Hello! Welcome to Hyperstacks Guidelines!
Hyperstacks is a creative game where players create their own levels for other players!
Here you can learn how to make good levels enjoyable for other players!
Hyperstacks gives you complete freedom when creating levels. People create cool levels which are really AWESOME, But there are also boring, skippable or impossible levels Is for that we will create a Filtering system which consists in selecting high quality maps manually!
So in the level selector you will see (in the next updates) a new tab for hidding the not high quality maps showing only the "good maps" So to make it easy to get your level in the "good maps" we have designed some guidelines to make your level enjoyable at the max
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THESE GHIDELINES ARE A WIP RIGHT NOW
The main thing you must know is that..
Hyperstacks levels splits in 3 differentmain mechanics:
Climbing, Combat & Puzzles
And by combining them you cna make really cool levels!
So here is some tips for each mechanic!
In short: Well placed neons and some spaced ones to force use of the flinging mechanic
Climbing is a fun way to move in a level, but the climbing has the thing that you could skip many things if you are a climbing expert there is a mechanic called Flining! sometimes you wil have a block a little bit further than your arm length, this is not a problem since you can throw yourself to it! so making many blocks toghether could make your game become too easy on climbing there is also the pushable block with platform, where you can grab the platform and punch the block at the same time, so you can move in the air with this mechanic also is a good way to move faster in longh paths, it could become really fun for speedruns and so!
There is other things you must know like you hand can thresspass greenb locks so make sure you have not set climb blocks inside them too close to the surface of the gren block this also happens with the pushable blocks, activators and even the goal, inside green blocks
is when you throw yourself when climbing when doing this up tou could reach 2 more meters upwards, even you can throw yourself in a 45 degrees angle to reach furter horizontally doing this you must know you can also move and even dash in air, so you can reach even further, we will try to balance this in some ways like just giving a single dash in air or so but mean while you have to keep that in mind because of tha people could skip a big part od the level if they are experts!
in short: The combat should be spaced out and the enemies be well placed each round and not too much, designing a good combat enviroment is a plus
Combat can be really fun if well done, or really a really bad nightmare that will make the player left the level without play it!
id for that there is some tips on making a good combat!
i have seen a LOT of levels that put like 7 enemies at the same time in a single and unique wave for all the combat
i must say: This is not fun!!!
If you want to be able to fight in a balanced way you need to spawn different enemies and not too much in each round os each round could be completly different!
so you enjoy a not too overwhelming combat, so Using waves to split the combat in small parts is my advice!
This is a great way to have really fun combats in game! having just a flat place to fight with enemies could be a bit better, so setting some walls as barricades, or setting enemies in different hights, setting jumping platform for fast moving between hight levels and so, but this is not even the only thing you can do
this is on wip (these combat mechanics below will be added in later updates) you could set traps and so for luring enemies to them or using activators, lasers and even other mechanics like laser deflects to kill enemies even without weapons!
in short: Links being bent and not being straight lines, using the game mechanics in a clever way, usage of complex systems with using repeaters and so would also be a plus
Puzzles are probably one of the best features on Hyperstacks, of course, only if ther are well designed!
there are Sooo many of items for designing good puzzles and even much more to come!
so people can design their own mental challenges!
the thing is that sometimes they can look too ugly or even being undoable, or even more, being able to make the player have to skip the level or reload it
other ones are directly not needed or skippable, for example when having a punchable block or a level goal inside a green door, because you can thresspass the block with your hand, think of it like a energy block, also some puzzles reqires a lot of logic but this logic also requires conections between some objects
these conections are formed by what is called Green links!
green links are the way to represent conections between objects in Hyperstacks.
the problem is that they start being a straight line!
many people doesnt knows that you can deform these links to create some cool path and organize them in a cool and good looking way, you can even do art with them for using also in a more decorative way!
this is an example
Without deforming the green link lines!
After deforming green link lines
Try to not making your level too colosal, to avoid performance issues mostly on quest, at least until this performance problem is fixed in hyperstacks is better to having so many small good levels that one single large level
your main objective is to create a fun good loking level! anthing matters if your players dont play your level! if the players like your levels your levels can become more visible even you can win level creator rewards that you can use in your levels and even in your character, like hats, some special decorations for levels and lobby and more!
so be sure your level is fun!
these are just some guidelines and tips that will help you to make a good level! but not rules!
so what you do in your level is up to you!
I hope to see levels from you soon and enjoy creating!
Remember you have the dicord! and if you feel you need something that would make your levels cooler just request it in our discord
so we, the developers can see and even add in game!
https://discord.gg/squirrelbytes
Good luck!