Archive: 9 posts

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I want to have a discussion. I don't want this to become a comment-war, hating post or a spamground. I want to have a polite, objective discussion about... Level series. With this, I mean levels that continue the same story over the course of 3-5 levels. Examples of this are LBPC the game and Hansel and Gretelbot, just to name a couple. Well, in my opinion multi-level series don't quite work in LBP. I'm not saying that I utterly hate them, as some have been rather good, but the reason they don't work is simple, or not. If you plan to make a level series with a story-line that goes through three, four or even five levels, you'd need to make the story interesting. I know, this is just me being a critic, but hear me out. Out of all level series I have ever played on this game EVER, only ONE of them was actually any good, namely Hansel and Gretelbot. However, even this level series failed on its story. It was way too slow. I have seen single levels that make more story progress than what that level series did (apart from the overly long cut-scenes that were way too long for the story in them). In fact, I can only imagine one level series that actually has done well on its story and this is pickled-punk's level series. Especially the newer levels of his. The reason I adore pickled-punk's level series is that it rarely does any sequel baiting, but when it does, its actually very well done. If you plan to make a sequel to a story based levels that doesn't stand on its own, make it so that there's an interesting point where you end the level, such as tipping of the scales or a cliffhanger. Don't make it so you just end it without telling the story further because you want to make a sequel. That is just lazy. It won't inspire people to play through, though they likely, ultimately will anyway. However, when it comes to the story, single levels work better, as proven by Smog City by dolphins-r-lame (aka. the best storytelling in LBP-level so far?). Now, this doesn't stand for MM-made levels. Why? Because they are a part of the game you'd be playing anyway and besides, 99% of them are strong enough to stand on their own, which is more than I can say for the levels in player-made series. While the story is the main reason level series don't work in my opinion, there are many others. Such as the setting and the sense of progress. If your entire level series will take place in one location without actively telling the story... What's the point in having the level series? I'll tell you. There is no acceptable reason for this. Some people do this for getting many plays, but I'll tell you, it's not worth it. That is just a lazy and shows how insecure the person making the series is, since they didn't dare to make all the story take place in one level. If you really have to make a level-series, then do everyone a favor: make it as thick as possible, make both levels strong enough to stand on their own AND for the love of God publish all levels at once. This is for many reasons, one, you won't be asking for hearts so people will come back to check if you have more levels (because that's how you appear to people if you don't), two, people with little patience, including myself, won't have to rage at the long waiting time and three, most importantly you will actually publish all the levels! There is nothing in this game that makes me more angry than unfinished level series. Argh! I just freaking hate those things! Now, this may too be acceptable if you do one thing:... Make every level powerful enough to stand on its own without having to copy material or gameplay from other levels of the series. And for the love of God change the setting as often as you can. There is nothing I can write to make this point as strong as I try to make it, so I'll just leave this here. Sigh... Anyway, what do you think about level series in LBP2, LBPVita or heck, LBPK? I don't know if people make level series in that game, but anyway, what do you think? I think they suck 90% of the times, are bad on their story 98% of the times and are actually worth making into level series 1% of the times they are made. All opinions are welcome and I won't dislike anyone who might disagree with me, as long as everyone keeps it polite. Hopefully more so than what I did. Sorry for setting up a bad example of how to share your opinions, but I just had to get that out.

2013-07-24 10:03:00 Author: FreeAim Posts: 2462

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It depends. I have seen quite a few level series and they are usually alright. I find that the first level in any series to be better and all subsequent levels get shorter and not as detailed as the creator rushes to finish the story. In fact a series of levels could only be better if they are published at the same time therefore eliminating the need to finish the story. Many series levels won't also get many plays even if the first is successful. This is due simply to people forgetting about the level and the sequels won't get plays unless already published. Some also as you pointed out never change setting. I find this is because the creator finds this works well or even if there is no reason for them to change. Due to story progression. However i find series to be interesting if they are executed properly and have no problem with them as long as the scenery is well done and gameplay to be at least different.

