Archive: 18 posts

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Hey Guys, The Great Pyramind is a bit of a dessert romp followed by a pyramid filled with puzzles and prizes, and a surprise ending. I'd say its about medium difficulty. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/groble/APhoto_4.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/groble/APhoto_3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/groble/APhoto_1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/groble/APhoto_2.jpg this is one of my first levels and to be honest what I really want is some feedback on how to improve. it's currently only got 2 stars which makes me so any comments and suggestions will be much appreciated. Thanks, groble all feedback has been acted upon so far so big thanks to everyone for helping out. also I've made this thread F4F becuase I F'in love the F

2009-06-03 22:29:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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first, I had trouble finding your level (re: your PSN is "thegroble" and not "groble") But I found it and so: PROS: - I liked the falling column/collapsing bridge outside the pyramid - good use of universal lighting tool when entering pyramid - Nice music CONS - many of your switches/music/sound items were visible. looked a little sloppy - could have used a sound when you successfully pulled each switch - empty score screen?

2009-06-03 23:06:00 Author: ZipCity Posts: 208

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cool, thanks Zip. I'll look into those tonight. thanks for playing

2009-06-04 11:52:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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I've just the level, heres my feedback as I'm playing through. + I liked the ambush idea by the natives at the start, + I laughed when the bridge gave way and the character following you fell to their death. + I liked the crumbling pillars to, it added to the atmosphere. + Good use the global lighting to tool to make it feel like your going underground into the pyramid + Theres plenty of ways to go in there! + Good puzzles, I like how doing them opens new ways below and above you. + Strange ending, I'm intrested to see whats happened in part 2. - You can avoid the fire logs after it by just walking up the middle plane, add another set in the center, it would make the section a little more challenging. - Using MM characters is'nt so bad, this is your first attempt, but people appreciate your level a little more if you use your own characters, something to think of for your second level. - You have some music boxes and sound emitters visible in places, it looks better if they are hidden. - Now, I hit to big problems at this point in the level, once the platforms have vanished they don't come back, the first time I played, the last column didnt fall correctly and I died, when I restarted the platforms were gone, you could put them on pistons, set to flipper so once they vanish into the gas, the move back up. I don't know how your falling pillar works at the end, but it fell to low for me to get onto the next platform the first time, but it worked great second time. - The second problem, on the first playthrough after the pillars had vanished, I walked off the end of the platform to see if there was a way through down there, and missed the gas and ended up on the floor of the level, you need to cover the hole to stop it happening again. - Add some sounds to your switches so you know you have activated something. - Some magnetic keys and switches visable in the level, you can use stickers or coloured lights to show people where to put the keys, without them having to be shown. I thought it was good for a first attempt, you had some good platforming, and some good puzzles, little bits needed work here and there, but thats to be expected, I think the 2 star rating is a little harsh. I'm intrested to see part 2, and what happens in the story. I gave you ***, a good first attempt, and a great tag. Make sure you post when part 2 is done

2009-06-04 12:33:00 Author: GruntosUK Posts: 1754

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excellent feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed playing it. the big falling pillar "works" by being propped up on a block of disolve that one it vanishes causes the pillar to fall over. I'll look into making that a bit more stable and see if I can figure something out for if you fall down. Possibly not having the platforms reappear but maybe having an alternative entrance. oooh so much to work on, I wonder if I should sneak home early from work

2009-06-04 12:53:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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Not sure how much difference the changes made obviously, but I can see you have a pretty decent level on your hands. Things that I would improve on. - Maybe pull the camera back a little at the Oasis. At one point I got killed when a fire ball landed directly on my head with no chance of avoiding it. I`d suggest letting players see more so they can choose when to make a run for it and when to stay still. Random deaths are a bit of a big bear for me. - That Flamingo was killer. I actually lost all my lives and had to re-start on my first playthrough trying to get off that thing. When I did make it, it seemed like that if the jump was anything less than perfect, then you were dead. I believe that would be the source of your 2 stars. - The wee dude didn`t fall off the bridge. He was far enough along so he made it. He seemed to get caught on the wood and sat at a weird angle. Not really a problem, but certainly a wee glitch that looks silly. I uploaded a picture for you to see. - The Pyramid looks good. I`d suggest using basic stone a little more. It looks better for these things than the one with the outline you used. - There`s an awkwardly placed candle at the last switch that I got caught on a couple of times. Swung right onto it. - The colour log puzzle was ok. A bit hard at first to tell the difference between the coulours in the dark. It was also very fiddly. I`d often unintentionally knock one of the logs into the next trough. It`s the kind of thing that has children reaching for the 'quit level' option and giving you 1 star. - In general, there were one or two switches that required you to simply push a ball down a hole. I wasn`t sure what the significance of these were or if I`d done them properly. I did hear the noise, but since they were so simple I assumed there would be more to it. - As a result of that, once I had all 4 switches activated I wasn`t sure how many I`d done so spent a bit looking for another. Maybe have a cutscene triggered once all 4 are done to show the door opening. It`d be a nice wee pay-off too. On the whole, I`d suggest adding in a few more obstacles. At the moment it has that 3 star feel to it, it that there`s not an awful lot going on, with very simple obstacles. Secondly, my big suggestion would be to delete it and re-publish from scratch. It`s certainly not an amazing level, but it`s pretty good none the less, and certainly worth more than 2 stars. With one or two more adjustments, you`d get a pretty fair score, even from the young 'uns.

