Marblemaster1's Advent Calendar

Deck the halls with lots of marbles, fa la la la la la la la la!
T'is the season to make levels, fa la la la la la la la la!
A level a day is what I'll bear, fa la la la la la la la la!
While we all say PQ WHER-
*gets pulled off stage*

What you are seeing here is something I have decided to do for you guys. How it works is that each day (free time permitting), I will release a new level, culminating in the release of Frozen in Time on the 25th. The theme of the levels is that they will be short, but fun, and many of them will be Winter or Christmas themed I'll try to make a few of them use ice as part of the puzzle.

Today's level: Winter Wonderland Hunt and Frozen in Time

Today is Christmas Day! (Where I live, at least). So, here is something special: Not only is there Frozen in Time, but RDs.empire has made his own version of it! Shortly after I posted the first screenshot of Frozen in Time, RDs PM'd me asking for the map. Fast forward to today, and he made my maze of ramps into an awesome, well, Winter Wonderland, complete with a maze of tunnels down below! In his version, you will have to go through said tunnels, as well as up on the snow, to find the gems. RDs is very skilled at Constructor: The snowy trees look excellent, as do the tunnels. And his presents sure look a lot better than mine from yesterday.

And, of course, there is also the level that I have been promising for the past I don't know how long: Frozen in Time. In this level, everything is locked in place, completely immobile: gems, powerups, TMs, and the other marbles.

Wait, what?

Yes, there are other marbles in it. Right now they're just TSStatics, but when MBP 1.50 is released, I will be converting it into a multiplayer level. (That's why there's so many gems, in case you're interested.) For now, though, it is a fun pathfinding level where you will have to get all 131 gems on both the lower and upper levels. When multiplayer is released (and custom level support), I imagine that it will be quite chaotic, with everyone mega-marbling everyone else, and people dropping down from the upper level to get gems on the lower one, but for now, everything is perfectly still: Everything is Frozen in Time.

Also, I have compiled all of my Advent calendar levels into a single archive, which you can download either here or on my levels thread.

I hope everyone has had a very merry Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever you celebrate, and I want to thank everyone for providing the (mostly) positive feedback that has given me motivation to carry this project through to the end! You guys rock!

Huge thanks to Ralph for making the Snowy Icescape skybox, to RDs for providing awesome reviews and for making his own version of Frozen in Time, and to the MB community for just being awesome. also MBP 1.50 WHERe

The individual levels:
Santa's reindeer were hungry, so they ate the levels for December 1 and 2.
December 3: Toboggan Hill
December 4: Skating Pond
December 5: 9-gem puzzle with 8 pieces
December 6: Precision Jumping
December 7: Origin of Species
December 8: Icy Waters
December 9: Frictional Obstacle Course
December 10: The Chute
December 11: Teleporter Labyrinth
December 12: Launch Tower
December 13: Game of Chance
December 14: Zero Gravity Field
December 15: Ice Slalom
December 16: Gravitational Exchange
December 17: Hazardous obstacle course
December 18: Essentia Velocitas
December 19: Balance or fall (NOTE: Some people are getting errors with this level. If you are getting an error, go into the MIS file and add a semicolon to the line that says music = Seaside Revisited.ogg)
December 20: Aqua Tube
December 21: Ski Jumping
December 22 and 23: Final Obstacle Course
December 24: Christmas Tree
December 25: Winter Wonderland Hunt and Frozen in Time

A note to staff: Yes, I am aware that I am breaking a rule in creating a new topic for this. However, I feel strongly that this deserves its own thread, which is why I am not using my main levels thread. If you disagree, feel free to merge this topic with my main one.

I love the quirky thin ice and snowman. Awesome.

So far so good. I think since the levels are all going to be short, replayability should be focused on above all which can be done by making a level puzzling or hard, like in Dec. 5th's level which was fabulous, or doing really unique things that'll keep people coming back to the levels. Glad to see these being made so often. I'm eager to see what other level ideas you have.

I'm glad you like them! I actually have a list of all the level ideas I'm going to use, and I personally think that coming up with the concept for a new level is the hardest part.

Look forward to more!

Interesting! so i tried out first 3 levels and the idea of nifty short levels for every day of advent is good. Best was certainly dec 5th one which from start seemed completely impossible but I figured out it's easier than it looks. 4th dec level idea was good just needed some polishing ether in gem placement or the banked sides should've been less steeper (personally i constantly kept falling in ice hole since there was hardly any way noticing it). rest was fine and interesting looking forward for more!
Balancing short level between superhard and repayable is thing you should focus on the most.

I really like the December 6 level! My best time is 12.54

I will make a review of level every 2 days... don't take my criticism too seriously marblemaster or just ignore it
Its getting harder and harder...
Day 6:Well I spent half an hour on D6 level until I figured out best way for me to get past pillars with buncy, rest of level was really nice. My best was 1.25.04 but I could improve it drastically if I would spend more time on it . Oh well I'm worser than I thought .
Day 7: First level of calendar that I can't finish :c Even if I get past first fast moving obstacle, 2nd one is a disaster... it could be passed quite easily if there wouldn't be 2 MP's on side that just ditches up everything because they move too fast. In fact concept is very good, all you had to do is lower speed of platforms on 1st and 2nd obstacle and even I could have fun. Never got to see the awesome platforms on 3rd part because reasons above..
Maybe I'm just bad player... who knows!

