Home    LBP Showcase / Reviews / Recommendations    Reviews
#1

Best Created Connect Four by GILUPL

Archive: 4 posts


Best Created Connect Four

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1213/5169776499_8e37044fdd.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776499/)
[/url] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776499/)
CREATED BY: GILUPL
REVIEW BY: John82WA

STATISTICS: As of 11/17/2010
Created - 6/2010
Last Update - 10/2010
# of Plays - 990
<3 - 75
Current Rating - :star::star::star::star:


Connect Four was first brought to us in 1974 by Milton Bradley. The game is very simple as the goal is to get four discs in a row while playing an opponent who's goal is the same. Connect Four uses the basic principle of attack and defend. A player can win by connecting the four discs in either a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1337/5169776495_802def692d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776495/)
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776495/)
Graphically I would have to say that the game created might be a tad bit restrictive in what you can do in its graphic approach. However, GILUPL did well with creating a new style of the basic game. The only familiarity that you will find here, is the 6X7 squares with the circular slot for the discs. With that aside, the rest of the style I thought was done fairly well. There was no theme present as there was a mixture of materials from a wall with hieroglyphs to industrial cogs. Oddly enough, it disrupted the bland game board design and was still pleasant to look at. There was also good use of lighting to show which column the disc was being dropped into.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/5169776503_e76e3a4a22.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776503/)
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776503/)
Sounds and Music was not extraordinary but there's not much you can do with a game as simple as Connect Four. The effects were appropriately used. Such as when a disc is dropped into place, it really sounded like it was falling into place. The only portion that lacked is when a player wins. While the music does change, there's not enough impact on the player to give that imaginative high five.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5169776511_ec667f5bb3.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776511/)
[url=http://www.flickr.com/people/55176054@N05/] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55176054@N05/5169776511/)
Gameplay is straightforward and has literally no learning curve if your familiar with Connect Four. The brief introduction on how to play was sufficient for those who never played before. Everything is pretty much spot on with the exception of Blue going first (The original game, it's Red who goes first, but who's paying attention to something so small?). The mechanics worked well and GILUPL gives the player an insight on how he went about using logic (although its not very clear that there is this path). While its a neat insight, it will only impress those who are not creators, however if a creator does see it, it is an open book to be criticized. That is not to take away from the logic that was created because one can not argue the fact that it works perfectly.

Final Thoughts: What can you say, its Connect Four. In all comparison, its as simple as the classic Battleship to the newer 'electronic' Battleships. While one is simpler, the other is clearly more advanced in its approach. Thats the variation of GILUPL's Connect Four, it's the electronic version.

While I wouldn't immediatly say it is the 'best created' Connect Four, I would say that it gives others a pretty high bar, but that bar could easily be broken if one should take the time and effort GILUPL did. But again, anyone could say that about anything.

I rate the Best Created Connect Four, :star::star::star::star:

Thanks for reading the Review!!

John82wa
2010-11-18 00:38:00

Author:
John82wa
Posts: 221


Thank you very much John82wa for the great review and for your time what you spend to play my level and write this review. First what I have to say... nice introduction, really professional work!
When I created this level I wanted to make professional connect four so I checked all connect four levels to be sure that my is the best one. The most connect four levels in LBP are annoying because you have to take the jetpack and catch the circle or you have to jump and on the top are switches or you have to pull the lever... and that take too long, in my level I did as simple as possible to keep playing fast so you just push R1 button to make move. Also there are only very few connect four levels which show players who won and I appreciate them because they are complicated, there is 138 combination by 4 so I have the respect for those creators. My connect four is simple to play, showing who won and what line but that's not all. In the most levels like that you can play not fair, I mean you can put 2 or 3 circles before 2nd player's turn, also you can still put circle where is full line already (say by mistake) and you will lost turn. In my connect four you are not able to put circle because switches are not working before your turn so you can put only one circle and then you have to wait for your turn, also you are not able to put circle where is full line because then this switch is stop working. I would like to add also switch what will clear board so you can play again but my thermometer is full and believe or not but when I'm trying add even one more switch then the thermometer is getting red, I can't add anything else from the tools bag, I can't add even one sound speaker. I really didn't care a lot about graphic in this level, I was thinking it is not that important because this is the board game, just let you know.
I'm just thinking what I should to do to make this level worth 5 stars? Everybody is different and some players rate this level 5 stars but also some players rate 4 stars, how to make all players happy? I've created 7 levels already, I'm working hard because I want to create even one level definitively worth 5 stars but I can't? I don't know what I'm doing wrong, seriously I put all my heart into 3 my levels: CONNECT FOUR and 2 PYRAMIDS! I am little bit sad because CONNECT FOUR was really difficult to do and PYRAMIDS are so big and so various. More mechanism, more ideas, more various = more problems, more bugs, more testing. Anyway I'm working now on third PYRAMID which will be better as 1st and 2nd part, once again you will see 20 various chapters with all new ideas, nice bosses and original puzzles never seen before. I know anyway that I won't be enough appreciated again but I don't care. I will be creating in my way, I won't give up! Graphic is not the most important, ideas are the most important, originality and various gameplay are those things what I care the most!
Thanks a lot.
2010-11-18 21:52:00

