et cetera

The color of the train that left the station
Or
The tornado causing butterflies

I like creating things in LBP in small part as a means of creativity, in a larger part for the challenge of implementing the concepts I picture in my head and mostly for the fun of it. I enjoy the problem solving aspects of trying to use the tools available to make the behavior I want happen with as little detriment to the player as possible.

My game time is limited and I can take a month or two to make a level and as such I always endeavor to find something to inspire me into my next level else I may never find the motivation to complete it. I wait for a hook or concept that is interesting enough get me into the slog.

The creating of the level really needs to be enjoyable enough to be its own reward because other than a handful of days or weeks after the level is published will the finished level provide its own entertainment factor as a handful of people play and provide feedback on it. Other than some talented and prolific creators, there are many of them, there isn’t any fame, adoration or praise to be had.

With the preamble out of the way I’ve been wanting for some time now to talk a bit about the level I’m currently working on while not talking about it too much directly. I’m not secretive but simply anti-social and as such I don’t publicize my levels much.

Below is a series of events and ideas that came together that got me back into the marathon that I’m finally nearing the finishing line on.

• My previous serious levels have always been unstable messes that shift, move, rotate or generally limit action to a small area. I want to pull the camera back, affix the level to the floor and try a more wide open level approach. One of the initial motivations for this was playing through zuch80’s very well done Winter Discovery and iiDexii’s great level A Kingdom in Peril.
  
  An open level such as this can’t cram minute detail into every piece of the level or else I’d likely run out of thermometer before I reach the scale I wanted to achieve. Instead the creator needs to build enough sense of location and space through the architecture and placement of the objects and letting the open space flow as a part of the level.

• One of the LBP ‘wow’ moments, there are many of them, I had was playing Ekelrock’s survival challenge The Fifth Element. This is a very well done challenge that incorporates light in the mechanic of the level in a way that I didn’t think of before. Very clever and fun to watch and play.

• The Template Level Challenge was announced earlier and I was curious if it was something I could get into without spending months on the project so I checked out the templates available. Of the three the one with the elephants gave me the best inspiration. (I don’t remember the template name but I’m sure you’ll know the one if you’ve played with the template.)
  
  All of the elephant imagery, statues and the material of the level made me think of some type of temple where-in an elephant looking deity was worshipped. What if I made an elephant god temple but that the temple has been abandoned for thousands of years. Hmm. What if I took the whole template and increased it in size a bit to make it feel a bit foreign and had the player trying to find out what happened to the inhabitants of the strange temple? Maybe incorporate Lovecraft-ian elements?
  
  Well I never entered the TLC challenge but some of the ideas still held on.

• What would the story be like if there was a prophecy that a hero would come to save the land from a terrible evil but then that hero never showed up and the evil swept through the land anyway? What if the fated hero wasn’t scheduled to arrive until a much later time? A few of these concepts are explored in the well done books of the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson. (Another set of books that would be good as a remake into a movie.)
  
  What would the hero experience as they explore the empty, barren land? They may not even realize they are the prophesied hero since the people who believed in the prophecy have long since crumbled into the dust.
  
  What if the evil had prevailed upon the land for such a long time that even it became weary and complacent? Maybe the evil would yearn for the hero to come to end itself after such a long rule over a dead land.

• I’ve always liked the task presented to the player to move an object through a series of events or to require the player to bring along an item through the level. This adds an element to the play experience that works out differently for different players. The partnership between the player and the companion cube/protectorate/protector/friend is an element that isn’t explored very often in levels I’ve seen in LBP.
  
  The level that impressed me the most in this aspect was the amazing level ICO (finished version) by Mushroom_Samba where you need to take the princess Yorda with you from beginning to end. Of course this is straight from the game which is built around the same mechanic but still a good implementation.

• I’ve wanted for a bit to do a level that has a “boss” fight in it as these are a fairly normal gameplay mechanic with many good and many bad implementations out there in other levels. Can I make the fight more than just a jump-on-the-brains event or paintinator-fest or use the drop/push/crush trick? Well, maybe, but will it be any fun?

So these thoughts and ideas coalesce into a level idea which got me off my duff to see what I can do with it. I look for images and components that I can translate into LBP as I’m better at mimicry than creativity. I touch on many different sources that I’m sure will be noticed by some who play the game.

Well I’m down to the last bubble on my thermometer for this new level and it is a race to the end to see if I can finish the last segment and scoreboard before I run out. Then it’ll be off for sticker decoration, supplementary sound effects and possibly, maybe some score bubbles.

Cheers