LittleBigPlanet – Over 3 Million Community Levels!

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by BorrowedTime

It might be a touch. I got to this part this morning, but failed to pass it. One thing I might change is the lethal gas right behind Jack Frost, either remove it completely or put some more space between the gate and Jack Frost. I only say this because, I burned a couple of lives by rushing out of the gate too fast after a respawn, and ended up running right into it. This might be only me, however, as the ticking clock probably makes me a little less cautious. I also did manage to get stuck between a couple of frozen sackboys a couple of times. Sadly, it could also be my platforming abilities (or lack thereof) that are hindering my progress. I never really progressed very far into the race.

I have a question, for you. How do you change the colour of the lethal gas. In all of my levels it is that sickly green colour, but you had yours as blue, and I think on geosautus' level "World of Colour", he had red lethal gas. I can't figure it out.

Yeah, I did that once - ran into Jacks "aura" and got killed. Like you, I was in hurry to beat the clock. I'll see if I can put a piece of glass on that side. As for dropping down into the frozen sack people, yeah, that is part of the platforming skills needed. Let me know if you actually got "stuck". I thought I got rid of any sections that would cause you to not be able to move back up. The race is not long at all - it should take all of 20 seconds, but you must be fairly flawless. Like the graffiti says, "Run along the wall".

As for the colored gas - took me forever to figure that out. This whole time I thought I had to win it in some game area (like the colored glass).

Once you change something to gas - go back and select the "Gas" again from your tool box - then position the cursor over your object and hit square. The Color options come up. Select a Color. Then, touch the object with your cursor again and it changes to that color. I found out on accident. The Green sickly color doesn't fit my themes at all. I went back to my Garden at Midnight level and made some changes there too.

Did the fix work for you on the Stone pillars - tried to make it easier due to the lag.

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

The lag is part of the board. I think with over a hundred emitters firing off at once every 3 seconds (with varying speeds and distances), that it overloads the resources. Unfortunately, by the time I figured out that it wasn't some wierd server glitch affecting my level it was too big to restart.

Yeah, finally had a chance to go out and play some of your levels over the last day or two.

Tofer - The maze was a lot of fun - really liked that one.

Cymbol - The lag on winter wonderland was so bad for me I had to just quit out of the level. I know you really wanted snow, but I would completely kill the snow emmiters (or maybe post a snowless copy at least and see how it runs).

On The Garden, it overall was pretty neat, but there are some really furstrating parts. The glass box you fall/jump through in 3 levels was neat, but had 2 downsides 1) glass in general is not fun to run/jump on and 2) in the middle where the magic mouth warns about the fire/electricity, it's set up so that the text distracts you and you can accidentally slide into the electrical before you know what happens.

I will say that as a player, I'm starting to get sick of levels using glass all over the place to make things challenging (not just yours Cymbol). I'd recommend to anyone building levels that they only use glass in small doses to start and definitely not to make jumping and running more challenging until you have several levels under your belt. I understand the attraction, but it feels a little lazy and definitely ups the frustration level when playing. For most players feeling like you are running in slo-mo and not being able to control your sackboy well when running/jumping is not going to win you any points.

Overall though it's impressive what you guys have done in only a month or so's time. I'm going to try and play more and build some myself over the holiday weekend.

I started building my Jungle Runt Race, but suddenly had an idea for an even easier level that will hopefully be a ton of fun. Not expecting it to be a huge hit since it will require 2-4 players, but I think I may be able to get it done this weekend and then have you guys test it. I shall call it - Cagematch! (Yes, I'm going to be going the sack-on-sack violence route.)

[BorrowedTime]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

Yeah, I did that once - ran into Jacks "aura" and got killed. Like you, I was in hurry to beat the clock. I'll see if I can put a piece of glass on that side. As for dropping down into the frozen sack people, yeah, that is part of the platforming skills needed. Let me know if you actually got "stuck". I thought I got rid of any sections that would cause you to not be able to move back up. The race is not long at all - it should take all of 20 seconds, but you must be fairly flawless. Like the graffiti says, "Run along the wall".

