Escape Level : "The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)" by devin

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"The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)" by devin

added 08 Sep 2009 16:14

Solved 13/13

Cooked 0/13

Difficulty 1.76

Style 1.69

Rigidity 4.76

Shortest Solution
Name Speed Record

Length 43 moves

By Pat

On 11 Sep 2009 16:58

Comments (turn spoilers off)

12747 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) Tom 7 (1) Mon 14 Sep 2009 06:55

(admin) Automatically moved to minor leagues.
(Difficulty: 1.2 Style: 0.8)

12650 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) Pat (1889) Fri 11 Sep 2009 16:58 SPOILER

Added speedrun: 43 moves (old: 45).

OK

12594 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) radiant (1469) Tue 08 Sep 2009 23:46

I guess the "most stylish" section on levels.shtml could be an indicator of this "inverse minor league" status, except for two things:

1) I doubt that page gets much publicity, or very many hits (even though it's linked on the front page), and

2) there tends to be a high correlation between style and difficulty ratings (which makes sense from a rater's perspective--the longer you spend trying to crack a level, the more time it has to leave an impression in your mind for when you finally figure out the requisite trick), so most of the levels on the style list are on or near the top difficulty list anyway, with Reflections as a notable exception. But if it's used to list high-quality levels, and a new player to the game checks out the list only to find it packed full of 8 and 9 difficulty levels, how long do you expect it'll take before the player quits and uninstalls the game for not being able to figure anything out?

What you might want to do is put up a Radar post asking for nomination suggestions so we can come up with a pack of maybe 100 levels, spanning the full range of 2 or 3 on up to 9 on the difficulty scale, that would be worth putting in a new subfolder of Official.

12587 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) Tom 7 (1) Tue 08 Sep 2009 22:49

Devin, thanks for playing. The keys like 'y' and 'd' exist precisely to discourage levels like the ones you made. Back in 1998 these were fun or funny, but people are pretty sick of them now. I'm glad you're experimenting but you can be pretty sure your levels will be automatically moved away to the minor leagues if they're like these. When I make a level, it usually takes me several days of work to get it just right. I look forward to seeing some creative ones from you!

Gary: I'm generally not unilaterally moving levels to minor leagues any more. I want triage to be a place where anybody can share their levels, and have the community decide what's great and what's still practice. I think the automatic moving from triage to minorleagues is working pretty well, with the possible downside that it always takes at least 5 days, even for obviously crummy levels. What's missing is a counterpart of minor leagues for levels that have been rated highly by players or that come from designers with excellent track records. I've been meaning to finish doing that but I'm ashamed to say I haven't worked on the escape source code for quite a while. If it gets bad I will act, because I want escape to keep functioning, though.

JL: Thanks for your nurturing comment and props for being brave enough to type a comment that long and thought-out into the level comment editor. ;)

radiant: Yeah? I've thought about doing that kind of thing but I'm skeptical that anybody would really read it. (Or at least, the kinds of people that we'd want to educate.) Still it might be fun to have community documentation even if only the experts are using it.

12573 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) radiant (1469) Tue 08 Sep 2009 17:39

This is why the game could use an extensive literature base outside of level comments. Personally I'm surprised that whole thing was allowed to fit in a single comment.

It's certainly worth an article for general consumption in any case.

12570 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) John Lewis (411) Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:47

Devin, I don't want to discourage you from creating levels in general, but if you release levels, please at least try to put some effort into designing something unique and interesting. If you look at the "Minor Leagues" subcategory of levels, many of the ideas used there are all quite trivial and have all annoyed players to no end over the years. Most of these can be condensed down to a few categories (and this is for anyone who seeks to post quality work):

(a) Guessing levels. These include "panel mazes" where lasers are hidden underneath panels or something to that effect, "button guesses" where the player must choose which panel/button is correct while evading death that would occur if any of the others were chosen, and "teleport forks" where the player must choose which teleport does not lead to doom - many of these decision points occur in a series, as can be seen in your (plagiarized) level "Clostrafobicy."

(b) Heart framer collecting levels. In these levels, the player is mindlessly collecting heart framers. Sometimes, there's a bot or two that may cause trouble, but otherwise, there isn't much of a challenge or anything interesting here.

(c) Bot brawl levels. There are way too many levels that contain a bunch of bots (or sleeping bots) that the player must fight through in order to escape to the exit. Some of the more interesting levels of this nature are those that are computer generated (the "Botkoban" levels), which are challenging because they are rigid - not a random mishmesh of bots.

