Top Hacks 2013 Discussion

[Nikoshiba]

Can we get a 'Most Boring' category so I can put Airy in it?

Ah thank you !
I'm playing it right now and I don't find either beautiful or fun... It's sure a good hack but it lacks something....

[Quietus]

I don't really think there's a need for any more negative categories.  The idea of the awards is to celebrate the good.  Anything that is boring or badly designed will lose out naturally anyway, so I don't think there's a need to bash them further. :^_^:

[FullOfFail]

Although I agree with you Quietus, I could also see the value of more bad categories. It'd let people generally know what people like and dislike. I don't think we should add any here, though. Written-Reviews would be better for that anyways.

[Crashtour99]

The thing about challenging the player is that it has to be FAIR.  Adding a bunch of spikes everywhere is a cheap way of adding in artificial difficulty.  If you have a section that requires a series of difficult jumps, sure you can punish the player by sending them back several rooms or something, but instant death is no way to go about it.  Drewseph remodeled the Grapple challenge section for Axiel for this very reason (yes, I did some beta testing for him and it is much improved).  If you can't find a way to add a challenge without making it artificially difficult with spikes or instant death, then you have failed as a game designer (unless the game is designed around it like Super Meat Boy, IWBTG, Eversion, etc.).  Having spikes is fine, but too often they get used in n00b-ish ways to lazily up the difficulty.

And just to be clear, Daltone's Grand Prix hacks were good.  He just dropped the ball with Low Impact, which was otherwise well made for the most part.  Hell, it looked really good, which I wasn't expecting because of the one room he posted in RotW which looked pretty hideous outside of normal gameplay.  Just goes to show that a SMILE snapshot doesn't necessarily do justice to what it could look like in-game.  Some of the other contest entries were based around ASM gimmicks, but fall damage with instant death is a terrible thing to base a 2D exploration platformer on.  With games like IWBTG you aren't exploring, you're traversing a linear level with a set path, so you can see everywhere you're going to go.  In SM, you usually only ever see one small part of the whole room, so you never know what is currently off screen.  Adding fall damage instantly disables ones ability to explore in any reasonable sense.

[Daltone]

My hack was supposed to be hard and even unfair. I would say its a success for what I was trying since you got as angry as you are about it. I called the easy version SV because I knew people would rage about it. If it diddnt have the fall damage it would be completely different since it was built around it. The hack isn't exploration based at all.
Its funny you say 'failed as a game designer' I am a landscaper Lol I do this for fun, like a hobby.
Honestly you can give me the 'worst hack' label, if it makes you feel better, I don't care either way, I diddnt make it for everyone like my other hacks.
Thanks for recording your play through, I really enjoyed it.

[Digital_Mantra]

Drewseph remodeled the Grapple challenge section for Axiel for this very reason (yes, I did some beta testing for him and it is much improved).

So does that mean we'll never know how awesome that challenge initially was? Wait, why am I asking you.

[Crashtour99]

If you've played Redesign you already know how the challenge initially was...   :heheh:

And Daltone, if it was supposed to be unfair, then you've definitely failed as a game designer.  If you're familiar with the tropes of "Goddamn Bats", "Goddamn Spiders", and "The game is a cheating bastard" then you should realize that there's a reason most people don't like those games.  And how is it not exploration based?  I've seen Mst's playthrough and he treks from one side of the map and back.  You have to go all over the place and retrace your steps.  THAT'S EXPLORATION.  It's not like Grime's Halloween hack with linear progression and obstacles to navigate.
Honestly it seems like you don't understand how to balance gameplay mechanics, so you just said "screw it, I'ma do this just to torment people and  make them mad"...  The main reason I'm so frustrated by it is because it's otherwise really good, but there's no balance in the game mechanics so the way it feels while playing is that you just got super lazy and didn't care enough to do it properly.  THAT'S why it gets worst hack for me.

[Digital_Mantra]

[spoiler]The only challenge with Redesign for me was figuring out the new physics (that took about 5 minutes), and adjusting to his design schemes for hints during exploration.

