17-Aug-2013, 11:19 AM
I went with walkers being worse than blobs - at least blobs move slower than Chip so you have more time to think about your next move...
Second one (which I assume is difficulty within a single level, not of a whole set) I didn't have a major preference - for the first choice, if the easy stuff is all at the beginning, it's not a huge deal to redo if you lose multiple times in the later difficult part. And if the difficult part is first, you get it out of the way and then just have the easy parts to breeze through after it. But I went with the first choice, for levels where that easy section might be easy but still takes a long time to get through to the difficult part...
Third one, definitely non-tested levels. You don't want to make your players waste a lot of time trying to figure out your level, only to realize it's impossible... If I released my levels untested (back when I still regularly made levels ), I would've had quite a lot of unsolvable levels in my sets... "Near-impossible" levels can be great - the harder a level is, the greater the satisfaction of solving it... (Of course, this doesn't mean make a set full of crazy monster dodging challenges... I would consider that a "near-impossible" level, but I would also consider a level like CCLP3 #144 one too based on its difficulty of finding the solution.)
For the last one, I don't really like either, actually - short levels with long time limits kind of bug me for some reason (but I know I was extremely guilty of this in my early levels), but I chose long levels with short time limits, since they're worse for the player if they make one too many mistakes...
Second one (which I assume is difficulty within a single level, not of a whole set) I didn't have a major preference - for the first choice, if the easy stuff is all at the beginning, it's not a huge deal to redo if you lose multiple times in the later difficult part. And if the difficult part is first, you get it out of the way and then just have the easy parts to breeze through after it. But I went with the first choice, for levels where that easy section might be easy but still takes a long time to get through to the difficult part...
Third one, definitely non-tested levels. You don't want to make your players waste a lot of time trying to figure out your level, only to realize it's impossible... If I released my levels untested (back when I still regularly made levels ), I would've had quite a lot of unsolvable levels in my sets... "Near-impossible" levels can be great - the harder a level is, the greater the satisfaction of solving it... (Of course, this doesn't mean make a set full of crazy monster dodging challenges... I would consider that a "near-impossible" level, but I would also consider a level like CCLP3 #144 one too based on its difficulty of finding the solution.)
For the last one, I don't really like either, actually - short levels with long time limits kind of bug me for some reason (but I know I was extremely guilty of this in my early levels), but I chose long levels with short time limits, since they're worse for the player if they make one too many mistakes...
Mike L
My level sets:
MikeL2 - 200 levels, updated 1/22/2017
MikeL2-fix - Lynx compatible version of MikeL2
MikeL3 - 86 levels, updated 1/22/2017 - a best-of set with levels from MikeL2, MikeL4 or my now-hidden rejects set
MikeL4 - 27 levels, updated 1/22/2017 - home of any new post-2009 levels I make
MikeLrejects - 351 levels, updated 5/16/2013 - all my older/experimental/not as good levels
My level sets:
MikeL2 - 200 levels, updated 1/22/2017
MikeL2-fix - Lynx compatible version of MikeL2
MikeL3 - 86 levels, updated 1/22/2017 - a best-of set with levels from MikeL2, MikeL4 or my now-hidden rejects set
MikeL4 - 27 levels, updated 1/22/2017 - home of any new post-2009 levels I make
MikeLrejects - 351 levels, updated 5/16/2013 - all my older/experimental/not as good levels