Micro Madness 2019 / MM3 R1 Group K - Recurious and Bubbsy41 win

Recurious: what a tragic story. The castle looked really good, and the ground level looked really good, and I honestly think your micro would've been stronger if it were just the castle, or just the bottom arrangement, both with a little better execution. The castle suffers from being built on a thing slice of mud with ugly LOTR rocks that don't blend, as well as no movement. The architecture was great though, I love the pinacles on the front wall. The cave was a bit disappointing, there wasn't much to see, and no trace of any monsters or creatures or whatever. I feel like I was promised some scary shit. Coaster was quite nice, but impossible to follow from any angle. That's definitely something I'd take into account for the next round.

Bubbsy41: personally I'm definitely docking some points for the stuff that was clearly lifted from other people's work, but there's still enough work left that's real Bubbsy. And I think I like the Bubbsy stuff best. Mostly the bottom level, actually! I'm not sure why you added the second level, the thematic link is not clear to me. The Timbabwe wall also seemed out of place. Loving the war scenes, though, and good use of the palette!

Chocotopian: your park seems like a good companion piece for my own micro. Absolute mayhem, but instead of an absurd apocalyptic battle it's an orgy of practical jokes and greasepaint. The execution seems to be less refined than some modern high detail parks like Rec's and Bubbsy's, but that doesn't make it worse. In fact I think you did really well. It's not random colour vomit, there's a method to this madness and that's not easy. I think you absolutely nailed the theme and I wish I thought of this theme to do in a full scale park.

Luketh: good effort. Nice idea, good supports, decent layout, but overall it falls a little short compared to the others.

1. Chocotopian
2. Recurious
3. Bubbsy41
4. Luketh

I've been hesitant to review as a new user of NE and noob at construction compared to these fantastic parkmakers. But I'll try to post my thoughts more, especially on the few groups where I don't fully agree with the voting trends.

 

1. Clown Town - I love how the character of this park fully embodies the clown theme. It's like if a clown car was a park, filled to the brim with rides, paths, and scenery. For me it functions as a puzzle, figuring out how things fit together had me looking at this for a while.

 

2. Sky Castle - This park gave off great Chrono Trigger vibes (maybe aided by the music). I really liked the architecture of the castle, though I think it would have been cool if there were peeps up there to draw contrast with the abandoned ground level. 

 

Runners up -

Separated Worlds - Architecture overall is very impressive, and the detailing of the bottom level especially creates great atmosphere. I didn't fully get the theme until reading these comments though, at first I thought it was a haves vs have-nots thing. I kind of wish the peeps walking around the void in the perimeter could have been hidden. Overall just barely didn't make the cut for me, though I think one more thematic ride or stronger clues to the overall theme would put it over the top.

Cotton Candy - Great execution of the idea, just ran into some other well-executed parks that were more ambitious. I think maybe a bit less pink uniformity would help this though, maybe for the coaster or some other elements to show off more form.

No worries bad! Reviews from all users are always welcome!

 

Quick express review from me:

 

Clown Town: It's the fun factor that made me choose this as winner. Great object usage and so much going on.

 

Sky Castle: Although the top half is a bit dead, the layering is nicely done and the archy top notch. Great second!

 

Seperate Worlds: For me as well the theme wasn't that clear. Archy is great, but sadly I too did notice the stuff pulled from other work. Sorry Bubs, great quality, but it didn't make the cut imo.

 

Cotton Candy Cloud: Oh, how sorry I am I couldn't pick a second second! Such a great and fun idea, but sadly didn't have enough content to keep me watching for that long...

Not voting, but my thoughts regardless:

 

 

#1 Recurious - Sky Castle

 

The whole backstory really sells the theme to me. Wonderful architecture on the top, that really suggests the extravagance and godliness of the inhabitants there. I love the quirkiness of the buildings on the ground, with their little boilers and pipes - definitely one of the cutest mine towns I've seen. And the caves are great too, with the lava flow really adding some drama to the area. I do agree with a previous comment, that perhaps the waterfall connection is a bit tenuous, but the three areas are all so well crafted that it doesn't hinder my opinion too much (nor can I think of any other way a cloud city could, or would want, to connect to the floor).

 

 

#2 Luketh - Cotton Candy Cloud in the vast emptiness of space

 

Nice theme, and the coaster has a great layout. It's got a no-nonsense presentation, despite being a nonsense idea, and I think the domination of pink is perfectly justified. Despite being an obvious feature, it really is great to see the peeps walking about with cotton candy too, really hitting home the idea that everything is made of it. I appreciate the straightforwardness of this, but think it could do with an extra element or two, like a second open ride, to further enhance it.

 

 

#3 Bubbsy41 - Separated Worlds

 

I think this park would've benefitted from a backstory like Recurious's, as I feel a bit confused looking at it. Your explanation in the comments certainly clears it up, but as a result it comes across as very politics heavy which , I dunno, just turns me off a bit. It's well made, the architecture on the upper level is really attractive (with a smart technique used to create the lattice windows), and I also like the way the missile becomes a sort of town square monument - but in a way it makes me want more of that and less of the rest... which I guess is the point... hmmmm. Yeah, a difficult entry to comprehend, but there's a lot of details and ideas to appreciate.

 

You know, I can't tell if I like this more than I admit. You've really thrown me with this! Glad I don't have to commit to placing it. Good work... I think.

 

 

Chocotopian - Clown Town

 

Meh, I've seen this before.

I would've sworn I wrote reviews for these already....

 

Sky Castle - The three layers bother me. The castle seemed totally disconnected from the other two, but the castle was the most interesting part of it. Coaster layout was really solid.

 

Seperated Worlds - Don't really have much to add to what others have already said. I think subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss here.

