Quote from Hybran
"Fairly long."
I did it in like 2 hours my first play-through, just to see what all the fuss was about.
Changelog: Hybran's Post v.1.0.1
-Fixed grammar errors.
-Improved punctuation.
Rebuttal: Inferno Mines is considered a "long map," and Crafterdark did it in 45 minutes. Spellbound Caves is considered to be a short to medium length map, and you did in 19 minutes. Even on first play-throughs, some people can just be faster than others. Look at Rockenroll4life vs. Zisteau. Both of them did blind LPs of Inferno Mines.
More than the map length, it is playstyle that determines the length of the map.
The low difficulty of the map gives Rock time to go over a lot of CTM tips and tricks, some of which were actually news to me. So yeah, if you've already finished the map, or have at least gotten a fair way into it, I highly suggest watching this series. 
1
Alright, time for me to start working on my jam map for the second wave. After a poor showing the first wave, I've come back with some ideas and plan to work on something more achievable this time around. I'll be streaming over at if you want to watch.
1
Har Har Har.
I finished the base terraforming in one day.
1
Alright, I've come to the conclusion that my idea for my Jam map was a bit big and ambitious for the small amount of time we have and I kinda last minute joined without any prep so I'll have to drop out of the first wave. I will however keep working on this Mini-map because I enjoy the concept of it. That said, I'll think of some fun ideas and join in on another one of the waves with a more reasonable jam map idea.
4
So, while doing some map making for the CTM Strawberry Jam I wasn't very happy with the default Topsoil filter for MCEdit and how it could create bands in the terrain and would only give you one depth for the top soil, so because of that I remade the filter and made it better.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/gh7w1uuqz10dzac/topsoilplusplus.py
Features of Topsoil++
- You now have the ability to set two layers of the top soil, a top layer and the secondary layer underneath it (for things such as grass and dirt topsoils)
- You can set the Min and Max amount count of each layer and it will random an amount between those values allowing for more random terrain.
- If you select a large region that has multiple levels that you want to topsoil all over (for example a mountain side) the filter will now apply the top soil to all subsequent layers as well instead of just the first layer that contains an air block above it.
- Only begins the process should the filter find a block that contains an open air block above it, this means no more bands in the middle of blocks that shouldn't have been effected.
Should you find any issues or have suggestions for the filter feel free to let me know.
3
Alright, back to map making for the strawberry jam over at . Feel free to come join!
4
After many hours of mapping straight yesterday, this is the results so far for my map.
The results are giant mountainous islands that are separated by void. I took a little bit of creative liberty by with "shattered islands" and because each area is separated by void I'm going with "Big Giant Mountain Islands".
1
Seems like it's Strawberry Jam time and I have no idea what I'll make, but I guess I'll see by the end of it. Going to be doing some streaming over at for it so feel free to join.
1
Seems like it's Strawberry Jam time and I have no idea what I'll make, but I guess I'll see by the end of it. Going to be doing some streaming over at for it so feel free to join.
5
I have to start with, I'm sorry, but this post is going to be blunt and straight to the point. This map is not well designed and is not enjoyable. As a CTM let's player and map maker I have to be straight forward with this and would not recommend this map to anyone.
That said, I initially enjoyed this map during the first intersection. I liked the style of the map and enjoyed the bits and pieces of loot around the areas as well as the difficulty of the map. It definitely resembled that of a more traditional CTM and I enjoyed that of it. However, once the map got to intersection two, the map slowly started to degenerate and started to become less enjoyable. Sadly, I ended up stopping my playthrough of the map and ended up doing a fly through to get a feel for what the rest of the map had in store. I happened upon the last area of the map "The Marathon" and was deeply saddened by the quality of the area and how it appeared to conflict with some of the very things you stated in the opening of your thread. "Are you looking for a CTM that's designed to be tough, but not Impossible?", "Does the thought of a CTM where ingenuity in dungeon design is favored over raw difficulty sound appealing to you?". This area did not contain ingenuity, but instead contained an area that was intended to create a frustrating gameplay experience for the player and, personally, I'd say is a poor direction for a map maker to go if they intend for people to want to play the map. Unless a player is willing to sink a ridiculous amount of time into this area, this map is nigh impossible. Having experience with map making and having talked with other map makers, it's quite obvious that you did not test this area (or probably most of your map) and this is one of the biggest issues that I've seen with this map.
As a few tips for the future. Play test your maps, play test the hell out of them. If you don't enjoy them or are unable to complete them yourself (or are getting frustrated while playing it) than others will feel the same and end up quitting the maps themselves. As a map maker, you should be creating maps that are balanced around the difficulty that you are capable of playing as you have a good understanding of that difficulty and can balance around that. I can see you have decent ideas of areas, the problem comes down to trying to balance out the gameplay so that it's enjoyable for others and not just frustrating.
5
Because this was a highlight from the stream that people wanted me to make, here we go. This, is what you shouldn't do when making a CTM area.