What the title says exactly. Why are HATPC, SMF, N and Free Rider 2 so much better for level making in comparison to games such as Scriball, Super Meat Boy and SeppuKuties? (Note: These are just examples of more popular and less popular games on the site.)

This could help with expanding Aeon and bringing in new members.

I don't think what you said is right at all, lol. SMF really has a bad editor - for example, if you have two secret passages, you can't see which one leads where. about N, for example, I *still* don't know how to create a level there. and it's not that I didn't try, lol. I just didn't invest as much time. SeppuKuties and SMB are very good in my opinion, too.

however, the question in the title is a good one. The way I see it, the first things I'm looking for in a game with user content is the understanding and simplicity of the level-making progress. next would be having options - because modifying a tic tac toe isn't that awsome at all if you keep the rules.

when I said simplicity, btw, I don't mean that complexity is bad. but to have complex options, like Knytt Stories, you really have to make preparations for the creator, before he gets frustrated in trying helplessly to fight it.

good thread, I'd like to hear what others say about this too. we should make a table with  char\name and put the opinoins in it so we can compare. Should I make this an Aeon topic?

I think there is a balance in the freedom the creator has, and the complexity of the game.

For freedom, if the user has too much free space, I think that it turns people off, and can frustrate players.  Only problem, is that if you limit a game to too small of a level, like SeppuKuties, then it limits creativity and originality.  N, I think, had enough room for many epic levels, and yet was small enough that it looked nice.  It was small enough that it didn't give the players too much to think about, trying to tell them that "You have more room.  Fill it up with lame traps."

For complexity, I believe the more simple the mechanics of the game are, the better it is.  From what I remember about Knyett Stories, there were a decent amount of props you could acquire.  The fact that you had to use so many different things, and remember how they should be used and such wasn't as appealing.

What made HatPC so amazing was the fact that you had the simplest of things.  Arrows, metal/wooden dynamite, metal/wooden crates, water, spikes, and that's the majority of the game.  Yet you could use those features in so many different ways.  And the size of the levels were sufficient.  If you wanted a longer level, not a taller level, then you get the same restrictions of size, but it's just a different shape.

This post seems kinda incomplete. :/

Simplicity and creativity.

I mean creativity as in the game lets you be creative.

A simple level maker that allows the creator to easily set his own boundaries. Following that, a game with interesting, unique mechanics. These are directly related.
An example: Take a really exciting puzzle game such as...say, Super Mario World. It has plenty of cool and unique mechanics that makes it possible for you to create your own levels. Now, combine that game with the level editor of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The level is limited to a small square, tiles aren't flexible and you can only place them in a certain way. No matter how cool Super Mario World is, it wouldn't be any success at all.
On the other hand, take the level editor of HatPC, which is easy to understand, gives you all tiles available for your use at once and allows you to set the size of your level freely. Combine that with the game of Pyro II - yes, you have a great level maker, but you can only make ever-so-many levels, and the variation will be so low that after a while all levels will feel more or less the same, unless you make marathon levels, which will only make you feel frustration.

Like Bmwsu said, complexity is an issue. While it is probably true that once mastered, a complex level making system can allow you to run free with the options, until that point a lot of users are going to be put off. It is much better when you introduce someone to your game that they have a user-friendly level maker ahead of them, that clearly tells you what is possible to do with your game under normal conditions. A complex system can be chosen as an alternative, where you can experiment with game mechanics and modify things such as gravity. If you can alternate between those, you both have a simple level maker suitable for newcomers to your game/level makers in general, while the more advanced options can be chosen by veteran members/experienced level makers.

Take note that overly simple objects are not all good. If you've ever wanted to place a metal arrow crate in HatPC, you realize why borders are a hindrance to the creator.

I agree with freedom. SK actually has a lot of gameplay potential with the suicides, keys and movable objects. But the levels are so small that you can't really utilize it. I still feel SK is underrated, though, even the way it is now.

Another important aspect in my mind is gameplay depth. Depth is how long your skill at a game continues to rise with the effort you put into it. For example, Electric Box. It doesn't take a lot of effort to reach your peak skill at that game. If you are decent at puzzles you learn very fast how to solve the levels. Compare this to HatPC, where all objects are able to respond in so many different ways that you have to constantly adapt and perform certain actions very accurately.

SK is definitely underrated. I have never tried to use its levelmaker, you know.

now about the complexity, if any one of you has time, I'd like you to play a game called Sarah's Run. it's not out yet, but there's a preview here and the game is prectically amazing as a platformer, imo. that is the perfect example for complexity vs simplicity. the mechanics of the game are so simple - even simpler than hatpc imo. however, once you get to level 10, you'll see how enormously complex that game can be. I loved this game, and I personally asked the developer to release a level maker for it about a week ago. the game is nearing pre-ordering, btw. So I guess we all agree about user-friendliness, and simplicity. how do you think, then, a levelmaker for KS can be made simpler?

Versitality, and ease of use.

Also potential. Many level creators can get old quickly and run out of possibilities, but imo a game like hatpc is simple, but endless. There is so many things you can do, and you never really find yourself un-able to make new things. Also with a game like N which has a small map to work with, is much less fun than a more open one. Another thing is how fixed a level creator is, as a game with a very fixed objective imo, is much harder to create a level with than an open one.

