Sonic Level Design

[Sparks]

Cross post from Retro.

So I asked if people wanted to see a guide about Sonic level design, so here I am. This is a rough draft version which I'm posting so that I can get input in and revise any areas that may seem off, or add anything people want to contribute.

The Basics

If you're reading this guide, you probably want to know how to make a Sonic level. I think the best way to get ones mindset ready to do so, is to view a Sonic level like this: There's a point A, the beginning, and a point B, the end of the act. The player must get from point A to point B. The player can get to point B by taking numerous possible routes. Sonic levels are no linear equation. There is always forks, alternate routes, hidden routes, and usually there is not a single main route at all.

Routes

It's hard to simply 'categorize' the way a level can be set up, since there can be so many varying ways. You can't really say a Sonic level is made up of one route, when there's almost always more than one way to get to the goal. No single route is the “right” route, but each route provides a different experience for the player to blast through the level at various speeds. There are three main types of routes, however, that tend to exist in Sonic levels:

• High route: This is the highest route on the map. It's more often than not the fastest route, but it's also the most tedious to stay on. Often there will be rewards on this route, such as invincibility, speed sneakers, or 1-ups.
  
• Low route: This is the lowest route on the map. This is usually the least speed based route, and most platform based route. Depending on the zone trope, it may be the safest route or the most dangerous place to be (see: water zone).
  
• Average route: This is any main route(s) that lie within the middle of the level, and connect to other routes, including the high and low routes in various ways depending on the level.
  

It's not as black and white as this though. Each game has handled these kinds of routes, and how they interact with each other in their own way. To add, these choices are also influenced by how the level itself is designed. I think it'd be easiest to go through each of the main three games and elaborate.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic 1 is the best game to study if you want to get the basics down. Sonic 1 differentiates from Sonic 2 and 3, in that there's more direct routes, rather than constantly branching and switching layouts. However, both of these scenarios exist in Sonic 1, but by Sonic 2 the reverse was more common.

Green Hill Zone Act 1 is the first zone a lot of people probably played Sonic through, so it's no surprise that all the basics of Sonic level design are found here.

• Red Line: This is Green Hill Act 1s most iconic route, aka the one most players will venture through.
  
• Pink Line: This is the lower route, where less seasoned players of Sonic games are likely to end up. Take note of how a careless player is likely to end up here if they dabble around on the crumbling platforms. There's more traps here too, but they're not unforgiving.
  
• Yellow Line: This is the higher routes, where explorers are likely to end up. Notice how it's a lot harder to stay up on this route.
  

Take note of how no single route is a straight line. Sonic levels are always going up and down, in a way like a roller coaster. Even the alternate routes follow this pattern.

Sonic 1 also has the two exceptions to the entire "route" system. Marble Zone Act 1 and Labyrinth Zone Act 2 are completely linear. Hydrocity Act 2 and Hill Top Act 1 kind of lean in this direction, but it's not as extreme.

• Red Line: The only route. I don't think I need to elaborate any further.
  
• Yellow Line: These are small branches you can check out. Nothing more than making the level a bit less straightforward, and having a place for the levels goodies.
  

I wouldn't advise using these kinds of levels in a Sonic hack or fan game, mainly because Sonic 1 was in many ways the developers discovering how Sonic worked, as they went along. Compare MZ 1 and LZ 2 to the likes of SLZ 3 and SBZ 2.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonics famous sequel brought a lot of improvement to the level design in Sonics formula. Lets take a look at Emerald Hill Zone Act 1.

• Red Line: This is the main route most people go through. Of course, after the 3rd loop, there tends to be no difference between what's the -main- route, since any curious player may end up in the 1-up tunnel, or hit the spring and end up on the higher route. This is what I mean by how flexible routes are. There's a lot of freedom for the player to explore.
  
• Pink Line: This is the lower route, where less seasoned players of Sonic games are likely to end up (once again). The amount of traps is more evident, and like in Green Hill, the player is more likely to end up here if they goof around and then mess up by falling into a pit.
  
• Yellow Line: These are branches and forks in the one route that lead to another route, so basically, mini-routes.
  
• Orange Line: This is the high route. Part of the red line was in a way the high route too, but since this is a route you can climb higher to after starting on the main route, I'll consider it the high route. Notice that nice run you get at the end through a loop and two corkscrews (followed by a devious spring to keep speed runners on their toes).
  

Now lets move on to Chemical Pla-

Good Lord.

Chemical Plant Zone is probably one of the reigning kings of Sonic level design. The zone is abundantly rich in alternate routes, high speed non-linear coasters, with minimal confusion. I left out that looping pipe by the two rings and shield monitor, but since it's a dead end anyway it's not a big deal.

• Red Line: This is the main route most people go through (once again).
  
