Weeks on 1 level?!

[Ungreth•]

It took me 6 months to make Space Assassins 2. Even my last project which was only a music video took a week to make the song and then another 3 weeks to put the video together, working on it 6-12 hours a day, every day.

I have a pretty solid workrate, but I believe that if you want to push your level beyond being just "satisfactory" and take it to the stars then you gotta put in the time. Sometimes that can mean scrapping days of work and starting afresh on a section, not because there's anything wrong with what you've made, but because it disrupts the flow of gameplay or deviates from a cohesive aesthetic when considered in the holistic context of your level. Sometimes you just need to stand back from your level for a few days while you plan your next approach or wait an epiphany of creative inspiration.

Even when the level is "finished", it's never really finished. That bit that always bugged you for some reason but you're not entirely sure what else to do with it and oh, it took you soooo long to do it in the first place? Well, you can guarantee that it will bug the player too, so don't rest on your laurels. If you know there's room for improvement then get off your lazy posterior and work to improve it. Thermo left? Use it.

So yeah, if anyone says they can produce a high quality level in less than a week, they're either Luos or they're lying.

[Sackpapoi]

It's very true that creating can be a long and difficult process, but the result is usually worth it. I shouldn't know though, I haven't spent more than a month on a single level. I get really bored and disappointed in a level I've been building for more than a week and a half. I feel like it could be so much better, or that I simply don't want to make it any more. It's like a one-time thing.
I hear many people saying "create for yourself", but honestly, that just doesn't cut it for me sometimes. Everyone has their own method of creating, whether it be for themselves, others, or for fun, and I just don't feel like I should be creating this way, or that way, or doing it the "right" way. There are some ways that really help some, but hinder others.

However, another reason I don't spend much time creating is because I have to share my PS3 with two others, so we have to split the time into turns, and it really doesn't give me enough time to create. It DOES, however, give enough time for the ideas in my head to cook, and that is good and bad in certain ways. I don't want to keep creating multiple levels and ditch others. Also, some ideas are obviously better than others, and sometimes better than ideas I've already started working on, which leads me to delete many, many levels that never make it to my Earth.
But I guess it doesn't entirely matter how much time you spend on a level. That doesn't mean you have to spend a year on a level for it to be good, you can just be a really quick and efficient creator. Of course, taking time and practicing are very important, but it doesn't mean it has to be SO much time that it's stressful.

[fumetsusozo]

Like me somepeople prefer to create whole games on LBP. and not just simply mere levels. and real games even with the LBPtools will take you easily a month or 2... perhaps far more depending on what kind of game you are building and how fast you are of a creator. i've been off and on have been working on a level series for over 8 months now. *mew

[lemurboy12]

The time it takes for me to make a level is always different. Many of The Dups levels were created in only a few hours with a bunch of friends and we pretty much improvise around a simple idea. Some can take a few days, but that's really it. However, I've been working on this minigame level for like 2 weeks. Not because building is taking awhile, but coming up with ideas for minigames. I want this level to have lots of them, because the concept of this level is that winning or losing a minigame takes you to a completely different minigame, and it takes you to a new path. I want the minigames to be as random and ridiculous in a funny way as possible. Yeah. Coming up with them has been pretty difficult. I have at least 20 finished, but that's not enough.

[kirbyman62]

By the time I've completely finished with a level, around 2-3 months have usually passed. I don't go on my PS3 for more than around 1 hour and a half a day though. You'll find the thermometer generally plays nice and lets you make massive levels, or shorter levels with really detailed graphics. Either way, it'll take a while, but if you put the time in you should be happy with what you come out with

[ryano775]

Well these are satisfying results. : )

[Pickle962]

Creating a level in my experience depends on several factors. What kind of mood your in, what kind of level you have in mind, real life, other video games, etc. I've been working on two levels for the past few weeks or so and im barely a fourth of the way done with them in terms of what i have planned for both of them. If all i did was play lbp2 and always be in the mood to create, then maybe i would be done with both of my levels by now. Of course, that would probably not be for the best seeing as how i like to put plenty of time and effort into my levels. Quality over quantity as they say. Seeing as how i have other things to do and sometimes im just not in the mood to create, I might tweak a thing or two in my level and call it a day. Other times, i can get some substantial work done. It just depends on the factors i mentioned above.

[Kalawishis]

I am completely crazy when it comes to creating. The most time I've created in one sitting was around 7-8 hours, which is pretty pitiful compared to some of you but quite extraordinary for me. On the other hand, I can spend almost a week playing LBP without touching create mode. It just depends on the amount of time I have. I had ample time on the PS3 once, and I managed to create Sackdroid - Intro (my best level) in only a few weeks, while it took me two months to make some of my lesser movies, simply because of less time.

