mobius I feedback

[mobius]

download:

http://cczone.invisionzone.com/index.php?/files/file/523-mobius-i/

This is my first levelset for CC2. It's partially remakes of my older CC1 levels and some new ones. The old levels, for the most part have a lot of changes though, to fix issues and updated for the new game.

There are 45 levels total. The pack begins easy, the hard levels are near the end. Feedback is welcome. If you have any questions about the pack don't hesitate to ask. Some levels I'm particularly uncertain as to how hard/easy they are or what kind of hints I should give for them.
All levels have been tested to be solvable. Not all of the bonuses are tested but most of them are.

All levels use CC2 boot rules.

-All of the sokobon levels are adaptations from another PC game called Enigma. But I don't know the author's names so I couldn't put that in the title.


-thanks to people in the past who gave me feedback on my older CC1 levels.

-thanks to people who created CC2 levels recently which I played and enjoyed very much.

-thanks to the people who gave me help with using the CC2 editor and making these levels.

Info on some of the levels:

GOD OF WAR:

I'm not sure what kind of hints to put on this level so I'd like to especially know people think it needs any/what they should say. This is a level where you must experiment and look around. Once you know what each button does there's a simple puzzle with juggling the blocks around.

This level was adapted from a puzzle in a point and click adventure game from the mid 90's "Journeyman Project 2, Buried in Time" with basically the same setup.

Thanks to Joshua Bone for the help on the timer mechanism.


GLASS MAZE

The leve is an adaptation from a puzzle in the game RHEM2. You can totally ignore the canopys unless you want the bonus, they serve no purpose in getting to the chips or exit; there's no "trickery" in this level.


THE DRAWING OF THE SEVEN

This level is the one, by far, I spent the most time on.

The puzzle is to press every button only once, and using the clues from the flame jet room and the letter room you must decipher the order in which to do this. A random sequence is generated each time you play so there is no universal solution to this level. This is also and adaptation from another puzzle in RHEM2, one of my favorite puzzles in the game actually.puzzles in that series called the "light barrier puzzle"
The title gives a clue to the puzzle.


The hardest part of designing this was figuring out how to generate a random pattern each time. If you've solved it [or looked in the editor] you'll see the level is huge 63x80 [90% of it is the mechnism while about 10-20% is the play area ]
thanks to random8 for a little help. I got a lot of inspiration from the level "Simon" in Tsa1. Although I ultimately didn't use a set-up similar to theirs, mine is way more [probably over] complicated, but I'm proud I figured a way out on my own.
I wanted to design it such that you could generate a sequence; try and if you failed, try again, multiple times in the same play, but working out a mechanism to reset the sqeuence proved too difficult and I decided to go with making it so you must restart the level to try again.

[_H_]

Who can't like a set that starts with an easy sokoban? At least not me, I had a lot of fun playing the levels

My favorite levels are JUST LIKE FOURPLEX, GLASS MAZE and CHESS MASTER I B)
as well THE DRAWING OF THE SEVEN is a really cool level

For the most part, I'll keep it compact, since you have partly tutorial style levels as well as small and/or simple ones and I think if you look at my other feedback posts, it's probably at least for most levels pretty obvious why I rated them as I did, but if you have questions, feel free to ask
I have to point out, just because a level got low scores, doesn't mean at all, that it's bad or shouldn't be in the set, the levels are mainly compared to others within the set, therefore naturally some will get low scores, and just some high ones. and it is highly subjective grading, other players enjoy level types I don't and probably vice versa...

