...so, basically, you took an idea you rejected earlier, added the word "Sandbox" to it, and now approve of it?

I'm still in favour of it, but you make it sound like this is something spectacular and revolutionary, when the only thing that seems to have changed is your attitude towards it.

Come on, Isa, I added that point as a little joke at the end almost to say "as if all that wasn't enough for you, it has a cool name".

And this is not the same two-game idea, for a few reasons:

First, the main reason I was opposed to it was that it just seemed impractical to make two games when I can barely make one. I guess I could lessen the workload in the long term by making the first game compatible with all the options in the second game, except just not use them. But if that was the case I would feel more compelled to save time in the short term by making two differently programmed games. Either way, I just really don't like that idea

Secondly, it's not really divided into "two games" this time. It's more like you have the core game and then a mode that lets you edit the way the game works. I greatly prefer this approach over the two game idea.

I honestly don't see how this differs much from your suggestion, except for level separation included as well as level editing.

"A popular but extreme example of lost simplicity would be Zelda Classic's quest editor: its complexity is sure to strike fear into even the bravest of gamers."
LIES. I figured most of it out, without having to ask anybody for help, and the rest I figured out from google search. If you need help with anything, just ask, k?

"ZC's editor wouldn't be such a nightmare if it had the decency to tuck away its options when not needed, so that newcomers wouldn't be so overwhelmed by all the windows, panels, and grids."
Alright, you might have a bit of a point there. But basically, if you see something, and you don't know what it's for, just ignore it, lol. All you really need to know, in order to make quests is warps and flags. The screen building stuff, where you place objects onto screens, it pretty obvious, and everything else can mostly be ignored. Seriously people, if you need help with anything, just ask, geez.


But anyway.

If I make one small, simple edit to the "core gameplay" I'm automatically put into the advanced section? Perhaps it should instead be at the discretion of the level's creator (or staff, if they see that a level has been blatantly categorized) whether or not it's a normal or a custom level?

And how does the idea of being able to make your own full game, fit into all of this? Are we going to allow people to make their own campaigns, and allow them to make their own world maps? It almost seems to me that have a large distinction between two types of content... would be better put to use differentiating between full games and single levels? I'd also expect that custom content options would find more use in a full game...

If you need a distinction between normal and custom levels, perhaps a option to switch between simple and advanced in the level editor would suffice? If you want people to be able to tell before playing a level, you could simply show whether or not the level has custom content and allow them to filter by whether or not it does? I think that if people only want to make and play Aeon levels, they can just stick with "Simple" and I don't really think there will be much of a source of confusion or whatever this is about a "tarnished image" or whatever...

Yes, yes and yes.

I didn't think we allowed players to make full-fletched campaigns for Aeon though?

I don't think that was ever fully decided, but I'd like to see it happen.

I remember Dekudude saying one thing about how it would be best if the regular Aeon levels were closed off to being "in its own little world." He said it was necessary to keep people from seeing normal levels and creative ones as being the same thing, because then they may begin to focus solely on the creative side and lose respect for simple levels from the "normal" side.

Of course there will always be some people who still admire the core game, but at least by dividing the "normal" and the "creative" into two separate worlds, we could showcase the original game, as well as the sandbox, and people who play mostly on the sandbox side will still be open to the "normal" style, and when they play such a level, they will be more likely to appreciate it for what it is, rather than seeing it as boring for having no customizations.

Because of this, he really did not like the idea of a simple-to-advanced editor, or even a mixed level browser, as it would emphasize that the two types are really just the same thing. While that may be true in reality, especially in terms of programming, it certainly helps keep the distinction if the game heavily segregates the two kinds of levels.

I suggested to him a system where the "creative" marking would be applied manually to a level by its creator, similar to what you said, csd. But this again, makes people think that the two types are really the same thing.

I guess if there's any disagreement here, it's in whether or not you think he's making a valid argument. I certainly think there is some validity to it, and I think the Two-Halves-of-Aeon idea is an interesting way of addressing that problem.  

As for what CSD was saying about letting people create their own games, where settings and tiles can be saved as a "game" and then you can use that as a starting point when you create a new level, there certainly is room for such organizational features in the Sandbox idea.

I imagine that such features would turn out to be the same whether or not we actually implemented this two-halves idea. So I'm not sure what relevance it has in this conversation.

And sorry csd, for making fun of ZC.

I think that by dividing them into two almost different games, you're going to have a lot more levels that are "creative", because once you go there, why would you go back? There's no real reason to, when everything you can do there can be done in the sandbox as well. Playing a normal level suddenly seems very tame.

By dividing the levels into two groups, you're making a barrier for the players. The level is either black or white, there's no grey - your level can ONLY be a normal level or a creative one, not a mix of both. I think this will lead to a huge decrease in levels made with only a little user-made content, and my opinion is that no matter what we do, we'll have a hard time getting vanilla levels. If you instead mix the levels, you can search for all levels at the same time and appreciate them for what they are.

Those are good points, Isa. But to further represent Dekudude's point of view, he thinks that mixing the levels will do the exact opposite of letting you appreciate them for what they are. And I guess what you're saying is that dividing them so boldly would make it even worse.

hmm... Hold on, I'm thinking about this...

That's true, it certainly would be annoying to have levels with only one custom tile in it to be thrown into the sandbox category. I can see that this two-category system can be very unbalanced, especially when one category's specifications are much narrower than the other's.

If we were to keep working with the sandbox idea, perhaps it would indeed be better to manually specify a level as being either "Aeon" or sandbox. Rather than housing all types of customization, the sandbox area could house those custom "games" that CSD talked about. That certainly would make more sense, from the level browsing point of view.

