Level Design - The Bear and Badger

Unlikely

I made a level in Trials. It was impossible to complete.

Jaco

I made a whole game once in SEUCK (many years ago). It looked lovely but played like an absolute bag of spanners. Always been tempted to give it another blast with GameMaker or somesuch...

JonB

I did a series of short levels for LBP on the Vita. I think Muzzy was the only one who tried them. Obviously they were pretty rough and probably too hard, but I think there were some good ideas in there. Mostly I would just discover a new creation tool and build something around it. My favourite bit was the level where it gets lighter or darker depending on your vertical position.

It was good fun anyway, but I couldn't put that much time into learning something now. Shame it was the Vita version too, or I could've at least made a video of it.

Moot_Geeza

I've never played Mario Maker but I'd imagine it's in with a legitimate shout for 'best game ever'. Likewise the user generated tracks gave Trials Evolution/Fusion ridiculous legs. If you've got the foundations of something near perfect that enough people attempt to git gud at you'll invariably end up with some exceptional creations (that occasionally outstrip the best of the developer's best).

davyK

I built a puzzle game in BlitzBasic a long time ago. It was inspired by a game I played on our VAX mainframe in work. It played like a turn-based version of Berzerk with pickups. I had it generating levels at random but then I added on a level editor.

It got about 500-600 downloads off softpedia but it seems to have vanished now sadly. It even got a mention on a couple of websites that published links to freeware games. There's still the odd link to download it in places.

https://www.classic-retro-games.com/games/puzzle/berzerk-381

Anyhow I could never be arsed building a pack of levels to include with the game so I have no idea if anyone ever used it apart from me when I built a few test levels.

I built some interesting levels for Worms Armageddon for our work LAN sessions but that was pretty easy to do.

I wouldn't mind having a go at track design though it seems to be very hard to build really good tracks.

nick_md

I always enjoyed making levels in things, I remember being excited when I heard you could edit levels in GoldenEye, and the subsequent disappointment at finding it was just health and such.

I used to make lots of levels in Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, great fun.

Dabbled with Unreal Ed but didn't have the patience for it.

Spent more time in Halo 3 forge than I did in the game itself, I think.

Then when I started work at a studio I found myself having to do all the level design on a scrolling platform beat-em-up. Was a very interesting and educational experience. It's amazing how you can feel you've made a level super-easy, no way people could get stuck on this, only to find that yes, people do get stuck on it.

That was back when it was a case of 3 or 4 man team, so one person would take on lots of different discipline roles (I did level design, audio sourcing, copy writing, producing, QA and even some UI on that). These days I'm happy to leave level design to the designers, who are much better at it than I

davyK

I'm interested in how tools can be designed to allow someone who is non technical but talented in the area of level design to do their job. I'd imagine that the challenge in getting tool makers to think the same way as a creator must be tricky.

mk64

Davy, if you could design a level which game would it be for? Maybe one more level in your favourite game?

Yossarian

davyK wrote:

I'm interested in how tools can be designed to allow someone who is non technical but talented in the area of level design to do their job. I'd imagine that the challenge in getting tool makers to think the same way as a creator must be tricky.

Based on our tools team, I expect that it’s more about developing the tool in conjunction with the designers more than anything else.

davyK

mk64 wrote:

Davy, if you could design a level which game would it be for? Maybe one more level in your favourite game?

I'd have loved to have more levels in Kororinpa on Wii. Of course there's a sequel and it comes with a level editor - but couldn't be arsed!!!! Maybe some monkey ball levels that mortals can complete?

The F-Zero X track editor would make me bite - maybe.

Yossarian wrote:

I'm interested in how tools can be designed to allow someone who is non technical but talented in the area of level design to do their job. I'd imagine that the challenge in getting tool makers to think the same way as a creator must be tricky.

Based on our tools team, I expect that it’s more about developing the tool in conjunction with the designers more than anything else.

Aye.

monkey

The Worms level editor was pretty good. I made a few that were loads of little floating islands for jetpack madness, networks of tunnels, super fortresses. They've ditched it in the latest one.

davyK

for Shame.

I built one that was made up of a series of layers stacked above each other. The worms started falling through to the next level down as the landscape got churned up and it was a case of trying to stay off the bottom level and the water beneath it.

I built it with a few sweeps of the mouse and it gave us a fair bit of entertainment.

Eric

Of all the games I have played the game that's crying out for more levels is Mario Chase. There could have been some great variants playing with verticality, flag poles and different game mechanics like integrating Yoshi etc.

GooberTheHat

I made a couple of levels for counter strike source. I don't think anyone ever played them but I enjoyed making them.

davyK

Anyone remember Tap Runner? It was the best bit of Let's Tap on Wii - a little slice of Sega genius - and it was an inspired little obstacle course game - hilarious in 4 player mode. Its main failing was the lack of levels. More of those would be great.

dynamiteReady

Jaco wrote:

I made a whole game once in SEUCK (many years ago). It looked lovely but played like an absolute bag of spanners. Always been tempted to give it another blast with GameMaker or somesuch...

I've been waiting for your 'Turrican with catz' vision for years, Jim...

Ever since you posted the bastardised GoW logo on the redrum. ^_^

Moot_Geeza

davyK wrote:

Anyone remember Tap Runner? It was the best bit of Let's Tap on Wii - a little slice of Sega genius - and it was an inspired little obstacle course game - hilarious in 4 player mode. Its main failing was the lack of levels. More of those would be great.

Yep, was great for the one session retroking and I played it, but felt like it needed/deserved more because it worked so well.

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