As for the colored gas - took me forever to figure that out. This whole time I thought I had to win it in some game area (like the colored glass).

Once you change something to gas - go back and select the "Gas" again from your tool box - then position the cursor over your object and hit square. The Color options come up. Select a Color. Then, touch the object with your cursor again and it changes to that color. I found out on accident. The Green sickly color doesn't fit my themes at all. I went back to my Garden at Midnight level and made some changes there too.

Did the fix work for you on the Stone pillars - tried to make it easier due to the lag.

That's sweet about the gas, I'll have to check that out in the editor.

As for the Stone Pillars, it's funny, but I think I got past that section before you changed it, as it didn't look any different to me from last night. I just took a page from Toefer's book and tried to time my jumps between lag effects, and it seemed to work out.

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

As for the colored gas - took me forever to figure that out. This whole time I thought I had to win it in some game area (like the colored glass).

Once you change something to gas - go back and select the "Gas" again from your tool box - then position the cursor over your object and hit square. The Color options come up. Select a Color. Then, touch the object with your cursor again and it changes to that color. I found out on accident. The Green sickly color doesn't fit my themes at all. I went back to my Garden at Midnight level and made some changes there too.

I think it works before you lethalize it also. Effectively the poison gas tool has a tweak option for color, but it doesn't show as an option.

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

Cymbol - The lag on winter wonderland was so bad for me I had to just quit out of the level. I know you really wanted snow, but I would completely kill the snow emmiters (or maybe post a snowless copy at least and see how it runs).

I'm going to see if I can find a way to have it only emitting while you're in the area - again, I have ZERO resources, but I might copy and paste and try a small redesign. That strange lag started early in the design so I'm not sure if it was just a strange glitch that got implanted - or it is really the snow emitters.

I hate to spend even more time on the level - and I've made the level fairly playable (beatable) with the lag, so I'm surprised you had to quit (the lag can be annoying, but I think the design of the level is made to be easy enough to beat it.) Please let me know if you decide to finish it, what your final thought are. Thanks,

For some reason, the lag seems to be contained within the first 25% of the level. Once your drop down into the area with the crashed sled and presents everywhere, it seems to even out for the most part.

Anyway, point taken, I'll work on it.

On The Garden, it overall was pretty neat, but there are some really furstrating parts. The glass box you fall/jump through in 3 levels was neat, but had 2 downsides 1) glass in general is not fun to run/jump on and 2) in the middle where the magic mouth warns about the fire/electricity, it's set up so that the text distracts you and you can accidentally slide into the electrical before you know what happens.

I got it. I'll try and move the mouth before that to provide the hint.

I will say that as a player, I'm starting to get sick of levels using glass all over the place to make things challenging (not just yours Cymbol).

Oh good, I'm glad it's not JUST MINE that you're sick of.

I'd recommend to anyone building levels that they only use glass in small doses to start and definitely not to make jumping and running more challenging until you have several levels under your belt. I understand the attraction, but it feels a little lazy and definitely ups the frustration level when playing. For most players feeling like you are running in slo-mo and not being able to control your sackboy well when running/jumping is not going to win you any points.

Well, the glass part on mine was supposed to be a fun house of sorts. I played around with the angles and lights to try and get reflections and make it difficult to "find your way", but the 3 planes don't really offer that ability.

I get what you mean, but this particular part was designed specifically with a slick, reflective surface in mind. However, I agree, it can be annoying, that is why, even in my Winter level I rarely used it - except to push you out to the spring boards which start hurling you in all directions till you get in the next level. I wanted a really sudden and speedy part and I needed glass to get you there in a quick, unsuspecting manner - hope it worked.

[toef]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

Btw, did you think the race against Jack Frost's cold air was too difficult?

