Custom level planning tips, anyone?

Did you guys ever encountered lacks of inspiration when trying to make a new level? Even when you get an idea, either you think this idea has already been used in another level or this idea wouldn't look terrible in the level, or whatever reason...

Because I'm right into this issue, and that can make me easily lose my ideas, which can give me an additionnal mind-mangling headache for the next 4 hours...

So, do you guys have some useful tips on finding out how to plan a custom level correctly (finding and sketching ideas, Constructor designing, and so on)?

Threefolder told me something about it, but unfortunately, I forgot what he told me, lol.

All I've got for making a level is don't try to make 'a level', wait until you have an idea, and then turn it into a level.

Ralph wrote: Threefolder told me something about it, but unfortunately, I forgot what he told me, lol.

It's okay he doesn't like me anyway imo.

Some people try and give me the "quality over quality" garbage repetitively. I might as well unleash my thoughts and tell you some examples that work for me.

If you have picture-memory like me, you're in luck! You can envision what the level would look like in your mind and create it. It doesn't hurt to reuse older challenges from time to time - keep in mind that with 5000+ custom levels or whatever the number is (I really don't care.) It gets much more difficult to come up with newer challenges unless you add newer code or think outside of the box more than you have to.

Another thing that works for me is drawing out the idea for the level in 2D format/3D format with a key and then publishing it into a level. It's called "sketching". You don't have to be a good artist to sketch the details!
You just gotta think each step at a time.

Another solution that's worked for me is when I look at levels that have already been made and published, I take two levels and do the "combining" method. That method works by looking at two levels for obstacles and challenges and using the ideas those levels made to create a whole new cool level.

Then again, I look at something simple like an oven or a toaster - and I make a level based on that object.
Or I just do a custom-level-remake from time to time, because that's fun to do for me.

Another thing you have to remember when making a level are these steps.
Note: These steps are what I work with. Any others I forgot, sue me.
- What are the challenges and obstacles?
- What's the general level theme?
- How difficult do you want the level to be?
- How long will it take you to build the level? Any texturing errors? Any geometry errors?
- What textures are you going to use?
- Is the level going to have variety?
- Collectible objects (teapots or diamonds)? Hazards? Powerups? Etcetera? What are you throwing into the level?
- Any complicated texturing/geometry while building the level?
- Finally, when you build the level, will the level convert to .dif successfully?

For making levels, don't make a level until you have a list of steps, an idea, and a plan.
Then turn those into a level.

Hope some of this helps.

Jiquor wrote: It's okay threefolder doesn't like me anyway imo.

aight


Anyway, I haven't made a level or thought of making one since I finished Jump Boost Blast, but some general advice I have is to just think about combinations of hazards, powerups, modes, gameplay, etc haven't really been done before, and try to make something work out of it all. Remember that less is more when it comes to making levels; if you can do a lot with one basic concept, it's probably a good idea. Planning the level itself; a thing I've taken a liking to doing relatively recently is to first create a level with incredibly simple geometry to mimic what your final level is going to play like. Not only does this force you to focus on gameplay first, but it's also a fast way to get to testing your idea immediately. I used this to great effect on my one PQ Hunt map (Matan didn't hate it!) and it's likely that I'll use this process to make more maps in the future.

Agree to most of what Jiquor said, good stuff and nice approach from logical perspective aswell. I will have to try merging at some point.

In nutshell things I use.

1.Don't think of what has been or haven't been used. To be honest it doesn't matter because in some way that idea 95% of time has been allready made. What matters is combination and execution of the challenge. Many of Andrews and pablos best levels are just good combination of regular challenges _{(No 1 reason why lot of my maps didn't made it to release was because i was envisioning what negative things people will think of my level but when I showed level to public I got positive reviews)}

2.When you make level don't think about what others will think about your level. Have fun and test to see if level is fun. If it is fun for you it should be fun from everyone else. _{Focusing on ''what others think'' usually makes me remove bunch of things and then mess everything up.}
Also you will NEVER know if challenge looks good or bad or weather it plays good or bad until you make it
3.As Jiquor said. Drawing works. Even if you're not the most visual person. It doesn't have to be 3d drawing, It can even be top down drawing.
Heres mine, and yes I drew it on school blackboard. This is how simple it can be.

