Are you working on a longterm project?

It just occurred to me that I'll be busy building Falling Water for at least another year or so, at the current rate - quite possibly longer, even. This is a somewhat depressing thought, although, of course, level building is fun and it's nice to have a project I enjoy so much. But, still...

So... here's a thread to commiserate about longterm projects, and the frustrations that come with them. ;-)

I'll start:

I'm building a level called "Falling Water", current projected total size 600-800 unique, playable screens, 222 of which are finished. I started about six months ago. It's an exercise in using as many of my favourite tilesets, in as good-looking a way as I can manage. It's also an exercise in telling the history of a far-future civilisation, using nothing but cat speech balloons. I haven't figured all of the history out myself yet. This may actually be the most frustrating thing. But I'm also frustrated, sometimes, because I want to share all the pretty new areas I've made, yet since the level is so non-linear, it doesn't make sense to release it in small parts. The next possible break at which I could publish a second part (the first part, which is fairly linear, has been posted already) is still hundreds of screens away.

Another frustrating thing is sound - both sound effects and music. I'd like to find really well fitting music, and construct an interesting audio-atmosphere for the caves I'm building, but I've found very little music so far that I'd really care to use, and as for making or combining sound effects, I have no experience with audio-editing. Still, I suppose I could learn how to edit sound effect samples; that's not really the most daunting thing here. But the music problem bothers me. I've spent so many evenings searching, with so little success.

Anyway. The main thing is: finishing this level is still 400-600 screens away. Arrgh!

I have experience with long-term projects, as I have done a few now.

In order to do such big project the following is a must if you want it to succeed:

Write! Write! Write!
You need to write down all the idea's that you want to do for this project. Keeping them in your head will slow you down but furthermore it will make you forget some of the idea's.

When you write them down, speak out your thoughts rather than to first formulate it into an idea and writing that down.

example:
✔ I want to make an area that looks like a volcano. I want this area to be small, but at least have some interesting puzzle in it. The idea for the puzzle will be something using a code and a door. I haven't decided yet how exactly.
✘ There will be an area with a volcano themed environment. Dimension 10 to 15 screens. Puzzle element: password protected door with a code or something...

The reason why the second doesn't work, is it makes you think too much about how you are going to write it down, and that makes you loose the idea while writing it down. As you type down what comes up in you, you are able to write everything down.

Write as much down as you feel necessary. Too much is better than too little. Don't keep idea's in your head, write it all down.

Categorise and reformulate
Now that you've written everything down, its time to put order into the chaos. Group ideas that are for the same area and make small sections. Also now would be a good time to think about the idea's you're having and write them down as "I want to do it like this." So "I want to make a level" becomes "Make a level."

Read
Now is a good time to read everything and see if it still makes sense. If not, correct where necessary.

Split where possible
As you want to be building on something, you need to create little work projects. In order to do this, put all what you've written above into small sections (the smaller the better) and make small assignments for them. Now you'll have a huge list with items that you want to put in your level. This'll be your to-do list.

order
If certain items cannot be executed from top to bottom, rearrange your list so it can be executed from top to bottom.

optional: planning
Optionally, you can add to each assignment how long you think it will take you to make that. It will make it easier to keep your schedule, but sometimes its not possible to keep the schedule due to limited time. If you only want to work on it when you can, then you can skip this step.

execute and make your level!
Now start doing your assignments from top to bottom. Once you completed a task, remove it from your list.


perfect practice
Here's an example on how you can make this all work.
You start by creating a directory called projects.
Inside this directory, you create another directory called: Making level x
Inside this directory, you create another directory called: ideas
Inside this directory we'll be planning our level. You create a lot of text files. For each textfile, you put up a small description for what the idea is as filename, and inside it, you put that particular idea.

Example:
area_volcano.txt
I want to make a volcano area that is small. It will have some brown with fire in it. It'll be an area that you pass through. Nothing really happens there, just to connect 2 area's.

Once you have a lot of textfiles, you're creating a new folder in your project directory called: Ideas refined. You'll be creating new text files there with special area's grouped together and written down as solid ideas. If you want, you can make a directory in the directory Ideas with the name "done" and move textfiles there once you added them to the "Ideas refined".

Now its time to read all the textfiles through to see if you missed anything.

If you now would get new idea's, its best to add the ideas as new "Ideas" textfiles first, and add them to the "Ideas refined" textfiles later.