I died once, maybe twice, on it, but don't think it was too bad. I didn't really understand how it worked though, if the gas was just randomly appearing in places, or what. So my strategy was to just run through as quickly as possible, as soon as I saw the cliff at the other end, I instantly jumped down (without reading what the person said) because I was worried if I waited, some gas would appear and kill me.

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by toefer

I died once, maybe twice, on it, but don't think it was too bad. I didn't really understand how it worked though, if the gas was just randomly appearing in places, or what. So my strategy was to just run through as quickly as possible, as soon as I saw the cliff at the other end, I instantly jumped down (without reading what the person said) because I was worried if I waited, some gas would appear and kill me.

No, it's not random - it triggered by your vicinity and then emitted if you stand there too long.

It was very tricky coming up with a way to do this, since, if someone died, I needed the race to "reset". Took me a while to do it and tweak it.

It is definitely geared on how fast your make it across. I even tried to set it up so that (if you were fast), it appeared "right behind you", giving you that sense of "I just made it!". Again, LOTS of tweaking to get this very simple concept "just right".

No more cold air appears once you've gone through the gate - the guy says something like, "Hey, you made it, you're faster than me (he's frozen). I would jump if I were you before more cold air comes".

Of course, you jump, and then the guy at the bottom says that line -

[Show spoiler] You didn't listen to that guy and jump, did you? He works for Jack. Bet you feel dumb."

- which I thought was kind of funny.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

What's it called?

I dont remember but it should be on the front page.

[toef]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

Of course, you jump, and then the guy at the bottom says that line -

[Show spoiler] You didn't listen to that guy and jump, did you? He works for Jack. Bet you feel dumb."

- which I thought was kind of funny.

Haha. Yeah, that was good, though I was pretty sure after reading it that there wasn't anything else I could've done, so I didn't feel bad for listening to the frozen guy (his message popped open after I jumped past him).

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

I'm going to see if I can find a way to have it only emitting while you're in the area - again, I have ZERO resources, but I might copy and paste and try a small redesign. That strange lag started early in the design so I'm not sure if it was just a strange glitch that got implanted - or it is really the snow emitters.

I hate to spend even more time on the level - and I've made the level fairly playable (beatable) with the lag, so I'm surprised you had to quit (the lag can be annoying, but I think the design of the level is made to be easy enough to beat it.) Please let me know if you decide to finish it, what your final thought are. Thanks,

Yeah, I'll definitely try it a little more - but wanted to point it out. I figure that if I'm quiting out due to the lag and I actually know who you are, someone randomly trying the level is probably going to get really frustrated and end up rating you poorly. Other than the lag the level was fun as far as I got - though the bouncing red pads was what finally made me quit - the 2nd up and the first pushing you right we becoming almost impossible for me due to the lag. In some cases I was ending up under the "up" one and then getting killed when it reset (crushed). The fact that I couldn't really control those two pads and the lag kept messing up the timing is what killed it for me.

Also the lag I experienced was fairly heavy, so maybe it wasn't just the level. The level seemed fine, it was just that the lag was so bad for me. Had I not known from the threads here what you were aiming for with the snow, I probably wouldn't have realized it was level driven in the first place.

I got it. I'll try and move the mouth before that to provide the hint.

Or if you could add a small bump to stop near the mouth, that would work too. It was obvious that it was completely unintentional how the two interacted - and it would only be an issue the first time you play it, but after getting through some of the glass before it, it just added a little kick when I was down. On the flip side, the restart wasn't far away so it wasn't like it really messes up the level or anything.

Oh good, I'm glad it's not JUST MINE that you're sick of.

Sorry, it came out harsher than I meant. Overall I liked both your levels, but using glass to make running/jumping harder seems to be the quick way to add some challenge at the moment - unfortunately it's also not very forgiving if you don't work your movement just so.

