Marblemaster1's Advent Calendar

After moving all item placements to different level here comes day 19

Level of fun depends on how advanced player you are.. that's pretty much all i have to say. Was a bit annoyed about center platform and the fact that I had to go all he way back at sloped path and 3 platforms because shortcut from that gem was impossible to execute. If you're good with edge hitting or precise jumping this level could bring a fun speedrun. For me it didn't but it wasn't really that bad ether.

---

Day 20 and day 21

Feels a bit broken....

Day 20
Well I didn't finished this level because you have to do pinpoint perfect jumps here and I failed so many times I never got further than shock absorber part and got too annoyed to continue. Also I touched first checkpoint before picking up SJ soooo when I respawn SJ disapears from my inventory when i pick it up this making me wait like 10 seconds every time I respawn. Overall idea is PERFECT, difficulty: ehh too hard for me. .-.

Day 21
Well this was interesting new concept. Only problem was that code was broken and you had to reload every time you want to register your jump in scores.
Also I was expecting a lot bigger ramp like in speed attack (MBP expert level).

Wonderful concept, though it would be far more replayable if I didn't have to restart the level whenever I finished. Looks like there's a bug in your code that I would love to see fixed.

I tried the Ctrl+P glitch on Ski Jumping to avoid touching the finish level triggers to get a lower time but when I tried that the timer started glitching and would go up instead of going down. Well played.

Yeah... I know about that bug, but I have absolutely no idea why it happens or how to fix it.

I fixed level 19 by putting a \ before the space in Seaside Revisited. Not sure why escaping it worked.

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think there will be a level today. Why? I'll tell the truth: I forgot.
Yeah. I was playing Minecraft and it just slipped my mind. Normally I'd be able to start on it now, but I have really important stuff IRL and I just won't be able to do it tonight.
Instead, I'll aim to release two levels tomorrow and, failing that, at least keep releasing one level a day. So today's level is still coming; it'll just be a bit late.

The launcher in the end of todays level keeps sending me OOB. Did you even test it? Its like a 100% chance it shoots the marble too high.

I tested it, and I hit the end pad on the first try...

EDIT: Tested it 3 more times; I went too low two of the times and hit it dead-on on the third one.

I'm talking about the moving platform launcher. Not sure what to call it but its way too powerful

Day 22-23 because it deserves it's own review.

Day 22-23

I don't know from where to start.. Well when i first went into level I was like ''oh you remembered about funnel detail adding, this might as well be a level where you ''fix'' past mistakes'' but afterwards all the time i had to think ''why are you making this level so hard.''
Level itself mostly rounds around randomnesses or skillshots which take 999999 attempts to do right. I mean I could judge this as expert level but even for expert it seems too random.
The pain really started at tightropes + platforms. Where did those awesome 2 trim wide tightropes from day 19 went? On top of that jumping from 1 trim wide tightrope to another one takes a bit of a skill to do and even MBP expert levels don't include 1 trim wide tightrope sideways jumps.
Next part after tightropes felt a bit rushed, I'm not sure if it was intentional but in fact you can't reach like 30% of them because they are too high to be reached. Also jumping floor needed some advanced tricks and was only reason why I spent 15 minutes only to reach 2nd checkpoint.
Next up tarmac was good, ss fans had this problem where you fly OVER the checkpoint and you actually need to do little trick to touch the checkpoint and not fall obb in next challenge.
0 gravity part was fine, random force was fine, ice shards where fine.
Here comes the part on which I spent half an hour on. On those 6 MP's you can develop a patern/pathway IF platforms get reset to their original position every time you fell obb. Here it wasn't and it was just pain. I sortof used same pathway all the time but succses was really random, this can be fixed by lowering speed of moving platforms.
Then you have to go backwards and land on same 6 platforms to reach TP... oh lawd I think 10 times or so I never landed on platform and ended up falling through right when platform moves, my fix for that would be if platform from which you jump on six tiles was in same level as 6 tiles that move.
TP maze was fine, good improvement from original TP maze so i liked that.
Level is broken from this part. Where is the frikin checkpoint before that launcher that launches you upwards? First of all as sefaro mentioned above it launches you OBB thus making all that hard work you spend on 6 random platforms going to WASTE. I gave up at that point and used LE to add checkpoint, gems and finish level in 55 minutes.
Oh blimey I'm sorry I had to critisise this level so bad but cmon. If this level is made so that only matan, pascal, dushine, can have fun then I'm a bit disappointed. I understand you had limited time on this but maybe you could've spend more time on gameplay rather than adding every callenge possible. I think levels that are lengthy but challenges are somewhat easy to execute are better than levels that are lengthy and challenges take 100 retries to exectue. It never makes you return to the level. long lengthy and simple levels are fun and make you return more and more to get good time because there you don't have to purely rely on checkpoints or randomness only.
I cant call this level a complete failiure. There just these choke points where I had to spent 70% of level time.