Depending on how much text you have in total now, you can start to create your checklist. If the ideas are not that many, and you think that you can put everything in one big textfile, then do that. If you have enough text for such file to become too big and difficult to maintain, then do the following:

Create a new text document called to-do.txt in the main directory. Go through all the refined ideas, and create sections. Give each section a title using [title], and add them respectfully to the to-do.txt list.

Example:
area_volcano.txt
[area]
Create an area, small in size, of say 15 screens. Use tilesets 3 and 21. Make it mostly horizontal (max 3 screens up or down)

[add obstacles]
Edit the area, and add pits of fire/water to jump over and maybe create some jump challenges.

[add vegetation]
Add background vegetation to most tiles so it looks more sleak.

[add background]
Add background to the parts as if it looks that something happens in the background.

[add critters]
Add a maximum of 3 critters throughout the entire volcano level.

[add functionality]
Go through and see if shifts/signs/savespots/etc are required. If so add them at appropriate locations.

[add anything thats still missing]
Go through the area and see if it can be made look even better.

And in the to-do.txt:
area_volcano::area
area_volcano::add obstacles
area_volcano::add vegetation
area_volcano::add background
area_volcano::add critters
area_volcano::add functionality
area_volcano::add anything that is still missing

Now you can go through your to-do list and see if you can give items a timeframe.

to-do.txt:
area_volcano::area   (3 hours)
area_volcano::add obstacles (2 hours)
area_volcano::add vegetation (2 days)
area_volcano::add background (5 hours)
area_volcano::add critters (20 minutes)
area_volcano::add functionality (1 hour)
area_volcano::add anything that is still missing

I didn't add a timeframe on the last item since its a check and can take from 15 minutes to 4 days depending on how creative we are.

Now you need to order it so it works, putting the area's in order of appearance. You can even say to design all the areas first and then add stuff like vegetation to all of them etc... Thats up to you.

Then its time to execute your list and remove items from it that are done. When checking an item, open the corresponding refined idea, and read what you wanted to do again and execute.



Sorry for the long rant

Oh. Yes. I've been working on a level for quite some time now (at least half a year), but I can't seem to make much noticeable progress. It's going to be a level where Juni has to search the whole planet for some... things (haven't really decided what they're supposed to be yet). So far, I've only got the Antarctic because university has been quite exhausting recently.

The main problem is that I aim to portray each continent (by means of a few particular countries) as justly and as correctly as possible, be it in my choice of tilesets, music or, very vaguely, the respective 'atmosphere' of a country. For every country I choose, I'd love to capture at least one intriguing detail that might make people from that country playing the level say, 'How nice, she has actually done some research for our country'.

So I've been researching much more than actually building the level. I've already googled and saved hundreds of pictures to get a feeling what the countries look like. I try to find specific geographical particularities I could imitate. I try to listen to music that is as authentic to those countries as possible. I try to think of ways I could imitate that music just as authentically without receding into clichéd depictions of "default notions" people from other countries may have (or to find some music that is free to use and that meets my standards). Not having travelled much in my relatively short life probably doesn't help.

I suppose my problem in general is that I expect too much of myself. It's not all that probable that people would feel offended by my level even if I put a little less research work into it. But I'd hate to take that risk, I despise clichés born out of the lack of will to research, and I'm a perfectionist. So it will most likely take another one or two years before my level will be finished...

Don't get me wrong, building the level is fun, especially since I learn more about countries that interest me and even about countries that I previously thought didn't interest me as much; what makes it so difficult and frustrating is that I still have to wait for that moment when I will have this feeling of accomplishment. But I hope that moment will come some day...


@LPChip: That's a good idea - I've never even thought of it that way (and I LOVE lists). I will start mine right away!

Glad I can help.

Note one thing though, this technique isn't just for levels, but for any large project.

The key is: first write down what you want to get there, only then think about how.

Thanks! Yes, I am the kind of person who writes everything down, so I've already done that, but not as systematically, and that's what may just make the difference. My notes always stay somewhat vague and diffuse - I get stuck in the writing-ideas-down part, and often it's difficult for me to progress to the ordering-and-organising part. So you have indeed helped me (especially since this technique can be used for other big projects as well)!

