Number of levels

[Manu128k]

First of all, I'm sorry if I'm asking a silly question. I'm not very familiar with ZXDB and I have a limited knowledge about the columns of each entry on the database.

The thing is I've wondered for a long time why there is no information about the number of levels a game has. I've checked a few games I know they have a clear number of levels/stages and I wasn't able to locate that piece of info on those pages.

Maybe it's not that important for everybody, but when I play a game I would like to know how many screens I shall have to clear so I can get an idea if I'm playing well or the game length makes it virtually impossible to get to the ending. All in all, maybe that piece of data is something nice to have for a number of people also.

Anyway, if this concept of the number of level gets some momentum, I would volunteer to make a run on some of the games to add the number of screens/levels/stages. I guess there could also be a need to establish the meaning of each of those concepts before filling in the numbers.

So, what's your view on this, fellows?

Thanks

[R-Tape]

So, what's your view on this, fellows?

If it could be done for every applicable game in the DB, and kept on top of, then I'd love to see something like this in the DB (along with a lot of other game properties). Trouble is it's not practical for either of these things to happen and you have to be very careful when adding new columns to the DB.

So I'd say no chance (not that it's up to me), however, it'd be interesting to see a count of a large number of games even if it only lived in this forum thread. For the largest, I'll start the guessing off with Psytraxx which boasts over a thousand screens.

[Stefan]

For the largest, I'll start the guessing off with Psytraxx which boasts over a thousand screens.

I’ll see your Psytraxx and raise you an Explorer.

[zup]

Some games / examples (AFAIR):
- Spyhunter: No levels, endless playfield.
- Jet Pac: 16 levels? (the background is the same, but enemies varies), then it wraps up.
- Mad Mix game: 15 levels (*).
- Rock'n'roller: 30 levels (*).
- Humphrey: 40 levels.
- Coliseum (or was it Wells'n'Fargo): It has 4 levels, then you can choose if you see the ending or the game wraps up.
- Freddy Hardest: 2 levels / loads.
- Sol negro: 2 levels / loads, then it loads an ending screen.
- Short Circuit: 2 levels / loads.
- Extreme: 3 levels.
- Savage: Intro + 3 levels / loads.
- Street Fighter: 11 levels? (I mean, can each fight considered as a "level"?)
- The Sentinel: (9999 levels, procedurally).
- Everyone is a Wally: One level?

(*) I don't remember if that games wraps up when finished the last level.

So there are some variety, it can not be a numeric information.

You should consider if it is continuous playing (0 levels?), if it has a fixed number of levels, and if the game start again when finished. Also, there were some arcade games (I don't know if the spectrum conversions were the same) where there are a fixed number of levels but you have to finish the game twice to get the ending...

Adventure games like Everyone is a Wally, Alien 8, Garfield and the like are a bunch of screen interconnected... should be put as a "single level games", as xxx screen games or should they get separate fields for levels and screens covered. That raises another question... games like Mad Mix Game and Humphrey have levels that cover more than one screen... should they have the information as "levels" and "playfield size in screens"?

[Juan F. Ramirez]

A quick way to see how many levels there are in a game is watching its map. Fortunately, most games have at least, one.

[Morkin]

'Stages' might be more encompassing than 'levels' if you're going to do something like this, though I guess from the few examples, many/most games won't have the concept of levels/stages.

My first reaction was similar to Juan's, I'd probably just look at the map if I wanted a rough idea of how far I'd got in a game. Though I'm not sure how this equates to game length - e.g. Horace has the Spiders has 3 stages but you can get to stage 3 in about 30 seconds

So personally I probably wouldn't get much value out of it but I'm not going to argue against anyone wanting to trawl the archive adding an extra piece of info . I guess there may be potential issues e.g. are there games with 'n' stages for the 48k version and 'n+...' levels for the 128k version?

When I play (modern) games nowadays I often search the HowLongToBeat website to give me an indication of how much of my life time I'm going to waste spend on a game (assuming there is a natural end, and it's not something like the modern Football Manager). I reckon something like that in the archive would be awesome but it depends heavily on crowd-sourcing the estimates (like with game ratings).

