So, here we are. At first, thanks to everyone who was inspired to make a level and put effort on it to enter the contest itself. This time we ended up with a total of 12 entries, which is 1 entry less than last time. The overall quality of levels was slightly lesser than previously as well, although nothing dramatical. However, after careful judging and consideration, I have decided to give the top-3 levels a ticket to the tournament mappool.
The total time spent on judging through all the entries submitted, was around 4,5 hours at once, which is fairly long. The assistant judges were CelL, cooba and Snooze. The result was decided upon the same methods as last time. Each level was reviewed and playtested in duels together by the judges and given positive and negative points. Also each judge gave a rating with J2O's rating-methods. The average ratings were looked upon, when deciding the winner(s.)
So, congratulations to the 'Terrific Trio':
(Average ratings in brackets)
1st Place: Frontier Falls by FawFul (8,375)
+
• Impressive, detailed eyecandy. Perfect dueling atmosphere.
• Interesting, semi-symmetric yet balanced layout.
• Pickups scattered well thorough the level.
• Uses a simple, yet handy warppit-concept.
-
• Bouncers are hard to see on the top-level.
• Bases slightly too close to each other/too easy to reach.
2nd Place: Tyuka's Realm Forsaken by FireSworD (7,925)
+
• Interesting, atmospherical level-theming.
• Cool and original layout, with an unconventional base-concept(recycled one though)
• Different benefits for different characters, balanced thanks to the base-concept as well.
-
• Scoring is possible with copter below the bases. To-be-fixed.
• Slightly distracting eyecandy at times.
• The level has an unconventional base-concept, and thus leaves start-positions to be worried about for the players(Latest GMR detects sucker tubes)
3rd Place: Fukushima by Loon (7,775)
+
• Good, but slightly excessive eyecandy.
• Generally a working duel-level, with a fine flow.
-
• The two minor carrots might be too little to fit with the powerful ammo here.
• Questionable balance between teams. Some stuff seems to be slightly closer/easier to reach from red base.
The rest of the levels given feedback in no particular order(except by the dates submitted):
Magically Abnormal Playground by Jgke
+
• Reasonably fast-paced gameplay, reasonable level size in general.
• Minimal camp-factor.
• Balanced gameplay between teams and characters. In addition, each character has it’s own small benefits with gameplay(Lori as well).
• Good coin-warp concept.
-
• A bit too gimmicky in general/Overcomplicated.
• Weird, distractive eyecandy.
• Flow leaves more to be desired.
Space Cheesecake by Galana and Archer
+
• Clean and consistent eyecandy.
• Good choice of pickups.
-
• Hard to navigate, rather useless warps. Rather bad, spaz-biased flow.
• Despite that ammo is scattered well, the key-pickups are rather questionably placed, which makes red team slightly better.
Calypso by Toni_
+
• Balanced, easy to learn.
• Average eyecandy.
-
• Very distractive flow. The springs don’t work well with the layout.
• Dull, linear layout.
• The full carrot is annoying to reach, and the minor carrots have probably too long spawn-times.
Sandy Canyon by Zoro
+
• Nicely open, yet not too excessively.
• Looks good for most parts, contains no distracting eyecandy.
• Balanced teams, and characters.
-
• Campy Powerups, and full NRG.
• Hard to navigate, and there are some rather useless platforms.
• A bit too straight-forward, not really interesting layout.
• Slightly too big size for duels in general.
The Brawler's House by ThunderWalker
+
• Fun, yet chaotic gameplay, literally.
• Not too confusing eyecandy, although a bit bland at some sections.
-
• Very random and confusing layout.
• Moving and navigating in the level is extremely hard to master. Way too cramped level in general.
• Carrots are weirdly placed, especially one located in top-left of the level, which is a lethal dead end.
Get dath flag by Zerg
+
• Some parts of the level seem creative.
• Good base-placement.
-
• Distracting foreground layer.
• Overall very buggy eyecandy.
• No clear balance between teams, shapeless layout.
• Excessively campy room in top-right of the level.
Proteus by Laro B.
+
• Looks nice, though grayish
• Solid, symmetrical layout
• Tactical warp/carrot concept.
-
• Slightly cramped, zigzag between bases.
• Weird belt-events below full NRG, something doesn’t work here?
• A bit irritating flow in the middle with small platforms.
Mechanical Magma Machine by DarkSonic
+
• Decent eyecandy.
• Easy to learn, but limited gameplay. Balanced.
-
• The bases are too easy to reach from each other. Everything else is drawn out(start positions as well), which makes rushing too easy.
• Not really a handy layout.
• The vines are kind of redundant everywhere.
Dead Meadow by Sir Ementaler
+
• Good flow for all characters.
• Interesting, original carrot-concept.
• Fine graphic-side, although the background could be better with a translucent-fade.
-
• Feels empty overall.
• The Powerups are placed in annoyingly cramped dead ends.
• The bases are far too easy to camp, very limited layout.
• The whole bottom-level is redundant except for the PowerUps.
All the levels have been added to at least ZD-levellists as far as I know, so you may train and play any of them together with your friends in a handy way from now on, as you like. If you're planning to sign up for the upcoming duel tournament, you might want to focus on training the winner-levels though.
