May 2015 Time Trial - Marvelynxous

[M11k4]

As promised, the new Time Trial is starting with a week of overlap with the old one... well kind of. You can already get the levels here... well kind of. They should be really fun and all tested and ready to go... well kind of at least partially in some sort of way at least if you look at it from a certain perspective. What I'm getting at is that there are three levels but only two of them are ready to go right now. I still need to test the third one a bit and tinker with its details, but I will soon get to updating that. In the mean time, you can already work on these first two levels. Just be sure to play them in Lynx, as this is the second time our Time Trial is not held in MS!

Enjoy and come back for the update!

Technicalities:

1) The person with the highest combined remaining time on the three levels wins! There may be a tie in overall score.
2) You may enter in only in Lynx, not MS. You may send in your MS time on the second level, but this will not have an effect on the scoring.
3) Please send your solutions (either the tws file or avis) to CCZoneNextLevel at gmail dot com, or to my own email valeosote at hotmail dot com. Do not post your solutions or solution times or share them with others before the competition results are announced. All times will be published at the same time, and the quickest solutions will eventually be released. I will strive to respond to your message by a confirmation that your score has been recorded.
4) The levels aren't too hard to solve. Don't be afraid to send in your solutions even if you sense they aren't perfect, and simple casual solutions are also appreciated. You may enter if you solve at least one of the levels, but solving more will obviously place higher.
5) This is part of the 2015 season of the Chip Cup. Winner will be awarded 15 points, second place 12, third 10 points, and so on. If you win a competition here for the first time, you receive the "You're Winner!" award. All participants who haven't participated in a Time Trial earlier receive the "Run, Chip, Run" award.
6) Submission deadline is May 24th where you live. I will judge the submissions without warning the during the following days but will accept submissions until I do. If you need a more specific time, you can always ask. To avoid losing on time (it is a time trial after all), get your solutions in early rather than later! You can send in improvements while the competition is running, so there is no downside to sending in something you know might not be your best effort if you had forever to work on it.
7) The designers of the levels, may enter the competition, as long as they feel to not have gained any significant advantage as a result of having some advanced knowledge of the levels. I personally will probably not take part this month.

8) The levels may receive an update within the first week of their release. (Note that the levels are not being released all at once this time.) This will only be done if there is some significant problem with the first versions of the levels.


9) A participant may 'freeze' their scores at some point after submitting their own solutions. They will not be able to send in any more updates after this, but they may talk about the levels and their times with other people who have frozen their entry. I may update a public list of people who have frozen their score.

This may also be my last time trial for quite some time, so I hope it all works out well. It's been a fun ride.

-Miika

[M11k4]

Updated version of the set posted! I hope I managed to do something a little quicker than I was expected for a change.

A couple notes on this third level. I really like it. It's a puzzle, and not many of the past TT levels have been true and honest puzzle levels. I tried to simplify it as much as possible without going so far that I'd be too afraid of a tie in the competition. I think it's also the longest TT level I've made, and certainly the one with the highest time limit. It reminds me oddly of Cloner's Maze and Red, Green and Blue, and at times playing it feels like juggling. I never thought when starting to make a TT level that only works in Lynx, that this is what I would end up with. And it has some sort of theme/story attached to it that makes sense in some way. Even if you don't enjoy optimizing usually, I think it's worth checking out.

-Miika



P.S. Also added a minor update to the first level, as it was meant to be unsolvable in MS. No change in Lynx.

[M11k4]

As it is with all the greatest things (Rome, Temple of Jerusalem, CC Zone), they are taken down only to be built back up better than before, so it is with this set as well. The third level has now been updated. I felt it needed a bit more room and I wanted to change a block and add a socket just in case.

-Miika

[M11k4]

New update coming!