 

Clown Town - Loved it, can't imagine seeing anything else like it anytime soon. Well, I guess the pinball machine, but still crazy and bright and colorful.

 

Cotton Candy Cloud - I do really appreciate managing to cram what is basically a full-size looping layout into 225 tiles, but as always sort of seems to be the case with these, the surroundings just aren't enough to compete with the bigger ideas of the other entries.

Sky Castle - for me the story was enough to justify the three layers and tie together the disparate vibe of each area, with connecting touches like the large crystal below and smaller crystals adorning the castle. I enjoy the snowy area with the buildings tucked nicely into the rock features. My favorite part of everything is the upper garden with the gorgeous tree.

 

Clown Town -mayhem in the best way! the large clown heads scare me but I still have so much love for this park. The color scheme is fantastic, it toes the line of being garish but stops just short. I like the balloons flying around and the little burst of greenery where the clown shuttle passes through. It was great fun to look from different angles and try to fully understand everything going on.

 

Seperated Worlds - the theme isn't totally clear to me, so the two levels feel unnecessary. I could imagine it working fine as a war-torn setting or a picturesque one and in either case the time spent on a second level could have been used to polish up the empty interiors.

 

Cotton Candy Cloud - fun but pretty simple overall compared to the other entries in this group. some quirky names for trackitecture rides would have been nice

Group K - Results

__________________________________________________________

Winners
Recurious: 29 + 18/2 = 38 points
Bubbsy41: 17 + 16/2 = 25 points

Eliminated
Chocotopian: 12 + 16/2 = 20 points
Luketh: 0 + 8/2 = 4 points

__________________________________________________________

Recurious and Bubbsy41 proceed to Round 2.

Chocotopian is eligible as a replacement for Round 2.

Congratulations to the winners!

Thanks everyone for the votes. To address some of the comments on my park:

 

- Many people noted that the caves where kind of empty or bland in my entry, and you would be entirely correct. I'm currently in an exam period at uni and therefore I had to rush my entry near the end because I did not want to spent more time on it and instead wanted to work on my exams, the caves were therefore made in like 10-15 minutes which explains why they are quite empty and why some stuff (like the creatures from the story) were missing.

 

- The reason why I did not have peeps in my entry, I tried to add them but the top level was extremely glitchy with peeps, so I decided to leave them out. The middle level was supposed to represent an abandoned town which was only occupied by a few miners trying to dig out the last crystal/stone, so it didn't really make sense to me to add a lot of peeps in that area.

 

- Little movement in the castle, this is indeed something that I noticed during the build, I considered adding some rides to the castle to give it a bit more life and I tried a couple, however I felt like none really fit in well with my vision for how I wanted the castle to look. In the end I also ran out of time so I decided to just close the castle up and hope for the best. You can for example see that the backside of the castle is quite empty compared to the front side of the castle.

 

- The waterfall connections: Yea I don't care about this, I love my waterfall connections I don't care what you guys think. Same for the LOTR rocks.

 

- The coaster layout: I'm glad you guys liked this, I was actually kinda surprised the layout was so liked as I was quite unsure about whether I liked it or not. But I'm happy that people liked it.

 

- The three levels critique/building up critique: I can understand that people think building up is a cop-out. However for this Micro I made the story before I even made the micro and I think the story here justifies the tall micro. If my story didn't require a tall micro I also wouldn't have built a tall micro.

 

- The thin ground: Yes this is correct, I noticed this as well, but I was constrained by the layout and I didn't want the sky castle to block the village below, this was just poor planning on my part, will improve this in the future.

 

All in all thanks for all the votes. I really liked the other entries in the round as well.

 

Bubbsy: Loved your entry, I liked the idea and I thought the archy was top notch.

 

Choco: I loved how much stuff is going on in your entry and all the colours. It's really fun. My favourite ride was probably the cat bus.

 

Luketh: I liked your layout, I think this would actually be a really nice and compact layout in real life as well which would be really suitable for a small park. The concept is also pretty cool but I felt like the park was too pink. Like Mattk for example showed I think a different colour coaster would have made your entry look a lot better. Overall I still thought it was a solid entry although the votes may not represent that.

 

All in all I had fun this round, thanks for the votes and see y'all in round 2.

Thanks for the kind words & criticisms everybody! Well done to Curious & Bubbsy, can't wait to see what y'all make for round two.

Brief comments from KaiBueno!  (Disclaimer - I'm renewing myself to the community and know very little of you, your parks, styles, etc.  My views are framed from what I see as I open it, with a twisted 2005 perspective of wazzup.)

Orbis - Sky Castle, Cathedral, whatever.  Love the purple/gold walls and buttresses.  The coaster underneath is a touch short, but I like how it almost peeks out from under, but not quite.  I like the wintry village and how for a tall entry, this is an efficient 3 layers.

Clown - I don't like clowns.  They are creepy, just like the faces on the walls of your buildings.  Your park however is a colorful well-balanced ball of chaos...I think it is underrated that it looks great from all 4 perspectives.  Wished it had moved you on.
 

Cotton - Pink and blue and looks delicious.  Nice use of the stall and pink mountains to get your effect, which adds to a solid but predictable coaster layout. Tad glitchy, which I'm never keen on honestly.

 

Separated - Maybe it's my machine, but this one comes across as hack glitchy?  It also suffers from being the 2nd multi layer in the same round, and more city urban than fantasy.  Personal preferences gun for the latter, solid archy though, including the archway with the green/gold.

Highlights:

 

Orbis - Sky Castle: crystals

Separated Worlds: military area

Clown Town: the clown faces <3

Cotton Candy Cloud in the vast emptiness of space: coaster