2013-07-24 15:47:00 Author: Shooter0898 Posts: 996

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A Few major disclaimers on this post: 1) I'm going to reference LBPCTG. A lot. Personal experience, and all that. 2) I haven't played a ton of LBP2, but i'm pretty sure similar principles apply to my LBP1 experience. 3) Data courtesy of LBP.me, and therefore subject to whatever it pulls. The short answer is no. The long answer is yeaaaaaaaaaaaanooooooooooo not really- see below. One of the major issues with creating a level series is that a large portion of LBP's community is too TL;DR for a large undertaking. If your story is going to span 5 levels, for example, you need to hook them in level 1, and keep rehooking them throughout. If you look at LBPCTG, a lot of players gave a look over level 1, decided it wasn't worth their effort, and stopped playing. Now take that effect, and compound it over a series. If you have 1000 people play level 1, but 20% don't finish or continue to level 2, by level 5 you'll have around 400 players - less than half of what you started with. There is pretty good evidence that this happens if you look over the data. LBPCTG started with 3,200 plays on level 1, and ended with 780 on 13 (I don't count the credits in this due to the initial keyed release). Oh No the Princess! started with 25,854 and ended with 7,781. Even Hansel and Gretelbot - a series made by top notch creators and plugged by MM started with 125,232 plays and ended with 11,880 - less than 10% of the original plays. Looking at the numbers for Ama Toor, a series created under the context of telling an epic story, is... depressing . If you're trying to tell a tale of epic proportions, you have to really work hard to keep people hooked, and that becomes harder with each successive level. Working on a level series also has you fighting the clock. Even if you're working on a team, and you're all making levels at the exact same time, and you have nothing else to do in the series besides those levels, you're taking a risk in the attempt. Midway through LBPCTG, water was introduced to LBP. We already had a water level, using glass and other tricks instead of this new water. We decided to keep the level, rather than scrap all that hard work and start anew. New patches have the tendency to break things, new levels are released every day with new concepts and new takes on old ideas. Creators naturally evolve as they work, and as time progresses "good" becomes "meh" becomes "bleh." Jagrevi spent a very long time working on Ama Toor, and had to release it right before LBP2 because of all the time he spent working and reworking it. Starting a project of this magnitude means that you're fighting the clock - because somewhere along the line, something else will come out that will make your project look worse than it did when you started, and all that something needs is time. Working on a series is STRESSFUL. Creating 1 shot projects is naturally easier, as you don't need to coordinate things between levels, and can really direct them any way you like. Working on a series, you have to do things in order, so you can't just make the 5th level space boss fight first (unless you're releasing them concurrently and therefore run into a scope issue instead), and by the time you've made the third level, it's a bit wearing to look at the results. It doesn't surprise me when series creators announce that they're done, or say things like "I want X plays to continue" - the experience is stressful, and it doesn't always seem worth the effort. I've worked on quite a few level projects where people quit after only a month of work because a level series is in for the long haul. LBPCTG had several designers quit over the course of the project, and frankly it's a miracle that it came out WELL OVER A YEAR after the initial thread was made. It's hard enough to make 1 good level, try making 5 on the same overarching theme - believe me, it's much harder. Then compound this with the fact that your last level is only going to have 20-30% as many plays as your first, and that the slower you work the more fixes and changes you'll have to make to keep your levels up to current standards. You can make a series work, but it's incredibly difficult, and in general I don't think a completed series comes across as powerful as it should. I still love LBPCTG. I still think it's a quality piece of work, despite the flaws it has. But i'm probably one of the very few who share that opinion- and i'm a little biased for obvious reasons.

2013-07-29 21:42:00 Author: Burnvictim42 Posts: 3322

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Yeah, as someone who headed one of the biggest projects ever, I'd say no. Again, look up at burn's post for most of my thoughts, but the simple fact is that people lose interest and don't play through. Personally, I think it criminal that no one played burn's "Defend the User CP" despite it being a crowning achievement in LBP1 (at least I think so), but again, people just weren't arsed enough to go through all the effort an ordinary game would require. That, and keeping the quality consistent might be maddening. However, the other fact is that I've heard many times developers state that (going by trophies), many players never make it to the end of full games, so I don't know if its just an aspect of User Generated Content or what. So I really dunno. Also, Burn, it was more like 20 months XD April/ May of 2009 to October of 2010... almonds, it was so long ago...

2013-07-29 21:50:00 Author: RockSauron Posts: 10882

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Here are my thoughts. Never consider making a level series when you are still in the act of learning to create heavily. AKA if you are a beginner to LBP and the act of creating games. Don't make a level series until you are very skilled. Otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time. You'll stress just yourself out trying to make content above your skill level and people won't enjoy the game to much. Talk to as many expert creators (who have the time) as possible and get feedback on story & gameplay concepts as much as you can before even starting the level series. *mew Be interesting. There's no need to create a generic game. If the game has nothing different or interesting to offer in story & gameplay regardless if it's a platformer or not. It won't be worth the time it'll take to make if it's not unique whatsoever. Unlike companies you are not making money on your projects. If you really want make a level series. Make sure it's just because "YOU" want to. and because of cool ideas you have etc. But never do it for bad reasons such as hoping for "Online Fame" because 1, it more then likely won't work. And 2, It means your level is just a product and not real art. It may be a personal nitpick of mine but I want a game to have real meaning behind why you make it. Not because you want some kind of reward out of it. Make sure you have enough free time in your life. If you are to often busy or feel that you will be soon in life. Go ahead and forget making a level series. If you have no time then you'll just end up dropping the project and likely disappointing yourself and perhaps others in the end. Try to be loyal to your projects if possible. But DO NOT forget to have fun... Which brings me to my next point. Never forget to have fun with your project. If it becomes to stressful for you, You won't want to continue the project very long. So always remember to just have fun and not to worry about stuff much. The more fun you have, The quicker the project will get complete. *mew PS: I pretty much only work on level series myself. But I also have a high understanding how to make a good & fun level series. And I demand nothing short of making great works that i would want to buy & play myself. But I also have a perfectionist problem and I am very picky about what i like. It's both a good and bad habit of mine tbh.

