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Map Development Mini-Contest #1 [FINISHED]

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Level 3
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Jul 15, 2007
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36
Ty for the support - to be honest, I really just want the critique more than anything else :) I've been using it as a test bed for a bigger map I've been working on for a while (Naga Island Defense) so even if it's not in the competition, learning how to do a lot of the stuff has been really good.

Cheers!
 
Level 16
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Oct 30, 2004
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Well as the contest ended when it was night for me and I was sleeping, and it propably was day time for you in australia so I'll let it pass, this is not so serious thing.

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED!

Do not update your maps anymore, doing so will lead in to disqualification. The results will come in the following days. Be patient.

Edit: 13 entries counted. Nice.
 
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Level 1
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Jul 30, 2007
Messages
7
A lot of interesting entries, starting with Sherpi's Overgrowth and the idea of Towers that spawn towers (I guess I played this nearly three hours till I got to the final Boss... which reached the end with only few hitpoints left. But in the WIP he just caused a loss of one Live so I won though), through Razorbrain's Autocasting Spell TD (Where I never found out how to win against these air-levels... even the Chainlightning-Towers that only attack air did not help me...), cheesey's Firelord (where moving the builder with the creeps is the key), PurplePoot's (I like the Boulder-Tower...) and Aussie with the item-system. (And a few more TD's)

As you are looking for critique:
Just give a hint that you have to place items in the "towers", I took a while to figure out...
Then there was way too much money... I had no idea where to put them, besides buying lightning, cause if one got killed by such an attack, it seemed like I got no money.
Is digging deeper just there to get the towers with bigger inventars, so you can melt this aura at the end? The higher attacktyps you can also get just by melting, dropping, melting, melting both...
Killing as much as possible is an interesting idea... but then splash-damage should be weaker

All in all I wish you nice days of judging, Mini-Me
 
Level 40
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
By the way, incase my brother and I win a prize, the TD is officially under his account (Bobo_The_Kodo)

Oh, and Dungla, your Critique section probably should've said which critique point referred to what TD (I'm sure some people understand some of them, due to it referring directly to the td they made, but... yeah)
 
Level 5
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
199
also Aussie in your td, you could sell the 10$ towers for 100$ towers, and you should say how you get the items, it took me awhile to find that out, also you should be able to carry the items to the towers with your dwarf
 
Level 3
Joined
Jul 15, 2007
Messages
36
Ty for the critique :)

Sorry about the sell bug - I coded that about 4 weeks ago and forgot to change it once I'd changed the sell value.

As to having the dwarf carry stuff - The only problem is that he then gains the attack which I didn't want. This was to be offset by him only having one item slot and the inability to combine.

Sorry about the lack of explanation - as I said, not nearly finished yet :) As you "found" recipes, it was going to give you a quest on what you got and what that tower did. This was then going to be incorporated in the save/load system so that next time you played, it was there automatically.

As for "Dig Deeper" it lets you get bigger piles of stuff, upgrading the mine so you can get level 3 - 6 basic items, and also if you combine all four types of the top two levels there's a special item at the end.

Sorry the gold is unbalanced :(

As to the "merge" items:
  • Undead Tower: Death + Lightning (Spawns a creep to attack for you)
  • Spark Tower: Lightning + Illusion (Spawns a ball of lightning)
  • Plague Tower: Death + Burning (Creates an area of the plague)
  • Nexus Tower: Death + Illusion (Sucks nearby units into itself, causing damage)
  • Scorched Tower: Burning + Illusion (Damages a unit and significantly reduces it's armour)
  • Flaming Tower: Burning + Lightning (Supposed to be a more powerful "Burning" - But I realise I mucked up the script, so it starts strong and gets weaker

There are also unimplemented 3-item combo towers, and four-item combo tower:

  • Gate Fragment 1: Death + Burning + Lightning +Illusion (All of level 5: "Small monument")
  • Gate Fragment 2: Death + Burning + Lightning +Illusion (All of level 6: "Large monument")
  • Oblivion Gate: Gate Fragment 1 + 2

You can only combine this in the top level "pile" (The box)

As to not getting bounty..... I think that's because of how I applied the damage - at the moment the struck unit hits itself - so it counts as a bug :)

Thanks for the comments :grin:

Cheers all, and thanks mini-me for including my map :)

P.S. I know you can't judge a map by what's intended to be in it, it's just so people can have a bit more fun.
P.P.S. As I'm using this as a test bed, I'll probably update the map a bit further (but not for the competition) and put it in the "map development" forum. Not today though - Rest, shopping and cooking for the week :)
 
Level 1
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Messages
7
Well,
first I played it as the others with the towers and tried to damage the creeps in your TD over time, building left of the center, so that they get in range of the towers two times, Razorbrain.
Yesterday I noticed my failure, that the creeps have such an high regeneration that you have to kill them as quickly as possible. The first air-level was still hard (although I invested three gold in those Lightning-Towers) but after that I just build a massive wall of Schockwave and Stampede with one Thunderclap and ground got mostly harmless, so I could invest many gold into Chainlightning.
Blizzard added well and the Banish-Towers were very good against Bosses.
It was quite funny... first time I survived the second air-level, I survived all.

I really had to laugh about that hint that the game gets harder after the first few levels and there is no need to worry for the game being to easy... for me it was more the other way round.

Perhaps you should say that cooldown and duration of Blizzard is the same - and so it is the perfect tower for the first piece of gold. It is really hard if you have to choose between nine towers, each one at the cost of all of your money, while the timer runs out...
And for future versions (if you want) you could think of further upgrading the towers at the cost of more money... at the end I just build the Schockwave-Towers at the exact the same position to get rid of that much money in the time before the next level started.

