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Guide:Advanced level design
From Fantastic Wiki
Welcome to the second part of the three-part level designing tutorial. This covers some advanced topics in level design. If you have not read the first part to this three-part tutorial, then you should begin there first.
Now that you have a handle on the basics, this part will introduce you to some creative uses of the basic objects available in the game. This guide won't necessarily improve the quality of your levels (that's up to you), but rather provide you with some more tools to make a more interesting level. Compared to the previous and next guides, this guide will probably be not as complete or cohesive due to the nature of the topics covered.
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[edit] Creating motion
To make your level more dynamic, you can add motion to it. This is accomplished usually by a large heavy object. While the motion generated by them is in a downwards direction, you can use a few mechanisms to change the direction of motion.
[edit] Upwards motion
You can use a lever to transfer the direction of motion to an upwards direction. How levers can be used should be fairly obvious: Have a long block sit over a fulcrum, and have the heavy weight fall down on one end. Upwards motion will be generated.
[edit] Diagonal motion
Heavy rectangles can be slid down inclines in order to generated diagonal motion. These are a bit hard to wield, however.
[edit] Lateral motion
[edit] Lateral launcher
The easiest way to generate strong sideways motion is with a lateral launcher, as pictured below.
These allow you to launch a rectangle to the side. Launchers are quite unsightly, and so they should rarely be used. It is possible to move the launcher mechanisms off of the viewable area (using knowledge taught in the third guide), but there is no visual indication to players that something will be happening off the side of the screen.
[edit] Play dynamics
Now while you can make the level move on its own, you can also add in some mechanisms that can be triggered by the player.
[edit] Timed events
You can add mechanical timers to your levels by letting objects slowly roll for a set amount of time and then trigger another event at the end of the roll.
[edit] Rube-Goldberg-style control
If you want to have a "button" in a level, there is no way to actually to link together some inputs and outputs. However, you can use a Rube Goldberg-style mechanism to move energy in one direction in one location to another location in another direction.
One example would be "Clockwork X" by sk89q, where timing comes into play too.
[edit] Rollers
You can put a rectangle onto a bunch of small wheels, allowing the rectangles to move laterally or in a diagonal direction. Remember to put wheels ahead of the block, if you want to the rectangle to be able to travel far.
[edit] Springs
There are no springs in Fantastic Contraption, but there is a way to emulate their behavior. This is best explained by an example, so check out the level "Dispensor Mixup" by kili.
[edit] Decoration
There are two techniques that you can use to decorate your level.
[edit] Animated fire
The animated fire effect can be created by alternating dynamic rectangles and dynamic circles in an enclosed area. The area containing the objects should be smaller than the area that the objects take up in order to force the objects to vibrate. To ensure that the fire continues to vibrate for an indefinite amount of time, the objects should be surrounded on one side by a dynamic rectangle that is mostly static (the other three sides would consist of static rectangles). The objects continue to vibrate until they find the ideal orientation of all the pieces; allowing one side to be a dynamic rectangle will hamper the ability of the objects to find a stable orientation.
[edit] Teetering scenary
[edit] Level design with FCML
The last part of this three part level design tutorial is Level design with FCML.