EDIT: got past 2nd and 3d, kudos on splitting platform

I like Precision Jumping very much. If I could make one suggestion, maybe the TM values could've been higher; it's not like people will get frustrated at all the time they're saving unless it's like 10 seconds. Maybe that's just me though.

Origin of Species. Goodness gracious this is like Bounced Away hard. But it wasn't that frustrating or long, so I really liked it! Funny thing is the moving platforms didn't work at first, so I played the level and the SHT said It ain't easy! and I was like Yeah, especially when the MPs aren't there.

Yeah... it would help if you wouldn't reference marble as the path for the MP. That instantly causes incompatibility with 1.20+, because it uses platinum. Instead, do this:


Quote: Replace all instances of 'interiorResource = marble/' (or interiorResource = ~/ ) with 'interiorResource = $usermods @ /' (excluding single quotes). This will make moving platforms work.

Day 8 and day 9
I'm happily impressed!
I enjoyed day 8 wayyy to much. 10 minutes of practice and level seemed like really amazing speedrunning level. Really good gem placement on this one which allowed multiply paths. My best was 50.68 (ironically 0.68 above platinum)
(Protip: if you go stealthy way you have 2 times bigger chance to fail rather then crossing huge distances by hoping to one ice shard to another and stopping at tight turns)
Day 9
This actually brought me some good memories of some short levels found in CLA folders (don't remember by who). Basically you can do it the stealthy way and finish without problems or you can go dashing like crazy through level to save every crucial second but deal with 70% of a failure. But receiving that good time is worth it. Well i can't really say i did good for first 10 minutes in it 19.31 but I'm happy I got platinum.
Looking forward to next maps!

And this is what i got when I fell OBB for first time on Day 8 level lol

13200 times? That's pretty impressive. If only we did have a Blast or Ultra Blast...

MBP 1.50 WHERe

Dec 10, 2013, 1:27pm, marblemaster1 wrote:13200 times? That's pretty impressive. If only we did have a Blast or Ultra Blast...

MBP 1.50 WHERe

Lol agree on that.. also I think least half of that is due to trying to finish all expert levels which average takes 20 minutes to complete and constant use of checkpoint.

---

Day 10 and 11

New concepts arrive...

Day 10
Ive seen something like this before and I remember it being fun with 1 crucial addition: it had least 2 times more detail. This in other hand didn't (having only 8 sides) which broke the fun of funnel type levels. Problem appeared when I tried to do it regular way which is constantly jumping and circling around. What usually happened was I lost speed (because of rough bouncing) or even better I hopped over the gem without even holding a jump button because of lack of detail on curve. This should've had least 16 sides instead of 8 to be fun. But its fine I guess or I'm doing it wrong...

Day 11
Interestingly new concept, haven't seen anything like this before, I definitely liked the idea where you had to remember which colors you have seen and going for colors that you haven't seen. What was puzzling me why was there so many just straight pathways leading to another teleporter which was only little issue that lacked creativity. I certainly saw maze aspect in this level and runned in few circles till I got I needed to take different path on beginning which was really interesting addition.
Also whats with those teleporters without destination? was that something you have forgotten in editing on level or is that a ''dead'' end of the level. I went in LE to check that out and I was a bit confused.
Overall I see some future for this concept if it would have some speedrunning aspects added in

Teleporter Labyrinth is easy when you get the right tile combination.

Day 12 and day 13

One little thing can can make such a big difference....


Day 12
Instantly reminded me of MBG level ''Siege'' which had same idea and tons of fun and different pathways. Well what changed the way your level was played (by me) drastically was there wasn't any platform below. Instead of doing the constant falling down and taking gems method i had to do it slowly because there wast anything below the level to rely on. If you did it fast falling was inevitable. Overall level is good but this small little platform can make such a big difference to level and how it's played. Call me a bad player but thats what i personally think.


Day 13
Wast really that bad as you warned us. On second attempt i got 32 seconds and after few more tries 28.76 though I am really sure you could get sub 25.
This is certainly the best random powerup level there exists. Really nothing much to say because its really good!

Thanks for the review, RDs!
I did draw heavy inspiration from Siege while making Dec. 12's level - I found that whenever I play Siege I can just bounce around and get all the gems that way, while with this level it's more structured. (And I wanted to give it a bit of a challenge, so I omitted the bottom platform. )

Also, if MBP staff are reading this, I don't like how the random powerup can give a TM as one of its choices, and then never respawn. This makes levels with random powerups very unreliable, as in my level I wanted the player to adapt to whatever the RNG gave them, but a TM is basically giving nothing; it won't help the player get past an obstacle, and they don't get a second chance to get something good because it won't respawn. Just my two cents.

Day 14 and day 15

Close enough to prefect...

