Level Design Contest #21 - Playing Phase (Discussion Topic)

[Armani]

Played Rule1 levels just now. I might have found intended solutions for Steeplechase and I'm Loving This Circus. And I gave several tries to NieSch and Mantha's levels but no luck yet. I will try again on another day.
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Rule1_2  Steeplechase : The timer was very tight, The last lemming coming out from the hatch always failed to reach the exit on time so I had to save a jumper somewhere else for him. The level itself was quite enjoyable and I think the music selection was also great.

Rule1_3  Alice : I have a blocker left and used a cloner to merely meet the save requirement.

Rule1_4  I'm Loving This Circus : It was much easier than your other two levels, but I had fun playing the level.

Rule1_7 : Leap of Faith : I have so many leftover skills. I think the updraft behind the exit has something to do with the intended solution, but I have no idea for now.

Rule1_8 : This room is boiling : This one was quite difficult. I managed to solve the level with 7 shimmier to spare, so I guess my solution is not 100% intended.

Rule1_9 : The diving area : It was quite simple but also a nice level

[NieSch]

Rule2_04 Welcome to the Twilight Zone

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not sure this is intended or not. I mostly used top route and save some skills

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not intended. (The digging towards the exit below.) I'll fix that.

[Crane]

Hmmm, that's a little bit awkward.  Technically that's a backroute of Steeplechase.  Let me have a think on that one.

EDIT: V2 of Steeplechase - now the last two lemmings fail to reach the exit in time when going that way.

[Armani]

Hmmm, that's a little bit awkward.  Technically that's a backroute of Steeplechase.  Let me have a think on that one.

EDIT: V2 of Steeplechase - now the last two lemmings fail to reach the exit in time when going that way.

This seems better! But I have a jumper left this time

[Crane]

That's actually near enough the intended solution, but you were so efficient that you were able to save a Jumper.  Well done.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The intended solution doesn't require a Jumper-to-Stoner, just a Faller-to-Stoner.

[Crane]

After some thought, I decided to reduce the number of Jumpers on Hell's Challenger from 5 to 4 - find V4 in the update topic, and fingers crossed that it doesn't make the level too unfair.

[IchoTolot]

I am back again and updated the pack.

Will probably record a first playthrough during this week.

[kaywhyn]

Played Rule1 levels just now. I might have found intended solutions for Steeplechase and I'm Loving This Circus. And I gave several tries to NieSch and Mantha's levels but no luck yet. I will try again on another day.

Oh good, I feel a lot better knowing that I'm not the only one who hasn't been able to figure out manth16's and niesch's R1 levels. Not that it's a good thing to be stuck, because it sucks. Before that, I thought I was a dumb dumb if I couldn't solve them. If there's anyone who I thought would be able to solve them, I thought you be able to, seeing how you managed to solve all of the R2 and R3 levels just like me, but apparently not yet as well. However, you managed to solve Crane's R1 level which I haven't been able to yet. It definitely would had been solved already without the very strict time limit, but so far the clock has been my biggest enemy on the level. I'm definitely going to keep trying, though. I'm probably not that far off, just need to figure out where I'm going wrong that's causing me to be a second too slow.

Also thanks Armani for thinking my level was difficult. Makes me now glad I put it in my Mayhem rank of my Angry lemmings pack.

Yea, you definitely underestimated the difficulty of your own level, eric. It is quite a difficult and tricky level. It's quite easy for the level author to either underestimate or overestimate the difficulty of his or her own level since before anyone plays the level only the creator knows the solution. That being said, I haven't looked at your R1 V3 yet, but I will soon!

[ericderkovits]

Thanks to Armani's replay had to update to version 3 since he had shimmiers left over although his replay is truely amazing. No wonder people think he is a master in puzzle solving. Had he used all the shimmiers,
I wouldn't have updated to version 3 even with his replay, since it's out of the ordinary.

changes: added even more flamethrowers
              put right-facing OWW's on blue terrain below exit
              lowered platform where glider pickup skill is

Also thanks Armani for thinking my level was difficult. Makes me now glad I put it in my Mayhem rank of my Angry lemmings pack. Especially coming from you as your are an awesome puzzle solver.


Note: This Update breaks Armani's v2 replay(although I still love it since it's so amazing. If I could have thought of this as a solution where I could have reduced the number of shimmiers-I would have, but his solution I think would have made very few people be able to solve the level. Also his solution would have been beyond Mayhem I think. And I don't want it to be that difficult for my Angry Lemmings pack.)

Note also: it doesn't break Kaywhyn's v2 replay though. Although at first it did when I was editing it-rightmost downward flame thrower left of exit and below glider pickup was just a tad too far to the right. So since I accept Kaywhyn's v2 replay I moved it just a tad left so not to break his replay.

[Dullstar]

Armani's is probably the first backroute for my level that isn't going to be a trivial fix; not really sure what to do about it yet.

I also found another one that saves an additional lemming and has additional leftover skills that is also not trivial to fix.

[mantha16]

ok something weird happened with my rule 1 level it reset the skill counts on the pick ups that is not what I put them at no wonder yall cant solve it lol will do an update shortly

[Nessy]

@kaywhyn and @Armani thanks for your replays and comments I finally saw your solutions to my Rule 3 level. Even though my level is meant to be an open-ended type of level and Armani's solution I think is acceptable, I am a little bit iffy about the route that the crowd took in kaywhyn's solution. Maybe if another replay takes a similar route I might have to block so major apologizes in advance!

Also as an additional note some of these contest levels are very tough! Don't be surprised if I have to ask for a hint on some of them I would rather ask for a hint and be able to solve the level than to just leave them unsolved when the voting phase starts. I will, however, ask for hints much, much later on down the line just in case I do figure them out on my own.

[kaywhyn]

Resolved mantha16's R1 V2, as well as Crane's R3 V2.

@mantha16 Now the level has gone from downright impossible to very open-ended and very easy. Nice level! Definitely much easier than your R3, although both of those are easy IMO. Your R2 is the hardest one, but with your R1 fix I have now solved all 3 of your contest levels. Great job with all of them

I think strato also said that he kept having problems with pickup skills resetting their counts when he was making his LOA pack. The counts would be fine in the editor, but when loading them in the player the counts would reset. So, you're not the only one experiencing that problem.

@crane No, reducing the jumper count didn't make the level unfair at all IMO. All I had to do to fix my replay was platform and mine at the very beginning. Then again, I don't know if my new solution to your R3 is intended.

@Niesch regarding your R2 level, something happened to it where the exit count limit is no longer present. Thus, any number of lemmings can now use either exit. Your R2 V2 didn't break my replay, so it's fine there, just the exit count limit disappeared. You might want to look into what happened there.

Also as an additional note some of these contest levels are very tough!

I agree with you here! Almost all of these are quite tough levels. They're also great levels if you're able to solve them IMO.

[mantha16]

good, I don't think easy levels are bad levels and my goal is not to frustrate the player so I'm pleased.

[ericderkovits]

As you know I don't believe in Talismans, but If I were to give it for my Rule 1 level, this is one that wouldn't bother me as I really love Armani's solution to it. But of course I have it as version 3 already and won't bother reverting it.