The thing about this level is, once you have sketch you can always see the level and elaborate on your sketch. My suggestion is to always keep to the basic outline of sketch and don't change too much however if you see that gameplay is not as good as it should be try experimenting with different challenges or pathways on those sections. For example the level above was changed a lot when I made those challenges in game and understood that some ideas I had in my head weren't working in real life. In fact most of Matan's best levels went through similar process of drawing and experimenting.
Here's another one.

Looks terrible? No $**t, yes it does but who cares, this is end result, still needs texturing etc. The reason this didn't got released was because I was worrying about what people will think.


4.If you have any other ideas and don't know where to put them just write them on paper or something so that you wouldn't forget and could use them later on. The best ideas are usually the ones that disappear the fastest.

5. What threefolder said about starting simple. This is thing that every professional game developer uses (check tf2 maps 72hr mapping contest time lapses)
The biggest benefit is that you can quickly check if level is fun or not and not waste tons of time on reworking already complicated level. If you make level ''final'' at start and see that gameplay isn't as good as you expected you will most likeley encounter that ''man I wasted so much time and all I got was level with shitty gameplay'' kinda feeling . Here's and example of 2 different approaches. Sorry Uil...


So I was making a level and one of the sections was made by Me one by Uil. Green section is mine. All the pathways are made out of blocks. Those rotated blocks are meant to be crates and you may recognize railings and bridges there aswell. Here it would be super easy to move one bridge up or down or move crates forward or backward, narrow the channel more or less. Been using this method for any realistic level ever since. Once I would nail gameplay making the rest would be as easy as re-texturing brushes and doing the most fun part: detailing the level and gameplay would be great.



Here is Uil's section, he really loves detailing, when It was time for him to add game play he ran into tons of issues trying to change basic things as ceiling height and window size. Yes level looks great but it was total hell for him to add game play section. It was also very demotivating in process.


Heres another one:
This is from marblemaster1's advent callendar. Called RDs advent 25 aka my version of his level Frozen in time.
This is what we start with: Just basic pathways. Then we go to next step which is adding grass (which is also part of gameplay). Note that when I make grassy areas Instead of using actual grass texture I use grid since it makes alignment job a lot easier and I don't have to re-texture as often.

Here is me experimenting with texturing. And here is final result.



>Making level is like making music, there are million artists out there and most of the rhymes have been utilized at some point but there is allways a way to make music sound fresh with right arrangement and small nifty changes.

Jiquor wrote:

Ralph wrote: Threefolder told me something about it, but unfortunately, I forgot what he told me, lol.

It's okay he doesn't like me anyway imo.

Had to... Sorry Jiquor

Edit: Nobody hates you, I know it feels like we do since we where critical of your creations, in fact Ive fallen into same curse myself many times in my life but the thing that you have to realize is that those who criticize most of time just want to help you not fail and deal with failure like many others did. If you think that his criticism is wrong move on and be thankful that people still care about others here. Seriously even I ''poking bit of fun'' here about one line you posted am not mad or have any grudge against you. Ive done same thing you did in past too (though that people hate me because they say I should do things differently) and i think Threefolder has had that time too once in his life.
You can say that he doesn't hate you, he hates some ideas you had. And so what, move on if you can't or don't want to accept them. Trust me even with all his criticism there have been some things that you agreed with that he criticized you about
Ive had my level's just torn apart by matan couple of times with things he said/criticized and I used to think hes the meanest guy on forums that just looks at us from above and over the years I can tell you he is definitely not, all he wanted to do is to make my level better than it was, yes it was tough pill to swallow but that's what turns beginner level makers into professionals.

My levels are totally shit.

At least that's how it used to be. Take a look at my oldest levels for that matter. Mostly, they are bad. I didn't care much for other people's opinions, I thought they were good Some of them did turn out better than others and people did enjoy them.

Even through MBP I can tell you it was basically bad, and only very few levels ever got positive feedback. With PlatinumQuest, the staff were pretty harsh on each other and I got a lot of bad feedback, but some positives too. It was only when Phil told me that all my levels were flat and didn't have height differences that something clicked, and it changed a lot of things for me.

