Some notes about creating levels and level design

When you first start making levels you'll probably see that it isn't all that easy to come up with a 'good' level. Here are some things to keep in mind that may be helpful to you.

Many times a level will have multiple solutions. Some levels have symmetric solutions that require all the same pieces, but they are applied from a different starting point. Other times you will carefully create a level that is really interesting, and someone will come along and do it with 3 fewer pieces than you inteded. The tricky part is often to force the particular solution you were looking for. Many of the pieces in Aargon were invented for just that purpose. One example of a piece which can be used to force a solution is the 'one way' piece. You can place a one way along a beam that you really want to travel in a particular direction. Another example is the exploding barrel. If you don't want a user crossing a certain square you can place a barrel there to prevent that. Finally white filters can be used on squares which you would like to leave open for lasers but at the same time not allow the player to place a piece (like a mirror) there. There are many other pieces that can be used in different ways to force the solution you really intended. Sometimes it seems impossible to force a particular solution and often in those cases we would give up on that level idea and try something else.

We recommend you keep levels simple and yet hard. Unfortunately it is difficult to find very simple placement of coins such that the level is not obvious. We feel that a level where you simply place many many coins in some very complex random pattern involving many multiple pieces is a poorly designed puzzle.When we designed our levels we always tried to make them interesting in some initial simple way and not to turn the player off by confronting them with a very very complex design right from the outset. When we could we would limit the number of pieces used to solve the level to less than 10. In my opinion the best levels are those where the player starts, thinking they must have a very simple solution, because it looks very easy. At this point the player's curiousity is peaked and they will continue trying to solve it. 'Just one coin is easy' was an example of a level like that. I wanted to create a difficult level where there was only a single white coin to hit.

Some tricks can be used to make otherwise easy levels more difficult. One way is to hide the start position of the level by forcing the player to rotate and move the beam several times before hitting the first complex piece. (usually a prism) Another way is to make the beam source rotateable so the player isn't sure which starting orientation is the best. Another trick is to be careful when placing the coins so as not to lead the player. A red, green and blue triplet can often give away the position of a prism whereas a red green and blue triplet of coins where a prism should 'not' go can be very misleading. Sometimes if you place coins poorly you litterally draw a picture with the coins of where the beams and pieces should go. By placing fewer coins you can hide the direction of the beams. In fact, in many cases, we place coins such that it looks like two of them should be hit on a diagonal when really they are hit straight on. (or vice versa)

Good luck creating levels and feel free to send us your best one's as we also enjoy playing Aargon.
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