CCLP5: Pre-Voting Culling & Level Nominations!

[ajmiam]

Commenting on my own levels for now (I'll look at the nomination set in full over the next few days):

Most of the culls and nominations among my levels look reasonable.

The Bottom Line -- I thought this was among the better half of my new levels, so I would like to join with others and request it be included in voting.
I'd also like to see Repair the Maze 2.0 and Swip-Swap, though not as strongly. Chiptune Hero would be nice, but could go either way. And 52 Pick Up...it would be just fine with me if that one got left out.

Spider Dance and The Perfect Run were the only culls of mine that stood out to me as odd choices. I guess maybe TPR doesn't bring much new to the table, but I had hoped Spider Dance would be considered its own thing--maybe it's a little similar to Bug Arranging, but the green button timing aspect makes it different, I thought. Was it busted, or considered too tedious, or too finicky when it came to transporting one of the bugs? Or maybe way easier than I thought, or just not fun?

Interesting that Monster Sorter (the easy version) got culled and Monster Sorter EX (the much harder version) got included, contrary to what Ida said above.

Also, some of the level numbers for my AndrewM-CCLP5.dat levels are off in the pastebin, starting with Boss Battle, indicating that the culling was likely done with an older version of my set. The ZIP file contains the correct version, though, and none of the culled levels were majorly changed, so it probably doesn't matter.

[Flareon350]

Spider Dance and The Perfect Run were the only culls of mine that stood out to me as odd choices.  I guess maybe TPR doesn't bring much new to the table, but I had hoped Spider Dance would be considered its own thing--maybe it's a little similar to Bug Arranging, but the green button timing aspect makes it different, I thought.  Was it busted, or considered too tedious, or too finicky when it came to transporting one of the bugs?  Or maybe way easier than I thought, or just not fun?

Interesting that Monster Sorter (the easy version) got culled and Monster Sorter EX (the much harder version) got included, contrary to what Ida said above.

Spider Dance for me personally had too much bug ferrying going on that felt more tedious than fun. The additional gimmick of not pressing green buttons, while interesting, added some frustration element to it, at least for me.

Monster Sorter had appeared in a few voting cycles whereas the EX version has not, which only seemed reasonable to include the latter more over than the former.


Every level mentioned thus far, has been noted for re-evaluation for inclusion in voting.

[RB3ProKeys]

Here are some culled levels I'd like to see in voting:

AndrewM-3.dat: Spider Dance (16)
ArchieP1.dat: GLIDER MIMIC (100)
C1059-CCLP5.dat: The Ancient Deadline (82)
Infinitea.dat: Colour Code (6)
Rock-Alpha.dat: Bloblake (53)
rolfrcclp5-levels.ccl: Reactor Dice (41)


And here are the levels from the nominations set that I think also deserve a shot in voting:

1: The Bottom Line
5: Swip-Swap
7: Temple of No Key
35: Blockage
56: Golgi Apparatus
59: Anomalous Materials
76: The Mole
77: Avenues of Zagreb
84: Warehousing
99: Leisurely Stroll
104: Cycloids
123: Ocean Temple
150: Monster Hunter

[Tomsbananacakes]

Some more of my favorite levels that were culled by the staff:
Water Park
Archipelago
Manhattan
Space Shuttle
Cake
Volcano
Double Rainbow
Sokoblock
O Christmas Tree
Minesweeper

Also, Florida and Ice Age appear in the list twice.

[Jeremy Christman]

I'll agree with a few of Tom's here; I'd love to see these get a second shot:

Water Park
Archipelago
Double Rainbow
Sokoblock (This is actually one of my favorite of Tom's levels: it's a rather excellent puzzle level).

One more that he didn't mention but I really enjoyed: Corrupted Realm of Herobrine

[Flareon350]

Also, Florida and Ice Age appear in the list twice.

This probably happened during set submission and titles changing between revisions. It has been updated!

All levels mentioned have been noted for re-evaluation for inclusion in voting :)

[lookatthis]

From the levels I submitted, I nominate "Surface Tension".

I don't know the reason why it was culled, but if I were to guess, its probably because of the balls bouncing around at the start. Regardless, the fact that it's a bomb themed level with a time crunch challenge is why I nominate it. It's an arguably good candidate for variety.

[Flareon350]

From the levels I submitted, I nominate "Surface Tension".

I don't know the reason why it was culled, but if I were to guess, its probably because of the balls bouncing around at the start. Regardless, the fact that it's a bomb themed level with a time crunch challenge is why I nominate it. It's an arguably good candidate for variety.

As has been reiterated a few times now, each staff member that partook in culling all have different reasons in what they culled so I cannot speak for each one of them.

For myself and my own reasons though, is actually quite similar to Andrew's Spider Dance level - bug ferrying mixed with other elements that I didn't find all that enjoyable. The time crunch makes it stand out but I found it a bit more frustrating than fun.