I'm not sure what the solution is, though I'm sure that is we all think about it here we can probably come up with some other options to make things challenging but not frustrating. (I think maybe a conyeyor belt like the one in the wilderness might be another option. Or maybe emitters that emit a line of poison gas down a hall one puff after another to push you along quicker.)

Well, the glass part on mine was supposed to be a fun house of sorts. I played around with the angles and lights to try and get reflections and make it difficult to "find your way", but the 3 planes don't really offer that ability.

Actually that part was really neat - it was a little confusing on occasion, but not so much that it was frustrating. The idea of being in a box like that where you had to move back and forth through all three levels to get through was really neat. I bet if you took the same idea and just expanded it into a really big maze, it would be a lot of fun - you could even make one of disolvable materials and either force someone to race up or down by destroying levels one at a time.

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

Yeah, I'll definitely try it a little more - but wanted to point it out.

I won't quote everything you said, so I don't take up more room - thanks for the comments. I appreciate the feedback including the critiques. I spend ALOT of time tweaking these levels (I can't count how many times I've played through these levels myself before I publish them). It's amazing how many tiny mistakes you find by playing your own level (from beginning to end - which can take a LONG time in my levels).

I don't want people to run out of lives - mostly because, as I was playing them and ran out of lives I was exasperated that I had to start ALL THE WAY at the beginning.

The goal is to make a fun, sometimes puzzling, sometimes challenging platformer. Anything I can do to keep those goals in line while keeping the frustration level down is my main goal.

[Kynch]

Originally Posted by air_max

whats it called? bioshock level?

I don't remember, but if you use the search function you will easily find it. I remember it saying something about being 90% complete and having been made by a certain bigfatgooglefat or something...

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

I don't want people to run out of lives - mostly because, as I was playing them and ran out of lives I was exasperated that I had to start ALL THE WAY at the beginning.

I'm curious to see how this one ends up playing out over the next year in general.

On one hand, potentially dying and having to restart does create some replayability and challenge in the levels, but the knee-jerk reaction right now seems to be that dying and rerunning the levels sucks and should be avoided. On the other hand, most of the levels have little replay value once you've experienced them once - unless you're competing for high score.

One thing I think I would like to see is not just getting keys within a level for other levels, but keys that can specifically unlock individual things within a level. That could potentially allow "save points" and some other neat complex interactions.

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

I'm curious to see how this one ends up playing out over the next year in general.

On one hand, potentially dying and having to restart does create some replayability and challenge in the levels, but the knee-jerk reaction right now seems to be that dying and rerunning the levels sucks and should be avoided. On the other hand, most of the levels have little replay value once you've experienced them once - unless you're competing for high score.

One thing I think I would like to see is not just getting keys within a level for other levels, but keys that can specifically unlock individual things within a level. That could potentially allow "save points" and some other neat complex interactions.

I would like to be able to add save points (The Garden at Midnight takes about 8 minutes to get through - it's annoying to run out of lives at the end and have to go through it all again).

And I would like to have a "reset" tool. I came up with a clever way to have the Jack Frost race reset, but it would be nice if you could select a "Zone" - like the camera tool, and set marks (like the start gate and stop gate concept). So that if a person died in that area, they would start at the beginning with all the obstacles would reset.

Well, I don't think many of these have replay value - mine include: (except to find all the items or get the highscore as you mentioned). I think you heart a level: 1. As a way of saying you appreciate the concept/hard work 2. To save it for when friends/family come over.

That's why it is soooo important for them to allow fan levels to be made for movies/games. People find it fun when seeing something interpreted into the LBP universe.

Anyway, in the end, I don't think any of these have any real big replay value - any more than a movie or simple PSN game that you like - you keep it to show to friends and family - and maybe take it out once in a while for a quick replay.

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

Anyway, in the end, I don't think any of these have any real big replay value - any more than a movie or simple PSN game that you like - you keep it to show to friends and family - and maybe take it out once in a while for a quick replay.