• Orange Line: This is your first high route, though considering how easy it is to stay on, and it's only a small length longer than the red line, it's hard to say. The zone in general is focused on speed. It eventually becomes the main route for the rest of the act.
  
• Yellow Line: These are branches and forks in the one route that lead to another route, so basically, mini-routes.
  
• Light Blue Line: This is another shot at a "high" route within the first normal route. It's hard to notice if you let the spring there force you to the left, continuing on the initial route.
  
• Light Green Line: The only real notable "low" route that you end up in for not being careful.
  

Overall, take note that there's less of a "main" route, and instead just several possible roads that are constantly intersecting and joining together. This doesn't start becoming evident in Sonic 1 until around Star Light Zone.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

Sonic 3K expands majorly on the groundwork that Sonic 2 set up, so much that it eliminates some of it in the process. Gimmicks are now much more abundant than they were in Sonic 2, and the level design is pretty much twice as large as it was in Sonic 2. Routes are also significantly different.

Types of Routes

Remember all that stuff I mentioned about High Routes, Low Routes, and Average Routes? Because Sonic 3Ks levels are much bigger than those of Sonic 1 and 2, these are much less obvious than before. Instead, the massive levels allow every single route to be big, expansive, and have lots of areas where you're going left as well as right. Every single route shares pretty much the same difficulty as any other one you could end up on, and this adds to the experience of Sonic 3K. It makes the levels feel bigger, as if there's no real "ceiling" or "bottom of" the levels. Every single route is rich in gimmicks, huge, and never fails to keep the player going in a mix of speed and platforming.

Character Specific Routes

Sonic 3K was the first time characters had their own unique abilities. Sonic had the insta-shield and ability to harness the power of the element shields. Tails has his flying and swimming, and Knuckles has his gliding and climbing. This is nothing new to you obviously, but these factors influence level layout majorly. The intensity their abilities influence the level design however, is up to you. Even Sonic Rush has a few spots that only Blaze can reach with her rocket heels.

Here's a cheeky example from Marble Garden Act 1.

• Blue Line: Sonic/Knuckles' route. There's of course an alternate route at the beginning of MGZ1 to where you avoid this section entirely, but that's not the point. Tails could also go this way if the player wanted to.
  
• Orange Line: Tails' smug little shortcut.
  

A level designer could choose to make a character specific route as simple as this. The most famous example of an expansive route for a specific character is Angel Island Act 2.

(big image)

The entire lowest route is specific to Knuckles only.

Mushroom Hill Act 1 also has another Knuckles section. It's the beginning lowest section, and doesn't meet up with Sonic/Tails' route until the loop after the first pulley gimmick. It's another fun section that lets the player use Knuckles' climbing and gliding abilities to get through a few tight spots. If you're wondering why I didn't line out all of the paths the player can take on each route, it's because I'm just trying to illustrate the point of how the character specific routes work.

Paths like these are really popular among classic fans, but are rarely attempted in fan games and hacks. The reason is likely because they take a lot of effort (you're basically doing two levels at once, or just adding more routes to a layout). Levels like this are unique, and I can't really get into specifics about how the level should be designed around a characters abilities, because those could vary from fan project to fan project. Some could have Knuckles digging, Wisp-specific routes, or Tails in his Sea Fox.

A few main points I consider:

• Don't overload the gimmick: By gimmick here, I mean the character specific gimmick. Let there be moments where the player will have to say, fly through a maze of spikes, or climb up a wall, but don't make your whole level focused around that. Look at Knuckles' route in Angel Island 2. There's only a few instances that force the player to use his abilities that deviate from the usual Sonic-y game play.
  
• Cleverly disguise their special path: By this I mean don't make it blatantly obvious it's a character specific path. Invisible barriers with Knuckles' logo flashing on them, or some similar garbage is just lazy. In Marble Garden 1 if you reach Tails' route as Sonic, all you think is "Hmm, how can I get up there?.. Oh. Tails can fly!" With Knuckles' entrance to Angel Island 2, some players might not even see it behind the rocks. Also note that if Knuckles tries to go into Sonics route, he'll climb onto the rock and end up smashing it (said rock, Sonic can't smash). His jump height isn't high enough to reach the cliff to reach the upper level mid-boss. That whole area is cleverly designed to force Knuckles onto his new route.
  
• Don't let 'rules' be broken: This a simple one. If a route is meant to be character specific, make sure the likes of Sonic, Tails, or whoevers route it isn't, can't get onto the route through a glitch or hidden tunnel. It ruins the fun of it being character specific.
  

Sonic the Hedgehog CD

CD follows the same basic groundwork, but is a bit of an oddity since its level design is influenced by the time traveling gimmick, so I'll come back to this later.

Know Your Level

No single level is exactly the same, and neither should your levels. Lets start with loops.

