Archive: 3 posts

---

Lately I've been disappointed in my ability to keep my levels consistent throughout the whole stage. My goal is to make a long, well designed, and creative level that has awesome gameplay throughout the whole stage, but one or all of those conditions are missing every time I build a level. The biggest problem is my motivation. I get better ideas when I'm building one level, and get tired of building it and rush through the rest of it or finish it off short. I just feel like I could be building a better level when really I'm just hurting myself in the long run. I usually take a break and come back shortly after with more ideas, but that doesn't really help as much as I want it to. If I leave a level for too long, I just completely avoid building it and feel like it's a chore. Then I scrap it. That's what's wrong. Right now, I'm focusing on building a fast-paced level. The player controls a sackbot and runs through the streets of a hillside village with a large stampede following close behind and destroying everything in its path. I have the idea of the gameplay, and I already got the sackbot down, but I just CAN'T get started with the design. I think it's good one moment, and then later I think it's garbage. Design is usually one of my biggest problems. How should I design this? I want a trashy but not too humble village with the typical village crud, and I want it all to be destructible. But here's the big question: HOW? So now I'm here asking for your assistance. I don't want to make a good level, I want to make a GREAT level. I've seen how some of my friends collaborated with others and really improved, and I think receiving helpful advice and feedback beforehand could help almost as much. The only real problems for me now are consistency and design, the gameplay's down. Thanks a lot. :hero: Oh, and what I already do is look at themes of places I want to get the look of. I haven't tried it out much, but I think that'll help for this next level.

2012-07-18 17:37:00 Author: Sackpapoi Posts: 1195

---

Since you have the idea of gameplay down, and it's fast-paced, you might overcome your stuck feeling by blasting out a basic run-to-the-end stage with cardboard boxes and play through it over and over, feeling out what's fun, changing sizes and working on obstacles... without having to really think about the visuals. The gameplay itself being important, your design will evolve as you complete good chunks of it. My advice in nearly all cases of creator's block is to "speed create" the most basic playable concept in 10 minutes. Don't let yourself pick decorations or textures. Just gun it, like you're on someone else's moon with no control over when you'll get kicked or when it might get rewinded. You know how twerpy idiot kids will force you on a moon and then when you actually try to do some useful there they ruin it? And there's that urgent, stressed, get-it-done feeling without really being too invested in what you're doing? Create like that. If after 10 minutes you have nothing good, that's fine: just delete it all. Chances are, though, you'll have the seeds of a design and more importantly, you'll have been DOING something for 10 minutes which greases the creative wheels. It's productive. I've been stuck on how to create a certain level for a while and after a month of inactivity (since my last level, really) I took my own advice last night. For about 30 minutes I just blasted out as much of a level as I could, with no real care whether I might keep it or not... and while nobody will ever see it, because it's terrible, my mind has been spinning all day today. Those 30 minutes actually made me EXCITED about my level, in spite of being total garbage. You know?

2012-07-19 04:24:00 Author: Unknown User

---

I have to agree w/ arbiekko-- I like to make EVERYTHING with cardboard to start and then once the level is complete, I go back and concentrate on making the level look polished... it helps my design and saves me on thermo.

2012-07-19 15:07:00 Author: HeySK Posts: 54

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.