Hope I could help you
,Dungla
 
Level 12
Joined
Aug 18, 2006
Messages
1,193
thanks for the review of my map, will try yours out when i can

i put in the high regeneration to balance the map, it was too easy without any regeneration

EDIT : I tried to download your map, but it doesnt work, when i try to start it, it just wont open up. And when I tried to open it in WE, it named some error that "Main Map file could not be opened" :S

EDIT2 : I tried on another computer, and it suddenly worked :p, now i just have to play it
 
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Level 40
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Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
As far as I know they were supposed to be up sometime between the start of yesterday and the end of today, unless something came up for mini.

---from a PM---

Mini-Me said:
PurplePoot said:
Any idea how long it's gonna be till the results are up? ><

If nothing special happens then today. If something does come up, then maybe tomorrow.
 
Level 16
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Oct 30, 2004
Messages
1,277
Here come the results in no particular order:



Fall Of The Illidari by VGsatomi

Theme - 6 / 6

-Nightelves
-The theme was clear and you could see it with just one look
-The terrain supported the theme very well
-The flying hippogryphts gave a very nice touch to the theme
-The sounds were well used and provided a good atmosphere combined with the beautiful terrain
-The story was good and well presented
-The theme was consistent and it worked

Balance - 3 / 4

-Hard
-No learning curve, the player is supposed to know the game from the beginning
-Hard to get into the game, it took me many tries to get past the early levels
-Knowledge is power, and only way to get the knowledge is to play and fail at the game
-The map is challenging and rewarding when you get the hang of it
-The towers supported each other well
-The towers are given to a computer player upon completion, thus removing the chance of micro managing the towers, this caused for me some headache to watch a low hp creep walk to the end and there was nothing I could do about it

Creativity - 6 / 10

-The towers are pretty generic excluding one; the huntress
-The towers give the feeling of being ineffective,"grinding towers"
-No special towers, the archers are strong in numbers and the dryad, huntress and the warden support
-The towers are basic but work well together, each tower is needed
-The towers support the nightelves theme very well and they look good
-Very few abilities
-The towers dont stand out

Appearance - 4.5 / 5

-The terrain was beautiful
-The map was pleasing for the eyes
-The effects were good and fitted the game

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works
-Some things are done in not the most efficiant way, many triggers could have been combined
-The waves are done at the worst way possible; 20 waves takes 20 triggers. Adding more waves would be painful with this method. The whole wave engine could have been comressed to just 2 triggers, and it could handle as many leves as the author wants
-no leak cleaning at all

Overview: A good tower defense with a beautiful terrain, which is rare in a td. The gameplay is solid but the towers are bit generic and could have used some spicing up.

Total Score: 21 / 28



The BlueDragon by Riptokus

Theme - 2 / 6

-Blue dragon
-The theme is bit narrow
-It's mostly presented through the builder, who is a blue dragon
-The waves support the theme a bit
-The theme is quite loose and not well presented

Balance - 0.5 / 4

-You could build only one tower, which is good only at the early levels
-You got a set amount of gold at the start of the map, and that's it
-Units are mainly used for defending, there are plenty of them at the beginning and you can block with them
-The early levels are were easy because the builder, the blue dragon, has a huge freezing splash and a lot of damage
-The creeps dont do much damage, you end up killing your own units with the huge splash from the builder
-Later levels are quite challenging as the restock rate of the hired units is high, and you basicly just got the builder to defend with
-The boss levels could be devoured, there is no way you could kill them the normal way

Creativity - 1 / 10

-Only one fast shooting tower with low damage could be build
-Where are the towers?!?!?!
-Using units to defend did not work, they were rather weak and good for only blocking
-The whole game centered around the builder

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain was out of shaped, it looked weird
-There were hardly any effects used

Triggers - 1 / 3

-Everything works
-Very few simple triggers

Overview: Seemed like a rushed map with no clear idea. The tower defense part was left out.

Total Score: 5.5 / 28

1kC by Godless

Theme - 1 / 6

-No apparent theme
-Nothing seemed to connect the towers, the waves or the terrain
-This is a tower defense

Balance - 1 / 4

-Very easy
-The towers are pretty unbalanced, some are good and some are just plain bad
-You could upgrade a good tower to a bad tower
-The blizzard casting tower and the flamestrike tower are a good example of waste of money; they are two late upgrades that cost lot of money and their damage was 40 when the creeps hit points were a lot
-You've balanced the creeps by double their hit points each level, that's too slow increase for the early levels and too high increase in the late levels

Creativity - 3 / 10

-A lot of towers seemed to have critical strike
-The towers are mostly the basics used in a tower defense
-The random tower is a good idea, but the random towers were not very different from each other
-The towers dont support each other, a lot of towers that you dont need or want to build

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain was ok, tileset changed a bit and some doodads, too bad that there's no theme
-The tooltips were one big mess, I'll take a guess here and say that about 80% of the tooltips, towers or abilities, were incorrect
-There were a lot of variants from critical strike, they each had the same description
-Not many effects

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-everything works
-only few triggers
-leaks are cleaned

Overview: A tower defense with no direction and a lot of room for polishing

Total Score: 7.5 / 28


Arthas Mini TD by Clord

Theme - 3 / 6

-Undead / Rituals
-With such a dark theme, the "happy" grassy terrain didnt fit very well
-The ritual theme is fresh, and it makes sense

Balance - 0.5 / 4

-Very easy
-The amount of gold was way too much, you could build nonstop and still never use all the gold
-The towers were overpowered
-The combination of cold slow and slow poison almost stopped the enemy, it moved with movement speed 1 which is almost as its stopped
-Not all towers were available due to bugs


Creativity - 4 / 10

-The towers were pretty basic
-The potential of the theme was not used well
-Combining stuff is always fun, too bad it was bugged in this map


Appearance - 3 / 5

-Use of effects was a good idea for towers, but you could have used bit more variety in them
-Most of the towers looked good and fitted the theme
-The terrain was ok, but did not fit with the theme

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-Only two triggers
-The 'main' trigger which handeled the combining was bugged, it did not work right
-two combining rituals + blood ritual created two cold rituals. Cold ritual + corrupted nature
ritual + combining ritual created one corrupted nature ritual and not the river of blood ritual so
basicly that just removed two of your towers. Cold ritual + two combining rituals created two
corrupted nature rituals and not the frost ritual. Cold ritual + blood ritual + corrupted nature
ritual just removed blood ritual and corrupted ritual and did not give corrupted land ritual.