Wow, oebchen, that sounds pretty great! I'll be looking forward to that now! (Damn... another slow-to-progress level to wait for... ;-))

@LPChip: I am awed by how organised you are. I do write down everything, too - on paper, because I'm old-fashioned that way - but I don't really organise it, and I don't plan the level in great detail. I have a big (BIG!) map on a big sheet of paper that has most of the general areas on it (as well as several smaller ones, of parts of it), so I don't lose track of the overall shape of the world, and I do note down which tilesets I plan to use in every area. I don't plan more than five or so areas ahead, though, in that amount of detail. For the rest I only have very general ideas, e.g. "desert area"; "caves" etc. For special parts of an area I sometimes make an extra note, like "Green Village may have built a big tower", or "Lower Lower City has hanging gardens". Most of the actual look of the areas comes from simply playing around with the tilesets, though.

I tried to plan the epic cat dialogue (monologue), but found it felt more natural if I just wrote it whenever it occurred to me to place another cat in the landscape, as cat placement is fairly spontaneous and the dialogue sometimes is a direct reaction to the surroundings. I do need to get my world's history sorted out, though. I have scribbled down a fair amount of ideas for that, but they don't quite cohere, yet.

One thing I've found helpful recently: I started out building a very small, contained area of the world and then found it difficult to move beyond that, for a while. I finally broke through that blockage by deciding to first build the outlines of my world and fill in the rest later. So I'm currently building just the surface level, from one end to the other, and will build everything that's underground later, when it's easier to see how much space there actually is to fill.

ETA: Of course, the level I'm building is a non-linear, exploration-focused environmental, so it does not have to be quite as rigorously planned as a challenge level. My 'free-form improvisation' mode of level building probably wouldn't work as well for a challenge level.

Even for that it means: write everything down and don't keep any idea inside your head. It gives you room to breath and make you able to work better and more on your level when necessary.

If you have the habit (like me) to sometimes think about your level while you're not actually working on your level, be ready with pen and paper to write down what you're thinking. That way, you can then instantly forget about it, and use your notes in your project when you're actually working on them.

Oh, and I am not this organised by myself normally. I learned this at my job, as we work with big projects too, with more than one persons. And it works very well if everyone does the planning the same way, so you can throw in all your idea's in one big pot, and then later decide what to group and what to scrap. Then you put everything in order, and people start working on several sections of the to-do list (that will not work that well with a knytt stories level, because you can't edit different sections at the same time)

The one problem tends to be, when someone posts a level they've been working 2 years on, I tend to beat it within an hour 

How do you beat an environmental? ;-)

Environmental levels have an end. Only Playground levels have no end.

Environmental levels have an end. Only Playground levels have no end.

No!

Edit: hah!

Ah, but does reaching an end equal 'beating' a level, even if there is no challenge? That'd be like 'beating' a book, or a film, wouldn't it? Okay, I admit this is probably a discussion for another thread. So. Back on topic. ;-)

As most of you probably know, I'm working on a large "generic" KS level with 100% custom tilesets, backgrounds, and music.  However, it's been on hiatus for a pretty long time, as I've been developing a lot of content for other games as well, which is frankly more rewarding.

EDIT: By "custom," I mean "original and exclusive," not "random crap that I pulled off Gaeel's tileset archive and Incompetech."

I've been working on Flipping Out since a month or two after KS came out. There are a number of difficulties I encounter working on this project. The ones that come to mind are:
1. Running out of ideas for nifty, sufficiently difficult puzzles.
2. Tilesets with lots of little details that are hard to work with.
3. Flags and warps. OHHH, the flags and warps...
4. Discontinuities in the plot.
5. MANUALLY FLIPPING EVERY SINGLE SCREEN.
6. Preventing sequence-breaking and voids/wallswims.

If it weren't for these things the level would have been out a while ago, but it wouldn't have been very interesting. But yeah, hopefully I'll find some time and patience to finish it.

I've been working on Flipping Out since a month or two after KS came out. There are a number of difficulties I encounter working on this project. The ones that come to mind are:
1. Running out of ideas for nifty, sufficiently difficult puzzles.
2. Tilesets with lots of little details that are hard to work with.
3. Flags and warps. OHHH, the flags and warps...
4. Discontinuities in the plot.
5. MANUALLY FLIPPING EVERY SINGLE SCREEN.
6. Preventing sequence-breaking and voids/wallswims.

If it weren't for these things the level would have been out a while ago, but it wouldn't have been very interesting. But yeah, hopefully I'll find some time and patience to finish it.

Are you serious? I have that level. You finished it. Unless this is some complex in-joke between level designers that just went way over my head...