(d) Tedious levels. Whether block-pushing or gangnails-style remote levels (for instance, The Sign Says "Stop!"), these levels typically involve no thinking or skill at all.

(e) Ripoffs. I haven't been the best example of originality on here, I must admit - which is something I've been seeking to fix over the past year or two. (I was quite blind to it when I first started posting here, which caused some tension with a few people...) There are levels out there involving concepts that are obviously lifted from other, more well-thought out levels. In many of these cases, the style rating will most likely be low. People have played through a certain type of level before - they don't want the same thing over and over again unless there's something unique also involved.

So what does make a good level? This is something I've posted about before on the Chip's Challenge community - and I think it's worth mentioning here as well. Honestly, it all depends on what the level is trying to accomplish. These are the terms in which great designers think when creating levels. Most great levels have artistic/aesthetic value and/or contain a great puzzle or two - factors that contribute to higher difficulty and style ratings. They work because the designers use what they have effectively based on the objectives they set out to fulfill. Some levels are simple but boast amazing artistic quality. Others contain variety or fun puzzles. I believe the best levels combine any or all of these elements in some form and contain a fair amount of replay value at the same time. Also, as alluded to earlier, many good levels do not require arbitrary guesswork.

Pretty much every designer out there usually follows one of these three procedures when using the editor:

(a) Just start drawing in the editor, making up objective(s) along the way.

(b) Think up a good idea or theme first and then start designing it.

(c) Mimic or create a variation of an idea from an existing level.

(b) is probably the best option, as it involves more planning and organization on the part of the designer. There have been far too many levels out there created with (a) only, and usually, they end up being far too disorganized and uninspired. (c) can actually work as long as the designer tries to aim for creativity at the same time, but if this is not the case, sometimes the level can look like a ripoff of an earlier composition.

In Escape, some of the greatest levels have a tight solution (Grand Prix), a "twist" in the gameplay in which the player follows a red herring only to discover that the solution is totally different (Bigger Waste of Time), or interactions between different rooms (Dialectic).

Hope this helps. :) Once again, I don't want to discourage you from creating levels, but please try to keep in mind that many of the folks here have seen far too many levels like this in the past.

12569 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) radiant (1469) Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:43

There's also N which conveniently comes in handy on this level.

12566 The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?) devin (2307) Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:14

'The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)' uploaded by devin:
Any Other Letters Of The Alpha?

Comments (turn spoilers off)

12747	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	Tom 7 (1)	Mon 14 Sep 2009 06:55
	(admin) Automatically moved to minor leagues. (Difficulty: 1.2 Style: 0.8)

12650	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	Pat (1889)	Fri 11 Sep 2009 16:58	SPOILER
	Added speedrun: 43 moves (old: 45). OK

12594	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	radiant (1469)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 23:46
	I guess the "most stylish" section on levels.shtml could be an indicator of this "inverse minor league" status, except for two things: 1) I doubt that page gets much publicity, or very many hits (even though it's linked on the front page), and 2) there tends to be a high correlation between style and difficulty ratings (which makes sense from a rater's perspective--the longer you spend trying to crack a level, the more time it has to leave an impression in your mind for when you finally figure out the requisite trick), so most of the levels on the style list are on or near the top difficulty list anyway, with Reflections as a notable exception. But if it's used to list high-quality levels, and a new player to the game checks out the list only to find it packed full of 8 and 9 difficulty levels, how long do you expect it'll take before the player quits and uninstalls the game for not being able to figure anything out? What you might want to do is put up a Radar post asking for nomination suggestions so we can come up with a pack of maybe 100 levels, spanning the full range of 2 or 3 on up to 9 on the difficulty scale, that would be worth putting in a new subfolder of Official.

12587	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	Tom 7 (1)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 22:49
	Devin, thanks for playing. The keys like 'y' and 'd' exist precisely to discourage levels like the ones you made. Back in 1998 these were fun or funny, but people are pretty sick of them now. I'm glad you're experimenting but you can be pretty sure your levels will be automatically moved away to the minor leagues if they're like these. When I make a level, it usually takes me several days of work to get it just right. I look forward to seeing some creative ones from you! Gary: I'm generally not unilaterally moving levels to minor leagues any more. I want triage to be a place where anybody can share their levels, and have the community decide what's great and what's still practice. I think the automatic moving from triage to minorleagues is working pretty well, with the possible downside that it always takes at least 5 days, even for obviously crummy levels. What's missing is a counterpart of minor leagues for levels that have been rated highly by players or that come from designers with excellent track records. I've been meaning to finish doing that but I'm ashamed to say I haven't worked on the escape source code for quite a while. If it gets bad I will act, because I want escape to keep functioning, though. JL: Thanks for your nurturing comment and props for being brave enough to type a comment that long and thought-out into the level comment editor. ;) radiant: Yeah? I've thought about doing that kind of thing but I'm skeptical that anybody would really read it. (Or at least, the kinds of people that we'd want to educate.) Still it might be fun to have community documentation even if only the experts are using it.