Overview: The idea of the tower defense had potential which was sadly left unfilled and plagued with serious bugs.

Total Score: 11 / 28


Blazing Battle TD by Cheesey_111

Theme - 5 / 6

-Fire / Elements
-The towers were consistent with the theme, the terrain eventhough bit plain fitted the fiery theme
-All sorts of fire effects were nicely used
-The theme was consistent and well implemented
-The rivalry of the elements worked well

Balance - 3.5 / 4

-The balance seemed right
-Few 'bumbs', such as the windwalk level was a bit challenging, also the ethreal level was a bit lame; there should have been a warning so you could prepare for it as only few towers were able to damage them
-The Hellfire chasm tower was quite the killer but not in a game ruining way

Creativity - 9 / 10

-Very creative ideas
-I liked how some of the towers dealt damage through the builder, thats an unique feature what I havent seen in any other td
-All the towers (except for Lava Spawn) were good for something
-The towers supported each other very well
-I liked very much also how you could choose another approach in killing the creeps; sucking their mana to kill them instead of killing them the normal way
-There was no dull moments, the use of the builder as a channel for some of the towers kept you busy during the waves
-The spells for the builder was also a nice touch
-Very enjoyable td

Appearance - 4 / 5

-The terrain could have used some spicing up
-The effects were very nice and fitted the theme
-The effect from Hellfire chasm tower seemed very nice
-In the late game the effects started to lag a little
-The towers could have used some organizing, the first look was a bit confusing, many choises to choose from
-You should make the more expensive towers require the cheaper ones before they can be build, people will of course build the cheap towers as they have no other choises, so it doesnt make any chances to gameplay but it effectively organises the towers, players can see immediately which towers are avaiable to them and there's less confusion
-Hot keys were not avaiable for any of the towers

Triggers - 2.5 / 3

-Everything worked
-Some leaks were cleaned
-Triggers were used to enchance the towers

Overview: Action packet tower defense with good gameplay and theme.

Total Score: 24 / 28


Doomsday TD 3.0 by Ham Ham

Theme - 4.5 / 6

-Doomdsay
-The terrain supports the theme well and looks good
-The towers and the creeps are well suited for the theme
-Good atmosphere, the music was a nice touch, though bit overplayed

Balance - 2 / 4

-Easy
-After the few early levels you get a bit too much gold
-The marine is underpowered and the flamethrower is overpowered
-All the towers seem bit overpowered, or the creeps underpowered?
-The spell tower was quite unbalanced, the freeze which froze the whole map was imba, the creeps stopped for few seconds
-The nuke costing twice what the spell tower cost was twice worse, the spell tower was the best tower with its mega freeze, life suck and meteor
-Outpost and command centre gave an aura with 50% more damage, thats a bit too much
-Command centre and the outpost had too big splash, they killed your own towers aswell

Creativity - 5 / 10

-The towers worked well together, each had their own role except for the marine
-The spell tower was a good idea, but it was too powerfull
-The nuke is always nice to have :)
-The towers had their specialities and each was needed in order to win the game

Appearance - 3.5 / 5

-The terrain looked nice, and fitted the theme
-There were easily noticeable spelling mistakes
-There were some nice effects
-Everything looked good

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works
-No leak cleaning
-Many triggers could have been compressed

Overview: Solid tower defense with good gameplay but a little too easy.

Total Score: 16.5 / 28


High Pass Hunting! by AussieLauren

Theme - 3 / 6

-Hunting
-The terrain looked nice and supported the theme
-The creeps were well suited for the theme
-The towers did not fit the theme, tokens for hunting? One could have expected that guns would be used for hunting

Balance - 0 / 4

-Non-existing
-You get only 80 gold at the start and that's it, no more gold, 80 gold is enough for one token only
-You can kill only the few early level creeps before their hp is too high and you just watch them pass by
-The creeps start out with a huge amount of defense, its impossible to kill them then, you useally kill them when their armor has decreased to zero as they run in the maze
-Only way to get gold is to exploid a bug, that is to sell a 10 gold costing tower for 100 gold, that totally ruins the balance as you can have as much gold as you want
-Leaking is not punished, you can not lose or win

Creativity - 2 / 10

-To use items as a form of attacking is a good idea
-Combining the items to better ones is also a good idea, too bad you can not get that far without cheating
-The items used to attack seemed pretty generic
-Creeps are removed instantly when killed, not only does that remove the bounty but its very unsatisfying

Appearance - 1.5 / 5

-The terrain looks nice

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works ... but that aint a good thing in this case as due to working exacly how they were made the whole game is ruined from the start because the creeps dont give out bounty because they are removed instantly on death
-Some mistakes, such as setting a variable to null and then removing it
-Uses diablo.dk's combining system

Overview: Tower defense with no drive and plagued by a serious bug.