Two levels could probably easily improved a lot, by making small changes to them:
In SHIPYARD the puzzle part for the bottom was really good, the right side with the bombs really tedious. I would definitely prefer, if there would be just one bomb per chip, which would make the level imo way better.
BACKWARDS LOGIC - Well, the level title is a bit of a hint, but not enough to know what you should do. It's complete trial and error, unless you look into the editor and know the mechanism behind it, since how should you guess, that each chip taken reveals the position which should have been taken a turn before, this level needs a hint to explain this a bit, than it would be a cool level and a nice puzzle

GOD OF WAR is a really nice level, since at the moment the puzzle is more, just try everything, I didn't rate it too high, but I think it is a cool level even as is - it's just not the type of puzzle I prefer, with a proper tip within the level this could change, but I'm not too sure how this hinting could be done without making the level trivial, perhaps something a bit cryptic about looking behind...

Now to the overview for the first 42 levels:

Some trial and error as well as pure monster dodging levels are left out.
Rating: Concept and Design / Puzzle Difficulty / Action Difficulty / Fun

Code:

01 CONSERVATION            3/1/1/3
02 NOW YOU'RE STALKING     2/1/2/3
03 CAT AND MOUSE           3/3/1/3
04 CAN YOU SEE ME?         2/1/2/2
05 KALEIDOSCOPE            1/1/4/1
07 EASY DOES IT            4/4/1/5
08 CHESS MASTER I          5/4/1/5
09 THE NIGHT WOUNDS TIME   4/1/2/3
10 CUBICLES                4/2/2/4
11 DOUBLE BACK             3/1/1/3
12 KEYLESS ENTRY           3/2/1/4
13 SHIPYARD                3/3/1/3
15 ON THE FLIP SIDE        4/2/1/4
16 PAINTING CORNERS        3/4/1/3
17 MATRIX                  4/3/1/4
18 OBSERVATION             2/1/1/2
19 PROXY                   2/1/1/3
20 DO THE HUSTLE           1/1/2/2
21 HOURGLASS               3/2/1/4
22 A LOOP THAT WON'T CLOSE 4/3/1/4
23 WITHOUT BOUNDARIES      3/1/3/3
24 ROCKET IN THE POCKET!   5/2/1/3
25 THE SHAFT               4/2/2/4
26 SHOW ME THE WAY         3/1/1/3
27 JUST LIKE FOURPLEX      5/5/1/5
28 MOTION SICKNESS         1/1/4/1
29 SIGNALS                 5/1/2/4
30 NETWORK                 3/3/5/2
33 GRIDLOCK                3/2/2/2
34 THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT    3/3/1/3
36 GOD OF WAR              4/3/1/3
37 DOWN THE TUBE           3/2/2/2
38 FADING FAST             4/1/3/5
40 SNEAKY PETE             4/3/1/4
42 GLASS MAZE              5/4/1/5

[mobius]

sweet, thanks for the feedback! [was beginning to think nobody was going to give any... ]

Btw, I've began working on my set again and I'll be updating my pack to include more levels, as well as fix the existing ones. I plan on making a pack designed to be accessible for beginners with tutorials in the beginning.

I'll take your comments greatly into account. The worst problem a designer has is "designer blindness" [to steal a term from J.B.]

Feel free to give more suggestions I definitely understand your ratings.
I *usually* don't like trial and error and rarely make levels themed on that. So let me know especially if you find something requiring trial and error--it probably means I just need to give a better hint or improve on the level somehow.

I thought of such on Backwards Logic but was afraid of giving away the solution too easily.

Chess Master I plan to either expand on or make a sequel level.

DOWN THE TUBE I plan to overhaul pretty extensively--I realize this level is probably tedious.

On Glass Maze; I actually wanted to design my own maze, simply based off the idea from RHEM 2, but as this puzzle is incredibly difficult, designing one is even harder so I just copied the basic design. In RHEM 2 however; you're first person, 3D in the maze which of course, is much harder.

THE DRAWING OF THE SEVEN -- another one which I suspected of being too obtuse;
Did you actually solve this level? If so, did the hints help at all? I know a few ways I could make it easier if need be.

[_H_]

[was beginning to think nobody was going to give any... ]

Joshua Bone has written in-depth about CONSERVATION, THE NIGHT WOUNDS TIME and CUBICLES in his blog as well

Btw, I've began working on my set again and I'll be updating my pack to include more levels, as well as fix the existing ones. I plan on making a pack designed to be accessible for beginners with tutorials in the beginning.