Some of my inspirations nowadays come from either my brain coming with a unique thing (queue HiGuy groaning) or seeing what others made and implementing the basic ideas in my own level and create something new altogether. I always have some cool ideas I'd like to do but are, at the moment, completely out of reach due to either the tools I have, the time required to input or having a more "thorough" understanding of what I want in the level and how it should be built.
When things did click together though, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. I could sketch things and have better visualisation, but a lot were just stored in my head until they were used.

You might have played PQ's Vibrancy Grounds, and that is probably the level I spent the most time on. The design came from MBAdvanced' Color Twist.
This is how the original looked, and the base inspiration:



This is my bigger design of this level. Added some more stuff and expanded it, and added some PQ features to it. It played okay which at first we accepted it for, but it was pretty bad and boring and eventually scrapped out.



Afterwards I decided that it needed a proper remake. The garden design took the longest to make, followed by construction and the top part. I didn't have anything sketched but I wanted to make something unique and cool. Add in key scenery design, lots of gameplay and balancing, you end up with easily one of my top levels of all time.





Another triple-remake is the very first PlatinumQuest level, Training Wheels. Originally called 'To the Finish', the idea was basic movement but add in some pitfall challenge. The original Tutorial level designs were based on the fact you couldn't go Out of Bounds (supported by colmesh and the trim to be key-design aspect).



Eventually we settled on the fact we needed something better and didn't want to go with the direction of 30 levels to introduce basics. I came up with the 'learning to roll' level design coupled with powerups, but also advanced marbling techniques. I wanted a completely unique level design in the basic movement that no other level has done: teach you the Forward/Backwards/Right/Left/Jump one by one so it can be beaten without camera movement. Advanced marbling techniques and powerups followed.



The idea was pretty good, but last year the entire staff went hard at that level stating it wasn't a proper novice-teaching level, too hard, and too confusing. I eventually crumbled under the pressure (read: literally everyone was against me) and agreed to remake the level without the split-path combination, and forgo the advanced marbling techniques. I then decided to take the 'novice' direction further by making it much harder to go Out of Bounds (unless it was part of the level design).
I also wanted to add in a gravity design, so I made a unique gravity-changing path on the get go and taught the player about the gravity modifiers later on. Threefolder added in the smooth slopes and curves that QuArK can't do, and with more feedback from staff and testers, the end version was born.

As the level's General Hint says: "Would you believe me if I said this was the third revision for this tutorial level? It keeps getting better every time though!"
And it does.




I can go with more level that have had revisions or have had unique designs, but then we'll have spoilers



So, that was some of my story. Now the tasty tips:

- Know when to end a level. I know it seems great to keep pushing a level longer and longer, but eventually you just run out of ideas, and you keep forcing yourself to add more. This is actually noticeable in the level, and it turns a good level sour.
I used this very tip on my own levels, especially a gigantic one that I just cut off at a point that didn't seem to make sense, but unless you were me you thought it was intended and was a good ending. I simply ran out of ideas and didn't want to make it crap.

- Quantity vs Quality. Back in the old days, quantity > quality, but to a degree. Look at Henry's levels. He contacted us years later telling us how his duo 100-level packs are absolute cringe. Starting a few years ago, quality > quantity. People appreciated a level that has had more effort put into it and was fun over a level that was long, bland and boring. Good texturing didn't help at all.
Some of the best levels in the past are now frowned upon. That's how times changed.

- Focus on feedback. There aren't a lot of people here, so the vocal ones are also the ones you see more often. Still, if you can join a group conversation and ask for feedback, it will help you a lot.

- Simple, yet effective. Some of the best levels are those that don't add anything new to the table. They don't use new features, or challenges you haven't met before. Their design aspect make them fun though!

- Short and small challenges. A trend that started in 2010 was that a level would be made up of several small challenges, each taking 3-5 seconds at most, and rarely you'll go to 5-10 seconds. You would then see a level made up of easily 15-20 challenges that flowed smoothly, were easy and made sense. A lot of outstanding levels in 2010-2012 era were made just based on that trend, and it features prominently in PlatinumQuest levels as well.
It made for good level design that was simple, refreshing and didn't annoy players.

