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Marble It Up! Ultra >  Workshop > Hyran's Workshop > Floorboards > Discussions
Floorboards
Description Discussions1 Comments0 Change Notes
Faital Ryuu 4 Dec, 2021 @ 1:26pm
Floorboards Feedback
Just tried this map out. Here's what I think!

Disclosure: I am not a big fan of gem hunt levels. I enjoy gem hunt levels that have some risk factor in trying to collect them all and reach the exit in record time. I played your map because it met this criteria for a gem hunt that I like.

What I liked about your map is the level design has ample platforming challenges for navigating quickly around the level. The middle portion of the map has a great balance of rolling and jumping over gaps. I enjoy the bottom portion of the map where the platforms rise and fall at different rates. It's a fun chaos factor that makes the platforming more challenging.

What I don't like is the map feels rough around the edges and unpolished. I don't know how much hard work goes into designing custom levels, but as a player, I feel like this particular map could be better.

The very beginning of the level could use a lot more work. It's very easy to fall off and miss the 2 gems up there. The starting camera angle gives you no clue without rotating the camera to see where you have to go. The gap-riddled part of the tiny top section isn't bad, but the arrangement of the 1x1 and 1x2 platforms needs work. When I looked for a better spawn point, I found a 1x2 platform on the edge where you can see both gems when your camera is positioned a certain way. THAT's a better start. You know what you have to do even if it's your first time playing that map. The start of the level will become more fair and the player will feel it's their fault if they fail a jump to get the top 2 gems.

But in other ways, that top portion is still unfair. While a player will know it's their fault that they failed a jump and missed one or both gems despite my aforementioned spawn point feedback, getting back up to grab a missing gem effectively disqualifies the player from getting a good time. It's one thing if the jump miss results in having to start over, since you start at the top, and you will know within 5 seconds if you failed. But when you miss a jump but land on the middle portion of the map and you have to navigate to a Super Jump to get back up, any player will sooner opt to start the level over than grab the Super Jump to fix their mistake.

One of my praises, the platforms that move up and down? Why wasn't there more of that? What you could do is blend the starting top portion and the middle portion together. If you insist on having the Super Jumps, you could maybe have a "hill" portion that obscures vision of the middle map portion. The player could grab a Super Jump and use it to travel over the hill rather than having to platform around the hill. It would give the Super Jump pick-ups purpose, and it could be used for faster times rather than solely to reach the top gems that are realistic to miss if a player is moving too fast. The middle portion of the map with its more connected floors, you could break them up into chunks consisting of 4-6 squares, so the player can still move fast but not so fast that the tiny jumps aren't over-extended. Depending on the size of the proposed "hill portion," the Super Jump could have moderate risk factor for using it to get back on the hill to travel to another part of the "middle" where there remain gems to be collected.

The bottom portion of the map is my favorite part of the map except for one thing: The Finish. The bottom portion has all of those rising and falling platforms, all of them too small to navigate by rolling fast. These contrast nicely with the middle portion where the platforms are larger and you can roll for longer before you need to jump. But the finish pad's placement really breaks the flow of the level. The Super Speeds and the steep 1x1 inclines really stumped me, but it didn't feel like a fun puzzle to solve. It felt largely tacked-on and unrelated to the overall fun of the precise platforming required to safely get every single gem. That particular gimmick to finish the level feels like it belongs in a different level entirely. Why not trickier moving 1x1 platforms that surround the Finish Pad's platform?

The overall layout has its ups and downs. My last criticism is navigating from Top to Middle, or from Middle to Bottom. The heights make it difficult to assess where there are safe spots to land. The gap-riddled design of the Top and Middle Portions give the player several options, but many of these options are completely unsafe, particularly for new players who are unfamiliar in the marble physics. It was the worst investing time in collecting all the gems on the Middle Portion just to fall to my death while navigating from the last gem to jump down. Reducing the height of the bottom platforms in relation to the middle ones and making more obvious landing points should help a lot. For a game about speed, having to spend 2 seconds to look for a safe place to jump to is not good design since much of the Middle Platform blocks vision of the Bottom.

"Floorboards" is a promising map. It was a fun diversion but it needs some polish. I would be more than happy to test newer versions of this map if you're actually looking to improve your gem hunt map design. Floorboards is on the right track I think! :)
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Hyran  [developer] 1 May, 2022 @ 1:10am 
Hi there. Thankyou for your feedback, I don't think I have ever received feedback on any of my levels to this extent. I'll do my best to respond and provide insight as to why the level is the way it is, and my intentions behind its design.

"The very beginning of the level could use a lot more work. It's very easy to fall off and miss the 2 gems up there. The starting camera angle gives you no clue without rotating the camera to see where you have to go"

I heavily disagree with most of this statement. Yes, I do agree that the start of the level needs work, but I don't find it particularly "easy" to fall off from up there, so long as you move carefully, That's generally the premise of the level - teaching you to move with care and precision, rather than going full speed ahead in a straight line all the way.

