Tips for Creating

[amazingflyingpoo]

I've replied to a lot of PM's around the interwebs asking about tips for creating, so I figured that I would just make a post about it here. I am certainly not the greatest creator, so keep in minds that these are just things that I feel are important and can help someone improve. There are plenty of other things to focus on, but if a newer creator can focus on these then I think that their levels will drastically improve!

I want to add a disclaimer that I do mention my own levels in this post. It is not because I believe that my levels are the best, but rather because these are tips from my perspective, so it is easy for me to talk about my levels since I am talking about creating.

Look to others for inspiration:

This is something you need to be careful with, but it is very helpful. Once you have decided what type of level you want to make, then go look at other levels that are of that type.

If you are going to make a straight platformer, then check out the Story Levels, VelcroJonze's, and JackofCourse's levels.

If you are going to make a funny level then check out tsr13's and kaiju_kid's levels (kaiju_kid's is the poo one, the other isn't very serious).

If you want to make an RPG, then check out Salieri's (Curses!) and alismuffin's (Invader Zim) levels.

etc...

Don't just flat out copy these levels! Instead, sit down with a paper and pencil as you play them, and any time that you run into something that you like, then write it down. Don't write down exactly what the creator did, but rather, write down what element they used that you could implement into your level in your own way.

Using this process can really help you to get inspiration for your level, and it can also help you out if you have run out of ideas of what to build into a level that you are working on. I used this process to help me a lot with Lost at Sea and A Dingo Down Under since both of those levels were heavier with platfoming and I have never been a major platforming creator.

Just be warned: you need to make sure NOT TO COPY.

Try Something New:

This can be a pretty hard thing to do, and it is where I spend a lot of my time in level building. I always try to do something unique in my levels so that when people play them they will have a moment where the game feels fresh and new for them again because there is a new element that they have never seen. This way whenever they play a level of mine for the first time, they will get a feeling that they don't normally feel when they play a community level (if I pull it off correctly).

For Now and Then it was the time machine, for Lost at Sea it was the flashbacks, for Shallow Springs it was the puzzle, color scheme and giant boss, for A Dingo Down Under it was the fact that it was a (hopefully) Cambridge quality/style sequel to the Down Under levels, for Destiny it was the ship and collection aspect, and for Here and There was the ability to transport between the foreground and background.

Each of these aspects/mechanics took a good amount of time to come up with, implement, and perfect. I'm not talking hours, but rather days or weeks.

This whole category of "Try Something New" is just something that I apply to my levels. If you go play community levels, you will rarely find a new mechanic in a level, and levels without new mechanics are doing just fine, but there isn't much to make them stand out from the other levels. I try to do my best to make my levels stand out.

Some community levels that have really given me the "wow" feeling since I was seeing something new were: Jeffcu28's Zen with the painting mechanics, CyberSora's Sackboy Plays LBP PSP with the side scrolling PSP, and famouscustard's Sack Invaders for holding the PSP on its side.

Don't Give Up:

I think that every creator has awesome ideas when they begin creating, but as the try to implement them they will give up on most of them. The problem is that it takes time and a lot of thought to figure out how the tech needs to work to make new gaming elements work correctly. Sometimes you need to change things slightly, but a lot of the time you can make your ideas work if you just focus on it for a while and don't give up.

The problem is that most people want to finish their levels in a very short time, so they don't like to think about something for a few days while they try to make it work. So most creators will just scrap an incredible idea as soon as they get slightly stuck! This is why I think that you see lots of levels that are just relatively boring platformers with nothing new.

I highly encourage you to try to figure out how to implement cool ideas that you come up with, and if you get stuck, then ask for help!

Make Your Level Look Pretty:

I struggled with this a lot when I began creating on the PS3, and I still get told that my levels don't look the greatest.

You will always need to balance your thermo. Things like tech and scenery take up a LOT of thermo, so if you want to go heavy on tech like I do, then scenery is going to take a hit. That is why my levels will never be the cream of the crop when it comes to scenery.

However, I do take scenery very seriously! The way that I began getting better at it was that I would look to others for inspiration on this as well. Even more so for this than gaming elements.

There are fun things that creators such as JackofCourse and Salieri do to make their levels look so incredible. It has to do with a combination of incredible corner editing and awesome sticker work. I spent a lot of time just studying why Jack's levels looked so good on PS3 (as well as other people's levels), and this is how I began to understand how to improve my scenery. I really didn't improve on scenery a lot until I began working with the PSP because it forced me to use the corner editing tool, which is the key to making a great looking level :-D

Don't Rush Your Level:

This sort of goes hand in hard with the 2nd and 3rd point, but it is something that needs to be said. People tend to work on a level for a week (or weeks) and then they decide that they want the level published NOW! That may mean rushing the ending and making the level feel stripped down at the end, which is really sad after all of the work that went into it!

I have seen even highly respected authors do this (and confess to doing it), and it really confuses me. Why rush a level? If it isn't for a competition, then just take your time with it! It's not like you are competing with someone. You just spent countless hours on your level, and now you will throw all of that away because you are having issues with patience?

If you are feeling like you are getting tired of creating and just want to publish then I would HIGHLY encourage you to just set the level aside for days (or weeks) until you feel like creating again and then finish the level off in an outstanding way instead of a rushed way.

There are excuses for an ending that feels rushed, and this is when your thermo is maxed out and you realize that you haven't made your ending yet. To avoid this issue, build your ending for your level around the time that your thermo reaches 3/4. This way you know that you have a good ending, and you can then fit everything in between!

Testing:

Having a level tested is a huge help for having the initial publishing of a level turn out to be the only publishing. On PSP it is much more important to have that initial publishing be perfect because if you need to republish because of a problem, then you will lose all of your hearts and your plays. I can tell you from personal experience that sitting there a day after publishing and needing to decide if I will erase 20 hearts and 45 plays is a very, very painful experience.

