Level Design Guidelines

Before starting to build, please read the documentation to learn how to use the editor.

When designing levels for LOLBeans, there are some important guidelines to consider. These guidelines will help ensure that the levels are enjoyable and fair for players of varying skill levels.

All of the items below will be taken into consideration to determine whether or not to publish your level.

Always test your level with less experienced players (and on mobile) before trying to publish your level.

You can submit your level for feedback in our Discord server

Level description

Provide a sufficiently clear and consistent description of your level design and any instructions the player may require. Be specific in describing the type of experience and genre (exploration, parkour, speedrun, contemplation, puzzle, etc.).

Level design quality

Making a quality level design improves the chances of it being published.

Design with an underlying concept in mind

Establish a cohesive concept that ties together the obstacles, environment, and challenges. Ensure that the level design reflects the game's overall theme and concept.

Consider average player skill and mobile players

When designing levels, consider the average player skill level (low) and that the level must also be playable on mobile devices. Rather than creating a very difficult level, it's better to design levels that allow for different paths with different levels of difficulty and different risk/reward profiles.

Place blocks precisely and avoid overlaps

When placing elements, be precise and avoid overlapping blocks. Use snapping and coordinate values to place blocks precisely.

• Overlapping surfaces
  
   Avoid overlapping elements, these cause visual glitches (called z-fighting).
  
• Intersecting moving blocks
  
   When moving blocks intersect other blocks it can have unintended effects on the players (getting stuck inside colliders, or flying off the stage)
  

Spawn players on safe spots

Spawn points should be placed on safe spots to ensure that players do not spawn into danger or off the stage. Avoid respawning players close to ledges or in mid-air. Add a respawn delay when the player respawns near a danger to let them stop moving. This will make the experience more enjoyable and prevent frustration for players.

Guide the player

Use architectural and visual cues to guide the player towards their goal, you should avoid unintended situations where the player feels lost or disoriented.

• Use clear architecture to guide players
• Use logical and consistent visual cues and conventions, e.g. red = danger
• Use arrows to indicate turns
• Mark kill zones or dangerous areas with obvious visual cues (spikes, red blocks or another convention)
• Design jump pads or boosters with an animated pad/ring and a trigger (see documentation), avoid unexpected jumpads
• Finish lines should be prominently marked
• Use the “kill respawn delay” option on killing blocks to prevent player disorientation after a respawn
• Checkpoints can optionally be marked to provide intermediate waypoints

Avoid camera occlusion

Avoid as much as possible creating situations in which the player camera will be blocked. Avoid placing large moving elements close together on the depth axis and always test your level design to ensure that camera behaviour is acceptable.

Make difficulty progressive

Establish a consistent difficulty curve throughout the level. Gradually increase the challenge as the player progresses through the level. You can also decide to provide different routes with different levels of difficulty and risk/rewards.

Design object spawners carefully

Avoid the temptation of spawning large amounts of objects using object spawners, this causes excessive randomness and can cause devices to slow down. Design each object spawner to have precise path and timing so that it provides an interesting challenge for players. Always prefer quality over quantity.

Use dynamic objects carefully

If your level design relies on dynamic objects to function consistently, ensure either these will not be removed from the stage by the players or that they will be replaced by using object spawners. Avoid placing too many dynamic objects on the level as this can lead to messiness and excessive physics calculations.

Avoid excessive repetition

Avoid creating a long sequence of stairs or platforms by duplicating the same element over and over again, especially if placed imprecisely . This usually isn’t an interesting challenge.

Make levels visually appealing

Be deliberate and careful with architecture, avoid placing elements randomly. Symmetry and precise alignments are good practices that result in better visuals. Design using a combination of different textures that serve as an aid for reading the space. Messiness and visual noise is to be avoided.

Fairness

Avoid design choices (whether deliberate or not) that can cause player frustration and perception of unfairness.

Checkpoint frequency

Ensure that checkpoints are placed in a fair way, avoid creating frustration by requiring players to repeat a sequence of obstacles they’ve already passed before getting to the last obstacle they’ve failed. It’s good practice to add a checkpoint before a particularly hard obstacle.

Limit randomness

Don’t leave progress to chance. Players need to feel they have a sense of agency, avoid creating obstacles or interactive elements that behave completely randomly or always produce different results. These include:

• Imprecise long jumps That can happen easily with jumpads or with a kinematic collision like a hammer. Test a lot and ensure the jumps are consistent and leaves a margin for player placement error. Watch out for high-speed collisions with static elements at the start that would randomly alter the trajectory
  
• Unpredictable moving blocks
  
   These are blocks that either move at excessive speed or have an unpredictable pattern.
  
• Spawning large amounts of objects
  
   Design each object spawner with a precise trajectory and timing so that it provides an interesting challenge for players. Always prefer quality over quantity.
  

Trolling

Trolling level designs are acceptable only to a certain point, use common sense and moderation when adding any of these to your level design:

• Invisible obstacles
• Invisible kill zones or mismatching visuals for killing block colliders
• Misleading floor surfaces with “no collider” (leading players to unexpected falls)

Annoyances

These are any situations that cause unnecessary frustration for the players, including:

• Slow kills
  
   Don’t make the player wait too long when they’ve made a fatal mistake. Prefer killing the player and respawning them quickly.
  
• Long falls
  
   Avoid fatal falls that last more than a couple of seconds, shorten the falls by placing kill zones under the stage.
  
• Loss of control
  
   Situations where players are shocked or lose control for an extended amount of time should be avoided. Be particularly careful with
  

• vertical jump pads that can cause the player to remain stuck in a perpetual jumping loop after being shocked by a collision. It’s good practice to angle your jump pads a little to avoid this.
• inescapable holes (e.g donut)

• Unreasonable precision
  
   Don’t design for pixel-perfect jumps or movements as this can be near impossible for certain players (mobile devices and poor internet connections). This includes tiny landing surfaces, extremely slippery surfaces and very narrow or convoluted paths.
  
• Obstacle timing and failing fast
  
   Avoid obstacles with a very long cycle, for example a platform that takes too long to move between origin and destination, for example use multiple side by side elevators with different time offsets. Always prefer having the player fail fast and retry over having them exercise patience.
  

Hidden finish lines

Don’t create a finish line for your own use just to have the record for the level. Use common sense when designing secret or special routes through your level, hidden paths should be hinted at in some way.