Post by swietymiki on Jun 21, 2019 14:38:06 GMT -8
I were playing GooRoo's levels from January to March and then again in June, beginning chronologically from the "Monolith Forum Era". Having got a "Perfect" score on every single one of his 2002 maps (there is 23 of them), I felt like it's about time to leave some comments. Here my time is only 32:13, slower than in the first post, so it turns out you can beat it a lot faster if you know the level better.
According to the indices, it's GooRoo's first released level, though from some of his posts I can conclude it was not the first one he created. You can tell the designer was still messing around with the Editor and testing different things (example: the trapped Object Guard). This level's nature is non-linear - your Gruntz start in several unconnected areas, there are many ways you can go and almost nothing is certain. This state doesn't last too long however. As far as I remember the order of action was to grab the megaphone in the upper-left corner, give the Gauntletz in the bottom-right corner, swap for a Shovel and then do the work here (which takes some careful health management and requires knowing which holes are empty and can be left untouched). Press all the switches around and, faster than expected, you find all of your Gruntz free to do whatever they want - Pyramids blocking access to the middle area are down. From that point it's mostly collecting Coins scattered all around the map in various small areas and using whichever Gruntz are necessary. It's not the only level with parts like this, so I'll introduce a name for them - "Sandbox parts". Side note, the Silver Pyramid maze bears some resemblance to the opener in my own first level, The Four Sword Gruntz - a mix of different Pyramid types inside. An interesting coincidence.
There are some recurring elements in GooRoo's levels and Full House Of Fun is no exception. Coins are usually awarded just for breaking rocks and digging mounds, and there are lots of them in these early levels. The magic shovel trick is also being used extensively, fortunately its employment was toned down over time. There are four WARP letters awarded in different areas of the map, while only one is required to get the "Perfect" score. Sometimes things are hidden behind EyeCandy objects. Also a few times I stumbled upon a situation where I were given more Toolz/Toyz than needed and only grabbed them to have all the items on the statz page, certainly also had that happen on this level. I understand that back in the day anyone just posted whatever he wanted on the Monolith Forums, there was no Beta-Testing process or anything like that. It can also be pretty difficult to find alternate solutions in a non-linear level. I can't really blame the designer for these issues, especially after he acknowledged them himself.
...But I found some things to complain about anyway. First off, leaving empty areas in the map. In this example, there should at least be some EyeCandies in the middle walking area (the checkered floor is not enough) but preferably neighbouring areas could be expanded so that there are no loose sections. Especially the upper-right corner looks very empty. And second, the lack of map border. There are both graphical and gameplay reasons behind making the level border unaccessible to the player's Gruntz. I always put a one-tile wide hill or water outline around my maps for good measure. Doesn't really cost you anything while increasing map quality.
According to the indices, it's GooRoo's first released level, though from some of his posts I can conclude it was not the first one he created. You can tell the designer was still messing around with the Editor and testing different things (example: the trapped Object Guard). This level's nature is non-linear - your Gruntz start in several unconnected areas, there are many ways you can go and almost nothing is certain. This state doesn't last too long however. As far as I remember the order of action was to grab the megaphone in the upper-left corner, give the Gauntletz in the bottom-right corner, swap for a Shovel and then do the work here (which takes some careful health management and requires knowing which holes are empty and can be left untouched). Press all the switches around and, faster than expected, you find all of your Gruntz free to do whatever they want - Pyramids blocking access to the middle area are down. From that point it's mostly collecting Coins scattered all around the map in various small areas and using whichever Gruntz are necessary. It's not the only level with parts like this, so I'll introduce a name for them - "Sandbox parts". Side note, the Silver Pyramid maze bears some resemblance to the opener in my own first level, The Four Sword Gruntz - a mix of different Pyramid types inside. An interesting coincidence.
There are some recurring elements in GooRoo's levels and Full House Of Fun is no exception. Coins are usually awarded just for breaking rocks and digging mounds, and there are lots of them in these early levels. The magic shovel trick is also being used extensively, fortunately its employment was toned down over time. There are four WARP letters awarded in different areas of the map, while only one is required to get the "Perfect" score. Sometimes things are hidden behind EyeCandy objects. Also a few times I stumbled upon a situation where I were given more Toolz/Toyz than needed and only grabbed them to have all the items on the statz page, certainly also had that happen on this level. I understand that back in the day anyone just posted whatever he wanted on the Monolith Forums, there was no Beta-Testing process or anything like that. It can also be pretty difficult to find alternate solutions in a non-linear level. I can't really blame the designer for these issues, especially after he acknowledged them himself.
...But I found some things to complain about anyway. First off, leaving empty areas in the map. In this example, there should at least be some EyeCandies in the middle walking area (the checkered floor is not enough) but preferably neighbouring areas could be expanded so that there are no loose sections. Especially the upper-right corner looks very empty. And second, the lack of map border. There are both graphical and gameplay reasons behind making the level border unaccessible to the player's Gruntz. I always put a one-tile wide hill or water outline around my maps for good measure. Doesn't really cost you anything while increasing map quality.