Well as an ending for my review here's little failure I had.


Oh my this is longest review for 1 level ive made as of yet.

One thing I might add to what RDs said is that more checkpoints than what you might think are necessary. It's ok to have a hard level. But after I finish a hard challenge, I don't want to have to do that challenge again. Difficulty isn't always bad, but repetition often is. Sorry, I don't want you to get offended since making this big level in two days is really hard, but it would be better to release one short level every one or two days. I know you worked hard on this, but I would've liked if you would stick to just short, fun, easy to make levels.

Also, is this the last level? I thought it would go until Dec 24...

Dec 24, 2013, 9:03am, ajdallas wrote:One thing I might add to what RDs said is that more checkpoints than what you might think are necessary. It's ok to have a hard level. But after I finish a hard challenge, I don't want to have to do that challenge again. Difficulty isn't always bad, but repetition often is. Sorry, I don't want you to get offended since making this big level in two days is really hard, but it would be better to release one short level every one or two days. I know you worked hard on this, but I would've liked if you would stick to just short, fun, easy to make levels.

Also, is this the last level? I thought it would go until Dec 24...

There's 2 more levels coming tomorrow one of which is frozen in time...

Also agree to all above^^^ and just to mention this is ALL made in quark which takes twice much time as it would on constructor.

RDs.empire's level doesn't have any interiors.??? Could you fix it please? Thanks!

Sorry about that - fixed.

Marble Blast crashes everytime I try to load the level. Anybody else with this problem?

Dec 26, 2013, 2:16am, sefaro wrote:Marble Blast crashes everytime I try to load the level. Anybody else with this problem?


If you're talking about my level I have few guesses whats the problem. If you're on laptop or just low end system disable shadows. If that doesn't work let me know and i will try splitting map in 2 more maps whitch should fix the issue.
Also when level is loading whai't a little bit. It seems like MB freezes but it actually isn't freezing and it should go after few seconds.

Sefaro, which level are you talking about? If you're talking about mine, try going into the MIS file and removing all of the EndlessMarbleTrailEmitter objects, plus the datablock for it. This can easily be done with Ctrl-F.

Well, this whole Advent calendar has been a large custom level playground that I enjoyed exploring! One of my favorite things about it was how much effort you put into making each level different. Some of the levels actually ended up being some of the most original level ideas in recent history.
I don't want to exaggerate and say that this is true for every level, but hey, you basically had to make a level everyday. I wouldn't dream of being able to do this (well actually that's exactly the type of dream I would have tbh the point is I couldn't actually do it). The levels seemed to keep getting more and more inventive. Each level turned into its own unique adventure, sometimes even with its own code. I will say that the finale kind of disappointed me since Final Obstacle Course bit off more than it could chew and Frozen in Time wasn't all that innovative compared to the others (but if it's gonna be a multiplayer level then fair enough I guess).
Overall though, I really couldn't have done this myself and I'm very impressed at the imagination that went into all of these levels. The fun factor could've been improved in a few simple ways (like making The Chute smoother, giving Launch Tower and Gravitational Exchange a checkpoint each, etc.) but for these levels being made pretty much each day, this is really really impressive.

Why thank you!
I came up with all of the ideas in one day - after I released December 3rd's level, I had a massive brainstorm/idea-grinding session and came up with... this. I augmented it a bit so you can see my thought process.