I also personally think you've reached a reaction point that not many will agree with.
You raged here, during your youtube play, you raged during the metconst interview (while the others did agree with your rage but also sorta just brushed it off,
since some of them did it under the gaming conditions. Conditions. Not artificial challenge references.)

You also give critique the wrong way, because your opinion is to bias.
We aren't elitists because we can pull this shit off on console, we've just been playing this game for a long time.
He never questioned your status as a hacker, but as a player. That's two different things, so cut the self masturbation regarding what you've made, contributed, and beta'd.

It's fine when people give negative feedback, Crys does it all the time to me and I love him. He just does it properly, hate without rage. You're just on the rag about this.
I understand where you're coming from, I was a noob at a point and disliked some of the games you've mentioned. I just think you're misguided on what his hack was all about.

As for exploration, it had a beginning intro to the mechanics, then a hub area with a save and 3 distinct paths to live through and return to save.
So no, it was not an exploration hack, you're confusing that with what you said about being frustrated by why you otherwise thought it was good.
Let's remember that this was a hack made in a month, alright? I can't even do 1 small region in a month.

Yay, yet again more hate banter: "failed as a game designer", "you don't understand how to balance gameplay mechanics",
"just to torment people and make them mad", "you just got super lazy and didn't care".
Low Impact revolved around fall dmg in every room meticulously, the gameplay mechanics were absolutely fitting to the room design,
the only torment was messing up a sequence and knowing you could have done it (not sure if this applies to you),
the attention and care to balance was just, it had a hub save point, it had enough hidden etanks to survive most falls too.

Stop being sore, stop backing yourself up with what you do when you misinterpret a post,
and stop posting about it, it only makes you more of a vagina.[/spoiler]

I really wanted this topic to deter from the back and forth about low impact, but some wouldn't let it go, so here's my post.

[MetroidMst]

and stop posting about it, it only makes you more of a vagina.

Start with yourself there, it isn't even your hack. Seriously, this is a discussion topic. People are supposed to share their opinions here, don't get hurt. I am not going around defending Airy from your offensive idea that it was boring, especially seeing how it is probably my favorite hack released this year so far. But that is your opinion, and this topic is about those.

Also this: [spoiler=Daltone]

My hack was supposed to be hard and even unfair. I would say its a success for what I was trying since you got as angry as you are about it.

That being the case, his response shouldn't surprise, and there should probably be a lot more saying the same thing. You knew it was going to get some people, stop arguing over it.[/spoiler]

Now, get back to the topic at hand people. In fact, do something useful and come up with a reason that a hack had the most Creative Gameplay. Especially with some of T.H.E. Contest hacks, that could be a very interesting one to decide this year.

[Digital_Mantra]

Creative? Well in terms of physics, grimes ballin'. In terms of exploration and level design, FoF's melancholy.
Yeah, I should give this a thorough review but that would involve playing them all again.
While I feel it's great and necessary to mini-review every hack to give your thoughts on their status in the mix,
I mainly go for that 'best hack of 20XX' category..
Which for me would have to be Exploration, or some other (don't remember).

Airy was a good hack, it was good.
It just had that cmon motivate me to keep trekking when I'm getting either a) shit all or b) holy shit everything.
It's definitely a fresh re-play, we can agree on that when it comes to your options.
It's just that the non-linearity was totally random when it didn't feel so during a first play.

[Crashtour99]

Fair enough Mst, this will be my last post on the subject of Low Impact.

[spoiler]

...disliked some of the games you've mentioned. I just think you're misguided on what his hack was all about.

Low Impact revolved around fall dmg in every room meticulously, the gameplay mechanics were absolutely fitting to the room design,
the only torment was messing up a sequence and knowing you could have done it (not sure if this applies to you),
the attention and care to balance was just, it had a hub save point, it had enough hidden etanks to survive most falls too.