2013-07-29 22:47:00 Author: Lord-Dreamerz Posts: 4261

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One of my favorite parts of LBP were the level series. Some of the best levels out there were part of a level series (or a whole entire level series). And for some levels it makes sense to have it as a series because it could be so big that it all wouldn't be able to fit into one level.

2013-07-30 21:33:00 Author: amoney1999 Posts: 1202

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Usually I don't play level series, mainly because I play community levels so infrequently these days. If I find a "part 1" level, and I like it, I'll probably heart it and forget to ever look for the rest. If I find a "part 3" level I'm more likely to go back and play the other parts first. One exception that comes to mind is Grant's From Siberia With Love series. That was the entire reason for my first post on LPBC and I always played each level as soon as it came out. Even before it came out, sometimes, when I'd wander around the unfinished level with Grant and sticker a few cogmonkeys on random walls. But most of the time, I'd only play all the levels in a series if they are released at the same time. But that's just me. In terms of creating levels, the only experience I've had of working on a level series is when me, bakscratch and blahyourhamster made a series called Attack of the Evil Alien Chickens from Outer Space. We each worked on our levels at the same time, and released them all together. We weren't that organised, we just had a PSN chat open and occasionally popped into each others' levels to see what was going on. As I recall, we finished the levels pretty quickly and published them at the same time. I definitely felt like I worked quicker and more efficiently as part of a team than I ever have on my own. My level wasn't that great, it suffered horrendous termo problems at the hands of a giant alien chicken with a flamethrower I built. But to this day it's one of the few proper levels I've done. I don't think I'd ever set out to start a level series on my own. I take forever to finish one level so I could never create a whole series. Occasionally, I'll get so far through making a level and think "oh bother, I can't possible finish this without the thermo exploding", so that's when I think about extending to a second level. But now that we have level links I'd probably just use a sublevel and treat it as part of the same level, rather than a series. That's what happened with my entry for the time travel competition - it became so complicated that I couldn't finishing it without moving onto a second/sub level, so I ended up not entering. And now without an impending deadline I've stopped working on it, which really shows that I could never finish a series.

2013-07-31 09:28:00 Author: ARD Posts: 4291

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Hmmm even though I agree with you OP in most of your arguments I still think good level series are totally a blast. My favorite one has to be xSlevenx's level series that does not really have a name but is this one: http://lbp.me/v/-d1ysp And even though some levels kept the same ambience they eid not feel boring at any time. I've always thought of the level series as a chapter/world/zone/whatever of LBP2's story mode. I think each level does not necessarily needs to have so much storytelling. And I myself am working on a quite ambicious level series of 4 levels + 2 cinematics. The problem with complex stories is that people do not really like to read that much, so we creators try to make them interesting, but can't really go to too complex storylines. And yeah, I'm not planning to release all of them at once. First of all, because that would be insane. I am planning REALLY unique gameplay for every single one of the level series' levels (for example, the first level is a fast-platformer, while the third level is more like a silhouette level, the second one is kind of a really interesting puzzler, and the fourth one will be a boss battle), so that may take a while to do and would like to publish them one by one. I'm not even sure if I will finish them all. And I know its frustrating not knowing how a series will end, but that's basically what keeps people motivated to come back later. Everywhere. TV, videogames & DLC, not just LBP. For example, jaffakree's Druid level series got out one by one and it took a while to complete his three mini level series, but it got picked at the end, and it was awesome. And it wasn't heavily story focused. Just my thoughts

2013-07-31 14:46:00 Author: yugnar Posts: 1478

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I hope they work considering I have a level series This is an interesting topic. I wouldn't say my Lost series is a success as episode 1 tops out at 400 people and it dwindles down to 120 people for episode 4. Though I would be the first to admit the quality of the episodes goes down in each episode. Episode 4 is bad However, I've been going back and improving them. One of the things that I have been aiming for is to make each episode completely different in gameplay. Really I think this is the most important part. If the series becomes predictable, then I would for sure lose interest. My series has an interactive movie, unique platformer, and a shooter. Also, story wise I try to make each episode stand alone. For example, you don't even need to play episode 1 to understand what is happening in episode 2. If done right they can work. I have played some good ones. You need to keep the gameplay and story interesting consistently. Easier said than done.

2013-08-07 02:50:00 Author: Greensmurfy Posts: 300

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