Quote:December 1: Not released
December 2: Not released
December 3: Toboggan Hill
December 4: Ice puzzle -> Icy Pond
December 5: 8-gem puzzle with 9 pieces
December 6: Platforming skill test -> Precision Jumping
December 7: MP ride -> Origin of Species
December 8: I have no idea what my original idea was but it was completely different -> Icy Waters
December 9: Obstacle course (MPs, friction) -> Frictional obstacle course
December 10: Sort of like Tornado Bowl but with ice and more gems -> Wait that's not original -> OK then axe the bottom and get rid of the ice -> The Chute
December 11: Teleporter Maze (Colours connect to each other) -> Teleporter Labyrinth
December 12: Launcher/Skillshotting -> Launch Tower
December 13: Obstacle course (Random powerups) -> Game of Chance
December 14: Zero gravity puzzle -> Zero Gravity Field
December 15: Racetrack (icy) -> Ice Slalom
December 16: X-Axis pull (Play the flash game I linked to earlier in the thread) -> Gravitational Exchange
December 17: Obstacle course (hazards) -> Hazardous Obstacle Course
December 18: Jumping/Platforming skill test -> Wait I already did that -> OK then rube goldberg like level -> Essentia Velocitas
December 19: Tightrope level -> Nobody likes them so make the tightropes double wide -> Balance or Fall
December 20: Inside a tube -> Inside a tube with gravity -> Inside a tube with gravity and water -> The platforms would look awesome if they bobbed up and down -> Aqua Tube
December 21: Ski Jumping (Catch gems in the air) -> Wait that would be too hard -> Let's override about 10 MBG functions! -> Ski Jumping
December 22: Big obstacle course -> Wouldn't it be cool if there were challenges from all other levels? ->
I underestimated how big it would be -> Final Obstacle course
December 23: BattleTetrahedron (Like Battlecube, but a tetrahedron) I might make this... eventually.
December 24: Christmas Tree
Christmas Day: Frozen in Time

Day 24 and day 25
well was too disturbed to do it yesterday so why not doing it today!

Day 24
Interesting concept. wish it had some more friction on tree itself or slope would be enough steep to be able to hold on or something. Otherwise not a bad level. I think this level can be good practice of half a SJ trick.

Day 25 Frozen in time
Overall I would enjoy this level wayy more if instead of having 3 or 4 gems in corner it had only one. That way I could dash to next corner instead of wasting so much time collecting all 4 gems in corner but as buzzmusic mentioned above for multiplayer level its fine i guess... though really it would be better if you would leave MP version for mutliplayer and would've made gem placement how its meant to be in singleplayer. Its like you where trying to make a car that goes both in sky and on ground at the same.

Day 25 Winter wonderland hunt
What I am reviewing my own level? yes I am, time to point out my mistakes with this and promote good things.

The thing i hate most about this level is that some tunnels have 0 point in level. They make bad shortcuts thus serving nothing good. Another tunnel problem I found while playtesting was that barely any of them serve as good shortcut, its easier to go on top rather than rough buttom of level to reach other side.. Another issue is cornering. It isn't that bad since you can still use corners to quickly execute turns but round corners would be slightly better. Terrain wise everything was mostly okay. Did my best to make exits as useful as possible. Lightning is YAK. Turning shadows on everything looks amazing inside and outside. Without shadows everything is ugly and tunnel insides illuminate lightning for some unknown reason. I may know fix for that but didn't had much time to bother with that at time of building.
I like gem placement a lot (thanks matan) top pathways are fun to execute thus making even random strolling and rolling along fun even without collecting gems and some tunnels proof as a good shortcut instead of going through bumpy terrain above. Also easter egg spot is nice. Spent a while to make that but it servers as good part of level while not disturbing realisticity of level.



Overall I liked this advent calendar. It made me play marbleblast almost every day instead of once 2 weeks. Some levels may had bad execution but ideas behind them where good and i saw concepts in them. It's amazing how you managed to get some free time to make a level considering how long it takes to make a good level. I hope some of my bad reviews didn't discourage you a lot. I really did my best to find good things in levels just sometimes annoyance took over or just overall frustration in some levels. But i hope you took something good from my reviews too.
Thanks for spending your time in this. Looking forward to some interesting levels from you.

YEAH! I finally found the right teleporter code!