The only area of my newest level that is complete enough for a screenshot.



Name will be revealed when it's released.

Any comments? Suggestions? TexBG color?

Aaaaaand another tileset.





For now, the set is called GenericSet, due to my inability to think of something unique. Anybody got any feedback, comments, or name suggestions?

Looks good so far.

The geometric patterns in the ground remind me of the old Sonic games. You should add some more variation though - maybe take an idea from those games and use a similar style of eyecandy. Eg make parts that stick out or are indented: see this screenshot http://www.soniczone0.com/games/soni...hz-act2map.png

It would be quite easy to add tiles for that, it looks good, and it fits well with the sort of design you have going.

Oh, and in your first screenshot, those buildings in the background are far too bright. They look too similar to the floor, which means players might think they are masked. I would suggest darkening them or desaturating them, or both. You want your background to look good, but you also don't want it to stand out a bit less than the foreground, even if it's just a tiny bit. Right now they both use the same colour.

It's very pretty! The main thing I think you have to work on is the ground... right now, it has the same color scheme (palette line?), brightness, and apparent size as the buildings in the background. It's more of a problem in the bottom area of the second screenshot where you don't have the rocky gray floor providing a clear boundary. You might want to soften the contrast on the buildings a bit, but either way, the ground needs a lot more structure and variety. Here's a mockup of one possibility:

Obviously you'd want to choose much better colors, that's just the general idea. Also you have a lot of room to play with holes in walls with inventive shapes, perhaps even with the edges receding into the background. Whatever the choice, though, variety is necessary.


ninja'd by mike. I do feel, though, that Palmtree Panic is a better reference than Green Hill Zone, since it uses the same pattern.

Wow , you guys are amazing ! This levels made revolution rating in j2o !

I can only echo what Violet said. That looks really cool, but right now it's a bit too hard to see the difference between the ground you can stand on and background scenery you can't stand on. So you'd either need to make the solid ground brighter, or the background darker (or the other way around, but I can't imagine that looking good).

Nice palm tree, too. Is there a bigger version of it in the tileset as well?

Originally Posted by EvilMike

ass some more variation

It took me a full minute to realize you meant "add."

Well, again you use blue background in your first version of tileset I really think it will be better if you use orange/yellow/brown or red colored background. It's on you to decide, this is good, too. But if you have time, check is it better with those colors what I wrote, up.

@minmay: lol! I didn't recognize what he wrote until you told that

Yeah, it was based more off Palmtree Panic rather than Green Hill Zone, but I understand what you're saying about variation. The bg still uses the same palette line as the normal ground, though I'll change that, and the cliffs are a placeholder.
So, is GenericSet an okay name?

That tileset looks pretty good. That's all the feedback I have right now. I'd suggest a different name than GenericSet, though.

I'm going to re-post this picture so I can get feedback for my level.

Originally Posted by LegendaryDreamer

The only area of my newest level that is complete enough for a screenshot.



Name will be revealed when it's released.

Any comments? Suggestions? TexBG color?

Also, I'm making a new Christmas level, for release with the Christmas Fun Pack (2008, for those who remember), when I'm finished modifying the levels.



I like the pun in the level name. It's supposed to be reminiscent to December Mist (one of the levels I was building but lost). The different layers of snow move at different speeds, so people online who don't see the Snow Particle effect will still see snow. The music is december.s3m. I had to modify the file to keep JJ2 from crashing because of it.
Special thanks to Troglobite for sending me the first three levels.

Captured Win, in more ways than one.

At the top left, near the red base:

I like the gems in the wall. The edge of the platform does look rather square and artificial, though.

It does kinda look artificial. I'll make sure to fix it as soon as I can. I also think the gems in the wall were a good idea.

Looking good, but you have competition. :P

Snooze not included.

Another level i made a while ago..

Yeah, have a shower. Or not.

Can be played in Domination or any other battle mode.

http://img69.imageshack.us/i/hooorrorrrrr.png
I'm making this level

^ Nice tileset.

I knew, before looking at that image, that it's SE's tileset ^^

they're synchronized oshiiiiiiiiiiiii

ETA: to clarify the reason this is a big deal: a synchronized vertical movement behavior, much less one with multiple syncs so the inner vs. outer columns go up and down at opposite times, does not occur in any JJ1 level and is not in fact documented by DD's behavior notes, but I had a feeling that it might exist anyway and I was right.

Every time you post a screenshot of SWAG, it makes it harder for me to wait for it.
Needless to say, it looks good.

Gonna finish Trixi CTF...Pack of CTF symmetrical levels...I think it will be much better than my The Wy or Relaxing View but looks like i'm still far from enough good JCSer...Maybe to become best JCSer i need enter into my brain and search file: "Great JCSer"?

Originally Posted by Crazy Rabbit

Gonna finish Trixi CTF...Pack of CTF symmetrical levels...I think it will be much better than my The Wy or Relaxing View but looks like i'm still far from enough good JCSer...Maybe to become best JCSer i need enter into my brain and search file: "Great JCSer"?

Enter Keyword: "Great JCSer"

Searching...

Error: Cannot enter into brains. Were you searching for a risky operation? We take no responsibilities for memory loss.

Okay, enough of that. Here's a screen of one medium-small battle level I'm making, and a crappish one. I have another cool battle level in the making other than these two, but it looks boring at the moment.





