[Enigma-devel] Newly ordered levels

[Andreas Lochmann]

Hi developers and level authors,

it needed a good month longer than expected, but we
have a good excuse: Altogether, we got over 120 new
levels from you, and so were able to form five (nearly)
complete packs to 100 levels each. You can download the
whole levels-directory under Raouls homepage:

http://mypage.bluewin.ch/loi/enigma/data/enigma-dev/leveltrunk.tar.gz

or as zip-archive:

http://mypage.bluewin.ch/loi/enigma/data/enigma-dev/leveltrunk.zip

and replace your old data/levels-directory with this one.
It is still 0.92-compatible, so you don't have to download
some trunk-versions, and it won't break most of your
highscores.

----

Several drawbacks:

- The thumbnails are not included (Sorry, Karen),
as we don't want to offer a too big download, filled up
with files that Enigma can create on its own. However,
there will be pngs in the trunk later.

- There are no subdirectories for the several packs
in *this* download. Background: They would break the
highscores. This will be done in summer with the
Enigma version 1.0 which is supposed to understand
the highscore-files correctly, even when levelfiles have
moved.

- No ratings yet: Full 0.92-compliance. (If you're interested
in the latest ratings, please contact me.)

- Only a handful of levels is missing to complete pack
five. We expect to fill them up till summer.

----

How we sorted:

- One of the main driving forces was to introduce new
objects slowly, such that even in pack V new objects
are shown, that don't appear earlier in packs I to IV.
A list of the introducing levels for most of the objects
is attached.

- As second motivation, we tried to increase the average
difficulty of the levels from pack I to pack V. Each of the
packs starts off with relatively simple levels, and ends
with relatively difficult ones, yet altering between levels
of high and low difficulty and types. If you're interested
in what difficulty exactly we measured or in statistics of
the five packs, you're welcome; please contact me.

- Every tenth level is a meditation, except for the 100th,
which can be seen as some kind of "master level".
We mounted 9 "theme-decades" into the packs, sets
of 10 levels with similar designs or ideas. You'll
hopefully see, what I mean with this.

- Finally, we chose to call the new packs with Roman
numbers to distinguish them from the old numbering.
So, if you want to give the position of a level in the
new ordering, please use its Roman number. This
should minimize confusion.

- Apart from this, we also did a great deal on repairing
old levels and preparing the new. This is mostly the
work of Raoul, who was a great help during the whole
process, working behind the curtains and maintaining
the level-trunk.

- Unfortunately, we had to completely remove two levels
from the current ordering: Tarim showed that "Automaton"
doesn't work properly due to a bug in the engine.
And virtually noone was able to complete "Escape?" which
might be broken due to the new timing-engine. They both
are now in the experimental-pack. I only recently read in
the forum that "Shrinking Pits" doesn't work in 0.92, too.
Sorry for not repairing it yet, I tested it under 0.81.

- Furthermore, Raoul completely revised the old clones-
of-oxyd-pack and split it up into four single ones. He also
searched the old Enigma-packs for clones, and moved
them into their respective packs. During this procedure,
three near-to-duplicate levels have been removed.

----

So, this download is more a kind of a test, to start the
discussion from a new point. It should lead to the final
level-ordering of the 1.0-release.
This is why we would like to get lots of feedback:
- Do your levels work properly?
- Do you have suggestions to some levels?
- Are the new levels appropriate to Enigma?
- Do you like the new ordering or was the old one better?
- Did we make a mistake in the objects-order,
    or is it a bad idea altogether?
- Do some difficult levels appear to early or to cumulative?
- Do you like the "theme-decades"?
- Would you exchange specific levels for some reason?
- Did we choose the "master-levels" appropriately?
- Was it right to divide the clones into four packs?
- What did you expect? Or would like to see implemented?

Please answer me or Raoul, or even better: to the mailing-list:
  address@hidden

Sorry for the long mail, but I hope you were interested in this,

Greetings,
Andreas


  Expected as known:

 oxyd-stones
 moving a marble
 death-stones
 water
 documents
 using the inventory
 stones
 gravity
 pushing
 simple shogun-stones
 moving more than one marble
 grates
 gradients
 triggers
 doors
 holes (e.g. by dynamite)
 switches
 floppys and st-floppy
 keys and locks
 different floors
 space
 actors may hide under stones
 small not-killer whiteballs
 timer

  Pack I:  (21 objects)

 1     1    fart-stones
 1     3    bridge-building in water and abyss
 1     4    umbrellas protect of abyss
 1    10    meditations
 1    11    one-way-streets
 1    17    ice
 1    18    rotors and tops
 1    19    swamp
 1    21    springs (both types and in the floor)
 1    22    actorimpulse-stones
 1    25    cracks
 1    31    wormholes
 1    32    inverted floor
 1    41    lasers
 1    52    three-parted shogun-stones 
 1    61    invisible stones
 1    63    connected puzzle-stones
 1    65    movable mirrors
 1    71    impulse-stones
 1    81    spade
 1    93    coins and slots

  Pack II:  (20 objects)

 2     3    bolders
 2    11    magic-wand changes bolder direction
 2    13    hole-stones
 2    21    seeds
 2    21    volcanos
 2    25    objects hidden under chameleon stones
 2    30    magnets
 2    39    flags
 2    39    rings
 2    41    swords and knights
 2    51    hammer and breakable stones (although not in tutorial)
 2    52    changing one-way-streets with magic wand
 2    61    item-transformation (from here on upwards)
 2    63    coin-transformation (from here on upwards)
 2    66    pin
 2    71    rubber-bands
 2    72    unconnected puzzle-stones
 2    75    turning puzzle-stones (e.g. via magicwand)
 2    92    making stones to glass with magic wand (martin27)
 2    94    brush and painted stones

  Pack III:  (16 objects)

 3     2    yin-yangs
 3     2    one-colour-stones
 3    18    yinyang-stones
 3    20    shrinking holes by pushing stones
 3    21    swap-stones
 3    28    restart
 3    32    hole-kind springs (like in "Upstream Journey")
 3    41    rubber-band-stones
 3    44    rotor-stones
 3    47    scissor-stones
 3    48    wrench
 3    57    growing seeds with lasers
 3    61    passable impulse-stones
 3    62    sheafs of glass
 3    73    killer-balls
 3    86    ac-horse

  Pack IV:  (16 objects)

 4     3    black bombs making abyss 
 4     3    dynamite
 4     6    dynamite-breakable stones
 4    14    fire
 4    14    extinguisher
 4    21    mines
 4    27    jumping over cracks
 4    39    jumping over lasers
 4    44    movable impulse-stones
 4    48    artillery
 4    49    hidden meditations
 4    51    puller
 4    51    those yellow anti-impulse-swapping stones
 4    70    electric stones
 4    93    sinking connected puzzle-stones
 4    96    stones that aren't what they seem

  Pack V:  (12 objects)

 5     3    mailing and tubes 
 5    11    thiefs
 5    21    bag
 5    31    running over water
 5    33    it-banana
 5    41    turnstiles
 5    57    it-weight
 5    61    it-surprise
 5    61    cherry makes invisible
 5    61    cherry lets you go through glass
 5    79    randomizer 
 5    82    st-itemfreeze