Loop Designs

Look at all these loops. Each one from a different type of zone, and each one with its own design. Some designs are similar to others (Green Hill to Palmtree Panic, Emerald Hill to Angel Island), but there's ultimately enough differences to make each loop unique. Loops shouldn't randomly be slapped into levels. They should at least give -some- contribution to the level design, which means the top of the loop will be part of the level design. Obviously Hill Top and Casino Night are a bit of odd cases, so they tend to lean around this. Hill Tops is for the sake of getting Sonic to break the ground, so it's top isn't as necessary. Casino Nights is more for giving a flashy exit to the pinball charger. Don't overdo the inclusion of loops. Plenty of zones don't need to have loops at all (mainly caverns, industrial sites, space ships, and a few other levels fall into this).

Level Theme and How it Affects the Layout

(This is probably a point I should be emphasizing much more) You should always be aware of the kind of zone you're making. Just the theme of the zone will make the layout of the zone.

Look at how the terrain is handled in each of these grass zones. It isn't just a sudden slope. It goes up like a real hill, be it a steep hill or a small, steady rise. It looks like realistic terrain but at the same time still smoothly curved for the most part. In these kinds of zones, even the straight paths have a bit of bumps in them, much like real earth. Now lets look at zones with man-made floors.

Entirely different scenario here. Floors are at direct angles or straightaways. Ruins are also man made, but depending on how ruined they are, they might follow the hill type mentioned above (Aquatic Ruin, Marble Garden), or the more obvious man-made pattern here (Sky Sanctuary, Hidden Palace), or in some cases, a mixture of both (Marble, Sandopolis).

It's your zone though, this is where you start making the calls for your designs. How will your loops loop? How will your slopes be designed? Try to look at other Sonic zones, and expand on those ideas, or even do all new ones. Make crazy loop designs we've never seen before! Make a tally-whacker loop next to adderall pill shaped slopes for all I care.

Ultimately though, each zone should look unique. Oil Ocean and Metropolis have the same kind of small slopes, but their theme and scenery makes each one stand out from the other. Emerald Hill has slopes at a similar angle as those too, but they're much more bumpy and slope-y, like real grass. If you keep these things in mind when making the tiles for the level, or drawing it out, then the level will practically form itself.

Never Too Many Gimmicks

Corkscrews, Pinball Machines, Bouncy Mushrooms, Pulleys, Sloped Elevators, Flame Throwers, just to show a few

Every level should have gimmicks, and there should be a lot of them. Without gimmicks, you have flat dull level. Imagine Chemical Plant without the tubes, mega mack, blue balls, stair platforms, etc. It's not so interesting, is it? Again with matching the level theme; a gimmick usually matches the theme of a zone, at least somewhat. A high amount of them is essential though. A lot of fan games and hacks have fallen short by not introducing anything new to the table. Lets say you have a water zone. What would be something cool to make it fresh and original?

Here's a quick example I came up with. The player is walking around in a water ruin. They come up to a ledge, but don't notice the ground crumbling. Suddenly they fall into the pool of water, which has a whirlpool in it. The whirlpool sucks the player into the lower water levels. If the player is quick on their feet though, they can avoid the whirlpool by jumping. Neat little gimmick, and it teaches the player.

Know Your Engine

This is something I see missed quite often in fan games. People will make level designs in their fan games unaware (or don't care) that said level design isn't flowing so well with their game engines limitations. After Sonic Zero got some people playing the demo, I was made aware that a player could easily stick to the ceiling of pipe tiles if they hit it at just the right angle. That's not a favorable outcome. The pipe collision has since been redone to where there's no curves underneath a pipe for a player to get caught on. It's all part of the learning process. Know what your engine is capable of, know how it handles even the basic of slopes, and work your level design around that. If you don't, you're gonna start making some goofy level design that your engine won't be able to comprehend the way a player would expect it to.

P.S.: Don't be afraid of path swappers. They can take some difficulty in figuring out, but once you get the hang of it, there's a lot that you'll be able to do in level design, and can result in some very crazy and fun levels!

With that, I think I've covered most of the ground work on level design. I'd love to hear some opinions on each point, if I missed anything, or if something isn't making sense. I wouldn't be surprised since I'm half awake right now. Heck, if someone wants to write their own interpretation or guide I could just add it to this post.

Anyway, I'll close with a few miscellaneous acknowledgements.

Misc. Stuff

This Stupid Thing

If there's a pit, it should be obvious there's a pit, and thus something you won't jump down to. If it isn't obviously a pit, then there shouldn't be a pit there at all. If the level is a sky, space zone, whatever thing floating over an abyss zone, then these signs definitely don't need to be there. Just the trope of the level should signify if the player needs to be aware of pits. Hill Top? You're up in the mountains, best better watch your step. Sky Sanctuary? You're in crumbling ruins in the sky. Don't fall. Have fun. These signs just warn the player of death without the learning experience. It's holding your hand through the game for you.