While I agree with you on your main point, HatPC isn't a prime example. You haven't yet reached the stage where most of the more seasoned HatPC players around here are - the feeling that all noteworthy trap ideas have already been taken. This is where an advanced option would be helpful.

What about something like arrow speed, now that I think about more advanced controls.  What about the fuse of dynamite/whatever the replacement in Aeon is?

I disagree with this. It is difficult, but when I'm inspired (read: not tired) I can still come up with original traps. Most of them involve abusing glitches or using other mechanics in extraordinary ways, and there is always the chance that either CSD or Shos has utilized it before, but some are original. The only problem is that I am trying to stay away from small gimmick levels for now, I don't really have the time or energy to make a full level and HatPC keeps getting more terrible, so I'm not exactly in the mood to make such levels.

As an example, I don't think any ridiculous maze levels have been made yet that utilize underwater/ladder corner skipping or large underwater sections that have ladders to replenish your air. People are not used to such mazes and it will take them more effort to recognize all possible paths.

I used it in one of the amazeing maze-s. but these are worth just about a spit. mazes are not utilizable, cuz once you figure them out the first time, they just become annoying. I do challange you to find me 1 original trap that is not just a speedtrap reorganized..

I thought it was time I gave my opinion on this.

I completely disagree with simplicity being the cause of great level creation. The reason, of course in my opinion, that many games fail as good level creator is that they simply do not have enough stuff to use to make a good level. Think of Scriball. You simply cannot build a great level using that due to the lack of options and tiles to use. However, if you are talking about simplicity with the creation of a level, I think you are correct. If you make it too hard to access tiles, or the delete function, or anything for that matter, a new player will be greatly put off by creating levels for the game due to the sheer amount of time taken to make a level.

Of course, a good level creator will know that even in an accessible level editor it will take a while to make a level, but think of your first level. And I mean your very first level. Chances are that you most likely didn't spend too long on that level, especially if you were either young (spammy dynamite) or not part of a community (you wouldn't know of the standards of levels).

However, I think more important thing than the actual level creator is the community. Without a community pushing forwards a game, a community playing and submitting levels the game will fail. It is likely that you wouldn't want to create level without people actually playing and critiquing levels since no-one wants to put in unappreciated effort. These are my thoughts.

tl;dr- The community is the most important thing.

People still need to give ZC a chance. The editor is a little complicated, but once you figure out what you can safely ignore, it's really not so bad. >_>

The problem with ZC is that you can't really create small levels. Just like how you lose imagination very quickly with editors that only allow small levels, you lose interest very quickly with editors that only allow large levels.

I agree with a lot of what you guys have said.

I think the absolutely most important thing to making a level-creation game are its mechanics. The best levels in any game are the ones that find new ways to use the game's mechanics. This is easier to pull off when there are lots of mechanics to work with, but as many of you have said, having too many options is overwhelming. They must be as simple as possible while being able to bring out as many possibilities as possible. In other words, the mechanics must be elegant.

This is what makes Minecraft so great. The core mechanics are: (1) mining for blocks, (2) crafting them for new blocks, and (3) placing blocks down again. But stemming from these three mechanics are an incredible range of possibilities, and what Minecraft does well is that its design implicitly asks you to find all of these possibilities.

I really like Isa's example of how Brawl's editor seriously strained what its game's mechanics could deliver.

I disagree with FlashMarsh on how important simplicity is. If you really think community is what's most important, then it follows that the game should be as inviting as possible. If the game appears so complicated that it turns players off, that will severely limit the growth of the game's community.

Balancing complexity with simplicity is where Computer Science can really come in handy. There's a saying among computer scientists that the best defense against complexity is abstraction. That's to say, rather than trying to rework a program to be simpler, we rework our understanding of the program to give off the illusion that it's simpler. Here's one example, rather than thinking on a lower level and say "we have 107 teachers," we jump to a higher level and say "we have 10 departments of teachers."

One of the toughest challenges when making Aeon was when I realized just how complicated HATPC's mechanics were. There's actually a pretty nasty net of rules that define how Hannah moves (when are you allowed to crawl? how does crawl affect movement? how does all this affect you underwater? how about when standing underwater?). And yet Hannah still remains to be a fairly simple and intuitive feature of the game. HATPC's tile system is another great example. You have at least a dozen different tiles, but the player doesn't have to spend much time learning them because most of these are based off of other tiles, and so the way they work is intuitive. Players understand that all wooden crates act the same, and that all steel crates act differently.

Even more important are the inter-relationships between your game's mechanics. Perhaps it'd be best to think of the mechanics like puzzle pieces. Individually, they're not very interesting, but not until you start putting them together. Arrow crates can only do so much without dynamite crates. The most interesting combinations are when you use two mechanics that appear unrelated, such as using an uncollected treasure chest to protect yourself from an incoming arrow, or to break a spike.

It's easier to see this concept in a tile-based game like HATPC, but mechanics aren't always tangible objects or crates. Just look at any Mario game (2D or 3D) and see how many different maneuvers you can pull off. And then see how few rules and mechanisms actually govern these movements and how they combine in different situations to yield different results.

Do what I do and just make a bunch of stand-alone levels in a single quest file, and maybe someday you can turn it into a full quest. You can make a semi-small dungeon in the default tileset in just a few hours, actually.

just a few hours? I usually don't invest that much time on any level..at least as of late. besides, it's a problem also because playing the levels takes too much.. ZC is just too time consuming for me.