Monday Games: Bonus Level
Originally published at Expertologist. You can comment here or there.
And Monday Games sort of stumbles back on the stage, still reeling from Comic Con and the singular joy of waking up early to start the week with client meetings. This week’s entry is more of a good idea just getting off the ground than a particularly great game, but it squeaks in on pure potential. Bonus Level is a stab at building a community-driven collection of Flash games from the ground up, giving users the chance to design and submit levels for already existing games and even submit their own titles.
As starts go, Bonus Level’s isn’t without its missteps - of the two games currently available CoBaCoLi is a bit on the boring side (and a pain to type), with almost-there mechanics buried under sloppy physics and a distinct lack of the momentum this sort of game needs. The idea is sound, with you smacking a white disk into colored ones in an effort to knock them into their respective walls while being mindful of your ever-diminishing cue, but playing it the way you’re supposed to - that is, like a tricky game of pool - inevitably leads to frustration when the game refuses to play along. Some of the player-created level patterns are lovely to look at, making it all the more shame that I have no interest at all in playing them.
BLockoban, on the other hand, is thankfully both easier on the Shift key and much more fun to play, offering up a seemingly endless variety of familiar block sliding puzzles. While probably nothing new to most people (I think the last time I ran into these particular puzzles was in the Ice Temple of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), flicking through the devious challenges the players have provided is an interesting look at the dos and don’ts of level design. The tool sets Bonus Level provides are simple enough for pretty much anybody to wrap their head around, but perhaps the most useful thing they provide would-be designers with (other than a review board keeping out the actually impossible to solve submissions) are the following guidelines:
A good level is polished and unique.
- Try to play as many official levels as possible before creating your first level.
- Try to pay attention to every little aesthetic detail.
- Try to avoid player frustration and impossible levels.
- Try to fun and original.
Emphasis on try, of course. while I was able to slap together a beatable level in about half fifteen minutes or so, it’s a hard little thing, and far trickier than the sort of thing I would normally produce. It’s waiting approval from the reviewers at the moment, but should hopefully be available to play before too long. In the meantime, here’s what little “Expertology” looks like:
It’s hard to say what will become of Bonus Level. They’re desperately in need of new good games, as BLockoban’s charm and simplicity will only hold attention for so long. These sort of community experiments are always tricky, with the biggest questions coming along the lines of when and how to turn things over to the masses. With any luck, the brains behind it all can get another game out in front of the audience before they move on to the next thing.