done running competitions for a while I'll leave the next CC2 create for someone else

[Ihavenoname248]

ERASER RUSH: I don't think it can be solved without the speed boots. In the end, I don't really care much about this level. I'm wondering which of my levels are made interesting by a tramogrifer's presence, though. And Jeffrey, I don't see how the walkers can be problematic, since the player has speed boots and should be able to easily outrun them.

When I played it, the first time had a walker follow me into the blue locks and get bounce up into the top right corner while I was getting the bonuses: and then another walker followed it on the approach to the exit. Pretty bad luck to get that far, but I did end up winning.

And H: judging these competitions always always always comes down to the personal opinion of the person judging: different people will like different levels more than others. That's just how it works. Teleport Convolution is fine as a level, but it's very difficult and doesn't teach the player about yellow teleports, it tests the player on their knowledge of how to use them. Phantoms didn't have the clock thing pointed out because Josh already knew that: but I will say that it was a clever way to include/demonstrate that frozen time at 0 seconds = non-fatal. The actual ghost part of the level could have stood to be a little easier as it still feels more like a test than a tutorial, but it was good. Unraveling Mystery... the gist is there's swivel doors and chips on recessed walls and find the path that lets you get all of them without being stopped by the swivel doors. It doesn't really teach anything, except maybe how swivel doors work, and Swivel Motel from the standard set does so better. It's also a puzzle that, as far as I can tell, can't easy be worked out without trial and error (similar to Flip-Flop).

Regardless just to clarify, you wrote the level must remain pretty simple as a whole, and that's definitely the case even for my first entry, pick up the yellow teleports (I really did not think that someone could miss this, especially since it is in the title and what else could you do with yellow teleports), use them to blow up the bomb with the ant, and use them again to bridge with the block to the exit (and yes, to double the bonuses there is a fourth puzzle there).

So, You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks is pretty simple as a whole because all you have to do is push some blocks to specific positions, split up the two fireballs, keep the tank alive, and wait on a trap for a minute to get to the end. Avalanche is pretty simple because all you have to do is move the blocks between rooms. See the problem here? Distilling the steps of the solution ignores the details, and the details of where to place the yellow teleports for each step are definitely far from simple, even if figuring out what to do is.

No reason to apologize, at least not to me, since I don't care about the ranking at all, but it's inconsistent, and different from a ranking I would have made.

The ranking seemed pretty consistent to me: it's Josh's opinion! The only inconsistency would be with Joshua Bone's entry and that...yeah. It seemed reasonably fair to mark it down ~44% of the overall points to make up for using 44% more space, and that was 2 spots.

[_H_]

And H: judging these competitions always always always comes down to the personal opinion of the person judging: different people will like different levels more than others.

For sure, and it's good, otherwise everything would be pretty boring.

Teleport Convolution is fine as a level, but it's very difficult and doesn't teach the player about yellow teleports, it tests the player on their knowledge of how to use them.

That's correct to a certain extend. Yellow teleports are a relatively tricky element in the sense that you can place them in a lot of different locations, which makes them complex. However there is not a lot of knowledge required. Yes, you can pick them up, but if you did not know this before playing this level, you will realize this pretty quickly by just stepping onto the outer one by chance. And if the player tries to place them onto a custom tile, he will realize that that's not possible. But I definitely disagree with some kind of test of knowledge, even if everyone should be familiar with the mechanics of teleports and partial posts in general (and Trans-Pachipic Partnership does require these for example as well, just additionally even the order of teleports,...), but there would be no point in introducing them to a player before he knows blue and red teleport mechanics anyway. Yellow teleports are an interesting and to a certain extend complex game element, which allows nice puzzles, but it's not a test of knowledge about a lot of cc2 mechanics at all.

Phantoms didn't have the clock thing pointed out because Josh already knew that: but I will say that it was a clever way to include/demonstrate that frozen time at 0 seconds = non-fatal.

Yes, and it allows therefore exploration if you want to

Unraveling Mystery... the gist is there's swivel doors and chips on recessed walls and find the path that lets you get all of them without being stopped by the swivel doors. It doesn't really teach anything, except maybe how swivel doors work, and Swivel Motel from the standard set does so better. It's also a puzzle that, as far as I can tell, can't easy be worked out without trial and error (similar to Flip-Flop).