Elbow Ramps

I'm kind of on the fence about them. It's all about if you can execute them right, and if they belong in the respective level. For example, these kinds of slopes don't really belong in a tropical level (Splash Hill), but it could work if said tropical level was like a seaside bluff or something. It's all about execution and if such a slope fits the level theme. These were rare in the older 2D games, but in more recent 2D games, they function to curve a wall to a straight path as well as potential high jumps or quick thinking to avoid lower routes.

Here's a zone I'm working on called Tidal Tubes. A lot of tiles are placeholders, but the levels appearance isn't the point. Here we have the player on a high route, but come up to an elbow ramp. Two things can happen here; the player jumps up at the ramp, and hits the fountain coming from the ugly temporary pipe tiles. This will rocket the player up, and they will continue on the faster, favorable route. If they choose note to jump, or don't notice the opportunity, they'll run down the elbow ramp onto a lower path.

Springs

Let these things expand the level layout. Don't make it to where they carry Sonic through the level with no interaction on your part other than hitting the first one. This means your use of diagonal springs probably won't be too high.

Red Rings

I've talked to people that like these, and I've talked to people that are less fond of these. They add a bit of replay value, but if you make it stupid easy and have a short amount of levels, that replay value won't last long.

Looping Y Axis

(big image)

Levels like this have existed as early as Labyrinth Zone, but levels of this type are Scrap Brain Act 2, Metropolis Zone, Marble Garden Act 1, Ice Cap Act 1, Sandopolis Act 2, and Sky Sanctuary Zone. Sonic 3K just loves its Y Axis. There's a lot of benefits to this type of level design.

• No Boundaries: There's no limit to how far levels can go vertically in this scenario. Water zones love abusing this by having endless Y Axis "sections" to simulate a water slide. Other zones may use this because they're a vertical climbing based level (Marble Garden, Sky Sanctuary). This type of level design is also good for maze labyrinths (Scrap Brain 2, Metropolis, Sandopolis 2), as the mazes can become ridiculously complex and difficult.
  
• High Routes, Low Routes, Average Route, How about None: Instead you get every route being the same degree of fun level design no matter where you end up. As said before, Sonic 3 already chunked that concept out the window.
  
• Only one real complication: Which is your problem, not the players problem. The issue lies that the bottom of the levels map must be able to perfectly align with the very top of the level map on the Y axis. This requires some careful planning on your part. I would advise if you're drawing out the layout on paper first, to draw a bit of how the level will flow on the top of the map, at the bottom of the map as well, and vice versa at the top. So basically you're redrawing part of a level twice on the top, and the bottom of the map, so you can know what part connects where. If this isn't giving you a good mental image, just look at how it's done in Metropolis Zone Act 1.
  
• Actually there's another: I have yet to see levels like this in fan games. I'm not sure if there's technical difficulties behind this, but if you're a fan gamer rather than a hacker, you might be out of luck here.
  

Homing Attack Chains

Homing attack chains are something that began in Sonic Adventure. The whole purpose of the homing attack is to give Sonic an easier way to hit small enemies in a 3D environment. These weren't very commonplace in 2D Sonic games, if at all, until Sonic 4 and Colors DS. Remember what I said about Character Specific routes? This is pretty much a door opener for Sonic specific routes (unless Tails just flies over them, but a character like Knuckles or Amy would have a harder time). These things have potential, but like I said about character specific abilities (and how they work in the level design), don't overdo it. If you can substitute a level gimmick over a homing chain, please do so. If you have a sky zone, and you have to navigate over a gorge, a bunch of fans or bouncy clouds gimmick would be more true to the zones theme than a homing attack chain would. Gimmicks should always be priority. Also, since you're destroying a badnik in the process, should a player fail, have a Plan B route designed for those failures.

Lets go back to Tidal Tubes, its fountain gimmick, and its many placeholder tiles (bear with me here).

In this scenario, a speed runner would have to jump onto two fountains, and hit them right, in order to stay on the path they're on. Just a matter of a timed jump, since the fountains shoot the player up. This is a water zone, water fountains are fitting to the theme, so it all works.

Same scenario, but the fountains are replaced with a homing attack chain. Which one seems more interesting to you?

And with that I'm done, for now.

[Serephim]

very nice. Although i somewhat disagree with the Pitfall sign thing. You're right, it probably is redundant in a fully 2-D game. But for the longest Sonic games have been punishing a screwed-up homing attack trail with death.

You should obviously strive for theming in your levels, of course. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 onwards pretty much completely nuked the idea of killing the player for falling in pretty much all but a couple of levels, in which case they were blatantly obvious. But if you're going to put death pits in your stage, then you might as well warn the player to let them know they're going to die if they fall.

Of course, you can always do this in a more clever way by putting some other kind of indicator by the pit, like oh say ominous lights or flickering cinders coming up from the death hole or something.

