An extension would be nice. Unless it's for a few hours; I'm too tired now to work on anything. Thanks in advance if you ever do extend the deadline.

I'd only be slightly annoyed of the extension because I worked on it all day before the deadline and then suddenly deadline gets moved ;p.

And yeah I don't have alot to fix (maybe) so it'll just be sort of negative on me. If I get suggestions of what to fix then I'll probably be okay with an extended deadline because I don't really know what to add on to atm .

btw http://www.staredit.net/files/2200/

You can always submit ur maps late..
you may get some penalties.. but I'd rather see finished maps

And I'm somewhat against extension since other people have worked on their map a lot.

I guess we are in accord, we will give another day. Files after that will receive a 0 in completion, sorry, but that sounds fair. Anything later than a day past the new deadline, will not be judged. That sound fair to everyone?

I'm k with moved deadline =)
...and the penalty

Good for people who want to add those extra touches I suppose.

I posted on my blog about game design, and I think it's pretty relevant to these contests, especially the last contest. Go ahead and check out the most recent post here.

Comment'd.

One thing that I didn't mention there, since it's more specifically relevant to the last contest, is that there is a huge variation in the initial skill level of a player, in the rate at which they gain skill, and in their preference for difficulty, that is, their ideal ratio of challenge to skill. As a result, different players have very different "flow channels". If anything, the differences are even greater in Starcraft map making, because there are many different genre communities with different level of transferable skills for different kinds of SC map (just think of the bounder community; a map that poses a challenge to a skilled bounder is likely to be entirely unplayable to a non-bounder, while a bound that can be beaten by a non-bounder is likely to be entirely trivial to the elite bounder). Now, most mass-market commercial games (ick) are designed for the most common people and preferences, so that they can maximize sales; since we don't depend on our SC maps to put food on the table and keep stockholders happy, we have a lot more freedom. If there's one thing that SC map-making is all about, it's catering to diverse sorts of people. Every popular map is hosted in many different versions, to satisfy differences in preference subtle or vast. There are easy versions, medium versions, and hard versions; there are fast versions and slow versions. Which one is "best"? Certainly not the one with the most people, the one with a "flow channel" that matches what a player of commercial games would expect...that would lead you to the bizarre conclusion that the exceptionally intelligent and skillful almost always prefer inferior versions. What about the one that those people play? But that would involve giving the title of "best" to a version that most players dislike. It seems to me that the only tenable conclusion here is that there simply isn't a "best" when it comes to difficulty; there's only "different." Now, of course a map can be too easy for everyone, or difficult to the extent of being downright impossible, and we can hold those flaws against it. But within those limits, there's a huge degree of freedom.

My general principle for map design is to design the sort of thing that I would like to play. If the player is similar to me in the relevant ways, they'll like it; otherwise, they can play something else. There are enough map-makers that it doesn't make sense for us all to go after the greatest number and leave everyone else out, so I figure I might as well direct my efforts at the sort of player I know best.

I'm glad the deadline was extended, I didn't have time to test my map at all >_> Considering the ridiculous amount of work and number of triggers that went into it, I'm sure there's at least one issue somewhere. I'll just take the previous version down, do as much testing as possible, and then resubmit it later tonight.

Oh yeah, and I'll give that Tinymap2 program a try so the file isn't so beasty

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 12 2010, 2:09 am by DevliN. Reason: Mineral abuse.

This is my final, incomplete, submission (due to lack of time I haven't finished it but I will finish it after the contest): One Small Task

I'm not going to explain the controls as they're fairly easy to grasp. The final version will probably have a tutorial. Some things are out of place (for instance, the radio call in the beginning will happen AFTER the tutorial). This is a short demo of sorts.

For those that are interested, here are some statistics on the map:

• Units: 150
  
• Doodads: 0
  
• Sprites: 3
  
• Locations: 38
  
• Strings: 401
  
• Triggers: 533
  
• .Wavs: 17
  
• File Size: 1.6 MB
  

EDIT: Don't try to get to the fourth floor with the elevator. You'll only get stuck because it's not done yet.



Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 11 2010, 2:03 am by lil-Inferno.

No way in hell I'll even finish a demo, sorry. Thinking I might move that project to SCII anyway.

Hopefully I can finish. It shouldn't take much longer (I hope).

The link doesn't work X.X plz fix cecil

Thanks! Hope you drop in from time to time to check out future posts

Very true. Ideally games should be easy to learn and hard to master. There are a few things you could have done to try to ease the flow channel in the direction you wanted, but, it was only a one week contest so content was expected to be limited. For example, instead of the harsh punishment of making the player start the entire map over, you could have allowed them to retry the level they were currently on. You could also have allowed for slight hints to be given after a player(s) lose(s) a level a certain amount of times. Alternatively, you could have made the first couple levels easier than the rest, and really brought out the challenging puzzles later on. Overall you had quite a few map downloads; I think people were interested once hearing how tough it was

Also, like I already said, the contest was only a week long. Commercial games are made by teams of very talented people, we are but single people all on our own, with only a week for the contest

Makes perfect sense to me.

@Unholy waiting for new link from Azrael.

Yeah, the defeat system was a quick shot at solving what I see as the main problem with puzzle maps: it's often possible to "solve" the puzzles without actually figuring them out, just by moving your unit around until things start going the way you want them to. The idea behind it is that it becomes simply impractical to break the puzzles by "brute force" if you need to restart every five errors. I think it might have been a little too effective, though, and stopped people from getting through things at all...

In other news, I've altered the map that I was originally making for this round to use a medium-complexity version of its basic systems instead of the low-complexity version originally planned. As a result, even with the extension, there's no chance of a demo or anything by the end of the contest. *shrugs* The end result should be worth it, though (I hope).

Ahem......

Ahem

Cecilsunkure, you showed me your map's terrain during the week 1 mapping contest. You were even thinking about making it a puzzle map originally. Sort of ridiculous how a judge can't even follow his own rules.

Disqualification....???

EDIT: I just uploaded the map. He even titled it "Puzzle RPG". Hahahaha

Attachments:

The map itself was originally going to be used for something else. I worked on the map a total of 6 days. Also, the terrain made on that map was copy//pasted from older maps. Also, people are free to use the compiled terrain from the terrain forum. Also, people are allowed to use trigger systems from pre-existing maps. I don't go around making sure the entirety of each map is completely original.

If I want to I can just say I copy//pasted the terrain for this map during the week of the contest and started a new file. No need for loopholes though as I turned it in before seven days was up.

It was titled puzzle RPG because it was planned to have just puzzles; I wanted to finish it in under a day and submit it for last contest, but yeah that didn't happen at all. We came up with a new theme for this contest and I modified my entire design plan.

Lol I replied earlier that I was taking that version down so I could test it a bit, and would resubmit it tonight.

So far no problems, I will probably end up putting the same version back up if testing keeps going smoothly. I figure it doesn't hurt to test as much as possible just in case though.

"Maps started previous to the starting of this contest are not allowed." is pretty straightforward. I don't think the possible loop hole of you having "copy & pasting" things (which is pretty unlikely that you did) really makes you immune to the fact that you had started this map a week before everyone else started theirs.