The Aqueduct *Spotlighted!*

[Duffluc]

The Aqueduct
PSN Duffluc

Sackboy has been discarded to what seems to be the most dangerous sewage processing plant on the planet! Help him find his way out and find a new master to care for him!



You start your journey off in the confines of a garbage truck. A great start to a great journey, I say!



The water boils! Steer clear unless you want to be real dead.



...Just what type of sewage plant is this, anyways?



Those look dangerous...



I think you guys will find the level's climax quite something.

________________________________________________

This is my take on a water level. I tried to strike a balance between water and traditional platforming, as I've found that many levels focus on water and water alone. I think you guys are going to like this one, even after testing it a trillion times I still find it a fun level to play :P

I'm willing to do as many f4f's as i receive on this level, so f4f away! I will take all your advice to heart and will do my best to make this level as great as i am able to!

Thanks!

[Sceptique]

I feel completely out of my league on this forum. haha. You guys always seem to find a perfect balance of levels that are fun to play as well as Gorgeous decoration and the perfect balance between tasks that are too hard or too easy. How do you do it? I love the level! it fits every criteria i just mentioned... there are a couple of bugs though... the first part where there are all these rubber tires rolling under you... i jumped onto them to get to the other side... i'm not sure if there was something that was supposed to carry me across or not but that was my first intinction... so i jumped onto it... and right under the first fiery... crusher... thing... the rubber wheels were spaced too far apart... and i got stuck between them... and after i tried to get out for a while i fell down into the water... where i'm pretty sure i was not supposed to be so i just drowned myself to get back to the top where i carefully made my way across to get to the next area. But other then that i cant think of anything negative to day... I love the concept... i love the feel... the use of the gas water... and the use of the fifty layer glitch at the end. Also the rising water at the end was awesome! How do you get a checkpoint to activate when another one sinks under the water? Just awesome!

I would love your opinion on my level. Its my first published level... the the second one i'm working on is already shaping up to be much better... But its called "Ancient Aztec Adventure." For some reason i think it may be a little difficult for the casual player... and i would love to get your ideas on maybe making it a little more accessible or more interesting. Also my rocket sequence has a (kind of rare) tendency to go horribly wrong. So i would also like maybe some ideas on how to get it to reset in case it does... I also am afraid the player may lose their sense of direction in certain points in my level... but i'm not sure exactly how to guide them without obvious arrows and speech bubbles... haha.

I can tell your a very experienced creator so any ideas on any of that would be just awesome.

[lbper]

WHAT THE ******?

I've gotta admit, you've got balls plagiarizing major elements of my level and then doing F4F on it.

As your F4F could you try out my sewer level I just finished, called the Aqueduct? It's not really anything like yours, but I thought it was funny that another sewer level came out days before i published mine :P

I don't find it funny at all. I publish a level, and then 10 days later someone makes a level containing more polished versions of several elements of a level that I spent ages coming up with. Then, instead of admitting influence and giving credit where credit is due, they pretend that its "not really anything like" it. I fail to see any humour at all in this.

First alarm bells were the timed swimming sections which were the biggest element of my level and the main idea behind making it, and though the spikes were swapped for poison gas, I started to get a little bit suspicious here, but still thought it could just be coincidence.

Until I got to the spinning wheel maze...

The maze in the water is made of glass and very hard to se, maybe turn it into a different color or material.

I see that you took the liberty of doing that, so that I didn't have to. Thank you. When I saw this spinning underwater maze that was almost identical to mine, that's when I stopped believing that the similarities were just down to coincidence.

Finally at the end, I found a longer version of the rising water platforming section, with the poison gas pistons that I had wanted to implement, but couldn't get the timing right.

So, with these three things that were a major part of my level stolen, you can imagine that I would be pretty ****** off. I spent a long time coming up with these things, so I didn't want to spend extra time on looks of the level as it already took over 30 hours. Then I see this level which uses all the same elements, and only a couple of original elements alongside it, only it has already got the gameplay elements free, and thus has spent the time on aesthetics.

Even if these similarities were merely coincidental, (which I doubt, because the water maze was virtually identical), just think about how this looks:

1. You spend ages working on a sewer level
2. 10 days later another sewer level with several gameplay similarities but better visuals appears
3. Person claims that the levels aren't anything alike, when even if they weren't plagiarized, they should have realized the similarities upon playing it.

[RCIX]

Calm down lbper! Obviously, there are many elements similar between your levels (though i confess i haven't played either), but that's no reason to blow your stack!

[iGotFancyPants]

Calm down lbper! Obviously, there are many elements similar between your levels (though i confess i haven't played either), but that's no reason to blow your stack!

Surely, you've never had the same happen to you.

I'll check out both of these levels first thing thursday afternoon. Then I'll give my two cents.

[RCIX]

Surely, you've never had the same happen to you.

I'll check out both of these levels first thing thursday afternoon. Then I'll give my two cents.

Admittedly no, and i'm sure i'd be angry, but that's no reason to swear up a storm!

[Thegide]

Hey Duffluc,

Thanks for your F4F for Fireball Island. I played The Aqueduct. Here are my thoughts.