Total Score: 8 / 28


Murloc Massacre Mini Td Map Contest by Skeloman

Theme - 1 / 6

-Murlocs
-The terrain does not support the theme
-Only the creeps model indicates of the theme, and even that is always the same murloc model
-The towers are also not tied to the theme in any way

Balance - 1 / 4

-Easy
-There's two towers which you can afford at the beginning, electric chair and brain scrambler, if you build electric scrambler which costs all your gold, you will leak about half of the first level and be doomed to lose
-Brainscrambler is the cheapest and the only tower you need, with its 15% stun chance you can have permanent stun if you build many of them
-Other towers are not worth their money

Creativity - 1 / 10

-The towers do not support each other
-Good names for the towers

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain is hardly edited at all
-No effects used
-The waves all have the same murloc model, there are more than one murloc model made by Blizzard
-The tower descriptions are informative

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-two triggers
-one of them is bounty trigger, giving the bounty is done in the worst and time consuming way as possible

Overview: Rushed tower defense that needs a lot of love.

Total Score: 4.5 / 28


Node TD by Dungla

Theme - 6 / 6

-Brain / Human mind
-The theme is original
-It's well supported with good dialog between the builder and his mentor
-The terrain looks a bit chaotic, propably like a human mind would look like
-The towers and the creeps support the theme very well

Balance - 2 / 4

-Very Hard
-The balance is right on the edge, you need precise moves at the right time to survive, no room for mistakes
-The nature level is very hard, with your towers doing only 5dmg they have 10 life regen per sec
-I never beat the map eventhough I played it many times
-The macros abilities affect a large area, many times the effect is wasted on some of the nylons as the mana is drained too fast
-The first boss, Peak of experience was also very hard, it somehow at most times seemed to escape with about 50 hp and it took a big chunk away from your lives

Creativity - 7 / 10

-The towers are creative in their appearance and story
-The macro was a nice addition, good idea to include 3 different support spells which suited for different occasions
-The synapsis was confusing at the beginning
-The synapsis tower was a good idea but it's potential was not used, it worked were rarely eventhough I didnt place them that far from each other

Appearance - 5 / 5

-The terrain looked a bit like a mess, but in a good way
-The towers looked very nice and fitted with the terrain and the theme
-Good use of effects
-The creeps all looked different and fitted their names well
-Good atmosphere

Triggers - 2 / 3

-Everything works
-No leaks cleaned
-Lot of things could be done in a simpler way

Overview: Good looking tower defense with a good atmosphere and solid gameplay though very hard.

Total Score: 22 / 28


Overgrowth TD by sherpi

Theme - 5 / 6

-Nature / Trees
-The terrain was part of the gameplay and worked well with the theme
-The towers fitted the theme nicely
-Good stories behind the towers

Balance - 2 / 4

-Very hard
-Lot of stradegy involved as where to place your towers
-The balance is on the edge, you need to do the right decisions at the right time to survive
-I couldnt get past level 10, the dragon boss, leaking it means defeat and I leaked it everytime
-The creeps were unique in their ways which provided extra challenge

Creativity - 8 / 10

-The towers didnt seem to be connected to each other, they worked well as individuals
-Creative ideas for the towers
-The building system is very interesting and unique
-I liked the tree consuming idea with the towers that you could get max 4 towers with the original tower

Appearance - 4 / 5

-The towers looked nice
-Good use of effects
-Good idea to use special creeps, such as aeo healing on death etc. they looked good and fitted the game
-The tower tooltips could have used more info on the actual tower rather than a very long story

Triggers - 2.5 / 3

-Everything works
-Most leaks were cleaned

Overview: Good original tower defense with some good ideas and good gameplay. Very hard td though.

Total Score: 21.5 / 28


Stand of the Elements by Purplepoot

Theme - 5 / 6

-Elements
-The theme is well presented
-The towers are well connected with the theme
-The creeps did not seem to fit with the theme
-The terrain fits the theme well
-The effects used are very fitting

Balance - 3 / 4

-Normal
-Seemed ok balanced, maybe a little easy
-Good idea to only make few levels cost lives, the other levels if leaked only strenghtened the levels that cost lives
-Every tower was needed to beat the creeps (except the boulder arch)
-Good idea giving people a lot of time, and also the option to start the level manually

Creativity - 10 / 10

-Very original towers
-I loved the barrier tower, it was very nice combined with the fire wall tower and the boulder tower
-Good combinations, the towers supported each other very well
-Very good effects used with the towers, they looked very nice
-Very good ideas for the towers

Appearance - 5 / 5

-The terrain looks interesting and nice
-The effects were great, pleasing for the eyes
-The tooltips were informative
-Everything looked good and professional

Triggers - 3 / 3

-Everything works
-Very good coding, no wasted space, no extra triggers
-I didnt spot any leaks, all cleaned, very good

Overview: Very unique tower defense with great gameplay. Only downside is that it's bit too short. Me wants more :)

Total Score: 26 / 28


Spell Mini TD by Razorbrain

Theme - 2.5 / 6

-Spells
-The terrain doesnt fit well with the towers, poison and spells?
-The creeps are not connected to the theme aswell
-The theme is a bit loose
-The towers are well connected to the theme
-The creeps seemed to have a theme, too bad it didnt match with the rest of the map

Balance - 2 / 4

-First level is bit hard, there's a lot of tower choises but only the blizzard tower kills all the creeps at level 1
-The blizzard tower is overpowered, its very good in the early levels, it kills ground and air units
-The thunderclap and shockwave towers are also powerfull
-Late game you only need the thunderclap towers to slow down the ground creeps and the stampade tower to kill the ground creeps
-With a lot of stampade towers the ground levels dont stand a chance, half of the screen is filled with running lizards
-Air levels were the only ones that provided some challenge, but were still easy

Creativity - 4 / 10

-You used only blizzard spells, some of your own custom spells would have been nice to see
-The towers supported well each other
-A lot of variety to choose from, but you only need few of the towers

Appearance - 2 / 5

-The terrain was plain and didnt really fit
-Good effects
-there's a lot of tower to choose from and they are in no special order, looks a bit messy and confusing

Triggers - 2 / 3

-Everything works
-Some leaks were cleaned

Overview: The idea of the tower defense has potential but the author seems to have taken a shortcut with creativity.

