My levelsets: Bad, Broken, Busted, Better?

[Syzygy]

I have a couple sets on this site now. Egyptian_Motif_LYNX_71 and Extra_Extra.

Bad levels? Solutions Broken or Busted? Can they be made Better?

Any comments or suggestions are very welcome. There may be improvements that can be seen by others that might be missed by me.

[jblewis]

Route 66 (Egyptian_Motif_LYNX_71 #131) is still unsolvable in MS due to the tank/toggle door issue - everything else on the whitelist looks great, though!

I haven't played all of your levels yet (I wasn't the one who tested the vast majority of them for CCLP1), but my favorites so far are the ones that are simple in concept yet wonderfully rich in design (Four Corners, Quark, etc.).

[Syzygy]

Ah. I think I must have been lucky when testing because of the timing when I stepped on the blue button. It may have caused the tank to move to the right and allow me to get through. I'll have to edit again. Thanks. And thanks for the compliment.

I have it fixed now. Uploading new version.

[Syzygy]

It's getting close to 2 years since I asked for comments. I guess the lack of response means that nobody wants to bother. Oh well... maybe this topic should be closed?

I have combined my levels into one big set called E_Trilogy. The updated version can be found here just in case someone wants to respond.

[Flareon350]

It's getting close to 2 years since I asked for comments. I guess the lack of response means that nobody wants to bother. Oh well... maybe this topic should be closed?

I have combined my levels into one big set called E_Trilogy. The updated version can be found here just in case someone wants to respond.

I'm in the same boat as you when it comes to asking for feedback, etc. on your levels. I haven't gotten much from JoshL5 since I released the final version of it.

But I will play your set when I get some free time. I've been playing UC4 and am getting close to finishing that though another set would be nice to play.

[jblewis]

Syzygy,

Sorry for not expounding on my earlier post sooner, as I actually have played many of your levels while going through the voting packs. Here are my thoughts: I think you have a lot of great design ideas in your levels, swastikas notwithstanding. But so many of them can be rather cumbersome to play when they don't contain a healthy sense of scale. It's the principle of "just because you can doesn't mean you should." Levels that fill up as much of the map as possible don't always have to, particularly when the tasks at hand are repeated over and over - whether it's collecting chips, dodging monsters, or just adding more challenges. I think your best levels are the ones that contain themselves (Under the Stairs, Four Corners, Shape Shifter, etc.) and know when to stop.

[Ihavenoname248]

To go a bit farther on what J.B. said: I had a lot of the same experiences, and some of the most annoying levels to complete could be found in this set. Some were quite fun (Around the Block, 33) but then there were Bomb Blaster (47, very tedious), 10 Sephirot (68, very prone to suddenly unwinnable situation), Coovet Blocks (72, tedious opening then too much small dodging), Messerschmitt (80, way way way too much dodging in small rooms and backtracking through them), Circa For Mula (105, see previous comment), Coovet Teeth (141, exactly the same as Coovet Blocks except worse because dodging was for longer and so much was exactly the same), CPU (151: BLOCK PUSHING IN BLIND ICE MAZE REALLY), Icy Turns (181, lots of lucky timing with the ice slides). I flipped through E_Trilogy for these, and saw several others that I played but weren't annoying to play through.

There's also a tendency to fill empty space with ice corners and chips: though fun in MS, it's boring and slow in Lynx. Open space and unused tiles are not something to be avoided.

Now, some of the levels were actually rather fun in voting: but the ones that were didn't feel like the levels mentioned above, and I couldn't tell who had designed them (I started being able to tell who designed a level from the design...thinker was the other designer I could peg immediately)

[Syzygy]

Thanks for the ideas. I shall attempt to put them to use in future levels.

I had hoped the ideas I expounded may be inspirational to someone.