Overall:

The gameplay is superb. Your platforming elements are innovative and I had a lot of fun with them. I thought the level's best segments were the trash dump in the beginning, the rotating path area shortly thereafter, and the trash compactor bit was fantastic. The race was pretty good, though ever so slightly tricky. It's not too hard, but I did die several times.

Here is my hopefully constructive criticism:

The backstory is a bit strange, but I rolled with it. The very first speech bubble is censored and shows up as ********, but the idea I get is that somehow your mom throws you away in the trash.

The boiling water sequence was good, but thought that the timing in the second half (where you lower the platforms) was too quick. As soon as it was safe, I jumped down, hit the switch and had only one chance to jump out of the water onto the platform. If you missed that one attempt, you got boiled, and that was hitting the switch as quickly as possible. I think you need to give people another two seconds before the gas comes back on. Following this area, the switch operated elevator can be jumped out of. Yes, I can forcibly respawn myself since you included a checkpoint, but I think perhaps you should consider using a prox or searchlight switch so that the elevator comes back down if sack falls out. The paired two-way switches at the "do not switch off" sign is a bit finicky. I kept plane shifting and grabbing the wrong switch or I would accidentally knock a switch back into the wrong position. Your stairwells were beautifully designed, however maybe remove the background handrails for each stair set? They seem to impede plane shifting when changing stairs. Lastly, I felt the camera angle during the race sequence could use tweaking. It's too low, and there's nothing going on below the water level, so why not let the player see more of the upper area where he is going?

Visually, some sequences were great (i.e. compactor area) while others were a bit lackluster. I recall swimming through one hallway that was completely bare except for some lights. It looks like you put a lot of effort into some areas, but not others. I felt some areas needed more variety in texture diversity. Overall, the visuals don't impact the experience, but I think with a bit more polish they could definitely add to it.

Anyways, almost all minor issues. The level was great. I gave it 5 stars, though I think there is still a bit of room for improvement. Keep up the good work!

[Duffluc]

Lbper. I don't appreciate your blatant profanity and accusations on my level, especially with absolutely nothing to go on. Our levels were VERY different. Mine consists of a sewer which uses very different elements from yours. Yours is an open world choose your own adventure that looks, plays, and feels nothing like mine. Now I want you to get a couple of things straight.

#1: If you're going to accuse someone of plagiarism, get your facts right. I started working on this level over 5 weeks ago, shortly after i published my last level, Mechanica- district 15. You think I built that in a week? Use some common sense.

#2: I only played your level for the first time today. I posted a review on your level because after i made this thread, I went to play some f4f's to find peoples opinions. I f4fed your level because I thought it was interesting that we had a similar theme, not because i was "pretending that its "not really anything like" it." I thought that you would be interested in seeing my level, since we came up with similar settings.

#3: you claim you tried to make a raising water section, that you DID NOT make because you could not get the timing correct. You are claiming that i plagiarized something that you didn't even build! How could I have possibly known what you were thinking of building? There was ONE similarity that I spotted between our levels, and that was the maze. and if you must know, I was inspired to build that because of the final segment to the developer level, "the bunker".

And finally, there's 1.8 million levels on lbp. expect similarities. You have alot of gall coming onto my thread and saying I copied you, and to be honest, I don't appreciate it.

I spent a hell of a long time building this level, and the only thing I want for it is to be enjoyed. I also gave you a level headed and helpful review of your level, which I thought would be appreciated. You've turned this thread in to something it shouldn't be.

[pacosanchez88]

Wow this was one of the best levels I’ve played in a while. I was very impressed at all the detail on everything. The water based platforming and puzzles were all very good. I think my favorite thing about your level was that everything was explained. You didn’t just have a random thing happen without explaining it in some way. Whether it was the elevator that didn’t function, the boiling water, the radioactive waste, the steam and the pressure tanks, everything was there for a reason and all the hazards had an explanation. Since that is something I am trying to strive for in my levels, I can appreciate all the planning and hard work that goes into that.

My only suggestion would be to tweak the rising water section at the end. At the beginning I was keeping up and couldn’t see because the camera was too low, but towards the end I felt like the water went up quicker than I could possibly jump up the platforms.

BTW, I have played LBPers level too and while there are some similar ideas, it is pretty apparent to me that you didn’t copy his ideas. Some of it was just a coincidence and other things are just common game play concepts (like a rotating maze). What next? Every time someone has a swinging ball section, I can claim they copied me? Pfft.

Anyway, excellent work. 5 stars and a heart. I’m going to go play some more of your levels when I get the chance. For the F4F, try one of the levels in my Sig below.

EDIT: one more thing, i think the very first line of dialog is censored.

[Mtjohnson1977]

Ok so Wow... I just tried your level.... very nice.

I loved almost all of the elements... One thing I would recommend is maybe have the camera zoom a lil so the player knows about the underwater switches in the Gas/boiling water area (I was confused at first and thought I was just supposed to make it ....yeah even with the tips on how to avoid... the tip to avoid the water made me look at the wall above and i knew i couldnt reach so i got confused until i accidentally saw the switch.