Total Score: 12.5 / 28


Treetd by DesKaladA

Theme - 2 / 6

-The towers fitted the theme
-The terrain and the creeps were not connected with the theme
-The effects did not fit the theme

Balance - 1 / 4

-Very easy
-Money income was weird, it came after just some levels
-The money given at the beginning was enough to get you far enough because the levels were very easy
-The creeps hp's increased between some levels only by 3 hp
-The fourth tower cost more gold than the third tower and had about twice less damage
-Fift and final tower was a game breaker with a lot of damage and very fast attacking speed, almost one hit kills

Creativity - 0.5 / 10

-Not much creativity went into the towers
-Only things that were differences between the towers were projectile art, damage and the tower model

Appearance - 0 / 5

-All the towers had the same description, written by blizzard
-The terrain was untouched
-The first tower had an ugly projectile art that stuck on the ground and covered the creeps that you couldnt see them for some time
-Poor effects
-Looks like it was rushed

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-Few triggers
-All triggers made by you were periodic triggers, they definately didnt need to be
-Everything works

Overview: Rushed tower defense which is half empty.

Total Score: 4 / 28
 
Level 40
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
My theme was originally going to be Trogdor (hence all the humans, mainly peasants...) but I couldn't think of enough unique fire towers to work with :p

As for the boulder tower, it was basically an optional tower that really helped if used right, and sucked otherwise. It could make or break a game if you built your defence knowing you wanted one somewhere, but it was more of a toy than anything else.

Oh, also, in the future triggers should probably get a little bit more notice (in my opinion), since after all good triggers can mean the life or death of a map (especially leaks)

And mini, you got gold in High Pass Hunting, there was just a bug that caused most towers (including every basic type except for fire...) to not give bounty, for some reason. (I didn't read enough of the code to know) I'm almost certain instant removal of the units wasn't the cause, though. Oh, and fire token was overpowered, you could easily win with it ;).

Oh yeah, and don't forget, my brother (Bobo_The_Kodo) gets the prize! (since when do I need more rep...?) ;)
 
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Level 16
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
1,277
Mini-Me you need to CMIIW but it appears as if the victors are:
  1. Purplepoot - 26/28
  2. Cheesey_111 - 24/28
  3. Dungla - 22/28
Congratulations and well done all contestants!

Correct, congrats to all contestants and especially to the top three. You may start dishing out the rewards (rep) when you find the time.

Clord said:
It was hard to make good TD with those rules, it usually need stuff like mini-games etc to seriously stand out.

Well thats not true and the contest entries proved it, did you try for example purplepoots td?
It's easy to blame something else than yourself (still waiting for someone to come and tell me that I dont know didlysquat about anything and shouldnt have been the judge :))
 
Level 1
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Jul 30, 2007
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First Rep

Ah, nice, third place.
Congrats to PurplePoot... I mean Bobo_The_Kodo and Cheesey_111:infl_thumbs_up:

It was a pleasure to map against you... or something like that
,Dungla
 
Level 27
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Feb 22, 2006
Messages
3,052
To be honest, I probably spent 10, 15 max. (on the last 2 days, too...) >_>. I only found out there was a contest a little past halfway, but even so, I sorta slacked for most of the time left :p
Shh! You're supposed to tell us a nice moral like putting lots of time and dedication makes it better, not that even slacking can lead to victory!
--donut3.5--
 
Level 40
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
Slacking is pwn. I do it all the time.

You just need to know when to slack.

(like here, I already had the ideas laid out and I was just slacking on writing code that I knew perfectly well how to do... I waited until I had nothing better to do before doing this)

Shh! You're supposed to tell us a nice moral like putting lots of time and dedication makes it better, not that even slacking can lead to victory!
Funnily enough, that'd accomplish exactly the opposite - I'd rather tell people not to be afraid to slack if

A) they don't slack on everything, only on what's not particulairily difficult or important
B) they're not afraid to mess up once in awhile (say, if I had missed the deadline)
 
Level 16
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Oct 30, 2004
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1,277
For actual work 15 hours is a lot for this sized map. It doesnt contain the time you spend thinking what to do. It's also hard to count that time, if you spend couple of minutes thinking while at school/work/bathroom, it adds up to a lot.

Anyway, this seems to be going slightly offtopic. Looks like everybody have said their peace about the results. Though not many seem to have bothered to comment or congratulate the winners for that matter.

Contest finished, unsticked.
 
Level 32
Joined
Oct 23, 2006
Messages
5,291
Yeah, this contest really rocked: we need to get the next one going ASAP because everyone is really bonkers about mapping contests; the more the better (IMO).

CMIIW bro, but do I remember you saying that you would not be hosting the next Map Development Mini-Contest? If not will you nominate a successor? It's my opinion that Veggie has far more qualifications than necessary (if he had time) ragingspeedhorn would be my second choice.
 
Level 2
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Sep 21, 2007
Messages
26
Here come the results in no particular order:



Fall Of The Illidari by VGsatomi

Theme - 6 / 6

-Nightelves
-The theme was clear and you could see it with just one look
-The terrain supported the theme very well
-The flying hippogryphts gave a very nice touch to the theme
-The sounds were well used and provided a good atmosphere combined with the beautiful terrain
-The story was good and well presented
-The theme was consistent and it worked

Balance - 3 / 4

-Hard
-No learning curve, the player is supposed to know the game from the beginning
-Hard to get into the game, it took me many tries to get past the early levels
-Knowledge is power, and only way to get the knowledge is to play and fail at the game
-The map is challenging and rewarding when you get the hang of it
-The towers supported each other well
-The towers are given to a computer player upon completion, thus removing the chance of micro managing the towers, this caused for me some headache to watch a low hp creep walk to the end and there was nothing I could do about it

