Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Blanche Hodapp - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

(Yes, I know it's a bit early!)

Well kids, it's almost that time of year again, specifically August 7th at some to-be-disclosed location in London (though hopefully not Brick Lane again, that place is dreadful!)

Anyway, no beating about the bush, who's in?

I'll be there, obv.
And I'm hoping the adorably egotistical Lee Brotherton will be too, as Nik and I have a bit of a deal going on where he's concerned :V

I was going to post this in E/RE as "legitimate research" for something, but then I decided that, further to Dude's basic level design intro, and although the question's been approached a thousand times in terms of "I love this level 'cos of this", I thought I'd expand it beyond bog-standard "I'm making something and need ideas" research and ask what makes a level playable and, more importantly, awesome, for you, the players?

For instance, I'm very much a product of a 90s upbringing, when games were fast, etc. and so my attention span is short and I have a low boredom threshold. So I'm very much a fan of levels like Flying Battery, where you can actually get up some decent speed on certain sections (like the uppermost path in Act 2, where all you need to do is curl up into a ball and let momentum take control), yet I also dislike the areas of that level where you're forced to wait on corkscrew lifts and those giant spiked platforms that get yanked around by electromagnets. Ideally, the level for me, though it's short enough already, would contain less of that so that I could enjoy the level without thinking "oh God, I'm going to have to go through that section."

Similarly, the moving platforms at the end of Metropolis Acts 1 and 3. You know the ones, they take you to the signpost and the boss arena, respectively. Looking at the level maps, they don't actually appear to be that long, but it's still quite a boring wait once you're actually travelling on them.

Now, this may be a point of contention among certain people, but I'm also rather fond of platforming. Not to the extreme of hanging over a bottomless pit and if you make one wrong move you're spiny pizza, but certainly there're those sections of Scrap Brain Act 1 where you're leaping from crumbling or disappearing platforms to the next, lest you find yourself potentially on the receiving end of a nasty electric shock. (However those sections with the giant groping crushers poking out of the walls annoys me to no end.)

Anyway, lest I shambolically stumble even further away from the point, for me a good level combines areas of good speed (though not so out of control that it becomes like Sonic Advance 3), interspersed with fast-paced, quick-footed platforming. Something to keep me moving all the time, instead of standing still for those precious seconds. What makes it for you?