- Learn from the worst and the best. In the olden days, Pablo, Phil, Andrew, Oaky were some of the shining stars of this community. Their feedback gave a lot of weight as their levels were rated the highest. I took Threefolder to PlatinumQuest by playing his levels as well, and seeing the refreshing creativity and design he came up with to make some seriously fun levels. I noted his hunt-based levels were horrible, and put him off of those in PlatinumQuest as well. Only one of them actually got a thumbs up from me.
Learn what they did right, what they did wrong, and learn from their mistakes and achievements. I did that and got some of the best levels I could ever hope to do.
Likewise, I've learned from the worst level designers and the worst levels I ever played. I learned what not to do and the community feedback on those levels to see how I can improve and not repeat such... offenses.

- Criticism sucks. I hate to get bad feedback just like everyone else and would defend my choices to the death. However, it is also wise to accept some of it and implement it into level design change. The above two levels are important lessons that came through harsh criticism: everyone was against me, and I (eventually) responded by accepting defeat and redoing. TWheels especially was a nightmare and what started as a "I hate you all" redesign ended up as a well-loved welcoming level.
It is amazing how much we fight for what we believe should be how things are. PlatinumQuest's original design is quite different from where it ended up, and I fought a lot to have some of the original aspects remain. I lost, but the end design is better. Sometimes it is better to listen.

- Find the way you work best. Some like sketching things out, some like thinking on their head. The above people do their level design in completely different ways, and you might find that some of the stuff they do applies to you, and some does not. That's fine. Be yourself.
Off on a tangent: it's the same for me at work. We have a regular 4-people team that, pending stress and need, has half of the lab available to reinforce. Every person who is qualified for the team has his/her own way of working, and new people who get training are often told to learn from everyone and end up make their own style of work that fits them the best. Guess what? Anyone who is qualified really does have their own style of work that fits them the best.

- Know how to reuse, but never ever remake. I won't lie that I haven't reused what other people made. I outright stolen ideas and came up with my own design for those, but also had to make things wildly change. You can't just copy and paste. Remakes don't work either and 99% of the time, remake-based levels were some of the worst I've seen. VGrounds was no exception, and needed a serious makeover with whole new design and challenges ideas to become something new and beautiful.

- One idea. Some levels have a recurring theme to them. Gyrocopter Monster Course started its own trend as well as those Skill Course based levels. I won't lie... a lot aren't good. It takes really smart thinking to come up with a theme to a level that is recurring and maintain itself throughout. You'll have to be extra-creative!

- Time. The less you spend on the level, the more it shows. You can spend very little on a level as long as it's short and fun, or you can spend a solid 36 hours over a few weeks perfecting every single key aspect of it. VGrounds is both the former and the latter. Except it wasn't fun, just 2 hours of QuArK.
I can personally tell you that Threefolder, Andrew, Phil, Oaky, Pablo and many of the greatest level designers all spent a few days or weeks coming up with their creations, and would do hours at a time in each session to ensure their level met the highest criteria.

- Bigger eyes only with experience. Start with small levels, and go bigger and more detailed the more experience you get. If you try and do what Uil does (as RDs showed), you better have the thousands of hours of experience to back it up. That said, not everything will work out. Accept that.

- Singleplayer Vs. Multiplayer. One of the least understood things is that making a level that is for singleplayer is wildly different than making one that has two or more people in mind. This includes the level layout, challenges, content (scenery) and more. Co-Op levels also differ. When you make the level, know where you aim.

There are more, but I should shut up now
Enjoy!

(side note: I just realised I've been making levels for 10 years... damn.)

Edit: just want to mention I often see myself less than most others here. I don't have the creativity they have, so I often spend more time in constructing my levels and coming up with far more unique ideas than what normally is. I have an uphill battle every time, and it's something I made a goal to beat every time. Gained a lot of experience fighting such battles over and over.

Seeing all of the feedback here is very helpful. I know I'm not nearly as helpful but a lot of what people are saying really is helpful and I'm going to take some of this into advantage myself as well.

Ralph especially should be happy with all this feedback!