Day 14
New concept horray. This was really interesting one, nothing to complain about. Level was really smoth. Only thing i couldnt figure out was how you can get UT time on this one

Day15
Level was almost pefect except the turn before splitpath. Once you get speed at the awesomely smooth curve you made you have to almost jam your diagonal movement to not fall off from right turn. Edge like in nearly the end of the level would fix that. I didn't found that really a big of an issue since I was mostly doing curve slowly anyway. My best time was 19.35 which was really enjoyable UT path

Also I can see how hard it is to make curves like this. Constructor is beast at these but making something like this in quark: hats off amazing job!

Day 16 and day 17

Dis is gud

Day 16
This was extremely fun level. I understand why there never existed gold time for that because its so random and level can give seizures in long term. But at the same time level is so fun, its like omg your falling obb, BAM you're on completely different side. It was more enjoyable to mess around than collect gems.

Day 17

I can judge this in 2 ways
Full path: everything was fine except steps with small mines. I mean mines : good, overly spammed mines, bad it just wrecked constant jumping up stairs and you had it to do it slowly.
Quickpath: was really obvious in first time I finished this. A bit tricky but possible. Spend first 45 minutes trying to do a path in chance to 1:1000 to execute. Gave up hope and did it a bit simpler, slower and got this. Best time you can push out of this level is sub 7:00 if you land on mine perfectly with perfect spin.
Overall level is good.

Glad you liked them! The concept for December 16 came from this flash game (Click me!). Just in case you're interested.

Thanks, and my bonus levels are still coming...

Dec 19, 2013, 12:25pm, ralphiboy27 wrote:Thanks, and my bonus levels are still coming...

I thought this was Marblemaster's thread, not yours. Advertise your bonus levels there instead.

Day 18 and day 19

Short and fun...

Day 18
Ttitle explains it all. This was really short and fun level. Cant really call it rube goldenberg but its really close. Sweet and short level

Day 19
REVIEW MISSING
yes because i couldn't get level to work for some awkward reason. I couldn't find it in levels list and when i started it using search function loading bar didnt moced anywhere.... i don't know whats up with that, i will try moving parts of level code to different map and see if it fixes anything tomorrow.

I had the same problem with Day 19 and wasn't sure if it was just me or not.

It seems I forgot a semicolon in the MIS file.

Anyway, fixed and re-uploaded; it should work now.

How the hell is 30 seconds possible on level 14?

Still broken level... even after upload. Np idea whats up with that.

Weird, it works for me. What kind of error are you getting?

Doesnt show up un levels list and if i force start it loading bar stops. I got this sniplet out of console log that is part where level starts to load.
Code:*** LOADING MISSION: marble/data/missions/ADVENT_calendar/December19.mis
*** Stage 1 load
Syntax error in input.
*** Stage 2 load
Executing marble/data/missions/ADVENT_calendar/December19.mis.
marble/data/missions/ADVENT_calendar/December19.mis Line: 13 - Syntax error.
>>> Advanced script error report. Line 25.
>>> Some error context, with ## on sides of error halt:
artist = Marblemaster1\'s Advent calendar;

music = Seaside Revisited.ogg

}##;##

new MissionArea(MissionArea) {

area = -360 -648 720 1296;
>>> Error report complete.

No 'MissionGroup' found in mission .
Connect request from: IPX:41647665:6E742063616C:28261
Connection established 3612
CADD: 3613 local
Mapping string: ServerMessage to index: 0
Mapping string: MsgConnectionError to index: 1
Mapping string: MsgLoadInfo to index: 2
Mapping string: MsgLoadInfoDone to index: 3
Mapping string: MsgClientJoin to index: 4
CycleMissions: Unknown command.
marble/client/scripts/loadingGui.cs (0): Unable to find object: 'LoadingProgressTxt' attempting to call function 'setValue'

Ah, I see the problem. I had fixed it but I guess it didn't save the change when I re-uploaded it. What you want to do is add a semicolon to the end of the music line so that it looks like
Code:music = Seaside Revisited.ogg;.

Love the latest level, very interesting concept. The RNG moving platforms were neat, too! Here's my best time on it, 1.40 seconds:

Awesome run! I could have sworn I tested the OOB triggers, but whatever.
I think in your first run you could have shaved a bit of time off when you transitioned from the blue side back to red and edge hitted off the platform, although maybe that's just me.

EDIT: It's interesting how you said that this level was the easiest to completely demolish; are you talking about the glitch pathway? Because if you're talking about the fun path, either you're really good at MB or I really suck, because I can't complete the level without going OOB at least 5 times.

Thanks! The OOB triggers were well placed and all, it's just that I was Ctrl+P-ing all the way to the finish.

I'm aware about the pauses in the first run, yeah, and the edge hit looked pretty ugly, too. Like I said, though, it was only for demonstrating the path. You can also see that I paused for a good 5 seconds at the yellow section. Sub-25 is very possible with that path.

As for the completely demolish situation, I was referring to the second run, as it was 44 seconds lower than the PT. The level is pretty tough to speedrun because of those god dang bobbing platforms...

*looks forward to next level*