LittleBigPlanet Promotion Portal

[Nuclearfish]

Here's some helpful tipsto help you with your creations:

• Always use the grid - it really helps. Two small squares to a medium square, four small squares to a large square. A sackboy can comfortably jump the height and width of a large square. The grid  can help line everything up, and you should only turn it off if you need to rotate something at a different angle, or if you don't actually want something lined up to the grid.

• Don't leave dark matter showing. It looks ugly. Think of it instead as gravity defying blu-tac. A tiny thin bit of dark matter stuck to the back of anything will make it float, so stick small platfroms to it or even whole sections of your level.

• Attach a sensor or magnetic key switch to a light and change the switch to a speed setting - this makes the light fade on and off. A simple dimmer switch can be made using a three-way switch connected to an out-of-view piston with a magnetic key on it. Move the switch one way and the piston extends, bringing the key closer to the key switch (which has a speed setting) and making a light brighter. Move the switch the other way and the key will move further away, reducing the brightness of the light.

• Stickers can be removed by choosing the sticker select tool, selecting a sticker then pressing circle.

• Annoyed by the ungluing problem? Try building your level in seperate sections so that you can move parts out the way if you need to work on them. There's no need to glue everything together in the whole level, because a lot of it won't move anyway.

 

• If you're using the grid and need to accurately roate something 45 degrees, move it out the way of everything else and attach a wobble bolt to the middle. Let it move, then it should stop for 1 second at 45 degrees. Hit pause, then make your adjustements.

• Testing your levels is the most important thing you should be doing all the while you're making your level. But the secret to testing isn't to see if it can be completed, but to see if you can break it. Try doing things you aren't supposed to do, because the average player won't do everything the way you do. Try seeing if you can get stuck, or if you can jump to places you you shouldn't be able to get to, or if there are easier ways to complete something than the way you should do it. You'll notice a lot of problems this way which you probably wouldn't have spotted if you just tested by playing the correct way.

• Also on the subject of testing, get other people to play it. You could even follow them around your level to watch how they do it so you can see for yourself where they get stuck and what they find difficult.

• Remember to include clear instructions for almost everything. As the creator you'll know how to do everything easily, but someone playing the level for the first time probably won't. Put arrows everywhere, show the way to go using a trail of bubbles, and use magic mouths to explain what to do. And always leave sticker switches visible so you can easily see where a sticker should go.

 

• If you can't fit in what you want a mgic mouth to say, use more than one, then connect a sensor switch to them all. As far as I'm aware, the roder in which you connect them is the order they'll speak.

• Use as few materials as possible. Each new material will quickly increase the thermometer, so try and stick to about 10 different ones for the whole level.

• Copying objects (select then press L3) also seems to use less thermometer space than creating a similar object again.

• For mini-games, if you destroy the entry checkpoint by crushing it or something, when you die you'll respawn out the scoreboard. Saves attaching pistons and moving the checkpoint!

• Unless your level is really easy, always use double life checkpoints instead of regular ones. It's better to give players more chances than for them to be annoyed when they have to restart the level.

• Always connect a switch up to some sort of sound so that it is clear the switch has been activated, particularly if the door it was opening or whatever isn't within sight of the switch. Same for puzzles too.

That's all for know, I'll probably post some more later whan I think of them.

[Burning_Out]

some good tips there, nice idea with the squashing of the entry checkpoint
might have to have a go at that. can you "squash" any checkpoint or is it just the entry ones?

[Nuclearfish]

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Burning_Out wrote:
some good tips there, nice idea with the squashing of the entry checkpoint
might have to have a go at that. can you "squash" any checkpoint or is it just the entry ones?

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You can do it with any checkpoint, or any object actually, so long as you drop a huge block of metal on it. I'm not sure what would happen if you destroyed the last checkpoint in a level, if it would respawn in the scoreboard or no, but I suppose it would.

Message Edited by Nuclearfish on 14-11-2008 10:53 PM

[PineCone07]

My tip is to avoid stuff getting destroyed while someone's playing your level. The crushing sound it makes when things are squashed to death is the sound of failure .

[TomBeta]

Music!

I can't stand levels that i have to play in silence

[Terpsichore]

Excellent tips!

[reefmad]

Tips helping me out a lot thanks.

[SmallBoy17]

Some very good tips there

[kill3rsnip3r_99]

Once all spawn points are gon your sackboy/girl will usually go to the scoreboard but on the odd ocasion a message will pop up saying you have ran out of lives then you have the options to restart or return to pod i will be making a level on this so look out for it

[ian111199]

I ve got a tip

When creating a level sometimes the entrance gets in the way

so copy the entrance and select both of them at the same time

it will allow you to delete the entrances and build with out the entrance stopping you