Facing the Future: What's Next for Official Sets?

[Ihavenoname248]

When I was ordering levels in UC4 (and trying to keep a balance of styles) I had broken the levels down into:


Avoidance: What J.B. called 'Abstinence'. Basically, avoid collecting something you would usually collect. Commit Suicide is probably the best one of these I've played.

Collection: Just a collection focused level. Think Hunt or Yorkhouse, though the scale doesn't have to be quite that large. Also classifies larger open levels.

Concept: A level less focused on the gameplay and more focused on making a given concept work. You could say You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks falls under this to a certain extent, but I would say Debug File is a better example.

Guidance: Monster manipulation of some sort. Anything from Old Frog to the ending portion of Nuts and Bolts. A good middle tier level for this group is Chip Plank Galleon.

Itemswapper: Anything where the predominant means of accessing new things is swapping items. Sampler, Tool Box and Design Swap fit.

Maze: It's a maze you'd all better know what a maze is and CCLP4 had better have a lot of good mazes there's still some really neat concepts for them that haven't been in CCLPs yet.

Melee: There's dodging and stuff.

Sokoban: It's mostly block pushing and stuff.

Variety: Anything that doesn't fall nicely into one of the above categories. A level with no real gameplay theme. Automatic (Caution) Doors falls under variety level due to its gameplay varying throughout, despite the novel method of accessing new areas. It's also an itemswapper to a certain extent, but it doesn't feel like one at first.

My own breakdown was 1 Avoidance, 7 Concept, 7 Itemswapper, 8 Guidance, 9 Collection, 19 Melee, 30 Sokoban, 33 Variety and 35 Maze levels. I'd have liked more melee and a few less mazes in hindsight, but the overall balance is fairly solid I think. I haven't gone through any CCLPs for similar counts but I'd imagine there would be some similarities.


I don't think this breakdown is by any means perfect and definitely think it could be improved. How, I'm not sure.