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Just curious about how everyone actually goes about designing levels. I saw Kary's post in the contest announcement thread and noticed that he said he had to go though and put in scenery after having designed the actual level, and I realized that I don't do it that way, and everyone probably has their own method. Personally, I've never been all that into LDing, so I typically end up just winging it with little to no plan in mind, and I do everything all at once--landscape, scenery, enemies, triggers, other gameplay things--just in small segments as I build it up more and more. So how do you guys do it?

1.I will think about the start of the level first (Usually I will make the start as beautiful as i can, or from the level in The game i played.)
(For example, New Super Mario bros.Wii World 4-1)


2.I will try to make that beautiful picture possible in start of the level.



3.Think of all new mechanisms you can do in LL by triggers. (Wind,Falling ice,or anything does not make sense in real life but if you think the level will be more challenging if you put that mechanism in, count that in.)

4.Think of "the whole picture" of the level. And I gonna put that new mechanisms somewhere in "the whole picture" in the level. The new mechanism can be appear more then once and should make it a little bit different.

5.Make that "whole picture" literal.

6.Decorate.

7.Test for bugs and difficulty of the level.

It's quite hard to tell what I thought because it is too abstract to tell how I design levels while I just have limited vocabulary. But hopefully it can help you.

When I have the freedom of choice (read: when I'm not in an LDC) I like to put the player in exciting situations. Currently, I have a WIP level on hold which is literally just a bridge. One long, old, precarious bridge. And yet I'll try to make the ambience and setting as exciting or nerve-racking as possible. Trust me, it works.

But yeah, in terms of the process I tend to design the layout and trigger work of my level first, occasionally throwing in some scenery or enemies that I think work too well to put on hold. Then I go through afterwards and add all of my aesthetical stuff.

Usually, no matter if SM63 or LL, I make a rough layout of a transition first, then elaborate the tiling, and then proceed with itemization. If I have something cool in mind, I sometimes also do a bit of itemization while completing the tiling.