Creativity - 6 / 10

-The towers are pretty generic excluding one; the huntress
-The towers give the feeling of being ineffective,"grinding towers"
-No special towers, the archers are strong in numbers and the dryad, huntress and the warden support
-The towers are basic but work well together, each tower is needed
-The towers support the nightelves theme very well and they look good
-Very few abilities
-The towers dont stand out

Appearance - 4.5 / 5

-The terrain was beautiful
-The map was pleasing for the eyes
-The effects were good and fitted the game

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works
-Some things are done in not the most efficiant way, many triggers could have been combined
-The waves are done at the worst way possible; 20 waves takes 20 triggers. Adding more waves would be painful with this method. The whole wave engine could have been comressed to just 2 triggers, and it could handle as many leves as the author wants
-no leak cleaning at all

Overview: A good tower defense with a beautiful terrain, which is rare in a td. The gameplay is solid but the towers are bit generic and could have used some spicing up.

Total Score: 21 / 28



The BlueDragon by Riptokus

Theme - 2 / 6

-Blue dragon
-The theme is bit narrow
-It's mostly presented through the builder, who is a blue dragon
-The waves support the theme a bit
-The theme is quite loose and not well presented

Balance - 0.5 / 4

-You could build only one tower, which is good only at the early levels
-You got a set amount of gold at the start of the map, and that's it
-Units are mainly used for defending, there are plenty of them at the beginning and you can block with them
-The early levels are were easy because the builder, the blue dragon, has a huge freezing splash and a lot of damage
-The creeps dont do much damage, you end up killing your own units with the huge splash from the builder
-Later levels are quite challenging as the restock rate of the hired units is high, and you basicly just got the builder to defend with
-The boss levels could be devoured, there is no way you could kill them the normal way

Creativity - 1 / 10

-Only one fast shooting tower with low damage could be build
-Where are the towers?!?!?!
-Using units to defend did not work, they were rather weak and good for only blocking
-The whole game centered around the builder

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain was out of shaped, it looked weird
-There were hardly any effects used

Triggers - 1 / 3

-Everything works
-Very few simple triggers

Overview: Seemed like a rushed map with no clear idea. The tower defense part was left out.

Total Score: 5.5 / 28

1kC by Godless

Theme - 1 / 6

-No apparent theme
-Nothing seemed to connect the towers, the waves or the terrain
-This is a tower defense

Balance - 1 / 4

-Very easy
-The towers are pretty unbalanced, some are good and some are just plain bad
-You could upgrade a good tower to a bad tower
-The blizzard casting tower and the flamestrike tower are a good example of waste of money; they are two late upgrades that cost lot of money and their damage was 40 when the creeps hit points were a lot
-You've balanced the creeps by double their hit points each level, that's too slow increase for the early levels and too high increase in the late levels

Creativity - 3 / 10

-A lot of towers seemed to have critical strike
-The towers are mostly the basics used in a tower defense
-The random tower is a good idea, but the random towers were not very different from each other
-The towers dont support each other, a lot of towers that you dont need or want to build

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain was ok, tileset changed a bit and some doodads, too bad that there's no theme
-The tooltips were one big mess, I'll take a guess here and say that about 80% of the tooltips, towers or abilities, were incorrect
-There were a lot of variants from critical strike, they each had the same description
-Not many effects

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-everything works
-only few triggers
-leaks are cleaned

Overview: A tower defense with no direction and a lot of room for polishing

Total Score: 7.5 / 28


Arthas Mini TD by Clord

Theme - 3 / 6

-Undead / Rituals
-With such a dark theme, the "happy" grassy terrain didnt fit very well
-The ritual theme is fresh, and it makes sense

Balance - 0.5 / 4

-Very easy
-The amount of gold was way too much, you could build nonstop and still never use all the gold
-The towers were overpowered
-The combination of cold slow and slow poison almost stopped the enemy, it moved with movement speed 1 which is almost as its stopped
-Not all towers were available due to bugs


Creativity - 4 / 10

-The towers were pretty basic
-The potential of the theme was not used well
-Combining stuff is always fun, too bad it was bugged in this map


Appearance - 3 / 5

-Use of effects was a good idea for towers, but you could have used bit more variety in them
-Most of the towers looked good and fitted the theme
-The terrain was ok, but did not fit with the theme

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-Only two triggers
-The 'main' trigger which handeled the combining was bugged, it did not work right
-two combining rituals + blood ritual created two cold rituals. Cold ritual + corrupted nature
ritual + combining ritual created one corrupted nature ritual and not the river of blood ritual so
basicly that just removed two of your towers. Cold ritual + two combining rituals created two
corrupted nature rituals and not the frost ritual. Cold ritual + blood ritual + corrupted nature
ritual just removed blood ritual and corrupted ritual and did not give corrupted land ritual.

Overview: The idea of the tower defense had potential which was sadly left unfilled and plagued with serious bugs.

Total Score: 11 / 28


Blazing Battle TD by Cheesey_111

Theme - 5 / 6

-Fire / Elements
-The towers were consistent with the theme, the terrain eventhough bit plain fitted the fiery theme
-All sorts of fire effects were nicely used
-The theme was consistent and well implemented
-The rivalry of the elements worked well

Balance - 3.5 / 4

-The balance seemed right
-Few 'bumbs', such as the windwalk level was a bit challenging, also the ethreal level was a bit lame; there should have been a warning so you could prepare for it as only few towers were able to damage them
-The Hellfire chasm tower was quite the killer but not in a game ruining way

Creativity - 9 / 10

-Very creative ideas
-I liked how some of the towers dealt damage through the builder, thats an unique feature what I havent seen in any other td
-All the towers (except for Lava Spawn) were good for something
-The towers supported each other very well
-I liked very much also how you could choose another approach in killing the creeps; sucking their mana to kill them instead of killing them the normal way
-There was no dull moments, the use of the builder as a channel for some of the towers kept you busy during the waves
-The spells for the builder was also a nice touch
-Very enjoyable td