That being said, it has been added for re-evaluation!

[Xaser]

I thought Block Cipher and Panic! were OK -- not sure how those got culled but Termites and Skeleton Key remained.

Side note: xaser-cclp5-sub-v1.dat is an outdated version of my submission set -- latest is xaser-cclp5-sub-v3.dat (I submitted a couple of updates before the deadline with minor fixes & TWS solutions) -- did y'all make sure to play the latest versions?

The submitted set within the ZIP folder contains v3 of your submission, so yes that was the version that was used. That is purely a listing error from our spreadsheet and nothing more. Fixed that within the pastebin.

As for those levels, at least for me, Block Cipher felt too much like a guessing game and kind of ruined the fun of playing it. If the locks were meant to help with that, it didn't really work for me. Panic! was simply just doing the same thing a bunch of times, which tends to lead into dull gameplay.

Thanks for the fix! Just makin' sure -- there were a ton of last-minute stuff so I was worried it may have been lost in the scramble.

re: Block Cipher, the locks are indeed the key (heh) to the solution -- it's not random, it just takes a bit of noodling to figure out how to match 'em up. I dunno if the solution is too obscure or if the community is "meh" about this sort of puzzle, but I was hoping to have the votes be the judge of that.

The level could benefit from a hint or a better level title that nudges the player in the right direction, maybe? I'd originally named it "Decoder Ring", which is maybe somewhat closer to what I was going for here, but if anyone who's figured it out has any suggestions, that'd help a ton -- I'm rubbish at naming these sorts of things. :P

re: Panic!, time pressure is the challenge -- there's not enough time to push each block into a bomb before the next one spawns in, so you gotta pack 'em in the main area (and not get any blocks "stuck") before the chute gets backed up. It's probably a trivial challenge to anyone who's done a ton of optimizing (or anyone playing with SuCC, heh :P ), but it's real easy to mess up for us mere mortals. :P

If this one's no good as-is, I wonder if the same concept would work with a smaller area, a faster timer, or some existing obstacles in the space so it's less symmetrical? I had a lot of fun testing this one, but I'm also a much less skilled player than most of y'all so it's hard to judge the "fun-ness" here.

At any rate, I figured these two had enough going for 'em that it was worth tossing 'em in the voting pool to see how they'd do -- I'm not attached to any of the other culls.

I should probably give some other levels a play so I'm not just ego-talking :P -- thanks (again) for hearing me out on this.

[Flareon350]

Thanks for the fix! Just makin' sure -- there were a ton of last-minute stuff so I was worried it may have been lost in the scramble.

re: Block Cipher, the locks are indeed the key (heh) to the solution -- it's not random, it just takes a bit of noodling to figure out how to match 'em up. I dunno if the solution is too obscure or if the community is "meh" about this sort of puzzle, but I was hoping to have the votes be the judge of that.

The level could benefit from a hint or a better level title that nudges the player in the right direction, maybe? I'd originally named it "Decoder Ring", which is maybe somewhat closer to what I was going for here, but if anyone who's figured it out has any suggestions, that'd help a ton -- I'm rubbish at naming these sorts of things. :P

re: Panic!, time pressure is the challenge -- there's not enough time to push each block into a bomb before the next one spawns in, so you gotta pack 'em in the main area (and not get any blocks "stuck") before the chute gets backed up. It's probably a trivial challenge to anyone who's done a ton of optimizing (or anyone playing with SuCC, heh :P ), but it's real easy to mess up for us mere mortals. :P

If this one's no good as-is, I wonder if the same concept would work with a smaller area, a faster timer, or some existing obstacles in the space so it's less symmetrical? I had a lot of fun testing this one, but I'm also a much less skilled player than most of y'all so it's hard to judge the "fun-ness" here.

At any rate, I figured these two had enough going for 'em that it was worth tossing 'em in the voting pool to see how they'd do -- I'm not attached to any of the other culls.

I should probably give some other levels a play so I'm not just ego-talking :P -- thanks (again) for hearing me out on this.

No problem. I was certain there were some documentation errors in our database, just wasn't sure where. 3,500+ levels is a lot to keep track of, especially when receiving several updates to submitted sets.

Block Cipher could possibly benefit with a hint, yes. But generally speaking from both a player's and designer's experience, levels like this don't usually fare well even with such changes, especially with a CCLP in mind. Most players would just use the map to figure the solution out, which would defeat the purpose of that kind of puzzle.

The only suggestion I can give for Panic! would be to lower the amount of repetition with how many blocks are required. I can appreciate what its trying to do and I like the idea behind it. I think it just had a little too much.

I personally don't think either level is bad though! So if you're listing those two as nominations, consider them added for re-evaluation.