Testing the level can go a long way to fixing these issues. There are different levels of testing, but often I see authors who don't use either level.

The first level is testing the level yourself. This requires you to play through the level over and over again and make sure that there are not visible bolts/tools/sound objects. It can be very easy to just get into the groove of the level since you built it, but you really need to stop every few seconds and take a good long look at each area to make sure that everything that should be hidden is hidden. It is rather sad how many times I will play an incredible level just to find objects that were obviously not meant to be visible. All it would take is about 5 to 10 more minutes on the author's part to play test the level a few times to catch these things.

The second level of testing is to have someone else test the level for you. I have a nice advantage on this because I can have my wife test my levels. While most of you might not have a spouse, I'm guessing that you have siblings or friends that could test your levels for you. It is helpful to have my wife test because she is not a hardcore LBP Player, so she can give me an idea to how someone who is not a pro will respond to my level.

I also have two good friends on LBPC who test my levels for me. These guys are my pro testers. They do everything they can to rip the level apart (and often succeed at it). These are the two most important people in the whole testing process. The issue is that I build the level, but then I already know everything about it, so I get into a pattern of how to play it and I could easily avoid large flaws with the level because I always unintentionally follow the same path. Having people play test the level for you will allow people to play the level in a different fashion because they don't know what to expect. They can not only find flaws (ways to escape the level, visible tools and objects), but they can also find issues with a level not being intuitive.

When my testers played Shallow Springs and Destiny for the first time, there were huge issues with how unintuitive certain aspects could be. They were great at explaining these issues, and all I had to do was change the dialog around a bit to make it more obvious. The level went from being frustrating to being a simple-to-understand experience.




Alrighty, those are the main tips that I had to give. There are so many things that I could touch on that I could talk your ear off for the rest of the day (and maybe I will update the thread with new things in the future).

Please keep in mind that these are only my thoughts, and I by no means think that I am an awesome creator who knows everything about creating.

[TheNerd]

Nice Tips AFP! This will certainly help people out.

Note that sometimes creators need breaks from creating. Mainly because of stress ^^

[SketchNZ]

Thanks for the tips afpoo this will help alot of people with a psp!

[VelcroJonze]

Wow Poo, this is awesome!!

And you put my name beside of JackOfCourse?

[Spark151]

The "Don't Rush Your Levels" section used to be me.
If you don't think so, check "Scenic of the Leaves" and "R.I.P. Sack".
On my Journey levels, I want to end it well, and not rush. This is why it takes me awhile to actually finish a level. I don't get creator's block. Rather, I just want to make sure everything works out fine. The thing is, I'm not ready to take those chances yet...
I'm working on a very new mechanic in my new Journey level.
I made an example one before I built it. The example switch worked out awesome! (It made me happy) The thing is, I'm not sure if I'm ready to implement it in my level yet. I drew sketches for it. It looks like it can be pulled off, but I don't feel ready. To make things badder. Not only I don't feel I'm not ready for my new switch, but I'm also going to build a boss fight. I worked on an example, but I'm still not ready.

I'm building a switch I've never seen pulled off. (I'm not saying no one did this, but I've never seen someone do this)

Anyways, my new Jouney level may take me very long than my other levels...

[amazingflyingpoo]

@Spark151:

You are exactly right! I really think that you have improved as an author with your Journey levels! They are longer, have better gameplay, and just feel like an all-around better experience! I remember back before the Journey series you were pumping out levels every two weeks. I think that your quality has drastically improved now that you are spending more time on every levels! That's not to say that your old levels were bad though! You have an awesome backlog of incredible levels. I am just saying that I think that they are getting even better now that you are putting more time into them.

I'm excited to see this new mechanic and boss in-game!

[ConverseFox]

I've also made some tech that I haven't seen yet.

When I make my first noncompetition level, I will include this tech.

[amazingflyingpoo]

Awesome cory! I will be looking forward to seeing this new mechanic/switch in action :-D

[Dhana777]

Wow this is a great Idea Poo!

Maybe you could add that a good level need a lot of playtesting.
I found out that if you have someone else test your level , they find more mistakes and stuff then you ever dreamed of.
This is caused from their fresh perspective as a creator you know the way exactly, and they stroll around and are a great help with finding places where you can fall down accidental and a lot of other things.

[SketchNZ]

My level im working on has somthing new i have not seen in any levels yet and i hope to add alot of new things never done before in this level.

im also going to need somone to test my level before i publish it but thats not going to be happening anytime soon

[jeffcu28•]

Hey Poo,

Thanks for taking the time to put this insightful guide together. I added it to the Tutorial Spotlight!


Waiting for an amazingflying logic tutorial,
jeffcu28

[amazingflyingpoo]

You are absolutely right Dhana777! I just added a section to the end about testing because it is very important and it is very obvious when a player does not test their level.

[Alismuffin]

All these tips are absolute gold!
And I fell for the rushing the ending temptation on sackula and magical forest

invader zim however took me and the nerd more than a month to complete and I don't know about you guys, but I think it came out alot better than those pre-mentioned levels. So theres proof for you!

Also the more u create, the better you get. If you get the chance to see my old levels(unitedstates12) you can compare with my recent levels and see this. This goes for VelcroJonze too XD!

[Fastbro]

I'm always filled with temptation to rush my levels. Possibly because I love getting feedback. Thanks for the guide, poo I'm sure it'll help a lot of creators (including me!)

[jackofcourse]

Good stuff

I haven't been on LBP PSP for a quite a long time because of a crazy hectic life! It's good to see it's now stronger than ever though