Appearance - 4 / 5

-The terrain could have used some spicing up
-The effects were very nice and fitted the theme
-The effect from Hellfire chasm tower seemed very nice
-In the late game the effects started to lag a little
-The towers could have used some organizing, the first look was a bit confusing, many choises to choose from
-You should make the more expensive towers require the cheaper ones before they can be build, people will of course build the cheap towers as they have no other choises, so it doesnt make any chances to gameplay but it effectively organises the towers, players can see immediately which towers are avaiable to them and there's less confusion
-Hot keys were not avaiable for any of the towers

Triggers - 2.5 / 3

-Everything worked
-Some leaks were cleaned
-Triggers were used to enchance the towers

Overview: Action packet tower defense with good gameplay and theme.

Total Score: 24 / 28


Doomsday TD 3.0 by Ham Ham

Theme - 4.5 / 6

-Doomdsay
-The terrain supports the theme well and looks good
-The towers and the creeps are well suited for the theme
-Good atmosphere, the music was a nice touch, though bit overplayed

Balance - 2 / 4

-Easy
-After the few early levels you get a bit too much gold
-The marine is underpowered and the flamethrower is overpowered
-All the towers seem bit overpowered, or the creeps underpowered?
-The spell tower was quite unbalanced, the freeze which froze the whole map was imba, the creeps stopped for few seconds
-The nuke costing twice what the spell tower cost was twice worse, the spell tower was the best tower with its mega freeze, life suck and meteor
-Outpost and command centre gave an aura with 50% more damage, thats a bit too much
-Command centre and the outpost had too big splash, they killed your own towers aswell

Creativity - 5 / 10

-The towers worked well together, each had their own role except for the marine
-The spell tower was a good idea, but it was too powerfull
-The nuke is always nice to have :)
-The towers had their specialities and each was needed in order to win the game

Appearance - 3.5 / 5

-The terrain looked nice, and fitted the theme
-There were easily noticeable spelling mistakes
-There were some nice effects
-Everything looked good

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works
-No leak cleaning
-Many triggers could have been compressed

Overview: Solid tower defense with good gameplay but a little too easy.

Total Score: 16.5 / 28


High Pass Hunting! by AussieLauren

Theme - 3 / 6

-Hunting
-The terrain looked nice and supported the theme
-The creeps were well suited for the theme
-The towers did not fit the theme, tokens for hunting? One could have expected that guns would be used for hunting

Balance - 0 / 4

-Non-existing
-You get only 80 gold at the start and that's it, no more gold, 80 gold is enough for one token only
-You can kill only the few early level creeps before their hp is too high and you just watch them pass by
-The creeps start out with a huge amount of defense, its impossible to kill them then, you useally kill them when their armor has decreased to zero as they run in the maze
-Only way to get gold is to exploid a bug, that is to sell a 10 gold costing tower for 100 gold, that totally ruins the balance as you can have as much gold as you want
-Leaking is not punished, you can not lose or win

Creativity - 2 / 10

-To use items as a form of attacking is a good idea
-Combining the items to better ones is also a good idea, too bad you can not get that far without cheating
-The items used to attack seemed pretty generic
-Creeps are removed instantly when killed, not only does that remove the bounty but its very unsatisfying

Appearance - 1.5 / 5

-The terrain looks nice

Triggers - 1.5 / 3

-Everything works ... but that aint a good thing in this case as due to working exacly how they were made the whole game is ruined from the start because the creeps dont give out bounty because they are removed instantly on death
-Some mistakes, such as setting a variable to null and then removing it
-Uses diablo.dk's combining system

Overview: Tower defense with no drive and plagued by a serious bug.

Total Score: 8 / 28


Murloc Massacre Mini Td Map Contest by Skeloman

Theme - 1 / 6

-Murlocs
-The terrain does not support the theme
-Only the creeps model indicates of the theme, and even that is always the same murloc model
-The towers are also not tied to the theme in any way

Balance - 1 / 4

-Easy
-There's two towers which you can afford at the beginning, electric chair and brain scrambler, if you build electric scrambler which costs all your gold, you will leak about half of the first level and be doomed to lose
-Brainscrambler is the cheapest and the only tower you need, with its 15% stun chance you can have permanent stun if you build many of them
-Other towers are not worth their money

Creativity - 1 / 10

-The towers do not support each other
-Good names for the towers

Appearance - 1 / 5

-The terrain is hardly edited at all
-No effects used
-The waves all have the same murloc model, there are more than one murloc model made by Blizzard
-The tower descriptions are informative

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-two triggers
-one of them is bounty trigger, giving the bounty is done in the worst and time consuming way as possible

Overview: Rushed tower defense that needs a lot of love.

Total Score: 4.5 / 28


Node TD by Dungla

Theme - 6 / 6

-Brain / Human mind
-The theme is original
-It's well supported with good dialog between the builder and his mentor
-The terrain looks a bit chaotic, propably like a human mind would look like
-The towers and the creeps support the theme very well

Balance - 2 / 4

-Very Hard
-The balance is right on the edge, you need precise moves at the right time to survive, no room for mistakes
-The nature level is very hard, with your towers doing only 5dmg they have 10 life regen per sec
-I never beat the map eventhough I played it many times
-The macros abilities affect a large area, many times the effect is wasted on some of the nylons as the mana is drained too fast
-The first boss, Peak of experience was also very hard, it somehow at most times seemed to escape with about 50 hp and it took a big chunk away from your lives

Creativity - 7 / 10

-The towers are creative in their appearance and story
-The macro was a nice addition, good idea to include 3 different support spells which suited for different occasions
-The synapsis was confusing at the beginning
-The synapsis tower was a good idea but it's potential was not used, it worked were rarely eventhough I didnt place them that far from each other

Appearance - 5 / 5

-The terrain looked a bit like a mess, but in a good way
-The towers looked very nice and fitted with the terrain and the theme
-Good use of effects
-The creeps all looked different and fitted their names well
-Good atmosphere

Triggers - 2 / 3

-Everything works
-No leaks cleaned
-Lot of things could be done in a simpler way

Overview: Good looking tower defense with a good atmosphere and solid gameplay though very hard.

