Level Design Tips

[Snessy the duck]

197: If you're going to copy Nintendo's design, at least try to understand what made it fun in the first place.

[PixelPest]

197: If you're going to copy Nintendo's design, at least try to understand what made it fun in the first place.

How about if you're going to copy Nintendo's design just don't

[HeroLinik]

197: If you're going to copy Nintendo's design, at least try to understand what made it fun in the first place.

How about if you're going to copy Nintendo's design just don't

You're right. Copying Nintendo's design doesn't automatically make you good at making levels, it shows that you're good at copying other people's hard work. The fact that you're copying it in the first place makes it apparent that you're not good at building levels off your own accord.

[krakin]

197: If you're going to copy Nintendo's design, at least try to understand what made it fun in the first place.

How about if you're going to copy Nintendo's design just don't

You're right. Copying Nintendo's design doesn't automatically make you good at making levels, it shows that you're good at copying other people's hard work. The fact that you're copying it in the first place makes it apparent that you're not good at building levels off your own accord.

I think if you want to make a memorable level, it should have something different than what other levels have. If you copy someone else's level, your's still not going to be any better than their's if both are similar in design and mechanics.

[ElectriKong]

198: Ignore 197 and don't copy levels

[Emral]

198: Ignore 197 and don't copy levels

"Nintendo's Design" =/= "Nintendo's levels"
Nintendo's design isn't restricted to remakes of 1-1 or whatever, but also spans over how they design all their levels. Applying inspiration properly is important.

[Thehelmetguy1]

^
That is what people apparently don't understand. Inspiration and copying are different things. It is like saying that Undertale copied Earthbound.

[arcade999]

Try making original levels, like something that was not made before, like a cemetery, a city or...minecraft.

^
That is what people apparently don't understand. Inspiration and copying are different things. It is like saying that Undertale copied Earthbound.

Or saying that roblox rip off minecraft. Those persons are just SOOO annoyings!

[Snessy the duck]

Cementry and city levels have been done a lot before (Especially city levels) and I've seen a few Minecraft levels here and there.

[Mable]

^
That is what people apparently don't understand. Inspiration and copying are different things. It is like saying that Undertale copied Earthbound.

Wrong Undertale obvioulsy copied Doom.

[arcade999]

Cementry and city levels have been done a lot before (Especially city levels) and I've seen a few Minecraft levels here and there.

But there isn't a lot of them, if you compare them to ALL those grasslands/caves/deserts/castle typical levels. And as cemetery, I means like a REAL cemetery, not like putting hills with stones and boos, but a graveyard like in ghouls and ghosts on SNES, wich the graphics exists in squishee Rex pack.

^
That is what people apparently don't understand. Inspiration and copying are different things. It is like saying that Undertale copied Earthbound.

Wrong Undertale obvioulsy copied Doom.

And doom copied halo, who copied Tetris.

[Thehelmetguy1]

And Tetris copied Pong

[ElectriKong]

Which copied Ping Pong

No not the real life version, the Wii Play version obviously


And people were making out Nintendo's design to be their levels.

[Emral]

Originality doesn't come with graphics but with gameplay.
The reason we see more grasslands than cities is because we have more grassland graphics.
This doesn't mean all grasslands are unoriginal and the same. That part is due to a lack of originality in a level's gameplay and can affect city levels as much as it can affect grasslands.

[arcade999]

Originality doesn't come with graphics but with gameplay.
The reason we see more grasslands than cities is because we have more grassland graphics.
This doesn't mean all grasslands are unoriginal and the same. That part is due to a lack of originality in a level's gameplay and can affect city levels as much as it can affect grasslands.

I personnaly think that originality can also impact the gameplay, like, it's a winning mix.

[TDK]

This doesn't mean all grasslands are unoriginal and the same.

There's an original grassland? I must know what this original grassland is.

[ElectriKong]

200: Visuals can affect gameplay

[Thehelmetguy1]

201: Ignore rule 200. Visuals only really affect gameplay if they are really bad to see. Otherwise they will just at worst affect the people's opinions. Remember: There are many levels that don't look that much but are good, and there are levels that look nice but are trash.

[HackPlayer7]

202: Here are ways to make a maybe acceptable secret exit ;
-Collecting # item (or killing # NPC)
-Activating Block/NPC
-Bringing a specific power-up to a spot (or NPC)
-Having to race to the secret exit to access it.
-Manipulating the screen warp.

I wouldn't recommend to put it in a random warp, since the player will have to cuddle their selves against every pipe to find it. Instead, make a level where all pipes are one or certain colors, and the warp could have a pipe with a color never seen before in the level.

Otherwise, don't use dragon coins for a secret exit. They're meant to give players 1-ups and aren't obligatory to take. Instead, use another NPC to collect.

[aero]

Who is keeping up with all of these tips by the way? After the past few "ignore that tip because I don't like that" tips, this thread is basically pointless now with the unread advice being held under by subjective personal opinions and repetition. Like honestly, who is coming to this thread and saying "hmm tip XYZ really makes me think; I'll do that instead!" while they're designing a level? Wouldn't it be a lot better and more informative to people by sticking to reviews and leaving the tips there so that they're not as generalized and everyone can demonstrate how someone's design is bad and then correct it? Imho, it's a great alternative to judging levels with a score and accomplishes this thread's intended goal much better through a more direct method.