Cossack's Playground

47th: Cossack's Playground Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Kalinka has evidently taken up a love for high wire seesaws.

Overview Creator(s): betasword Composer(s): Minae Fujii, RushJet1 Statistics Scores: 52 72 55 59 Total: 59.50 / 100 Rank: 47th Elements: 1 Box Items: Hammerfall Handoo Helipon Auto Scroller Blade Man Seesaw Enemies: Biree Hammerfall Handoo Helipon Gimmicks: Auto Scroller Blade Man Seesaw Cossack Platform Bosses: Metall Daddy

Theme Music Mega Man 4 Remade - Cossack Stage 3 Boss: Mega Man 4 Remade - Cossack Stage Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 7 Previous: Oh No! More Compactors Next: Rocky Blocky Cavern

Cossack's Playground is the 47th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. Based heavily on the third Dr. Cossack stage from Mega Man 4, the level is an autoscrolling one where Mega Man must stay on Blade Man Seesaws suspended over bottomless pits while enemies attempt to knock him off.

Strategy

Because the level is an autoscrolling one, there's little Mega Man can do to speedrun it; in fact, going too fast is likely to cause just as many problems as going too slow. It all starts with a Blade Man Seesaw over a bottomless pit, which must be ridden over to a series of airborne platforms, some of which have Birees crawling along them. The lower set of platforms are smaller than the ones higher up (which also lead to a ? Can), but the latter can only be reached with a tricky jump off of a single block patrolled by a trio of Birees. After a brief section with Handoos attacking while Hammerfalls rain rocks down from above, another seesaw ride occurs before the autoscrolling stops. Just before the first checkpoint, Proto Man appears to gift Mega Man an E-Tank.

The next autoscrolling seesaw ride is far more treacherous, as it is much longer and has four Hammerfalls that can easily knock Mega Man off into the pit below, followed by a set of Helipons. Taking them out from afar with the Homing Sniper or Flame Mixer is ideal, though strategic jumps can cause them to miss the seesaw and fall offscreen themselves. The Beat Rescue upgrade is also highly recommended as a safety net; however, if the seesaw is too far to the left of the screen, it can easily be scrolled offscreen, depriving Mega Man of a place to land entirely. The seesaw rail stops just before a set of comparably more stable Cossack Platforms, just before the final checkpoint, where a shorter seesaw ride occurs while the screen scrolls upwards. The Flame Mixer is a handy tool for shielding against airborne Helipons, while it is recommended to stay away from the right side of the screen, as to avoid triggering Handoo's punch attack. At the very top of the section is a boss fight against Metall Daddy.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 52 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 16 / 35 6 / 15 10 / 10 12 / 25 8 / 15 At a glance, I like this level. It's a challenging level that is platforming-heavy and relies on a moving platform gimmick, kinda like Komuso Temple and Citadel Basement. However, while those levels are good and challenging, this one is just frustrating, mainly due to the combination of the autoscroll being slow and the stage revolving almost entirely around instant death challenges. The seesaw and the falling enemies don't work well together, and frankly it just gets obnoxious in the execution of this level. So you may be saying, "well this is just the fault of the gimmicks, not the design." No. For example, if you wanted to make it less instant death heavy, you could not have every single challenge be over a bottomless pit. Use the autoscroll to maintain pressure, but allow room for one or two mistakes from the falling enemies. Maybe the last challenge is over nothing, but use that after you become familiar with the gimmicks and how the level works. Don't just throw all the hard challenges at the start. Even keeping the instant death challenges, the difficulty curve is just not where it should be. This level is salvageable, but major sections would have to be redesigned so that the curve can accommodate the gimmicks. At the second autoscroll, you can't just jump back onto the platform if it moves, which is a nitpick but eh.
PKWeegee  : 72 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 25 / 35 9 / 15 10 / 10 16 / 25 12 / 15 Ah, autoscrollers, how I usually don't like them. To be fair, though, these weren't bad. The biggest gripe I had was with the second one, where the sharks were falling onto you. I found it quite tricky to get past that section without getting knocked off my platform. Besides that, the autoscroll speeds were reasonable, and I never felt like I was waiting around while nothing was happening. Good balance.
M-Jacq  : 55 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 18 / 35 1 / 15 10 / 10 14 / 25 12 / 15 When I first played this level, it made me *livid* - screaming at the computer, frothing at the mouth, the works. On reflection, though, what made me so angry isn't that this level is poorly designed or too challenging - plenty of levels in this contest fit that bill, as you've surely surmised by now. No, what annoyed me about this level is that it's challenging in the most obvious ways possible. Oh, you rolled autoscroll and Blade Man seesaws in your box? Let's make three autoscrollers one after the other where you ride the seesaws over a pit, and then as the level progresses, let's have some enemies fall on you to ramp up the difficulty. Zzzzz. The only deviation from "gimmick A and gimmick B used together" in the entire level is a featureless room where Proto Man gives you an E-Tank - which only serves to rub in that the only deaths you'll be getting in this level are from falling into a pit. But honestly, once we set aside that this level takes the most obvious route when it comes to using its box, it's... kind of fun, other than the hammerhead section (which is terrible - getting it to fall between the cracks of the seesaw is tricky, and you've got no margin for error with getting hit given you're inches away from a bottomless pit). The final section's a highlight: going up on the seesaws is way more fun than going left or right, but it's also trickier and serves as a great capper to the level. The Handoos and Helipons are a lot easier to deal with than the Hammerfalls, too. Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how pretty this level is, despite its simple MM4-cribbing aesthetic. So yeah: pretty good, but a little frustrating, and a lot of obvious choices.
Freems  : 59 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 19 / 35 9 / 15 10 / 10 8 / 25 13 / 15 It's really hard to come up with thoughts for this level. It had some decent setups with enemies and for the most part was pretty alright in that regard, but man it really was just hopping back and forth on a Blade Man seesaw for a really long time. The last time you go up but it doesn't really change much else than that. I will say that the Hammerfalls at the first checkpoint are terribly annoying without Special Weapons and while it's possible, they cause much more of a problem than I think they should. If one of them decides to land on the seesaw, unless you're positioned very particularly, you're pretty much dead. But since you're on an autoscroller and a seesaw that moves on a rail, it's very difficult to actually manipulate them to not land on your seesaw, so it's really a mess. I can't really cite any specific problems with the rest of the level, because you were just kind of hopping on the seesaw the rest of the time.

Trivia

• Cossack's Playground is the only level in MaG48HMML to use the Proto Man encounter object.