January 2023 Create Competition - The Easy Way or The Hard Way?

[Sharpeye]

A Create Competition is a level design contest where anyone can make a level or levels from a given prompt or theme, which are then judged and ranked, with feedback. Whether you're a veteran designer with hundreds of levels or have never made a level before in your life, your submission is welcome here!

This competition is once again hosted by everyone's favourite dynamic duo, Sickly & Sharpeye! This month's theme is a level that has two ways to solve it. As the title implies, an easy way, and a hard way!

The only stipulation I will include, is that the easy way has to be not completely trivial to solve (no AARGH style easy ways), and you can't simply have chip decide between walking into the exit or walking over a recessed wall with the only way being back to grab a key, or all the chips, etc. There should at least be some fun aspects to both of the solutions! I won't develop a distinct line on what's easy and what's hard (with difficulty being subjective!), that is left as an exercise to the reader.

While not a stipulation, it's still a general housekeeping note, Sickly and I have a combined IQ of 60. If we get OFNT difficulty levels (or even puzzles levels in my puzzle game??) we will likely have to refer to the attached solution instead of having the brain power to solve it for ourselves.

And finally, some administrative details:

    Submit your level(s) to either Sharpeye468#9238 or A Sickly Silver Moon#4836 on Discord or by PM on the forums on or before February 14th(). Extensions will be granted on a case for case basis if one is needed because there are creative ideas flowing, if someone cries enough, or if there are bribes delivered to both sickly and I.
    Whilst you are technically allowed to submit unlimited levels, please note that we will only be judging your best two, so if you submit more you must note which they are.
    Make new levels, its a create competition no a "who has a large catalog" competition.
    Levels should be solvable, if its CC1 please include a TWS or JSON, for CC2 please record a replay for the level.
    Sharpeye and I will be looking through the levels around the day of, most likely on a discord stream. Please don't make us get banned.
    If you have any questions about the competition, if a level is legal, or anything of that sort, please don't hesitate to ask here or on Discord.
    Finally, your levels only have to be solvable in as many rulesets as you choose (minimum 1 obviously), if you want to make an MS only level go right ahead. Lynx only? Right on! CC2/Steam only? It makes sense to me. But also do tell us what ruleset(s) each level targets, thanks!

[Sharpeye]

Results! [Click to Show Content]

   

9th place [Click to Show Content]

       

IHNN

            Meme level, we laughed, we loved.
   

   

8th place [Click to Show Content]

       

Jeremy

            Moon - Easy and hard are the same until near the end of easy route, the hard route chooses to forsake doing the easy route and extend the level in a hard way by making you bait the teeth, fits the theme although a tad uninspired.
            Sharpeye - Level is good and an interesting level on its own, but misses the bigger part of the theme. The route is identical up until about the last 10 seconds or so of the level.
   

   

7th place [Click to Show Content]

       

Dave

            Moon - Disjoint parts, although what's easy and hard is subjective, some will find the cellblocked area easier,and some the monster dodging. On the monster dodging side the part of running bottom-top-bottom-top should be cut to just bottom-top (remove blue key stuff) to avoid lengthening the level for no good reason
            Sharpeye - Cellblocked style went out before the millennium changed over, going back through the entire level just to complete some other parts felt like a longer method just for the sake of doing it. Fit the theme and it was an interesting puzzle getting into the glider section, but lmao.
   

   

6th place [Click to Show Content]

       

Chipster

            Moon - teleport part is good, dodging level is a dodging level, overall a bit too disjoint, the merge at the end of both routes is nice, but more coherency throughout would be nice
            Sharpeye - Teleport part felt like fun, but the dodging level was just that. Maybe something more than just the end being in common would be nice for the level. It toes the line a little closely for the part of the submission notes that suggest two parts of the level being coherent with each other.
   