Killing the player with bottomless pits isn't bad level design; killing the player with bottomless pits they didn't know about is. It's all up to you, really.

It used to annoy me, but i really can't blame Sonic Team anymore for pitspam. Modern sonic is so god damn fast and powerful that they're honestly running out of ways to give him a challenge anymore without players bitching when enemies don't die in one hit. Today, sonic's biggest enemy seems to be himself. Ever since Sonic Unleashed, the biggest killer of the player has been abuse of the the boost button. So in that sense, letting the player know when it's safe to attempt to clear the stage faster is a very welcome addition. But i guess in the more classical sonic level design sense (I.E. no boost), there's not much reason for a blatant pit indicator.

[Strife]

This was a really enjoyable read, Sparks. It especially opened my eyes the usefulness of a looping Y axis, which I'd definitely love to try out in the Sonic Worlds engine. The main issue I can see happening is with the alignment of paralax background, but I'm sure there are ways around it.

Ultimately, I think the two of the most critical things that a level designer should consider are A) the game engine and its limitations, and character abilities. By knowing those two things like the back of your hand and keeping them in mind when you plan out your stage layout, you'll be able to accurately predict and manipulate most of the actions/reactions of your players.

[DimensionWarped]

homing attack chains... they really are the laziest form of self contained challenge.

Pretty decent set of notes though. Nothing I wasn't already intimately familiar with of course, but I'll pin it for the newbies.

Strife: One thing you could do for y looping and such with the Worlds Parallax is set an offset to player position that is used when calculating where the player is which gets added whenever the player wraps (or subtracted if wrapping in the other direction). Honestly, I think working out the camera shift is probably immediately more tricky than dealing with the parallax issue.

[Sparks]

Serephim: This guide mainly applies to 2D classic style gameplay. I do agree the signs fit perfectly in Modern Sonic 3D gameplay.

[P3DR0]

That was a long read. Wow. Great stuff, Sparks. My only complain would've been about the images size that streched the page in here and made the reading a scrolling hell.

But then I remembered that I'm curently using a temporary CRT monitor, sooo... I may not be allowed to speak about this issue.

I have to admit that I got a litte disapointed when the post ended, it was like one of those stuff that you want to keep reading and reading. So I guess that means it was really good... REALLY good... SOGOODTHATIALMOSTWANTEDTOTAKEYOURPANTSOFFANDBLO-But (Yes, it gotta have a big and hairy "but" somewhere) I still think that there's more to be discussed about level design like decoration, enemy placement, "secrets" placement (like colectables, special stage rings like in Sonic 3, etc...), and smart level development (placement of hurtable objects to make the level hard as fuck).

That's just my opinion I guess. Awesome thread, want some more.

@Serephin: Well, gotta agree with you. Problem is, IMO the existence of bottomless pits where there shouldn't be or could easily be filled with a plataform, some spikes to punish the player and a spring. Take for example Generation's City Escape, most of the pits on the classic level were ridiculous and mostly unnecessary, there were a few places that were put in good use, but take the screenshot that Spark used on the thread, instead of a bottomless pit between both cylinders they could've easily put another cylinder like I said with a spring and maybe some spikes.

Those kind of pitfalls are what I call a "false sense of difficulty" because in videogames, what can kill you makes the game harder, like a well planned boss or some heavy enemies, but pits like that are like saying "Ohhhh noooo there's something here that can kill you, oh my god, be careful man, be careful, it will kill you so much that you will die. I'm seriously, it will kill you 'til you die! Is this much dangerous!". A false sense of difficulty. IMO bottomless pits should be avoid as much as possible. There are no real reason for them to exist unless it's like Sky Sanctuary, floating ruins that can break off any time so bottomless pits are somehow a gimmick for that specific stage.

But if you don't want to do an alternative path for a pit do it like I said, block the passage off, put a spike where is more possible that the player will fall into just to say "Hey dumbass, you should've jumped, now gimme those rings of yours" and a spring to take the player back to the route where he was... Or who knows, make even a stronger spring that will lead the player to another route!

@Dimension Winnie: To be fair, I think they did a great job on Sonic Generations about the H.A. chains, I mean there were a few times that were stupid and lazy indeed, but mostly there were great moments like in Sky Sanctuary where you gotta H.A in a few badnicks to get to the top of a fountain where lays a red ring and another route to go. But yeah, mostly H.A. Chains are lazy as could be, it's like a desperate move to add some action to a bad level design, like in Sonic 4. I guess that the developers think that pressing the jump button continously over a bottomless pit is somehow an adrenaline shot.

[DimensionWarped]

It was the same shit in Generations as it was in every other Sonic game since they introduced the damn thing (which is the problem. The move has run its course and never brings anything new to the table). Don't act like just because it served its normal function without being absolutely required every single time that it was good.

