Level editor ?

[jordyelsenor]

I  have bought VVVVVV on steam and this is a great game 

It will be great if you can add a level editor 

Sincerly
Jordan

[The Brass]

IIRC a level editor would be impossible to add since it would be buggy. The levels in the game don't cause any glitches, but simply changing the geometry might.

[Terry]

Not impossible exactly, but yeah, it would be a very big job; it might even require a total rewrite of the engine. Still, I'd love to implement one someday.

[jordyelsenor]

Okay, yeah I understand job that it occurs.


Which software do you use to make the game ?
I want to make flash game hehe : .

Thanks a lot.
Jordyelsenor

[adrive]

wow...with all the demakes comin in, the ds version, vvvv, cccccc, and bunch of others, it's quite clear that if this game came with a level editor or modable it would've have a whole lot of maps/spin offs by now

then vvvvv would get so popular by its own without advertisements!

[roboBootz]

Which software do you use to make the game ?
I want to make flash game hehe : .

Well.. umm... it.... I.... *sigh*

It's a flash game.

[roboBootz]

xD But yeah, seriously, a level editor would be tha shiiiiiiiizzle! 

I wouldn't think it'd be too hard... at least, in concept.

You have...

• Walls
• Spikes
• Moving platforms
• Quicksand/disappearing platforms
• Gravity Switcher... bungee cord... things
• Enemies
• Checkpoints
• Shiny Trinkets
• Terminals/Non-moving NPCs (which when triggered display dialog)
• NPCs which follow you

• However you want to do the walls, that's pretty much drag and drop there. (Or draw the rectangle and fill it in)
• Spikes are just a drag to drop thing, though you might add a level checker to make sure they're always touching a wall
• Moving platforms are simple, just draw out how big it is, set a path for it, and set a speed. The player can test it out to make appropriate tweaks.
• Quicksand is the same thing, just draw out how big it is and set how fast it disappears.
• Gravity Rubber Band things are more simple draw-a-line... and that's it.
• Enemies are the hardest part, since users will want to add their own... but if nothing else, you could just give us generic enemies/choose from the enemies you already have. Again, simply pick a starting point, a path, and a speed... and that's it. (We can add our own in a later version. )
• Checkpoints are siiiiiiiiimple, just place them.
• Shiny trinkets are the same thing, just place them.
• Terminals and NPCs just need to be placed against a ceiling/floor, a name, and a script. (Later on you could add the ability to trigger emotions in actors as well)
• NPCs that follow you... well, again, just add them. If they need to talk first, well... that can be added later.

Tadaaaaaaaaa! Drag and drop editing! And hey, a simple editor will churn out LOADS of maps before you even put in the additional touches necessary to make full campaigns! (You know, acting and stuff)

Of course, it'd be cool if you included the ability to pick from a background from the game, as well as a song, but other than that, that's all you really need right there.

As for how it'd work when it came to loading things, just separate the main campaign into a map file (maybe keep it inside the final compiler, but yeah), have the game load that map when selecting the game from the menu, and then simply have a custom campaign screen that lets you load up custom campaigns (using the same map-loading mechanic). You might want to make separate save files for each campaign though, so as to not overwrite our official campaign

We don't necessarily need to go into the detail that you did, but since a series of maps is technically just a reaaaaaaaaaaaaally small campaign, we can package them all as a campaign.


Of course, I have no clue how the game actually works, and I'm sure with it being a Flash game (it is, right?), things probably work MUCH differently than I thought... but yeah! Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Rox]

Considering how much I loved making those YYYYYY campaigns, and how quickly I got them done, I would have a blast with a VVVVVV level editor. A few things are missing from that list, though!

Background animations, which maybe would just be a preset list of backgrounds from other stages, i.e. scrolling starfield, the sexy colored rectangles from the laboratory area, and so on.

And also, static backgrounds. Exactly like platforms and walls, except without collision so you can draw out things in the background. There's a few of these all throughout VVVVVV, and they're extremely effective at conveying the environment in conjunction with room names, like the little windows in the space station or the hint arrows in the tower.

Finally, an important gameplay object: Something to trigger screen wrapping along specific stretches of the screen's edge, like in the Warp Zone. And I'm sure there's even more stuff that we wouldn't know is missing until we got our hands on it. Quite a bit of work to get a proper editor up and running, indeed...


That does raise the question, though... Exactly how did you plan and make the levels in the first place, Terry? Was it mostly lines and shapes in Flash, or did you rely much on premade tiles? And how on earth did you plan out some of those more intricate areas, like the overlap between Space Station 1 and 2? Was there much drawing on paper or scribbling in Paint to work out a rough plan first? Or is this all classified material too sensitive to talk about until you can make a Behind the Scenes video to be released with the limited edition version of VVVVVVv2?

[The Brass]

To elaborate on the problems of a level editor, here's the original quote:

For one, it's a lot more complex to implement than you might think (I don't think anyone but me could actually use the existing level editor) - to make a nice, simple to use new level editor that could load and save new levels from a server or something in flash would basically require implementing a new level editor from scratch and adding a huge amount of code to the game. The bigger problem, though, is that the game is broken mechanically in all sorts of ways that you don't see, because I never made levels that show off certain problems - little things like having walls too close to room entrances, and where you can and can't place gravity lines, and how many threadmills you can have in a room before things start to slowdown. Getting a level editor up and running would require fixing all of that, which could take weeks in itself.

Basically, it's not that it's impossible, it's just that it's a huge amount of work at this point.

[t4ils]

Making a level editor is not that easy ^^

There are a lot of constraint to add in order to comply with the physic engine of the game.
When you first create a level editor, it's just for you to quickly create new maps. You know the limit of the game so you never create buggy maps. You just have to pay attention not to create them.

But when people start asking for this same level editor, you can't just release it and say "hey, pay attention, don't do this - this - this - this and that cause that will make a buggy map".
You have to change a huge amount of things so that people don't make weird and buggy maps.

So in this case, either you create the level editor keeping in mind that you want to release it and create something clean from the beginning, which requires more time, either you create something messy and quick that will be a pain to update later on (like Terry did if I understood well) but work for you.

For example, I created the level editor of my remake called VVVVVVDS (working title) with the attention to release it so I have to spend some time restricting actions when adding new components to the game (no more than 5 platforms per map, 5 enemies of each type etc.)

I can't imagine the work to do if you have to add all the restrictions at the same time in the end of the project (in fact, I can ... it's an awful lot of time).

So, I just wanted to show you how hard it can be to create or adapt a level editor, it's not simple drag and drop stuffs.
As Terry said, "it's not that it's impossible, it's just that it's a huge amount of work at this point."

My advice is just wait & see, and don't put too much pressure on Terry ^^