[Einar Saukas]

If it could be done for every applicable game in the DB, and kept on top of, then I'd love to see something like this in the DB (along with a lot of other game properties). Trouble is it's not practical for either of these things to happen and you have to be very careful when adding new columns to the DB.

I suggest we start gathering information in this thread. If interest lasts long enough to cover a reasonable percentage of the most important games, we can add this information to ZXDB. Otherwise it won't be worth it, but at least people will be able to find this information here in this thread. OK?

So I'd say no chance (not that it's up to me), however, it'd be interesting to see a count of a large number of games even if it only lived in this forum thread. For the largest, I'll start the guessing off with Psytraxx which boasts over a thousand screens.

The Sentinel: 10,000 levels
ZEN: 10,000 levels
ZEN II: 10,000 levels

[Manu128k]

A quick way to see how many levels there are in a game is watching its map. Fortunately, most games have at least, one.

Yeah, that's what I try in many cases, but looking at the map could be considered a minor spoiler (or not so minor when maps include the ending screen)

[Pobulous]

Nonterraqueous - I make it 1007 from looking at the map - 24x42, with one room not used.

[Einar Saukas]

Mixing levels, rooms and screens in the same metric seems confusing. What about games with multiple levels, where each level contains multiple screens? For instance, Cybernoid has 3 levels containing 15, 23, and 32 screens respectively.

[Alessandro]

I think there is no objective way of determining how many "levels" a game would contain (if any), let alone screens etc. There are so many different situations around.

More generally speaking, I do not see the point of adding such a parameter to the database. Usually the number of levels is stated in the instructions if you really want to know it. Parameters should help people searching in the database for what they want after all, and personally I do not believe the number of screens, levels etc., even when they could be determined, would be that useful.

What would come next? The number of playable characters? Non-playable ones? ...you get the picture.

[Morkin]

I know Crash used to stick the number of screens in some of their reviews:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 99&page=29

...Though sometimes they didn't know for sure, and would just write 'lots' or something

[Vampyre]

The reviews could be a good starting point for this. Crash used to include Screens/Levels information, for example Starquake having 512 screens.

Edit: Morkin already beat me to it!

[Vampyre]

I've just created a quick and dirty query in ZXSR to pull from any of the Crash reviews where the review text contains "Screens:"

I've done no further processing on this, just a straight dump, so it may be a little hit and miss but from a quick scan it's looking quite good. There's 700+ results of which most are useable.

You can download the results in a tab-delimited, zipped file from here.

Edit: Link doesn't work if you click it (might be something to do with HTTP vs HTTPS). Right-click the link and Copy Link Address. Paste into another browser tab and hopefully it'll work.

[Lee Bee]

Great thread, and what a fascinating issue! I love statistics like these, and firmly agree with Manu that it's great to have an idea how far I am through a game, or how big it is. I hate unknowns. I want to live in a world where everything has a progress bar! Unfortunately, the issue is very messy, since the definition of "levels" can vary so much.

Perhaps a more useful statistic might be average completion time or quickest recorded completion time. But these statistics aren't objective values which belong in a database like this—they're more something I feel belongs as part of emulators and emulator communities.

Theoretically, emulators could allow players to log when the game has been completed, which could be added to a database. (I'm sure there must be some emulators out there which already do this?)

Another idea is simply for an emulator to display a progress bar showing what percent of the game's data has been accessed so far, which would, in most cases, be a pretty good indication of how far you are through the game.

[Cosmium]

I’ll see your Psytraxx and raise you an Explorer.

Psytraxx had 1025 screens. Of course they were all rather samey, with some procedural generation cheats, but pretty big for its time in '84!

[Stefan]

Psytraxx had 1025 screens. Of course they were all rather samey, with some procedural generation cheats, but pretty big for its time in '84!

Explorer has 40 billion, obviously also procedurally generated. @pavero where is the map?

[pavero]

@pavero where is the map?

Still on the way.