Level Design Ideas

What all of us modders need to make is level design. Even mastering the script tags fully won't make a good mod, and thus shalt we learn ye basics of level design. However, limited in means of making anything we want, since adding completely new things to Cave Story requires programming knowledge and is much more advanced than just using what's already in it in creative means, we'll together have a look at what can be done with the stuff that's in the game. Good ideas will be edited into this post. When I get the urge.

Bank of ideas concerning level design (I have not came up with all of these ideas myself but rather stolen ideas from posts in this topic):

• A tile set to be a "Starblock tile" will change to the tile left of it when destroyed. That means you can have starblocks that changes into solid walls. Try using this for a maze.
• Hopping critters from the egg corridor will look perfect even when you're using the Weed spritesheet for the area. Flying critters will however not look perfect when you use the Eggs spritesheet...
• Remember to use uphills and downhills. Making a level built entirely of square pieces might look unprofessional. (Jenka's Nightmare does this mistake quite often.)
• Try to have some empty space around the level, solid walls or emptyness. Getting to the upper left corner of a level and being obscured by the HUD makes your level look unprofessional. (Jenka's Nightmare does this mistake quite often.)
• By default (if you don't edit tile types), enemies can't pass trough most of the chain/metal beam tiles that's used to make platforms look like they're not hovering but hanging. Protagnist can however pass trough these. This can be used to lock monsters in place.
• Try putting a bunch (6~8) of Star Blocks on top of each other and a treasure chest or life capsule on top. This makes a nice puzzle where the player has to shoot some of the blocks and jump from the rest of them.
• The Lv3 machine gun can be used to hover. There's no places in Cave Story where you need to use it, but it could be possible to design areas where you need that in your mod. (Especially with a limited ammo of, say, 25, this could prove quite challenging)!
• Most of those are just tricks, but as far as star blocks go, erasing the starblock pic in NpcSym makes the tile be drawn from the PrtFile like it would normally.
• room full of star blocks with only fireball can make for a devilish maze. Hide things behind the star blocks for a secret upon returning.
• PC press down to run script renders enemies harmless, utilize for puzzles
• Make structures (sometimes useless, sometimes not) that make the player think "hmm maybe there's a secret up there" just to explore the map more. Give rewards for really out of place areas
• rooms full of fans/running water really tosses a break from standard gameplay
• pausing the music in a cutscene adds to the mood
• Gravekeepers with no space to jump over them SCARY.
• Having the moving water from the core can make awesomeness happen, but only if used right.
• Don't do anything in excess. Especially flies and massive purple mountains.

Feel free to use or submit ideas for level design.

 

Most of those are just tricks, but as far as star blocks go, erasing the starblock pic in NpcSym makes the tile be drawn from the PrtFile like it would normally.

As far as general level design tips go:
- Critters are really easy on flat surfaces (you can walk under them) but in confined spaces or if they're somewhere you have to jump up to, they can be annoying as hell.
- Gravekeepers with no space to jump over them SCARY.
- Pixel perfect jumps are annoying as poo.
- Change the height of the terrain during the map (if it's outside), make your entrance and exits on different levels.
- Having the moving water from the core can make awesomeness happen, but only if used right.
- Don't do anything in excess. Especially flies and massive purple mountains.
- For boss fights, terrain is pretty much the most important thing. If you want a hard bossfight w/ torokox, but her in a very confined space, if you want an original one, put her in a room with water (haha, but not anymore).
- Don't feel constrained. Feel free to make a non-uni ironhead battle, or a no-grav basil hell.
- Test your levels before you release them. If it don't work, fix it. If you don't like it, nobody else will either.
- Eyecandy is very nice. Like big purple mountains.
- Be original. Already sorta covered this, but vary your maps. Make them something new.

Other stuff as well, but those are the main ones that pop of the top of my head.


- Edit: Oh yeah, make sure your gun is fun/matched with the level you're currently making. Fireball levels, enemies w/ gravity. Polar star levels, enemies w/ little health. Monkey levels, enemies w/ monkeys.

 

Most of my level ideas involve weapons I want to make in assembly, but I doubt I'll ever get around to them, so here goes:

-weapon: teleports you 3 squares in the direction you are pointing. The level has lots of enemies that chase you so you have to teleport out of the way.

-weapon: makes blocks you can jump on, but they dissapear after a fixed time. You would have to make a path and then use it before it dissappeared.

-weapon: "shockwave" with a really wide bullet, and lots of enemies that swarm you. but you don't reallly have to aim because your bullet is really wide.

also, lace: you can just walk through the gravekeeper too, as long as he isn't stabbing at that instant.

 

You could make the grave keeper a solid object?

 

- Gravekeepers with no space to jump over them SCARY.

Why would you need to jump over them? I run through them normally.

-weapon: teleports you 3 squares in the direction you are pointing. The level has lots of enemies that chase you so you have to teleport out of the way.

I can't imagine it would be especially difficult if you modified the code of another weapon, say the Polar Star. Instead of loading the "bullet hits wall" or "bullet disappears" sprite, you'd just move Quote to that spot. The Polar Star has increasing range with each level-up, too.

 

So one day there was this hell mod contest, right, and a bunch of people submitted a bunch of mods focussed on gameplay, right. And then I heard there was this voting thread set up somewhere, for voting in, right.

Seriously though I'll throw up some notes when I have two spare minutes to rub together, which will probably be Thursday.

 

• Add a few pleasent surprises to your map, but don't put too many unnexpected spikes. They're annoying as hell.
• Details. A field isn't a field without grass.
• Don't be shy about drawing a few new tiles to the tileset. It's always great to see something new. Even if it's a different colour block, we'll notice it.