Especially since there is no set as far as I know with this design goal in mind for cc2, that's really a good idea.

I thought of such on Backwards Logic but was afraid of giving away the solution too easily.

I don't think that it would give away the solution, just establish the rules for the puzzle, but it would be interesting to hear, what other people think...

On Glass Maze; I actually wanted to design my own maze, simply based off the idea from RHEM 2, but as this puzzle is incredibly difficult, designing one is even harder so I just copied the basic design. In RHEM 2 however; you're first person, 3D in the maze which of course, is much harder.

When I first played it, I was already pretty tired, and as I didn't see any obvious solution, decided to come back to it the next day, at which it was not too hard, but of course I knew already the basic structure of it. So the difficulty could be underrated, but regardless of it's difficulty level, it is a really nice puzzle.

THE DRAWING OF THE SEVEN -- another one which I suspected of being too obtuse;

Did you actually solve this level? If so, did the hints help at all? I know a few ways I could make it easier if need be.

Yes, I solved the level. The hints did help. When I first saw the flame throwers, I thought, it's probably really cryptic, but then I saw the translation table, which lead me to restart the level, and connect the points on paper in the order of they light up, the rest was relatively straight forward, since there was no ambiguity

[mobius]

wow thanks, I'm honestly surprised to hear such comments on Drawing of the Seven. In that case I'll leave it as it is for now. It was certainty fun to make. This is another puzzle based [more loosely] from RHEM 2, my favorite puzzle from that game.

Also thanks for letting me know about Josh's posts. I don't read the blog section too often.

[mobius]

I decided to make two packs: 1 will be a major update of this pack, right now I have over 50 levels and more ideas I really want to make.

I think I found some really good solutions to making some of my levels better; like Backwards logic for example; will be two levels now, one easy and one harder and the way it will be set up now, no hints will be necessary.



The other pack will be a pack of about 30 lesson style levels called "Chip Trainer" or something like that [if I can come up with a better name] It is solely a tutorial pack, designed to teach newcomers how to play the game, and explain some things I think the game itself didn't do a great job of. [how you can block-slap for example] This pack is almost complete, I'll probably upload it soon. I'm still working on my main pack.

[mobius]

I changed my mind on my last post and I'll only be making one pack now. It seemed a good idea at first but more work I think. So my new pack will now be complete with about 28 tutorial levels [many near the beginning but not all]. They'll be plenty of easy levels and hard ones too. As of now the pack's nearing 100 levels total. I still have more ideas so it may break 100.

Since I have been spending most of my time making this, I haven't been playing other people's levels so not much new feedback from me lately. But I have been replaying the CC2 game, and improving my score and solving levels I haven't solved before.

[Joshua Bone]

I'm really interested to see how you approach the tutorial learning curve!

[mobius]

I haven't updated in a while. I'm still hard at work, I've made a ton of new levels since my last post. My level goal right now is 150 levels it may be more but I think this is a nice number to aim for.

At risk of sounding immodest I feel like I've recently made some really cool levels, I've been discovering a lot of new and interesting possibilities, some on my own and some thanks to everyone else's levels/inspiration. I hope my previous CC1 sets are not too much of a negative representation of my design. When I look back I think my design has improved quite a bit since then.

The tutorials are going well for the most part. They will get stretched out into the set mixed in with regular levels to some degree, like in the main game. My early tutorials start out very small and simple and they get larger and more complex, the later ones especially.

[mobius]

I'll soon be uploading this set, it'll have a different name and custom music that hardcore CC fans might appreciate. I'm getting the music ready and making the play.c2m file.

While it seems there aren't very many people playing CC2 level these days, I'll ask anyway; would anyone like to play test a few levels before I release the whole set? There are a few levels which I'm quite unsure about the difficulty level and some bonuses which I've not tested thoroughly