Guide:Level design introduction

From Fantastic Wiki

1. Basics
2. Advanced
3. FCML

Welcome to this three-part tutorial to level design in Fantastic Contraption. It will cover from the very basics to the very advanced, and it has been written (the original, at least) by sk89q, who created "FCML" (you will learn what that is later) and who mostly creates levels.

You can create a new level by clicking the "New Level" button from the main menu in the game.

[edit] Interface and basics

We'll leave it to you to play with the interface. It should be fairly inuitive, but also annoying. You can create the basic vanilla objects (ground blocks, dynamic blocks, and goal blocks), as well as place one build area and one goal area. Through playing the game, you may have noticed that other unusual objects sometimes appear in the levels created by users — those will be explained in a later part.

Be aware that resizing in the editor is an absolute pain. Once you grab the yellow resize handle and move your mouse, it will jump. There's nothing you can do about that unfortunately. There is also no undo, so be careful.

[edit] Alignment

Although there is no ruler or grid in the game, you can align objects by using another object (usually a yellow dynamic rectangle) to act as a guide. This works well if you, for example, want to make two green static rectangles (ground pieces) be of the same elevation and yet be unconnected.

[edit] Boundaries

There are two boundaries you should be aware of:

• Arena boundary — The arena boundary is the last piece of the game screen visible when scrolled to a side or zoomed out. It is important that the build and goal areas of your level do not ever leave this boundary, because that will trigger an annoying zoom bug. Try to make sure that the focus of your level is within this boundary, and the space outside the build area that will be used by players is also inside this boundary.
• Physics boundary — Past a certain point, if the center of an object passes this point, the object will cease to move. This is the physics boundary, and its wide and tall extents is roughly triple the size of the arena boundary's respective width and height.

[edit] Creating a good level

There are thousands of levels that have been created for the game, but only a handful of them have actually been played. Very few ever rise to the top. If you want to create the next big level, try to follow these guidelines:

• Make sure the level is solvable. This may sound ridiculous, but it implies that you at least test some part of the level so that you convince yourself that it is solvable. Don't forget to put a goal object either.
• Make sure it's fun to play. Now this is a hard target to aim for, because people see different things in different levels. You can break down the types of levels to just three:

1. Easy levels: It's quite obvious what these are. Be aware that this also includes levels where you can just build a run-of-the-mill catapult to win. A lot of designers fail to account for catapult solutions.
2. Tedious levels: These are levels where it may take some thinking to solve the level, but solving it will require tedious effort regardless. A large number of levels fall into this category. It's not easy to make a tedious level that is also fun and unique.
3. Ingenious levels: There are levels where the solution is very unconventional. Consequently, the solution may be very obvious to some people, but very non-obvious to others. Rarely will you find a level like

• Make it look nice. A bunch of rectangles tossed all over the place looks pretty bad.
  • Try to have a visual focus in your level. If your level stretches to every corner, then it doesn't look very nice.

[edit] Gotchas

There are some things that may not be obvious to the budding level designer:

• The borders on the goal area do not count when the game determines if the goal pieces are all in the goal area. If a goal piece touches the border of the goal area, it will not be counted as in. Be aware that the grey joints at the ends of objects should also be within the confines of the goal area, just in case.
• Players can use neutronium rods to solve your level in very unintended ways. Design around this!

[edit] Popularizing your level

Remember to publish your level. No one is going to see your level until you publish it by going to "My Levels" from the main menu and clicking the up arrow.

Now, making your level popular isn't a science, but there are a few things that you need to be aware of. As you may already know, when you view the levels in the game, you can sort by either date or rating. To get people to play your level, your best bet is to get your level to the top of the sorted-by-rating list. To do that requires a lot of luck, but there are some dynamics that may help you raise your chances.

First off, the people who play FC look for three things when rating a level:

• Whether the level is fun. This is basically means whether the level has a lot of fast moving objects or has some cool looking moving mechanism.
• Whether the level is easy enough (but not too much). Look through the top 100 rated levels (but not the first 3, because those may be new) to see what "easy enough" means.
• Whether the level looks nice. This should not be a factor, but it is nevertheless. If you used 50 dynamic rectangles (yellow squares) to build the Eiffel Tower, then it will give a great boost to your level's popularity.

To really see how the above three points apply, look through the top 100 rated levels (but not the first three).

[edit] What you can do

To get your level to the top list, you need to get your level rated. A single five from you will send it to at least the top three.

Staying on top is another matter though. If your level only has a few ratings, a single one vote can obliterate you off the top 100 levels list. Even if you happen to meet the three expectations as listed above, there's no gaurantee that you will stay up. There is no fool proof solution, but there are a few things that you can do:

• Release levels at night, when the kids are asleep, because then your level may survive up on the list longer, allowing more people to rate your level up.
• If you have friends, you can always ask them to rate your level.
• A clever way to build protection beforehand is to get a bunch of friends to play your level and rate it a five, before you publish your level. When you are ready, you can then publish your level, and you will have some protection.
• Try to stay in the 5th or 7th position, where the danger is lessened. Unfortunately, this is very hard to do.

If people go to solve your level and your level gets rated down, when the players click the back button, your level will have disappeared and the players can no longer give a positive rating of your level.

[edit] Advanced level design

Check the second part of this three part level designing tutorial: Advanced level design.