VANILLISH RESULTS!!!

[Emral]

I slept and it's Saturday now. And with a busy day ahead, I best give you these a little early lest I keep you waiting too long.

Let's start the countdown...
3rd, with a score of 9.53125/10

Spoiler: show

FLOAT SPATIAL MADNESS BY SHINBISON-KOF

2nd, with a score of 9.625/10

Spoiler: show

NIGHT AT CRAB THEATRE BY TREEBOI

1st, with a score of
uhhh
10/10

Spoiler: show

INCARCERATED MUSCARIA BY NESS-WEDNESDAY

I can't believe they're getting away with it. Winning both of these. Ness-Wednesday SWEEP!

RESULTS SHEET

Individual judge reviews: Emral - Darkonius Mavakar - Saltlord - 55jedat555

(elephant voice) Wowie ZOWIE, what a thrill! The scores are mayhaps a bit higher than you'd expect due to the nature of the rubric I chose, but believe me when I say that they are well-deserved.
Not just in the top 3, but in general the quality of submissions to these contests is pretty damn high, and I recommend you all play the levels for yourselves, as you might just stumble upon a new favourite of yours. SPEAKING OF...

DOWNLOAD THE LEVELS

And last but not least...
Medals!!!

Spoiler: show

Once again, congratulations to our top 3, and thank you everyone for participating.

This pair of contests was a large experiment I had been crafting for a while, with several unconventional ideas, with the dynamic judging rubric, the must-hand-out medals beyond "Favorite", Vanillart's "Wildcard" idea, and allowing config files in a vanilla setting. Please share your thoughts on these and anything else you liked or disliked about the contest in the feedback thread, and it shall be taken to heart come future contests. Or if you just have ideas of your own! Post them as well!

Usually when contests come out, I try to make a collage video of all the entries. Unfortunately I haven't had the time for it this time. If you have a video of your entry you'd like to share, you can use this thread!
Same goes for the Vanillart results sister-thread! Feel free to share your footage there to make the levels more visible to passerby.

Enough blabbering on from me, though. I will be retreating to my cave, now.
For our next event, we'll take you somewhere contests haven't gone in a while. It'll be announced in the contest and events forum within the next 2 weeks, if all goes well on the planning side! I hope you'll look forward to it!

[Alagirez]

Ness op af

8th place, i'll take it with such a highscore haha
Anyway, my entry is kind of experimental in terms of aesthetics, so yea it's kind of hit and miss.

I just realized that both of my entry has "horror" vibes, guess I have to do something different in the upcoming contests.

My personal favorite is Float Spatial Madness. I would ask Shinbison a marriage for this level /run

[Jur1121]

Thanks for hosting this contest and a shoutout to the judges once again. My congratulations to the top three

[Ness-Wednesday]

Well, this is unexpected...

Incarcerated Muscaria is heavily inspired by Eastern State Penitentiary. After visiting the stunning historic landmark for my 21st birthday, I wondered what it would look like in Vanilla SMBX. This was the hardest level to make because it required bending a lot of level-design rules, getting as far away from my comfort zone as possible, and digging into the Earth for good music choices. I also wanted to look for and utilize new SMBX tech like invisible sizeables and friendly Snake Blocks. In retrospect, this level would've never made it without the help of the new config limit. That searchlight section got me on the edge. What shocks me is the double-win and the perfect score. Just... Speechless

Congrats to all the other participants, especially the top 5! It's hard to choose a favorite between Construction Chromatism and Night At Crab Theatre because I equally enjoyed replaying both of them the most. Thank you so much Emral for this year's Vanilla contest(s)!

Edit: I didn't see the stuff about sharing a video here, so I'll do that while I ready up their level thread releases


Excited to see what's next! Now, I think I'll go take a nice long slumber. Peace!

[Treeboi]

I did not expect to get second place at all but I welcome the surprise.

[Cat king]

Welp I just got last place. I thought I would do better than the vanillart contest since level design is usually my strong suit. Looking back on my level 'Rainbow road' I realize how the difficulty fluctuates. I probably should have put another section to kind of connect everything together. Also one or two of the judges thought I did not playtest the level. I just want to clear this misconception, I did playtest every part (and quite diligently), and without cheats, as I'm pretty sure I did not know how to use cheats at the time. anyways congrats to the top three winners and anyone else who participated, it was a lot of fun.

[Emral]

Welp I just got last place. I thought I would do better than the vanillart contest since level design is usually my strong suit. Looking back on my level 'Rainbow road' I realize how the difficulty fluctuates. I probably should have put another section to kind of connect everything together. Also one or two of the judges thought I did not playtest the level. I just want to clear this misconception, I did playtest every part (and quite diligently), and without cheats, as I'm pretty sure I did not know how to use cheats at the time. anyways congrats to the top three winners and anyone else who participated, it was a lot of fun.

Sorry about last! It was tough competition through and through. Lots of "top 10 regulars" participating in a contest with fewer than 20 levels...
Don't let it drag you down!

When you say you tested every part, does that also include full runs of the level from beginning to end? Did you test exclusively for difficulty, or did you also test for engagement (fun) and cohesiveness between the different obstacles?
I think the answer to an imbalance in the level is quite rarely to add more sections, but often to critically examine the sections that are there and revisit the level's pacing and how much fun the obstacles are to do back-to-back.
I hope to see more of your levels going forward.

[MrNameless]

GGS to everyone, especially the top three!

Glad to have particpated this year!
& even glad-der that the judges liked the utter hellhole that is my level lol

[Pr0toGoblin]

Bro im not even sure what place i got, but i wasn't last & I got a medal for using the gimmick good so that's epic for my first contest level