Level design tips & tricks

anithmuk

I'm really stuck trying to think of new levels for my game, I have about 15 levels done and have just run out of ideas. I mean in terms of my game, how many different ways can I make a particle move from one side of the screen to the other? So I wanted to ask, how do you all get ideas for level designs, how do you get creative, how do you make level after level after level and still keep things fresh and unique.

Now I know there are a bunch of ways to answer those questions, but I was just curious about your personal experiences and any tips or tricks you might have. Oh, and on an unrelated note, how do I change my forum avatar?

quantumsheep

Getting the particle to move from one side to another should be your 'base' game mechanic.

For example, Gravitrixx has 100 levels. Its base mechanic is moving your circle to collect glowy things.

That's it!

The first 10 levels comprise of different obstacle layouts to familiarise yourself with movement.

The next 10 levels introduce red block hazards.

The next 10 introduce disappearing blocks.

The next 10 introduce disappearing red block hazards.

And so on and so forth.

The new elements are introduced and then gradually mixed with elements that preceded them.

Level design is an art unto itself! Collectively, myself and my friend Jake (who co-wrote Gravitrixx with me) have been making games for 20 years! Experience helps!

Having said that, I've seen some great level design from people with NO experience whatsoever.

So, in a nutshell, I'd recommend taking the 'base' game mechanic and adding modifiers to it as the levels progress.

Hope that helps!

QS

anithmuk

Hi, thanks for the help! I guess one of my problems was that I was trying to introduce too much too early, without properly exploring my existing mechanics. But even so, I'm just finding it hard to get creative. I can whip up a small level with some obstacles here and some power-ups there, no problem, but I can't seem to make a level that would actually be appealing and engaging to the player or create a puzzle that requires lots of thought to solve.

Maybe I just have no imagination, or maybe I just need to find some play testers to tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, either way its REALLY frustrating.

BTW, Gravitrixx looks really cool, great job! How long does game like that take to make from beginning to end?

quantumsheep

Gravitrixx took about 2 and a half months to make.

There were two of us building levels, but we couldn't work on the game at the same time

A lot of thought went into the level design. If you play the game, you'll see how the first two levels introduce you to the control system by limiting your movement. Level 1 teaches you movement from left to right. Level 2 teaches up and down.

After that it gets a little trickier, but you'll also notice that no hazards appear till level 11.

This lets the player get used to the controls and the general premise of the game before introducing an element that could cause them to fail the level.

When the hazard *do* appear, those levels are similar to the first few levels. The idea is to keep the player feeling that this is familiar, while at the same time introducing something new.

Additionally, you don't have to complete every level with 5 stars to continue playing. We set up 'Grids' with 10 levels in each. The most you could get from a Grid is 50 stars (5 stars per level). However, unlocking the next Grid doesn't require you to have the maximum amount of stars.

This means that if you get stuck on a level and continually fail, or you just aren't too good at a particular challenge, you're not stopped from progressing straight away.

Also, you can play any level from any unlocked grid. So you can play levels 1 to 4, for example, fail level 5, but can still replay that or play any level up to 10 on that grid.

Phew!

For our next game, we're making a runner - it's very different as you're trying to get as far as you can, but it's only one level really. I think making 100 levels burnt us out a bit!

I'm almost done with that, and that will have taken a month or so!

Make no mistake. Making games is not easy if you care about them! A lot of hard work goes into them!

Hope that helped!

QS

StormyStudio

Sketch loads down on paper, it will allow you to think ideas even quicker than GameSalad lets you...Just have a chilled evening, sketch pad a pencil a drink of your preference and just keep drawing level ideas down. Then make your favorite top 50, 100 or whatever...

quantumsheep

That's an interesting way of doing it, Stormy - cheers for that insight! Hope more people chip in, as it's always interesting to read how people work!

The lovely thing with GS is that you can put stuff into your levels and test right away. And if you don't have exactly what you need, you just make a new actor and plonk him in and see what happens!

QS

blastfactor

hey, Quantumsheep i have a question that some of us cant seem to figure out.. would you mind trying to help me figure it out? if so the forum is here http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=16661

VoidedSky

Yes, doodling (oh no, I used doodle jump's word, I'd better watch out!) out your levels is one of the best ways to get your ideas. Also play as many similar games as possible, and pull ideas from them. Look around you too, common furnature, or architecture, can help inspire amazing levels.
~CTM

jonmulcahy

I'm going through this right now. I need to come up with 100 levels for my game. I've got about 8 major themes, and I'm trying to design 10 levels each around them, but it's difficult!

since I carry around my ipad with my, I have adobe ideas installed and I just create a blank file and do a very rough sketch of the level when I think of one. I got about 30 down over the past few days, not including the 10 I've already designed in gamesalad to play with.

blastfactor

QuantumSheep, i looked at your game "Gravitrixx" and i have to say, nice work! can you assist me on something please? how do you get it so that your lettering and everything glows? and how do you make the letters in the main menu shine every so often?

quantumsheep

That's all art stuff, Mr. Blastfactor.

You'd have to ask the wonderful Joe from Firemaple Games about it - he did all our art on that game!

Cheers,

QS

BSideGames

For my newest game I did the same idea as QS said about mechanics and made ten strong levels that worked great. Then copied each of them X amount of times, then just moved things around, added little things here and there until each level was it's own masterpiece.

anithmuk

Some great advice here! I'll probably start sketching out some ideas in a little notebook so that I always have something to program in gamesalad, instead of just staring at a blank scene editor for 15 minutes trying to think of a a level. I've also realised that I've been cramming too many things into one level and ending up with a really random difficulty curve for my game, along with cramped, messy looking levels. So now I've just been breaking up some of my levels into 2 or 3 different scenes, which should get me up to about 30-40 different levels now.

jonmulcahy

another thing to keep aware of. design one test level with everything you can think of in it. test the hell out of it.

nothing sucks more than finding a bug after you've created 50 levels and having to go into each one and fixing it.

quantumsheep

jonmulcahy said:
another thing to keep aware of. design one test level with everything you can think of in it. test the hell out of it.

nothing sucks more than finding a bug after you've created 50 levels and having to go into each one and fixing it.

Absolutely priceless info if anyone's listening!

QS

blastfactor

quantum, did you have to pay this "wonderful joe" anything for the art? which im guessing you did

quantumsheep

anithmuk said:
Some great advice here! I'll probably start sketching out some ideas in a little notebook so that I always have something to program in gamesalad, instead of just staring at a blank scene editor for 15 minutes trying to think of a a level. I've also realised that I've been cramming too many things into one level and ending up with a really random difficulty curve for my game, along with cramped, messy looking levels. So now I've just been breaking up some of my levels into 2 or 3 different scenes, which should get me up to about 30-40 different levels now.

Yeah, we focussed a lot on the user experience with Gravitrixx -as it should be!

You can introduce a new element and make it gradually harder. Then introduce another new element, but make that first level with the new element in it slightly easier.

Essentially, you have to ease the player into the game. First levels should be easy and make it obvious what you need to do i.e. introduce the player to the idea.

Subsequent levels should again introduce players to new elements before upping the difficulty.

It's a tricky thing to do for sure!

QS

anithmuk

I'm definitely trying hard to perfect the difficulty of my game, just trying to find those fine lines between "too easy and boring", "addictive challenge" and "frustratingly hard".