The level I'm working on now could possibly span many months, being my most ambitious project. If I don't have ample time, it could easily drag into 2013.

So it pretty much depends on how much PS3 time I have.

[arbiekko]

It bears minding that a lot of players are addicted to the comfort of being in progress.

I could write forever about gaming addiction. A problem with LBP is that it taps into a deeper creative addiction that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with games.

It ensnares the sort of us who get wrapped up in the hobby of hobbying, having goals but not assigning a number of hours or managing our time like we do with other deadline-oriented projects. Like writers who write for years, new pages every night, and are never closer to "the end", or fitness addicts who live for their daily regimen of 3 hours jogging around the neighborhood, 3 gym hours, 3 hours on the treadmill at home.

That fitness addict doesn't go to bed on day 59 or reach mile 999 thinking, "Tomorrow is day 60 / I've run run 1000 miles, therefore I am finished with my hobby". That would actually depress the **** out of them. When the goal gets near, they distort it or levy it into a new goal, sometimes without ever acknowledging they met their last goal, sometimes making the new goal impossibly ambitious, to ensure they can keep running on that treadmill tomorrow and the day after and every day after.

Same goes for certain folks finishing a level in LBP. "Long termers" get swallowed in the process and turn the time investment into a point of pride. "I'm dedicated to my level and I know it's good because it's the longest I've ever spent on it." I'm not belittling this attitude or the spectacular resulting levels that come out of a lengthy investment, it's exactly how I approach my own levels. But I also know where ambition stops and self-deluding security kicks in, as far as my own projects go, because I've blown right past imaginary deadlines and can say for sure that my most time-intensive levels are not my best, nor is there any benefit to spending 51 hours on a level after I've spent about 50 hours on it. There are tons of prolific, talented creators who "churn out" new levels every few weeks that are amazing. Those levels might benefit from a few extra days of work. But their creators are making better use of that time, and already a few days close to being finished with the next level because they judged enough was enough and published and moved on.

Anyway, just bears minding. A lot of us are biased addicts.

[xHuRbUrTzZ]

anything is better than Latin player so I wouldn't really complain

[IMG][/IMG]

[mrmarc1996]

I don't create much per day, (Really the longest time I've spent creating in one day is, at the most, three or four hours. Many times I will not create for days, sometimes I'll even take long breaks from Videogames all together) but the things I plan and really want to make take more time than that. So I always end up get discouraged and make something slightly less time consuming, telling myself that this time I'm going to finish it. :P It hasn't happened yet. As far as enjoying progress goes, I enjoy it, but I enjoy the satisfaction that comes with completing something a whole lot more, when you can just sit back and say, "Ah. I'm done."

[bossveg]

Months for me too. I guess each level would easily clock in about 150 odd hours. I always work on paper first too. I like to work out a gimic that would inform the gameplay (ie use just blue bounce pads) and from then start to scribble down ideas and translate them in create. I get a brain ache if I try to build and come up with ideas in game....

[Ali_Star]

Months for me too. I guess each level would easily clock in about 150 odd hours. I always work on paper first too. I like to work out a gimic that would inform the gameplay (ie use just blue bounce pads) and from then start to scribble down ideas and translate them in create. I get a brain ache if I try to build and come up with ideas in game....

Pfffffft! Amateur!

I think, since my levels are mainly logic based, that's why I tend to take so much time on them. The level I'm working on now is platform, logic and puzzle based, with a lot of room for errors.... it's taking me forever, and I don't think I'll be done with it any time soon. I should quit my job and work on it full time!

[bossveg]

Pfffffft! Amateur!

I think, since my levels are mainly logic based, that's why I tend to take so much time on them. The level I'm working on now is platform, logic and puzzle based, with a lot of room for errors.... it's taking me forever, and I don't think I'll be done with it any time soon. I should quit my job and work on it full time!

Amateur is true. :P I'm useless with logic and the longer and most frustrating moments of creating for me are in the microchips. Just the thought of trying to use a combiner or splitter brings me out in a nervous sweat.

[Sunbunny23]

All i can is that you want to perfect the level. so it would take months. creating 2 days is just no true experience. some people actully can make a good level in 2 days like during early lbp2 days ( say about 1-5 days when it first came out ) there was a street fighter level which was awsome. you can still find it in cool pages using "versus" tag.