Additionally, rotating the camera during the countdown is absolutely nothing new, and there are a plethora of levels in this game that encourage this simple but useful mechanic. Sure, I think I can be on-board with saying that the start to Floorboards is "cheesy" but I'm not willing to admit anything further than this.

It is not my error that players such as yourself refuse to explore this mechanic. If you or others don't explore this mechanic and miss a gem? That's fine, just try again. There's no shame in resetting, taking time to move the camera around and explore, that's what this game is all about, at least to me.

"Getting back up to grab a missing gem effectively disqualifies the player from getting a good time"

Sure, this is fair. But trust me, anyone looking for a "good time" on a level would know almost immediately that going from the middle back up to the top after missing a gem is simply unoptimal. I had only encouraged this type of path as a means of providing variety in movement in the level and giving all players of all skill levels the opportunity to move about and use the Super Jumps in whichever creative way they desire. I try to express this with all of my powerup placements in all of my levels. On my difficult and easy levels, I leave options up to the interpretation of the player, as this allows for each player to keep having unique experiences. I enjoy seeing the different paths people take on my levels, it's one of my favourite parts of being a builder.

"The platforms that move up and down? Why wasn't there more of that?"

Good question! I like to provide variety in my level building, even in the confines of just one level. I wanted each layer of Floorboards to represent something different. I had several ideas of what the platforming could entail for this level, and I wanted to try and express them together. Does this make for a liner and friendly experience? Not exactly, no. But not every level is meant to be straightforward and easy to understand. If that were the case, custom levels would be boring. I'm glad you enjoyed the moving platforms, but I would rather not overuse them in one space and have them grow repetitive or overly tedious.

"If you insist on having the Super Jumps, you could maybe have a "hill" portion that obscures vision of the middle map portion. "

Again I disagree with this. Super Jumps can be used for so many movement options, even if their concept is quite simple. Adding a "hill" portion would simply take too much away from the "soul" of the level which I had envisioned - I wanted to keep Floorboards open-aired and freeform - and I feel it wouldn't fit the level as it is. I will reiterate that Super Jumps are not a requirement and I rarely see them that way, particularly with this level, but I leave them as they are so players can respond to them with whatever ideas they like to conjure. Doesn't that sound fun to you?

"But the finish pad's placement really breaks the flow of the level. The Super Speeds and the steep 1x1 inclines really stumped me, but it didn't feel like a fun puzzle to solve. It felt largely tacked-on and unrelated to the overall fun of the precise platforming required to safely get every single gem. That particular gimmick to finish the level feels like it belongs in a different level entirely. Why not trickier moving 1x1 platforms that surround the Finish Pad's platform?"

Another fantastic passage. You're right in saying that this part of the level was largely tacked on and not well-tested. For some backstory - Floorboards took an entire month to build - most of that time was spent actually on "building hiatus" since I had no motivation to build levels. Once I was stuck home for a few days recovering from side effects administered by a COVID vaccine, I decided to open Unity and work on Floorboards again. Essentially, what I am trying to say is that Floorboards was worked on in two parts when I had two different states of mind as to what I wanted the level to be. I think it was foolish of me to rush back into it and I hope I can be more patient with my level building in the future.

I also liked your suggestion for the ending of the level and I will take it seriously.

"The heights make it difficult to assess where there are safe spots to land."

Use your camera, use your eyes, try and try again. You will find a way. Not every level is meant to be easy. In fact, I had planned to make Floorboards my most difficult level, and I feel I mostly succeeded, but I don't particularly think this is a bad thing.

"I don't know how much hard work goes into designing custom levels, but as a player, I feel like this particular map could be better."

No map is perfect, and so I agree that Floorboards could have been better. I made this level while I was still quite a new builder, and I have grown by some amount since then. If you're still around, I suggest you trying more of my levels, if you'd like.

Additionally, maybe you can try building some levels yourself! It is quite fun, but it is far more challenging than I thought it would be. Check out this helpful tutorial, you might get a grasp on the difficulties of level building. Skim through if you wish - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH98WEZxXOg&ab_channel=Space

Really, we always like seeing new builders around, and our community has a lot of helpful people in the official discord (discord.gg/marbleitup) if you'd like to hang around and ask some questions. The more levels the merrier! (Psst, I may make another Floorboards level at some stage, so that's another level idea to the pile!)

To end this response, I would like to ask a question of my own - What compelled you to present such a lengthy "feedback response" to my level? I have never seen anything like it.

Apologies for responding several months after you posted your feedback, I am not the most "Steam-savvy" user around.

I responded because I care very much about my levels and my building abilities. I try to make each new level my best one yet, and I see each of my levels as a contraption that I spent quite some time carefully piecing together, so I find it intriguing to see that something I made brought out quite a response from a total stranger.

That's about all I need to say. Take care

~Hyran
Last edited by Hyran; 1 May, 2022 @ 1:11am
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