So I was a little too hasty with my update yesterday. On my first attempt, I was eager to release the level and was imprudent in not sleeping on it for a day. I had tested the level, but had concentrated too much on balancing the intended approach. I quickly realized some of the first versions flaws and issued an update thinking that any other shenanigans could be part of the competition. Now I want to go back and refocus on the puzzle and away from the timing tricks. I will issue a new update in a day or so, once I iron out some of the details. I believe you can still look at the general intended puzzle without losing all your progress when the final version hits, but all this is still unfortunate and I apologize for the imperfect release. Thanks for your understanding

[M11k4]

There, another update posted (3.0). I would say this is the final version, but knowing how things can go I won't commit to anything just yet. I do apologize for the inconvenience. I'm a bit sad to lose some of the elegance in the level but once I decided I'd try to discourage any timing tricks with the mechanism, there really was no other choice than to add some more space and walls in odd places. Thanks to random 8 for giving me a second opinion on some of this stuff. Hopefully we can now focus on the puzzle itself more. Good luck!

-Miika

[M11k4]

Ok, after being away from the level over the weekend I decided to update it one more time. Now it looks better, plays smoother, and shouldn't encourage any timing tricks for optimizing. This is much closer to how I envisioned the level originally and hopefully overall it is a better level. I usually do not update levels this much, but you do get a glimpse at how I agonize over some of the smaller details in my levels. I am still within a week from its first release, but I understand and apologize for the stress this might have caused anyone already eager to work on this competition. Thanks for allowing me to try and make this the best level it can be. Now go play it! And you should ask your chipster friends to try this competition as well just for fun!!

-Miika

[M11k4]

Silly me, the last update broke something else in the level. Of course this happens. Well, here is the new improved and final version of the level for this competition. Enjoy!

The solution structure is still pretty much the same, but the teleports got misdirected so I fixed that.


-Miika

[Ihavenoname248]

I've submitted an entry now: not freezing though in case I feel like taking another look at, well, any of these in the future

[M11k4]

The deadline for this competition has now passed. However, we only have four entrants so far and I am unable to tally the scores today, so I will extend the deadline by an extra two days. You may thus still send in yours submissions if it is the 26th of May where you live. I will then post the results 48h from posting this message. Perhaps some of you were thrown off by the 'early' deadline (or inconvenienced by the updates) so I want to still give you a chance to participate. I may deduct a second from new submissions, just to keep it fair for those who were on time, but that should not make a large difference on the results. I enjoyed working on the levels (though I am not counting my solutions for the competitions because I discussed details about the levels with others while updating them) so I am sure anyone who finds the extra time to play them will enjoy them as well!

[M11k4]

Results!

0. Miika_________ 95 + 276 + 618 = 989

1. Syzygy________ 94 + 275 + 615 = 984

2. Ihavenoname248 95 + 277 + 609 = 981

3. random 8______ 93 + 276 + 440 = 809

4. Cyberdog______ 81 + 243 + 434 = 758

5. chipster1059__ 92 + 256 + 347 = 695

6. RB3ProKeys____ 92 + 276 + 243 = 611


Congrats to Syzygy for his first Time Trial win! Waiting two days gave us two more participants, yay! I won't even penalize them with that threatened second (because it didn't have an effect on the overall rankings). All of you provided very interesting solutions. From the results I can see that the final level was maybe a bit too complex because people were happy just to solve it once and get any score for it. I knew it was a balancing act to build it interesting enough for the competition, but I guess next time I can go a bit simpler still if needed. I'm also not counting my own scores in the competition, as I talked about the details of Age of Ultron with participants while updating the set, and also because my solution to Rivaldi (which was identical to Ihavenoname248's) was designed into the level (as opposed to discovering it afterwards). I still want to once again apologize for the updates to Age of Ultron, and I'll never know how those affected the results (like did Ihavenoname248 miss the quicker way to get the fireball to the SE chip because it was only possible in the latest update?).

Here's a cool graph random 8 provided to help figure out your way around Rivaldi
, though you'll have to be careful which lines are leading in and which ones go out:


Here are the quickest solutions, including Ihavenoname248's MS solution of 282 for Bathing in Battery Acid
:

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That's if for this spring. I hope you all enjoyed the competitions. I had a blast making these levels and judging the results too. This also looks to be the last time trial for quite some time, as none are planned and I will be gone for a bit, but I am sure some day we will return! Let's hope that will be before CCLP4


-Miika