As for the level editor, we could sort of keep the two-editors idea, while merging it with the simple/advanced idea. One would be the normal, simple editor, and the other would be the advanced, sandbox editor. You would find two links to them on the main menu, each under it's respective side, but we should also make it so that you can switch in and out of the simple/advanced editors at any time while working on your level.

So in the end you end up with a much less strict system of segregation, where the line between the two sides can be blurred a little. Perhaps that could work?

Yes, that could work. I would not complain about that, I think.

I'm trying to clarify my own ideas here, but basically the system would look like this: As opposed to looking like this:
There's now at least some overlap between the two sides. The levels crossing over the border represent how there isn't a giant wall keeping the two sides separate, where you can easily go through all the levels if you wanted to, especially now that there can be some that blur the line between the two categories.

I would love a playermade campaign. Is there going to be constant update on the campaign or is it just going to be all together? Plus, how do we emphasis plain level editing w/o editing motion controls and whatnot

Isa: another thing we discussed is the idea of someone using SOME custom stuff, and some normal stuff: the very issue you present.

Basically, the way we saw it, if someone were to make a level, but put in a bunch of custom boxes, it'd still fit very well into the Sandbox section, as it's homemade. I don't think it was made very clear that sandbox levels don't need to be pure chaos. A normal level with solid gameplay and interesting, unobtrusive custom tiles, would still be a sandbox level. In fact, it would likely be a very fun one. However, it's still a different style of level.

The sandbox mode wouldn't just be for testing craziness, but for changing the game, and bending physics. If someone wants to make a very low gravity level, they could: it'd just go in the sandbox section. That's not bad. It's just a different type of level. There would be black, white AND grey. However, grey and black would be in one section, with white being in another. That's the only difference. If someone wants a completely customized level with graphics and stuff, it doesn't need to completely stray from the normal game. The sandbox section would be for people interested in designing, or playing, something new. Mixing black and gray into that section wouldn't offend anyone: it'd be exactly what those people are interested in, I think.

Does that make sense? It's not hurting any color: it's promoting the entire spectrum.

As I mentioned earlier this could be problematic because "white" is such a narrow selection of levels, thus creating an imbalance between the two categories. The SandBox section could really begin to outweigh the other, and eventually not many may even go into that category, like Isa said. I think it would help if the "white" category accepted at least some shades of gray. And the best way to decide which level goes where would be to do it manually by the level-maker's judgement (which also includes staff). It'll be just like when you select whether your level is a novelty or not, except now you say if it belongs in the Sandbox, and that of course will be clearly explained.

But what exactly should go into the Sandbox? Aside from the original super-segregated approach, I can see maybe two ways:
1) Sandbox will contain only levels that really stray from the Aeon type of gameplay. So in a sense, this is where all the custom "games" can go. That will leave the main Aeon side with levels that still follows the original Aeon gameplay, even if levels are made completely out of custom objects with imported sprites and stuff. This could work pretty well, and it's kinda what I was thinking earlier in the conversation.
2) Another alternative would be to have the Sandbox house "collections of options" and the levels made with them. For example, if you made Mario Bros sprite set, you could save all those options/settings into one package and put it into the Sandbox. Then anyone can go in and make a level using those settings as a starting point, and these levels will too go into the Sandbox. I guess we would eventually have such a convenient service no matter what we decide here about the Sandbox, but the difference with this idea is that now all of these collections of settings will go straight to the sandbox, even if they're for levels that play relatively the same as regular Aeon.

I disagree: many people won't want to customize levels. Neither will outweigh the other. The best way to ensure the normal levels are outweighed would be to treat slightly gray levels as not gray at all, I think. It'd be more work to make custom levels too, so though they might offer a lot more possibility, they'd still never take over, especially if the sides were segregated, as I mentioned. I envision both sides being in relatively equal portions, especially if the custom section is easy to work with.

and because of this, we could easily see an increase in "creative" levels. What if someone came up with this really amazing idea for a tile, and there were really cool features in the game that lets people import that tile into their level? For example, if the original game didn't have boosts, but someone made a booster tile, I imagine quite a few people would want to use that tile. Suddenly all these levels that use that imported tile will be listed under the "creative" section, even though they didn't do much customizing.

We think of HATPC as a game with a level editor, but maybe with Aeon, we should think of it the other way around? Maybe we should instead make a puzzle-platformer-making tool, and the Aeon campaign is more the demo that shows off what it can do?

You can still have the simple/advanced modes, but simple will allow you the option to import a set of graphics, tiles, and mechanics (let's call this a tile-set), which you would then use to make your level. An online database of tile-sets is available, and when you browse levels, you can see what tile-set was used to make this level (it'll say "Custom" if you made your own using the advanced mode's capabilities, or maybe "Modified" if you imported but made a handful of changes). To get Aeon levels, you can filter by levels that were made using an unmodified Aeon tile-set.

To the simple user it becomes, pick the type of puzzle-platformer you want to make a level for, and then place the tiles onto a grid to make your level.

Livio got my thoughts summarized pretty well in his last two posts.

Oh yeah, I was writing a response to this when I suddenly lost internet and I guess I forgot about what I had written when I closed the browser.

Anyway, that's an interesting idea csd. But the ultimate problem will be how the main levels will turn out to be. If it really is meant to show what the game can do, then wouldn't the campaign be made up of really varied levels, with different mechanics and really creative stuff? Or if we were just gonna make a HATPC-like campaign, then technically that would be just another "custom-game" within Aeon, and therefore, wouldn't we want to make multiple built-in custom-games if we wanted to show what the game could do, which is basically multiple campaigns?