 

Add a few pleasent surprises to your map, but don't put too many unnexpected spikes. They're annoying as hell.

Only for n00bs.
---
Here's a technique I like to fall back on when I am at a loss.
ZIgzag.
Like Labyrinth M or the Waterway.

Put two spikes like this.
> <
> <
> <
> <


then you jump between them.


Make judicious (did I spell that right??) use of the tileset. No n00by mistakes like blocks hovering unless paralax is set to 2-Equal

Find some other uses for the Horizontal Presses. (see Plantation)
I've found that with the Booster 2.0 you can actually land on them if you're skilled. Use this.

Entering Water Horizontally-I'll leave you to figuer that out.

 

•Make structures (sometimes useless, sometimes not) that make the player think "hmm maybe there's a secret up there" just to explore the map more. Give rewards for really out of place areas
•make use of Quote's limit of clearing only 3 blocks vertically in a jump, make the player return with the booster to get that out of place life capsule
•<ZAM can be annoying as hell, but in the right place it presents a fun challenge
•rooms full of fans/running water really tosses a break from standard gameplay
•energy capsules respawn by default, try not to allow return to places using them, or at least use <ZAM before entry
•PC press down to run script renders enemies harmless, utilize for puzzles
•lifts get really boring, unless you allow movement by getting rid of <KEY or <PRI (big elavator with boss fights?)
• make a life capsule entity a solid for a dirty trick
•20 energy crystals are unfair (unless you have a weapon that needs tons of exp)
•room full of star blocks with only fireball can make for a devilish maze. Hide things behind the star blocks for a secret upon returning.
•pausing the music in a cutscene adds to the mood

 

I've added the following ideas to the 1st post:

-Most of those are just tricks, but as far as star blocks go, erasing the starblock pic in NpcSym makes the tile be drawn from the PrtFile like it would normally.
-room full of star blocks with only fireball can make for a devilish maze. Hide things behind the star blocks for a secret upon returning.
-PC press down to run script renders enemies harmless, utilize for puzzles
-Make structures (sometimes useless, sometimes not) that make the player think "hmm maybe there's a secret up there" just to explore the map more.
-Give rewards for really out of place areas
-rooms full of fans/running water really tosses a break from standard gameplay
-pausing the music in a cutscene adds to the mood
-Gravekeepers with no space to jump over them SCARY.
-Having the moving water from the core can make awesomeness happen, but only if used right.
-Don't do anything in excess. Especially flies and massive purple mountains.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

Map composition.

ITT: discuss map composition. I'll write more tomorrow.

 

We do have this but yeah it's a good thread.
I don't know much about level design / composition.

 

It's simple enough, really.

You make the level and then you test it. If it's fun, you keep it. If it's boring, you change it. If it's impossible, you change it.
If everyone complains about the difficulty of it, you try to make it easier.

 

If it's impossible, you change it.
If everyone complains about the difficulty of it, you try to make it easier.

This coming from the creator of WTF Story.

 

This coming from the creator of WTF Story.

That's just exactly what I do when I make the levels.

The old tetris was a bit harder (and it's even easier in v0.5). Also the whole reason there's an easy mode is due to the outcry against the original difficulty.

 

But the Tetris puzzle isn't even that hard anymore :/ I'd muchly prefer it if you'd make Chapter 2 a bit longer.

On that note:
-Try to make difficulty scale with some consistency. Players are going to be more likely to want to put the effort in to beat something tough after they're already invested in the mod and have a feel for what to expect.
-Also try to get a feel for where to put in save points. Both difficulty and length of time need to be considered; there need not be one on every map if they're short/easy.
-Tons of HP =/= hard boss fight. Tons of enemies =/= hard level.

There are a lot of common mistakes that people make that I think should be listed up so they can be avoided too, e.g. doors that don't animate properly, <KEY being used when <PRI should be, events that still trigger after a future objective has already been achieved, etc.

 

Hmmm.
I don't think this applies as much here as it does in other games, but whenever you teach the character a new mechanic, please don't explicitly talk about it. E.g. in mario when they're teaching you that some blocks when hit from beneath let off items, there is no text that appears on your screen saying to do that, instead, a goomba forces you to jump into the blocks, thus showing the mechanic. Again, I don't think this applies as much (most of us know how it works already from cs), but if there's some sort of puzlle or something, make sure the player can figure out what he can do that solves it.

 

-Try to make difficulty scale with some consistency. Players are going to be more likely to want to put the effort in to beat something tough after they're already invested in the mod and have a feel for what to expect.

This sounds like something that Cave Story itself did not do.

Hmmm.
I don't think this applies as much here as it does in other games, but whenever you teach the character a new mechanic, please don't explicitly talk about it. E.g. in mario when they're teaching you that some blocks when hit from beneath let off items, there is no text that appears on your screen saying to do that, instead, a goomba forces you to jump into the blocks, thus showing the mechanic. Again, I don't think this applies as much (most of us know how it works already from cs), but if there's some sort of puzlle or something, make sure the player can figure out what he can do that solves it.

I think it's good to have this sort of "tutorial as you go" available to you, but either make it optional or make it non-blatant.

 

This sounds like something that Cave Story itself did not do.

It totally did. There's a difficulty incline from the intro -> grasstown -> sand zone -> labyrinth -> final chapter

 

Call me a doucheface faggotass dweeb, but the way I look at maps is the same way I look at paintings. I look at maps as pieces of art, that's why whenever I'm making a map I try to add as many nuances in simple tiles as possible. To be honest I'd just draw the whole map if it were possible. But that's just like, my opinion, man.