Originally Posted by Jorma
Here are my design guidelines and a checklist for testing the tracks. My view is that most of the user tracks I have played have been way too hard to be fun. Of course if you only have QcChopper, Skumbag and Lestropie on your friend list this might be fine, but I usually like tracks which have a nice flow and which I actually want to play again after I have finished them.
Desing guidlines:
Pick a theme, don't mix every idea to the same track. Don't make the track too long. Make the track fun. Give it a nice flow. If something annoys you, modify! Add check points. Add more checkpoints after every harder obstacles. Keep the distance between checkpoints short. Test the track from every check point multiple times. Avoid too hard places. Make the riding line clear (pile the objects so that it is clear where the bike wheel is going to land). Avoid custom cameras unless nescessary. Test. Fix. Test. Tune. Test. Finalize. Brag.
Check list:
Can you continue from each checkpoint? Also, is it more difficult to continue from a checkpoint instead of not faulting in that place in the first place?
Is there enough of checkpoints? Is there a place that feels like you just did something difficult and you still have to do another difficult spot? Add a checkpoint already!
Are there any misaligned objects causing the bike to bounce where it is not supposed to be? Nothing is more annoying than misaligned floor causing a bump that takes your speed away before a big jump.
Can you play every intended driving path smoothly?
Does the game lag at any point? Also check situations like explosions, bike being on fire and heavy bike collision. Physics, particles and rendering require partially distinct resoures so figure out what the bottle neck is. Lights are rendering heavy. Particles (explosions) also cause some extra rendering work on top of being a task of their own (setup and animation). Lights and lots of particles is usually a bad thing.
Is there any blockiness in the rendering? This is caused by too many lights in that area. Some of the effects like small fires are lights too.
Does the camera go through objects? Is the player view blocked at some point? Custom camera might be needed.
Is custom camera used in a bad way? Do not use special camera in hard places! This can make the obstacle much much harder.
Does the difficulty match the description? If you aim for medium there shouldn't be any hard parts. If you aim for hard, there shouldn't be any extreme parts. Generally try to keep the track difficulty equally hard for the whole track.
Do you have to wait anywhere for physics to do something? Players don't usually want to wait no matter how nice your physics thingy is. Try to trigger your physics earlier if this is the case.
Is the driving path clear? Is it not clear where to continue? Add some direction signs. This might actually be a problem in your level design if this is the case.
Is there any flow in the track? Are there places that are annoying or cause most of your faults? Do the jumps match the landing places? Can you continue the track smoothly even without doing the jumps or tricks perfectly? Is there enough of driving in the track or is it just physics trick after physics trick?
Is there only one way to clear a obstacle? This can be hard to tell as you usually know how the obstacle needs to be played, but it can be extreme annoying for other players to try to find the one way to clear a hard obstacle even if you think it is very easy. Especially, if you have trouble passing your obstacle with the way you intended, you probably should tune it down a bit so that it can be passed with more general skill set. Generally you should avoid hard obstacles that look easy and aim for easy obstacles that look hard.
Is the track fun? Not every track need to be a 'challenge'.
Is the track technical enough for your target audience? Even the easiest tracks can have places where skill brings some time savings.
Is the track too short / too long? Not every track need to be maximun length. 10 seconds one obstacle tracks aren't that much fun either.
Does the medal limits match the track? Platinum should be pretty hard and be the target for your friends, maybe even your own record from testing. Gold should be a reasonable good score. Silver limits should be something reasonable to aim for during the first few runs. (not like 5 faults, 2 mins in an extreme track that takes 200 faults for the first try).
Does the track look nice? Who cares. Well, you could add some explosions for the graphics junkies.