   

5th place [Click to Show Content]

       

Miika

            Level place is for one, two... three, four placed lower due to the luck based portions
            Moon - The fact that its not a simple binary between easy and hard and instead a choice of what is easy and what is hard is very nice. Quite different from the other levels in the set and not exactly what was asked for, but big props for creativity and going all out here.
            Sharpeye - Level was good in its own right and there's certainly a nice written history here, but the "easy" way incorporates skipping a small fraction of the level... of a very difficult level. It sort of seems like a hard way or a very hard way with that notion.
   

   

4th place [Click to Show Content]

       

Charlotte

            Moon - Good level, didn't fit theme so much, excellent from a first time level creator
            Sharpeye - I actually liked this level and had it in first for the cc1 levels, but moon brought it back down to second justifiably. I like the level in lynx and it's a fun way to figure out the easy or the hard way. That being said, in MS this level would be hell for slide delay... easy or hard.
   

   

3rd place [Click to Show Content]

       

ChosenID

            Moon - Fits the theme well despite technically being disjoint sections, same idea and execution mostly on both sides, hard side is of course far harder due to limited blocks AND walkers, pain in my ass, wonderful
            Sharpeye - Interesting level and I hate sokobanneds, which is basically what this level is, but I enjoyed it to an extent. The walker section is certainly a hard section and incorporates some of the fun from one of the official CCLP4 levels.
   

   

2nd place [Click to Show Content]

       

Zmannnnnnnnnnn

            Moon - Excellent use of CC2 mechanichs to make the level harder, the blobs being slower on FFs made the hard mode a real challenge requiring plans. Very good use of the bonus flags as a hard mode incentive (even if that is a cc2 exclusive thing)
            Sharpeye - This was the other tie that we had to break through deliberation, and I ended up making the point of "fucked dodging compared to FUCKED DODGING" which basically sums up the level. It's a fun way of incorporating bonus flags into the difficulty equation though and it was a fun playthrough if I wasn't so bad.
   

   

1st place [Click to Show Content]

       

Ida

            Level place is for Melinda and Chip, the other would have been... third (second in terms of creator)
           

Safe than Sorry [Click to Show Content]

            Moon - Same level good, not obvious which is which at first that's nice although it becomes clear quick (also good), the hard way has a few possible routes, either wait until the rovers are away, or try to plan around and reoute them, quite fun, good level
            Sharpeye - I enjoyed this one but that's because of the rovers big LMAO. The hard way wasn't immediately obvious and it was at least a fun playthrough with some different options.
           

            Moon - Again very nice its the same level, especially that you approach it from two different sides depending on the character and one's start is the other's end. Melinda's side requires more thinking and is harder, but Chip's side is just a quick fun blast through
            Sharpeye - I loved this level and pulled hard for it. I enjoyed the difference between Chip and Melinda in terms of solving the puzzle and figuring out how many of the yellow keys were needed. Even with that being considered I had forgotten that a yellow to Melinda is infinite. Melinda's way was a bit more of a brainteaser to figure out how all of the different parts worked, while Chip's allowed you to go zoom freely with a bit less thinking required.
   

[MilkyWayWishes]

And here's an archive of all the submissions and solutions we were provided with:

  Jan 2023 Comp.zip (Size: 25.13 KB / Downloads: 101)

Included within the zip for Miika submissions (MT_202302_createcompentry.zip), is a copy of all the messages he sent detailing the creation process, interesting read there.

Thanks for participating everyone, it was a blast, and we'll see you next year!

[Ida]

And here's an archive of all the submissions and solutions we were provided with:


Included within the zip for Miika submissions (MT_202302_createcompentry.zip), is a copy of all the messages he sent detailing the creation process, interesting read there.

Thanks for participating everyone, it was a blast, and we'll see you next year!

Thanks for hosting! Hope we don't have to wait until next year for the two of you to do this again.

If anyone tries my level Marvellous Melinda, Cheap Chip, I totally forgot that Melinda can use yellow keys infinitely and the intended solution was for her to grab 3 keys (as in the replay).