Absolutely no trial and error is required to solve the puzzle, you can see every detail without stepping onto a single push up wall. If you are not a computer and try thousands of possibilities a second, you should definitely think logically how to set things up, and not try to brute force something with trial and error. If you seriously would call this just solvable with trial and error, you would have to do this for every sokoban, or probably even for every level in cc...

But if you really want to write that much about game elements, you can enlighten me to which does Trans-Pachipic Partnership teach the player?

And I seriously don't know, is teeth mechanics, or is it the swivel/revolving doors tutorial you mean I failed with Unraveling Mystery?

So, You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks is pretty simple as a whole because all you have to do is push some blocks to specific positions, split up the two fireballs, keep the tank alive, and wait on a trap for a minute to get to the end.

You are forgetting the part which makes this otherwise good level into something I can't like that much - the teeth puzzle at the very end where you can easily die, which should have imo been it's own level, and not a part at the end of a really long level.

But You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks has a lot of overall complexity and is a long level, even if you know exactly what you are doing. The comparison lacks there a bit

Avalanche is pretty simple because all you have to do is move the blocks between rooms

Avalanche is again a long level, repetitive and some parts tedious. Every single step I would indeed refer as simple, however again, it's a difficult level because it has overall complexity and is not linear. If it would just be linearly pushing more and more blocks from one room into the next, I would indeed say it's simple as a whole.

Distilling the steps of the solution ignores the details, and the details of where to place the yellow teleports for each step are definitely far from simple, even if figuring out what to do is.

Correct, each step of figuring out where to place the yellow teleports for the two required tasks (yes the level is really short) is the puzzle and the whole point of the level. There is hardly any overall complexity (at least if you don't try to not open the doors and just bridge down...).

The only inconsistency would be with Joshua Bone's entry and that...yeah. It seemed reasonably fair to mark it down ~44% of the overall points to make up for using 44% more space, and that was 2 spots.

There is no logic in this statement

But yes if you mention Joshua Bones violation of the rules, you have to do so for Tyler as well (no time limit). But how to deal with them is up to Josh anyhow.

Neither I nor you nor chipster made any tutorial levels in the strict sense, even everyone sent three levels, because it was not required to do so. (and on top Trans-Pachipic Partnership is the least tutorial like of your three, and choose that one)

And levels as Wrong of Way or Conveyor Reversal do include puzzles as well, so that's not it either, you can apply knowledge to a problem.

So you might think, the easier the better, but Where There's A Wall didn't win, it got the last place (but not having to think doesn't seem to make a level bad, as shown in Blocksmith or How to Itemdrop Like A champ).

The shorter the better doesn't work either as again with Where There's A Wall or Unraveling Mystery shows, and the same for size.

So there is no criteria for what levels are ranked how, so it's inconsistency I'm speaking of.

I have to admit, I would have no clue how to rank the lesson style tutorials where you don't have to think, and therefore are completely boring and pointless to play, compared to the other levels...

I think you get the point about this, but I'm not complaining about any rankings.

I don't like that the my levels which do focus on game elements as required, are made bad as strict tutorials, which was never the intention (but again, they are not alone in this regard).

And perhaps even more importantly, I can totally understand that Josh want's to keep the videos reasonably short, but he did not solve any levels for the first time in the videos (and if that should not be true, why play some the first time and some before,...), so why not solve all the levels before and show the solutions to all the levels?

If he solves e.g. Teleport Convolution or just shows the solution or whatever (and all the levels can easily be solved in way less than five minutes if you know what you are doing), and points out thoughts about the level and that it is too difficult to be considered for this competition, it would have been totally fine with me, and I probably wouldn't have written much about it, but instead in two of my levels he seems to run around a bit bored to kill time without me seeing any intention of him solving the levels in the video.

(or in the worst case scenario, if he can't be bothered to spend some minutes solving them, just leave the levels out, or show the solution in a separate video with some thought on them (here perhaps with some real first time comments, if he hasn't seen it before) if he doesn't want to spoil the solutions in the general video, but just running around stupidly that's for sure the worst decision...)

