Hold on a second there paranoima. I think something may actually be messed up with my level... What makes me think of this is the little circled area in the middle where the two tunnels meet. That should definitely not be there, unless there's something weird I'm missing in my own level. I've tried looking back to older versions and backups of my levels, but since 40 was the last one I made, I don't have many backups of it. One of the older versions only works with an older version of the game that I'm going to have to dig up somewhere. I want to compare the older versioned one to the distro'ed one. Something is definitely wrong here.

I know when I saved the level originally, it was beatable. This version may actually not be beatable, which is strange. I remember double playing level 40 just to make sure it worked. I'll get back to you guys on this one. Take a break from level 40. If you want to see the ending, just edit it so it's easy to beat. :-D Hehe. I'll see what I can come up with.

And I'm deeply sorry for saying it WAS beatable if in fact it is not. I'm hoping it was just a glitch with my saving system that somehow corrupted the level when I was changing/adding different info to the level structure.

[EDIT]
I took a look at the older versions of my level 40. Apparantly all of my older versions are the same thing. My editor must have mangled it before I even started saving backups of it. I'm going to work on a revised level 40 that is actually beatable. You will all probably laugh because it will be so easy.

I hope to have it up by sometime tonight. If not, tomorrow morning or afternoon. Sorry about there being an unbeatable level. I don't know how that happened!

Just write a recursive level-checking algorythm... (Make sure it is designed to give you how to complete the level). That way you can ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Woohoo! I beat you to an idea! HEHEHEHEHE!!!!!

It wouldn't be that hard, it would just be a very complicated implementation of A*, right? You could integrate it into both the editor and the game to either validate the level, or tell you the best score possible on that level. You could even do some timing/tweaking to get some sort of best time possible on level value. (or what some games refer to as "Par Time")

I personally think this would be a good move for the game. Using this, you could potentially implement high-score tables and such for the levels.

Edit... Wow, yet another strange idea... you could generate completely random levels (literally, the script just randomly assigns whatever tiles to where-ever places, randomly) and have the script validate it... Just have it do that over and over and over again, until it finds a valid level. Save that level, and repeat. There you go! Instant level generator!

Edit2: The only problem with this is that the iterations required to get a level generator would be huge. But hey, if your computer isn't doing anything better, why not? Just let it work on something/chew on something in it's free time.

You could then release the output as the "computer generated random level" mapset.

While the argument about the creating/destroying blocks is true, you could implement some form of redunancy checking in your A* algo, to help reduce the number of iterations. Such as Zep Building a block, and then immediately destroying it afterword, would be redundant (and pointless at the same time.) As would be creating two of the same blocks and destroying them (two <-|-> blocks right next to each other, and erasing them.)

It would take a while to remove all of the redundant moves from the script. However, it is definately possible to do.

You could script the testing of each level using replays. If a replay macro failed to complete, then there was an error in the level. You'd know where it happened too, since you can keep track of how far the replay got.

What I find funny, is I never got past the last level in the demo

Thomas, yes level 10 is a difficult one. Sometimes I wonder how I made the levels so hard at all!

Steve, Yes, that's one of the more annoying levels. I didn't want to put in too many of those, because eventually it becomes a trial and error game, and most players have told me: if the rest of the levels are like 22, you suck.

And it's true. That's the only level like that. I just had to do it, though. Enjoy. It's not super difficult.

So, who else wants to be evil and make some levels? ;-D Has anyone tried the editor? Comments?

Ultio: Untill I get around to do "The Great HardDrive Swap" of 2003/2004 I don't have anywhere to put windows, so a linux version would rule , but even If I had windows, a linux version would still rule (I hate rebooting, I usually have things running that I want to keep running )

That might just be it, and that I really don't like either (the invisible blocks).

Does not make for interesting levels if it's not intentional.

Now I've spent the last 15 minutes deleting unintentional invisible blocks from this one level, retrying, deleting again, retrying..

heh I did get through one tower of blocks, made it to the other side, went the wrong way, got stuck ... DOH!!! Restarted and now can't figure out what I did to get past the first set

jo0 SuXX0rz!!!
J/K