22-Mar-2013, 1:30 AM
This is my first ever blog and to be honest I have no idea how the thing works but let's start talking.
I've been known as the "level making factory" of the community, at least by some of you. I have made over 500 levels, in which I am a proud of majority of them. You all might think I have really good levels that have a lot of potential, but would you believe me if I told you I was a terrible level designer at first? Well I think everyone can admit to that about themselves...
My first ever level set was titled "JoshL.dat" and was created in 2009, before CCLP3 was being voted on. Consisting of 202 levels, which is honestly an awkward total of levels in a set but then again most the levels themselves were awkward too. This set is my only set that consists of invalid tiles. Back then, I had no idea what the Lynx ruleset even was, or even existed for that matter. Because of this, none of my levels got into CCLP3, but a few of them actually made it pretty close in the final voting! After that is when I took a hiatus of level designing for a good 2 years.
I returned to the world of CC in the beginning 2011, after discovering CCLP3 was released. I downloaded it and began to play the set and I was amazed with the levels and their designs. Though at the time I never played CCLP2, I did watch most the AVI solutions to the levels. I was surprised how there weren't any invalid tiles in any of the levels. To me, it looked like the return of the Lynx ruleset was a major thing in designing levels, so I began my research on it; reading every detail on the differences from the MS ruleset I was so used to. After several weeks of learning everything on Lynx and thinking of so many level ideas at once after playing CCLP3, that is when I decided to make my own Lynx compatible level set - JoshL2 began in production that spring.
After several months of editing and finalizing, as well as with the help of Andrew Bennett for testplaying every level, JoshL2 was finally complete in the spring of 2012. 149 new levels was the count for this set, and every single one of them was compatible in Lynx. I was so proud with the result. But the fun of level making wasn't over for me...shortly after JoshL2 was finished is when I started on another new set of levels but mainly focused on the more difficult side, known as JoshL3.
Idea after idea, concept after concept....I decided to finish JoshL3 at 80 levels total, being that it was focused on the difficulty. After this is where I stopped my level designing career, or at least put it on hold for a while. Looking through all my sets I created, I noticed my old JoshL.dat set was still full of invalid tiles and such concepts that don't work in Lynx. That is when I overhauled the set and changed it around to be compatible in Lynx. Over 80 levels were removed entirely, thus JoshL1 was constructed at 120 levels. After this, I thought of probably the best idea for a new level set - a "best-of" level pack. Since I had 3 sets of levels, I took advantage of this and announced the construction of infamous - JCCLP.
I didn't want the whole pack to consist of levels from all 3 of the sets alone, I had to come up with brand new ones yet again to make it have a decent variety. I agreed on having a total of 65 brand new levels, and the remaining 84 would be from JoshL trilogy. This level pack took approximately a year to construct and finalize as it was at first for the upcoming CCLP1, but it was mainly focused as a "best-of" level set, only the best of the best levels of my creation were allowed to be in here. This is by far my best creation to this day and I am so proud of it.
Although I was short on level ideas after this, I wasn't completely drained out. Yet another level set was about to be created, which would be the next in the JoshL series, JoshL4. I officially ran out of ideas at 65 levels of this set, however, thanks to the idea J.B. Lewis gave me, I merged the 65 levels into JoshL3 to make it another 149 level set. JoshL4 unfortunately, ceased to exist from there on out.
There are rumors that I am making another set... but is it true? My factory is temporarily shut down on ideas, but maybe it will produce more ideas in the near future... should a JCCLP2 set be constructed remains to be seen. Only time will tell.....
I've been known as the "level making factory" of the community, at least by some of you. I have made over 500 levels, in which I am a proud of majority of them. You all might think I have really good levels that have a lot of potential, but would you believe me if I told you I was a terrible level designer at first? Well I think everyone can admit to that about themselves...
My first ever level set was titled "JoshL.dat" and was created in 2009, before CCLP3 was being voted on. Consisting of 202 levels, which is honestly an awkward total of levels in a set but then again most the levels themselves were awkward too. This set is my only set that consists of invalid tiles. Back then, I had no idea what the Lynx ruleset even was, or even existed for that matter. Because of this, none of my levels got into CCLP3, but a few of them actually made it pretty close in the final voting! After that is when I took a hiatus of level designing for a good 2 years.
I returned to the world of CC in the beginning 2011, after discovering CCLP3 was released. I downloaded it and began to play the set and I was amazed with the levels and their designs. Though at the time I never played CCLP2, I did watch most the AVI solutions to the levels. I was surprised how there weren't any invalid tiles in any of the levels. To me, it looked like the return of the Lynx ruleset was a major thing in designing levels, so I began my research on it; reading every detail on the differences from the MS ruleset I was so used to. After several weeks of learning everything on Lynx and thinking of so many level ideas at once after playing CCLP3, that is when I decided to make my own Lynx compatible level set - JoshL2 began in production that spring.
After several months of editing and finalizing, as well as with the help of Andrew Bennett for testplaying every level, JoshL2 was finally complete in the spring of 2012. 149 new levels was the count for this set, and every single one of them was compatible in Lynx. I was so proud with the result. But the fun of level making wasn't over for me...shortly after JoshL2 was finished is when I started on another new set of levels but mainly focused on the more difficult side, known as JoshL3.
Idea after idea, concept after concept....I decided to finish JoshL3 at 80 levels total, being that it was focused on the difficulty. After this is where I stopped my level designing career, or at least put it on hold for a while. Looking through all my sets I created, I noticed my old JoshL.dat set was still full of invalid tiles and such concepts that don't work in Lynx. That is when I overhauled the set and changed it around to be compatible in Lynx. Over 80 levels were removed entirely, thus JoshL1 was constructed at 120 levels. After this, I thought of probably the best idea for a new level set - a "best-of" level pack. Since I had 3 sets of levels, I took advantage of this and announced the construction of infamous - JCCLP.
I didn't want the whole pack to consist of levels from all 3 of the sets alone, I had to come up with brand new ones yet again to make it have a decent variety. I agreed on having a total of 65 brand new levels, and the remaining 84 would be from JoshL trilogy. This level pack took approximately a year to construct and finalize as it was at first for the upcoming CCLP1, but it was mainly focused as a "best-of" level set, only the best of the best levels of my creation were allowed to be in here. This is by far my best creation to this day and I am so proud of it.
Although I was short on level ideas after this, I wasn't completely drained out. Yet another level set was about to be created, which would be the next in the JoshL series, JoshL4. I officially ran out of ideas at 65 levels of this set, however, thanks to the idea J.B. Lewis gave me, I merged the 65 levels into JoshL3 to make it another 149 level set. JoshL4 unfortunately, ceased to exist from there on out.
There are rumors that I am making another set... but is it true? My factory is temporarily shut down on ideas, but maybe it will produce more ideas in the near future... should a JCCLP2 set be constructed remains to be seen. Only time will tell.....