True - one other thing I meant to mention is that I think the fact that any rewards we give are things anyone could create also makes it a little harder.

If individual creators could give away exclusive items to wear, striving through a level multiple times could see more worth it. Maybe as creations become more complex we'll all find value in playing multiple times to get something that would take way to long to create from scratch.

[kamiller42]

I give up. I cannot figure out how to effectively find levels. I am reading on here that I should play the level "ABC" or the level created by "XYZ." I cannot get the search to get me the results I am looking for.

The search tool in LBP is very primitive. For instance, I was looking for Winter Wonderland. I type it in the search and the results show many levels, some with name matches and some that are not even close. None of them are Cymbol's. So I perform a search on Cymbol and get random levels, none of them matching the author's name. Search for levels in LBP is frustrating. For search, less cutesy, more utilitarian.

Is there an advanced search screen? Something like the popular search screen you see when searching message forums would be nice.

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by kamiller42

I give up. I cannot figure out how to effectively find levels. I am reading on here that I should play the level "ABC" or the level created by "XYZ." I cannot get the search to get me the results I am looking for.

The search tool in LBP is very primitive. For instance, I was looking for Winter Wonderland. I type it in the search and the results show many levels, some with name matches and some that are not even close. None of them are Cymbol's. So I perform a search on Cymbol and get random levels, none of them matching the author's name. Search for levels in LBP is frustrating. For search, less cutesy, more utilitarian.

Is there an advanced search screen? Something like the popular search screen you see when searching message forums would be nice.

Mark Cymbol as a friend (or me if you want) - look up one of us as friend and then L1/R1 over to our hearted level list. (Edit - then heart the author so that you can easily find them again later)

I find one of the easiest ways to find things at the moment is to look at other players hearted lists.

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by kamiller42

Search for levels in LBP is frustrating. For search, less cutesy, more utilitarian.

Is there an advanced search screen? Something like the popular search screen you see when searching message forums would be nice.

Very well said, I have had a massive headache trying to find people's levels. Someone had one called "Winter Wonderland" - got tons of hits with not being his, and had a ton of other cr@p that had nothing in the title about "Winter Wonderland".

You might be more likely to find "The Garden at Midnight" (All my levels are in the New England area of the US.) Once you find that one, you can select "Find more levels by this author" and select "Winter Wonderland. . . " from there.

I appreciate you taking the time to try it out - but I totally agree - the search function is 99% useless.

[toef]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

I appreciate you taking the time to try it out - but I totally agree - the search function is 99% useless.

I agree. I think 3 minor adjustments to it could make it a lot better, at least for the time being.

1) Allow people to use quotes, to search for an exact phrase. If I know for sure the level is called Winter Wonderland, it should let me type "Winter Wonderland" in quotes like that, and return only levels that use those two words together just like that. That may not get right to your level, but it at least narrows it down a lot (and doens't just load any level that uses the word winter or wonderland).

2) Allow a search by author name. That way if I know someone's PSN name, and want to try their level, but they aren't my friend, I can quickly type it in. Sometimes if people have weird PSN names, it's pretty easy to find their levels, but if their PSN name contains any real word that could be used in a sentence, it turns up way too many results.

3) Allow a sorting option. If I search for "Christmas" sometimes I just want to see what the most played Christmas levels are. However, what I end up with is just a bunch of random Christmas levels, ranging in numbers of plays from 0 to 200+, and I have to click over each one, to see how many each has. As cool as the 3d globe is, with the buttons on it, I wouldn't mind an option to view results as a simple list that shows something like

Level Name.............Author Name.............Plays..........Hearts

and have the option of sorting by any of the 4.

[Shin-Ra]

LittleBigPlanet Weekly Download Update - Thanksgiving Edition
Posted by Mark Valledor // Marketing Manager, SCEA

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These updates will become available with today’s PlayStation Store Update, coming soon. Make sure you check back next week for the week’s latest offerings for LittleBigPlanet. See ya online!