Author:
GILUPL
Posts: 102


I agree with what you have to say and I believe you did put a lot of effort into your work. I too am after the 5 star crown and have yet to achieve it and I am still working & working on it. BUT, I do know that gameplay is not all a player looks at. It's not the only thing I look at either. You take every review into account weather its from Gamespot, IGN, GameInformer, PC MAg or anything else that does reviews, they all look into Graphics as a category. Sure they look at gameplay and yes it weighs heavily on a rating, but there's no way you can have a 5 star level based from that. Take the first Golden Eye 007 for the Nintendo 64, if the COD franchise or Halo franchise realeased that game by todays standards it would be hung and crucified even though the mechanics and gameplay is flawless. If I was to suggest anything, throw out the option for players to see behind the scenes. First off I missed it entirely and its just not needed. Take all the decorations you have back there and delete every bit of it. Use dark matter for the bases of your logic because I read it lowers your thermo quite a bit. Then use all the same materials in the logic, just wooden blocks and dark matter. There is no reason why you cant decorate more where the players do go. There should be enough thermo to dress up two different boards and give the player the option to choose a theme! Read up on the thermo, it wasnt until I maxed out that I started looking into it and since that time, I have streamlined my level and have added an enormous amount of extra content. Keep working at it, but since I have been reviewing levels, I have finally realized how difficult it can be to get 5 stars and having attained 4, im quite honestly happy with it! Take care and hope this helps2010-11-19 02:00:00

Author:
John82wa
Posts: 221


Thanks for help John82wa. I agree with what you have wrote, that's very good idea with 2 themes but I don't think this is possible to do, maybe it is but it will take too long. Sometime it is not worth polish and polish level, better is starting create new one. All ideas and thermometer logic I found myself, also I was lucky and I found one glitch, invisible material, I never read any help and any ideas how to create level from any sites. I checked a lot of things in empty level, all the materials how heavy they are for the thermometer and much more. Look at my PYRAMIDS, they are really big, I can show you them in create mode if you like, I think I maxed them out very well. Of course I'm using dark matter material for any mechanism but only then when this mechanism is not visible, I mean it is outside the level. In CONNECT FOUR I wanted to show players how it works so I wanted to do all mechanism very clear so some good creators will know how this level works, also I think the black matter looks ugly when is visible for players so I used the minimum of this material. You see I think system rating is suck because some levels are just not worth 5 stars, look at R1 RACE levels, to be honest I can create level like that in few hours. There is no problem in rating system with the graphic at all, the biggest problem is with how hard level is, better is creating short and easy levels because so many children playing, they don't like chalenges. When you will create easy level with nice graphic then you have chance to get 5 stars. When you will create something long, original and tricky you probably won't be never appreciated for your work. I think my PYRAMIDS are too hard for young players and that's the problem. There is some true what you wrote about Golden Eye but not all. First thing, this is very old game so looks much worse as new games. I mean my CONNECT FOUR and PYRAMIDS don't look that bad, they don't have the best graphic but they still look good, good enough anyway. Second thing, Mario never have the best graphic and never have good storyline and... and Mario is the best platformer ever so... so I think fun, variuos gameplay with lots of original ideas is the most important thing. That's what I think, graphic has to be just good and doesn't have to be really good. Thanks again.2010-11-19 07:43:00

Author:
GILUPL
Posts: 102


LBPCentral Archive Statistics
Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Datenschutz
Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.