2009-06-07 22:07:00 Author: Matt 82 Posts: 1096

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Hey matt thanks for all that feedback. I'll try and have a playround with the camera and cut scenes and what not, don't really know what i'm doing with those so may aswell learn now. flamingo: the bolt has been tightened and the platform you jump to has been brought closer. awkward candle is gone. the peg puzzle has been better illuminated so you can at least see which colour is which. not really sure how to overcome the fidlyness of it, short of whacking in a jetpack which wouldn't fit with the theme, ideas anyone? changed it all to basic stone which gave me a bit of extra thermo space to add an extra dimension to the ball in the hole switch. don't know what i'm going to do with the other one yet I'll think about deleting and republishing once I've ironed out all the kinks :hero:

2009-06-07 22:55:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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There are tutorial levels out there specifically about attaching switches to magic mouths. Basically after all switches have been activated, a magnetic switch triggers a magic mouth cutscene. Very handy to know. As for the fiddlyness, maybe have them on different layers? 2 or one layer, the other two on a different one? That would stop you accidentaly pushing one of them out. Would make it a hell of a lot easier mind you.

2009-06-07 23:52:00 Author: Matt 82 Posts: 1096

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There are tutorial levels out there specifically about attaching switches to magic mouths. Basically after all switches have been activated, a magnetic switch triggers a magic mouth cutscene. Very handy to know. As for the fiddlyness, maybe have them on different layers? 2 or one layer, the other two on a different one? That would stop you accidentaly pushing one of them out. Would make it a hell of a lot easier mind you. okay I thought I had the cutscene bits all sorted and looking ok, then I went and saw your eddy mitter level and witnessed what good cutscenes look like. anyway most of the switches that do something else where now have a cut scene showing you what that something is. The only ones that don't are the switches for the main door, which have a final cutscene once they are all open but I might swap this for seperate cutscenes for each switch, who knows. I've further tweaked the burning log ambush becuase I didn't like it. thats as good as its getting tonight. cheers for the feedback gang

2009-06-08 00:34:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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I'll have another play Groble, see what the changes you've made are like

2009-06-08 16:38:00 Author: GruntosUK Posts: 1754

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Hey Groble, I played your level. Pros: +Liked the atmosphere inside the pyramid +Liked the elevator puzzle (I like the puzzles where you have to go back and forth) +liked the falling pillars and bridge +liked the stickers and designs in the pyramid Cons: -beginning didn't feel like I was in the desert -Although there are some trees in the desert, I don't know if there's enough to hide and "ambush" people, etc -Although the pillars looked nice while falling, I'm not sure Egypt had many pillars, felt more like Roman or Greek. -On the second floor (or third, I forgot) where you have to push the key to the end and it falls down a hole. If you kill the key and pull the switch to emit another one, the key is visible. -On the top level, after unlocking the platform, you can get the grabable lever to go up higher stuck at the top, if that happens you can no longer go up there. I have no idea what's up there since you don't have to go up thre in order to finish the level. -On the last and biggest falling pillar, it is possible to get stuck in the middle as it falls. Then you'd be stuck until you die or "try again" but then walking across the broken bridge/pillar was difficult as I somehow managed to fall right through the gas barrier underneath, but that might just be a glitch. Overall, the level has great potential, hopefully you can make the second longer! Lastly, please play my levels too! PSN: thedrknss48 level: Chocobo Dungeon - Dungeon of Fire v2 -It's a series of 5 levels, play as much as you can, would really appreciate it! (I have a post on it already, but I might have spelled it "Chocbo" in my title.)

