Yeah but the main goal is still to deliver a level that is good on all aspects, even if they are not as important as eyecandy or theme, placement, originality.


With theme i mean that when you pick a tileset, you as levelmaker achieves a themed battlefield as you had in mind. You can have great eyecandy by standing on a certain position, but how is the layout and everything polished around it, does it makes sense? which can maybe sound a little weird for such an unrealistic game, but practically a lot of impression goes to the theme.

It's always something i cared about atleast, it's not the amount of eyecandy that does the job, it's how the levelmaker wants to show what he wants to achieve with the tileset. As for my ideas levels, Beach shores were silent with minimal amount of eyecandy, cave were dark, ruined laboratories have lightning and all sorts of chaotic flashing animations. waterfalls in carrotus which are endless.. and in all this music plays a role too. It's up to the levelmaker, if he can execute the theme others can understand.

A good example from other levelmakers is something like: The Curse, where Snooze puts the beach tileset upside down for a cursed theme. Enter the Chaos by Firesword, which theme is a stormy chaotic rainy level. Or Pit of Necrosis, a greyscaled inferno level by PJ that really shows a deathly and deserted feeling. And then of course you have levels that have great eyecandy, but is too random and lacks (the right) theme. which is imo a level like fukushima by loon.
From the music,eyecandy, layout polished around that and the levelname you can tell the theme.

The main parts are indeed Gameplay, eyecandy and originality. But theme is for example related to eyecandy and orginality both, where originality doesn't directly mean the theme makes sense. So is balance,gimmicks and flow to gameplay.


And i agree jj2 is dedicated to playing. But this is very specific about a JCS competition, where you actually need to look at those little points too that outweights the quality of a level overall to another one. You can't have a competition like this where judges hardly take eyecandy into in account, and where they don't take theme and originality and the amount of gimmicks into account at all. (because that's what i fear with this).

In other words: It can't be that a blunt layer 4 level with slightly better gameplay, wins from an original, well themed, great eyecandy level.
I'm just saying this competition should also be dedicated to the skills of a JCSer, and as every decent levelmaker thinks about executing great themes nowadays for a bonus. (that can actually make an 8 rated level into a 9 rated level, which is very hard to do) It should also atleast being taken into account by the judges, which I think will not.

Point is: Judges (which will be non levelmakers out of clans) won't take small things that need a lot of JCS skill into account. such as theme, originality, flow, polished layout.


I'm more in favor in JCS events than a competition, something like a weekly weekend 2 hour JCS broadcast (on jjnet for example) or shown collabs (using WebJCS). This creates a lot more fun, than a competition where most likely all opinions vary.