This is the english translation of the beginner's guide from Chikorita83 for the Toki Tori 2+ level editor.
You can find the original german guide here:here

When we start the editor the first thing we see is an example level. This is nice, but we want to create our own now. To clean the map select in the "Utilities"-menu once "Erase All Tiles" and once "Remove All Entities".
Well... it's not complete clean. The notes are still there and they will not only be shown in the editor but also in the finished game. In the toolbar on the left we select the bottommost symbol. This allows us to place or remove notes. Just rightclick on the notes to delete them.

Now that we have an empty map, we can start to fill it according our ideas.

There are two different things that you can place in the level: Entities and Tiles

Tiles are the framing of the level: Above all we use it for the ground but as well for water, lava or ladders. Whereas Entities are the main "actors". The many different animals Toki Tori can interact with, collectibles, the level-exit and many more.

I personally always start with the framing of the level. Therefore I click the topmost symbol in the toolbar and select the gray square (that's solid ground) in the "Collision Tiles" window on the bottom right. Now I can draw however I like. If the left mouse button is pressed I can draw tiles, if the right is pressed I can delete them if neccessary.
Attention! As you can see, I build in a little bottomless pit! Levels in Toki Tori 2+ are not open to the bottom. If you want to have a deadly bottomless pit you have to fill it with e.g. lava. (lava is the red square in the "Collision Tiles" window)

To create entities, we select the paw, the sixth icon from top and then the entity we want to have from the "Entity Library" window in the top right.

There are two entities that have to be in every level: Toki Tori himself (row 7, column 3) and the exit (row 8, column 1). In contrast to the main game, custom levels are no open world, but closed, small puzzles.

In the following example I placed additional to Toki Tori and the exit a bird and a nest.
You have to assign a nest to every bird, so he knows where to carry Toki Tori. Therefore the bird has to be selected. If you just placed him, he is still selected. Otherwise you have to select him using the icon below the paw (cursor with a cross beneath).

In the left property menu the option "Nest" appears. Use "Click to pick" and click on the nest the bird belongs to.

I already placed some gras, so that the bird can not see Toki Tori immediately. As well I put a Berry Bug nest there:
My Berry Bug nest is special as the bugs should spawn upside down. Therefor I set "stickTo" in its properties to "up". This determines where the roots of the nest are.

If I preplace a Berry Bug I have to assign him a nest as with the bird. Then the Berry Bug knows where to respawn when he dies or is eaten.

Apropos being eaten: Just bevore the exit I created a pond and a frog in it. As well I distributed some collectables. The trick is that the last collectibles are unreachable as they are so far up. If Toki Tori still wants to get them he has to stomp the Berry Bug into the water and let the frog eat it. Using the bubble Toki Tori can reach the Collectibles.

We want a background music to play in our level. Therefore we select the note in the "Sound" window and place it on the start spot. This has the effect that the music is played directly when starting the level. If we place the note somewhere else it will start to play when Toki Tori "finds" the note.

In the left property menu we can now select a piece of music to play. Unfortunately you cannot preview them in the editor, so just try a few of them out and write down which ones fit. I personally like the Worldmap.

We want to bring a little variation into our level. Therefore we can assign a theme to it and place some "Theme Tiles".

In the menu we go to "Theme" -> "Level Theme" and select a theme. Then we go to "Theme" -> "Edit Theme Tiles" (shortcut: T)

The tiles window on the bottom right is now a theme tiles window. Where we placed solid ground we can now draw theme tiles above it to create a more deverse environment.

At our small pond I created a sandy beach:

Our level is finished, but we do not know yet if it is playable. So we start a test run. Go to the menu "File" -> "Play Level".
Und we see three big problems:

• The lava is only one "row" high. There is nothing below. While it would work it does just look wrong.
  
• The transition from normal ground to the sandy beach does not look as good as I hoped.
  
• A level breaking problem! Toki Toki cannot pass the lava by himself. The idea was that the bird carrys him to the nest, he jumps down and hides in the grass... But this is not possible as the bird is to fast!

To solve this we move the bird a little bit to the left top, so Toki Tori has more time and succeeds.

Then we go to the lava. First we have to resize the level area. Select the 5th tool (double arrow), grab the bottom edge of the level and drag it down. Now there is more space!

We want to fill this space with solid ground or lava. We do not have to set every single field, but use the fill tool.

The fill tool is the fourth icon, the dashed square with the small plus. We select an area in the bottom left.
Then we use the second tool (the fill bucket) and click into this area to fill it with the tile we selected.
There is no gerneral solution to our problem with the beach - you have to find a situational solution. I created a underground cave fileed with water to seperate the sand from the normal ground, so that the transition does not hurt in the eyes.

This is how it looks: In the editor...
... and in the game:
Looks a lot better, doesn't it? ^^

Now that our level is really finished, we just have to save it and upload it to the workshop, so that the whole world can play it. Go tot the menu "File" -> "Publish to Workshop".

Think of a cool name for your level, add a small description and select the "Visibility", whether the level is just for you, just for your friends or for the whole work.

Before you can publish the level, you have to play it yourself to prove that it is actually possible to solve it:
This might be annoying for big levels that you already tested over ninethousand times, but it saves you from impossible levels. It's just a quality control ;)

After a successful playthrough your level finally is uploaded to the workshow and can be downloaded and played by other players. Congratulations!
I hope that this small guide made the first steps a little bit easier for you. Of course I only broached a few themes and did not mention a lot of features, but for the first test-level this should be enough. The remaining things you can "learn by doing".

Thanks for reading this guide and have fun building levels!


german text and screenshots were made by Chikorita83
If you have any improvements or translation errors, just leave a comment.