The other part that I think needs work is also one of the coolest areas ive seen... the coal (or poo) crushers... but man that is sooooo HARD!

It needs to be slowed down..or less poo? its really hard to get through. and seems random more than timable due to the fact not all of the poo (or coal) gets crushed... It looks amazing though!

All in all I loved it!

[lbper]

#3: you claim you tried to make a raising water section, that you DID NOT make because you could not get the timing correct. You are claiming that i plagiarized something that you didn't even build! How could I have possibly known what you were thinking of building?
.

Hi Duffluc,
I did have a raising water section, and it is present in my level. However, the poison wasn't synced with the water, so I removed the piston on the poison gas. There is still a rising water section that is quite similar to yours.

If you did not copy any of the elements from my level, I am sorry for the accusations. Even with the possibility of plagiarism, I still rated your level 5 stars, so there is no negative repercussions of this.

I still assert that while the profanity was not warranted, I had every right to express my belief that there was copying, and would appreciate it if you could look at this from my perspective:

I spent ages on this level, busted my *** coming up with a huge range of different and unique gameplay elements, which I consider to be my own.

A sewer level pops up about ten days afterwards, with three major similarities.

The maker of the level DENIES these similarities outright.

Firstly, you have only still acknowledged the similarity between the wheel, but the spikes and boiling water obstacles are very similar.

I have not seen a gameplay element like my water spikes in any other level, and I've played a lot. In my F4F thread, others have commented on the uniqueness of this element, and therefore pacosanchez's analogy of the swinging ball is rather misinformed and irrelevant. Both the water spikes and the boiling water areas involve waiting for the water to be safe, and then quickly swimming across it, and we both have the single instance of it, and then a longer stretch with a point of safety in between. My level and your level are the only levels out of the huge number of LBP levels I have played to include this gameplay element, and so I hope you can understand my concerns about this.

Secondly, the wheel was almost identical. I believe you when you say you got it from the bunker, but in my F4F thread, you posted a potential change to the wheel in my level, and from my view, it appeared that you had implemented this change in your own level. While pacosanchez says spinning wheels are common, underwater ones are not really so much, plus the spinning wheel as a maze is rather less common also, most are simply like the bunker in that they are single route only.

Thirdly, I don't know if you went on the path with the rising water in my level, but this was quite similar, in quite a few ways, to your rising water section also.

Your level is very good (I rated 5 stars despite my belief at the time that it had copied elements from my level), and of course I do not think that it could be built in a week. However, I do think that in 10 days it would be definitely possible to incorporate those elements.

Your last statement should help you understand my concerns, as I spent a hell of a long time building my level also, and the only thing I want for is for it to be enjoyed, but in the form that it was created, and not as a reproduction (I am not saying The Aqueduct is now, but you can understand the concern, I hope)

So, with all of these apparent coincidences here, I hope you can understand that it was not at all unreasonable for me to jump to the conclusion that I did, and I am sorry if you felt offended by the accusation.

[Duffluc]

Hey lbper

I understand what you were saying, and i accept your apology. I know that its only because of how long levels take to make and how much care goes in to the that tensions can get so high. I know i would be angry if someone ripped off my level, but you must understand that I did no such thing. I honestly don't see similarities between your use of waves and spikes and my use of a level plane of water and gas, besides the fact that they are both obstacles that must be crossed quickly. If you recall, in the developer levels of the pirates pack, there was a section where the waves of the water carried spiked boxes up and down. My point is, these are just common elements of a game where the whole idea is to present commonplace obstacles in different styles. I honestly cant think of a single section of any level that has absolutely no similarities to something else I've played. Inspiration has to be drawn from somewhere.

What offended me was not just the accusation, but the way in which it was worded and how you presented yourself, on my forum especially. In the future a pm will probably do just fine. Anyhow lets put it behind us because this isn't what the forums are for. Thanks for the high rating, i will have to replay your level to go a different route, as I think i probably missed alot of content. It seems that there's alot more to it than the small portion i played.

Also, if you ever DO create a rising water segment using gas, The trick is to make the gas float using cloth, not use a piston I also tried a piston first around, but quickly found out that the rate of rising water is not constant, and thus had to make the gas float. I was actually thinking of turning this concept into a survival challenge before I put it in my level. If you want to use that idea, go on right ahead. The more levels the better, i say.

Sorry to everyone else for... you know. :P

[Emogotsaone]

I'll be sure to try it!

[lbper]

Duffluc,
Yeah a PM probably would have been a better idea.
But as RCIX so eloquently put it, I "blew my stack" at the conclusion that I jumped to :P
Also, it probably didn't help my ability to perceive the nature of level similarities that the last 70% of my quick play levels have been Bomb/Shark Survivals.
Sorry for clogging up the thread with accusations. If you want I can delete the previous posts.

[Duffluc]

Sorry for clogging up the thread with accusations. If you want I can delete the previous posts.

It's up to you Lbper, I think that an important issue was raised here, and I'm just happy we were able to sort it out.