June 2023 Create Competition - Gravity Pull

[G lander]

Have you ever noticed that things usually fall down in real life? Have you ever noticed that things usually don't fall down in Chip's Challenge? Let's fix that!

The theme of this competition is gravity!

Now, this is a bit more vague than other create competitions, but here are some general guidelines:

• The levels should revolve around the player (and/or things the player interacts with) falling in a certain direction. Note that not all of the level must be oriented in one direction.
  
• This usually involves force floors, but an example of a level which fits the theme without focusing on force floors is Super Chip, which uses ice for "gravity".
  
• Some other good examples of gravity levels are CCLP3's Gravity Well, the blue key section of CC2LP1's Dialectic Materialism, and West Wind Tower and Landslide from Andrew M's sets (TwoSides/SameCoin). I suppose levels like CCLP1's Quincunx and CCLP2's Joyrides also fit.
  

Hopefully those guidelines aren't too restrictive!

Submit your levels to me via Discord (@g_lander). All levels must be solvable, and a solution must be provided, in the form of a SuCC JSON (if applicable, TWS or MP4 files also work) or a C2M built-in replay. Levels don't have to work in all rulesets, but do tell me in which ones your levels are solvable in. The submissions deadline is June 26th July 29th, with extensions, if needed. Ask me on Discord (in DMs or in #competitions) if you have any questions!

[G lander]

It's (past) the submission deadline and I've only received one submission. Busy month for everyone, I suppose.

Anyways, due to that, I'm extending the submission deadline by another month. The new deadline is July 29th. Hopefully we get some more submissions!

[G lander]

Hey guys! I've received four submissions in total from three people, and I suppose it's time to rank them! 

4th place [Click to Show Content]

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT GRAVITY! by Chipster1059



This level is fairly simple, you push directional blocks onto the free force floor, and go to the next room (four total) after pushing four blocks. The mechanism for checking for the pushed blocks is pretty neat, is suppose, and it does involve force floors, so you could argue it's a gravity vortex or something, but it's not super related to gravity, and the block pushing is a bit too uneventful for me...

3rd place [Click to Show Content]

GRAVITY FLIP by Chipster1059



In this level, you have to fall down and up while collecting tools and pressing buttons to be able to collect the chips at the sides of the level. This level is very heavily centered around routing for score, since there are flags everywhere, and flipping gravity requires you to go through a thief, which takes away points. Now, I'm not opposed to an interesting routing puzzle; I tried to find some score routes for this level, and it was fairly interesting! My problem with this level is that there's absolutely no challenge to it when playing it casually. There are no limits on time or gravity flip count, meaning you can take the least optimal route possible and the only punishment would be no bonus points. I think adding a time limit or some mechanism to limit the maximum flip count could incentivize trying to find a good route when playing casually, which would make it more interesting, at least in my opinion.

2nd place [Click to Show Content]

ANTI GRAVITY by ChosenID



Yep, it's one of those absolutely insane MSCC levels! I actually really liked (trying to) play this level casually. I don't think me writing about it will do it justice, so I encourage everyone reading to definitely try this level out, but I'll just say that figuring that witnessing the things that happened in this level (even when not going down the correct route) was downright magical. Its relation to the gravity theme is a bit iffy, but you generally get by looking at the level (and from its title) that you have to somehow go up the force floor, so it's kinda on theme. The actual solution for this level (as provided by ChosenID) is very hard to execute by a human, and I definitely think I would've enjoyed the level even more if I could solve more of it without having to just watch the solution instead. Heck, I'd play a set of levels like this if they were more casual-play oriented!

1st place [Click to Show Content]

Anstruther's Dark Prophecy by Jeremy Christman 



Of course, the only level without "gravity" in its name wins. This is exactly the kind of level I was expecting and hoping to get! In this level, you have setup a path for yourself to be able to go from the right to the left, after losing your FF boots. To fill holes, you have to clone fireballs to build the "foundation" and then top holes off with a block you can safely walk on, which is more complicated and interesting than it sounds (especially with the middle part). I also like that there are obstacles you have to dodge, like in a platformer. I kinda wish the level was longer (and had more complicated setups for filling holes), but I understand that CC1's map size is a limiting factor.

That's all! Huge thanks to everyone who submitted, I liked playing everyone's levels!

[chipster1059]

[Click to Show Content]

Regarding I Can't Believe It's Not Gravity, that's pretty much what I expected. Given the limited amount of gravity, I'm not really surprised it got last place. Actually, I am surprised since Dave usually aims for last place. But he didn't submit anything this time, so...

I appreciate the constructive criticism on Gravity Flip. My attempt at making a cool optimization puzzle resulted in a boring casual experience...when I get around to updating my set, I will probably take your suggestion and add a flip-limiting mechanism or something like that

Second place seems like typical ChosenID insanity

Congrats Jeremy! This really seems like a cool concept.

Thanks for hosting, GLander!