Wow.
Fabulous solutions all. Well done guys.
It's been a long time since I've had that much frustrating fun building and tweaking, and it's quite mind-blowing to see the variety on offer.
Feeling quite stupid now for believing my see-saw was in any way a great idea.
While the nitty-gritty "rules" details have not been fully explored and defined, I have two comments about the "finishing order":
- I remember the levels I have played rather too well, even though I "only" started competing somewhere around challenge 150, so "memory" versus "cheating" is something we cannot distinguish.
Votart might have missed/not understood we are going on honour to
NOT examine and copy the original level solutions. We are all skillful enough, that we could all do that, and all submit the same winning entry if so. Besides, it was clear that the pre-2.1.3 version still had more dark forces in it, than what we use now, after seeing how the original solutions to the first challenge failed miserably, and would have misled anyone that tried it.
But I would not disqualify him for it, because he might simply have remembered the challenge and the solution that won it (unless maybe he said more in the entry PM?). Both he and Dec10 were playing back then, but clearly Dec10 does not quite have the memory for it.
I have won other challenges in the past "borrowing" and copying methods from similar challenges I knew about, and likewise named my solutions in their honour, so I would give the benefit of the doubt about that, if there is one (doubt). Besides, reading the comments from ARFC-A002, it's clear that Ioncorpse's solution made a big impression on Votart!
I am thus happy for Votart to claim a valid entry. We know the solution at least had to be rebuilt for v 2.1.3, and I for one am very pleased to see it working, because it adds yet more exceptional variety.
- Likewise Mark_man's entries as host are valid. That was the whole point of replaying the original challenges - to let the host compete (in addition to easing the "creativity" problem).
It was an awesome solution, fully deserving of the win. That it could beat the best of the best minds from 5 years ago (2884), is likewise an awesome achievement.
So for me the official finishing order is:
1) Mark_man
2) Votart
3) me etc.
But this isn't so much about Kudos, as who hosts the next challenge.
Following "The plan", the third challenge is next up, and "someone" has to host it.
I will put up the next in sequence at around 8.00pmGMT today (Saturday)
unless either Mark_man or Votart wish to put up their own levels.
The nice thing about re-using the originals, is that we can interrupt the sequence whenever we want, to inject our own new creations.