The thing about games with instant death is that they have nearly instant respawn as well.  SM isn't even remotely designed around this.  I've never played Super Meat Boy, but I thought Eversion was fantastic, and the ending of that was pretty damn difficult (especially the hidden ending).  SM's entire game engine is simply not designed around one-hit-kills and instant death mechanics.  You have to wait for Samus' death scene to play out, then the game over screen, then the reloading sequence, and you don't even start out at the same room you died in...  ALL other games based on instant death mechanics have checkpoints and fast reloading so the player isn't waiting around forever to try and complete an obstacle again, BECAUSE they're designed around that.  If the fall damage were reduced to say, 20 energy, then it'd be legit.  Start off with simpler challenges and as you collect e-tanks you can ramp up the difficulty.  Or maybe make it do a certain percentage of current max health.  But instant death is just silly.  It's the same thing that really turned me off with Darkholme Hospital.  The instant death ghosts on level 6 were a BAD IDEA...

As far as my final thoughts on Low Impact go, it's basically a giant middle finger aimed at anyone who hasn't spent years mastering SM.  Let's face it, the overwhelming majority of SM players aren't speed runners, TASers, or willing to spend years on end practicing moves until they get them perfect.  It's a hack that can only be enjoyed by those with an inordinate amount of time already invested in mastering the game controls.[/spoiler]

Most creative gameplay?  For me it's nearly a tie between Grime's B2TW and Quote's Equilibrium.  Playing the entire game in morph is definitely unique, and he pulled it off very well.  However I lean just slightly more towards Equilibrium, even though my first couple playthroughs were glitched and broken (through no fault of Quote).  The gravity boost and dark visor items were showcased pretty well, and I think they have a lot more potential.  Especially the dark visor.

[MetroidMst]

Especially the dark visor.

This I agree with completely. It needs fixed up properly so it doesn't send the debug menu at some people, but once it is fully finished, this item could be used extremely well in many different facets.

[Quote58]

As crash said it wasn't my codes fault really, that was due to emulater settings issues however I have since fixed it so that hopefully whatever setting you use it'll work. I have also since streamlined the switching and added some stuff, which you'll see in my Christmas hack.

[Metaquarius]

2013 has been a bit stale IMO.
If you exlude T.H.E Contest hacks from the Top Hack Contest, it leaves you with a bunch of average hacks (mostly Japanese hacks btw) which makes voting a little bit harder from me (for Best Overall).
I'm hoping 2014 will be much better to this regard, as SM turns 20 this year ! We need some Fear, more Phazon, Aegis, Rise, Darkholme 2, Ice metal 2, Temple Runner and more cool SM hacks ! :bounce:

[MetroidMst]

2013 was sort of a "down" year. No really major hacks were released at all IMO. Not to say a lot of work wasn't put into those that were released, but there wasn't that one hack that everyone had their minds melted by. Of course, that means it is possible for 2014 to be monstrous. We know these hacks have been worked on throughout 2013, so we might see multiple major hacks drop. (Except Fear. That is still 18 years away.)

[Zhs2]

Bump. Vote?

[Quietus]

Done.  Good luck to all those who have a hack as an option. :^_^:

[Vismund Cygnus]

We seem to be missing a category. Where is best aesthetics?!  :pwuh:

[Zhs2]

It was quite literally a landslide nomination. I saw no reason to include BA when there were no worthy competitors.

[Lunaria]

The only reason I could think of would be that there may be more people voting compared to nominating. :p

Anyhow, I'm not voting since I can't not played any of these.

[Metaquarius]

Voting page is not accessible, so I'm assuming we'll get the results soon ? I hope the whole thing hasn't been scrapped, so we can know who won the worse best hack award !!!

Looks like previous editions are not acccessible either (http://metroidconstruction.com/Top11/) I am disappoint

[Zhs2]

With Top Hacks, the idea of "scrapped" is not a thing. Now, "awaiting all author descriptions", that's a sure event. Another is "the motivation I need to redo the functional access to all Top Hacks pages" which is virtually "nil" until the first event has been met. All quiet on the eastern front aside from the usual villains...

[Digital_Mantra]

Error 404

[JAM]

Digital_Mantra
Yeah, it's kinda late to vote for Obama. Or against him =)