February 2013 Time Trial - a creative revisit

[Hornlitz]

So, would I be allowed to enter even though I made one of the levels?

[M11k4]

So, would I be allowed to enter even though I made one of the levels?

That's a tough question, but on this occasion I would have said yes. I deliberately asked you about using your level at the very end of January and not earlier, even though I had it in mind. This is also the first time (at most the second time) that the levels had already been public before the competition started, so in theory others could also have had the same advantage as you. Then again my answer came a bit late, as I am just about to announce the results, so sorry about that.

[M11k4]

The Results!!!

We had six participants this time around, and I'll walk you through what the result looked like from my perspective as they were submitted. My own best times prior to starting the competition were 363
and 306
in MS, and 315
in Lynx on the second level. So I suspected 310+
was possible in MS, but didn't see the need to test the level further. The first entrant was random 8 (in Lynx) who sent in solutions of 358
and 307
, for a total score of 665
. Soon afterwards Markus sent in his solutions of 363
(MS) and 318
(Lynx) taking advantage of gliders not dying in lynx fire, for an incredible total of 681
. (You can watch this solution in the next post.) Note that for the competition, high lynx scores might be lowered to match the highest submitted MS time, these scores for the second level might be considered equal, depending on what else was submitted. Michael got his MS solutions of 162
and 235
in for a score of 397
, and tensorpudding sent in 116
and 282
in Lynx for a total of 398
, beating Michael by just one second! However, tensorpudding later improved his second level score to 302
, impressively getting over the 300 mark, for a total of 418
. Then pieguy sent in his solutions, and J.B. as well sent in his solutions a few days ago, but before I just blurt out their scores, I want to take a small step back to explain what was interesting about them.

As I mentioned earlier, the first level was originally made to have at least three distinct solutions. One of these was to drown the block and reach the blue wall maze (and getting the chip by the water is the safest way to do this). Another way was to lead teeth through bombs, and while this could be done with just one, cloning more teeth might be faster. Then the teeth monster you manage to lead out of the bomb maze could be used to press the trap button guarding the exit, first releasing (and possibly drowning) the fireball from the trap and then allowing Chip to pass through the trap as well. The third way was to navigate your way through the pink balls, press a blue button and navigate your way back before the tank denied you access to the exit again. The intended method to complete this area (and the whole level) the quickest, was to first use the block to alter the rhythm of the two pink balls bouncing side by side, so they would not be next to each other, and then go press the tank button, scoring 363
as Markus did. However, due to a last minute addition of dirt at (16,22), it became possible for the fireball that started in the trap to also release the trap and allow Chip a quicker solution. This is in a way lucky for the competition aspect of the level, and in a way funny since I had previously specifically not added dirt here to deny this solution, but forgot about it when I eventually added it in. The two people to use this were pieguy and J.B, with scores of 375
and 367
. The difference came mostly from better handling of the teeth in the maze, utilizing some controller/boss cloning (which I have to say I was aware of, but wasn't sure how it could be used most effectively). This solution is viewable below.

The second level also had it's share of the drama, as pieguy found another brilliant route scoring 318
in MS to claim total victory once again! Congratulations! You can watch this route as well below. But what about second place? Since J.B. didn't play in lynx, he would have a tough time scoring at least 315
to beat Markus who had that great route in Lynx. And guess what? J.B. only had 313
and it looked like that was it this time around. Luckily for him, he decided to take one last look at the first level and improved his score to 371
just as the deadline closed, leaving Markus in third place by a margin of three seconds! So second place goes to J.B., and fourth place to random 8, all well-earned; and of course a nice job by tensorpudding and Michael too.

Final results:

375 + 318 = 693 pieguy (ms)


371 + 313 = 684 jblewis (ms)


363 + 318 = 681 Markus (ms + lynx)


358 + 307 = 665 random 8 (lynx)


116 + 302 = 418 tensorpudding (lynx)


162 + 235 = 397 Michael (ms)


http://youtu.be/ugUXimhOXiA

I'll try to upload more alternate solutions to at least this first level later on. Also stay tuned for the start of the next Time Trial pretty soon!!

Thanks for all of you! If you liked the competition, please be encouraged to give us feedback and we'll try to keep these things as interesting as possible.

-Miika

[M11k4]

Apparently there is a limit on how many of these can be posted in one message. More to come later, but I won't post about those here, as you can spot them on the Youtube channel yourself.

Winning solution to the second level in MS:

http://youtu.be/uh4q1ChF3xA



Winning solution to the second level in LYNX:

http://youtu.be/xtGenm4k-UI

Triple post for the win!

[James]

Interesting recap of events. I should get around to entering these competitions one day...

[BlazingApollo]

Pretty brilliant solving. Why did I miss those?!

I just got owned

[jblewis]

Wow, same here. I would've never thought of using the teeth cloner that way. Brilliant!