[Chaos-Fusion]

Good read and really helpful. Has a lot of Interesting points that I should take into account when I make my levels. The section on Homing attack chains in particular is pretty useful because a lot of fangames including mine are guilty of having bad enemy chains instead of say, for a forest theme level, bouncy branches to cross a path.

For suggestions on what to add, I think you have nailed Sonic Level Design completely in this post so there's not much to be added. All I can think that could be mentioned would how Underwater sections changes the way players handle the situation(Aquatic Ruins) and balancing factors like speed and platforming for levels.

[Serephim]

It was the same shit in Generations as it was in every other Sonic game since they introduced the damn thing (which is the problem. The move has run its course and never brings anything new to the table). Don't act like just because it served its normal function without being absolutely required every single time that it was good.

...no, it got plenty of varied use in this game. I keep using unleashed because i cannot speak for Colors as i haven't played it yet. Generations didn't have any homing attack gimmicks. Anyway, use of the homing attack like this is pretty fun to me. Honestly every gimmick introduced in unleashed was used pretty well. The only arguable issue is that the game ops for Trial-And-Error by death to teach you to use it correctly.

However, through all the frustration, you get the rewarding feeling of being able to ace it later on because you've learned how. Like here:

There's another game I can think of that has gotten quite popular off this concept. (Megaman!) What is called "Cheap death" now is called "Challenging" in megaman titles for some reason i dont know. Speaking of that level, it wasn't until this Eggmanland/This DLC stage until i realized how well the homing attack tracking aiming worked in the Unleashed/Colors/Generations engine. It's pretty damn useful. In fact the only trouble i had with it was during Jungle Joyride Day since there's a very small area near the end where the framerate actually starts fucking with your input timing.

I do agree that they should definitely stop flat-out murdering you for ruining a section, but it's become pretty obvious that this is a design choice, not a necessity. Homing attack robots (in Unleashed anyway) that are required for a specific level path will respawn and fly back to their original areas after a while so you can try again, IF the stage didn't already kill you for it. But the chances that you're able to take advantage of this are pretty low.

For 3D stages, i think Ground Stomp, Slide/crawl, Drift and Wall Running and Water Running should definitely get some more usage. I loved how you could Stomp one of the bridges in Green Hill Zone generations and go to a lower part of the stage. Stuff like that adds easy outlets for stage exploration. I also REALLY liked how you given free reign with water running in Seaside Hill in Generations. Although they changed it from Unleashed (vastly increased boost consumption while over water), i think it should definitely get some more love. There were also only like 2 segments in Unleashed i can think of that allowed for actual transition wall running (instead of the usual scripted dodge sequences). I'd also like to see that be used more often.

[Slingerland]

I just wanted to pop in and say that the opening post is great and whoever wrote it should feel great. Anybody who disagrees is not great.

[Strife]

Dimension - True. I'm actually wondering if MMF2's "Wrap Vertically" option for layers would come in handy, though I've never tried it before.

Something else that occured to me today is that designers should also be careful about which badniks, if any, that they use their stages. Poor badnik placement will at best render it useless or instantly disposed of, and at worst make it nearly impossible for players to avoid damage unless they know exactly where it is.

One of my favorite examples of badnik placement are the Burrobots in Sonic 1's Labyrinth Zone:

These guys would remain hidden underground until Sonic approached, after which they'd burrow up, leap into the air, and crawl forward at a steady pace. It's a pretty basic badnik that could in theory be easily avoided... but the level designers made sure to place them in areas where they knew the player would be moving at a slow enough pace for them to present a decent threat. It's easier in most cases to attack and dispose of them than to jump over or run past them - thus the player is coerced into interacting with them.

One of the key things about badniks is that they should provide difficulty without being too annoying, and you can usually achieve this by keeping two key things in mind: their behavior and where they are placed in the stage. For behavior, try to give your badnik at least one unique attack or movement pattern to separate it from the others. For placement, I would generally avoid putting a badnik in the middle of a high-speed section unless it's obvious that it'll be there well before the player needs to react - else it'll be really difficult to avoid and break up the flow of the stage.

One of the more creative things you can do is to create a miniboss for your stage - which in its own way is both a badnik and a gimmick combined. Minibosses can be quite fun to fight, and it's almost always a requirement to destroy them or at least push them out of the way before the player can proceed, so it's a nice way to give your stage some action if you find that your badniks are too easily avoided. S3+K made extensive use of minibosses, most of which didn't even stick around very long to fight you until later in the act. Their presence alone, even if brief, can make things more interesting.

[OverbounD]

Sparks I love the part added about Sonic 3 that's exactly what I was talking about @ Retro! Plus its explained in much better than I could.

[Core]

Well, that was an interesting read. Just one thing though, you wrote this:

Sonic the Hedgehog CD

CD follows the same basic groundwork, but is a bit of an oddity since its level design is influenced by the time traveling gimmick, so I'll come back to this later.