Total Score: 22 / 28


Overgrowth TD by sherpi

Theme - 5 / 6

-Nature / Trees
-The terrain was part of the gameplay and worked well with the theme
-The towers fitted the theme nicely
-Good stories behind the towers

Balance - 2 / 4

-Very hard
-Lot of stradegy involved as where to place your towers
-The balance is on the edge, you need to do the right decisions at the right time to survive
-I couldnt get past level 10, the dragon boss, leaking it means defeat and I leaked it everytime
-The creeps were unique in their ways which provided extra challenge

Creativity - 8 / 10

-The towers didnt seem to be connected to each other, they worked well as individuals
-Creative ideas for the towers
-The building system is very interesting and unique
-I liked the tree consuming idea with the towers that you could get max 4 towers with the original tower

Appearance - 4 / 5

-The towers looked nice
-Good use of effects
-Good idea to use special creeps, such as aeo healing on death etc. they looked good and fitted the game
-The tower tooltips could have used more info on the actual tower rather than a very long story

Triggers - 2.5 / 3

-Everything works
-Most leaks were cleaned

Overview: Good original tower defense with some good ideas and good gameplay. Very hard td though.

Total Score: 21.5 / 28


Stand of the Elements by Purplepoot

Theme - 5 / 6

-Elements
-The theme is well presented
-The towers are well connected with the theme
-The creeps did not seem to fit with the theme
-The terrain fits the theme well
-The effects used are very fitting

Balance - 3 / 4

-Normal
-Seemed ok balanced, maybe a little easy
-Good idea to only make few levels cost lives, the other levels if leaked only strenghtened the levels that cost lives
-Every tower was needed to beat the creeps (except the boulder arch)
-Good idea giving people a lot of time, and also the option to start the level manually

Creativity - 10 / 10

-Very original towers
-I loved the barrier tower, it was very nice combined with the fire wall tower and the boulder tower
-Good combinations, the towers supported each other very well
-Very good effects used with the towers, they looked very nice
-Very good ideas for the towers

Appearance - 5 / 5

-The terrain looks interesting and nice
-The effects were great, pleasing for the eyes
-The tooltips were informative
-Everything looked good and professional

Triggers - 3 / 3

-Everything works
-Very good coding, no wasted space, no extra triggers
-I didnt spot any leaks, all cleaned, very good

Overview: Very unique tower defense with great gameplay. Only downside is that it's bit too short. Me wants more :)

Total Score: 26 / 28


Spell Mini TD by Razorbrain

Theme - 2.5 / 6

-Spells
-The terrain doesnt fit well with the towers, poison and spells?
-The creeps are not connected to the theme aswell
-The theme is a bit loose
-The towers are well connected to the theme
-The creeps seemed to have a theme, too bad it didnt match with the rest of the map

Balance - 2 / 4

-First level is bit hard, there's a lot of tower choises but only the blizzard tower kills all the creeps at level 1
-The blizzard tower is overpowered, its very good in the early levels, it kills ground and air units
-The thunderclap and shockwave towers are also powerfull
-Late game you only need the thunderclap towers to slow down the ground creeps and the stampade tower to kill the ground creeps
-With a lot of stampade towers the ground levels dont stand a chance, half of the screen is filled with running lizards
-Air levels were the only ones that provided some challenge, but were still easy

Creativity - 4 / 10

-You used only blizzard spells, some of your own custom spells would have been nice to see
-The towers supported well each other
-A lot of variety to choose from, but you only need few of the towers

Appearance - 2 / 5

-The terrain was plain and didnt really fit
-Good effects
-there's a lot of tower to choose from and they are in no special order, looks a bit messy and confusing

Triggers - 2 / 3

-Everything works
-Some leaks were cleaned

Overview: The idea of the tower defense has potential but the author seems to have taken a shortcut with creativity.

Total Score: 12.5 / 28


Treetd by DesKaladA

Theme - 2 / 6

-The towers fitted the theme
-The terrain and the creeps were not connected with the theme
-The effects did not fit the theme

Balance - 1 / 4

-Very easy
-Money income was weird, it came after just some levels
-The money given at the beginning was enough to get you far enough because the levels were very easy
-The creeps hp's increased between some levels only by 3 hp
-The fourth tower cost more gold than the third tower and had about twice less damage
-Fift and final tower was a game breaker with a lot of damage and very fast attacking speed, almost one hit kills

Creativity - 0.5 / 10

-Not much creativity went into the towers
-Only things that were differences between the towers were projectile art, damage and the tower model

Appearance - 0 / 5

-All the towers had the same description, written by blizzard
-The terrain was untouched
-The first tower had an ugly projectile art that stuck on the ground and covered the creeps that you couldnt see them for some time
-Poor effects
-Looks like it was rushed

Triggers - 0.5 / 3

-Few triggers
-All triggers made by you were periodic triggers, they definately didnt need to be
-Everything works

Overview: Rushed tower defense which is half empty.

Total Score: 4 / 28

So are there actually links to these maps?

I've been trying to find them via searching the site and searching the first post of the thread or anywhere else on the site...

I figured a good way to congratulate the winners would be to actually expose people to the maps?
 
Level 2
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
Messages
26
I did find them through searching the thread eventually, i just figured at least the top 3 would have had their maps displayed somewhere for people to see and download easily. =/
 
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