About the screen at the top, that was the true first level I worked on. But it took me a very long to time work on. The layout of it isn't that great though so I'm not sure if I should release it. Please note the bottom screen contains a very unfinished level.

You probably shouldn't make single player levels in one day!

A standard 256x64 level should take at least a week, unless you're fast or really know what you're doing.

I hate Bubba, Schwartzenguard and Robot boss typical fights with Spaz, as every of them can be easily killed within a single sidekick. Hard to even call it a boss fight, it's rather pressing two buttons.

Use layer larger than 2x3 for the rain, it looks dull. Rain drops in real world aren't in straight lines. And the tilebugs, uh. Carrotus tileset just sucks in this matter. Even the official level designers didn't seem to be able to fully avoid them. However, those vine thingies on the top of the first screenshot look absolutely avoidable. Also, no eyecandy included.

What EvilMike says is true, however may still be useless when you're unexperienced, in which case you just stop after two days, believing your level has everything already and nothing can be added, so not imagining working on it for the next five days. Also, if it's one week strongly depends on the amount of free time during it. If you have all the weekend free and you work on your level all the time, with breaks only for meals, you can create a level in two days. If you're busy all the time, it can take a month as well. Also it strongly depends on the layout of a level and the type of eyecandy, and other things, I believe.

Originally Posted by Sir Ementaler

And the tilebugs, uh. Carrotus tileset just sucks in this matter.

Indeed. This one and Psych as well. I remember, when I was reworking my single player levels (which STILL haven't been released, but that's not the point), Carrotus and Psych gave me the most work simply because I had to fix so many tilebugs I made when I just took those chunks of tiles as they were in the tileset and pasted them in highly repetitive patterns. Except they didn't fit all that well, especially on the edges. And at least in case of Carrotus it was a matter of replacing tiles, with Psych because of how the grass and slope tiles are designed I sometimes had to redesign portions of the level to make it look good.

At least Inferno clearly shows it's gonna give you one hell of a work...

Originally Posted by DoubleGJ

Indeed. This one and Psych as well. I remember, when I was reworking my single player levels (which STILL haven't been released, but that's not the point), Carrotus and Psych gave me the most work simply because I had to fix so many tilebugs I made when I just took those chunks of tiles as they were in the tileset and pasted them in highly repetitive patterns.

This is so true.

When I was making The Resistance, the story was based entirely on Carrotus which meant that I had to use the tileset. I had planned on two or three large levels that used the set, or some variation of it. This proved too annoying though, so I only made one large level and two small ones, with one of the small ones having fairly simple eyecandy (being a water level, I could get away with that). With the larger level, I went for a look that allowed me to take a more sparse, easy to build approach. Overall things turned out fine, but I did not enjoy making it and wound up cutting a lot of stuff.

Oh yeah, and I wound up using wartorn as well, which is also a very painful tileset to use. That level went from being planned as a full level, to being the scene of a boss fight and nothing more.

The moral of the story: don't plan big projects that include tilesets you hate using!

Use each tileset included so extensively that you'll never once have to use it again because there will be no remaining possibilities!

Each tileset included, as in the official tilesets?

I think pretty much all of them have been used to their fullest potential, at least by other people.

Also, I think there are some which I will never use extensively. Inferno, for example, is about as fun to use as it is to get teeth pulled. The remix/edit/whatever of it on j2o somehow makes it even worse.

Ah, this discussion just made me wanna post a Devil Dash screenshot :'D



Why is everything I have left to do so discouraging

Originally Posted by DoubleGJ

Ah, this discussion just made me wanna post a Devil Dash screenshot :'D



Why is everything I have left to do so discouraging

Keep it up, if you can finish one level you can finish more. Your screenshots are always interesting.

Although, if you are *really* discouraged, you can do what I do: take what you have, adjust the story a bit, and release it as a complete pack. Out of the 5 episodes I released, I did that with 4 of them. Better to release something than nothing, I say.

Originally Posted by DoubleGJ

Ah, this discussion just made me wanna post a Devil Dash screenshot :'D

For a while there I thought that was an edit of Damn with the Jungle spikes in

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT PICTURE BELOW:

I'm not really planning to finish this, and it's obviously very unfinished. Not much tiles, and tiles are in places where they shouldn't be. That said, the main reason I am posting this is for advice; I am hoping for helpful, understanding advice and reasonable crits. Please don't comment about its unfinished state, and try to think about the picture below logically.

This is an armory assault level. A team of players raid an armory to gather powerful weapons of each type, one type at a time. The weapons are default jj2 ammo (maybe shields too). Places are opened up by using weapons, instead of smashing crates, that is to ensure a logical progression that is also quite varied and non-linear.

The picture below shows a self-made tileset of my own, inspired from default jj2 sets like castle and tubelectric. I have a lot of control over the outcome, and making a new set comes with benefits, especially for assault.

Picture

Seems interesting. What would be the main target? To blast off some reactor with TNT? Or a shield perhaps?

Not really sure at the moment, but probably not a reactor.

It's both an interesting concept, and a difficult one. See, normally in an assault as the attacking team completes objectives, they gain quick access to wherever the last objective was. However, as there's no triggers involved here apparently, the players would have to go all the way again to get back into action...

Ever Story 2:



Trixi CTF:

Why, in the name of everything wicked, would you ever play JJ2 in a maximized window???