Jauntest

Well that was unexpected!


First off I need to say thank you to Nyan and Touhoe. You two are absolutely amazing people who always seem to be sorting out community management behind the scenes, helping everyone, all at once, all of the time. You guys have been a major inspiration for me in the way you give to the community through the Modding Central channel, running contests, making directs, and so much more. The time and effort you put into the community will never go unnoticed and I thank you so much for everything you guys have done. <3


Jauntest™ results time!
To start, I had no expectations to how I would place in this contest. I make mods to be silly and that's all, so if I got last I genuinely would not be surprised in the slightest. Anyway, I couldn't be there for the results because they were at 2am, so I woke up the next morning to a couple discord pings. First one I saw was by LemonBrass saying "@yurt7x congrats on getting fifth place". Naturally I opened up the results and watched as we approached 7th, 6th, 5th... I did NOT come 5th. I just assumed I got 50th or something and continued on. Then the aspect ratio started to change, and the music came on. The emotions I felt during that short time are something I cannot put into words. Going from assuming I placed low to the slow realisation of coming 1st is an experience that I will never forget. The editing on this whole sequence was absolutely amazing, I loved watching as all of the mods flew by while trying to remember which mapper made each map. That one little message about coming fifth completely threw my emotional state off the rails and I cannot say how surprisingly awesome that one message was. Thank you LemonBrass!


At the same time, I would be lying if I said this felt deserved. In my head, Downhill Jaunt was going to win guaranteed with its spectacular design (which I simply do not have time to praise enough), and a rushed mod like mine had no chance of getting in the top 10. I would talk more about the actual development of the mod and share my design philosophy of it, but I didn't really have any plans going in. I knew the mod was going to use Sea Horse by Hudson Bell because I wanted a Crimson Needle 2.5 reference, which I was going to put in my previous mod Cornerstone. After that I thought "oh this should probably be green and red" because of the music's vibes and proceeded to mess up the colorgrade and got blue and orange, and never bothered fixing it. The 4:3 aspect ratio was carried over after it was scrapped from Cornerstone, same as the film grain. Both of which were already carried over from my scrapped Breeze Contest map. The main gameplay mechanic is reused from Yotta and is just a platform jellyfish made up of eeveehelper, glue and prayers. The deco was subconsciously, yet heavily inspired by Paint from SJ. The little squiggly blue lines were added because Frost Helper got updated mid-contest and I was testing the new lava feature out. The stylegrounds are just a couple vanilla ones. Some sections of the mod are missing deco, and most of the deco that is there was originally a placeholder I never bothered fixing. Decals were added last minute because I needed to randomly fill in some space. Not to mention the last minute gameplay changes where I literally said in Touhoe's stream "I am so sorry" as the map almost got posted with a GM mauvelike room because I don't know how to make gameplay. There are so many maps for this contest that took ten times the effort as mine, and they deserve so much more attention than mine does. This is a project I'm really not proud of.


That being said, even though I'm not proud of my map, I still had fun making it. I make mods that I want to make, and don't care about the reception. If I think a mod is bad then I'm still happy, and always will be! If it gets a positive reception, then other people are happy, which just puts an extra massive smile on my face. Seeing the positive reception to my mod makes me so proud to be a part of this community, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you to everyone, whether you've played the mod or not, you all are awesome!


I'm seeing people being excited to see what I post next, or saying they love that I'm making mods like this, sorry to disappoint but that isn't the way I roll. First of all I already made "the pit that we threw Nyan in" into a mod in 5 minutes and it's one of my favourite mods that I've made. Next I'll probably post "Help My House Is Jaunted!" because I think the word is funny. I've got a Valentine's Day map coming (I'm aroace LOL), and a mod that has a pure yellow, bucket-filled colorgrade called "Yellow". There won't be another mod like "Go Now" and I think that's kind of beautiful. I like posting silly little mods and I am so grateful that people enjoyed this one in particular. Out of all of this, the one piece of art advice I can confidentally give is this: If you have fun doing it, then do it. Regardless of if people see it or not. Regardless of if people like it or not.


Just have fun, and stay silly! o7