The Level Designer's Trap

One trap some designers fall into is falsely labeling their levels, breaking rules whenever they see fit. Nifflas included the level sorting feature for a good reason, as it makes large libraries manageable - but only as long as designers cooperate. That is, they actually read and follow Nifflas' level labeling rules, and not break them just because.   

I think that designers just not labelling their levels at all is a bigger problem.

I currently have 128 pages of levels, and just going by size tags (the most easily countable category, as it has no overlap), there are only 76 pages of levels with size labels. Finding untagged levels is hard.

You know, goog, I have the very same problem. I think about you and how much you must go through to get to a level when I try to find one. You have like twice as many levels as me.

Another trend I've noticed is that custom animations tend to be under-used. I'm not sure why; maybe COs are too challenging to make, or perhaps they came short of the popular expectation as moving, death-dealing interactive objects.

Custom objects' properties are rather fiddly, and the Advanced Features Demo level doesn't exactly do a fantastic job of explaining them, which definitely serves as a deterrent.  Also, as anyone who's ever tried knows, animating a sprite is a lot harder than drawing a still image.

Ey, i unno if this has been told yet, but in the Adventures in the Void level there is a hole with two savepoints, and it is a trap with the green muncher thing. And since there are savepoints, if it will NOM Juni once, it goes on like that forever! Nomnomnomnomnomnomnom! IT DRIVES ME CRAZY! So, you get it, right? Don't build savepoints in a trap!

Ey, its already been posted.

Other traps:
enemy inside juni syndrome
Simply put, starting the player inside of a killer object.  NEVER advisable, even if it's a trap or a joke level.

Bank 12 - Object 12

Water drops of death are disturbing...

>run:\\revive.exe
>set_excuse: This should srsly be stickied. So many first levels are ruined by this, and, sadly, so are second and third attempts.

Bank 12 - Object 12

Water drops of death are disturbing...

That's a legitimate enemy. Just because it's hard, doesn't make the level it's used in bad.

Only people who make good levels are eligible to speak their mind here.

All the people who make good levels are long gone.

All the people who make good levels are long gone.

Hey, I was only gone for a week. :<

Define "good level".
But yeah, a lot of people who made great levels before are gone now.

Having (just) started the Soaring Star Reverie level mentioned in one of the other KS forums I've got a new one to add:

- White projectiles on a white background. This ties in with the unfair level design/enemy placement.
PROTIP: A level which randomly kills you is never fun!

^ That reminds me about Save Points in snow levels, so easy to miss! Of course the general rule is, before worrying about graphic quality and cohesive style, to make sure the important elements of the game are clearly visible.

Since I'm already here, might as well ask about this too: how do you feel about levels (especially explorative ones) having a fork at a certain point, where one path goes on while the other is a dead end with a Save point? I generally dislike this, but I'm asking because there's an instance of that in Nifflas's The Machine (although certainly not in a dangerous zone, so missing that Save Point hardly has any consequences).

PROTIP: A level which randomly kills you is never fun!

Except for the sadists who make it.

Quote from: Widget on January 28, 2010, 14:50:34

PROTIP: A level which randomly kills you is never fun!

Except for the sadists who make it.

And those crazy enough to LP it (ProtonJon =D).