12573	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	radiant (1469)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 17:39
	This is why the game could use an extensive literature base outside of level comments. Personally I'm surprised that whole thing was allowed to fit in a single comment. It's certainly worth an article for general consumption in any case.

12570	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	John Lewis (411)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:47
	Devin, I don't want to discourage you from creating levels in general, but if you release levels, please at least try to put some effort into designing something unique and interesting. If you look at the "Minor Leagues" subcategory of levels, many of the ideas used there are all quite trivial and have all annoyed players to no end over the years. Most of these can be condensed down to a few categories (and this is for anyone who seeks to post quality work): (a) Guessing levels. These include "panel mazes" where lasers are hidden underneath panels or something to that effect, "button guesses" where the player must choose which panel/button is correct while evading death that would occur if any of the others were chosen, and "teleport forks" where the player must choose which teleport does not lead to doom - many of these decision points occur in a series, as can be seen in your (plagiarized) level "Clostrafobicy." (b) Heart framer collecting levels. In these levels, the player is mindlessly collecting heart framers. Sometimes, there's a bot or two that may cause trouble, but otherwise, there isn't much of a challenge or anything interesting here. (c) Bot brawl levels. There are way too many levels that contain a bunch of bots (or sleeping bots) that the player must fight through in order to escape to the exit. Some of the more interesting levels of this nature are those that are computer generated (the "Botkoban" levels), which are challenging because they are rigid - not a random mishmesh of bots. (d) Tedious levels. Whether block-pushing or gangnails-style remote levels (for instance, The Sign Says "Stop!"), these levels typically involve no thinking or skill at all. (e) Ripoffs. I haven't been the best example of originality on here, I must admit - which is something I've been seeking to fix over the past year or two. (I was quite blind to it when I first started posting here, which caused some tension with a few people...) There are levels out there involving concepts that are obviously lifted from other, more well-thought out levels. In many of these cases, the style rating will most likely be low. People have played through a certain type of level before - they don't want the same thing over and over again unless there's something unique also involved. So what does make a good level? This is something I've posted about before on the Chip's Challenge community - and I think it's worth mentioning here as well. Honestly, it all depends on what the level is trying to accomplish. These are the terms in which great designers think when creating levels. Most great levels have artistic/aesthetic value and/or contain a great puzzle or two - factors that contribute to higher difficulty and style ratings. They work because the designers use what they have effectively based on the objectives they set out to fulfill. Some levels are simple but boast amazing artistic quality. Others contain variety or fun puzzles. I believe the best levels combine any or all of these elements in some form and contain a fair amount of replay value at the same time. Also, as alluded to earlier, many good levels do not require arbitrary guesswork. Pretty much every designer out there usually follows one of these three procedures when using the editor: (a) Just start drawing in the editor, making up objective(s) along the way. (b) Think up a good idea or theme first and then start designing it. (c) Mimic or create a variation of an idea from an existing level. (b) is probably the best option, as it involves more planning and organization on the part of the designer. There have been far too many levels out there created with (a) only, and usually, they end up being far too disorganized and uninspired. (c) can actually work as long as the designer tries to aim for creativity at the same time, but if this is not the case, sometimes the level can look like a ripoff of an earlier composition. In Escape, some of the greatest levels have a tight solution (Grand Prix), a "twist" in the gameplay in which the player follows a red herring only to discover that the solution is totally different (Bigger Waste of Time), or interactions between different rooms (Dialectic). Hope this helps. :) Once again, I don't want to discourage you from creating levels, but please try to keep in mind that many of the folks here have seen far too many levels like this in the past.

12569	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	radiant (1469)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:43
	There's also N which conveniently comes in handy on this level.

12566	The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)	devin (2307)	Tue 08 Sep 2009 16:14
	'The Wrong Ball (i hate Y + D is their alything else?)' uploaded by devin: Any Other Letters Of The Alpha?