[Ihavenoname248]

There's quite a lot to respond to, so excuse me for picking and choosing points. I can sort of see where you're coming from with the inconsistency, but my overall impression of what Josh did was sorting all the levels into three categories, and ranking from there:

<ul class="bbc">
[*]too simple, doesn't really illustrate concepts well
[*]too complex, doesn't really demonstrate uses for a newer player
[*]just right, illustrates mechanics of something well either through direct explanations or implicit interactions
</ul>

That's correct to a certain extend. Yellow teleports are a relatively tricky element in the sense that you can place them in a lot of different locations, which makes them complex. However there is not a lot of knowledge required. Yes, you can pick them up, but if you did not know this before playing this level, you will realize this pretty quickly by just stepping onto the outer one by chance. And if the player tries to place them onto a custom tile, he will realize that that's not possible.
...
Correct, each step of figuring out where to place the yellow teleports for the two required tasks (yes the level is really short) is the puzzle and the whole point of the level. There is hardly any overall complexity (at least if you don't try to not open the doors and just bridge down...).

From what I played, you need to set up blocks so that the yellow teleport in the center can be moved, you need to think ahead to where in the center it needs to be placed for the bug (which can't be seen yet), then you need to move them again for moving the ice block at the end. There's a lot of things that become apparent from playing, but they don't really help with solving the level. A less puzzle-heavy (or rather, a level with less possible cooks) would have been a stronger yellow teleport level for the purposes of the competition, and could still illustrate all of the same concepts.

Absolutely no trial and error is required to solve the puzzle, you can see every detail without stepping onto a single push up wall. If you are not a computer and try thousands of possibilities a second, you should definitely think logically how to set things up, and not try to brute force something with trial and error. If you seriously would call this just solvable with trial and error, you would have to do this for every sokoban, or probably even for every level in cc...

Well, yes, it can be done without trial and error. But it also reminds me of Campgrounds in that certain moves that look fine will end up screwing the level, without really being able to see ahead. Unless I'm missing something, you'd almost need to plot a path through the entire level before moving in order to complete it. Josh and I both found several methods to progress, but both of us in playing kept making a mistake somewhere that wasn't clear.
Sokobans and other levels usually allow undoing moves/returning to earlier states. With the recessed walls, that's not really the case here. Again, a level with less cooks (less recessed walls, but still some) would have been a much stronger candidate here, I feel.

But if you really want to write that much about game elements, you can enlighten me to which does Trans-Pachipic Partnership teach the player?

It was meant as a level to showcase a few of the things that two characters working together could do, that one character wouldn't be able to do alone. The sokoban at the start and recessed wall section, nailing off the other Chip (and changing teeth focus), and even the partial post that, even though you tried citing as something that requires knowledge, I'd say explains itself pretty well. Much better than, well, Partial Post did.
I will concede that this was the least tutorial-y level I submitted, and I didn't expect it to do well. But I did like the scaling and overall simplicity, so I threw it in.

The comparison lacks there a bit ...I would indeed say it's simple as a whole.

That was exactly my point: you can distill any level down to simple conceptual statements, but it doesn't matter if the details aren't. Simple and easy are two different things, after all.

There is no logic in this statement
But yes if you mention Joshua Bones violation of the rules, you have to do so for Tyler as well (no time limit). But how to deal with them is up to Josh anyhow.

Meh. There's some logic- first would have been 15 chip cup points, third is 10, that's a 33% cut. Fourth would be 8 and a 46.66% cut and probably a fairer placement for using 44% more space (as the size issue was not brought up prior to judging, as it probably should have been as with Tyler's). For my ranking, 4th / 8 points to 6th / 6 points should have been to 7th / 5 points to keep with the ratio, but as an unofficial preferences it matters less.

Tyler not having a time limit matters much less than using more space than explicitly allowed: for one, it's an incredibly simple fix that doesn't change the level itself. For another, a timed level in CC2 can functionally become an untimed level, as you did with Phantoms. It honestly, HONESTLY does not matter and at that point it's just nitpicking for flaws in logic anywhere.