But I don't think you actually did?

In any case, I'm wondering how much of this can apply to 3D games, since I'm having trouble figuring out how to design a 3D Sonic level. I can at least remember the "Never Too Many Gimmicks' rule.

[DimensionWarped]

...no, it got plenty of varied use in this game. I keep using unleashed because i cannot speak for Colors as i haven't played it yet. Generations didn't have any homing attack gimmicks. Anyway, use of the homing attack like this is pretty fun to me. Honestly every gimmick introduced in unleashed was used pretty well. The only arguable issue is that the game ops for Trial-And-Error by death to teach you to use it correctly.

Ok, but this is a DLC challenge map. It's really just a satellite to the main game. And besides that, the requirement for the player to use more careful application of homing attacks in chains with better timing and more specific placement didn't begin with Unleashed, it was actually introduced in a similar situation, that being Crazy Gadget's hard mode in Sonic Adventure 2. It wasn't quite as drawn out as this little segment is, but then those little Sonic Unleashed side missions really liked to push one or two small features a lot (and I'm not saying it was to bad effect, because some of them were actually pretty neat)

[Sparks]

Well, that was an interesting read. Just one thing though, you wrote this:

But I don't think you actually did?

In any case, I'm wondering how much of this can apply to 3D games, since I'm having trouble figuring out how to design a 3D Sonic level. I can at least remember the "Never Too Many Gimmicks' rule.

By later I mean I'll update the post at a future date. I need to study Sonic CD a bit more.

Thanks for the comments everyone, Strife I'll add badnik placement to my list of things to add.

[P3DR0]

Strife I'll add badnik placement to my list of things to add.

But I suggest first, how does he gets all the credits? ;--;

Anyways:

but the level designers made sure to place them in areas where they knew the player would be moving at a slow enough pace for them to present a decent threat.

Another awesome thing to notice about the placement of those is where the players would be moving fast, so they're never added on a flat plane, but there would always be something to make the player stop or jump:

If you notice at the very beginning of the stage, the first one that you see is in a superior plataform that Sonic can't reach without jumping or coliding with a wall. The next two are bellow Sonic's level, so the roof is way more lower than before so the player can't jump high or far enough to fall in front of one of those.

The next two are placed where the player can't fall (there is a roof on top of where they're hiding) and revel themselves when the player is in the middle of the air (water), so he cannot be got by surprise.

The next ones are where the stage starts to become hard, those are placed in front of the player on a straight line, but now the player already adquired the knowledge that those triangular shapes on the ground are the enemies' hideout. And they also appears before the player gets too near to them, this way there is no excuse anymore.

I believe that a good enemy placement is the one that teaches the player before setting up the traps. So first you gotta place some enemies in a position that doesn't allow the badnick to use it's full potential. In a compromised position for the enemy, yes. Place two, three so the player can learn with them and that's it... Gold.

The few enemies that can placed anywhere are the slow ones, like the Crabmeat or the Motobug, the ones that moves only right and left without much speed and don't require much of a strategy, just some normal reflex to press down or jump at the right time.

[Dwapook]

Thanks.. This is very helpful! Just the right time for me to see this!

Something I've been is going over my level gimmicks and doing a PMI (plus minus interesting), which pretty much boils down to listing ways that specific gimmick can be helpful, hazardous, and ways it's inherently interesting...

[Serephim]

Ok, but this is a DLC challenge map. It's really just a satellite to the main game. And besides that, the requirement for the player to use more careful application of homing attacks in chains with better timing and more specific placement didn't begin with Unleashed, it was actually introduced in a similar situation, that being Crazy Gadget's hard mode in Sonic Adventure 2. It wasn't quite as drawn out as this little segment is, but then those little Sonic Unleashed side missions really liked to push one or two small features a lot (and I'm not saying it was to bad effect, because some of them were actually pretty neat)

Well yeah it was pretty dumb to use the DLC stages as an example. I think Unleashed would have been 100x the game it was if they were all included in the original game, ESPECIALLY Jungle Joyride 1-2 because they got smart and actually optimized it better to remove alot of that ridiculous lag. On PS3 anyway. That was the strongest example i could find. I can't really remember it being used heavily in that fashion in the main game. I think maybe 2 or 3 Side acts actually required you to get wise with how you mash the homing attack button, but i think that's about it...that and Eggmanland.

The other thing they'd do is stick an Eggman spring somewhere, forcing you to either a) not use your homing attack, time it differently or c) aim at something else.

[VectorSatyr]

Looping Y Axis

[qimg]http://info.sonicretro.org/images/e/ed/Ic1map.PNG[/qimg]

(big image)

Levels like this have existed as early as Labyrinth Zone, but levels of this type are Scrap Brain Act 2, Metropolis Zone, Marble Garden Act 1, Ice Cap Act 1, Sandopolis Act 2, and Sky Sanctuary Zone. Sonic 3K just loves its Y Axis. There's a lot of benefits to this type of level design.