2009-06-10 06:33:00 Author: thedrknss48 Posts: 22

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I played through your level last night a few times and managed to come up with the top score. Yay. There were some fun segments in the level and a few more that can use some polish. I think that you?ve done a good job on your first published levels as I see a lot of levels out there that are far worse from people who?ve published many, many times. There is a bit of wackiness in the first half of the level from the desert scene with the ambushing natives to the monkeys and giant pink flamingo and finally the Greek looking pillars and backdrop. I don't think that this takes away from the level as I thought it was fun to see the structures and enjoyed that you?ve filled up the level with interesting objects. I really liked your first falling bridge with the person falling down. Rope bridges can be done poorly or well with the sackperson falling down between the slats of the bridge but I didn?t have any of these problems with yours. You also did a good job with the falling pillar section. The sound effects and falling materials are done just right and when the sequence works properly it is fun to run through and across the chasm safely. I like that in the pyramid you use the bottom and tops of objects in the gameplay elements. This is a creative trick that I don't see often in levels. I did notice some things that you may have already fixed as a couple of them were mentioned by others already. However since you have a note saying that you?ve acted on all of the previous matters I thought I?d bring it up again. -I notice that some of the little green grass cutouts in the first section with the ambush are not done too well. The sticker is on the wood piece but the wood piece is bigger than the sticker in different areas. You can correct this by either making the sticker bigger to fill up the empty space of the wood cutout or cut the wood board to be a closer match to the sticker. An easy way to do cutouts it to use corner editor tool and simply drag the shape of the wood cutout to conform to the shape of the sticker. Then once you have one good cutout you can copy it and place as many as you want in your level. -I had a problem when running through the falling column section. At the part where the gas pit is the very large pillar fell over but then fell too far and the end was under the gas. I was unable to cross the pit and had to restart. It seems that if I walk through this section slowly then this problem does not occur. -The pyramid was a fun place to play but I noticed that there were a lot of irregularities in the floors where there would be bumps or circular cutouts in the material where score bubbles had been placed. I think that it would improve the presentation of the level if you smoothed out the walls and floors and in most cases this can also be done with the corner editor tool. -There is a visible green magnetic key on the ball that you can emit in the second floor area. -There is the central elevator that you use to travel up and down the elevator. There is a gap to the left and right that is big enough to fall down not to mention that if you stop the elevator too high and jump off you cannot get back on the elevator from below. It would be good to impellent a system where the elevator would return to the home position if a button was pressed from the bottom so that people do not have to restart the level should they fall down. Creating a system to allow the player to use a two way switch and a button to control the lift can be done but may be too complicated for this level. Possibly you could eliminate some of the gap so that players cannot easily fall down the sides of the lift or possibly a jet pack on a short tether. -At the near top of the pyramid there is a grab ball on a chain that is set to on/off. So when you grab the ball it will carry you up to the top level. However if you let go the ball will not return down and you?ll no longer be able to get back up. Setting the grab switch to direction would be a good fix for this. -It looks like there are five switches in the pyramid but only four are needed. I was able to go to the scoreboard by only pulling the four lower switches but when I played again and got the topmost switch I got a cut-scene showing me that the way was clear to go to the ending. I?m confused about the five switches. If you have time I'd appreciate feedback on my current level, Somethin's Cookin'. Cheers

2009-06-10 16:54:00 Author: Trindall Posts: 297

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wow that is some epic feedback there guys, I shall tweak about with the level tonight. Thanks again for playing. I must say since making all these changes I really feel that the level has improved a lot and its something I can be proud of so thank you all for making it possible. I will definately be playing you level soon.

2009-06-10 17:38:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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Okay the latest iteration has been updates, all bugs fixed methinks. I've added in a new "challange" before you get to the pyramid so feedback on that would be great. also any ideas on what I can do with the push block against the wall puzzle would be greatly appreciated as I don't have much space to do something interesting in.

2009-06-13 00:02:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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Hi groble. I was glad to see you got a level thread going, so I gave this one a try. My thoughts: Overall, I believe this level has some good potential to be a Very Good play. I liked the concepts you had going in the pyramid, especially having to activate the 4 switches in order to solve the puzzle. I also thought the small room to the far right of the bottom corridor was interesting--the room where you depress the button switch which emits the squares and electrified material (reminded me of the movie Stargate and the transport rings). The challenges to reach the switches were Easy to Moderate, which makes the level less hectic--a good thing when it's very late. And your lighting was done well. Nice job on the cutscenes too--from the earlier posts, it appears your labor was well spent. Some areas you might consider tweaking: 1. I know you worked hard on the beginning section, but to me everything except the bridge and the native attack seemed out of place for a pyramid-based level--i.e. the Greek Architecture and columns 2. The buton switch in the room which emits the squares and electrified material, was not glued down. Gluing it would add polish, and would require minimal effort 3. The winch that takes you to the last platform at the top after activating all 4 lever switches, did not work correctly. I tried repeatedly to get it unwedged, but nothing worked. This could be an intermittent problem, but issues like this are what bring level ratings down quickly. 4. With Architecture being my initial major, I did notice some platforms that were cocked, and pistons that were not lined up on grid. This is not a big issue, as it probably wouldn't be noticed by most, but little touches like keeping the pistons straight, or platforms level, do give a Level a more polished looked and impact visual appeal. I rated this level 3-Stars, as it was definitely Worth Playing. I look forward to hearing your comments on my first level Takken (Part 1)-The Beginning. Rick

2009-06-13 08:53:00 Author: RickRock_777 Posts: 1567

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Hi Rick, Thanks for the feedback. Glad you noticed the stargate-esque ring platform, that was what I was going for. I'll take a look at the winch and sort out that button at the bottom. I might swap out the greek looking building in the background for something else, but those columns will stay.... mainly becuase I spent so long on them, and egyptians totally had columns. I shall give Takken a play when i'm next on.

2009-06-15 23:04:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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Yes groble. In the spirit of F4F, I've been looking forward to your feedback on Takken--I'm sure it will be very soon. Thank you. Rick

2009-06-20 06:38:00 Author: RickRock_777 Posts: 1567

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Yes groble. In the spirit of F4F, I've been looking forward to your feedback on Takken--I'm sure it will be very soon. Thank you. Rick sorry Rick, I haven't been on LBP for like a week, I'll try and get round to it for you today

2009-06-20 09:57:00 Author: groble Posts: 223

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