• No Boundaries: There's no limit to how far levels can go vertically in this scenario. Water zones love abusing this by having endless Y Axis "sections" to simulate a water slide. Other zones may use this because they're a vertical climbing based level (Marble Garden, Sky Sanctuary). This type of level design is also good for maze labyrinths (Scrap Brain 2, Metropolis, Sandopolis 2), as the mazes can become ridiculously complex and difficult.
  
• High Routes, Low Routes, Average Route, How about None: Instead you get every route being the same degree of fun level design no matter where you end up. As said before, Sonic 3 already chunked that concept out the window.
  
• Only one real complication: Which is your problem, not the players problem. The issue lies that the bottom of the levels map must be able to perfectly align with the very top of the level map on the Y axis. This requires some careful planning on your part. I would advise if you're drawing out the layout on paper first, to draw a bit of how the level will flow on the top of the map, at the bottom of the map as well, and vice versa at the top. So basically you're redrawing part of a level twice on the top, and the bottom of the map, so you can know what part connects where. If this isn't giving you a good mental image, just look at how it's done in Metropolis Zone Act 1.
  
• Actually there's another: I have yet to see levels like this in fan games. I'm not sure if there's technical difficulties behind this, but if you're a fan gamer rather than a hacker, you might be out of luck here.
  

Biggest mechanical limitation is correctly representing objects that are not static on both ends of the loop. That is a functionality that was already integrated into the original genesis hardware that freeware game making suites such as MMF2 will have a hard time replicating due to the level of abstraction. If you don't mind not having ANY possible moving objects near the edges of the loop, there are viable workarounds to everything else... at least, in Game Maker.

[Falk]

Look at how the terrain is handled in each of these grass zones. It isn't just a sudden slope. It goes up like a real hill, be it a steep hill or a small, steady rise. It looks like realistic terrain but at the same time still smoothly curved for the most part. In these kinds of zones, even the straight paths have a bit of bumps in them, much like real earth. Now lets look at zones with man-made floors.

YES.

Even the 'flat' areas have like 1-3 pixel differences for the heck of it, and Emerald Hill is a great case study on how to not have a flat horizontal surface for more than half a screen.

[DimensionWarped]

YES.

Even the 'flat' areas have like 1-3 pixel differences for the heck of it, and Emerald Hill is a great case study on how to not have a flat horizontal surface for more than half a screen.

This is a somewhat valid observation, though not completely (and I'm pretty guilty myself of overlooking this while working on things). There are plenty of levels in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 where there are fairly large flat spaces. Sonic 3 undoes the trend for the most part, but the whole bumpy ground thing isn't really a rule. The fact is, this is another one of the interesting things that Sonic did really well by mixing it up from stage to stage.

[Serephim]

I notice this automatically almost everytime i play Sonic 2.

I always figured it was just a showcase for the engine, really. Emerald Hill zone is really the only stage in Sonic 2 that does that. I think it has much less to do with breaking up a trend of flat surfaces and more with...well, level theming. You know, "Emerald HILL" Zone, outdoors, not manmade, random terrain, that whole thing.

[Sparks]

It depends on the level trope. Aquatic Ruin (and Hill Top too) has unique, less basic slopes. Sonic 2 has a lot of man-made zones however (counting MCZ as man made due to its floors), so it depends on the level trope.

Green Hill, Marble, Emerald Hill, Aquatic Ruin, Hill Top, Angel Island, Marble Garden, Ice Cap, Mushroom Hill (somewhat), Sandopolis, Lava Reef, Palmtree Panic, and Collision Chaos (in some areas) are probably the best examples to go by.

[Ultra Sonic]

Thanks, Sparks! I'm new to the forum and this will definitely help me when I start making my own fangame. Who would've thought that the inner workings of a Sonic level were so intricate and precise? I'll be sure to give you credit when my game comes around. Thanks again.

[Sparks]

Hey sorry for the late reply, been out of town.

Level design for any game is very intricate and precise. Even studying games as simple as Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (played this one recently, it was really insane but fun because the game is designed around speed running more than its predecessor). One thing I want to touch up on is how when designing levels you need a bit of a sense of architecture, since level design is essentially the architecture and arrangement of a stage; a huge interactive structure. I've been playing a lot of sidescrollers (Donkey Kong Country Returns being one of my favorites atm) to see how they handle level design as well as why they do it in their respective manner. There's a lot of interesting things to learn.

I might touch up or rewrite this guide sometime in the future. Not sure if I'll do it before SAGE or after SAGE (provided I can get the right computer for a level design presentation, there's one at Dads I need to swap for again). Right now it's written specifically for Sonic level design philosophy, but I would like to write up something that is about more general level design in sidescrolling games.